The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History
History
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History
History, Modern
The twelfth century was the age of the Crusades, of Anselm and Abelard,
of Bernard of Clairvaux, and Arnold of Brescia. It saw the settlement of
the question of investitures, and in England the struggle between Henry
II. and Becket, in which the murder of the archbishop gave him the
victory. It saw a new enthusiasm of monasticism, not originated by, but
centring in, the person of Bernard, a more conspicuous and a more
authoritative figure than any pope of the time. To him was due the
suppression of the intellectual movement from within against the
authority of the Church, connected with Abelard's name.
Arnold of Brescia's movement was orthodox, but, would have transformed
the Church from a monarchial into a republican organisation, and
demanded that the clergy should devote themselves to apostolical and
pastoral functions with corresponding habits of life. He was a
forerunner of the school of reformers which culminated in Zwingli.
In the middle of the century the one English pope, Hadrian IV., was a
courageous and capable occupant of the papal throne, and upheld its
dignity against Frederick Barbarossa; though he could not maintain the
claim that the empire was held as a fief of the papacy. But the strife
between the spiritual and temporal powers issued on his death in a
double election, and an imperial anti-pope divided the allegiance of
Christendom with Alexander III. It was not till after Frederick had been
well beaten by the Lombard League at Legnano that emperor and pope were
reconciled, and the reconciliation was the pope's victory.
_III.--Triumph and Decline of the Papacy_
Innocent III., mightiest of all popes, was elected in 1198. He made the
papacy what it remained for a hundred years, the greatest power in
Christendom. The future Emperor Frederick II. was a child entrusted to
Innocent's guardianship. The pope began by making himself virtually
sovereign of Italy and Sicily, overthrowing the German baronage therein.
A contest for the imperial throne enabled the pope to assume the right
of arbitration. Germany repudiated his right. Innocent was saved from
the menace of defeat by the assassination of the opposition emperor. But
the successful Otho proved at once a danger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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