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Pope Gregory IV

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Pope
Gregory IV
Bishop of Rome
Miniature of Pope Gregory IV ( c. 840 )
Miniature of Pope Gregory IV ( c. 840 )
Church Catholic Church
Papacy began October 827
Papacy ended 25 January 844
Predecessor Valentine
Successor Sergius II
Orders
Created cardinal 797
by Leo III
Personal details
Born Before 797
Rome, Papal States
Died 25 January 844
Rome, Papal States
Other popes named Gregory

Pope Gregory IV (Latin: Gregorius IV; died 25 January 844) was the bishop of Rome and leader of the Papal States from October 827 to his death on 25 January 844.[1] His pontificate was notable for the papacy’s attempts to intervene in the quarrels between Emperor Louis the Pious and his sons. It also saw the breakup of the Carolingian Empire in 843.

Rise to papacy

The son of a Roman patrician called John, Gregory was apparently an energetic but mild churchman, renowned for his learning.[2] Consecrated a priest during the pontificate of Pope Paschal I, at the time of Pope Valentine’s death in 827, Gregory was the cardinal priest of the Basilica of St Mark in Rome.[3] Like his predecessor, Gregory was nominated by the nobility, and the electors unanimously agreed that he was the most worthy to become the bishop of Rome. They found him at the Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian where, despite his protestations, he was taken and installed at the Lateran Palace, after which he was enthroned as pope-elect sometime in October 827.[4][5] Gregory’s elevation to the papal see is believed to represent a continuation of the attempts to control the local political situation in Rome which had begun during Pope Eugene II’s pontificate.[6]

Gregory's consecration was delayed until 29 March 828, when he received notice of the Emperor Louis the Pious’ approval of his election. This delay was enforced by the imperial envoys, who insisted that the Constitution of 824 expressly forbid the consecration of any pope-elect until the emperor had satisfied himself of the validity of the election.[7] It was said that the emperor reprimanded Gregory for attempting to have himself consecrated before receiving the approval of the emperor.[8] Gregory complied with these demands of imperial supremacy, and in 828 and 829, the pope sent embassies to Louis for unspecified discussions.

In January 829, Gregory was involved in a dispute with Farfa Abbey over the ownership of local monastic land by the Roman church. In a court run by a bishop and a representative of the emperor, and in the presence of Gregory, Abbot Ingoald of Farfa claimed that the Frankish emperors had granted them the lands, and that Popes Adrian I and Leo III had taken possession of the land illegally.[9] The imperial representative made a ruling in favour of the abbey, and that the lands were to be restored to the monastery.[10] Although Gregory refused to accept the ruling, there is no evidence that he managed to get the decision overturned.[11]

Carolingian quarrels

In 817, by a solemn deed, confirmed by Paschal I, Louis had made a division of the empire in favour of his three sons from his first marriage: the future emperor Lothair I, Pepin I of Aquitaine, and Louis the German. Over time, papal dependence on the Carolingian emperor was loosened through the quarrels of Louis the Pious and his sons. Louis’ decision to jettison the agreement of 817 regarding the division of the empire by assigning a kingdom to his youngest son, Charles the Bald, in 829 was criticized by Gregory in a letter to the Frankish bishops.[12] The following year (October 830), after a brief rebellion and reconciliation between Louis and his sons, Gregory declared that Louis’ second wife, Judith, was to be released from the convent where she had been forced to take the veil, and to be returned to Louis.[13]

When the war between father and sons resumed in Easter 833, Gregory was approached by Lothair, seeking his intervention to bring about reconciliation between Lothair and his father. He was convinced to leave Rome and travel up to join Lothair, in hopes that his intervention would promote peace,[14] but in practice this action annoyed the Frankish bishops who followed Louis, who believed that Gregory was actively supporting Lothair. Suspicious of Gregory’s intent, they refused to obey the pope, and threatened to excommunicate him, were he to excommunicate them, and even to depose him as pope.[15] Annoyed by their actions, Gregory's response was to insist upon the papal supremacy, the papacy being superior to the emperor. He stated:

”You professed to have felt delighted when you heard of my arrival, thinking that it would have been of great advantage for the emperor and the people; you added that you would have obeyed my summons had not a previous intimation of the emperor prevented you. But you ought to have regarded an order from the Apostolic See as not less weighty than one from the emperor....The government of souls, which belongs to bishops, is more important than the imperial, which is only concerned with the temporal. Your assertion that I have only come to blindly excommunicate is shameless, and your offer to give me an honourable reception if I should have come exactly in the way the emperor wanted me to is contemptuous. With regards to the oaths I have taken to the emperor, I will avoid perjury by pointing out to the emperor what he has done against the unity and peace of the Church and his kingdom. With regards to the bishops, in opposing my efforts in behalf of peace, what they threaten has not been done, from the beginning of the Church.”[16]

Regardless of this claim, the vast bulk of the Frankish bishops maintained that the pope had no business interfering in the internal affairs of the kingdom, or in expecting the Frankish clergy to follow his lead in such matters. Their position was clear, that the equality of all the bishops outranked the leadership of the pope.[17]

The armies of Louis and two of his sons met at Rotfeld, near Colmar, on 24 June 833. The sons persuaded Gregory to go to Louis's camp to negotiate, and initially Louis refused to treat Gregory with any honour. However, Gregory managed to convince Louis of his good faith, and returned to Lothair to arrange a peace.[18] However, Gregory soon learned that he had been deceived by Lothair. Gregory was prevented from returning to the emperor, while Louis was deserted by his supporters and was forced to surrender unconditionally; Louis was deposed and humiliated at the Campus Mendacii, and Lothair was proclaimed emperor.[19] Following these events, Gregory returned to Rome. A second fraternal quarrel resulted in Louis being restored in 834, but his position was sufficiently weakened that Lothair retained the Kingdom of Italy.

The emperor then sent a delegation to see Gregory, headed by Archbishop Ansgar of Hamburg-Bremen, to question the pope on the events which led to Louis’s removal from the throne by Lothair. Gregory swore an oath that his intentions were honourable, and that he had always sought to achieve a peaceful solution to the conflict between Louis and his sons. Accepting Gregory’s word, the envoys returned to Louis.[20] After this failure in dabbling in imperial politics, Gregory by and large focused his attention for the rest of his pontificate in dealing with internal church matters.[21]

In 836, Lothair, in his role as king of the Lombards, began stripping the possessions of the Roman church. After appealing to Louis, the emperor sent an imperial envoy to investigate the matter. Although Gregory was sick, he managed to advise the envoy of the situation, and asked him to take a letter to the emperor outlining Lothair’s attacks on the Church, which they managed to get past Lothair’s troops at Bologna.[22] Then in 840, with Louis’ death and the accession of Lothair as emperor, war again erupted between the sons of Louis. Gregory made unsuccessful attempts to mediate in the conflict that ensued between the brothers, sending Archbishop George of Ravenna as his representative.[23] According to Prudentius of Troyes, George faithfully tried to achieve his objective, but failed due to Lothair’s refusal to allow George to see Lothair’s brothers. However, according to Andreas Agnellus, George tried to bribe Lothair to make his archbishopric independent of Rome, and was captured at the Battle of Fontenoy.[24] The subsequent Treaty of Verdun in 843 broke up the empire of Charlemagne, with Lothair retaining the imperial title and control of Italy.

Building activities and religious issues

Gregory repaired the Aqua Traiana, which had been damaged during the pontificate of Leo III.[25] Sometime after 841 Gregory rebuilt and fortified parts of the port of Ostia against the attacks of Saracens, renaming it Gregoriopolis.[26] Around the same time he restored the colony of Galeria along the Via Portuensis, while also establishing a new colony, called Draco, along the left bank of the Tiber River, some eleven miles from Rome along the Via Ostiensis. This was the first clear example of land development undertaken by a pope within his own territory.[27]

Gregory contributed to the architectural development of Rome. In 833, Gregory completely rebuilt St Mark’s Basilica in Rome, adorning the walls with Byzantine-style mosaics,[28] as well as a number of other churches which he either repaired or rebuilt. He rebuilt the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica, and within the newly decorated chapel within the basilica he transferred the body of Saint Gregory, and from the Catacombs of Rome, he moved Saint Sebastian, Saint Tiburtius, and Saint Gorgonius.[29] He raised the altar in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and founded a monastery close to the church.[30]

Gregory’s pontificate witnessed the end of the iconoclasm controversy in the Byzantine Empire,[31] while Gregory himself promoted the celebration of the feast of All Saints within the Frankish kingdom on both sides of the Rhine River.[32] Gregory is also known for his appointment of Ansgar as archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen in 832, and as the apostolic legate to the northern and eastern parts of Europe.[33] On 31 March 837 Gregory sent the Pallium to the archbishop of Salzburg; he also sent one to Venerius, the patriarch of Grado, in 828, in support of his claims to have jurisdiction over the bishops of Istria. When a synod awarded jurisdiction to Maxentius, the patriarch of Aquileia, Venerius appealed to Gregory, who supported him. Meanwhile, King Lothair backed Maxentius, who forced the bishops of Istria to obey him, while at the same time ignoring Gregory’s orders to cease.[34] Gregory also supported the candidacy of John IV (bishop of Naples).[35]

Gregory was also asked to arbitrate during his journey to Francia in 833 the case against Aldric of Le Mans, who was being forced out of his see by partisans of Lothair.[36] On 8 July 833 Gregory wrote to the bishops of “Gaul, Europe and Germany” declaring that Aldric had every right to appeal to the pope, and that until the pope had issued a judgement one way or the other, no-one could pass a sentence against him. Further, that this mandate had to be obeyed in order to remain in communion with the Roman church.[37] The letter together with the restoration of Louis allowed Aldric to remain in his see for some time.[38]

Gregory was also asked by emperor Louis’s representative, Amalarius of Metz, to provide an antiphonary for use at church services at Metz, to which Gregory was forced to admit that he had none suitable for the emperor, as he had already given a number to Wala of Corbie, which he had already taken to Francia.[39]

On 25 January 844 Gregory IV died,[6] and was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica. He was succeeded by Sergius II.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope Gregory IV — Elected near the end of 827; died January, 844. When Gregory was born is not known, but he was a Roman and the son of John. Before his election to the papacy he was the Cardinal-Priest of the Basilica of St. Mark, which he adorned with mosaics yet visible. For his piety and learning he was ordained priest by Paschal I. This man, of distinguished appearance and high birth, was raised to the chair of Peter, despite his protestations of unfitness, mainly buy the instrumentality of the secular nobility of Rome who were then securing a preponderating influence in papal elections. But the representatives in Rome of the Emperor Louis the Pious would not allow him to be consecrated until his election had been approved by their master. This interference caused such delay that it was not, seemingly, till about March, 828, that he began to govern the Church.

Throughout the greater part of his pontificate Gregory was involved in the quarrels between Louis and his sons which were to prove fatal to the domination of the Franks. Owing perhaps to a want of political insight or to an over-sympathetic or sanguine temperament, or, it may be, to a want of firmness of character, his efforts to promote domestic peace in the imperial family were not attended either with success or with glory. By a solemn deed, confirmed by Paschal I, Louis had made a division of the empire in favour of the three sons of his first wife, Lothair I, Pepin, and Louis the German (817). But on her death, he married the young and ambitious Judith, and was soon induced by her to devote himself wholly to furthering the interests of their son, afterwards known as Charles the Bald. Charles's half-brothers combined in arms against their father (830), seized and imprisoned him, and compelled him to confirm the Constitution of 817. The brothers, however, soon disagreed among themselves and Louis was restored to power by a diet at Nimwegen, and, by a decision of the pope, to his wife from whom he had been separated by force (Oct., 830). Untaught by experience, Louis continued his policy of favouring his youngest son. The brothers again flew to arms, and the eldest, Lothair (who was ruling Italy), by argument, by deception, and perhaps by gentle pressure, induced Gregory to accompany him across the Alps. The appearance of the pope in the camp of the rebels made it appear that he was in their favour. Hence the bishops who remained faithful to the emperor, suspicious of the pope's good faith, would not come to him when he summoned them to his presence. It was to no purpose that Gregory repelled their accusations. When at length he met Louis himself, he found that Louis also did not trust him. While these negotiations were in progress, Lothair, who was false to everyone, was suborning the allegiance of his father's soldiers. Betrayed in consequence, Louis once again fell into the hands of his sons. Lothair seized the empire, allowed Gregory to return to Rome a sadder and a wiser man, and degraded his father (833). But next year witnessed a second fraternal quarrel, and a second restoration of Louis, who was weak enough to allow Lothair to retain the Kingdom of Italy. The result of his mistaken acts of clemency was not only that he had to protect the pope against Lothair's aggressions but that he had to face another rebellion of one of his sons. In marching to put it down, he died (June, 840).

His death put Lothair in possession of the imperial name. To be emperor in fact, he resolved to crush his brothers by force of arms. Detaining the legate whom Gregory dispatched to try and make peace, Lothair crossed the Alps. The terrible battle of Fontenay (now Fontenoy- en-Puisaye) near Auxerre (841), resulted not only in the defeat of Lothair, but in the practical annihilation of the Frankish people, and in the end of their empire. While the empire was collapsing, the Saracens were pushing forward their conquests. During Gregory's pontificate they possessed themselves of Sicily, and had been invited into Italy to take part in the wars of the petty princes of South Italy. To do what he could for the safety of Rome, the pope fortified the ancient Ostia by the erection of a stronghold called after himself Gregoriopolis. Equally for the benefit of Rome and the "Patrimony of St. Peter", Gregory repaired aqueducts and churches and founded "farm colonies" in the Campagna. He seconded the heroic efforts which St. Anaschar, the Apostle of the North, was making for the conversion of Sweden, authorizing his consecration as the first Archbishop of Hamburg, sending him the pallium, and "before the body and confession of Blessed Peter", giving him "full authority to preach the Gospel" and making him his legate "among the Swedes, Danes and Slavs."

Gregory gave the pallium to the Archbishops of Salzburg, Canterbury, and Grado, and favoured the latter against the encroachments of the Patriarch of Aquileia. He also supported Aldric, Bishop of Le Mans, who got into difficulties through his loyal support of Louis against his rebellious sons. To oblige Louis, Gregory caused some of his ecclesiastics to be trained in music in Rome, and he instructed him to proclaim the observance of the feast of All Saints throughout the empire. Gregory was buried in St. Peter's.

Liber Pontificalis, ed. DUCHESNE, II, 73 sqq; the Lives of Louis the Pious by THEGANUS in Mon. Germ. Hist.; Scriptores, II, and P.L., CVI, and by the ASTHONOMER in Mon. Germ. Hist.; Scriptores, II, and P.L., CIV; the Annals of EINHARD, etc.; the Historiae of NITHARD in P.L., CXV; the works of AGOBARD in P.L., CIV; and the Life of Wala by PASCHASIUS RADBERT in P.L., CXX; see HIMLY, Wala et Louis le Debonnaire; CHEVALLARD, St. Agobard; MANN, Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, II.

References

  1. Back to citation Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Gregory IV". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  2. Back to citation Mann, pg. 190; DeCormenin, pg. 218
  3. Back to citation Mann, pg. 189
  4. Back to citation Mann, pg. 190
  5. Back to citation Hughes, Philip, History of the Church, Vol II (1948), pg. 183
  6. Back to citation occurrence 6.0 Back to citation occurrence 6.1 Levillain, pg. 644
  7. Back to citation Levillain, pg. 644; Mann, pg. 191
  8. Back to citation DeCormenin, pg. 218
  9. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 191-192
  10. Back to citation DeCormenin, pg. 219
  11. Back to citation Mann, pg. 192
  12. Back to citation Mann, pg. 194
  13. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 195-196
  14. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 197-198
  15. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 199–200; DeCormenin, pg. 219
  16. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 201-202
  17. Back to citation Noble, Thomas, The Papacy in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 1 (1995), pg. 584
  18. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 202-203
  19. Back to citation Mann, pg. 203
  20. Back to citation DeCormenin, pg. 220
  21. Back to citation Levillain, pg. 644; Mann, pgs. 204-205
  22. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 205-206
  23. Back to citation Mann, pg. 207
  24. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 207-208
  25. Back to citation Mann, pg. 217
  26. Back to citation Mann, pg. 216; DeCormenin, pg. 219
  27. Back to citation Levillain, pg. 644; Mann, pgs. 217-218
  28. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 189-190
  29. Back to citation Goodson, Caroline, The Rome of Pope Paschal I (2010), pg. 278
  30. Back to citation Mann, pg. 218
  31. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 212-213
  32. Back to citation Mann, pg. 230
  33. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 219-220
  34. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 222-223
  35. Back to citation Mann, pg. 224
  36. Back to citation Mann, pg. 226
  37. Back to citation Mann, pg. 227
  38. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 227-228
  39. Back to citation Mann, pgs. 228-229

Bibliography

  • Curtin, D.P, Four Letters of Gregory IV, Dalcassian (2006)
  • Levillain, Philippe, The Papacy: Gaius-Proxies, Routledge (2002)
  • Mann, Horace K., The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. II: The Popes During the Carolingian Empire, 795-858 (1906)
  • DeCormenin, Louis Marie; Gihon, James L., A Complete History of the Popes of Rome, from Saint Peter, the First Bishop to Pius the Ninth (1857)
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