276 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
grant a divorce. Lothair, after many equivocations, yielded at last (865). It is unnecessary to enter into the complications and disgusting details of this controversy.
NICOLAS AND HINCMAB.
In his controversy with Hincmar, Nicolas was a protector of the bishops and lower clergy against the tyranny of metropoli tans. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, was the most powerful prelate of France, and a representative of the principle of Gallican independence. He was energetic, but ambitious and over bearing. He came three times in conflict with the pope on the question of jurisdiction. The principal case is that of Rothad, bishop of Soissons, one of his oldest suffragans, whom he de posed without sufficient reason and put into prison, with the aid of Charles the Bald (862). The pope sent his legate " from the side/' Arsenius, to Charles, and demanded the restoration of the bishop. He argued from the canons of the Council of Sardica that the case must be decided by Rome even if Rothad had not appealed to him. He enlisted the sympathies of the bishops by reminding them that they might suffer similar injustice from their metropolitan, and that their only refuge was in the com mon protection of the Roman see. Charles desired to cancel the process, but Nicolas would not listen to it. He called Rothad to Rome, reinstated him solemnly in the church of St. Maria Maggiore, and sent him back in triumph to France (864).1 Hincmar murmured, but yielded to superior power.2
In this controversy Nicolas made use of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, a copy of which came into his hands probably through Rothad. He thus gave them the papal sanction ; yet he must have known that a large portion of this forged collection, though claiming to proceed from early popes, did not exist in the papal archives. Hincmar protested against the validity of the new
1 JaffS, 246 and 247, and Mansi, XV. 687 sqq.
3 "Rothadum canonice . . . dejectum et a Nicolao papa non regulariter, sed potentialiter restitutum" See Baxmaun, II. 26.
$ 62. HADRIAN II. AND JOHN VIII. A. D. 867-882. 377
decretals and their application to France, and the protest lin gered for centuries in the Gallicau liberties till they were finally buried in the papal absolutism of the Vatican Council of 1870.
§ 62. Hadrian II. and John VIII. A. D. 867 to 882.
MAXSI: Cone. Tom. XV.-XVII.
MIGNE: Patrol. Lat. Tom. CXXII. 1245 sqq. (Hadrian II.); Tom. CXXVI. 047 sqq. (John VIII.); also Tom. CXXIX., pp. 823 sqq., and 1054 sqq., which contain the writings of AUXILIUS and VUL- GAIIIUS, concerning pope Formosus.
BARONIUS : Annul, ad aim. 867-882.
JAFFE: Ecyesta, pp. 25-1-292.
MILMAX: Lat. Christianity, Book V., chs. 5 and 6.
GFRORER : Allg. Kirchcngesch., Bd. III. Abth. 2, pp. 962 sqq.
BAXMANN: Politik dcr Papste, II. 29-57.
For nearly two hundred years, from Nicolas to Hildebrand (867-1049), the papal chair was filled, with very few excep tions, by ordinary and even unworthy occupants.
Hadrian II. (867-872) and John VIII. (872-882) defended the papal power with the same zeal as Nicolas, but with less ability, dignity, and success, and not so much in the interests of morality as for self-aggrandizement. They interfered with the political quarrels of the Carolingians, and claimed the right of disposing royal and imperial crowns.
Hadrian was already seventy-five years of age, and well known for great benevolence, when he ascended the throne (he was born in 792). He inherited from Nicolas the controversies with Photius, Lothair, and Hincmar of Rheims, but was repeatedly rebuffed. He suffered also a personal humiliation on account of a curious domestic tragedy. He had been previously married, and his wife (Stephania) was still living at the time of his eleva tion. Eleutherius, a son of bishop Arsenius (the legate of Nicolas), carried away the pope's daughter (an old maid of forty years, who was engaged to another man), fled to the emperor Louis, and, when threatened with punishment, murdered both the pope's wife and daughter. He was condemned to death.