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Rh alliance with the Papacy was their chief asset; whatever right they had in these parts came to them only from a Papal grant. So under these kings the Pope easily recovered his ancient rights in Southern Italy and Sicily. As far as the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople went, that disappeared with the civil power of the Emperor. The Normans allowed no traffic with Constantinople. Then, since the great schism was just beginning, they also prevented the people of their territories from drifting into that. From the time of the Norman conquest, whatever use of the Byzantine rite may remain, all the Christians are Catholics in communion with the Pope.

Already before the Norman conquest the Western Emperor Otto I (936-973) had promised to restore the Patrimony of the Holy See in Lower Italy and Sicily, if he should have the power. The Norman kings, in their treaties and arrangements with the Popes, came to a friendly agreement about these possessions. Further, under the Normans the Pope used again his ancient right of ordaining the bishops of their kingdom. Paschal II (1099-1118) says that Robert Wiscard and his brother Roger I arranged this. Roger I himself bears witness that the Pope ordains the bishops. Gregory VII (1073-1085) refers to the fact that in his time the bishops of Sicily come to Rome to be ordained. Romuald of Salerno says of the year 1150: "King Roger (II) ordered that the archbishops and bishops of his land be consecrated by Pope Eugene" (III, 1145-1153). But William II of Sicily (1166-1189) wanted the Archbishop of Palermo, Walter (1170-c. 1187), to be ordained by his own suffragans, after the manner of an autocephalous bishop. Pope Alexander (1159-1181) at first protested, but eventually agreed to this. Indeed, from this time the old