fear of Him. Ivo of Chartres2 is cited as an instance of this. We need not now point out that Ivo (to whom, by the way, the 'decretum' in question cannot be attributed with certainty) brings forward also proofs of the superiority of the Church and of Papal jurisdiction over kings ;3 in the chapter on the crimes of kings he shows merely the gravity of their crimes and the difficulties in the way of their repentance. His words, 'God alone is the judge of kings,' if taken literally, would imply that their acts might not even incur ecclesiastical censure; and Bossuet would not wish them to mean this. They refer primarily to the personal motives and intentions of princes in the acts of their administration, and their true meaning is that there is no power over the prince to punish him with the sword for doing ill in those matters in which subjects owe him obedience. If any one thinks from such passages as this in the writings of the Fathers to conclude that a prince sinning against the law of God cannot be called to account by the Church, he must also concede that the subjects of the king have over them no power but the king's, thus denying that God has established two powers.7 Theologians tell us that princes. are not under the laws as far as their coercive power is concerned, but are so with regard to their directive power.9 Any one subordinate only to the Pope was in the Middle Ages regarded as subject only to God, for the Pope was considered as simply God's Vicar.10 His power was not physical or material, but was a moral and spiritual power relying upon public opinion for its efficiency. If simple abbots and monks, such as St. Bernard, could upbraid kings for their crimes, threatening them with the justice of God," the Pope could do so with the better right of one to whom by virtue of his office of chief pastor his position gave a higher power. No constitution had then adopted the principle that kings are above all human laws, and acknowledge no judge but God in matters ecclesiastical and civil.'12

1 Bossuet, Def. P. i. 1. iii. c. xiv. p. 303.

2 Ivo, Decret. P. xvi. c. xlii.: ' Populi peccantes judicem metuunt, reges autem, nisi solo Dei timore metuque gehennae coerceantur, libere in praeceps ruunt,' to Isidor Hispal. Sent. 1. iii. c. 1. n. 4.

3 Ivo, Decret. P. v. c. ccclviii. Ep. 51, ad Henric. Anglor. reg. Bianchi, t. ii. 1. v. § 11, n. 5, p. 314.

3 Bianchi, t. i. 1. iii. § 6, n. 4, p. 510. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, ii. § 109,

p. 521 seq.

E.g. Optat. Milev. de Schism. Donat. 1. iii. c. iii. Ambros. in Ps. 1., Miserere (ver. Tibi soli peccavi'). Chrys. in h.l. Hieron. Ep. 46, ad Rustic; Ep. 22, ad Eustach. c. v. Greg. Turon. Hist. Eccles. Franc. v. 18. Caron, Remonstr. Hibernorum, P. ii. c. iv. § 2, pp. 55-58, gives many similar passages from the Fathers, who for the most part speak of the sin of King David, as also the words of theologians quoted § 3, pp. 59, 60.

Phillips, 1.c. p. 523 seq.

John of Salisbury, Polycr. iv. 7, p. 527, disputes the general assertion: Principem non esse legi subjectum.'

Not quantum ad vim coactivam, but quantum a vim directivatam. S. Thom. Sum. 1, 2, q. 96, a. 5 ad 3. Pineda, Com. t. ii. in Job xxxiv. 11, 18: 'Nisi ipse rex et princeps velit sponte se subdere legi et servare jus, quis potuit illum coercere aut vi adigere?' Here is cited, 1. iv. Cod. i. 14, de Leg.: Digna vox est majestate regnantis, legibus alligatum se principem profiteri. Adeo de auctoritate juris nostra pendet auctoritas, et revera majus imperio est, submittere legibus principatum.'

10 Cf. Bianchi, t.; 1. iii. § 5, n. 4, pp. 501, 502.

11 Thus St. Bernard, Ep. 170, p. 329 seq. to the King of France, to whom he says: 'Horrendum est incidere in manus Dei viventis (Hebr. x. 31) etiam tibi, o rex . . . . quis mihi tribuat mori, ne videam regem bonae opinionis, sed spei melioris conari Dei consilio obviare, irritare adversus semetipsum summi judicis iram, pedes patris orphanorum madefacere lacrymis afflictorum, pulsare coelos clamoribus pauperum, sanctorum precibus, justisque querimoniis charissimae sponsae Christi, qua est Ecclesia Dei viventis.' Ep. 220, 221, 226 are still more forcible.

12 In the constitution of Frederick III. of Denmark of 1665, art. 2.

$ 13.

Although mediæval sovereigns were chiefly engaged in the practice of arms, they were by no means always without scholarly education. Besides the zeal for learning of Charles the Great, of King Alfred, of the Othos and of Frederick II. of Germany and Sicily, not a few princes possessed an education of some extent, as Henry II. of England. It should be noticed that the Norman clergy begged him to cause his son Henry, for the welfare of the kingdom, to be well instructed in the sciences.2 St. Bernard's comparison of a foolish king upon his throne3 to an ape on a house-top (looking at that distance like a man) represented the common feeling of the time. From works dedicated to various princes we see that they must have been judges and patrons of

many sciences and have been educated. Thus St. Thomas dedicated his work upon the government of princes to King Henry of Cyprus, who died 1253, and another similar work5 to Adelaide, Duchess of Brabant. Almost beyond numbering are the works which at the request or encouragement of accomplished princes in various countries were composed for them or dedicated to them.6 The Church never encouraged or desired their ignorance; on the contrary, she always desired, revered, and prized wellinstructed rulers,7 and she alone in those days was in a position to impart a higher education. Historical studies were by no means neglected. When Cardinal Cæsar Baronius dedicated the tenth volume of his Annals to the Emperor Rudolph II. he reminded him of the recommendation of the Greek Emperor Basil to his son Leo the Wise, diligently to study the history of past times, since much profit might be drawn from them. The wisest priestly tutors of princes, men such as Bossuet and Gerdil, have never forgotten this, and it was only in the last century that classical and historical education was less given to princes, and modern philosophy and polite literature made to preponderate, while religion became a subordinate subject.

1 Petr. Bles. Ep. 66, p. 195, to Archbishop Walter of Palermo. 2 Petr. Bles. Ep. 67, pp. 210-213.

Simia in tecto rex fatuus in solio sedens.' Bern. de Consid. 1. ii. c. vii. n. 15.

Uccelli, Intorno a' due Opuscoli di S. Tommaso d' Aquino, p. 10. De Regimine subditorum (not Judaeorum, as the editions have it). Uccelli, 1.c. pp. 14-19.

Later ages are still more rich in such works. The Franciscan John a St. Maria dedicated his treatise upon the Church and the Christian civil commonwealth (Madrid, 1615) to the Spanish king (Balmes, Catholicism and Protestantism, iii. c. lii. p. 112 seq.; a note gives an abstract of it). The admonitions of the Deacon Agapitus to the Emperor Justinian were translated into various languages by and for rulers (Migne, PP. gr. lxxxvi. p. 1159 seq.; Fabric. Bibl. gr. viii. 36 seq ed. Harl.). Concerning several translations from the Classics which were executed by the direction of Charles V. of France, as well as of many princes and princesses, vide Schwab, Gerson, p. 79. What the Medicis and other Italian princes accomplished for literature is well known.

An early example is the case of Pope John VIII. and Charles the Bald (Mansi, Conc. t. xvii. Append. p. 172).

sense.

3

ESSAY VIII.

POPE GREGORY VII.

Ir has long prevailed as a custom amongst writers of history to treat the reign of Gregory VII. as the commencement of a new epoch of the Papacy; but this view is only correct in a partial Earlier pontificates, particularly that of Nicholas I., whose contemporaries held him a second Elias,1 and that of Benedict VIII., which has never yet been properly appreciated;2 the deeds of Gregory's immediate predecessors, from Leo IX. onwards, who were animated by a spirit like his own, and wanted but the opportunity to display a like courage in similar conflicts; the previous relations of Church and State in the Western countries;-all these facts show that if Gregory's pontificate is to be considered the commencement of a new epoch, it can only be so as the period of a reform in the relations between the ecclesiastical and civil orders, by the Church making a more extended exercise of the powers which she had long possessed in germ. That the Middle Ages should fulfil their mission it was necessary that the Papacy, obscured by the pernicious influence of Italian nobles and factions during the time of the Othos and of Henry III., should come once more to the light, with powers undiminished and influence unrestrained. The Papacy alone, not the empire-for Charles the Great and his times were gone for ever could weld rival nations into unity, and protect and diffuse Christian morality and Christian law; the Papacy alone could guard the Church's dearest attributes of catholicity, liberty, and purity.4 Before Gregory ascended the pontifical throne, everything had been prepared for the great conflict in which he was to engage.

Gregory's good intentions with regard to Church reform are generally admitted; but he is reproached with having: I.

'surpassed the limits of the doctrine of Christ, in his claims to authority over princes and people, and with having disturbed the organisation of feudal States in the struggle about investitures; he is said in this same struggle to have shown a calculating policy ill becoming the Vicar of Christ, and to have committed enormous blunders in his immoderate zeal; and that finally, having involved [] Germany and Italy in a long and bloody civil war, the conflict failed in attaining the end he contemplated.' II. He is said to have treated all princes as vassals of the Holy See; and, III. to have claimed for the Pope the right to take and dispose of the possessions of private persons, as well as of empires, kingdoms, and principalities.

Let us examine these three charges.

1 Reginon. Chron. Pertz. Scr. i. 579. Cf. Lammer, P. Nicholas I. und die Byz. Staatskirche, Berlin, 1857.

2 Giesebrecht, Gesch. der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, ii. 172: History has hitherto erected no memorial to Benedict VIII., and yet he deserves one before other Popes. However fragmentary may be our sources of information regarding him, they are sufficient to show us the form of a man who recognised it as his mission to provide for the welfare of all Western Christianity, and who feared neither weariness nor exertion to restore to his high office the value it had lost. Benedict is the connecting link between the famous Popes of the time of the Othos, such as Gregory V. and Sylvester II., and their great successors Leo IX., Gregory VII., and Urban II. As this was overlooked, the gradual development of Papal power appeared less connected than it was in reality.'

Will, Die Anfänge der Restauration der Kirche im eilften Jahrh. Marburg, 1859, 1864.

The pious Abbot Gottfried of Vendôme lays stress on these three attributes above all, Tract. de Ord. Episc. (Migne, PP. Lat. clvii. p. 282). Opusc. vi. (ib. p. 222), he says: 'Ecclesia semper Catholica, libera et casta esse debet.... Quando vero Ecclesia saeculari potestati subjicitur, quae ante domina erat, ancilla efficitur, et quam Chr. D. dictavit in cruce et quasi propiis manibus de sanguine suo scripsit chartam, amittit. Hanc enim libertatis chartam Christus vindicavit in cruce et suae sponsae Ecclesiae per semetipsum dedit ut homines alios per peccatum factos diaboli servos, ipsa libera liberos et Dei filios faceret et suos, qui sibi diligenter servirent et tamquam bonae matri devoti filii obedirent.'

Huber, p. 5, who is more moderate here than Janus. Neander and other Protestant writers have fully acknowledged the purity of Gregory's intentions.

Was the feudal system a kind of Noli me tangere,' that must not be 'disturbed' even in a case of necessity, as a defence against peril, as