ACY

A.D. 1048

FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS

JOSEPH E. DARRAS

(After the extinction of the Carlovingian line, A.D. 887, and the
division of the empire, the Church of Rome and the Christian world fell
into a highly demoralized state, attributable to the destitution to
which ecclesiastical bodies were reduced by the frequent predations of
bands of robbers, the immorality of the priesthood, and the power of
electing the popes falling into the hands of intriguing and licentious
patrician females, whom aspirants to the holy see were not ashamed to
bribe for their favors. So depraved had the general spirit of the age
become that Pope Boniface VII, A.D. 974, robbed St. Peter's Church and
its treasury and fled to Constantinople; while Pope John XVIII, A.D.
1003, was prevented, by general indignation only, from accepting a sum
of money from Emperor Basil to recognize the right of the Greek
patriarch to the title of "Universal Bishop."

A child, son of one of the old noble houses, was consecrated pope as
Benedict IX, A.D. 1033, according to some authorities, at the age of ten
or twelve years. He became noted for his profligacy and was driven from
his throne, the Romans electing, as Pope Sylvester III, John, Bishop of
Sabina, who is said to have paid a high price for the dignity. Benedict,
however, regained the papal seat shortly afterward, and drove Sylvester
into a refuge, but later sold the office to John Gratianus, Arch-priest
of Rome, who as Gregory VI made laudable attempts to effect a general
reformation. He failed in his efforts, and a chaotic state ensued; three
popes claiming the triple tiara and reigning in Rome: Gregory at the
Vatican, Benedict in the Lateran, and Sylvester in the Church of Santa
Maria Maggiore.

On the invitation of the Roman people, Henry the Black, the young and
zealous Emperor of Germany, repaired to Italy in 1045 and summoned a
great ecclesiastical council at Sutri, which passed a decree deposing
the three papal claimants. The same council elected to the tiara the
German bishop of Bamberg, who reigned in the holy see as Clement II. One
of his first ceremonies, carried out with all the gorgeous pomp of the
Roman Church, was the imperial coronation of Henry and his wife Agnes.

But Henry's action, while "it dragged the Church out of the slough it
had fallen into," startled the ecclesiastical world, and was a prelude
to the struggle between pope and emperor which, under St. Hildebrand,
Pope Gre