The Church and the Empire by D. J. Medley (best story books to read .txt) 📕

Decretals are answers to questions referred to the Bishop of Rome from other churches. The earliest of these was of date 385. Compilations of the Canons of the Church, in which these answers were included, were put out in the sixth and the seventh centuries, the latter under the name of Bishop Isidore of Seville. In the middle of the ninth century appeared a third compilation, also published under the name of Isidore, and containing fifty-nine additional letters and decrees of earlier date than 385. Inasmuch as the Latin edition of the Bible, which St. Jerome did not translate until about the year 400, is quoted in some of these, this compilation has not unnaturally been styled the False or Forged or Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The object of this forgery was the exaltation of the Papacy as “the supreme lord, lawgiver, and judge of the Church,” since all previous claims were brought together and were referred back to the foundation of Christianity. Two centuries later another document of doubtful authenticity, called Dictatus Papae, sets forth in a sufficiently true spirit the principles proclaimed by Gregory VII.

This states, among other things, that the Roman pontiff can alone be called Universal, that his name is unique in the world, that he ought to be judged by none; and it ascribes to him, without the intervention of any intermediary, the supreme and immediate power in all executive, legislative, and judicial matters.

[Sidenote: The Pope: the sole authority in the Church.]

The history of the Church during the two succeeding centuries is merely an exemplification of these claims. It was in the spirit of this document that Innocent II, in the speech with which he opened the Second Lateran Council in 1139, reminded his hearers that Rome was the head of the world, and that the highest ecclesiastical offices were derived from the Roman pontiff as by a kind of feudal right, and could not he lawfully held without his permission. Innocent III, we have seen, describes himself as the Vicar of God or of Jesus Christ. Thus, although the Pope is potentially present everywhere in the Church, he cannot exercise the great power belonging to the office personally, so that he has called in his brethren, the co-bishops, to share in the care of the burden entrusted to himself; but in doing so he has subtracted in no whit from the fulness of power which enables him to enquire into individual cases and to assume the office of judge at will. Others, then, may be admitted to a share in the care of the Church (_pars solicitudinis_); but to the Pope has been given the fulness of power (_plenitudo potestatis_). Thomas Aquinas shows how bishop and archbishop equally derive their authority from the Pope, and finds parallels to the relationship between the Pope and the other officers of the Church in the dependence of all things created upon God and the subordination of the proconsul to the Emperor. This deliberate policy on the part of the Papacy to absorb into itself the whole spiritual authority of the Church may be traced in its attempts to set itself up as supreme administrator, supreme lawgiver, and supreme judge.

Before the Pope could claim to be supreme administrator within the Church it was necessary to deprive all other ecclesiastical officers of their independence. The custom of the gift of the pall to archbishops who exercised the office of Metropolitans had already made these highest officers of all into little more than delegates of the Papacy. Gregory VII failed in his attempt to force them to come in person to Rome in order to receive the pall. He succeeded, however, in imposing upon them an oath which, founded upon the oath of fealty, made their position analogous to that of a feudal vassal. By this a Metropolitan swore to be faithful to St. Peter and the Pope and his successors who should have been canonically elected; that he would be no party to violence against the Pope; that he would attend in person or by representatives at every synod to which the Pope summoned him; that, saving the rights of his Order, he would help to defend the Papacy and all its possessions and honours; that he would not betray any trust reposed in him by the Pope; that he would honourably treat the papal legate; that he would not knowingly communicate with excommunicates; that when asked he would faithfully help the Roman Church with a force of soldiers. To this was often added an undertaking that he would appear at Rome himself or by a representative at stated intervals; that he would cause his suffragans at their consecration to take an oath of obedience to the Roman pontiff; that he would not part with anything belonging to his official position without the knowledge of the Roman See.

[Sidenote: Claim over bishoprics.]

Gregory’s successors imposed this oath by degrees on all bishops, and thus gradually substituted the Pope for the Metropolitan. The Dictatus Papae claimed for the Pope the right of deposing or reinstating bishops without reference to a synod; of transferring a bishop from one see to another; of dividing a wealthy see or joining together poor bishoprics. It was the papal policy to champion the suffragans against the Metropolitans until the original metropolitical power of confirming the elections of their newly elected suffragans and consecrating them to the episcopal office was entirely superseded by the growing authority of the Pope. The right of confirmation implied the power of quashing an election, and this could easily grow into a power of direct appointment. This last power was only exercised habitually in certain cases—after a vacancy had lasted for a certain time; if the bishop had died at Rome; if the bishop had been transferred from one see to another. From the end of the eleventh century cases are found of bishops designated to be such, not only, according to the ancient formula, “by the grace of God,” but also by that “of the Apostolic See,” and such description becomes fairly common in the thirteenth century.

[Sidenote: Claim over benefices.]

And as the Popes passed over Metropolitans in order to obtain a direct hold on the suffragans, so they went on in course of time to pass over the bishop in every diocese by claiming the disposition of individual benefices. Such a claim began in the first half of the twelfth century in letters of recommendation and petitions for the appointment of papal favourites to prebends or benefices. But so quickly did this system develop that where Hadrian IV recommended Alexander III commanded, and the mandates of Innocent III were enforced by specially appointed officers. Clement IV lays it down that ancient custom has specially reserved to the Roman pontiff the collation of churches and offices which become vacant through the death of the holder at Rome, but that this is only part of the greater right which is known to belong to Rome and gives to the Pontiff the full disposal (_plenaria dispositio_) of all offices and benefices both at the time of vacancy and by provision beforehand. But so flagrant was the abuse of this power of appointment that it roused the indignant remonstrance of the most ardent supporters of the papal authority in the Church.

England under Henry III was so much exploited by its papal guardian as to gain the name of the “Milch-cow of the Papacy”; but there were many protests.

Robert Grossteste, Bishop of Lincoln, the most revered English Churchman of the thirteenth century, was bidden by Innocent IV to find a canonry in his cathedral for a nominee of the Pope, who, moreover, was still a child. He answered in a rebuke of such severity and dignity as can have rarely been addressed to Rome by one devoted to its service. “Next to the sin of Lucifer,” he tells the Pope, “there is not, there cannot be, any kind of sin so adverse and contrary to the evangelical doctrine of the Apostles as the destruction of souls by defrauding them of the duty and service of a pastor.” He adds that the most holy Apostolic See cannot command anything that tends to a sin of such a kind except by some defect or abuse of its plenary power: that no faithful servant of the Papacy would comply with a command of that kind “even if it issued from the highest order of angels”; and he therefore, filialiter et obedienter, flatly refuses to obey. Scarcely less severe were the strictures of Louis IX’s ambassadors, who laid the grievances of the French bishops and barons before the same Pope. They tell Innocent IV that the devotion which the French people have hitherto felt towards the Roman Church is now not only extinguished, but is turned into vehement hate and rancour, and that the claim for subsidies and tribute for every necessity of Rome—a claim which was enforced by the threat of excommunication—was unheard of in previous ages.

[Sidenote: The Pope as supreme legislator.]

The Pope also gradually established his authority as supreme and sole lawgiver within the Church. The Dictatus Papae asserts that for him alone it is lawful to frame new laws to meet the needs of the time. Meanwhile the Forged Decretals had found their place in the various collections of the Canons made in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. In the middle of the twelfth century Gratian, a Benedictine monk of Bologna, put out his Concordantia discordantium Canonum, commonly known as the Decretum Gratiani, which combined a theoretical disquisition with illustrations drawn from the documents which had appeared in previous collections. This became the standard mediaeval treatise in ecclesiastical law, and its appearance much encouraged the systematic study of the Canon law. The Popes of the succeeding century and a half made great additions to the law of the Church, partly through the decrees issued by the General Lateran Councils, partly by their own edicts. Such new matter was embodied from time to time. Thus in 1234 the Dominican Raymund de Pennaforte gathered five books of Decretals at the command of Gregory IX; Boniface VIII was responsible for a sixth book in 1298, while other additions were made by Clement V (1308) and John XXII (1317). All these, together with the earlier compilations and some later additions, formed the Corpus Juris Canonici. This enormous body of law was full of contradictions and not devoid of falsification and forgery. The growing study of it caused the foundation of Chairs at the universities, and the Popes found it a most convenient method to publish their new decrees through the lecture-rooms. The old Canon Law was entirely superseded by the later Papal Law.

[Sidenote: Power over Councils.]

The Popes made no pretence of hiding their claims to the legislative power. Urban II strongly affirms that it has always been in the power of the Roman Pontiff to frame new laws; and two centuries later Boniface VIII embodies in his addition to the Canon Law the words of an earlier writer, that the Roman Pontiff is considered to hold all laws in the repository of his breast. There was no room in such a theory for any effective cooperation of ecclesiastical Councils, however representative. The Dictatus Papae declares that no General Council can be held without the papal command. Pascal II points out that no Council can dictate the law of the Church, because every Council comes into existence and receives its power by authority of Rome, and in its statutes the authority of the Pope is clearly not interfered with. But the Popes often found it convenient to obtain the sanction of a General Council for their legislation,