HADRIAN II.

A.D. 867-872.

 

 

EMPEROR OF THE EAST.                                      EMPEROR OF THE WEST.

Basil I. (the Macedonian), 867- 886.                     Louis II., 850-875.

 

THOUGH the reign of Hadrian did not last for more than five years, an extraordinary amount of work seems to have been accomplished by that septuagenarian pontiff. Whether it is that chance has preserved for us more records, or at least more detailed records of his doings, or whether it is that work, which had been attracted to Rome by the splendid energy of his predecessor, was waiting there for its completion, what was actually done by a man who had already passed 1 the allotted span of human life when he became Pope cannot fail to strike with astonishment all who consider it.

Hadrian, who was a member of a family which had already given two popes (Stephen (IV) V and Sergius II) to the Church, was the son of Talarus, afterwards a bishop, and was a citizen of the third region of the city. His virtues attracted the attention of Gregory IV, who made him a subdeacon; and, in accordance with the usual custom in such cases, brought him into the Lateran palace, to be trained in piety and learning. Ordained cardinal-priest of St. Mark's (842), he so distinguished himself by his blameless and manly administration of it, that “he was revered by the people not only as one who had been made a priest, but as the future Pope”

Of his various virtues, the one most marked out by his biographer for our admiration was his love of the poor, and what others, with less faith than himself, would call his extravagant charity towards them. But his continual prayer in the Church of Our Lady “ad praesepe”, had begotten within him such confidence in Our Lord and His blessed Mother, that he felt assured that his charities would never leave him without resource, and that in carrying out his works of mercy, he might safely encounter any pecuniary risks. In illustration of his charity and trust in God, his biographer, from whom we have drawn all these details, relates the following :—On one occasion, after he had received with his fellow priests, according to custom, forty denarii from Pope Sergius, he was unable, on his return home, to get near his house on account of the number of pilgrims who flocked there as to a public granary. At the sight, the good priest was filled with a holy joy, and turning to his almoner (equester), he cried : What is it to have money in comparison with having so many brothers? Thereupon, though he saw he had not enough ‘pence’ to give one apiece even to a third of the pilgrims; in the power of Christ, said he, who, with five loaves and two fishes fed five thousand men, I will give not one but three pence to each one here. This he did, and still the almoner declared that the supply of money was not exhausted. When after each of the cardinal’s household had also received his three pence, and there were still six left over : How bountiful is the Almighty, exclaimed Hadrian to his astonished almoner, for He has not only given three pence each to so many of our brethren, but has kept three for each of us also”. There is no exaggeration in the pretty thought of his biographer, that “mercy came out from his mother’s womb together with him, and grew along with him”.

It is exceedingly difficult to place in their true light the events which cent red round the election and consecration of the successor of Nicholas. For this, doubts regarding questions of chronology and uncertainty in connection with the identity of certain important individuals are responsible. It is indeed certain that Bishop Arsenius, who had fallen out of favor with Nicholas, again acquired influence with Hadrian, while remaining well-disposed towards the emperor; but it is by no means clear whether he was acting for the emperor in supporting Hadrian, or how far he was the head and front of the opposition, which immediately displayed itself, to the policy of Pope Nicholas. Nor, again, as it seems to me, can the identity of Anastasius the librarian and Anastasius the antipope be regarded as proved, and it is not certain that Arsenius was the father of the librarian. Further, in the strife of parties which followed the death of Nicholas, it is hard to say whether Lambert of Spoleto was acting for himself or the emperor when he made his violent entry into Rome, and equally hard to say when exactly he did make it. It was made tempore consecrationis. Does that mean before, during, or after Hadrian’s consecration? In view of these uncertainties, our narrative will closely follow the order of events, presumably arranged chronologically, set forth in the Liber Pontificalis.

In Hadrian, at any rate, the “nolo episcopare” was not a mere form. Twice before, on the demise of Pope Leo IV, and then again on that of Benedict III, had the whole united body of clergy, nobility, and people pressed him to take on his shoulders the burden of the supreme pontificate. Twice with argument and “exquisite excuses” had he with modesty declined the proffered honor. On the death of Nicholas, however, the will of the united clergy, nobility, and people was not to be baulked. Hadrian they, one and all, rich and poor, would have. The two sections of the nobility, viz., the clerical and the lay aristocracy presumably, seemed at first to be divided. But it was only, says the papal biographer, because each party doubted whether Hadrian was duly loved by the other, and feared that the other would vote for someone else. When these doubts and fears had been cleared up, bishops and priests, nobles and people, with one accord hurried Hadrian from the Liberian basilica (S. Maria ad Praesepe) to the Lateran palace, where they installed him Pope. On hearing of the election, the imperial missi, who happened at that time to be in the city, expressed great indignation that the Quirites had not invited them to share in the election. However, when they were told that they had not been invited to take part in the election, not from any want of respect for the emperor, but for fear lest a precedent should be created which would require the presence of imperial envoys at the election of the popes, they were mollified.

As soon as they went to salute the newly-elected Pontiff, they were literally besieged by the people crying out for the consecration of Hadrian. The Roman people were in one of their furores. The senators had the greatest difficulty in preventing them from having Hadrian consecrated forthwith, without waiting for any imperial assent. Louis, however, hastened to assure the Romans of his satisfaction at the good choice they had made, and that their unanimity made him also desirous of Hadrian’s consecration.

He was accordingly consecrated on Sunday, December 4, 867, at St. Peter’s, by Donatus, bishop of Ostia, Peter, bishop of Cava (in the archdiocese of Salerno), and Leo, bishop of Silva-Candida (a town in Tuscany on the Aurelian Way). The two latter bishops took the place of the bishop of Albano, who was dead, and of Formosus of Porto, who was in Bulgaria.

At the Mass which the Pope celebrated on this occasion, all, we are told, were anxious to receive Holy Communion at his hands. And, as an earnest of the conciliatory policy he intended to pursue, he forthwith, on the condition of their performing satisfactory penance, restored to ecclesiastical communion Theutgard of Triers, Zachary of Anagni, and Anastasius, the former antipope. On his return to the Lateran palace, he further signalized his consecration day by abolishing the custom which had gradually come into vogue of selling the presents given to the Pope on such occasions. After retaining what would serve his table, Hadrian caused the rest to be distributed among the poor, saying that what had been freely received should be freely given; and that senseless and inanimate coin ought not to be more loved than reasonable creatures.

The consecration of Hadrian did not take place a day too soon, for every fraction of authority was needed to stem the anarchy which was rapidly getting the Western continent of Europe into its grip. No sooner had the firm restraining hand of Nicholas been relaxed in death than the clerical and lay elements of disorder had begun to assert themselves at once. Writing to his friend Ado, archbishop of Vienne, the librarian Anastasius calls on him to resist the ravening wolves who broke into the fold immediately after the death of Nicholas.  “All those whom he reproved for adultery or other crimes are burning to have his acts reversed and his writings destroyed”, he says. By no means for the last time in the history of the popes, the most extravagant rumors were diligently circulated, the wildest talk indulged in immediately after the death of the late Pope. It was confidently asserted that the emperor was in favor of the malcontents, that there was to be a council held in Rome in which the metropolitans of Gaul were to get back their status, and that Nicholas had been guilty of heresy. Party feeling ran higher, or rather, the bitterness of faction fights waxed more furious than ever. “Many sons of the holy Church of God” were exiled or imprisoned on one pretext or another. On the strength of false charges, the emperor had, during the vacancy of the Holy See, banished the bishops of Nepi and Velletri, and John Hymmonides, the author of the life of S. Gregory the Great. Moved by the Pope’s letters, however, Louis not only sent back with honor the two bishops to the city, but ordered the release of those whom private revenge had been powerful enough to incarcerate on the plea of high treason against the emperor. Evidently the imperial party, or rather, that faction which strove to cover its own self-seeking under a show of zeal for the imperial authority, had not been idle during the interregnum. And we may well doubt whether the election of Hadrian had the sweetly simple character assigned to it by his biographer, or, perchance, suspect that the language in which he has described it is that of irony.

Those who were hoping to profit by the weakness of the supreme authority, whether in Church or in State, did not cease to spread abroad reports especially calculated to discredit  the deeds of Pope Nicholas. When they saw Hadrian continuing the public works of his predecessor, and showing in every way, even by the manner in which in his private life he copied the conduct of Nicholas, that he was desirous of walking in his footsteps, they gave out that he was a mere “Nicholaite”. On the other hand, when it was observed that Hadrian kept near him certain of these malcontents of whose repentance as a matter of fact he entertained hopes, it was bruited about that he himself had in mind to rescind the acts of his predecessor. Nothing so much proves the esteem in which Nicholas was held by the Catholic world as the sensation which this report caused. Letters poured in to Rome from the bishops of the West, respectfully yet repeatedly impressing on Hadrian that he must be true to the memory of Nicholas. Some Greeks and Orientals who were in Rome at this time (among them men from Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, some of whom were on an embassy from “the rulers of the world”, and others partisans of Ignatius and opponents of Photius), more easily impressible than the Westerns, went even to the length of privately withdrawing themselves from intercourse with the Pope. To get a favorable opportunity to give the lie to all these idle tales, Hadrian invited people in larger numbers than usual to the banquet that was wont to be held before Lent. At the dinner he not only waited upon his guests, but, to put them more at their ease, sat with them, a thing which, we are assured, he knew that no other Pope had ever done before him. When the repast was over, he prostrated himself before all his guests, and begged their prayers for the “Holy Catholic Church” for the emperor Louis, that he might subdue the Saracens, and for himself, who had to govern, weak as he was, the great flock that Christ had committed to St. Peter. On their crying out that the Pope ought rather to pray for them, he went on to beg them to continue praying for his predecessor, the most holy and orthodox Pope Nicholas; for to pray for the very good was to give thanks to God.

Great was the joy of the Easterns when they heard from Hadrian’s own lips that he was only anxious to accomplish the work begun by his predecessor. After they had thrice given long life to “Our lord Hadrian, by God’s decree supreme Pontiff and universal Pope”, at his request, “ever­lasting memory” was thrice acclaimed to the most holy and orthodox Pope Nicholas, the new Elias, the new Phinees.

One of the chief factors in keeping alive the unsettled state of men’s minds towards Hadrian was the suspicion with which many regarded his attitude towards Lothaire and his divorce. Just as the Orientals were afraid that he might regard the party of Photius in a different light to that in which it had been viewed by Nicholas, a strong section in Rome was evidently afraid that his conciliatory disposition might lead him to undo the work of his predecessor in the matter of the divorce. It was to no purpose that he was at pains to declare that his mind and will were in harmony with those of Nicholas, and that consequently his acts must also be, and that he would never tolerate any attempt to render nugatory the action of his great predecessor.

Men saw that Hadrian had given leave (868) to Lothaire to come to Rome to plead his cause again, a request which Nicholas had distinctly refused. They heard that the excommunication pronounced against Waldrada had been removed (February 868). It was pointed out that both Lothaire and the refractory Gunther had been given Holy Communion by the Pope himself at Monte Cassino (June 869). And at length (July 9, 869) Lothaire actually arrived in Rome. The upholders of the policy of Nicholas thought that Hadrian had a strange way of continuing that policy. They remembered that he had spoken of the necessity of his conforming to the altered state of the times, and moderating what the condition of things in his day had forced Nicholas to do with masterful justice. There was a general fear that he was going to carry his conciliatory policy too far, and that the greatest injury would be done to the whole Church. He must be strongly dissuaded from proceeding further in favoring the designs of Lothaire : so that when he summoned a council to treat of Lothaire’s case, after the latter had arrived in Rome, he found that his policy was not approved by his advisers. The opposition was led by Formosus, who had returned from Bulgaria, apparently in January 868, and had met with an enthusiastic reception. The speech he delivered on this occasion has been preserved, and has been already alluded to. He contrived to prevent any decision from being come to at that time, and to bring it about that the affairs in question, especially the affair of the divorce, should be referred to a larger assembly to be held in a year’s time. The death of Lothaire, which occurred within a few weeks after the holding of this synod, put an end to any necessity for calling such a council together, and in no little degree to the unsettled state of things in Rome.

Meanwhile events were happening there which testify,  far more clearly than words to the growing feudalism or anarchy of the times. Of the black deeds to be done in Rome during the tenth century, there are now lurid shadows coming before. In the midst of the rejoicings connected with Hadrian’s consecration, Lambert, duke of Spoleto, burst into the city with an armed force, and conducted himself as though he were a conqueror with the rights of war. Neither ecclesiastical nor civil property was spared, virginity itself was not respected by the lawless satellites of the duke—satellites in whom, from the names of his chief adherents, Gregorovius sees the “ancestors of the later Astalli, Gualterii, Ilperini, Oddoni, and Tiberti”. At the first opportunity the conduct of Lambert was denounced by the Romans to the emperor. But what power Louis possessed at this time he was employing against the Saracens of Southern Italy. And though the outrage caused great indignation to be manifested against Lambert, not only on the part of foreigners but on that of the emperor, his conduct was for some time unpunished. It was not till some years later (871), when he thought fit to turn his arms against Louis himself, that he was, for a time at least, driven from his duchy by the emperor. Meanwhile, till they should restore their ill-gotten goods, and make full satisfaction to him, Hadrian excommunicated the other plunderers. Some of them made the necessary atonement and were pardoned, but the others definitely threw in their lot with Lambert.

Another of those events alluded to above, which fore-shadow the lawlessness of the tenth century, was enacted in the bosom of the Pope’s own family, and throws around his private life a more tragic interest than attaches to that of almost any other Pontiff. It is related by Hincmar in his annals (ad an. 868). “Like father, like son”, was illustrated in the case of Talarus and his son Hadrian. Both of them were married before they entered the ranks of the clergy, and both became bishops. When Hadrian became Pope, his wife Stephania was still alive, and living with her daughter. In the letter, which we have already quoted, from Anastasius to Ado of Vienne, the former assures his friend that the new Pope placed great reliance on the writer’s father (uncle?), and Ado’s friend—the rich bishop Arsenius; and that, too, though for some time past he had not been in good odour, owing to his having been under the displeasure of Nicholas and to having consequently drifted into the imperial party. Anastasius concludes his letter by begging Ado to use his best endeavors that the influence possessed by Arsenius with the emperor and the Pope may benefit the Church. Now it was precisely from the family of Arsenius that trouble came to the Pope. Eleutherius, the son of Arsenius, relying possibly on his father’s influence at the imperial court, carried off and married by force Hadrian’s daughter, though she was already betrothed to another (March 10, 868). To obtain immunity for his son, Arsenius set off to Beneventum to buy with his treasures the protection of the Empress Ingelberga, who was as avaricious as the bishop himself. He was, however, overtaken by sudden death, and his son, finding that he could not escape the imperial missi, in a fit of despairing fury slew both Stephania and her daughter before he was himself put to death. As the story ran that Anastasius, whom Hadrian had made “librarian of the Roman Church” in the very beginning of his pontificate, and who was the brother (or cousin?) of Eleutherius, had been the chief instigator of his violence, the outraged Pontiff summoned a synod to try him. In the sentence which he promulgated against Anastasius (October 4), Hadrian recapitulated the sentences passed upon him by Leo IV and Benedict III, and his pardon by Nicholas I. On the strength of certain charges, and no doubt prima facie evidence, Anastasius was again declared excommunicated until he should in synod clear himself of the accusations brought against him. The points of the indictment against the cardinal-priest were that he had stolen from the Lateran palace the acts of the synod which had condemned him; that he had endeavored to sow discord between the Church and the emperor; that he had been the cause of a certain Adalgrim, who had fled for sanctuary to a church, losing his eyes and tongue; and that, as one of his relations, the priest Ado, had declared before them all, he had urged Eleutherius to the murders of which he had been guilty.

Of these serious charges it would seem that Anastasius must have cleared himself. For the very next year (869) we see him sent, with Hadrian’s approval, to Constantinople, as the ambassador of the emperor Louis, and there executing business for the Pope, and also exercising the office of librarian under both Hadrian and John VIII.

These two incidents let us see what we have to expect on any further weakening of the imperial power, or on the advent to the papal throne of men whose characters were not of the firmest. The weak point, and it is an amiable one, of the papal government has always been that it has been conducted on lines that are too paternal.

Actard of Nantes.

Among the affairs entered into, but not brought to a conclusion by the great Nicholas, was the matter of the dukes or kings of Brittany, and the bishops in the country over which they claimed sway. Among those who, from different parts of the world, set out from home with letters for Nicholas, and reached Rome to find that Hadrian had succeeded him in the See of Peter, was Actard, bishop of Nantes.

When Nomenoius, duke of Brittany, was aiming at making himself king, and independent of Charles the Bald in every way, Actard of Nantes refused to be present on the occasion when he succeeded in getting himself anointed king (c. 848). The new monarch promptly drove Actard from his See, and placed another in his stead. Such, at any rate, is the account of the deposition of Actard in the Chronicle of Nantes (c. 12). But as its recent able editor, Merlet, points out, Nomenoius was not master of Nantes when he was crowned king (848 or 849), so that Actard was probably only driven out of his See when Nantes fell (85o) into the hands of the new king. Restored by a victory of Charles, Actard was again driven out by King Solomon. His position naturally excited sympathy, and when he went to Rome in 867, as the bearer of the synodal letter of the Council of Troyes (October 867), he also took with him a letter from Charles the Bald to Nicholas, in which he was warmly commended by that monarch. The Pope was told that contact with the Normans and Bretons had brought exile and chains upon Actard, and that his once flourishing episcopal city had been destroyed, and had for ten years been a desert. Charles proposed, with the Pope’s consent, to give him a vacant bishopric, as there was no hope of his being able to return to his own See.

This letter, along with the other documents entrusted to him, Actard delivered to Pope Hadrian, who showed the strongest interest in the unfortunate bishop. Of his concern for him he gave prompt proof by granting him various favors himself, and by endeavoring to procure others for him. He told Charles the Bald (February 868) that he granted the favors, because he thought it “unbecoming that any one in trouble should come to the Apostolic See, where help is ever to be found by Catholics, and go away without receiving consolation”. Much pleased with the modesty which he found in the bishop, he gave his consent, not only to any vacant episcopal see being bestowed upon him, but even any metropolitan see. He also bestowed upon him the honor of the pallium for himself only, as he took care to point out both to Actard himself and to the bishops of the Synod of Soissons (866) who had interested themselves in his behalf, and not for the new see to which he might be attached. Finally, he wrote to Herard of Tours (March 8, 868), to ask him to grant to Actard a monastery which he formerly held in the archdiocese : “so that he who has nothing of his own, may hence at least be able to procure the necessaries of life by the help of what others have”. Hadrian did not exert himself in Actard’s behalf to no purpose; for, on the death of Herard, archbishop of Tours, he was translated to that see (871). With such deserved ill-favor, however, was translation in general then regarded in the Church, that there were not wanting men narrow-minded enough not to be able to see that there are times at least when certain laws are “more honored in the breach than the observance”" Among these men was even Hincmar of Rheims.

This same Hincmar was to be a cause of trouble to Hadrian, as he had been to his predecessors. In the letter of Anastasius to his friend Ado of Vienne, already several times quoted, the librarian expressed a doubt whether the new Pope would himself take in hand all the work of Nicholas, or leave some of it to others. But his actions must soon have made it plain to Anastasius and to the world at large that, despite his age, he had a great capacity for business. His share in the affair of Wulfad and his companions has been already set down under Leo IV, and in that of the divorce question of King Lothaire, under the life of Nicholas. We will now look into the bitter dispute between the two Hincmars, and see what part Hadrian took in it.

The two Hincmars

Through the influence of Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, there was elected to succeed Pardulus, bishop of Laon (fc. 856), one of Hincmar’s suffragans, a nephew of the metropolitan’s who also bore the name of Hincmar, and who had been brought up by the archbishop. Between the uncle and the nephew there was that similarity of character which is more generally found between father and son. Both were self-willed, and, while themselves restive under the hand of authority, were, as generally happens in such cases, inclined to bear heavily upon others who were their inferiors. Hincmar of Laon, however, had neither the learning nor authority of his uncle on the one hand, nor his nobility of character and prudence on the other. The bishop began to get himself into difficulties by a quarrel with his sovereign, Charles the Bald (868)—a quarrel, however, which the tact of his uncle managed to prevent from becoming serious for his nephew. Hincmar of Laon must have been one of those people to whom experience teaches nothing. The very same year he was again at cross-purposes with the king, and, this time, too, with his uncle. He had violently expelled Count Norman from an ecclesiastical fief belonging to his see, which he had promised the king to give him. Of this transaction he sent a garbled account to the Pope, representing both the king and Norman as violaters of ecclesiastical property, and informing him that he had made a vow to go to Rome. On the receipt of this communication from the bishop of Laon, Hadrian addressed (perhaps in November 868) two letters, much to the same effect, to Hincmar and to Charles. To both of them he says that, as his correspondent has engaged to come to Rome, the Pope has on his side forbidden him to defer the fulfillment of his promise beyond the 1st of August (869); Norman is to be excommunicated by apostolic authority unless he restores the possessions of the Church of Laon, and Hincmar is to be punished by his uncle if he puts off carrying out his intention of coming to Rome. While he is absent on his visit ad limina, Hadrian commends the charge of the temporalities of his See to the king and to the archbishop. Whoever tampers with them is to be excommunicated. In the letter to Charles there is one more sentence than in that to the archbishop. It is a sentence which seems to show that Laon had thrown blame upon the king. Hadrian says that when he hears that, like his predecessors, Charles is good to the Church, he rejoices; but that he is saddened when he hears of the king, contrary to his wont, oppressing anyone.

Charles was naturally not a little angry when this letter was put into his hands at Quercy  (December 1, 868).  “Laon” was summoned to appear before a synod at Verberie-sur-Oise. That he might not go resourceless before this assembly, the bishop held a diocesan synod (April 19, 869), where it was arranged that, if the tide turned against him, and he were not to be allowed to go to Rome, his clergy were to faithfully observe the interdict which he would then lay on the diocese. At the Synod of Verberie (April 24), Laon appealed to the Pope. And as, by the order of the king, he had to go to prison, he laid his diocese under an interdict.

As for his appeal to the Pope, the archbishop declared more than once that the conduct of Laon showed that the appeal was a mere sham, and that he had no real intention of going to Rome. When he got into trouble, then out came the appeal; but as soon as the trouble had blown over, he said no more about Rome.

At the request  of the Church of Laon, which naturally soon grew restive under the preposterous interdict which its bishop had laid upon it, Hincmar of Rheims, in his capacity of metropolitan, removed it. According to the latter, it was stated, in the appeal presented to him by the Church of Laon, that his nephew had ordered his priests to refrain not only from offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or burying the dead, but even from giving the last sacraments to the dying, or baptizing the children.

This proper exercise of authority on the part of Hincmar of Rheims was the cause of fresh disturbances between uncle and nephew, when the latter was released from prison, as he was after a short time. A violent war of words at once began. Long letters full of quotations from the Fathers, decretals of the Popes, false and other­wise, passed between them.

To bring matters concerning Laon to a head, Charles assembled a synod at Attigny, on the river Aisne (May 870). Finding that the feeling of the council was against him, Laon declared in writing that he would for the future be obedient to his king and to his archbishop. But before all the accusations against him had been disposed of, he fled from the synod. He felt he had no case. But again to gain time, he made known to his uncle that he renewed his appeal to the Pope, “who has the right of judging the whole Church”, and begged him to obtain from the king leave for him to go to Rome. But again events proved that the younger Hincmar was not in earnest in his appeal. For in the address which he delivered before the bishops of the Council of Douzi (August 871), Charles showed that on no less than five occasions when Laon was with him, in the interval between the two councils, he never spoke of his wish to go to Rome.

Council of Douzi, 875

But if Bishop Hincmar had no thought of turning to Rome, his uncle had. He wrote about the affair to the Pope, and received a letter from him, addressed to Hincmar of Laon, in which that bishop was blamed for not fulfilling his vow of making a pilgrimage to Rome, and ordered to obey his metropolitan, saving the rights of the Holy See. More angry than ever with Laon for his taking part with his rebellious son Carloman, and getting him into trouble with the Pope on account of the same youth, Charles, in August 871, convoked another synod to meet at Douzi, near Monson, a place famous in the story of the battle of Sedan (1870), in order to try the artful bishop. Laon was summoned to the synod by Hincmar, “in virtue of the authority of the Pope”, by a notice dated July 5, the fourth indiction (871).

At the synod Laon fell back on his old plan; he appealed to the Apostolic See. But this could not save him. He was declared deposed, “saving in all things the decision of the Apostolic See”, as was proclaimed as well by the first bishop (Hardwick of Besancon) who recorded his vote against Laon, as by Hincmar of Rheims in passing sentence on him.

The acts of the council were forthwith sent to Hadrian by Actard of Nantes, and along with them a synodal letter dated September 6, 871. The letter set forth in brief the charges on the strength of which the bishops had condemned Laon, “saving in all things the decision of the Apostolic See, as the sacred Canons of Sardica, and, from them, the decrees of Popes Innocent, Boniface and Leo have laid down”. Hadrian is earnestly begged to confirm the sentence of the synod. Here it would have been best for the obtaining of their wishes if the letter had ended. The bishops, however, and especially Hincmar of Rheims, were so angry at the tergiversations of Laon, who seemed so obviously guilty, that they not unnaturally could ill brook the thought of the crafty bishop’s being able to get the whole affair taken out of their hands, and of his enjoying still further immunity meanwhile. They, therefore, proceeded to tell the Pope what he must do in case he did not agree with their decision—a thing they did not expect. In conformity with the Canons of Sardica, he should order a fresh trial by the bishops on the spot, or send legates a latere to decide the case along with the bishops. In any case, “with all humility of devotion”, they beg the Pope not to restore Laon to his rank in the meanwhile, till the case has been again gone into in the province in which it had been already decided. Such has hitherto, their letter continued, been the universally received method of procedure in the Gallic and Belgic Churches. As they are anxious for the preservation of the privileges of the See of Peter, they beg the Pope to have a care of theirs. But if, by some means or other, Laon should be restored to his see by the Pope, then, said the bishops, “under favour”, Laon will be able to do, what he has all along wanted to do, viz. as he likes, and it will only remain for them to leave him alone.

Whether Hadrian was annoyed at the pettiness displayed in the conclusion of the synodal letter, whether he was in possession of facts which are unknown to us, whether he was afraid of establishing a precedent if under the circumstances, he confirmed the synod, or whether, in fine, he was simply ill-advised, certain it is that he refused to confirm the synod (December 26, 871). As Hincmar of Laon had appealed to Rome, he, with one of his accusers, must come to Rome, where the affair would be considered in a synod. Till then no bishop must be consecrated for the See of Laon. In another letter, addressed to the king, while attempting to soothe his anger at the letter of expostulation which he had sent him (July 13, 871) on the subject of his treatment of Carloman, the Pope declares that “as long as he lives” he will not confirm the synod till Laon comes to Rome. Irritated as the recipients of these letters were at the trouble which Laon had given them, the papal documents were viewed with no little disfavor. The bishops wrote back to the Pope to say that they were astonished at the letter they had received; but that, as Actard had informed them of the important matters on which the Pope and his officials were fully engaged, they supposed that the one whom he had directed to write to them had not read, in their entirety, the acts of their synod, or he never could have written as he had done. The conclusion of this letter is wanting. If the tone of the answer of the bishops was somewhat sharp, those of Charles the Bald, in which all recognize the hand of Hincmar, were absolutely violent. He professes at first to believe that the language of the Pope’s letters to him is due to the one to whom he had entrusted the drawing of them up; but in a following letter he says he has found they have come from the Pope himself. He then launches forth. He complains of being set down as perjured and tyrannical, though he has neither confessed to the charges urged against him nor been proved to have been guilty of them. And though he does not deny, in general, the Pope’s right to excommunicate anyone whomsoever, still he strongly resents the threat of excommunication which, without any grounds, has been hurled against him. If the Pope wants the king to pay any heed to his recommendations, he must write in the style in which the popes have been wont to address the kings of France. The Pope is then roundly lectured as to what he ought to have done, and asked to bear with the king’s plain-speaking, as St. Peter, “the first Pope”, endured the hard words of St. Paul. “What hell”, he continues, forcibly at least, “has vomited forth this general law?” viz., that one (Hincmar of Laon) should be sent to Rome who had been a prevaricator of the sacred laws, a reviler of the holy priesthood, a despiser of his sovereign, a disturber of the kingdom, etc. Any condemnation that does not proceed “from a just judgment of Peter” is not to be held as of any account. A king cannot be ordered to send to Rome a man who has been legally condemned as guilty. As for looking after the property of the Church of Laon during the absence of its bishop, Charles would beg to remind the Pope that the kings of the Franks were not stewards of bishops, but rulers of the State. But in any case Laon shall not have the temporalities (episcopium) of his See, even if it has been impossible to arrive at the truth with regard to all the accusations which have been brought against him. Any of his clerics may, however, go to Rome. But the Pope is not to allow orders and excommunications, against the canons, to be sent in his name to the king. If opportunity presents itself, he will come to Rome himself as an accuser of Laon, but he will bring more witnesses with him than the Pope will care for. He will not, however, be backward in rendering him, as the vicar of the Prince of the Apostles, the obedience to which he is legally entitled. He will not send derogatory letters if he does not receive them.

This blustering epistle had the effect of making Hadrian see that it was necessary to pour oil on the troubled waters. A letter despatched at once, not many months before he died, praised the king’s wisdom, justice, and zeal for the Church of God, assured him of his consequent attachment to him, and declared that, if in his former letters the king had found objectionable phrases, they must have come from him when tortured by sickness, or have been inserted by others. Then, as a secret only to be made known to those who were absolutely trustworthy, Hadrian assured the king that if he survived the emperor, and he himself were still alive, he would never, not even for gold untold, acknowledge any other as emperor except Charles. With regard to Hincmar of Laon, the Pope acknowledged that, from the evidence sent him, things looked black indeed against him. But it would be against the canons for him to decide anything, under the circumstances, against Laon until he had been to Rome. If he there still maintained his innocence, the Pope would then authorize a new trial in Laon’s own province.

Laon, however, was not allowed to go to Rome, but was Laon and put into prison instead. After about two years’ imprisonment, the unfortunate man was deprived of his sight, for what cause we have not been able to discover. Just before leaving Rome, after his coronation (January 5, 876) as emperor by John VIII, Charles obtained from him the confirmation  of the Synod of Douzi, and his consent to the election of a new bishop for the See of Laon. One Hedenulf was accordingly duly elected (March 876). But when John came to France and held a synod at Troyes (August 878), the poor degraded Hincmar, blind but dauntless still, came before him and appealed for justice. According to the contemporary chronicler of St. Vedast’s monastery (ad an. 878), he completely cleared himself of all the charges brought against him. And we know from Hincmar himself that, on the motion of several bishops, John, with the consent of the king (Laon’s enemy, the Emperor Charles the Bald, was now dead, and Louis the Stammerer was king), decided that Hedenulf was to keep the bishopric of Laon, but that the unhappy blind bishop might say mass, and have part of the episcopal revenues. Thus was this tiresome affair brought to an end. But its tragic development in the blinding of the unfortunate bishop, and the consideration that he may very easily have been—nay, indeed, probably was—less guilty than he was made to appear by king and archbishop, might well justify the Holy See in being slow to consent to the deposition of bishops, especially where there was question of a king powerful enough to force his own will. It was action of this kind on the part of rulers, ecclesiastical and civil, which caused the eighth ecumenical council to decree that the causes of bishops were in future to be reserved to their patriarchs only, and no longer left to the judgment of their metropolitan or of the bishops of their province (can. 26).

Well was it for Europe in the Middle Ages that there was a power which could put a check on the tyranny of kings. No lover of liberty should murmur at the authority boldly exercised by the Popes. Even if they did occasionally overstep their powers, their actions were almost universally on the side of right and freedom. And when they were not, they did not issue in the cruel deeds of blood and iron (such as the treatment of Laon ) perpetrated by kings, when they overstepped the rights which were their due from the laws of God and man.

The case against the younger Hincmar was, it would seem, rendered stronger by his political action. Hence some even suppose that he lost his eyes for siding with Louis the German, who attempted to cause a rising in  Charles’s kingdom of Neustria, when that prince had gone to Rome to receive the imperial crown (875). Charles and Louis were perpetually either making war on each other, or coming to some amicable, but very temporary, understanding. On the death of the dissolute Lothaire I, king of Lorraine (August 8, 869), his kingdom ought to have fallen to his brother, the Emperor Louis II. When their third brother, Charles, had died (863), his kingdom, which consisted of Provence and the Duchy of Lyons, had been satisfactorily divided between the Emperor Louis II and Lothaire II of Lorraine. But on the demise of the latter, his uncles, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, without any consideration for the emperor, divided his kingdom between them. By a treaty concluded between the pair at Mersen, near Maestricht (August 870), the exact share of each was finally determined. The Moselle and the lower reaches of the Meuse may be said to have formed the boundaries between the two kingdoms, which were still further divided by language. Speaking generally, the realm of Louis the German was the abode of the Teutonic tongue, that of Charles, of the Romance or French.

Long before this final arrangement was concluded, Hadrian stood out for the rights of the emperor. He was the more moved to this from the fact that Louis was making determined efforts to drive the Saracens out of Southern Italy. Indeed, he had not been Pope many months before he began to work for the maintenance of the existing political order. Even though Lothaire of Lorraine was then naturally in bad odor in Rome, still when Hadrian heard that Louis the German was hoping to make capital out of his nephew’s ill-favor by invading his country, he wrote to beg him not to do so. Such action would be fatal to the Church. Louis was doing his utmost, not sparing himself in anything, to overcome “those foes of the name of Christ” the Saracens. But if his brother were touched he would feel himself injured also, and the good he was doing would be suspended. Similar letters were sent to Charles the Bald.

It was only to be expected, therefore, that, on Lothaire’s death, Hadrian would exert himself in the interests of the emperor. And loyally did he do so. The emperor and the Pope were now harmoniously working for each other’s benefit. Four letters, three of them dated September 5, 869, were at once dispatched from Rome. The dated ones were addressed respectively to the bishops, and to the lay lords of Charles the Bald, and to Hincmar of Rheims. They were all earnestly exhorted to warn Charles from seizing what belonged, by hereditary right, to the emperor, the defender of the Church against the Saracens. Those who should give any contrary advice were threatened with excommunication. The remaining letter, on the other hand, was addressed to the clerical and lay nobility of the kingdom of Lorraine, who were solemnly urged to remain true to the emperor.

But before the bishops, Paul and Leo, who were the Charles bearers of these letters, and the imperial envoy could reach Gaul, Charles had had himself crowned at Metz as king of Lorraine (September 9, 869), and the embassy was unable to effect anything. To begin with, it was the intention of Charles to keep the whole of Lorraine for himself. But Louis the German had to be reckoned with; and he soon found that the only way to avoid war was to induce Louis to share the plunder. That any such agreement had been come to was quite unknown to Hadrian, when in June (870) he sent off a more numerous embassy with letters (dated June 27) for both Louis and Charles. The latter is severely blamed for his perjury in occupying the kingdom which belonged to the Emperor Louis, and this against his oath, of which the Pope has the deed, and also for sending away the legates without addressing suitable answers to them or to the Apostolic See. We are very willing, continued the Pope, to do as you suggest, and to act as a mediator between you and the emperor. Indeed, we have begun to do so. But, even in order that peace may be made, you refuse to give way to him who is fighting the battles of the Lord against the Saracens. It is only because he is so engaged that you dare do what you have done. To show that we are acting not with any hope of favor from men, we will not leave your conduct unpunished, even if the emperor should be disposed so to do. The aged Pope even talked of himself going to Charles, if his letters failed to make him do his duty. He commended to the king his legates, viz. four bishops and a priest cardinis nostri.

In accordance with instructions received from the Pope, his envoys went first to Louis the German, in whose good­will towards the emperor both the Pope and Louis II himself had full confidence, to concert measures with him for dealing with Charles. When, however, the envoys reached Louis the German, they found that he had also become a partner in the unjust spoliation of the emperor. Without giving them any satisfaction, he sent them on to Charles. Charles kept them for some time with him; and though he did not accede to the desire of the Pope, he sent him presents and letters by ambassadors of his own, and, at the request of the legates, set free from custody his son Carloman. The papal envoys, then, had to return and report to the Pope that they had failed to accomplish anything. Something, however, they had done. For two years afterwards, Louis the German gave up his share of the plunder to the emperor.

Among the letters brought to the Pope by his legates was, no doubt, the one which Hincmar of Rheims had written in answer to one (of September 5, 869) he had received from the Pope, instructing him to oppose Charles’s intended usurpation. As its object was to defend a very weak case, it took a very high tone. While professing that, to avoid the Pope’s censures, he had not shrunk from doing as he had been instructed, Hincmar launched forth some very hard blows. His strong words, however, he presented, not as his own, but as the remarks of “both clergy and laity who had assembled at Rheims in great numbers from the different kingdoms”. The burden of the epistle was to the effect that Charles had acted as he had from necessity. The dreaded Normans were near, and the Emperor Louis was far away. A sentence or two will show its tone. When, wrote Hincmar, I spoke of the power which had been given by Our Lord to St. Peter, the first of His apostles, and through him to his successors, and to the apostles and their successors, the bishops, “they replied : Do you then by the sole power of your prayers defend the kingdom against the Normans and its other foes, and seek not our help. But if you want to have our armed assistance, as we desire the protection of your prayers, seek not what is to our loss, but ask the Pope (as he cannot be king and bishop at once, and as his predecessors have regulated ecclesiastical affairs, which are their business, and not state matters, which are the business of kings) not to command us to have a king, who, so far away, cannot help us against the sudden and frequent attacks of the heathens, nor to order us, Franks, to be submissive ; for such a yoke have his predecessors never laid upon ours, nor can we suffer it”.

One of the causes which kept Charles irritated against Hincmar of Laon was his supporting against him the above-mentioned Carloman. Wisely determining not to imitate,  at least to the full, the fatal example of his predecessors, Charles the Bald destined only two of his sons to reign after him. The other two, of whom one was Carloman, were made monks. But, as Charles thought nothing of sending Carloman on military expeditions, he ought not to have been surprised to find that his son soon got tired of a monastic life, and even commenced hatching plots against him. For this he was at once incarcerated in Senlis, after the Synod of Attigny had deprived him of the abbeys which the king had bestowed upon him. Through the intercession of the legates sent by Hadrian to induce Charles to leave for his nephew the kingdom of Lorraine, Carloman was released from confinement. But he only made use of his liberty to renew his plots. Supported by Hincmar of Laon, Carloman laid his own version of the case before the Pope. “Hadrian”, writes Pertz, “stirred up by the appeal, and deceived by the envoys sent by the wicked prince, and, moreover, angry with Charles on account of his seizing the kingdom of Lorraine, took up the cause with alacrity”. He wrote to Charles (July, 13 871) to accuse him of adding cruelty to robbery. “Surpassing the ferocity of the beasts, you do not blush to turn against your own flesh and blood, against your son Carloman”. Hadrian goes on to ask the king to restore the youth to favor, at least until his envoys come to the king, and, “saving the honor which is due to both of you”, until the affair may be settled on the observed merits of the case.

To the nobles of Charles’s kingdom he wrote to urge them to do all that lay in their power to prevent the scandal of father and son from fighting against each other, and to threaten with excommunication whoever took up arms against Carloman. By a third letter, to the bishops of France (Neustria) and Lorraine, again supposing things to be as stated to him, he forbids them to excommunicate Carloman “until we, who wish the judgments of God’s priests to be carefully considered, find out the truth with regard to all that has happened”. He concludes by saying very pointedly that, though Carloman has assured him of his innocence over and over again, he may not be guiltless. But it would look like a just judgment of God, that the one who had done such wrong to his own nephew should be punished by having a rebellious son.

According to Hincmar, before the end of this year (871), Carloman, with “a feigned profession of submission”, gave himself up into the hands of his father, who again caused him to be imprisoned in Senlis. By this time Hadrian was in a better position to judge of his aims, and henceforth we hear no more of papal interference in behalf of the young prince, who was, by a council at Senlis (873) degraded from the clerical state to which he had never voluntarily aspired. When, however, it was found that the malcontents then more than ever turned to Carloman, “in order that he might have an opportunity of doing penance”, and yet at the same time might be prevented from disturbing the peace of the kingdom, the death-penalty, which was decided to be his due, was commuted to the loss of sight. The Annals of Fulda do not put the affair so well for the king as does his friend Hincmar. They state laconically : “Charles the tyrant (tyrannus) of Gaul, laying aside all parental feeling, commanded his son Carloman to be blinded”. The unhappy young man died soon after.

The Emperor Louis III and the Saracens

In the last few pages mention has often been made of the wars of the Emperor Louis II against the Saracens. To events in connection with them we must now turn. The story of the Saracens effecting a firm foothold in Italy has already been told. Before the emperor, who has been justly called the Saviour of Italy, could turn his undivided attention to the work of driving out the Saracens, he had to bring to a close the rivalry between Radelchis and Siconulf. It may be remembered that these were the men who, in their struggle for the duchy of Beneventum, had both called in Saracens to their aid. In 85o (or perhaps rather in 849) Louis forced the two to make peace. Radelchis was to keep Beneventum itself, and the eastern half of the duchy. Siconulf became Prince of Salerno, and ruled over the Campanian and Lucanian  half. Henceforth, among the Lombards of the south, the dukes of Beneventum will only be second to the princes of Salerno, which had for some time been rapidly increasing in commercial importance, and to the counts of Capua, lords of the valley of the Liris, who had come into power by breaking away from Siconulf, just as he had rendered himself independent of Radelchis. Later on (867), the emperor compelled them to do him homage, and to lend him their assistance against Mofareg-ibn-Salem, who had formed into one state the whole coast from Bari, which the Saracens had seized in 840, to Reggio. For eighteen years (853-71) this robber-king was the terror of Southern Italy. Louis also secured a half-hearted co-operation of the Greeks. Despite certain reverses, after one of which, to the great grief of the emperor himself and of the Pope, the infidels were able to make a dash, and plunder the celebrated abbey of St. Michael on Mt. Gargano. Louis took Bari, the head­quarters of the Saracen occupation (February 871). Leaving his army to continue the work of ousting the Saracens, he withdrew to Beneventum. Whether it was that he yearned for the spoils which Louis had with him, or whether rendered furious by the avaricious haughtiness of the Empress Ingelberga, the new Duke Adelgisus (Adelchis) attempted to seize his sovereign. He was successful; but, terrified by a fresh invasion of Saracens (September 871), he released him and his friends, on his oath that he would never attempt to avenge the insult that had been put upon him. This outrage on the imperial dignity, taken in conjunction with those put upon the papal at the beginning of Hadrian's reign, serves to bring out in still clearer light the rapidly growing insolence of the greater nobles, and to prepare us to find both dignities still further degraded by lawless barons.

The feelings of indignation with which Louis left Beneventum can be well imagined. The duke of Spoleto fled from before him to his associate Adelgisus. Burning to avenge the insult put upon him, he sent to beg the Pope to come and meet him, and absolve him from the oath he had taken.

It would seem, however, that he was absolved from his oath only when he came to Rome for the Whitsuntide of 872. At least, the monk Regino, in his chronicle, assigns that act of supreme jurisdiction on the part of the Pope to the time when Louis came to Rome, though he wrongly attributes its performance to Pope John VIII. He says : “In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 872, the Emperor Louis came to Rome, and there in an assembly  he laid his complaints against Adelgisus in presence of the Pope. Then, by the senate of the Romans, Adelgisus was declared a tyrant and an enemy of the republic, and war was decreed against him. By the authority of God and St. Peter, Pope John (Hadrian) absolved the emperor from the oath he had taken, saying that what he had done under compulsion, to avoid the danger of death, was not binding, and that that could not be called an oath which was devised against the safety of the republic.

On the day of Pentecost (May 18) Louis was crowned by the Pope, doubtless as king of that portion of Lothaire’s kingdom which Louis the German had restored to him, and after Mass rode, in company with the Pope, in great state to the Lateran.

Before he left Rome, the entreaties of the holy bishop of Naples, Athanasius, induced Louis to at least suspend his desire of vengeance against the duke of Beneventum, and to turn his arms on those Saracens whose landing had been the cause of his release. And next year, because, according to some authorities, he felt himself unable to chastise Adelgisus, he allowed Pope John VIII to reconcile him with the duke. But there was no real submission in the heart of the Lombard.

Athanasius, the saintly prelate of whom mention has just been made, was, at the time of which we are now writing (872), in exile. Uncle of the Duke Sergius of Naples, he had been put in prison for reproving the young prince’s evil courses. The clamors of the people, however, forced the duke to release him from confinement. But he ceased not to oppress him, and to hinder him in his work in every way. The saint, therefore, left Naples (871), and took refuge in the Isle of the Saviour, about a mile and a half from the city. Sergius would have brought him back by main force, had not the emperor sent out troops for his delivery. Rendered furious by being thus baulked, Sergius plundered the episcopal treasury, and treated the ecclesiastics in Naples with the greatest barbarity. In two letters, which are now lost, Hadrian wrote to him and to the clergy and people of Naples, ordering them, under pain of excommunication, to receive back their bishop. When no notice of these letters was taken by the duke, Hadrian, through the librarian, Cardinal Anastasius, laid the city under an interdict. But the thought that his episcopal city was in this sad condition was more than Athanasius could long bear. At his entreaty, Hadrian removed the interdict. The saint’s death (July 15, 872) alone prevented the Emperor Louis from restoring him to his See. This sketch of the history of St. Athanasius of Naples furnishes us with another view of one of the innumerable petty tyrants into whose hands, strong in nothing but evil, all power in Western Europe was now falling. A great and powerful tyrant who lords it over an extended empire stifles liberty, but a number of petty tyrannical princes rend it to pieces.

Restoration of St.Ignatius, 867

Some little space must now be devoted to the narration of the most important story, not only in the reign of Hadrian, but in the ninth century, viz., that of the would-be patriarch of Constantinople, Photius. It has been put off to the end of this biography, that, taken up again in the beginning of the life of John VIII, there may be as few great gaps as possible between its different parts.

It has been already stated that Nicholas I had died before official news reached Rome that the Emperor Michael had been assassinated, and that his quondam groom, Basil the Macedonian, was emperor of Constantinople in his stead. Despite the means by which he raised himself to the supreme power, Basil proved a good emperor, and founded the longest of the Byzantine dynasties—a dynasty which gave to the Greek empire at least stationary prosperity.

The first act of any importance which Basil performed was, in accordance with the sentence of the Roman Church, to banish Photius, the intruded patriarch (September 25). This he did on the day following that on which he had himself been saluted as emperor. By his orders, also, the envoy, Zachary, was recalled, who had been made metropolitan of Chalcedon by Photius, and who was on his way to Italy to convey to Louis and Ingelberga the forged acts of the petty council which Photius had held (867) against Pope Nicholas, and forged acts against St. Ignatius. Photius’s papers, too, which he tried to smuggle out of his palace, were also seized; and it was then that copies of the forged acts of a council against Ignatius, and of one against Pope Nicholas, which Photius had entrusted to Zachary, were all also secured.

The day following the expulsion of Photius, “moved by the prayers of all the people”, Basil “confirmed the decision come to in Old Rome by Pope Nicholas concerning the expulsion of Photius and the restoration of Ignatius, recalled Ignatius from exile, and degraded Photius”—an item of news, to use the expression of the monk Michael, “received with the greatest joy by the prelates of the other apostolic thrones”.

Basil lost no time in communicating with Rome, and in sending word of what had been done to Pope Nicholas, of whose death, on December I, the emperor was still unacquainted. Of the two letters which he sent to Rome, the first is lost, but the second (dated December 11) has come down to us. He tells the Pope, whom he addresses as the “head, sacred, divine, and reverend, like Aaron”, that he is sending him a second letter, for fear that, owing to the great distance which separates them, some accident might prevent the first from being delivered into his hands. He goes on to speak of the wretched state in which he found the Church of Constantinople when he took the reins of government, and to say that he had taken certain remedial measures himself, and had left the rest to be done by the Pope. He had removed Photius from the patriarchal See because he had acted against the truth and against the Pope. Ignatius, on the other hand, he had recalled in virtue of the decision contained in the Pope’s letters—letters which his predecessors had kept secret. It is for the Pope to settle the other questions; nay, to approve what he had himself accomplished. He wishes him to decide what has to be done with those—the great majority—who through violence, fraud, levity, or bribes have been false to Ignatius and have gone over to Photius. “That the Pope’s divine and apostolic sentence may be made known even to the party of Photius”, he is sending to Rome John, the metropolitan of Siheum, to represent Ignatius; Peter, the metropolitan of Sardis, for Photius and, on his own behalf, the spathar Basil. In conclusion, he begs Nicholas to act promptly, that the fold of Christ (of which he is the chief minister and immolator) may again become one, obeying one pastor.

By the 1st of August 868 (if there is no mistake in the dates or addresses of the two letters which we are about to quote), neither the last-mentioned letter of Basil, nor the embassy therein spoken of, had reached Rome. For the Pope, in two letters of that date, simply praises Basil for what he has done in the matter of Photius and Ignatius, rallies the latter in a friendly way for not writing to him about the state of affairs, and commends to him “the most glorious spathar Euthymius”, who, as the emperor’s envoy, was the first to tell the Pope what he had so long wished to hear concerning Ignatius.

Owing to the slow means of communication of those times, these two letters of Hadrian, and the embassy of Basil with his letter (just quoted), and one from Ignatius (also addressed to Pope Nicholas), crossed. This letter of St. Ignatius is important, as it is as explicit an acknowledgment of the position of the Pope in the Church on the part of the Church of Constantinople, as that of Basil was on the State's behalf. The saint begins by saying that there are many physicians of the ailments of the body; but for the cure of His own members, Our Saviour has appointed “only one excellent and most Catholic physician . . . . your holiness”. It was for that that He addressed St. Peter with the words : “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church”,"etc. (S. Matt. xvi. 18). These blessed words He did not address to St. Peter simply, but through him to all those chief pastors who were to come after him and were to resemble him—“the most divine and sacred bishops of Old Rome”. “Ofttimes have your predecessors shown themselves vigorous in rooting out heresies and putting an end to other evils.  And in these our days your blessedness has worthily used the power given you by Christ. With the armour of truth, which prevails over everything, you have expelled the man (Photius) who forced his way into the sheepfold like a thief, robbed another of his rights, and even went so far as to forge the acts of a council against you. The falsely-called Photius (Light) you have cut off from the body of the Church, me you have restored, and to the Church here you have brought tranquility. Obeying you cheerfully, like a son, the emperor has meted out what is just to Photius and to myself. After assuring the Pope of his affection for him, and telling him how much he thanks him for what he has done for him, Ignatius goes on to ask what has to be done with those who have been ordained by the intruder Photius, and with those who, ordained by Ignatius himself, have yet gone over to the side of Photius, either from fear or choice”. In conclusion, he begs the Pope to send legates, with whose aid he may settle the affairs of Constantinople.

With these letters of Basil and Ignatius the imperial envoys at last reached Rome; at least some of them did. For Peter of Sardis, the representative of Photius, though he had chosen a new ship for his voyage was shipwrecked; “and he who had torn the bark of Christ, i.e. the Church, perished by the rending of his own ship”. Doubtless the same storm which shipwrecked the envoy of Photius delayed the other ambassadors of Basil.

When they reached Rome they presented (at the end of 868, or the beginning of 869) their letters and presents to the Pope, who received them with his bishops and nobles in the sacristy of St. Mary Major. After the singing of the laudes, and after the envoys had returned thanks to the Roman Church, “by the exertions of which the Church of Constantinople had been freed from schism”, they asked the Pope to make known to everyone the forgery of Photius, which had converted the latrocinale (assembly of robbers) of 867 into a regular synod. Basil and Ignatius, “restored by your good offices”, had thrust the forged document from the city, like the plague, and had sent it to the supreme head. The document was then introduced by John, the metropolitan of Silaeum in Pamphylia, who dashed it to the ground, exclaiming, “Condemned at Constantinople, may it be condemned again at Rome. The devil’s agent, the new Simon (Magus), the inventor of lies, even Photius put it together; the minister of Christ, the new Peter, the lover of truth, even Nicholas broke it to pieces”. Stamping upon it, and striking it with his sword, the other envoy, an imperial spathar, declared that the signature of Basil which appeared in it was a forgery, as he was prepared to maintain on oath, and that the signature of Michael was obtained when he was drunk (ebriosissimum). Not only, he continued, was the signature of Basil a forgery, but, with the aid of his few accomplices, Photius forged the signatures of numerous bishops, “that by the fraud of those who were present the simplicity of the absent might be played upon”. Before a formal decision was passed upon the production in synod, Hadrian gave orders to have it carefully examined by such “as were skilled in both languages”, who were to present a report theron to a council.

In due course Hadrian summoned the synod. The  imperial envoys were heard, the letters of Nicholas bearing on the subject read, Photius, his false council and his accomplices condemned for the third time, and the forged document committed to the flames. To the intense amazement of all, concludes the papal biographer, before anyone could imagine that it was half burnt, exhaling a vile smell, it was entirely consumed,—a shower of rain which occurred at the time only serving to augment the flames. Moreover, all the faithful, whether of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem or elsewhere, were required, under pain of anathema, to give up or burn any copies of the forgery which they might possess.

On the termination of the synod, Hadrian despatched Papal legates to Constantinople. To Donatus, bishop of Ostia, and the deacon Marinus, who had been selected by Nicholas to go to the imperial city, Hadrian added Stephen, bishop of Nepi. They were furnished not only with the letters which Nicholas had prepared for them, but with two from Hadrian himself, and with certain instructions.

They were to pacify the Church of Constantinople, and restore to their churches the bishops who had been consecrated by Methodius or Ignatius, and who had sided with Photius, on condition of their signing the “deed of reparation” which Nicholas had already drawn up for the embassy of 866, and which had been preserved in the archives of the Roman Church. With regard to those who had been consecrated by Photius but were repentant, pending a final decision of the Holy See, the decision of Pope Nicholas was to remain good, and they were not to be recognized as bishops.

Of the letters which Hadrian entrusted to his envoys, one was addressed to “his most desirable son”, Basil. Hadrian therein informs the emperor that he has received the ambassadors sent to his predecessor Nicholas; thanks God for what has passed at Constantinople; praises Basil for turning to the Apostolic See, “which is ever wont to help Catholics”, and for the cure of the troubles of the Church of Constantinople; assures him that, in the treatment he has meted out to Ignatius and Photius, he has only done “what the Apostolic See, with the whole episcopate of the West, had long ago decreed was to be done”; expresses a wish that through the exertions of the emperor a numerous council might be called, over which his legates would preside and would decide on the guilt of the culprits, according to the instructions they had received; and commands all copies of the false council of Photius against the Holy See to be burnt. Finally he exhorts Basil to see to it that the decisions of the synod just held at Rome be confirmed by the signatures of the council, and carefully preserved in the archives of all the churches.

Letter to Ignatius.

In his letter to St. Ignatius the Pope expressed his delight at his restoration, and assured the patriarch that he was determined to stand by the decisions of his predecessor, and hence that Photius and all, without exception, whom he had ordained were to be deposed.

After a "tortuous and toilsome" journey, the papal legates at length reached Thessalonica, where they were met by a spatharius candidatus (an imperial life-guards­man), whom the emperor had sent to greet them and escort them on their journey. At the old town of Selymbria, on the Propontis, they found awaiting them aprotospatharius (a captain of the guards), and Theognistus, the great supporter of Ignatius at Rome, whom the Liber Pontificalis dignifies with the title of patriarchalis egumenus, or abbot-general, as it were. Forty horses from the imperial stables, silver plate, and a crowd of servants were also there ready for their convenience. On Saturday, September 24, they had reached Castrum Rotundum, near San Stefano, where some hundreds of years before legates of Pope Hormisdas, who had come on a similar errand, had been received. The following day was fixed for their triumphal entry into Constantinople. Mounted on horses with trappings of gold, they were met by all the gorgeous groups of officials that formed the magnificent household with which the emperors of Constantinople strove to impress both the barbarians and their own peoples with a sense of their exalted power and dignity. There were imperial chamberlains, civil functionaries, grooms of the imperial stables, various corps of the guards in their long white tunics, with their golden shields and helmets, and with their gold-inlaid lances and swords, and lastly, the different grades of the clergy. At the Golden Gate, in the south­west corner of the city walls, they were met and greeted by deputies of the patriarch, his librarian and others, in their ecclesiastical vestments, and by the people, all bearing torches. Thus, for some three miles, were they solemnly escorted to the palace of the Magnaura, which communicated by covered arcades with Saint Sophia.

The Eighth General Council, 869.

Most flattering was the reception given to them by the emperor (September 27). He received them with the greatest kindness, kissed the letters of the Pope, and assured the envoys that “the Roman Church, the holy mother of all the Churches of God”, had looked after the interests of the Church of Constantinople, torn in pieces by the ambition of Photius, and that by the authority of the letters of Pope Nicholas, Ignatius had been restored to his See. For two years, he continued, have we and all the Oriental patriarchs, metropolitans, and bishops been awaiting the decision of our holy mother the Roman Church; and we now trust that at length by the authority of your holy college (i.e. the council) the scandals caused by Photius may be terminated, and that the long-wished­for unity may be at last restored in accordance with the decrees of Pope Nicholas. The papal legates made answer that it was for those purposes that they had come. But, they continued, we cannot admit any Oriental into our synod before he has signed the “libellus satisfactionis” which we have brought from Ro.ne. Upon this the emperor and the patriarch at once asked what was the purport of the document, as the demand was a new one. At once translated into Greek, the “libellus” was forthwith signed by some, and at first rejected by others. However, these latter afterwards changed their minds, and were admitted equally with the former to the council.

The Eighth General Council was solemnly opened October 5, 869. Apart from the lay representatives of the emperor, the council was at first composed of the following only : the three legates of the Pope, the patriarch St. Ignatius, Thomas, archbishop of Tyre, who came to respond for the See of Antioch, which was at that time vacant, the priest Elias, who came to represent Theodosius, patriarch of Jerusalem, and the twelve bishops who had throughout remained faithful to Ignatius.

Prefixed to the acts of the Council there is an introduction, which was drawn up by the Greeks at the close of the synod; and as it sums up its work, it may be usefully cited here. It notes that the S. Scriptures had prepared us for false prophets, for wolves in sheep’s clothing, for trees which bring not forth good fruit. Such was Photius. But Pope Nicholas, the new Elias, had slain the wolf and cut down the barren tree. With his good work had the emperor Basil co-operated.

At the beginning of the first session of the council, the papal legates were rather startled by being asked to read the papers showing their powers; but complied when it was pointed out to them that the request was made not out of any want of respect for the Holy See, but because the previous legates, Radoald and Zachary, had not acted in accordance with their instructions. After the credentials of the envoys of all the patriarchs had been found satisfactory, the libellus satisfactionis was then read in both Latin and Greek. This document, substantially the same as that of Pope Hormisdas (519), opened by proclaiming that it was of the first importance to guard the rule of the true faith. And “in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has ever been preserved immaculate”. Desiring, continues the document, never to be separated from this faith, and following in everything the decisions of the Fathers, and especially of the prelates of the Apostolic See, we anathematize all heresies, the iconoclasts, and Photius, as long as he shall remain disobedient to the decrees of the Roman pontiffs, and refuse to anathematize the acts of the so-called council (conciliabulum), which he had gathered together, outraging the Apostolic See. We follow the synod held by Pope Nicholas, and subscribed by you, “0 supreme Pontiff Hadrian, and the one which you yourself have lately held. And we will hold to all that has been therein decreed, and condemn all those who have been there condemned—viz., Photius, his partisans, and the robber-synods which he held against Ignatius and against the principate of the Apostolic See”.

With regard to Ignatius and those of his party, “we follow devoutly what the authority of your Apostolic See has decided”. The Libellus was at once accepted by the whole synod. After a declaration on the part of the representatives of the Oriental patriarchs, that all—as they did themselves—ought to obey the decrees of Pope Nicholas, the session closed with the customary acclamations in honor of the emperor, popes Nicholas and Hadrian, the patriarchs of the East, and the synod.

After this detailed account of the first session of the council, the work of the other sessions must be given in the brief; as to narrate at large the history of the council belongs rather to the historian of the history of the Church than to the biographer of the popes. In the second session the bishops who had been consecrated by Ignatius and his predecessor Methodius, but who had had the misfortune afterwards to take sides with Photius, were allowed by the legates to take their seats in the council, on the conditions of repentance and signing the libellus. Hence in the third session there were present, over and above the Roman legates, Ignatius and the vicars of the Oriental patriarchs, twenty-three bishops; and the number gradually increased as time went on. As Photius would not listen to any exhortations to confess his misdeeds, but affected the silence of innocence, he was solemnly anathematized (seventh session, October 29). In the eighth session (November 5) there were burnt before his eyes the false acts of the synods which he had held against Ignatius and Pope Nicholas, and other documents to which he had illegally obtained signatures. Iconoclasm was also condemned in this session. By the ninth session (February 12, 870) sixty-six bishops had assembled, and the representatives of the patriarchal Sees received an addition to their number in the person of the monk Joseph, archdeacon of Michael, or Chail I, patriarch of Alexandria. Joseph expressed in writing his adhesion to what had been decided by the “vicars of Old Rome and of the Oriental Sees”. The tenth and last session (February 28, 870) saw present the ambassadors of the Emperor Louis II, among whom was the versatile Anastasius, some twelve envoys from the king of the Bulgarians, and 102 bishops. The comparatively small number of bishops who attended this synod is due to the fact that a very large number of sees had been filled up by Photius with his creatures, and that, as most of them adhered to him and to his schism, they were not allowed to take part in the deliberations of the council.

The twenty-seven canons, which were published in this session, were inserted in a condensed form in the definition (terminus) put forth as usual by the council. Particular mention need here only be made of the twenty-first, as it directly concerns the Popes. It forbids any display of want of respect towards any of the five patriarchs,” especially towards the most holy Pope of Holy Rome”, against whom no one may presume to speak or write. Should any difficulty arise regarding the Roman Church, modest enquiries may be made about it, but not even a universal synod “may audaciously pass decrees against the supreme pontiffs of Old Rome”.

After reaffirming the decrees of the previous seven general councils, the definition proclaimed that Photius, “a man who trusted in his varied cunning”, had come to such a pitch of arrogance as to vent his spleen on the most blessed Pope Nicholas. In his pretended synod “he dared to anathematize the Pope and all who communicated with him”, i.e. as the definition adds, all the bishops and priests throughout the world, for all were in communion with Pope Nicholas. And so “this holy and universal synod” now condemns Photius as popes Nicholas and Hadrian have already done.

As soon as the Acts of the council had been drawn up and placed in the hands of the legates, “to guard against Greek fraud”, they placed them for careful examination in the custody of Anastasius, the librarian, who had come to Constantinople on behalf of Louis II, to negotiate a marriage between his daughter and the son of Basil. He was present at the last session of the council, and was officially described as an “apocrisiarius of Louis, emperor of the Italians and Franks”, not, be it noticed, “emperor of the Romans”. Anastasius soon discovered that the additions “in praise of our most serene emperor”, which Hadrian, on the instigation of Arsenius, had added to the letter of Nicholas, had been erased. In great indignation the papal legates declared they would not subscribe the acts unless the Pope’s letter were inserted in its entirety. But the Greeks simply declared that they had not met together to deliberate about imperial titles, but about the things of God. The legates, therefore, resolved to sign the synodal decrees only conditionally.

Five copies of the Acts (one for each of the patriarchs) were prepared for signature. The papal legates signed first, and each of them used the same restrictive formula as Donatus, whose signature headed the list, and ran as follows: “I, Donatus, by the grace of God, bishop of the Holy Church of Ostia, holding the place of my lord Hadrian, supreme Pontiff and universal Pope, presiding over this holy and universal synod, have promulgated all that is read above, and have with my own hand put my signature to it, till the will of the aforesaid pre-eminent prelate (be made known)”. The signatures of the Emperor Basil and his two sons followed those of the patriarchs, and then came the signatures of the 102 bishops.

Nicetas, indeed, asserts, on the authority of having heard it “from those who knew”, what he might well call “a most awful thing”, viz., that the bishops, when signing this decree, dipped their pens not into ink but into the Sacred Blood of Our Saviour, contained in the consecrated chalice. But of this there is not a word in the Acts of the Council; nor has Anastasius, who has left us notes in connection with this synod on much less striking points, a word to say about so extraordinary a proceeding. And as the Acts specially mention that the emperors’ signatures were countersigned by Christopher, the first of the secretaries and “keeper of the purple ink”, it is hard to believe that, had the bishops not signed with ink, such a circumstance would not have been mentioned. Besides, we do not know who those were “that knew” and told Nicetas—not one of the bishops, or he would have said so. There seems, therefore, no need to attach any credence to the story.

In addition to an encyclical letter to all the faithful recounting what it had done, the synod addressed a letter to Hadrian, asking him to confirm the decisions of the council, which were practically his own, and to publish them. Letters to him followed, somewhat later, from the emperor and Ignatius also. Both of them write to ask the Pope to allow of certain exceptions to be made in the matter of the decision not to allow any of those who had been ordained by Photius to exercise their functions. And the emperor expresses astonishment that he has not heard of the safe return of the papal legates.

In a letter,1 dated November to, 871, the Pope, in reply to the emperor, thanks God that he has shown such care for religion, and for seeking, in accordance with ancient law, the decisions of the Holy See on disputed questions. But he lets Basil see how indignant he is that his legates were so far neglected after the council that (as has been narrated above) they fell into the hands of pirates and were completely robbed; and that he has given his countenance to Ignatius’s consecration of a bishop in Bulgaria—of which more hereafter. He begs Basil to hinder Ignatius from interfering in that country, or else the patriarch and others who may there exercise any ecclesiastical functions will find themselves excommunicated. In fine, he cannot see his way to altering the decision come to against those who have been ordained by Photius.

Before the papal legates started on their disastrous homeward journey they were inveigled into a discussion on the patriarchal rights over Bulgaria. It has been already stated that Pope Nicholas refused the request of King Boris that he might be allowed to have Formosus of Porto as his archbishop, and even terminated the latter’s mission to the Bulgarians by ordering him to proceed to Constantinople. But he so far complied with the king’s wishes that he had commissioned a fresh band of missionaries to set out for Bulgaria when his death interfered with their departure. One of the first acts, however, of Hadrian was to dispatch the missionaries (867), furnishing them with the letters which had been drawn up by Pope Nicholas, but which he now sent in his own name, to show that, “as far as the stormy state of the times would permit”, he intended to walk in the footsteps of his predecessor.

Whether he went to Constantinople or not, Formosus remained some time longer in Bulgaria. But he returned to Rome apparently in the very beginning of the year 868, and was present at the council held there in June 869. Finding that he could not get his favorite Formosus made archbishop of Bulgaria, Boris sent him to Rome to ask that the deacon Marinus might be given that post. Marinus had taken the wild monarch’s fancy when, in 866, sent by Nicholas, he passed through Bulgaria to try to reach Constantinople by that route. The legates of Boris were further instructed to the effect that, if they could not obtain the consecration of Marinus as their new archbishop, they were to ask that one of the cardinal-priests of the Roman Church might be sent out for their approval. A request for a man who “in character, learning, and appearance was most worthy of the archiepiscopate”, shows at once the wisdom of Boris himself, and his estimate of Formosus, who was evidently his ideal of a bishop. As Marinus had already been selected to represent the Pope at the General Council, and was, moreover, unwilling to go, Hadrian “sent a certain subdeacon Silvester” for the approval of the Bulgarians. He was, however, promptly sent back by Boris, who most earnestly requested that an archbishop, or Formosus of Porto, might be granted him. This importunity on behalf of Formosus has been attributed both by his contemporaries and by moderns to his own intrigues. Hence, when he was condemned by John VIII in 876, it was declared that he had so played upon the new convert that, under oath, he had engaged Boris not to accept any other archbishop than himself, and had in turn agreed to come back as soon as he could. Other authors, however, are inclined to believe that Boris acted as he did from genuine admiration for the character of Formosus, that he was anxious for a hierarchy that would rival that of Constantinople, and that he thought that Formosus would be no mean match even for the learned Photius. At any rate, when he found that his request had not been granted—for Hadrian, who evidently did not care to have another man of his choice rejected, had only written back to say that he would consecrate any one (other than Formosus) whom Boris might choose to select—he became utterly impatient, and turned to Constantinople.

His envoys reached the imperial city (February 870) in time, as we have seen, to take part in the last session of the council. Whether Basil’s procuring the aid of the Pope to put an end to the religious strife of his empire was a mere political move or not, his action with regard to Bulgaria was certainly dictated by motives of worldly policy. Bulgaria, spiritually dependent upon his patriarch, would be a step nearer to being altogether submissive to his power. He determined, therefore, to bring about its ecclesiastical subjection to Constantinople. Accordingly, three days after the completion of the council and the signing of the acts, with artful intent (callicie), he called a meeting in his palace of the papal legates, St. Ignatius, the representatives of the three other patriarchs, the envoys of Boris, and a few others to receive the letters of the Bulgarian monarch. The envoys of the king opened the proceedings by saying that their master, hearing that “by the apostolic authority” an assembly to deliberate on the needs of the Church had been gathered together from all parts, had sent them to enquire from it to what Church the Bulgarians ought to be subject. They were at once told by the papal legates that they belonged to the Holy Roman Church, and that their king had dedicated himself and his people to Blessed Peter, the prince of the Apostles, from whose successor, Nicholas, he had received not only instructions as to how his people were to live, but also bishops and priests. That they were still under the jurisdiction of the Roman Church, they showed by the fact that they had yet in honor among them the ecclesiastics who had been thus sent. The Bulgarians, however, while acknowledging all this, called for a formal definition of their ecclesiastical position. But the legates declared that all the matters with which they had been commissioned to deal had been settled in the council; but that, as far as they were concerned, they would not agree to Bulgaria’s being subject to any patriarchal jurisdiction other than that of Rome, seeing that the whole country was full of Latin priests. Here the Orientals interjected that, when the Bulgarians took possession of their present country they found Greek priests there, and argued that hence its present occupants ought to be under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. Against this the papal legates keenly urged that it was undoubted that at first both the old and new Epirus, Thessaly, and Dardania, including the present capital of the Bulgarian kingdom (Achrida, the ancient Lychnidos), were included in the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome as patriarch of the West. They further contended that the Bulgarians had of their own accord voluntarily submitted to the jurisdiction of Rome, and that filially the missionaries from Rome had, in fact, converted the nation and ruled it for three years. Besides, continued the legates, the Holy Apostolic See judges, but is not judged; to that See, which is as easily able to annul “any decision you may come to, as you are inconsiderately to form one, to it we reserve all decision on this matter”. Thereupon the vicars of the Oriental patriarchs declared that it was anything but right that the Romans, who were separated from the Greek empire, and had allied themselves with the Franks, should be able to hold ordinations within the Greek dominions, and that they decided that Bulgaria must pass under the jurisdiction of Constantinople. But the papal legates at once proclaimed their sentence of no value, and solemnly adjured Ignatius, by God, His angels, and all those present, not to presume to ordain anyone for Bulgaria, or to send any of his subjects thither. This prohibition, they said, they made in accordance with a letter of Pope Hadrian which they handed him. Though much pressed to do so, Ignatius would not open the letter, but vaguely declared that he would never be so presumptuous as to act against the honor of the Holy See.

Greek ecclesiastics again in Bulgaria.

To this account of the conference on the “Bulgarian question”, furnished by the Book of the Popes, a few important additions must be made from the introduction to his translation of the Acts of the Eighth General Council by Anastasius. He was at Constantinople at the time when the conference was held. The librarian assures us, in the first place, that it is by no means certain that the vicars of the Oriental patriarchs ever really did decide in favor of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Bulgaria passing to Constantinople. For, to begin with, the conference was a “packed” one, from which Anastasius himself, whose thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin would have been of great assistance to the papal legates, was carefully excluded. Only one interpreter was admitted to the meeting, and he was merely allowed to exercise his office in accordance with instructions received from the emperor. That is, the words of the papal legates and the Orientals were so arranged as to deceive the Bulgarian envoys, who were given a document in which it was set out that the Oriental vicars had decided between Rome and Constantinople in favor of the latter.

The sequel to this disreputable affair was that Greek clergy were again introduced into Bulgaria. One, Theophylactus, was consecrated its archbishop by Ignatius, and the Latin clergy, according to the report of Bishop Grimwald, were expelled. The papal biographer, however, assures us, on the authority of the banished clergy, that they were not so much driven out by the Greeks or Bulgarians as betrayed for gold by their bishop himself (Grimwald).

It was to no purpose that Hadrian wrote (November 10, 871) both to the emperor and to Ignatius to protest against the conduct of the latter. Although, as we shall see, successors of Hadrian endeavored to bring back the Bulgarians to their allegiance to Rome, it was all in vain. After considerable coquetting with both Rome and Constantinople, they, most unfortunately for themselves, threw in their lot with the decaying East; and, until comparatively quite recently, shared in the decline and fall of Constantinople. On December 30, 1860, a section of the Bulgarians united themselves with the See of Rome.'But when, a few years ago (1896), a little display of character on the part of the Catholic sovereign of Bulgaria (Ferdinand I) would have paved the way to the reunion of the whole country with Rome, the opportunity was lost; and, for fear of losing his crown, estimated at more than honor and conscience, he allowed his son—another Boris —to be baptized in the Greek Church.

Anything but pleased with the spirited conduct of the papal legates at his secret conference, the emperor, while by loading them with presents, did not trouble to take proper measures for their safe return to Rome. His officials conducted them to Dyrrachium, and there left them without furnishing them with warships for their sea voyage. At that seaport they parted company with Anastasius. With his own copy of the acts of the council, and with the satisfactions of the Greek bishops which had been entrusted to his charge, the librarian sailed to Siponto, and reached Rome in safety. But the legates, sailing by the more northerly route to Ancona, were attacked by a fleet of Slavonic pirates from the Dalmatian coast under Domagof, grand Joupan of Croatia, stripped of all they possessed, even of the original acts of the council, made prisoners, and only at length released through the strong representations which were made both by the emperor and the Pope.

SS.Cyril and Methodius

If, towards the end of his pontificate, Hadrian was saddened by the defection of one branch of the great Slavonic people, he was gladdened by the conversion of others, and by the coming to Rome in the beginning of his reign of the apostles of the Slavs, SS. Cyril and Methodius. With their glorious names Christianity in every Slavonic country, from Russia and Poland to Dalmatia and the border confines of Germany, is connected either by the authentic records of certain history or by a no mean tradition.

In their endeavors to get control over the Slavs of Moravia, the Germans, unhappily for themselves, replaced the rebel king Moimir by his nephew Rostislav, or Rastiz — to give two more different spellings of his name in use. They had replaced a weak enemy by a powerful one. Rastiz freed his people from the arms of the German, and gave them Christianity. Naturally, however, he turned elsewhere than to Germany for teachers of it. SS. Cyril and Methodius were sent (c. 863), at his request, by Michael III from Constantinople. Two men better fitted by nature and by grace for the work to which they were called could not well have been found. The two brothers, possibly themselves of Slavonic origin, were born of a good family at Thessalonica (Salonica), a city of the Eastern Empire, then only second in importance to Constantinople itself. It was a city not only crowded with Slavs, but in contact with Slav populations who had settled all round it. Before they left their native city the two brothers had acquired that knowledge of the manners and language of the Slavs which they were hereafter to turn to such good account. Constantine (born 827), better known as Cyril, the name he took along with the monastic habit on his death-bed, received the most considerable part of his education at Constantinople; for his father, who held an important position among the local authorities at Thessalonica, could afford to give his children the best education that money could purchase. Among the famous men under whom he studied was Photius, with whom, as did every other man who came under his influence, he formed a close friendship. It was on the strength of this familiarity that the saint afterwards blamed him for his attitude towards Ignatius, whilst the latter was yet patriarch. It is, he said, because “you are quite blinded by the smoke of avarice and jealousy, that the eyes of your wisdom, though naturally keen, cannot see the path of justice”. Cyril’s learning became so great that he received the surname of the “Philosopher”. Although the highest offices of the State were within his reach, he preferred, after having been ordained priest, to retire from the world. It was only with difficulty that he could be prevailed upon to leave his monastery and return to Constantinople to profess philosophy.

Methodius, who was some years older than his brother, had qualities and experiences which his more intellectual and retiring younger brother lacked. He was a man of action. For many years he was governor of one of the Slav colonies which were then so numerous both in the East, in the Opsikion theme (or province), and in the West, in the neighborhood of Andrinople and Thessalonica. After a time, however, he also withdrew from the world, and betook himself to a monastery.

When the ambassadors of Rastiz reached Constantinople, in their quest of Christian teachers for their country, Cyril had already gained fame as a missionary. At the request of the emperor he had labored among the Moslems during the caliphate of Mutawakkil (847-861); and then, along with his brother, with complete success among the powerful Khazars on the northern shores of the Black Sea. It was during this mission that S. Cyril obtained possession of the relics of Pope St. Clement from the Crimea. The martyr had been drowned near Cherson.

Although from his previous toils Cyril was, to use the words of his biographer, “exhausted, and worn with disease”, and had retired to the monastery of Polychronius in Constantinople, he consented, when asked by the emperor, to go with his brother to labor for Christ among the Moravians. Before the middle of 864, the brothers had begun their new work. Their amiability and gentleness, their learning and experience, their knowledge of the Slavonic tongue, and the administrative capacity of Methodius, told with wonderful effect for the spread of Christianity among a people who had hitherto only known it as the religion of the men who were trying to crush their independence, and were as much disposed to drive them into the fold of Christ at the points of their lances as to call them into it with His sweet words. Still further to attract the people to the truths of Christianity, St. Cyril, with his brother’s aid, invented a practical Slavonic alphabet. There had already been in existence for some centuries an exceedingly clumsy alphabet, known as the Glagolitic (from glagol, a sound or word), and thought by some to have been invented by St. Jerome, himself a native of Dalmatia. The letters of the new alphabet, called from the name of our saint the Cyrilic, were made to follow the order of the Greek alphabet, and new characters were added to the existing Glagolitic to express the sounds peculiar to the Slavonic tongue. By means of this alphabet the brothers translated portions of the Bible and of the Oriental, or, more probably, Roman, liturgical books into Slavonic.

The country in which first the two brothers together, and then Methodius by himself, especially labored was Moravia. But it was a larger country than that of today; it was the Moravian empire at the height of its power under Rastiz (d. 87o) and his nephew and successor Swatopluk. It embraced not only the land north of the Danube which now bears that name, but also Bohemia, Silesia, and most of the other provinces which make up the modern kingdom of Austria proper, along with Western Hungary as far as the Theiss. Hence it included as well the old imperial South-Danubian provinces of Noricum and Pannonia which had tasted of Roman civilization and Christianity, as heathen lands north of the Danube into which the arms of Rome had not forced an entrance, and into which the Cross of Christ had been but fitfully hitherto carried. Greater Moravia had neither a long nor a peaceful existence. Begun under Moimir I, during the reign of the emperor Louis the Pious, and after the destruction of the kingdom of the Avars by Charlemagne, this Slav empire endured till the days of Moimir II, when it was destroyed by the fiercesome Hungarians at the terrible battle of Presburg (907). During the whole period of its existence it had to struggle against a strong tendency to internal dissolution, as its chiefs were but feebly attached to the central authority, and against the Germans, who strove to subject it both politically and ecclesiastically to the empire of the Franks. Hence, while its temporal rulers had to fight for national independence with the secular princes of the Teutons, its saintly Greek missionaries had to struggle against the pretensions of the German hierarchy which claimed spiritual jurisdiction especially over the Slavs of the South-Danubian provinces. For after the Huns and Avars had blotted out their primitive (imperial) Christian organization, the blessings of the faith had been reintroduced among them by the Franks, and a certain ecclesiastical organization, subject to the bishops of Salzburg, Passau and Ratisbon, established by Charlemagne. Such then was the land, and such the circumstances in which the saintly brothers carried on their heroic labours.

As Cyril was not a bishop, and Methodius not even a priest, it became necessary for them to turn their attention to obtaining bishops for the Moravians, that the Church in their country might be put on a proper and independent basis. It was at this juncture that Pope Nicholas sent for them to come to Rome. That they should be summoned to Rome was necessary, not only because, in introducing a liturgy in a new tongue (the Sclavonic), they were doing something out of the ordinary, but because of the opposition, jealous indeed, but not unnatural, of the Germans, which we shall see coming to a head under the reign of John VIII; for from the days of the conquest of the Avars by Charlemagne, part of the country (Pannonia) held at this period by the Moravians and other Sclavonic tribes, had been put under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishops of Salzburg and Passau. And the two brothers seem to have acted quite independently of these German authorities. Further, it is possible, as Leger suggests, that, in endeavoring to secure the co-operation of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Nicholas may have had in view the erecting of a barrier of Christian Slav states, devoted to the Church of Rome, against the impending schism of the Church of Constantinople.

To Rome, then, they went, taking with them the body of Pope St. Clement. The Italian legend of Leo of Ostia tells us of the honorable reception accorded to the saintly brothers by Hadrian (for Nicholas had died before they reached the Eternal City) and the Roman people. The subterranean basilica of St. Clement shows a fresco depicting a funeral procession, and an inscription to the effect that “Hither from the Vatican is borne (Nicholas being Pope) with divine hymns the body which with aromatics he buried”. This is thought to represent the translation of the body of Pope St. Clement. “The time at which these pictures were painted might be supposed rather soon after Rome was moved by the arrival of the relics than a couple of hundred years after”. However, for this supposition Father Mullooly, who makes it, has to maintain that, as Nicholas was dead at the time of the arrival of the relics, “the anachronism of the painter, in representing Nicholas with his nimbus accompanying the funeral procession, is deliberate”. It may, indeed, easily have been so. Considering that it was Nicholas who called the saints to Rome, it was not unnatural to depict him as taking part in the translation of the relics brought by them.

There were in the West, at the time of which we are now writing, a body of men known as Trilinguists, from the opinion which they held that it was not proper for the services of the Church to be conducted in any other languages than in those used in the inscription on the Cross, viz., Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. By some of these theorists opposition was made to the Slavonic liturgy of St. Cyril. However, so well did the brothers plead their cause, that the Pope not only approved of the new liturgy, but placed their translation of the Gospels on the altar of St. Peter, and took pleasure in assisting at Mass said in Slavonic. The ordination of Methodius and several of his companions was so far at once proceeded with that they were made priests. Untimely death (February 14, 869) unfortunately cut short the nobly useful career of Cyril, apparently after he had been consecrated bishop. Methodius, at any rate, was certainly consecrated and proclaimed archbishop of the Slavs, who inhabited the ancient province of Pannonia and the parts to the north and east of it which bordered on the territories of the Germans. Of what had been thus done at Rome, Hadrian informed Rastiz in a letter which he wrote to him, to his nephew, Swatopluk, and to Kozel (or Kociel), the Slav prince of Balaton, who had begged the holy brothers to instruct him in the use of the new liturgy. The Pope speaks of the examination which had been made of the doctrine of Cyril and Methodius, and declares that “they had recognized the rights of the Holy See, and had done nothing against the canons”, and that he had resolved to consecrate Methodius bishop, and “knowing him to be a man of upright mind and orthodox”, to send him back to the Slavs. He approved the Slavonic liturgy, but wished that in the Mass the epistle and gospel should be read first in Latin and then Slavonic.

The burial of St. Cyril.

The document known as the Italian legend has a pretty story relative to the burial of St. Cyril. On the death of his brother, Methodius went to Hadrian and thus addressed him : “When we left our father’s house for the country in which, with God’s help, we have toiled, the last wish expressed by our mother was that, if either of us should die, the survivor would bring back his dead brother, and becomingly bury him in his monastery. Help me, your Holiness, to fulfill a mother’s prayers”. But when the people of Rome heard of this request, they flocked to the Pope and said : “Venerable father, it is wholly unfitting that we should allow to be taken from here the body of a man who has done such great deeds, who has enriched our Church and city with such precious relics, who, by the power of God, has drawn such distant nations towards us, and who was called to his reward from this city. So famous a man must have a famous burial-place in so famous a city as ours”. Moved by their words, Hadrian decided that the saint should be buried in St. Peter’s, in the very tomb he had prepared for himself. Seeing that there was no hope of his first request being granted, Methodius begged that his brother might be interred in the basilica of St. Clement, whose relics he had with such care and difficulty brought to Rome. This petition was granted, and amid the greatest pomp was the body of St. Cyril laid to rest at the right of the high-altar.

The history—somewhat tragic—of Methodius after his return to Moravia will be related under the life of John VIII.

The day on which Hadrian closed his short but full pontificate is not known. From certain catalogues, Pagi gives the date as November 26, Duchesne as December 14. Several fragments of his epitaph are still to be seen in the crypts of the Vatican.

“On Hadrian’s death”, it says, “mother earth here turned to dust what he had taken from it. But while his flesh returned to earth, his soul took its flight to heaven. Kind and tender was he, generous to all, and renowned throughout the world. Do you, reader, tearfully pray to God that he may live with his Lord beyond the stars”.

The repeated mention in one papal biography after another of the name of Anastasius the librarian, will no doubt have turned the reader’s thoughts on more than one occasion to that institution of which he was the guardian. The library of the popes, now, at any rate as far as manuscripts are concerned, the most valuable in the world, “the corner­stone of modern scholarship”, the source whence the learned of every civilized land are drawing the materials wherewith to construct the history of their respective countries, had a very early, if, naturally, very humble origin. To the volumes of the Old and New Testament, which formed its appropriate base, were soon added documents of all kinds, liturgical books, letters of the popes, writings of the Fathers, lists of the occupants of the See of Rome, and of its poor, etc. In thus founding a library, the Church of Rome was only doing what was being done by the other great churches even before the days of persecution were over, and settled peace was granted to the Church by Constantine. Of the character and contents of these early ecclesiastical libraries we may judge by the remark of Eusebius, the Father of Church History and the biographer of Constantine, that he found materials for his history in the library of the Church of Jerusalem, which its bishop Alexander had founded in the third century.

This primitive papal collection of books seems to have come to an untimely end in the persecution of Diocletian (303), so that of the acts of the martyrs collected by Pope Anterus, Gregory the Great could scarcely find a trace, nor could he lay his hands on the works of so distinguished a Father as S. Irenus. But with that unconquerable patience in construction and reconstruction which has distinguished the line of Roman pontiffs, the popes at once began to form a new library as soon as peace was restored to the Church. Pope S. Damasus (305-384), a most distinctly scholarly Pope, in one of his invaluable marble inscriptions, as remarkable for their literary as for their artistic finish, tells us that, near the theatre of Pompey, probably where the old library was situated, he built a new home for the papal library, with which it was his wish to have his name perpetually associated. This building was in connection with the Church of S. Lawrence in Damaso, and it was to this charter-house (chartarium) that S. Jerome, once the secretary of Pope Damasus, referred Rufinus for a letter of Anastasius I (400--1). Henceforth there is frequent mention of the library or archives (scrinium) of the Roman Church and of its contents. Pope Boniface I (418-422) refers to the “documents of our archives”, and Pope Pelagius I. (578-59o) says that extracts were read to the bearers of the letters of the Istrian bishops “from the codices and ancient polyptici of the library of our Holy Apostolic See”. Less important libraries were also founded by them in different parts of the city. Among these, we may specify one built by Pope Agapetus in AD 535. It had been his intention, in conjunction with Cassiodorus, to found a college for teachers of Christian doctrine. Before death overtook him, he had so far accomplished his design that he had erected a fine library for them, and had adorned it with a series of portraits, amongst which was one of himself. Its home was in the house on the Coelian hill which afterwards came into the possession of S. Gregory I; for there it was, namely, “in the library of S. Gregory”, i.e. in that attached to the Church of S. Gregory, that the Einsiedeln pilgrim read the following inscription :

 

Here sits in long array a reverend troop,

Teaching the mystic truths of law divine.

'Mid these by right takes Agapetus place,

Who built to guard his books this fair abode.

All toil alike, all equal grace enjoy,

Their words are different, but their faith the same.

 

As in process of time the work connected with the government of the Church became more and more attached to the Lateran Palace, the Library of the Holy See was, at some date unknown to us, transferred thither. The acts of the Roman Council of 649 prove that it was there in the seventh century. And there, just as Englishmen today are working in the Vatican library at the registers of the popes of the later Middle Ages, worked, more than a thousand years ago, the London priest Nothelm at the registers of the popes of the early Middle Ages for the benefit of our first historian, Bede. Not long after Nothelm’s visit, the Lateran library (scrinium Lateranense) was adorned by Pope Zachary (741-752) with a portico, towers, bronze gates, triclinium, and paintings.

Moreover, just as today the Vatican palace has its printing press, its Tipografia Vaticana, so in the Middle Ages the Lateran palace had its body of copyists, whose productions enabled the popes to make presents of bibles and of liturgical and learned works to Saxon, to Frank, and to Teuton. And a letter of the famous Lupus of Ferrieres to Benedict III (855-8), asking for the loan of Cicero’s de Oratere, Quintilian’s Institutes, and the commentary of Donatus on Terence, is enough to show that the learned works of the library were not all ecclesiastical.

The first librarian of the Apostolic See whose name has come down to us is Gregory, afterwards the great Pope Gregory (715-731). For some time during the following century we find the signature “of the librarian of the Holy Apostolic See” appearing on the papal bulls; and, in that same epoch, principally through the agency of Anastasius, the Lateran librarian occupied for many years no small place in the eye of the world. But it was with the librarians of the Apostolic See as with every created thing. The highest point of their power was the nearest to their decay. After the reign of Hadrian’s (II) successor, the importance of its custodian began to wane along with the library itself. The feudal horrors of the tenth century and the first part of the eleventh were not destined to render Rome a favorable spot for books or their cultivation.

On the slopes of the Palatine, near S. Maria Antigua, Pope John VII built a palace at the beginning of the eighth century. Perhaps in connection with it, but probably somewhat later, though at an unknown date, there was built close to and partly over the arch of Titus a strong tower, a portion of the Palatine fortifications afterwards held by the Frangipani. It was in vain that to this fort, known from its contents as the Cartulary Tower (Turris Chartularia), part of the papal archives were for greater safety’s sake transferred; it was to no purpose that its contents were recruited from time to time by presents and, towards the end of the tenth century, by tributes of books from monasteries directly subject to the Roman See; the terrible disorders of the time and the disastrous fire in the Lateran quarter enkindled by the Norman Guiscard (1084) seem to have destroyed at least the greater part of the second library of the popes. On a future occasion we may tell how a third papal library was destroyed during the internal troubles in Rome in the course of the thirteenth century, and by the defection from the popes of the Frangipani, who handed over the Cartulary Tower to Frederick II.(1244). Even then, before the foundation of the present Vatican library by Nicholas V (1447-1455), there would still remain to be discussed the library of the popes of the thirteenth century, with its new series of papal registers dating from that of Innocent III; the library of Boniface VIII; and that of the Avignon popes and its wanderings till the glorious days of Nicholas V.