Roots of the Reformation XXIV: The Islamic Scholar and the Ottonian Reformation



An armillary sphere
Sandro Botticelli

Well, back to the Ottonian Reformation.  You may remember that about two weeks ago (July 1) to be precise, I mentioned a fellow by the name of Gerbert of Aurillac.  Hugh Capet—the King of France—had asked pope John XV to depose Arnulf from the Archbishopric of Reims as Arnulf was an ally of Charles of Lorraine who was contesting Hugh’s claim to the French crown—a somewhat shaky claim other than in the medieval world might made right and Hugh and plenty of might.  When the pope failed to act, Hugh took it on himself to convoke a synod of bishops and depose Arnulf and he named Gerbert in Arnulf’s place.  John XV did not like this and sent a legate to France who declared Gerbert’s election to the See of Reims invalid and restored Arnulf.  Now, we need to be somewhat careful about this.  The pope, at the timed, did not have the right to appoint bishops.  Bishops were elected by their Cathedral Clergy. (Popes would only get the authority to appoint bishops to most European sees in the nineteenth century and there are still a number of sees that maintain the right of election, though recent popes have interfered—with mixed success—with this right.)  Nevertheless, once a bishop was duly elected and installed, the papacy was quick to defend them against the attempts of kings or nobles to depose them.  When Byzantine Emperor Michael III deposed the Patriarch Ignatius in 858 and named Photius to the See of Constantinople, Pope Nicholas I excommunicated both Emperor and the new Patriarch.  So, in any event, Gerbert was deposed as Archbishop of Reims by the pope—not an auspicious sign for his future—but Gerbert was, as well shall see, the original “Come-back Kid.” 

Gerbert had been born in 946 in what is now south-central France.  At approximately the age of eighteen he entered the Benedictine abbey at Aurillac, not far from his birthplace.  This local is crucial to the story as the Abbey of Aurillac was a relatively influential one at the time due to the cult of its founder, the count Gerald of Aurillac and its ties with the influential Abbey of Cluny.  It is also important in as that geographically it was in a bridge area between France (to the North) and Catalonia—a region which stretched from what is today the South of France along the Mediterranean coast south into what is today Spain.  This region served as a conduit of information and trade between Europe and Islamic Spain. 

       In 967, Borrell II, Count of Girona visited the Abbey of Aurillac and the Abbot asked him to take the young monk back with him to Spain for studies.  Gerbert studied under Bishop Atto of Vic, a remarkably cosmopolitan man.  Atto himself was sent on a diplomatic mission to sue for peace at the Court of the Caliph at Cordoba—the Islamic armies were threatening the Christian stronghold in Catalonia and Borrell was anxious to avoid a war that would result in his counties (he was also Count of Barcelona, Ausona, and Urgell—all in the northeastern corner of modern Spain).  Cordoba, indeed Islamic Spain, was the most advanced civilization in Europe at this period.    In Cordoba Atto was introduced into a very different world, a world in which Christian bishops and clergy spoke Arabic, dressed and lived in the Arabic manner, and were in open conversations about philosophy and sciences with Arab and Jewish scholars.  It is unclear whether Gerbert accompanied Atto on this mission, or indeed if Gerbert ever managed to visit Islamic Spain, but whether in Catalonia or Al-Andalus he certain was exposed to Arabic learning and culture and drank it up. 

     During his time in Spain Gerbert was introduced to the Hindu-Arabic numerals and recognized how much easier mathematics was with this system than with the clumsy system of Roman numerals then in use in Christian Europe.  It would be Gerbert who introduced the Hindu-Arabic numerals to western Culture.  He also was introduced to the Abacus which had disappeared from European learning with the collapse of Graeco-Roman culture.  He reintroduced the armillary sphere which, like the abacus, had been lost to European knowledge and complemented it with sighting tubes that helped in stellar navigation.  Gerbert was not an inventor or original thinker as much as he was someone who was quick to grasp the advances made by the Arabic culture and was not afraid to bring them to the west.  He was only in Spain for two years, but it was two years that made a huge difference for European mathematics and science.  What is truly remarkable about Gerbert then is not his originality but his openness to other cultures, non-Christian cultures—where he felt he could learn something.  He did not let theological prejudices close his mind to the truths and wisdom he found outside Christian circles not did he insist that theology trumped science.  This was a remarkable openness in the tenth century—indeed many Catholics today think they have nothing to learn from non-Christian sources and look down on cultures that differ from their own.  Truth has nothing to fear from open dialogue and minds that are fearful of different insights and ideas only betray both a lack of faith and shallowness of intellect.      
     In 969 Borrell made a pilgrimage to Rome and Gerbert was included in his suite.  Pope John XIII (not one of our better popes (see entry of June 28^th) suggested to the Emperor Otto I that he should name Gerbert tutor for his son, the future Otto II.  It would take this man and cast him in a very different direction than the Arabic scholar.

Roots of the Reformation XVII: Who Reforms the Pope?

Otto I --restorer of the Holy Roman Empire

Charlemagne’s empire with its Renaissance and Reformation did not last.  The Emperor was succeeded by his son, Louis, who in turn was succeeded by his son Lothair.  But Lothair’s claims were disputed by his half-brothers Louis the German and Charles the Bald  The two brothers were too strong for Lothair and after much warfare among the three, Lothair was left with the imperial title but with much of the realm taken by his brothers. Lothair himself, when dying, left the imperial title to his son Louis, but divided his remaining lands among Louis and his two brothers—Lothair II and Charles of Provence.  This was not an easy time for Europe—the Vikings were ravaging the Atlantic and channel coasts and the Saracens were ravaging the Italian possessions of the Empire. On his deathbed, Louis named his cousin Carloman, the son of his uncle Louis the German, to succeed him, but his other uncle, Charles the Bald—in connivance with Pope John VIII—seized the throne.  John, by the way, is a curious personage himself and was quite effeminate.  Patrick Madrid, an amateur historian (and the operative word is amateur), suggests his effeminacy may have given rise to the Pope Joan legends.  That is a very complex topic and we will have fun someday soon looking at those stories.  However “light in his buskins” he may have been, John was a good pope; indeed a great pope.  Of course the competition at the time was not much.  John had a problem and that was the Saracen (Muslim) pirates who were raiding papal Italy and so the pope turned to the Carolingians for help just as Leo III had turned to Charlemagne and Pope Zachary had turned to Pepin in their respective political woes in the previous century.  They let him down—they were too divided among themselves for any sort of effective response—and the popes had to pay tribute to the Saracens.

Speaking of the Carolingians,  Charles the Bald was succeeded in the Imperial title by his nephew, Charles the Fat.   Meanwhile in each of these successions various grandchildren and great grandchildren of Charlemagne kept dividing lands and squabbling with one another, each trying to expand his own power.  Most were not interested in the imperial title because it had become nothing more than that—a title.  Power was local and the central administration of Charlemagne had completely broken down.  In fact, with the death of Berengar of Friuli in 924 the throne was empty and remained so for thirty-eight years.  All this at a time when Europe needed strong leadership—and when the Church needed a protector not only against Vikings and Saracens, but against some of the most unworthy men every to sit on the throne of Peter.   This was a time when popes obtained their office by cash, by murder and by adultery.   

In 962 the great-great-great-great-grandson of Charlemagne, through a predominately feminine line, took the throne and revived the empire.   His name was Otto.  He had become King of East Francia in 936, that part of Charlemagne’s empire that went to Louis the German and is what we call today Germany (West Francia, or West Frankreich being France, also known at this period as Neustria).  Otto arranged for his coronation at Charlemagne’s capital of Aachen and in Charlemagne’s cathedral where Charlemagne’s bones lie.  Now, just in case you’re missing this—he is trying from the beginning to establish a claim to Charlemagne’s title and realm.

In the early 960’s, the papal possessions in Italy—the Papal States—were overrun and conquered by Berengar II, the grandson of Berengar of Friuli who had been the last emperor, dying in 924.  Berengar was a thug.  The Pope—John XII—was worse.  Nevertheless, when John asked the help of Otto in regaining his temporal possessions, Otto came down into Italy, defeated Berengar, restored the Pope to power.  The Pope, for his part, then crowned Otto as Emperor, restoring the lapsed imperium.  Pope and Emperor then established the Diploma Ottonianum, a treaty in which Otto and his successors would protect the papacy. 

This brings us back to the thorny issue of papal versus imperial power.  Charlemagne saw himself having supreme authority over the Church in the model that the Byzantine Emperors had exercised from the time of Justinian, and in fact from Constantine’s control over the Church.  Certainly Constantine met nothing but gratitude from Popes Miltiades and Sylvester.   Justinian, for his part, kept papal authority dependent on the Imperial exarch in Italy.  This was and would be a problem for Eastern (later specifically Orthodox) Christianity where the Emperors—first the Greek Emperor at Constantinople and later the Russian Emperors at Moscow and Saint Petersburg—firmly kept the Church under the imperial thumb and the Church thanked them for that.  So deeply ingrained was the Caesropapism in Orthodoxy that centuries later, even under the worst years of Communist oppression and persecution, the Russian Church was totally compliant with the Soviet government.  But, to be fair, that was its strategy for survival and in so far as it was a survival strategy, it worked. 

The Western Emperors saw their authority in the same way and for several centuries most popes agreed.  We saw (see blog entry of May 12, 2011) that Charlemagne altered the Creed of Nicea and, in direct contradiction to Leo III, insisted that this revised Creed be used in the liturgy)   In 824, Louis the Pious, his son and co-emperor, Lothair, and Pope Eugene II promulgated the Constitutio Romana, a protocol by which the Popes recognized, among other things, that the authority of the Emperor was supreme.  The Popes, for their part, were in a bind.  They needed the military protection from a series of foes—Lombards, Magyars, Saracens, and a host of Italian warrior-counts—to protect Rome and the papal territories.  Secondly they, like everyone else in Europe, were used to thinking of the Emperor as being supreme, indeed as being the Vicar of Christ which was a title the emperors had appropriated to themselves.  Finally, the popes had very little real power.  Bishops were elected locally, admittedly often under some royal or noble pressure.  Local Bishops, not popes, made decisions regarding liturgy and cult as well as Church discipline.  Papal authority was exercised more by encouragement and exhortation than by decree.  There was not much point into getting into Turf warfare with the Emperor.  That would change, but for the time being, the popes were willing to let the issue slide.  And it was just as well—the Church needed the emperors to clean up a papacy that had become hopelessly corrupt.  I did a blog entry on what historians call The Pornacracy (cf. January 15 2011) which means the Rule (of the Church) by whores and refers to a period.  While you’re looking at that check out the January 24 2011 entry which is about the Cadaver Synod.  This might give you a picture of just how mad things were in the Church in the tenth century.     I think tomorrow we will talk about John XII—the pope who asks Otto for help.  It will show you why we need some outside authority to clean up the mess in Rome.  Just remember the old Italian axiom—il pesce puzza dalla testa—the fish rots from the head: it was coined about the papacy. 

The Roots of the Reformation II: It's didn't start with Luther



A medieval burgher peeks out frin his
window beneath the pulpit of the
Stefansdom in Vienna--it was this class
that was drawn to the eachings of
Peter Waldo



Martin Luther was not the first voice to speak up against the Institutional Church and go his own way—and take followers with him.  Peter Waldo was one of the wealthiest cloth merchants in Lyons—itself one of the wealthiest cities in Europe.  On day, while hearing mass, he was struck by the Gospel Command: if you be perfect—go, sell all that you have (and you will have treasure in heaven) and come, follow me.  Waldo was probably in his early thirties at this time and, in the late twelfth century that was a somewhat more mature and advanced age than it would be now.  He was a serious man, a man of deep piety and the words struck to his heart.  He paid a priest to make him a translation of the gospels into his native Lyonnais patois—a sort of early medieval French spiced with some Provençal—and he began to study the gospels assiduously.  As he was married and had children—two daughters—the monastic life was not an option for him, but neither did he seem to be attracted to that form of Christian discipleship.  Like many of his religious contemporaries—Stephen of Grandmont (who was actually about two generations ahead of Waldo) or Francis of Assisi (who was actually a generation younger than Waldo), he simply wanted to follow the gospel.   He endowed his daughters as nuns in the reformed abbey of Fonterevault, turned his business over to his wife for her support, separated from her and gave his money to the poor.  He then began to preach in the streets of his native city.

The citizens of Lyons were amazed to see one of their wealthiest burghers standing in the streets of their city wearing shabby clothes and talking about Christian discipleship.  The bishop, in his palace and fine robes, was particularly unhappy.  The clergy in their elegant dress and with a comfortable life style were embarrassed by his zeal.  He was told that since he was not in Orders (a priest or deacon) he had no authority to preach.  Waldo’s response was that as long as he conformed to the Apostolic life—no purse, no sack, no walking stick, no change of clothes—the authority which Jesus gave his apostles in sending them out was sufficient (Matthew 10:9-10).  Well, the Gospel rarely suffices to prove much to the clergy who are impressed only with canon law and perhaps dogmatic theology and Waldo was told not to preach.  So he went to the Pope in 1179.  Alexander III was a canon lawyer.  He was impressed by Waldo’s earnestness and his renunciation of wealth and family for the sake of the Gospel but he was a canon lawyer and like many canon lawyers even today he could not think outside the box.  No, Waldo was not to preach.

Well this brought Peter Waldo to a crisis.  The Church told him he could not preach, the Gospel told him he could, and the Holy Spirit, or what he perceived as the Holy Spirit, told him he must.   About twenty years later another Canon Lawyer pope, Innocent III, would cut the Gordian knot and distinguish between what we call “witnessing” and formal canonical and doctrinal preaching—permitting the former to the laity.  Alas, by that time—as so often in the history of the Church—it was too little too late. 

Waldo and his followers found themselves outcasts from the Church.  The movement spread and actually took root in Lombardy in the areas around Milan.  Milan had a long history of tension with the Institutional Church going back to the Patarini controversies of the eleventh century.  The Milanese were not very tolerant of sloppy standards and thought that if the Church were going to legislate things like celibacy then they should enforce the rules.  Moreover, the Milanese had a long history of class conflict and the working class—mostly tied to the cloth industry (and remember Waldo was a cloth merchant) were among the strongest voices crying out against the wealth of the clergy and laxity of clerical morals. 

Waldo was excommunicated by Lucius III in 1184 but the movement was not condemned as “heretical” until Lateran IV in 1215.  Waldo and his followers were quite orthodox in both their Trinitarian and Christological beliefs.  In regard to their ecclesiology and sacramental theology they reflected many of the popularly held beliefs that were accepted by the Church prior to the extensive doctrinal clarifications of the Fourth Lateran Council which defined there to be seven sacraments, the necessity of auricular confession to a priest, and the precise nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.   Three hundred years later,  in the sixteenth century, when the Calvinist Reformation articulated many of the “Reformed Doctrines,” the Waldensians subscribed—more or less—to that theological trend though they would later affiliate with the World Methodist Council of which they are still members today, although not Methodists.   

The real issue was not “orthodoxy” as Waldo and his followers were well within the current boundaries of Catholic faith as it was accepted in the 12^th century.  Years ago I heard a noted Protestant historian say that “the Roman Church will accept almost any deviation from its doctrine as long as it doesn’t challenge the basic authority of the Church itself.”  As a historian, I have seen that time and time again.  Church authorities will rationally discuss any and all doctrines and examine the dogmas of the Church with the most critical scholarship as long as the authority of the magisterium is not brought into question.  Waldo’s challenge to the Church of his day was that he appealed against its authority to Scripture and individual conscience.   What should be noted in the situation behind Waldo and his break with the Church is the antagonism of many people to the wealth and power of the Institutional Church as well as the distance between the hierarchy and many of the clergy, on the one hand, and the working-class faithful on the other.  Peter Waldo had a credibility that many clergy lacked in the eyes of many because of the simplicity and earnestness of his life.  We are going to see this theme repeated in other circles as we build up to the Protestant Reformations.