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An Essay in Universal History

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An Essay in Universal History AN ESSAY IN UNIVERSAL HISTORY From an Orthodox Christian Point of View PART I. THE AGE OF FAITH (TO 1453) Volume 2: from 1000 to 1453 Vladimir Moss © Copyright Vladimir Moss. All Rights Reserved, 2016. 1 If the Emperor forgets the fear of God, he will inevitably fall into sin and be changed into a despot, he will not be able to keep to the customs established by the Fathers, and by the intrigues of the devil he will do that which is unworthy and contrary to the commandments of God, he will become hateful to the people, the senate and the Church, he will become unworthy to be called a Christian, he will be deprived of his post, will be subject to anathema, and, finally, will be killed as the ‘common enemy’ of all Romans, both ‘those who command’ and ‘those who obey’. Emperor Constantine VII, On the Government of the Empire. It is wonderful how, from the time when Pope Nicholas I tried to bring about the divorce between the two Churches, the downward course of Rome proceeded with such rapidity that one could not but recognize God’s finger on the wall, “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin!” Joseph Overbeck. The Pope is truly the vicar of Jesus Christ, anointed of the Lord… set between God and man, lower than God but higher than man, who judges all and is judged by no- one. Pope Innocent III. The people should be led, not followed, as God has ordained… Those who say, ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God,’ are not to be listened to, for the unruliness of the mob is always close to madness. Deacon Alcuin of York to Charlemagne. The Lord commands us not to keep silent when the faith is in danger. Nobody can say: "But who am I to speak" A priest or a ruler? No. A soldier, or a peasant? No, I am a poor man who worries only about his daily bread. It is not my affair to speak, or to worry about this." Alas! Will the stones cry out, while you keep silent and remain unconcerned? St. Theodore the Studite. There can be no compromise between truth and falsehood. St. Mark of Ephesus. 2 V. THE PAPAL DESPOTISM 5 51. CHARLEMAGNE AND POPE LEO III 6 52. THE FALL OF THE POPES: (1) FROM NICHOLAS I TO JOHN VIII 18 53. THE GROWTH OF FEUDALISM 27 54. THE ENGLISH AND GERMAN MONARCHIES 36 55. THE FALL OF THE POPES: (2) FROM SERGIUS IV TO LEO IX 50 56. THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND 66 57. THE FALL OF THE POPES: (3) FROM NICHOLAS II TO GREGORY VII 75 58. THE CRUSADES AND THE THEORY OF THE JUST WAR 88 59. ROMAN LAW, THE PAPACY AND MEDIEVAL KINGSHIP 96 60. HERETICS AND JEWS 108 61. THE APOTHEOSIS OF PAPISM 120 62. THOMAS AQUINAS ON NATURAL LAW 126 63. UNAM SANCTAM AND DE MONARCHIA 132 64. PROTO-PROTESTANTISM: (1) WILLIAM OF OCKHAM AND MARSILIUS OF PADUA 137 65. PROTO-PROTESTANTISM: (2) PEASANTS, LOLLARDS AND TABORITES 143 66. PROTO-PROTESTANTISM: (3) THE CONCILIAR MOVEMENT 150 VI. THE FALL OF NEW ROME 158 67. THE RIGHTS OF THE ORTHODOX AUTOCRAT 159 68. KIEVAN RUS’ 163 69. ST. ANDREW OF BOGOLIUBOVO 171 70. THE SLIDE TOWARDS ABSOLUTISM 177 71. THE NICAEAN EMPIRE AND ROYAL ANOINTING 188 72. THE GEORGIAN MONARCHY 198 73. ST. SAVA AND SERBIAN AUTOCEPHALY 203 74. ST. ALEXANDER NEVSKY AND THE MONGOL YOKE 206 75. MOUNT ATHOS AND THE COUNCIL OF LYONS 210 76. THE CRISIS OF BYZANTINE STATEHOOD 218 77. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SERBIAN EMPIRE 226 3 78. THE RISE OF MUSCOVY 235 79. ST. MARK OF EPHESUS AND THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE 242 80. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 255 CONCLUSION: AUTOCRACY, DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY 261 4 V. THE PAPAL DESPOTISM 5 51. CHARLEMAGNE AND POPE LEO III For centuries, and in spite of the intermittent expression of papist ideas1, the Roman Papacy had seen itself as part of the Byzantine Empire and a vital link with the four patriarchates of the East. This position was reinforced in a cultural sense during the period of the “Byzantine papacy” of the seventh and early eight centuries, when several of the Popes were Greek or Syrian in origin, and many eastern monks fled to Rome to escape persecution by Monothelite or Iconoclast emperors. Even when the Emperor Leo deprived the papacy of its lands in Southern Italy and the Balkans, the Popes still looked to New Rome as the capital of the Christian oikoumene. They still commemorated the eastern emperors at the Liturgy, and still used the emperors’ coinage. East and West still constituted one Christian world… However, the relationship began to undergo strain when the Lombards penetrated further south into Italy, and Leo, occupied with his Muslim enemies in the East, could offer the papacy no military support. The Popes in desperation looked for other defenders, and found them in – the Franks… The first act that “brought the Franks into Italy” was the blessing by Pope Zachariah of a dynastic coup d’état in Francia. The last Merovingian rulers were weak and ineffective: real power was concentrated in the hands of their “mayors” or prime ministers. Pope Zachariah – the last of the Greek popes2 – had already been heavily engaged in the reorganization of the Frankish Church through his legate in Francia, St. Boniface, the English Apostle of Germany. In 751 the Frankish mayor, Peppin III, Charles Martel’s grandson, sent envoys to him to ask “whether it was just for one to reign and for another to rule”. Zachariah took the hint and blessed the deposition of Childeric III and the anointing of Peppin by St. Boniface in his place. This was a revolutionary act: removing legitimate dynasties and putting upstarts in their place is not usually considered the business of churchmen... Be that as it may, Zechariah’s, successor, Stephen II, a Roman aristocrat, greatly increased the links with “the most Christian king of the Franks”. Having been deserted by the iconoclast eastern emperor at a moment when Rome was in great peril from the Lombards, he crossed the Alps and in the summer of 754 gave Peppin the title of “patrician”, re-consecrated him and his queen and blessed him and his successors to rule in perpetuity. 1 Perhaps the earliest was in 608, when the tyrant emperor Phocas, gave Pope Boniface IV the title “Vicar of Christ”, while reserving for himself the title, “Christ’s deputy in the East”. 2 Andrew Louth writes: “From 680 to 751, or more precisely from the accession of Agatho in 678 until Zacharias’ death in 751 – the popes, with two exceptions, Benedict II and Gregory II, were Greek in background and speakers of Greek, which has led some scholars to speak of a ‘Byzantine captivity’ of the papacy. This is quite misleading: most of the ‘Greek’ popes were southern Italian or Sicilian, where Greek was still the vernacular, and virtually all of them, seem to have made their career among the Roman clergy, so, whatever their background, their experience and sympathies would have been thoroughly Roman” (Greek East and Latin West, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007, p. 79). 6 Perhaps Peppin’s first consecration was deemed to have been illegitimate in that the last Merovingian king, Childeric, was still alive. Or perhaps this second anointing had a deeper significance. Whether Stephen already had this in mind or not, it came to signify the re-establishment of the Western Roman Empire, with its political capital north of the Alps, but its spiritual capital, as always, in Rome. For in exchange, the Franks became the official protectors of Rome instead of the Eastern emperors, whose subjects the Popes now ceased to be.3 Moreover, from this time the popes stopped dating their documents from the emperor’s regnal year, and began to issue their own coins.4 Peppin more than fulfilled his side of the bargain: he defeated the Lombards, restored the Pope to Rome and gave him the former Byzantine exarchate of Ravenna, thereby laying the foundation for the Papal States and the role of the Popes as secular as well as spiritual rulers. As Joseph Overbeck writes: In exchange for receiving anointing from Pope Stephen Pepin had had “to sign a document by which he engaged himself to conquer the Exarchate, which the Longobards had wrested from the hands of the Byzantine Emperor, and to hand it over to the Pope. Pepin accomplished the conquest. When the Emperor sent his Legates to reclaim his lawful property, Pepin referred to the Pope as owner. In private life we should call such transactions cheat and robbery, but as part and parcel of the ‘Patrimonium of S. Petri’ they are hallowed. Or shall we defend main force as a ‘legal title,’ and cover the robberies of the Longobards with a moral cloak? Then we might as well all at once sanction highway robbery... It is a curious, not to say providential, fact that Piedmont, the first country touched by Pepin on his invading tour in Italy, when Pope Stephen asked him to take the sword in St. Peter’s behalf, was the very country that was to destroy the Papal States.”5 At about this time the forgery known as The Donation of Constantine was concocted by someone in the papal chancellery. This alleged that Constantine the Great had given his throne to Pope Sylvester and his successors because “it is not right that an earthly emperor should have power in a place where the government of priests and the head of the Christian religion has been established by the heavenly Emperor”.
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