in any detail the hierarchical scheme which is identified with the person and history of the archdeacon Hildebrand, the pope Gregory the Seventh; but there are some general considerations with regard to it which it is important to bear in mind, in order to understand the conditions under which men wrote.
Whether or not we approve the methods by which Gregory laid anew the foundations of the papal power,[1] it would be idle to dispute the essential nobility of the conception, which ultimately rested on the necessity of reforming the church as preliminary to the reformation of the world. It was plain that society could not be purified by an instrument as corrupt as itself; and such had been the condition of the church, at least until the middle of the eleventh century. The crying evil was that it was becoming more and more a part of the state, the clergy entering more and more into the enjoyments, the luxury, the profligacy, of civil life. Reform, it was felt, must begin by severing this alliance and constituting the clergy as a class, a caste, by themselves, to offer a pattern of purity and self-devotedness to the laity. To us possibly, with the experience of eight centuries, it may appear that such a scheme was destined by its very nature to fail of its true objects, and that the character of the clergy and their spiritual and moral influence would have been better secured by placing them, with the intrinsic power of their office, not over but among the people. In fact there was perhaps[2] no surer means towards the degradation of an
- ↑ In the opinion of cardinal Hergenröther, Katholische Kirche und christlicher Staat in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung 234 &c., 2nd ed., Freiburg 1876, Gregory did little more than carry into effect principles for which his predecessors had failed to find opportunity. [A luminous survey of more recent works on the subject is given by Dr. J. P. Whitney in the English historical Review, 34. 129-151; 1919.]
- ↑ John bishop of Lübeck at the council of Basle in 1434 made a proposition to the delegates 'ut sacerdotibus Christi nuptias restituerent: ... inutiliter uxores esse praereptas sacerdotibus; vix inter mille unum reperiri continentem presbyterum, omnes aut concu-
be found in the Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum, published in the Monumenta Germaniae historica in three volumes, 1891-1897.]
