278 FOURTH PEKIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
This affair might have warned the popes to have nothing to do with women ; but it was succeeded by worse scenes.
John VIII. was an energetic, shrewd, passionate, and in triguing prelate, meddled with all the affairs of Christendom from Bulgaria to France and Spain, crowned two insignificant Carolingian emperors (Charles the Bald, 875, and Charles the Fat, 881), dealt very freely in anathemas, was much disturbed by the invasion of the Saracens, and is said to have been killed by a relative who coveted fche papal crown and treasure. The best thing he did was the declaration, in the Bulgarian quarrel with the patriarch of Constantinople, that the Holy Spirit had created other languages for worship besides Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, although he qualified it afterwards by saying that Greek and Latin were the only proper organs for the celebration of the mass, while barbarian tongues such as the Slavonic, may be good enough for preaching.
His violent end was the beginning of a long interregnum of violence. The close of the ninth century gave a foretaste of the greater troubles of the tenth. After the downfall of the Carolin gian dynasty the popes were more and more involved in the poli tical quarrels and distractions of the Italian princes. The dukes Berengar of Friuli (888-924), and Guido of Spoleto (889-894), two remote descendants of Charlemagne through a female branch, contended for the kingdom of Italy and the imperial crown, and filled alternately the papal chair according to their success in the conflict. The Italians liked to have two masters, that they might play off one against the other. Guido was crowned em peror by Stephen VI. (V.) in February, 891, and was followed by his son, Lambert, in 894, who was also crowned. Formosus, bishop of Portus, whom John VIII. had pursued with bitter animosity, was after varying fortunes raised to the papal chair, and gave the imperial crown first to Lambert, but afterwards to the victorious Arnulf of Carinthia, in 896. He roused the revenge of Lambert, and died of violence. His second successor and bitter enemy, Stephen VII. (VI.), a creature of the party of
2 63. DEGRADATION OF THE PAPACY IN TENTH CENTURY. 279
Lambert, caused his corpse to be exhumed, clad in pontifical robes, arraigned in a mock trial, condemned and deposed, stripped of the ornaments, fearfully mutilated, decapitated, and thrown into the Tiber. But the party of Berengar again ob tained the ascendency; Stephen A7II. was thrown into prison and strangled (897). This was regarded as a just punishment for his conduct towards Formosus. John IX. restored the character of Formosus. He died in 900, and was followed by Benedict IV., of the Lambertine or Spoletan party, and reigned for the now unusual term of three years and a half.1
§ 63. The Degradation of the Papacy in the Tenth Century.
SOURCES.
MIGXE'S Patrol. Lat. Tom. 131-142. These vols. contain the documents and works from Pope John IX. — Gregory VI.
LIUDPKANDUS (Episcopus Cremonensis, d. 972): Antapodoseos, seu Rerum per Europaut yasfarui/i llbri VI. From A. D. 887-950. Reprinted in Pertz: Mnnnm. Germ. III. 269-272 ; and in Migne : Patrol. Tom. CXXXVI. 769 sqq. By the same: Hixtnria Otto?) is, sive dc rebus gestis Ottonix Mayiii. From A. D. 960-964. In Pertz: Monum. III. 340-346 ; in Migne CXXXVI. 897 sqq. Comp. KCEPKE : De Liudprandi vita d scrlptix, Berol., 1842; WATTENBACH : Deutschlands Ge*chichfx(}Kcfkn, and GIESEBRECHT, I. c. I. p. 779. Liudpnmd or Liutprand (Liuzo or Linso), one of the chief authorities on the history of the 10th century, was a Lombard by birth, well educated, travelled in the East and in Germany, accompanied Otho I. to Rome, 962, was appointed by him bishop of Cremona, served as his inter preter at the Roman Council of 964, and was again in Rome 965. He was also sent on an embassy to Constantinople. He describes the wretened condition of the papacy as an eye-witness. His A ittapoflosis or Retribution (written between 958 and 962) is specially directed against king Berengar and queen Willa, whom he hated. His work on Otho treats of the contemporary events in which he was one of the actors. He was fond of scandal, but is considered reliable in most of his facts.
FLODOARDUS (Canonicus Remensis, d. 966): Ifistoria Rcmensis ; Annalcs ; Opuscula mdrica, in Migne, Tom. CXXX V.
1 According to Auxentius and Vulgarius, pope Stephen VII. was the author of the outrage on the corpse of Formosus; Liutprand traces it to Sergius III. in 898, when he was anti-pope of John IX. Baronins conjectures that Liut prand wrote Sergius for Stephanus. Hefele assents, Conciliengesch. IV. 561 sqq.