Pet. Blesens. conti Hist. p. 114-15. the danger of Judaism; his preaching was attended with Maud, the king's daughter, lately contracted to the emnuat peror Henry V., was this year sent into Germany with a Ingulph. great train, and three shillings levied upon every hide of land in England for her dower. This princess, after the the reign of death of the emperor, was married to Geoffry Plantagenet, Edward the earl of Anjou, and had a great contest, after her father's death, for the kingdom of England. See above in Elder. torts the in- from the The next year Henry V., emperor of Germany, who had The emperor deposed his father Henry in the pope's quarrel about inHenry ex vestitures, set up the same claim himself; and marching to Rome at the head of an army, surprised pope Paschal; and keeping him prisoner, obliged him to yield the point in disMalmsb. de pute; and that provided the bishops and abbots were freely Gest. Reg. chosen (though, by the way, the emperor's consent was required to the election), they were to have possession given them, by the delivery of the pastoral staff and ring. This agreement was drawn up into articles, and signed by the cardinals and pope before his enlargement. 1. 3. fol. 64. Florent. Wigorn. ad Florent. Wigorn. ad The pope being now at liberty, convened the council of Lateran the next year; and here all the fathers of the synod pronounced the treaty with the emperor void, because it was extorted from his holiness, and made under duress. 1 K. of Eng. 300. into the ori And since, as we have seen, the kings of England have been HENRYI. warmly concerned in the contest, it may not be improper to examine into the original and pretensions of this claim. This royal prerogative of giving investitures, as far as I An enquiry can discover, was first set on foot by Charles Martel, in ginal and France. This prince is complained of by historians, for claim of inseizing the revenues of the Church, and disposing of the election of bishops in an arbitrary manner. About this De Marc. time, as the learned de Marca observes, the discipline and Sacerd. et government of the Church were terribly overborne in the Imper. 1. 8. Western Empire by the encroachments of the state. vestitures. de Concord. c. 11. p. 401. Carloman, son to Charles Martel, restored the Church to its liberty in some measure, as appears by the council of Lestines, held in the year 743. By this synod, the laity were compelled to surrender the estates they had seized belonging to bishopricks. And Carloman declares "he had filled the respective vacancies in his dominions by the advice and consent of the bishops, abbots, and temporal nobility." De Marc. And thus the discipline of the Church began to emerge, and return into the old channel. ibid. To this purpose Pepin, father of Charles the Great, giving pope Zachary an account of the proceedings of the council of Soissons, informs him, that he had made one Abel archbishop, "by the advice of the bishops and temporal lords;" De Marca. neither was the pope, as appears by his answer, dissatisfied P. 402. with this prince's conduct. rar. Epist. And, therefore, as the learned archbishop of Paris observes, Lupus Ferrariensis was mistaken in affirming, that Lup. FerPepin had a license from pope Zachary to fill up the vacan- 1. cies. Farther, Boniface, archbishop of Mentz, who was the pope's legate at the synod of Lestines, owns the prince ought to have an interest in the election of bishops. Id. p. 402. Gembla cens. ad An. To proceed: Charles the Great, who succeeded Pepin, held on the custom of his ancestors, and interposed in the election of bishops. Some writers affirm, this prerogative Sigebert. was settled upon him by a synod at Rome. Sigebert, of Gemblours, who is transcribed by Gratian, relates that 773. Charles left the siege of Pavia, and went to Rome to keep his Easter there; and, after the solemnity of the festival, marched back to his camp, took the town, and then returned to Rome. That at this time pope Adrian I. convening a Dist. 63. general council of a hundred and fifty-three bishops and abbots, granted "Charles the privilege of electing the pope, together with the dignity of a patrician." It was likewise decreed, "that the archbishops and bishops throughout this prince's dominions should receive investiture from him;" and that "no bishop should be consecrated without this royal recommendation ;" and that "those who refused to be governed by this synodical decree should be excommunicated, and forfeit their estates, unless they gave timely satisfaction." Baronius will by no means allow the authority De Marca. of this council, and affirms it was forged by Sigebert, to serve the interest of the emperor against pope Paschal II. he endeavours to prove it spurious by several arguments; I shall mention one or two of them. p. 403. The council of Rome First, from the silence of those authors who lived at the under Adri- time this council is pretended to have been held. an I. disproved. Id. 404. Secondly, because Charles the Great's second visit to Rome, after the taking of Pavia, looks like a perfect invention of Sigebert, and is a plain contradiction to Eginhardus, who wrote at the same time. For this historian mentions only Charles's coming four times to Rome. His first coming was in the year 774; his second, in the year 780; his third journey thither was in the year 786; and his fourth, in the year 800. The fifth, therefore, mentioned by Sigebert, is not to be heard of. The learned Peter de Marca fortifies the cardinal's opinion, and sets the matter beyond dispute, His first argument to prove the synod an imposturous record is, because it pretends to bestow the patrician dignity upon Charles the Great; whereas this prince was born to this title by virtue of a treaty between king Pepin and pope Stephen IV. For this reason he is saluted in the style of patrician by Stephen and Paul I., pope Adrian's predecessors. Thus, when he made his entry into Rome, in the year 774, he was received with the solemnity of the cross, and other marks of respect usually paid to exarchs and Roman patricians, as is observed by Anastasius. De Marca's second argument is drawn from the testimony of Florus Magister, in his tract concerning the election of bishops, written about the year 820; in this tract he informs us, the royal assent to the election of prelates was a circumstance 301. settled by custom. From whence it is very reasonable to HENRYI. conclude, this learned writer knew nothing of the pretended K. of Eng decree of Adrian, and his general council, mentioned by Sigebert. To which we may add, the epistle of Lupus Ferrariensis, where, treating of the right princes had to confirm the election of bishops, he founds this prerogative royal wholly upon the grant of pope Zachary, as had been already observed. Whereas Adrian and his general council had been both a later and stronger authority; his omitting, therefore, to make use of the best evidence, is a plain proof there was no such thing. De Marca advances a third argument, from two of pope Adrian's letters to Charles the Great; from the first of which, written in the year 784, it appears, that Adrian consecrated the bishops of Lombardy, upon a testimonial of their being chosen by the clergy and people. From the other letter, written in the year 787, we are informed, it was the request of Charles the Great, that his commissioners should have an interest in the choice of the bishop of Ravenna. To this Adrian replies, there was no precedent for any such interposition; it being the custom all along, in king Pepin's reign, for the clergy and people of that town, after the choice of their bishop, to transmit the instrument of the election to the pope, and move for his consecration. Now the last of these letters bears date but fourteen years after this pretended council. If, therefore, Charles the Great could have made his claim for investitures, for governing the elections of bishops, from so late and unexceptionable an authority, he would never have entreated for so unquestionable a right, neither would the pope have contradicted such notorious matter of fact, and denied his own grant in his answer. Thus, the spuriousness of this synod is sufficiently evident. However, the learned De Marca clears Sigebert from the imputation of forgery, makes him only guilty of an oversight as to time and person, and mistaking Adrian I. for the intruder Leo VIII., who lived towards the latter end of the tenth century. From hence it appears, that how far soever Charles the Great might concern himself in the disposal of bishopricks, he could not insist on this prerogative from any synodical constitution. Id. 404. To proceed: after the death of Charles the Great, his son Lewis, who succeeded him in the empire, took off the to Charles pressure of the regale, restored the Church to her liberty, the Great, and left her to the regulation of the ancient canons. Lewis, son restores the freedom of elections to c. 85. This was done in the year eight hundred and sixteen, as bishopricks. appears by his edict of that date, published soon after the famous synod of Aix la Chapelle. In this edict, called a Lib. 1. Ca- capitular, the emperor sets forth, " that being fully informed pitular, that, by the tenor of the holy canons, the Church ought to be maintained in the liberty of her constitution, he had, at the instance of the ecclesiasticks, given his consent that the bishop should be chosen out of the vacant dioceses by the clergy and people; and that the choice should be governed by the merit and qualifications of the person." From hence it appears that the liberty of the Church had been formerly depressed, and the elections too much inDe Marca, fluenced by partiality and court interest. 1. 8. c. 13. p. 405. mined. As to the business of investitures, the claim of princes seems to have been founded upon their endowment of the The busi- Church. The bishopricks had great estates and temporal ness of investitures privileges granted by the crown. Now, according to the farther exa- salique law, livery and seisin were given by the delivery of a wand or bough; "for this reason," says De Marca, "our princes, when they put the bishop elect in the possession of the temporalities, they give him a staff and a ring at his investiture." For when the kings granted fees to the Church, et Imper. they thought it reasonable to convey them under the condition of feudal tenures, and keep them upon the same dependency with their grants to the laity. De Con cord Sacerd. 1. 8. c. 19. p. 426. However, the popes were by no means pleased with this custom. It is true they did not speak out and come to a rupture till Gregory VII. This pope being the first, as Malmsbury observes, who excommunicated those prelates Malmsb. de that received investitures from the crown; and, in the RoGest. Reg. Angl. 1.3. man synod, held in the year one thousand and eighty, all the laity, of what quality soever, that should give investitures, were liable to the same censure. fol. 61. Pope Gregory VII. declares against them, and why. One reason why the pope declared so strongly against this practice was, because it was pretended this investiture was a conveyance of the bishoprick; whereas the episcopal authority is by no means at the disposal of the crown. was one of pope Gregory's exceptions. And, as De Marca This |
