The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273Tout, T. F. (Thomas Frederick)
History
The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273
Tout, T. F. (Thomas Frederick)
Europe -- History -- 476-1492; Holy Roman Empire -- History -- 843-1273; Papacy
the imperial sword to free the Papacy from the Tusculan tradition, and
to put down the lazy monk and the feudalist bishop, they saw clearly
that it stood in the way of the full realisation of their dreams.
[Sidenote: The German reforming Popes.]
After the synod of Sutri, a whole series of German Popes was nominated
by the Emperor, and received by the Church with hardly a murmur, though
the young deacon Hildebrand, soon to become the soul of the new
movement, attached himself to the deposed Gregory VI. and accompanied
him on his exile. But to most of the reformers the rude justice of Sutri
seemed a just if irregular solution of an intolerable situation. The
puritan zeal of the German Popes seemed the best result of the alliance
of the Emperor and the reforming party. The first two reigned too short
a time to be able to effect much, leaving it to Leo IX., the third
German Pope, to permanently identify the papal throne with the spirit of
Cluny.
[Sidenote: Leo IX., 1048–1054.]
On the death of Damasus, the Romans called upon Henry III., who was then
at Worms, to give them another Pope. The Emperor chose for this post his
cousin Bruno, the brother of Conrad of Carinthia, the sometime rival of
Conrad the Salic, and the son of the elder Conrad, uncle of the first of
the Salian emperors. Despite his high birth, Bruno had long turned from
politics to the service of the Church, and had become the ardent
disciple of the school of Cluny. As bishop of Toul, he had governed his
diocese with admirable care and prudence, and his great influence had
enabled him to confer many weighty services, both on Henry and his
father in Lorraine. When offered the Papacy by his kinsman, Bruno
accepted the post only on the condition that he should be canonically
elected by the clergy and people of Rome. Early in 1049 he travelled
over the Alps in the humble guise of a pilgrim. He visited Cluny on his
way to receive spiritual encouragement from his old teachers for the
great task that lay before him. He there added to his scanty following
the young monk Hildebrand, whose return to the city in the new Pope’s
train proclaimed that strict hierarchical ideas would now have the
ascendency at the Curia. Joyfully accepted by the Romans, Bruno assumed
the title of Leo IX. For the short five years of his pontificate, he
threw himself with all his heart into a policy of reformation. In an
Easter Synod in Rome (1049), stern decrees were fulminated against
simony and clerical marriage. But the times were not yet ripe for
radical cure, and Leo was compelled to depart somewhat from his original
severity. He soon saw that the cause he had at heart would not be best
furthered by his remaining at Rome, and the special characteristic of
his pontificate was his constant journeying through all Italy, France,
and Germany. During these travels Leo was indefatigable in holding
synods, attending ecclesiastical ceremonies, the consecration of
churches, the translation of the relics of martyrs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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