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The Jewels of The Papacy (Part III)

"The age recognised as valid this dethronement of its most high-placed
personage; and the first monarch of the Christian world was in truth its
outcast. But Frederick did not forsake himself. He would fain have appeased the
pope and conciliated the age ; but finding both irreconcilable, he resisted and
defied them to the uttermost. He smote the papal league with the scimitar of his
Saracen vassals ; he arrested and imprisoned prelates on their way to the
council of Lyons. At the tidings that the synod had uncrowned him, he recrowned
himself with his own hand. He fought at greater disadvantage and with no greater
success than his ancestors, but he underwent no personal humiliation; he never
humbled himself before the papal foe, like Henry IV. at Canossa, and Frederick
I. at Venice ; to the last he strove stoutly and smote strongly. Frederick died
in 1250, while the fight was raging, a richly endowed, fiercely hated, much
erring and much enduring man. The splendour of his gifts and the greatness of
his fortune were only equalled by the sharpness of his trials and sorrows, while
the bitterness of his foes far exceeded the grievous ness of his sins. The
nurseling and ward of the papacy, he came in for its deadliest hatred - a hatred
such as it has borne to no other individual except perhaps his son Manfred. The
most high-placed and illustrious person of his time was in sore conflict with it
; the chief sovereign of Christendom passed for a heretic or an unbeliever. The
Roman Church made him a bed of thorns in this life and doomed him to a couch of
fire in the life to come. His own and the succeeding generation acquiesced in
the doom. But more distant ages have been more just and generous. The
extravagant hatred and unbounded slander of his papal foes have won him favour
with posterity; and history, while finding much to condemn, finds still more to
admire and compassionate in the emperor Frederick II."

"With him departed the might and majesty of the Holy Roman Empire, but not the
relentless hate of the popes, who pursued his race as fiercely and implacably as
they had persecuted him. The empire ceased to be formidable, and felt itself
vanquished ; powerless competitors enfeebled and degraded it for many years,
from the death of Frederick to the accession of Rudolf of Hapsburg (1250-73). It
no longer defied the popedom ; it no longer lay in the way of the popes. But the
House of Hohenstaufen had still crowns to lose ; its spoliation and extirpation
formed the chief business of the papacy for nearly twenty years. Conrad IV.
succeeded his father Frederick in the empire and the kingdom of Sicily, as
likewise in the implacable hatred of Innocent IV., who plagued him with
slanders, smote him with anathemas, helped to break his heart, rejoiced over his
early death (1254), and despoiled his infant son Conradin of the Sicilian realm,
which was overrun by the papal army... If he (Innocent III) did not transmit all
his vices to his successor, he bequeathed his abhorrence of the House of
Hohenstaufen, now become a papal passion inseparable from the papal throne."
(116)

"But papal hatred would not forego its object ; it turned from the Plantagenets
to the Capets ; disappointed in the royal family of England, it sought a
destroyer of the Hohenstaufens in the royal family of France, and found an exact
instrument in the brother of St. Louis, Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence, a
man signalised by that union of fanaticism, ambition, ability, rapacity and
ruthlessness, which has characterised all the eminent servants of the Roman See,
from Simon de Montfort, the exterminator of the Albigenses, downward… But papal
hate of the House of Hohenstaufen was to find a full 'and exquisite satisfaction
in the blood of an innocent and still nobler victim, in the extirpation of the
whole race. Conradin, son of Conrad and grandson of Frederick II., a gallant boy
of sixteen, left his German home and his foreboding mother, and marched through
Italy at the head of a devoted band of Ghibelin warriors, to reclaim the kingdom
of Sicily from the French usurper whom the papacy had enthroned, and whom lie
encountered at Tagliacozza (1268). A stratagem snatched the victory from the
grasp of the young hero, and made him the captive of Charles of Anjou... But
Charles of Anjou had a very hard heart, and was a thorough papal champion.
Conradin had fought beneath the curse of Rome; the papal anathema sanctified the
natural ruthlessness of Charles, and made of no account the princely birth,
noble qualities, and tender years of Conradin. The kinsmen and courtiers of the
victor pleaded hard for mercy to the imperial boy. The conqueror consulted his
papal patron as to the fate of the youthful captive; Clement approved, if he did
not advise, the bloody course which Charles desired ; the ruthless sanction of
the Vicar of Christ prevailed over the merciful importunity of knights and
barons, and decided the doom of Conradin ; and in the public place of Naples the
headsman spilled the blood of the heroic boy, the last male of the most
illustrious house in Europe (1268)." (117)

"This ruthless deed must be reckoned among the signal triumphs of the popedom.
The conflict which had raged for two centuries between the empire and the papacy
was at last brought to an end, not only by the prostration of the imperial
power, but also by the extirpation of the imperial house. The race which had for
generations sate on the chief throne of Christendom, in which genius and heroism
were hereditary, and which had manifested its great qualities mainly in the
protracted struggle with the popes, was exterminated by the creature and at the
bidding of the Roman pontiff. The last descendant of Henry IV., of Frederick I.,
of Frederick II., perished on a scaffold. Nor was the decapitation of the heroic
boy a single and isolated victory : it formed the crown and consummation of a
series of papal triumphs. The conflict signalised by the shameful scene at
Canossa and the humbling scene at Venice, was closed by the heart-rending scene
at Naples. The contest forms a drama in three acts ; the first act commencing
with the degradation of Henry IV. before Gregory VII. (1077), and ending with
the compromise between Henry V. and Callixtus II. (1122) ; the second beginning
soon after the accession of Frederick Redbeard (1152), and closing with his
humiliation before Alexander III. (1177) ; the third opening with the quarrel
between Otho IV. and Innocent III. (1211), and concluding with the execution of
Conradin with the approbation of Clement IV. (1268). In this tremendous strife
the worldly power, which pretended to be not of this world, showed itself far
more ambitious and grasping, far more reckless and ruthless, than the avowed
power of this world ; it prevailed by reason of its twofold character and
action. A secular power with spiritual pretensions, it appealed to mightier
passions and wielded mightier forces than its simply secular adversary ; it
prevailed likewise through a capital error of that adversary. The empire
acknowledged the spiritual claims of the papacy, and thereby acknowledged its
own inferiority, confessed that it was fighting against a superior power, and
thus fought at a great disadvantage. Defeat has almost always befallen those
combatants of the popedom who have recognised its spiritual claims. France alone
has combined successful resistance to papal encroachments with acknowledgment of
papal authority. The empire vigorously strove, but miserably failed, against the
secular aggressions of the power whose encroachments upon the soul and
conscience it allowed. England, degraded by the baseness of John into a
feudatory realm and treasure-house of the Roman See, stricken, debased, wrung
out and emptied by papal oppression and extortion during the long impotence of
Henry III., ever murmuring and groaning beneath the burden, ever chafing and
striving against the yoke, never effectually strove and entirely prevailed until
she renounced the spiritual sway of the foreign oppressor, and broke the
ecclesiastical yoke of the Roman extortioner. Spiritual revolts have not always
been victories ; but the only complete victories won over Rome have been
spiritual victories. The Roman Church has generally been too strong for the
State, when the strength of the State has not been upholden by the strength of
the soul. In the contest for superiority between the closely related, mutually
recognising, and mutually dependent powers so prominent in the Middle Ages, the
victory must needs remain with the combatant of wider resources, loftier
pretensions, and more unscrupulous character. It is no wonder that the Roman
Church got the better in the struggle with its intimate and its creature, the
Holy Roman Empire." (118)

"The spirit of Gregory X. was not the spirit of the Roman See. Uncongenial
successors oppressively wielded its oppressive supremacy. The power of the
popedom was indeed at its topmost height. The empire was brought low ; the
imperial house was rooted out. The papacy had combined the complete triumph of
its ambition with the full satisfaction of its wrath; it seemed to have at last
realised its ideal - to have gotten the government of the world into its hands.
Kings and princes seemed at the feet of the sovereign pontiff; impotent
aspirants, like Richard of England and Alphonso of Castile, contended for the
tarnished crown of the fallen empire. An exchange of services bound the popedom
and the house of France together. The kingdom of England passed for a vassal
realm of Rome. Souls and nations were alike in bondage ; she claimed the
dominion of both worlds, and had her claim allowed. But this omnipotence was but
momentary. The popedom only reached this topmost height of power to be
straightway hurled from it. Retribution was at hand ; defeat and shame were not
far off. But before the great stroke, the great humiliation, fell upon her, she
had to witness the chastisement of her chief satellite, Charles of Anjou, and
the partial undoing of her latest exploit in the way of giving and taking away
crowns ; she did not remain unsmitten by the memorable vengeance of the Sicilian
Vespers, which burst upon the butcher of Conradin and the tyrant of Naples and
Sicily. The slaughter of the heroic boy and their rightful sovereign dwelt in
the memory of the Sicilians. Fourteen years of heavy and manifold oppression on
the part of Charles and his French instruments added ten thousand bitter
'recollections to that dark remembrance; and on Easter Tuesday, 1282, on the
infliction of a new outrage, and at the sound of the vesper bell, the Sicilians
rose upon their French oppressors, slaughtered eight thousand of them throughout
the island, and made it over to Pedro III. of Aragon, the son-in-law of Manfred,
the heir and avenger of the Hohenstaufens. Sicily was plucked for ever from the
hard grasp of Charles of Anjou and his race. A papal donation was annulled; a
crown taken away and given by the popedom was taken away and given in spite and
in defiance of the popedom." (119)

"The Sicilian Vespers avenged Conradin, broke the heart of Charles of Anjou, and
enraged his papal patrons, who went on heaping crowns and graces on the House of
France and launching curses and crusades against the patriots of Sicily and the
princes of Aragon. But the great mediaeval woe of the papacy was nigh at hand -
a stroke from which it never wholly recovered. The bitterness of the stroke was
enhanced by the birth of the inflictor. It came not from Sicilian patriot or
German Caesar, but from the head of the beloved house of France. The
Hohenstaufens were avenged by the kinsman of their despoiler and destroyer ; the
empire was vindicated, the civil power was victoriously asserted by the chief of
that royal race which had most profited by the exaltation of the papal power.
The popedom was shamed, smitten, and led captive by its ally and darling, the
grandson of St. Louis, the great-nephew of Charles of Anjou, the son of Philip
III., who died on an errand of the Roman See, an ignominious and disastrous
crusade against Pedro of Aragon. Philip the Fair, king of France, was chosen to
trample on the pontiff, to degrade the priesthood, and to bring to an end the
period of papal splendour." (120)

"In his zealous championship of ecclesiastical liberties and immunities, he
forbade the clergy to pay tax or subsidy to the State without leave of the Roman
See. Philip the Fair, ever in need of money, and jealous of the prerogatives of
his crown, took especial offence at this bull as a wrong to his treasury and an
encroachment on his authority, and answered it in kind by a decree which forbade
gold or jewels to be sent out of the kingdom. This cruel thrust against the
papal exchequer was resented by Boniface in a vehement and impassioned bull,
wherein he rebuked the oppressions and exactions of the king against the church;
reproached him with the piety of his ancestors and the favours of the Roman See
towards himself and his house ; denounced his measures and reviled his advisers;
threatened him with his own wrath, and prophesied the vengeance of Heaven. After
this endeavour to impoverish each other, prince and pontiff paused awhile: each
had much business and many enemies on his hands; each made some concessions to
the other... Certain feudal rights and worldly possessions were in dispute
between Philip the Fair and some of the French bishops. Boniface sternly
interposed, and commanded the pastors of the Church to hold fast to every
worldly advantage against the monarch of this world. The king pursued his
claims, arrested and brought to trial a papal agent whose impetuous mediation
had made matters worse. The pontiff forbade this trial of a priest by laymen ;
summoned an assembly of the French clergy at Rome ; hinted at excommunication;
and set forth the king's transgressions in the famous bull, 'Ausculta, fili.'
Philip and the lawyers who surrounded him at once boldly and wisely widened the
dispute. He stood forward as the champion of the laity against the priesthood,
of the nation against a foreign usurper. He appealed to the people as no other
French monarch had ventured to do, and convened the Estates General of the Realm
- barons, bishops, and burghers - to vindicate the national dignity and
independence against the Roman See. In their ears the pontiff was fiercely
denounced; in their presence the obnoxious bull was burned. France and Rome, so
long in close alliance, now stood in open hostility to each other. Philip laid
hands upon the persons and property of the prelates who attempted to obey the
papal summons to Rome. Boniface multiplied lofty pretensions and fierce threats,
and declared the king excommunicated in company with his obsequious lawyers.
They replied by accusing the pope of usurpation, simony, and heresy before an
assembly of French bishops and barons, and by recommending his arrest and
deposition. Boniface brandished his thunderbolts, and prepared to smite the king
with a sentence of special excommunication and dethronement. But Philip smote
more swiftly and more strongly. On the very day before the papal bolt was to be
hurled - on September 7, 1303, a day destined to be especially disastrous to the
popedom - a band of armed men, hired by William de Nogaret, the devoted agent of
Philip and the public accuser of Boniface, and headed by Sciarra Colonna, the
deadly enemy of the pontiff, marched into Anagni, a little town not far from
Rome, the birthplace, favourite residence and summer retreat of the pope, with
cries of `Death to Boniface : long live the king of France,' broke into the
papal palace, plundered the papal treasury, and heaped insult and outrage upon
the captive pontiff. For three days he remained in the hands of his enemies ; on
the fourth day the people of Anagni rose, put to flight the captors, and
delivered the captive. But Philip's work was effectually done. The victim bore
back to Rome a shaken frame and a broken heart. Wrath, shame, and wounded pride
threw him into a fever, which carried him off just a month after the outrage,
October 11, 1303.
The terrible scene at Anagni closes the third act of the papal drama, brings to
an ignominious end the period of papal splendour and omnipotence so strikingly
opened more than two centuries before by the strange scene at Canossa, the
abasement of the emperor Henry IV. before Gregory VII. The kingdom of this world
which professed itself a kingdom not of this world, received its full
development and attained its perfect consummation, marched on from triumph to
triumph, vanquished every foe, subjugated every power, perpetrated every crime.
Every tendency of the time either ministered to the papacy or was mastered by
it; every event fought for it. The crusades, which almost exactly covered the
period of its supremacy, not a little contributed thereto. The mighty men of the
time were either its servants or its victims. Robert Guiscard, William the
Conqueror, Lanfranc, Anselm, Bernard, Becket, Simon de Montfort the elder, and
Charles of Anjou did battle for the Roman Church and prevailed. Henry IV.,
Abelard, Arnold of Brescia, Frederick Redbeard, and Frederick II., resisted her
and were crushed. The papacy trampled on everything that stood in its way,
whether public power or individual passion. Imperial might and national spirit,
the strength of princes and the heart of man, genius, valour, love, subtle
thought and earnest faith, all went down before the Roman Church… The wrongs of
the Hohenstaufens, the wrongs of the Albigenses, the wrongs of the trampled
State, of the tortured heart, of the stricken conscience, found an avenger in
Philip the Fair. Through his triumph over the long triumphant popedom this
unheroic and unwarlike king of France rises into historic greatness, and takes
rank among the mighty men and master spirits of the world. He smote the papacy
in the fulness of its strength ; he humbled it in the noontide of its splendour.
Strangely, too, this daring and terrible blow was struck with perfect impunity.
The outrage at Anagni was deeply abhorred and fiercely execrated; but it
remained unavenged; it provoked no resistance, no reaction. The horror which it
aroused still breathes and burns in the sublime execration of Dante :

'I see the lily in Anagni enter,
And in His vicar Christ new captive led,
I see him sore bemocked a second time
(The vinegar and gall again outpoured),
And among living robbers done to death.
I see the other Pilate too fell-souled
For this to glut him ; but he reaches forth
Within the temple his lawless, greedy grasp.
O my Lord God, when shall I be made glad
. With sight of that dear vengeance which Thy wrath
Stores up delighted in Thy hiding-place ?

The blow struck at Anagni not only remained unavenged and unreturned, but was
altogether successful. It brought the papacy low, not only for a while but for
ever; it was indeed a mighty stroke, from which the papacy never wholly
recovered." (121) From which the papacy never recovered on a purely temporal
plane.

The inconsistency of Dante's position lies not so much in the fact that a
Ghibelline put a curse on the very king who put back in his place, "the eight
circle of hell", his own public enemy number one, Boniface VIII, since it can be
argued that the enemy of one's enemy is not necessarily one's friend, as in the
fact that Philip IV's act is compared negatively to Ponce Pilate turning
Jesus-Christ over to the Jews, when Ponce Pilate, as a subordinate of Tiberius,
is regarded positively as an instrument of God, within the context of the theory
of redemptive punishment developed by the Florentine author in Mon., 2-II-I-5.
(122)

A paradox closely related to this inconsistency lies precisely at the heart of
the failure of Ghibellinism. J. Evola rightly notes that, "Although the
Hohenstaufen laid claim to the supernatural character of the empire, they failed
to reintegrate in their representative the primordial function of the rex
sacrorum, even though the Church had usurped the title of pontifex maximus that
was proper to the Roman emperors", (123) but does not explain thoroughly why the
Hohenstaufen failed ; why "… No matter how powerful and prideful, no medieval
monarch ever felt capable of performing the function of the rite and the
sacrifice... that had become the legacy of the clergy." (124) His observation
that "On both sides there were compromises and more or less conscious
concessions to the opposing principle" (125) is far from getting to the bottom
of the failure, let alone that it is hard to see exactly what compromises and
concessions were made in principle by the papacy ; let alone that, when one sees
Ghibellinism and Guelphism, the imperial theory of power and the papal theory of
power, as two opposing and irreconcilable principles, one sees double, as is
clear from the political and historical considerations mentioned above and will
be shown even more clearly in the following comments.

In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that "The Ghibelline
emperors rose up against papal Rome in the name of Rome, thus upholding again
the superior idea of the Sacrum Imperium against both the merely religious
spirituality of the Church and her hegemonic claims." (126) The Ghibelline
emperors did rise against papal Rome, yet not in the name of Rome, but in that
of a Christianised Rome, let alone that, already by the reign of Frederick II,
the struggle had become almost entirely political and was increasingly confined
to Italian politics.

The whole Ghibelline discourse was entirely grounded in Christian tenets, just
as Dante's analysis of the Roman Empire was predicated on mere Christian beliefs
; for Dante, Rome was Christian ab urbe condita, it just was not aware of it ;
it is written in black and white every two pages in the Convivio, whose
pro-imperial stances are carefully selected by J. Evola in `Revolt against the
Modern World, while the Florentine author's indecisions and contradictions are
appropriately pointed out in `The Mystery of the Grail'. If "... it behoves that
there should be one, as shipmaster, who, considering the diverse conditions of
the world, and ordaining the diverse and necessary offices, should have the
universal and indisputable office of commanding the whole. And this office is
called by pre-eminence empire, without any qualification, because it is the
command of all the other commands. And hence he who is appointed to this office
is called emperor because he is the commander who issues all the commands"
(127), the fact remains that, to Dante, the "shipmaster" - an actual Christian
simile for the ruler -, like the pope, derives his power and authority directly
from God, the supreme reference for all Ghibellines, and that the "shipmaster"
is there "for the perfection of the universal religious order of the human
race". There is no evidence that Dante ever questioned the spiritual authority
of the papacy, and his whole work shows that criticism of papal conduct does not
imply any disbelief in the spiritual power of the papacy. (128) Actually, even
in temporal matters, the authority of the emperor has its limits : "There are
many others which seem to have some relation to the imperial art ; and herein
those were and are deceived who believe that in such matters an imperial
pronouncement carries authority. For instance, as to `manhood,' we are not to
accept any imperial judgment on the ground of its being the emperor's. So let us
render to God that which is God's." (129)

At best, Dante's work can be seen as supportive of the theory of joint
sovereignty. This theory, to which the Empire held and which was asserted by the
emperors, notably by Frederick I and Frederick II, "while the popedom, as became
the kingdom of this world calling itself a kingdom not of this world, sought to
realise the theory of its own sole sovereignty", (130) was itself a product of
the Christian political thought, a fac-simile of the Gelasian theory that
"Sacerdotium and Imperium are independent spheres, each wielding the one of the
two swords appropriate to itself, and thus the Emperor no less than the Pope is
Vicarius Dei" ; (131) that sacerdotal authority and royal power, both
established by God, are distinct, but of equal power and dignity, except that
one is a bit more equal than the other… Thus, the Empire and its defenders had
only "a half-hearted doctrine", (132) that is to say, that of the two powers, to
oppose the claims of the partisans of ecclesiastical power. As already outlined,
"Ever since the days of Pope Gelasius I (492-6), the Church herself had accepted
the view of a strict dualism in the organisation of society and, therefore, of
the theoretical equality between the ecclesiastical and the secular organs of
government." (133)

There were two weak points in Ghibellinism. The first weak point was the
above-mentioned doctrine, since "it was rather a thesis for academic debate than
a rallying cry for the field of battle. Popular contests are for victory, not
for delimitation of territory. And its weakness was apparent in this, that while
the thorough-going partisans of the Church allowed to the Emperor practically no
power except such as he obtained by concession of or delegation from the Church,
the imperial theory granted to the ecclesiastical representative at least an
authority and independence equal to those claimed for itself, and readily
admitted that of the two powers the Church could claim the greater respect as
being entrusted with the conduct of matters that were of more permanent
importance.

Moreover, historical facts contradicted this idea of equality of powers. The
Church through her representatives often interfered with decisive effect in the
election and the rejection of secular potentates up to the Emperor himself : she
claimed that princes were as much subject to her jurisdiction as other laymen,
and she did not hesitate to make good that claim even to the excommunication of
a refractory ruler and - its corollary - the release of his subjects from their
oath of allegiance. Finally, the Church awoke a responsive echo in the hearts of
all those liable to oppression or injustice, when she asserted a right of
interposing in purely secular matters for the sake of shielding them from wrong;
while she met a real need of the age in her exaltation of the papal power as the
general referee in all cases of difficult or doubtful jurisdiction.

Thus the claims of each power as against the other were not at all commensurate.
For while the imperialists would agree that there was a wide sphere of
ecclesiastical rule with which the Emperor had no concern at all, it was held by
the papalists that there was nothing done by the Emperor in any capacity which
it was not within the competence of the Pope to supervise." (134)

Even in its mildest form, the theory of the Church in the `Middle Ages' was a
trompe l'oeil, since its champions "found a reconciliation of the two spheres to
consist in the absorption of the secular by the ecclesiastical. The one
community into which, by the admission of all, united mankind was gathered, must
needs be the Church of God. Of this Christ is the Head. But in order to realise
this unity on earth Christ has appointed a representative, the Pope, who is
therefore the head of both spheres in this world. But along with this unity it
must be allowed that God has sanctioned the separate existence of the secular no
less than that of the ecclesiastical dominion. This separation, however,
according to the advocates of papal power, did not affect the deposit of
authority, but affected merely the manner of its exercise. Spiritual and
temporal power in this world alike belonged to the representative of Christ.

But the bolder advocates of ecclesiastical power were ready to explain away the
divine sanction of temporal authority. Actually existing states have often
originated in violence. Thus the State in its earthly origin may be regarded as
the work of human nature as affected by the Fall of Man : like sin itself, it is
permitted by God. Consequently it needs the sanction of the Church in order to
remove the taint. Hence, at best, the temporal power is subject to the
ecclesiastical : it is merely a means for working out the higher purpose
entrusted to the Church. Pope Gregory VII goes farther still in depreciation of
the temporal power. He declares roundly that it is the work of sin and the
devil. `Who does not know,' he writes, `that kings and dukes have derived their
power from those who, ignoring God, in their blind desire and intolerable
presumption have aspired to rule over their equals, that is, men, by pride,
plunder, perfidy, murder, in short by every kind of wickedness, at the
instigation of the prince of this world, namely, the devil ?' But in this he is
only re-echoing the teaching of St. Augustine ; and he is followed, among other
representative writers, by John of Salisbury, the secretary and champion of
Thomas Becket, and by Pope Innocent III. To all three there is an instructive
contrast between a power divinely conferred and one that has at the best been
wrested from God by human importunity." (135)

The desecration of the State, which is inherent in these views, is echoed in the
illustrations used by many popes to define the relation between what they were
not afraid to call the auctoritas and the potestas : "Gregory VII, at the
beginning of his reign, compares them to the two eyes in a man's head. But he
soon substitutes for this symbol of theoretical equality a comparison to the sun
and moon, or to the soul and body, whereby he claims for the spiritual
authority, as represented by the soul or the sun, the operative and illuminating
power in the world, without and apart from which the temporal authority has no
efficacy and scarcely any existence. An illustration equally common, but
susceptible of more diverse interpretation, was drawn from the two swords
offered to our Lord by His disciples just before the betrayal. It was St.
Bernard who, taking up the idea of previous writers that these represented the
sword of the flesh and the sword of the spirit respectively, first claimed that
they both belonged to the Church, but that, while the latter was wielded
immediately by St. Peter's successor, the injunction to the Apostle to put up in
its sheath the sword of the flesh which he had drawn in defence of Christ,
merely indicated that he was not to handle it himself. Consequently he had
entrusted to lay hands this sword which denotes the temporal power. Both swords,
however, still belonged to the Pope and typified his universal control. By
virtue of his possession of the spiritual sword he can use spiritual means for
supervising or correcting all secular acts. But although he should render to
Caesar what is Caesar's, yet his material power over the temporal sword also
justifies the Pope in intervening in temporal matters when necessity demands.
This is the explanation of the much debated Translatio Imperii, the transference
of the imperial authority in 800 A.D. from the Greeks to the Franks. It is the
Emperor to whom, in the first instance, the Pope has entrusted the secular sword
; he is, in feudal phraseology, merely the chief vassal of the Pope. It is the
unction and coronation of the Emperor by the Pope which confer the imperial
power upon the Emperor Elect. The choice by the German nobles is a papal
concession which may be recalled at any time. Hence, if the imperial throne is
vacant, if there is a disputed election, or if the reigning Emperor is
neglectful of his duties, it is for the Pope to act as guardian or as judge ;
and, of course, the powers which he can exercise in connection with the Empire
he is still more justified in using against any lesser temporal prince." (136)

This process of desecration of the State is put into a metaphysical perspective
in `Revolt against the Modern World' (and, later, in `Men among the Ruins, too)
: "... the Church eventually disputed and regarded as tantamount to heresy and a
prevarication dictated by pride that doctrine of the divine nature and origin of
regality ; it also came to regard the ruler as a mere layman equal to all other
men before God and his Church, and a mere official invested by mortal beings
with the power to rule over others in accordance with natural law. According to
the Church, the ruler should receive from the ecclesiastical hierarchy the
spiritual element that prevents his government from becoming the civitas
diaboli. Boniface VIII, who did not hesitate to ascend to the throne of
Constantine with a sword, crown, and scepter and to declare : `I am Caesar, I am
the Emperor,' embodies the logical conclusion of a theocratic, Southern upheaval
in which the priest was entrusted with both evangelical swords (the spiritual
and the temporal) ; the imperium itself came to be regarded as a beneficium
conferred by the pope to somebody, who in return owed to the Church the same
vassalage and obedience a feudal vassal owes the person who has invested him.
However, since the spirituality that the head of the Roman Church incarnated
remained in its essence that of the `servants of God,' we can say that far from
representing the restoration of the primordial and solar unity of the two
powers, Guelphism merely testifies to how Rome had lost its ancient tradition
and how it came to represent the opposite principle and the triumph of the
Southern Weltanschauung in Europe. In the confusion that was beginning to affect
even the symbols, the Church, who on the one hand claimed for herself the symbol
of the sun vis-à-vis the empire (to which she attributed the symbol of the
moon), on the other hand employed the symbol of the Mother to refer to herself
and considered the emperor as one of her `children.' Thus, the Guelph ideal of
political supremacy marked the return to the ancient gynaecocratic vision in
which the authority, superiority, and privilege of spiritual primacy was
accorded to the maternal principle over the male principle, which was then
associated with the temporal and ephemeral reality." (137)

It is clear that Philip the Fair cannot possibly be held responsible for
initiating such a process, as argued by R. Guenon and, later, by J. Evola, who
went so far as to call the French king a "sinister" character and as to apply to
him, following indiscriminately in the footsteps of generations of misinformed
historians, the nickname of "Counterfeiter" (138) the bishop of Palmiers once
saddled him and Boniface VIII echoed, infuriated as the pope was with the
anti-papal policy of the French king. Having been debased by Philip, the papacy
found nothing better than to accuse him - the fair - of abasement. In
substituting clerics for laymen in the French government and administration in
order to break the dependence of the kingdom on the clergy for legal and
accounting services, he only followed the example of Frederick II, who had
founded the University of Naples to train lawyers, accountants, and civil
servants for Sicily, following in this a trend set by the Roman Curia during the
late twelfth century (139) ; in France, Louis IX was actually the first to
introduce legists into the parliament, which he set up as a court of justice. It
was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. The bishops, who were the
officials and the counsellors of the Carolingian kings, the clerics, with whom
these filled their chancellery, were gradually replaced under the Capetians by
subordinates who, if they were laymen, helped nonetheless disseminating more or
less consciously a law which was only nominally `Roman', bearing instead the
brand mark of a Christian worldview. To Carolingian kings, to impregnate their
subjects with Christian morality was the main goal of administration : the
so-called revival of classical Roman law in the twelve century was part of the
plan to transform and shape society thoroughly and totalistically according to
Christian standards. Just as the Holy Roman empire was a caricature of the
Augustean empire, grounded as it was on Christian dogmas, so the law that was
spread by the legists in western Europe under the label of `Roman law'
originated in a Biblical view of law, whose foundations are at odds with the
governing principles of classical Roman law. Without going into detail, theology
absorbed law in the beginning of the Christian era, degrading it to the level of
morality. The ius, as defined by Aristotle as fair sharing, just due, `juste
partage', `suum ius cuique tribuere', was boiled down to the Torah's notion of
`Law' as a code of conduct, thus opening the door to the notion of `individual
rights' in Europe (140). Given their Christian background, it is not surprising
that the doctrine of the early legists focused on the three following points :
the emancipation of the individual, the full equality in the family, the
liberation of the land. (141)

While the Church played a pivotal role in the desacralisation of the organic
State, Philip, no matter how fair and wise it was of him to tax the clergy on
the secular property it held, to create a border tax on goods imported into
France, to confiscate the assets and property of the papal bankers and of the
Jews who had despoiled the kingdom, to forbid all export of currency and
precious metals from France, did not make it sacred again. For, in the last
analysis, he had the same points of reference as his predecessors since Clovis
and as all grandees in Europe since Constantine. "... there seems no question of
his belief that he held the kingdom directly from God, and that he thought
himself answerable only to God for its governance. The great ordonnance of
reform issued on 18 March 1303, proclaimed that the kingdom `had always been
subject to God's sway, hand and protection, alone'... Philip seems to have come
to believe in his calling, transcending the limits of secular rulership." (142)
Likewise, two centuries before, "While Gregory asserted that as head of the
church he had authority over all Christians (even kings), Henry argues that he
is king through the divine will of God and thus that only God - not the pope -
could sit in judgment of a king. Henry uses the church's early history to
illustrate his argument. (143) From the moment that all European kings, all
European emperors, without exception, met the pope on his own ground and
brandished Christian beliefs in their struggle against the papacy, this struggle
was doomed to fail.

If "we find in the Carolingian ideal the principle according to which the king
is supposed to rule over both clergy and the people on the one hand," this
principle is still reasserted in Christian terms, and not from a Roman
perspective, as the Carolingian king saw himself as a surrogate of God on earth,
and not as a new Augustus or even less as a new Tiberius. "It is significant
that Charles regarded himself - and not the Pope - as the head of the God-state,
and trod forth as the highest lord, not only in secular things but also in
purely church matters." (144) By the same token, Otto III entitled himself
"servant of Jesus Christ," "servant of the Apostles", considering the pope as
one of his optimates. His theocratic notion of kingship is reflected in the
imagery of his reign and, more generally, of all the emperors of the Ottonian
dynasty. (145)

The fundamentally Judeo-Christian conception of kingship and of the imperial
dignity displayed by the Ghibellines was thus the second weak point in their
theory and in their action ; "during the Middle Ages, the dignity of the kings
themselves had an almost priestly nature", and the fact that kingship was then
"established through a rite that differed only in minor detail from episcopal
ordination" (146) is only a mere political crystallisation of the
Christianisation of the minds. Nothing can best illustrate the loss of all true
Nordic points of reference in the German nobility than the fact the Saxons, less
than four centuries after having been decimated, subjugated and Christianised,
became the supporters of the papal party in Germany. The evidence thus shows
that it is a misconception to state that "The Holy Roman Empire was both a
restauratio and a continuatio, considering that its ultimate meaning - beyond
any external appearance, compromise with contingent reality, and often limited
awareness and various dignity of the individuals who represented its idea - was
that of a renewal of the Roman movement toward an ecumenical `solar' synthesis."
(147)

Because Ghibellinism was not rooted deeply enough in the non-dualistic Roman
principles of authority to be able to pursue "the subjection of spiritual
authority to temporal powers, but rather up-held, vis-à-vis the exclusivist
claim of the Church, a value and a right for the State, different from those
that are proper to an organization with a merely human and material character" ;
because it actually acknowledged the papacy as the bearer of a `spiritual
authority' and stooped so low as to settle for crumbs by accepting to be
confined to the administration of temporal affairs, it was ultimately overcome
and rooted out. Had Philip subjugated the Church and dechristianised France in
the name of the Roman principles of auctoritas and potestas, he would have only
dealt with Christianity the way ancient Rome dealt with the "hegemonistic
attempts of Etruscan and sacerdotal elements or similar forces", (148), and,
generally speaking, with the alien and adulterating proto-Christian cults
through which the heterogeneous and hostile anti-Aryan element sought to
infiltrate the Romanitas.

To understand why what he considered normal in the case of ancient Rome he found
abnormal and even "diabolical" in that of the `Middle Ages', his claim that
Christianity was rectified to a certain extent by Germanic and Roman influences
of Germanic or of Roman origin in the course of time must be taken into account,
and so must the caveats it is filled with. It is argued without further ado that
"Catholicism developed through (a) the rectification of various extremist
features of primitive Christianity" ; it is remarked upon half-heartedly that
"Catholicism developed through (b) the organization of a ritual, dogmatic, and
symbolic corpus beyond the mere mystical, soteriological element", but not that
the `Roman' Catholic ritual owes far more to Semitic aesthetics than it does to
Roman rites, nor that the Roman tradition is as devoid of dogma and doctrine as
the Nordic tradition ; as to "(c) (149) the absorption and adaptation of
doctrinal and organizational elements that were borrowed from the Roman world
and from classical civilization in general", leaving aside these "organizational
elements", of which we have already spoken, referring to the fact that, by the
fourth century, the Church had developed a system of government based on the
Roman constitutional model, taking shape of its government and copying names,
offices and methods ; leaving aside the influence that Pauline patriarchalism
cannot but have played in the formation of the Church hierarchical system (150),
as regards these "doctrinal elements", the spirit of modernity which swept
through Thomism can be seen in the theological sphere (151) and, more
importantly, in the political as well as in the legal realm.

First, if Aquinas' Christian aristotelianism rejects the Augustinian view that
the State is God's punishment for `original sin' in favour of the Greek
philosopher's conception of the State as a political community for the good life
of citizens, he distanced himself from the latter, for whom citizenship is
strictly ethnically-defined in the best Aryan tradition, by viewing the
`citizen', in the worst tradition of Stoicism, as a `koinonikon', that is, as a
citizen of the whole inhabited world. Concomitantly, the Aristotelian concept of
common good was counterfeited along the same universalistic lines : it no longer
referred to an organic, and, therefore, racial community, to a koinonia
politike, as a community of interest and of spirit within an ethnic City-State
but, as in Paul, who had already hijacked this Greek term, to an intimate union
between man and his fellow creatures, or between man and God, to the mutual
fellowship of believers, irrespective of race, ethnicity and sex. The
contradiction in terms that all groups of people can have common interests did
not fail to be resolved by a theological sleight of hand, by the
all-encompassing argument that God is the common good.

Then, "against the conception of the traditional medieval king, Aquinas offered
`political government'(regimen politicum). `Political government' pertains to a
situation in which the powers of the ruler are circumscribed according to the
laws of the state. Aquinas' argument that a mixture of political government and
regal government would be the most effective is full of democratic potential,
highlighting a conflict between ascending and descending forms of government."
(152), since "The ascending theme of government and law holds that the law
creating power is located in the people" (153), and, here, the `people' is no
longer conceived of as Senatus Populusque Romanus or polis, nor even as citizens
of a political unit, but as the `congregation of the faithful' or as "nothing
but the congregation of men", under God's leadership. "The political life is,
for Aquinas, necessary in order to sustain human life, and is thus established
as a part of God's creation. However, by emphasizing the need to sustain the
political life in order to ensure human life and thus enable humans to live
according to the will of God, Aquinas marginalizes all human difference… We must
all be of the same type of human to live in Aquinas' world of Christian natural
law, whereas for Aristotle, people need to be different in order to be
discriminated against in order to enable politics. Whereas Aristotle establishes
differences for political life, Aquinas does not." Due to a universalistic
conception of natural law which, as was seen above, does not owe anything to
Roman classical law, "Aquinas destroys the idea that difference is necessary for
political life." (154)

What is also full of democratic potential in Aquinas is his ethics. While it is
true that "Aquinas did not (and could not) conceive of an individual with innate
rights, organic to the individual person and there was no self/other
construction for Aquinas. Individuals for Aquinas are not autonomous subjects,
they exist as a part of a whole", the fact remains that this whole is an
abstract, inorganic whole, made up of groups and of individuals of very diverse
racial and cultural backgrounds whose only link is a mere belief. Inorganic
communities, as showed by M. Weber, are the breeding ground for individualism.

Whereas the early Christian attitude towards the State (155) was that of the
"pure negation (and nothing more)" (156) which is typical of anti-tradition, it
did not take long and much for the Church Fathers to infuse a
counter-traditional element into it, denying "any paramount duty of loyalty to
the state, and appealed to a higher loyalty to another fatherland." (157)
Clearly, "Nothing is more foreign to us than the state. One state we know, of
which all are citizens - the universe". (158) The actual counterfeit of the
concept of State along Judeo-Christian lines was achieved by Aquinas and his
disciples.

Whatever was borrowed by Christianity from what was intrinsically Aryan in Rome
and, more generally, in the Greco-Roman civilisation was given a Judeo-Christian
twist in the process, a Judeo-Christian twist which made it unrecognisable to
the untrained eye and apparently fooled the Germans, as soon as they were
exposed to these unfaithful, deceitful borrowings.

"The Germans, since the times of Tacitus... appeared to be very similar to the
Achaean, paleo-Iranian, paleo-Roman and Northern-Aryan stocks that had been
preserved, in many aspects (including the racial one), in a state of
`prehistoric' purity. The Germanic populations just like the Goths, the
Longobards, the Burgundians, and the Franks were looked down upon as barbarians
by that decadent `civilization' that had been reduced to a juridical
administrative structure and that had degenerated into `Aphrodistic' forms of
hedonistic urban refinement, intellectualism, aestheticism, and cosmopolitan
dissolution. And yet in the coarse and unsophisticated forms of their customs
one could find the expression of an existence characterized by the principles of
honor, faithfulness, and pride. It was precisely this `barbaric' element that
represented a vital force, the lack of which had been one of the main causes of
Roman and Byzantine decadence." (159) These `young races' "were young only
because of the youth typical of that, which still maintains contact with the
origins. These races descended from the last offshoots to leave the Arctic seat
and that therefore had not suffered the miscegenation and the alterations
experienced by similar populations that had abandoned the Arctic seat much
earlier, as is the case with the paleo-Indo-European stocks that had settled in
the prehistoric Mediterranean." (160) Besides their ethos, "The Nordic-Germanic
people… carried in their myths the traces of a tradition that derived
immediately from the primordial tradition." (161) Their view of the world,
permeated "with ideals and with figurations of gods who were typical of `heroic'
cycles", (162) was also closely akin to ancient Romans'.

Their contact with the Christianised Roman world produced a certain synergy. The
new elements introduced by the Germans, the most important of which were
political and institutional, merged with what the Church had borrowed from Rome
in terms of governing structures and of legal institutions. The ethical notions
of the Germans, as stressed by J. Evola, were also decisive in the shaping of
the civilisation of the `Middle-Ages', with its "virile spirit, its hierarchical
structure, its proud antihumanistic simplicity..." (163) It is correct to say
that "... both the idea of Roman universalism and the Christian principle, in
its generic aspect of affirmation of a supernatural order, produced an awakening
of the highest vocation of Nordic-Germanic stocks ; both ideas also contributed
to the integration on a higher plane and to the revivification in a new form of
what had often been materialized and particularized in them in the context of
traditions of individual races," (164) provided that it is kept in mind that
this `awakening', this `revivification', was oriented and channelled by the
papacy to serve its own interest and purpose. Simply put, by an author who
clearly did not realise how true his statement was, "The settlement of the
Teutonic tribes was not merely the introduction of a new set of ideas and
institutions to combine with the old, it was also the introduction of fresh
blood and youthful mind, the muscle and the brains which were in the future to
do the larger share of the world's work." (165)

"The fact that during the period in which they appeared as decisive forces on
the stage of European history these stocks lost the memory of their origins, and
that the primordial tradition was present in those stocks only in the form of
fragmentary, often altered, and unrefined residues," may not have prevented
"them from carrying as a deep, inner legacy the possibilities and the acquired
Weltanschauung from which `heroic' cycles derive", (166) but it definitely
hindered them from defending "the imperial idea against the Church and to
restore to new life the formative vis of the ancient Roman world." (167) The
incapacity of the Germanic element to defend the imperial idea against the
Southern influences carried by the Church and, worse still, their yielding to
these influences, can be ascribed precisely to this obscuration and to the
corresponding weakening of the related human type ; the Germanic ethos, far from
manifesting itself in its true and pure form, as it did, for example, in the
Spartan and Patrician type, lacked plainness ; incidentally, no matter how
hardened Philip IV's self-restrained nature, how softened his frugality, were by
his religious devotion, this ethos is more visible in the Capetians than in the
Ottonians and in the Hohenstaufens." No matter how filled with a sense of
honour, a sense of justice, with brotherly affection and good-will, the German
noble of the `Middle Ages' may still have been, his idea of honour, of justice,
of brotherhood, of fides, was biased by the Christian values he came to be
skilfully exposed to. The Christianisation of the Germanic ethos will be
explored later. For the time being, it is necessary to try to account for the
fact that, at the times the Nordic man came in contact with the already
Christianised European world, the Nordic man was no longer what he used to be -
for the fact that it was only subconsciously that he could assume his legacy -
in short, for this darkening, of which the fact that "the supernatural element
became obscured by secondary and spurious elements of the myth and the saga, as
did the universal element contained in the idea of Asgard-Mitgard, the `center
of the world'" (168) is not a cause, but, at best, (169) a consequence or
symptom. The cause is to be found elsewhere. Los is wrong in assuming that the
early Teutons were a pure race, and so is J. Evola in asserting that "These
races descended from the last offshoots to leave the Arctic seat and that
therefore had not suffered the miscegenation and the alterations experienced by
similar populations that had abandoned the Arctic seat much earlier." (170) As a
mater of fact, anthropological and archaeological research has shown
conclusively that "At the beginning of the local Iron Age, a new people, bearing
a Hallstatt type of culture, entered northwestern Germany and Scandinavia. These
invaders were of the usual central European Nordic type associated in earlier
centuries with the Illyrians. Through mixture with the local blend of
Megalithic, Corded, and Borreby elements, these newcomers gave rise to a special
sub-type of Nordic which was characterized by a larger vault and face, a heavier
body build, and a skull form on the borderline between dolicho- and mesocephaly.

The Germanic tribes that wandered over Europe during the period of migrations
belonged essentially to this new type. Exceptions were the Alemanni and Franks,
who, in southwestern Germany, assumed a Keltic physical guise, which they spread
to Belgium, France, and Switzerland, countries already familiar with the Kelts
in person." (171)

There is no way a people of Nordic stock could have taken seriously the
teachings of the Church, its woolly theory of power, its gynaeco-theocratic
conception of kingship, its oriental vanities, its egalitarian, abstract,
understanding of law, its dogmas and its doctrine, its "Levantine Syrian
demonry", (172) hadn't it been previously contaminated physically, mentally and
spiritually by extra- and anti-Aryan influences.

(1) Gill, T. H., The Papal drama : A historical essay. London : Longmans, Green,
and Co, 1866, pp. 1-3.
(2) Frank., T., Race Mixture in the Roman Empire, AHR 21, 1916, p. 708.
(3) Evola, J., Revolt against the Modern World. Vermont: Inner Traditions
International, 1995 p. 288.
(4) Horsley, A. B., "The History," in Peter and the Popes. Provo, UT : Religious
Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989, p. 43.
(5) Ibid. p. 44.
(6) Manning, H. E., The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Second
edition. London : Burns & Lambert, pp. 11-12.
(7) http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id95.html
(8) Guenon, R., Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power. Hillsdale, NY :
SophiaPerennis, 2001.
(9) Gummere, F. B., Germanic Origins : A Study in Primitive Culture. New York :
C. Scribner's sons, 1892, p. 277.
(10) http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id48.html
(11)
http://thebasilica.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/on-the-medieval-catholic-background-\
of-the-reformation-%E2%80%9Ctwo-kingdoms%E2%80%9D-doctrine-ii-gelasian-dualism/

(12) Tierney, B., The Crisis of Church & State, 1050-1300 : With selected
documents. University of Toronto Press, 1964, p. 16
(13) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 9-11.
(14) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 15-16.
(15) Deanesly, M., A History of the Medieval Church, 590-1500. Routledge.:
London. 1989, p. 83-84. First published in 1925 by Methuen & Co. Ltd.
(16) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 16.
(17) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 16-17.
(18) Schutz, H., The Carolingians in Central Europe, their History, Arts, and
Architecture : A Cultural History of Central Europe, 750-900. Brill Academic
Publishers, 2004, p. 27.
(19) Schutz, H., op. cit., p. 30.
(20) Tierney, B., op. cit. p. 17.
(21) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 20.
(22) Tierney, B., op. cit. p. 17.
(23) Schutz, H., op. cit., p. 38.
(24) Barbero, A., Charlemagne. University of California Press, 2004, p. 20-21.
(25) Brissaud, J., A History of French Public Law. London, 1915, p. 74.
(26) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 20-21.
(27) Ibid., p. 21.
(28) Ibid., p. 22.
(29) This interpretation of the coronation of Charlemagne ties up with that of
G. Breton, which was pointed out in message 1407 : "The reluctance of Charles to
assume the imperial title is ascribed by Eginhard to a fear of the jealous
hostility of the Easterns, who could not only deny his claim to it, but might
disturb by their intrigues his dominions in Italy. Accepting this statement, the
problem remains, how is this reluctance to be reconciled with those acts of his
which clearly show him aiming at the Roman crown ? An ingenious and probable, if
not certain solution, is suggested by a recent historian, who argues from a
minute examination of the previous policy of Charles, that while it was the
great object of his reign to obtain the crown of the world, he foresaw at the
same time the opposition of the Eastern Court, and the want of legality from
which his title would in consequence suffer. He was therefore bent on getting
from the Byzantines, if possible, a transference of their crown ; if not, at
least a recognition of his own: and he appears to have hoped to win this by the
negotiations which had been for some time kept on foot with the Empress Irene.
Just at this moment came the coronation by Pope Leo, interrupting these
deep-laid schemes, irritating the Eastern Court, and forcing Charles into the
position of a rival who could not with dignity adopt a soothing or submissive
tone. Nevertheless, he seems not even then to have abandoned the hope of
obtaining a peaceful recognition. Irene's crimes did not prevent him, if we may
credit Theophanes, from seeking her hand in marriage. And when the project of
thus uniting the East and West in a single Empire, baffled for a time by the
opposition of her minister AEtius, was rendered impossible by her subsequent
dethronement and exile, he did not abandon the policy of conciliation until a
surly acquiescence in rather than admission of his dignity had been won from the
Byzantine sovereigns Michael and Nicephorus." Bryce, P., Holy Roman Empire.
London : MacMillan and Co, 1866, p. 58-59.
(29) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 25-26.
(30) Schaff, P., History of the Christian church, Volume 5, Part 1. Hendrickson
Publishers, 1985, p. 254.
(31) Tierney, B., op. cit., p. 18.
(32) Schaff, P., op. cit., p. 252-53.
(33) Brissaud, J., op. cit., p. 76.
(34) Evola, J., op. cit. p. 287.
(35) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 27.
(36) http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/chapter167.html - "...
on ne vit jamais l'acte de cette donation : et ce qui est plus fort, on n'osa
pas même en fabriquer un faux."
(37) Bryce, P., op. cit., p. 99-101.
(38) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 27-29.
(39) Ibid., p. 34.
(40) Ibid., p. 40.
(41) Ibid., p. 38.
(42) Ibid., pp. 133-35.
(43) Ibid., p. 140.
(44) Barraclough, G.,The Crucible of Europe : the Ninth and Tenth Centuries in
European History. University of California Press, 1976, p. 118.
(45) Bryce, P., op. cit., pp. 125-26.
(46) "in reality, the most likely inspiration for the mass execution of Verden
was the Bible". Barbero, A., op. cit., p. 47.
(47) Goldberg, E. J., Popular Revolt, Dynastic Politics, and Aristocratic
Factionalism in the early Middle Ages : the Saxon Stellinga Reconsidered,
Speculum, Vol. 70, No. 3. (July 1995) p. 476.
(48) Ibid., p. 477.
(49) Ibid., p. 489.
(50) Ibid., p. 478.
(51) Fletcher, R. A., The Barbarian Conversion : from Paganism to Christianity.
University of California Press, 1999, p. 215-216.
(52) Bryce, P., op. cit., pp. 132.
(53) Ibid., pp. 155-57.
(54) Zimmermann, W., A Popular History of Germany, from the earliest Period to
the present Day. New York : H. J. Johnson, p. 850.
(55) Wolfram, H., Conrad II, 990-1039 : Emperor of Three Kingdoms. The
Pensylvania State University, 2006, p. 251. First published in Germany as Konrad
II, 990-1039 : Kaiser dreier Reiche, C.H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung,
Munich, 2000.
(56) Ibid., p. 853.
(57) Ibid.
(58) Ibid., pp. 869-70.
(59) Ibid., pp 870.
(60) Ibid., pp. 872-73.
(61) Ibid., pp. 874.
(62) Ibid., pp. 876.
(63) Ibid.
(64) Zimmermann, W., op. cit., p. 887.
(65) Gill, T. H., op. cit., pp. 42-3.
(66) Zimmermann, W., op. cit., p. 888.
(67) Ibid., p. 889.
(68) Ibid., p. 890.
(69) Ibid., p. 901.
(70) Gill, T. H., ibid., p. 44.
(71) Zimmermann, W., op. cit., p. 931.
(72) von Rank, L., History of the Popes : their Church and State, in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. New York : William H. Collyer, 1847, p.
16-17.
(73) Zimmermann, W., ibid., p. 963.
(74) Ibid., p. 961.
(75) Ibid., pp. 963-64.
(76) Ibid., pp. 964.
(77) Ibid., pp. 966.
(78) Ibid.
(79) Evola, J., op. cit., p. 360.
(80) Zimmermann, W., op. cit., p. 965.
(81) Gill, T. H., op.cit., p. 55.
(82) Ibid. p. 56.
(83) Ibid. p. 57.
(84) Zimmermann, W., op. cit., p. 992.
(85) Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 46.
(86) ibid., p. 48.
(87) Ibid., p. 49.
(88) Ibid., p. 49.
(89) Ibid.
(90) Ibid., pp. 49-50.
(91) Ibid., pp. 50.51.
(92) Bryce, P., op. cit., p. 163.
(93) Zimmermann, W., op.cit., p. 1020. "... Pope Nicolas I (860), still
completely involved in Augustinian - that is, Magian - lines of thought, had
dreamed of a Papal democracy which was to stand above the princes of this world,
and from 1059 Gregory VII with all the prime force of his Faustian nature set
out to actualize a papal world-dominion under the forms of a universal
feudalism, with kings as vassals. The Papacy itself, indeed, under its domestic
aspect, constituted the small feudal State of the Campagna, whose noble families
controlled the election of popes, and which very rapidly converted the college
of cardinals (to which the duty was entrusted from 1059 on) into a sort of noble
oligarchy.
But under the broader aspect of external policy Gregory VII actually obtained
feudal supremacy over the Norman states of England and Sicily, both of which
were created with his support, and actually awarded the Imperial crown as Otto
the Great had awarded the tiara. But a little later Henry VI of Hohenstaufen
succeeded in the opposite sense; even Richard Cceur-de-Lion swore the vassal's
oath to him for England, and the universal Empire was on the point of becoming a
fact when the greatest of all popes, Innocent III (1198-1216) made the papal
overlordship of the world real for a short time. England became a Papal fief in
1113 ; Aragon and Leon and Portugal, Denmark and Poland and Hungary, Armenia and
the recently founded Latin Empire in Byzantium followed." Spengler, O., The
Decline of the West. London : George Allen & Unwin ltd, 1966, pp. 373-74.
(94) Zimmermann, W., op. cit., pp. 1024-25.
(95) Ibid., p. 1032.
(96) Ibid., p. 1033.
(97) Ibid., p. 1036.
(98) See, for instance, E. Troeltsch, Die Absolutheit des Christentums und die
Religionsgeschichte : und zwei Schriften zur Theologie. Berlin ; New York, De
Gruyter, 1998 ; Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen, Tubingen
: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr, 1912.
(100) Ibid., p. 1038-39.
(101) Ibid., p. 1039-41.
(102) Ibid., p. 894. The curse of the Church was one of the various theological
weapons which were then available to the papacy. See message 1407.A papal curse
had miraculous effects : "The exploits of the Normans were the marvels of the
time. Conquerors of Southern Italy with wonderful rapidity and against
tremendous odds, they aroused the fear and hate of all their neighbours by their
astonishing valour and extraordinary rapacity. A confederacy was formed against
them with Pope Leo IX. at its head. In 1053 the pontiff went forth to battle
against them, saw his numerous army utterly discomfited by a little band of
these matchless warriors at Civitella, and won from his defeat and captivity
honours and advantages such as the most splendid victories seldom bring. The
victorious Normans knelt in shame and sorrow before their vanquished captive,
accepted their own conquests as papal fiefs, and became tributaries of the
defeated Roman See, which thus strangely acquired the sovereignty of Naples and
Sicily. The vicar of Christ was not only a king and a king-maker, but became a
feudal lord. Thirteen years afterwards another and a still more memorable
victory of the Normans brought scarcely less gain and glory to the popedom than
did this unfortunate overthrow." In order to be able to understand this
incredible, not to say miraculous, outcome, it should be pointed out that,
before the battle, Leo IX had pronounced the curse of the Church against the
Normans before the battle." Gill, T. H., op. cit., p. 45.
(103) Zimmermann, W., op. cit., p. 1042.
(104) Ibid.
(105) Ibid.
(106) Ibid., p. 1048.
(107) Ibid.
(108) "In all his most important acts he was the mouthpiece of popular opinion".
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7343/pg7343.html
(108) Ibid. pp. 1048-49.
(109) Ibid. p. 1049.
(110) Gill., T.H., op. cit. p. 70.
(111) Ibid., p. 71-72.
(112) Ibid., p. 79.
(113) Ibid.
(114) Ibid., p. 85-86.
(115) Evola, J., op. cit. p. 304.
(116) Gill, T.H., op. cit., p. 93.
(117) Ibid. pp. 95-96.
(118) Ibid. pp. 97-98.
(119) Ibid. p. 100.
(120) Ibid. p. 102.
(121) Ibid. pp. 104-08.
(122) See also Paradiso, VI, 90.
(123) Evola, J., op. cit. p. 297.
(124) Ibid.
(125) Ibid., p. 296.
(126) Ibid., p. 312-13.
(127)
http://ia600404.us.archive.org/12/items/convivioofdantea00dantiala/convivioofdan\
tea00dantiala.pdf
- p. 243. Convivio IV is quoted in Heathen Imperialism, p. 66.
(128) Havely, N. R., Dante and the Franciscans : Poverty and the Papacy in the
Commedia. Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 184.
(129)
http://ia600404.us.archive.org/12/items/convivioofdantea00dantiala/convivioofdan\
tea00dantiala.pdf
- p. 273.
(130) Gill., T.H., op. cit., p. 49.
(131) Medley, D.J., The Church and the Empire : Being an Outline of the History
of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304. Rivingtons : London, 1910, p. 5.
(132) Ibid.
(133) Ibid.
(134) Ibid., pp. 6-7.
(135) Ibid., pp. 2-3.
(136) Ibid., pp. 4-5.
(137) Evola, J., op. cit., pp. 287-89.
(138) Col. Borelli de Serres, L., Les Variations monetaires sous Philippe le Bel
et les sources de leur histoire. Paris, Picard et fils, 1902. This extensive
study, the first and the only one to date to examine exhaustively all the
available sources on the monetary policy of Philip IV, demonstrates
conclusively, with a Swiss precision and the metronomic rigour of a Scottish
accountant, that "there is no indication, nor any material evidence, of
counterfeiting as such in the documents, quite the opposite."
http://members.multimania.nl/Numis10/PDF/Borrelli.pdf
(139) See Robinson, I.S., The Papacy - 1073-1198. Cambridge : Cambridge
University Press, 1992.
(140) On the distortion of the classical idea of natural law, or `objective
right', into that of `natural rights' in the `Middle Ages', see the writings of
genius, unfortunately not translated into English yet, but often discussed by
fellow historians of law in the Anglo-Saxon Academia, of Michel Villey.
Well-read, including in Juvenal, he remarked aptly that the ius "was to be sewn
up in a sack of vipers and thrown into the Tiber."
(141) Bardoux, A., L'Influence des legistes au moyen age. Paris, Auguste Durand,
Librairie, 1859, p. 19.
(142) Laity, Laicisation and Philip the Fair of France, Reynolds, E.A.R., in
Law, Laity, and Solidarities : Essays in Honour of Susan Reynolds. Manchester
University Press, p. 203, 2001. E. Renan's remarkably well-documented study on
the religious policy during the reign of Philip IV leaves no doubt as to the
deep piety of the king and the sincerity with which he took seriously his role
of defender of the Church.
http://ia700609.us.archive.org/22/items/tudessurlapol00rena/tudessurlapol00rena.\
pdf

(143) Morris, C., Western Political Thought : Plato to Augustine, Volume 1.
Longmans, 1967. p. 196.
(144) Los, F.J., The Franks, A Critical Study in Christianisation and
Imperialism. Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Incorporated, 1940, p. 61.
(145)
http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth200/politics/med_images_power.htm\
l

(146) Evola, J., Men Among the Ruins. Rochester, Vt. : Inner Traditions, 2002,
p. 206.
(147) Evola, J., The Mystery of the Grail. Rochester, Vt. : Inner Traditions,
1997, p. 120
(148) http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id14.html
(149) Evola, J., Revolt against the Modern World, p. 289.
(150) Dumais, A., Richard, J., Ernst Troeltsch et Paul Tillich : pour une
nouvelle synthese du christianisme. Laval, Les Presses de l'Universite, 2002, p.
66.
(151) http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id40.html
(152)
http://independent.academia.edu/PeterCritchley/Papers/813188/Thomism_in_Politics
- p. 9).
(153) Ibid.
(154) Baron, I. Z., Justifying the Obligation to Die : War, Ethics, and
Political Obligation with Illustrations from Zionism. Lexington Books, 2009, p.
63.
(155) In ancient Rome, "'Virtus' signified strength of character, courage,
prowess, manly steadfastness. It was connected to `vir', that is to say, man as
such, and not `man' in a generic and naturalistic sense. In modern language, it
has assumed an essentially moralistic meaning, often associated with sexual
prejudice, so much so that Vilfredo Pareto coined the term `virtuismo' (the
irresistible urge, often exclusively verbal, to redeem the world. N. T. E.) to
refer to the Puritan and sexophobic bourgeois morality. Generally speaking, a
`virtuous person' means something quite different from what, for example,
expressions such as the following one, with its rather effective reiteration,
meant : `vir virtute praeditus' (literally, `a man endowed with valour' : `a man
of valour'. N. T. E.). This difference often becomes an opposition. Indeed, a
strong, proud, fearless, and heroic soul is the opposite of what is meant by a
`virtuous person' in the modern conformist and moralist sense." (Lo sfaldamento
delle parole (The Watering Down of Words), in L'Arco e la Clava) No matter the
Aristotelician veneer of Aquinas' views, `virtus' was and could not but be
understood in a moralistic sense by a Dominican priest, whose ethical system was
based upon the Christian notion "that God and religious values are primary, and
that true goodness is to be measured in terms of an ultimate finality, reasoned
by man's natural intellect but fully possessed only on the basis of the
Christian faith." (http://www.ewtn.com/library/SPIRIT/MEANVIR.TXT) It is only a
short step from the subjectivity inherent in morality to the subjective concept
of right, a corollary of internationalism and individualism, when morality is
the ultimate point of reference of a doctrine, of a system of thought.
(156) "But there was in Christianity an element of hostility towards the state
which none of the other new religions contained. While they might lead to a
neglect of the state religion by the greater interest excited in the new faith,
Christianity insisted upon the entire abandonment of the national worship, not
as an inferior religion but as an actual and particularly heinous sin…
Christianity was a vast, organized defiance of the law. It vehemently denounced
the national religion as a deadly sin." Adams, G. B., Civilization During the
Middle Ages, Especially in Relation to Modern Civilization. New
York-Chicago-Boston : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894, p. 46-47.
(157) Guenon, R., The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, p. 260.
(158) Adams, G. B., op. cit.
(159) In Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis. London : Loeb Classical
Library, Wm. Heinemann, 1931.
(160) Evola J., op. cit., p. 290-91.
(161) Ibid. p. 291.
(162) Ibid. p. 290.
(163) Ibid. p. 293.
(164) Ibid. p. 309
(165) Adams, G. B., op. cit., p. 90.
(166) Evola J., op. cit., p. 291.
(167) Ibid., p. 290.
(168) Ibid., p. 294.
(169) At best, since most of the myths and legends of the pre-Christian Nordic
mythology were recorded and handed down to us by Christian scholars, and early
lore was purged or reconfigured by them in the process. While it is often too
hastily assumed that myths such as the Ragnarok and the Valhalla are largely the
outcome of an imitation of the Judgment Day and the New Jerusalem respectively,
a Christian influence on their shaping cannot be ruled out. In any case, they
both seem to have developed in the Viking age.
(170) Evola J., op. cit., p. 291.
(171) http://www.theapricity.com/snpa/chapter-VI6.htm ; see Shore, T. W., Shore,
L. E., Origin of the Anglo-Saxon race : a study of the settlement of England
and the tribal origin of the Old English people rigin of the Anglo-Saxon race :
a study of the settlement of England and the tribal origin of the Old English
people. London : E. Stock, 1906, p. 109.
"As regards the ancient brown race or races of North Europe, there can be no
doubt of their existence in the south-east of Norway and in the east of
Friesland. There can be no doubt about the important influence which the old
Wendish race has had in the north-eastern
parts of Germany in transmitting to their descendants a more brunette complexion
than prevails among the people of Hanover, Holstein, and Westphalia, of more
pure Teutonic descent." "the Welsh annals mention black Vikings on the coast, as
if they were men of unusual personal appearance. There is another old word used
by the Anglo-Saxons to denote black or brown-black the word sweart. The personal
names Suart and Sueart may have been derived from this word, and may have
originally denoted people of a dark-brown or black complexion." (ibid., p. 112)
"It is possible some of these dark Vikings may have been allies or mercenaries
from the South of Europe, where the Norse made conquests." (ibid., p. 115) As
odd as it may seem, there are ancient Saxon and Anglo-Saxon coins bearing the
image of an individual with Negroid traits
(http://www.nok-benin.co.uk/Imagenok/graphics/Canterb_coin_med.jpg
http://www.nok-benin.co.uk/Imagenok/graphics/Saxon_Negcoin_med.jpg)
http://emperornatie.blogspot.com/2011/07/black-freising-koning-and-british.html
contains materials of an extremely shocking nature for the average European
racist who believes that it is only a few decades ago that extra-Europeans have
become a danger for the White race and that racial mixing is a relatively recent
phenomenon, materials which the Black supremacists who publish them do not
realise in the slightest how conspicuously, how radically they boomerang on
their self-righteous rhetoric of self-victimisation, on their Jeremiadic
discourse.
Speaking of the under-man, see L. Stoddard's work.
http://ia600300.us.archive.org/11/items/revoltagainstciv00stoduoft/revoltagainst\
civ00stoduoft.pdf

(172) Rosenberg, A., The Myth of the Twentieth Century, Noontide Press, 1982, p.
29.









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