Cli. VI THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 209 
 
 
well. For with the Greek clergy in southern Italy continuing to marry, it
would have been difficult, if not impossible, to impose celibacy on their
Latin colleagues.32 But this was a matter which affected seriously the interests
of the Byzantine patriarchate since the Greek clergy in southern Italy were
under its jurisdiction. 
 The man who then occupied the see of Constantinople was Michael Cerularius.
Cerularius was a powerful personality and a clever and ambitious politician.
He had come near, at one time, to occupying the imperial throne, and when
he became patriarch (1043), his ambition was to render his church independent
of the state. Already disturbed by the appointment of Argyrus, Cerularius
saw in the alliance with the papacy and the activities of the pope in southern
Italy a definite threat to the interests of the patriarchate, and this threat
he determined to eliminate. His plan was to provoke a crisis calculated to
render ineffective, at least in so far as it might involve his church, the
alliance with the papacy. He began by closing the Latin churches in Constantinople
(1052 or 1053), and then issued, through Leo, archbishop of Ochrida, a manifesto
against certain usages of the Latin church, particularly the use of unleavened
bread in the celebration of the Eucharist.33 This manifesto was addressed
to John, bishop of Trani, who, although Latin, was friendly to the Byzantines,
and through him to all the bishops of the west, including the pope. Subsequent
developments in Italy, the failure of the Byzantines and of Leo IX to stop
the Normans, together with the captivity of Leo IX, made it more imperative
for pope and emperor to cooperate, and Cerularius wrote the pope a more conciliatory
letter in which he said nothing of the Latin usages which he had previously
criticized, but in which he implied that he was the pope's equal.34 The pope
now set aside the sharp rejoinder which he had prepared against the manifesto
of Leo of Ochrida and drew up a reply to the letter of Cerularius. But if
in this reply he toned down the sharpness of his rejoinder to the manifesto
of Leo of Ochrida, he made it clear that on the fundamental issue, the subordination
of Constantinople to Rome, he was offering no compromise.35 
 The papal delegation which carried the letter of the pope to the Byzantine
patriarch was headed by cardinal Humbert. No less 
 
32 Cf. Gay, L'Italie m~ridionale, pp. 479f. 
 ~ The Greek text of the letter is in Will, Acia et scripta, pp. 56—60;
and the Latin trans. lation, ibid. pp. 61—64. 
~ Will, Acta et scripta, p. 91. 
 ~ Ibid., pp. 89—92; MPL, CXLIII, 773—777; Jaffe-Wattenbach,
Regesta, vol. I, 548, no. 4332. Cf. Jugie, Le Schisme byzantin, p. 195.