he laboured indefatigably to render the universal church subject to the despotic government and the arbitrary power of the pontiff alone, to dissolve the jurisdiction which kings and emperors had hitherto exercised over the various orders of the clergy, and to exclude them from all part in the management or distribution of the revenues of the church. Nay, this outrageous pontiff went still farther, and impiously attempted to submit to his jurisdiction the emperors, kings, and princes of the earth, and to render their dominions tributary to the see of Rome. Such were the pious and apostolic exploits that employed the activity of Gregory VII. during his whole life, and which render his pontificate a continual scene of tumult and bloodshed. Were it necessary to bring any further proofs of his tyranny and arrogance, his fierce impetuosity and boundless ambition, we might appeal to those famous sentences, which are generally called, after him, the dictates of Hildebrand, and which show, in a lively manner, the spirit and character of this restless pontiff."

*

w Dictatus Hildebrandini. By these are understood twenty-seven apophthegms, or short sentences, relating to the supreme authority of the Roman pontiffs over the universal church, and the kingdoms of the world, which are to be found in the second book of the epistles of Gregory VII. between the fifty-fifth and the fifty-sixth epistle, under the title of Dictatus Papa, i. e. Dictates of the Pope. See Harduini Concilia, tom. vi. part i. p. 1304, and the various writers of Ecclesiastical History. Baronius Lupus, and other historians, who have signalized upon all occasions, their vehement attachment to the Roman pontiffs, maintain that these Dictates were drawn up by Gregory VII. and proposed as laws in a certain council; and hence the Protestant writers have ventured to attribute them to Hildebrand. But the learned John Launoy, Natalis Alexander, Antony† and Francis Pagi, Elias Du Pin, and other authors of note, affirm in the most positive manner that these sentences, or dictates, were a downright forgery, imposed upon the world under the name of Gregory, by some perfidious impostor, who proposed thereby to flatter the Roman pontiffs in their ambitious pretensions. As a proof of this assertion, they observe, that while some of these sentences express indeed in a lively manner the ambitious spirit of Gregory, there are others which appear entirely opposite to the sentiments of that pontiff, as they are delivered in several parts of his epistles. The French writers have important reasons, which it is not necessary to mention here, for affirming that no Roman pontiff ever presumed to speak of the papal power and jurisdiction in such arrogant terms as are here put into the mouth of Gregory. It may be easily granted that these sentences, in their present form, are not the composition of this famous pontiff; for many of them are obscure, and they are all thrown together without the least order, method, or connexion; and it is not to be imagined, that a man of such genius as Gregory discovered, would have neglected either perspicuity or precision in describing the authority, and fixing, what he looked upon to be the rights and privileges of the bishops of Rome. But notwithstanding all this, if we consider the matter of these sentences, we shall be entirely persuaded that they belong originally to Hildebrand, since we find the greatest part of them repeated word for word, in several places in his Epistles, and since such of them as appear inconsistent with some passages in these epistles, are not so in reality, but may be easily explained in perfect

* Lupus, in his Nota et Dissertationes in Concilia, tom vi. opp. p. 164, has given us an ample commentary on the Dictates of Hildebrand, which he looks upon as both authentic and sacred.

† See Anton. Pagi Critica in Baronium.

I See Franc, Pagi Breviar. Pontif. Roman. tom. ii. p. 473.

x. Under the pontificate of Hildebrand, the face of the Latin church was entirely changed, its governHis exploits. ment subverted, and the most important and valuable of those rights and privileges that had been formerly vested in its councils, bishops, and sacred colleges, were usurped by the greedy pontiff. It is however to be observed, that the weight of this tyrannic usurpation did not fall equally upon all the European provinces; several of these provinces preserved some remains of their ancient liberty and independence, in the possession of which a variety of circumstances happily concurred to maintain them.

But, as we insinuated above, the views of Hildebrand were not confined to the erection of an absolute and universal monarchy in the church; they aimed also at the establishment of a civil monarchy equally extensive and despotic; and this aspiring pontiff, after having drawn up a system of ecclesiastical canons for the government of the church, would have introduced also a new code of political laws, had he been permitted to execute the plan he had formed. His purpose was to engage in the bonds of fidelity and allegiance to St. Peter, i. e. to the Roman pontiffs, all the kings and princes of the earth, and to establish at Rome an annual assembly of bishops, by whom the contest that might arise between kingdoms or sovereign states were to be decided, the rights and pretensions of princes to be examined, and the fate of nations and empires to be determined. This ambitious project met however with the warmest opposition, particularly from the vigilance and resolution of the emperors, and also from the British and French monarchs.*

That Hildebrand laid this audacious plan is undoubtedly evident, both from his own epistles, and also from other authentic records of antiquity. The nature of the oath which he drew up for the king or emperor of the Romans, from whom he demanded a profession of subjection and allegiance, shows abundantly the arrogance of his preten

conformity with what they are said to contradict. The most probable account of the matter seems to be this, that some mean author extracted these sentences, partly from the epistles of Gregory that are yet extant, partly from those that have perished in the ruins of time, and published them in the form in which they now appear, without judgment or method.

Px The long note g in the original, which contains the ambitious exploits of Hildebrand, is inserted in the following paragraph, except the citations, which are thrown into notes.

y See the ninth book of his epistles Epist. iii. the form of the oath runs thus; "Ab hac hora et deinceps fidelis ero per rectam fidem B. Petro Apostolo, ejusque vicario

sions. But his conduct toward the kingdom of France is worthy of particular notice. It is well known, that whatever dignity and dominion the popes enjoyed was originally derived from the kingdom of France, or, which is the same thing, from the princes of that nation; and yet Hildebrand, or, as we shall hereafter entitle him, Gregory VII. pretended that the kingdom of France was tributary to the see of Rome, and commanded his legates to demand yearly, in the most solemn manner, the payment of that tribute;' their demands however were treated with contempt, and the tribute was never either acknowledged or offered. Nothing can be more insolent than the language in which Gregory addressed himself to Philip I. king of France, to whom he recommends an humble and obliging carriage, from this consideration, that both his kingdom and his soul were under the dominion of St. Peter, i. e. his vicar the Roman pontiff, who had the power to bind and to loose him, both in heaven and upon earth. Nothing escaped the all-grasping ambition of Gregory; he pretended that Saxony was a feudal tenure held in subjection to the see of Rome, to which it had been formerly yielded by Charlemagne as a pious offering to St. Peter. He extended also his pretensions to the kingdom of Spain, maintaining, in one of his letters," that it was the property of the apostolic see from the earliest times of the church, yet acknowledging in another, that the transaction by which the successors of St. Peter had acquired this property, had been lost among other ancient records, His claims however were more respected in Spain than they had been in France; for it is proved most evidently by authentic records, that the king of Arragon, and Bernhard, count of Besalu, gave a favourable answer to the demands of Gregory, and paid

с

a

Papæ Gregorio....et quodcunque ipse Papa præceperit sub his videlicet verbis; per veram Obedientiam, fideliter, sicut oportet Christianum, observabo. Et eo die, quando eum primitus videro, fideliter per manus meas miles Sancti Petri et illius efficiat." What is this else than a formal oath of allegiance?

z Epist, lib, viii, ep, xxiii, in Harduin's Concilia, tom. vi. p. 1476. "Dicendum autem est omnibus Gallis et per veram obedientiam præcipiendum, ut unaquæquæ domus saltem unum denarium annuatim solvat Beato, Petro, si eum recognoscant patrem et pastorem suum more antiquo." Every one knows that the demand that was made with the form, per veram obedientiam, was supposed to oblige indispensably.

a Lib. vii, epist. xx. in Harduin's Concilia, tom. vi. p. 1468, "Maxime enitere ut B, Petrum, in cujus potestate est regnum tuum et anima tua, qui te potest in cœlo et in terra ligare et absolvere, tibi facias debitorem."

b Lib. x. ep. vii. "Regnum Hispaniæ ab antiquo proprii juris S. Petri fuisse et soli Apostolicæ sedi ex æquo pertinere.'

e Lib. x. epist. xxvííi.

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him regularly an annual tribute ;" and their example was followed by other Spanish princes, as we could show, were it necessary, by a variety of arguments. The despotic views of this lordly pontiff were attended with less success in England, than in any other country. William the Conqueror was a prince of great spirit and resolution, extremely jealous of his rights, and tenacious of the prerogatives he enjoyed as a sovereign and independent monarch; and accordingly, when Gregory wrote him a letter demanding the arrears of the Peter pence, and at the same time summoning him to do homage for the kingdom of England as a fief of the apostolic see. William granted the former, but refused the latter' with a noble obstinacy, declaring that he held his kingdom of God only, and his own sword. Obliged to yield to the obstinacy of the English monarch, whose name struck terror into the boldest hearts, the restless pontiff addressed his imperious mandates where he imagined they would be received with more facility. He wrote circular letters to all the most powerful German princes, to Geusa, king of Hungary," and Sueno, or Swein, king of Denmark,' soliciting them to make a solemn grant of their kingdoms and territories to the prince of the apostles, and to hold them under the jurisdiction of his vicar at Rome, as fiefs of the apostolic see. What success attended his demands upon these princes, we cannot say; but certain it is, that in several places his efforts were effectual,

d See Petrus de Marca, Histoire de Bearn, lib. iv. p. 331, 332.

I e Peter pence, so called from its being collected on the festival of St. Peter in Vinculis, was an ancient tax of a penny on each house, first granted in the year 725, by Ina, king of the West Saxons, for the establishment and support of an English college at Rome, and afterward extended, in the year 794, by Offa, over all Mercia and East Anglia. In process of time it became a standing and general tax throughout all England, and though it was for some time applied to the support of the English college according to its original design, the popes found means to appropriate it to themselves. It was confirmed by the laws of Canute, Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, &c. and was never totally abolished till the reign of Henry VIII.

f The letter of William is extant in the Miscellanea of Baluzius, tom. vii. p. 127, as also in Collier's Ecclesiastical History, in the Collection of Records, at the end of the first volume, p. 713, No. 12. "Hubertus legatus tuus," says the resolute monarch to the audacious pontiff, "admonuit me, quatenus tibi et successoribus tuis fidelitatem facerem, et de pecunia, quam antecessores mei ad ecclesiam mittere solebant, melius cogitarem. Unum admisi, alterum non admisi. Fidelitatem facere, nolui nec volo," &c.

g See in Harduin's Concilia, his famous letter, lib. ix. epist. iii. to the bishop of Padua, exhorting him to engage Welpho, duke of Bavaria, and other German princes, to submit themselves and their dominions to the apostolical jurisdiction. "Admonere te volumus," says the pontiff, "Ducem Welphonem, ut fidelitatem B. Petro faciat... Illum enim totum in gremio Beati Petri collocare desideramus et ad ejus servitium specialiter provocare. Quam voluntatem si in eo, vel etiam in aliis potentibus viris amore B. Petri ductis cognoveris, ut perficiant elabora."

h Lib. ii. ep. lxx.

i Lib. ii. ep.

li.

and his modest proposals were received with the utmost docility and zeal. The son of Demetrius, king of the Russians, set out for Rome in consequence of the pontiff's letter," in order to obtain, as a gift from St. Peter, by the hands of Gregory, after professing his subjection and allegiance to the prince of the apostles, the kingdom which was to devolve to him upon the death of his father; and his pious request was readily granted by the officious pope, who was extremely liberal of what did not belong to him. Demetrius Suinimer, duke of Croatia and Dalmatia, was raised to the rank and prerogatives of royalty by the same pontiff in the year 1076, and solemnly proclaimed king by his legate at Salona, upon condition that he should pay an annual tribute of two hundred pieces of gold to St. Peter at every Easter festival. This bold step was injurious to the authority of the emperors of Constantinople, who, before this time, comprehended the province of Croatia within the limits of their sovereignty. The kingdom of Poland became also the object of Gregory's ambition, and a favourable occasion was offered for the execution of his iniquitous views; for Basilaus II. having assassinated Stanislaus, bishop of Cracow, the pontiff not only excommunicated him with all the circumstances of infamy that he could invent, but also pulled him from his throne, dissolved the oath of allegiance which his subjects had taken, and by an express and imperious edict, prohibited the nobles and clergy of Poland from electing a new king without the consent of the Roman pontiff. Many more examples might be alleged of the phrenetic ambition of Gregory, but those which have been already mentioned are sufficient to excite the indignation of every impartial reader. Had the success of that pontiff been equal to the extent of his insolent views, all the kingdoms of Europe would have been this day tributary to the Roman see, and its princes the soldiers or vassals of St. Peter, in the person of his pretended vicar upon earth. But though his most important projects were ineffectual, yet many of his attempts were crowned with a favourable issue; for from the time of his pontificate the face of Europe underwent a considerable change, and the

k Lib. ii. ep. lxxiv.

m

1 See Du Mont. Corps Diplomatique, tom. i. part i. n. 88, p. 53. Jo. Lucius, De regno Dalmatia, lib. ii. p. 85.

m See Dlugossi, Histor. Polon. tom. i. p. 295.