§ 7. NICOLAS II. AND THE CARDINALS. 19
of the pope has remained in the hands of the Romans ever since.
The alliance which Nicolas entered into, 1059, with the Normans of Southern Italy, was the second act in the long and notable part which they played in the history of the papacy. Early in the eleventh century four brothers of the house of Hauteville, starting from Normandy, began their adventurous career in Italy and Sicily. They were wel comed as crusaders liberating the Christian population from the rule of the Saracens and its threatened extension. The kingdom their arms established was confirmed by the apos tolic see, and under the original dynasty, and later under the house of Anjou, had a larger influence on the destinies of the papacy for three centuries than did Norman England and the successors of William the Conqueror. Robert Guiscard, who had defeated the army of Leo IX., and held him a prisoner for nine months, was confirmed by Nicolas as duke of Apulia and Calabria. The duchy became a fief of Rome by an obligation to pay yearly twelve dinars for every yoke of oxen and to defend the Holy See against attacks upon its authority. Robert's brother, Roger, d. 1101, began the con quest of Sicily in earnest in 1060 by the seizure of Messina, and followed it up by the capture of Palermo, 1071, and Syracuse, 1085. He was called Prince of Sicily and per petual legate of the Holy See. One of his successors, Roger II., 1105-1154, was crowned king of Sicily at Palermo by the authority of the anti-pope Anacletus II. A half century later the blood of this house became mingled with the blood of the house of Hohenstaufen in the person of the great Frederick II. In the prominent part they took we shall find these Norman princes now supporting the plans of the papacy, now resisting them.
About the same time the Hautevilles and other freebooting Normans were getting a foothold in Southern Italy, the Normans under William the Conqueror, in 1066, were
20 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1019-1073.
conquering England. To them England owes her introduc tion into the family of European nations, and her national isolation ceases.1
§ 8. The War against Clerical Marriage.
The same Lateran Council of 1059 passed severe laws against the two heresies of simony and Nicolaitism. It threatened all priests who were unwilling to give up their wives or concubines with the loss of their benefices and the right of reading mass, and warned the laity against attend ing their services. "No one," says the third of the thirteen canons, "shall hear mass from a priest who to his certain knowledge keeps a concubine or a subintroducta mulier.^
These severe measures led to serious disturbances in Northern Italy, especially in the diocese of Milan, where every ecclesiastical office from the lowest to the highest was for sale, and where marriage or concubinage was common among priests of all grades, not excluding the archbishop.2 Sacerdotal marriage was regarded as one of the liberties of the church of St. Ambrose, which maintained a certain inde pendence of Rome, and had a numerous and wealthy clergy. The Milanese defended such marriage by Scripture texts and by a fictitious decision of Ambrose, who, on the contrary, was an enthusiast for celibacy. Candidates for holy orders, if unmarried, were asked if they had strength to remain so ; if not, they could be legally married ; but second marriages were forbidden, and the Levitical law as to the virginity of the bride was observed. Those who remained single were objects of suspicion, while those who brought up their fami lies in the fear of God were respected and eligible to the
1 Stubbs, ed. of Rich, de Hovedcn, II. pp. Ixxiii. sqq.
2 Bonizo, a friend of Ilildebrand. calls Wido. who was elected bishop of Milan in 1045, a "r<> Hlttcratiis ft concttttiHarius et absque ulla verecundia Simoniacus." Migne, Tom. CL. 825; Jaffe", Mon. Greg., 639. But Hefele, IV. 793, doubts the charge of concubinage, and also Mirbt, Publizistik, 249.