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THE CHRONICLE OF HUGH OF FLAVIGNY This page intentionally left blank The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny Reform and the Investiture Contest in the Late Eleventh Century Patrick Healy Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland iv List of Abbreviations © Patrick Healy, 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Patrick Healy has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hants GU11 3HR England Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington Vermont, 05401–4405 USA Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Healy, Patrick The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny: Reform and the Investiture Contest in the Late Eleventh Century. - (Church Faith and Culture in the Medieval West) 1. Hugh, of Flavigny. Chronicon. 2. Papacy - History –To 1309. 3. Europe – Church history – 600–1500. I. Title 270.4 US Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Healy, Patrick. The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny: Reform and the Investiture Contest in the Late Eleventh Century / Patrick Healy. p. cm. – (Church, Faith, and Culture in the Medieval West) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Hugh, of Flavigny, b. ca. 1064. 2. Investiture. 3. Church history – Middle Ages, 600– 1500. 4. France – Church history – Middle Ages, 600-1500. I. Title. II. Series. BX1198.H43 2006 282’.4409021–dc22 2005033953 ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-5526-8 ISBN-10: 0-7546-5526-1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall. Contents Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction vi vii 1 2 The Abbey of St-Vanne, Verdun, from its Foundation until 1085 22 3 The Life and Career of Hugh of Flavigny 63 4 The Manuscript of the Chronicon and its Transmission 89 5 Sources of the Chronicon 100 6 Kingship and Tyranny in the Chronicon 138 7 Lay Investiture and Simony: Auctoritas and Consuetudo 175 8 Reforming Attitudes to Ecclesiastical Promotion 201 9 The Chronicon as Polemic 215 Appendix 1 Appendix 2 229 235 Bibliography Index 237 257 vi List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements In writing this book, my first and greatest debt is to Professor I.S. Robinson, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, who supervised the doctoral thesis on which this book is based. His profound knowledge of and instinct for the conditions of medieval learning have been an inspiration. For their help and advice – which has saved me from many errors – I would also like to record my gratitude to the external and internal supervisors of my PhD thesis, respectively The Rev. Dr H.E.J. Cowdrey, St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, and Professor Christine Meek, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin. My publishers at Ashgate Publishing have been invariably helpful, efficient and courteous, in particular Dr John Smedley, my commissioning editor. The research contained in this book could not have been undertaken without the generous help of the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and I acknowledge their support with gratitude. The staff of the Library at Trinity College Dublin have been very helpful and I would like to thank especially the staff in the Inter-Library Loans Office, who procured many rare and important studies for my benefit. My family have been supportive throughout my studies, and have at least feigned interest in the controversies of the late eleventh century. My father deserves special mention in this regard, but also my late grandmother, in whose memory this book is dedicated. Finally, I would like to acknowledge with love and gratitude the assistance of my wife, Stephanie Hayes-Healy, who took time off from her own studies in medieval pilgrimage to help in the preparation of this book. Without her support this study would never have been published. Abbreviations A. SS. OSB. Carlyle and Carlyle Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti Carlyle, R.W. and Carlyle, A.J., A History of Medieval Political Thought in the West, 6 vols (Oxford, 1903–22; 2nd edn., Edinburgh and London, 1927–36). CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina CHMPT J.H. Burns, ed.,The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350–c.1450 (Cambridge, 1988). CSEL Corpus Latinorum DA Deutsches Archiv Mittelalters EV Gregory VII, Epistolae Vagantes, ed. and trans. H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Epistolae vagantes of Pope Gregory VII (Oxford, 1972). HJ Hugh of Flavigny Historisches Jahrbuch Chronicon Hugonis Monachi Virdunensis et Divionensis Abbatis Flaviniacensis, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SS, 8 (Hanover, 1848), 288–502. HZ Historische Zeitschrift JE, JK, JL P. Jaffé, Regesta pontificum romanorum, ed. secundam curaverunt S. Loewenfeld (JL: an.882–1198), F. Kaltenbrunner (JK: an.?– 590), P. Ewald (JE: an.590–882) (Leipzig, 1885. Repr. Graz 1956). JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JGLGA Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für lothringische Geschichte und Altertumskunde Mansi Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. J.D. Mansi, 31 vols (Florence and Venice, 1759–98). Scriptorum für Ecclesiasticorum Erforschung des viii List of Abbreviations MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica Briefe Die Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit Const. Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum DM Deutsches Mittelalter Libelli Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum saeculis XI et XII conscripti Schriften Schriften der MGH SRG (NS) Scriptores rerum Germanicarum (Nova Series) SS Scriptores MIÖG Mitteilungen des Institute für österreichische Geschichtsforschung NA Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichte PL J.-P. Migne, Patrologia cursus completus, series latina, 221 vols (Paris, 1844–64). Pseudo-Isidore Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et Capitula Angilramni, ed. P. Hinschius (Leipzig, 1863). Reg. Das Register Gregors VII., ed. E. Caspar, MGH Epistolae Selectae 2 (1920–23). RHGF Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. M. Bouquet et al., 24 vols (Paris, 1738–1904). RTAM Recherches Médiévale SG Studi Gregoriani Thiel Epistolae Romanorum pontificum genuinae I: a S. Hilaro usque ad Hormisdam Ann. 461–533. ed. A. Thiel (Braunsberg, 1868). de Théologie Ancienne ZBLG Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte ZRG kan. Abt. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung Rechtsgeschichte, kanonistische Abteilung et für Map This page intentionally left blank Chapter 1 Introduction According to Hugh of Flavigny, Pope Gregory VII (1073–85) ‘advanced unshaken along the royal way with the arms of righteousness, without deviation to the right or to the left’.1 This was an allusion to the wanderings of the people of Israel in the desert of Pharan, as described in Numbers 21:22. The Israelites asked Sehon, king of the Amorrhites, for passage through his land, promising not to stray into the fields and vineyards, nor to drink from the wells. They undertook to follow the ‘royal road’ (via regia) until they had passed beyond the borders of that kingdom. When Sehon refused he was defeated by the Israelites – ‘slain by them with the edge of the sword’ – who then ruled the kingdom in his stead. Hugh’s metaphor of the ‘royal road’ to describe the pontificate of Gregory VII was well chosen, conveying as it did a current of biblical interpretation that considered this story to represent allegorically the contemporary struggle for Church liberty. For example, in one of his exegetical works Peter Damian (†1072) had interpreted the oppression of Israel by Sehon as a type of secular persecution of the Church. He wrote: ‘who are the people whom Sehon gathered against Israel unless those reprobates by whom the church is persecuted? From the ranks of these reprobates are tyrants, generals (duces) and princes of the world …’.2 When Hugh of Flavigny composed his Chronicon in the decade or so after the pope’s death in 1085, the tribulations and eventual triumph of Israel must have been of consolation to the supporters of the reform papacy, who lived to endure the oppression of another Sehon in the person of Henry IV of Germany (1056–1106). Henry’s bitter struggle with Gregory VII, which resulted in widespread schism and civil war in Germany and Italy, was considered by many to be a time of tribulation for the faithful unparalleled since the sufferings of Israel described in the Old Testament. However, just as Sehon had been defeated by Israel, so – it was believed – Henry IV’s tyranny would also come to an end. Like Hugh of Flavigny, Bonizo of Sutri (c. 1045–c. 1089) sought to consider the contemporary persecution of the Church in its biblical perspective and was able to locate Gregory VII’s pontificate in the world-historical scheme of punishment and redemption that was written in the 1 Hugh of Flavigny, 423/8–9: ‘regiam tamen viam, quam semel intraverat, inconcussus, immotus, per arma justitiae a dextris et a sinistris fortiter incessit’. 2 Peter Damian, Liber Testimoniorum Veteris ac Novi Testamenti, c. 11, PL, 145, 1042C: ‘Quis est autem populus ille quem Seon congregat adversus Israel, nisi reprobi quique qui persequuntur Ecclesiam? Ex his sunt tyranni, duces, et principes mundi …’. 2 The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny history of the Israelites.3 This kind of reforming and ‘Gregorian’ exegesis was prompted by the demands of circumstance. Henry IV’s conquest of Rome in 1084 and his imperial coronation at the hands of the antipope Clement III (Wibert of Ravenna), together with Gregory’s death in exile at Salerno in the following year – these events forced reforming intellectuals such as Hugh of Flavigny to take refuge in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture and the typological identification of the reform papacy with the people of Israel. Hugh witnessed the deleterious consequences of the conflict of Church and State at first hand. As a young monk at the monastery of St-Vanne in Verdun, he and the other pro-papal brothers of that house were forced to flee their abbey in 1085 because of intimidation suffered at the hands of their pro-Henrician diocesan, Bishop Theoderic of Verdun.4 Theoderic was particularly aggrieved at Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne, who was at that time the foremost representative of Pope Gregory VII in the German duchy of Upper Lotharingia. After the pope’s death in exile at Salerno in 1085 the bishop of Verdun took the opportunity to rid his diocese of this agent of Roman primacy and Roman intervention. Rudolf and his monks took refuge with Jarento, abbot of the equally fervent house of St-Bénigne in Dijon and another trusted emissary of Gregory VII. These eminent reformers doubtless stimulated Hugh to record the tribulations incurred by the pope and his party in the name of reform. They also exposed him to a Gregorian ‘friendship network’ in Lotharingia and Burgundy that must have furnished Hugh with many of the documents and instrumenta which he copied into his Chronicon and which constitute its enduring historical significance. It was in this friendship network that Hugh met and came to serve Archbishop Hugh of Lyons (formerly bishop of Die), who had been the most zealous and uncompromising legate in Gregory VII’s service. Archbishop Hugh’s conception of reform must have heavily influenced the young monk he had come to regard as his own special protégé and it was on the archbishop’s recommendation that Hugh was appointed abbot of Flavigny in the Diocese of Autun in 1096. The careers of Rudolf of St-Vanne, Jarento of StBénigne and Hugh of Lyons are accorded special attention in the Chronicon, which, in many ways, is a local history of reform and its consequences in Lotharingia and Burgundy. Pride of place, however, goes to Pope Gregory VII. Hugh considered the pope’s childhood and adolescence in some detail and gave particular attention to Gregory’s election in 1073, an event of crucial polemical significance as opponents of the pope claimed that it did not accord with the provisions of the Papal Election Decree of 1059. The chronicler was especially keen to inscribe the letters of Gregory VII into his Chronicon: not only did they constitute the sole narrative for long passages of the work, Hugh seems to have considered them to be sources of doctrinal and theological instruction that were 3 I.S. Robinson, The Papal Reform of the Eleventh Century: Lives of Pope Leo IX and Pope Gregory VII (Manchester, 2004), pp. 51–5. 4 References for what follows in this paragraph can be found in Chapter 2, notes 174– 6. Introduction 3 scarcely inferior to the Scriptures themselves. In the Chronicon, Gregory’s epistolary oeuvre, but also his life and death, were the embodiment, physical and literary, of reform. His tribulations were considered by Hugh to be representative of the calamities endured by the whole Church, and were stretched back by the chronicler to encompass a tradition of suffering recorded in the Old Testament. The great pope’s influence dominates the second half of the Chronicon; after the description of Gregory VII’s death in 1085, the affairs of the reform papacy are hardly considered in Hugh’s narrative. It was because of the preoccupation with Pope Gregory VII in works such as the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny that Augustin Fliche could characterise a whole movement under the rubric of ‘Gregorian’ reform.5 The election of Archdeacon Hildebrand as Pope Gregory VII on 22 April 1073 was a controversial and divisive event and required some explanation by pro-papal supporters such as Hugh of Flavigny. Hugh therefore copied into his Chronicon Gregory’s letter to Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino of 23 April 1073, where the pope expressed his version of events most clearly. While Pope Alexander II was being buried in the Lateran, there arose ‘a great tumult and uproar of the people’. In a deliberate allusion to the election of Gregory the Great, the new pope compared himself with the prophet David: ‘I came into the depth of the sea and the tempest overwhelmed me’ (Psalm 68:3–4).6 Gregory VII’s epistolary account of popular compulsion was an imprecise but clearly discernible allusion to the election of Gregory the Great, which was also effected through popular acclaim and which was believed to be the result of divine inspiration. By establishing contact with the legacy of his great predecessor, the new pope sought to pre-empt any accusations of irregularity that could be made about his election.7 Nonetheless, and despite this tendentious account of events, Gregory VII probably devoutly believed that his election took place at divine instigation: per inspirationem. That is to say, he thought that the Holy Spirit acted through the Roman crowd, which spontaneously and forcibly elevated him on to the papal throne. The direct intervention of the Holy Spirit also corresponded to the medieval ideal that the will of God expressed itself through the unanimitas of the electors.8 The pope’s version of events was open to dispute for a number of reasons. First, Gregory VII’s account of a tumultuous election is contradicted by the official protocol of the election, inserted at the beginning of the Register of his letters. 5 Augustin Fliche, La Réforme Grégorienne, 3 vols (Louvain and Paris, 1926–37). Hugh of Flavigny, 422/43 = Reg., 1.1, p. 3/26–7: ‘… ita ut cum propheta possim dicere “Veni in altitudine maris et tempestas demersit me”’; cf. the letter of Gregory the Great describing his election, Gregorii I Papae Registrum, 1.5, eds. P. Ewald and L. Hartmann, MGH Epistolae, 1, 6/10: ‘Undique causarum fluctibus quatior ac tempestatibus deprimor, ita ut recte dicam “Veni in altitudinem maris et tempestas demersit”’. 7 See below, notes 9–12. 8 H.-G. Krause, Das Papstwahldekret von 1059 und seine Rolle im Investiturstreit = SG, 7, pp. 159–60. 6 4 The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny According to this Commentarius, Archdeacon Hildebrand was elected by the cardinal-clergy of the Roman Church at the basilica of St Peter in vincoli, with the acclamation ‘of many crowds of both sexes and different orders’.9 Second, there was the accusation that Gregory had been elected pope in contravention of the 1059 papal election decree: on the one hand he had undoubtedly been elected inconsulto rege – that is, without reference to the ‘due honour and reverence’ that was owed to the German court; on the other hand, as Cardinal Beno later pointed out, no cardinal had ratified the election of 1073, which was thus void according to the terms of the 1059 decree.10 Perhaps the most serious accusation against Gregory VII – and the one Hugh of Flavigny was most concerned to refute – was that the friends of Archdeacon Hildebrand had deliberately contrived the whole affair by bribing the mob, and that the pope was therefore a simonist.11 Hugh of Flavigny showed that he was aware of these calumnies when he commented that Gregory VII’s ‘entry’ (introitus) into the Holy See was smeared with the allegation of simony by Henry IV, who himself was guilty of this heresy.12 Elsewhere, Hugh alluded to the allegations that the pope was a ‘sorcerer, impostor, heretic, homicide and fornicator’, perhaps paraphrasing the accusations made at the synod of Brixen in June 1080: ‘against this same most brazen Hildebrand, who preaches sacrilege and arson, who defends perjury and homicide, who questions the catholic and apostolic faith concerning the body and blood of our Lord, who is an ancient disciple of the heretic Berengar, a manifest believer in dreams and divinations, a necromancer, dealing in the spirit of prophecy …’.13 Thus, Hugh of Flavigny was concerned to emphasise Hildebrand’s humility and reluctance for advancement: in his eyes, Gregory had been forced to accept the ‘burden’ (iugum) of office although he abhorred it; his acceptance of the papal throne was the act of a ‘gentle 9 Reg. 1.1* (Commentarius Electionis Gregorii VII. Papae), pp. 1–2. Detlev Jasper, Das Papstwahldekret von 1059: Überlieferung und Textgestalt, (Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters, 12: Sigmaringen, 1986), pp. 104/84–105/91: ‘… salvo debito honore et reverentia dilectii filii nostri Henrici, qui inpraesentiarum rex habetur et futurus imperator Deo concedente speratur, sicut iam sibi concessimus, et successorum illius, qui ab hac apostolica sede personaliter hoc ius impetraverint’; Cardinal Beno, Gesta Romanae Ecclesiae, 1.2, MGH Libelli, 2, 370/9: ‘Sed cardinales non subscripserunt in electione eius’; ibid., 2.12, MGH Libelli, 2, 380/24: ‘… in cuius electione nullus cardinalium subscripsit’. 11 Cf. Guido of Ferrara, De Scismate Hildebrandi, 2, MGH Libelli, 1, 553/18–19: ‘Testantur quidem qui fuere praesentes quod Alexandro defuncto sequenti nocte tesauros suos eduxerit multumque pecuniae per Romanos effuderit’. 12 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/19–20: ‘… introitum beatissimi papae Gregorii VII. culpare cepit (sc. Heinricius IV.), ut culpas symoniae, quae ab eodem in se puniri timebat, in illum reflecteret’. 13 Ibid., 458/6–7: ‘in beati Petri turpia et nefanda concrepans intonuit (sc. Henricius IV.), dicentium magum eum esse et impostorem, hereticum, homicidam, fornicarium …’; cf. Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., ed. Carl Erdmann, MGH DM, 1, Appendix C, p. 72/1–6. 10 Introduction 5 soul bowing his neck to God’.14 Hugh’s partisan account of Gregory’s election – based on and supported by the pope’s letter to Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino – was framed as an answer to the accusations of irregularity of which Hugh was clearly aware. It also introduces a recurring leitmotif: the close bond between Hugh’s narrative and the documentary evidence that was adduced in support of it. The via regia was not simply a metaphor for persecution and deliverance: it was also a metaphor for a programme of reform. In his Historia Mediolanensis, Landulf Senior included a series of debates on Church reform that took place at Milan some time before 1066. One speech was apparently delivered by Landulf Cotta and Ariald, the leaders of the reform party in Milan, the patarini. In this speech, the reformers denounced the practice of clerical marriage – nicolaitism – claiming that fornicating clerics could not ‘offer up sacrifices to God’. They called upon the clerics in Milan to renounce this practice ‘so that we advance along the royal way, not deviating to the left or the right’.15 The same reforming association was also present in Hugh of Flavigny’s allusion to the via regia, where it was cited in connection with Gregory VII’s decree against lay investiture of November 1078.16 In reforming circles, progress along the ‘royal road’ was an allegory for the reform of abuses such as lay investiture, simony and nicolaitism.17 Moreover, it was felt in the most radical reforming circles that no progress could be made along the royal way unless reform was directed by the Holy See: the via regia also denoted the community of the faithful who were obedient to the pope. In a letter of 1083, Gregory VII expressed his desire to take counsel with the highest ecclesiastics in France about ‘how we may recall those in schism to travel by the royal way to the bosom of their mother the Church’.18 Thus, when Hugh of Flavigny described the pope’s undeviating progress along the ‘royal road’, armed with the ‘weapons of righteousness’, he managed to describe succinctly the fundamental aspects of Gregory’s pontificate: the tribulations of the Church at the hands of the secular power; the redefinition of the faithful, comprising only those who were obedient to the Holy See; and the legislative drive to rid the Church of abuses such as simony and clerical marriage. 14 Hugh of Flavigny, 422/32: ‘… mansuetum animal Domino suo cervicem subdidit’; this account was taken verbatim from the Epistola of Wenrich of Trier: see Chapter 9, notes 6–7. 15 Landulfi Historia Mediolanensis, 3.25 (24), MGH SS, 8, 92/40: ‘Nunc autem agere vos omnes expedit, ut via regia gradiamur, non declinantes a dexteris nec a sinistris’; cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, ‘The Papacy, the Patarenes and the Church of Milan’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 18 (1968), 29–30. 16 Hugh of Flavigny, 423/23–424/23; cf. Reg. 6.5b, pp. 402/34–403/5. 17 In traditional exegesis, the via regia was an allegory of the monastic life: J. Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (London, 1978), pp. 102–4. 18 The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII, ed. H.E.J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 1972), no. 51, pp. 124–5: ‘… Desideramus enim una vobiscum tractare, divino fulti auxilio, qualiter possimus … ad gremium matris ecclesiae scismaticos via regia incedendo revocare’. 6 The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny Hugh of Flavigny thought that the conflict of the regnum and sacerdotium – the so-called ‘Investiture Contest’ between Gregory VII and Henry IV – was the result of the pope’s desire to reform abuses by legislation. The papal decree against lay investiture of November 1078 – erroneously dated by Hugh to the beginning of Gregory’s pontificate – was an attempt to ‘correct and amend’ which aroused a diabolical opposition:19 For this reason, namely, that [the pope] wished Holy Church to be free, chaste and catholic20 and, because he wished to expel simoniacal heresy and the fetid pollution of libidinous contagion from God’s sanctuary, the members of the devil sought to rise against him, presuming to raise their hands against him even to the shedding of blood so that they might trouble him with death or exile … thus began the quarrel (contentio) between the royal power and the priestly power, an unusually grave tribulation for Holy Church.21 Hugh’s analysis of the causes of conflict was reductive in the extreme, and in this case, heavily influenced by Gregory VII’s decree of anathema against Henry IV in 1080, itself a highly tendentious version of the events it describes.22 Indeed, Hugh’s narrative for almost all of the significant events of the Investiture Contest was pieced together from facts gleaned from the many letters of Gregory VII that he inserted into his Chronicon. His composition, while generally devoid of personality or any literary merit, has the great value of reflecting events as they were perceived by the pope. Hugh of Flavigny was also misinformed by some crucial errors in dating. The idea that the pope took up the cudgels against lay investiture at the beginning of his papacy – evident in the passage quoted above – is reinforced by the chronicler’s similarly inaccurate dating of Gregory’s investiture prohibition of Lent in 1080 to 1074/75.23 According to this distorted view, the pope’s investiture legislation was part of a coherent policy that characterised Gregory’s pontificate from its very inception. Such a schematic and teleological interpretation might have been embraced by Hugh of Flavigny in the decade after the pope’s death in 1085, when Gregory’s reputation and legacy were 19 For Hugh’s dating of Gregory VII’s investiture legislation, see Chapter 7, note 11. A formulation borrowed from Gregory VII’s letters: cf. Epistolae Vagantes, no. 54, p. 132: ‘... libera, casta, et catholica ….’ 21 Hugh of Flavigny, 424/34–40: ‘Ob hanc igitur causam, quia scilicet sanctam Dei ecclesiam castam esse volebat, liberam atque catholicam, quia de sanctuario Dei Symoniacam et neophytorum heresim et fedam libidinosae contagionis pollutionem volebat expellere, menbra diaboli ceperunt in eum insurgere, et usque ad sanguinem praesumpserunt in eum manus inicere, et ut eum morte vel exilio confunderent, multis eum modis conati sunt deicere. Sic surrexit inter regnum et sacerdotium contentio, accrevit solito gravior sanctae Dei ecclesiae tribulatio’. 22 The passage cited in note 21 relies heavily on Reg. 7, 14a (7 March 1080), pp. 483/21–484/2. 23 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/8–17; cf. Reg. 7.14a, p. 480/17–30. 20 Introduction 7 open to question. It was perhaps necessary at this time to present Gregory’s pontificate in terms of an undeviating progress along the via regia of reform, thus ignoring the pope’s initially ambiguous attitude to the practice of lay investiture.24 However, Hugh’s explanation of the causes of conflict, although simplistic, does give rise to a number of questions. Who were the ‘members of the devil’ who rose up against the pope? How could reforming legislation against lay investiture be synonymous with the heresies of simony and nicolaitism? Perhaps most importantly, how did the ‘Investiture Contest’ fit into the historical tribulations of the Church? The conflict of Empire and Papacy was an ‘unusually grave tribulation’ (solito gravior tribulatio) for the Church: this phrase illustrates Hugh of Flavigny’s desire to locate this quarrel in an ancient tradition of persecution, an understandable desire in a chronicler whose composition embraced the history of the world since the incarnation of the Lord.25 The historical tribulations of the Church were most often suffered at the hands of the secular power – men like Sehon, whom Peter Damian considered to be a type of secular persecutor of the faithful. It was these principes mundi who had enslaved the Church in the past, and the scope of Hugh’s incarnation chronicle allowed him to find many precedents for the oppression wrought by Henry IV of Germany. Hugh could, for example, refer his reader to the fourth-century Sermo Contra Auxentium of Ambrose of Milan, where that Church Father preached against lay control of churches. This sermon, Hugh thought, ‘we believe to be apt for our times’ (nostris temporibus congruere scimus).26 Clearly, Hugh felt that Gregory VII’s reforming endeavours had many precedents and that his programme for a ‘free, chaste and catholic’ Church was part of a great historical struggle for ecclesiastical liberty. Ever since the composition of Cardinal Humbert’s Libri III Adversus Simoniacos in 1058, the more radical adherents of the reform papacy considered the practice of lay investiture to be the most pernicious practice in the secular enslavement of the Church.27 However, the antiquity of this custom (consuetudo/usus) was undeniable. Hugh of Flavigny even reported that when Gregory VII inquired of his cardinals as to the status of lay investiture, they answered that it was a custom of the Church, and to be considered legal, although 24 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), p. 547. Cf. A.-D. Von den Brincken, Studien zur lateinischen Weltchronistik bis in das Zeitalter Ottos von Freising (Düsseldorf, 1957), pp. 160–61. 26 Hugh of Flavigny, 302/40–42; cf. Ambrose of Milan, Sermo Contra Auxentium de Basilicis Tradendis, PL, 16, 1007B–1018C. 27 Humbert of Silva Candida, Libri III Adversus Simoniacos, ed. G. Thaner, MGH Libelli, 1, 95–253. Rudolf Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots für den deutschen König (Schriften der MGH, 28: Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 42–7, made the point that, whatever about the influence of his ideas, Humbert’s Libri III seems to have had a very limited circulation and impact on reforming theory concerning lay investiture in the second half of the eleventh century. 25 8 The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny it could not be supported by any ‘authority’ (auctoritas).28 This last caveat was crucial for the progress of reform because, by virtue of it, ‘custom’ could be superseded by ‘authority’ and ‘truth’.29 Thus, Hugh could claim, in the context of Gregory’s investiture prohibition of 1080, that ‘in the pontificate of Lord Gregory the truth concerning ecclesiastical election in Holy Church, which was obscured for many years, shone forth’.30 In the Gregorian view, the pernicious custom of lay investiture was necessarily subordinate to the truth because, as it was asserted in a letter attributed to Gregory VII, ‘the Lord said “I am the truth and the life”; he did not say “I am the custom” but “the truth”’.31 However, the truth about the correct method of ecclesiastical election, newly rediscovered by Gregory VII, was not palatable to everyone, especially those who preferred ‘to adhere to the discipleship of Simon [Magus] rather than serve the poverty of Christ in the unity of faith’.32 Hugh of Flavigny felt that the problem of simony – the buying and selling of Church offices – was endemic in kingdoms where ecclesiastical offices were controlled by the secular power. In France, where Bishop Hugh of Die was appointed papal legate in 1074, Hugh claimed that ‘the iniquitous pest of simony crawled about everywhere, so that there were very few who were not simoniacs, or ordained by simoniacs, or invested by a lay hand’.33 Hugh’s reforming horror at the apparent ubiquity of simony is indicative of the intensified reforming sensitivity to this heresy since the middle of the eleventh century. In the Liber Gratissimus Peter Damian asserted that Pope Leo IX’s plan to declare all simoniacal ordinations invalid in 1049 provoked a great tumult as it was feared that this measure would deprive almost all churches of their priests.34 Of course, Hugh of Flavigny’s analysis of the situation in contemporary France may have been exaggerated: by the late eleventh century an accusation of simony was very often a polemical slur with no basis in fact.35 Indeed, Hugh of Flavigny himself alluded to the polemical smearing of Pope Gregory VII with the taint of 28 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/54–412/1: ‘Quibus respondentibus usum aecclesiae hunc esse, hunc haberi pro lege, cum auctoritas eis nulla ad hoc suffragaretur …’. 29 The dichotomy between ‘truth’ and ‘custom’ in Gregory VII’s pontificate has attracted the attention of scholars such as Cowdrey and Ladner: see Chapter 7, note 31. 30 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/40–41: ‘… sanctae Dei aecclesiae sub papatu domni Gregorii multis retro annis obnubilata aelectionis aecclesiasticae splenduit veritas’. 31 Epistolae Vagantes, no. 67, p. 151. 32 Hugh of Flavigny, 423/15–16. 33 Ibid., 412/43–5: … in Gallia, ubi plurimum symoniae serpebat pestis iniqua; quia perrari illic erant, qui non essent aut symoniaci, aut a symoniacis ordinati, aut per manum laicam investiti. 34 Petri Damiani Liber Gratissimus, c. 37, MGH Libelli, 1, 70/10–13: Nam cum omnes symoniacorum ordinationes sinodalis vigoris auctoritate cassasset, protinus a Romanorum multitudine sacerdotum magnae seditionis tumultus exortus est, ita ut non solum ab ipsis, sed a plerisque diceretur episcopis, omnes pene basilicas sacerdotalibus officiis destitutas .... 35 Cf. Gerd Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 172–3. Introduction 9 simony on account of that pope’s allegedly irregular election in 1073.36 It is undeniable, however, that whatever about the incidence of simony, the concept of this heresy had broadened since the pontificate of Leo IX (1048–54).37 It was in this context that Hugh of Flavigny conflated the different sins of simony and lay investiture: in the same breath he denounced simonists along with those who had been invested by a ‘lay hand’. Humbert’s treatise reflected an article of faith among the more radical reformers that the two practices of simony and lay investiture were but different aspects of the same heresy. As the cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida questioned rhetorically: did not secular princes practice simony under ‘the false name of investiture’?38 In Hugh’s Chronicon, the arch-simonist was King Henry IV of Germany. It was he, by virtue of the evil policy of his counsellors (familiares), who had simoniacally introduced ‘wolves’ instead of pastors in the bishoprics and monasteries of the realm. Admonished by the pope to abstain from the company of his advisers – they had been excommunicated by Pope Alexander II (1061–73), possibly because of simony – Henry IV acquiesced and wrote a penitential letter to Gregory VII in September 1073. However, the king had only submitted because of the crisis of a rebellion in Saxony, and having defeated the Saxons in battle on the River Unstrut in June 1075, Henry IV received his excommunicated advisors back into the royal household – like a ‘dog returning to its own vomit’ (cf. Proverb. 26:11 and II Peter. 2:22) according to Hugh of Flavigny.39 The example of his simoniacal heresy, moreover, had contaminated the whole episcopate in Germany. Inspired by the king’s example, the bishops revealed themselves to be ‘not pastors of sheep but hirelings’ (cf. John. 10:12–13). Hugh of Flavigny particularly had in mind Bishop Otto of Constance, who was unable to enforce the pope’s reforming legislation on clerical chastity in his diocese and who, on that account, was censured by Gregory VII in a series of letters in late 1075.40 The corruption of these bishops was manipulated by Henry IV who, enraged by the pope’s threat of deposition in late 1075, had resolved to make a ‘shipwreck of the faith’41 by 36 See above, note 12. Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe, p. 169. 38 Libri III Adversus Simoniacos, 3.6, MGH Libelli, 1, 206/1–2: ‘Nonne saeculi principes prius vendiderunt et vendunt ecclesiastica sub falso nomine investitionis’? 39 Hugh of Flavigny, 424/46–425/47, where the narrative is to a large extent based on the summary of events contained in Gregory VII’s letter to the faithful in Germany of summer 1076, Epistolae Vagantes, no. 14, p. 34; for Henry’s excommunicated counsellors, see I.S. Robinson, Henry IV of Germany 1056–1106 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 114, 125; the king’s penitential letter is contained in Hugh of Flavigny, 425/17–42, and Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., no. 5, pp. 8–9. 40 Hugh of Flavigny, 426/12–14: ‘… praecepta sedis apostolicae parvipendere non timuerunt, et se non pastores ovium, sed mercennarios evidenti indicio probaverunt …’; Gregory’s letters to Otto of Constance and to the faithful of this diocese are contained in Hugh of Flavigny, 426/18–427/3 = Epistolae Vagantes, nos 9 and 10, pp. 18–26. 41 A possible allusion to 1 Timothy 1:19; cf. Epistolae Vagantes, no. 14, p. 38. 37 10 The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny forcing almost all of the bishops in Italy and Germany to renounce their obedience to the pope.42 Thus, Hugh of Flavigny’s narrative of the events leading up to the fateful council of Worms in January 1076 shows no trace of the objections to the pope that were ventilated at that assembly: Gregory’s arrogant disregard for the traditional rights of the bishops; his subjection of the bishops to the ‘common frenzy’ of the mob; his novel intrusion into their jurisdictions, unsupported by canon law.43 These mainly ecclesiological complaints find no trace in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny. Hugh preferred to see the council of Worms as an assembly of simoniacal ‘wolves’, who resisted reform in the shape of Gregory’s investiture prohibitions – erroneously dated by Hugh to 1074–75 – and who were not afraid to ignore the reforming letters with which the pope had attempted to disseminate reforming instructions. Led by the ‘tyrant’ Henry IV, who had become ‘an unhappy member of him who is king over all the sons of pride’,44 these bishops ‘not wishing to live a blameless life and … defiling the canonical institutions … sought to judge the mother of the Universal Church’.45 And yet, after this dramatic preamble to the council of Worms, the events themselves were described in the Chronicon in much more restrained language. This is because Hugh took his account of the council from the Epistola of Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg to Hermann of Metz of 1081, both of whom were, like Hugh of Flavigny, ardent supporters of Gregory VII.46 For his part, Gebhard framed the bishops’ renunciation of the pope at Worms against a background of concord between the regnum and the sacerdotium. He emphasised this point to incriminate the bishops of rebellion against the pope who, at that point, had issued no sentence of excommunication against them.47 Thus Hugh of Flavigny, following Gebhard, asserted that right up to the feast of St Andrew (30 November) 1075 harmony prevailed between the pope and king. It was only when the bishops proudly shook off the ‘yoke of discipline’ that relations between Gregory VII and Henry IV broke down: ‘this was the first leaven that corrupted the 42 Gregory reproved Henry IV for his sins and threatened him with deposition in a letter of 8 December 1075: Reg. 3.10, pp. 263–7. 43 Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV., ed. C. Erdmann and N. Fickermann, (MGH Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit 5: Weimar, 1950), no. 20, p. 48/10–11: ‘... omnique rerum ecclesiasticarum administratione plebeio furori per te attributa’; cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘Periculosus homo: Pope Gregory VII and Episcopal Authority’, Viator, 9 (1978), 103–31. 44 A phrase deriving from Job 41:25 and popular with Gregory VII: cf. Reg. 8.21, p. 552/19–20. 45 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/49–52: ‘Episcopi, inquam, si tamen episcopi dicendi sunt qui inreprehensibiliter vivere nolentes et reprehendi a suis primoribus refugientes, instituta canonica temerantes, et canonica invectione notari nolentes, ipsi etiam universorum matri ecclesiae et apostolicae sedi praejudicium fecerunt’. 46 Hugh of Flavigny, 459/43–460/8 also cited the second letter of Gebhard of Salzburg to Hermann of Metz of 1084 and referred to the alia scripta of that bishop on p. 460/10; see below, note 74. 47 Cf. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, pp. 215–16. Introduction 11 whole lump of the church’.48 One of Gebhard’s main objections to the proceedings at Worms was that the pope had been judged in his absence, ‘unconvened and unheard’ (inconventus et inauditus): the proceedings against him were therefore void according to canon law. This objection had been made by Bishop Hermann of Metz at the council of Worms itself, and although he was not heeded on that occasion, Hermann’s criticism soon became persuasive. The king’s coalition against Gregory, so formidable at Worms, began to erode throughout the course of spring and summer of 1076 when a general consensus emerged among the German episcopate that the council of Worms had acted ultra vires.49 This was a theme that Hugh of Flavigny took up assiduously, and he fleshed out Gebhard’s narrative on the council of Worms with a great number of canon law sententie asserting that the pope could not be deposed, nor be judged by any human agency: only the Almighty was fit to arbitrate on cases involving the Roman pontiff.50 The pope’s response to the events at Worms was presented by Hugh through the medium of the letter which Empress Agnes – Henry IV’s mother – wrote to Bishop Altmann of Passau. In this letter, Agnes described the arrival the king’s legates at Rome during Lent 1076; their message of denunciation and renunciation, and the measures adopted by Gregory VII in response. All those who had been forced into signing the Worms decree were to be given until the feast of St Peter (1 August) to recant. Henry IV himself, on account of his contact with his excommunicated counsellors and his general recidivism, was deprived of the royal dignity and pierced with the sword of anathema; further, all oaths that had been sworn to the king were dissolved.51 Agnes’s letter was the signal for an extended theoretical excursus on the nature of kingship in Hugh’s Chronicon, revolving around three themes: the definition of tyranny and its application to Henry IV; the legality of the pope’s dissolution of feudal oaths ‘by the licence and authority of apostolic liberty’, and the historical precedents for Gregory VII’s judgment of the king.52 Henry IV’s reaction to his excommunication at the hands of the pope was of immense interest to pro-papal authors, including Hugh of Flavigny.53 The king assembled a synod at Utrecht on 26 March 1076 in order to excommunicate Gregory VII and to demonstrate publicly Henry’s authority as ‘vicar of God’ within his realm.54 Bishop Pibo of Toul had originally been deputed to pronounce 48 Hugh of Flavigny, 431/7–23; cf. Gebehardi Salisburgensis Archiepiscopi Epistola ad Herimannum Mettensem Episcopum Data, cc. 34–5, MGH Libelli, 1, 279/7–27. 49 See Chapter 2, note 143. 50 See Chapter 2, note 162. 51 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/16–29; cf. Gregory’s sentence of excommunication against Henry, pronounced at the Lent synod at Rome in 1076: Reg. 3.10a, p. 270. 52 See Chapter 6, notes 159–60. 53 For the following see Hugh of Flavigny, 458/22–459/1. Hugh dated the synod of Utrecht to 1080, perhaps confusing it with the council of Mainz of 31 May 1080. 54 Cf. Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, p. 149. 12 The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny the sentence of excommunication on Easter Sunday, 27 March, but being ‘of a timid mind and very inconstant’, according to Hugh of Flavigny, he fled Utrecht together with Bishop Theoderic of Verdun on the eve of Easter. Instead, Bishop William of Utrecht performed the task. However, because he then received the Eucharist in such a state of rebellious sinfulness, William did not escape divine punishment (ultio divina), bursting into flames in penalty for his crimes. Although it would appear that William of Utrecht did not die on Easter Sunday – he perished on 27 April – his passing does seem to have been sudden and painful and to have been interpreted by the ‘Gregorian’ party in Germany as a welcome confirmation that they belonged to the righteous.55 Hugh’s version of William’s fiery death may have been influenced by the lightning that burned the church of St Peter in Utrecht to the ground on Easter Sunday 1076 – perceived by many as a token of divine displeasure – but may also have been modelled on the genre of Eucharistic miracles, where it was believed that the Host was immune from the ravages of fire.56 Bishop William’s sudden death, together with growing disquiet about the legality of the episcopal renunciation of Gregory VII at Worms, induced many German bishops to seek papal forgiveness for their rebellion throughout the course of 1076. Aware of the sin of disobedience, rebel bishops such as Udo of Trier made their way to Rome to do penance; just as in the Old Testament book of Job (23:4), ‘their mouths were full of [self] reproach’.57 Among these penitents was Bishop Theoderic of Verdun who, although absent from the council of Worms in January 1076, was nonetheless identified with the rebels. Theoderic conveyed his submission to Rome via Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne, and was received back into communion once he had performed due satisfaction to the foremost papal representative in Upper-Lotharingia, Bishop Hermann of Metz.58 Pope Gregory VII was certainly anxious to welcome back into communion those who repented of their sins, and the pope wrote a letter to this effect – copied into the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny – addressed to all the faithful of the Roman Empire and dated 25 July 1076.59 Hugh of Flavigny was determined to embroider the theme of this letter, and emphasised that the pope was motivated by a desire for reconciliation and wanted to deal mildly with the party of Henry IV. To this end, Hugh added a patristic gloss to this letter of Gregory VII, claiming that ‘like Ambrose, [Gregory VII] was solicitous not to act rashly or negligently’. Henry IV, on the other hand, had let slip ‘the reins of moderation’ (aurigae moderamina) and had allowed his 55 Cf. Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz 1054– 1100, ed. I.S. Robinson, MGH SRG, NS, 14 (Hanover, 2003), 242/6–12. 56 Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, p. 151; Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe, pp. 97–8. 57 Hugh of Flavigny, 444/39: ‘… replebatur os eorum increpationibus …’ cf. Chapter 2, notes 142–3. 58 Cf. Chapter 2, note 145. 59 Reg. 4.1, pp. 289/20–292/20; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 440/45–441/45. Introduction 13 violent appetites to destroy his mind.60 The pope’s alleged mildness and clemency was contradicted by his increasingly hostile attitude to Henry IV – by 3 September he mentioned the possibility of a new royal election in Germany – and may have been emphasised by Hugh in response to criticism that Gregory VII had been unduly harsh with the king.61 Hugh of Flavigny’s somewhat confusing narrative for the years 1077–80 was based almost exclusively on the interpretation of events offered by the letters of Gregory VII. Gregory’s second sentence of excommunication against Henry IV of Lent 1080 fortified the chronicler in his assertion that Henry IV was only restored to communion at Canossa in January 1077, not to the kingship, nor was it commanded that fealty should again be observed towards the king.62 Equally tendentious and derivative is Hugh’s narrative – again taken from the decree of Lent 1080 – surrounding the election of Rudolf of Rheinfelden as anti-king at Forchheim in March 1077. Hugh claimed that Rudolf only received the government of the realm under duress because ‘the bishops and princes beyond the mountains, hearing that [Henry IV] had not fulfilled to [Gregory VII] what he had promised, as though despairing of him … elected for themselves Duke Rudolf to be king’.63 The narrative of the Chronicon is perhaps at its most unsatisfactory when describing the complex political manoeuvres in Germany between 1077 and 1080; here, Hugh’s account is almost wholly reliant on the jaundiced record of Gregory’s letters. In respect of one incident, however, the chronicler managed to go beyond the narrow purview of papal missives. Soon after the Lenten synod of 1079, Gregory sent two papal legates into Germany, Cardinal-bishop Peter of Albano and Bishop Udalric of Padua. Their task was to procure agreement with the king about the time and place of the proposed conference to settle the question of the kingship in Germany. At a conference at Fritzlar in June 1079 the legates managed to persuade Henry IV to accept the papal plan of a future conference to settle the kingship. After the negotiations at Fritzlar, Peter and Udalric returned to the king’s court at Regensburg, a move that angered the party of the anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden. The followers of the anti-king had expected the papal legates in 1079 60 Hugh of Flavigny, 441/52–442/4: ‘Sollicitus etiam erat (sc. Gregorius VII.), iuxta beatum Ambrosium, ne quid temere aut incuriose ageret ... verum Heinrici perturbata mens effuso appetitu ... nec sentiebat aurigae moderamina ...’; cf. Ambrose of Milan, De Officiis Ministrorum, c. 47, PL, 16, 91Bff. 61 Reg. 4.3, pp. 298–300/5; for criticism of Gregory’s treatment of Henry IV, see Chapter 2, note 156. 62 Hugh of Flavigny, 446/39–42: ‘Regi itaque praefato Heinrico, ut in verbis domni papae colligere possumus, sola est communionis gratia reddita, non tamen regno restitutus, nec fidelitas omnium qui ei vel juraverant vel juraturi erant, ut sibi servaretur praeceptum est’. Cf. Reg. 7.14a, p. 484/12–15. 63 Hugh of Flavigny, 446/44–6: ‘Verum praedicti episcopi et principes ultramontani audientes illum non servare quod promiserat, quasi de eo desperati, absque domni papae consilio elegerunt sibi Rodulfum ducem in regem.’ Cf. Reg. 7.14a, p. 484/21–4.