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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part XII}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VII: History Of Ecclesiastical Power During The Middle Ages
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part XII

     I have already taken notice that the Castilian church was in the first
ages of that monarchy nearly independent of Rome.  But after many gradual
encroachments the code of laws promulgated by Alfonso X. had incorporated a
great part of the decretals, and thus given the papal jurisprudence an
authority which it nowhere else possessed in national tribunals. ^l That
richly endowed hierarchy was a tempting spoil.  The popes filled up its
benefices by means of expectatives and reserves with their own Italian
dependents.  We find the cortes of Palencia in 1388 complaining that strangers
are beneficed in Castile, through which the churches are ill supplied, and
native scholars cannot be provided, and requesting the king to take such
measures in relation to this as the kings of France, Aragon, and Navarre, who
do not permit any but natives to hold benefices in their kingdoms.  The king
answered to this petition that he would use his endeavors to that end. ^m And
this is expressed with greater warmth by a cortes of 1473, who declare it to
be the custom of all Christian nations that foreigners should not be promoted
to benefices, urging the discouragement of native learning, the decay of
charity, the bad performance of religious rites, and other evils arising from
the non-residence of beneficed priests, and request the king to notify to the
court of Rome that no expectative or provision in favor of foreigners can be
received in future. ^n This petition seems to have passed into a law; but I am
ignorant of the consequences.  Spain certainly took an active part in
restraining the abuses of pontifical authority at the councils of Constance
and Basle; to which I might add the name of Trent, if that assembly were not
beyond my province.

[Footnote l: Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, c. 320, &c.]

[Footnote m: Id., Teoria de las Cortes, t. iii. p. 126.]

[Footnote n: Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. 364; Mariana, Hist. Hispan., l.
xix. c. 1.]

     France, dissatisfied with the abortive termination of her exertions
during the schism, rejected the concordat offered by Martin V., which held out
but a promise of imperfect reformation. ^o She suffered in consequence the
papal exactions for some years, till the decrees of the council of Basle
prompted her to move vigorous efforts for independence, and Charles VII.
enacted the famous Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. ^p This has been deemed a
sort of Magna Charta of the Gallican church; for though the law was speedily
abrogated, its principle has remained fixed as the basis of ecclesiastical
liberties.  By the Pragmatic Sanction a general council was declared superior
to the pope; elections of bishops were made free from all control; mandats or
grants in expectancy, and reservations of benefices, were taken away; first
fruits were abolished.  This defalcation of wealth, which had now become
dearer than power, could not be patiently borne at Rome.  Pius II., the same
Aeneas Sylvius who had sold himself to oppose the council of Basle, in whose
service he had been originally distinguished, used every endeavor to procure
the repeal of this ordinance.  With Charles VII. he had no success; but Louis
XI., partly out of blind hatred to his father's memory, partly from a delusive
expectation that the pope would support the Angevin faction in Naples,
repealed the Pragmatic Sanction. ^q This may be added to other proofs that
Louis XI., even according to the measures of worldly wisdom, was not a wise
politician.  His people judged from better feelings; the parliament of Paris
constantly refused to enregister the revocation of that favorite law, and it
continued in many respects to be acted upon until the reign of Francis I. ^r
At the States General of Tours, in 1484, the inferior clergy, seconded by the
two other orders, earnestly requested that the Pragmatic Sanction might be
confirmed; but the prelates were timid or corrupt, and the regent Anne was
unwilling to risk a quarrel with the Holy See. ^s This unsettled state
continued, the Pragmatic Sanction neither quite enforced nor quite repealed,
till Francis I., having accommodated the differences of his predecessor with
Rome, agreed upon a final concordat with Leo X., the treaty that subsisted for
almost three centuries between the papacy and the kingdom of France. ^t
Instead of capitular election or papal provision, a new method was devised for
filling the vacancies of episcopal sees.  The king was to nominate a fit
person, whom the pope was to collate.  The one obtained an essential
patronage, the other preserved his theoretical supremacy.  Annates were
restored to the pope; a concession of great importance.  He gave up his
indefinite prerogative of reserving benefices, and received only a small
stipulated patronage.  This convention met with strenuous opposition in
France; the parliament of Paris yielded only to force; the university hardly
stopped short of sedition; the zealous Gallicans have ever since deplored it,
as a fatal wound to their liberties.  There is much exaggeration in this, as
far as the relation of the Gallican church to Rome is concerned; but the royal
nomination to bishoprics impaired of course the independence of the hierarchy.
Whether this prerogative of the crown were upon the whole beneficial to
France, is a problem that I cannot affect to solve; in this country there
seems little doubt that capitular elections, which the statute of Henry VIII.
has reduced to a name, would long since have degenerated into the corruption
of close boroughs; but the circumstances of the Gallican establishment may not
have been entirely similar, and the question opens a variety of considerations
that do not belong to my present subject.

[Footnote o: Villaret, t. xv. p. 126.]

[Footnote p: Idem, p. 263; Hist. du Droit Public Eccles. Francois, t. ii. p.
234; Fleury, Institutions au Droit; Crevier, t. iv. p. 100; Pasquier,
Recherches de la France, l. iii. c. 27.]

[Footnote q: Villaret, and Garnier, t. xvi.; Crevier, t. iv. pp. 256, 274.]

[Footnote r: Garnier, t. xvi. p. 432; t. xvii. p. 222 et alibi.  Crevier, t.
iv. p. 318 et alibi.]

[Footnote s: Garnier, t. xix. pp. 216 and 321.]

[Footnote t: Ibid., t. xxiii. p. 151; Hist du Droit Public Eccles. Fr., t. ii.
p. 243; Fleury, Institutions au Droit, t. i. p. 107.]

     From the principles established during the schism, and in the Pragmatic
Sanction of Bourges, arose the far-famed liberties of the Gallican church,
which honorably distinguished her from other members of the Roman communion.
These have been referred by French writers to a much earlier era; but except
so far as that country participated in the ancient ecclesiastical independence
of all Europe, before the papal encroachments had subverted it, I do not see
that they can be properly traced above the fifteenth century.  Nor had they
acquired even at the expiration of that age the precision and consistency
which was given in later times by the constant spirit of the parliaments and
universities, as well as by the best ecclesiastical authors, with little
assistance from the crown, which, except in a few periods of disagreement with
Rome, has rather been disposed to restrain the more zealous Gallicans.  These
liberties, therefore, do not strictly fall within my limits; and it will be
sufficient to observe that they depended upon two maxims: one, that the pope
does not possess any direct or indirect temporal authority; the other, that
his spiritual jurisdiction can only be exercised in conformity with such parts
of the canon law as are received by the kingdom of France. Hence the Gallican
church rejected a great part of the Sext and Clementines, and paid little
regard to modern papal bulls, which in fact obtained validity only by the
king's approbation. ^u

[Footnote u: Fleury, Institutions au Droit, t. ii. p. 226, &c., and Discours
sur les Libertes de l'Eglise Gallicane.  The last editors of this dissertation
go far beyond Fleury, and perhaps reach the utmost point in limiting the papal
authority which a sincere member of that communion can attain.  See notes, pp.
417 and 445.]

     The pontifical usurpations which were thus restrained, affected, at least
in their direct operation, rather the church than the state; and temporal
governments would only have been half emancipated, if their national
hierarchies had preserved their enormous jurisdiction. ^v England, in this
also, began the work, and had made a considerable progress, while the mistaken
piety or policy of Louis IX. and his successors had laid France open to vast
encroachments.  The first method adopted in order to check them was rude
enough; by seizing the bishop's effects when he exceeded his jurisdiction. ^w
This jurisdiction, according to the construction of churchmen, became
perpetually larger; even the reforming council of Constance give an
enumeration of ecclesiastical causes far beyond the limits acknowledged in
England, or perhaps in France. ^x But the parliament of Paris, instituted in
1304, gradually established a paramount authority over ecclesiastical as well
as civil tribunals.  Their progress was indeed very slow.  At a famous
assembly in 1329, before Philip of Valois, his advocate-general, Peter de
Cugnieres, pronounced a long harangue against the excesses of spiritual
jurisdiction. This is a curious illustration of that branch of legal and
ecclesiastical history.  It was answered at large by some bishops, and the
king did not venture to take any active measures at that time. ^y Several
regulations were, however, made in the fourteenth century, which took away the
ecclesiastical cognizance of adultery, of the execution of testaments, and
other causes which had been claimed by the clergy. ^z Their immunity in
criminal matters was straitened by the introduction of privileged cases, to
which it did not extend; such as treason, murder, robbery, and other heinous
offences. ^a The parliament began to exercise a judicial control over
episcopal courts.  It was not, however, till the beginning of the sixteenth
century, according to the best writers, that it devised its famous form of
procedure, the "appeal because of abuse." ^b This, in the course of time, and
through the decline of ecclesiastical power, not only proved an effectual
barrier against encroachments of spiritual jurisdiction, but drew back again
to the lay court the greater part of those causes which by prescription, and
indeed by law, had appertained to a different cognizance.  Thus testamentary,
and even, in a great degree, matrimonial, causes were decided by the
parliament; and in many other matters that body, being the judge of its own
competence, narrowed, by means of the appeal because of abuse, the boundaries
of the opposite jurisdiction. ^c This remedial process appears to have been
more extensively applied than our English writ of prohibition.  The latter
merely restrains the interference of the ecclesiastical courts in matters
which the law has not committed to them.  But the parliament of Paris
considered itself, I apprehend, as conservator of the liberties and discipline
of the Gallican church; and interposed the appeal because of abuse, whenever
the spiritual court, even in its proper province, transgressed the canonical
rules by which it ought to be governed. ^d

[Footnote v: It ought always to be remembered that ecclesiastical, and not
merely papal, encroachments are what civil governments and the laity in
general have had to resist; a point which some very zealous opposers of Rome
have been willing to keep out of sight.  The latter arose out of the former,
and perhaps were in some respects less objectionable.  But the true enemy is
what are called High-church principles; be they maintained by a pope, a
bishop, or a presbyter.  Thus Archbishop Stratford writes to Edward III.: Duo
sunt, quibus principaliter regitur mundus, sacra pontificalis auctoritas, et
regalis ordinata potestas: in quibus est pondus tanto gravius et sublimius
sacerdotum, quanto et de regibus illi in divino reddituri sunt examine
rationem; et ideo scire debet regia celsi tudo ex illorum vos dependere
judicio, non illos ad vestram dirigi posse voluntatem.  Wilkins, Concilia, t.
ii. p. 663.  This amazing impudence towards such a prince as Edward did not
succeed; but it is interesting to follow the track of the star which was now
rather receding, though still fierce.]

[Footnote w: De Marca, De Concordantia, l. iv. c. 18.]

[Footnote x: De Marca, De Concordantia, l. iv. c. 15; Lenfant, Conc. de
Constance, t. ii. p. 331.  De Marca, l. iv. c. 15, gives us passages from one
Durandus about 1309, complaining that the lay judges invaded ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, and reckoning the cases subject to the latter, under which he
includes feudal and criminal causes in some circumstances, and also those in
which the temporal judges are in doubt; si quid ambiguum inter judices
saeculares oriatur.]

[Footnote y: Velly, t. viii. p. 234; Fleury, Institutions, t. ii. p. 12; Hist.
du Droit Eccles. Franc., t. ii. p. 86.]

[Footnote z: Villaret, t. xi. p. 182.]

[Footnote a: Fleury, Institutions au Droit, t. ii. p. 138.  In the famous case
of Balue, a bishop and cardinal, whom Louis XI. detected in a treasonable
intrigue, it was contended by the king that he had a right to punish him
capitally.  Du Clos, Vie de Louis XI. t. i. p. 422; Garnier, Hist. de France,
t. xvii. p. 330.  Balue was confined for many years in a small iron cage,
which till lately was shown in the castle of Loches.]

[Footnote b: Pasquier, l. iii. c. 33; Hist. du Droit Eccles. Francois, t. ii.
p. 119; Fleury, Institutions au Droit Eccles.  Francois, t. ii. p. 221; De
Marca, De Concordantia Sacerdotii et Imperii, l. iv. c. 19.  The last author
seems to carry it rather higher.]

[Footnote c: Fleury, Institutions, t. ii. p. 42, &c.]

[Footnote d: De Marca, De Concordantia, l. iv. c. 9; Fleury, t. ii. p. 224.
In Spain, even now, says De Marca, bishops or clerks not obeying royal
mandates that inhibit the excesses of ecclesiastical courts are expelled from
the kingdom and deprived of the rights of denizenship.]

     While the bishops of Rome were losing their general influence over
Europe, they did not gain more estimation in Italy.  It is indeed a problem of
some difficulty, whether they derived any substantial advantage from their
temporal principality.  For the last three centuries it has certainly been
conducive to the maintenance of their spiritual supremacy, which, in the
complicated relations of policy, might have been endangered by their becoming
the subjects of any particular sovereign.  But I doubt whether their real
authority over Christendom in the middle ages was not better preserved by a
state of nominal dependence upon the empire, without much effective control on
one side, or many temptations to worldly ambition on the other.  That
covetousness of temporal sway which, having long prompted their measures of
usurpation and forgery, seemed, from the time of Innocent III. and Nicholas
III. to reap its gratification, impaired the more essential parts of the papal
authority.  In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the popes degraded their
character by too much anxiety about the politics of Italy.  The veil woven by
religious awe was rent asunder, and the features of ordinary ambition appeared
without disguise.  For it was no longer that magnificent and original system
of spiritual power which made Gregory VII., even in exile, a rival of the
emperor, which held forth redress where the law could not protect, and
punishment where it could not chastise, which fell in sometimes with
superstitious feeling, and sometimes with political interest.  Many might
believe that the pope could depose a schismatic prince, who were disgusted at
his attacking an unoffending neighbor.  As the cupidity of the clergy in
regard to worldly estate had lowered their character everywhere, so the
similar conduct of their head undermined the respect felt for him in Italy.
The censures of the church, those excommunications and interdicts which had
made Europe tremble, became gradually despicable as well as odious when they
were lavished in every squabble for territory which the pope was pleased to
make his own. ^e Even the crusades, which had already been tried against the
heretics of Languedoc, were now preached against all who espoused a different
party from the Roman see in the quarrels of Italy.  Such were those directed
at Frederick II., at Manfred, and at Matteo Visconti, accompanied by the usual
bribery, indulgences, and remission of sins.  The papal interdicts of the
fourteenth century wore a different complexion from those of former times.
Though tremendous to the imagination, they had hitherto been confined to
spiritual effects, or to such as were connected with religion, as the
prohibition of marriage and sepulture.  But Clement V., on account of an
attack made by the Venetians upon Ferrara in 1309, proclaimed the whole people
infamous, and incapable for three generations of any office, their goods, in
every part of the world, subject to confiscation, and every Venetian, wherever
he might be found, liable to be reduced into slavery. ^f A bull in the same
terms was published by Gregory XI. in 1376 against the Florentines.

[Footnote e: In 1290 Pisa was put under an interdict for having conferred the
signiory on the Count of Montefeltro; and he was ordered, on pain of
excommunication, to lay down the government within a month.  Muratori ad ann.
A curious style for the pope to adopt towards a free city!  Six years before
the Venetians had been interdicted because they would not allow their galleys
to be hired by the King of Naples.  But it would be almost endless to quote
every instance.]

[Footnote f: Muratori.]

     From the termination of the schism, as the popes found their ambition
thwarted beyond the Alps, it was diverted more and more towards schemes of
temporal sovereignty.  In these we do not perceive that consistent policy
which remarkably actuated their conduct as supreme heads of the church. Men
generally advanced in years, and born of noble Italian families, made the
papacy subservient to the elevation of their kindred, or to the interests of a
local faction.  For such ends they mingled in the dark conspiracies of that
bad age, distinguished only by the more scandalous turpitude of their vices
from the petty tyrants and intriguers with whom they were engaged.  In the
latter part of the fifteenth century, when all favorable prejudices were worn
away, those who occupied the most conspicuous station in Europe disgraced
their name by more notorious profligacy than could be paralleled in the
darkest age that had preceded; and at the moment beyond which this work is not
carried, the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII., I must leave the pontifical
throne in the possession of Alexander VI.

     It has been my object in the present chapter to bring within the compass
of a few hours' perusal the substance of a great and interesting branch of
history; not certainly with such extensive reach of learning as the subject
might require, but from sources of unquestioned credibility. Unconscious of
any partialities that could give an oblique bias to my mind, I have not been
very solicitous to avoid offence where offence is so easily taken.  Yet there
is one misinterpretation of my meaning which I would gladly obviate.  I have
not designed, in exhibiting without disguise the usurpations of Rome during
the middle ages, to furnish materials for unjust prejudice or unfounded
distrust.  It is an advantageous circumstance for the philosophical inquirer
into the history of ecclesiastical dominion, that, as it spreads itself over
the vast extent of fifteen centuries, the dependence of events upon general
causes, rather than on transitory combinations or the character of
individuals, is made more evident, and the future more probably foretold from
a consideration of the past, than we are apt to find in political history.
Five centuries have now elapsed, during every one of which the authority of
the Roman see has successively declined.  Slowly and silently receding from
their claims to temporal power, the pontiffs hardly protect their dilapidated
citadel from the revolutionary concussions of modern times, the rapacity of
governments, and the growing averseness to ecclesiastical influence.  But if,
thus bearded by unmannerly and threatening innovation, they should
occasionally forget that cautious policy which necessity has prescribed, if
they should attempt (an unavailing expedient!) to revive institutions which
can be no longer operative, or principles that have died away, their defensive
efforts will not be unnatural, nor ought to excite either indignation or
alarm.  A calm, comprehensive study of ecclesiastical history, not in such
scraps and fragments as the ordinary partisans of our ephemeral literature
obtrude upon us, is perhaps the best antidote to extravagant apprehensions.
Those who know what Rome has once been are best able to appreciate what she
is; those who have seen the thunderbolt in the hands of the Gregories and the
Innocents will hardly be intimidated at the sallies of decrepitude, the
impotent dart of Priam amidst the crackling ruins of Troy. ^g

[Footnote g: It is again to be remembered that this paragraph was written in
1816.]