II. Theory of the Holy Roman Empire. — There would be manifest impropriety in entering here into the con- sideration of the constitution or the history of the sec- ond Western empire. But the theory of the empire, its great contention with the papacy, and the grave conse- quences thence resulting to the ecclesiastical and relig- ious fortunes of Europe are apposite, and even indis- pensable, to the present Ci/clopadia. The notices, how- ever, must inevitably be both brief and jejune.
The significance of great historical events and insti- tutions does not reveal itself till they have passed a\va\' or declined. It must be gathered by retrospection from the consequences — not expected from contemporaneous appreciation. Charlemagne was constituted emperor by the implied election of the Roman people, and by the consecration of the pope, as the ruler of the Christian world; as the official defender of the Church; as the upholder of orthodox Christianifv against heresy and schism ; as the champion of the faith and of the faithful against the infidel and the barbarian; as the patron, promoter, and guardian of missionary enterprise for the .conversion of the heathen. In this character he was not merely the first among temporal princes, but su- [ireme over them all. He was clothed with a religious character in order to act as the carnal instrument of the spiritual and ecclesiastical authority. He was chief of Christendom to preserve the Christian society from in- testine disorders and external perils. He was head of the temporal order, but with distinct spiritual attribu- tions. The pope was head of the spiritual order, but with some temporal jurisdiction, by the grant of Pepin and the confirmation of Charlemagne. Each, in his sphere, was the vicegerent of Heaven for the govern- ment and guidance of the world. This is very cogently presented by Bryce : "Thus does the emperor answer in every point to his antitype, the pope, his power be- ing yet of a lower rank, created on the analogy of the pajjal, as the pa|)al itself had been modelled after the empire. The parallel holds good even in its details; for just as we have seen the churchman assuming the
crown and robes of the secular prince, so now did he ar- raj' the emperor in his own ecclesiastical vestments — the stole and the dalmatic; gave him a clerical as well as a sacred character; removed his office from all nar- row associations of birth and country ; inaugurated him by rites, every one of which was meant to symbolize and enjoin duties in their essence religious" (77ie Holy Roman Empire, vii, 106-116).
It must, indeed, have been verj' evident, or must have been recognised by an instinct more profound than evi- dence, that the preservation of civilization ; the protec- tion of society against Saracen, Saxon, etc. ; the perpet- uation of Christian faith; the maintenance of religious order and civil discipline, of morality and culture among the nations, of unity in the brotherhood of faith, of tran- quillity throughout the Christian realm — required, amid the still rampant paganism and the internal and exter- nal dangers of the time, that there should be consolida- tion of Christian government ; that there should also be union between the temporal and spiritual authorities ; and that agreement and harmony should prevail between the two orders of rule. This was exemplified by the coronation of the emperor in Rome by the pope, by the assent of the emperor to the election of the pope. It is equally evident that these two powers — each in some sort supreme, yet each, also, in some sort subordi- nate to the other — would decline into jealousies and dis- cords and furious antagonisms when the great dangers which enforced their union had been mitigated or re- moved, and when causes of difference, which were sure to arise, should eventually arise.
The splendid dreams of humanity are visions of the night which are dissipated by tlie realities of the day. It was a magnificent, but never realized, conception tliat as there should be "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," so there should be a single Christendom, with one ad- ministrator of spiritual interests and one governor of temporal society, that all nations might be one realm of Christianity and all Christians might be secured by the combined might of all, under the guidance and disposi- tion of one secular control. It was a brilliant dream. It has left but the cloud behind. It may afford a hope or a promise of accomplishment in very dissimilar form in future centuries. For brief periods there was a re- mote approximation to its achievement. For k>ng pe- riods it was frustrated and often, perhaps, forgotten (" breves et infaustos populi Komani amores").
III. Relations of the "Holy Roman Emjnre" fa the "Holy Roman Church." — The Holy Roman Empire lasted for more than a thousand years. Its eminence and its relations to the papac}' changed variously and greatly during this long lapse of time. Pfeffel, who is occupied with the history of Germany rather than with that of the empire, divides the former into nine periods, beginning with Sigovesus A.D. COO, and ending with the extinction of the male line of Hapsburg in 1740. Six of these periods must be left unnoticed for various reasons, which there is not room to state. The fourth, or Carlovingian, period has, indeed, been considered more fully than our space would justify. The great struggle between the emperor and the pope took place during the fifth, sixth, and seventh periods, under the Saxon, Franconian, and Suabian houses (962-1254) ; and from this struggle issued the religious and political complica- tions of modern Europe and of the modern world. To these periods, then, attention will have to be confined, and to them it can be but inadequately directed.