PARTII. Gregory VII, XII. The plan that Gregory had formed for raising CENT. XI. the church above all human authority, to a state of perfect supremacy and independence, had many The decrees of kinds of opposition to encounter, but none more insurmountable than that which arose from the two reigning vices of concubinage and simony, that had infected the whole body of the European clergy. The Roman pontiffs, from the time of Stephen IX. had combated with zeal and vehemence these monstrous vices," but without success, as they were these pontiffs claimed the whole substance of Mathilda, all her possess ions without exception, as their undoubted right. But suppose for a moment that the case was otherwise, and that the Roman church bad never made such an universal claim, this would by no means invalidate the opinion I here maintain; since the question under consideration, is not how far the Roman pontiffs may have moderated their pretensions to the territories of Mathilda, but what the true and genuine sense of the words in which her donation is expressed. P Monstrous vices we may justly call them. For though it be true, that in the methods Gregory took to extirpate these vices, he violated not only the laws of religion, but also the dictates of natural equity and justice, and under the mask of a pious zeal, committed the most crying and abominable enormities; yet it is certain on the other hand, that these vices produced the most unhappy effects both in church and state, and that the suppression of them was now become absolutely necessary. There were indeed among the clergy several men of piety and virtue, who lived in the bonds of wedlock, and these Gregory ought to have spared. But there was also a prodigious number of ecclesiastics throughout Europe, not only of priests and canons, but also of monks, who lived in the bonds of a criminal love, kept, under the title of wives, mistresses which they dismissed at pleasure, to enjoy the sweets of a licentious variety, and who not only spent, in the most profuse and scandalous manner, the revenues and treasures of the churches and convents to which they belonged, but even distributed a great part of them among their bastards. As to the vice of simony, its universal extent and its pernicious fruits appear evidently from those records, which the benedictine monks have published in several places of their Gallia Christiana, not to mention a multitude of other ancient papers to the same purpose. One or two examples will be sufficient to give the reader an idea of this matter. We find in the first volume of the admirable work now mentioned, in the Append. Doc62 VOL. II. PART II. CENT. XI. become too inveterate and too universal to be extirpated without the greatest difficulty and the most extraordinary efforts. Accordingly Gregory, in the year 1074, which was the second of his pontificate, exerted himself with much more vigour than his predecessors had done in opposition to the vices already mentioned. For this purpose he assembled a council at Rome, in which all the laws of the former pontiffs against simony were renewed and confirmed, and the buying or selling ecclesiastical benefices prohibited in the strictest and severest manner. It was also decreed in the same council, that ument. p. 5, a public act, by which Bernard a viscount, and Froterius, bishop of Alby, grant, or rather sell openly to Bernard Aimard and his son the bishopric of Alby, reserving to themselves a considerable part of its revenues. This act is followed by another, in which count Pontius bequeaths to his wife the same bishopric of Alby in the following terms. "Ego Pontius dono tibi dilectæ sponsæ meæ episcopatum Albiensem ; cum ipsa ecclesia et cum omnia adjacentia sua; et medietatem de episcopatu Nemauso; et medietatem de abbatia Sti. Ægidii; post obitum tuum remaneat ipsius alodis ad infantes qui de me erunt creati." In the second volume of the same learned work, in the Append. Document. p. 173, there is a letter of the clergy of Limoges, beseeching William, count of Aquitain, not to sell the bishopric, but to give them a pastor, and not a devourer of the flock. "Rogamus tuam pietatem, ne propter mundiale lucrum vendas Sti. Stephani locum, quia si tu vendis episcopalia, ipse nostra manducabit communia. Mitte nobis ovium custodem, non devoratorem." Ademar, viscount of Limoges, laments, tom. ii. p. 179, that "he himself had formerly made traffic of the cure of souls by selling benefices to simoniacal abbots." The barefaced impudence of the sacerdotal orders, in buying and selling benefices, exceeded all measure, and almost all credibility. And they carried matters so far as to justify that abominable traffic, as may be seen in a remarkable passage in the Apologeticum of Abbo, which is added by Pithou, to the Codex Can, Ecclesiæ Romanæ ; this passage, which deserves to be quoted, is as follows; "Nihil pene ad ecclesiam pertinere videtur, quod ad pretium non largiatur, scilicet episcopatus, presbyteratus, diaconatus, et aliqui minores gradus, archidiaconatus quoque, decania, præpositura, thesauri custodia, baptisterium; et hujusmodi negociatores subdola responsione solent astruere, non se emere benedictionem, qua percipitur, gratia spiritus sancti, sed res ecclesiarum vel possessiones episcopi." An acute distinction truly ! PART 11. the sacerdotal orders should abstain from marriage; CENT. XI. and that such of them as had already wives, or concubines, should immediately dismiss them, or quit the priestly office. These decrees were accompanied with circular letters wrote by the pontiff to all the European bishops, enjoining the strictest obedience to the decisions of this solemn council, under the severest penalties. Gregory did not stop here, but sent ambassadors into Germany to Henry IV. king of the Romans, in order to engage that prince to summon a council for the trial and punishment of such ecclesiastics as had been hitherto guilty of simoniacal practices. proceedings of gainst concu age protrouble. моduce much XIII. These decrees, which were in part equitableThe severe and just, and which were, in every respect, con- the pontiff aformable with the notions of religion that prevailed in this age, were looked upon by the people as high-, ly salutary, since they rendered a free election, and not a mercenary purchase, the way to ecclesiastical promotion, and obliged the priests to abstain from marriage, which was absurdly considered as inconsistent with the sanctity of their office. Yet both these decrees were attended with the most deplorable tumults and dissensions, and were fruitful, in their consequences, of innumerable calamities. No sooner was the law concerning the celibacy of the clergy published, than the priests, in the several provinces of Europe, who lived in the bonds of marriage with lawful wives, or of lasciviousness with hired concubines, complained loudly of the All the historians who give any account of this century, mention the tumults excited by such priests as were resolved to continue with their wives or concubines. For an account of the seditions which arose in Germany upon this occasion, see Sigonius De regno Italia, lib. ix. p. 557, tom. ii. as also Tengnagel's Collectio Veter. Monument. p. 45, 47, 54. Those that the priests excited in England are mentioned by M. Paris, in his fistor. Mujor, lib. i. p. 7. The tumults occasioned by the same reason in the Belgic and Gallic provinces, are described in the Epistola Clericorum Cameracensium ad Remenses pro uxoribus suis, PART II. CENT. XI. severity of this council, and excited the most dreadful tumults in the greatest part of the European provinces. Many of these ecclesiastics, especially the Milanese priests, chose rather to abandon their spiritual dignities, than their sensual pleasures, and to quit their benefices that they might cleave to their wives. They went still farther; for they separated themselves entirely from the church of Rome, and branded with the infamous name of paterini, i. e. published in Mabillon's Annal. Benedictin. tom. v. p. 634, and in the Epistola Noviomensium Clericorum ad Cameracenses, published in Mabillon's Museum Italicum, tom. i. p. 128. Great was the flame which the laws of Gregory excited in Italy, and particularly in the province of Milan, of which we have an ample relation given by Arnulph and Landulph, two Milanese historians, whose works are published with annotations, by Muratori, in his Scriptores rerum Italicarum, tom. iv. p. 36. Both these historians maintain, against Gregory and his successors, the cause of the injured priests, and the lawfulness of their marriages. Paterinus is one of the names by which the paulicians or manichæans, who came during this century from Bulgaria into Italy, and were also known by the title of cathari or pure, were distinguished among the Italians. But in process of time the term paterinus became a common name for all kinds of heretics, as we might show by many examples taken from the writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. There are various opinions concerning the origin of this word, the most probable of which is that which supposes it derived from a certain place called Pataria, in which the heretics held their assemblies; and it is well known that a part of the city of Milan is, to this very day, called Pataria, or Contrada de Patarri. See Annotat, ad Arnulphum Mediolanensis in Muratori's Scriptores rerum Italicar, tom. iv. p. 39, see also Saxius ad Sigonium de Regno Italiæ, lib. ix. p. 536, tom. ii. opp. Sigonii. An opinion, of which, if I am not mistaken, Sigonius was the author, prevailed, that the name in question was given to the Milanese priests, who separated from the church of Rome, and retained their wives in opposition to the laws of the pontiffs. But this opinion is without foundation; and it appears evidently from the testimony of Arnulph and other historians, that it was not the married priests, but the faction of the pontiffs, who condemned their conjugal bonds, that were branded with the opprobrious name of paterini. See Arnulph, lib. iii. c. x. Anton. Pagi Crit. in PART II. manichæans, the pontiff and his adherents, who CENT. XI. condemned so unjustly the conduct of such priests as entered into the bonds of a lawful and virtuous wedlock. The proceedings of Gregory appeared to the wiser part, even of those who approved of the celibacy of the clergy, unjust and criminal in two respects; first, in that his severity fell indiscriminately and with equal fury upon the virtuous husband and the licentious rake; that he dissolved, with a merciless hand, the chastest bonds of wedlock, and thus involved husbands and wives, with their tender offspring, in disgrace, perplexity, anguish, and want. The second thing criminal in Ann. Bar. t. iii. ad A. 1057, §iii. Lud. Ant. Muratori Antiq. Ital. medii ævi, tom. v. p. 82, who have demonstrated this in the most ample, learned, and satisfactory manner. Nor need we indeed look any where else for the origin of this word. It is abundantly known that the manichæans, and their brethren the paulicians, were extremely averse to marriage, which they looked upon as an institution invented by the evil principle; they of consequence who considered the marriages of the clergy as lawful, employed the ignominious name of paterini, to show that the pontiffs, who prohibited these marriages, were followers of the odious doctrine of the manichæans. • We must always remember that the priests, to whom their wives or mistresses were much dearer than the laws of the pontiffs, were not all of the same character; nor were such of them as might be justly esteemed criminal, all criminal in the same degree. The better sort of these ecclesiastics, among which we may count the Belgic and Milanese clergy, desired nothing more than to live after the manner of the Greeks, maintaining that it was lawful for a priest, before his consecration, to marry one virgin, though a plurality of wives was justly prohibited; and they grounded this their opinion upon the authority of St. Ambrose. See Jo. Petri Puricelli Dissertatio utrum S. Ambrosius clero suo Mediolam. permiserit, ut virgini semel nubere possent, republished by Muratori, in his Scriptores Italic. tom. iv. p. 123. Gregory and his successors ought to have dealt more gently with this kind of ecclesiastics, as the warmest admirers of the pontiffs acknowledge, than with those priests, who were either the patrons of concubinage, or who pretended to justify their espousing a plurality of wives. It was also unjust to treat, in the same manner, the monks, who, by the nature of their profession and vows, were necessarily excluded from the nuptial state; and the |