Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/519

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POR—POR

advice, and in 1073 Hildebrand himself succeeded to the office as GREGORY VII. 1 (1073-85). From the memorable struggle between this pontiff and the emperor, Henry IV., we date the commencement of that long series of contests between the papal and the imperial power which distracted alike the holy see and the empire. In the two main ob jects to which his policy was directed the enforcement of a celibate life among the clergy and the prohibition of investiture (see INVESTITURE) by the laity Gregory had on his side the sympathy of the best and most discerning minds of his age. Lay investiture was little more than a cloak for the inveterate and growing abuse of simony, for which the distribution of church patronage by secular potentates afforded special facilities, and the burden of which was now increased by those other forms of tribute, the "regale," "jus spolii," and "servitium," which the growth of the feudal system had developed. But in the hands of Gregory this scheme of ostensible reforms ex panded first of all into independence of the temporal power, and finally into a claim to dominate over it. Other schemes (not destined to be realized) engaged his lofty ambition the conquest of Constantinople, the union of the Eastern and Western Churches, and the expulsion of the Saracens from Christendom. He died in exile ; but the theory of his office and its prerogatives which he asserted was brought by his successors to a marvellous realization. h:ru- The first crusade, which may be looked upon as gene- t( in rated by Gregory s example and a reflex of the policy which n led him to sanction the expedition of William of Normandy wv against England, materially favoured papal pretensions. It was proclaimed as a religious war, and it was as a mode of penance that the Norman and Latin warriors were enjoined to gratify their ruling passions of plunder and adventure. More especially it brought to the front of the drama of European action the Latin as opposed to the Teutonic elements, the part taken by Germany in these gigantic expeditions in no way corresponding to her position among Europ ean powers. It was impossible that the excommunicated emperor Henry IV. should place himself at the head of such an enterprise, and it was accordingly by URBAN II. (1088-99) that the direction was assumed, and it was under his auspices that the first crusade was proclaimed at Clermont. As the movement gathered force, the prestige of the popedom was still further enhanced by the fact that the warriors who had before appeared in the field under the banners of the empire now did so as loyal sons of the church. The new orders of chivalry, the Knights of St John, the Templars, the Teutonic Order, each bound by religious vows, received their commissions from the pontiff, were invested by him with the sword and the cross, and acknowledged no allegiance to the emperor. But of all the schemes which Gregory s genius conceived and promoted none was more important in its after-effects than the expansion given to the pseudo-Isidorian decretals in the first instance by Anselm of Lucca, again by e e- Cardinal Deusdedit, and finally by the celebrated Gratian, ,^ of a monk of Bologna, who lived about the middle of the llth century. By Gratian these accumulated forgeries were reduced to order and codified ; and his Decretum, as | Vl of it was termed, stands to the canon law (CANON LAW) in < ion much t^ same relation that the Pandects of Justinian stand to the civil law. Further additions were subse quently made by Gregory IX., Boniface VIII., and other pontiffs, and in this manner a vast code was gradually elaborated which, serving as the framework of the eccle siastical jurisdiction in every land, was associated with 1 In assuming this name Hildebrand designed to imply that Gregory VI., whose title had been cancelled by Henry III. on account of simony, was a legitimate pontiff. 499 separate courts and professed by a distinct body of jurists. The canonists were naturally ardent defenders of the sys tem from whence they derived their professional existence, and everywhere represented the faithful adherents of Rome. Another movement at this period, which gave effective aid in the diffusion of the papal influence and authority, was the rise of the new religious orders, the Camaldules Rise of (c. 1012), the Cluniacs (c. 1048), the Carthusians (c. 1084), new and the Cistercians (1098). Although each of these orders professed a distinct rule, and a sanctity and austerity of life which put to shame the degenerate Benedictines, their presence was far from proving an unmixed benefit to the districts where they settled. They rejected the episcopal jurisdiction, and purchased their local independence by com plete and immediate subjection to the pope. Wherever, accordingly, their houses rose there was gathered a band of devoted adherents to Rome, ever ready to assert her jurisdiction in opposition to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction claimed by the secular clergy or the civil jurisdiction claimed by the temporal power. On the death of Urban, Cardinal Rainerius, a native of Tuscany, and a man of considerable learning and capa city, succeeded as PASCHAL II. (1099-1118), During the Paschal II. earlier years of his pontificate he is unfavourably dis tinguished by the manner in which he sanctioned, if he did not instigate, the cruel and unnatural revolt of the young prince Henry (afterwards the emperor Henry V.) against his father. The later years of Paschal s rule seem mainly a record of the nemesis which overtook a policy dictated by the most heartless and selfish ambition. " Paschal," says Milman, "is almost the only later pope who was reduced to the degrading necessity of being dis claimed by the clergy, of being forced to retract his own impeccable decrees, of being taunted in his own day with heresy, and abandoned as a feeble traitor to the rights of the church by the dexterous and unscrupulous apologists of almost every act of the papal see." One of the most memorable phases of this long process of humiliation is marked by the treaty of Sutri (Feb. 1111), when the young emperor compelled Paschal to surrender all the territorial possessions and royalties which the church had received either from the emperor or from the kings of Italy since the days of Charlemagne, together with numerous other political and fiscal privileges, while he himself renounced the right of investiture. The indignation of the ecclesi astical world compelled Paschal to retire from this treaty, and ultimately, after long evasions, to become party to a second, whereby the former conditions were completely reversed. The emperor resumed the right of investiture, and that burning question again lit up the flames of war. Paschal being too far pledged by his own solemn oath, a metropolitan council assembled at Vienne assumed to itself the authority of excommunicating the emperor, de claring that the assertion of the rights of lay investiture in itself constituted a heresy. The great prelates of Germany rose in insurrection against the emperor. He retaliated by seizing on the vast possessions (comprising nearly a quarter of Italy) which Matilda, 1 countess of Tuscany, at her death in 1115, had bequeathed to the Roman see. The pope and the cardinals responded by re- enacting the sentence of excommunication. Henry occu pied Rome ; and Pope Paschal died in the Castle of St Angelo, exhorting the cardinals with his latest breath to greater firmness than he himself had shown in maintain ing the rights of the church. Paschal was the first of the pontiffs to discontinue the use of the imperial years in dating his acts and encyclicals, substituting instead the year of his own pontificate. The short rule of CALIXTUS Calixtus II. (1119-24), disgraced although it was by the savage II.

revenge which he perpetrated on his rival the antipope