Before There Were Muslims To Hate the Jews, French Christians Did A Pretty Good Job Of It

There is a wave of fear spreading through the Jewish communities of France after the Charlie Hebdo attack and the killing of hostages in a kosher supermarket on the outskirts of Paris.  Curiously enough this anti-Semitism is being blamed on the Muslim population which has emigrated to France from its former colonies in the decades since World War II.  In fact, anti-Semitism and violence towards Jews has a long and very French history that reaches back long before Islam. 

Jews lived in France from the days when Gallia and Vienna (centered in modern day Vienne) were provinces of the Roman Empire.  Jews lived everywhere in the Roman Empire—and beyond the Empire in places as far away and exotic as India.  The Sibylline Oracle said of the Jews: “Every Land is Full of Thee and Every Sea.”  From very early on Jews had been merchants even before the diaspora exiled them from Judea.  Their homeland on the Eastern Mediterranean made them naturals at this even as it had done for the Phoenicians before them.  Jewish merchants could stretch out eastwards to the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Ocean, and the ancient Silk Road to transport goods such as spices, incense, citrus, and exotic fabrics from Asia and the Islands of the Indian Ocean. They could stretch south down through Egypt and along the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa for ivories and slaves and exotic animals.  They could reach up beyond Asia Minor along the Black Sea for amber and bronze and the market for fair-haired slaves. They could reach westwards across North Africa for the excellent wines and abundant wheat produced there in the ancient world as well as gold and slaves from sub-Sahara Africa.  And they could reach north and west into the markets of what is today Europe where so much of this treasure could be sold in return for iron, wool, tin, silver, and wood that was in demand in the East.  Jewish family conglomerates would send their sons and sons-in-law to the various corners of the world to facilitate the export and import of goods.  Unified by blood and marriage and kept unified by a religion that did not allow for religious or cultural assimilation, Jews were able to maintain a common identity wherever they went in the world. 

After the expulsion of Christians from the Synagogues and their becoming a religion distinct from Judaism at the time of the composition of the Birkat ha Minim, the prayer cursing the “sectaries” (an euphemism for Christians) c 80 AD,  there was most often tension between the Jewish communities in a given place and their Christian counterparts.  Judaism and Christianity have often, sadly, acted like the older and younger siblings who have mutual resentments going back further than either can remember.  As Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, Jews found themselves increasingly marginalized in many places.  Yet it was not always true.  Bishop Hilary of Arles (d. 449) was known for his good relationship with the local Jewish community who mourned his death with the singing of psalms. This was somewhat exceptional however.  The Third Council of Orleans was very worried about the number of Christians converting to Judaism or at least accepting Jewish dietary and cultural practices.  The Merovingian King, Dagobert I, (died 639) proposed to force Jews to accept Christianity or leave his kingdom.  He did not follow through on this proposal but its very threat is a sign of the anti-Semitism that was characteristic of French society in the early Middle Ages.

Just as a point of clarification here.  What mean by France today was not a reality until the late 19^th century when the House of Savoy ceded western parts of its kingdom, including Marseilles, to France.  Through much of the Medieval period France should be considered only north of the Rhone River as much of what is today southern France was either subject to the Holy Roman Emperor (read German), Italian overlords, or the Visigoth monarchs of what is today Spain.  What may have been true in what is today the south of France may not have been the case in the Paris region.  For example, the Jewish communities of the south of France most often were left in relative peace and prosperity at times that there was strong action against them in more northern lands ruled by the French Crown.  Nevertheless, we can still speak in generalities as long as we note various exceptions.  When the Carolingian dynasty replaced the Merovingian in 751 the plight of the Jews improved considerably.  The Rise of Islam and the vast conquests of the Mideast and North Africa in the 7^th and early 8^th centuries was accompanied by an Islamic domination of the Mediterranean that left Western Europe bereft of the luxuries that had come through the Byzantine Empire to the West.  The Arabs joked that “the Franks cannot so much as float a plank on the sea.”   There was an almost total collapse of the old trade routes.  The international networks of Jewish merchant families were practically the only ones who could function effectively in the mercantile void.  According to Ibn Khordadbeh, a government official under the Abbasid Caliphs, who wrote The Book of Roads and Kingdoms Jewish Merchants from what is today France organized a series of trade routes running from the Rhone Valley and connected all the way into China.  Jewish merchants carried spices, perfumes, incense, jewels, and silk from the Orient and the Indies to Europe and brought furs, wool, steel goods (mostly weapons from Flanders,) and Slavic slaves from Europe to the Arab world.  From the seventh until the beginning of the eleventh century Jewish merchants had a virtual monopoly on trade and this made them essential to the Kingdom. Charlemagne and his successors made sure they were protected and able to have justice in the royal courts.  At the same time, they were forbidden to own or hold land or trade in currency.  As they could not hold land, neither could they be ennobled or even knighted.  Not owning land, their wealth was fluid but this enabled them to use wealth to make wealth whereas the landed nobility whose wealth was in their lands often were cash strapped.  Jewish merchants were only too willing to help them through their financial crises but at a price.  This created a tension, even an anger, on the part of the landed classes who felt at times they were being taken advantage of.  The Jewish community was also, for a great part, very sophisticated and highly educated.  Given the travels of the merchant class, many Jews were polyglots.  Their sophistication and learning was another source of jealousy for some of the French nobility who, despite their political power, remained somewhat crude through most of the early and central Middle Ages. 

Things began to change and not for the better in the 11^th century.  Venice, Genoa, Amalfi, and other Italian cites began to open trading posts in the Levant in what is today Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine, breaking the Jewish monopoly on trade and making the Jews somewhat extraneous to the economic welfare of the Kingdom.  A change of dynasty from the Carolingians to the Capets also meant a change in royal attitude towards the Jews. Robert II (Robert The Pious) Capet (reigned 996-1031) bore a particular hatred towards the Jews and instituted a policy of forced conversion and mob violence to intimidate the Jewish populace.  His ally, Richard II, Duke of Normandy abetted him in this and the Jews of Rouen sent the Talmudic scholar Jacob ben Jekuthiel to Rome to intercede with Pope John XVIII.  A very hefty of gold—and I mean very hefty—persuaded the Pope of the need to protect the Jews of France and the Pope sent a legate to France with a papal order for the King to stop the persecution of the Jews.  The King did and he didn’t.  While officially they were no longer harassed, anti-Semitic feeling was running strong.  Meanwhile, the “Mad Caliph” Al Hakim ibn Amr Allah, had destroyed the Sepulcher of Christ in Jerusalem, leveling the tomb to the ground.  Christians around the world were outraged.  As Muslims were not near at hand, the only “outsiders” that could bear the brunt of Christian rage were the Jewish communities.  In one of those classic cases were the ignorant tar the innocent with too broad a brush meant for the guilty, all sorts of conspiracy theories emerged how Jews and Muslims were in league to profane Christian rites.  The Bishop of Limoges gave the Jews of his city the choice of converting to Christianity or exile; those who refused to leave were put to death.  Other bishops across France followed suit.  Many Jews killed their wives and children and then themselves rather than convert.  As the century progressed towards the declaration of the First Crusade in 1095, the hatred of Christians towards Jews in France—and indeed throughout much of Europe—only continued to grow. The Crusades added fuel to the flame as both in France and the Rhineland Crusaders killed Jews indiscriminately.  The Jews of Rouen were locked in a church where they either had to accept baptism or death.  All but a few chose death.  To be continued.

The Challenges Facing the Synod: Jesus, Paul, Teutberga, and Modern Family

The upcoming Synod of Bishops is stirring up quite a controversy over the possibility of changing the discipline on how the Church integrates into its sacramental life those who have been divorced and remarried.  While the New Testament is pretty clear on the prohibition of divorce, history has some lessons to teach us on the matter of how the Church has dealt with the matter throughout its history.  There has been a long tradition supporting the indissolubility of Christian marriages but it is not an unbroken tradition.  I mentioned in the earlier post that while Mark and Luke present the teaching of Jesus as an absolute prohibition of divorce and remarriage—saying that those who remarry are guilty of adultery—Matthew gives an exception to the prohibition, namely “unchastity”—presumably on the part of the wife.  This has usually been interpreted as the wife not coming to the marriage as a virgin.  This is particularly interesting as it is the reason that Joseph has for his original plans to divorce Mary until the Angel comes and assures him that Mary has conceived by the power of God (Matt 1:20). 

Paul takes a different approach than the Synoptic Gospels—and it is interesting because Paul’s letters are written before the Gospels and thus reflect an older practice in the Church.   Paul does not allow for the marriage of two Christians to be dissolved, but does permit it when one of the partners is not a Christian and attempts to hinder the Christian partner in the practice of his or her faith (I Corinthians 7:12-15).  Jesus’ teaching, recorded in the Synoptics, declares all marriages to be indissoluble; Paul restricts this to Christian marriages.   It is Paul’s teaching, not Jesus’, that has shaped the practice of the Church through the centuries where the Church has willingly dissolved marriages where one or both of the partners have not been baptized and where, therefore, the marriage has not been “sacramental.”  The Church does not annul these marriages but dissolves them, that is the Church recognizes that the first marriage did exist as a valid marriage but declares that since it was not a sacrament (one or both partners not being baptized and thus no sacrament, even for the baptized partner) it can be dissolved regardless of the teaching of Jesus to the contrary. 

I also pointed out a statement by Pope Gregory II in the eighth century that somewhat astoundingly permits divorce in the case of a wife who can no longer, for reasons of health, have sexual relations with her husband.  This statement is remarkable as it is the only papal statement I can find that permits divorce and remarriage.  Finally, I mentioned in the previous post the marriage/divorce/annulment of Lothair II of Lotharingia and his wife, Teutberga which marks a significant turning point in the Catholic approach to the dissolution of supposedly indissoluble marriages. I want to look more closely at this case. 

The first point, just to answer the obvious, is where in God’s Name is Lotharingia?  Lotharingia designates a medieval kingdom extending from Frisia on the North Sea in modern day Holland south through Burgundy, Provence, Lombardy and even part of Tuscany.  It spanned most of Holland, parts of Belgium, France, Switzerland and Italy and would include such modern day cities as Utrecht, Aachen (the capital), Liege, Cologne, Verdun, Strasbourg, Lyon, Marseilles, Geneva, Milan, Florence, and Siena.   It was created upon the death of Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, when his three sons divided the empire with Louis’ son Charles the Bald being given most of what is today France, his son Louis being given most of what is today Germany, and his son Lothair being given this middle kingdom between the two brothers.  The name Lotharingia survives in “Lorraine,” that province which today belongs to France but which has been a source of fighting between France and Germany for over a century and which is famous for its quiche (which real men don’t eat).

In any event, Lothair I, son of Louis the Pious, had several sons and further divided his kingdom, leaving the Italian lands to his son, Louis, the French/German lands to his son Lothair II, and Provence (the southernmost province of what is today France) to his son Charles.  Lothair II thus governed what is today the Netherlands, much of Belgium, and North west and central France. Lothair II had a long-time lady friend, Waldrada, (think Camilla Parker-Bowles) who came from an aristocratic but not noble family.  His father, Lothair I, required that he marry Teutberga (think Princess Diana) daughter of Boso who is variously described as the Count of Arles, Count of Turin, and Count of Valois.  Boso, for his part, wanted his daughter to marry into the Imperial Family and Lothair I saw the advantages of an alliance with this powerful noble from the south-eastern part of his realm.  There were problems, however, with this marriage.  Lothair loved Waldrada, not Teutberga (I don’t know; can you imagine screaming either name in the fit of carnal passion?); moreover Teutberga proved to be incapable of bearing children, leaving Lothair II without an heir.  Waldrada, on the other hand, bore Lothair four children, one of whom was a son; but an illegitimate son.  Damn.  Born on the wrong side of the blanket, Hugh (the son of Lothair and Waldrada), could not inherit.   But if Lothair could marry Waldrada, then Hugh would be legitimized, and could inherit.  How to do it in an age before speeding paparazzi in mad pursuit behind one’s chariot?  First Lothair accused Teutberga of unchastity—remember Matthew’s one out of a marriage?  Lothair claimed that she had been involved in an incestuous relationship with her brother, Hucbert (where do they get these names?  Were there no Baby Books to choose from?).  Teutberga was outraged at the claim against her character and backed up by Hucbert (who had a powerful army at his disposal) insisted on a trial to clear her name. 

Now, back then they didn’t do trials like we do.  They wanted something more entertaining and so they did Trials by Ordeal.  There were several ways to do this, but Teutberga submitted to “Trial by Ordeal of Water.”  She had to put her hand into a bot of boiling water and retrieve a stone at the bottom of the pot.  The hand was then bandaged.  At the end of three days, if the hand had not festered but was healthy (or healing at least) the accused party was considered innocent.  Teutberga passed the test and Lothair had to take her back as his wife.  Notice—there is not an appeal here to ecclesiastical authority, just a trial by ordeal to establish or clear guilt and, if established, end the marriage.  It was only when his first plan failed, that Lothair turned to the local clergy and asked permission to set aside Teutberg and marry Waldrada on the grounds of her alleged (but disproved) unchastity.  The clergy acquiesced.  A synod of bishops met two years later and confirmed the decision of the clergy.  But Teutberga fled to the court of her husband’s estranged uncle, Charles the Bald, and from there appealed to the Pope.  The Pope, Nicholas I, overruled the Synod and declared the marriage of Lothair and Teutberga valid.  Lothair had to take back his wife. This appeal to the Pope is one of the earliest appeals for the Pope to get involved in terminating a marriage. 

Historians are not sure what happened next to cause   Teutberga to change her mind, but she now wanted the marriage to be annulled.  Lothair went to Rome to speak personally to the Pope and the Pope—now Adrian II, agreed to terminate the marriage.  Unfortunately for Lothair, however, he died on the way home and never did get to marry Waldrada.  And so Hugh remained illegitimate and since he was illegitimate and could not legally inherit, Lothair’s kingdom should have gone to his brother Louis.  Louis, however, was busy with wars in Italy and the inheritance was stolen by his uncles, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, Lotharingia thus disappearing from the map.  It was a rough and tumble world. 

Lothair’s appeal to the clergy and Teutberga’s appeal to the papacy to resolve their marital dispute is one of the earliest  turning points in how marital breakups were handled.  I do not know of an earlier case—though there may be one or more—where the papacy became involved in this sort of dispute.  Up to this point, the Germanic kings and powerful nobles just pretty much put their wives aside and took another when either lust or politics led them to a more advantageous second marriage.  Pope Stephen III supposedly warned Charlemagne not to put aside his first wife, Himmiltrude, but Charlemagne did precisely that to marry Gerberga (sometimes called Desiderata for reasons we don’t have to go into here).  There is some dispute whether Himmiltrude was actually Charlemange’s wife or a concubine, but the letter of Stephen refers to her as a wife. And when Charlemagne put aside Gerberga to marry Hildegard of Vinzgouw there was not an appeal to Rome to validate the divorce. Two generations later, however, it was different when Pope Nicholas got involved in the dispute between Lothair and Teutberga, but it is important to note that Nicholas only did so at Teutberga’s appeal and not at his own initiative.  And it is interesting to see that Nicholas’ successor, Adrian, was willing to annul what Nicholas had not. Adrian’s decision was more a matter of political convenience than of worthiness of cause.  Nicholas’ refusal to annul the marriage, for that matter, may have been to please Charles the Bald who did not want to see his nephew free to marry and have an heir because he, Charles, planned on stealing the kingdom when and if Lothair should predecease him.  And he did steal it, of course. 

Just as a historical note, Lothair’s grandson by Waldrada was Hugh of Italy whose second wife was Marozia—the notorious mistress of one pope, mother and grandmother of two others, tying Lothair into that whole mess of the papal pornacracy.  You might want to check out the entries for Jan 15 and June 6 2015 by clicking Marozia’s name on the sidebar of the blog for more details on that sleazy affair. 

While Lothair and Teutberga’s marriage ended up being reviewed in Rome, this was because they were royals and there was much at stake politically.   People further down the social scale did not bother with such niceties when switching bedmates.  Or to put it more accurately, Popes (and even bishops) did not bother involving themselves with people further down the social scale when they wanted to leave one marriage for another.  Arrangements tended to be much more informal among the peasantry.  Germanic Law—which governed most of Europe, even down into Italy—at the time was well used to marriages being abandoned in favor of new ones and it would be centuries before a process of annulments evolved for the ordinary person in the pew.  And it would only be in the mid 20^th century that annulments became somewhat common.  But then—and mostly because of a combination of the emergence of a Middle Class in the 16^th century and of the influence of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic reforms coming from the Council of Trent—that the ideals of the Christian family solidified. 

Now we are in a difficult situation as what might be called the post-Christian culture begins to predominate in the Western world and that ideal of the Christian family is replaced by the social complexities caricatured in the television series Modern Family that we are faced with having to find pastoral solutions for what is today becoming the norm but which for centuries would have been unimaginable aberrations in family life.  What do we do?  Do we put our head in the sand and pretend that the world has not changed?  Do we shun and exclude those whose lives represent the post-Christian culture?  Do we just abandon our tradition and go with the flow and hey, as long as everyone is happy God is cool?  Do we accept the changed conditions and see it as a field for evangelization? 

The answer obviously is that we accept the changed conditions and see it as a field for evangelization, but how do we do this?  What does it mean to evangelize in a post-Christian culture?  What can we change and what must be unchangeable.  Various people on all sides have facile answers but the reality is not all that facile.  How does Joe Parish Priest deal with Cam and Mitch when they bring Lily for her First Communion?  How does he deal with Gloria and Jay when they bring Fulgencio Joseph Pritchett for baptism?  And what advice does he give Phil and Claire about Haley who is sleeping with her boyfriend and Luke who is finding out about masturbation?  The bishops have their work cut out for them at the synod.  Thank God for Alex; there is at least one normal person in the family.  Is this geek thing the new normal?  Not sure I like that either.  

Semper Reformanda

Sorry for the hiatus –I have been travelling a bit and on retreat a bit and have had deadlines to meet and—well, excuses are just that, excuses—but I am sorry.  I realize every time I don’t do an entry for more than two days, the readership begins to drop off and I have to get back to work.  And while my readership is relatively small (a couple thousand hits a month) I know from your responses that it is helping a number of you think more clearly not so much about the past as what we can learn from the past for the crisis the Church is in today.  And it is in a crisis.          One of the themes I explore when I teach—and I have been exploring in this blog as well—is the  periodic  need of the Church for Reform.  There is a precept Ecclesia semper reformans, semper reformanda (the Church, always reforming and always in need of reform).  The current mess in Rome with butlers and bankers out of jobs and into court is only one sign of needed reform.  The clear signs that there is a power struggle going on behind the scenes—indeed that Pope Benedict is more a pawn of warring factions than able to give direction himself—is very troublesome.  Even more troubling is the lack of authority the faithful are willing to invest in the hierarchy.  This is clear from the immense support being given the LCWR by the average Catholic-in-the-streets whether it is comic commentator Stephen Colbert or my 92 year old grand-aunt.  The staged and trumped-up charges against the American nuns by prelates whose own integrity has been shown to be not even questionable but voided (Cardinal Law),  prelates who are known for being supercilious rather than  judicious (Cardinal Burke), prelates whose reputation has shown them to be ruthlessly ambitious climbers (Archbishop Lori) and prominent laity who are base influence peddlers with  ties to the extreme right wing of American politics (Carl Anderson) is a clear indication that there is an every-opening chasm between the hierarchy and the faithful and this is a dangerous situation.
       When we look at the history of Church Reform we see several models.  At times, such as in the Reforms of the Emperor Charlemagne and again in the Reforms of his heirs—the Ottonian Emperors of the 10^th century, the reforms were imposed on the Church by political force.  In the Gregorian Reform of the 11^th century and Innocentian Reform of the 13^th, reform was initiated by the papacy itself under the leadership of convinced and evangelical  popes who threw the traditions of patronage and favoritism to the winds and did not hesitate to clean up the rats’ nests into which much of the hierarchical Church had devolved.  Tragically, in the 16^th century when the political power was impotent to reform the Church and the vested interests in the hierarchy were too strong for effective renewal, reform came from within but ended up splitting the Church and, to be honest, throwing out too many babies and not enough bathwater.  I have to say that in my judgment the Protestant Reformations of the 16^th and 17^th centuries were not only tragedies, they were ineffectual.
       Well, not entirely ineffectual.  Human nature is human nature.  Time has shown that while liturgy and catechesis changed in the reformed Churches, human nature most often did not.  Issues of ambition, abuse of power, intellectual rigidity, greed, jealousy all carried over into the new religious groups.  Granted some of the changes were good and should have happened sooner and with sponsorship of the Catholic hierarchy—scriptures and worship in the common tongue, restoration of the Chalice in communion, etc.  (I use etc. when I can’t think of anything else but know there must be something.)
        The Reformers also triggered the papacy finally into action and led to the Council of Trent which is the most successful reform Council in the history of the Church.  Much good came from Trent, but that is not where I want to go in this entry.
       As a historian I have come to see that as much a failure as the papacy so often has been—and I believe currently is—it is it gives a continuity to the Church with which we cannot dispense.  I am terrified of a new reformation that will cause people to walk away in disgust from the papacy.  On the one hand I see the Roman Curia and many of our bishops being the very force that is undermining the papacy by creating this injurious gulf between the institutional church and the faithful.  We need leadership with credibility not with arrogant self-importance.
       It is said that once a priest becomes a bishop “he has had his last bad meal and will never hear the truth again.”  Much of the leadership of the Church is out of touch with the Catholic in the pews.  When you are out of touch you cannot effectively preach the gospel—you become a buffoon like Chaucer’s pardoner.  This is not a time for blind obedience—only God merits blind obedience and I am not sure that he desires it—it is a time for wise and strong leadership that calls us by credible example to put our faith in Christ and in his Gospel.     

The East-West Schism: 1054 and All That

His Ecumenical Holiness,

Bartholomew I, 270^th  

successor of Saint Andrew

the Apostle

Sorry about the recent hiatus—we have had issues with our wireless internet connections over the last few days, but now it’s time to refocus and to return to the subject of the Gregorian Reform.  But before we focus on the Reform itself, let’s take a brief detour here and talk about the East-West Schism since it was at this time that the papal legate Humbert of Silva Candida excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Caerularius and the Patriarch—always a gentleman—returned the compliment.   You may remember from our last posting (August 13^th)  on the Gregorian Reform, the one on German Reform popes, that Leo IX had sent Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida to Constantinople on a mission that went bad and ended up with the Cardinal (in the pope’s name) and the Patriarch excommunicating each other. 
     Tensions between the Sees of Rome and Constantinople had often been tense.  Contrary to Catholic Mythology, the Patriarch of Constantinople—like the other Apostolic Patriarchs of Jerusalem. Antioch, and Alexandria—had never been “under” the pope or his authority.  As successor to various apostles, they were “brothers” among whom the Patriarch of the West, the Bishop of Rome, stood out as first among equals.  The Council in Trullo (692), a Council which the Eastern Churches recognize as Ecumenical but the Western Church does not (since no delegates from the West were there) determined the precedence to be Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.  The First Council of Constantinople (381), which both the Churches of the East and the West recognize as Ecumenical, had already determined that the Bishop of Rome held precedence over the Bishop of Constantinople.  This was not a matter of jurisdiction, however, but only of honor.  Each Patriarch was supreme authority in his own jurisdiction; indeed each bishop was supreme in his own diocese.  A patriarch could settle disputes among the bishops in his patriarchate.  Each patriarch in his own jurisdiction also was the court of appeal should the clergy have a canonical or doctrinal grievance against their bishop, but the universal Church had a very collaborative structure rather than the hierarchical structure that was to emerge in the Middle Ages.  From the time of the Apostles until the Emperor Justinian (d. 565) the universal Church was a communion of local churches;  by the sixth century, it had become a communion of the five patriarchates which in turn were communions of the local churches that comprised them.  Universal Jurisdiction of the papacy would only be claimed towards the end of the first millennium and even then it did not approach the authority claimed by the popes since the fifteenth century collapse of conciliarism—which is a future topic. 
     That is not to say that everything in the church was all buddy-buddy among bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs—to the contrary. Male animals in nature do not share territory; likewise in the Church there have been squabbles of jurisdiction ever since the beginning.  As Constantinople, the capital of the surviving Roman Empire, grew in importance and Rome, abandoned by its Emperor and bereft of its Empire, declined in its significance, the bishops of Constantinople pushed more and more to be recognized as the first bishop of Christendom.  The bishops of Constantinople were (allegedly) the descendents of Andrew and Andrew was, after all, Peter’s older brother—and the “first-called.”  (Saint Andrew is venerated to this day in the Churches form the Byzantine Tradition as “The First-Called.).  Rome, on the other hand, was jealous of its ancient prerogatives and suspicious of Constantinople’s designs.  The political situation made matters even more tense.  Increasingly after the seventh century, the Emperors in Constantinople were unable to defend Rome from the Lombards and other Germanic tribes as well as from the Saracen pirates who dominated the Mediterranean.  As a result, the popes looked more and more to the Merovingian and Pippinid (Carolingian) Kings of the Franks for protection.  When Charlemagne assumed the title “Emperor” in 800 AD, the Emperor—the “real” Emperor in Constantinople—was furious that this illiterate animal-skin wearing baboon in the West would assume equality with his perfumed and silk-clad dandy self in Constantinople.  Mirroring the political tension between the emperors, mistrust and antagonism grew between the Church in the East (Constantinople) and the Church in the West (Rome).   
      Now, over the centuries there had been  a number of popes who had been chosen from the East.  In antiquity there had been Anacletus, the second successor to Peter, Telesphorus (+137), Hyginus (+140), Sixtus II (+258)  Zosimus (+418)  among others.  Even as the tension between East and West mounted, Greek and Syrian popes were common—among them (there were more) were Boniface III (+607)  Theodore I (+642) Agatho (+681) Sergius I (+687) Constantine (+715)  Zachary (+752) Stephen III (+772).  The Greek and Syrian popes brought much to the Western Church—the “Kyrie” of the Mass being one contribution.  Nevertheless the tension began to build. 
    858 the Emperor Michael III of Constantinople deposed the Patriarch Ignatius for political reasons and replaced him with a theologian, a layman, Photios.  Under normal circumstances Photios would have made an excellent patriarch—he was both holy and scholarly.   Ignatius had dared to excommunicate the Emperor’s uncle for having an affair with his widowed daughter-in-law.  Pope Nicholas I, as senior patriarch, felt he had a responsibility to speak up for the deposed Ignatius whose rights had been violated.  He did not claim universal jurisdiction but rather acted as the senior patriarch protecting one of the four junior patriarchs. Nicholas excommunicated Photios and the Emperor.  This created a schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.  When Ignatius died, Photios was elected in his own right to succede him and the schism was healed.   But it left a bad mark.  Ironically, according to some historians, Photius’ son succeeded to the papal throne as Theodore II. 
     There were other points of tension that persisted even after the schism had been healed.  The Western Church unilaterally altered the Creed of the Council of Nicea, declaring that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son as well as the Father.  The addition to the creed “and the Son” is known by its Latin phraseology: filioque.  As the western Church began to impose celibacy on the clergy, the Eastern Church maintained a married parish clergy.  The Western Church began using unleavened bread for the Eucharist as Christ had used unleavened bread at the Last Supper; the Eastern Churches kept to the apostolic custom of using leavened bread.  When the Greek Church banned the use of icons—images of Christ, Mary, and the Saints in 730, Pope Gregory III convoked a synod that defended the use of Icons.  This caused many Greek Christians to flee to Rome to maintain their practice of using icons in personal prayer as well as corporate worship.  The second Council of Nicea in 787 affirmed the use of icons, but  the East and West remained suspicious of each other’s doctrinal position

Need for a New Reformation

Croweds Gathered in Saint Peter's Square
the first night of the conclave that elected
Benedict XVI

We have seen that both the Carolingian and Ottonian Reformations were carried out not by prelates but by the Emperors and their officials.  These should not be considered as “external” reformations however as it was understood in both the ninth century (the Carolingian (which refers to the Emperor Charlemagne) and the tenth century (The Ottonian Reform under the Emperors Otto I, II, and III) that the Emperor, not the pope, was the Vicar of Christ and that the Church stood under his “Protection”—protection here being somewhat akin what Elizabeth I of England would later claim to be the royal “governorship” of the Church, eschewing the title “head” which was perceived in both instances as belonging uniquely to Christ.  The next Reformation we will look at is the Gregorian Reformation, named after Pope Saint Gregory VII, one of two popes Gregory known as “Gregory the Great.”  (Patristic scholars like to call Gregory I “the Great;” historians award the title to Gregory VII.  Both really deserve the title, but from different perspectives and for vastly different reasons.)  Actually the Gregorian Reform, though named after Gregory VII, began before him and was the work of a number of curial (if that is not too anachronistic a word) officials .  The reason I fear that it might be too anachronistic is this is the very early stages of development of what would today  be called the Roman Curia.  Influential in this Reformation, which will be the most successful yet, will be an illustrious array of men such as Saint Romuald of Ravenna, Saint Peter Damian, John Gracian, Bruno of Eguisheim-Dagsburg, and the monk Hildebrandwho will ascend the papal chair in 1073 as Gregory VII. 

       It is always ideal when Reformation comes from within the ranks of Church leadership whether through Papal leadership as it will with Innocent III or Conciliar Leadership as at Trent.  But what happens when the internal leadership either is not interested in Reform or cannot overcome its internal division in order to fashion and hold to a program of Reform such as happened after Lateran V in 1517?  (Don’t worry if you don’t know much about Innocent or Lateran V, we will look at those episodes in detail as time and blog entries unfold.)  As I am writing this I can’t but help think how these very days our federal government is so divided over various self-interests (Republicans, Tea-partiers, Democrats) that they can’t forge a program to meet a national crisis regarding the debt.  This is what happens when people lose their sense of the common good and seek only to preserve their own self-interest.  This happens in Church politics as well as national politics.  Original sin sits as heavy on a bishop’s mitered head as a politician’s fat ass.  

      And that is why I want to look at the question of Reformations in the history of the Church.  Today there is no Emperor to take charge and clean up the mess and the curias (or technically curiae) of John Paul II and Benedict XVI are too complicit in the problems for the their papacies to be effective in the needed reform the Church . 

     Why do I think that the Church today needs yet another Reformation?  Well, in the first place, the Church always needs a Reformation. Ecclesia semper reformans, semper reformanda—the Church, always reforming and always in need of reform.  That is just a principle of history of the Church.  Just as no one of us individual Christians is ever quite “there” but continue to journey on towards the perfection to which we are called in our baptism so too the collective assembly of the faithful is never fully what Christ calls us to be as his Church. 

      I do have some more concrete examples of why we need to have a Reformation—and it is not an exhaustive list.  I am sure there are other reasons beyond the one’s I am going to enumerate.

Roots of the Reformation XX: The Ottonian Reformation I

The Empire of Otto I
included modern Germany, Switzerland,
the Netherlands, Belgiumjparts of Austria,
France, and Italy as far south as Naples 

Well, I ended up taking a bit of a vacation from the blog—which I shouldn’t do as every time I skip just two days, the readership starts falling and it takes me a week to rebuild it.  So sorry folks for the interruption.  I do have a life—and even a day job—and this blog takes a considerable amount of time.  But I do enjoy it and what is more it is worth it if it encourages people to think, not a about the past, but about our Catholic Church today and some of the issues confronting it.

We had been talking about the problem of Reform of the Church—and who can reform it when the need for reform begins right at the top.  This has happened in the past with corrupt popes and papal administrations that forgot the gospel and became over invested in their own ambition for power, wealth, and pomp.  We saw how in his day Charlemagne had stepped in and set things right with Leo III (blog entry June 4, 2011).  Well after Leo things only got worse—and we saw what happened with Marozia, Theodora and the pornacracy (entries June 9, June 6, and January 15).   You may remember the Cadaver synod (entry, January 24, 2011).  These are all great stories.  Amazingly, as corrupt as the Borgias were—and as Showtime showed them, they were pretty corrupt—the tenth century papacies were even more wicked.  Who would set the Church back in order?

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 of Imperial supremacy 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 Magyars were sweeping in from the east, the Vikings were ravaging the Atlantic and channel coasts and the Saracens were ravaging the Italian possessions of the Empire. There was a need for strong leadership to meet the challenges and there were plenty of strong leaders—but they kept fighting one another rather than the external enemies.   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 here 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, in the end, 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 and title themselves were 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. His intention is to refound Charlemagne’s “Roman Empire.”

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 II 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 (not the popes) 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.