288 FOUKT.il PEKIOD. A. D. 590 -1049.
§ 64. The Interference of Otho the Great.
Comp., besides the works quoted in g 63, FLOSS : Die Papstwahl unter den Ottonen. Freiburg, 1858, and KOPKE and DUMMLER; Otto der Grosse. Leipzig, 1876.
From this state of infamy the papacy was? rescued for a brief time by the interference of Otho I., justly called the Great (936- 973). He had subdued the Danes, the Slavonians, and the Hungarians, converted the barbarians on the frontier, estab lished order and restored the Carolingian empire. He was called by the pope himself and several Italian princes for pro tection against the oppression of king Berengar II. (or the Younger, who was crowned in 950, and died in exile, 966). He crossed the Alps, and was anointed Roman emperor by John XII. in 962. He promised to return to the holy see all the lost territories granted by Pepin and Charlemagne, and received in turn from the pope and the Romans the oath of allegiance on the sepulchre of St. Peter.
Hereafter the imperial crown of Rome was always held by the German nation, but the legal assumption of the titles of Emperor and Augustus depended on the act of coronation by the pope.
After the departure of Otho the perfidious pope, unwilling to obey a superior master, rebelled and entered into conspiracy with his enemies. The emperor returned to Rome, convened a Synod of Italian and German bishops, which indignantly deposed John XII. in his absence, on the ground of most notorious crimes, yet without a regular trial (963).1
The emperor and the Synod elected a respectable layman, the chief secretary of the Roman see, in his place. He was hur riedly promoted through the orders of reader, subdeacon, deacon,
1 A full account of this Synod see in Liutprand, De rebus gestis Ottonis, and in Baronius, Annal. ad ann. 963. Comp. also Greenwood, Bk VIII. ch. 12, Gfrorer, vol. III., P. iii., 1249 eqq., Giesebrecht, I. 465 and 828, and Hefele, IV. 612 sqq. Gfrorer, without defending John XII., charges Otho with having first violated the engagement (p. 1253). The pope was three times summoned be fore the Synod, but the answer came from Tivoli that he had gone hunting. Baronius, Floss, and Hefele regard this synod as uncanonical.
I 64. THE INTERFERENCE OF OTIIO THE GREAT. 289
priest and bishop, and consecrated as Leo VIII., but not recog nized by the strictly hierarchical party, because he surrendered the freedom of the papacy to the empire. The Romans swore that they would never elect a pope again without the emperor's consent. Leo confirmed this in a formal document.1
The anti-imperial party readmitted John XII., who took cruel revenge of his enemies, but was suddenly struck down in his sins by a violent death. Then they elected an anti-pope, Ik'iiedict V., but he himself begged pardon for his usurpation when the emperor reappeared, was divested of the papal robes, degraded to the order of deacon, and banished to Germany. Leo VIII. died in April, 965, after a short pontificate of six teen months.
The bishop of Xarni was unanimously elected his successor as John XIII. (965-972) by the Roman clergy and people, after first consulting the will of the emperor.- He crowned Otho II. emperor of the Romans (973-983). He was expelled by the Romans, but reinstated by Otho, who punished the rebellious city with terrible severity.
Thus the papacy was morally saved, but at the expense of its independence ; or rather it had exchanged its domestic bondage for a foreign bondage. Otho restored to it its former dominions which it had lost during the Italian disturbances, but he re garded the pope and the Romans as his subjects, who owed him the same temporal allegiance as the Germans and Lombards.
It would have been far better for Germany and Italy if they had never meddled with each other. The Italians, especially the Romans, feared the German army, but hated the Germans as Northern semi-barbarians, and shook off their yoke as soon as they had a chance.2 The Germans suspected the Italians for
1 Baronius, ad ann. 964, pronounced the document spurious, chiefly because it is very inconvenient to his ultramontane doctrine. It is printed in Man. Germ. iv. 2 (Leges, II. 167), and in a more extensive form from a MS. at Treves in Leonis VIII. privilegium de investituris, by H. J. Floss, Freib , 1858. This publication has changed the state of the controversy in favor of a genuine ele ment in the document. See the discussion in Hefele, IV. 622 sqq.
2 This antipathy found its last expression and termination in the expulsion of