Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/91

 SILVESTER 75 as they have to be pieced together from the letters of Gerbert and the hints of Richer or the later annalists, there is no need to enter here. Gerbert's policy is to be identified with that of his metropolitan, and was strongly influenced by gratitude for the benefits that he had received from both the elder Ottos. According to M. Olleris's arrangement of the letters, Gerbert was at Mantua and Rome in 985. Then followed the death of Lothaire (2d March 986) and of Louis V., the last Carolingian king, in May 987. Later on in the same year Adalbero crowned Hugh Capet (1st June) and his son Robert (25th December). Such was the power of Adalbero and Gerbert in those days that it was said their influence alone sufficed to make and unmake kings. The archbishop died 23d January 989, having, according to his secretary's account, designated Gerbert his successor before his decease. Notwithstanding this, the influence of the empress Theophania secured the appointment for Arnulf, a bastard son of Lothaire. The new prelate took the oath of fealty to Hugh Capet and persuaded Gerbert to remain with him. When Charles of Lorraine, Arnulf's uncle, and the illegitimate son of Louis D'Outremer, sur- prised Rheims in the autumn of the same year, Gerbert fell into his hands and for a time continued to serve Arnulf, who had now gone over to his uncle's side. He had, however, returned to his allegiance to the house of Capet before the fall of Laon placed both Arnulf and Charles at the mercy of the French king (c. 30th March 991). Then followed the council of St Basle, near Rheims, at which Arnulf confessed his treason and was degraded from his office (17th June 991). In return for his services Gerbert was elected to succeed the deposed bishop. The episcopate of the new metropolitan was marked by a vigour and activity that were felt not merely in his own diocese but as far as Tours, Orleans, and Paris. Mean- while the friends of Arnulf appealed to Rome, and a papal legate was sent to investigate the question. As yet Hugh Capet maintained the cause of his nominee and forbade the prelates of his kingdom to be present at the council of Mouzon, near Sedan (June 2, 995). Notwithstanding this prohibition Gerbert appeared in his own behalf. The events of the next few years are somewhat obscure. Council seems to have followed council, but with uncertain results. At last Hugh Capet died in 996, and, shortly after, his son Robert married Bertha, the widow of Odo, count of Blois. The pope condemned this marriage as adulterous ; and Abbo of Fleury, who visited Rome shortly after Gregory V.'s accession, is said to have procured the restoration of Arnulf at the new pontiff's demand. We may surmise that Gerbert left France towards the end of 995, as he was present at Otto III.'s coronation, May 21, 996. Somewhat later he became Otto's instructor in arithmetic, and had been appointed archbishop of Ravenna before May 998. Early in the next year he was elected pope (April 999), and took the title of Silvester II. In this capacity Gerbert showed the same energy that had characterized his former life. He is generally credited with having fostered the splendid vision of a restored empire that now began to fill the imagination of the young emperor, who is said to have confirmed the papal claims to eight counties in the Ancona march. Writing in the name of the desolate church at Jerusalem he called upon the warriors of Christendom to arm themselves in defence of the Holy City, once " the light of the world," but now fallen so low. Thus he sounds the first trumpet-call of the crusades, though almost a century was to pass away before his note was repeated by Peter the Hermit and Urban II. 1 1 This letter, even if spurious as now suspected, is found in the 11th-century Leydeii MS., and is therefore anterior to the first crusade. Nor did Silvester II. confine himself to plans on a large scale. He is also found confirming his old rival Arnulf in the see of Rheims ; summoning Adalbero or Azelmus of Laon to Rome to answer for his crimes ; judging between the archbishop of Mainz and the bishop of Hildesheim ; besieging the revolted town of Cesena ; flinging the count of Angouleme into prison for an offence against a bishop ; confirming the privileges of Fulda abbey ; granting charters to bishoprics far away on the Spanish mark ; and, on the eastern borders of the empire, erecting Prague as the seat of an archbishopric for the Slavs. More remarkable than all his other acts is his letter to St Stephen, king of Hun- gary, to whom he sent a golden crown, and whose kingdom he accepted as a fief of the Holy See. It must, however, be remarked that the genuineness of this letter, in which Gerbert to some extent foreshadows the temporal claims of Hildebrand and Innocent III., has been hotly contested, and that the original document has long been lost. All Gerbert's dreams for the advancement of church and em- pire were cut short by the death of Otto III., 4th February 1002 ; and this event was followed a year later by the death of the pope himself, which took place 12th May 1003. His body was buried in the church of St John Lateran, where his tomb and inscription are yet to be seen. A few words must be devoted to Silvester II. as regards his attitude to the Church of Rome and the learning of his age. He has left us two detailed accounts of the proceedings of the council of St Basle ; and, despite his reticence, it is impossible to doubt that he was the moving spirit in Arnulf's deposition. On the whole it may be said that his position in this question as to the rights of the papal see over foreign metropolitans resembled that of his great predecessor Hincmar, to whose authority he constantly appeals. But it is useless to seek in his writings for any defini- tion of the relationship of these powers laid down with logical pre- cision. He is rather the practised debater who will admit his opponent's principles for the moment when he sees his way to moulding them to his own purposes, than the philosophical states- man who has formulated a theory from whose terms he will not move. Eoughly sketched, his argument is as follows. Koine is indeed to be honoured as the mother of the churches ; nor would Gerbert oppose her judgments except in two cases (1) where she enjoins something that is contrary to the decrees of a universal council, such as that of Nice, or (2) where, after having been once appealed to in a matter of ecclesiastical discipline and having re- fused to give a plain and speedy decision, she should, at a later date, attempt to call in question the provisions of the metropolitan synod called to remedy the effects of her negligence. The decisions of a Gregory or a Leo the Great, of a Gelasius or an Innocent, prelates of holy life and unequalled wisdom, are accepted by the universal church ; for, coming from such men, they cannot but be good. But who could recognize in the cruel and lustful popes of later days, in John XII. or Boniface VII. , "monsters, as they were, of more than human iniquity," anything else than "Anti- christ sitting in the temple of God and showing himself as God ? " Gerbert pro'ceeds to argue that the church councils admitted the right of metropolitan synods to depose unworthy bishops, but contends that, even if an appeal to Rome were necessary, that appeal had been made a year before without effect. This last clause prepares us to tind him shifting his position still further at the council of Causey, where he advances the proposition that John XVI. was represented at St Basle by his legate Seguin, archbishop of Sens, and that, owing to this, the decrees of the latter council had received the papal sanction. Far firmer is the tone of his later letter to the same archbishop, where he contends from, his- torical evidence that the papal judgment is not infallible, and encourages liis brother prelate not to fear excommunication in a righteous cause, for it is not in the power even of the successor of Peter " to separate an innocent priest from the love of Christ." Besides being the most distinguished statesman Gerbert was also the most accomplished scholar of his age. But in this aspect he is rather to be regarded as the diligent expositor of other men's views than as an original thinker. Except as regards philo- sophical and religious speculation, his writings show a range of interest and knowledge quite unparalleled in that generation. His pupil Richer has left us a detailed account of his system of teaching at Rheims. So far as the triviuni is concerned, his text-books were Victorinus's translation of Porphyry's Isagoge, Aristotle's Categories, and Cicero's Topics with Manlius's Commentaries. From dialectics he urged his pupils to the study of rhetoric ; but, recognizing the necessity of a large vocabulary, he accustomed them to read the Latin poets with care. Virgil, Statius, Terence, Juvenal, Horace,