THE DREAM OF OTTO III

[1Sidenote: [999-1046 A.D.]]

2The emperor was victorious, and exercised undisputed sway in the city of the cæsars. At this moment a grand scheme rose before his mental vision. Rome was to occupy again her ancient place as the seat of empire. An emperor was to sit on the throne of Constantine who would govern like Constantine, and raise the empire once more to the pinnacle of power. A truly apostolic pope was to be appointed, a second Silvester who would reform the clergy and correct the infamous avarice and vice of the Roman church.

3On the death of Gregory V that scheme seemed about to be realised. The decree issued by Otto III for the election of his tutor Gerbert, who assumed the name of Silvester II, in allusion to the relations of Constantine and Silvester I, declared Rome to be the capital of the world, the Roman church to be the mother of churches; it described how the dignity of the Roman church had been obscured by her neglectful popes, how the property of the church had been squandered on the dregs of mankind, how the prelates had made everything venal, and so despoiled the very altars of the apostles.

4It denounced the donations of Constantine and Charles the Bald as void and forgeries; it assumed the power not only of electing, but, by God’s grace, of creating and ordaining the pope, and it granted eight counties for his support. The millennial period of the Christian era was to see all old abuses swept away, and the new régime established. The new age was to begin with a new Constantine and a new Silvester. The year 1000 was to inaugurate the change. But how vain are the schemes of men! The looked-for year came. It found Otto III indeed at Rome, with a palace built on the Aventine, with a regular administrative system for the government of the capital established. It found his tutor, Silvester II, on the chair of St. Peter to second and direct him.

5Before three years both of them were dead.

6The death of Otto put an end to all attempts at reform. For none but Otto in that lawless age rose above his surroundings, to project a new era of improvement. None but his tutor, Silvester II, could sympathise with his projects. When, comet-like, these two luminaries had darted across the heaven and disappeared, the darkness of night grew thicker than before.[b]

7With the disappearance of these two eminent men the popedom relapsed into its former degradation. The feudal nobility--that very “refuse” which, to use the expression of a contemporary writer, it had been Otto’s mission “to sweep from the capital”--regained their ascendency, and the popes became as completely the instruments of their will as they had once been of that of the Eastern emperor. A leading faction among this nobility was that of the counts of Tusculum, and for nearly half a century the popedom was a mere appanage in their family. As if to mark their contempt for the office, they carried the election of Theophylact, the son of Count Alberic, a lad scarcely twelve years of age, to the office.

8Benedict IX (1033-1045), such was the title given him, soon threw off even the external decencies of his office, and his pontificate was disgraced by every conceivable excess. As he grew to manhood his rule, in conjunction with that of his brother, who was appointed the patrician or prefect of the city, resembled that of two captains of banditti. The scandal attaching to his administration culminated when it was known that, in order to win the hand of a lady for whom he had conceived a passion, he had sold the pontifical office itself to another member of the Tusculan house, John, the arch-presbyter, who took the name of Gregory VI (1045-1046).

9His brief pontificate was chiefly occupied with endeavours to protect the pilgrims to Rome on their way to the capital from the lawless freebooters (who plundered them of their costly votive offerings as well as of their personal property), and with attempts to recover by main force the alienated possessions of the Roman church. Prior, however, to his purchase of the pontifical office, the citizens of Rome, weary of the tyranny and extortions of Benedict, had assembled of their own accord and elected another pope, John, bishop of Sabina, who took the name of Silvester III (rival pope, 1044-1046).

10[Sidenote: [1044-1054 A.D.]]

11In the meantime Benedict had been brought back to Rome by his powerful kinsmen, and now reclaimed the sacred office. For a brief period, therefore, there were to be seen three rival popes, each denouncing the other’s pretensions and combating them by armed force. But even in Rome the sense of decency and shame had not become altogether extinguished; and at length a party in the Roman church deputed Peter, their archdeacon, to carry a petition to the emperor Henry III, soliciting his intervention. The emperor, a man of deep religious feeling and lofty character, responded to the appeal. He had long noted, in common with other thoughtful observers, the widespread degeneracy which, taking example by the curia, was growing throughout the church at large, and especially visible in concubinage and simony, alike regarded as mortal sins in the clergy. He forthwith crossed the Alps and assembled a council at Sutri. The claims of the three rival popes were each in turn examined and pronounced invalid, and a German, Suidger (Suidgar or Suger), bishop of Bamberg, was elected to the office as Clement II (1046-1047).