§ 9. Alexander II. and the Schism of Cadalus. 1061–1073.
§ 9. Alexander II. and the Schism of Cadalus. 1061–1073.
Pope Nicolas II. died July 27, 1061. The cardinals elected, in some unknown place outside of Rome, Anselm, bishop of Lucca, Sept. 30, 1061. He was conducted to Rome in the following night by Norman soldiers, and consecrated, Oct. 1, as Alexander II. His first act was to administer the oath of fealty to Richard, the Norman leader.
The anti-Hildebrandian party of the Roman nobles, headed by Count Girard of Galeria (an excommunicated robber), with the aid of the disaffected Lombard clergy, and the young emperor Henry IV., elected Cadalus (or Cadalous), bishop of Parma, anti-pope. He was consecrated Oct. 28, 1061, as Honorius II., and maintained a schism of ten years. He had been repeatedly charged with simony, and had the sympathy and support of the married or concubinary clergy and the simoniacal laity, who hoped that his success would lead to a modification of discipline and legalization of clerical marriage. The opposition thus became an organized party, and liable to the charge of heresy, which was considered worse than carnal sin. Damiani and Humbert defended the principle that a priest who is guilty of simony or concubinage, and believes himself innocent, is more criminal than he who knows himself to be guilty. Damiani hurled the fiercest denunciation of a Hebrew prophet against the anti-pope. Cadalus entered Rome with an armed force, and maintained himself in the castle of St. Angelo for two years; but at length he sought safety in flight without a single follower, and moved to Parma. He died in 1072. His party was broken up.
Alexander held a council at Mantua, May 31, 1064, and was universally recognized as the legitimate pope; while Cadalus was anathematized and disappeared from history.
During the pontificate of Alexander, the war against simony and Nicolaitism went on under the lead of Hildebrand and Damiani with varying success. The troubles in Lombardy were renewed. Archbishop Wido of Milan sided with Cadalus and was excommunicated; he apologized, did penance, and resumed office. After his death in 1071 the strife broke out again with disgraceful scenes of violence. The Patarine party, supported with gold by the pope, gained the ascendancy after the death of Cadalus. The Normans repelled the Mohammedan aggression and won Southern Italy and Sicily for the Church of Rome.
This good service had some weight on the determination of Hildebrand to support the claim of William of Normandy to the crown of England, which was a master-stroke of his policy; for it brought that island into closer contact with Rome, and strengthened the papal pretension to dispose of temporal thrones. William fought under a banner blessed by the pope, and founded the Norman dynasty in England, 1066. The conquest was concluded at Winchester by a solemn coronation through three papal delegates, Easter, 1070.
But in Germany there arose a powerful opposition, not indeed to the papacy, which was the common ground of all parties, but to the Hildebrandian policy. This led to the conflict between Gregory VII. and Henry IV. Alexander threatened Henry with excommunication in case he persisted in his purpose to divorce his queen Bertha.
Vol. IV. § 66, pp. 299 sqq.
The contemporary spellings are: Yldibrandus, Heldebrandus, Ildebrandus, Oldeprandus. William of Malmesbury calls him homuncio exilis staturae.
Giesebrecht (III. 12 sq.): "Das Marienkloster auf dem Aventin, jetzt unter dem Namen des Priorats von Malta bekannt, bietet eine entzückende Aussicht ... ein hochbegabter Knabe, der hier erwuchs, musste die verschiedensten und mächtigsten Eindrücke erhalten, die sich kaum in einem anderen Gedanken zusammenschliessen konnten, als in dem der unvergleichlichen Hoheit des ewigen Roms."
So Martens, etc. Gregory speaks of having been brought up from childhood a pueritia by the prince of the apostles and "in the Roman palace."
The German historian, Otto von Freisingen, aptly applies this verse of Luican to the relation of the two popes, thus comparing Hildebrand to Cato.-
See vol. IV. 787 sqq.
See E. Martin, St. Leon IX., Paris, 1904, pp. 216; Mirbt art. in Herzog,
XI. 379-386.
In deposing at the Synod of Rheims the abp. of St. Iago, who had assumed the title apostolicus, Leo asserted in the strongest terms the primacy of the Roman see, quod solus Romanae sedis pontifex universalis, ecclesiae primas esset et apostolicus, Mansi, XIX. 738.
The controversy of Berengar is treated in vol. IV. 554 sqq.; the Greek controversy, ibid. p. 318 sqq. On the synods during the pontificate of Leo IX., see Jaffé, Reg., 529-549, Hefele, IV. 716-777, and Mirbt, Quellen, 95 sq.
His epigrams on Hildebrand (Opera, II. 961, 967):—
"Vivere vis Romae, clara depromito voce:
Plus domino Papae, quam domino parea Papae"
"Papam rite colo, sed te prostratus adoro:
Tu facis hunc Dominum; te facit iste Deum."
Ep. 1:16.
See vol. IV. 557 sq.
The canons are given in Mirbt, Quellen, 97 sqq. The two classes of cardinals are called cardinales episcopi and cardinales clerici. Langen makes the attempt to identify the latter with "the clergy of Rome," but without sufficient reason. The clergy, clerus, as a special body, are distinctly mentioned in the canons.
The canons have come down to us in two forms. The second form, falsified in the interest of the emperors, was current at least thirty years after Nicolas’s death. The fourth canon bearing on the emperor ran in its original form thus: salvo debito honore et reverentia dilecti filii nostri Henrici, qui inpresentiarum rex habetur et futurus imperator deo concedente speratur, sicut jam sibi concessimus et successoribus illius qui ab hac apostolica sede personaliter hoc jus impetraverint. See Scheffer-Boichorst, Die Neuordnung der Papstwahl durch Nikolas II., Strass., 1879, who made a thorough investigation of the subject, Hefele, IV. 800 sqq.; Hergenröther-Kirsch, Kirchengesch., II. 342 sqq.; Mirbt, Nikolas II., in Herzog, XIV. 73 sq.; Hauck, Kirchengesch. III. 683 sqq. Hergenröther, p. 344 note, interprets the canon as conceding notification and nothing more, in the light of the words of the contemporary Anselm of Lucca (Alexander II.): ut obeunte Apost. pontifice successor eligeretur et electio ejus regi notificaretur, facta vero electione, etc., regi notificata, ita demum pontifex consecraretur. The imperial bishops of Germany fought against the limitation of the election to clerical circles in Rome. Under Henry III. and IV. the view prevailed among them that no one could be a legitimate pope without the consent of the emperor. See Scheffer-Boichorst, Zu den Anfängen des Kirchenstreites unter Heinrich IV., Innsbruck, 1892, p. 122 sq.
Stubbs, ed. of Rich. de Hoveden, II. pp. lxxiii. sqq.
Bonizo, a friend of Hildebrand, calls Wido, who was elected bishop of Milan in 1045, a "vir illiteratus et concubinarius et absque ulla verecundia Simoniacus." Migne, Tom. CL. 825; Jaffé, Mon. Greg., 639. But Hefele, IV. 793, doubts the charge of concubinage, and also Mirbt, Publizistik, 249.
Lea, l.c., p. 210.
Muratori and Du Cange (sub Pataria and Paterinus) derive pataria from pate, which in the Milanese dialect means a huckster or pedler. So also Hefele, IV. 796. Giesebrecht(III. 31) renders PatarinaLumpengesindel. The contemporary, Bonizo, interprets the term to mean "ragged,"patarinos id est pannosos vocabant. See Mirbt, art. Patara, in Herzog, XIV. 761 sqq.