CHAPTER XV

THE EMPIRE OF SPOLETO

 

The death of Charles the Fat gave rise to many claimants to the throne. In Germany opposition had proceeded from a natural son of Carloman, Arnulph, Duke of Carinthia, who, like his father, was a brave warrior. The only surviving legitimate Carolingian prince was the posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer, Charles (the Simple), who was then but seven years of age. For the time his claim was ignored, both in France and in Germany, and Carloman’s illegitimate son received the general support.

It was, however, impossible for the latter to maintain the unity of the Frankish empire. He was obliged to recognize as kings the following:— Firstly, in France, Hugh, Count of Paris, son of Robert the Strong, the first Capetian to reign; secondly, in Provence, Louis (the Blind), son of the usurper Boson, but grandson of the Emperor Louis II, by his mother Ermengarda; thirdly, in the Juras and Switzerland (regnum Jurense), Rudolph, son of Conrad, Count of Auxerre, a rebellious functionary; fourthly, in Italy, Berengarius, Marquis of Friuli, grandson of Louis the Pious by his mother, Gisele.

Besides these four royalties who, without being actually under the dominion of Arnulph, nevertheless profited by their political intercourse with the German sovereign, we must also take account, in connection with France and Italy, of the House of Spoleto.

Guy of Spoleto was sole heir of the Dukes (or Marquises) Lambert and Guy, whom we have seen at daggers drawn with John VIII. He did not belong, like Berengarius of Friuli and Louis of Provence, to the Carolingian family, but he was none the less a man of parts. His ancestors, like those of Charlemagne, came originally from the banks of the Moselle, and sprang from as noble a stock as did the House of Pepin. Transplanted, about the middle of the ninth century, to the center of Italy, this Frankish family had continued to consolidate its position. The duchy of Spoleto had become for it a hereditary principality, and this was only a center for various radii of activity.

Taking advantage of the parceling out of southern Italy, and of the weakness of the central authority in these distant regions, the Lamberts and Guys made up their minds to be masters, not only of their own affairs, but also of their neighbours’. They contracted marriages in Tuscany and Beneventum, intervened in the concerns of Capua, Naples, and Salerno, protected (and, on occasion, oppressed) the Pope, and entered into negotiations with the Greek patricians, and even with the Saracens. These latter alliances, which were always open to suspicion, had already, on two separate occasions, incurred the imperial displeasure. Louis II had deprived them of their principality (871-875). Charles the Bald reinstated them, but they managed to fall foul of Charles the Fat. In 883 Guy of Spoleto, the one with whom we are at present concerned, was arrested by order of the emperor, tried at a court of justice held at Nonantola, and dismissed from office. He succeeded in escaping, however, and returned to his duchy, where, supported by a troop of Mussulman mercenaries, he organized so decided a rebellion that the military had to be called upon to resist it. Berengarius of Friuli was placed at the head of the defensive army, but, though he was at first successful, the appearance of the plague among his men forced him to retire. Not long afterwards, at the beginning of 885, Guy was received into the emperor’s good graces, but he never ceased to cherish a violent grudge against Berengarius.

On hearing of the death of Charles the Fat, Guy promptly presented himself as a candidate for the crown of France. His supporters, who were numerous, were headed by the powerful Archbishop of Rheims, Foulques, the successor of Hincmar. Guy succeeded in having himself crowned at Langres, but the disquieting behavior of Hugh compelled him to turn his attention immediately to Italy. Here fighting was the order of the day, and after an indecisive battle near Brescia (888), the Duke of Spoleto gained the victory of Trebbia (889). Berengarius, in spite of the German alliance, was obliged to content himself with his marquisate, augmented, it is true, by certain important towns, such as Verona.

Both Guy of Spoleto and his rival laid claim to the title of king, though the former had much the better right to it, being now master of Milan, Pavia, and the whole of Italy south of the Po.

The kingdom of Luitprand and Astolphus was thus reconstituted to the advantage of a family which, though certainly of Frankish origin, had rapidly become Italianized, and that, not according to the tradition of Louis II and the Carolingians, but that of the old Lombard kings as opposed to the Pope. There was no family understanding between the princes of Spoleto and the Holy See, and though they had sometimes lent it their support, it was in their capacity as imperial functionaries carrying out the orders of their superior officers, the Carolingians. Still, they were more given to furthering their permanent interests by making themselves troublesome to the Pope. They found as much difficulty in living at peace with the occupant of the Holy See as Astolphus had done in respecting the Byzantine provinces.

Guy’s kingship was, therefore, a serious menace for the papacy. But what could be done? They might indeed follow the popular example, and, overlooking the fact of the illegitimacy of Carloman’s son, accept him as the Roman emperor. But Arnulph, far away, was too much taken up with his own internal difficulties (in particular with his enemies the Normans and the Moravians) to be able to interfere in the affairs of Italy. At this time the star of the Greek empire was in the ascendant. Ever since it had re-established its footing in Southern Italy by settling at Bari, its successes, both military and diplomatic, had been continually on the increase. With a more forcible attempt, the vassalage of the Greek or Lombard princes in the interior and on the west coast might have been transformed into absolute subjection. Since the accession of the Emperor Leo VI (886) Photius had been turned out of the patriarchal see to which the Pope Marinus had again disputed his right; the bitter dissent between the Roman Church and the empire of Constantinople was at an end. He might have boldly interfered in Italian affairs, exhausted the claimants of Spoleto and Friuli by playing them off one against the other, and taken advantage of the weakness of the trans-Alpine kingdoms to emulate Justinian’s work in Italy. The Greeks, however, let the opportunity slip. After the demise of Charles the Fat, Pope Stephen V only had to reckon with two powers, the new king of Italy and the heir, such as he was, of Carolingian tradition.

He adopted a crafty policy. Guy, who was much to be feared, was not openly thwarted. In order to obtain pardon for his rebellion of 883 the duke had set out to fight against the Saracens immediately after his restoration to favor (885), and had even demolished their establishment between Gaeta and the Garigliano; it was only a temporary destruction, certainly, but one which gained him a great deal of gratitude. Pope Stephen writing the following year to the Archbishop of Rheims, a relation of Guy’s, declares that he looks upon the latter as his only son. This paternal tenderness, however, did not prevent him from appealing to Arnulph for help, in 890. It is true that he avoided direct letters, and had recourse to the medium of Zwentibald, duke of the Moravians, who in his name begged the King of Germany “to come to Rome to visit the sanctuary of St. Peter, and to resume dominion over the kingdom of Italy which had been appropriated by bad Christians, and was being threatened by a heathen people”.

The following year, however, on 21st February 891, this same Pope Stephen V consecrated Guy as emperor at St. Peter’s. Formosus, who succeeded him some months later, performed the same action for Lambert, Guy’s son (30th April 892). Thus the House of Spoleto stood possessed not only of the Italian kingship, but also of the imperial title.

In performing these ceremonies the Pope was acting under compulsion. Formosus, like Stephen V, was playing a double part. He consecrated the Spoletans, and in his letters to his uncle of Rheims referred to them in terms of the highest praise, with protestations of loyalty and affection. But he, none the less, continued to beset Arnulph with lamentations, beseeching him to come and deliver him from the “bad Christians”. There can be no doubt that he alluded to the House of Spoleto and their oppression of the Holy See, for there was, at that time, no question of the Saracens. It seemed like a return to the situation of 754, and Formosus, Arnulph, and Guy, being now in precisely the same relations as had been Stephen II, Pepin, and Astolphus.

Arnulph, thus importuned, ended by coming. His first expedition, at the beginning of 894, though ill equipped with forces, succeeded in taking the territory north of the Po. Bergamo was captured by storm and plundered, and this victory led the other towns, even including Milan and Pavia, to open their gates. The Emperor Guy, having withdrawn to the Apennines, awaited Arnulph at the mountain pass. He was a doughty warrior, who, if he had lived, would have given the emperor a troublous time in Italy. But he died the same year, soon after Arnulph, who did not deem it discreet to attack him in his own mountains, had recrossed the Alps.

But, although Guy was dead, his cause was still in capable hands. The interests of the young Lambert were watched by the Empress-Mother Agiltrude, a woman of marked force of character. She was the daughter of that Adalgis of Beneventum who, in 871, had dared to attack the sacred person of the Emperor Louis II, and, both by family tradition and the exigencies of her present position, was the deadly foe of the Carolingian dynasty. She united in herself the old grievances of the Lombard kings with the new feelings of resentment harbored by the princes of Spoleto. Arnulph was to find her an enemy not to be despised.

In the autumn of 895 the latter reappeared in Italy, and in the following February advanced against Rome. His army had a trying time in Tuscany owing to illness, bad weather, and the dreadful state of the roads. The Marquis Adalbert, too, was a questionable vassal. Up to Arnulph’s arrival at Rome nothing had been heard of the Spoletans. He imagined that the town was in the Pope’s power, and expected to see a procession advancing to meet him. But he had reckoned without Agiltrude, who, with great intrepidity, had seized upon Rome, quite ignoring the papal protestations. She had already invested it with a garrison, and was making ready to receive the invading party.

But her plans were checked by a chance incident which, contrary to all expectation, delivered the Gate of St. Pancratius into the hands of the astonished besiegers. The Spoletans disappeared, leaving the field to the Pope and the Carolingian representatives. Arnulph was received on the steps of St. Peter’s, and Formosus warmly embraced him, for whom he and his predecessor had awaited as the promised deliverer. On 22nd February 896 the Vatican was the scene of an imperial consecration, this time celebrated with whole-hearted enthusiasm.

It now remained to follow up their victory. Shut up in the castle whose ruins still crown the picturesque mountain of Spoleto, Agiltrude and Lambert awaited the coming of Arnulph. The latter left as his representative at Rome, not the peaceable missus of former times, but a substantial military commander, Farold by name, and set out on the road to Umbria. The Pope Formosus, countenanced by Farold, was preparing to follow the vicissitudes of the struggle between the two emperors whom he had consecrated, when some terrible news reached him. Arnulph had been struck down by paralysis, and now had to be carried on a litter, just as his father Carloman had been in 877. There was no prospect that he would ever again be strong enough to fight for the Holy See in Italy.

Overwhelmed by the overthrow of his plans, Formosus immediately died, on 4th April 896. Even more than in the case of Marinus, perhaps his election had defied the laws of the Church, for at the time of his promotion he still held the bishopric of Porto. The two elections that followed, under the auspices of Farold the missus, showed no greater degree of respect for the ancient rules of discipline. Formosus was succeeded by Boniface VI, a priest who had twice (both as sub-deacon and as priest) incurred sentence of deposition. He seems to have been thrust forward as candidate by the populace. His reign was short, and in a fortnight's time there was another occupant of the Papal See in the person of Stephen (VI), Bishop of Anagni.

Meanwhile Lambert was regaining a footing in Northern Italy. He had returned to Pavia and Milan, and had come to terms with Berengarius who had not been conciliated by his submissive attitude with regard to Arnulph. The Adda and the lower Po were agreed upon as boundaries between the kings of Italy. Lambert retained the better part—Milan, Pavia, Spoleto, and the imperial title. There could be no further question of Germany and its princes before the Ottos.

The affairs of Italy being thus arranged, Lambert and his mother turned their steps towards Rome, the final refuge of the German empire. On 20th August 896 Farold was still supreme, and he seems to have held his own until the end of the year. But at the beginning of 897, Agiltrude and Lambert again took possession of the town, though under what circumstances there is no evidence to tell. Then there happened an event of evil omen, which was to be the foreshadower of a long and sad series of disturbances in the heart of the apostolic Church.

Formosus had betrayed the House of Spoleto, having treacherously abetted and consecrated the barbarian candidate. He had now been dead and buried for nine months, a fact which would have sufficed to disarm any ordinary avenger on the principle of jam parce sepulto. But even the mysteries of death and the tomb were not sacred before the unholy rage of the daughter of Adalgis, for she, almost beyond a doubt, was the real instigator of the crime carried out by Pope Stephen VI, the pitiable tool of her vengeance.

The withered corpse of the aged pontiff was dragged from its sarcophagus, and exhibited before a synod presided over by the Pope. Still dressed in pontifical garments, it was propped up on a throne, and by its side was installed a deacon, who, pale with terror, had to reply in the name of the deceased Formosus. The legal accounts of this abominable trial were burned the following year, but we get some of the details from contemporary writers. The whole history of his past, his quarrels with John VIII, his oaths, his ambitious conspiracies, the perjuries imputed to him, were all brought up to his disadvantage. They revived old ecclesiastical canons, long forgotten by everyone, including the president of this gruesome council, and ended by proclaiming the unworthiness of the accused, the irregularity of his promotion, and the invalidity of his acts, especially his ordinations. On this point, however, they confined themselves to the annulment of the Roman ordinations, continuing to recognize those outside. Not one of the Roman clerks thus deposed was reordained. In accordance with the ancient ceremony, the papal mummy was stripped of its insignia, and of all its clothing except the haircloth which still clung to the withered flesh. It was then thrown into an unconsecrated tomb, among the bodies of strangers. But the brutal populace, anxious to have a share in those outrages on the man before whom they had long groveled, had the corpse cast into the Tiber.

In order that nothing should be lacking to the horror of this gloomy time, the old Lateran basilica collapsed. This catastrophe possibly preceded the ghastly council; it seems almost a pity that it did not occur just at the time of it, and that the venerable building, which had so often been witness of the prayers of Sylvester, Leo, Gregory, and Nicholas, did not crash in upon the head of their unworthy successor.

The latter, however, did not live long to enjoy the horrible triumph of which he had been the instigator rather than the hero. Whatever may have been his exact motives for taking part in this grim comedy, there can be no doubt that he thought it would be to his own advantage. The judgment pronounced against Formosus would have been his own fate, if by a revolting casuistry he had not been careful to have the ordinations of his predecessor annulled. It was Formosus who had consecrated him Bishop of Anagni, but, the acts of Formosus being repealed, this episcopal ordination vanished with them, so that it could no longer be said that Pope Stephen VI had been transferred from one See to another.

But Stephen was to meet with his deserts. A rebellion arose, evidently incited by horror at his proceedings, and he was cast out of the papal See. As he had caused Formosus to be stripped while dead, so was he stripped while alive; a monkish garment was flung over his shoulders, and then he was thrown into a prison. But this was not considered punishment enough and before long they strangled him.

The reigns of the next two pontiffs, Romanus and Theodore II, were extremely brief. Romanus occupied the papal chair for four months, and Theodore for only twenty days. But under the latter reparatory measures were begun. The body of Formosus had been cast up by the Tiber near the church of St. Acontius, in his old diocese of Porto. A monk, warned, it is said, in a dream by the shade of the unfortunate Pope, found it and bestowed upon it a temporary burial. Several months later, Theodore II having been elected pontiff, decided to restore it to its original tomb in the atrium of St. Peter’s, in the midst of the other Popes. Clothed anew in his pontifical adornments, Formosus was conveyed, with chanting and prayers, to the last long home, of which he had been deprived by unholy rancor.

Theodore did more still. He restored the clerks deposed by the council of Stephen VI to their lost positions. A special assembly was convened for this purpose, but its provisions, unfortunately, have not been preserved.

Thus, in efforts to repair some of the ills that had been incurred, the year 897, one of the darkest in the long annals of the papacy, came to a close. But the spirit of unrest was abroad, and peace was not yet to be established. There was strife over the tomb of Theodore II, two Popes, Sergius III and John IX, being elected at the same time. The imperial authority appears to have supported John, who was a lover of peace. Sergius was a fierce and radical adherent of Stephen VI and his council. The Emperor Lambert had the upper hand, and the idea of resorting to the transalpine protection could not be entertained. To extenuate, as far as might be possible, the scandalous behavior of the council of Stephen VI, to lessen the internal dissensions of the Roman Church, and to confirm the legitimacy and positions of the emperor, the bishops, and the cardinals, such was the self-imposed task of John IX. With this end in view, he held three councils, of which we only know the details of two, one held at Rome and the other at Ravenna. Bishops from every part of Italy were present. The decrees of Stephen’s council were read and repealed, while those of Theodore’s council were sealed with approbation. It was also decided that in future no corpse could be brought up for trial. The ordinations of Formosus were recognized as valid, as were also his decrees in general, with the exception of the “surreptitious consecration of a barbarían”—unctio illa barbarica, per surreptionem extorta. Finally, the rights of the emperor in connection with the jurisdiction over the Romans were solemnly ratified. As regards the papal elections, it was declared that any disorders that had occurred, proceeded from the lack of the imperial participation in the choice of the Pope, and that, consequently, no future elections could be followed by consecration without the presence of the emperor’s legates.

In this way the Church of Rome returned, on her own initiative, to the régime of the constitution of Lothaire. She recognized that, outside these rules, to which she had with so ill a grace resigned herself under Lothaire and Louis II, there could be no security, either for the papal elections or for the temporal government of the Roman state.

The Pope’s hopes, like those of the rest of Italy outside Berengarius’s kingdom, thus began to center upon the young Emperor Lambert. Unfortunately, however, he was killed by a hunting accident on 15th October, not many weeks after the council of Ravenna. Like his predecessors, John VIII, Stephen V, and Formosus, John IX had to gaze upon the ruins of the hopes which he had built on the empire. He died in January 900, having no doubt realized more than once the truth of the psalmist’s words, Nolite confidere in principibus filiis hominum, in quibus non est salus.