The chief reason for such a unanimous agreement of this deliberation in favour of that person was, as I remember, the following. There were formerly in the Roman world between the confines of Gaul and Germany two famous families, one of the Henrys of Waiblingen, the other of the Welfs of Altdorf, the one accustomed to produce emperors, the other great dukes. These, striving in competition frequently with each other, as is usually the case among great men avid for fame, very often disturbed the public peace. Now it happened, doubtless by the will of God, providing for the future peace of his people, that, under Henry V, Duke Frederick, the father of this one, who descended from the family of kings, took to wife the daughter [Judith] of Duke Henry of Bavaria from the other family, and from this union was born the present Frederick. The princes, therefore, considering not only the energy and courage of the aforesaid young man, but also this fact, that as a member of both families, he might be able to bridge the gap between these two walls like a cornerstone, judged that he should be made the head of the kingdom. They recognized how great would be the advantage to the state if such a serious and lasting rivalry between the greatest men of the empire for private gain could be finally set at rest by this opportunity. So it was not out of hatred for Conrad but rather out of consideration for the public good, as we have said, that they preferred to elevate this Frederick rather than the son of Conrad, also named Frederick, who was still a boy. With this consideration and arrangement in mind, the election of Frederick was celebrated.
When the king had bound all the princes who had assembled there in fealty and homage, he, together with a few whom he had chosen as suitable, having dismissed the others in peace, took ship with great joy on the fifth day and, going by the Main and Rhine, he landed at the royal palace of Sinzig. There, taking horse, he came to Aachen on the next Saturday; on the following day, Sunday [March 9th] ... led by the bishops from the palace to the church of the blessed Virgin Mary, and with the applause of all present, crowned by Arnold, archbishop of Cologne, assisted by the other bishops, he was set on the throne of the Franks, which was placed in the same church by Charles the Great. Many were amazed that in such a short space of time not only so many of the princes and nobles of the kingdom had assembled but also that not a few had come even from western Gaul, where, it was thought, the rumour of this event could not yet have penetrated.
I should not omit to tell that, after the sacrament of unction, when the diadem was placed on his head, one of his servants who because of certain serious offences had been cut off from his favour, privately up to this moment, threw himself in the middle of the church at Frederick’s feet, hoping, on account of the joy of this day, to be able to soften his heart from the rigour of justice. The emperor, however, persevering in his previous severity and remaining thus fixed, gave not a little evidence to us all of his constancy, saying it was not out of hatred, but from respect for justice that the man had been excluded from his favour. Nor did this happen without the admiration of many that so much glory could not bend such a young man, equipped as it were with the mind of an old man, from the courage of severity to the weakness of forgiveness. What more need I say? Not the intercession of the princes, not the blandishment of smiling fortune, nor the immediate joy of such a great celebration could help that wretched one; he went forth unheard from the inexorable Frederick.
Nor should I pass over in silence that on the same day in the same church the bishop-elect of Münster, also called Frederick, was consecrated as bishop by the same bishops who had consecrated the king; so that in truth the highest king and the priest believed this to be a sort of prognostication in the present joyfulness that, in one church, one day saw the unction of two persons, who alone are anointed sacramentally with the institution of the old and new dispensations and are rightly called the anointed of Christ.
After the completion of all the things which pertained to the coronation, the prince returned to the privacy of the palace, and having called together the wiser and abler ones among the princes, in consideration of the public good, decided that legates should be sent to the Roman pontiff, Eugenius, to the City [Rome] and to all Italy who should tell of his elevation to the kingship.
From Gesta Friderici I imperatoris, G. Waitz, ed. (Hanover, 1884); trans. J.B.R.
A German Poet’s Attack on the Papacy
WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE
Thirteenth century
KING CONSTANTINE’S FOLLY
King Constantine in folly gave
The Cross, the Crown, the Sacred Stave
That pierced our Lord, all to the Holy See.
The angel mourned his folly so:
“Ah woe, ah woe, ah threefold woe!
For Christendom is now in jeopardy.
I see a subtil poison fall,
Their honey will be turned to gall;
On Man a heavy burden will be laid.”
The princes lose all proper awe;
The highest prince is of all power deprived
By this election which the priests contrived.
Let accusation before God be made;
The clerics are perverting civil law.
It was no falsehood that the angel said!
THE ROMAN SHRINE
Ahi, how Christianlike the pope laughs at our wrongs,
When he recites his triumphs to the Romish throngs.
He boasts of deeds of which he never should have
thought.
He says: “Two Teutons under one crown I have
brought,
So that the great rise up with burning and with wasting.
I herd them with my staff, while ye are casting
Their goods into my coffers; all that they have is
mine.
Their German silver travels to my Roman shrine.
Eat pullets down, ye priests, and drink your wine,
And leave the foolish German laymen—fasting.”
From I Saw the World, trans. I. C. Colvin.
The Seven Electors
ADAM OF USK
Fifteenth century
BUT now as to ... the election of the emperor, and how many and what crowns he has, and by whom he is elected and receives them, and what they mean. There are seven electors, whence these verses:From Mainz and Trier and eke Cologne
Come chancellors for Caesar’s throne.
A steward, the palgrave serves his lord;
And Saxony doth bear the sword.
As chamberlain a marquis bends;
Bohemia’s king the wine cup tends.
On whom these princes’ choice doth fall,
He reigneth overlord of all.
The first crown, which is of iron, in token of valour, shall the archbishop of Cologne give to the elect; the second, of silver, in token of chastity, shall the archbishop of Trier give; the third, of gold, in token of excellence, shall the archbishop of Mainz give, and this last shall the pope, in the confirmation of the elect, place upon his head as he kneels at his feet in token of humility and to do honour to the holy Roman Church, whose vassal he is.
From Chronicle, trans. E. M. Thompson.
A Picture of a Good Feudal King: Louis VI of France
SUGER
Twelfth century
AND so the famous youth Louis, jolly, gracious, and benevolent, to such an extent that he was considered simple by some, now an adult, illustrious, and zealous defender of the paternal kingdom, looked out for the needs of the churches, and, what had not been done for a long time, strove for the security of the clergy, the workers, and the poor....
The noble church of Reims and the churches pertaining to it were suffering from the devastation of their goods by the tyranny of the powerful and turbulent baron Ebles de Roucy and his son Guichard. The more he concerned himself with warlike activities—of such magnitude that once he set out for Spain with an army of a size which was suitable only for kings—the more mad and rapacious he was in carrying out depredations and persisting in spoliation and all kinds of evil.
; Mournful complaints against such a powerful and wicked man had been lodged a hundred times with Lord Philip the King, and now with his son [Louis] twice or thrice. The son, in bitterness, gathered together a modest army of about seven hundred knights chosen from the most noble and valiant barons of France; he hastened to Reims [1102], and in almost two months of severe conflict, he punished the damage done to the churches, depopulated the lands of the aforesaid tyrant and his accomplices, ruined them by fire, and exposed them to plunder. It was an excellent deed, that those who ravaged should be ravaged, and those who tortured should be tortured equally or more. So great was the ardour of the lord and the army that as long as they were there they scarcely ever took any rest, except on Saturday and Sunday, but instead persisted in conflict with lances and swords in hand, or avenged by the ruin of the lands the injuries committed.
They fought there not only against Ebles but against all the barons of those parts whose relationship with the powerful of Lorraine resulted in a strong army of considerable numbers. Meanwhile numerous attempts at peace were made. Since various cares of state and perilous affairs called urgently for the presence of the young lord elsewhere, he, after holding his council, ordered and obtained peace for the churches from the aforesaid tyrant, and having accepted hostages, he made the tyrant confirm it by an oath. Then he dismissed him, thus treated and beaten....
Not less notable was the military aid he bore to the church of Orleans [1103]. Leo, a noble of the castle of Meung, vassal of the bishop of Orleans, was in the process of seizing the greater part of this castle and the lordship of another. Louis conquered him by force, and shut him up in the same castle with many of his men. When the castle was taken, Leo, in a church near his home, erected fortifications and undertook to defend himself. But the strong must yield to the stronger; he was overcome by an intolerable flood of flames and arrows. He was not alone in paying dearly for the long-continued anathema since he himself and many others, about sixty, rolling from the tower as the flames prevailed, were pierced by the points of the lances raised on high and the flying arrows; breathing out their last breath in sorrow, they carried their wretched souls to bell....
Meanwhile as the son progressed each day, so his father, King Philip, each day failed; for after he had abducted the countess of Anjou he did nothing worthy of royal majesty but, transported by his passion for the woman he had carried off, devoted himself to the satisfaction of his desires. Hence he neither took care of the interests of state nor, in his great slackness, did he look after the health of his body which was noble and elegant. Only one thing remained which strengthened the kingdom, that is, the love and fear of his son and successor. When he was almost sixty years old, the king died, breathing his last in the presence of Lord Louis at the castle at Melun-sur-Seine [1108].
At his noble obsequies were present venerable men such as Calo, bishop of Paris, the bishop of Senlis and Adam of Orleans, of blessed memory, the abbot of St. Denis, and many other religious personages. These, bearing the noble corpse of royal majesty to Notre Dame, passed the whole night in celebrating his obsequies. At dawn following the son had the litter, properly adorned with rich cloths and all sorts of funeral ornaments, placed on the shoulders of his principal servitors. With filial affection, as was suitable, now on foot, now on horseback with the barons who were there, he strove weeping to help carry the bier. Thus he showed the marvellous generosity of his soul, for in his whole life, neither in the case of the repudiation of his mother nor in that of the Angevin mistress, did he ever offend his father in any way or seek to upset his authority in the kingdom by any fraud, as other young men are wont to do....
Now the aforesaid Louis, since in his youth he had merited by his generous defence the friendship of the Church, had sustained the cause of the poor and orphans and had tamed tyrants by his valiant courage, with the consent of God was called to the summit of the kingdom, according to the wish of good men, as he would have been excluded, if it had been possible, by the avowed machinations of the evil and impious.
It was decided therefore, according to the advice of the most venerable and wise Ivo, bishop of Chartres, in order to counteract the machinations of the impious, to assemble as rapidly as possible in Orleans and to hasten to carry through completely his elevation to the throne. The archbishop of Sens, Daimbert, invited with his suffragans, to wit, Manassus of Meaux, Jean of Orleans, Ivo of Chartres, Hugh of Nevers, and [Humbert] of Auxerre, arrived, and on the day of the discovery of the holy protomartyr Stephen [August 3, 1108], he anointed Louis with the most holy oil of the unction. After celebrating masses of thanksgiving, he removed the secular sword and girded him with the ecclesiastical sword for the punishment of evil-doers, crowned him with the royal diadem and bestowed on him most devoutly the sceptre and the wand, and by this gesture, the defence of the churches and the poor, and other insignia of the kingdom, with the great approval of the clergy and the people....
Now Louis, king of the Franks by the grace of God, did not lose the habit he had grown used to in his youth, that is, of guarding the churches, protecting the poor and needy, and standing for the peace and defence of the kingdom....
Because the hand of kings is most powerful, by the consecrated right of their office the audacity of tyrants is repressed as often as they see them provoke wars, plunder endlessly at their will, confound the poor, and destroy churches. Thus is checked that licence which, if tolerated, inflames them more madly, like those malign spirits who slaughter the more those whom they fear to lose, destroy those whom they wish to save, and put fuel on the flames that they may devour more cruelly.
So it was with Thomas of Marle, a most abandoned man. While the king was attending the aforesaid and many other wars, Thomas, the devil aiding him because the prosperity of fools is wont to ruin them, had ravaged the regions of Laon, Reims, and Amiens, and he had devoured them like a furious wolf. He did not spare the clergy out of any fear of ecclesiastical punishment nor the people out of any sense of humanity, but killed all and ruined all. He went so far as to seize from the convent of nuns of St. Jean of Laon two of their best manors, to fortify as if they were his own the strong castles of Crécy and Nouvion with a marvellous defence and high towers, and, transforming them into a nest of dragons and a cave of thieves, to expose almost the whole land to unmerciful ravaging and fire.
Exhausted by the intolerable damage done by this man, the Church of Gaul assembled in general council at Beauvais that it might begin there to pronounce against the enemy of its true Spouse, Jesus Christ, a first judgment and a sentence of damnation. The venerable legate of the holy Roman Church, Cono, bishop of Palestrina, greatly moved by the innumerable complaints of the churches, and the sufferings of the poor and orphans, striking low his tyranny by the sword of St. Peter, that is, a general anathema, ungirdled from him, although he was absent, the knightly belt, and removed him by the judgment of all from all honour as criminal, infamous and an enemy to the name of Christian.
The king, incited by the lamentation of the council, moves his army quickly against him, and accompanied by the clergy to whom he was humbly attached, turns toward the strongly fortified castle of Crécy. Thanks to a powerful force of armed men, nay, rather to divine aid, he seizes the castle unexpectedly, storms the impregnable tower as if it were a rustic hut, confounds the criminals, piously massacres the impious, and strikes down without pity those whom he attacks because they were pitiless. You could see the castle as if enveloped in infernal flames, so that you would not differ with the prophecy: “The whole universe will fight for him against the mad.”
Then, powerful in victory, ready to pursue his success, when he had started toward the other castle by name Nouvion, a man approached him who said, “Your highness should know, my lord king, that in that criminal castle live the most wicked of men who are worthy only of hell. It was they, I say, who, when you ordered the commune to be crushed, set fire not only to the city of Laon but also to the noble church of the Mother of God and many others, martyred a
lmost all the nobles of the city, both as cause and punishment because with true faith they tried to help their lord bishop, and, not afraid to put their hands on the anointed of the Lord, they most cruelly murdered the bishop himself, Gauchy, venerable defender of the Church, exposed him nude to the beasts and birds in the square, cut off his finger with the pontifical ring, and together with their vile counsellor Thomas, concerted to occupy your tower to displace you.”
The king, then doubly angered, attacked the wicked castle, broke up these places, full of punishments and sacrilege like hell, dismissing the innocent and gravely punishing the guilty, one alone avenging the injuries of many. Those of the detestable murderers whom he came upon, thirsty for justice, he ordered to be affixed to the gibbet, thus presenting a feeding ground for the rapacity of kites, crows, and vultures, and thus he taught what those deserve who do not fear to put their hands on the anointed of the Lord....
Then he disinherited the detestable Thomas and his heirs in perpetuity of the city [of Amiens].
From Vie de Louis VI le Gros, H. Waquet, ed. (Paris: Champion, 1929); trans. J.B.R.
The Coronation of Richard Lion Heart
ROGER OF WENDOVER
1189
Duke Richard, when all the preparations for his coronation were complete, came to London, where were assembled the archbishops of Canterbury, Rouen, and Treves, by whom he had been absolved for having carried arms against his father after he had taken the cross. The archbishop of Dublin was also there, with all the bishops, earls, barons, and nobles of the kingdom. When all were assembled, he received the crown of the kingdom in the order following: First came the archbishops, bishops, abbats, and clerks, wearing their caps, preceded by the cross, the holy water, and the censers, as far as the door of the inner chamber, where they received the duke, and conducted him to the church of Westminster, as far as the high altar, in a solemn procession. In the midst of the bishops and clerks went four barons carrying candlesticks with wax candles, after whom came two earls, the first of whom carried the royal sceptre, having on its top a golden cross; the other carried the royal sceptre, having a dove on its top. Next to these came two earls with a third between them, carrying three swords with golden sheaths, taken out of the king’s treasury. Behind these came six earls and barons carrying a chequer, over which were placed the royal arms and robes, whilst another earl followed them carrying aloft a golden crown. Last of all came Duke Richard, having a bishop on the right hand, and a bishop on the left, and over them was held a silk awning. Proceeding to the altar, as we have said, the holy Gospels were placed before him together with the relics of some of the saints, and he swore, in presence of the clergy and people, that he would observe peace, honour, and reverence, all his life, towards God, the holy Church and its ordinances: he swore also that he would exercise true justice towards the people committed to his charge, and abrogating all bad laws and unjust customs, if any such might be found in his dominions, would steadily observe those which were good. After this they stripped him of all his clothes except his breeches and shirt, which had been ripped apart over his shoulders to receive the unction. He was then shod with sandals interwoven with gold thread, and Baldwin archbishop of Canterbury anointed him king in three places, namely, on his head, his shoulders, and his right arm, using prayers composed for the occasion: then a consecrated linen cloth was placed on his head, over which was put a hat, and when they had again clothed him in his royal robes with the tunic and gown, the archbishop gave into his hand a sword wherewith to crush all the enemies of the Church; this done, two earls placed his shoes upon his feet, and when he had received the mantle, he was adjured by the archbishop, in the name of God, not to presume to accept these honours unless his mind was steadily purposed to observe the oaths which he had made: and he answered that, with God’s assistance, he would faithfully observe everything which he had promised. Then the king taking the crown from the altar gave it to the archbishop, who placed it upon the king’s head, with the sceptre in his right hand and the royal wand in his left; and so, with his crown on, he was led away by the bishops and barons, preceded by the candles, the cross and the three swords aforesaid. When they came to the offertory of the mass, the two bishops aforesaid led him forwards and again led him back. At length, when the mass was chanted, and everything finished in the proper manner, the two bishops aforesaid led him away with his crown on, and bearing in his right hand the sceptre, in his left the royal wand, and so they returned in procession into the choir, where the king put off his royal robes, and taking others of less weight, and a lighter crown also, he proceeded to the dinner-table, at which the archbishops, bishops, earls, and barons, with the clergy and people, were placed, each according to his rank and dignity, and feasted splendidly, so that the wine flowed along the pavement and walls of the palace.
The Portable Medieval Reader Page 24