Aug. 876. Charles Dec. 17, 875. man interest contending for the papal influence, which grows into more and more decided faction, till the Carlovingian empire is united, soon to be dissolved for ever, in the person of Charles the Fat. John VIII. adopted the dangerous policy of a partial adherence to France. The Emperor Louis, the son of Lothair, had died without male issue. the Bald was never wanting in boldness and activity to advance his claims, just or unjust, to an increase of dominion. He marched hastily into Italy; his nobles crowded to his standard. Of the two sons of Louis of Germany the elder attempted in vain to arrest, or was bribed to permit, his passage of the Alps. The Pope hastened to bestow the imperial crown on Charles. An Emperor with a title so questionable was not disposed to be scrupulous as to the author of the gift. "We have elected," writes John VIII., “and approved, with the consent of our brothers the other bishops, of the ministers of the holy Roman Church, and of the senate and people of Rome, the King Charles, Emperor of the West." In his letters to the bishops and counts of Bavaria, whom he forbids to espouse the cause of their king in the assertion of his rightful title to the empire, or to invade the territories of Charles, the Pope describes the march of Charles as almost miraculous, and intimates throughout that he was invited by the Church, in which resided the divine power of bestowing the empire. No later Pope held more unmeasured language:-"How do we discharge our functions as vicegerents of Christ in his Church, if we do not strive for Christ against the insolence of "Sibi divinitus . . . collatum."—Epist. cccxvii. Feb. 876. princes?" He speaks of " our son Louis, your glorious king, if he be a son who has always been disobedient to our holy predecessors, if glorious who has waged unhallowed wars against Christians; ‘bella gerens nullos habitura triumphos:' if a king, who cannot govern himself." The Bavarian bishops are threatened with instant excommunication if they refuse to concur with the legates of John in preventing the war by mild or by threatening means. Another letter to the bishops. who adhered to the title of Louis is still more violent; he treats them as Iscariots, as followers of the fratricide Cain. They murmur not against Charles, but against God, the giver of crowns.' But the historians are almost unanimous as to the price which Charles was compelled to pay for his imperial crown. He bought the Pope, he bought the senators of Rome; he bought, if we might venture to take the words to the letter, St. Peter himself.e A.D. 876. 66 The imperial reign of Charles the Bald was short and inglorious. His brother and rival, Louis of Germany, died during the next year, but left his kingdoms and his title to the Empire to his three sons. War broke out; Charles suffered a disgraceful defeat on the Rhine by Louis of Saxony. After his second descent into Italy, where Pope John met him at Pavia, he was in danger of being cut off in his retreat by the forces of Carloman, King of Oct. 6, 877. Bavaria. He died on the road, in a small hamlet in the Alps. As his physician was a Jew, it was generally believed that he was poisoned; though the Jews, educated in the Arabian universities of Spain, were no doubt more advanced in medical science than any others in Europe. John VIII., even before the death of Charles the Bald, might repent of having yielded to the Danger from temptation of bestowing the imperial crown the Saracens. on an obsequious but remote sovereign, who could so ill discharge his office of Protector of the Roman See. But where could he have looked for a more powerful protector against the formidable enemies which were environing the capital of Christendom on every side, the Saracens, and the no less dangerous Christian petty princes of Italy? The whole pontificate of John VIII. was a long, if at times interrupted, agony of apprehension lest Rome should fall into the hands of the unbeliever. The reign of the late Emperor Louis had been almost a continual warfare against the Mohammedans, who had now obtained a firm footing in Southern Italy. He had successfully repelled their progress, but at the death of Louis Rome was again in danger of becoming a Mohammedan city. The Pope wrote letter after letter in the most urgent and feeling language to Charles the Bald soon after he had invested him with the empire. "If all the trees in the forest," such is the style of the Pope, "were turned into tongues, they could not describe the ravages of these impious pagans; the devout people of God is destroyed f Ad Carol. Calv. Imper. apud Bouquet, p. 471. by a continual slaughter: he who escapes the fire and the sword is carried as a captive into exile. Cities, castles, and villages are utterly wasted, and without an inhabitant. The bishops are wandering about in beggary, or fly to Rome as the only place of refuge." The well-known story, whether false or true, by the belief which it obtained, shows the deadly hatred between the Christians and the Moslemin, and the horrors of the war. Salerno was besieged by the Saracens (this was at an earlier period, about the accession of John VIII.): the gallant defence of the city by Count Guaifer probably retarded at that time their career of conquest. The Saracen general, or king as he is called, is said to have violated a number of Christian nuns on the altar in the church of St. Fortunatus. While in this act of cruelty and guilt to one of them he was crushed by a huge beam, which fell or was skilfully detached from the wall. The maiden escaped unhurt.s The usual appellation of the Saracens by the Pope is Hagarenes, sons of fornication and wrath. In a passage in a later letter to Count Boso, the Pope describes the Saracens as an army of locusts, turning the whole land. into a wilderness: extensive regions were so desolate as to be inhabited only by wild beasts. The most terrible intelligence of all is that an armament of three hundred ships, fifteen of which carried cavalry, was in preparation to attack and conquer Rome. "Consider," says the Pope, "what a vast and unparalleled evil this would be; the loss of that city would be the ruin of the world, the peril of Christianity itself." In another pressing letter to Charles the Bald he says, "All Campania is a desert; the Hagarenes have crossed the Tiber, and are 8 Anonym. Salern. e. g. Epist. xxxviii. i Incomparabile! wasting the suburban district; they destroy all churches and shrines: massacre the monks and clergy." Somewhat later he alludes to the starvation of Rome; some of the senate were in danger of perishing with hunger.m All this time, bitterly complains the Pope, the Christians, instead of flying to the relief of the Roman see, were engaged in unnatural wars against each other; wars in which John forgets his own concern. appear "The Nov. 16, 876. Yet, if possible, even more formidable than the infidels were the petty Christian princes of Italy. canker-worm eats what the locust has left." These to have been the inferior nobles, the Roman the marquises (marchiones) in the neighbour- territory. hood of Rome. The more powerful princes seized likewise every opportunity of confusion to enrich themselves or to enlarge their dominions. "Those," writes Pope John to the Emperor, "who are not unknown to you, trample down all our rights in the Roman territory, seize all that the Saracens have spared; so that there is not a single herd of cattle in all our domain, nor a single human being to commiserate or lament the desolation."" In many parts of Italy had gradually arisen independent dukedoms: and none of these appear to have felt any religious respect for the Pope, some not for Christianity. They were ready on every occasion to assail and plunder the city itself: for which they were sometimes punished, when the imperial power was strong; more often they defied its impotence. A Transalpine Emperor was too distant to maintain awe for any long time. In the South were the old Lombard Dukes of Benevento and Spoleto, the Duke He entreats the Empress Richildis to influence her husband to protect him; his whole realm is confined within the walls of the city.-Epist. xxx. m Epist. xlv. ■ Epist. xxx. |