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enough to entitle him to a place among the saintly order. But if we deduce from these pretended virtues his vehement zeal for augmenting the opulence and authority of the church of Rome, and his laudable severity in correcting and punishing certain enormous vices," which were common among the clergy during his pontificate, there will remain little in the life and administration of this pontiff, that could give him any pretension to such a distinction. It is at least certain, that many, who industriously conceal or excuse the numerous infirmities and failings of the pontiffs, censure, with the utmost freedom, the temerity and injustice of the measures he took toward the conclusion of his days. Such, among others, was the war which he inconsiderately entered into, in the year 1053, with the Normans, whose neighbourhood he did not like, and whom he was grieved to see in the possession of Apulia. His temerity indeed was severely punished by the issue of this war, from which he derived the bitterest fruits, being taken prisoner by the enemy, and led captive to Benevento. Here dismal reflections upon his unhappy fate preyed upon his spirits, and threw him into a dangerous fit of sickness; so that after a year's imprisonment he was sent to Rome, where he concluded his days on the 19th of April, A. D. 1054.b

v. After the death of Leo the papal chair was filled, in the year 1055, by Gebhard, bishop of Eichstadt, who assumed the name of Victor II. and after governing the church about three years, was succeeded by Stephen IX. brother to Godfrey, duke of Lorrain, who died a few months after his election. Nothing memorable happened under the administration of these two pontiffs. Gerrard, bishop of Florence, who obtained the papacy, A. D. 1058, and took the name of Nicolas II. makes a greater figure in history than several of his predecessors. We pass in silence John, bishop of Veletri, who usurped the pontificate, as also the title of Benedict X. after the death of Stephen, and who was deposed with ignominy, after having

a In several councils which he assembled in Italy, France, and Germany, he proposed rigorous laws against simony, sodomy, incestuous and adulterous marriages; the custom of carrying arms that was grown universal among the clergy; the apostacy of the monks who abandoned their habit and renounced their profession, &c. b See the Acta Sanctorum ad d. xix. Aprilis, tom. iii. p. 642. Hist. Literaire de la France, tom. vii. p. 459. Giannone Hist. de Naples, tom. ii. p. 52.

e Beside the accounts given of Nicolas II. by the writers of the papal history, there is a particular and accurate history of this pontiff drawn up by the Benedictine monks, in the Hist. Liter. de la France, tom. vii. p. 515.

possessed about nine months the dignity, to which he had no other title than what he derived from lawless violence. Nicolas, upon the removal of this usurper, assembled a council at Rome, A. D. 1059, in which, among many salutary laws designed to heal the inveterate disorders that had afflicted the church, one remarkable decree was passed for changing the ancient form of electing the Roman pontiff; this alteration was designed to prevent the tumults and commotions which arose in Rome, and the factions which divided Italy, when a new pope was to be elected. The same pontiff received the homage of the Normans, and solemnly created Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, on condition that he should observe, as a faithful vassal, an inviolable allegiance to the Roman church, and pay an annual tribute in acknowedgment of his subjection to the apostolic see. By what authority Nicolas confirmed the Norman prince in the possession of these provinces, is more than we know; certain it is, that he had no sort of property in the lands which he granted so liberally to the Normans, who held them already by the odious right of conquest. Perhaps the lordly pontiff founded this right of cession upon the fictitious donation of Constantine, which has been already taken notice of in the course of this history; or probably seduced by the artful and ambitious suggestions of Hildebrand, who had himself an eye upon the pontificate, and afterward filled it, in effect, under the adopted name of Gregory VII. he imagined that, as Christ's vicegerent, the Roman pontiff was the king of kings, and had the whole universe for his domain. It is well known that Hildebrand had a supreme ascendant in the councils of Nicolas, and that the latter neither undertook nor executed any thing without his direction. Be that as it may, it was the feudal grant made to Guiscard by this pope, that laid the foundation of the kingdom of Naples, or of the two Sicilies, and of the sovereignty over that kingdom which the Roman pontiffs constantly claim, and which the Sicilian monarchs annually acknowledge.

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VI. Before the pontificate of Nicolas II. the popes were chosen not only by the suffrages of the cardinals, The privileges but also by those of the whole Roman clergy, the nobility, the burgesses, and the assembly of the people. An election, in which such a confused

of the cardinals

in the election of the pope.

d See Muratori Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 186. Baronius Annal, ad A. 1060.

and jarring multitude was concerned, could not but produce continual factions, animosities, and tumults. To prevent these, as far as was possible, this artful and provident pontiff had a law passed by which the cardinals, as well presbyters as bishops, were empowered, upon a vacancy in the see of Rome, to elect a new pope, without any prejudice to the ancient privileges of the Roman emperors in this important matter. Nor were the rest of the clergy, with the burgesses and people, excluded from all part in this election, since their consent was solemnly demanded, and also esteemed of much weight. In consequence, however, of this new regulation, the cardinals acted the principal part in the creation of the new pontiff; though they suffered for a long time much opposition both from the sacerdotal orders and the Roman citizens, who were constantly either reclaiming their ancient rights, or abusing the privilege they yet retained of confirming the election of every new pope by their approbation and consent. In the

Pe It does not appear that Nicolas was at all solicitous about the privileges of the emperor, and his authority in the election of the bishop of Rome; for the words of the decree in all the various copies of it are to this import; "the cardinals shall first deliberate concerning the election of a pontiff, and the consent of the other clergy and of the people shall be required to confirm their choice. The pope shall be chosen out of the members that compose the church of Rome, if a proper person can be found among them; if not, he shall be elected elsewhere. All this without any prejudice to the honour of our dear son Henry, who is now king, and shall be soon emperor, as we have already promised him, or to the honour of his successors on whom the apostolic see shall confer personally and successively the same high privilege." Here we see the good pontiff taking manifestly advantage of the minority of Henry IV. to depreciate and diminish the ancient prerogatives of the imperial crown, and to magnify the authority of the papal mitre; for he declares, as a personal right granted by the Roman see to each emperor for himself, the privilege of confirming the pope's election; whereas it is well known that that privilege had been vested in the emperors of Germany during many preceding ages. See Fleury, Eccles. Hist. vol. xiii. livre Ix. p. 64, 65, Brussels edition. It is proper to observe here, that the cringing and ignoble submission of Charles the Bald, who would not accept of the title of emperor before it was conferred upon him by the Roman pontiff, occasioned, in process of time, that absurd notion that the papal consecration was requisite in order to qualify the kings of Germany to assume the title of Roman emperors, though, without that consecration, these kings had all Italy under their dominion, and exercised in every part of it various rights and prerogatives of sovereignty. Hence the kings of Germany were first styled kings of the Franks and Lombards, afterward kings of the Romans until the year 1503, when Maximilian I. changed the title of king into that of emperor.

f The decree of Nicolas concerning the election of the Roman pontiff is to be found in many authors, and particularly in the Concilia. But upon comparing together several copies of this famous decree, I found them in many respects very different from each other. In some copies the decree appears abridged; in others it is long and prolix. In some it seems favourable to the rights and privileges of the Roman emperors; in others, it appears to have the contrary tendency. The most ample copy is that which we find in the Chronicon Farfense in Muratori's Scriptores rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. part ii. p. 645, which differs, however, in various circumstances, from that which is published by Hugo Floriacensis, in his book De regia protestate et sacerdotali dignitate, in Baluzii Miscellan is, tom. iv. p. 62. Notwithstanding the diversity that there is in the copies of this famous decree, they all agree in confirming the accounts we have given of the plans and pontificate of Nicolas.

following century there was an end put to all these disputes by Alexander III. who was so lucky as to finish and complete what Nicolas had only begun, and who transferred and confined to the college of cardinals the right of electing to the apostolic see, excluding the nobility, the people, and the rest of the clergy from all concern in this important matter.5

It may not be improper here to give some account of the origin of the cardinals," and the nature of their privileges and functions. Many writers have treated this subject in an ample manner, and have shed upon it a profusion of erudition, which deserves no doubt the highest applause; but they are, generally speaking, defective in perspicuity and precision; nor do I know of any who have confined themselves to the true state of the question, and investigated, in a satisfactory manner, the true origin of the office of cardinal, and the reasons that occasioned the institution of that order of ecclesiastics. Several learned men have employed much time and labour in fixing the sense of the word cardinal, and in illustrating its meaning from ancient monuments and records; but however worthy of a curious philologist these researches may be, yet they contribute little or nothing to clear up the point in question, or to convey an accurate and satisfactory notion of the true origin of the college of cardinals, and the nature of that ecclesiastical dignity. It is certain that the word cardinal, when applied to persons or things, or more especially to the sacred order, was according to the language of the middle age, a term of dubious signification, and was susceptible of various senses. It is also well known that in former times this title was by no means peculiar to the priests and ministers of the church of Rome, but was in use in all the Latin churches, and that not only the secular clergy, but also the regular, such as abbots,

g See Mabillon, Comm. in Ord. Roman. tom. ii. Musei Italici, p. 114. Constant. Cenni Præf. ad Concilium Lateran. Stephani iii. p. 18. Rom. 1735, in 4to. viarum Pontif. Romanor. tom. ii. p. 374. Franc. Pagi Bre

Ph The translator has here incorporated into the text the long and important note e of the original concerning the cardinals. The citations and references only are thrown into the notes.

i The authors who have written concerning the name, origin, and rights of the cardinals, are enumerated by Jo. Alb. Fabricius, in his Bibliogr. Antiquar. p. 455, 456. Casp. Sagittarius Introd. ad Historiam Ecclesiast. cap. xxix. p. 771, et Jo. and Schmidius in Supplement. p. 644. Christ. Gryphius Isagoge ad Historiam Sæculi xvii. p. 430, add to these Ludov. Thomassini Disciplina Ecclesiæ vetus et nova, tom. i. lib. ii. cap. 115, 116, p. 616, and Lud. Ant. Muratori, whose learned dissertation De Origine Cardinalatus is published in his Antiq. Ital. medii ævi, tom. v. p. 156.

canons, and monks, were capable of this denomination, and were styled cardinals, though in different senses. But after the pontificate of Alexander III. the common use of the term cardinal was gradually diminished, and it was confined to such only as were immediately concerned in the election of the pope, and who had the right of suffrage in this weighty matter. So that when we inquire into the origin of the college of cardinals at Rome, the question is not, who they were that in the remoter periods of the church were distinguished among the Latins in general, or at Rome in particular, from the rest of the clergy, by the name of cardinals; nor do we inquire into the proper signification of that term, or into the various senses in which it was formerly employed; the true state of the question is this; who the persons were that Nicolas II. comprehended under the denomination of cardinals, when he vested in the Roman cardinals alone the right of electing the new pontiff, and excluded from that important privilege the rest of the clergy, the nobility, the burgesses, and the people. When this is known with certainty, then we shall have a just notion of the college of cardinals in its first rise, and shall also perceive the difference there is between the first cardinals, and those of our times. Now this may easily be learned from the edict of Nicolas II. which sets the matter in the clearest light. "We have thought proper to enact," says the pontiff, "that, upon the decease of the bishop of the Roman catholic or universal church, the affair of the election be treated principally and previously to all other deliberations, among the cardinal bishops alone, who shall afterward call in to their council the cardinal clerks, and require finally the consent of the rest of the clergy and the people to their election." Here we see, that the pontiff divides into two classes the cardinals who were to have the right of suffrage in the election of his successors, one of which he calls cardinal bishops, and the other cardinal clerks. By the former we are manifestly to understand the seven bishops, who belonged to the city and territory of Rome, whom Nicolas calls, in the same edict, comprovinciales episcopi, an epithet which had been used

k The passage of the edict, which we have here translated from Hugo Floriacus in Baluzii Miscell. tom. iv. p. 62, runs thus in the original. "Constituimus ut, obeunte hujus Romanæ universales Ecclesiæ Pontifice, imprimis, Cardinales Episcopi diligentissima simul consideratione tractantes, mox sibi Clericos Cardinales adhibeant, sicque reliquus Clerus et Populus ad consensum novæ electionis accedant.”

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