The Holy Roman Empire. Viscount James Bryce

on earth of the Deity, it concluded that from him, and not directly from God, must the Empire be held – held feudally, it was said by many – and it thereby thrust down the temporal power, to be the slave instead of the sister of the spiritual122. Nevertheless, the Papacy in her meridian, and under the guidance of her greatest minds, of Hildebrand, of Alexander, of Innocent, not seeking to abolish or absorb the civil government, required only its obedience, and exalted its dignity against all save herself123. It was reserved for Boniface VIII, whose extravagant pretensions betrayed the decay that was already at work within, to show himself to the crowding pilgrims at the jubilee of A.D. 1300, seated on the throne of Constantine, arrayed with sword, and crown, and sceptre, shouting aloud, 'I am Cæsar – I am Emperor124.'

      Proofs from mediæval documents.

      The theory of an Emperor's place and functions thus sketched cannot be definitely assigned to any point of time; for it was growing and changing from the fifth century to the fifteenth. Nor need it surprise us that we do not find in any one author a statement of the grounds whereon it rested, since much of what seems strangest to us was then too obvious to be formally explained. No one, however, who examines mediæval writings can fail to perceive, sometimes from direct words, oftener from allusions or assumptions, that such ideas as these are present to the minds of the authors125. That which it is easiest to prove is the connection of the Empire with religion. From every record, from chronicles and treatises, proclamations, laws, and sermons, passages may be adduced wherein the defence and spread of the faith, and the maintenance of concord among the Christian people, are represented as the function to which the Empire has been set apart. The belief expressed by Lewis II, 'Imperii dignitas non in vocabuli voce sed in gloriosæ pietatis culmine consistit126 ,' appears again in the address of the Archbishop of Mentz to Conrad II127, as Vicar of God; is reiterated by Frederick I[132], when he writes to the prelates of Germany, 'On earth God has placed no more than two powers, and as there is in heaven but one God, so is there here one Pope and one Emperor. Divine providence has specially appointed the Roman Empire to prevent the continuance of schism in the Church128 ;' is echoed by jurists and divines down to the days of Charles V129. It was a doctrine which we shall find the friends and foes of the Holy See equally concerned to insist on, the one to make the transference (translatio) from the Greeks to the Germans appear entirely the Pope's work, and so establish his right of overseeing or cancelling his rival's election, the others by setting the Emperor at the head of the Church to reduce the Pope to the place of chief bishop of his realm130. His headship was dwelt upon chiefly in the two duties already noticed. As the counterpart of the Mussulman Commander of the Faithful, he was leader of the Church militant against her infidel foes, was in this capacity summoned to conduct crusades, and in later times recognized chief of the confederacies against the conquering Ottomans. As representative of the whole Christian people, it belonged to him to convoke General Councils, a right not without importance even when exercised concurrently with the Pope, but far more weighty when the object of the council was to settle a disputed election, or, as at Constance, to depose the reigning pontiff himself.

      The Coronation ceremonies.

      No better illustrations can be desired than those to be found in the office for the imperial coronation at Rome, too long to be transcribed here, but well worthy of an attentive study131. The rites prescribed in it are rights of consecration to a religious office: the Emperor, besides the sword, globe, and sceptre of temporal power, receives a ring as the symbol of his faith, is ordained a subdeacon, assists the Pope in celebrating mass, partakes as a clerical person of the communion in both kinds, is admitted a canon of St. Peter and St. John Lateran. The oath to be taken by an elector begins, 'Ego N. volo regem Romanorum in Cæsarem promovendum, temporale caput populo Christiano eligere.' The Emperor swears to cherish and defend the Holy Roman Church and her bishop: the Pope prays after the reading of the Gospel, 'Deus qui ad prædicandum æterni regni evangelium Imperium Romanum præparasti, prætende famulo tuo Imperatori nostro arma cœlestia.' Among the Emperor's official titles there occur these: 'Head of Christendom,' 'Defender and Advocate of the Christian Church,' 'Temporal Head of the Faithful,' 'Protector of Palestine and of the Catholic Faith132.'

      The rights of the Empire proved from the Bible.

      Very singular are the reasonings used by which the necessity and divine right of the Empire are proved out of the Bible. The mediæval theory of the relation of the civil power to the priestly was profoundly influenced by the account in the Old Testament of the Jewish theocracy, in which the king, though the institution of his office was a derogation from the purity of the older system, appears divinely chosen and commissioned, and stood in a peculiarly intimate relation to the national religion. From the New Testament the authority and eternity of Rome herself was established. Every passage was seized on where submission to the powers that be is enjoined, every instance cited where obedience had actually been rendered to imperial officials, a special emphasis being laid on the sanction which Christ Himself had given to Roman dominion by pacifying the world through Augustus, by being born at the time of the taxing, by paying tribute to Cæsar, by saying to Pilate, 'Thou couldest have no power at all against Me except it were given thee from above.'

      More attractive to the mystical spirit than these direct arguments were those drawn from prophecy, or based on the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Very early in Christian history had the belief formed itself that the Roman Empire – as the fourth beast of Daniel's vision, as the iron legs and feet of Nebuchadnezzar's image – was to be the world's last and universal kingdom. From Origen and Jerome downwards it found unquestioned acceptance133, and that not unnaturally. For no new power had arisen to extinguish the Roman, as the Persian monarchy had been blotted out by Alexander, as the realms of his successors had fallen before the conquering republic herself. Every Northern conqueror, Goth, Lombard, Burgundian, had cherished her memory and preserved her laws; Germany had adopted even the name of the Empire 'dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, and diverse from all that were before it.' To these predictions, and to many others from the Apocalypse, were added those which in the Gospels and Epistles foretold the advent of Antichrist134. He was to succeed the Roman dominion, and the Popes are more than once warned that by weakening the Empire they are hastening the coming of the enemy and the end of the world135. It is not only when groping in the dark labyrinths of prophecy that mediæval authors are quick in detecting emblems, imaginative in explaining them. Men were wont in those days to interpret Scripture in a singular fashion. Not only did it not occur to them to ask what meaning words had to those to whom they were originally addressed; they were quite as careless whether the sense they discovered was one which the language used would naturally and rationally bear to any reader at any time. No analogy was too faint, no allegory too fanciful, to be drawn out of a simple text; and, once propounded, the interpretation acquired in argument all the authority of the text itself. Thus the two swords of which Christ said, 'It is enough,' became the spiritual and temporal powers, and the grant of the spiritual to Peter involves the supremacy of the Papacy136. Thus one writer proves the eternity of Rome from the seventy-second Psalm, 'They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations;' the moon being of course, since Gregory VII, the Roman Empire, as the sun, or greater light, is the Popedom. Another quoting, 'Qui tenet teneat donec auferatur137 ,' with Augustine's explanation thereof138, says, that when 'he who letteth' is removed, tribes and provinces will rise in rebellion, and the Empire to which God has committed the government of the human race will be dissolved. From

122

So Boniface VIII in the bull Unam Sanctam, will have but one head for the Christian people. 'Igitur ecclesiæ unius et unicæ unum corpus, unum caput, non duo capita quasi monstrum.'

123

St. Bernard writes to Conrad III: 'Non veniat anima mea in consilium eorum qui dicunt vel imperio pacem et libertatem ecclesiæ vel ecclesiæ prosperitatem et exaltationem imperii nocituram.' So in the De Consideratione: 'Si utrumque simul habere velis, perdes utrumque,' of the papal claim to temporal and spiritual authority, quoted by Gieseler.

124

'Sedens in solio armatus et cinctus ensem, habensque in capite Constantini diadema, stricto dextra capulo ensis accincti, ait: "Numquid ego summus sum pontifex? nonne ista est cathedra Petri? Nonne possum imperii iura tutari? ego sum Cæsar, ego sum imperator."' – Fr. Pipinus (ap. Murat. S. R. I. ix.) l. iv. c. 47. These words, however, are by this writer ascribed to Boniface, when receiving the envoys of the emperor Albert I, in A.D. 1299. I have not been able to find authority for their use at the jubilee, but give the current story for what it is worth.

It has been suggested that Dante may be alluding to this sword scene in a well-known passage of the Purgatorio (xvi. l. 106): —

'Soleva Roma, che 'l buon mondo feoDuo Soli aver, che l' una e l' altra stradaFacean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo.L' un l' altro ha spento, ed è giunta la spadaCol pastorale: e l' un coll altro insiemePer viva forzu mal convien che vada.'

125

See especially Peter de Andlo (De Imperio Romano); Ralph Colonna (De translatione Imperii Romani); Dante (De Monarchia); Engelbert (De Ortu et Fine Imperii Romani); Marsilius Patavinus (De translatione Imperii Romani); Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (De Ortu et Authoritate Imperii Romani); Zoannetus (De Imperio Romano atque ejus Iurisdictione); and the writers in Schardius's Sylloge, and in Goldast's Collection of Tracts, entitled Monarchia Imperii.

126

Letter of Lewis II to Basil the Macedonian, in Chron. Salernit. in Mur. S. R. I.; also given by Baronius, Ann. Eccl. ad ann. 871.

127

'Ad summum dignitatis pervenisti: Vicarius es Christi.' – Wippo, Vita Chuonradi (ap. Pertz), c. 3.

Letter in Radewic, ap. Murat, S. R. I.

129

In a document issued by the Diet of Speyer (A.D. 1529) the Emperor is called 'Oberst, Vogt, und Haupt der Christenheit.' Hieronymus Balbus, writing about the same time, puts the question whether all Christians are subject to the Emperor in temporal things, as they are to the Pope in spiritual, and answers it by saying, 'Cum ambo ex eodem fonte perfluxerint et eadem semita incedant, de utroque idem puto sentiendum.'

130

'Non magis ad Papam depositio seu remotio pertinet quam ad quoslibet regum prælatos, qui reges suos prout assolent, consecrant et inungunt.' —Letter of Frederick II (lib. i. c. 3).

131

Liber Ceremonialis Romanus, lib. i. sect. 5; with which compare the Coronatio Romana of Henry VII, in Pertz, and Muratori's Dissertation in vol. i. of the Antiquitates Italiæ Medii Ævi.

132

See Goldast, Collection of Imperial Constitutions; and Moser, Römische Kayser.

133

The abbot Engelbert (De Ortu et Fine Imperii Romani) quotes Origen and Jerome to this effect, and proceeds himself to explain, from 2 Thess. ii., how the falling away will precede the coming of Antichrist. There will be a triple 'discessio,' of the kingdoms of the earth from the Roman Empire, of the Church from the Apostolic See, of the faithful from the faith. Of these, the first causes the second; the temporal sword to punish heretics and schismatics being no longer ready to work the will of the rulers of the Church.

134

A full statement of the views that prevailed in the earlier Middle Age regarding Antichrist – as well as of the singular prophecy of the Frankish Emperor who shall appear in the latter days, conquer the world, and then going to Jerusalem shall lay down his crown on the Mount of Olives and deliver over the kingdom to Christ – may be found in the little treatise, Vita Antichristi, which Adso, monk and afterwards abbot of Moutier-en-Der, compiled (cir. 950) for the information of Queen Gerberga, wife of Louis d'Outremer. Antichrist is to be born a Jew of the tribe of Dan (Gen. xlix. 17), 'non de episcopo et monacha, sicut alii delirando dogmatizant, sed de immundissima meretrice et crudelissimo nebulone. Totus in peccato concipietur, in peccato generabitur, in peccato nascetur.' His birthplace is Babylon: he is to be brought up in Bethsaida and Chorazin.

Adso's book may be found printed in Migne, t. ci. p. 1290.

135

S. Thomas explains the prophecy in a remarkable manner, shewing how the decline of the Empire is no argument against its fulfilment. 'Dicendum quod nondum cessavit, sed est commutatum de temporali in spirituale, ut dicit Leo Papa in sermone de Apostolis: et ideo discessio a Romano imperio debet intelligi non solum a temporali sed etiam a spirituali, scilicit a fide Catholica Romanæ Ecclesiæ. Est autem hoc conveniens signum nam Christus venit, quando Romanum imperium omnibus dominabatur: ita e contra signum adventus Antichristi est discessio ab eo.' —Comment. ad 2 Thess. ii.

136

See note z, page 119. The Papal party sometimes insisted that both swords were given to Peter, while the imperialists assigned the temporal sword to John. Thus a gloss to the Sachsenspiegel says, 'Dat eine svert hadde Sinte Peter, dat het nu de paves: dat andere hadde Johannes, dat het nu de keyser.'

137

2 Thess. ii. 7.

138

St. Augustine, however, though he states the view (applying the passage to the Roman Empire) which was generally received in the Middle Ages, is careful not to commit himself positively to it.