History of the Christian Church, Volume IV: Mediaeval Christianity. A.D. 590-1073.

(Rick Simeone) #1

Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, of imperial descent and of austere ascetic virtue, was
unjustly deposed and banished by the emperor Michael III. for rebuking the immorality of Caesar
Bardas, but he refused to resign. Photius, the greatest scholar of his age, at home in almost every
branch of knowledge and letters, was elected his successor, though merely a layman, and in six
days passed through the inferior orders to the patriarchal dignity (858). The two parties engaged
in an unrelenting warfare, and excommunicated each other. Photius was the first to appeal to the
Roman pontiff. Nicolas, instead of acting as mediator, assumed the air of judge, and sent delegates
to Constantinople to investigate the case on the spot. They were imprisoned and bribed to declare
for Photius; but the pope annulled their action at a synod in Rome, and decided in favor of Ignatius
(863). Photius in turn pronounced sentence of condemnation on the pope and, in his Encyclical
Letter, gave classical expression to the objections of the Greek church against the Latin (867). The
controversy resulted in the permanent alienation of the two churches. It was the last instance of an
official interference of a pope in the affairs of the Eastern church.
Nicolas and Lothair.
Lothair II., king of Lorraine and the second son of the emperor Lothair, maltreated and at
last divorced his wife, Teutberga of Burgundy, and married his mistress, Walrada, who appeared
publicly in all the array and splendor of a queen. Nicolas, being appealed to by the injured lady,
defended fearlessly the sacredness of matrimony; he annulled the decisions of synods, and deposed
the archbishops of Cologne and Treves for conniving at the immorality of their sovereign. He
threatened the king with immediate excommunication if he did not dismiss the concubine and
receive the lawful wife. He even refused to yield when Teutberga, probably under compulsion,
asked him to grant a divorce. Lothair, after many equivocations, yielded at last (865). It is
unnecessary to enter into the complications and disgusting details of this controversy.
Nicolas and Hincmar.
In his controversy with Hincmar, Nicolas was a protector of the bishops and lower clergy
against the tyranny of metropolitans. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, was the most powerful prelate
of France, and a representative of the principle of Gallican independence. He was energetic, but
ambitious and overbearing. He came three times in conflict with the pope on the question of
jurisdiction. The principal case is that of Rothad, bishop of Soissons, one of his oldest suffragans,
whom he deposed without sufficient reason and put into prison, with the aid of Charles the Bald
(862). The pope sent his legate "from the side," Arsenius, to Charles, and demanded the restoration
of the bishop. He argued from the canons of the Council of Sardica that the case must be decided
by Rome even if Rothad had not appealed to him. He enlisted the sympathies of the bishops by
reminding them that they might suffer similar injustice from their metropolitan, and that their only
refuge was in the common protection of the Roman see. Charles desired to cancel the process, but
Nicolas would not listen to it. He called Rothad to Rome, reinstated him solemnly in the church of


St. Maria Maggiore, and sent him back in triumph to France (864)^271 Hincmar murmured, but


yielded to superior power.^272
In this controversy Nicolas made use of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, a copy of which
came into his hands probably through Rotbad. He thus gave them the papal sanction; yet he must


(^271) Jaffé, 246 and 247, and Mansi, XV. 687 sqq.
(^272) Rotha dum canonice ... dejectum et a Nicolao papa non regulariter, sed potentialiter restitutum." See Baxmann, II.
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