ELECTED POPE. MANNER OF HIS ELECTION.

115

cusations which his opponents, even in published writings, had the boldness to bring against hiìn.* Still, some occasion was given for these accusations by the mode in which Gregory's election was conducted.

The death of pope Alexander was not followed by the disturbances so common on such occasions among the Roman people, who were accustomed to manifest very soon their predilection for this or that cardinal whom they chose to have pope. The college of cardinals, therefore, supposed they had no interruption to fear in their preparatory proceedings to the choice of a new pope, and they ordered that, before they met to make arrangements for the new election, prayers for illumination and guidance should be addressed to the Almighty in connection with processions and fasting during three days.f Yet at the burial of Alexander, the people loudly demanded that Hildebrand should be made pope. Although the legal form, therefore, was afterwards observed, and a protocol adopted, certifying to Hildebrand's election, yet it is manifest that the choice had already been made. Gregory declares, in

says of him: Decedentibus patribus sæpe electum et accitum, semper quidem anımi, aliquando etiam corporis fuga dignitatis locum declinasse; at length he recognised in the universal voice the will of God, Others, Gregory's ferocious enemies, say many things hardly consistent with one another, and even self-contradictory, respecting the manner in which he attained to the papal throne. The truth perhaps is contained in their single remark, "quando voluit;" but this circumstance is easily to be accounted for by his previous activity, and makes all the other explanations of his papal election superfluous.

*Cardinal Benno, in his invective against Gregory, says, that when pope Alexander, sub miserabili jugo Hildebrandi, died one evening, Hildebrand was placed by his partisans at once, and without the concurrence of the clergy and the community, upon the papal throne, because it was feared that, if there were any delay, some other person would be elected; not one of the cardinals subscribed to it. (All which, however, is refuted by the published protocol certifying his election.) To the abbot of Monte Cassino, who arrived after the election was over, Gregory is said to have remarked: "Frater, nimium tardasti," to which the abbot replied: "Et tu, Hildebrande, nimium festinasti, qui nondum sepulto domino tuo papa, sedem apostolicam contra canones usurpasti."

† As Gregory himself declares, in the letters in which he made known his election.

He himself says: "Subito ortus est magnus tumultus populi et fremitus, et in me quasi vesani insurrexerunt, nil dicendi, nil consulendi facultatis aut spatii relinquentes."

116

GREGORY'S COMPLAINT.

the letters issued soon after his election, and later, that he had been elevated to the papal dignity against his will, and not without strenuous opposition on his part. Still, the sincerity of such professions is always more or less liable to suspicion. Even though it was Gregory's determination, after he had thus far ruled by means of others, now to take the government of the church into his own hands, yet we may at all events believe that he must have foreseen the difficult contests into which he would be thrown; and that, undertaking to exercise such a trust, would turn out to him no idle affair; and amid the multiplied troubles and vexations of his later reign, he might well sigh after the tranquil seclusion of the monastic life. In a letter to duke Gottfried, who had congratulated him on his election,* he complains of the secret cares and anxieties which oppressed him. "Nearly the whole world is lying in such wickedness, that all, and the bishops in particular, seem emulous to destroy rather than to defend or to adorn the church. Striving only after gain and honour, they stand opposed to everything which serves to promote religion and the cause of God." In the second year of his reign, he presented a picture of his troubles and conflicts, in a letter, to his intimate friend, the abbot Hugo of Cluny.† "Often have I prayed God, either to release me from the present life, or through me to benefit our common mother; yet he has not delivered me from my great sufferings; nor has my life, as I wished, profited the mother with whom he has connected me.' He then describes the lamentable condition of the church: "The Oriental church fallen from the faith, and attacked from without, by the infidels. Casting your eye over the West, South, or North, you find scarcely anywhere bishops who have obtained their office regularly, or whose life and conversation correspond to its requirements, and who are actuated in the discharge of their duties by the love of Christ and not by worldly ambition; ‡ nowhere, princes who prefer God's honour to their own, and justice before gain." "The men among whom he lived," he said, "Romans, Longobards, Normans, were, as he often told them, worse than Jews and pagans."

*Ep. 9. + Lib. II. ep. 49. Vix legales episcopos introitu et vita, qui Christianum populum Christi amore et non seculari ambitione, regant.

HIS PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

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"And when I look at myself," he adds, "I find myself oppressed by such a burden of sin, that no other hope of salvation is left me but in the mercy of Christ alone." And, indeed it is a true picture which Gregory here draws of his times.

Before we follow out the acts of Gregory in detail, let us cast a glance at the principles of his conduct generally, as they are exhibited to us in his letters. Those persons assuredly mistake him, who are willing to recognize nothing else, as his governing principle, than prudence. Though it is, indeed, true, that prudence formed one of his most distinguishing characteristics; yet, believing as he did, that he acted in virtue of a trust committed to him by God, it was a higher. confidence which sustained and kept him erect through all his conflicts. It was in perfect consistency with those views which he had derived from the Scriptures of the Old Testament, respecting the theocracy, that he should so readily allow himself to be guided by supernatural signs, and judgments of God. He placed great reliance on his intimate connections with St. Peter and the Virgin Mary.* Anong his confidential agents he had a monk, who boasted of a peculiar intimacy with the Virgin Mary; and to this person he applied, in all doubtful cases, bidding him seek, with prayer and fasting, for some special revelation, by vision, respecting the matter in question.† To his friend the Margravine Mathilda, who honoured and loved him as a spiritual father, he earnestly re

By this pope, a special office of devotion, addressed to the Virgin Mary, was introduced into the monasteries. See the above-mentioned work of Geroch, on the Psalms, 1. c. fol. 794: "Et in cœnobiis canticum novum celebratur, cum a tempore Gregorii septi cursus Beatæ Mariæ frequentatur." Also, in the above-cited letter of Dieteric of Verdun, mention is made of divine visions which were attributed to Gregory; and it is said of him, "Juxta quod boni et fide digni homines attestantur, eum non parvam in oculis Dei familiaritatis gratiam assecutum esse.'

A writer of this time, the abbot Haymo, relates in his life of William, abbot of Hirschau, that Gregory, being uncertain which of two candidates proposed to him should be selected for a bishopric, directed a monk to pray that it might be revealed to him, by the mediation of the Virgin Mary, which would be the best choice. See his life, s. 22, in Mabillon's Acta Sanct. O. B. T. VI. p. ii. f. 732. As this anecdote wholly agrees with what we have already quoted, from the mouth of Berengar, we are the less warranted to entertain any doubt respecting this characteristic trait in the life of Gregory.

118

GREGORY'S VIEWS OF PRIESTLY AND ROYAL POWER.

commended,* as a means of defence against the princes of the world, that she should frequently partake of the Holy supper, and commit herself to the special protection of the Virgin Mary. The peculiar bent of his own devotion, here expresses itself: "I, myself," he writes, "have expressly commended thee to her, and will not cease commending thee to her till we shall behold her, as we long to do-she, whom heaven and earth cease not to praise, though they cannot do it as she deserves. But of this be firmly persuaded, that as she is exalted, good, and holy above every mother, so too, and in the same proportion, is she more gracious and gentle towards converted sinful men and women. Put away, then, the disposition to sin, pour out thy tears before her, prostrating thyself before her with an humble and contrite heart; and I promise it with certainty, thou shalt find, by experience, how much more full of love and kindness she will be to thee than thine own mother according to the flesh."†

Gregory decidedly avows the principle, that God had conferred on Peter and his successors, not only the guidance of the whole church in respect to spiritual affairs, but also a moral superintendence over all nations. To the spiritual, he maintains, everything else should be subordinated. All worldly interests are vastly inferior to the spiritual. How, then, should not the juridical authority of the pope extend over them?‡ We find Gregory entertaining an idea, which is expressed also in other writings of this party, according to which, the priestly

*Lib. I. ep. 47.

+ Cui te principaliter commisi et committo et nunquam committere, quousque illam videamus, ut cupimus, omittam, quid tibi dicam, quam cœlum et terra laudare, licet ut meretur nequeant, non cessant? Hoc tamen procul dubio teneas, quia quanto altior et melior ac sanctior est omni matre, tanto clementior et dulcior circa conversos peccatores et peccatrices. Pone itaque finem in voluntate peccandi et prostrata coram illa ex corde contrito et humiliato lacrimas effunde. Invenies illam, indubitanter promitto, promptiorem carnali matre ac mitiorem in tui dilectione.

Lib. I. ep. 63. Petrus apostolus, quem Dominus Jesus Christus rex gloriæ principem super regua mundi constituit. Lib. VII. ep. 6, concerning Peter Cui omnes principatus et potestates orbis terrarum subjiciens (Deus) jus ligandi atque solvendi in cœlo et in terra tradidit. In a letter to king William of England, in which the pope certainly was inclined to lower rather than to elevate his tone: Ut cura et dispensatione apostolicæ dignitatis post Deum gubernetur regia.

GREGORY'S VIEWS OF PRIESTLY AND ROYAL POWER. 119

authority would appear to be the only one truly ordained of God, the authority by which everything was finally to be brought back into the right train; for the authority of princes grew originally out of sinful self-will, the primitive equality of mankind having been broken up by the violence of those who, by rapine, murder, and every other species of atrocity, elevated themselves above their equals ;*-a view which might be confirmed, in the minds of some, on contemplating the then rude condition of civil society. Yet, in other places, when not pushed by opposition to this extreme, he recognizes the kingly authority as also ordained of God; only maintaining, that it should confine itself within its own proper limits, remaining subordinate to the papal power, which is sovereign over all. He says that the two authorities stand related to each other as sun and moon, and compares them with the two eyes of the body.†

We see by single examples how welcome it would have been to the pope if all monarchs had been disposed to receive their kingdoms as feofs of the apostle Peter. Thus he would have converted the sovereignty of Peter into an altogether secular empire; and he looked upon it as an insult to that sovereignty that a king of Hungary, who ought to have regarded himself as a king dependent on St. Peter, should place himself in a relation of dependence on the German empire. He considered it deserving of reproach, that he should be willing to undergo the shame of making himself a dependent

*In the famous letter to bishop Hermann of Mentz, 1. VIII. ep. 21: Quis nesciat reges et duces ab iis habuisse principium, qui Deum ignorantes, superbia, rapinis, perfidia, homicidiis, postremo universis pæne sceleribus, mundi principe diabolo videlicet agitante, super pares, scilicet homines, dominari cæca cupiditate et intolerabili præsumtione affectaverunt?

† Lib. I. ep. 19. Nam sicut duobus oculis humanum corpus temporali lumine regitur, ita his duabus dignitatibus in pura religione concordantibus corpus ecclesiæ spirituali lumine regi et illuminari probatur. Lib. VII. ep. 25 to king William of England: Sicut ad mundi pulchritudinem oculis carneis diversis temporibus repræsentandam solem et lunam omnibus aliis eminentiora disposuit luminaria, sic ne creatura, quam sui benignitas ad imaginem suam in hoc mundo creaverat, in errorem et mortifera traheretur pericula, providit in apostolica et regia dignitate, per diversa regeretur officia. Qua tamen majoritatis et minoritatis distantia religio sic se movet Christiana, ut cura et dispensatione apostolicæ dignitatis post Deum gubernetur regia.