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1087–1305] keenest to disavow the policy of Paschal II., was obliged to continue it when he assumed the tiara under the name of Calixtus II. By the Concordat of Worms, which he signed with the Emperor Henry V. in 1122, the investiture was divided between the ecclesiastical and the lay powers, the emperor investing with the sceptre, the pope with the pastoral staff and ring. The work did honour to the perseverance and ability of Calixtus, but it was merely the application of the ideas of Paschal II. and Ivo of Chartres. The understanding, however, between the two contracting parties was very far from being clear and complete, as each party still sought to attain its own aim by spreading in the Christian world divergent interpretations of the concordat and widely-differing plans for reducing it to its final form. And, again, if this transaction settled the investiture question, it did not solve the problem of the reconciliation of the universal power of the popes with the claims of the emperors to the government of Europe; and the conflict subsisted—slumbering, it is true, but ever ready to awake under other forms. Nevertheless, the two great Christian agitations directed by the papacy at the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th—the reformation and the crusade—were of capital importance for the foundation of the immense religious monarchy that had its centre in Rome; and it is from this period that the papal monarchy actually dates.

The entry of the Christians into Jerusalem produced an extraordinary effect upon the faithful of the West. In it they saw most manifest sign of the divine protection and of the supernatural power of the pope, the supreme director of the expedition. At its inception the Latin kingdom of the Holy Land was within a little of becoming an ecclesiastical principality, ruled by a patriarch under the authority of the pope. Daimbert, the first patriarch of Jerusalem, was convinced that the Roman Church alone could be sovereign of the new state, and attempted to compel Godfrey of Bouillon to hand over to him by a solemn agreement the town and citadel of Jerusalem, and also Jafta. The clergy, indeed, received a large share; but the government of the Latin principality remained lay and military, the only form of government possible for a colony surrounded by perils and camped in a hostile country. Not only was the result of the crusade extremely favourable to the extension of the Roman power, but throughout the middle ages the papacy never ceased to derive almost incalculable political and financial advantages from the agitation produced by the preachers and the crusading expeditions. The mere fact of the crusaders being placed under the special protection of the Church and the pope, and loaded with privileges, freed them from the jurisdiction, and even, up to a certain point, from the lordship of their natural masters, to become the almost direct subjects of the papacy; and the common law was then practically suspended for the benefit of the Church and the leader who represented it.

As for the reformation, which under Urban II. and his immediate successors was aimed not only at the episcopate but also at the capitulary bodies and monastic clergy. It, too, could but tend to a considerable extension of the authority of the successors of St Peter, for it struck an irremediable blow at ancient Christian hierarchy. The first manifest result of the change was the weakening of the metropolitan. The visible symptom of this decadence of the archiepiscopal power was the growing frequency during the Hildebrandine conflict of episcopal confirmations and consecrations made by the popes themselves or their legates. From an active instrument of the religious society, the archiepiscopal degenerated into a purely formal power; while the episcopate itself, which the sincere reformers wished to liberate and purge in order to strengthen it, emerged from the crisis sensibly weakened as well as ameliorated. The episcopate, while it gained in intelligence and morality, lost a part of its independence. It was raised above feudalism only to be abased before the two directing forces of the reformation, the papacy and the religious orders.

To place itself in a better posture for combating the simoniacal and concubinary prelates, the court of Rome had had to multiply exemptions and accelerate the movement which impelled the monks to make themselves independent of the bishops. Even in the cities, the seats of the episcopal power, the reformation encouraged the attempts at revolt or autonomy which tended everywhere to diminish that power. The cathedral chapters look advantage of this situation to oppose their jurisdiction to that of the bishops, and to encroach on their prerogatives. When war was declared on the schismatic prelates, the reforming popes supported the canons, and, unconsciously or not, helped them to form themselves into privileged bodies living their own lives and affecting to recognize the court of Rome as their only superior authority. Other adversaries of the episcopate, the burgesses and the petty nobles dwelling in the city, also profited by these frequent changes of bishops, and the disorders that ensued. It was the monarchy of the bishops of Rome that naturally benefited by these attacks on the aristocratic principle represented by the high prelacies in the Church. By drawing to their side all the forces of the ecclesiastical body to combat feudalism. Urban II. and his successors, with their monks and legates, changed the constitution of that body, and changed it to their own advantage. The new situation of these popes and the growth of their authority were also manifested in the material organization of their administration and chancery. Under Urban II. the formulary of the papal bulls began to crystallize, and the letters amassed in the papal offices were differentiated clearly into great and little bulls, according to their style, arrangement and signs of validation. Under Paschal II. the type of the leaden seal affixed to the bulls (representing the heads of the apostles Peter and Paul) was fixed, and the use of Roman minuscule finally substituted for that of the Lombard script.

2. ''Period from Honorius II. to Celestine III. (1124–1108'').—After the reformation and the crusade the papal monarchy existed, and the next step was to consolidate and extend it. This task fell to the popes of the 12th century. Two of them in particular—the two who had the longest reigns—viz. Innocent II. and Alexander III., achieved the widest extension of the power entrusted to them, and in many respects their pontificates may be regarded as a preparation for and adumbration of the pontificate of Innocent III. This period, however, is characterized not only by the thoroughgoing development of the authority of the Holy See, but also by the severe struggle the popes had to sustain against the hostile forces that were opposed to their conquests or to the mere exercise of what they regarded as their right.

In the secular contest, Germany and the imperialist pretensions of its leaders were invariably the principal obstacle. Until the accession of Adrian IV., however, there had been considerable periods of tranquillity, years even of unbroken peace and alliance with the Germanic power. Under Honorius II. the empire, represented by Lothair III. of Supplinburg, yielded to the papacy, and Lothair, who was elected by the clergy and protected by the legates, begged the pope to confirm his election. Before his coronation he had renounced the right, so jealously guarded by Henry V., of assisting in the election of bishops and abbots, and he even undertook to refrain from exacting homage from the prelates and to content himself with fealty. This undertaking, however, did not prevent him from bringing all his influence to bear upon the ecclesiastical nominations. When the schism of 1130 broke out he endeavoured to procure the cancellation of the clauses of the Concordat of Worms and to recover lay investiture by way of compensation for the support he had given to Innocent II., one of the competing popes. This scheme, however, was frustrated by the firmness of Innocent and St Bernard, and Lothair had to resign himself to the zealous conservation of the privileges granted to the Empire by the terms of the concordat. The ardour he had displayed in securing the recognition of Innocent and defending him against his enemies, particularly the anti-pope