The Historians' History of the World 08

He died in the year 1164; but the schism was continued by the immediate election of Paschal III, who retained the semblance of authority about three years. Alexander, on the death of Victor, had ventured to return to Rome, which he did not dare to attempt during the life-time of that ecclesiastic. A pestilence, which swept off the flower of Frederick’s army, saved the pope from ruin; and the emperor, obliged as he was to make his escape into Germany as he best might, at length expressed his willingness to heal the schism which he had created in the church. Peace was accordingly restored, and Alexander returned.

On the death of Alexander, Ubaldo, bishop of Ostia, was elected without opposition, and assumed the name of Lucius III (1181-1185), and it has been noted, that at his election the cardinals first appropriated the right of choosing the supreme pontiff without the interference of the people, or of the other orders of the clergy. Popular indignation was loudly expressed. Obliged to seek safety by flight, he called upon the great European states to furnish him with supplies for the support of his rights against the disaffected citizens. His claims were allowed, and the riches of England and other countries were poured freely into his treasury. With these he made head against the insurgents; but such was the fierceness with which they resisted him, that they tore out the eyes of the clergy whom they met beyond the walls of the city; and obliged him to fix his residence at Verona, where he died in 1185. Urban III, Gregory VIII, and Clement III, passed their brief pontificates at a distance from Rome. The last-named pope, however, made peace with the senate and the people; and his successor, Celestine III, was enabled, by the strength of his position, to exercise the most important of his assumed privileges without interruption. Henry VI, who at one time received from his hands[98] the imperial crown, was at another punished by him with the ban of excommunication.c On his death he was succeeded by Innocent III.

INNOCENT III

[1198 A.D.]

Under Innocent III, the papal power rose to its utmost height.[99] The thirteenth century is nearly commensurate with this supremacy of the pope. Innocent III at its commencement calmly exercised as his right, and handed down strengthened and almost irresistible to his successors, that which, at its close, Boniface asserted with repulsive and ill-timed arrogance, endangered, undermined, and shook to its base.

The essential inherent supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power, as of the soul over the body, as of eternity over time, as of Christ over Cæsar, as of God over man, was now an integral part of Christianity. Ideas obtain authority and dominion, not altogether from their intrinsic truth, but rather from their constant asseveration, especially when they fall in with the common hopes and fears, the wants and necessities of human nature. The mass of mankind have neither leisure nor ability to examine them; they fatigue, and so compel the world into their acceptance; more particularly if it is the duty, the passion, and the interest of one great associated body to perpetuate them, while it is neither the peculiar function, nor the manifest advantage of any large class or order to refute them.

The unity of the vast Christian republic was an imposing conception, which, even now that history has shown its hopeless impossibility, still infatuates lofty minds; its impossibility, since it demands for its head not merely that infallibility in doctrine so boldly claimed in later times, but absolute impeccability, in every one of its possessors; more than impeccability, an all-commanding, indefeasible, unquestionable majesty of virtue, holiness, and wisdom. Without this it is a baseless tyranny, a senseless usurpation. In those days it struck in with the whole feudal system, which was one of strict gradation and subordination; to the hierarchy of church and state was equally wanting the crown, the sovereign liege lord.

When this idea was first promulgated in all its naked sternness by Gregory VII, it had come into collision with other ideas rooted with almost equal depth in the mind of man, that especially of the illimitable Cæsarian power, which though transferred to a German emperor, was still a powerful tradition, and derived great weight from its descent from Charlemagne. The humiliation of the emperor was degradation; it brought contempt on the office, scarcely redeemed by the abilities, successes, or even virtues of new sovereigns; the humiliation of the pope was a noble suffering in the cause of God and truth, the depression of patient holiness under worldly violence. In every schism the pope who maintained the loftiest churchmanship had eventually gained the superiority which the imperialising popes had sunk into impotence, obscurity, ignominy.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE CRUSADES ON PAPAL POWER

[1198-1201 A.D.]