The Makers of Modern Rome, in Four Books

That great church, though but a modern building now, after the fire which destroyed it seventy years ago, and standing on the edge of the desolate Campagna, is still a shrine universally visited. The Campagna was not desolate in Hildebrand's days, and the church was of the highest distinction, not only as built upon the spot of St. Paul's martyrdom, but for its own splendour and beauty. It is imposing still, though so modern, and with so few relics of the past. But the pilgrim of to-day, who may perhaps recollect that over its threshold Marcella dragged herself, already half dead, into that peace of God which the sanctuary afforded amid the sack and the tortures of Rome, may add another association if he is so minded in the thought of the great ecclesiastic who ruled here for many years, arriving, full of zeal and eager desire for universal reform, into the midst of an idle crew of depraved monks, who had allowed their noble church to fall into the state of a stable, while they themselves – a mysterious and awful description, yet not perhaps so alarming to us as to them – "were served in the refectory by women," the first and perhaps the only, instance of female servants in a monastery. Hildebrand made short work of these ministrants. He had a dream – which no doubt would have much effect on the monks, always overawed by spiritual intervention, however material they might be in mind or habits – in which St. Paul appeared to him, working hard to clear out and purify his desecrated church. The young abbot immediately set about the work indicated by the Apostle, "eliminating all uncleanness," says his chronicler: "and supplying a sufficient amount of temperate food, he gathered round him a multitude of honest monks faithful to their rule."

Hildebrand's great business powers, as we should say, enabled him very soon to put the affairs of the convent in order. The position of the monastery outside the city gates and defences, and its thoroughly disordered condition, had left it open to all the raids and attacks of neighbouring nobles, who had found the corrupt and undisciplined monks an easy prey; but they soon discovered that they had in the new abbot a very different antagonist. In these occupations Hildebrand passed several years, establishing his monastery on the strongest foundations of discipline, purity, and faith. Reform was what the Church demanded in almost every detail of its work. Amid the agitation and constant disturbance outside, it had not been possible to keep order within, nor was an abbot who had bought his post likely to attempt it: and a great proportion of the abbots, bishops, and great functionaries of the Church had bought their posts. In the previous generation it had been the rule. It had become natural, and disturbed apparently no man's conscience. A conviction, however, had evidently arisen in the Church, working by what influences we know not, but springing into flame by the action of Hildebrand, and by his Pope Leo, that this state of affairs was monstrous and must come to an end. The same awakening has taken place again and again in the Church as the necessity has unfortunately arisen: and never had it been more necessary than now. Every kind of immorality had been concealed under the austere folds of the monk's robe; the parish priests, especially in Germany, lived with their wives in a calm contempt of all the Church's laws in that respect. This, which to us seems the least of their offences, was not so in the eyes of the new race of Church reformers. They thought it worse than ordinary immoral relations, as counterfeiting and claiming the title of a lawful union; and to the remedy of this great declension from the rule of the Church, and of the still greater scandal of simony, the new Pope's utmost energies were now directed.

A very remarkable raid of reformation, which really seems the most appropriate term which could be used, took place accordingly in the first year of Leo IX.'s reign. We do not find Hildebrand mentioned as accompanying him in his travels – probably he was already too deeply occupied with the cleansing out of St. Paul's physically and morally, to leave Rome, of which, besides, he had the care, in all its external as well as spiritual interests, during the Pope's absence: but no doubt he was the chief inspiration of the scheme, and had helped to organise all its details. Something even of the subtle snare in which his own patron Gregory had been caught was in the plan with which Hildebrand, thus gleaning wisdom from suffering, sent forth his Pope. After holding various smaller councils in Italy, Leo crossed the mountains to France, where against the wish of the Emperor, he held a great assembly at Rheims. The nominal occasion of the visit was the consecration of that church of St. Remy, then newly built, which is still one of the glories of a city so rich in architectural wealth. The body of St. Remy was carried, with many wonderful processions, from the monastery where it lay, going round and round the walls of the mediæval town and through its streets with chants and psalms, with banner and cross, until at last it was deposited solemnly on an altar in the new building, now so old and venerable. Half of France had poured into Rheims for this great festival, and followed the steps of the Pope and hampered his progress – for he was again and again unable to proceed from the great throngs that blocked every street. This, however, though a splendid ceremony, and one which evidently made much impression on the multitude, was but the preliminary chapter. After the consecration came a wholly unexpected visitation, the council of Rheims, which was not concerned like most other councils with questions of doctrine, but of justice and discipline. The throne for the Pope was erected in the middle of the nave of the cathedral – not, it need scarcely be said, the late but splendid cathedral now existing – and surrounded in a circle by the seats of the bishops and archbishops. When all were assembled the object of the council was stated – the abolition of simony, and of the usurpation of the priesthood and the altar by laymen, and the various immoral practices which had crept into the shadow of the Church and been tolerated or authorised there. The Pope in his opening address adjured his assembled counsellors to help him to root out those tares which choked the divine grain, and implored them, if any among them had been guilty of the sin of simony, either by sale or purchase of benefices, that he should make a public confession of his sin.

Terrible moment for the bishops and other prelates, immersed in all the affairs of their times and no better than other men! The reader after all these centuries can scarcely fail to feel the thrill of alarm, or shame, or abject terror that must have run through that awful sitting as men looked into each other's faces and grew pale. The archbishop of Trèves got up first and declared his hands to be clean, so did the archbishop of Lyons and Besançon. Well for them! But he of Rheims in his own cathedral, he who must have been in the front of everything for these few triumphant days of festival, faltered when his turn came. He begged that the discussion might be adjourned till next day, and that he might be allowed to see the Pope in private before making his explanations. It must have been with a kind of grim benignancy, and awful toleration, that the delay was granted and the inquisition went on, while that great personage, one of the first magnates of the assembly, sat silent, pondering all there was against him and how little he had to say in his defence. The council became more lively after this with accusations and counter-accusations. The bishop of Langres procured the deposition of an abbot in his diocese for immoral conduct; but next day was assailed himself of simony, adultery, and the application of torture in order to extort money. After a day or two of discussion this prelate fled, and was finally excommunicated. Pope Leo was not a man to be trifled with. And so the long line of prelates was gone through with many disastrous consequences as the days ran on.

It is less satisfactory to find him easily excommunicating rebels and opponents of the Emperor, whose arms were too successful or their antagonism too important. Even the best of priests and Popes err sometimes – and to have such a weapon as excommunication at hand like a thunderbolt must have been very tempting. Leo at the same time excommunicated also the people of Benevento, who had rebelled against the Emperor, and the archbishop of Ravenna, who was in rebellion against himself.

The travels and activity of this Pope on his round of examination and punishment were extraordinary. He appears in one part of Italy after another: in the far south, in the midland plains, holding councils everywhere, deposing bishops, scourging the Church clean. Again he is over the hills in his own country, meeting the Emperor, as active as himself, and almost as earnest in his desire to cleanse the Church of simony – moving here and there, performing all kinds of sacred functions from the celebration of a feast to the excommunication of a city. His last, and as it proved fatal enterprise was an expedition against the Normans, who had got possession of a great part of Southern Italy, and against whom the Pope went, most inappropriately, at the head of an army, made up of the most heterogeneous elements, and which collapsed in face of the enemy. Leo himself either was made prisoner or took refuge in the town of Benevento, which had recently, by a bargain with the Emperor, become the property of the Holy See. Here he was detained for nearly a year, more or less voluntarily, and when, at length, he set out for Rome, with a strong escort of the Normans and every mark of honour, it was with broken health and failing strength. He died shortly after reaching his destination, in his own great church, having caused himself to be carried there as he grew worse; and nothing could be more imposing than the scene of his death, in St. Peter's, which was all hung with black and illuminated with thousands of funeral lights for this great and solemn event. All Rome witnessed his last hours and saw him die. He was one of the great Popes, though he did not fully succeed even in his own appropriate work of Church reform, and failed altogether when he took, unfortunately, sword in hand. Not a word, however, could be said against the purity of his life and motives, and these were universally acknowledged, especially among the Normans against whom he led his unfortunate army, and who worshipped, while probably holding captive, their rash invader.

During the eight years of Leo's popedom Hildebrand had been at the head of affairs in Rome, where erring priests and simoniacal bishops had been not less severely brought to book than in other places. He does not seem to have accompanied the Pope on any of his many expeditions; but with the aid of a new brother-in-arms, scarcely less powerful and able than himself, Peter Damian, then abbot of Fontavellona and afterwards bishop of Ostia, did his best under Leo to sweep clean the ecclesiastical world in general as he had swept clean his own church of St. Paul. When Leo died, Hildebrand was one of the three legates sent to consult the Emperor as to the choice of another Pope. This was a long and difficult business, since the susceptibilities of the Romans, anxious to preserve their own real or apparent privilege of election, had to be reconciled with the claims of Henry, who had no idea of yielding them in any way, and who had the power on his side. The selection seems to have been finally made by Hildebrand rather than Henry, and was that of Gebehard, bishop of Aichstadt, another wealthy German prelate, also related to the Emperor. Why he should have consented to accept this mission, however, he who had so strongly declined to follow Leo as the nominee of the Emperor, and made it a condition of his service that the new Pope should go humbly to Rome as a pilgrim to be elected there, is unexplained by any of the historians.

It was in the spring of 1055 that after long delays and much waiting, the Roman conclave came back, bringing their Pope with them. But Victor II. was like so many of his German predecessors, short-lived. His reign only lasted two years, the half of which he seems to have spent in Germany. "He was not one who loved the monks," and probably Hildebrand found that he would do but little with one whose heart would seem to have remained on the other side of i monti– as the Alps are continually called. No second ambassador was sent to the Imperial Court for a successor: for in the fateful year 1056 the Emperor also died, preceding Victor to the grave by a few months. Without pausing to consult the German Court, with a haste which proves their great anxiety to reassert themselves, the Roman clergy and people elected Frederick, abbot of Monte Cassino and brother of the existing prince of Tuscany – Gottfried of Lorraine, the second husband of Beatrice of Tuscany and step-father of Matilda the actual heir to that powerful duchy. Perhaps a certain desire to cling to the only power in Italy which could at all protect them against an irritated Imperial Court mingled with this choice: but it was a perfectly natural and worthy one. Frederick, unfortunately, lived but a few months, disappointing many hopes. He had sent Hildebrand to the Imperial Court to explain and justify his election, but when he found his health beginning to give way, a sort of panic seems to have seized him, and collecting round him all the representatives of priests and people who could be gathered together, he made them swear on pain of excommunication to elect no successor until the return of Hildebrand. He died at Florence shortly after.

There is something monotonous in these brief records: a great turmoil almost reaching the length of a convulsion for the choice, and then a short and agitated span, a year or two, sometimes only a month or two, and all is over and the new Pope goes to rejoin the long line of his predecessors. It was not, either, that these were old men, such as have so often been chosen in later days, venerable fathers of the Church whose age brought them nearer to the grave than the throne: – they were all men in the flower of their age, likely according to all human probability to live long. It was not wonderful if the German bishops were afraid of that dangerous elevation which seemed to carry with it an unfailing fate.

Hildebrand was at the German Court when this sad news reached him. He was in the position, fascinating to most men – and he was not superior to others in this respect – of confidant and counsellor to a princess in the interesting position of a young widow, with a child, upon whose head future empire had already thrown its shadow. The position of the Empress Agnes was, no doubt, one of the most difficult which a woman could be called on to occupy, surrounded by powerful princes scarcely to be kept in subjection by the Emperor, who was so little more than their equal, though their sovereign – and altogether indisposed to accept the supremacy of a woman. There is nothing in which women have done so well in the world as in the great art of government, but the Empress Agnes was not one of that kind. She had to fall back upon the support of the clergy in the midst of the rude circle of potentates with whom she had to contend, and the visit of Hildebrand with his lofty views, his great hopes, his impetuous determination to vanquish evil with good, though not perhaps in the way recommended by the Apostles, was no doubt a wonderful refreshment and interest to her in the midst of all her struggles. But it was like a thunderbolt bursting at their feet to hear of the death of Frederick – (among the Popes Stephen IX.): and the swiftly following outburst in Rome when, in a moment, in the absence of any spirit strong enough to control them, the old methods were put into operation, and certain of the Roman nobles ever ready to take advantage of an opportunity – with such supporters within the city as terror or bribes could secure them, taking the people by surprise – procured the hurried election of a Pope without any qualifications for the office. Nothing could be more dramatic than the entire episode. A young Count of Tusculum, a stronghold seated amid the ruins of the old Roman city, above Frascati, one of a family who then seem to have occupied the position afterwards held by the Orsinis and Colonnas, was the leader of this conspiracy and the candidate was a certain Mincio, Bishop of Velletri, a member of the same family. The description in Muratori's Annals though brief is very characteristic.

"Gregorio, son of Albanio Count Tusculano, of Frascati, along with some other powerful Romans, having gained by bribes a good part of the clergy and people, rushed by night, with a party of armed followers, into the Church of St. Peter, and there, with much tumult, elected Pope, Giovanni, Bishop of Velletri, afterwards called Mincio (a word perhaps drawn from the French Mince and which probably was the original of the phrase now used Minciono, Minchione), who assumed the name of Benedict X. He was a man entirely devoid of letters."

The sudden raid in the night, all Rome silent and asleep, except the disturbed and hastily awakened streets by which the party had entered from across the Campagna and their robber fortress among the ruins of the classic Tusculum, makes a most curious and dramatic picture. The conspirators had among them certain so-called representatives of the people, with a few abbots who felt their seats insecure under a reforming Pope, and a few priests very desirous of shutting out all new and disturbing authority. They gathered hastily in the church which suddenly shone out into the darkness with flare of torch and twinkle of taper, while the intruder, Mincio, a lean and fantastic bishop, with affectations of pose and attitude such as his nickname implies, was hurried to the altar by his rude patrons and attendants. He was consecrated by the terrified archpriest of Ostia, upon whom the Frascati party had somewhere laid violent hands, and who faltered through the office half stupefied by fear. It was the privilege of the Bishop of Ostia to be the officiating prelate at the great solemnity of a Pope's consecration. When he could not be had the careless and profane barons no doubt thought his subordinate would do very well instead.

The news was received, however, though with horror, yet with a dignified self-restraint by the Imperial Court. Hildebrand set out at once for Florence to consult with the Sovereigns there, a royal family of great importance in the history of Italy, consisting of the widowed duchess Beatrice, her second husband Gottfried of Lorraine, and her young daughter Matilda, the actual heiress of the principality, all staunch supporters of the Church and friends of Hildebrand. That he should take the command of affairs at this sudden crisis seems to have been taken for granted on all sides. A council of many bishops "both German and Italian" was called together in Sienna, where it was met by a deputation from Rome, begging that fit steps might be taken to meet the emergency, and a legitimate Pope elected. The choice of this Council fell upon the Bishop of Florence, "who for wisdom and a good life was worthy of such a sublime dignity;" and the new Pope was escorted to Rome by a strong band of Tuscan soldiers powerful enough to put down all tumult or rebellion in the city. The expedition paused at Sutri, a little town, just within the bounds of the papal possessions, which had already on that account been the scene of the confusing and painful council which dethroned Gregory VI. to destroy the strongholds of the Counts of Tusculum near that spot, and make an end of their power. Mincio, however, poor fantastic shadow, had no heart to confront a duly elected Pope, or the keen eye of Hildebrand, and abdicated at once his ill-gotten power. His vague figure so sarcastically indicated has a certain half-comic, half-rueful effect, appearing amid all these more important forms and things, first in the dazzle of the midnight office, and afterwards in a hazy twilight of obscurity, stealing off, to be seen no more, except by the keen country folk and townsmen of his remote bishopric who, burlando– jesting as one is glad to hear they were able to do amid all their tumults and troubles – gave him his nickname, and thus sent down to posterity the fantastic vision of the momentary Pope with his mincing ways – no bad anti-pope though as Benedict X. he holds a faint footing in the papal roll – but a historical burla, a mediæval joke, not without its power to relieve the grave chronicle of the time.

The tumultuous public of Rome, which did not care very much either way, yet felt this election of the Pope to be its one remaining claim to importance, murmured and grumbled its best about the interference of Tuscany, a neighbour more insulting, when taking upon herself airs of mastery, than a distant and vaguely magnificent Emperor; and there was an outcry against Hildebrand, who had erected "a new idol" in concert with Beatrice and without the consent of the Romans. But it was in reality Hildebrand himself who now came to reign under the shadow of another insignificant and short-lived Pope. Nicolas II. and Alexander II. who followed were but the formal possessors of power; the true sway was henceforth in the hands of the ever-watchful monk, Cardinal-archdeacon, deputy and representative of the Holy See. It is one of the few instances to be found in the records of the world of that elevation of the man who can– so strongly preached by Carlyle – to the position which is his natural right. While Hildebrand had been scouring the world, an adventurous young monk, passing i monti recklessly as the young adventurer now crosses the Atlantic, more times than could be counted – while he was, with all the zeal of his first practical essay in reform, cleaning out his stable at St. Paul's, making his presence to be felt in the expenditure and revenues of Rome – there had been, as we have seen, Pope after Pope in the seat of the Apostle, most of them worthy enough, one at least, Leo IX., heroic in effort and devotion – but none of them born to guide the Church through a great crisis. The hour and the man had now come.

It was not long before the presence of a new and great legislator became clearly visible. One of the first acts of Hildebrand, acting under Nicolas, was to hold a council in Rome in 1059, at which many things of importance were decided. The reader will want no argument to prove that there was urgent need of an established and certain rule for the election of the Popes, a necessity constantly recurring and giving rise to a continual struggle. It had been the privilege of the Roman clergy and people; it had become a prerogative of the Emperors; it was exercised by both together, the one satisfying itself with a fictitious co-operation and assent to what the other did, but neither contented, and every vacancy the cause of a bitter and often disgraceful struggle. The nominal election by the clergy and people was a rule impossible, and meant only the temporary triumph of the party which was strongest or wealthiest for the moment, and could best pay for the most sweet voices of the crowd, or best overawe and cow their opponents. On the other hand, the action of the secular power, the selection or at least nomination of a Pope – with armies behind, if necessary, to carry out his choice – by the Emperor across the Alps, was a transaction subject to those ordinary secular laws, which induce a superior in whatever region of affairs to choose the man who is likely to be most serviceable to himself and his interests – interests which were very different from those which are the objects of the Church. No man had seen the dangers and difficulties of this divided and inconsistent authority more than Hildebrand, and his determination to establish a steadfast and final method for the choice and election of the first great official of the Church was both wise and reasonable. Perhaps it was not without thought of the expediency of breaking away from all precedents, and thus preparing the way for a new method, that he had, apparently on his own authority, transferred in a manner, what we may call the patronage of the Holy See, to Tuscany. The moment was propitious for such a change, for there was no Emperor, the heir of Henry III. being still a child and his mother not powerful enough to interfere.

The new law introduced by Hildebrand and passed by the council was much the same in its general regulations as that which still exists. There was no solemn mysterious Conclave, and the details were more simple; but the rules of election were virtually the same. The Cardinal-bishops made their choice first, which they then submitted to the other Cardinals of lower rank. If both were agreed the name of the Pope-elect was submitted to the final judgment of the people, no doubt a mere formula. This, we believe, is nominally still the last step of the procedure. The name is submitted, i. e., announced to the eager crowd in St. Peter's who applaud, which is all that is required of them: and all is done. This decree was passed salvo debito honore et reverentia delecti filii nostri Henrici, a condition skilfully guarded by the promise to award the same honour (that is, of having a voice in the election) to those of his successors to whom the Holy See shall have personally accorded the same right. It was thus the Holy See which honoured the Emperors by according them a privilege, not the Emperors who had any right to nominate, much less elect, to the Holy See.