Dante: Purgatory: xvi; 'Two Swords Fused Into One'

One of the perennial problems that the Christian world of Europe continually had to deal with through the middle ages was the conflict between physical and spiritual powers. The farther from Rome, the more the local authority in reality held the reigns of control. The history of this conflict played itself out again and again famously with popes and emperors, kings and princes. In Dante's time this conflict in Italy had fevered the efforts of Guelphs and Ghibellines, supporting the claims of popes and the 'German' emperor, respectively.
At the exact mid point of his Divine Comedy, exactly in the middle of his second book, called Purgatory (more of his context here and here), Dante finds himself on the Terrace of the Wrathful, and this conflict is put on the lips of the shade he finds there. It is a good shepherd of people who holds the restraining crook for the faithful, after all.

"On Rome, that brought the world to know the good,           line 106

once shone two suns that lighted up two ways:

the road of this world and the world of God.

The one sun has put out the other's light;

the sword is now one with the crook -- and fused

together thus, must bring about misrule,

since joined, now neither fears the other one.

If you still doubt, think of the grain when ripe -- 

each plant is judged according to its seed.

The region of the Po and Adige

flowed with true worth, with honest courtesy,

until the time of Frederick's campaign;

but now, the kind of man who is ashamed

to talk with, even meet with, honest folk,

may travel there completely reassured! "                           line 120

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nedits: Through the mouth of Marco, shade on the Terrace of the Wrathful on mount purgatory, Dante says,

There are two suns - the pope and the emperor, not a moon and sun,

with one eclipsed by the other. Two powers, sword and crook, joined

must lead to misrule as neither can be kept in check. The seed and the grain

show their value in the consequences.

Is it too far a stretch to see the sword and the crook joined as the military/state and the church joined for some other day?

And from this a misrule born of such a marriage, neither afraid of the other, neither checked by the other.

This Wrathful shade tells Dante that his home region used to be full of honest folk until Frederick II's campaign

that shook the notions of papal and imperial power all around. 

The rift, and the weld, the knowledge of their once separate rulers, divided, from here on,

became too much to bear and caused new problems all across Christendom. 

Dante saw the results of decades - others would say they saw centuries - divided, the people against each other.

The Guelf and Ghibelline conflicts in Italy would tear cities and regions apart, it is true, 

and those factions continued to mold opinion as issues, kept hardset in fevered remembrances, retold, reframed in endless examples.

This was not a universal opinion, of course, but one Dante was often quick to provide for his hellsent souls 

and penitent pilgrims bent to traverse his Divine Comedy.

So what does it mean that even one 'who is ashamed' to meet with honest folk, can travel to Tuscany without having to be ashamed?

A roundabout way of saying it's full of liars, for one. This, we must infer, means the wrathful is still undergoing his penitence.

Mark Musa, our translator and guide here is quick to say there is nothing in this speech that deals '...with original sin, the need for grace or a soul's salvation.'

The wrathful shade speaks only a kind of 'chaos'.

The shade continues.

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"There three old men still live in whom the past                       line 121

rebukes the present. How those three men must yearn

for God to call them to a better life! --

Currado de Palazzo, good Gherardo,

and Guido da Castel -- who's better named

'the simple Lombard,' as the French would say.

Tell the world this: The church of Rome, which fused

two powers into one, has sunk in muck,

defiling both herself and her true role."

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nedits: This wrathful shade here explains that the past knew better how to act.

His examples, Currado a standard bearer who carries the flag despite lack of hands,

Gherardo, the captain-general, a military leader for Treviso, 1283 - 1306, described elsewhere by Dante as an example of true nobility (Convivio IV, xiv, 12); and

Guido da Castel, still living in 1315, hosted Dante, in life, during his period of exile.

This one, 'the simple Lombard', could have gained the name from French guests,

as open-minded, yet somehow discerning, 

rather than the regular 'shrewd and unscrupulous' Lombard, Musa seems to complain.

But the tradition of the two swords can be traced back to Luke, 22:38 and to Pope Gelasius I (d 496) who reminded Theodoric, the Ostrogothic Emperor, that there were two powers.
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Mark Musa translator of Dante: Purgatory Penguin Classics Edition, for the Penguin Group Ltd, London, 1981, 1985