The Gregorian Reform--Mixed Successes

A Medieval Bishop sits enthroned
holding his crozier or episcopal staff

There were three main projects to the Gregorian Reform: the imposition of celibacy, the elimination of simony, and breaking the imperial or royal authority over bishops.  This final point is referred to as “The Investiture Controversy” and we discussed it briefly in our last posting with the example of William of Saint-Calais, Bishop of Durham, in the reign of William Rufus of England.  We will look at the Investiture issue more in this posting.  But before we do, let’s review the first to goals.
      The Gregorian Reform managed to impose clerical celibacy as the universal law for the Western Church. That is to say, by the end of the eleventh century it was known and accepted as law that clergy above and including the Order of Subdeacon in the Western Church were to be celibate.  Accepted does not mean, however, that the law was enforced, much less complied with.  As mentioned in some earlier posts (July 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, August 9), clerical marriage—of a sort of common-law variety—remained somewhat the norm until the reforms of the Council of Trent.  We often refer to the practice of the clergy having a less than formal (that is to say church-blessed) union as “clerical concubinage” but it should be considered more as common law marriage as the relationships tended to be permanent, exclusive (faithful), fecund (child-bearing), and if not public nor were they secret.   It is only after the sixteenth century that celibacy, though not necessarily chastity, became the practice as well as the law.
      Simony, the purchasing and selling of Church offices, did not have a better fate.  One does not come across it as much after the Gregorian Reform, at least by that name, but in fact it persisted under various guises and indeed still persists in the Church today under the camouflage of well accepted practices.  We will see that in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance huge amounts of money as well as promises of lucrative positions were shelled out to the Cardinal-Electors by papal wanna-bes every time there was a conclave.  When we look at the situation at the time of the Protestant Reformations we will examine the issue of “annates”—the practice of giving the Holy See the first year’s income from one’s new position in return for papal confirmation of the election or appointment.  Can you imagine giving to the Holy See the entire income of the Diocese of Winchester in England for, let us say, 1532?  Or the Archdiocese of Cologne?  One can see why so many supported the breaks with Rome just to keep that  money local.   Today too—and many Catholics are surprised (and even shocked) that it is customary for a newly elevated prelate ranging from Cardinals down through Monsignors in developed societies such as our own to give the Holy See (I refrain from saying “The Pope”) a handsome gift in acknowledgement for their appointment.  Such honorariums can range anywhere from a million dollars for a more important appointment to perhaps ten or fifteen thousand for the monsignoral purple belly-band.  In the case of Cardinals or bishops, these gratuities are usually offered by their dioceses to thank the Holy See for providing new leadership and, to be fair, the gifts offered newly named monsignors by their friends help defray the offering the new domestic prelate or chaplain to His Holiness or whatever makes to our friends across the seas.  Moreover the gifts and fees accruing to a major prelate (not a monsignor) make their gifts to the Holy See affordable.  For example, when a bishop visits a parish for confirmation or comes to a religious community to perform an ordination—priestly or diaconal—the normal gratuity would be between five hundred and a thousand dollars.  Even a casual visit to the parish merits an “Irish hand-shake.” One East Coast Archbishop, when complimented on some expensive cufflinks  that matched his arch-episcopal ring (all three holding a Roman coin from the time of Jesus—also the time of Herod the Great), said “Oh, when you’re an archbishop you don’t pay for these things.”    No, I guess you don’t.  And so it is indeed right and just that the Holy See should be thanked for facilitating a step up into a more gracious life-style.     As Thernadier was inclined to sing in Les Miserables: “But nothing gets you nothing Everything has got a little price!”  It can be argued that this provides necessary income for the Holy See which always has a terrible time balancing its budget—an even tougher time than the United States Government, though more successful than the Feds in the end.  I buy that.  The problem isn’t the financial transaction; the problem is the lack of transparency.  But Catholic Church finances are notoriously non-transparent, excepting for some religious orders of women who are way ahead of the pack in knowing what the Church needs today for genuine Reformation. 
     Well—on to the Investiture Conflict.  You know, I don’t think we have time for that today after all.  Let me set it up and we will continue it in the next posting.   The problem is that, as I described yesterday, the custom had arisen of the Emperor, or a King, or even a major nobleman “investing” bishops and abbots in their respective empires, kingdoms, or duchies with the insignia of office.  This implied that the prelate received his jurisdiction and authority not from God (or from God’s Church) but from the secular lord.  Indeed, the problem was even more serious.  In fact it was usually the Emperor, King, or major noble who instructed the cathedral chapter (or in the case of abbots, the monastic chapter) for whom to vote in the election.  Church offices were in the gift of the political authority and this threatened the independence of the Church.  It also, and this was even more to the point, threatened the loyalty of the bishop or abbot to the Holy See should a dispute arise between the secular power and the Church, as it indeed often did.  Thus Gregory VII—who is my second favorite pope in history—undertook to break this practice of imperial/royal investiture and so he took on the Emperor, Henry IV.  But that is for our next posting.        

The Investiture Controversy and William of Saint-Calais

Norman Portal of Durham Cathedral

This entrance may well date back to

the time of the episcopacy of William

of Saint-Calais

William of Saint-Calais was a monk of LeMans whom William the Conqueror named as Bishop of Durham in 1080.  Durham was a particularly important See—its position as the northernmost Diocese (and major city) in England rendered it key in the defense of the realm against the Scots.  In the eleventh and twelfth centuries—and indeed  into the fourteenth century—border skirmishes between the Scots and the English were common.  Durham’s position was so crucial that its bishop was not only a Lord Spiritual of the English Kingdom but a Count Palatine and as such is rather unique among the hierarchy having civil as well as ecclesiastical jurisdiction.  Indeed, the bishops of Durham, while technically counts, were “prince-bishops” in as that their "county palatine" was a principality, that is a semi-autonomous region governed by the Bishop/Count Palatine with vice-regal powers.  That is to say that as Count Palatine, the  Bishop exercised  his governmental power as the direct representative of the King.  While the crown had over the centuries endowed most dioceses with substantial lands to support a bishop, the cathedral, and other institutions, Durham was also invested with extensive lands to permit the Bishop/Count to defend the county and exercise the king’s governance and justice there.  In addition to revenue producing lands, the Bishop also held  several castles for the defense of the frontier with the Scots. 
     William of Saint-Calais served William the Conqueror well  but when he died he deserted the new King, William II, also known as William Rufus.  William Rufus was neither the man nor the king his father was.  When William the Conqueror died, he left his primary domain—the Duchy of Normandy—to his older son, Robert Curthose, and his (what he perceived to be) less important domain—England—to his second son, William.  Many of the nobles rose in rebellion against William Rufus in an effort to put Robert Curthose—the more talented son—on the throne of England as well as Normandy.  While Bishop William of Saint-Calais did not join in the rebellion, he supported it and did not come to the aid of William Rufus with troops as was his duty as a vassal to the king.  It was not a wise move.  William Rufus put down the rebellion, retained his throne, and brought the rebels—including the Bishop—to trial.  And here is where the story becomes interesting to us as we look at the issues of the Gregorian Reform. 
     The Bishop argued that he could not be tried in a secular court because he was a Bishop and thus could only be tried in an ecclesiastical court.  The King insisted that he was not being tried as a bishop, but as a vassal who had failed to perform his sworn duty of supplying aid and assistance to his liege lord, the King, in time of war.  The legal knot is that William was not only a bishop who was a vassal but was a vassal and held land and castles from the king precisely because he was a bishop.  In this particular case, even the Church (in the person of Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury) did not seek to protect William.  It was clear to them that he had failed, not as bishop but as vassal, but it highlights the complex relationship in which not only William but most bishops found themselves.  Their temporalities—the lands that supported them in their work and ministry (and comfortable, or more-than-comfortable, lifestyle) came from the King or Nobleman or Emperor in whose realm their diocese stood.  They were thus dependent on the civil ruler for their sustenance while they did God’s work. 
     It was customary for the king (or Emperor, or even a major nobleman) to invest his vassals when they received their fiefs.  In case of a secular noble this was not a problem.  It worked like this.  The Earl of Wessex died.  His heir came to the king, knelt before the king and placing his hands in the king’s hands, pledged to be a faithful vassal to his liege, the king.  The king then invested him with the earldom—the various signs and robes of authority.  The problem was with a bishop becoming a vassal.  The Archbishop of Bamberg dies.  The newly elected (by the Cathedral Chapter—the clergy attached to the Cathedral) Archbishop (and usually elected at the nomination of the Emperor) comes and kneels before the Emperor, pledging to serve him as vassal.    The Emperor then invests him with his symbols of office—in this case, ring, miter, crozier—and seats him in the Archbishop’s chair.  Hmmm.  It looks like the bishop is receiving his spiritual authority from the Emperor.  The Emperor—who understood himself to be the Vicar of Christ—didn’t have a problem with this.  But the pope did.  This leads to what we call the Investiture Controversy and it was the main issue of the Gregorian Reformation.