Download Untitled

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.