SECTION III.

 

The Spiritual Supremacy and Temporal Power of the Popes

During the turbulence and confusion of the middle ages, the powerful nobility, or leaders of popular factions in Italy, had seized the government of different towns; and, after strengthening their fortifications, and taking a body of mercenaries into pay, they aspired at independence. The territory which the church had gained was filled with petty lords of this kind, who left the pope hardly the shadow of domestic authority.

As these usurpations almost annihilated the papal power in the greater part of the towns subject to the church, the Roman barons frequently disputed the authority of the popes, even in Rome itself. In the twelfth century, an opinion began to he propagated: “That as the function of ecclesiastics was purely spiritual, they ought to possess no property, and to claim no temporal jurisdiction; but, according to the laudable example of their predecessors in the primitive church, should subsist wholly upon their tithes, or upon the voluntary oblations of the people”. This doctrine being addressed to men, who had beheld the scandalous manner in which the avarice and ambition of the clergy had prompted them to contend for wealth, and to exercise power, they listened to it with fond attention.

The Roman barons, who had felt most sensibly the rigor of ecclesiastical oppression, adopted these sentiments with such ardor, that they set themselves instantly to shake off the yoke. They endeavored to restore some image of their ancient liberty, by reviving the institution of the Roman senate [AD 1143], in which they vested supreme authority; committing the executive power sometimes to one chief senator, sometimes to two, and sometimes to a magistrate dignified with the name of The Patrician.

The popes exerted themselves with vigor, in order to check this dangerous encroachment on their jurisdiction. One of them, finding all his endeavors ineffectual, was so much mortified, that extreme grief cut short his days. Another, having ventured to attack the senators at the head of some armed men, was mortally wounded in the fray. During a considerable period, the power of the popes, before which the greatest monarchs in Europe trembled, was circumscribed within such narrow limits in their own capital, that they durst hardly exert any act of authority, without the permission and concurrence of the senate.

Encroachments were made upon the papal sovereignty, not only by the usurpations of the Roman nobility, but by the mutinous spirit of the people. During seventy years of the fourteenth century, the popes fixed their residence at Avignon. The inhabitants of Rome, accustomed to consider themselves as the descendants of the people who had conquered the world, and had given laws to it, were too high-spirited to submit with patience to the delegated authority of those persons to whom the popes committed the government of the city. On many occasions, they opposed the execution of the papal mandates, and on the slightest appearance of innovation or oppression, they were ready to take arms in defence of their own immunities.

Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, being instigated by Nicolas Rienzo, a man of low birth and a seditious spirit, but of popular eloquence, and an enterprising ambition, they drove all the nobility out of the city, established a democratical form of government, elected Rienzo tribune of the people, and invested him with extensive authority. But though the frantic proceedings of the tribune soon overturned this new system; though the government of Rome was reinstated in its ancient form; yet every fresh attack contributed to weak the papal jurisdiction: and the turbulence of the people concurred with the spirit of independence among the nobility, in circumscribing it more and more. Gregory VII and other domineering pontiffs, accomplished those great things which rendered them so formidable to the emperors with whom they contended, not by the force of their arms, or by the extent of their power, but by the dread of their spiritual censures, and by the effect of their intrigues, which excited rivals, and called forth enemies against every prince whom they wished to depress or to destroy.

Many attempts were made by the popes, not only to humble those usurpers, who lorded it over the cities in the ecclesiastical state, but to break the turbulent spirit of the Roman people. These were long unsuccessful. But at last Alexander VI, with a policy no less artful than flagitious, subdued and extirpated most of the great Roman barons, and rendered the popes masters of their own dominions. The enterprising ambition of Julius II added conquests of no inconsiderable value to the patrimony of St. Peter. Thus the popes, by degrees, became powerful temporal princes. Their territories, in the age of Charles V, were of greater extent than at present; their country seems to have been better cultivated as well as more populous; and as they drew large contributions from every part of Europe, their revenues far exceeded those of the neighboring powers, and rendered them capable of more sudden and vigorous efforts.

The genius of the papal government, however, was better adapted to the exercise of spiritual dominion, than of temporal power. With respect to the former, all its maxims were steady and invariable. Every new pontiff adopted the plan of his predecessor. By education and habit, ecclesiastics were so formed, that the character of the individual was sunk in that of the profession; and the passions of the man were sacrificed to the interest and honor of the order. The hands which held the reins of administration might change; but the spirit which conducted them was always the same. While the measures of other governments fluctuated, and the objects at which they aimed varied, the church kept one end in view; and to this unrelaxing constancy of pursuit, it was indebted for its success in the boldest attempts ever made by human ambition.

But in their civil administration, the popes followed no such uniform or consistent plan. There, as in other governments, the character, the passions, and the interest of the person who had the supreme direction of affairs, occasioned a variation both in objects and measures. As few prelates reached the summit of ecclesiastical dignity until they were far advanced in life, a change of masters was more frequent in the papal dominions than in other states, and the political system was, of course, less stable and permanent. Every pope was eager to make the most of the short period, during which he had the prospect of enjoying power, in order to aggrandize his own family, and to attain his private ends; and it was often the first business of his successor to undo all that he had done, and to overturn what he had established.

As ecclesiastics were trained to pacific arts, and early initiated in the mysteries of that policy by which the court of Rome extended or supported its spiritual dominion, the popes in the conduct of their temporal affairs were apt to follow the same maxims, and in all their measures were more ready to employ the refinements of intrigue, than the force of arms. It was in the papal court that address and subtlety in negotiation became a science; and during the sixteenth century, Rome was considered as the school in which it might be best acquired.

As the decorum of their ecclesiastical character prevented the popes from placing themselves at the head of their armies, or from taking the command in person of the military force in their dominions, they were afraid to arm their subjects; and in all their operations, whether offensive or defensive, they trusted entirely to mercenary troops.

As their power and dominions could not descend to their posterity, the popes were less solicitous than other princes to form or to encourage schemes of public utility and improvement. Their tenure was only for a short life; present advantage was what they chiefly studied; to squeeze and to amass, rather than to meliorate, was their object. They erected, perhaps, some work of ostentation, to remain as a monument of their pontificate; they found it necessary at some times, to establish useful institutions, in order to soothe and silence the turbulent populace of Rome; but plans of general benefit to their subjects, framed with a view to futurity, were rarely objects of attention in the papal policy. The patrimony of St. Peter was worse governed than any part of Europe; and though a generous pontiff might suspend for a little, or counteract the effects of those vices which are peculiar to the administration of ecclesiastics; the disease not only remained without remedy, but has gone on increasing from age to age; and the decline of the state has kept pace with its progress.

One circumstance, farther, concerning the papal government, is so singular, as to merit attention. As the spiritual supremacy and temporal power were united in one person, and uniformly aided each other in their operations, they became so blended together, that it was difficult to separate them, even in imagination. The potentates, who found it necessary to oppose the measures which the popes pursued as temporal princes, could not easily divest themselves of the reverence which they imagine to be due to them as heads of the church, and vicars of Jesus Christ. It was with reluctance that they could be brought to a rupture with the head of the church; they were unwilling to push their operations against him to extremity; they listened eagerly to the first overtures of accommodation, and were anxious to procure it almost upon any terms. Their consciousness of this encouraged the enterprising pontiffs who tilled the papal throne about the beginning of the sixteenth century, to engage in schemes seemingly the most extravagant. They trusted, that if their temporal power was not sufficient to carry them through with success, the respect paid to their spiritual dignity would enable them to extricate themselves with facility and with honor. But when popes came to take part more frequently in the contests among princes, and to engage as principals or auxiliaries in every war kindled in Europe, this veneration for their sacred character began to abate; and striking instances will occur in the following history of its being almost totally extinct.

 

The Italian States.