XI. PART IL late does not seem to have had a complete notion CENT. of this important matter, since he omits in his history certain points that are necessary to the understanding it thoroughly. The investiture of bishops and abbots commenced, undoubtedly, at that period of time, when the European emperors, kings, and princes made grants to the clergy of certain territories, lands, forests, castles, &c. According to the laws of those times (laws which still remain in force) and none are considered as lawful possessors of the lands or tenements which they derived from the emperors or other princes, before they repaired to court, took the oath of allegiance to their respective sovereigns, as the supreme proprietors, and received from their hands a solemn mark, by which the property of their respective grants were transferred to them. Such was the manner in which the nobility, and those who had distinguished themselves by military exploits, I were confirmed in the possessions which they owed to the liberality of their sovereigns. But the custom of investing the bishops and abbots with the ring and the crosier, which are the ensigns of the sacred function, is of a much more recent date, and was then first introduced, when the European emperors and princes, annulling the elections that were made in the church according to the ecclesiastical laws that had been from the earliest times established for that purpose, assumed to themselves the power of conferring on whom they pleased, the bishoprics and abbeys that became vacant in their dominions, nay, even of selling them to the highest bidder. This power, then, being once usurped by the kings and princes of Europe, they at first confirmed the bishops and abbots in their dignities and possessions, with the same forms and ceremonies that were used in investing the counts, knights, and others, in their feudal tenures, even by written contracts, and PART II. CENT. and the ceremony of presenting them with a XI. wand or bough [2]. And this custom of investing the clergy and the laity with the same ceremonies would have, undoubtedly, continued, had not the clergy, to whom the right of electing bishops and abbots originally belonged, eluded artfully the usurpation of the emperors and other princes by the following stratagem. When a bishop or abbot died, they who looked upon themselves as authorised to fill up the vacancy, elected immediately some one of their order in the place of the deceased, and were careful to have him consecrated without delay. The consecration being thus performed, the prince, who had proposed to himself the profit of selling the vacant benefice, or the pleasure of conferring it upon some of his favourites, was obliged to desist from his purpose, and to consent to the election, which the ceremony of consecration rendered irrevocable. Many examples of the success of this stratagem, which was practised both in chapters and monasteries, and which disappointed the liberality or avarice of several princes, might here be alleged; they abound in the records of the tenth century, to which we refer the curious reader. No sooner did the emperors and princes perceive this artful management, than they turned their attention to the properest means of rendering [2] This appears from a passage in Cardinal Humbert's third book, Adversus Simoniacos, which was composed before Gregory had set on foot the dispute concerning Investitures, and which is published in Martene's Thesaur. Anecd. tom. v. p. 787. The passage is as follows: "Potestas secularis primo ambitiosis ecclesiasticarum dignitatum vel possessionum cupidis favebat prece, dein minis, deinceps verbis concessivis: in quibus omnibus cernens sibi contradictorem neminem, nec qui moveret pennam, vel aperiret os et ganniret, ad majora progreditur, et jam sub nomine Investitura dare primo tabellas vel qualescumque porrigere virgulas, dein baculos.-Quod maximum nefas sic inolevit, ut id solum canonicum credatur, nec quæ sit ecclesiastica regula sciatur aut attendatur.” XI. PART II. rendering it ineffectual, and of preserving the CENT. 12 valuable privilege they had usurped. For this purpose they ordered, that as soon as a bishop expired, his ring and crosier should be transmitted to the prince, to whose jurisdiction his diocese was subject. For it was by the solemn delivery of the ring and crosier of the deceased to the new bishop that his election was irrevocably confirmed, and this ceremony was an essential part of his consecration; so that, when these two badges of the episcopal dignity were in the hands of the sovereign, the clergy could not consecrate the person whom their suffrages had appointed to fill the vacancy. Thus their stratagem was defeated, as every election that was not confirmed by the ceremony of consecration might be lawfully annulled and rejected; nor was the bishop qualified to exercise any of the episcopal functions before the performance of that important ceremony. As soon, therefore, as the bishop drew his last breath, the magistrate of the city in which he had resided, or the governor of the province, seized upon his ring and crosier, and sent them to court [a]. The emperor or prince conferred the vacant see upon the person whom he had chosen by delivering to him these two badges of the episcopal office, after which the new bishop, thus invested by his sovereign, repaired to his metropolitan, [a] We see this fact confirmed in the following passage in Ebbo's Life of Otho, bishop of Bamberg, lib. i. sect. 8, 9. in Actis Sanctor. mensis Julii, tom. i. p. 426. "Nec multo post annulus cum virgâ pastorali Bremensis episcopi ad aulum regiam translata est. Eo siquidem tempore ecclesia liberam electionem non habebant... sed cum quilibet antistes viam universæ carnis ingressus fuisset, mox capitanei civitatis illius annulum et virgam pastoralem ad Palatium transmittebant, sicque regia auctoritate, communicato cum aulicis consilio, orbatæ plebi idoneum constituebat præsulum... Post paucos vero dies rursum annulus et virga pastoralis Bambenbergensis episcopi Domino imperatori transmissa est. Quo audito, multi nobilesad aulam regiam confluebant, qui alteram haram prece vel pretio sibi comparare tentabant.” XI. CENT. tropolitan, to whom it belonged to perform the ceremony of consecration, and delivered to him PART II. the ring and crosier which he had received from his prince, that he might receive it again from his hands, and be thus doubly confirmed in his sacred function. It appears, therefore, from this account, that each new bishop and abbot received twice the ring and the crosier; once from the hands of the sovereign, and once from those of the metropolitan bishop, by whom they were consecrated [b]. It is highly uncertain by what prince this custom of creating the bishops by the ceremonies of the ring and crosier was first introduced. If we may believe Adam of Bremen [c], this privilege was exercised by Lewis the Meek, who, in the ninth century, granted to the new bishops the use and possession of the episcopal revenues, and confirmed this grant by the ceremony now under consideration. But the accuracy of this historian is liable to suspicion; and it is extremely probable, that he attributed to the transactions of ancient times the same form that accompanied similar transactions in the eleventh century in which he lived. For it is certain, that in the ninth century the greatest part of the European princes [6] This appears from a variety of ancient records. See particularly Humbert, lib. iii. contra Simoniacos, cap. vi. in Martene's Thesaur. Anecdot. tom. v. p. 779, in which we find the following passage: "Sic encœniatus (i. e. the bishops invested by the emperor) violentus invadit clerum, plebem et ordinem prius dominaturus, quam ab eis cognoscatur, quæratur, petatur. Sic metropolitanum aggreditur, non ab eo judicandus, sed ipsum judicaturus.-Quid enim sibi jam pertinet aut *prodest baculum et annulum, quos portat reddere? Numquid quia laica persona dati sunt? Cur redditur quod habetur, nisi ut aut denuo res ecclesiastica sub hac specie jussionis vel donationis vendatur, aut certe ut presumptio laicæ ordinationis pallietur colore et velamento quodam disciplinæ clericalis.” [c] In his Historia Ecclesiastica, lib. i. cap. xxxii. p. 10. xxxix. p. 12. published in the Scriptores Septentrionales of Lindenbrogius. XI. PART II. princes made no opposition to the right of electing CENT. the bishops, which was both claimed and exercised by the clergy and the people, and of coni sequence, there was then no occasion for the ini vestiture mentioned by Adam of Bremen [d]. We therefore choose to adopt the supposition of Cardinal Humbert, [e], who places the commencement of the custom now under consideration in the reign of Otho the Great; for though this opinion has not the approbation of Lewis Thomassin and Natalis Alexander, yet these learned men, in their deep researches into the origin of investitures [f], have advanced nothing sufficient to prove it erroneous. We learn also from Humbert [g], that the emperor Henry III. the son of Conrad II. was desirous of abrogating these investitures, though a variety of circumstances concurred to prevent the execution of his design; but he represents Henry I. king of France in a different point of light, as a turbulent prince, who turned all things into confusion, and indulged himself beyond all measure in simoniacal practices, and loads him, of consequence, with the bitterest invectives. In this method of creating bishops and abbots, by presenting to them the ring and crosier, there were two things that gave particular offence to the Roman pontiffs. The first was, that by this the ancient right of election was totally changed, and the power of choosing the rulers of the church was usurped by the emperors and other sovereign princes, and was confined to them alone. This Ll indeed VOL. II. [d] Add to this the refutation of Adam of Bremen, by Daniel Papebroch, in the Acta Sanctorum, tom. i. Febr. p. 557. [e] Humbert, lib. iii. contra Simoniacos, cap. vii. p. 780. & cap. xi. p. 787. [f] See Ludov. Thomassini Disciplina Eccles. circa Benef. tom. ii. lib. ii. p. 434. and Natal. Alexander, Select. Histor. Eccl. Capit. Sac. xi, xii. Diss. iv. p. 725. [g] L. c. cap. vii. p. 780. |