Chapter Chapter 31 · Emperors

It is very difficult to understand the people of by-gone ages. Your

own grandfather, whom you see every day, is a mysterious being who

lives in a different world of ideas and clothes and manners. I am now

telling you the story of some of your grandfathers who are twenty-five

generations removed, and I do not expect you to catch the meaning of

what I write without re-reading this chapter a number of times.

The average man of the Middle Ages lived a very simple and uneventful

life. Even if he was a free citizen, able to come and go at will, he

rarely left his own neighbourhood. There were no printed books and only

a few manuscripts. Here and there, a small band of industrious monks

taught reading and writing and some arithmetic. But science and history

and geography lay buried beneath the ruins of Greece and Rome.

Whatever people knew about the past they had learned by listening

to stories and legends. Such information, which goes from father to

son, is often slightly incorrect in details, but it will preserve the

main facts of history with astonishing accuracy. After more than two

thousand years, the mothers of India still frighten their naughty

children by telling them that “Iskander will get them,” and Iskander

is none other than Alexander the Great, who visited India in the year

330 before the birth of Christ, but whose story has lived through all

these ages.

The people of the early Middle Ages never saw a text-book of Roman

history. They were ignorant of many things which every school-boy

to-day knows before he has entered the third grade. But the Roman

Empire, which is merely a name to you, was to them something very

much alive. They felt it. They willingly recognised the Pope as their

spiritual leader because he lived in Rome and represented the idea

of the Roman super-power. And they were profoundly grateful when

Charlemagne, and afterwards Otto the Great, revived the idea of a

world-empire and created the Holy Roman Empire, that the world might

again be as it always had been.

But the fact that there were two different heirs to the Roman tradition

placed the faithful burghers of the Middle Ages in a difficult

position. The theory behind the mediæval political system was both

sound and simple. While the worldly master (the emperor) looked after

the physical well-being of his subjects, the spiritual master (the

Pope) guarded their souls.

In practice, however, the system worked very badly. The Emperor

invariably tried to interfere with the affairs of the church and

the Pope retaliated and told the Emperor how he should rule his

domains. Then they told each other to mind their own business in very

unceremonious language and the inevitable end was war.

Under those circumstances, what were the people to do? A good Christian

obeyed both the Pope and his King. But the Pope and the Emperor were

enemies. Which side should a dutiful subject and an equally dutiful

Christian take?

It was never easy to give the correct answer. When the Emperor happened

to be a man of energy and was sufficiently well provided with money to

organise an army, he was very apt to cross the Alps and march on Rome,

besiege the Pope in his own palace if need be, and force His Holiness

to obey the imperial instructions or suffer the consequences.

But more frequently the Pope was the stronger. Then the Emperor or the

King together with all his subjects was excommunicated. This meant that

all churches were closed, that no one could be baptised, that no dying

man could be given absolution—in short, that half of the functions of

mediæval government came to an end.

More than that, the people were absolved from their oath of loyalty

to their sovereign and were urged to rebel against their master. But

if they followed this advice of the distant Pope and were caught,

they were hanged by their near-by Liege Lord and that too was very

unpleasant.

Indeed, the poor fellows were in a difficult position and none fared

worse than those who lived during the latter half of the eleventh

century, when the Emperor Henry IV of Germany and Pope Gregory VII

fought a two-round battle which decided nothing and upset the peace of

Europe for almost fifty years.

In the middle of the eleventh century there had been a strong movement

for reform in the church. The election of the Popes, thus far, had

been a most irregular affair. It was to the advantage of the Holy

Roman Emperors to have a well-disposed priest elected to the Holy See.

They frequently came to Rome at the time of election and used their

influence for the benefit of one of their friends.

In the year 1059 this had been changed. By a decree of Pope Nicholas II

the principal priests and deacons of the churches in and around Rome

were organised into the so-called College of Cardinals, and this

gathering of prominent churchmen (the word “Cardinal” meant principal)

was given the exclusive power of electing the future Popes.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE]

In the year 1073 the College of Cardinals elected a priest by the

name of Hildebrand, the son of very simple parents in Tuscany, as

Pope, and he took the name of Gregory VII. His energy was unbounded.

His belief in the supreme powers of his holy office was built upon a

granite rock of conviction and courage. In the mind of Gregory, the

Pope was not only the absolute head of the Christian church, but also

the highest Court of Appeal in all worldly matters. The Pope who had

elevated simple German princes to the dignity of Emperor could depose

them at will. He could veto any law passed by duke or king or emperor,

but whosoever should question a papal decree, let him beware, for the

punishment would be swift and merciless.

Gregory sent ambassadors to all the European courts to inform the

potentates of Europe of his new laws and asked them to take due notice

of their contents. William the Conqueror promised to be good, but

Henry IV, who since the age of six had been fighting with his subjects,

had no intention of submitting to the Papal will. He called together a

college of German bishops, accused Gregory of every crime under the sun

and then had him deposed by the council of Worms.

The Pope answered with excommunication and a demand that the German

princes rid themselves of their unworthy ruler. The German princes,

only too happy to be rid of Henry, asked the Pope to come to Augsburg

and help them elect a new Emperor.

[Illustration: HENRY IV AT CANOSSA]

Gregory left Rome and travelled northward. Henry, who was no fool,

appreciated the danger of his position. At all costs he must make peace

with the Pope, and he must do it at once. In the midst of winter he

crossed the Alps and hastened to Canossa where the Pope had stopped for

a short rest. Three long days, from the 25th to the 28th of January of

the year 1077, Henry, dressed as a penitent pilgrim (but with a warm

sweater underneath his monkish garb), waited outside the gates of

the castle of Canossa. Then he was allowed to enter and was pardoned

for his sins. But the repentance did not last long. As soon as Henry

had returned to Germany, he behaved exactly as before. Again he was

excommunicated. For the second time a council of German bishops deposed

Gregory, but this time, when Henry crossed the Alps he was at the head

of a large army, besieged Rome and forced Gregory to retire to Salerno,

where he died in exile. This first violent outbreak decided nothing.

As soon as Henry was back in Germany, the struggle between Pope and

Emperor was continued.

The Hohenstaufen family which got hold of the Imperial German Throne

shortly afterwards, were even more independent than their predecessors.

Gregory had claimed that the Popes were superior to all kings because

they (the Popes) at the Day of Judgement would be responsible for the

behaviour of all the sheep of their flock, and in the eyes of God, a

king was one of that faithful herd.

Frederick of Hohenstaufen, commonly known as Barbarossa or Red Beard,

set up the counter-claim that the Empire had been bestowed upon his

predecessor “by God himself” and as the Empire included Italy and

Rome, he began a campaign which was to add these “lost provinces” to

the northern country. Barbarossa was accidentally drowned in Asia

Minor during the second Crusade, but his son Frederick II, a brilliant

young man who in his youth had been exposed to the civilisation of the

Mohammedans of Sicily, continued the war. The Popes accused him of

heresy. It is true that Frederick seems to have felt a deep and serious

contempt for the rough Christian world of the North, for the boorish

German Knights and the intriguing Italian priests. But he held his

tongue, went on a Crusade and took Jerusalem from the infidel and was

duly crowned as King of the Holy City. Even this act did not placate

the Popes. They deposed Frederick and gave his Italian possessions to

Charles of Anjou, the brother of that King Louis of France who became

famous as Saint Louis. This led to more warfare. Conrad V, the son

of Conrad IV, and the last of the Hohenstaufens, tried to regain the

kingdom, and was defeated and decapitated at Naples. But twenty years

later, the French who had made themselves thoroughly unpopular in

Sicily were all murdered during the so-called Sicilian Vespers, and so

it went.

The quarrel between the Popes and the Emperors was never settled, but

after a while the two enemies learned to leave each other alone.

In the year 1273, Rudolph of Hapsburg was elected Emperor. He did not

take the trouble to go to Rome to be crowned. The Popes did not object

and in turn they kept away from Germany. This meant peace but two

entire centuries which might have been used for the purpose of internal

organisation had been wasted in useless warfare.

It is an ill wind however that bloweth no good to some one. The little

cities of Italy, by a process of careful balancing, had managed to

increase their power and their independence at the expense of both

Emperors and Popes. When the rush for the Holy Land began, they were

able to handle the transportation problem of the thousands of eager

pilgrims who were clamoring for passage, and at the end of the Crusades

they had built themselves such strong defences of brick and of gold

that they could defy Pope and Emperor with equal indifference.

Church and State fought each other and a third party—the mediæval

city—ran away with the spoils.