Sources for Chartism: Merlin 5th November 1839

Merlin - 5th November, 1839 - Chartist Insurrection at Newport - Total Defeat of the Insurgents - Upwards of 20 Killed and a Large Number Wounded

We have this day to perform the most melancholy duty that ever devolved upon us as journalists and we write with the most intense feelings of regret.

The mania of Chartism which has been produced and actively cherished in this country amongst the great body of the working classes by selfish designing and profligate demagogues has appallingly raged; and the blood of many infatuated wretches has been spilt in an insurrectionary struggle. We have elsewhere in the present number of the Merlin, as well as upon many former occasions, expressed our opinions on the monstrous delusion of what the plunderers of the people, enemies of social order artfully call the "Peoples Charter"; and we now proceed to the sad details of the fatal consequences which have resulted to some of the ill-fated insurgents who have been lured from honest industry and have harkened to the voice of their betrayers.

On Saturday and Sunday last reports had come that the Chartists of the Hills were preparing for an attack on Newport and that in the event of success they intended to march to Monmouth for the liberation of Vincent and the other Chartist prisoners confined in the jail of that town. From the frequency and vagueness of such reports for some weeks little importance (generally speaking) was attached to these rumours until Sunday when Thomas Philips Junior Esquire, Mayor of Newport obtained information to which some credence was attached that an insurrectionary movement had been determined on in the Chartist Lodges. Some well-informed from the manufacturing districts stated that the "Rise" was to have taken place on the preceding Tuesday but was deferred to Sunday night or early Monday morning; that the disaffected had been possessing themselves of arms and that they had sent scouts to Newport to ascertain the state of preparation in which the town would be placed by the authorities. The Mayor from the first moment of serious alarm adopted every precautionary measure which firmness, correct judgement and indefatigable exertion could accomplish in the time and under the circumstances. He swore in a large number of special constables from amongst all classes - and was in frequent communication with the detachment of the brave 45th Regiment stationed at the Poor House and appointed the Westgate Hotel as the headquarters of the little band elected for the defence of the town. At eight o'clock Lieutenant Grey of the 45th with two sergeants and thirty soldiers arrived at the Westgate Hotel from the barracks at the Poor House beyond Stow Hill. The gallant Lieutenant immediately placed himself and men under the direction of the Mayor and the brave determined fellows were judiciously posted through the premises. Business was entirely suspended, the shops were all shut, and a solemn stillness pervaded the town. The shutters of the Westgate Hotel windows were closed but the entrance was open and the passage occupied by several gentlemen with staves who acted as special constables, there being no appearance of military force from the exterior of the house. At about nine o'clock the cheering of many voices was heard in the distance from the direction of Stow Hill producing the utmost alarm as evidenced by the countenances of those inhabitants who appeared at their windows. A few minutes after the front ranks of the numerous body of men armed with guns, swords, pikes, bludgeons and a variety of rude weapons made their appearance and wheeled round the corner of the hotel from Stow Hill with more observance of regularity in movement than is usual for rioters to display; an observer who saw the movement down Stow Hill calculates this body of Chartists must have amounted to five thousand men.

When the head of the column arrived at the Westgate, the rear ranks were at the house of Mr. Sallows and they appeared to be almost twelve abreast. The leading ranks then formed in front of the house and a large body made an attempt to enter the yard leading to the stables but found the gates strongly secured against them. They then wheeled to the portico of the inn holding their guns and other weapons in a menacing manner and called out as t'was understood "Give us up the Prisoners" (those that had been captured during the previous night by the special constables). A volley was immediately discharged at the windows of the house which broke almost every pane of glass within the frames on the lower floor and they made a rush into the passage a dense crowd forcing the special constables to fly from the points of their pikes. At this critical moment the soldiers who were in the large lower room of the eastern wing fired over the shutters which were nearly mid-way up the window but it was supposed that the balls passed over the heads of the visitors. The shutters were soon removed and Mr. Philips the undaunted Mayor, Lieutenant Grey and Sergeant Daly of the 45th appeared at the window. The Mayor had the Riot Act in his hand and appeared as if about to address or exhort the insurgents when he received a slug through the left arm (a rather severe flesh wound) near the wrist. Sergeant Daly was wounded in the forehead (with two slugs made from lead apparently taken from a window frame), he was hit on the peak of his cap the stiff leather of which prevented his being killed on the spot. The firing of the troops was steady and murderous both on the rioters in front of the hotel and on those who rushed into the premises. Several unhappy wretches fell in view of the people inside.

During the melee the Mayor was again wounded and had two providential escapes of life. A Chartist was about to pierce his body with a pike when he was shot by a soldier and secondly he was near being shot by one of the military who in the smoke produced by the firing mistaking Mr. Philips for one of the foe levelled his piece at him (then only at half cock) and would have fired but for a person who happily turned the muzzle of the gun aside and the Mayor announcing himself. The heat of the conflict lasted about a quarter of an hour when the defeated Chartists took to their heels in all directions, throwing away their arms and abandoning their dead and dying, and we are credibly informed that the Chartists at the rear of the column up Stow Hill fled across the fields below the church and in all directions scattering their weapons as they went and appearing panic stricken on hearing the roll of the musketry. Many who suffered in the fight crawled away, some exhibiting frightful wounds and glaring eyes wildly crying for mercy and seeking shelter from the charitable; others desperately maimed were carried by the hands of humanity for medical aid, and a few of the miserable objects that were helplessly and mortally wounded continued to writhe in torture, presenting in their gory agonies a dismal and impressive example to any of the political seducers or the seduced who might have been within view and a sickening and melancholy spectacle for the eye of the philanthropist.

Besides the injuries which were unfortunately sustained by Mr. Philips and Sergeant Daly we regret to state that Mr. Henry. Williams, Ironmonger of this town was wounded severely and Mr. Morgan, Draper, of the Waterloo House, Commercial Street received a gun shot wound, the ball was extracted and it is consoling to hear that at the latest moment of our enquiries that the wounded are doing well.

After the dispersal of the rioters, the slain chartists nine in number at the Westgate were placed in the yard of the inn and. presented a deplorable sight. Many of the inhabitants of the town went to see them and curses both loud and deep were uttered against the men who brought the unfortunate wretches to be thus sacrificed in the criminal purpose of forwarding by murder their infamous and destructive projects.

While witnessing this scene a withering passage in the catalogue of human woes took place, a young woman who had forced her way through the crowd of spectators in the yard no sooner got a view of the dead than she uttered a heart-rendering shriek and threw herself upon one of the bodies. The gush of fondness and of sorrow was great, she was dragged from him she loved, the blood of the fallen rioter having smeared her face and arms. There were other pitiable circumstances that might be set down as episodes the recital of which might cause a sigh even from the bosoms where the flame of hate burns but time urges to the recital of the leading facts.

The areas about Newport had literally swarmed with workmen from mining districts armed in various ways and it was said that upwards of ten thousand men within twenty minutes march from the town were waiting orders from the Chartist Chiefs. The Pontypool Road teemed with them and in one quarter alone the hills about Pen-y-lan farm there could not be less than three thousand. Several persons were stopped in coming to town and taken as prisoners and as far as we can learn not injured. A gentleman connected with the Merlin coming from Crindau to Newport was stopped and questioned, he expostulated with the men who had his collar and jostled him but did not experience much violence at the request of a person who seemed to have some influence with the detaining party, he was allowed to enter Newport. Mr. Brough of Pontypool and others were brought from the country and kept as prisoners all night. Numerous houses of parties on the hills were entered and searched for arms and all weapons found there were taken. Some Videttes who were sent from Newport to observe the state of the roads met with rough handling by the Chartists. Two gentlemen had a very narrow escape with their lives after being pursued by armed men in a wood who were urged on to kill them. Mr. Walker of the Parrot was badly wounded in the thigh.

The night was most tempestuous and the rain fell in torrents. The state of the weather, providentially, was a great cause of the failure of concentration amongst the thousands of disaffected. Had the night been favourable there would have been according to numerous concurring statements probably twenty thousand men within an hours march of Newport by three o'clock in the morning. The Chartists and the host of the poor unwilling creatures whom they forced along with them were exposed to the inclemency of the night for hours. Their ammunition was spoilt, and hungry and spiritless they sought shelter in vain.

Many of the scouts who had been prowling about Newport for information during the night were captured by the special constables who in this respect did good service and shall have honourable mention when we are able to ascertain the names of the most active. And above all as fortunate for the cause of Order and justice the insurgent leaders seemed to have egregiously blundered with respect to the movements of their most effective and best armed Chartists.

Had the attack been made as it was resolved upon in the middle of the night or even earlier in the morning before a single soldier was on duty in Newport our readers may judge what would have been the fate of the town. Among the precautionary measures taken by the Mayor on Monday morning were the distribution of public notices, the following with many other bills issued as soon as possible from the Merlin office were circulated through the town and neighbourhood:

Borough of Newport - County of Monmouth

The Justices of the Borough strictly require all persons who have been sworn in as Special Constables of the Borough to attend at the Westgate at nine o'clock this morning in order to perform active duty.

Dated this 4th day of November, 1839
By Order of the Justices.

Our Sovereign Lady the Queen strictly chargeth and commendeth all persons being assembled immediately to disperse themselves and depart to their habitations or to their lawful business upon the pains contained in the Act made in the first year of George for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies.

God Save the Queen

Borough of Newport 4th November, 1839
The Riot Act has been read by Order of Justice.

Aspects of Chartism: 1848 the year of revolution?

The downturn in the European economy in 1847 led to the revival of revolution in Europe in 1848 with the possibility of renewed violence in Britain and Ireland. A revolutionary upheaval swept across the continent after the fall of the French monarchy in February 1848 and this seemed, at least initially, to promise as never before the realisation of the dream of a democratic and constitutional system of European government. Chartism had already begun to revive before the news from France was added impetus to the movement.

Discrediting Chartism

O’Connor was elected to the House of Commons in the general election of 1847 as one of the MPs for Nottingham and fear that his victory would be challenged reinvigorated the NCA in his support. The NCA launched a new National Petition in favour of the Charter and arranged mass meetings to whip up support. The movement was now centred on London where both the NCA and the Northern Star were now based. The first wave of rioting occurred in early March but there was little about this that was specifically ‘Chartist’. A demonstration on 6^th March at Trafalgar Square to protest against the proposed rise in income tax (hardly an issue of immediate concern to most Chartists) was banned and led to rioting. It took the police, who were caught unprepared, three days to restore order. 127 rioters were arrested, two-thirds of whom were between sixteen and twenty-two.

However, elsewhere there were more serious threats to the authorities. In Glasgow, several thousand unemployed, reported to be mainly Irish, complained about the quality of food being provided by the Relief Committee and resorted to looting local shops including gunsmiths. A barricade was erected and three people were killed as soldiers fired to clear the threatening crowds. A similar though less violent riot took place in Edinburgh on 8^th and 9^th March. In Manchester, the unemployed rioted at the imposition of oakum picking by the poor law authorities but were dealt with by the police. On 17^th March, the Chartists held a demonstration at Kennington Common that was followed by some looting in Camberwell. On the same day, a Chartist meeting in Salford voted a congratulatory address to the French people and a Chartist-Irish Confederate alliance was cemented. On both occasions, the authorities enrolled special constables.

The authorities were undoubtedly nervous as the day for the presentation of the Petition drew near. There were heightened expectations on both sides throughout the country and reports of Chartists arming and drilling on the moors anticipating the rejection of the Petition. The Chartist Convention met in London on 4^th April and arranged to present the petition on 10^th April. The plan was to hold a large demonstration at Kennington Commons after which the Petition would be taken in procession to the House of Commons. This was seen by the government as very intimidating and it was concerned to prevent London sliding into revolution as had already occurred in Paris. Initially, the government considered banning the meeting but recognised that this would probably be counter-productive but they did ban the procession and took massive precautions to prevent the Chartists crossing the river. 85,000 special constables were sworn in; many were workmen enrolled to defend their places of work and possibly to prevent them attending the meeting. 4,000 police were positioned on the bridges and in the vicinity of Parliament and 8,000 troops were held in reserve. Estimates of the number of Chartists ranged from the official 15,000 to O’Connor’s inflated 400,000 with historians today giving a figure of 150,000.

The Chartists had always intended the meeting and procession to be peaceful. The mythology of Kennington Common as a ‘fiasco’ was largely created in retrospect. This view needs revision in three important respects:

• Most people were not laughing until it was all over and this is extremely clear from diaries kept at the time by prominent figures. The build up to 10^th April had been government policy partly to overawe and discredit the Chartists and partly to impress foreign governments that had shown themselves unable to cope with their own revolutionary crowds.
• The ‘fiasco’ effect was in part planned by the government to discredit the Chartists.
• From the point of view of revolutionary threat, the worst was still to come.

One of the advantages of the defeat of Chartism was its impact on the Irish. The major event on 13^th April was not the discrediting of the Charter but the debate on the bill for ‘the more effectual repression of seditious and treasonable proceedings’ in Ireland. This Treason-Felony Act was followed by 22^nd July by the suspension of Habeas Corpus in Ireland where the situation had deteriorated partly as a result of nationalist anger over the handling of the famine and the political realignment that followed O’Connell’s death.

An Irish-Chartist alliance?

The Nation was started in October 1842 by a group of romantic nationalists including Charles Gaven Duffy. They did not favour violence and were opposed to the Chartists. This moderation was maintained, even after the miseries of the famine had begun, by Duffy and William Smith O’Brien in secession in early 1847 from O’Connell’s Repeal Association, known as the Irish Confederation. A minority of the Confederates took up the cause of tenant rights and in early 1848 two of the group, John Mitchel and Thomas Devlin Reilly set up their own newspaper, the United Irishman in rivalry with the Nation. The news from France brought the two groups closer together. O’Brien called for the formation of a National Guard, for which he was tried but acquitted for sedition. The Confederates established a working relationship with the Chartists, something O’Connor had always wanted but which had been thwarted while O’Connell lived.

The old fear of a Franco-Irish alliance in revolution was revived and the government acted quickly to minimise it. By the end of March, Britain had already agreed a pact of mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs with the French Provisional Government. If the Irish were to rise successfully, they would have to look to their own resources and that meant looking to the Irish in Britain to cause a diversion and to North America for military support. The threat of a Chartist-Confederate alliance was considerable. By 1848, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford and smaller British towns like Barnsley and Ashton had considerable Irish minorities. In Bradford and Ashton, even in 1841, ten per cent of the population was Irish. In London, Confederate clubs had been spreading since the autumn of 1847 and on 4^th April 1848 they came together with the Chartists at a meeting arranged by the Fraternal Democrats. In Glasgow, pikes were being manufactured at Anderston. In Liverpool, ships from North Americas were searched on entering British waters and the police in Dublin had ordered to arrest all returning immigrants and search them for treasonable papers. In Bradford, throughout April and May there were reports of drilling and pikes being made. The threat to the government had not evaporated after 10^th April.

The impending trial of John Mitchel provided the background to mounting unrest in the early summer of 1848. He had been arrested on 22^nd March for publishing seditious articles in the United Irishman and was to be tried under the new Treason-Felony Act. There was widespread fear of a rising should he be convicted. In London, the Chartist Convention had been replaced by a National Assembly on 1^st May. A New Plan of Organisation had been agreed similar to that used by the United Irishmen in the late 1790s, with a basic unit of ten men to a class and ten classes to a ward. The structure was both flexible and opaque lending itself to conspiratorial organisations that in the localities easily merged with local Irish Confederate clubs. At the same time, regular outdoor meetings were held especially in East London. Chartism at this level was more active than ever. Mitchel was tried on 25^th and 26^th May and sentenced to death, though this was later commuted to fourteen years’ transportation. Meetings in his support were held at Clerkenwell Green during the trial and on 28^th May between ten and twelve thousand people gathered on the Green.

The following evening several thousand gathered again and marched towards Trafalgar Square. They were joined by another 3,000 who had been listening to speeches by Ernest Jones and other Chartist leaders on Stepney Green. They marched through the West End and the crowd was estimated at between 50,000 and 60,000 strong. The main procession was peaceful but there was some marginal rioting and on 30^th May the police banned all assemblies and processions in the capital. Meetings continued: on 31^st May at Clerkenwell Green and in Bonner’s Fields on 4^th June where Ernest Jones was the main speaker, troops stood by while police cleared the crowds. These and smaller meetings, often unannounced so reporters could not be present to collect evidence to man a prosecution, were gradually wearing down the police and demoralised property owners in the neighbourhood of the meetings. Finally, warrants were issued for the arrest of the leading speakers including Jones.

The culmination of these meetings came on Whit Monday, 12^th June at Bonner’s Field. The government banned all meetings and called up over 5,000 troops and 4,000 police. David Goodway[1] concluded that ‘The Chartist leadership would probably have welcomed the Bonner’s Fields demonstration developing into a rising’. However, the only member of the Chartist Executive left in London was Peter Murray McDouall. He sized up the situation and called the meeting off; bad weather did the rest. That evening, at the Albion beershop in Bethnel Green Road, McDouall planned an insurrection but it was called off two days later on the instructions of the Chartist Executive; spies had been detected. Nothing further happened until 10^th July when the conspirators resumed their meetings independently of the Chartist Executive, though it soon came to know of the plot. On 20^th July, a secret committee was formed to plan the day of insurrection planned for 16^th August. Then, on 27^th July, came the news that Smith O’Brien had attempted a rising in Ireland, that it had been a complete failure and that the leaders had all been arrested. Neither this, nor the realistic and justified fear of spies, deterred the conspirators.

Bradford

The conspiracy was not just based in London, for events in London since April had been repeated elsewhere. The authorities were particularly concerned about Manchester, Liverpool and Bradford where the situation was seen as especially dangerous. Bradford had become a centre of the worsted trade and had only acquired its police force in 1847. This numbered 69 men or one to every 1,343 inhabitants. With such a small force, the mayor was powerless to stop Chartist activity. Isaac Jefferson, a blacksmith was one of the leading Chartists with a powerbase in Adelaide Street, off Manchester Road, an area densely packed with unemployed wool combers. On 13^th May, the police attempted to arrest him but were beaten off by the inhabitants. The reluctance of the mayor to intervene was quite understandable. On 23^rd May, McDouall made a seditious speech with impunity at a mass meeting in the town. At this point, the Home Office decided that action would have to be taken.

With a large Irish population and perhaps half the Chartists in Bradford were Irish, the Mitchel verdict was going to be very important. Magistrates were informed that the intention, as in Scotland, was to tie troops up and prevent them being sent to Ireland. On 27^th May, extra troops arrived brining their numbers up to 800 and 1,500 special constables were sworn in. On Sunday 28^th May, the magistrates finally decided to act and the following morning sent the police into Adelaide Street to arrest Jefferson and to search for arms. The police and specials got no further than the corner of Adelaide Street before being driven back by the inhabitants to the court house. The protestors then marched through the streets singing Chartist songs. Troops were sent for. The police were armed with cutlasses. Together with 1,000 special constables, 200 infantry with fixed bayonets and two troops of dragoons, the mob was pushed back into their homes. Nineteen arrests were made but the leaders escaped. The Chartists subsided but quickly resumed their meetings. Jefferson was arrested on 16^th July but was rescued by the mob. On 15^th August, the magistrates reported that pikes were being made as the Chartists waited for news from Manchester of the general rising. If the signal came, they had 4,000 men ready to take the town.

Liverpool

It was not until after Mitchel’s conviction that the number of Irish clubs in Liverpool grew under the direction of a central Club Council. This was similar to the New Plan of Organisation in London and provided a highly co-ordinated, secret organisation from which an insurrection could easily develop. The intention, as elsewhere, was to detain troops in England. With a quarter of the population of Liverpool Irish, this clearly presented the authorities with a major problem. The situation was worsened by reports from the United States where the Irish Republican Union had been formed to extend to Ireland the republican freedom enjoyed in the United States. This involved raising an Irish Brigade that would return home under the guise of disillusioned emigrants to fight for the Irish cause.

More troops were sent to the city after opposition hardened with Mitchel’s conviction. More police were appointed to what was the largest police force outside London and there were gunboats on the River Mersey. Unlike Bradford, there was very little Chartist involvement. The unrest in Liverpool was an extension of the Irish problem. On 25^th July, the day Habeas Corpus was suspended in Ireland, a a thousand signature petition from Liverpool asked for the Suspension Act to apply to their city as well. Towards the end of July, the corporation was unable to pay for any more troops to be billeted and decisive action was taken by the police. The arrests that followed, the departure of Terence Bellew McManus, the leader of the protests for Ireland to join the rebellion and then news of its failure, enabled the magistrates to take control of what was potentially a dangerous situation.

Manchester

The Irish adopted a club system in Manchester as they had done in Liverpool and again the rhythm of protest followed the history of the Mitchel trial with a mass meeting in Stevenson Square planned for 31^st May and a call for a one-day strike. Magistrates banned the meeting and police and soldiers turned back contingents from Oldham and Ashton as they marched down the turnpikes to Manchester. There were some disturbances in the town but no serious rioting. On 6^th June, Ernest Jones arrived to deliver the speech he had given two days earlier in London. Next morning, he was arrested. On Whit Monday, 12^th June, in common with other towns, Manchester held a meeting to protest at Mitchel’s conviction and in support of the Charter but there was little disorder.

Revolution

Magistrates now began to arrest leaders throughout the country but the more they arrested the more they drove the rest into desperate action. As in London, it was now that secret plotting for a rising began. On 18^th July, a delegate meeting on Blackstone Edge, high in the Pennines between Halifax and Rochdale, decided that moral force had failed and that the time had come for direct action. The plan was for Lancashire to rise on 15^th August, followed by Bradford the day after, the same day as the rising in London.

The government knew of the plans in advance through its system of informers. On the night of 14^th August, seventy armed Chartists left Oldham for Manchester and at Ashton-under-Lyne the Chartists paraded with their arms just before midnight. One policeman was killed before the military arrived. In Hyde, a mob began drawing the boiler plugs. The following evening, 15^th August, three hundred police simultaneously arrested the Chartist and Confederate leaders in Manchester. The rising was aborted so the signal was never sent to Bradford. On the next night, the metropolitan police raided the taverns where the London rising was about to begin. The revolution was over and the gaols were filled.

The conspiracy of 1848 was the last of the attempts at revolution that began in the 1790s. The violence was less widespread than in 1842 and nothing so spectacular as the Newport rising of 1839, but as a conspiracy it was probably the most serious since 1817 and 1819. With its French and especially Irish dimensions, it was comparable to the revolutionary plotting of the 1790s but this time the French were not interested and the Irish too affected by the famine to provide the lead their compatriots in exile looked for. The scale of the subversive activity has been all but expunged from historical memory. Chartism in 1848 increasingly came to be seen as the ‘fiasco’ of 10^th April. As economic conditions improved in the 1850s and as working people were viewed as more ‘respectable’ in their economic and political aspirations, the notion that working people in Victorian Britain could threaten revolution became increasingly inconceivable and dropped out of the historical canon. It was not until historians began to look seriously at the events of 1848 and question the ‘grand narrative’ contrived by Gammage, Hovell and the rest that the significance and potential threat of revolution in 1848 was recognised.

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[1] David Goodway London Chartism 1838-1848, Cambridge University Press, 1982, page 86.

The Normans in Southern Italy: The Normans and the Papacy -- Victor II and Urban II

Victor III (1086-1087)

Of noble birth, Dauferi entered the Benedictine monastery of Montecassino[1], where he changed his name to Desiderius and where in 1058 he succeeded Pope Stephen IX (X) as abbot. His rule at Montecassino marks the monastery’s golden age, for he promoted writing and manuscript illumination, established an important school of mosaic, and radically reconstructed the abbey, considered a major event in the history of Italian architecture. He was made cardinal priest by Pope Nicholas II in 1059 and papal vicar in southern Italy, where he negotiated peace between the Normans and the papacy. Favoured by the cardinals and his predecessor, Gregory VII, Desiderius was chosen pope, but he declined the office, and the year 1085 passed without an election.

On 24^th May 1086, the cardinals proclaimed him pope against his will, but before his consecration was completed, supporters of the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV, who had set up the antipope Clement III in 1084, drove him from Rome. Victor retired to Montecassino. In March 1087, Victor convened a synod at Capua and resumed his papal authority. He received belated consecration in St. Peter’s, Rome, on 9^th May, but imperial support for Clement made it impossible for Victor to spend more than a few weeks in the city. He dispatched an army to Tunis, where it defeated the Saracens and compelled them to pay tribute to Rome. In August 1087, he held a synod at Benevento that excommunicated Clement and condemned lay investiture. Falling ill at the synod, Victor returned to Montecassino, where he died in September.

Urban II (1088-99)

Odo was born of noble parents about 1035 in the Champagne region of France[2]. After studies in Soissons and Rheims, he took the position of archdeacon in the diocese of Rheims, at that time the most important metropolis in France. An archdeacon was an ordained cleric appointed by the bishop to assist him in administration; in the Middle Ages it was an office of considerable power. Odo held the position probably from 1055 to 1067. Subsequently he became a monk and then (c. 1070-74) prior superior at Cluny, the most important centre of reform monasticism in Europe in the 11^th century. At Rheims and Cluny, Odo gained experience in ecclesiastical policy and administration and made contacts with two important reform groups of his time: the canons regular (clergymen dedicated to the active service of the church, who live a strict life in community) and the monks of Cluny. In 1079 he went to Rome on a mission for his abbot, Hugh of Cluny. While in Rome he was created cardinal and bishop of Ostia (the seaport for Rome) by Gregory VII. In 1084 Gregory VII sent him as papal legate to Germany. During the crisis of Gregory VII’s struggle with Henry IV, the Holy Roman emperor, Odo remained loyal to the legitimate papacy. After Gregory VII’s death in 1085, he also served his successor, Victor III, who died in September 1087. After a long delay, during which the reform cardinals tried unsuccessfully to regain control of Rome from Guibert of Ravenna, who had been named Pope Clement III by Henry IV in 1080, Odo was elected pope in Terracina, south of Rome, on 12^th March 1088.

As pope, Urban II found active support for his policies and reforms among several groups: the nobility, whose mentality and interests he knew; the monks; the canons regular, for whom he became patron and legislator; and also, increasingly, the bishops. Urban felt that his most urgent task was to secure his position against the antipope Clement III and to establish his authority as legitimate pope throughout Christendom. He attempted, with moderation and tolerance, to reconcile the church-state traditions of his age with ecclesiastical notions of reform. In practice he pushed the controversial question of lay investiture more into the background while at the same time retaining reform legislation. He thus softened the conflict and permitted a more peaceful discussion of the problems at issue. At the Council of Clermont (France), in 1095, during which he eloquently called the First Crusade, Urban attempted, however, to prevent a further and complete feudalisation of church-state relationships by prohibiting the clergy from taking oaths of fealty to laymen.

Despite Urban’s attempts at reconciliation, it did not prove possible to come to terms with Henry IV or with a large part of the church within the empire. England also remained closed to papal policies of reform and centralisation. Although Urban had been recognised there since 1095, a conflict between Anselm, the theologian who was named archbishop of Canterbury, and King William II strained the relations between Urban and the king. On the other hand, despite a long-standing conflict between Philip I of France and Urban (brought about by the king’s scandalous marriage), France began under this French pope to become the most important support of the medieval papacy. Urban obtained special support in southern Europe: his particularly faithful allies were the Normans of southern Italy and Sicily. In Spain, Urban supported the Christian reconquest of the country from the Moors and carried out the ecclesiastical reorganisation of the country. In southern Italy, southern France, and Spain, kings and princes became vassals of the Roman see and concluded treaties and concordats in feudal form with the pope: by this the temporal rulers sought to secure their independence from more powerful lords, and the pope for his part was able to carry out his reform aims in these territories.

From 1095 Urban was at the height of his success. From this time several important church councils took place: in 1095 at Piacenza, Italy, at which reform legislation was enacted; also in 1095 at Clermont, where Urban preached the First Crusade; in 1098 at Bari, Italy, where he worked for a reunion between Greek Christians and Rome; and in 1099 at Rome, where again reform legislation was passed. Urban’s idea for a crusade and his attempt to reconcile the Latin and Greek churches sprang from his idea of the unity of all Christendom and from his experiences with the struggles against the Muslims in Spain and Sicily. He was, for a while, able to attract the Byzantine emperor Alexius I to his plans but never the Greek Church. Whereas the First Crusade led to military success with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the project for union failed. Urban’s pontificate not only led to a further centralisation of the Roman Catholic Church but also to the expansion of papal administration. It contributed to the development of the Roman Curia, the administrative body of the papacy and to the gradual formation of the College of Cardinals. Urban died in Rome in 1099.

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[1] H. E. J. Cowdrey The Age of Abbot Desiderius: Montecassino, the Papacy and the Normans in the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries, Oxford University Press, 1983 is the best study of Desiderius. The chief source is the Chronicon Cassinense, in Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script., volume VII, reprinted in Patrologia Latina, volume 173; some autobiographical details can be found in his own Dialogues in Patrologia Latina, volume 149. H. R. Mann, The Lives of the Popes, volume VII, London, 1910, pages 218-244 remains useful.

[2] Robert Somerville and Stephan Kuttner (eds.) Pope Urban II: The Collectio Britannica, and the Council of Melfi (1089), Oxford University Press, 1996 is a useful study of an important event based on contemporary sources. Alfons Becker Papst Urban II (1088-1099), two volumes, Stuttgart 1964, 1988.

The Normans in Southern Italy: The Normans and the Papacy: Gregory VII

Hildebrand was born c. 1020, near Soana in Italy and died on 25^th May 1085, Salerno. Mainly a spiritual rather than a political leader, he attacked various abuses in the church. From 1075 onward he was engrossed in a contest with Emperor Henry IV over lay investiture (the right of lay rulers to grant church officials the symbols of their authority)[1].   Hildebrand was born of a workingman’s family. He went to Rome at an early age and began his education at the Monastery of St. Mary, where his uncle was abbot. He apparently became a monk but continued his education at the Schola Cantorum (School of Musicians) in the Lateran Palace. This was a school for clergy and, perhaps, for laymen also, since Gregory mentions that two Roman nobles were educated with him. One of his teachers there, Giovanni Graziano, later became Pope Gregory VI (reigned 1045-46). Gregory took Hildebrand into his service and, when he was deposed by Emperor Henry III (1017-56) at the Council of Sutri in 1046, Hildebrand went with his fallen patron into exile in Germany. In Germany, Hildebrand found favour with Emperor Henry III and was called back to Rome by Pope Leo IX (reigned 1049-54). He formed one of the groups of reformers that Leo IX was assembling, a group that was to exert a profound influence on the 11^th century church. Hildebrand became the “man behind the throne” during the pontificate of his immediate predecessor, Pope Alexander II (1061-73), having already been an important member of the Roman reform group. He became a cardinal and archdeacon of Rome and was able to satisfy his monastic inclinations by reforming the famous Monastery of St. Paul. He demonstrated his love of people by curbing the activities of the petty nobles who had caused excessive disorder in Rome and the neighbourhood.

Elected by acclamation (22^nd April 1073) to succeed Alexander II, Hildebrand took the name of Gregory VII. He was consecrated in St. Peter’s Basilica on 30^th June 1073. The keynote of Gregory’s pontificate was reform and renewal of the church. To understand Gregory’s personality and influence it is necessary to realise how deeply he was committed to the spiritual values of his age. From the beginning of his career he was largely unsuccessful as a politician or a statesman; his specialty was spiritual leadership. Gregory tried to restrain the marauding Normans of France in their conquest of southern Italy and to defend the Papal States, but he found it difficult to subdue these hard-fighting and acquisitive Frenchmen. Deeply interested in healing the still-young schism that had occurred between the Western and Eastern churches in 1054, he tried to encourage the European states to embark on a crusade to help Constantinople and the Eastern Christians, but in this he failed.

As a spiritual leader he was more successful even though he faced a formidable task. The efforts aimed at ecclesiastical reform by his predecessors, the attempts of the monks based at the Benedictine monastery at Cluny (France) to reform the church spiritually, and the preaching of reformers such as Peter Damian (1007-72) and Cardinal Humbert (c. 1000-61) were only partially successful. Gregory promptly began an attack on the chief problems of the church: simony and clerical marriage or concubinage. He held a synod at Rome every Lent that decreed strong measures against the buyers and sellers of sacred offices and married clergy. He attempted to associate the bishops and the lay rulers with him in his effort to eliminate these problems. Since many bishops had purchased their positions and many also held very loose views of clerical celibacy, Gregory had his work cut out. Because he found it difficult to work through the bishops, he tended to centralise authority. He used papal legates (representatives) freely and insisted on their precedence over local bishops.

Gregory is chiefly known for his contest with the German emperor Henry IV (1050-1106) over lay investiture, a contest that he helped to precipitate. Gregory’s first concern was for reform, and he believed that secular rulers should support church authority in bringing it about. He had seen the beneficent results of the reform-minded emperor Henry III’s (1017-56) and he tried hard to work with young Henry IV. It was only when he lost confidence in Henry that Gregory began his attack on lay investiture. The Pope’s Roman Synod of 1075 struck hard at lay investiture and began the long conflict that was to go beyond Gregory’s lifetime. At that synod Gregory excommunicated five of Henry’s advisers. In late 1075 the situation deteriorated. Henry’s defeat of the rebellious Saxons had increased his power. In Milan, Erlembald, the leader of the Patarines, a lay reform group, was killed and the anti-reform party got the upper hand. Henry now openly showed his hand, gave support to the anti-reform party in Milan, and placed a new bishop in the position of the legitimate bishop, Atto. He also appointed bishops to Spoleto and Fermo.

In 1075, while Gregory was saying Christmas mass in St. Mary Major, he was attacked, slightly wounded, and carried off by Cencius, a noble. The Romans, who had much admiration for Gregory, rallied to his defence, attacked Cencius’ stronghold, and forced him to release the Pope, who went back to St. Mary Major to continue his mass. Gregory spared the life of Cencius. Although Gregory had written to Henry in December 1075, holding out the possibility of negotiations on the issue of lay investiture, Henry gave no satisfaction to the legates that the Pope had sent to Germany. Indeed, he openly defied Gregory and with his bishops renounced obedience to Gregory and bade him step down from the papal throne. Supported by northern Italian bishops, Henry sent the Roman Synod of 1076 a letter beginning: “Henry, King not by usurpation, but by the pious ordination of God to Hildebrand now not Pope but false monk.”

The reading of such a document aroused indignation in the synod, and Gregory struck back hard. He and the synod excommunicated Henry, and the Pope declared him deposed. Gregory defended his actions against Henry in two letters to Bishop Hermann of Metz: the emperor is in the church and therefore he may be called to account by the pope. Gregory defended this position by arguments from Scripture, the Fathers, and history. The excommunication had its effect. The number of Henry’s partisans dwindled, and the restless Saxons once more rose in arms. Plans were set on foot by the magnates to depose Henry and elect another king. Apparently, at the persuasion of Gregory’s legates, a more moderate position was taken, though the terms drawn up by the magnates were severe enough. Henry was to leave the decision of his case to the Pope, who was to come to a meeting of the magnates at Augsburg on February 2^nd 1077. He was expected to repudiate his rebellion against the Pope and to urge his advisers who had been excommunicated to seek absolution. Thus was the stage set for a famous action at Canossa.

Early in 1077 Gregory went north to cross the Alps but found, instead of the guards the Germans had promised, the news that Henry was hastening to Italy. Alarmed, the Pope withdrew to the castle of Canossa, a stronghold of his faithful friend and supporter, Matilda (c. 1046-1115), countess of Tuscany. Henry, however, was coming not as a foe but as a suppliant. For three cold January days he stood outside the castle pleading for absolution while Matilda and St. Hugh, abbot of Cluny, added their pleas to his. Gregory was in a quandary. The nobles and bishops of Germany were awaiting his presence at Augsburg to discuss Henry’s fate, and here was Henry in the cold begging piteously for absolution. The priest in Gregory prevailed over the politician, and the Pope absolved Henry from excommunication. It is to the Pope’s credit as a spiritual leader that he absolved Henry, even though the action was disastrous to his own cause.

Henry promptly regarded himself as legitimate king again, and Gregory had to write somewhat apologetically to the German magnates explaining his action. The Germans cancelled the Augsburg meeting and called for another gathering at Forchheim on 13^th March. Gregory desired to attend this meeting, but apparently neither Henry nor the leader of the opposition, Rudolf of Rheinfelden (died 1080), really desired the Pope’s presence. Gregory, however, sent legates who pleaded with the assembled nobles and bishops not to proceed with an election until the Pope could be present. The magnates went ahead, however, and elected Rudolf of Rheinfelden, thus precipitating a bloody civil war. Gregory tried to mediate between Henry and Rudolf. He recalled his legates, and, when Henry imprisoned one of them, the other excommunicated Henry. To prevent the Pope from confirming this excommunication the King sent ambassadors to plead with the Pope. They succeeded, and the Pope contented himself with calling for a great meeting to settle the quarrel. For two years, 1078-80, Gregory maintained a mediator’s position and was abused by both sides.

By 1080 the Pope was convinced that Henry was intransigent and once more excommunicated him and declared him deposed. This meant war. Henry had the support of his faction in Germany and that of the Lombard (northern Italian) anti-reform party. Gregory sought the aid of the formidable Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia and Calabria. Henry’s German bishops met at Brixen (Italy) and declared Gregory deposed. To replace him they chose Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, who took the name Clement III (1080, 1084-1100)[2]. The tide began to flow strongly in favour of Henry when Rudolf of Rheinfelden was killed at the Battle of the Elster (1080). Henry, freed from pressure in Germany, came over the Alps, defeated the forces of Countess Matilda, and besieged Rome. Gregory renewed his excommunication of the King. He tried to stir up opposition to Henry in Germany by urging Welf I of Bavaria (died 1101) and the princes to hold an election to replace Rudolf, but this did not deter Henry from besieging Rome in 1081, 1082, and 1083. Still firm, Gregory held a synod at the Lateran in November 1083 to attempt a settlement, but Henry prevented some bishops from attending. The fathers of the synod, very much aware of the menacing presence of Henry’s soldiers across the Tiber, pleaded with Gregory not to renew his excommunication of Henry at this time, whereupon the Pope contented himself with a general excommunication of all who prevented attendance of the synod. All attempts at peace failed, and on 21^st March 1084, Henry’s troops took the city. Gregory sought refuge in the castle of St. Angelo and suffered the embarrassment of seeing Guibert of Ravenna (now Clement III) crowned in St. Peter’s. Guibert in turn crowned Henry emperor. Help, however, was on the way. Robert Guiscard, back from an unsuccessful attempt on the Byzantine Empire, marched on Rome and rescued the Pope. Gregory’s safety was dearly bought, for in a fight between the Normans and the Romans a large part of the city was burned down. Gregory, now unpopular with the embittered Romans, left with Guiscard. He died at Salerno in 1085. A biographer placed on his dying lips the words, “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile.”

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[1] H. E. J. Cowdrey Gregory VII, Oxford University Press 1998 and his edition of the letters of Gregory VII The Register of Gregory VII, Oxford University Press, 2002 is the best starting-point. O. Delarc, Gregoire VII et la reforme de l'Eglise au XI^e siecle, Paris, 1889 remains useful.

[2] Born c.1025 of noble birth in Parma in Lombardy, Guibert served at the German court (c. 1054–55) and became imperial chancellor for Italy (1058–63). As such he supported the election of Bishop Peter Cadalus of Parma as antipope Honorius II (1061). His appointment by Henry IV of Germany as archbishop of Ravenna was confirmed by Pope Alexander II (1073), but he later clashed with Alexander’s successor, Gregory VII. When Guibert became the Italian leader of the imperialist faction opposing the Gregorian reform, Gregory excommunicated him. He was elected antipope on June 25^th 1080, by a synod called by Henry at Brixen, which declared Gregory deposed. He was enthroned when Henry finally seized Rome (March 24^th 1084), and on March 31^st he crowned Henry emperor. Clement remained antipope throughout the succeeding pontificates of Victor III and Urban II and died September 8^th 1100.

The Normans in Southern Italy: The Normans and the Papacy -- Nicholas II and Alexander II

Nicholas II (1058-1061)

Gerald of Burgundy was born in Lorraine and died on 27^th August 1061 in Florence[1]. He became bishop of Florence in 1046. As soon as the news of the death of Stephen X at Florence reached Rome on 4^th April, 1058, the Tusculan party appointed a successor in the person of John Mincius, Bishop of Velletri, under the name of Benedict X. His elevation, due to violence and corruption, was contrary to the specific orders of Stephen X that, at his death, no choice of a successor was to be made until Hildebrand’s return from Germany. Several cardinals protested against the irregular proceedings, but they were compelled to flee from Rome. Hildebrand was returning from his mission when the news of these events reached him. He interrupted his journey at Florence, and after agreeing with Duke Godfrey of Lorraine-Tuscany upon Bishop Gerhard for elevation to the papacy, he won over part of the Roman population to the support of his candidate. An embassy dispatched to the imperial court secured the confirmation of the choice by the Empress Agnes.

At Hildebrand’s invitation, the cardinals met in December, 1058, at Siena and elected Gerhard who assumed the name of Nicholas II. On his way to Rome the new pope held at Sutri a well-attended synod at which, in the presence of Duke Godfrey and the imperial chancellor, Guibert of Parma, he pronounced deposition against Benedict X. The latter was driven from the city in January, 1059, and the solemn coronation of Nicholas took place on the twenty-fourth of the same month. A cultured man, the new pontiff had about him capable advisers, but to meet the danger still threatening from Benedict X and his armed supporters, Nicholas empowered Hildebrand to enter into negotiations with the Normans of southern Italy. The papal envoy recognized Count Richard of Aversa as Prince of Capua and received in return Norman troops which enabled the papacy to carry on hostilities against Benedict in the Campagna. This campaign did not result in the decisive overthrow of the opposition party, but it enabled Nicholas to undertake in the early part of 1059, a pastoral visitation to Spoleto, Farfa, and Osimo. During this journey he raised Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino to the dignity of cardinal-priest and appointed him legate to Campania, Benevento, Apulia, and Calabria. Early in his pontificate he had sent St. Peter Damiani and Bishop Anselm of Lucca as his legates to Milan, where a married and simoniacal clergy had recently given rise to a reform-party known as the ‘Pataria’. A synod for the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline was held and succeeded in obtaining from Archbishop Guido and the Milanese clergy a solemn repudiation of simony and concubinage

One of the most pressing needs of the time was the reform of papal elections. It was right that they should be freed from the disreputable influence of the Roman factions and the secular control of the emperor, probably less disastrous but always objectionable. Nicholas II held in the Lateran in April 1059 a synod attended by one hundred and thirteen bishops and famous for its law concerning papal elections. Efforts to determine the authentic text of this decree caused considerable controversy in the nineteenth century and discussions did not result in a consensus of opinion. However, the sense of the law is substantially as follows:

• At the death of the pope, the cardinal-bishops are to confer among themselves concerning a candidate, and, after they have agreed upon a name, they and the other cardinals are to proceed to the election. The remainder of the clergy and the laity enjoy the right of acclaiming their choice.
• A member of the Roman clergy is to be chosen, except that where a qualified candidate cannot be found in the Roman Church, an ecclesiastic from another diocese may be elected.
• The election is to be held at Rome, except that when a free choice is impossible there, it may take place elsewhere.
• If war or other circumstances prevent the solemn enthronization of the new pope in St. Peter's Chair, he shall nevertheless enjoy the exercise of full Apostolic authority.
• Due regard is to be had for the right of confirmation or recognition conceded to King Henry, and the same deference is to be shown to his successors, who have been granted personally a like privilege.

These stipulations constituted indeed a new law, but they were also intended as an implicit approbation of the procedure followed at the election of Nicholas II. As to the imperial right of confirmation, it became a mere personal privilege granted by the Roman See. The same synod prohibited simoniacal ordinations, lay investiture, and assistance at the Mass of a priest living in notorious concubinage. The rules governing the life of canons and nuns which were published at the diet of Aix-la-Chapelle (817) were abolished, because they allowed private property and such abundant food that, as the bishops indignantly exclaimed, they were adapted to sailors and intemperate matrons rather than to clerics and nuns. Berengarius of Tours, whose views opposed to the doctrine of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, had repeatedly been condemned, also appeared at the Council and was compelled to sign a formula of abjuration.

At the end of June, 1059, Nicholas proceeded to Montecassino and then to Melfi, the capital of Norman Apulia, where he held an important synod and concluded the famous alliance with the Normans (July-August, 1059). Duke Robert Guiscard was invested with the sovereignty of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily in case he should reconquer it from the Saracens; he bound himself, in return, to pay an annual tribute, to hold his lands as the pope's vassal, and to protect the Roman See, its possessions, and the freedom of papal elections. A similar agreement was concluded with Prince Richard of Capua. After holding a synod at Benevento Nicholas returned to Rome with a Norman army which reconquered Præneste, Tusculum, and Numentanum for the Holy See and forced Benedict X to capitulate at Galeria in the autumn of 1059. Hildebrand was now created archdeacon. In order to secure the general acceptance of the laws enacted at the synod of 1059, Cardinal Stephen, in the latter part of that year, was sent to France where he presided over the synods of Vienne (31^st January 1060) and Tours (17^th February 1060). The decree which introduced a new method of papal election had caused great dissatisfaction in Germany, because it reduced the imperial right of confirmation to the precarious condition of a personal privilege granted at will; but, assured of Norman protection, Nicholas could fearlessly renew the decree at the Lateran synod held in 1060. After this council Cardinal Stephen, who had accomplished his mission to France, appeared as papal legate in Germany. For five days he vainly solicited an audience at court and then returned to Rome. His fruitless mission was followed by a German synod which annulled all the ordinances of Nicholas II and pronounced his deposition. The pope’s answer was a repetition of the decree concerning elections at the synod of 1061, at which the condemnation of simony and concubinage among the clergy was likewise renewed. He was buried in the church of St. Reparata at Florence of which city he had remained bishop even after his elevation to the papal throne. His pontificate, though of short duration, was marked by events fraught with momentous and far-reaching consequences

Alexander II (1061-1073)

As Anselm of Lucca, he had been recognized for a number of years as one of the leaders of the reform party, especially in the Milanese territory, where he was born at Baggio, of noble parentage[2]. Together with Hildebrand, he had imbibed in Cluny the zeal for reformation. The first theatre of his activity was Milan, where he was one of the founders of the Pataria, and lent to that great agitation against simony and clerical incontinency the weight of his eloquence and noble birth. The device of silencing him, contrived by Archbishop Guido and other episcopal foes of reform in Lombardy, sending him to the court of the Emperor Henry III, had the contrary effect of enabling him to spread the propaganda in Germany. In 1057 the Emperor appointed him to the bishopric of Lucca. With increased prestige, he reappeared twice in Milan as legate of the Holy See, in 1057 in the company of Hildebrand, and in 1059 with Peter Damian. Under the able generalship of this saintly triumvirate the reform forces were held well in hand, in preparation for the inevitable conflict. The decree of Nicholas II (1059) by which the right of papal elections was virtually vested in the College of Cardinals, formed the issue to be fought and decided at the next vacancy of the Apostolic Throne. The death of Pope Nicholas two years later found both parties in battle array. The candidate of the Hildebrandists, endorsed by the cardinals, was the Bishop of Lucca; the other side put forward the name of Cadalus, Bishop of Parma, a protector and example of the prevailing vices of the age. The cardinals met in legal form and elected Anselm, who took the name of Alexander II. Before proceeding to his enthronment, the Sacred College notified the German Court of their action. The Germans were considered to have forfeited the privilege of confirming the election reserved to their king with studied vagueness in the decree of Nicholas II, when they contemptuously dismissed the ambassador of the cardinals without a hearing. Foreseeing a civil war, the cardinals on 30^th September completed the election by the ceremony of enthronisation.

Meanwhile a deputation of the Roman nobles, who were enraged at their elimination as a dominant factor in the papal elections, joined by deputies of the unreformed episcopate of Lombardy, had proceeded to the German Court with a request for the royal sanction to a new election. The Empress Agnes, as regent for her ten-year-old son, Henry IV, convoked an assembly of lay and clerical magnates at Basle; and here, without any legal right, and without the presence of a single cardinal, the Bishop of Parma was declared Pope, and took the name of Honorius II[3] on 28^th October. In the contest which ensued, Pope Alexander was supported by the consciousness of the sanctity of his cause, by public opinion clamouring for reform, by the aid of the allied Normans of southern Italy, and by the benevolence of Beatrice and Matilda of Tuscany. Even in Germany things took a favourable turn for him, when Anno of Cologne seized the regency, and the repentant Empress withdrew to a convent. In a new diet, at Augsburg in October 1062, it was decided that Burchard, Bishop of Halberstadt should proceed to Rome and, after investigating the election of Alexander on the spot, make a report to a later assemblage of the bishops of Germany and Italy. Burchard’s report was entirely in favour of Alexander. The latter defended his cause with eloquence and spirit in a council held at Mantua, at Pentecost, 1064 and was formally recognised as legitimate Pope. His rival was excommunicated, but kept up the contest with dwindling prospects till his death in l072. In striking contrast to his helplessness amidst the Roman factions, is his lofty attitude towards the potentates lay and clerical, of Europe. Under banners blessed by him Roger advanced to the conquest of Sicily, and William to the conquest of England. His Regesta fill eleven pages of Jaffe (Regesta Rom. Pontif, second edition, volume 4, nos. 445, 4770). He was omnipresent, through his legates, punishing simoniacal bishops and incontinent clerics. He did not spare even his protector, Anno of Cologne whom he twice summoned to Rome, once in 1068 to do penance, barefoot, for holding relations with the antipope, and again in 1070 to purge himself of the charge of simony. A similar discipline was administered to Sigfried of Mainz, Hermann of Bamberg, and Werner of Strasburg. In his name his legate, Peter Damian, at the Diet of Frankfurt in 1069, under threat of excommunication and exclusion from the imperial throne, deterred Henry IV from the project of divorcing his queen, Bertha of Turin, though instigated thereto by several German bishops. His completest triumph was that of compelling Bishop Charles of Constance and Abbot Robert of Reichenau to return to the King the croziers and rings they had obtained through simony. One serious quarrel with Henry was left to be decided by his successor. In 1069 the Pope had rejected as a simonist the subdeacon Godfrey, whom Henry had appointed Archbishop of Milan. Henry failed to accept this but the Pope confirmed Atto, the choice of the reform party. Upon the king's ordering his appointee to be consecrated, Alexander issued an anathema against the royal advisers. The death of the Pope on 21^st April 1073 left Hildebrand, his faithful chancellor, heir to his triumphs and difficulties.

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[1] The most useful material on Nicholas II is to be found in Clavel, Le Pape Nicolas II, Lyons, 1906; O. Delarc, ‘Le Pontificat de Nicoles II’ in Revue des Questions Historiques, volume XL (1886), pages 341-402 and H. R. Mann The Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages, volume VI, St. Louis, 1910, pages 226-60.

[2] Tilmann Schmidt, Alexander II. (1061-1073) und die römische Reformgruppe seinzer Zeit, Päpste und Papsttum, 11; Stuttgart, 1977 is an invaluable study.

[3] When Pope Nicholas II died on July 27, 1061, Roman nobles and a group of Lombard bishops led by Wibert (or Guibert), royal chancellor for Italy, went to the German court and asked Empress Agnes, mother and regent of young King Henry V, to nominate Bishop Cadalo (or Pietro Cadalus, or Cadalous) of Parma, who was not a Cardinal, as successor of Pope Nicholas. Cadalo’s principal supporters were Bishops Dionisio of Piacenza and Gregorio of Vercelli. To give the appearance of a canonical election, a synod was convened at Basle in which Bishop Cadalo was elected by a miscellaneous assembly on October 28, 1061. There were no cardinals present in the synod and a good number of archbishops and bishops opposed the election. The new antipope took the name Honorius II. He was anathematised by the Synod of Mantua in May 1064 that recognised Alexander II as legitimate Pope. Honorius returned to Parma and remained its bishop until his death towards the end of 1071 or the beginning of 1072. He never abandoned his claim to the papacy

The Normans in Southern Italy: The Normans and the Papacy -- Reforming Popes

The 11^th century was a time of revolutionary change in European society. The church underwent profound reform and redefined itself and its relation with the secular order. By 1049, the papacy caught up with the broader reform movement in the church when Pope Leo IX (1049–54) instituted moral and institutional reforms at the council of Reims. One important measure implemented during the papacy of Nicholas II (1058–61) was the election decree of 1059 that created the Sacred College of Cardinals as a papal advisory body vested with the right to name new popes, thus encouraging the independence of papal elections. Further reforms emphasising the primacy of Rome and subordination of all clergy and laity to the pope brought about the Schism of 1054 between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Another significant development brought on by the papal reform begun in 1049 was the Investiture Controversy. This struggle between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV of Germany erupted when Henry claimed the long-standing royal right to invest an ecclesiastical office holder with the symbols of power, thereby effectively maintaining control of the selection and direction of bishops and the local clergy in the hands of civil rulers[1]. Gregory’s Dictatus Papae[2] (1075) claimed unprecedented papal prerogatives and emphasised the pope’s place as the highest authority in the church.

Pope Leo IX (1049-1054)

Bruno of Egisheim was born on June 21^st 1002, Egisheim in Alsace and died on April 19^th 1054 in Rome[3]. He was born into an aristocratic family and educated at Toul, where he first became canon and then was consecrated bishop in 1027, at the early age of twenty-five. Dynamic, purposeful, and zealous in the cause of reform, he began to raise the moral standards of important monasteries in his diocese, as well as those of the secular diocesan clergy, by holding frequent meetings. In accordance with prevailing practice, he was appointed pope at the age of forty-seven by the emperor Henry III. He insisted, however, upon being elected by the people and clergy of Rome, an action that implicitly indicated his opposition to the firmly entrenched lay intervention, especially by the emperors, in purely ecclesiastical matters. After having obtained approval by the Romans, he was enthroned as pope on February 12^th 1049.

Leo IX’s aim was to end what he saw as the chief evils of the time: concubinage (clerical marriage), simony (buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices), and lay investiture (conferment of an ecclesiastical office by a lay ruler). In order to achieve these ends it was necessary for the Roman Church itself to be made the centre of Christian society and life. Leo therefore called to Rome men whom he had known in his capacity as bishop of Toul. They not only were aware of the pressing need for reform but also were first-class scholars and administrators as well as men who realised the difficulties with which they were to be confronted. Among them were Humbert of Moyenmoutier, Frederick of Lorraine (later Pope Stephen IX), and Hugh of Remiremont, who all became cardinals. A notable monk at Cluny, Hildebrand, also obeyed the call to Rome, where as Pope Gregory VII he completed many of the reforms begun by Leo. These men and their assistants infused new blood into the Roman Church.  Leo also kept in regular contact with other leading churchmen, such as Peter Damian and Abbot Hugh of Cluny, whose reputations allowed them to exercise great influence on their immediate surroundings and thus prepared the way for the acceptance of measures to reform Christian society. These men succeeded in transforming the papacy from a local Roman institution into an international power. This group was determined to make papal ideology a social reality. The key feature of this ideology was the prime position of the pope as so-called successor of St. Peter, an ecclesiastical expression for papal monarchy. Papal organisation experienced considerable expansion at this time, notably the chancery, which became its nerve centre in which the universally valid and applicable law and the instructions to distant ecclesiastical officers were drafted. Although the effect of these legal measures was not immediately obvious, they nevertheless laid the foundations for eventual success.

During Leo IX’s pontificate the cardinals became more and more prominent as the most intimate counsellors of the pope, and within a few years they were to form the body known as the Sacred College of Cardinals. The validity of priestly ordinations administered by simoniac bishops proved a serious problem, because most theologians held that simony prostituted the sacrament of ordination. Leo IX ordered a number of simoniacally ordained priests to be ‘reordained’. This order led to much controversial literature and the problem was not solved until several decades later. Leo IX was intent on making the prime position of the pope real by his own physical presence outside Rome. To this end he held more than a dozen councils in Italy, France, Germany, and Sicily, which re-enacted the decrees of earlier councils and popes and introduced practical measures to eliminate the worst excesses from which Christian society suffered. The personal attendance of Leo and his chairmanship of these councils were factors that powerfully contributed to the growing authority of the papacy. They enabled the Pope to establish direct contact with the higher and lower clergy as well as with leading secular figures.

The most significant event of Leo IX’s pontificate was the schism with the Eastern Church that resulted, at least partially, from an ill-fated military involvement. After their settlement in southern Italy in the second decade of the 11^th century, the Normans[4] presented considerable dangers to the existence of the papal state. In their marauding expeditions they plundered and devastated many churches and monasteries. In conjunction with Emperor Henry III, Leo resolved to undertake a military campaign against the Normans; but Henry withdrew and, with a weak and inexperienced army under his command, Leo had to face the Normans alone. They inflicted a crushing defeat upon the papal army, and on 18^th June 1053, they took the Pope prisoner. He was, nevertheless, allowed to maintain contact with the outside world and to receive visitors. After nine months he was released.

The Norman venture, however, brought the papacy into conflict with the Eastern Church[5] centred in Constantinople, which, since the 8^th century, had exercised jurisdiction over large areas of southern Italy and Sicily. The forcefully enunciated papal theme of primacy in Leo’s pontificate complicated the relations between Rome and Constantinople still further because the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael I Cerularius, considered this sheer provocation. He closed the Roman Catholic churches in Constantinople and raised serious charges against the Roman Church, notably in connection with the Eucharist. Cardinal Humbert attacked the Patriarch arguing the case for Roman primacy and also quoting extensively from the forged Donation of Constantine[6]. A legation under Humbert’s leadership left for Constantinople in April 1054, but despite several meetings between Patriarch, Emperor, and legates, no concrete results emerged. On July 16^th 1054, in the full view of the congregation, Humbert put the papal bull of excommunication, already prepared before the legation left Rome on the altar of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Thereupon the Patriarch excommunicated the legation and its supporters. This marked the final breach between Rome and Constantinople. This schism was to last, with short interruptions, until the twentieth century. Whether the excommunication of Michael I Cerularius was valid, because Leo had been dead for three months, is merely a technical problem. The Roman legates were legates of the papacy, and the reigning pope had produced the bull of excommunication. In any case, the excommunication merely formalised in a dramatic and spectacular manner a state of affairs that had long existed. Although this occurred after the death of Leo IX, the outbreak of the formal schism correctly belongs to his pontificate.

Victor II (1055-1057)

Born c. 1018 in Swabia, died 28^th July 1057 in Tuscany, Victor[7] was of noble birth. The papal catalogues make him a native of the Bavarian Nordgau, while most German sources designate Swabia as his birthplace. His parents were Count Hartwig and Countess Baliza; the Emperor Henry III recognised him as a collateral kinsman, and he was a nephew of Bishop Gebhard III of Ratisbon, who at the court Diet of Goslar presented him (Christmas Day, 1042) to Henry III as a candidate for the episcopal see of Eichstatt. The emperor hesitated at first because Gebhard was only twenty-four years old, but, on the advice of the aged Archbishop Bardo of Mainz, he finally consented to invest him with this important see. Gebhard proved to be a good bishop and a prudent statesman. He was in the emperor’s retinue when the latter was crowned at Rome in 1046; he took part in the synod presided over by Leo IX at Mainz in October, 1049, and in the consultations between the pope and the emperor at Ratisbon and Bamberg in 1052. By this time he had become the most influential councillor of Henry III. It was upon his advice that in 1053 a German army, which was on its way to join Leo IX in his war against the Normans, was recalled, an advice which he is said to have regretted when he was pope (Leo Marsicanus in his Chronaicon Casinense, volume II, page 89, in Patrologia Latina, volume CLXXIII, page 692). Early in the same year he became regent of Bavaria for the three year old Henry IV. In this capacity he had occasion to prove his loyalty towards the emperor by defind the rights of the empire against the deposed Duke Conrad, the counts of Scheyern, and his own uncle, Bishop Gebhard of Ratisbon.

After the death of Leo IX (19^th April, 1054), Cardinal-subdeacon Hildebrand came to the emperor at the head of a Roman legation with the urgent request to designate Gebhard as pope. At the Diet of Mainz, in September, 1054, the emperor granted this request, but Gebhard refused to accept the papal dignity. At a court Diet held at Ratisbon in March, 1055, he finally accepted the papacy, but only on condition that the emperor restored to the Apostolic See all the possessions that had been taken from it. The emperor consented to this condition and Gebhard accompanied Hildebrand to Rome, where he was formally elected and solemnly enthroned on Maundy Thrusday, 13^th April, 1055, taking the name of Victor II. Even as pope he retained the Diocese of Eichstatt. Victor II was a worthy successor of Leo IX. With untiring zeal he combated, like his predecessor, against simony and clerical concubinage. Being well supported by the emperor, he often succeeded where Leo IX had failed. On Pentecost Sunday, June 4^th 1055, he held a large synod at Florence, in presence of the emperor and 120 bishops, where former decrees against siony and incontinence were confirmed and several offending bishops deposed. To King Ferdinand of Spain he sent messengers with threats of excommunication if he should continue in his refusal to acknowledge Henry III as Roman Emperor. Ferdinand submitted to the papal demands. Before the emperor returned to Germany he transferred to the pope the duchies of Spoleto and Camerino. Early in 1056, Victor II sent Hildebrand back to France to resume his labours against simony and concubinage that he had begun under Leo IX. He appointed the archbishops Raimbaud of Arles and Pontius of Aix papal legates to battle against the same vices in Southern France. Late in the summer of the same year he accepted the urgent invitation of the emperor to come to Germany, arriving at Goslar on 8^th September. He accompanied Henry III to Botfeld in the Hartz Mountains where on 5^th October he witnessed the untimely death of the emperor. Before his death, the emperor entrusted his six-year-old successor, Henry IV, and the regency of the kingdom to the pope. On 28^th October, after burying the emperor in the cathedral at Speyer, he secured the imperial succession of Henry IV by having him solemnly enthroned at Aachen. He still further strengthened the position of the boy-king by recommending him to the loyalty of the princes at the imperial Diet which he convened at Cologne early in December, and at the court Diet of Ratisbon on Christmas Day.

Leaving the regency of Germany in the hands of Agnes mother of Henry IV, Victor returned to Rome in February, 1057, where he presided over a council at the Lateran on 18^th April. On 14^th June he created Frederick, whom he had a month previously helped to the abbacy of Montecassino, Cardinal-priest of San Crisogono thus gaining the friendship of the powerful Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, a brother of the new cardinal. He then went to Tuscany, where he settled (23^rd July) a jurisdictional dispute near Arezzo; five days later he died. His attendants wished to bring his remains to the cathedral at Eichstatt for burial. On their way thither, the remains were forcibly taken from them by some citizens of Ravena and buried there in the Church of Santa Maria Rotonda.

Stephen IX or X (1057-1058)

Frederick of Lorraine was born. c. 1000 and died on 29^th March 1058 in Florence[8]. The brother of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, he studied at Liege, where he became archdeacon. Under his cousin Pope Leo IX he became an important papal adviser and a member of the inner circle that led the movement for ecclesiastical reform. In 1054 he was papal legate to Constantinople, subsequently retiring to the important Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino. He became abbot there in 1057. Pope Victor II made Frederick cardinal priest shortly before his death on July 28^th 1057. He succeeded Victor as Pope Stephen IX on the following 2^nd August but was already dying when elected. During Stephen’s brief pontificate the general church reform begun by Leo gained impetus. He called a Roman synod to denounce simony and enforced clerical celibacy. Among the celebrated reforming ecclesiastics employed by Stephen were Cardinal Peter Damian, the powerful Roman cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, and Cardinal Hildebrand. He secured the cooperation of cardinals and Roman burghers to ensure the canonical and independent election of his successor, requesting them to await the return of Hildebrand, whom he had dispatched as legate in Germany. Stephen died in the midst of plans to halt the Norman advance in southern Italy and to negotiate an end to the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western churches.

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[1] For a survey and bibliographical guide, Ute-Renate Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century, Philadelphia, 1988 and Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250, Oxford, 1989. The two fundamental studies remain: Auguste Fliche, La réforme grégorienne, three volumes, Paris, 1924-37; Gerd Tellenbach, Libertas: Kirche und Weltordnung im Zeitalter des Investiturstreites, Leipzig, 1936; English translation as Church, State and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest, translated R. F. Bennett, Oxford, 1970.

[2] The Dictatus Papae (“Dictates of the Pope”), a list of brief statements inserted in Gregory’s register asserting papal claims. For example, the eighth title states that the pope alone can use the imperial insignia (the symbols of temporal power). The result of an assiduous combing of various sources, the Dictatus (which dates to 1075), seems to anticipate the controversies of the coming years. Certainly, it suggests the direction in which the thought of the Roman Curia was moving.

[3] Charles Munier Le Pape Léo et la Réforme de L’Eglisle 1002-1054, Strasbourg, 2002, especially pages 193-216 looks specifically at relations with th Normans. L. Sittler and P. Stintzi, Saint Léon IX, Le pape alsacien, Colmar, 1950 remains useful.

[4] Josef Deer Papsttum und Normannen. Untersuchungen zu ihren lehnsrechlichen und kirchenpolitischen Beziehungen, 1972 is a detailed but difficult work that looks at relations between successive popes and the Normans. Jean Decarreaux Normands, Papes et Moines, Paris, 1974 is short than Deer’s study and probably the best general work on the subject.

[5] S. Runciman, The Eastern Schism, Cambridge, 1955 remains the best starting-point. J.M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire, Oxford History of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1986, a superb survey of Byzantine history and theology, touching on a host of valuable issues touching medieval history, including the iconoclastic controversy, the Great Schism, and the Crusades.

[6] The Donatio Constantini or ‘Donation of Constantine’ is a document that discusses the supposed grant by the emperor Constantine the Great to Pope Sylvester I (314–335) and his successors of spiritual supremacy over the other great patriarchates and over all matters of faith and worship, as well as of temporal dominion over Rome and the entire Western Empire. It was claimed that the gift was motivated by Constantine’s supposed gratitude to Sylvester for miraculously healing his leprosy and converting him to Christianity. Now universally admitted to be a forgery, it was regarded as genuine by both friends and enemies of the papal claims to power throughout the European Middle Ages. It was composed from various sources, especially the apocryphal Vita S. Silvestri (“Life of Saint Sylvester”). In the 9^th century, it was included in the collection known as the False Decretals, and two centuries later it was incorporated in Gratian’s Decretum by one of his pupils. The earliest certain appeal to it by a pope was made in 1054 by Leo IX in a letter to Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople. From that time forward it was increasingly employed by popes and canonists in support of the papal claims, and from the 12^th century onward it became a weapon of the spiritual powers against the temporal. Although the validity of the document was sometimes questioned, its genuineness was first critically assailed during the Renaissance. In 1440, Lorenzo Valla proved that it was false. Various interpretations of this forgery have been developed by scholars. It is generally agreed that it was written between 750 and 800. Some believe that it was written in Rome, but others believe it was composed in the Frankish empire. The evidence of its Roman origin is mainly internal. Evidence for a Frankish origin is based on the facts that the earliest manuscript (in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) containing it appears to have been written there and that the earliest quotations from it are by Ado of Vienne, Hincmar of Reims, and Aeneas of Paris, all Frankish authors.

[7] The chief sources for the life of Victor II are the narrations of an anonymous writer of Herrieden, Anonymous Haserensis, a contemporary of Henry IV; they are printed in Monumenta Germaniae Historia: Scriptorum, volume VII, 263 sq.; H. R. Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages, volume VI, London, 1910, pages 183-206; Joris, ‘Victor II, pape et regent de l’empire’ in Revue du monde catholique, volume IV (1862-3), pages 560-72; V, 46-61; Hofler, Die deutsch. Papste, volume II, Ratisbon, 1839, pages 217-68; Jaffe Regesta Pontif. rom. volume I, pages 549-553; II, pages 710-1, 750, Leipzig, 1885-8 and Liber pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, volume II, page 277.

[8] The chief material on Stephen IX (X) are Liber Pontificalis, volume II, page 278, ed. Duchesne, Paris, 1892; U. Robert has put together all that is known of Stephen X in his Histoire du P. Etienne X, Brussels, 1892 and H.K Mann The Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages, volume VI, London, 1910, pages 207-225.

Aspects of Chartism: Beyond Kennington Common

The Convention continued to sit undaunted by the rejection of the petition. It organised more mass meetings preparatory to the summoning of a National Assembly that would call upon the Queen to dissolve Parliament and accept only a government prepared to implement the Charter. 6,000 people in Aberdeen voted to form a National Guard, while in Manchester 100,000 people were said to have pledged their support to the Convention in any emergency. On Monday 17^th April the Convention met again, and for the first time delegates acknowledged that a number of the signatories to the petition might well be far less than claimed. Internal disagreement, mutual suspicion and recriminations increasingly paralysed the work of the Convention. O’Connor attacked its handling of the petition. On Clark’s motion, the meeting of the National Assembly was postponed to 1^st May, but the mood remained defiant. In the following week, the first delegates were elected as further public meetings took place. At this point, O’Connor chose to claim that the National Assembly would be an illegal gathering.

Delegates began to leave to seek guidance in their localities. The Convention, though not actually dissolved, as Jones feared, was rapidly losing the initiative. His hopes that pressure could be maintained through the National Assembly that met in May, were shattered when O’Connor came out against it. William Dixon (Norwich) was appointed chairman and James Shirron (Aberdeen) secretary. At first concern was expressed that the Assembly was illegal because it contained more than 49 people. O’Connor came in for criticism, not least from Shirron, who complained that no trust could be placed in the word of a man who had first declared the event legal and subsequently illegal. It soon became evident that most delegates were opposed to physical force, though Shaw of London, Sharp, Ernest Jones, McLean, C.B. Henry (Aberdeen), Shirron, McIntosh (Newcastle-on-Tyne) and T. Jones (Liverpool) said their constituents would fight if necessary. The Assembly resolved that its programme should be to give increased vigour to the movement, to deal with the organisation and policy of the Chartist body, to organise the presentation of the Memorial to the Queen, and to find the best practical method of making the Charter law.

The split between O’Connor and the Chartist body became irretrievable as O’Connor condemned the Assembly as unlawful, and the Assembly charged his Northern Star newspaper with unfair reporting. Edward Jones resigned his position on the paper. The Assembly went on to adopt a new scheme of organisation dividing the country into districts, localities and sections. There was to be a five-strong Executive and 10 Commissioners, with district and local officers appointed by their localities. The Executive’s members were to have £2 each week, and when travelling a further 2s 6d plus their second class fare. A liberty fund of £10,000 was to be raised by voluntary subscription and an office taken in London. A provisional Executive was appointed consisting of J. McCrae (Dundee), Jones, Samuel Kydd (Oldham), Leach and McDouall (Nottingham). This marked the end of Chartist efforts to use traditional mass platform to obtain the Charter. Meanwhile, the Assembly was setting out a policy agenda that went far beyond the Charter. On a motion from West it voted to repeal the union between Great Britain and Ireland; it backed Carver’s call to sever the connection between Church and State; it carried Kydd’s motion advocating the employment of the poor on public lands; and on a motion from Jones it recommended the people to arm. All sense of reality now gone, the Assembly adjourned for six weeks to take the debate back to their constituents. It did not meet again. However, on 2^nd June, The Times concluded that “Chartism is neither dead nor sleeping. The snake was scotched not killed on the 10th of April. The advancing spring has brought with it warmth, vigour and renovation.”

The spring and summer of 1848 saw a great deal of activity, arrests and trials and several riots, against the background of imminent revolution in Ireland. There was a notable toughening of views among calling for physical confrontation with the forces of law and order. Was there the potential for a Chartist rising? The focal points of government concern during the summer were the Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool districts and London. Activity in Manchester began to increase from the middle of May. The cause was the arrest and subsequent transportation of John Mitchel, editor of the United Irishman and first victim of the Treason-Felony Act. This led to a call by Irish Confederates for a mass demonstration in Stevenson Square at noon on Wednesday 31^st May. Local magistrates banned it. However, it went ahead anyway with minor disturbances. The most serious problems facing the government in late May and early June, however, came from the Bradford district and Liverpool. Open drilling spread to Leeds and Bingley. Halifax Chartists attended meeting with ‘glistening pikes flashing in the sun’. Matters came to a head to 29^th May with the botched arrest of two local Chartist leaders. Street violence followed which the Bradford police eventually brought under control. The Times grudgingly reported that[1] “if fighting with luck against Special Constables and the police could make a revolution, those who fought at Bradford ought to have succeeded.”

It is unclear whether a rising was planned at Bradford at the end of May. Whether it was or not, it is clear that any co-ordinated Chartist action was unlikely. There were different levels of preparation in different towns. Liverpool had remained relatively quiet in April despite its potential for violence. Its links with the movement in the rest of the country were weak. Its large Irish population appears to have been politically inactive. During May political activity increased with growing activity by Irish radicals. Religious divisions sharpened politics in Liverpool. Social tensions increased in June and July. Newcastle commented in his diary[2]

[June 1] “The Chartist meetings are becoming very troublesome not that we know any thing of them in this part of the Town for they meet in Clerkenwell to the amount of some thousands - but they require much watching both by police & soldiers. At Bradford there has been a very serious affair, & the rioters were very difficult to beat.  [2 June] In the H of Lords notice was taken of the tumultuous assemblies holden every night in the eastern parts of this metropolis - disturbance of the peace, good order, & mercantile transactions of the inhabitants. The Police, special constables & soldiers have been out every night of the week - amongst only Peers the D of Wellington called upon ministers to put down this nuisance, & suggested two modes either to prevent assemblage by dispersion before meeting, or else to make the ring leaders personally responsible for all damage done & for all delinquency either by word or deed. Ld Lansdowne promised that the evil should be put down. It is time that it should, the citizens complain of it bitterly.  [3 June] The Chartists have been out every night this week & today (being Sunday) they were out by ten o’clock & continued to hold meetings throughout the day in various parts of the town. The Police had to be on the alert throughout the day & had some very sharp affrays with them. On one occasion they broke all the windows of a Church. Their conduct has been very scandalous & they give out that they shall go on until they have worn out the authorities & shall have carried their point. The desecration of the Sabbath is a new practice in English outrage. They say openly that in Whitsun week they shall make such a dramatic time throughout the Kingdom as the like has never been seen before.”

Street meetings and violence increased. However, vigorous action by the police rapidly restored order and by early August, Liverpool was completely under the control of the forces of law and order. In London, the police broke up meetings in the East End on 4^th June and the provisional executive of the National Assembly called a day of protest on 12^th June. The government responded with a heavy display of force at the Bishop Bonner’s Fields meeting. It was determined to rush what remained of the Chartist threat. The hostility of the press and the willingness of the courts to convict Chartist leaders, as well as the rank and file, eased the gradual repression of the movement. Newcastle finally[3] [7 June] “A man of the name of Jones, a Chartist orator & firebrand, & anothers have been arrested. Their language has been so outrageous that there can be but little doubt that they will soon follow to the penal Colonies. Yesterday & the day before these miscreants have not shewn themselves as they announced, possibly they may think it advisable not to meet the police until they may be better organised & prepared.  [8 June] Several more of these miscreant Chartist leaders & orators have been arrested. They are all upon their guard just now & since the beginning of this week have been very quiet - but I suspect that they are now waiting for any opportunity, it is expected that on the 12^th they will show themselves in many places. Great preparations are making to meet them whenever they may appear - for the first time they are secret as to their intentions - which appears the more like earnest.  [10 June] It is intimated to us that the Govt & the Vestry are very desirous that special constables should be made & sworn in - & that we should send our Servants for that purpose, also go ourselves if we do not object to it. I sent many of my servants & they went with great good will & alacrity. I myself went to the office & enquired of the magistrate whether if I were to be sworn in I could be excused from ordinary work, & might only be called upon when danger threatened & there was a foe to meet. He told me that he thought no exceptions could be made & that I could not be excused if others were called out. He mentioned a report that tomorrow (Sunday) the Specials would be called upon to do the duty of the Police who were to have rest to better able to undergo the probable fatigues of Whit Monday. This scared me & I retired telling that if on Monday (12^th) I found that there was really likely to be a great stir, I should probably call upon him to be sworn a special constable. I will do so if occasion requires, but I have no taste for acting Police watchman in the streets.  [12 June] I am now writing at past 7 o’clock. I have heard of no disturbances anywhere, & I was told today that telegraphic accounts had been received from all the great northern [towns] there had been meetings, but all had gone off quietly & the mobs had dispersed. A meeting was conducting near Mr. O'Neil's by Westbourne Grove, but since 10 o’clock it has so absolutely poured with rain that no mob would like to be washed by it.  [13 June] Not the slightest disturbance or appearance of disturbance occurred yesterday & today every where all has been equally quiet. The Chartists have taken us in most completely - & if they ever intend to do anything, it will now not be attempted except when we may be entirely off our guard.”

Chartism soon began to lose its major leaders. Jones was convicted for his speech at Bishop Bonner’s Fields. McDouall was brought to trial in late June. Harney summed up the procedures used in court throughout the second half of 1848 in the following way[4] “Place Fustian in the dock, let Silk Gown charge the culprit with being a ‘physical force Chartist’ and insinuate that he is not exactly free from the taint of ‘Communism’, and forthwith Broad Cloth in the jury box will bellow out GUILTY.”

Gradually the noose of repression was tightened but at a cost. There was an increased commitment to violence from the Chartists who remained. News from Ireland impelled some of the Chartists towards revolution. First, Mitchel was convicted, and then Habeas Corpus was suspended in Ireland in late July and finally Smith O’Brien’s abortive rising. Very little of the activity of late July was reported in the Star. However, two new papers appeared in Lancashire. The hope was to direct outrage at the treatment of Ireland into disciplined organisation. The Truth Teller called for ‘full and perfect organisation’ and opposed any idea of planned violence. The English Patriot and Irish Repealer, edited by James Leach[5] a leading Manchester Chartist, put forward a more radical agenda. It called for all Irishmen living in England to join the Irish League. Informers were pessimistic. They detected moves to greater secrecy in Irish and Chartist circles and reported that northern England would rise if there was insurrection, even if unsuccessful, in Ireland. The result was the August ‘conspiracy’. In London, a government informer infiltrated the local groups and its leaders were arrested on 16^th August. Provincial involvement is more difficult to assess. There is evidence of disagreement between local Chartists and Irish over the use of violence. However, there is much to suggest that Manchester was intended as the centre of co-ordinated action on either 15^th or 16^th August. In the event, local magistrates struck first and in the pre-emptive strike arrested fifteen Chartist and Confederate leaders on the night of 15^th August.

Was the Chartist threat real in 1848? To those in authority it certainly was. They saw the daily meetings and riots[6]. They received reports of drilling and military style marches from the provinces. The events of 10^th April were not seen at the time as marking the end of the movement, nor was it a decisive date and nor was it the demoralising fiasco that the mainstream media sought to maintain. Perhaps the end of the year has a greater claim. By then, the leaders of the movement were in prison. The Land Company was in difficulty and the ‘year of revolutions’ in Europe had ended not with the creation of just and democratic societies but with the reassertion of traditional authority. As in 1838 and 1842, Chartism was contained from without and critically weakened from within. Yet, Kennington Common and the June riots are only ‘fiascos’ in retrospect. The revival of 1848 was limited in geographical scale. Of the 1,009 places where evidence for Chartist organisations can be found between 1839 and 1849, only 207 were active in the third phase of which only 42 had emerged since 1845. Chartism’s failure in 1848 was not one of ideas but of will. The united ‘mass platform’, already weakened, disintegrated. Chartism as a mass movement was over.

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[1] The Times, 31^st May 1848.

[2] Extracts from the diaries of the fourth Duke of Newcastle, Archives Department of the University of Nottingham, published by Open University in Arts: A Third Level Course. The Revolutions of 1848, Unit 3, Document Collection, pages 108-09.

[3] Extracts from the diaries of the fourth Duke of Newcastle, Archives Department of the University of Nottingham, published by Open University in Arts: A Third Level Course. The Revolutions of 1848, Unit 3, Document Collection, pages 108-09.

[4] ‘L’Ami du Peuple’, Northern Star, 2^nd December 1848 quoted in John Belchem ‘1848: Feargus O’Connor and the Collapse of the Mass Platform’, in Epstein and Thompson (eds.) The Chartist Experience, page 299.

[5] James Leach (1806-69) was a well-known Manchester Chartist who was imprisoned in 1848. As a pamphleteer, he wrote about the factory system and the need for a middle-class alliance.

[6] M. Finn ‘A vent which has conveyed our principles: English radical patriotism in the aftermath of 1848’, Journal of Modern History, volume 64 (1992), pages 637-659 is essential on this issue.