Medieval Europe 395-1270 AD by Gabriel Monod

Author:Gabriel Monod
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jovian Press

EMPEROR AND POPE – CHURCH REFORM – GREGORY VII.

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1. NECESSITY OF CHURCH REFORM. Simony and the Marriage of Priests. – There was immediate and urgent necessity for reform in the Church during the middle of the eleventh century. It was corrupted by two evils: simony or traffic in holy things;† and the marriage of priests. Although marriage had been condemned repeatedly, not only that of bishops and priests, but also of deacons, there was not a single Catholic state in which this rule was rigidly observed. The evil was more extended in Lombardy than elsewhere. Priests lived there publicly with their wives, transmitted benefices to their children, and provided dowries for their daughters out of the property of the Church. These lucrative marriages were sought by lay nobles, since they united in a double bond of family and political interest the high clergy and nobility. Simony was widespread, especially in France, where the clergy, less involved in services of the state, was also less closely watched. Protests against these loose habits were not lacking. Among the most eloquent men of those who inveighed against this evil was Peter Damiani of Ravenna, cardinal-bishop of Ostia. He wrote and dedicated to Pope Leo IX. a virulent treatise called: “The Book of Gomorrah.” He exhorted the Church to take action against herself. “The reform must come from Rome,” he said. Yet reform did not come from Rome at first; it began in Cluny.

2. Cluny. Its Ideas of Reform. – The abbey of Cluny, in French Burgundy, was founded in 910; it adopted in all its early severity the Benedictine rule, which had been revived for the third time. It was dominated by a novel spirit of discipline and hierarchical order; the monasteries which it started and those which adopted its rule were closely united under, and blindly followed, the supreme authority of the abbot. Soon the “black monks,” as they were called, because of their costume, reached the point at which they wished to introduce a similar hierarchy in the secular clergy; all churches were to be subject to the bishop of Rome, as all Cluniac abbeys recognised the supremacy of the abbot of Cluny. The False Decretals proved valuable documents to them in carrying out their designs. Our monks’ conception of the world even was peculiar. They considered it the outcome of two principles: one superior, which was the ecclesiastical power; the other inferior, represented by the secular power. The latter came from Nimrod, the former from Christ. The Church, therefore, daughter of the spirit of light, should guide and control the world. The greatest Pope of the Middle Ages, Gregory VII., was inspired by these doctrines.

3. Hildebrand. His Youth. – His name was Hildebrand. He was born about the year 1020 in the territory of the small Tuscan town of Soana, now depopulated by marsh fevers. His father was neither a poor shepherd, as has been said, nor a carpenter at Rome; he was a peasant of free condition, who lived at Soana on his own property.

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