792 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1204.
Poems, ascribed to Walter Map, abound in bitter invective against the wide-open mouths of the cardinals which only money could fill. In one of them, the Ruin of Rome, the city is compared to the waters between Scylla and Charybdis, " more capacious of gold than of ships."
" The meeting place of our pirates, the cardinals "
Tbi latrat Scylla rapax et Charybdis auri capax Potlus quam navium, ibi cursus galearum Et concursus piratarum, id est cardinalium.
There, at that deep gulf, are the Syrtes and Sirens who threaten the whole world with shipwreck, the gulf which has the mouth of a man but the heart of a devil. There the cardinals sell the patrimony, wearing the aspect of Peter and having the heart of Nero, looking like lambs and having the nature of wolves.1 In a conversation, purporting to have occurred between Thomas Aquinas and the pope, the pope said, as he showed the theologian the papal treasure-room, " Thomas, Peter could now no longer say as he once said to the lame man ' silver and gold have I none.' ' " Nor," was Thomas' reply, " has his successor the power now to lay his hand on the lame man and heal him."
§ 125. Bishops.
Although the episcopate lost some of its ancient prestige through the centralization of power in the papacy, the incum bents of the great sees were fully as powerful as the greater secular princes. The old theory, that all bishops are the successors of Peter, had a waning number of open advocates. Bernard said2 that, like the pope, they were pastors and porters of the kingdom of heaven and fountains of authority, but, in power and rank, they were inferior to the pope who
1 The Latin Poems of Walter Mapes, ed. by T. Wright, London, 1841, p. 218.
2 De consid., II. 8 ; III. 4 ; IV. 8. After the resurrection, Peter went to Jesus on the lake. The lake signified the world and Peter has charge over the world, and each Apostle charge over his own little boat. James was satisfied with jurisdiction over Jerusalem and acknowledged Peter's author ity over the entire Church.
§ 125. BISHOPS. 793
is the immediate successor of the prince of the Apostles. A hundred years later Grosseteste still held to the equal dignity of all bishops as being successors of Peter.1
By the law of Gregory IX., archbishops took an oath of allegiance to the pope, and Martin V. (1417-1431) extended it so as to include all bishops. Gregory IX. and other popes made this oath the ground of demands for military service. Long before this, in 1139, Innocent II. had ad dressed the bishops as occupying a relation to the papal see such as vassals occupy to their prince. They were to be known as " bishops by the grace of God and the Apostolic see."2 Innocent III. distinctly stated that bishops receive their authority by the grace of the pope in whom resides the fulness of authority.3 The confirmation of bishops by the pope was made a fixed rule by Nicolas III. (1277-1280).* And the ancient right which bishops had exercised of resign ing their sees was now denied and the privilege made dependent upon the pope's dispensation.
After the Concordat of Worms, 1122, the appointment of bishops by princes and other lay patrons, in theory, ceased. Pope after pope declared the right of election belonged to the cathedral chapters. But, in fact, the elections were not free. Princes ignored the rights of the chapters and dictated the nominees, or had unsatisfactory elections set aside by ap pealing to Rome. In France and Spain, a royal writ was required before an election could be had and the royal ac ceptance of the candidate was interposed as a condition of consecration. In England, in spite of the settlement be tween Anselm and Henry I., the rights of the chap ters were constantly set aside, and disputed elections were
1 Letter 23, Luard's ed. , principes ecdesiastici qui mcem Petri tenent.
2 In a vigorous letter to Innocent, Bernard complained that bishops were deprived by the curia of the power to right wrongs in their own dio ceses and to exercise the function of the keys. Ep., 178, Migne, 182. 310.
3 See Dollinger, Papstthum, pp. 73, 409 sq. Innocent referred back to Leo I., who had written to a bishop of Thessalonica, vices enim nostras ita tuce credidimus charitati, ut in partem sis vocatus sollicitudinis, non in plenitudinem potestatis. Ep., VI. Migne, LIV. 671.
4 Lib. Sextus, I. 6, 16, Friedberg's ed., U. 954 sqq.