to it; and from those who misuse it the Pope, as God's vicar, CHAP. VII may rightly take it away. From this doctrine it results: (1) that the Papacy may rightly exercise the power of the Emperor when the Empire is vacant; (2) that when the electors have named an emperor, the right of ratification belongs to the Pope; (3) the coronation of the Emperor by the Pope is indispensable to his imperial authority; and (4) the investiture of the Emperor, received at the hands of the Pope, may be withdrawn by him, as any other fief may be withdrawn from an unfaithful vassal. With such conceptions as these, it is easily imagined with what reserve the new pope regarded the aims and purposes of the Tuscan League. Proud of his achievements in effecting its organization, and seeing in it a great defence for the spiritual freedom of the Papacy, Cardinal Pandulf, soon after Innocent's consecration, sent a messenger to Rome to ascertain the policy of the new pontiff toward the confederation. To his mortification, the approval which he expected was not received. The Pope had seen a new vision. With Northern and Central Italy delivered from the presence of the Germans, with Sicily under a regency in alliance with the Papacy, with Germany divided regarding the imperial succession, it was the Pope who was to be thenceforth master | in the entire peninsula. Italian unity may have entered into the calculations of Innocent III; but, if so, it was the unity of Italy subordinated to the Pope as its temporal sovereign. For what purpose, then, could he be expected to favor the extension of local freedom and general federation, which had appeared so useful as instruments for staying the hand of Henry VI? Was there not in the growth of this new spirit of republicanism a danger for the realization of his conception of the papal office, as well as a restraint upon imperial tyranny? For the moment, the imperial ascendency was no longer the peril of the hour. That had been buried in the grave of Henry VI. The real danger was the formation of a new power in the Italian peninsula that would bid defiance to A. D. 1191-1300 Attitude of toward the Innocent III Tuscan A. D. 1191-1300 CHAP. VII the papal control. All, therefore, was to be manipulated with reference to one central idea, the ascendency of the Papacy. Accordingly, in the month of February, the Pope replied to Cardinal Pandulf's question by informing him confidentially that, in existing circumstances, the confederation appeared to be "neither useful nor honorable," not useful, because the reason for its formation had disappeared with the death of the oppressor; not honorable, because the compact overlooked the underlying rights of the Holy See to sovereignty over the inheritance received from the Countess Matilda. The Pope's negotiations between Pisa and the League But, although the independence of the Tuscan cities was doomed in the mind of Innocent III, he did not fail to utilize the situation and the influence of the League for his own purposes. Despatching a cardinal to communicate and accomplish his wishes, he gave instructions by which his supremacy might be recognized and the League rendered compliant as the serviceable organ of his will. For this purpose, without destroying it, the treaty was changed as to put the confederation in his power. step in this process was to place in opposition the interests of the League and those of Pisa, so that he might become the mediator between them. Thus he hoped to use each for the accomplishment of his wishes with the other. to be so The first The interdict which Celestine III had imposed upon Pisa had not proved wholly ineffectual, since a party favorable to submission had been formed in the city. The representatives of this party had appeared before the Pope, leading him to believe that the city would ultimately bend to his will. He then instructed his legates to urge the reception of Pisa into the League only on condition that the city would yield to the Pope's demands. If Pisa still declined to join the confederation, the interdict should not be raised. If, on the other hand, the rectors of the League did not admit the papal claims, they were to be punished by the removal of the interdict from Pisa. By this ingenious device, Innocent intended to force both sides to recognize him as supreme. A. D. 1191-1300 The consoli dation of But the negotiations of Innocent with Pisa and the Tuscan CHAP. VII League formed but a small part of his varied activities. Coming to the papal office with a clear and distinct purpose in his mind, he intended to win first Rome, then Italy, then the world. Capturing the Roman populace with generous papal power largesses, the day of his installation was made the beginning of his triumphs. By favoring circumstances he alone was great in Rome. The prefect of the city, who, as the Emperor's representative, had taken the place of the imperial missus, now that his master was dead, was glad to renew his authority at the hands of the energetic and popular pope. The Roman commune had, under Henry's autocratic reign, retired into the background; and the Senate of fifty-six members had been reduced to a single "Senator of the Romans," who stood for what was left of communal rights and liberties at Rome. This office, likewise, was promptly and voluntarily surrendered into the hands of Innocent III; and thus, without an effort, he found himself the sole master of the city, - the recognized source of all power and authority. From this centre of ever-widening influence, the Pope availed himself of every opportunity to extend his power. All Italy had suffered from the reign of force imposed by the Germans, and everywhere it was the Pope who seemed to be the one common bond to unite the interests of the peninsula. In 1195, the Lombard League, whose territories were just beyond the borders of the Patrimony of St. Peter, and whose members were therefore less fearful of papal absorption than the independent party in the Tuscan cities, had revived the old confederation for self-defence against the Emperor, and was now disposed to form close relations with the Pope. In Romagna and other parts of the ancient Papal State, — which had been practically divided up among the German feudal lords, popular sentiment, at the instigation of Innocent III, rose in revolt against the invaders, who were driven out, and the lands restored to the papal dominion. Thus on every side the Pope rapidly repaired the broken fortunes of CHAP. VII the papal monarchy, and, by rendering it secure in Italy, enabled it to advance its projects throughout the world. A. D. 1191-1300 The nature of the papal monarchy It would be, however, a gross misconception to think of the papal monarchy as a system of political absolutism. It was no part of the papal theory, as held by Innocent III, to regard the Pope as a universal temporal monarch, or Rome as a centre of domination in all particulars. The papal conception was entirely compatible, when properly understood, with local sovereignty; and Innocent III fully recognized certain rights of self-government, even at Rome, by permitting its parliament to discuss and determine matters pertaining to the fiscal and civil interests of the city, and even its foreign relations.1 It was supremacy in the realm of religion and morality that Innocent III had in mind when he proclaimed the superiority of the papal to the royal or the imperial authority. In Italy, for the security of his spiritual freedom, he wished also to be recognized as king; yet we shall see him sometimes actually promoting the interests of the Empire. His motive was not, therefore, to merge the spiritual authority in the civil, nor the civil in the spiritual, but to subordinate the one to the other in such a manner as to guarantee the peace of the Church and the security of its Head. Henry VI had imposed upon Italy a feudal monarchy, off which he alone was the suzerain. In establishing this monarchy he had wholly ignored all those securities for the freedom of the Papacy which the Carlovingian emperors had introduced. He had thereby not only divested the Papacy of the protection which its ancient policy had built up, but he had imposed an alien yoke upon the population of the former Papal State. To overthrow this system, and to render it forever impossible by placing Italy under the protec-¡ tion of the Pope, became the Guelf ideal of Italian politics. But there were two ways of realizing this ideal, of which the Tuscan League adopted one, and Innocent III the other. 1 See Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom, V, p. 25. A. D. 1191-1300 The Tuscan cities had formed their confederation, as we have CHAP. VII seen, in order to maintain their independence under the protection of the Pope. They had sworn to defend him, and had made his safety one of their primary objects. Had Innocent III been less of a lawyer and more of a philosopher, he might have perceived that the Tuscan League offered him every advantage that he needed; but he could not dismiss from his mind the territorial rights which he believed the Papacy had inherited from the Countess Matilda, and was unable to see that they were overbalanced by the larger rights of independent self-governing communities. In building up the Patrimony of St. Peter, Innocent III had no wish to destroy the Empire, already so weakened as to render its survival doubtful. On the contrary, it was a part of his policy to employ the imperial prestige as an instrument of the papal power: first, by using such forces as the Empire still possessed to aid the Papacy in its struggles with the rising national sovereigns; and, secondly, to prove the superiority of the Papacy over all kings and princes by establishing the papal supremacy over the Empire. To accomplish these purposes, however, it was necessary to subordinate the Emperor to the Pope, and this was the persistent endeavor of Innocent in all his public acts. The relations in which he conceived the two chief powers of Christendom to stand to each other are well expressed by him in the following words: "God, who has placed in the firmament of heaven two luminaries, a greater which presides over the day, and a lesser which illuminates the night, has in like manner instituted in the Church Universal two dignities, a greater to rule over souls, and a lesser to rule over bodies; the one is the papal power, the other is the royal. And, as the moon, less noble in grandeur and constitution, receives light from the sun, so also the royal authority receives the splendor of its office from the papal authority." 1 It is evident that upon this theory, so long as their intended 1 Innocentii III Epistolae, I, 401. The Papacy and the Empire |