CLEMENT
18
CLEMENT
m his "Essays Critical and Historical" (11, 262 sqq.).
Of the three papal claimants, Benedict refused to
appear; he was again summoned and afterwards pro-
nounced deposed at Rome. Sylvester was " stripped
of his sacerdotal rank and shut up in a monastery".
Gregory showed himself to be, if not an uliota, at least
a man iJiira; simplicitatis, by explaining in straight-
forward speech his compact with Benedict, and he
made no other defence than liis good intentions, and
deposed himself (Watterich, Vita; Rom. Pont., I, 76);
an act by some interpreted as a voluntary resignation,
by others (Hefele), in keeping with the contemporary
annals, as a deposition by the s>-nod. The Synod of
Sutri adjourned to meet again in Rome 23 and 24
December. Benedict, failing to appear, was con-
demned and deposed in contumaciam, and the papal
chair was declared vacant. As King Henry was not
yet crowned emperor, he had no canonical right to
take part in the new election; but the Romans had no
candidate to propose and begged the monarch to sug-
gest a worthy subject.
Henry's first choice, the powerful Adalbert, Arch- bishop of Bremen, positively refused to accept the burden and suggested his friend Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg. In spite of the latter's protests, the king took him by the hand and presented him to the ac- claiming clergj- and people as their spiritual chief. Suid- ger's reluc- tance was final- ly overcome, though he in- sisted upon re- taining the bishopric of liis beloved see. He might be pardoned for fearing that the turbulent Romans would ere long send him back to Bamberg. Moreover, since the king refused to give back to the Roman See its possessions usurped by the nobles and the Normans, the pope was forced to look to his German bishopric for financial support. He was enthroned in St. Peter's on Christmas Day and took the name of Clement II. He was born in Saxony of noble parentage, was first a canon in Halberstadt, then chaplain at the court of King Henry, who on the death of Eberhard, the first Bisliop of Bamberg, ap- pointed liim to that important see. He was a man of strictest integritj- and se\-ere morality. His first pon- tifical act was to place the imperial crown upon liis benefactor and the queen-consort, Agnes of Aqui- taine. The new emperor received from the Romans and the pope the title and diadem of a Roman Patricius, a dignity which, since the tenth century, owing to the uncanonical pretensions of the Roman aristocracy, was commonly supposed to give the bearer the right of appointing the pope, or, more ex- actly speaking, of indicating the person to be chosen (Hefele). Had not God given His Church the in- alienable right of freedom and independence, and sent her champions determined to enforce this right, she would now have simply exchanged the tyranny of Roman factions for the more serious thraldom to a foreign power. The fact that Henr}' had protected the Roman Church and rescued her from her enemies
§ave him no just claim to become her lord and master, hort-sightod refonners, even men like St. Peter Damiani (Opusc, VI, ,36) who saw in this surrender of the freedom of papal elections to the arbitrary will of the eiii))pi(ir the opening of a new era, lived" long enough to regret the mistake that was made. With due recognition of the prominent part taken by the Gennans in the reformation of the eleventh century,
S.4KCOPHAGU8 OF CLEMENT II
(Cathedral of Bamberg)
we cannot forget that neither Henry III nor his
bishops understood the importance of absolute inde-
pendence in the election of the officers of the Church.
This lesson was taught them by Hildebrand, the
young chaplain of Gregory VI, whom they took to
Germany with his master, only to return with St.
Leo IX to begin his immortal career. Henry III,
the sworn enemy of simony, never took a penny from
any of liis appointees, but he claimed a right of ap-
pointment which virtually made him head of the
Church and paved the way for intolerable abuses
under liis unworthy successors.
Clement lost no time in beginning the work of re- form. At a great synod in Rome, January, 1047, the buying and selling of things spiritual was punished with excommunication; anyone who should know- ingly accept ordination at the hands of a prelate guilty of simony was ordered to do canonical penance for forty days. A dispute for precedence between the Sees of Ravenna, Milan, and Aquileia was settled in favour of Ravenna, the bishop of which was, in the absence of the emperor, to take his station at the pope's right. Clement accompanied the emperor in a triumphal progress through Southern Italy and placed Benevento under an interdict for refusing to open its gates to them. Proceeding with Henry to Germany, he canonized Wiborada, a nun of St. Gall, martj-rcd by the Huns in 925. On his way back to Rome he died near Pesaro. That he was poisoned by the partisans of Benedict IX is a mere suspicion with- out proof. He bequeathed his mortal remains to Bamberg, in the great cathedral of which his marble sarcophagus is to be seen at the present day. He is the only pope buried in Germany. Many zealous ec- clesiastics, notably the Bishop of Liege, now exerted themselves to reseat in the papal chair Gregorj' VI, whom, together with his chaplain, Henry held in honourable custody; but the emperor unceremoni- ously appointed Pqppo, Bishop of Brixen, who took the name of Damasus II. (See Gregory VI; Bene- dict IX.)
Baroxius, Annates EccL, ad ann. 1046, 1047; LAFlTEAn, La vie de Clement II (Padua, 1752); Will, Die Anfange der Res- tauration der Kirche im XI. Jahrhundert (Marburg. 1859); Vini-MJ^liti, Clemens II. mArchiv f. kalhol. KirchmreM (ISSi), LI, 238; Von Reumont, Gesch. d. Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1867), II, ,339^4; Art.atjd de Montor, History of the Roman Pontiffs (New York, 1S67): Heinemann, Der Patriziat d. deutschen Kunige (Halle. 1887); Hefele, Conciliengesch., IV. 706-14. James F. Loughlin.
Clement III, Pope (Paolo Scolari), date of birth unknown; elected 19 December, 1187; d. 27 March, 1191. During the short space (1181-1198) which separated the glorious pontificates of Alexander III and Innocent HI, no less than five pontiffs occupied in rapid succession the papal chair. They were all veterans trained in the school of .\lexander, and needed only their earlier youthful vigour and length of reign to gain lasting renown in an age of great events. Gregory VIII, after a pontificate of two months, died on 17 December, 1187, at Pisa, whither he had gone to expedite the preparations for the recovery of Jerusalem; he was succeeded two days later by the Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina, Paolo Scolari, a Roman by birth. The choice was partic- ularly acceptable to the Romans; for he was the first native of their city w'ho was elevated to the papacy since their rebellion in the days of Arnold of Brescia, and his well-known mildness and love of peace turned their thoughts towards a recon- ciliation, more necessary to them than to the pope. Overtures led to the conclusion of a formal treaty, by which the papal sovereignty and the mu- nici)Kil lilicrties were equally secured; and in the following; I'lhrviary Clement made his entry into the city amid the boundless enthusiasm of a population which never seemed to have learned the art of living either with or without the pope.
