Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History; Mysticism; Patarines
Landulf the younger, the biographer of Ariald, says that Pope
Stephen X. reversed the sentence of the synod; but this account
does not agree with what is related by Arnulf. Landulf the elder
confounds the dates, and places the synod in the reign of Alexander
II., and says that the Pope adopted a middle course, and sent
ambassadors to Milan to investigate the matter. Bonizo of Sutri says
the same. All agree that Hildebrand was one of these commissioners.
Hildebrand was therefore able to judge on the spot of the results
of an appeal to the passions of the people. It is the severest
condemnation to his conduct in 1073, to know for certain that he had
seen the working of the power he afterwards called out. He then saw
how great was that power; he must have been cruelly, recklessly,
wickedly indifferent to the crimes which accompanied its invocation.
Landulf the elder says that the second commissary was Anselm of
Lucca, whilst Bonizo speaks indifferently of the "bishops _a
latere_" as constituting the deputation. Guido was not in Milan when
it arrived, he did not dare to venture his person in the midst of
the people. The ambassadors were received with the utmost respect;
they took on themselves to brand the Archbishop as a simoniac and a
schismatic, and, according to Landulf, to do many other things which
they were not authorised by the Pope to do; so that the dissension,
so far from being allayed by their visit, only waxed more furious.
At the end of the year 1058, or the beginning of 1059, the Pope
sent Peter Damiani, the harsh Bishop of Ostia, and Anselm, Bishop
of Lucca, on a new embassy to Milan.[21] They were received with
respect by the Archbishop and clergy; but the pride of the Milanese
of all ranks was wounded by seeing the Bishop of Ostia enthroned in
the middle, with Anselm of Lucca, the suffragan of Milan, upon his
right, and their Archbishop degraded to the left of the Legate, and
seated on a stool at his feet. Milan assembled at the ringing of the
bells in all the churches, and the summons of an enormous brazen
trumpet which shrieked through the streets. The fickle people asked
if the Church of St. Ambrose was to be trodden under the foot of the
Roman Pontiff. "I was threatened with death," wrote Peter Damiani to
Hildebrand, "and many assured me that there were persons panting for
my blood. It is not necessary for me to repeat all the remarks the
people made on this occasion."
[21] We have a full account of this embassy in a letter of St.
Peter Damiani to the Archdeacon Hildebrand (Petri Dam. _Opp._
iii; _Opusc._ v. p. 37), besides the accounts by Bonizo, Arnulf,
and Landulf the elder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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