On his visit to Salerno, Edward Hutton visited the famed cathedral and its tomb of Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand), one of the most important and controversial Popes in history.
Today the old city of Salerno has but one thing to boast of: its Cathedral. The modern town, the great promenade of the marina, now called Corso Garibaldi, is more than a mile long, and fine as it is lacks interest. The harbour which Manfred enlarged in 1260, and which was finished by Robert the Wise, has been improved out of all recognition, and the great Castello which Robert Guiscard stormed, some 900 feet up over the sea, is a mere vast heap of ruins. The old town under this enormous debris is, however, picturesque and dirty enough to delight anyone, its irregular, narrow, and steep streets, often mere staircases, being full of medieval corners, old shrines, and old memories. It is here in the midst, with its great and beautiful atrium before it, is set the Cathedral, at the top of a great flight of steps.
This glorious church was founded and built by Robert Guiscard in 1084 in honour of St. Matthew, whose body Salerno had possessed since 930, when it is said to have been brought hither from Paestum. Robert placed it in the crypt, where it remains to this day. The Norman, whose works always astonish us, had seen the ruins of Paestum, and these he plundered for the glory of the new church….
The church itself is guarded by great and beautiful doors of bronze, presented by Landolfo Butromile, and made in Constantinople in 1099. They are wonderfully adorned with the figures of six apostles and with crosses, and were all inlaid with silver. Within, unhappily, the church we see is altogether unworthy of these glories, for it has been entirely modernized. It still retains its tombs, however, and certain noble ornaments from of old….
Wax Effigy
In the similar chapel to the right of the high altar lies the greatest of all the Popes, Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. This was he who in the eleventh century conceived that wonderful dream which only the brutality of the time prevented him from realizing. He it was who would have summoned an army from all Christendom, which he would have led in person to the conquest of Byzantium, that the Greek and Latin Churches might have been united under one head, and this having been achieved, all Christendom under his leadership would have turned upon the Saracen and restored the Empire of Augustus and of Hadrian and of Constantine. The Pope forewent his dream. Instead, seeing the corruption of the world he began the reformation of the West. And first he made an army that nothing has ever been able to break. He established a celibate clergy, created the priesthood of Europe, and forbade alike the investiture of a married clergy-man or any other layman to any spiritual office. He claimed for the Church an absolute independence from the temporal power of Caesar; more, he declared and maintained the supremacy of the church over the State, and all this he made good; and above all shown the throne of Peter like the sun over the world. For he claimed and maintained and established the infallibility of the Church, he asserted and erected the name of Pope as incomparable with any other, the Pope alone could make and depose the emperor; all Princes must kiss his feet; he could release from their allegiance the subjects of those whom he had excommunicated, and his legates took precedence over all Bishops and ambassadors.
The first to face him and say him nay was the Emperor; at Canossa he was broken and humbled in the snow. It was Hildebrand who first flung Europe upon the Holy Sepulchre. But when he died in Salerno, having given a general absolution to mankind, excepting from this act of mercy Henry, so-called the King, and the usurping Pontiff Gregory and their abettors, his last words were: “I have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile.” But there was one to answer: “In exile thou canst not die. Vicar of Christ and His Apostle thou hast received the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
This man, who more than any other before or since has expressed and summed up the claim of the church, was the son of a poor Tuscan carpenter. Here in Salerno let us salute him.
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Edward Hutton: Naples and Campania Revisited. London, 1958.Preface. Pp. 224-226.
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