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 Rome and Its papal rulers : a histoiv ot 
 
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ROME: 
 
 FROM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 
 
Works ly the same Author. 
 
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ROME 
 
 AND 
 
 ITS PAPAL RULERS. 
 
 A HISTORY OF EIGHTEEN CENTURIES. 
 
 REV. GEORGE TREVOR, M.A., 
 
 Canon op York. 
 
 LONDON ; 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD; v ,^ 
 AND 164, PICCADILLY. .(Jk ' C 
 
 ,<^;>^ 
 
 {Right of Trmtslatioji Reserved.] 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This volmne is not a History of Eome ; nor of the 
 Cturch of Eome, properly so called. It is concerned 
 only -with, the influence exerted by the Eoman See on 
 the churches and states of other countries. The 
 peculiarity of the papacy is, that of all people the 
 Eomans have had the least to do with it ; its subjects 
 are gathered out of other peoples, and its yoke is 
 nowhere less acceptable than in the city with whose 
 name it would overawe the world. Eome is not so 
 much the capital of the Papal States, or of Italy, as it 
 is the metropolis of a faith which has long languished 
 at home. The tombs of the apostles,' the temples and 
 shrines of the Eternal City, belong to the pilgrims rather 
 than the Eomans. When the Holy Father gives his 
 blessing, from the balcony of St. Peter's, urU et orbi, 
 the world is first in idea though last in the expres»sion. 
 This unique allotrio-episcopacy,^ is the subject of the 
 following pages. 
 
 > On these " Trophies of the Apostles," the fragment of Cains referred 
 to in p. 65, is not to be rated at more than its true worth. Its authority is 
 solely that of Eusebius (in the fourth century), and Eusebius is by no 
 means infallible. Other passages ascribed to Caius are now belieyed to 
 belong to other writers. 
 
 '' St. Peter's own word for "a busy body in other men's matters.'' 
 1 Pet. iv. 15. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 The treatment is historical rather than polemical. It 
 is history which supplies the completest refutation of the 
 papal claims. It doubts whether St. Peter was eyer in 
 Eome ; it is certain that he was not the founder or first 
 bishop of its See. History exhibits the earliest bishops 
 of Eome as enjoying no prerogative above their brethren 
 in other cities. The primacy conferred by the Christian 
 emperors acquired temporal attributes in the decay of 
 the old Eoman State : the conversion of the barbarians 
 elevated it into a power capable of defying the effete 
 Csesars of the East : Pepin and Charlemagne invested 
 it with a fief out of the spoils of the Lombards; and Leo 
 returned the favour by consecrating the new empire, 
 which Charlemagne had conquered for himself in the 
 West. The long struggle which ensued between pope and 
 emperor, culminated in the Hildebrandine supremacy. 
 The spiritual father became the earthly sovereign of 
 Western Christendom. The two swords were united 
 with the two keys : the coronets which encircled 
 the mitre, in right of its Italian principalities, were 
 exalted into the triple crown of a supernatural domiaion. 
 
 All was of the earth, earthy : the texts which succes- 
 sively crowned the edifice were mere accommodations of 
 the sacred language. The tu es Petrus, which made not 
 the slightest impression in the middle of the second 
 century, when Stephen hurled his bolt at the African 
 Church, was brandished by Gelasius, at the end of the 
 fifth, as a Divine endowment anterior to church canons 
 and imperial edicts. After Hildebrand, the favourite text 
 was, " I have set thee over the nations and over the 
 kingdoms to root out and to plant." Such ex post facto 
 
PREFACE. VU 
 
 applications have no claim to be treated as serious inter- 
 pretations of the "Word of God. 
 
 It is history, again, which proves the surest arbiter 
 on the religious and political effects of the Papacy. 
 The Churches were never so corrupt, the States^ never 
 so barbarous and immoral, as where the Eoman pontiff 
 ruled with supremest sway. Every attempt at moral 
 and religious reform, every effort at civil liberty, 
 found itself obliged to take the form of resistance to the 
 pope. Councils and Parliaments were powerless where 
 his authority prevailed ; freedom of conscience, liberty, 
 and life itself, have never anywhere been secure till it 
 was utterly renounced. Against this unvarying voice 
 of history no theories of sacerdotal dreamers will be 
 admitted by any practical Christian. To suppose that 
 such a rule is ordained of God, is to suppose that He has 
 given up the creature who was made after His own 
 image, and redeemed by the Blood of His dear Son, 
 to the powers of darkness. 
 
 Finally, history attests the unrelenting Warfare 
 between the papacy and the Word of God. The Holy 
 Scriptures which formed the rule of faith in the primitive 
 Church of Eome, and still hold the same place in every 
 other church, are to the papacy alone, of all Christian 
 denominations, the object of dread and persecution. Its 
 sacrilegious hand commits to the flames the books which 
 primitive Christians suffered martyrdom rather than 
 betray to the heathen. Its choicest Acts of faith have 
 been to bum alive at the stake those who read and be- 
 lieved them ! History is not deceived by the compulsory 
 moderation of modern popes. It knows the principles 
 
Vm PEEFACE. 
 
 of this enmity to be unchanged ; it discovers them in 
 exercise whenever their exercise was possible; and it 
 foretells their active revival if ever " that which now 
 letteth " be taken out of the way. 
 
 The iutelligent reader will decide for himself how 
 far this historical testimony, this unconcealed enmity to 
 the Word of God, this usurpation of the reign of Christ, 
 accompanied by the suppression of His Gospel, the 
 depreciation of His Blood, and the persecution of His 
 saints, confirm the exposition of learned men that Eome 
 is Babtlost, and the Papacy is Antichrist. The author 
 is content to have supplied materials for the judgment. 
 He ventures on no prophecy, though he believes the 
 present form of popery to be at its last gasp. The 
 temporality is expiring, but it may be that the spiritual 
 thraldom will continue, and even wax darker and 
 heavier in the souls of its devotees, when the pope 
 shall no longer have a crown, or it may be a see, at 
 Eome. The future is with God. Be it ours to dwell 
 in the love and light of Our Father in Heaven, by 
 cherishing the Saviour's Cross in our hearts, and 
 submitting our lives to the sweet rule of His Holy 
 Spirit ! 
 
 BuEioN St. Pbtee's, Holdbeness : 
 December, 1868. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Cheistian Empiee . .... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Pall op the West . .... 39 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 The Apostolic See . . . 56 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Exabchate . . .... 85 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Caelotingian- Emitee . , . 121 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Geeman Empire ... . . 141 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HJLDEBEAlirD . ■•.... 163 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 The Monks akd the Cettsades . . . , igg 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The MEDiiEVAi, Papacy . , . 216 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Avignon Papacy ... . . 247 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The G-eeai Schism ... ... 269 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 STEir&GLES OP THE COUNCILS . . . . 293 
 
 CHAPTER XIII, 
 
 The Pbotestant Ebpobmation ... . 327 
 
 CHAPTER XrV. 
 
 The Papal Eeaction 363 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Decline and Tall of the Papacy . . . .401 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The French Eeconstktjction . . . 442 
 
CONTEMPOEAEY SUCCESSIONS TO THE DIVISION OF THE 
 
 EMPIRE. 
 
 
 BMPEBOBS. 
 
 BISHOPS OP THE PATSIAROHAi 8EEB. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Borne. 
 
 Constanti- 
 nople. 
 
 Alexandria. 
 
 Antiooh. 
 
 Jeruflalem. 
 
 5^ 
 
 : OetaTiaiius Au- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 i guatus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A-D • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 U ^ 
 
 HberiuB. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 S3 
 
 
 
 
 
 .. 
 
 3t. James. 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 
 ! '.'. 
 
 3t. Peter (?) 
 
 
 87 < 
 
 isHgula. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 3t. Markl?) 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 DlaudiuB I. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 EuodiuB. 
 
 
 is 
 
 ..' 
 
 3t. Peter (P)" 
 
 
 
 
 
 61 
 
 tTero. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 61 
 
 
 
 
 ^jiia>iius 
 
 
 Simon Oleophas (?) 
 
 6? 
 
 
 [inns IP) 
 
 
 
 
 
 68 
 
 jalba. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dtho. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 69 
 
 ViteUius. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Vespasian. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 70 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ignatius. 
 
 
 78 
 
 
 Cletus'(P) 
 
 
 
 
 
 79 
 
 istus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 Domitian. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 
 
 
 Abiliufl. 
 
 
 
 91 
 
 
 Clement i. 
 
 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 ijerva. 
 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 98 
 
 Trajan 
 
 
 
 Cerdo. 
 
 
 Justus I., followed 
 by Zaocheus, To- 
 
 100 
 
 
 Evaristus. 
 
 
 
 
 107 
 
 
 
 
 PrimuH. 
 
 
 bias, Benjamin, 
 
 108 
 
 
 
 
 
 Heros I. 
 
 C 
 
 John 1., Matthew, 
 
 111 
 
 
 
 
 
 Benjamin ii., 
 
 117 
 
 Hadrian. 
 
 
 
 
 Philip, Seneca, 
 
 119 
 
 
 
 
 Justus. 
 
 
 Justus HI., LeTi, 
 Ephraim, and 
 
 129 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cornelius. 
 
 130 
 
 
 Sixtosi. 
 
 
 Eomeniua. 
 
 . 
 
 the Circumcision. 
 
 138 
 
 Antoninus Fios . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mark, first bishop 
 of the Uncircumci- 
 
 140 
 
 
 Telespboios. 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 
 
 
 'Maxoism. 
 
 
 aion, followed by 
 
 114 
 
 
 
 
 
 Heros II. 
 
 Gaasius, Publius 
 
 152 
 
 
 Hyginna. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1S3 
 
 
 
 
 Geladion. 
 
 
 lian I., Oaian, 
 
 156 
 
 
 Kusi'.' 
 
 
 
 
 JuHazL n., Gapito. 
 
 161 
 
 Marous Anitas 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LnoiuB Venis. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 165 
 
 
 Anioetns. 
 
 
 
 
 
 167 
 
 
 
 
 Agrippinua. 
 
 
 
 160 
 
 
 
 
 
 Theophilua. 
 
 
 173 
 
 
 Soter." 
 
 
 
 
 
 177 
 
 
 ElentheriuB. 
 
 
 
 
 
 179 
 
 
 
 
 JuUan, 
 
 
 
 ISO 
 
 OonmioduB.' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 185 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Maximus ii., fol- 
 
 186 
 
 .. 
 
 
 
 
 TM'ii.iriTTiiTi . 
 
 lowed by Antonius, 
 
 189 
 
 
 
 
 Demetrius . , 
 
 Serapion. 
 
 Valens, Duipian, 
 
 192 
 
 
 Viotor'i. 
 
 
 
 
 NaroJSBTia, Diua, 
 Gtermanian, ana 
 
 193 
 
 Fertiinax. 
 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Oordius, 
 
 — 
 
 Severus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 201 
 
 
 Zephyrinus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 211 
 
 Caraoalla. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 213 
 
 
 
 
 Asclepiadee. 
 
 
 216 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alexander. 
 
 217 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 218 
 
 Heliogabalus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 219 
 
 
 Calixtua i. 
 
 
 Philetus. 
 
 
 222 
 
 Alexajider. 
 
 
 [ 
 
 
 
 223 
 
 
 Urban I. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 228 
 
 
 
 Zebenus. 
 
 
 230 
 
 
 Pontianus. 
 
 
 
 
 231 
 
 
 
 Heraclafi. 
 
 
 
 235 
 
 
 Anteras. 
 
 
 
 
 230 
 
 
 Fabian.* 
 
 
 
 
 237 
 
 I Balbinns. 
 
 L 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 238 
 
 Gkffdianns. 
 
 j 
 
 
 
 
 239 
 
 
 
 
 Babylaa. 
 
 
 244 
 
 Ehilip'.' 
 
 
 
 
 
 247 
 
 
 
 Dionysius. 
 
 
 
 249 
 
 iiecins. 
 
 
 
 
 
 * The episcopal Buccessions at Bome down to Fabian are variously dated by the Chi'onologistB, 
 and the earlier names (at least) ai'e involved in much uncertainty. 
 
COKTEMPORABT SlTCCESSIOXS TO THE DIVISION OF THE EmPIRE 
 
 {continued). 
 
 261 
 
 265 
 
 266 
 
 270 
 276 
 276 
 
 300 
 306 
 306 
 
 310 
 311 
 
 312 
 
 314 
 318 
 319 
 
 331 
 336 
 
 340 
 
 341 
 
 360 
 351 
 
 BISHOPS OP THE PATBTABOHAIj SEES. 
 
 Borne. 
 
 Gallus 
 Valerian 
 
 Aurelian 
 
 Tacitus 
 
 Probns. 
 
 Cornelius 
 Luoius I. 
 Stephen i. 
 Sixtus II. 
 DionysiuB. 
 
 . . Felix I. 
 
 . , Eutychian . 
 
 Gonstonti- 
 nople. 
 
 Diocletian and 
 Maximian. 
 
 ( Oonetantlua and 
 
 { Q-alerius. 
 Gralerins. 
 Oonstantius. 
 Severua. 
 Kaxentius. 
 
 Ttffl.jriTTi'iT) - 
 
 I Oonstantine i 
 \ Victor 
 
 Mai*cellinu6 
 
 Marcellus i 
 
 EusebinB. 
 
 Slelohiades. 
 
 Sylvester i. 
 
 Alexander. 
 
 ^wst (Ecumenical Oouncil at Mct 
 
 367 
 370 
 
 379 
 380 
 381 
 381 
 
 Julian Apostate 
 Jovian. 
 
 fValentinian and 
 \ Valens. 
 
 Valentinian, 
 Valens and G-ra- 
 
 ( Oonstantine ii. 
 < Oonstantius. 
 \ Oonstans. 
 
 {V 
 
 I til 
 
 ; Valens, Gratian^ 
 and Valentinian 
 
 . n. 
 
 ' G^ratiau, Valen- 
 tinian u., and 
 
 , Theodosius. 
 
 Second (Ecumenical Gouncilatj 
 Oonatantivople. \ 
 
 Syricius. 
 
 Mai'k. 
 Julius J 
 
 Libeiios. 
 
 Damasus i. 
 
 Theodosius(c^.395.} 
 Aroadius & Hon- 
 onus. 
 
 Maximus. 
 
 Theonas. 
 
 Peter i. 
 
 Paul. 
 
 Euaebius of 
 Nicomedia. 
 
 Macednnlus. 
 
 Eudoxius. 
 
 Demophilus, 
 Eva^UB. 
 
 Gfxe^ory of 
 
 Nazianzum. 
 
 Neotarius, 
 
 Achillas 
 Alexander . 
 
 Athanasius. 
 
 Peter ii. 
 
 Timothy, 
 Theophilus. 
 
 Fabius. 
 Demetrianue 
 
 Paul of Sa- 
 mosata. 
 
 Domnus i. 
 TimneuB. 
 
 Hymeneus. 
 
 Cyril. 
 
 Tyrannus. 
 
 Zambdas. 
 Hermo, 
 
 Vitalis. 
 Philogonus. 
 
 Paulinus. 
 
 EustathiuB. 
 
 'Meletius. 
 
 Evagrius. 
 
 Macarius t. 
 
 Maximus itt, 
 
 Cyril. 
 
 Plavian, 
 
 
 . 'John rr. 
 
ROME: 
 
 FEOM THE FALL OF THE WESTEEN EMPIEE, 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIEE. 
 
 The City — Origin — ^Romulus — Capitol — Forum — Three Tribes of the 
 Populus — ^The Plebs — Seven-hilled City — ^Language — Institutions — 
 Religion — Aqueducts — Expulsion of the Kings — Consuls, Senatus 
 Populusque — Fall of the Republic — ^Dictators — ^Empire — Extent — 
 Unity — Prophecy — Elective Principle — Orientalism — Diocletian — 
 Constantine the Great — State of Religion — The Miraculous Cross — 
 The Labarum — Establishment of Christianity — State Hierarchy — 
 Distribution of Provinces — ^Ecclesiastical Organisation — Growth of 
 Prelacy — Imperial Supremacy — Church and State — Unforeseen 
 Results — The Fatal Donation — Constantine's Baptism — Donatist 
 Schism — Fanaticism. 
 
 n^ The grand and unique phenomenon of Eoman History 
 is the growth, of a City into an Empire — an empire which 
 retained the name of the city for centuries after the 
 government had migrated into other lands, and even 
 when Eome was no longer included within its limits. 
 The sovereigns of Byzantium, France, and Germany 
 boasted the style of Eoman emperors, without possessiug 
 a drop of Eoman blood, or. a yard of Eoman territory. 
 The Turks, who never set foot in' Eome, inherit her 
 name at this day on the shores of the Hellespont.' 
 
 > Roum and Roumania still witness to the persistency both of Greek 
 peasants and Moslem oppressors, in the strange assertion of the Roman 
 name. 
 
 B 
 
2 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Before the Christian era, the "Eoman orb" signified 
 the civilised world: at the present hour the Eoman 
 pontiff wears the triple crown, and regards his commu- 
 nion as synonymous with the Catholic Church, No 
 other city ever showed a vitality so enduriag and 
 multiform ; none ever exercised so extensive an influence 
 on the human race. Even in its degradation, Eome is, 
 like no other place, a centre of hopes and fears; a 
 problem to the states, and a rock of offence to the 
 churches, of Europe. 
 
 Eoman history is a library in itself: to write a 
 single division might be the work of a life. What is to 
 be attempted in these pages is to sketch the origia of 
 the existing government ; how it rose out of the ashes of 
 the fallen empire, and, taking the lead in a new civilisa- 
 tion, drew the infant states of Europe to its embrace. 
 Our course will skirt the most eventful developments of 
 Christianity ; it wiU cross the foimtain-heads of almost 
 aU existing controversies. We shall touch, without em- 
 barking upon, the stream of unfulfilled prophecy. The 
 object in view is not polemical, but historical ; but as 
 no religious argument is thoroughly convincing without 
 an historical basis, so no history can be truly told 
 without resulting in religious conclusions. The 
 thoughtful reader will feel that " God standeth in the 
 congregation of the mighty."^ He wUl be reminded 
 of the Preacher's exhortation : "If thou seest the oppres- 
 sion of the poor, and violent perverting of judgn^ent and 
 justice in a province, maxvel not at the matter : for He 
 that is higher than the highest regardeth ; and there be 
 higher than they." " 
 
 The origin of Eome is lost in the fables of antiquity. 
 Jotham, the grandfather of Hezekiah, was reigning at 
 
 > Ps. Ixxxii. 1. 5 Eccl. T. 8. 
 
ROMULUS. 6 
 
 Jerusalem, when, according to the legend, Eomulus 
 founded a new settlement on one of the small hills 
 forming the left bank of the Eiver Tiber (b.c. 753). 
 This part of Italy was at that time occupied by a number 
 of independent tribes, of whom the most conspicuous are 
 the Latins' and Sabines," on the south side of the river, 
 and the Etruscans on the north. Eomulus was a 
 fugitive from the Latin capital Alba Longa, the tradi- 
 tionary city of Ascanius, son of the Trojan JEneas.^ The 
 legend relates that he was suckled by a wolf, an object 
 of superstitious veneration among the Sabines,* who occu- 
 pied two of the neighbouring hills, afterwards known as 
 the CapitoUne and the QuirinaU The mount on which 
 Eomulus built his castle was called the Palatine, a name 
 transmitted to the palaces of sovereigns and bishops to 
 the present day ; but the origin of which, as of most 
 other appellations of the period, is highly uncertain.* 
 In his new settlement, Eomulus offered an asylum like 
 the cave of AduUam, where " every one that was in 
 distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one 
 that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him ; and 
 he became a captain over them." The marsh between 
 
 ' Dr. Donaldson connects this name with the Lettes, or Lithuanians 
 (whom he conceives to be of the same stock), and with the German leute, 
 the people, literally "freemen." — Varrcmianus, pp. 7 and 70. 
 
 ' Worshippers of Sabus, son of Sancus." — Ibid. p. 10. 
 
 » This tradition confirms the existence of a Pelasgic element in the 
 population of Latium. According to Dr. Donaldson, ^neaa is a Pelasgic 
 name for a river god, whence the modern Amo. — Ibid. p. 9. 
 
 * Ibid. pp. 6 and 68 : the superstition was retained by the Komans. 
 
 ' Capitoline is obviously connected with caput, a head ; and a man's 
 head is said to have been found in digging the foundation for the temple 
 of Jupiter Capitolinus ; but the name may have denoted that it was the 
 chief ornament and defence of the state. Quirium, as Niebuhr conjectures, 
 was the name of the Sabine city on this hiU. Komulus was worshipped 
 here as Quirinus, and the Romans affected to call themselves Quirites. 
 
 ' Palatinus is probably in sOme way connected with the Pelasgi. 
 There was a place of similar name in Arcadia. Pales, the goddess of sheep- 
 folds, had an annual feast to commemorate the foundation of Romulus. 
 
 b2 
 
4 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 their hill and the Capitoline was the forum^ or market- 
 place where the two nations conducted their intercourse. 
 Either by force or persuasion the Sabines were induced 
 to supply the freebooters with wives/ and the two settle- 
 ments became one people.. A third tribe of Etruscan 
 (or Pelasgic) origin, which had established itself on the 
 Ccelian and Esquiline ^ hills, was admitted into the commu- 
 nity; and these three constituted the " Eoman people," 
 They were commemorated in the three tribes or classes 
 which long monopolised the power of the state ; the 
 Latias in the Ramnenses, the Sabines in the Titienses, 
 and the Etruscans in the Imceres. These alone were 
 entitled to the name and franchise of the populus 
 Romanus. Becoming strong enough to subdue the old 
 Latin capital^ they removed the inhabitants of Alba 
 Longa, and settled them as a subjugated class on thei 
 Aventine hill, which was then without the city walls. 
 These were the commons, or plehs, who, though not 
 reduced to personal slavery, had no share in the publie 
 property, and no voice in the administration of the 
 state: The Aventine was included, together with the 
 Vimtnal, by the stone wall ascribed to Servins Tullus, 
 some traces of which are still visible. This was Rome f 
 or, according to her own favourite appellation, the Seven- 
 hilled City} 
 
 ~ Hence the poetical legend of the rape of the Sabines, invented, says 
 Dr. Donaldson, to explain the marriage ceremonies in which, as among the 
 Lithuanians of the present day, the bride was borne to her new home with 
 an appearance of force. — Varronianus, p. 68. 
 
 2 Probably a corruption of " excultus," from its sacred grove, or, as 
 some think, from its being (at first) beyond the cultivated limits. 
 
 ' Of the numerous etymologies, the two most probable are — 1, Riimo, 
 "the stream" — compare Rhine, Rhone, Rha (Volga), the Greek ^ew, 
 Latin ruo, German rennen, English run; and 2, Orumus, or groma, 
 the name given to the point of intersection of the streets in the Forum 
 where a mound or monument was erected. — Varronianus, p. 68, u. 
 • Sed quse de septein totum circumspicit orbem, 
 MontibuB imperii, Roma deumque locus. — Ov. Fast. 
 
PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS. 
 
 The heterogeneous comnmnity retained the name 
 and speech of the traditionary chief of the Palatine : 
 the city was Eome, and the people Romans : but the 
 language, though enriched with numerous foreign 
 elements, was always- Latin. 
 
 The political and religious institutions of this 
 remarkable people, which enabled them to influence 
 for ages the condition of manMnd, were all planted 
 during the obscure infancy of the state under the rule of 
 the Kings. There is no doubt that, at least, the last three 
 of these rulers belonged to an Etruscan dynasty, which 
 had twice subjected Eome to a foreign tyranny; hence 
 the undying hatred ever afterwards borne to the kingly 
 name and emblems. Yet the. religious rites, which more 
 powerfully than any other affected the Eoman mind, were 
 so inseparably connected with the regal office, that a 
 " king of the sacrifices " was always retained in the college 
 of pontiffs, to conduct the public worship. 
 
 The settlement of Eomulus was apparently without 
 any temple or idol : its religion consisted for the most 
 part of auspices and omens, taken after the Latin 
 or aboriginal superstition. The Capitoline was called 
 the Saturnian hill, a name which indicates the worship 
 of the god of time, Whom the Greeks called Chronos, 
 and the Etruscans Satumus. Numa Pompilius, the 
 successor of Eomulus, established, according to the 
 legend, pontiffs, augurs, flamens, vestal virgins to 
 watch the ever-burning fire, and the salii, who danced 
 before the god of war, and kept the sacred shield 
 which fell down from heaven. But the Etruscans 
 venerated the Grecian deities, and, above all, the 
 
 There -was an earlier Septimontium, consisting of the smaller emi- 
 nences above the Palatine, before the incorporation of the Sabines. — 
 Arnold's "History of Rome," ch. iii. 
 
6 THE CHEI8TIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 three whom they called Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.' 
 They held that every city ought to have three gates 
 consecrated to these divinities, and it was an Etruscan 
 kiag, Taxquinius Prisons, who cleared away the old gods 
 from the Satumian Hill, and raised a new temple to 
 Jupiter Oapitolinus with the two goddesses, his consort 
 and offspring. The old native rites were thus permanently 
 supplanted by the Greek mythology, and it was said that 
 " Batum was dethroned by his son."' The Eomans, in 
 expelling their tyrants, adhered to the foreign idols 
 with such tenacity, that when, in the sixth century of 
 the city, the books of Fuma were discovered iu his 
 tomb under the Janiculum, the prsetor ordered them to 
 be burnt as overthrowing the Eoman religion. This was 
 the first of the autos-da-fe, for which the Eternal City is 
 notorious. 
 
 To the kiags also belonged the merit of those stupen* 
 dous buildings for the draining of the marshy valleys 
 of Eome, of which the remaias are still visible : they are 
 proofs of a powerful government and a nation of serfs. 
 All the moral and political greatness of the state was 
 achieved after their overthrow. When the last tyrant 
 was expelled (b.c. 509), there remained, not a free com- 
 monwealth, but an " exclusive and tyrannical aristo- 
 cracy,'" lording it over a mob of Oppressed and dispirited 
 commons. The entire Eoman territory did not exceed 
 forty miles in length and thirty in breadth. 
 
 The senate assuming the government elected annually 
 two Consuls, or, as the old name was, Prcetors, for the 
 
 ' The Greek names were Zeus, Hera, and Athene. The first is equi- 
 valent to deus and dies (day) whence the Etruscans called him Diespiter, 
 or Jupiter, " Father of Light." Juno (Jovino or Dguno) was a feminine 
 formation, and Menerfa, or Minerva, was connected with the myth which 
 described this deity as springing from the head of Jove, for the head was 
 the seat of the intellect (mens) as the heart of the animus. 
 
 » Justin, xliii. 1. ' Arnold's " History of Rome," i. 69. * 
 
FALL 03? THE REPUBLIC. 7 
 
 executive. The dissensions between the privileged and 
 the unenfranchised classes long threatened anarchy : but 
 when these had been in some degree adjusted, the 
 senate and people of Eome carried their arms to the 
 farthest limits of the known world. The Mediterranean 
 Sea was converted into a Eoman lake, and the fairest 
 portions of Europe, Africa, and Asia, received their 
 laws from the banks of the Tiber. 
 
 The name and forms of this illustrious republic 
 were cherished for centuries after the reaUty had 
 disappeared : they are not wholly obliterated even under 
 the Papacy. Practically, however, the commonwealth 
 may be said to have terminated in the dictatorship of 
 Sylla (b.c. 80), for "though he restored the republic" 
 (as Cicero observes) " it cannot be denied that he had 
 the power of a kmg." The four-and-twenty Uctors 
 attended on his person with the fasces and axes ; he 
 repealed and enacted laws, named the consuls to be 
 chosen by the senate, and distributed the public lands at 
 his discretion. 
 
 The arbitrary power thus established was not abolished 
 by the resignation of Sylla, who retired into privacy 
 before his third year of office was completed. The 
 senate and consuls were never afterwards without a 
 master. In the opinion of a modern historian, who has 
 undertaken the same task of converting a republic into 
 an empire, " the irresolute multitude, fatigued by the 
 action and reaction of opposing parties, aspired to order 
 and repose." ' The first triumvirate ended in the dicta- 
 torship of Julius Csesar, and the second, which sprang 
 from his ashes, culminated in the sole sovereignty of 
 his nephew and avenger, Octavian. Under this prince 
 the republic transformed itself into a monarchy, with so 
 little political commotion that it seemed as if the 
 
 ' "History of Julius Csesar," by the Emperor Napoleon III., vol. i. 
 
8 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIEE, 
 
 popular rule found its crown and consummation in the 
 imperial.' 
 
 The empire increased its population in twenty years 
 from 4,000,000 to 6,844,000, and the social benefits of 
 the revolution were expressed in the boast of Augustus, 
 that he found Eome of brick and left it of marble. He 
 was ignorant of the more glorious revolution which was 
 to date from his reigij. In the twenty-third year of 
 the first Augustus the true Prince of Peace was bom 
 in a hostelry of Judea. 
 
 The Eoman empire attained its widest limits under 
 Trajan (a,d. 117), when it extended over all Europe 
 south of the Ehine and Danube, with Dacia and Britain ; 
 Asia from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and 
 the Persian Gulf ; with Egypt and the northern 
 coast of Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. The subsequent 
 partition of these enormous territories between contem- 
 poraneous emperors did not destroy the unity of the 
 empire. It was still one state, administered from dif- 
 ferent centres, but cleaving to the segis of one parent 
 and capital — ^the Seven-hilled City. Even the more 
 formal division of East and "West, at the death of 
 Theodosius the Great (a.d. 395), could not efface the 
 sentiment. When at the expiry of the twelve centuries, 
 believed to have been foreboded by the twelve vultures 
 of her founder, ** Eome fell a prey to the Goths, and 
 the Western Empire was extinguished, her name and 
 
 > Some commentators explain the " seven kings" (Rev. xvii. 10) of 
 these successive forms of government : 1, kings ; 2, consuls ; 3, dictators ; 
 4, decemviri; 5, military tribunes; 6, emperors. Of these iive -were 
 fallen, the sixth in existence, and a seventh to succeed at a future 
 period. It is difficult, however, to regard these forms of government 
 as properly successive. Nos. 3, 4, and 5 were but temporary invasions 
 of No. 2, which subsisted from the expulsion of the kings to the rise of 
 the empire. 
 
 2 This tradition was at least as old as Cicero, 
 
PROPHECY. y 
 
 authority survived at Constantinople. And "vvlien this 
 New Eome yielded in hei* turn, first to the luxury, and 
 then to the arms, of barbarians, the Eternal City took the 
 conquerors to her bosom, and, vanquishing them by the 
 power of religion, raised a new empire out of the ashes 
 of the old. 
 
 Throughout these changes Eome was ever the mother 
 and mistress of the subject world. *Eepublican, Im- 
 perial, or Papal, it was the Seven-hilled City which 
 set her stamp on ages and generations. She glorified 
 herself, and lived deliciously. She said in her heart " I 
 sit a queen." The kings and inhabitants of the earth 
 drank of her cup, and in her was found the blood of 
 prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon 
 the earth. The woman, arrayed in purple and scarlet, 
 with the inscription on her tiara, " Babylon the Great j 
 the mother of harlots and abominations," is by common 
 consent acknowledged to be Eome. Papal writers, 
 applying the vision to Pagan Eome, imagine the judg- 
 ments to be fulfilled, but less partial students of 
 prophecy discern its criteria still more distinctly in 
 Papal Eome, and look for a yet future judgment, when 
 "her plagues shall come in one day, death, and mourning, 
 and famine ; and she shall be utterly burned with fire : 
 for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. That 
 great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall be 
 found no more at all."^ 
 
 It should be observed that the empire and the emperor 
 were not originally terms of cognate signification. Both 
 were in use under the republic; but while imperium 
 was applied to the entire dominions, in the niodern sense 
 of "empire,"^ the imperator was simply a general in the 
 
 > Kev. xvii 5, 6 ; xviii. 3, 7, 8, 21. 
 
 2 In strictness of speech imperium signified the military power, and 
 potestas the civU ; but the Imperium Romanum was a popular term for the 
 
10 THE CHEISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 army. It was the title by which the soldiers were 
 accustomed to salute a victorious commander, as they 
 raised him on their shields, and bore him in triumph 
 through the ranks. The appellation was retained, if 
 confirmed by the senate, tUl the honours of the more 
 formal triumph had been duly earned. Julius Csesar 
 selected this popular designation to disguise the monarchy 
 which he extorted from the senate on the death of his 
 great rival Pompey. A dictatorship for Hfe, with the 
 power of raising men and money at discretion, fell short of 
 royalty only in name ; but the name, he was aware, would 
 create more odium at Eome than the thing ; and while 
 the vaia-glorious Antony pressed him to assimie a crown, 
 C83sar wisely contented himself with the unpretending 
 laurel of imperator. Under this familiar title, so often 
 bestowed upon him by his victorious legions, he pos^ 
 sessed himself of all the practical powers of an Oriental 
 despot, and it became to his successors the received 
 designation of more than regal majesty. 
 
 The ambition of the second Caesar was to found an 
 empire of peace more than of arms. Octavian aimed, 
 like Julius, at absorbing rather than abrogating the 
 republic — ^to be a despot by election instead of force. 
 He was elected Consul for ten years, and by renewal for 
 life. As Princeps Senatus^ the title he most affected, he 
 suggested the decrees which he executed as Consul. He 
 was the head of the state religion as Chief Pontiff ; he 
 commanded the army as Imperator ; regulated the 
 finances as Censor ; and held the Comitia as Tribune of 
 the People. These offices involved the entire adminis- 
 tration of the Eoman State. Their union requiring a 
 
 whole government, like our own British, or Indian, Empire. It is in this 
 sense that Russia and China are called empires, and their sovereigns 
 emperors. In Germany, on the other hand, the title was claimed as a 
 contmuation of the peculiar majesty of Rome.— See the author's "Russia 
 Ancient and Modern," p. 87. ' 
 
ORIENTALISM. 11 
 
 title of larger significance than the old Latiri imperator, 
 Oetavian proposed to assume the name of Eomulus, as 
 though a second founder of the state. The senate pre- 
 ferred to regard him as the consecrator of a new era; and 
 selecting a term of religious import, they hailed the 
 new sovereign as Augustus. This was ever after the 
 sovereign title. The family name of Ccesar was retained 
 by the first twelve, though the blood of Julius perished 
 with Nero." Succeeding emperors granted it to their 
 intended heirs, who were thus created (as it were) 
 princes of the blood, and admitted to the honours of the 
 purple. The Csesar was generally invested also with 
 the government of part of the empire as viceroy. Later 
 still, the style of Augustus was granted after the same 
 fashion, with a joint instead of a subordinate authority ; 
 stni the senior Augustus, was considered the head of the 
 whole empire. 
 
 In one point the republican principle remained to 
 the last. The emperor reigned by election, not by here- 
 ditary right. Under all forms of sovereignty, since the 
 expulsion of the Tarquins, Eome, republican, imperial, 
 papal, never admitted the principle of hereditary suc- 
 cession. The Csesarship was never a simple birthright ; 
 it was conferred by the sovereign and approved by the 
 senate. When there was no Csesar, the senate claimed 
 to elect the Augustus. Here, however, they came into 
 collision with the army, who cotdd not forget the origin of 
 the imperator. The legions persisted in saluting their 
 favourite commander, and the contest fell to the decision 
 of arms. On the death of Pertinax (a.d. 193) the 
 soldiers put the purple up to sale, and forced the pur- 
 
 ' The full style was at first written thus : — ^Imperator Csesar Domi- 
 tianus Augustus. With the thirteenth emperor, the proper family name 
 was introduced instead of Caesar, and other honorific appellations were 
 assumed. The first Christian sovereign wrote himself " Imperator Victor 
 Maximus Constantinus Augustus." 
 
12 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 chaser on the senate at the point of the sword. Fifty 
 years later, as many as thirty military emperors appeared 
 in the field, during the captivity of Valerian. Their 
 discord encouraged the famous Zenobia to usurp the 
 purple at Damascus, and Aurelian was glad to concede 
 her the name and honours of Augusta. 
 
 After this the usages of Oriental courts began to taint 
 the air of the Palatine. The laurel crown was replaced by 
 a jewelled diadem ; the military pallium expanded into a 
 robe of flowing silk, embroidered with gold ; the once 
 detested titles of lord and king were claimed without 
 scruple. All who approached the imperial presence were 
 required to prostrate themselves on the ground. Instead 
 of the old frank salute of cheek or hand, the haughty 
 Eoman learned to kiss his sovereign's foot, encased in a 
 gorgeous slipper. The first to exact this degrading 
 ceremonial was the slave-born Diocletian, a persecutor 
 whose accession was stigmatised in Christian annals as 
 the "era of the martyrs " (a.d. 284). It is at Eome alone, 
 of all the courts of Europe, that the slavish homage still 
 survives, and the monarch who demands it is the only 
 one that is still raised by the suffrage of his fellows from 
 servitude to the purple. Though never ceasing to per- 
 secute the Gospel, thousands venerate him as the father 
 and priest of Christendom, the sole successor of the 
 apostles, and the Vicar of the Lord himself. 
 
 Diocletian was the first to create a second Augustus to 
 share the burdens of empire ; after that the emperors were 
 seldom seen in Eome. Diocletian fixed his residence at 
 Mcomedia, on the eastern side of the Bosphorus, while 
 Maximian reigned at Milan, as Augustus of the West. 
 In these cities each abdicated the purple on the same day 
 (a.d. 304) ; the first to plant cabbages at his birthplace 
 in Dalmatia — an occupation in which he was wont to 
 say that he then began to live,— the other to consume 
 
CONSTANTINE THE GEEAT. 13 
 
 himself with repinings for the loss of a dignity which no 
 intrigues were able to recover. 
 
 The emperors, up to this tiaie, had been all more or less 
 persecutors of Christianity. Diocletian vowed to ex- 
 tinguish it in the blood of its disciples : his retirement 
 from the contest, worsted and despairing, was the first 
 omen of the change about to pass on the state religion. 
 Galerius, who succeeded in the East, was a stiU bitterer 
 persecutor : the dawn came from the "West, where Con- 
 stantius, the new Augustus, was " almost a Christian," 
 and in dying soon after encouraged his son to become 
 one altogether. It was a joyful day to the long-afflicted 
 disciples of the Cross, when they heard that Constantino 
 was saluted Augustus by the legions at York (a.d. 
 305). The struggle that immediately ensued was sharp 
 but decisive. Maxentius, son of Maximian, being at 
 Rome when the senate received the intelligence, was 
 so exasperated by the arrival of the laurel-wreathed 
 iniage of the new Augustus, that he seized on the city, 
 and proclaimed himself emperor. Maximian rushed from 
 his retirement, not to assist his son, but to reassert his 
 own pretensions. Galerius, rejecting all the aspirants 
 alike, took Seva'us and afterwards Liciuius for his 
 colleague, but dying soon after, left the East to the 
 latter. 
 
 Meantime the battle of the Milvian Bridge (a.d. 312) 
 opened the gates of Eome to Constantine, who was 
 already master of Helvetia, Gaul, and Britain. Max- 
 entius perished in the engagement, and the senate 
 joyfully proclaimed the victor. Giving his sister in 
 marriage to Licinius, he was content to share the 
 empire between them, till the other renewing the per- 
 secution in the East, Constantine resolved to put himself 
 once for all at the head of the Christians, and advance 
 the banner of the Cross against his perfidious brother- 
 
14 THE CHRISTIAN EMrmE. 
 
 in-law. The struggle terminated in the re-union of the 
 Eoman orb, under the sole monarchy of the first Christian 
 emperor (a.d. 323). 
 
 This was the second great revolution of the 
 civilised world. Heathen Eome, while reducing every 
 independent state within reach of its legions to the 
 yoke of one empire, found it impossible to incorporate 
 them into one religion. The deities, rites, and sacrifices 
 of subject nations could not be dragged with their kings 
 and chieftains in the conqueror's triumph. The gods of 
 the capitol tolerated no barbarian associates, and the 
 indigenous rite would have lost its significance in being 
 divorced ficom the soil it was supposed to sanctify. 
 The unity of the human race might be iadicated in a 
 community of political rights, but the central bond was 
 wanting in the absence of a common object of worship. 
 To the empire the central object was the Emperor : 
 whence his image was not unnaturally associated with 
 the idols. Temples and altars were built to Csesar, and 
 his worship — ^to ardent politicians the most genuine of 
 any — ^was the only common prop to which the various 
 idolatries could cling for protection.' 
 
 All thoughtful miads must have distrusted a religion 
 which could not trust itself. Altars that could ex- 
 change compliments with the throne of Caesar offered 
 little attraction to spirits in quest of God. The 
 Oriental systems, which professed to know Him best, 
 declined to subject their mysteries to imperial law. 
 And it was from the East, to which all eyes had been long 
 wistfully turned, that the New Man, the Central Light 
 and Life, was revealed. The conquests of the Csesars had 
 combined in their measure, with the cravings of philo- 
 sophy and the utterances of the prophets, to prepare His 
 
 See Ranke's "Historj' of the Popes," i. 1. 
 
constantine's conversion. 15 
 
 way upon earth. The birth of Jesus Christ at this par- 
 ticulai stage of himian. affairs was not merely the most 
 glorious phenomenon of universal history ; it was the seal 
 of God impressed on the pre-appointed fulness of time. 
 He came to replace the failing oracles by the words of 
 eternal life ; to reveal the universal hope to the newly- 
 constituted State ; to initiate its broken populations iato 
 the Ejngdom of Heaven. Wb.en He stirred the flame 
 that stiU burned on the altar at Jerusalem, it leapt up 
 and lightened the earth like a sunbeam. 
 
 The greatest obstacle to the progress of the new 
 religion was not Jupiter or Isis, but Caesar. The old 
 idolatries were already smitten and flying; it was 
 the recent usurper who gave combat to the Gospel, and 
 felt himself assailed ia its progress. Caesar's altar consum- 
 mated the servitude of mankind through a political reunion 
 of discordant superstitions. By refusing to bum incense 
 to Csesar, Christianity proclaimed, as with the voice of a 
 trumpet, the emancipation of the human soul. It drew a 
 line between the things of Caesar and the things of God. 
 Hence the emperors, who tolerated other forms of faith, 
 had no mercy for Chidstianity. In their eyes, as in 
 those of some modem politicians, it was not the rule of 
 faith, the assent of conscience, the practical life in this 
 world, or the expectations of another, which constituted 
 religion: to them religion had but one act — "sacrifice 
 to Caesar." He who refused this must be an atheist. 
 
 But now the emperor was himself a Christian. 
 The date and extent of Constantine's conversion are 
 indeed hard to be ascertained. His private character 
 affords no satisfactory evidence of personal piety.' He 
 
 ■ Constantine, like the Czar Peter of Kussia, put his eldest son to 
 death, and actually inflicted the same penalty, which Peter only threatened, 
 on his own wife. The cause was buried in mystery, but it would seem 
 that the empress Fausta was the accuser of the Csesar, and was sacrificed 
 
16 THE CHEISTIAN EMPIEE. 
 
 was never a partaker of the Sacrament which is the 
 ordinary seal of Christian communion J he was not even 
 baptised till at the point of death. He himself dated 
 his conversion from the victory of the Milvian Bridge, 
 which secured him Eome and the western empire. He 
 said that, previous to the engagement, there appeared to 
 himself and the whole army^ just above the sun, a cross of 
 light, with the inscription — "Conquer by this;'" that 
 in the night Christ appeared to him in a dream with 
 the same symbol, commanding him to make a banner 
 like it, which should protect him against all assail- 
 ants. This story the emperor confirmed to Eusebius 
 by an oath, after which the courtly historian demands, 
 "who will refrain from giving credit to the narrative?"* 
 Nevertheless it is omitted fr-om the histories of Sozomen 
 and Euffinus, and it was not supported by any eye- 
 witness, though the entire army was said to have seen 
 the vision. Pagan authors relate a vision of a celestial 
 army fighting in the air, but they are silent on the 
 cross ia the heavens. 
 
 It would seem, too, that as Constantine told the 
 story at the time, the dream was the only marvel : the 
 
 in turn to the revenge of the empress-mother Helena. Constantine lived 
 to know that both accusations were false, and his enemies said he turned 
 Christian because no other religion offered pardon for such enormous 
 crimes. His remorse, which rendered the scene of blood intolerable, was 
 one cause of his leaving Rome, but vengeance pursued liim to the East. 
 His last will (if not a forgery) accused his two brothers of poisoning him, 
 and on this suspicion they were massacred, with seven others of the royal 
 blood, by the enraged soldiery. A tenth fell a victim to the jealousy of 
 Constantius at a later period, and the sole regret which that tyrant 
 expressed on his death-bed was, that he had permitted Julian to live. 
 This single survivor justiiied his own apostasy by the crimes of the first 
 Christian emperor and his sons. 
 
 ' The narrators differ as to the language, some giving the words in 
 Latin, Tuic vince, others in Greek rovrtf yUa. Eusebius omits to determine 
 this point. 
 
 2 Vit. Const., i. 28. 
 
THE LABARUM. 17 
 
 cross in the sky was an after-thought, when the tale had 
 been often told, and was thought to be in need of further 
 embellishment.' 
 
 The standard referred to was undoubtedly displayed 
 in the battle of the Milvian Bridge, as well as in all 
 subsequent fields; but it supplies no independent 
 confirmation. It was simply a banner of purple silk, 
 depending from a bar which obliquely crossed a long 
 gilded spear. The spear was surmounted by a crown, in 
 which the first two letters of the name of Christ were 
 interwoven ; but the _field of the flag was occupied by 
 the heads of the emperor and his sons, and it was 
 only the "initiated eyes" of Christian soldiers that 
 would discern the sacred monogram at the top. The 
 heathen might adore the emperor as of old, while the 
 Christian looked above him to his Lord.^ Neither this 
 spear nor the banner resembled the alleged cross in the 
 heavens, and it .is not tUl the reign of Constantius that 
 the coins supply the motto, " By this thou shalt 
 conquer." The legend of the miraculous cross, however 
 universally received in after ages, must be classed with 
 the legion which have no historical foundation, and 
 is altogether derogatory to the character and teaching 
 of our blessed Lord.^ 
 
 The fact appears to be that Constahtine felt the value 
 of securing the Christians to his side in the contest for 
 the empire. They were now a numerous and influential 
 party, alienated from his competitors by persecution, and 
 already weU disposed to himself. His father's experi- 
 ence &nd example showed him the superior weight, even 
 in worldly repute, of the Christian faith and morals. He 
 had learned to despise the idols which Licinius vainly 
 
 • Lardner. ' Milman's " History of Christianity," ii. 856r 
 
 " See the author's " Egypt from Alexander to Bonaparte," p. 170, 
 note. 
 
18 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 invoked, and when the issue lay between them and the 
 God of the Christians, Constantine cheerfully sided with 
 the latter. The victory which crowned his first field 
 decided his future policy ; and it is observable that all 
 his proclamations refer to Christ as the giver of victory 
 rather than of salvation and grace. 
 
 That the religion by which he had profited so 
 largely should partake of his triumph was only na- 
 tural. It would be equally his policy to discourage 
 and weaken the pagan priesthood. StiU his earlier 
 edicts went no farther than to recognise Christianity 
 as a legal religion, to restore the property of which 
 the churches had been unrighteously deprived, and 
 to secure freedom and respect for Christian worship. 
 A similar immunity was preserved to the heathen. 
 The emperor's edict declares it to be untrue that 
 he had abolished the temple rites; he would gladly 
 have persuaded all to forsake them, but the force of 
 error was too strong, and acknowledging that only those 
 whom God calls can acquiesce in His laws, and live 
 holily and purely, he expressly commands that no one 
 shall be injured in the cause of religion.* 
 
 Constantine did indeed gradually estabKsh Christi- 
 anity as the State religion, but there was no such sudden 
 universal conversion as has sometimes been imagined. 
 Eome itself continued openly and professedly pagan. 
 The altar of Yictory stood in the senate house all the 
 reign of Constantine ; removed by Constantius and 
 restored by Julian, it was only finally banished by 
 Gratian, when Christianity had made considerable pro- 
 gress. Even then above four hundred idol temples were 
 left to the hundred thousand gods which once crowded 
 the ancient capital ; and it was not till a full century 
 after Constantine that idolatry was prohibited by law. 
 
 > EiiR. Vit. Concst., ii. 56, 60. 
 
CONSCIENCE IN RELiaiON. 19 
 
 In truth, Constaiitine never went to the full 
 extent of his recognised powers as Pontifex Maximus of 
 the Bomau empire. His predecessors not only founded 
 temples and altars at the public cost, appointed and 
 remoYed priests, prescribed sacrifices, and enrolled new 
 deities, but they compelled everyone to the observance 
 of their rites as matter of state law. Constantine was 
 the first emperor who recognised a conscience in religion, 
 because he was the first who believed ia Diving Eevela- 
 tion. It is not every private conviction, but only such 
 as are based on the Word of God, which have a right 
 to the sacred claim of conscience. The heathen who 
 had no such word neither made the claim, nor under- 
 stood it when advanced by others. With them religion 
 was whoUy a question of law and usage. So far 
 from thinking any form of worship of Divine obligation, 
 every people and district boasted their own rites, and 
 all were held equally acceptable. 
 
 Neither did they admit the connection between 
 outward rites and iuward belief. Every one must 
 conform to the prescribed rite, but no one was re- 
 quired to believe so much as the existence of the 
 deity to whom it was offered. In poiut of fact, few 
 of tJie educated classes did believe in the State gods, 
 or in the fatm-e world of the authorised religion. Julius 
 Csesar openly avowed his disbelief of both, when he 
 voted in the senate to punish the CatiUne conspirators with 
 imprisonment rather than death, for death, he affirmed, 
 was the end of all misery.' The audacity of such a 
 defiance of established tenets was reproved by Cato, but 
 the scepticism was too common to be seriously censured. 
 No such questions were necessarily involved in the 
 ceremonies performed by the priests, and guarded by 
 law. They were content with the opus operatum; of 
 
 ' Sail. Bell. Cat. 51. " Ultra neque curfe neque gavidio locum esse.'" 
 
 o2 
 
20 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 the spiritual result every one had his own opinion. 
 The Divine nature, the immortality of the soul, the dis- 
 tinctions of right and wrong — all that we now consider 
 moral or religious truth — were in the province of the 
 philosopher, not of the priest. The philosopher might 
 despise the superstition of the priest, and yet conform 
 without scruple to the requisition of the law. It was 
 the chief ground of complaint against the Christians that 
 they obstinately refused to sacrifice to Ceesar, when they 
 were at liberty to give their souls to Christ if they 
 chose. In the Eoman empire, religion was not a question 
 of theological truth, on which no one pretended to cer- 
 tauity, but one of public law, on which there could 
 be no dispute. 
 
 These distinctions have to be borne in mind in order 
 to realise the true nature of the revolution inaugurated 
 by the accession of a Christian emperor. The State 
 sacrifices offered by imperial command were replaced, as 
 a matter of course, by Christian rites. Having the 
 sole control of the public funds, without a shadow of that 
 responsibility to the subject which belongs to a free state, 
 the emperor would build and endow churches for his 
 own religion. He would protect and dignify their 
 ministers, give his assistance in the settlement of Church 
 questions, and lend all the power and influence of the 
 head of the state to the propagation of the Gospel. 
 Beyond this the first Christian emperor never advanced. 
 His successors went farther as their religion acquired 
 more and more political importance. Gratian refused 
 to bear the customary title of Pontifex Maximus, and 
 Theodosius formally put the question in the senate 
 whether Christ or Jupiter should be worshipped. 
 
 By this time the Gospel had implanted the sense of 
 conscience. A choice was to be made; and a large 
 majority having declared for Christianity, the heathen 
 
REMOVAL OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT. 21 
 
 temples were closed, the priestliood dissolved, and pagan 
 rites proscribed as illegal. Tlie bulk of tbe population 
 was now, at least nomiaally, Christian ; and the decree 
 was received in most places with, popular acclamations. 
 
 The first effect of imperial Christianity on Eome 
 was to deprive the Eternal City of the seat of govern- 
 ment by its permanent removal to a rival capitaL 
 Constantiae longed for a "virgia city" — a resi- 
 dence free from the idolatrous pollutions that tainted 
 every valley, and grove, and height, of the Seven 
 Hills of the Tiber. He determined to remove from 
 Nicomedia to the edge of the strait, but being iaduced 
 to foUow the course of an eagle, whose appearance was 
 regarded as an omen, he crossed to the European 
 side, where, more than nine centuries before, the Greek 
 navigator Byzas, at the head of a feeble colony, had 
 planted a republic which long defied the neighbouring 
 monarchies. 
 
 The town was named Byzantium. Its natm-al ad- 
 vantages are such that Napoleon Bonaparte declared 
 them able to ensure the command of the world. A 
 triangular peninsula, forming the eastern extremity 
 of Europe, projects into the strait at the point where 
 the narrow channel of the Thracian Bosphorus, after 
 a course of sixteen miles from the Black Sea, opens 
 into the Propontis or Sea of Marmora. The northern 
 side of this triangle is washed for seven miles by 
 a gulf receiving the Sweet Waters of the Eiver Lycus, 
 and denominated the Golden Horn. This noble harbour 
 afforded a safe anchorage for 1,200 ships, unaffected by 
 tides, and was easUy closed by a chain at the mouth. At 
 the eastern extremity, where Constantino placed his 
 palace, and Justinian reared the church of St. Sophia, the 
 peninsula looks upon the adjoining shore of Asia, at the 
 distance of three-quarters of a mile. It was here that 
 
22 THE GHHI8TIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Darius crossed on his bridge of boats.' To defend tbe new 
 city from a similar invasion, the Asiatic promontory was 
 crowned with two castles, which rendered the neighbour- 
 ing town of Chrysopolis (Seutari) an outwork and 
 suburb of the capital. The south of the triangle lies 
 open to the sunny Propontis, which, at a distance of 
 100 miles, contracts again into the straits of the Helles- 
 pont. A wiading channel of sixty miles, with an 
 average breadth of only three, completes the defences of 
 this remarkable city, and at the same time opens a com- 
 munication with the commerce of the Mediterranean, and 
 the world. 
 
 Across the base of the triangle, where it joins the 
 continent, Constantine drew a wall of prodigious thick- 
 ness, one end resting on the Golden Horn, and the other 
 at the castle of the Seven Towers on the Propontis. 
 The enclosure contained five of the Seven Hills in which 
 the new capital vied with the old ; a sixth was enclosed 
 by Theodosius (a.d. 413), and the seventh by Heraclius, 
 two centuries later. The entire length of the city, from 
 the Golden Gate to the eastern extremity, was about 
 three Eoman miles; the circumference measured be- 
 tween ten and eleven ; and, taking in the subui'bs of 
 Pera and Galata, on the other side of the harbour, the 
 circuit was sixteen Greek or fourteen Eoman miles, — an 
 area far inferior to that of Eome, of modern London, and 
 even of Paris. 
 
 The city was constructed with a rapidity and magni- 
 ficence attainable only by the master of the Eoman 
 empire. Two millions and a half of money were allotted 
 to the walls, the porticoes, and the aqueducts. An inex- 
 haustible supply of white marble was at hand in the 
 little island of Procbnnesus. The cities of Greece and 
 
 > Herod, It. 85. 
 
COKSTANTINOPLE. 23 
 
 Asia were ruthlessly despoiled of their art treasures for 
 the embellishment of the buildings and streets. A 
 colossal statue of Apollo, by Phidias, with the head of 
 Constantine substituted for the god of day, was raised 
 on a pillar of porphyiy 120 feet high, in the centre of the 
 Forum. In the Hippodrome stood a pillar of brass, 
 representing three serpents twining together, which had 
 once borne the golden tripod consecrated in the temple 
 of Delphi on the defeat of Xerxes. An obelisk from 
 some Egyptian temple rose in the area. The "palace" 
 was scarcely less magnificent than the imperial residence 
 on the Palatine hill, fi-om which the name was borrowed. 
 The very baths were adorned with lofty columns, marbles 
 of various colours, and more than threescore statues of 
 bronze. About a century after its foundation, the city 
 contained a capitol or school of learning, a circus, 2 
 theatres, 8 public and 153 private baths, 52 porticoes, 
 6 granaries, 8 aqueducts, 4 halls of justice, 14 churches, 
 14 palaces, and 4,388 houses, which, for size and beauty, 
 deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of 
 plebian habitations.' 
 
 To populate his new capital the founder invited 
 patricians and opulent senators from Eome. Some 
 were allui'ed by the attractions of office and court 
 honours, others by grants of lands conditional on main- 
 taining town-houses. Thousands flocked to the seat 
 of power, luxury, and commerce; the narrow streets 
 were choked by the throng ; the area of the city was 
 increased by new foundations thrown out into the sea, 
 and in a hundred years the new capital disputed with 
 the old the pre-eminence in population and wealth. The 
 foundations were begun in the 23rd year of the emperor's 
 reign (a.d. 328), and in two years the city was finished 
 
 - Dec. and Fall, chap. xvii. 
 
2-1 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 and dedicated. The emperor removed from Nicomedia, 
 and proclaiming it to be henceforth the seat of govern- 
 ment, commanded it to be called 'New Eome. The edict 
 was engraved on a column of white marble in the 
 Strategium, and the name was made use of in official 
 documents, but the courtiers and the populace called it 
 the City of Constantine, and Constantinople it continues 
 to this day. The Turkish appellation, Istamboul, is only 
 a barbarous corruption of the Gfreek phrase, which, as at 
 Athens, Eome, and modern London, distinguished the 
 capital as " the city" of the nation.^ 
 
 This new capital was the centre of a new system of 
 government, in which the simple manners of Eome were 
 lost in a blaze of oriental splendour and sen'ility. In 
 place of the few official distinctions of thd republic, the 
 emperor established a " Divine Hierarchy" (as it was pro- 
 fanely called), extending from the steps of the throne 
 down to the meanest official. Within the favoured 
 circle, each. had his exact rank minutely subordinated ; 
 outside it, as in eastern despotisms, all were either the 
 slaves or the victims of power.^ The principal die- 
 taries were addressed by the titles of "your Sincerity," 
 " your Gravity," " your Excellency," " your Emi- 
 nence," " your sublime and wonderful Magnitude," 
 " your illustrious and magnificent Highness." Their 
 patents, emblazoned with curious emblems, were earned 
 before them in public; each had his exact precedence, 
 and elaborate distinctions of dress to denote it.^ 
 
 The empire was divided into four administrative 
 
 ' Attic use appropriated the word Arro to Athens, as with the Romans, 
 Urhs was always Rome. In the same way the peasants of Thrace, on their 
 way to market, said they were going ig tAv /3d\(v, which tlie Turks cor- 
 rupted into Istamboul. 
 
 ■' The Tschin in Russia very much resembles Constantine's Slate 
 Hierarchy. See " Russia, Ancient and Modern," p. 319. 
 
 ' Decl. and Fall, cap. xvii. 
 
THE STATE HIEEARCHY. 25 
 
 departments, called prcetoria, the Prefects of wliich. at- 
 tended the emperor like modern Secretaries of State. 
 Their orders were issued to fourteen Vicars, or governors 
 of dioceses. These again were subdivided into 120 pro- 
 vinces, the lieutenant-governors of which were variously- 
 denominated Pro-consuls, Consulars, Correctors, and 
 Presidents. The two Eomes, exempt from the praetorian 
 prefect, were granted prefects of their own, with a sub- 
 urbicarian jurisdiction, extending (it is stated) a hundred 
 mUes round the city. 
 
 All these civil officers united the judicial and executive 
 powers, the military command being cai'efuUy kept apart. 
 The system was one of strict subordination, with an appeal 
 at each step to the superior authority, whose word was 
 the law. Thus the prefect was not only secretary of state, 
 but the supreme court of justice for his praetorium, and 
 one of them alone found employment for 150 advocates. 
 
 The Civil Service was divided into three ranks, with 
 the titles of Illustrious, Eespectable, and Honourable. The 
 first comprised the prefects, seven great officers of the 
 imperial household,' and the masters-general of the forces. 
 The second included the exarchs and pro-consuls, with 
 the counts and dukes of the army. The lower governors 
 and magistrates enjoyed the third designation. 
 
 The title of Patrician, with the rank of Illustrious, 
 bestowed, like the modern dignity of privy councillor, 
 on retired ministers and other objects of imperial 
 favour, carried the privilege of access to the emperor. 
 
 ' 1. The Prefect of the sacred bed-chamber, or Lord High Chamberlain : 
 he was an eunuch, and though discharging menial duties, was the chief 
 officer of State. 2. The Master of Offices, equivalent to the Lord High 
 Steward. 3. The Qusestor, who (if the emperor used a seal) might be 
 called the Lord Chancellor, i. The Count of the Sacred Largesses, i.e., 
 Lord High Treasurer. 5. The Covmt of the Private Estate — (Privy Seal, 
 Woods, Forests, &c.) 6. Two Counts of Domestics, commaudiug the 
 bodyguard, i.e., Gold Sticks in Waiting. 
 
26 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIKE. 
 
 Still greater distinctions were assigned to the two Con- 
 suls, the last shadows of the buried republic. This was 
 the highest honour attainable by a subject. The consuls 
 were created annually by imperial rescript. On the first 
 of January they assumed their purple sUk robes em- 
 broidered with gold, and went in procession from the 
 palace to the capitol. The old axes and fasces were 
 borne before them by lictors ; they were attended by the 
 state functionaries attired as senators, and ascending 
 their curule chairs they signaKsed their accession to office 
 by manumitting a slave introduced for the purpose. 
 This was their one act of power. All that remained 
 was to entertain the public with festivities, which lasted 
 several days, and to leave their names iu the legal date 
 of the current year. 
 
 The army, of which the emperor was always the 
 chief, was commanded under him by two Masters-general 
 of horse and foot respectively : these were afterwards 
 increased to eight. Under their orders were thirty-five 
 Generals or Dukes, decorated with gold belts ; ten of 
 these were further dignified with the new court rank 
 of Count, The legions which were anciently a 
 force of 6,000 strong, were reduced to battalions of 
 1,000 or 1,500 men. Under Constantine the entire 
 army amounted to 645,000 men. 
 
 After his death one of the four prsetoria was sup- 
 pressed, and its dioceses divided between Italy and 
 the East. The territorial distribution of the empire 
 then stood as follows : — 
 
 Eastern Empire. 
 I. Praetorium of The East : Six Dioceses — , . 
 
 1. Ufft/pf (Egypt, Libya, and PentapoHs) . . 6 
 
 2. The East^ (Syria, Palestine, Arabia) , . . 15 
 
 • The Vicar of this ancient kingdom was called the Aiiyuslal rrefcct. 
 ' The Vicar here bore the title of Count of the East. 
 
DISTRIBUTION 0¥ THE PROYINC'ES. 27 
 
 Provinces 
 
 3. Pontus (Eastern Provinces of Asia Minor) . 11 
 
 4. Asia (Western ditto) 11 
 
 5. Thrace (Eoumelia and Bulgaria) .... 6 
 
 6. Hast lUt/ricum, i.e., Dacia and Greece, com- 
 
 prising Modern Wallachia, Moldavia, Tran- 
 sylvania, Macedon, Thessaly, and Greece . 12 
 
 Western Empire. 
 
 II. Prsetorium of Italy : Eour Dioceses — 
 
 1. Home, containing the Ten Suburlicarian 
 
 Provinces (Campania, Apulia, Lucania, 
 Etruria, TJmbria, Picenum, Sicily, Sardinia, 
 Corsica, Valeria) 10 
 
 2. Italy (rest of Italy, Helvetia, and lUiSBtia) . 7 
 
 3. Western TZ/yncwm (Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, 
 
 and Hungary) 7 
 
 4. Africa (Proconsular Africa, Numidia, Mauri- 
 
 tania, and modern Barbary) 6 
 
 III. Prsetorium of Gaul: Three Dioceses — 
 
 1. Britain (England) 5 
 
 2. Gaul (France, Netherlands, and part of 
 
 Germany) 17 
 
 3. Hispania (Spain and Portugal) 7 
 
 "120 
 
 The outline and nomenclature of this imperial con- 
 stitution long survived the empire, and may still be 
 traced in the titles, dignities, and offices of the existing 
 states of Europe. Its chief interest to us lies in the 
 fact that the ecclesiastical organisation of all existing 
 episcopal Churches was formed on the same model. 
 The distinction between secular and spiritual au- 
 thority had never yet been clearly recognised. As 
 the heathen emperors directed the religioi^ cere- 
 monies of the state, so the Christians under heathen 
 rule committed their temporal affairs to the arbitration 
 
28 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 of their pastors. They would have been afraid to 
 invoke the notice of a persecuting magistrate, even if 
 their religion had not forbidden them "to go to law 
 before the unbelievers." ' Elected by the free choice of 
 ministers and people, the chief pastor enjoyed the full 
 confidence of his flock ; he was, ia fact as well as name^ 
 their father, friend, and representative. In his little 
 synod he heard and adjudicated disputes after the Gospel 
 rule,^ and the contumacious were simply excluded from 
 the congregation. If they wished for re-admission they 
 must submit to the judgment of the Church. Bishops 
 so constituted were naturally the mouthpieces of their 
 flocks, whenever it was safe and expedient to approach 
 the public authorities : in turn they were held respon- 
 sible for their taxes and good behaviour. A similar 
 state of things still exists among the Christian subjects 
 of the Ottoman Empire, and has the same effect of uniting 
 ecclesiastical and secular authority in the bishop. 
 
 The bishops were originally of equal power, as 
 fellow ministers in the Gospel of Christ ; but when a 
 parish (as the bishop's district was called) ^ required to 
 be subdivided, the mother church (metropolis) retained 
 a general superintendence over the daughters. The 
 metropolitan bishop presided at the meetings of his 
 brethren, and in elections to a vacant charge he was 
 referred to as the common adviser and moderator. 
 When there was no recognised metropolis, the meetings 
 of neighbouring bishops were presided over by the 
 senior bishop.* The advantages of union were so mani- 
 fest that a bishop seldom acted without consulting his 
 
 > 2 Cor. vi. 1-6. ' Matt, xviii. 15, 17. 
 
 3 A bishop's charge was called his parochia, i.e., the district round his 
 house ; diocese was a State word of later date, and signified a union of 
 many bishoprics. There is no example in the primitive Church of such 
 extensive dioceses as are now unhappily common under a single bishop 
 
 ' Eus. H. E. V. 23— Valesius's note. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 29 
 
 own flock in the synod of the parish, and his brethren 
 of the same nation or province in the ^ynod of bishops. 
 Hence we meet with a very early rule, that " the 
 bishops of every nation should know their primate and 
 esteem him as head." ' This rule is referred to by the 
 First (Ecumenical Council (a.d. 325) as of ancient 
 observance, and every Church is declared entitled to its 
 own usages." 
 
 This simple organisation, springing out of the 
 natural divisions of nation and language, and adapted to 
 the circumstances of every people, was gradually swal- 
 lowed up, after the union of Church and State, in a great 
 centralised hierarchy copied from the secular administra- 
 tion. The metropolitans assumed ecclesiastical authority 
 equivalent to that of the provincial presidents in the 
 state. The bishop of the chief city in the secular 
 diocese aspired to rule the metropolitans as the state 
 Yicar did the presidents. These prelates were called 
 patriarchs, or . popes, — ^titles afterwards limited to the 
 principal capitals of the empire, where the bishops 
 engrossed the supremacy of the whole Church, like 
 the praetorian prefect in the State. Over all, the 
 emperor, though not clothed with spiritual functions, 
 assumed what he called an " external bishopric." ' He 
 assembled councils, granted titles and jurisdictions, 
 received appeals, enquired into abuses, brought offenders 
 to trial and deposition, and exercised a potential voice 
 in the appointment to bishoprics. 
 
 The ecclesiastical hierarchy developed itself more 
 fully in the East than in the West. The bishop of 
 Alexandria, the genuine metropolis of Egypt and Libya, 
 
 ' Ap. Can. xxxir. The Apostolical canons, though not the work 
 either of the Apostles, or as some pretend of Clement their fellow- 
 labourer, were the general code of the Church in the second and third 
 centuries. — Beveridge. 
 
 •' Con. Nic. Can. vi. • Soc. E. H. i. 9. 
 
30 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 ruled his hundred bishops with patriarchal authority 
 under the title of Pope. The " diocese of the East " 
 obeyed the patriarch of Antioch ; those of Pontus, Asia, 
 Thrace, and lUyricum were subjugated, though not 
 without many a struggle, to the new imperial patri- 
 archate of Constantinople. The patriarch of Jerusalem 
 enjoyed the title in honour of the Holy City, and had 
 precedence in the councils, but his jurisdiction was never 
 more than metropolitan.' 
 
 In the West the bishop of Eome ruled the suburbican 
 provinces, with the Alexandrian title of Pope. The bishop 
 of Milan was the independent metropolitan of Northern 
 Italy, and, on account of the imperial residence in his 
 city, the great ecclesiastic of the "West.^ The bishop or 
 pope of Carthage held a similar position in proconsular 
 Africa, the rest of the African Churches preserving 
 the primacy of the senior bishop. Throughout Gaul, 
 Britain, and Spain the metropolitans of the several 
 provinces kept their independence. Leo the Great, 
 in writing to the French bishops, expressly dis- 
 claimed the right of ordaining them,' and there is 
 no instance of its being claimed for Eome down to 
 the sixth century. In Britain the Eoman primacy 
 was never heard of till the mission of Augustine 
 (A.D. 686).* 
 
 > Nie. Cone. Can. vii. The metropolitan city of Palestine was the 
 imperial capital Caesarea, and its privileges are expressly reserved in the 
 canon. Neveriiheless, the honorary rank accorded to the Holy City eventually 
 supplanted the other. The rank assigned to Constantinople was probably 
 intended also to be honorary, since Heraclea was the old metropolis of the 
 Thracian province; but in all these questions the imperial will was 
 supreme. 
 
 2 Mihnan's " History of Christianity," iii. 10. 
 
 ' Leo, ep. Ixxxix. This right, involving aU other ecclesiastical powers, 
 practically excluded any intervention from other quarters beyond 
 brotherly counsel. (Nic. Con. Can. iv.) 
 
 « Britain was subdued to Christ, "even where inaccessible to the 
 Romans," by the middle of the second centiuy. (Tert. Adv. Jud. c. vii ) 
 
GROWTH OF PRELACY. 31 
 
 The process of these usurpations is plainly traceable in 
 the acts of the first three (Ecumenical Councils. At Nicsea 
 (a.d. 325) we read of no higher jurisdiction than the 
 metropolitan, which is to be obeyed at Alexandria, Eome, 
 Antioch, and in the other provinces according to ancient 
 usage (Can. vi.). At Constantinople (a.d. 381), the 
 same rank is granted to the imperial city (buUt in 
 the interval) with precedence next to Eome, for the 
 reason that it is "New Eome" (Can. iii.). At 
 Chalcedon (a.d. 451), the patriarch of Constantinople is 
 sanctioned in extending his authority over the dioceses 
 of Pontus and Asia, with the churches among the bar- 
 barians (Can. xxviii.), and further empowered to receive 
 appeals from other patriarchates (Can. ix.). The reason 
 for these extraordinary powers is declared to be the 
 translation of the empire, but neither Eome nor 
 Alexandria ever consented to these canons. 
 
 The metropolitans reduced Tinder this yoke lost their 
 old title of patriarchs, and were denominated Exarchs, a 
 word which, in the Greek Church, stiU signifies a deputy. 
 Archbishop was a title of honour conferred by the em- 
 peror, and properly without any spiritual jurisdiction : at 
 the Council of Chalcedon it was appUed to the Eoman 
 prelate. Honorary titles, however (as exemplified in the 
 patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople), have a 
 strong tendency to convert themselves iato substantial 
 power. 
 
 A Church establishment, endowed and privileged by 
 law, implies the supremacy of the law to secure 
 the due execution of the trust. The emperor was as 
 
 The silence of Eusebius discredits the story told by Bede (i. 4) of a mission 
 sentfrom Pope Elentherfus (a.d. 176—192). There can be little doubt that 
 Christianity was introduced into England (as the population was) from 
 Gaul, probably by the agency of Irenseus, bishop of Lyons (a.d. 180). He 
 was a disciple of Polycarp, who had been instructed by the Apostle John. 
 
32 THE CHEISTIAK EMPIRE, 
 
 necessarily at the head of the ecclesiastical, as of the civil 
 and military, establishments of the empire. Power and 
 property annexed to spiritual ministrations may be 
 abused as well as those of lay functionaries. The 
 imperial duty was to hear the complaint and enforce a 
 remedy. Constantine was the last man to divest himself 
 of the government of all estates of the realm, or to 
 refuse the obligation of doing justice to all classes of his 
 subjects. On the other hand, the Christian emperor was 
 not entitled, like the heathen, to officiate in religious 
 offices, or to decide on the faith received by revelation, 
 and preached for the salvation of souls. He could 
 neither give nor take away the Christian ministry; 
 neither could the Church abandon the right, vindicated at 
 so 'great a cost against paganism, to obey God rather than 
 man. Constantine proposed to meet the necessity of the 
 case by distinguishing between the internal and the 
 external government of the Church. The former, compre- 
 hending all questions of doctrine, sacraments, and 
 spiritual discipline, he yielded to the ecclesiastical 
 hierarchy : what he assumed to himself was to see that 
 the ecclesiastics did their duty according to the Church 
 laws. In this sense he called himself " bishop of the 
 bishops." It was a new office, extrinsic to the spiritual 
 function, and designed to protect it alike from attack 
 and abuse.' 
 
 In this capacity the emperor summoned the councils 
 called General, but whose proper appellation is (Ecu- 
 menical, or councils of the Empire. The highest 
 prelate could assemble only the bishops within his own 
 jurisdiction; the emperor convoked the representative 
 Christianity of the Eoman world. The assembled fathers 
 were to debate and decide according to the Word of God • 
 
 ■ Eus. V. C, i. 44. Soc. E. H., i. 9. 
 
CHURCH AND STATE. 33 
 
 the emperor was there to keep order and enforce the 
 decree. 
 
 The immediate effect of this organisation was to 
 cover the empire with a network of religious agencies, 
 which powerfully advanced the conversion of the heathen, 
 and the edification of the Christian "flock. Other results, 
 however, followed which had heen little calculated upon. 
 The burst of imperial favour, which now took the place 
 of persecution, crowded the churches with merely nominal 
 converts. These undisciphned flocks were not to be 
 trusted with the election of their pastors. The old 
 metropolitan power of approving and ordaining was ex- 
 tended into a claim to appoint the bishop. Offices once 
 only a step to martyrdom began to excite the ambition or 
 avarice of the worldly-minded. Litigation increased, 
 and men objected to be stripped of privileges which had 
 become valuable by the sentence of an obscure consis- 
 tory. Offenders refused to submit ; and when the 
 complications of heresy were added, the appeals became 
 numerous and persistent. 
 
 All tended to increase the power of the higher 
 prelates, and who was to control these but the 
 emperor? To enforce their decisions he had to fine, 
 imprison, or exile his subjects : these were his only 
 weapons. Eoman justice forbade them to be used till 
 he had ascertained the propriety of the sentence. Two 
 enormous evils resulted to the State and to the Church : 
 on the one side, ecclesiastical censures, directed against 
 errors in faith and morals, were attended by heavy 
 temporal penalties ; on the other hand, the civil 
 power intruded itself into the domain of religion and 
 conscience. 
 
 These unforeseen consequences were serious enough. 
 Constantino was not guilty of the " Fatal Donation," for 
 which the papacy reveres, and the poet reproaches, his 
 
 D 
 
34 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIKE. 
 
 inemSry.' The legend, that he bestowed Eome dnd Italy 
 on the bishop Sylvester as a baptismal fee (a.d, 324), is, 
 iiideed, a§ old as the eighth century ; and the fonl;, with 
 a paiiitihg of the baptism, are exhibited in the Sistiae 
 baptistery, near the Lateraii ; hut coiiteinporary history- 
 has iio ailtision to any such endowiheiit. A law ia ihe 
 l* hSddosiaii Code proves that Coiistahtine was at Thes- 
 saloiiica at the time assigned, arid it is certaia that 
 Sylvester was iiot the imnistef , nor Eoine the place, of 
 the einperor's bS,ptisih. Eiisebius gives a full acconht of 
 thkt ceremony, which took place at Meomedia, t)ut a 
 snort tinie before the emperor'^ death, and more than a 
 year after Sylvester's.^ 
 
 dohstahtiue never intehded that tiis bishops should 
 be priiices : the^ were mostly poor ineii wliose ambition 
 was liroited to spiritual and ecclesiastical victories. 
 Biit great passiohs can be excited even ty unworldly 
 hiotives, and the emperor early experienced the troubles, 
 anxieties, and perplexities of tlhUrch government. Tte 
 clergy and people of Carthage elected their archdeacon 
 Csecilian to the vacant bisiopric, and concluded the 
 consecration tefore the arrival of the Numidian bisliop^, 
 who claimed a share ia the ceremotiial. The bishops 
 Summoned tjsecilian to eiplain this afeont, and on 
 his , re&sihg to dioej they proceeded to examine into 
 the consecration, and {)ronounbed it void ty reason 
 of the participation of one Felix, alleged to he a 
 iraMior. ^oi content with this, they annulled the 
 
 1 " Ah ! Constantine, to how much ill gave birth 
 ifot thy conversion, but ttat fatal dower 
 Which the first wealthy Father gained from thed." 
 
 • »«' ^' i ^ Dante DelV Infern. idXi US. 
 
 ' _Vit. Const. IV. 62. 
 
 = TthiS t(^k^ tiie ndtafe- Applied to iJLoSe' -^hoj in the Jjgrs^ctitioil O^i Dio- 
 cl^ian,' had given up the saorfed books to be buiHt. They *erfe iinitersaij- 
 excluded from communion till restored as penitents. 
 
IKE DONATISTS. 35 
 
 electioii on tiie groiuld of the krcMeacdii's former mis- 
 cbiiauct, and finally efected and consecrated another 
 person Iby iteir own auttdrity. The leaders in this 
 Ihaiiifest usiirpatidn were two hishops, Both iiamed 
 Dohatus. and from theih the sohisin received its appella- 
 tion. Oseciliah and his party keeping possession of the 
 churches, the Dohatists complaiiied to the emperor, who, 
 at their request referred the matter to the hishops of 
 Gaul and Italy. [Nineteen of these inei at liome under 
 the presidency ol Melchiades, tte hishop, and decided id. 
 favour of Csecilian (a.d. 313). the accusiation agaiiist 
 i'elix was relegated to the pro-coiisui of Africa, who 
 Reported that ihe fact was hot sustained by tte 
 evidencd. 
 
 The questions, both of law and fact, were thus investi- 
 gated ty cOinpetent tribunals, but the Donatists objected 
 to toth. Seventy bishops oi Humidia had afl&rmed tlie 
 truth of their charges on the spot, and they were hot to 
 be overruled ty a few foreigners at Eome. The emperor 
 procured ttem a second Learing at tlie council o:f Aries 
 (a.d. M4j, composed ol* bishops from Italy, Graul, 
 Germany, Spain, and Britain ; and again tlie Donatists 
 were defeated. Thereupon they appealed to the emperor's 
 own judgment; and donstantine, though indignant at 
 such unekristian pertinacity,' could not refuse their 
 demand, lie sat ia person at Milan (a.d. Si 6), and, 
 alter a iall heariag, confirmed the two previous 
 decisions. 
 
 The Donatists next assailed their own judge with 
 charges of corruption and favouritism. Constantiue re- 
 taliated by dejiriviag them of their cliiixches and driving 
 their leadfefs into banishments Some were even put to ' 
 
 ' " Oh ! the outrageous audacity of fanaticigin," exclaimed the weary 
 monarch ; " they have actually put in an appeal, like the Gentiles.''^ — 
 Soc. Ecclesiastical History, ii. 40. JTote by Valesius. 
 
 d2 
 
36 THE CHKISTIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 death, for sedition. These proceedings only aggravated and 
 extended the fend. The fierce African populace took 
 part against thie government, and a set of savages, termed 
 Circumeelliones, perambulated the province, carrying 
 rapine and death, to the Csecilian party. The troops 
 were called out, and a civU war was at hand, when 
 Constantine took the advice of his officers in Africa, and, 
 repealing aU his edicts, left each, party to foUow tke 
 bishop it Kked best, Tbe troubles continued for thirteen 
 years, and, after aU, were only put down by force of 
 arms. The CircumcelHones were defeated in a pitched 
 battle with the imperial troops, and tbe Donatists then 
 falling under tbe fall vengeance of the incensed monarcb, 
 were expelled and scattered with cruel severity. Still 
 they had four bundred bisbops at the close of the 
 century; and in spite of tbe vehement opposition of 
 Augustine, they only disappeared at last from dissensions 
 among themselves. 
 
 The singularity of this schism was that it involved 
 no point of doctrine or discipline. The whole arose 
 on matters of fact asserted without evidence, and dis- 
 proved before the proper tribunal. The schismatics 
 refused to accept the acquittal of Felix, because then- 
 own bishops were conmiitted to an assertion of his guilt. 
 His giult contaminated the party on whom he laid 
 hands, and all who communicated with either. Hence 
 every one who supported Csecilian was deprived of the 
 Spirit, and ipso facto excommunicated. The Catholic 
 Church was reduced to their own party. Against this 
 destructive logic no ecclesiastical decisions had any 
 weight ; and though the first to demand judgment from 
 the civil magistrate on an ecclesiastical dispute, judgment 
 was no sooner pronounced than they flew to arms to 
 resist it. 
 
 So difficult is the task of constituting a tribunal 
 
FANATICISM, 37 
 
 upon eartli, spiritual or temporal, 'wMoh. shall silence 
 religious. oonTictions, however mistaken! So easy is 
 it, by attempts at violent repression, to give force and 
 dignity to a fanaticism, wliicli, if left to itself, expires of 
 neglect ! 
 
COlfTEMPOKAEY STTCCESSIOlSrS. 
 
 WKSTERN EMPIRE. 
 
 EASTERN EMPIRE. 
 
 i.D. 
 
 Empekobs. 
 
 Popes oe Kome. 
 
 EUPEBOBS. 
 
 Eat^iakoh? or 
 
 CONaTAjffTINOPX-E. 
 
 395 
 
 Honorius 
 
 
 Aroadius. 
 
 — — — 
 
 397 
 398 
 
 
 
 Anastasius I. 
 
 
 
 John phrysosfom. 
 
 402 
 
 
 
 Innocent i. 
 
 
 
 403 
 
 
 
 
 
 Arcadius and 
 Thedosins ii. 
 
 
 404 
 
 
 
 
 ,,^ ,,, , 
 
 Arsaoiua. 
 
 406 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Attious. 
 
 408 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thedosiua ii. 
 
 
 417 
 
 , ,., 
 
 Zosimus. 
 
 
 
 418 
 
 Honorius and 
 
 
 
 
 419 
 
 Oonstantius 
 
 Boniface i. 
 
 
 
 423 
 
 Talentinian m. 
 
 Oelestine i. 
 
 
 
 426 
 
 
 
 
 
 ... ... . . ... 
 
 Sisinnins i. 
 
 428 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nestorins. 
 
 431 
 
 Third CEcumenical Couneil at Ephesus. 
 
 
 
 432 
 
 
 Sixtus III. 
 
 ,, , ^j_ 
 
 Maximian. 
 
 434 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Proclus, 
 
 440 
 
 ,, , ,,, 
 
 Iieoi. 
 
 
 
 447 
 
 
 
 ... ,,, 
 
 Flavian. 
 
 449 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 AnatoUus. 
 
 460 
 
 
 
 
 Mai-oian. 
 
 
 451 
 
 Fourth (Ecumenical Council at Choice 
 
 don. 
 
 
 455 
 
 Maximua, Avitns. 
 
 
 
 
 457 
 
 
 
 
 Leo. I. 
 
 
 458 
 
 Majorianns 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gennadius. 
 
 461 
 
 Severus H. 
 
 Hilary. 
 
 
 
 467 
 
 AnthemiuB 
 
 Simplioius. 
 
 
 
 471 
 
 
 
 
 
 Acacius. 
 
 472 
 
 Olybrius. . 
 
 
 
 
 473 
 
 Glyoerius. 
 
 
 
 
 474 
 
 Jtilius Nepos ... 
 
 
 Zeno. 
 
 
 475 
 
 Romulus Augus- 
 tulus. 
 
 
 
 
 476 
 
 Odoaoer, King of 
 Italy. 
 
 
 
 
 483 
 
 
 
 Felix n. 
 
 
 
 488 
 486 
 491 
 
 
 
 Anastasius. 
 
 Flavita. 
 Euphemiua. 
 
 492 
 
 
 Gelasius i. 
 
 
 
 493 
 495 
 496 
 
 Theodorie. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Anastasius ii. 
 
 
 
 Maoedoniua. 
 
 498 
 511 
 514 
 
 
 
 Symmaohus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hormisdas. 
 
 
 
 Timothy. 
 
 518 
 520 
 
 
 
 
 
 Justin I 
 
 John n. 
 
 523 
 
 ... ... ... ..'. 
 
 Jolm I. 
 
 
 Epiphanius. 
 
 526 
 
 Athalario 
 
 Felix ui. 
 
 
 
 527 
 
 
 
 
 
 Justinian. 
 
 
 530 
 
 
 
 Boniface ii. 
 
 
 
 532 
 
 
 
 John n. 
 
 
 
 634 
 
 Theodatm. 
 
 
 
 
 535 
 536 
 537 
 
 Justinian, Emp. 
 
 Agapetus I. ... 
 
 Silverius 
 
 YigiUua. 
 
 
 
 Anthemiua. 
 Mennaa, 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 FALL OF THE WEST. 
 
 Pivision of the Empire — Milan — ^KaTenna — Invasion of Alaric — ^Triumph 
 ^t Jlome — Abolition qf the Glaciiators — ^I|.eyolt in Britajn — Secpqd 
 Inyasion of the Goths — Thpir^Kise and Progress — Thrpe Piyisiona— 7 
 Vandals, Franks, Alemans — ^Eayages of the Barbarians — ^Fulfilment of 
 Prophecy — Capitulation of Bome — Sack of the City — ^Abandonment 
 of Brijiain — Augustine's pjty of Godrr-Yancjal Corsairs — ^Valen- 
 tinian ill. — Second Sack of Ronjp — ^The Temple Spoils — ^Irruption of 
 the Huns — ^AttUa — Majorianus — ^Anthemius — -Third Sack of Rome — 
 frlyoerius — Augustulus — Odoaoer — Fall of Borne — Kingdom of the 
 Heruli-^Pf ^;he Ostrogoths-r-^pxcesses — ^In^pryention from thp E^st — 
 Belisarius — ^Extinction of Gothic Kingdopi. 
 
 On the death of Theodos^us the Cfr^at (4.1), 396), the 
 empire was divided, by the proyisions of his -will, be- 
 tween his sons Arcadius e^nd tConorius. ^his partitipi^, 
 which had been more pr less in force froifi the time gf 
 Diocletian and Maximian, was riow 4es;gned to be perma- 
 nent, butj taking place ji^st when the mosl; iiniteJi iror^^ 
 was required against th^ bar]Dari^ns, it p.:fpved ^l^p, 
 destruction both pf Ea§t 3,ii(i "West. Eome hp,d ceasefj 
 to be the seat of governmpnt from the tim§ of Co;istaii- 
 tine. The western ep,|)ital was Milan, vbicb quite 
 eclipsed th^ ar^pient city in. political i^nportance, and, from 
 thp celebri|;y of its schools, -^fas called thp '.', Athpng of tli^ 
 West,'' Here Ambrose the prefept became \)j populap 
 acclamatpn Ambrosgj the bishop (a.d. 374). Here Ij.^ 
 erected a moral power, which rebuked the imperial 
 tyrani^y, ^.M ^ fprm of worship which rivalled and ex- 
 celled" the Eoman liturgy. The great A^ican bishop 
 
40 FALL OF THE WEST. 
 
 Augustine passed from one to the other -with, the freedom 
 which was then the glory of the Catholic communion. 
 At Milan he sang the Ambrosian chants with the 
 Milanese, and when at Eome he prayed as the Eomans 
 did. There was a third ritual in his native Africa, all 
 acknowledging " one Lord, one faith, one baptism." 
 
 Theodosius died at Milan, and was followed by 
 Ambrose in two years. The great emperor's death was 
 the signal of rebellion to the whole Gothic nation. 
 Alaric, a descendant of the race which gave its name to 
 the Baltic,' after threatening Constantinople, burst into 
 Greece, and wasted its valleys with fire and sword. 
 Being bought off with the command of lUyricum, he 
 thence invaded Italy, and, from the defenceless palace of 
 Milan, Honorius fled to a safer retreat in the marshes of 
 Eavenna. This strong fortress on the Adriatic sea was 
 ever after the imperial and royal capital of Italy. 
 
 The sMll and courage of StHicho gained his falling lord 
 a triumph at Eome for the expulsion of the Goths(A.D. 404). 
 On this occasion the city enjoyed the rare honour of the 
 imperial residence for several months,^ and Honorius 
 signalised it by an edict abolishing the games of the 
 amphitheatre, with the hecatombs of human sacrifices 
 that feU in the combats of the gladiators. The ruins 
 of the Coliseum still attest the beauty and majesty of 
 the noble building, where 100,000 spectators looked down 
 upon the arena, while pagan Eome glutted its thirst for 
 blood to the full, and men fought with wild beasts, or, 
 fiercer than any beasts, with each other. The highest and 
 most refined, the priests and vestal virgins, the purple- 
 robed patrician, and the Eoman matron with her children, 
 crowded to these cruel sports. They applauded when 
 
 > Balti, " bold," a name long preserved in Languedoc under the cor 
 rupted form of Baux. — Dec. and Fall, cap. xxx. 
 ^ It was only the fourth imperial visit since Constantine. 
 
THE GOTHS AND VANDALS. 41 
 
 the Christian was thrown to the lions, and, with laughing 
 countenances, turned down their thumhs as a signal to 
 the victorious gladiator to slaughter his fallen com- 
 panion.' As the eyes of the despairing victim travelled 
 round the circus in quest of mercy, the ladies gaily 
 chatting with each other would exhibit the fatal sign 
 with less concern than is now exhibited for a song at 
 the opera. 
 
 The abolition of this frightful sport was the true 
 triumph of Honorius. His military honours soon faded. 
 The legions in Britain having raised a common soldier to 
 the purple, from the accident of his possessing the name 
 of Constantine, the usurper received the submission of 
 Gaul and Spain, and Honorius only saved his throne by 
 consenting to divide it with this ignoble rival. 
 
 A second irruption of the Goths, under the pagan 
 king Eadagaisus, was repelled by Stilicho (a.d. 406), but 
 two years after he was obliged to assemble the senate 
 and propose that Attila should be entrusted with the 
 defence of the city. Their remonstrances were in vain ; 
 no alternative remained. The senators reluctantly de- 
 creed the Gothic king four thousand pieces of gold for 
 his services ; but one of their number had the foresight 
 to avow that it was a treaty of servitude rather than of 
 peace. 
 
 The Goths and Yandals were divisions of a great 
 nation, who formerly dwelt in Scandinavia. Cross- 
 ing the Baltic into Germany some time before the 
 Christian era, they migrated through Prussia and the 
 
 • At Trajan's triumph for the defeat of the Daciams, the games were 
 exhibited daily for four months, during which 10,000 gladiators fought, and 
 11,000 wild beasts were killed. — Dio. xlviii., 15. "When a gladiator feU, the 
 victor looked to the spectators for directions. If they held their thumbs 
 upwards his life was spared ; if the reverse, the conqueror murdered 
 him on the spot, and the body was dragged away to make room for 
 another game. 
 
42 FAIL or THE WEST. 
 
 IIkr3,iae in. the middle of the third pentury, and signa- 
 lised their appearance in the Eom^n prprinces by the 
 sack of I'hilippopoli^, an(i the defeg-t and death of the 
 Eiftperor Depiiis ^a.d. 251). After much fighting, they 
 were allowed g, settlement ia Dacia^ and therq forsook 
 their ;dp|^ Woden aiid Thor at the prep,ching of TJlphilas. 
 At his intercessipn they were then permitted to cross 
 the river into the more fertile vaUeys of Moesia. The 
 exchange was like ano^hpr Exodiis, and thpir leader and 
 Ipgisjator was styled a second Moses, TJph^ppily this 
 apostje of the Goths was an Arian, and the sons pf Odiri, 
 embracing his heresy wft]i at least as much ^.rdour as his 
 peligipn, regarded |heir civilised and CathoHp neighbpurs 
 miich a^ thp ^aracens. at a later period, regariled. the 
 Christian idolater^. 
 
 On thp death of Theodosiu^ these warlike Aj-ians rose 
 in arms, and after thregtpning Constantiaople, |;umed 
 their steps, at the secret instigation of the By^antirie court^ 
 n the direption of the Wp^t. The (^pths wpre divided iato 
 eastern or Ostrogoths, western or Yisigpths, and Lepidse 
 or Lirigerer^j so dpnomitiated (it is said) frpm having 
 bee:|i the last of the three yawls in which thp emigration 
 g^]iitted Scandinavia. The Vg.nflals were distinguished 
 by the various names of Heruli, Burgundiq,ns, Lombards, 
 etc. The number and variety of the tribes who thronged 
 across the Danube gave the province the namp of 
 Pannonia. Here thpy menaced Constantinople on pne 
 si^p and |lome on the other. Further swarms poured 
 out qf Germany into Gaul. The Pranks were a miscel- 
 laneous confederacy, who substituted the common name 
 pf I^-eem^ii for |;hpir tribal appellations. A similar origin 
 is ascribed to the Alemans or AUmen. Both crossed the 
 Ehii^e at tl^e instance of Constantius, to harass Mag- 
 nentiijs ; tjie Alemans established themselves in 41^ace 
 pind Lorraine, the Franks in the Batavian ma:pshes. The 
 
BAEBABIAN EAVAGES. 43 
 
 }ast alone of all tlie barb^ians retp.i]jed their idols ; the 
 res|; were Ariau Christians, and to the orthodox Italian^ 
 the heretic was more formidable -jihan the idolater. 
 Thp Franks, ift fact, prpypd their best ^Uies, and suffered 
 seyerely in resisting thp sonthw^r^ ru§h of the|r more 
 say^se compatriots. 
 
 It is hariPy possible, in this l|,appier agfs^ to form an 
 adeqnatg concpption of the miseries iqflicted on thp 
 Epman empire by the irruption of these bqrbaria|i^. All 
 expressions dfaTyn from the lap^uage of pr^ipiary war- 
 fare fail to meet t]ie facts of the case. The bn|k of the 
 pppi^lation, as in moderij. times, lpf(; their -defence to the 
 regular arpay, employing |;hepiselves in |;he usual pursuits 
 of indijs^y. Thp barbarians, on j^he contrary, wpre a 
 nation of arip.ed §ayages, fighting not fpr piili^ary coij.- 
 quest bnt; for plunder or settlement. They l^rplfe in on 
 pie ciyiliged populatipn like an pceap. whiph has burst its 
 bpimd^ries, rayaging the fields, burpiii^g ai^d pillaging the 
 towns, massacring or carrying captive whole populations. 
 Ifgither rank, sex, pr age pbtaiped mercy, th'pir object 
 ■^a^ tp extirpate the existing propriptors, s^ad^ dwell in 
 ^^^ plftoes. The legions might defeat a, pa^-ticulq,!- 
 p^pedjtiQq. in a pitched battle; but np troops cpul^ 
 pxclude a continually repurring inundation of savages, 
 ■\yith nptl^ng to lose, and. everything tp gain, whose fresh 
 |ipsts supplied the placp pf the fallen. Theif track was 
 |l^P the s^mpom of the desert. The land was st;ripped of 
 its produce, or if any fruits remained they perished oi; 
 the ground for lack of hands to harvest them. Famine 
 and pestUence destroyed the surviving inhabitants, and 
 in some of the fairest parts of the world the human race 
 , received a check, which the prosperity of succeeding ages 
 has wt PVen ye|; been a'|)lp to repair, 
 
 In this dreadful inundation four several waves have 
 been distinguished, as corresponding with the four 
 
44 FALL OP THE WEST. 
 
 earlier trumpets of the seventh seal in the Apocalypse.^ 
 The first was the invasion of Alaric, who returned to 
 Italy A.D. 408, and, passing between the emperor's palace 
 at Eavenna and the camp of StUicho at Pavia, marched 
 straight to the gates of Eome. The city was then twenty- 
 one miles in circumference,^ and contained a population 
 of 1,200,000 souls. The patricians, who boasted their 
 descent from the conquerors of Hannibal, would spend 
 £100,000 in the inauguration feasts of their prsetorship. 
 They could show a rent-roll of £160,000 per annum, 
 arising from vast estates cultivated by slaves. Their 
 marble palaces were filled with treasures of art. A traiu 
 of fifty slaves followed the lordly senator as he rode ia 
 his chariot, with his long robe of purple silk floating on 
 the wind. If he went iuto the country, his household 
 marched Kke an army, the rear being brought up by a 
 band .of eunuchs. Enormous sums were lavished on a 
 dinner, while the bulk of the lazy population subsisted 
 on a daily distribution of bread, bacon, and oil from the 
 pubHo stores supplied by the provinces. This dole 
 being curtailed by the siege, famine and pestilence stalked 
 through the city. Some were ready to invoke the pagan 
 deities by sacrifice,^ but none had the courage to face the 
 invader in arms, Alaric, accepting a ransom of aU the 
 gold, silver, and other valuables in the city, granted his 
 victims a temporary respite ; but he returned the next 
 year, and the Eternal City, opening its gates to the 
 barbarian, created a new emperor at his dictation. 
 
 The vengeance was arrested but for a brief space. The 
 
 1 Rev. viii. 6-12. 
 
 •■' This is less than half the extent which Varro ascribes to the walls of 
 Aurelian. 
 
 3 Zosimus accuses Pope Innocent of having sanctioned this proposal, 
 on condition that it was done in private ; which Baronius indignantly denies. 
 Gibbon says it was rejected in the senate, but Sozomen admits that the 
 pagan rite was actually celebrated. 
 
SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS. 45 
 
 Goths quickly cast away their tool, and on tlie 24th, of 
 August, 410, the Eomans were awakened at midnight by 
 the trumpet of the dreaded barbarian in their streets. 
 Rome was deliTered up to pillage and fire; the streets were 
 filled with the bodies of the slain, the palaces were 
 stripped of their costly furniture, the gold, jewels, and 
 wardrobes of the luxurious patricians loaded the waggons 
 of the Groths, and flames devoured the houses. The 
 forum, decorated with countless statues of gods and 
 heroes, from the fabled JEneas down to the deified Csesars, 
 was IcTelled in the dust.' For six days the despairing 
 inhabitants suffered all that could be inflicted from the 
 horrors of war, and the still more terrible revenge of 
 their liberated slaves. Those who had the means fled 
 from the storm, and the wealth and power of the senators 
 stood them in such stead, that only one of their number 
 is said to have perished. The consternation and misery 
 created by this irruption have been thought to be repre- 
 sented in the " hail and fire mingled with blood, cast 
 upon the earth : and the third part of trees was burnt 
 up, and all green grass was burnt up."^ 
 
 After evacuating Eome, the Goths ravaged the south 
 of Italy, but were prevented from seizing SicUy and 
 Africa by the sudden death of Alaric. His successor 
 Adolphus found among the Eoman captives the 
 emperor's sister Placidia, and, having persuaded her to 
 accept his hand, he granted peace to her trembling 
 brother. The empire, however, had received its death- 
 blow. Honorius enjoyed a second triumph at Rome, 
 after recovering Gaul and Spain by the swords of the 
 Goths (a.d. 418); but his allies were now his masters ; 
 he was obliged to turn a deaf ear to the groans of the 
 Britons, and recalling the legions to his own support he 
 
 > According to Orosius, by lightning. 
 = Rev. viii. 7. Elliott's Hor. Apoc. 
 
48 FALL OF THE WEST. 
 
 aiaiidoned tlie isiand for ever, leaving tlie Mbitdtioiis of 
 tiomaii luxury and ite productioias oi fioniaii art i6 Be 
 seized by tlie unpolisted Saxons. ,.. ^ 
 
 The judgments iiow poured on pagaii fioiiie suggested 
 tiie tHeine bf Augustine's great workj tlie " City of 
 llod."" Designating tlie fallen capital as ihe Great 
 fiabyioii of the West, lie ii-iumphs grandly in. the 
 humiliatioii of idolatry- Seatheh Eome, with all its 
 ahominatioiis, was dooiried for ever : its place is to 
 be occiipied by tte City of God, ite Church of Christ. 
 A fine contrast is drawn between Paganisin and Chris- 
 tianiiy, bott. iri this world and the next. The iiew 
 religioh is represented as changing ihe framework of 
 society, and culminating in the Kingdom of Christ. Siit 
 Aiigustine foresaw not tte hew Babyloii that was to hold 
 out her cup from the seven hills of the Tiber. Se had 
 no vision of tlie Papacy. It was the persuasive voice oi 
 the Gospel, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, not the 
 craft and violence of earthly power, froin which he antici- 
 pated the extension and unity of the City of God. 
 
 The Goths were followed by the Tandals, wbo affcfer 
 a similar coutse of plunder, submission, and settlement, 
 had been allowed by Theodosius to populate the villages 
 of Thrace. t)riven thence by the Huns, they penetrated 
 through tVance and Spaia into Africa, subdued tte 
 (jarthagioiaii tertitory, and, from both sides the Str&its 
 of Gibraltar, harassed the Mediterranean with inceSsant 
 piracies. These sanguinary corsairs have been traced iu 
 the fiery mduntaia wHcb was cafet into the sea: ''and 
 the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part 
 of the creatures which were in tte sea, ahd had life, died; 
 and the third part of tte ships were destroyed."^ 
 
 The Vandals were even more ferocious than the 
 Goths; and the name of their pirate-chief, Genseric, 
 
 ' iiev. viii. 8, 9. 
 
SACK OP ROME BY THE VANDALS. 
 
 il 
 
 was more terribie in fiorde tiiaii Alaric Mmsfelf. Yalen- 
 tiniaii iii., wlio on tte death, of tConorius was noininated 
 by the Greek emperor to tlie Latin throne, paid 
 for ike favour hy ceding Western lUyricum to tlie 
 eastern eiiipire. He drew his sword only to slay the 
 gallant .^tius, his bravest general, and was himself cui 
 down by a meaner assassin in revenge for a yet fouler 
 crime. The widowed empress applied to Gensdric to 
 punish, the usurper; and the dreaded Ytodals quietly 
 appeared at the inoutb of the Tiber. Some was again 
 delivered up to be sacked. 1?he blind passions of a 
 fallen nature wrougbi ibeir ierrible will for a wnole 
 fortnight on the helpless inhabitants. All that remained,- 
 or had been recovered, from the d-oths fell a prey to 
 'their ruder successors. Thd churches, which Alaric 
 spared, were plundered wiihout scruple. Ihe spoils of 
 Jerusalem — the holy vessels, the table of gold, and the 
 seven-branched candlestick, which Titus brought from 
 the Holy flace on Mount Zion — ^were taken from the 
 Temple of Peace and shipped in triulnph to Carthage.- 
 The horror-stricken etapress, with many thousand captives 
 of both sexes, were dragged away in the train of the 
 barbarians, knd found their only solace in the charity of 
 the good bishop of Carthage, Deogratias (a.D; 455). 
 
 In the meantime Graul and Italy were ravaged by a 
 thfrd devastator, who took the name of the " Scourge of 
 God :" he has been found in the third trumpet, " the 
 star which is called "Wormwood.'^ ' The Goths and 
 Yahdals had been driven westward by the pressure of 
 the Huns in their rear ; and in the year 442 the Huns 
 themselves crossed the Danube, under the command of 
 their ierrible king Attila, and burst upon the empire in 
 a new tide of desolation. After ravaging Mysia, Thrace,- 
 and illyricum with incredible slaughter, Attila accepted 
 
 ' Rev. viii. 10, 11, 
 
48 PALL or THE WEST. 
 
 a thousand pounds of gold and an annual subsidy from 
 the Emperor Thedosius ii. as the price of his withdrawal 
 (a.d. 434). 
 
 A brief respite ensued in both empires, but Attila 
 again burst into Illyricum (a.d. 447), and three years 
 after invaded Gaul at the head of 700,000 Tartars, 
 Poles, Germans, and Muscovites. Putting all to fire and 
 sword, he pursued his course as far as Orleans, where he 
 was arrested by JEtius, whose legions inflicted a severe 
 defeat, Eetreating into Pannonia the Huns returned at 
 the head of a more numerous force, and fell upon 
 Yenetia. The inhabitants fled to the islands of the 
 Adriatic, and there laid the foundations of the modern 
 Yenice. Having taken Aquilea, the invader marched to 
 the Po, where he was met by Pope Leo, and prevailed upon 
 again to withdraw. The next year, however, he once more 
 invaded Gaul, whereheperished of intemperance (a.d. 453). 
 
 The rapid and eccentric movements of this destroyer 
 would be not inaptly figured by a flashing meteor, 
 and how "many men died" by his means may 
 be judged by the fact that the single battle of Chalons 
 cost the lives of nearly 300,000 persons. He was 
 accustomed to say that the grass never grew where 
 his horse had set his foot. It is farther observed that 
 his principal operations were directed to the " rivers and 
 fountains of waters," and finally that his Huns were 
 eventually dissipated and absorbed, Kke a blazing star 
 quenched in the deep. 
 
 The western empire was now reduced to the king- 
 dom of Italy, and its purple was made the sport _of the 
 barbarians. The emperor Leo i. made an effort for its 
 assistance, by sending his Master-General Majorianus 
 to occupy the throne, and fitting out a fleet against the 
 Yandals ; but Majorianus was slain by means of Eicimer, 
 a Goth whom he had nominated to the command of the 
 
lAST EMPEROE. 49 
 
 army, and tlie fleet was destroyed hj tlie mismanage- 
 ment of the admiral. No better fate befell Antbemius, 
 tbe next emperor. Eicimer, tbongh bonoured witb tbe 
 band of bis daughter, besieged bim in Eome, wMcli, 
 after endxixing tbe miseries of iamine and pestilence, 
 was taken and pillaged by ber own troops, witb a fury 
 not exceeded by tbe Gotbs or Vandals (a.d. 462). An- 
 tbemius was put to deatb, soon followed by Eicimer. 
 
 Glycerins, wbo was saluted Augustus by tbe Gotbic 
 troops, yielded to Nepos, sent from Constantinople, and 
 be ia turn to tbe Gotbic general Orestes.' Tbe latter 
 baviiig allied bimself witb tbe daughter of a Eoman 
 senator, conceived tbeir son to be eligible to tbe prize 
 for whicb bis own birtb disqualified bim. Tbe youtb 
 was declared emperor by tbe bigb-sounding name of 
 Eomulus Augustus, recalling tbe memories of tbe two 
 founders of Eome, only to witness tbe extinction of 
 tbe imperial dignity. 
 
 Tbe fated twelve centuries now expired, and tbe last 
 destroyer was at band. Odoacer king of tbe HeruK was 
 already in Italy at tbe bead of a mixed confederacy of 
 barbarians, and master of all its provinces. He defeated 
 Orestes in a succession of engagements, and finally put 
 bim to deatb. At Pavia bis soldiers proclaimed bim King 
 of Italy. Tbougb unwilling to wear tbe imperial ensigns 
 himself, he resolved not to concede them to another, and 
 advanced to Eome, where Augustus had taken refuge. 
 The citizens went out to meet him, tbe helpless emperor 
 laid down the purple, and the abject senate wrote to Con^ 
 stantinople that it was no longer desirable to continue the 
 imperial succession in the West. One Augustus would 
 suffice, and, renouncing any farther voice in his election. 
 
 ' Grlycerius was ordained Bishop of galonse, and there entertained NepoS, 
 when his turn came to fly. 
 
 E 
 
60 FALL OF THE WEST. 
 
 they besought the emperor to entrust his Italian Diocese 
 to the government of Odoacer, with the title of Patrician, 
 assured that the Eepuhlic (for Eome still clung to that 
 departed phantom) might safely confide in his arms 
 (a.d. 476). 
 
 The son of Orestes received a pension of six thousand 
 pieces of gold; and, retiring to a vUla on the bay of 
 Naples, ended his days ia an iaglorious obscurity which 
 reduced his lofty appellation to a contemptible diminu- 
 tive — ^from Augustus to Augustulus. 
 
 No imagiuation can realise the amount of splendour, 
 luxury, and gmlt, which had accumulated during these 
 five centuries in the " Babylon of the West ; " and no 
 words can paint the miseries with which she was chastised. 
 Three times in sixty years the city had been sacked by a 
 furious enemy. The harvests of Egypt and Africa, which 
 supported the populace, were lost ; the country was 
 exhausted by war, famine, and pestilence. The loss of life 
 is incalculable: in Emilia, Tuscany, and some other 
 provinces, the human species was almost extinct. Eome 
 "saw her glories, star by star, expire," A cloud of 
 barbarian ignorance eclipsed the classic renown of 
 Augustus, and the religious splendour of Constantine 
 was overcast with idolatry and Arianism. 
 
 Of her subject nations not one remained to the 
 Church and the Gospel. The Saxons were treading out 
 the light of Christianity in England. Gaul was divided 
 between the Yisigoths, Burgundians, and Franks. Spain 
 groaned under the Goths, Suevi, and Alans. Africa 
 was a prey to the Yandals. All these were either 
 Arians or idolaters, persecuting the Church. The Greek 
 emperors were scarcely less hostile to the faith and 
 morals of the Gospel, while Eome herself was laid low 
 imder a barbarian king. It is not surprising that 
 commentators should find in these calamities the signs 
 
OSTEOGOTH KINGDOM. 51 
 
 of the fourth, woe; "the third part of the sun was 
 smitten, and the third part pf . the moon, and the 
 third part of the stars ; so as the third part of them 
 ■was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part 
 ofit."i 
 
 Odoaoer ruled in Eome as patrician, and in Italy as 
 king, for seventeen years, alleviating the humiliation of 
 barbarian rule by a strict administration of the imperial 
 laws. Wisely resigning to the Yisigoths all pretensions 
 to the countries beyond the Alps, he protected Italy by 
 his arms, and acquired so great a reputation that the in- 
 trigues of the Byzantine Court were put in motion for 
 his destruction. The Pannonian provinces had been 
 occupied on the retreat of the Huus by the Ostrogoths. 
 Their king Theodoric was a prince of commanding 
 genius: if he coiald be incited to carry his arms 
 westward, Constantinople might hope to regain some of 
 her lost territory in his rear. Theodoric, who had once 
 lived in the imperial court as a hostage, readily listened to 
 the proposal. Breaking into Italy, he defeated Odoaoer 
 in a succession of engagements, and having blockaded him 
 in Eavenna, compelled him to share his royalty with 
 himself. The Herulian prince, with his son, were shortly 
 after murdered at a banquet given by their conqueror. 
 Theodoric made terms with their followers ; and, having 
 secured the consent of the emperor, annexed the kiag- 
 dom to, his own possessions, amidst the acclamations of 
 the senate and the people of Eome (a.d. 493). 
 
 Theodoric reigned with prudence and propriety thirty- 
 three years. His visit to Eome to appease the civil war 
 that, had arisen between the contending parties at the 
 election of Pope Symmachus, recalled the memory of the 
 ancient triumphs. He repelled the Bulgarians from- Pan- 
 
 > EeY. viii. 12, 
 
 E 2 
 
52 PALL OF THE WEST. 
 
 nonia (a.d. 607), and defeated the Frencli king Clovis in 
 Gaul. His Arianism was of a milder type than others, 
 and though his conduct towards the senate still savoured 
 of the barbarian, his death was justly regretted as the 
 dissolution of a wise and powerful government (a.d. 526). 
 
 He left his throne to an infant grandson, under the 
 enlightened guardianship of his mother Amalsont. The 
 regent beiag a princess of remarkable attainments in 
 literature, sought to impart to her son some of the 
 refinements of education. But the illiterate chiefs 
 resented the notion of a Gothic king learning Latin and 
 Greek ; — Theodoric was a great monarch, and he could 
 never write his name. They dismissed the tutors, and in 
 a few years the youth drank himself to death. Amalsont 
 sought out a cousin, who was studying Plato in retire- 
 ment, and placed him on the throne by her side. The 
 philosopher, preferring to reign alone, caused his bene- 
 factress to be strangled. 
 
 These excesses afforded the Greek emperor the 
 long-desired pretext for intervention. He was still 
 nominally paramount Suzerain. The arms of the 
 renowned Belisarius had just recovered Africa to the 
 empire, and restored the holy vessels to Jerusalem, 
 where they were deposited in the sanctuary of the Italian 
 Church. Constantinople had been gratified by the un- 
 precedented spectacle of a triumph, and Belisarius was 
 ready to win a second in Italy. Justinian, having 
 ascended the Byzantine throne, sent this distinguished 
 soldier at once to avenge recent barbarities, and to 
 restore the imperial rule. 
 
 The Church hailed him as a liberator. After re- 
 ducing Sicily and Naples he advanced to Eome, where 
 the gates were joyfully opened by means of Pope 
 Silverius (a.d. 536). The Goths at once deposed their 
 philosophical king, and raising Vitiges on their shields, 
 
BELISAEItJS. 5-3 
 
 blockaded the city for more than twelve months. It 
 was during this memorable siege that Belisarius con- 
 structed or restored the existing walls of Eome. Their 
 circuit was now reduced to twelve miles, scarcely more 
 than half of what is reported at the siege of Alaric, a 
 hundred years before. A gap was left in the fortifications 
 between the Piacian and Flaminian gates, where the 
 Eomans believed, and still believe, that the apostle Peter 
 stands sentry. The arches of the aqnieducts were made 
 impervious, and the mole or sepulchre of Hadrian was 
 converted into a citadel, since dedicated to the archangel. 
 Its white covering of Parian marble, with the statues 
 and decorations, are said to have been used as missiles 
 to hurl on the heads of the besiegers in the ditch. 
 Thirty thousand of the barbarians fell at the first 
 assault. Having received, at last, the promised rein- 
 forcements from Constantinople, Belisarius assumed the 
 aggressive, advanced upon the Goths, and forced them 
 gradually back to Eavenna. 
 
 His progress was delayed by the contumacy of 
 Narses, his second in command, and during these dis- 
 sensions Milan was left to surrender to the Goths and 
 Burgundians. The barbarians, in scornful violation of 
 the articles, gave up the inhabitants, to the number of 
 300,000, to indiscriminate massacre, and levelled the 
 walls with the ground. The ecclesiastics were butchered 
 at the altars, the women made slaves, and Dacius the 
 bishop, escaping to Constantinople, carried tidings which 
 induced Justinian to recall Narses. 
 
 These barbarous wars had so wasted Italy that the 
 lands were no longer cultivated, and bread was made 
 from acorns. No less than 50,000 persons died of 
 hunger in the Picentine province : others tried to subsist 
 upon grass, and some on the horrible expedient of human 
 flesh. The dead lay unburied ; to add to the horrors, 
 
54 FAXL OF THE "WEST. 
 
 the Fraiiks inraded the prostrate kingdom, and Trhile 
 each party expected their assistance, they plundered 
 both Eoman and Gothic camps with scrupulous impar- 
 tiaHty. In their despair the Goths offered the Western 
 purple to BeKsarius, but eluding their negotiations, he 
 completed the subjugation of Italy, and sent the keys of 
 Eavenna to Justinian (a.d. 540). 
 
 On his return to the East aU. was lost agaia, both 
 in. Africa and Italy. BeHsarius coming back, neither 
 sated with glory nor discouraged by ingratitude, found 
 the Goths in the field under the famous king Totila, and 
 the orthodox alienated by the ill-usage of the pope and 
 the excesses of the imperial troops. In 546 Home was 
 again taken by the Goths. Totila pulled down a large 
 part of the walls, and threatened to convert the entire 
 city into pasture ground. The remonstrances of the 
 Eoman general arrested this barbarous intention, and 
 when he retired, dragging the senators into captivity, 
 BeHsarius reoccupied and restored the Eternal City. 
 
 The jealousy of Justinian having a second time 
 recalled the conqueror, of the West,' Totila reigned 
 without opposition over Eome, Italy, and Epirus, 
 with the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. 
 Eoused at last by the appeals of the bishops, Justinian 
 despatched Narses to restore the imperial rule. Totila 
 
 • Ten years later (after having saved Constantinople from the bar- 
 barians) Belisariua was imprisoned on a charge of treason, the favomite 
 expedient at that court, in all ages, for confiscating private property to the 
 emperor's use. The popular story adds, that he was deprived of his eyes, 
 and turned out to beg in the streets. Here the general, who had been 
 decreed the only triumph which New Bome ever witnessed, might be seen 
 uttering the feeble cry; "Give an obolus to Belisarius; him whom you 
 once saw a commander, you now see a beggar." Gibbon calls this " an 
 idle fable," and says that Belisariua was restored to his honours on a fuU 
 investigation of the charge, but the "fable" is maintained not only by 
 Baronius but by Greg. Leti, and other good writers.— /stor. dell. Imp. 
 Rom. ii. p. 66. 
 
REUNION WITH THE EAST. 55 
 
 fell in battle (a.d. 552); tlie Franks wlio had come 
 to his assistance retired behind the Alps, the Gothic 
 kingdom was extinguished, and, after snfferiag five 
 sieges and captures, Eome once more reposed under 
 the empire : but it was no longer the Eome of ancient 
 days. The senators never came back from their Gothic 
 captivity, and the long beadroU of consuls, after existing 
 1047 years, came to an end with the name of Basihus 
 (a.d. 541). The oflS.ce had long ceased to possess any 
 authority, and only served as the ofl&cial date of the 
 year. Henceforth the Byzantine emperors declared them- 
 selves consuls of Eome on the day of their accession, and 
 the public acts were dated by the yeai of their reign. 
 The fall of the West was complete. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 Rise of the Ecclesiastical Government — Spiritual Titles — ^Foxmdation of 
 the Roman Church— Visits of St.' Paul— Martyrdom— Traditions of 
 St. Peter as First Bishop — ^Legend of Simon Magus — Scripture Con- 
 tradiction — ^Historical Notices — ^Bahylon not Rome — Modem Hypo- 
 thesis — Dionysius of Corinth — Irenseus — Caius of Rome — The 
 Vaticaji — ^Peter not buried there — ^The Supremacy — ^Power of the 
 Keys — Growth of the Roman See. 
 
 The decay of imperial authority naturally threw the 
 govermneiit of Eome more and more iato the hands 
 of the bishop and clergy. The capture and removal 
 of the senate left the people no other leaders, 
 and their sacred office was respected even by the 
 barbarian. In the contest with the Byzantine Court, 
 again, the bishop was the champion at once of the 
 civil and religious liberties of Eome. Often the first 
 to suffer, he was always on the spot to relieve and 
 console the sufferings of others. These claims to autho- 
 rity, for a time, contented the ambition of the Church. 
 . The love of power, however, notoriously increases with 
 its possession. The popes began to dream of a divine 
 supremacy. They called themselves successors of St. 
 Peter and Yicars of Jesus Christ — ^titles originally 
 attributed to aU orthodox bishops, but which, at 
 
FOUNDATION OP THE ROMAN CHUECH. ' 57 
 
 Eome, became invested with, a portentous significance.' 
 Tlie remarkaMe words addressed by our Lord to St. 
 Peter* were supposed to invest him with a supre- 
 macy over the Universal Church, which the apostle 
 had in some peculiar maimer deposited in the see of 
 Eome. St. Peter was claimed as its founder and first 
 bishop. Pilgrimages were made to his tomb on the 
 Vatican hill, and an elaborate system, first of spiritual 
 and then of temporal authority, was built out of tra- 
 ditions, which prove, on examination, to be absolutely 
 destitute of historical proof. 
 
 It is true that, as early as the third century, the 
 graves of the' apostles Peter and Paul were exhibited 
 at Eome, the first on the Yatican, the other on the 
 Ostian road.^ The Pauline monument is corroborated 
 by the Scripture, which leaves the apostle at EomOj 
 and in expectation of immediate martyrdom,* but for 
 Peter, there is no shadow of evidence that he was ever 
 at Eome at all. 
 
 That he was not the founder of the Church (any 
 further than by being the first to preach the Gospel on 
 the day of Pentecost) is clear from the Epistle to the 
 Eomans. St. Paul, at the date of this letter, had not yet 
 visited Eome,' and the terms on which he acknowledges 
 its claim on himseK as the apostle of the Gentiles,^ 
 coupled with his well-known repugnance to iatrudie on 
 
 ' Every bishopric supposed to be planted by an apostle took the title 
 of Apostolic. Tor the same reason, Alexandria called itself the Evangelical 
 see, as founded by the evangelist Mark. All bishops were, in like manner, 
 called successors of St. Peter, regarded as the representative of the whole 
 apostolate. In the east Antioch claimed the chair of St. Peter in a 
 peculiar sense, and the Syrian see had the advantage over the Italian, 
 that St. Peter did unquestionably visit it (Gal. ii. 11), though here, again, 
 it was Paul, not Peter, who laid the foundation (Acts xi. 26). 
 
 2 Matt. xvi. 18, 19. = Eus. E. H., ii. 25. ■• 2 Tim. iv. 6. 
 
 5 Rom. i. 10. Kom. i. 14, 15. 
 
58 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 the field of another,' necessitate a similar conclusion 
 with regard to St. Peter. Yet the salutations in this 
 epistle prove that a flourishing Church was abeady 
 organised.^ 
 
 It was prohahly planted hy some of those Jews of 
 Eome who heard St, Peter preach on the day of Pen- 
 tecost.' The Jews had several synagogues at Eome, 
 and their dissensions respecting the new doctrines may 
 have led to the commotions which provoked the emperor 
 Claudius to banish the whole race,* Among the exiles 
 were AquQa and PrisciUa, who taking refuge at Corinth 
 were there converted by St, Paul, and afterwards accom- 
 panied TiiTTi to Ephesus.^ Eetuming to Eome, where 
 the interdict on the Jews was not long maintained, this 
 Christian couple wotdd add, to what was previously 
 known of the Gospel, the teaching which they had 
 themselves received from the mouth of St. Paul. The 
 names of the two great apostles might be bandied 
 about, as at Corinth,® for the watchwords of contending 
 parties; and hence the tradition of later days that Peter 
 and Paul were joint founders of the Eoman See. St. Paul 
 was entreated to come and appease these disorders : he 
 had both kinsmen and fellow-prisoners^ to visit, and he 
 had long purposed to do so,* when the providence of 
 God conducted him to the capital in bonds (a.d. 61).' 
 The apostle remained two years preaching and teaching 
 freely the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ."* 
 
 1 2 Cor. X. 13, 16 « Rom. i. 8 ; xvi. 5, 7, 9. ' Acta ii. 10. 
 
 * Acts xriii. 2. Suetonivis ascribes the disturbance to "one Chrestus." 
 
 5 Acts xxiii. 18, comp. vt. 1, 7, showing that Aqvula and PriscUla were 
 then indisposed to retain the apostle under their roof. 
 
 « 1 Cor. i. 12. ' Rom. xvi. 7-11. « Rom. i. 13. 
 
 9 FeUx was succeeded by Festus, a.d. 60 (Conybeare and Howson, 
 ii. n. c.) ; and St. Paul, sailing from Csesarea in the autumn of that year 
 (Acts xxvii. 1, 9), after wintering at Malta (xxviii. 11), reached Rome 
 in the following spring. 
 
 '» Acts xxviii. 31. 
 
VISITS OP ST. PAUL. 59 
 
 Here the sacred history terminates, not, however, 
 from the death or final separation of the writer, for 
 St. Luke appears again as the apostle's sole companion 
 at the close of his life.' We may gather from incidental 
 allusions that St. Paul ohtaiiied his release, and, perhaps, 
 prosecuted his intended journey into Spain.^ Thence he 
 must have returned to Asia Minor, revisiting Ephesus,* 
 Colosse,^ Miletus, ° Troas,'' and crossed the sea to winter 
 at Mcopolis in Epinis.^ Thence he may have proceeded 
 to Cqrinth,* and, finally, again to Eome, where we find 
 him once more in custody, under more rigorous confine- 
 ment, and looking forward to immediate death ; " ready 
 to he offered;" the fight fought, his course finished, 
 and only the crown to receive.' 
 
 Between these two visits of St. Paul to Eome, the 
 great fire occurred (a.d, 64), which Nero charged upon 
 the Christians, in order to avert the suspicion justly due 
 to himself. On this charge some were sewn up in skins 
 of wild heasts, and torn to pieces hy dogs ; many were 
 crucified; for others the new torture was invented 
 of enclosing them in roUs of waxed cloth, and burning 
 them aHve, with a stake under their chins to keep them 
 upright. With these horrible torches the tyrant actually 
 illuminated his gardens.'" 
 
 St. Paul was absent during the heat of the persecu- 
 
 > 2 Tim. iv. 11. ' Rom. xv. 24, 28. 
 
 ' 2 I'im. i. 18. ■■ Philem. 22. 
 
 » 2 Tim. iv. 20. « 2 Tim. iv. 13. 
 
 ' Tit. iii. 12. » 2 Tim. iv. 20. 
 
 ' 2 Tim. iv. 6-8. The original expression is very striking: "I am 
 already sacrificed, as it were a victim bound on the altar, and only awaiting 
 the fatal blow." 
 
 " Tac. Ann., xv. 60, 61. The historian, who does not conceal his convic- 
 tion that the emperor was the guilty party, says the victims perished, not 
 for the conflagration, but for their universal hatred of the human race, 
 {Odio generis humani convicti sunt.') This was a common charge against the 
 Jews, with whom the Christians were confounded by the early historians. 
 
60 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 tion, but it would seem that lie was seized on his return, 
 and, accordiag to tradition, beheaded in the Ostian way, 
 in the last year of Nero's reign (a.d, 67-8). This result 
 is perfectly consistent with the sacred history, and the 
 probability of the case ; nor is it unlikely that the church 
 which bears his name marks the actual spot of the 
 apostle's martyrdom. 
 
 The tradition, however, is not content with St. Paul ; 
 it claims St. Peter also as the companion of his martyr- 
 dom, and, moreover, as Bishop of Eome for a consider- 
 able period before they suffered. This was the belief of 
 Justin Martyr, Irenseus, Cyril of Jerusalem, TertulHan, 
 Eusebius, and Jerome. According to Eusebius, St. Peter 
 went to Eome in the reign of Claudius (who died a.d. 54), 
 and contiQued there twenty years : Jerome expands the 
 time to twenty-five years. The exact period as assigned 
 in the Eoman annals is twenty-four years, five months, 
 and ten days, and to these "years of St. Peter" it is a' 
 standing tradition that no successor is ever to attain.' 
 
 The story is that St. Peter went iu pursuit of Simon 
 Magus, who after his defeat at Samaria fied to Eome, 
 and was there worshipped as God.'' Justin Martyr 
 appeals, in support of this tradition, to an image with the 
 inscription '■^Simoni Deo Sancto^''^ which he had seen ia 
 an island ia the Tiber ; but the reference only proves the 
 little dependence to be placed on such stories; for this 
 very inscription was discovered on a stone found ia the 
 Tiber (a.d. 1574), and proves to be " Semoni Banco Deo 
 Fidio Sacrum." The name belonged to a Sabine deity,* 
 and was imposed upon Justin, who did not understand 
 Latin, as that of Simon Magus.' 
 
 » The charm was nearly broken by Pius vii., who died far advanced in 
 the twenty-third year of his pontificate. 
 
 " Ens. E. H., ii. 13, 14. ^ Just. Apol., i. (ad Ant.) 26. 
 
 • See page 3, note 2. » AHord's Gr. Test., Acts viii. 9, note. 
 
MARTYEDOM OP ST. PETER. 61 
 
 The legend adds that Simon flew up in the air in the 
 presence of Nero, but on St. Peter uiToking the name of 
 Christ he fell down and broke his legs.' To escape the 
 resentment of Simon's adherents the apostle secretly left 
 the city, but was encountered at the gate by our blessed 
 Lord, who, in reply to his inquiry, " Domine, quo vadis ?^' 
 (Lord, whither goest thou?) answered, "I am going 
 to Eome to be crucified."' The apostle, understanding 
 this as a reproach on his timidity, returned, and being 
 seized, was crucified by the emperor's order.'' It is 
 added that, at his own request, he suffered with his 
 head downwards, as unworthy to share the posture of 
 his Lord.* 
 
 Such is the story now confidently received at Eome, 
 and it must stand or fall as a whole. The attempt of 
 some Protestant writers to sustain the martyrdom, while 
 disallowing the episcopacy, is a merely arbitrary diyorce 
 of closely-united testimony. If we turn to the Scripture, 
 there is reason to think that St. Peter had indeed 
 been put to death by crucifixion when John wrote his 
 Gospel (a.d. 78),* but the evangelist makes no allusion 
 to the place of his suffering ; and no other part of the 
 New Testament in any way connects St. Peter with 
 Eome. On the other hand, it is clear that, during the 
 larger part, at least, of the period assigned for his episco- 
 pacy at Eome, the apostle was preaching and journeying 
 in Asia. In the Acts of the Apostles we find him in 
 
 • Among the sights at Rome are the prints of- the apostle's knees on one 
 stone, and the blood of the magician on another. The legend is probably 
 a confusion of the story told of an unlucky conjuror in Suet. vi. 12, with 
 Peter's real controversy with Simon Magus at Samaria (Acts Yiii.). 
 
 " Tillemont, Mem. i, 187, and 555. This story is fathered on Ambrose, 
 but does not appear in the Bened. edition of his works. 
 » Eus. E. H., iii. 1. 
 
 * John xxi. 18, 19. This last chapter, however, is thought to have been 
 added by the evangelist at a later date (Alford, ad Jin). 
 
62 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 Judaea, Samaria, and Csesarea. St. Paid mentions a 
 visit to Antiooli, adding that it had been agreed at 
 Jerusalem that he and Barnabas should go to the 
 heathen, while Peter, James, and John employed them- 
 selves among the Jews.' In perfect accordance with 
 this distribution of labolir, Peter's first epistle is ad- 
 dressed to the Jewish dispersion in Pontus, Galatiaj 
 Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,^ provinces of Asia 
 Minor, which Ensebius records as the field of this 
 apostle's preaching.^ 
 
 These notices are clearly incompatible with any 
 continuous residence at Eome. If the apostle went 
 there at all ia the reign of Claudius, he would have 
 been expelled with Aquila and PriscUla ; if he returned 
 with them, he must have again fled with them,* or have 
 perished in the persecution during Paul's absence. 
 But the sUenoe of St. Paul, both in the epistles 
 to the Eomans and in those written from Home, while 
 mentioning many other Christians,* is conclusive against 
 any visit by St. Peter up to the writing of the second 
 epistle to Timothy. In that, St. Paul expressly states 
 that only Luke was with him, and that all men had 
 forsaken him.® Consequently, St. Peter was not then 
 at Eome ; nor, when summoning Timothy and Mark to 
 his side, does St. Paul anticipate any visit from his 
 brother-apostle. 
 
 Peter was at this time probably at Babylon, the 
 place from which his epistle is dated; and though 
 Eusebius with most of the fathers, in deference to 
 the tradition, interpreted this word as a mystical name 
 
 ' Gal. li. 9, 11. 2 1 Pet. i. 1. 
 
 = E. H., iii. 4. ^ > 2 Tim. iv. 19. 
 
 " Among them Linus and Clement (2 Tim. iv. 21 ; Phil. iv. 3), -who, 
 according to Eusebius, were the first and third bishops of Home. 
 « 2 Tim. iv. 11, 16. 
 
MODEBN HYPOTHESIS. 63 
 
 for Eome/ tliat interpretation is now universally 
 exploded. Tke visions of the Apocalypse, which., 
 however, had not then been revealed, do indeed call 
 Home by this name ; but the date of a letter must, 
 in all reason, be the actual name of the place. This 
 was either the well-known city on the Euphrates, 
 or, more probably, Babylon on the Mle.^ These were 
 the two largest seats of Jewish population out of 
 Palestine, and therefore as appropriate to Peter's 
 mission, as Eome, the capital of the Gentile world, 
 was to St. Paul's. 
 
 It foUows that if St. Peter ever was at Eome he 
 must have arrived after the latest scriptural date, and 
 only just in time to suffer with his brother-apostle. 
 This is the theory of those who would fain concede 
 something to the tradition, while they feel the strength of 
 the scriptural evidence;* but this modern hypothesis, 
 halting between two opinions, has no support, either from 
 Scripture or the fathers. The Eomanists insist on the 
 life and preaching of the apostle at Eome : his death 
 alone would do nothing for the foundation of the Holy 
 See, nor the primacy of the Universal Church. In 
 rejecting these, the martyrdom is left without motive, 
 object, or independent testimony. 
 
 AU that can be said for it is this : Dionysius, bishop 
 of Corinth (a.d. 180), supposed Peter and Paul to be 
 joint founders both of the Eoman and the Corinthian 
 Churches, and going together into Italy, to have suffered 
 martyrdom at the same time.* Here, again, the mar- 
 tyrdom is combined with other particulars manifestly 
 untrue. That the Corinthian Church was founded by 
 
 1 E. H., ii! 15. 
 
 ^ See the author's " Egypt," p. 115. Babylon on the Euphrates was then 
 in ruins. Churton'a New Test., Prol. to St. Mark. 
 
 3 Smith's Bible Diet., ii. 797— Peter. " Eua, E. H., ii. 25. 
 
64 THE APOSTOI/IC SEE. 
 
 St. Paul alone, is distinctly related ia tlie Kew Testa- 
 ment/ and there is no evidence that Peter ever visited 
 it at all. The Judaizing party alleged his authority 
 against Paul, as the same party probably did at Eome, 
 and this may have given rise in both places to the 
 tradition of a joint foundation with St. Paul ; but it is 
 no proof of St. Peter's actual presence in either city.^ 
 As for the two apostles going in company to Italy, 
 it is certain that Peter was not the companion of Paul's 
 first voyage to Eome, and if they were together in the 
 voyage supposed to be made by St. Paul from Coriath, 
 just before his death, how could the latter omit all 
 allusion to his brother-apostle in his last letter, and 
 even write, " Only Luke is with me ?" 
 
 Irenseus is also quoted for the martyrdom, but besides 
 telling us what has been shown to be disproved ia 
 Scripture, that Peter and Paul preached the Gospel at 
 Eome, and founded the Church together, he adds, that 
 at the same time Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, 
 and Mark wrote his after their death ', \ whereas Clement 
 and Papias affirm that Peter was alive and approved the 
 design of Mark,* 
 
 The only other piece of evidence is a letter from 
 Caius, a Eoman presbyter, in the time of Zephyriaus 
 (a.d. 201-18), stating that the trophies of the apostles 
 who founded that Church were shown in the Yatican, 
 and on the Ostian "Way. This carries up the tradition to 
 little more than a century from the time of the mar- 
 tyrdom. StUl there is a difficulty which is absolutely 
 insuperable. The Vatican was a sequestered hiU beyond 
 
 > Acts xviii. 1 — comp. 1 Cor. iv. 15 ; ix, 2; 2 Cor. x. 14. 
 
 2 It appears from 1 Cor. iv, 6, that St. Paul did not refer to the 
 apostles themselves, but to other teachers who made use of their names 
 without authority. 
 
 ' Adv, Hseres., iii. 1. * Eus, E, H., ii. 15, 
 
THE OLD CATHEDRAIi. 65 
 
 the walls of Eome and on the other side the Tiber; it 
 derived its name from an ancient oracle, which was, 
 perhaps, connected with the sportive echo celebrated by 
 Horace.' It was the site of Pompey's theatre, and of 
 Nero's magnificent circus, surrounded by altars and 
 oracles.^ That a corpse — and that a crucified Jew's — 
 should be interred amid these sacred objects is so im- 
 probable, that the supporters of the legend are obliged to 
 take refuge in a miraculous conversion of the emperor.' 
 Lastly, we must observe that St. Peter's was not 
 the first, or the most venerated, name at Eome. The 
 old cathedral church was St. John Lateran,* supposed 
 to mark the spot where the evangelist was thrown 
 into a caldron of boiling oH, by order of Domitian, 
 on emergiag from which without injury he was 
 exiled into Patmos.^ At this church the popes had 
 
 ' Od., i. 20. 
 
 ' The site is identified T)y the obelisk, which, made for Nectanebus the 
 last of the Pharaohs, but left without inscription in the quarry, was erected 
 by Ptolemy Philadelphus before the temple of his queen Arsinoe at Alex- 
 andria; thence it was removed to Kome, and placed in the centre of Nero's 
 Circus. In the time of pope Sixtus t. this obelisk was close to St. Peter's 
 Church, where the sacristy now stands ; to make room for this building it 
 was removed to its present position in the centre of the Piazza. 
 
 5 "If the bodies of St. Peter and the martyrs were buried where St. Peter's 
 Church now stands, it is strange that the circus could still remain there. 
 Perha.ps Nero, the inhuman author of the Christian massacres, was com- 
 passionate enough to destroy his circus, in order to provide them a place 
 of sepulture ; yet the circus was certainly standing in the time of Pliny. 
 Perhaps Nero permitted it to serve two ends at once — a circus for the 
 Gentiles, and a catacomb for the faithful." (Nardini Eoma Antica.) The 
 irony of this passage is sufficiently obvious. 
 
 « The Lateran Palace was the house of Plautus Lateranus, a patrician, 
 condemned for conspiring against Nero. (Tac. Ann., xv.) Juvenal styles it, 
 "Egregias Lateranoram iEdes." (Sat., x. 7.) In this palace the empress 
 Fausta had apartments, in which the council against the Donatists was held 
 (a.d. 313). Baronius infers that it was then granted for the bishop's 
 residence, but this is far from probable. 
 
 = Eusebius (H. E., iii. 18) records the exile of St. John, and his return 
 into Asia after Domitian's death ; but he knows nothing of the boiling oil, 
 
 F 
 
66 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 their chair and their residence for many centuries Tbefore 
 they removed to the Vatican. Constantine, ^ho "^as a 
 great belieyer in holy places, built a magnifiqent basilica 
 for each; but St. John's, which represented the older 
 tradition, had the precedence in rank.? 
 
 The conclusion is that not a particle of historical evi- 
 dence exists that the apostle Peter ever visited Eo'jae at 
 all, while the legends of his death and burial jthe^e are 
 contrary to Scripture and common s,ense. It was what 
 the French caU a '' grand idea " to suppose that the 
 Crospel, begumiQg at Jenisalem and extending to the ut- 
 most parts of the earth, returned from the ea^t and west 
 in the persons of its two chief apostles, to cement with 
 their blood the foundations of an universal see in the 
 metropolis of the world. Standing at the prpsent hoiur 
 under the mighty dome, and looking down uppn ^e 
 apostolic tomb, lighted by ever-burning lamps, which 
 forms the centre of a pile decorated by the labours and 
 pilgrimages of many ages, rich with the wealth of king- 
 doms, the treasures of art, .and ihe priceless sympgiihies 
 of earnest souls out of every nation and people and lan- 
 guage, it is hard to think that aU is one grand imposture, 
 and that the dust of the inspired fisherman no more rests 
 in that vault than the Spirit of God rests upon the 
 superstition that -jvor^hips it. Yet^ when the illusion is 
 
 or of any visit to Rome. The authority for the miracle is Tertullijai ; but 
 Mosheim suspects the passage to be a metaphorical expression, afterwards 
 converted into a fact. — " De Keb. Christ, ant. Const.," p. HI. 
 
 ' There are seven basilicas at Rome, which offer ihe privilege of one 
 thousand years' indulgence to the pilgrims who visit them all in one day, 
 and all are popularly ascribed to Constantine. They are : 1. St. John 
 Lateran. 2. St. Peter's. 3. St. Mary-the-Great. 4. St. Paul. 5. St. 
 Sebastian. 6. St. Lawrence. And 7. The Holy Cross of Jerusalem, buUt to 
 receive and store the relics brought from Jerusalem by the empress Helena. 
 (Soc. E. H., i. 17.) Of these the most venerable, perhaps the only au- 
 thentic, monument was St. Paul's, a noble and undoubted remnant of 
 the Constamtiae age, which was consumed by fire 14th July, 1823. 
 
"thou art petee." 67 
 
 touched by the Itlmriel spear of history, it " returns of 
 force to its own likeness." 
 
 " Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires, 
 Blown up with high conceits ingendering pride."' 
 
 The Catholic Church was not planted at Eome in 
 the blood of the apostles, but — blessed be God ! — at 
 Jeru^ajem, by the true High Priest, and "ia His own 
 blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us." 
 Our access jto God does not depend on pilgrimages to 
 dead men's bones, but in drawing near to Jesus "with 
 a true heart, in fuU assiu'ance of faith." 
 
 Coul4 the martyrdom of St. Peter at Eome be 
 granted, still the tradijtion only associates him with St. 
 Paul, and (when corrected by Holy Scripture) would 
 limit his presence to a very brief period at an advanced 
 stage of the organisation of the Church. St. Paul entered 
 the field as his own; we see him in possession of it 
 for some years ; singularly enough, too, in connection 
 with the supposed first bishops. Supposing his brother- 
 apostle to come in at the last, and join in his 
 dying testimony, the see would still have been the 
 chair of St. Paul — ^not of St. Peter — ^had the legend 
 reposed on any historical basis. 
 
 The legend, however, is not historical, but polemical. 
 The authority of St. Peter was asserted for the sake of 
 the primacy supposed to be devolved on that apostle in 
 the famous text, "Thou art Peter;" ^ and to this argu- 
 ment we must now advance. Eoman divines interpret 
 this passage as conferring an infallible supremacy over 
 the Universal Church, first on the apostle Peter, and 
 secondly on the bishops of Eome as his perpetual suc- 
 cessors. This interpretation was certainly unknown to 
 the apostle himself, and to the first three centuries of 
 
 1 "Paradise Lost," iv. 808. ' Matt. xvi. 18, 19. 
 
 f2 
 
68 THE APOSTOLIC SfiE. 
 
 the Christian Church.' It was never admitted by any 
 of the Churches which speak the language of the New 
 Testament ; and it has been rejected in every age by the 
 great majority of Christians. 
 
 With regard to the apostle himself, it is obvious that 
 St. Paul knew nothing of his supremacy when he "with- 
 stood him to the face because he was to be blamed ; " ^ 
 nor when he expressly asserted his own equality in the 
 apostleship.' The (so-caUed) Council of Jerusalem must 
 have been equally ignorant when they placed James in 
 the chair, and permitted St. Peter to take part in the 
 debate as an ordinary member.* Peter himself makes 
 no alluBion to any such authority in his epistles, but 
 exhorts the elders, " as a fellow-elder, to feed the flock 
 of God, not as being lords over his heritage, but being 
 ensamples to the flock, that when the Chief Shepherd 
 shall appear they may receive a crown of glory that 
 fadeth not away."* It may be observed, also, that among 
 the parties at Corinth who distinguished themselves by 
 apostolic names, no priority is attributed to St. Peter* 
 over Paul or ApoUos : he does not always enjoy even 
 a nominal precedence when named along with other 
 apostles.' 
 
 ' It must have been unknown at Home when St. John's Church ranked 
 above St. Peter's. 
 
 ' Gal. ii. 11. « Acts xv. 7, 12, 13. 
 
 ' lb., 6, 9. s 1 Pet. V. 1, 2, 4. 
 
 « 1 Cor. i. 12 ; iii. 22. Comparing these passages with 1 Cor. iv. 6, 
 they by no means prove the actual presence of St. Peter at Corinth. St. 
 Paul appears to have put the case these distinguished names were 
 quoted in order to expose more strongly the unjustifiable character of the 
 pretensions actually asserted. The true leaders were thus spared the 
 confusion of a public reproof, when it was their followers that were most 
 lo blame. 
 
 ' Gal. ii. 9. By Eusebius, and the fathers generaUy, when the two 
 apostles are named together, the usage is to place Paul before Peter. See 
 Hist. Ecc, iii. 21. Valesius remarks that in the seals of the Komish 
 Church itself Paul is placed on the right and Peter on the left. 
 
PKIMITIVB BISHOPS. 69 
 
 The early bishops of Eome appear to have been as 
 little instructed in their supremacy as the apostles. 
 Clement, who according to Eusebius was the third 
 bishop, and like Linus a fellow-labourer with St. Paul,^ 
 wrote a letter in the name of the whole Church of Eome 
 to that of Corinth. In this letter, which is still extant, 
 Clement reproves, after St. Paul's example, the schis- 
 matical spirit stUl raging in that Church. He complains 
 of their having ejected ministers whom the apostles and 
 their successors had appointed.^ This was eminently 
 a case for the chair of St. Peter, if its supremacy 
 had then been known. But all that Clement says 
 of St. Peter is, that having "undergone many suf- 
 
 ■ PhU. iv. 3. Eus. H. E., iii. 15. Coteler has collected (Pat. Apos., i. 
 414) a large number of passages to the same effect. In the early Church 
 " the Apostle " meant always St. Paul. 
 
 ' " The apostles have preached to us from our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 Jesus Christ from God. Christ, therefore, was sent by God; the apostles 
 by Christ. So both were orderly sent, according to the will of God. For, 
 having received their command, and being thoroughly assured by the 
 resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and convinced by the Word of God, 
 with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, they went abroad publishing that the 
 kingdom of God was at hand. And thus, preaching through countries and 
 cities, they appointed the first fruits of their conversions to be bishops and 
 ministers over such as should afterwards believe, having first proved them 
 by the Spirit. Nor was this any new thing : seeing that long before it was 
 written concerning bishops and deacons, for thus saith the Scripture in a 
 certain place : ' I will appoint their overseers in righteousness, and their 
 ministers in faith.' 
 
 " So, likewise, our apostles knew, by our Lord Jesus Christ, that there 
 should contentions arise on account of the ministry. And, therefore, having 
 a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed persons, as we have before 
 said, and then gave direction how, when they should die, other chosen and 
 approved men should succeed in their ministry. Wherefore we cannot 
 think that those may justly be thrown out of their ministry, who were 
 either appointed by them, or afterwards chosen by other eminent men, 
 with the consent of the whole Church ; and who have, with aU lowliness 
 and innocence, ministered to the flock of Christ in peace, and without 
 self-interest, and were for a long time commended by all. For it would be 
 no small sin in us should we cast off those from their ministry who holily, 
 and without blame, fulfil the duties of it," — Sects, xlii. — ^xliy. 
 
70 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 ferings, lie was at last martyred and s6nt to tlie place 
 of glory." 
 
 Of St, Paul lie writes at greatet lengtll, referriflg 
 partictdarly to his Epistles to the Corinthians: from 
 these he exhorts them to replace their ministers, and 
 return to unity and concord. He reminds them that 
 all cannot be chiKarchs, centurions, or other com- 
 manders; but that the whole body is saved ia Jesus 
 Christ. "Christ," he declared, "is theirs who are 
 humble and exalt not themselves over His flock." 
 "Let us reverence our Lord Jesus Christ, whose 
 blood was given for us : let us honour those who 
 are set over us, respect the aged, and iastruct the 
 younger, even ia the fear of the Lord." ^ There is not 
 the most distant allusion to any prerogative at Eome, and 
 instead of "health and the apostolic benediction," the 
 epistle closes with this evangelical petition: "Now God, 
 the Inspector of all things, the Father of spirits, and the 
 Lord of all flesh, who hath chosen our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and us by Him to be His peculiar people, grant to 
 every soul of man, that calleth upon His glorious and 
 holy name, faith, fear, peace, long-sufi'ering, patience, 
 temperance, holiness, and sobriety, unto all well-pleasing 
 in His sight ; through our High Priest and Protector, 
 Jesus Christ, by whom be glory and majesty, and power, 
 and honour, unto Him now, and for evermore. Amen." 
 
 The other apostolical fathers are equally silent ; and 
 no point of history is more certain than that the primacy 
 of St. Peter was never heard of during the first three 
 centuries of the Church. 
 
 With regard to the text in Matt, xvi., Gregory of 
 Nyssa, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Juvenal 
 of Jerusalem agree in understanding the Rock to be 
 
 1 Sects, xvi. — xxi. 
 
POWER OF THE KEYS. 71 
 
 not Peter, but tie faith. -wMch. he had just professed, 
 that Christ is the Son of God. The same interpreta- 
 tion -wa,s held l)f Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine, 
 in the west; and eyen Iby some of the popes, as by 
 Gregory the Great, Eelix in., Nicholas i., and 
 John Tin.' Jerome wag of opinion that our Lord 
 referred to Himself^ the Christ whom Peter confessed, 
 as the Bock: while others, as Origen, Cyprian, and 
 Basil, uiidel'stood the promise as belonging to Peter 
 ill common with the othet apostles, the twelve foun- 
 dations of the New Jerusalem.^ 
 
 In regard to the remainder of the text, the substance 
 of it is repeated to the other apostleS, and to the whole 
 Church, in Matt, xtiii. 18. The grant Of the keys was 
 understood to mean the commission to preach the Gospelj 
 baptize disciples, guide the flock, and exclude the re- 
 fractory from communion. Thus St. Peter opened the 
 kingdom of hearen to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, 
 and to the Gentiles in the baptism of Cornelius. He shut 
 the door upon Ananias and Sapphira. But although he 
 was the first to execute these fanctions, and is called the 
 first apostle,* yet he was followed with equal authority 
 
 ' Barrow's " Supremacy." It should be observed, that although Peter is 
 conrmoDly translated Rock, it is not the same word with the Rock on which 
 Christ founds the Church. Petros is properly a lodk-stone—s, stone which 
 cto he thrown or moTed. Ti^hen the living fi,ock is meant (Matt. vii. 24 ; 
 xxvii. 51, 60. Mark xv. 46. Luke vi. 48 ; viii. 6, 13. Rev. vi. 15, 16. 
 1 Cor. X. 4), the word is always Petra; and this is the word employed by 
 our Lord to denote the foundation of His Church. The only other places 
 in the New Testament where Petra occurs ate Rom. ix. 33, and 1 Peter ii. 8, 
 where it signifies, not a foundation, but a stumbliug-stone : the idea is 
 stOl that of a point of the living Rock jutting out of the ground. Petros 
 occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, but in the name of the apostle ; 
 ahd though it is used in a few places of the Septuagint, in the meaning of 
 Petra, our Lord in varying the word must naturally be understood to 
 imply a varied signification. "Thou art Petros, afld on this Petra I will 
 build my Church" — ^is very different from : " I will build my Church on thee," 
 
 ' Rev. xxi. 14 ; comp. 1 Cor. x. 4. ' Matt, x, 2, 
 
72 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 by the others. "For the rest of the apostles," says 
 Cyprian, " were the same also that Peter was ; en- 
 dowed with equal fellowship of honour and power; but 
 the original proceeds from unity, that the Church may 
 be shown to be one." ^ 
 
 Such were the received interpretations of this cele- 
 brated text, down to the fourth and jSffch centuries; none 
 agreeing with modem Eome, or recognising any Scrip- 
 tural authority in that see over others. The equal right 
 of aU bishops and their Churches (as regulated by 
 the canons) was then the invariable doctrine. They 
 differed from one another, on points not prescribed in 
 Scripture, with perfect independence. Thus the eastern 
 Churches kept Easter on the fourteenth day of the first 
 month, while in the West the feast was deferred to the 
 following Sunday. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, visited 
 Eome for the purpose of discussing this point with 
 Anicetus (a.d. 157-168). Each pleaded the custom 
 of his Church, and ended by allowing the same benefit 
 to the other ; but it is remarkable that while Poly- 
 carp alleged the authority of St. John (by whom he 
 was said to have been placed at Smyrna) and of other 
 apostles, we hear nothing from Anicetus of the authority 
 of St. Peter : he only said he must retain the usage of 
 the elders, his predecessors.^ 
 
 The same controversy was more hotly conducted by 
 Victor (a.d. 192-201). Some of the eastern Churches 
 then agreed with the Eoman usage ; but those of Asia 
 adhering to their own tradition, Yictor threatened them 
 with excommunication. He was answered by a long 
 letter from Polyerates, bishop of Ephesus, alleging that 
 he had seven relations of his own, bishops who had always 
 
 1 " De Unitate Eccl.," 113 : Ed. Bas. 1558. The other apostles were 
 not ordained or governed by Peter. 
 ' Ep. Irenaei. ap. Eua. H. E.j v. 24. 
 
OPPOSITION TO ROME. 73 
 
 observed the same custom, and that having reached sixty- 
 five years of age, ''and read the whole Scripture through," 
 he was not at all terrified, by the threats of Eome ; for 
 greater men than himself had said " we ought to obey 
 God rather than men." These were St. Peter's own 
 words. Victor issued his excommunication, but it 
 was not acknowledged even by the Churches which 
 agreed with him on the point in dispute. Irenseus, bishop 
 of Lyons, wrote to him in the name of the Gallic Church, 
 that whole Churches were not to be cut off for observing 
 their ancient customs ; and the Asiatics continued their 
 practice till it was changed by common consent at the 
 Council of Mcsea. 
 
 In aU this controversy nothing was said of the au- 
 thority of St. Peter. The first Eoman bishop who claimed 
 obedience on this account was Stephen (a.d. 253-257), 
 just at the time that we first hear of the monuments on 
 the Yatican. He had a difference with the African 
 Church, then presided over by pope Cyprian. A council 
 at Carthage had decided, some years before, that heretics 
 must be re-baptized before they could be admitted into 
 the Catholic Church. The same practice was pursued in 
 some of the eastern Chxirches, but it was always con- 
 demned in Italy, Gaul, and Spain. This order was 
 renewed by two councils under Cyprian, who sent their 
 resolutions to Stephen. The latter replied in a violent 
 letter, asserting his authority as successor of St. Peter, 
 and threatening the Afi-icans with excommunication.' 
 Cyprian retorted by accusing his brother-pope of im- 
 pertinence, ignorance, and childishness. He styles 
 him an abettor of heretics; and, calling another 
 council, protested against any one setting up for a 
 bishop of bishops, and presuming to reduce his colleagues 
 
 'Gyp., ep. lixiv. 1, 10 ; ep. Ixxv. 
 
74 THE APOSrOXIC SEE. 
 
 to subjugation.' Tte Africail €h.ifl-cll tetamed its practice 
 ia spite of tli6 pope, till it was coudeMned by agf eemenfc- 
 in tbe Cottncils of Aries and Mcsea. In the course of 
 tMs dispute, FirimliaSl of Cappadocial went so far as to 
 Hken tbe pope to Iscariot rather than Peter, affirming 
 that his exconinfunication of others would only cut off 
 himself from the unity of the Church. ^ 
 
 The First General ConncU placed Eome on a leyel 
 with Alexandria, Antioch, and other Chiirches : it was 
 simply the metropolitan see Of sotithern Italy. In the 
 controversies which subseq^uetttly desolated the eastern 
 Chnreh each party sought the synapathy of the "West. 
 Athanasius and his adversaries both appealed to Julius, 
 but when he summoned them to a cottncil to discuss the 
 question, the Eusebians fell back n{)on the fact "that aU 
 bishops were of equal authority, without regard to the 
 magnitude Of their cities." TMs was true, btit, as the 
 pope tCplied, they had themselves invited his decision, 
 and it was not his own opinion, but that of the bishops 
 of Italy and those parts, that he communicated. There 
 is not a word of St. Peter in the t^hole letter.' 
 
 At a later period of the contest, when Liberius for- 
 sook the truth under the menaces Of Constantius, no one 
 gtdmitted either the iofaUibility or the authority Of the 
 
 > Cyp. Cone. Garth., a.d. 256. 
 
 - Baronius affinns that Stephen excommunicated the Churches of Af ricaj 
 Cilicia, Cappadocia, Galatia, and, Egypt ; but Valesius thinks he was 
 content to threaten them. (Note on Eus., vii. 5.) The Alexandrian pope 
 Dionysius was certainly not aware of his misfortune, for he corresponded 
 with Stephen, tried to moderate his anger, and induced his successor to 
 drop the dispute. 
 
 » See Julius' Letter in Ath. Apol. Adv. Ar., 11. In one place he 
 claims a right to be consulted befoife any decision is taken with respect to 
 a bishop of Alexandria. The allusion is not clear whether Rome had 
 some special connection with Alexandria, or, as seems more probable, that 
 a patriarch of Antioch should not have incriminated a brother-patriarch 
 without first referring to Konie, the only other see of equal rank. 
 
GEOWTH OF THE ROMASf SEE. 75 
 
 Eoman ptelate. Athanaems stood alorie against the 
 world for ttie Divinity and Atonement of hi^ Kedeemer. 
 Liberius himself repented of his a:postasy when the 
 cotirage and moderation of the Alexaiidrian pope had 
 stemmed the tide of heresyy and the eniperor's death 
 brought happier days. 
 
 The Eoman see was ever after the champion of 
 orthodoxy. The barbarians who broke lip the empice 
 were either heathen^ or Arians, and the Greek em- 
 petors and patriarchs were perpetually involved iit 
 new heresies. At Eome the senate was too ffeeble, 
 the nobles too luxurious, to furnish men of action for 
 the times. The dissolution of the old Pagan hierarch;^ 
 left; the bishops and clergy to take the conduct of the 
 religioTis emotions. Paganism ha;d fallen, but the ground 
 was stUl cumbered with its ruins ; society T^as to be re- 
 orgams'ed ; the opulent were to be taught almsgiviag ; 
 the middle classes to be Set to work ; the vast paupeir 
 popillation to bO sought out and relieYed. These evan- 
 gelical labours could not fail to raise the bishop to influeilCe. 
 The magistrates were constantly changing, and conspiring 
 for their own advantage; the troops were more dreaded 
 than the enemy ; but the bishop was always at his post, 
 preaching, visiting, blessing, and praying for all. Hence 
 the Eoman see beOame in the fourth centuty the centl-^ 
 and rallyin^-point of all who were animated by a sfenti- 
 ment of patriotism, or a zeril for the integrity of the faith. 
 It galaed, in short, a practical influence which w^a^ 
 independent of ecclesiastical theories, and waS not stib- 
 verted by the scandals which too frequently disgraced 
 the ecclesiastical order. 
 
 By the middle of the fourth century the Eoman sfee 
 was become rich and ambitious. The account which an 
 eye-witness gives of the admission of Damasus (a.d. 366) 
 reads more like a conquest than an election. TJrsinius 
 
76 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 ■was already chosen and consecrated, when Damasns, at 
 the head of an armed party, broke into the church, 
 massacred the people, and finally fought his way into 
 the Lateran, where he received the episcopate. Jerome, 
 who was a friend to Damasus, reverses the parts ; but 
 all agree that the city was involved in a civil war till 
 the prefect banished the competitor who had the weaker 
 party. Even after that, Damasus commanded in per- 
 son an assault on the church where his opponents 
 were assembled, fired it, and slaughtered about one 
 hundred persons.^ 
 
 It appears that Damasus enjoyed the suffrages of 
 the rich ladies. His Mend calls him the virgin doctor 
 of the virgin Church f but Ammianus Marcellinus the 
 heathen historian, who was then at Eome, gives another 
 picture: " I do not wonder," he says, "that men who 
 are fond of show and parade should quarrel and fight for 
 the episcopal chair. If they succeed they are sure to be 
 enriched by the offerings of the ladies ; they appear no 
 more on foot, but in stately chariots and gorgeously 
 attired. They keep costly and sumptuous tables, nay, 
 surpass the emperors themselves in the .splendour and 
 magnificence of their entertainments."^ " Make me 
 bishop of Eome," said the Pagan prefect, " and I will 
 turn Christian directly."* This luxury drew down some 
 severe laws of mortmain from the emperor, of which 
 Ambrose and Jerome complain bitterly.' They were 
 abrogated in a.d. 455. Clearly nothing had then been 
 heard of Constantine's " donation." 
 
 The emperors, however, found it expedient to favour 
 the growth of a great patriarchal authority in the 
 west. Valentinian ii. granted the pope authority to 
 
 < Bo-wer, i. 183. « Hier., ep. Ixi. 
 
 2 Hier., ep. xlix. = Ainb., ep. xii. ; Hier., ep. ii. 
 
 » Amm. Mar., xxvii. p. 237. 
 
QtiESTION OF APPEAL. 77 
 
 Kear and decide causes relating to bishops, wliom he 
 altogether exempted from the civil jurisdiction.^ This 
 was a great boon at a time when the secular court 
 fi-eely applied torture both to witnesses and accused 
 persons. Though intended, perhaps, to apply only to 
 the suburbicarian provinces, the privilege was claimed 
 by other bishops, and contributed to augment the 
 papal jurisdiction. A constitution of Theodosius the 
 Great (379-395) ordains that all nations subject to 
 his sway shall receive the religion delivered by St. 
 Peter to the Eomans.^ 
 
 These grants were, beyond question, the foundation 
 of the papal jurisdiction in the western Empire. Pro- 
 ceeding from the secular power, they were not under- 
 stood as superseding any episcopal rights, as appears 
 from the opposition which continued to be offered on 
 the question of appeals. The First General Coxmcil 
 ordained that controversies should be determined , in 
 the provinces where they arose, but' the Council of 
 Sardica (347) granted an appeal to Eome under con- 
 ditions, the extent of which is much disputed. The 
 Greeks repudiated this canon altogether, aflSrming that 
 it was passed after their bishops had left the council; 
 and it was superseded by the second canon of the 
 Council of Constantinople (a.d. 381), one of the four 
 General Coimcils whose authority was declared by 
 Gregory the Great to be equal to that of the four 
 Gospels. Nevertheless, ia the Eoman code, the Sar- 
 dican constitution was inserted among the acts of the 
 CouncU of Nicsea, and the decree of Constantinople 
 was interpolated with a proviso, to save "the rights of 
 the Eoman see."* The African Church detected the 
 fraud, and strictly prohibited aU appeals beyond sea. 
 
 ' Bar. ad Ann., 368; Cod. Theod., cap. 80 ; Bower, i. 187. 
 
 " Cod. Theod., xvi. 1,2; Eanke, i. 12. » Cone, torn, ii., 1148. 
 
78 THJ) APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 The divisions in the eastern Cliiircli were afterwards 
 carried to an extent which, forced the common sense ajid 
 common piety of Christianity to take refuge in the West, 
 The Nestorian controversy, followed, through a natural 
 reaction, by the Eutychian and Monophypite heresies, 
 involved die ^position of aU the oriental patriarchs, 
 the death of several, and the conversion of a General 
 Council into a " den of thieves." -Amid, the crash of 
 falling column^, Rome alone stood unshaken. Cyril 
 held the proxy of Celestiae i. in the deposition of 
 Nestorius, and, according to papal writers, this was the 
 ground of his authority in that proceeding. But Alex- 
 andria always laid claim to the first authority in the 
 East, and Cyril had assumed his place before his brother- 
 pope came to his support.' Celestiue's intervention was 
 censured by some of the patriarchs, and at the Council 
 pf Ephesus, after the removal of Cyril, not the Eoman 
 legates, but the patriarch of Jerusalem, became president. 
 
 It was ai the Coimcil of Chalcedon that the Boman 
 see first attained to authority in the East. The patriarch 
 of Constantinople was the person originally incriminated. 
 In the proceedings against hioa, Dioscorus of Alexandria 
 presided above the Boman legates. The violence of the 
 Alexandrian prelate produced counter-charges, on which 
 he also was deposed, and in these charges the patriarchs 
 of Antioch and Jerusalem were both implicated. Leo of 
 Home remained the only patriarch not under personal 
 disability. His writings, though not without some 
 hesitation, were adopted by the wearied orientals as the 
 true exposition of the Catholic faith. His legates, for 
 
 • The sentence of deposition pronouneedagainatNestorius at the Council 
 of Ephesus is based on the "canons and the letter from our most holy 
 father and colleague, Celestine bishop of the Roman Church." This is no 
 more than would be said of any other absent patriarch. Celestine's own 
 letter to the Council allows the equal share of aU bishops in the guardian- 
 ship of the faith. 
 
CANOJijr 0? COlfSTANTIi^OPLE. 7-9 
 
 the first time in th.e East, were alloyecj to preside, 
 ,9fl,d tlie sentence against Dioscorus ra??. ia the name of 
 "the most holy archbishop pf Eome with the apostle 
 Peter, by his legate, and the assembled CoujiclI" 
 (a.d. 451). 
 
 In yielding tjbi§ preced^iice, however, the eastern 
 bishops insisted on re-enacting in larger terms the canon 
 of the Second General Coujijcil which defined the rela- 
 tions of Eome and Constantijiople to the other sees : 
 A' Whereas (they say) the see of Old Eome had been not 
 jindeservedly distinguished by the fathers with some 
 priyilege, because tjiat city was the seat of the Empire ; 
 jthe ^IJiers of Constantinople were pron^pted by the 
 ^ame paotive to distiagiiish the most holy see of New 
 Eonie Tfiath equal privileges, thinking it fit that the city 
 which they saw hon.our6d with the empire ^nd the 
 senate, and equalled in every civil privilege to Old 
 Eome, should he equalled in. ecclesig.stical matters.'" A 
 Gapon was the;refore passed that the bishop of New ^ome 
 shpuld ^joy the same honour a^s the Old, on account of 
 the tr3,nslation of the empire.^ The fianon was so offen- 
 sive to Leo, that, though enacted by a Oenerail Council, 
 it was never ^.dmitted into the Eoman Code. 
 
 Soon after, the Pelagian heresy calling for similar 
 .exertions in the West, Celestine i. sent letters to the 
 bishops of Gaul, entreatiiig jtJiem to defend the doc- 
 trine of Augustine ajad St. Paul. He is said to have 
 despatched PaUadius into Britain with the same ob- 
 ject ; but other accounts represent PaUadius as a dis- 
 ciple of Germaine, bishop of Anxerre, whom tlie British 
 Church invited to its assistance. Germaine, obeying the 
 sujnmons, was present with Lupus, bishop of Troyes, 
 at the Council of Yerulam (a.d. 429), where Pelagius 
 
 ' Cone, iv., 838 ; Bower, ii. 80. » Cone. Chalc. .Can., Xxviii. 
 
80 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 
 
 (who was a native of Wales) was oondemned.^ A 
 letter of Fastidiixs, supposed 4o be bishop of London 
 at the time, is still extant, but neither this letter nor 
 the CouncU make any allusion to the pope.^ 
 
 The right of appeal naturally conceded to the 
 mother Church, by daughter or dependent bodies, was 
 warmly denied to Eome by the Churches of Gaul. 
 They were sensible of no obligations to Eome, and 
 had, in fact, received their Christianity from the East. 
 Leo the Great expressly disclaimed the authority of 
 ordaining the Gallic bishops, yet he was so offended 
 with Hilary of Aries for resisting the right of appeal, 
 that he resorted to the unprecedented step of arresting 
 his person at a conference in Eome. Hilary escaped 
 from prison, and was pursued by an excommunication, 
 from which he refused to purchase absolution at the cost 
 of his independence, Leo then applied to the emperor 
 Valentioian rn., and obtained a rescript requiring the 
 bishops of Gaxd and of the other provinces to submit to 
 the orders of the Apostolic see, and enjoining the magis- 
 trates to compel their obedience (a.d. 445).^ This law 
 was cited by pope HUary (a.d. 464) as the ground of a 
 jurisdiction confessedly bey ond the canons of the Church.* 
 
 In this state the question rested till the fall of the 
 western Empire, when Eome, having sunk to be the 
 capital of the Italian kingdom, and Constantinople alone 
 retaining the imperial dignity, pope Gelasius saw fit to 
 
 ' Pelagius is supposed to be the Latin for Morgan. The bishop's 
 name survives at St. Germains, in Cornwall, and at Uanannon (the town 
 of Germain) in Denbighshire. 
 
 2 Palladius, it would appear, passed on to Ireland, where the, natives 
 were then called Scots ; after making some conversions, he returned to 
 Rome, and by the pope was appointed bishop of that island. He died 
 A.D. 431, and was succeeded by St. Patrick. 
 
 ' Cone, iii. 1401 ; Leo, ep. x. ; Bower, ii. 14. 
 
 * Cone, iv. 1045 ; Bower, ii. 151. 
 
DECREE OF GELASIUS. 81 
 
 repudiate the support both of ecclesiastical canons and 
 secular law, and rest tlie primacy absolutely on apos- 
 tolic autbority. In 'tbe last year of bis pontificate 
 (a.d. 496) be issued a decree declaring tbat "It was not 
 to tbe councils or decrees of men tbat tbe Holy Eoman 
 and ApostoHc Cburcb owed ber primacy, but to tbe words 
 of Cbrist, saying in tbe Gospel, 'Tbou art Peter,' tbereby 
 building tbe Cburcb on bim as upon a rock, tbat notbing 
 could sbake : — Tbat tbe Eoman Cburcb, not baving 
 spot or wrinkle, is consecrated and exalted above all 
 cburcbes by tbe presence, deatb, and martyrdom of tbe 
 two cbief apostles Peter and Paul, wbo suffered at 
 Rome under Nero, not at different times, as tbe beretics 
 say, but on tbe same day : — Tbat tbe Eoman Cburcb is tbe 
 first cbiircb, because founded by tbe apostle ; tbe Cburcb 
 of Alexandria tbe second, because founded by bis disciple 
 Mark in bis name; and tbat of Antiocb tbe tbird, 
 because St. Peter dwelt tbere before be came to Eome, 
 and in tbat city tbe faitbfal were first called Cbristians.'" 
 To tbe imperial see of Constantinople tbe pope Toucb- 
 safed no precedence at all, as not being of " apostolic" 
 foundation : a piece of singular ingratitude to tbe great 
 emperor, onwbomtbe papacy seeks to father so many of ber 
 priyileges. But Eome was now preparing for tbat long 
 struggle with tbe Byzantine Court, which resulted in the 
 rupture of aU ber relatioris with the eastern empire, and 
 the erection of tbe papal see itself into a political power. 
 The doctrine thus developed by Gelasius was always 
 denounced in the eastern Church as false and heretical ; 
 it was long resisted by tbe western metropolitans, but, 
 being taken up by the barbarians,^ as they rose into 
 
 » Cone, iv. 1260 ; Bower, ii. 233. 
 
 2 An example of this kind is recorded by Bede (iii. 25) in the synod 
 at Whitby, held to decide between Wilfrid and Colman respecting the 
 obserrance of Easter (a.d. 664). Colman, who came from Scotland, and 
 
82 PAil OP THE WEST. 
 
 importance, it established itself amid the decay of letters 
 and religion as the central dogma of the Latin Com* 
 munion. 
 
 •with the British Churches, |»rof esBed the eastern rule, quoted the authdrity 
 of St. John and St. Columba for the time of the feast. His opponent, 
 besides poi&ting out a 6i66r&paaay 'betweeti the British usage and the 
 Asiatic, affirmed that St. Peter was the author of the Roman custom, and 
 demanded if they meant to prefer St. Columba to the blessed prince (rf the 
 apostles, to whom our Lord said, "Thou art Peter," etc. King OsWy at once 
 interposed, to ask Cohnan if it were true that iMA was said to Peter. Th6 
 bishop assented. " Tten," exclaimed the royal theolo^an, "I will obey 
 St. Peter, lest when I come to the gates of heaven, he should refuse to 
 open me the dooi"." 
 
g2 
 
CONTEMPORAET SUCCESSIONS (EXAECHATE). 
 
 A.D 
 
 EMfEBOBS. 
 
 EXAHOHS. 
 
 POPES OP SOME. 
 
 KINGS OP 
 liOHBAItSY. 
 
 PATBIABCBS OP 
 OOHBTAHTniOPUB. 
 
 527 
 
 Justinian I. 
 
 
 
 
 
 5S3 
 
 
 
 
 
 Eatychins. 
 
 S55 
 
 
 
 Felaginsi. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Johnm. 
 
 
 
 5M 
 
 
 
 
 
 Johnm. 
 
 stas 
 
 Jufitinn. 
 
 
 
 
 
 56V 
 
 
 IiOnginQB. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alboin. 
 
 
 bU 
 
 
 
 Benedict I. 
 
 
 
 576 
 577 
 578 
 582 
 
 EberinB!! '.'. 
 
 
 Pelaginsn. " 
 
 Olepho. 
 Thirty Dnkes. 
 
 Entychius restored. 
 
 583 
 
 
 Smaragdas. 
 
 
 
 
 587 
 
 
 Eomanns'. 
 
 
 Antharis .. 
 
 John IT. (the Faster) 
 
 591 
 
 592 
 596 
 598 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thendeinula. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Agilnlph. 
 
 
 
 C^linichiui. " 
 
 
 
 Qyriacus. 
 
 BUS! 
 
 Phocaa .. .. 
 
 Smaragdas rest. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sabinian. 
 
 
 
 608 
 610 
 
 
 
 Boniface m. 
 
 
 Thomas I. 
 
 Heraiolins '. '. 
 
 John Demiges. 
 
 
 
 
 Sergius. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Adelvald. 
 
 
 615 
 
 Eleutfaeiins . . 
 
 Sensdedit. 
 
 
 
 
 Isaac .. .. 
 
 Boniface T. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Honorins I. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Aiiwaia. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Botharis. 
 
 
 
 (Caaataaiineiii 
 Herarfjleon 
 Constana n. 
 
 
 John IT. 
 
 
 Pyrrhns. 
 
 641 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 U'2 
 
 
 
 Theodore . . 
 
 
 
 650 
 652 
 653 
 
 
 Olympus 
 
 T. Cafiiopas.. 
 
 Martini. 
 Engenins I. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pyrrhns restored. 
 Peter. 
 
 655 
 656 
 657 
 658 
 662 
 664 
 666 
 
 668 
 
 
 
 Eugeninsl. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Eodoald.. .. 
 
 
 
 
 Titalian.. .. 
 
 Aiiberti. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 JohnT. 
 
 
 
 
 Grimoald. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Constantine r. 
 
 f Constantinerv. 
 
 
 
 
 Theodore. 
 
 
 
 
 
 673 
 676 
 
 
 
 Adeodatns. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Donns. 
 
 Berthariih. 
 
 
 682 
 684 
 685 
 
 
 
 Agatho .. .. 
 
 
 George. 
 
 JuatinianiL-. 
 
 
 Leo. n, .. .. 
 Benedict u. 
 JohnT. 
 
 
 Theodore restored. 
 Panlm. 
 
 
 
 Theodore 
 
 
 
 
 689 
 
 
 John . . . , 
 
 Serginsi. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cnnibert. 
 
 
 694 
 
 
 
 
 
 CaUinicDS. 
 
 698 
 
 Tiberius. 
 
 
 
 
 
 702 
 701 
 
 
 Theophylact' 
 
 John -VT. 
 
 Lnithbert. 
 Aribert n. 
 
 
 705 
 
 Jnstinian n. resl 
 
 
 JohnTn!' 
 
 
 Cyrus. 
 
 710 
 711 
 
 Fhillipicns. 
 
 JohnSizocope 
 
 (Sisinnlns. 
 I Constantine. 
 
 
 
 718 
 714 
 
 Anastaains nl 
 
 Soholastions!'. 
 
 
 Anapiand. .. 
 Iinitprand. 
 
 JohnTi. 
 
 715 
 
 TheodoaiTis ttt. 
 
 
 
 
 Qermanus. 
 
 717 
 
 Leon. 
 
 
 
 
 
 725 
 
 
 FauL 
 
 
 
 
 728 
 732 
 
 741 
 
 744 
 
 7110 
 
 ConsfcanthieV 
 Oopronymns ) 
 
 Eutychins , . 
 
 wregory m. 
 
 
 Anostaeius. 
 
 
 Zaohary. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bachis. 
 
 
 751 
 
 
 
 Stephen in. ' ' 
 
 Astulphns. 
 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 The Justinian Code — Influence of Chiistianity upon Koman Law — ^The 
 Lombard Kingdom — ^The Exarchate of Ravenna — Subjugation of 
 the City and Church of Kome — The Three Chapters — ^Deposition and 
 Death of Vigilius — Gregory the Great — ^Mission to Britain — Con- 
 version of the English— Dissensions with the East — ^The Monothelite 
 Heresy — Martyrdom of Pope Martin — Theodore of Canterbury — 
 Pope and Patriarch — ^Dissensions with the Emperor — Conversion of 
 the Germans — ^Leo the Isaurian — ^Lnage Worship. 
 
 BiTTEELY as Eome had. resented the indignity of bar- 
 barian domination, her return under the imperial sceptre 
 was only a change of servitude. Though still boasting 
 the Eoman name, the empire was now altogether Greek, 
 and Grreek of the Byzantine not the Athenian stanip. 
 The court, the language, the church, were Greek. The 
 true Eomans were styled Latin^ and under coyer of that 
 rustic appellation, the insolent Orientals regarded the 
 mother "West as a tributary province. Its government was 
 confided to an Exarch who resided at Eavenna with the 
 entire civil, military, and ecclesiastical power. The Seven- 
 hilled City became a subject municipality, and the prefect 
 of Eome was compelled to receive the commands of a 
 barbarian emperor,* through a satrap who was not unfre- 
 quently a eunuch. This degrading bondage lasted sixty 
 years, during which the allegiance of Eome was natu- 
 rally more and more centred on the resident bishop. 
 The chief benefit connected with this period was 
 
 ' Justinian was by birth a Dacian peasant, adopted by his uncle Justin, 
 who, enlisting in the army as a private soldier, rose to the command, and 
 thence to the possession, of the palace. 
 
86 THE BXAKCHATE. 
 
 the promulgation of the famous Eoman Code, to wMeli 
 Justinian has been allowed the honour of giving his 
 name, though he had little to do with it beyond encum- 
 bering the laws of his predecessors with his own inferior 
 Novels} The portions of real authority are the Code, 
 the Pajstoects, and the Institutes ; the first contained 
 the written laws, the second, the judicial rulings, and 
 the last, a review of the principles or elements of Eoman 
 jurisprudence. All were collecte(J and arranged by the 
 most eminent civilians, and being published with imperial 
 authority (a.d. 665), the work became the text-book not 
 only of the colleges of Constantinople, Rome, and 
 Berytus, but of aU the schools and universities which 
 have since pursued the study of the civil law. This 
 was the most systematic effort that had yet appeared to 
 arrange the principles of natural and social law by the 
 light of Christianity : and it will help to illustrate the 
 advantage which legislation has derived from revelation, 
 to compare some of its features with the wisdom of 
 heathen antiquity. 
 
 1. In Pagan Eome, aU citizens were declared equal 
 before the law ; but only the free-bom, i.e. the children 
 of two free pafents, were recognised as citizens. The 
 oflfepring of unequal unions followed the inferior parent, 
 and the taint of a servile birth descended to the remotest 
 posterity. Even emancipated slaves were only MberUni, 
 not Uheri. Their position and rights were broadly sepa- 
 rated from those of genuine citizens. Moreover, eman- 
 cipation was itself restricted by numerous limitations ; 
 in fine, the so-called republic was a small society of 
 privileged citizens, intolerant of the slightest restraint 
 
 » " These are the decisions which Justiniaii affected to deliver from his 
 own imperial wisdom ; so far as they depart from previous rulings, they 
 may be safely attributed to the bribes which were shamelessly received by 
 this selfish and vaingloriousTprince." — Deeline and FaU, c. sUv. 
 
THE CIVIL COpE, 87 
 
 on. themselyes, but tyraimisiug witliQiit mercy over a 
 disfrano^iised popiilatioii, Wteii the emperors assumed 
 the prejqgative of creating freemen, the privilege was 
 often piLcchased at their hands;' but by that time the 
 freedom was redijeed to a name as regarded political 
 powei?, and only availed to save the person from the 
 stripes and tortures freely lavished on others. Justi- 
 niaa's Code abolished the distinction of libertine with all 
 restraints upon emancipatioft. The manipnitted slave 
 became absolutely free, and his blood was no longer 
 servile. The (Jospel had not yet effected full emancipa- 
 tion, but its spirit was, from the first, to ameliorate and 
 extinguish slavery. 
 
 2. The Pagan law gave the father absolute power 
 over his family; he could punish wife and son with 
 disherigoji, death, or slavery, at pleasure : a brutal 
 parent might even geU his dwghter to shame and irre- 
 deemable bondage. This despotism was now utterly 
 abolished. Again, new-born children were left on the 
 ground until the father should take them up : if he 
 declined they perished unpitied. This was made murder 
 by the civil law and punished with death. 
 
 3, Marriage, by the old Pagan law, was the reduce 
 tion of the wife to perpetual slavery : her Hfe might be 
 taken, and was taken, at the wiU of the husband. To 
 protect themselves, women resorted to a lees solemn cere- 
 monial which allowed of divorce, and the result was 
 that wedlock degenerated into a purely temporary al- 
 liance. Justioian's Code regulated marriage and abo- 
 lished divorce ; but the corruptions of the times induced 
 his successor to restore the permission of divorce by 
 mutual consult, lest murder should be the result. Such 
 are some of the rights ot persons secured by the civil law. 
 
 » Acts xxii. 28. 
 
88 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 4. With respect to things, the Code defined the con- 
 ditions of acquiring property, and established the prin- 
 ciple of hereditary succession, with equal share to aU 
 sons and daughters. The power of prolonging the 
 dominion of the dead by means of wills, had been 
 granted by the law of the Twelye Tables : and in ac- 
 cordance with the old parental despotism, it extended 
 to the entire disinheriting of wife or child at the caprice 
 of the testator. This unnatural authority was limited 
 by the Christian Code. The testator was obliged to 
 specify the offence of his disinherited offspring, and if 
 a fourth portion of the estate were not assigned to them, 
 they could appeal from parental tyranny to the justice 
 of the magistrate. 
 
 5. Crimes were still punished with inhuman severity, 
 especially when committed against the emperor ; but the 
 Code was far less sanguinary than the old Twelve Tables. 
 Its greatest fault was the union of civil, criminal, and 
 what is now called equitable, jurisdiction in a single 
 judge, and that judge appointed and removed at the will 
 of the emperor. These magistrates were further em- 
 powered to apply torture to the witnesses and the 
 accused, and this power was so frightfully abused that 
 the Italian bishops hailed it as a great privilege to be 
 allowed the judgment of the pope and his council. 
 
 The publication of this Code, with all its faults, was 
 one of the greatest and most permanent blessings ever 
 experienced from the labours of mankind. It laid the 
 basis for a consistent administration of law and justice. 
 It rescued a large part of the world at a stroke from the 
 narrow despotism of local magistrates. The Church 
 accepted it with gratitude, and though it was overborne 
 for a time in the barbarous convulsions of the West, 
 the nations of Europe, as they emerged out of anarchy, 
 were glad to mould their legislation on its principles. 
 
THE LOMBAED KINGDOM. 
 
 89 
 
 This celebrated Code, with the valour of his generals 
 and the skill of his architects, have rendered the reign 
 of Justinian iQustrious ; but he was a weak, cruel prince, 
 whose misgovernment both of Church and State rapidly 
 hastened the downfall of the empire. To dispossess the 
 Lepidse, who had seized on the intrenchments vacated 
 by the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, he invited the " Long- 
 beards " across the Danube, and saw without concern 
 the advance of these formidable barbarians to the shores 
 of the Adriatic. "With the same selfish policy he saved 
 Constantinople from his dangerous auxiliaries, the Avars, 
 by permitting them to pass into the heart of Poland and 
 Germany, and spread over the region between the 
 Danube and the Elbe. The ruinous consequence was 
 precipitated by Greek treachery. The eunuch Narses 
 revenged his dismissal from command by secretly inviting 
 the Lombard sinto Italy ; and all its provinces, from the 
 Trentine Hills to Eavenna and the gates of Eome, became 
 their prey without a battle or a siege. Alboin was 
 proclaimed king of Italy at Pavia (a.d. 570), and thirty 
 Lombard dukes planted their banners in different cities," 
 levying a third of the produce from the subjugated 
 population for the support of their armed retainers. 
 
 The Lombard kingdom extended from the Alps 
 to the sea. The exarch remained shut up in Eaveima, 
 and Eome was only saved from destruction by the 
 courage and piety of pope Gregory the Great, who 
 encountered the Arian conqueror with the arms of re- 
 ligion, and succeeded, by the help of his queen Theolinda, 
 in converting a large part of the nation. The Iron 
 Crown of Lombardy was the reward of their submission 
 to the Church.' 
 
 ' This famous crown, presented by Gregory to Theolinda, is a jointed 
 band of gold, enriched with jewels and lined with an inner circlet of iron, 
 said to be forged out of one the naUs of the True Cross which the empresB 
 
90 THE EXAECHATB. 
 
 The Lombard conquests reduced tlie empire to the 
 immediate jurisdiction of Eavenna, the provinces of 
 Eome and Naples, with the islands of Yenice, Sardinia, 
 Corsica, and Sicily. Calabria, which forms the foot of the 
 Italian boot, was subsequently recovered, but the rest of 
 Italy obeyed the Lombards for a period of 200 years.^ 
 
 The exarch ruled at Eavenna over the modern 
 Eomagna, Ferrara, and Commaehio, with five cities 
 on the Adriatic between Eimini and Ancona. Naples, 
 being separated by hostile lands, was granted the privi- 
 lege of electing her own duke, while Yenice, becoming 
 independent through commerce, rose to the rank of an 
 ally rather than a subject to the empire. The Eoman 
 duchy extended along the coast from Civita Yeechia 
 to Terracina, and up the Tiber as far as Narni, in- 
 cluding all the Tuscan, Sabine, and Latin conquests of 
 the old republic. The prefect of the city received his 
 orders from the exarch, who occasionally came in person 
 to receive the homage and appropriate the treasures of 
 the humiliated capital. 
 
 This ignominious subjection was especially galling 
 to the Church of Eome. The bishop and clergy had 
 espoused the cause of the orthodox emperor against 
 their barbarian neighbours, partly from a proper zeal 
 
 Helena, sent to Boute* It |s stUl in the cathedral of JVIoiiza, ahont ten 
 miles from Milan, where it is used in the coronation of the kings of Italy. 
 Napoleon i. placed it on his own head in the year 1805, and Victor 
 Emmanuel was crowned with the same relic in 1861. A far richer speci- 
 men of Lombard art was the crown of Theolinda's second husband, 
 AgUulph, duke of Milan. It was of gold, adorned with images of Christ 
 between two aageis, surrounded by the twelve apostles. The French 
 stole it from the Italians in 1799, and some meaner thief stole it froip the 
 Imperial Library at Paris, in 1804. 
 
 1 The Lombards learnt architecture from the Italians ; their buildings 
 belong to the Romanesque style; a chapel erected at Friuli, in the eighth 
 century, presents one of the earliest specimens of the intersecting Tault, 
 which afterwards became the chief feature of what is called the Gothic 
 style. 
 
STTBJTJGATION. OF THE CITT AND CHTJECH. 91 
 
 for religious truth., but more, perhaps, with, the desire 
 of removing the temporal sovereignty to a greater 
 distance from the Holy see. They expected in return 
 the respect and confidence of a grateful prince, the full 
 enjojonent of their ecclesiastical rights, with the 
 temporal honour and authority which they felt to. be 
 due to tbeir moral influence in the State. But Jus- 
 tinian possessed neither the gratitude, the good sense, 
 nor the statesmanship of Constantine. Instead of 
 allying himself to the Church as a disciple, protector, and 
 Mend, he was bent on asserting the imperial preroga- 
 tive, in matters of faith and worship. He found the 
 spirit of western cburchmanship to be very different 
 fix)m that of Ma own ecclesiastical creatures in the Bast, 
 and the Eoman see, which, was often employed as its 
 mouthpiece, became an object of jealousy and suspicion 
 at Constantinople. The emperor retained and tightened 
 the bonds of State control over tbe popes. !N^o election 
 could be made to the vacant see without the permission 
 of the exarch ; his confirmation or the emperor's must be 
 obtained before enthroning the elect. The imperial 
 orders were issued to the pope as to an officer of the 
 crown, and implicit obedience was demanded in tbe 
 name at once of loyalty and religion. 
 
 ^uch a position must be intolerable to any church, 
 which believes itseK entrusted with the ministry of a 
 Eingdom which is not of this world, and it was easy to 
 see that, of all churches, that of Eome was the least 
 likely to accept it. In the conflict which ensued 
 the popes were not the first ag^essors. Justinian, wbo 
 believed himself to be the light an:d rule of orthodoxy, 
 shaded his throne with a beautiful actress whose caprice it 
 was to patronise the heretics. The patriareb Anthemius 
 having incurred the emperor's displeasure by embracing 
 one of the many forms of Eutychianism, was deposed by 
 
92 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 pope Agapetus, whom Justinian summoned from Eome 
 for the purpose. The pope died at Constantinople, after 
 consecrating a new patriarch; whereupon the empress 
 Theodora secretly wrote to his successor to reverse the 
 proceedings at Eome. Silverius refusing, the empress 
 had recourse to the archdeacon Yigilius, who had 
 attended Agapetus to the East, and was still at Constanti- 
 nople. This man, being a disappointed candidate for 
 the papacy,' eagerly caught at her offers. Though he 
 had himself assisted in all the proceedings of Agapetus, 
 he returned to Eome carrying orders from Theodora to 
 Belisarius, to expel SUverius and place himself in the 
 chair of St. Peter. The brave old soldier hesitated ; for 
 it was mainly through the influence of Silyerius that 
 Eome had admitted the imperial garrison. Theodora, 
 however, by the uxoriousness of the emperor, possessed 
 imperial authority, and Vigilius having backed her 
 mandate with a promise of two hundred gold pieces for 
 himself, the general decided that obedience was the first 
 duty of a soldier. Silverius was arrested on a charge of 
 treasonable intercourse with the Goths, and having been 
 stripped of his paU, was transported into Greece in the 
 garb of a monk. A new election took place under the 
 orders of Belisarius, and Vigilius was chosen. 
 
 Having thus attained the object of his ambition, the 
 new pope discovered the sinfulness of heresy and 
 simony, and refused to complete his bargain either 
 with the empress or the general ! Meantime SUverius 
 managed to gain an audience of Justinian (who had 
 been kept in ignorance of his wife's proceedings), 
 
 ■ Vigilius was nominated by Boniface li. to succeed himself in virtue of 
 a power conceded to the pope by the Roman synod. But the nomination 
 was set aside as an infraction of the rights of the crown, and three 
 elections were subsequently carried into effect without any regard to 
 Vigilius. 
 
THE THREE CHAPTEES. 93 
 
 and obtained an order for a [new trial. His reappear- 
 ance at Eome filled the conspirators with, dismay. 
 YigUins hastened to renew his engagements, and 
 Belisarius having delivered their victim into his hands, 
 Silverius was hurried off to an uninhabited island, where 
 he perished by starvation, or some swifter murder. 
 
 YigUius was now compelled to pay the stipulated 
 price of his elevation. Belisarius received his bribe, and 
 the pope sent letters of communion to the deposed 
 patriarch, in which he openly anathematised the Catholic 
 creed of Chalcedon. To save the Eoman see from the 
 taint of heresy, it is suggested that if Silverius had not 
 yet breathed his last, Vigilius was but an anti-pope. 
 Moreover, as there was no second election after the 
 completion of the murder, Yigilius was perhaps never a 
 genuine pope at all. 
 
 Justinian, when informed that Silverius was dead, 
 wrote to congratulate his successor, and YigUius 
 repUed with a solemn profession of the very faith which 
 he had as solemnly abjured to the Eutychians : to the 
 same effect he wrote to the orthodox patriarch, with 
 whom he had promised Theodora to hold no communion. 
 Bis duplicity, however, did not long avail. The emperor 
 falling into one of his orthodox veins, issued an edict 
 condemning six propositions imputed to Origen, and 
 required all the patriarchs, including the pope, to 
 receive and register the imperial censure. Next he 
 wanted to anathematise the Eutychians, in whose favour 
 his wife was employing all her intrigues, but being 
 diverted by her creatures, he fell upon some deceased 
 bishops^ who had taken part in the IN'estorian contro- 
 versy, and thundered out an edict against the writings 
 known as the Three Chapters. 
 
 ' Theodorus of Mopsuestia, Ibas of Edessa, and Theodoret of Cyprus. 
 
94 THE EXAECHATE. 
 
 The prelates now found it higii time to look about them. 
 The Three Chapters, if not approved, were certainly not 
 censured at Chaloedon, atld it was new to have an 
 emperor binding what the Ohiirch had left free. The 
 patriarchs remonstrated, but on being threatened with 
 exile, they submitted and feubscf ibed. Vigilius, who had 
 the most reason to acqiliescej had now recovered his 
 Orthodo:^y, and boldly headed the western bishops in a 
 unanimous refiisal. The incensed emperor ordered him 
 to Constantinople: there being told he should never 
 i-etutn to Italy till he submitted, he drew up a Jwdicatum 
 ■vrhich condenmed the Three ChftptetSj but with a salvo 
 fbr the full authority of the Council of Chalcedon, 
 This prevarication so disgusted his own ecclesiastics that 
 two deacons separated from his communion oU the spot, 
 and wrote home to acquaint the Church with the fell and 
 apostasy of its head. The whole West rose in rebeUion. 
 The lUyriaU bishops solemnly condemned the Jwdicatum., 
 and the African Church excommunicated its author. 
 
 Vigilius once more saw his eri'or, and diesifous to 
 retrace his false step, he proposed the favourite remedy 
 of a general councU. The western bishops mostly 
 declined to attend ; the pope refused to meet a 
 Greek majority pledged to oppose him 5 and the em- 
 peror, deeming himself trifled with, republished his edict 
 in stronger language than before. The pope then assemb- 
 Mng his own bishops, declared all who should receive 
 the edict to be out of the communion of the Prime 
 Apostle and his see. Having launched this bolt, he fled 
 to the chm-ch of St. Peter. The emperor sent the 
 preetor to di^g him from the sanctuary. The pope, who 
 iras a stretlg man, dung to the pillars of the altar : the 
 soldiers, who were far stronger, pulled at his feet, till 
 shrine, altar, and all fell together. Thereupon the popu- 
 lace rose and drove the soldiers out of the church. 
 
DEPOSITION AND DEATH OF VIGILITJS. 05 
 
 The emperor then, induced the pope by a solemn oath 
 ti6 return to his apartments, hut he had no sooner left 
 his asylum than he found himself a prisoner. Climbing 
 over a wall in the night, he reached the seaside, and 
 haTuig crossed the strait in a boat, once more took 
 sanctuary in the church of the celebrated martyr, St. 
 Euphetoia of Chalcedon. Justinian was obliged to 
 revoke his edict before he oould draw the pope from this 
 inviolable refiige. 
 
 Stm Yigilius refilled to meet a council Which he 
 knew was eager to vote against his opinion and 
 authority. The Greeks assembling without him re- 
 peated their condemnation, and Vigilius retorted by 
 a Constitution affirming the entire orthodosy of the 
 inculpated Chapters. As this was contradicting his own 
 Judicorfum, the emperor and his bishops lost all patience. 
 The pope was arrested and sent into exile to Pro- 
 conessus. His- name was struck out of the diptychs,^ 
 and a mandate went to Eotne for a new election. 
 
 Five months' meditation in a solitary island produced 
 a fourth ret olution in the religious convictions of Yigilius. 
 He examined the writings with greater care^ found out 
 heresies which had escaped him when deliberiatiiig with 
 his bishops, and purchased his restoration to imperial 
 ftiVour by signing an unqualified condemnati-oH of the 
 Three Chapters, with all fteir abettors, not excepting 
 the (Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. This decree was 
 confirmed in the so^-called Fifth Greneral Council, then 
 silting at Constantinople (a.d. S64-5). 
 
 Justinian now sent the humbled pontiff home, afber 
 Seven years' captivity, loaded with fevours for Italy and 
 Eome; but death overtaking him in Sicily, he was spared 
 
 • The diptychs contained the roll of or&odox patriarchs, living or 
 dead, who were commemorated in the Church services as in the oaammnioii. 
 of saints. 
 
96 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 the pain of explaining his aberrations to the rigid Catholics 
 of the Apostolic see, Baronius, like a true continental, 
 regards this pope's death in Sicily as a just judgment on 
 his inhumanity in leaving his predecessor to expire on an 
 island! But though this writer admits him to be a 
 schismatic, a simoniac, and a murderer, he assures us he 
 was yet a good Catholic, and when on the completion of 
 his crimes by the death of Silverius he became pope, 
 he was straightway another man, for " it is the privilege 
 of the Apostolic see to convert the greatest of sinners 
 iuto saiuts !" ^ 
 
 These ecclesiastical dissensions greatly widened the 
 breach between Eome and Constantiaople. The Latias 
 learned to hate the Greeks worse than the Lombards. 
 Little help was received by the imperial arms, while 
 much money was swept into the imperial treasury. The 
 calamities of the period were aggravated by a terrible 
 pestilence, which, origioating between the Nile and the 
 great Serbonian marsh, travelled eastward through Syria 
 to Persia and India, and along the African coast to 
 Europe. It raged almost without iutermission, from the 
 year 542 to 549, effecting a destruction of human life 
 which has hardly ever been equalled. The deaths at 
 Constantinople numbered ten thousand a day. In Italy 
 the diminished population was unable to cultivate the 
 fields, and famine followed in the train. Eome was in 
 the lowest stage of depression, scourged by want, sick- 
 ness and war, when the chair of St. Peter was ascended 
 by a prelate, on whom the English reader at least must 
 pause with respect. 
 
 Gregory the Great was the descendant of a patrician 
 house, the great grandson of PeHx iii., and Hmself a 
 
 ' "Quos iniquos accepit, solet mox reddere sanctos." — Bar. Ann., 
 an. 540 ; comp. an. 538, 553. 
 
GREGORY THE GREAT. 97 
 
 senator. Inlieriting a large estate, and distinguished by 
 superior abilities, he held the office (second only to the 
 exarch's) of Prefect of the City. After discharging it 
 for some time ia great magnificence and with universal 
 applause, he obtained (in his own phrase) " the grace of 
 conversion," and according to the form of piety then in 
 fashion, at once devoted himself to the cloister. Turning 
 his patrician palace into the monastery of St. Andrew, he 
 founded six other religious houses in SicUy, and then 
 distributing all the rest of his patrimony among the poor, 
 he retired penniless to a small apartment ia the mansion 
 of his fathers, to submit himself as a simple monk to the 
 abbot of St. Andrew's. 
 
 It was while ia this retreat that he encountered the 
 Yorkshire lads in the slave market at Eome. The story 
 has been often told, but will always in England bear 
 telling again. Attracted by the fair hair and blue eyes 
 of the handsome Saxons, who had been kidnapped ia 
 the trade produced by the barbarous wars of the time, 
 Gregory stopped to iaquire of what nation they were. 
 The reply was " Angli.^^ " Surely they would be angeli " 
 (angels), returned the monk, " if they were Christians.'' 
 He then asked the name of their country: "i>e«Va"^ was 
 the answer. " De ira Dei " (from the wrath of God), cried 
 Gregory, " we must deliver them ! And what is your 
 king's name?" The lads answered, "il^fo." "^&luia," 
 rejoiaed the iacorrigible punster, " is the song they shall 
 learn to sing." The good monk went at once to the 
 pope and asked leave to go to England as a missionary. 
 
 Obtaiaing the boon, he departed without a moment's 
 delay, but had hardly quitted the city when he was 
 overtaken and recalled. The pope had other employ- 
 ment more worthy, as he thought, of Gregory's 
 
 > The name of the kingdom which ia now the county of York. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 abilities, and tlie monk had lost tlie power of obeying 
 tlie call of God in his heart, by giving himseK and his 
 property to the will of another man. He was ordained 
 a deacon, and sent nuncio to Constantinople to implore 
 assistance agaiast the assaults of the Lombards. Protec- 
 tion from the barbarous Arian seemed a more pressing 
 necessity at Eome than the conversion of the heathen. 
 The emperor, however, would neither protect nor relin- 
 quish his Latin subjects ; Gregory came back without 
 success, and again buried himself in his cloister. 
 
 Before he had time to determine on another mission, 
 the unanimous voice of the clergy and people called him 
 to the episcopal chair. He entreated the emperor to 
 withhold his approval, but the prefect, suppressing his 
 letters, wrote others of an opposite nature. The monk 
 fled to the woods ; the clergy followed and captured 
 him. The imperial confirmation arrived, and Gregory 
 was consecrated (a.d. 590). 
 
 The first five years of his pontificate were passed in 
 alleviating the miseries of Eome, afflicted by pestilence 
 and famine, besieged by the Lombards, and suffering, as 
 the pope often complaias in his letters, more from the 
 imperialist than the enemy. He instituted processional 
 litanies to deprecate the Divine judgments,' spent the 
 goods of the Church in relieving the poor, and preached 
 daily, with the Lombards raging at the gates. Finding, at 
 last, that nothing was to be done with the Greek emperor, 
 Gregory took upon himself to conclude a separate peace 
 with AgUulph for the city and territory of Eome. 
 
 By thus separating the fortunes of his see from 
 those of a doomed and falling empire, the pope was left 
 
 • The legend runs, that while reciting one of these processional chants, 
 the pope saw the angel of destruction, on the top of Hadrian's sepulchre, 
 sheathing his sword. The building was hence called the Castle of St. 
 Angelo, and the huge bronze angel still folds his wings on the summit. 
 
THE ENGLISH MISSION. 99 
 
 at liberty to return, with, all tlie ardour of his nature, 
 to the project of an English mission. He bought native 
 lads in the slave market to return them to their families 
 instructed in the tidings of spiritual redemption. He 
 expostulated with the French bishops on their remiss- 
 ness in communicating the Gospel to their kinsmen 
 across the channel. At last he despatched a little band 
 from his own monastery of St. Andrew, to undertake the 
 work which he had so coveted for himself. 
 
 On reaching Provence the missionaries received such 
 discouraging accounts of the people they were going to 
 evangelise, that they lost heart and returned to Eome. 
 The pope told them it was better not to put the hand 
 to the plough than to turn back from the Lord's 
 work. He sent them again with letters to the bishops 
 of Aries, Aix, Yienne, and Autun : all were exhorted, 
 with mingled reproaches and entreaties, to redeem the 
 past and effectually promote the good cause. To the 
 same effect he wrote to the governor of Provence, the 
 French kings Theodore and Theodoret, and their grand- 
 mother Brunechild. 
 
 His reproaches were perhaps not better deserved 
 than those which our querulous Gildas heaps on the 
 British Churches for a similar neglect. It is little likely 
 that any Christians ever so hated their Pagan neighbours 
 as actually to refuse them the Gospel of Salvation.' The 
 ferocity of the Saxons had probably opposed insurmount- 
 able barriers to evangelical efforts : but Gregory knew 
 that a great and effectual door was now opened. Ethel- 
 bert king of Kent, and bretwalda (or war-king) of the 
 
 ' MoreoTer it is certain that the first conversions among the Saxons in 
 the north and east of England, were due to the labours of Celtic mission- 
 aries from Scotland. Columban passed over from Ireland to Scotland 
 (A.D. 565), and still earlier, Ninias, a British bishop, was preaching to the 
 Picts. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 Saxon confederacy, had married the French princess 
 Bertha, and one of the conditions of the alliance was the 
 free enjoyment of her religion. She was accompanied 
 to her island home by the French bishop Euithard, who 
 soon had a church at Canterbury.^ The pope was 
 apprised that a spirit had appeared among the English 
 which promised a good reception to the Gospel. The 
 secret workings of Providence had prepared a success, 
 which the leader of the mission was not a man to 
 achieve from his own resources. 
 
 Of little mind and slender acquirements, Augustine 
 exhibited a spirit at once timid and arrogant. Landing 
 in Thanet (a.I). 597) with his forty missionaries, he 
 approached the ting with the dramatic display which 
 already characterised the Eoman Church. A silver 
 cross and a picture of Christ were carried before 
 him, while the procession chanted a Gregorian litany. 
 The missionaries consisted of Eoman monks and French 
 priests, whose language was then the same with the 
 Saxons.^ They began at once to declare "how the mer- 
 ciful Jesus, by His own passion, redeemed this guilty 
 world, and opened to believers an entrance into the 
 kingdom of heaven." No other preaching but the 
 preaching of the Cross ever converted a people. Augus- 
 tine himself, though weak enough to lay claim to miracles 
 (which Gregory never did), has left some favourable 
 specimens of his preaching,' and we almost forgive the 
 superstition which clouded the message, when we read 
 that among the few books which he possessed and valued 
 
 1 Thia church had been built during the Roman dominion, and was 
 now dedicated to St. Martin, bishop of Tours : a plain proof that the Gallic 
 Churches (which were planted from the East and not from Rome) had 
 been labouring in Britain. 
 
 » Maimbourg's " Histoire du Pontificat de S. Gregoire," iii. 206. 
 
 » See Hook's " Lives of the Archbishops," i. 56. 
 
CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH. 101 
 
 were a Bible in two yolumes, a Testament, a Psalter, an 
 exposition of the Gospels and Epistles, besides a book 
 of martyrs, and some lives of the apostles.^ The Inspired 
 "Word was diligently preached among the idolaters. The 
 king's baptism was followed by a wide-spread nominal 
 conversion, and the delighted Gregory wrote to his 
 brother-pope at Alexandria, that ten thousand Angles 
 were baptised on Christmas-day 597." 
 
 Ethelbert'a influence extended from the English 
 Channel to the Humber ; from thence to the border of 
 Scotland stretched the kingdom of Northumbria, whose 
 king Edwin married his daughter Ethelburga. This 
 princess, following her mother's example, took Pauliaus 
 with her, and equal success attended his preaching ia 
 the North. Edwin was baptised in a wooden chapel, 
 erected on the site now enclosed by the walls of York 
 Minster, on Easter-day 627, and the Yorkshire rivers 
 were crowded with converts eager to follow his example.* 
 
 Gregory did not live to receive these refreshing 
 tidings. He never appears to more advantage than in 
 the replies which he returned to Augustine's frivolous 
 and ambitious inquiries. Eeferring him to the Epistles 
 to Timothy for instructions "how to behave himself 
 "in the house of God," he advises him not to trouble 
 himself about the differences between the Eoman and 
 the Gallic liturgies, but to select from both what 
 was most pious and religious,* to remember charity in 
 
 ' Bede, i. 25. ' Grreg., ep. vii. 30. 
 
 ' NeimiuB ascribes the conversion of Edwin and liis subjects to a British 
 chief, Bum, the son of Urien (sect. Ixiii.). It has been conjectured that this 
 is the same person, who, having been defeated and fled to Kome, returned 
 with the Latin name Paulinus, to evangelise his conquerors. — Raine's 
 " Lives of Abps. of York," i. 17, 18. 
 
 * Gregory was himseH the chief compiler of the present Roman mass* 
 book : so groimdless is the assertion that conf onnity to the ritual of Rome 
 ia in any way obligatory on other Churches. 
 
102 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 all his censures, and to exclude no one from com- 
 munion on the silly scruples detailed by the monk. 
 "As in the Old Testament the outward works are 
 observed, so in the New Testament that which is 
 outwardly done is not so diligently regarded as that 
 which is inwardly thought : for our Lord says in 
 the Gospel, * Not that which goeth into the mouth 
 deflleth a man, but that which cometh out of the man, 
 this deflleth a man.' Almighty God declares that to be 
 polluted ia fact, which springs from the root of a polluted 
 thought ; whence also the apostle Paid says, 'Unto the 
 pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled 
 and unbelieving, nothing is pure.' " He forbids the new 
 archbishop from attempting to lord it over the Gallic 
 bishops, but mindless of his own text, " Thou shalt not 
 move a sickle to thy neighbour's corn," he freely bestows 
 on him the rule of the British Churches, over which 
 no Italian ever had a shadow of just authority. 
 
 The pope was not superior to the prejudices of his 
 time and place. He put a prodigious value upon relics, 
 sending about presents of Httle gold keys consecrated by 
 filings from Peter's chains,' hairs of John the Baptist, 
 and similar trash. He strove also to elevate his authority 
 by sending the pull to other metropolitans ; for though 
 granted to himself by the emperor, and notoriously a 
 state decoration,^ this vestment was already considered 
 
 ' He presented king Childebert, son of Brunechild, -with one of these 
 gold keys, telling him it would preserve him from all evil if he hung it roimd 
 his neck. Of another, he told his correspondent, that an Arian Lombard 
 had been struck dead for attempting to cut it. Possibly he believed these 
 fables, but Gregory could not have thought (what he left his ignorant 
 correspondent to believe) that these Peter's keys — ^made by his own order 
 — came in some miraculous way from the apostle, and were sure passports 
 to his presence, if not the very keys which opened the doors of the kingdom 
 of heaven. 
 
 = The origin of this vestment, so famous in ecclesiastical history, was 
 mean enough. The pallium was the Roman soldier's cloak, covering the 
 
DISSENSIONS WITH THE EAST. 103 
 
 a badge of spiritual jiirisdiction. "With all this lie was a 
 man of earnest and Christian spirit, and the great nation 
 
 whole person like that of a lifeguardsman in our own day. Similar 
 garments were in common use ; probably St. Paul's was such an one 
 (2 Tim. iv. 13). People who despised the vanities of dress were known 
 by their coarse old-fashioned cloaks, as Elijah and the Baptist by their 
 garments of hair-cloth. Hence we read of the " philosopher's pall " being 
 retained by the Alexandrian clergy after they became Christians. Such 
 garments easily acquire peculiarities of party or sect. The monks dis- 
 tinguished their orders by the colour and shape of their cloaks and hoods, 
 and similar distinctions have descended to our judges, barristers, and uni- 
 versity graduates. As the Roman emperors chose to take a military title, 
 they naturally used the military pallium: on their shoulders it expanded into 
 the rich imperial robe which has been imitated by modem sovereigns. The 
 great dignitaries of the empire were permitted to copy the imperial mantle, 
 as the knights companions of our modern orders are arrayed like the sovereign. 
 From the State the fashion passed into the Church, where no distinctive 
 attire existed during the first three centuries. Court robes naturally 
 followed on the hierarchical expansion of the episcopacy ; the imperial pall 
 was allowed to the chief rulers of the Church, but it was neither of silk 
 nor fine linen, but of simple white wooUen cloth ; — designed,' the symbo- 
 lists say, to represent the sheep whom the Good Shepherd bears on His 
 shoulder. Hence the prelates took it off while the Gospel was read 
 because the Sovereign Pastor was then ministering. The eastern 
 patriarchs took their palls from the altar during the ceremony of their 
 consecration : they sent the pall to the metropolitans imder them on con- 
 firming their election, and the metropolitans did the same to the bishops. 
 The Latin Church was not so liberally decorated. It is not till the sixth 
 century that we hear of the pall at all, and then as a special grant of the 
 emperor. The Roman pontiff himself could not wear it till he received 
 the imperial confirmation of his election ; and Gregory's letters show that 
 he often applied to the emperor for leave to bestow it on other prelates^ 
 It appears, too, that there was a Galhcan pall, which differed from the 
 Roman, and was obtained by the metropolitans of Gaul without the pope's 
 intervention. In the year 742 Boniface, the English apostle of the 
 Germans, held a synod which required all metropolitans to apply for new 
 palls at Rome ; and this resulted in the entire subjection of the western 
 Church to that see. The Latin paU, it seems, was never (like the Greek) 
 extended to ordinary bishops, but was the badge, first of metropolitan, and 
 afterwards of papal authority. The robe has now dwindled to a mere collar, 
 with slips hanging down before and behind, but it continues to be made 
 of white wool, ornamented with red crosses, and is fastened over the 
 pontifical robes by three gold pins. — Maimbourg's " Histoire du Pont, de 
 Gregoire," iii. ; Collier's Ecc. Hist., ii. cent. vii. ; Peter de Marca (Abp. of 
 Paris) de " Concord. Sac. et Lnp.," vi. 6, 7. 
 
104 THE EXAECHATE. 
 
 which, suffered eo much from his successors, and now 
 enjoys a blessed emancipation from their yoke, preserves 
 with gratitude the memory of the warm-hearted, if 
 somewhat crafty and superstitious, "Apostle of the 
 English." 
 
 Gregory was far less successful in his intercourse 
 with the emperor and the eastern Church, Maurice, 
 who was angry at his concluding a separate peace 
 with the Lombards, formed a very unjust opinion of 
 the pope's abilities. His feeling was not softened by 
 Gregory's attack on the famous John the Faster, patriarch, 
 of Constantinople. The great eastern prelates had long 
 denominated themselves " (Ecumenical patriarchs ;" they 
 gave the same title to pope Leo in the Council of Chalce- 
 don. The phrase was odious at Eome as asserting the 
 equality of the eastern patriarchs with the successor of 
 St. Peter ; but Gregory put a new and invidious construc- 
 tion on the style. He contended that whoever called 
 himself " Universal bishop," undermiaed the episcopate, 
 and was to be held for an Anti-Christ. Writiag so 
 warmly, it would be uncharitable not to think him in 
 earnest, yet it is certain both that no eastern patriarch 
 ever did pretend to be either sole or supreme bishop 
 of the Universal Church, and that the result of the 
 contest was to transfer the disputed title to Gregory's 
 successor, in the identical meaning which he denounced 
 as Anti-Christian. The usurper Phocas repaid the 
 pope's alliance,^ by depriving his own patriarchs of the 
 
 ' One of the darkest stains on Gregory's character is his countenancing 
 this sanguinary tyrant, who waded to the throne through the blood of the 
 emperor Maurice, after causing his five sons to be butchered before his 
 Byes. Yet Gregory welcomed his accession as the salvation of the empire ! 
 He was guilty of equal adulation to the infamous queen of the French, 
 Bnmechild. She was daughter to the Visigoth king of Spain, and married 
 first to Siegebert king of Austrasia, and secondly to his nephew Meroveus. 
 Having acted as regent of Austrasia in the minority of her son Childe- 
 
CAPTTJEB OF JEEUSALEM BY THE PERSIANS. 105 
 
 appellation, and conferring it, in all its offensive signifi- 
 cation, on the Eoman prelate. The grant was of little 
 avail, for tlie patriarchs resumed their customary style 
 on the death of the usurper, and after popes disdained 
 to owe their pre-eminence to a secular grant. 
 
 The fall of Phocas transferred the empire to Hera- 
 clius, the gallant exarch of Africa, but his virtues could 
 not avert the judgments provoked by the crimes of his 
 predecessor. To revenge the murder of Maurice, 
 Chosroes, the Persian king, passed the Euphrates and 
 seized the chief cities of Syria. Aleppo, Antioch, 
 CsBsarea, Damascus, fell without resistance. The 
 capture of Jerusalem followed. The Holy Sepulchre, 
 the churches of Constantiue and Helena, with all their 
 accumulated treasures, were rifled and fired. The 
 massacre of 90,000 Christians, and the loss of Egypt and 
 
 bert II., she was suspected of poisoning >iiTn in order to retain the same 
 power in the name of her infant grandsons. Prom the dominions of one 
 of these princes she was driven, for many further crimes, to take refuge 
 with the other. There she procured a bishop to be stoned for reproving 
 her vices. Next she incited her grandsons to attack their cousin Clotaire, 
 her own nephew by the second marriage, but they losing their Kves in the 
 quarrel, Clotaire reunited the French States under his sole monarchy, and 
 took signal vengeance on the old queen. He accused her, before a general 
 court-martial, of the death of ten kings. She was paraded through the 
 camp on a camel, and then dragged by the feet at a horse's tail, tUl her 
 head was dashed to pieces. Her body was afterwards committed to the 
 flames. 
 
 To this abandoned wretch, Gregory not only displayed the respect 
 which the apostle enjoined towards a Nero, but placed what he es- 
 teemed one of the highest exercises of his sacred ministry at her disposal. 
 He wrote at her request to the emperor, soliciting the pall for the bishop 
 of Autun, who not being a metropolitan had no claim to the distinction. 
 In return, he secured her good offices for the English mission, which her 
 displeasure might have arrested. It was an act of prudence to conciliate 
 the savage queen, but no motive of policy could justify a Christian pastor 
 in flattering a woman, whom Roman Catholic historians do not scruple to 
 style Jezebel, on the possession of so many virtues, "that the French 
 might be deemed the happiest of nations in living under her rule." — Greg., 
 ep. ii. 8. 
 
106 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 Asia Minor, which, followed in rapid succession, excited 
 less grief and indignation in Europe than the tidings 
 that the True Cross had been transported into Persia. 
 The exploits of six adventurous campaigns, in which 
 Heraclius recovered all his losses, did not call forth such 
 devout thanksgivings as those which hailed the return of 
 that treasure of superstition to the orthodox Church, 
 
 The emperor entered Jerusalem on foot, bearing the 
 prize on his shoulder, the 14th September, 629 : he 
 deposited it in the great church amid the tears and 
 acclamations of thousands, and the day was ever after 
 observed as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy- 
 Cross. 
 
 The wood to which these semi-divine honours were 
 paid, was believed to be genuine. Helena's " Invention 
 of the Cross " had been greedily accepted by the 
 credulity of the age, and the fragments exhibited 
 did not as yet notoriously exceed the bulk of the 
 original. The stains supposed to be made by that " most 
 precious fountain of water and blood," the sight of which 
 so powerfully affected the evangelist, might well kindle 
 the deepest emotions. But the result confirmed the 
 Scripture-doctrine that our walk is by faith, not by sight. 
 While contemplating what they believed to be the very 
 wood on which the Saviour died, Christians permitted 
 the true doctrines of the Cross to disappear under the 
 beggarly elements of superstition. A reverence denied 
 to the Inspired Word of the crucified Eedeemer, and the 
 spiritual testimony of His saints, was lavished on sense- 
 less pieces of wood and bone, of which the vast majority 
 were forgeries, and all utterly delusive. The honour 
 really earned to the Cross by such observances was 
 seen a few years later, when all was again lost to the 
 Saracens, and those sturdy monotheists, nothing ques- 
 tioning the authenticity of the relic, burnt the " True 
 
THE MONOTHELITE HERESY. 107 
 
 Cross " for an idol. Still the Churcli was so little 
 iaclined to abandon tlie superstition, that, notwith- 
 standing this notorious destruction, a new discovery was 
 proclaimed by the Crusaders, and the fragments of the 
 True Cross at present exhibited are computed to be 
 equal to all the timber in one of our largest ships of the 
 line ! 
 
 "WhUe rivalling the Greeks in such pbjects of super- 
 stition, the Latin Church stoutly maiataiaed the doctriaal 
 war against them. The gallant Heraclius, unable to 
 escape the theological infection of the purple, brought 
 out an exposition of the faith, designed to reconcile all 
 parties, but which, like most attempts at comprehension, 
 only added to the schism and confasion of the times. 
 As if the Monophysite controversy were not enough 
 to poison the wells of evangelical faith, the Greeks 
 found a new crux^ in the question whether the two 
 Natures in- our blessed Lord implied also the possession 
 of two Wills, one as God, and another as Man ? The 
 solution was involved in a cloud of ambiguity, inasmuch 
 as two wills seem to imply contrariety,^ and the agree- 
 ment of two persons is expressed by saying that they 
 have but one will. On the other hand, if Christ had no 
 true human will. He would no longer be a true Man, 
 the Mediator and Example of Adam's race. The " one- 
 will " (Monothehte) doctrine proved to be the one-nature 
 (Monophysite) heresy over agaia : in fact, it was started 
 by a professed Eutychian. Heraclius, persuaded, like 
 Justinian, that he could steer between these theological 
 rocks, embraced the new heresy, and his patriarch 
 Sergius not only sanctioned it, but falsely inserted it 
 among the Acts of the Eifth General Council. 
 
 The Eoman prelate Honorius, falling into the snare, 
 accepted the doctrine, but at the same time very properly 
 
 ■ See Gal. v. 17. 
 
108 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 denounced the discussion as frivolous and fall of 
 mischief. The emperor so far complied with his wish as 
 to issue an "Exposition" (Ucthesis), forbidding further 
 dispute, but as the edict ended with anathematising 
 those who should refuse the one-wiU definition, the 
 strife waxed hotter than before. The see of Kome was 
 kept vacant after the death of Honorius ' for a year 
 and a half, because the pope elect refused to receive 
 the lixposition, and the exarch took advantage of the 
 vacancy to enter the Lateran, and plunder it of all the 
 Church treasures. John iv. condemned the imperial edict 
 in a counoU at Eome, thereby, as the angry emperor 
 declared, condemning the Apostolic see itself since 
 Honorius had approved it. The pope replied (not 
 without reason) that his predecessor had agreed with 
 Sergius in condemning the doctrine of two contrary 
 wills : but that a Divine and a human will unalterably 
 agreed, was a proposition never submitted to his notice. 
 The miserable quarrel could not die with its 
 authors. Hundreds of angry ecclesiastics contiaued 
 thundering out censures without an idea of their 
 opponents' meaniag, or perhaps their own. The 
 emperor Constans issued an edict called the "Type," 
 commanding silence; but no one was silent. Pope 
 Theodore excommunicated two patriarchs. The patri.- 
 arch retaliated by pulling down the altar in the Latin 
 residency, and causing the papal servants to be scourged. 
 Pope Martin condemned the Type as wicked and in 
 every respect impious. He even sent a circular letter 
 into the East, declaring the patriarchs of Antioch and 
 
 » Though this pope was finaEy decided to be a heretic, he may be 
 thanked for enlarging the English miBsioq by sending the pall to Paulinus 
 of York (a.d. 634). Honorius is further famed for transferring the gilt 
 copper covering from the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus to the roof of St. 
 Peter's Church. Was the idol also transferred at the same time ? 
 
MARTYRDOM OP POPE MARTIN. 109 
 
 Jerusalem heretics, and appointing a Vicar-General to 
 administer their forfeited trusts. 
 
 This spiritual aggression was aggravated by some 
 political negotiations with the French, to whom the 
 Latins were already turning their eyes for relief. The 
 enraged emperor ordered his exarch to seize the pope 
 and send him prisoner to Constantinople. The officer 
 having carried off his prisoner by night, to avoid a 
 popular insurrection, landed him in Naxor, where he 
 was kept a year before he reached Constantinople. 
 After lying three months in a dungeon, Martin was 
 brought to trial for high treason. He was carried to 
 the tribunal in a chair, being unable to stand for the 
 gout, but the presiding judge ordered him to be held up 
 on his feet by force. He was accused of abetting 
 Olympius, a late exarch, in an intended revolt which 
 death had prevented from taking effect. There was never 
 any doubt of the pope's innocence. It was the emperor's 
 book, not his sceptre, that Martin had insulted. Never- 
 theless, he was found guilty and sentenced to be cut to 
 pieces. The guards stripped him of aU his garments: he 
 was dragged in chains through the city, with an execu- 
 tioner carrying a drawn sword before him, and then cast 
 into a dungeon with such inhumanity that he must have 
 died, but for the secret succour of two compassionate 
 women. 
 
 The day before the intended execution, the emperor 
 going to visit the patriarch on his death-bed, found him 
 bewailing the cruelties inflicted on his brother-bishop. 
 He besought the despot to relent, alleging that he 
 himself would have to answer for the injustice at the 
 tribunal to which he was going. Constans listened, and 
 countermanded the execution. The pope was trans- 
 poi-ted to the Crimea, and there, after appealing piteously 
 for the necessaries of life to the clergy at Kome, who 
 
110 THE EXARCHATE. 
 
 had once offered to die with Mm, the poor man expired, 
 neglected and destitute, a.d. 655. He is honoured as 
 a martyr, yet, when we remember that the Type did 
 but enjoin sUence, on a question which could receive 
 no treatment so advantageous, our sympathy for the 
 sufferer undergoes a chiU, without in the least abating 
 our horror at his persecutors. 
 
 Two things are apparent in these transactions: first, 
 that the emperor enjoyed equal authority over Church 
 and State at Eome, down to the close of the seventh 
 century; and secondly, that power so exercised would not 
 long be tolerated in either. In every age, theories, 
 whether of religion or loyalty, are tempered by a 
 convenient though often unconscious expediency. Men 
 do not long submit to an authority which is seen to be 
 incompatible with the public welfare. What retards the 
 march of improvement is the self-deception which so 
 often hides the path to freedom and happiness : for this 
 the truest remedy is the circulation of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, and the power of the Holy Spirit enlightening 
 and sanctifying the heart. 
 
 Eight years after the death of Martin, Constans 
 came into Italy, at the head of a large body of troops, 
 to prosecute the war against the Lombards; but after 
 suffering three defeats, he was glad to retreat into SicUy, 
 where he continued tiU. his death. The murder of his 
 brother, with other crimes committed at Constantinople, 
 had filled his guilty conscience with a horrible dread 
 of that place. He even attempted to remove the seat 
 of government back to Eome, but the populace of 
 Constantinople prevented the embarkation of his family 
 by force. The emperor was received by the pope and 
 clergy, six miles from the city', and conducted in pro- 
 cession to St. Peter's. He stayed but five days, which 
 were occupied in stripping the public buildings and 
 
THEODORE ARCHBISHOP OP CANTERBURY. Ill 
 
 cliurclies of th.eix most valuable monuments. Eetiring 
 ■with his plunder to Syracuse, he left a name as odious 
 in Old Eome as in the New. 
 
 In the year 668, Wighard archbishop elect of 
 Canterbury, having come to Eome for consecration, 
 died of the plague, and the pope appointed Theodore 
 in his place. The new prelate was a Grreek monk, 
 bom like St. Paul at Tarsus ia Cilicia, and further 
 resembHng that apostle ia having shorn his head in 
 sign of a vow. The latter circumstance was a sore 
 trouble to the pope, not from the Judaical but the 
 schismatical character of the tonsure. Theodore had 
 shaved his head aU over, leaving only a fringe of hair 
 at the back. This was the Greek fashion, and was 
 called the tonsure of St. Paul. The Eoman fashion, 
 called the tonsure of St, Peter, required the fringe 
 of hair to encircle the head Hke a crown, and was 
 termed the coronal tonsure.' Now the British Churches 
 being of eastern origin, had adopted the Greek tonsure, 
 while the new Eoman missionaries were obstinate for 
 the Latin. It would never do to let the archbishop 
 of Canterbury look like a Briton, and as wigs were not 
 yet in fashion, the only remedy was to keep him at 
 Eome till the hair was grown, and shave him anew as 
 a disciple of St. Peter. Happily the hair did not refuse 
 to sprout, though the archbishop was above sixty-five 
 years of age, and with his Eoman tonsure and a Eoman 
 chaplain to keep him in order, this Greek prelate was 
 sent to rule our English Church. 
 
 He proved the most zealous and active archbishop 
 yet seen in the country. By his exertions the Church 
 was organised on the Eoman plan throughout the island. 
 The South Saxons inhabiting Sussex and Surrey (the 
 
 • Some have fancied in this circle a resemblance to the crown of thorns. 
 
112 THE EXAKCHATE. 
 
 only Pagan state remaining) were converted by the 
 preaching of Wilfrid, and the king of Northumbria 
 having yielded the ancient right of York, Theodore 
 reigned sole archbishop in England for twenty-two 
 years. Cherishing, like other proselytes, a special 
 detestation of the usages which he had deserted, he 
 never ceased his endeavours to reduce the British 
 Churches to conformity with Eome. 
 
 The pope, however, was as yet far from being 
 absolute, even in Italy. Maurus bishop of Eavenna 
 ffatly refused to obey his citation ; and when Yitalian 
 thundered out his excommunication, excommunicated 
 the pope in return. The latter pronoxmced the offender 
 deprived and reduced to a layman, but the exarch 
 maintained him in his see, where with all his clergy, 
 he and his successor bade absolute defiance to Eome. 
 They even obtained an imperial rescript exempting 
 Eavenna from subjection to the pope. Nor was 
 the new province of England less resolute, Shortly 
 after, Wilfrid appealing to the pope against the sentence 
 of Theodore, who deprived him of the see of York, 
 was restored in full synod. But on his return, the 
 king of Northumbria, by the archbishop's advice, sent 
 him to prison, and only released him on condition of 
 his quitting the kingdom.' 
 
 The emperor Constans was assassinated in SicUy, 
 after a reign of twenty-seven years, a.d. 668. TTi's son 
 Constantine succeeded in recovering Sicily from the 
 
 > Theodore being afterwards reconciled to Wilfrid, induced the next 
 king to restore him to his see, but he was again deprived by a council under 
 Bertwald archbishop of Canterbury, at which king Aldf rith was present 
 (A.D. 702). Again he appealed to Rome, and the archbishop pronounced 
 the appeal an ample justification of the sentence. Again, too, the pope 
 absolved him in a council of bishops, and again the king refused to allow 
 the decision of his own synod to be overruled by the so-called " Apostolic 
 
THE POPE DECREED A HERETIC. 113 
 
 usurper, and having made peace with, the Saracens, 
 called the Sixth General Council at Constantinople, a.d. 
 680. The One-will heresy was here finally condemned, 
 and Sergius of Constantinople, with Honorius of Eome, 
 and others, were struck out of the diptych as heretics; 
 The decree was passed at the instance of the Boman 
 legates, who showed no desire to claim for their see, 
 any more than others, the infallibility now supposed to 
 attach to the chair of St. Peter.^ This council was the 
 most unanimous of any ; the single dissentient being 
 the patriarch of Antiooh, who was deprived and expelled 
 on the spot : and its decrees were received by all but 
 the Monophysites, both in the East and West. On this 
 occasion the emperor settled the question of titles by 
 styling the Eoman pontiff "Universal Pope," and his 
 rival at Constantinople "Universal Patriarch." 
 
 At this time it appears there were three distinct 
 parties to the election of a pope of Eome — ^the Clergy, 
 the Citizens, and the Army. The usual course was for 
 the clergy to assemble first and agree upon a candidate, 
 who was then proposed to the acceptance of the people 
 and soldiery. If the clergy could not agree, one of the 
 other bodies assumed the initiative ; sometimes they did 
 not wait for the clergy. The election being made, it 
 
 sea." Aldfrith relented on Ms death-bed, and the archbishop, by his 
 desire, proposed the restoration of Wilfrid in a council called by himself as 
 regent of the kingdom. Still it was warmly opposed by the bishops : they 
 denied the pope's power to revoke the decree of an English synod, 
 and the matter was compromised by placing John of Beverley in the see of 
 York, and permitting Wilfrid to occupy the see of Hagulstad (or Hexham), 
 so vacated.— Edd. in Vit. Wilfrid, c. 56, 57 ; Bed., v. 3, 20. 
 
 > To save the new doctrine, Baronius aiBrms that the name of Honorius 
 has been falsely inserted in the Acts : but the assertion is unsupported by 
 any authority, and was no doubt an invention of the cardinal's own. The 
 Roman legates brought home a copy of the Acts, and Leo li,, in acknow- 
 ledging their receipt to the emperor, accepts and repeats the censures 
 expressly naming Honorius. — ^Baron., ad an. 6S3. 
 
 I 
 
114 THE EXAllCaATi. 
 
 was certified by all tktee parties to ihM exarch at 
 BaYetiM, wHd was eiiipb^eted to add tile iillperial cotl- 
 fifitlatioli. "Wh-en tM electors differed arid made double 
 returns, tHe e±arcli Settled tlie diij)ute iil hig own 
 fasMoilj b^ Miilittiiig tbe candidate most tisefUl to tbe 
 feilipfei-br dr Kiinsblf/ 
 
 The erdperdi-'^ authority daily gi-o-^iig less in Italyj 
 Eoiiie wa^ again Yil'tually a rephblib; The eiarch was 
 kno#h only as a l-feceiTer of tribnte. The city made its 
 d-irii tei-iii^ irlth the Loihbai-ds, dhd managed it& ddmeStic 
 affairs by its dWh niagistracy. The pdpb was naturally 
 at the head of the senate, and Mf gl-atitude fdr ittiperial 
 fatdiitg was repressed by the inreterate feud with the" 
 rival see of Constantinople. The despotic poUcy df 
 eom|)elling agreement by force of arffis was ho longer 
 effective. Wheii Justiiiian ii. seUt his sword-bearet to 
 arrest pdpe feergihs and bring him prisoner td CdhStan- 
 tiiid|)le, for rejecting the canons df the Ouinisextiae 
 OomiciP (i-.i). 691), the Bomfens shdwed such a menacing 
 aspect, that the ttehiblLhg dfBdial hid hllnSelf under the 
 pope's bed, &nd was glad to escape with his life; 
 
 The exarch was ecjiljilly unsuccessful in attempting 
 to exbltide |iope Jbhh viij elebted f 01^ and again it was 
 his ondi- sdldiers who I'bsistfed. the ehipbror'^ drders. The 
 
 > The eiardli was not unfreqilSfltij' bribed by the candidate or his 
 friends. 
 
 " So called from jbeiug inteMed to supplement the i'ifth and Sixth 
 General Cdilhcils, neither 6f which passed any canons of aisci{)line. It 
 was also called the Couiidil in Trullo, from the name of the apartment of 
 the palace of Constantinople in which it assemblfed. This cb'iiiitil (Can. ii.) 
 adopted the ei^hty-flvc " Apostolical canons," which ptijie Gelasius had 
 pronounced apocryjihal. It coiidemned the Roman canon, -irhich required 
 married clOfgynieii to ssparate from their wives (Can. xiii.), and prdhi- 
 bited the Komah practice of fasting oil tte Saturdays in Lent (Can. Iv.). 
 These and soiiie other matters, on which the asseinbled prelates assumed 
 superiority ovei- the chair 6f St. Petet, Bo offended the pope that he 
 rejected the council altogether. 
 
Boniface's MtSsioisr ib the geemans. 115 
 
 pBpe ^M th.e real commander of the ariiiy. His poorer 
 ■was sustained By the prdfits acistiiing to the clergy and 
 bity from this idcreasiti^ pilgl-imageS tb Eome. The 
 visits of the metropolitans to fetch their palls, with the 
 appeals hbw made to the pope, broTlght travellers of 
 eVeiy rank to visit thfe city. Ceadwalla and Ina, kings 
 bf thb West Saxons, Coehred of Mercid, Offa, k prince 
 of Essex, foUbwfed rapidly in the ^tfeps of Wilfrid, and 
 all embraced the monastic life at librae. When jiopb 
 Cohstantine ^ehi io Constantinople to diScuSS the 
 Quihisextine cahoriS with the second Justinian, he met 
 with a very different reception from that which the first 
 gavb to his predecessor in the inatter of the Three 
 ChSpiefs. The emperor kissed the pope's feet, implorfed 
 hi^ intercession, and confirmed every privilege granted 
 to his see. The pbjie iii return vouchsEifed tb accept such 
 of the canons in Trullo as did not interfere with Roman 
 customs. 
 
 Shortly aftei-j the citizens of Ebnie refused to admit 
 tB8 emperor's image, Because he w^^ i heretic, Btis 
 iidhie wd,i dmitted from the liturgy, and his viceroy had 
 td fight his way iiltd the city. 
 
 ABoilt the saihe time, th^ papal pbwer rebeived 
 enormous fliigmentatioil fi'biti the cditvfersion of the 
 Germans. Winfrid a monk of Crediton, in Devonshire, 
 came to EoMe in the year 7£lj to report th-fe result of a 
 Brief pred,ching in Ffieslahd. Gregory fi. cohstituted 
 tdia his legate to tne German nations^ ordainiiag him a 
 Bishop, ahd changing his liame to Boniface^ as if to 
 oBUtefEtte his national cBiihectibh with the oBjects bf his 
 laBours. Se took an bath at the tomB of the apostle, 
 "ts thg Blessed St. Peter and his vicaf Gregory, to 
 coh^tilt, in aU things, the interests bf their Chuirch, and 
 to communicate with none that acted contrary to its 
 canons." With a Book of theso bafiohs; and i plMtifJil 
 
116 THE EXAECHATE. 
 
 supply of relics, the second Gregory sent forth the 
 apostle of the Germans. We look in vain for the 
 Bible and the Gospels, which the first Gregory put into 
 the hand of Augustine. 
 
 The Germans, however, were weary of the Pagan 
 deities, and perhaps the easier to be converted from 
 finding not a little Paganism in the religion proposed to 
 their acceptance. Boniface had great success. In less 
 than twenty years he wrote that the Synod of Mentz had 
 decreed the Apostolic see to be the centre of Christian 
 communion, and ordered the metropolitans both of 
 Prance and Germany to seek their palls at Eome.* 
 
 The last shadow of Greek empire perished in Eome 
 during the great controversy upon image worship, 
 initiated by Leo the Isaurian, who ascended the throne 
 A.D. 717. This prince was the first to give expression to 
 the horror, which must have filled all enlightened Chris- 
 tians, at the rank idolatry openly practised in the Church. 
 He beheld pictures and statues not only placed in the 
 sanctuaries, but, in direct violation of the second com- 
 mandment, bowed down to and worshiped. The practice 
 was new, and had never been authoritatively sanctioned,^ 
 but on consulting the patriarch, the emperor was told it 
 would be dangerous to interfere. The gifts made to 
 
 ' Bon., ep. OT. 
 
 ' The subject of images was not mentioned at either of the Six General 
 Comicils, nor at any other synod upon record except the Spanish Council 
 of Eliberis (a.d. 805), when the introduction of pictures into churches 
 was forbidden, lest " that which is worshiped be painted upon walls." 
 They were admitted into some churches as ornaments about the end of the 
 fourth century. Paulimis, bishop of Nola, in Italy, having built a new 
 church, embellished it with pictures of martyrs and Scriptural incidents for 
 the instruction of the people. He acknowledges the practice to be unusual 
 (Paulin. Natal., ix.). His own picture was placed in another church with 
 one of Martin of Tours, and an epigram was written under, representing 
 the one as an example to saints, the other to sinners (Paul. Epig., xii.). St. 
 Augustine complains of the practice of seeking Christ and His apostles on 
 painted walls, instead of the Holy Scriptures (De Cons. Evang., i. 20), he 
 
THE ICONOCLASXIC CONTROYEESY. 117 
 
 images brouglit wealth to the churches; hence they 
 ■were everywhere exalted by monks and miracle- 
 mongers. Nevertheless, Leo haviag called a council 
 both of the clergy and senate, issued an edict forbidding 
 any kind of worship to be henceforth given to images 
 (a.d. 726). They were not at once expelled from the 
 churches, but only ordered to be raised above the reach 
 of the worshipers. It was not till these precautions 
 had failed that a second order was issued to remove 
 and break the idols. 
 
 The execution of this order occasioned serious riots 
 in Constantinople, where the monks were numerous, and 
 the populace always ready for sedition. The excite- 
 ment extending to the provinces, the troops were re- 
 quired, and much blood was spilled. The patriarch 
 remonstrated, but the emperor adheriag to his orders, 
 further commanded the edict to be published and 
 observed in Italy. Gregory ii. immediately headed the 
 opposition. Though nothing was more notoriously 
 untrue, he declared that image worship had been ever 
 sanctioned ia the Church. The people rose in rebellion 
 at Eavenna, blood was shed, and the Lombard king, 
 marching to the cause of the images, entered Eavenna 
 without opposition a.d. 725. 
 
 reproaclies the Manicliees with their fondness for images (Cont. Ada- 
 mant., xui.). The practice, however, became almost universal in the fifth 
 century, growing not unnaturally as the study of the Scriptures declined. 
 The Virgin Mary, the apostles, and the martyrs, were painted on the 
 walls ; still no statues were allowed of wood, stone, or metal. Paintings 
 were not thought "graven images," nor were they as yet worshiped. 
 Of Christ, only the type of a lamb was allowed to be painted ; the human 
 form was deemed improper for one who is God and Man. This continued 
 tUl the Quinisextine Council, when the pictures beginning to be 
 worshiped, it was thought more decent to adore a man's form than a 
 beast's. This was one of the canons that Rome refused to accept. 
 Gregory the Great terms pictures the books of the ignorant, but declares 
 that nothing made with hands is to be worshiped, and this was the 
 received doctrine of the Church, down to the Quinisext Council. 
 
118 IITE EXAECHATE. 
 
 The pope, with, the g,id of the Yeneti3.ns, resc^pd 
 Epjiie ftom the hands of the invader, and in that hour 
 tlip emperor ceased \o rei^n iii It^y. WhpT} ]^9 
 tljirgatenpd to bre^k tlie imagp of St. Pete:f hjipself, ai^d 
 drag his suQcpssoy in chains to Pqu^tantingple, th.p 
 pontiff replied, th^t four-ai;d-t>7e|ity furlo:(igs wpnld 
 plafie hiin '^eyond the imperial c[pminion; biit eyen 
 that Tifgg unnepessarj'. He e:?:co|nmtijxicatecl the expch, 
 and eallefi ^ cpuTfcil which menape(i the emperor hiniself 
 with the Church's anathema.^ The populape pulled 
 down hi^ statues £j.nd rpnounpeij ^is p'j::]edience qs an 
 enen^y pf the faith. The duphy of Eprae tpok the oat]i 
 pf allegiance to the pppe. " AU the natipns of the West 
 (^e wrote) have their eyes turJied to pur humble pergpi^, 
 jihpy regard jae as a ppd upon e^fth." 
 
 The pmperpr poixlcl only retort by transferring C^Iq,- 
 b|"ia and Sici|y, which remained to him tpget||.er with the 
 Hlyrian dippe'seg, tp the patriarchate pf Oonstant^ifipple. 
 The pope felt the blow, and condescendpd to tprnpoifise, 
 but in a few ypar§ the Lonibard king Astulphu§ b^V^^ 
 again, into Eavenna, and driving the imperialists to 
 their ships^ put an end tp t}ie es:arehate a.d. 753. T|].e 
 Greek was for ever diiven from |;he Seven-hilled City, 
 and it remained with the pope to determine its fixture 
 government. 
 
 ' Baronius (ad an. 730) says the excommunication lyas actually 
 pronounced. 
 
CONTEMPOEAEY SUCCESSIONS (CARLOVINGIAN DTNASTT). 
 
 751 
 752 
 756 
 757 
 768 
 772 
 
 774 
 775 
 780 
 
 795 
 797 
 800 
 802 
 811 
 813 
 8U 
 816 
 817 
 820 
 82i 
 827 
 
 829 
 840 
 842 
 844 
 847 
 855 
 858 
 866 
 867 
 872 
 875 
 880 
 883 
 884 
 
 KUFEBORS. 
 
 FOPES OF ROHB. 
 
 Leom. 
 
 Gonstantine 
 Porphyi'ogenitus 
 
 Irene. 
 
 Nicephorns. 
 Michael i. 
 Leo IV. 
 
 Michael n. 
 
 Theophilus. 
 Michael in. 
 
 Stephen n. ■ 
 Stephen m. 
 
 Paul I. 
 Stephen iv. 
 Adrian i.... 
 
 Leo ni. 
 
 Basil. 
 
 Stephen v. 
 Paschal i. 
 
 Eugenins ii. 
 Valentine. 
 Gregory iv. 
 
 Sergins ii. 
 Leo IV. 
 Benedict m. 
 Nicholas i. 
 
 Adrian n. 
 John VIII 
 
 Martin li. 
 Adrian iii. 
 
 Kings of 
 
 liOUBARDT. 
 
 Didier. 
 
 Didier, de- 
 throned. 
 
 KiKQS OF THE FbASKS. 
 
 Pepin. 
 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 Charlemagne, Emperor. 
 
 Louis le Debonnaire. 
 
 
 Italy. 
 
 GEKJtABT. 
 
 PiLAiiCE. 
 
 Lothaire. 
 
 Louis. 
 
 Charles the 
 [Bald. 
 
 Louis n. 
 
 
 
 [Bald. 
 Charles the 
 
 
 
 Charles the ] 
 
 ^at, dethroned 
 
 %nd died, 888. 
 
 ' Hiv.ng died before ordination, he is omitted in early catalogues, and liis successor stvled 
 Slophei II. ' 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE CAELOVINGIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Else of tlie Franks — Clovis — Pepin — Charles Martel — Deposition of 
 Cluldebert — ^Fall of Lombard Kingdom — Patrimony of St. Peter — 
 Cardinals of Rome — Charlemagne — Renewal of the Image Con- 
 troversy — CounoUs of Verulam and Frankfort — ^Adrian — Leo iii. — 
 Translation of the Empire — ^Dominions — ^Two-headed Eagle — Union 
 of Church and State — Martial Proselytism — Canonisation of Charle- 
 magne — Separation of Germany, France, and Italy — Schism of the 
 East and West." 
 
 The fall of Eavenna left tlie Lombards masters of Italy 
 from tke Alps to the Mediterranean and, tlie Adriatic. 
 Astulplius possessed an unbounded veneration for tbe 
 Holy see, Eome was the natural capital of his 
 dominions, but he would reign there as protector of 
 the Church, and invest the pope with more than 
 imperial primacy. Eome, however, little valued the 
 expulsion of the Greeks if the Lombards were to 
 occupy their place. The pope disdained the primacy 
 of a barbarian empire, and preferred a more distant 
 defender of the faith. His eyes were already turned 
 to the country which has so often interposed itself 
 between the capital and the princes of Italy. 
 
 The Franks were the first-fruits of the barbarians to 
 the Latin Church. Their kingdom stretched from the 
 Ehine to the Somme, when Meroveus, son of the long- 
 haired ^ Clodion, and grandson of Pharamond, was a 
 
 ' Long hair was the distinction of princes among these barbarians, as 
 among the ancient Egyptians. 
 
122 THE CARLOVINGIAX EMPIRE. 
 
 guest at tlie court of Valentinian iii. Oppressed by 
 the Visigotlis, tlie Merovingian dynasty retired into 
 exile, but reappeared on tbe deatb of Euric, wben the 
 youthful Clovis re-united the Franks, overthrew the 
 Goths and Alemans, and established the French 
 monarchy throughout Gaul. While yet a Pagan, Clovis 
 was married to Clotilda, a Burgundian princess of the 
 Catholic faith, l^fer influence, backed by an unlooked- 
 for success in the crisis of battle, determined him to 
 embrace ber mUgim- Hp was ]}§ptis§4 witli three 
 thousand of his followers on Christmas-day 4Q6, and the 
 example -yf^^ follp-^^^ by the pntipe nation.' 
 
 So ipaportant a convsrgipn wag ha.ilp4 yf^^i^ tl^an^ports 
 by the Latin Church. Clovis was her -' Eldest Son," and 
 the only Catholic king ; for the emperor, as well as the 
 other sovereigns of the West, were involved in heresy. 
 The ejuperor A^^lt^six^^ sen^ to hini a purple raantlp 
 ai^dt a crown (^till e?l^ilwt§A ^t ^9lft^) ^\^^ ^^? titles qf 
 
 • Eanke jusjily otsentes that many Catholics must have t)es?i nuaibe:fecl 
 among ^he subjects o| t|ie Arian princes, lyho secretly aidei tfee Franks. 
 He suggests that fhe miracles related in the history of Clovis, " how St. 
 Martin 'sent a hind to show him the ford throrigh the Vienne, and 
 St. Hilary went before him in a piUar of fire," were but types of %l^e 
 succoui:s wl^jpji the nq,t^ves ^.fforded to theif fello^-'^glieYers." — " |jives of 
 Popes,"!. 15.' ' "' "■" 
 
 'The iDaptism of Clovis was periormed by Eemigius, or St. Remy of 
 Hheims, amid a crowd of pretended miraqlg^, the f^m§ of wliipji descended 
 witlj the French <iY''''^'\ \9 ^^ P°<i °i ^^9 monarchy. The coronations were 
 glwgys £jt Rheiins, and the ampulla or golden vial of oil used in the ceremony 
 was 'said to have been' brought doVn by a dove out of heaven for the 
 baptism of Clovja. On tljg same oqcajion an angel supplied thg rpjal 
 shielct, ^i)/i^ yfxih flmrs de lis, gnd thg oriflamme, a flame-coloured 
 banneir attached by green cords tp'a gilt lance, lliis standard was kept' 
 with the royal treasures in the abbey of St. Denis, and borne by the 
 clefendei: of the afebey before \la.a. If jng jji t)ie 4^1f|. After t]ie conquest of 
 Fr^I^ce by our Henry v., t^g oriflamme was supplanted by the white fla" 
 wlilch contiuued to our own day. To Clovis also is ascribed the gift of 
 healing the king's-evil, long supposed to be inherited by the rightful kings 
 of France. — Morery's Tyict." 
 
THE FK.VXK KINGDOM. 123 
 
 Consiil and Augiistus ; even Justinian was content tp 
 acknowledge the French sovereignty over the provinces 
 beyond the Alps- 
 
 Cloyis— or as the namp \s also -vrritten, OJ-pdoyix, 
 Ludovin, an4 X^pifis — ^ieA. at Paris, after a reign of 
 thirty years, a.i|. 511. The Trench reajpi, though 
 divide^ among his descendants, cpntinued §p powerful 
 that Qyegory the Great spe^^s 6^ it as exceeding 
 other mpnarpjnes a§ much as g itnoparph excpeds a 
 private mafl. It| |s4flg§ }iave abyays asse^^ted pre- 
 cedenpe in Europe i[\ext to the pope and the emperpr. 
 The Meroviugi3.n liiie, however, quickly dpge:)ae:|:atpd 
 from the yalpur a^^d policy pf their great anpestpr. 
 I)agobert, the sixth fepra Clovis, was the last who rpally 
 exercised the royal power. Pepin, gpyernor or duke pf 
 Austrasia,' ^.'pse jn arips against Dagpbert's sucepsspr, 
 and though nominally resulting |ji§ ajlegiancp lie re- 
 tained all t|^e ppwe? of tfep tiiigdgin in his pwn baufls 
 Y,'ith the hereditary ofl^ce of M(igc>,r of the Palace. 
 
 His son Charles Mattel was the greatest warripr 
 of bis age, and tp his prowess Eurppe is still iiifiebted 
 for h#r freejipm and religion. Thp Sarappns, aftpr 
 pverrunning Egyp|;j Syria, and Persia, like the locusts 
 of the Apocalypse,^ descended Pfi the coast pf Africa, 
 and thpnce passing into Spajn and Portugal, drpye 
 the phristians intp the mpuntains pf Astoria. Their 
 conquests extended intp Prance as far as the Loire, 
 apd they -^^g pieditatiug the subjugatipn pf Eu|:ope, 
 whpij arrested by Cliarigs Martel at Ppitipi'S (7^2). 
 
 ' A district between the Rhine aiid the Meuse, whiph was at different 
 times^a separate Isingdom under one of the Merovingian princes. 
 
 ^ Kev. ix. 3-11. Mr. Elliott (Hor. Ap., i. 410) gives an engraving of 
 the syrfiholical loci;st, designed to exemplify the |' horses," the yellow 
 turbans (" crowns like gold"), the bearded faces (" as the faces of men "), 
 the long hair ("as the hair of women"), and the "breast-plates," by 
 which the Saracens were distinguished. 
 
124 THE CARLOTINGIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 After seyen days of incessant conflict, the Saracen host 
 disappeared under the iron blows of the Franks.^ The 
 Moslem leader was slain., and the remains of his army 
 broke up and fled. The yictory was complete and final. 
 The Arabs retired beyond the Pyrenees, and never 
 again attempted the conquest of France. 
 
 The same year witnessed the death of pope Gre- 
 gory II., and the elevation of the third of that name. 
 The Koman see was then in the heat of its conflict with 
 the iconoclast emperor. A council at Eome pronounced 
 excommunicate all who should pull down, profane, or 
 blaspheme the sacred images of our Lord and His im- 
 maculate mother, of the holy apostles and other saints.'' 
 New images were zealously erected in all the churches, 
 and the pope, now in open rebellion, rejoiced in the 
 loss of the Greek fleet, sent for his subjugation. When 
 the Lombard triumphs threatened him with a more 
 formidable yoke, he had recourse to Charles Martel, 
 offering to renounce the imperial allegiance, and place 
 the Eoman territory under the great leader's protection 
 as consul. The death of Charles arrested the treaty, 
 but his son Pepin obtained a more substantial succour 
 from Eome. He persuaded the Franks to inquire of 
 pope Zachary whether the kingdom belonged to the 
 Merovingian prince who wore the crown, or the master 
 of the palace, who exercised the power ? Zachary, of 
 course, replied to Pepin's satisfaction; king Childe- 
 bert was sent to a cloister, and his minister ascended 
 the throne (a.d. 752). This consummation of a foregone 
 conclusion was quoted at a later period as undeniable 
 evidence of the power of the Apostolic see to depose and 
 create kings. 
 
 This was the monarch on whom pope Stephen now 
 
 ' Martel signifies a hammer. « Co.ic, torn. v'. 1458, 
 
THE PATRIMONY OF ST. PETER. 126 
 
 threv himself for protection against the Lombards. He 
 anointed him and his two sons " Patricians " of Kome, 
 while Pepia undertook in return to make over the 
 dominions of the exarchate to the Holy see. To give a 
 better colour to the transaction, the fable was invented 
 that Constantine had given Eome to Sylvester as a 
 baptismal fee. Pepiu crossed the Alps, and after 
 defeating the Lombards with great slaughter, captured 
 Pavia, and obHged Astulphus to recognise the pope's 
 pretensions. On a second summons from the apostle,^ 
 the French returned, and having possessed themselves 
 of the whole exarchate, Pepin conveyed it to the 
 Holy see under the designation of " St. Peter's Patri- 
 mony." 
 
 By this donation, the fruit of a double rapine — for the 
 emperor was still the legitimate sovereign — ^the pope 
 became a temporal, prince. But neither the sanctity nor 
 the safety of the mitre was promoted by encircling it 
 with a coronet. The neighbouring chiefs were guilty of 
 so much violence at the elections, that a canon was 
 passed (a.d. 769), prohibiting the presence of strangers 
 and armed parties, and further limiting the succession to 
 the cardinal priests and deacons of Eome. This title, 
 which has since been elevated to princely dignity, was 
 then applied, as the word denotes, to the principal parish 
 clergy,^ but it is disputed whether it belonged to the 
 
 ' The pope dated his letter from the tomb of the apostle, and opened 
 it with the address, " Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, 
 to the three most excellent kings, Pepin, Charles, and Carloman. I am 
 the apostle Peter, to whom it was said, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 
 I will build my Church.' " Further on, the apostle is made to say, " If you 
 care to be cleansed from your sins, and to earn an eternal reward, hasten 
 to the relief of my city, my Church, and the people committed to my care." 
 The Lombards, though quite as good Catholics as the French, are styled 
 " The wicked and mercUess enemies of all three." — Bower, iii. 373, 4. 
 
 2 The word is derived from cardo, a hinge ; whence the " cardinal 
 virtues," " cardinal points," &c. 
 
126 THE CAfeLOTINGliiir EMPIRE; 
 
 ehief of bacli order, like archjiriSSts and &,rfelidea,co2.ij cif 
 tb tHfe clergy of tlie principal bHufcheSj vhicli Had iHe 
 Jjrivilege of adiniiiistgrifig tlife s^SrElments. It -^aS not 
 |ieeiiliar to Edme till liiiiitdd to tliat '6iif by a Biill of 
 taul in. (A.D. 1548).' 
 
 The Lombards still protiiig iilti-actdble,- tEe pSjib 
 again inyoked tlie FrencH, Mid at last Charles Siitered 
 Italy with all his fotb^S, knd Haying takeri Desiderius 
 prisoner, put a final end to the Ldmbard dynasty 
 (A.D. 774). 
 
 Charlemagiib, #Hb of the maiiy styled ^' great " alohd 
 enjby^ the distinctidn of ineor;pdtatiiig thb bj)ithet iyith 
 his piropei- hamb, transferred thb Ldrtibard kingdom to 
 himself, and having receiyed the iron crown fi-oni thb 
 archbishop of Milan ih the cathedral of Mdrt2;a, hastened 
 to put the pope ih. poSSbiSioh of His father's donation. 
 The diibhy of Spoleto was added, eithbi- ih right of 
 conquest or by the yoluutary submission bf the duke. 
 The LombS;rd dukbs bf Fi-iiili ffid Beneyento rendered 
 similar hbmage. Naples, with the island of Sicily, still 
 kept their allegiance to thb iihjierial sceptrb ; the 
 Vehfeti^hs maintaihed theii: ihdependehcb, and the fbst 
 bf Italy fell to the French kihg. 
 
 The papal writers boast bf ihafiy Splendid additiohs 
 tb the temporal states of the Chiif bh grkfited by CHa,rle- 
 magne. Pbpe Adfiah j)rodueed the fictitious gr^it bf 
 Constantine,^ and reminded the most Christian king of 
 several others (besides the donation of king I*epia) 
 whibh had been made by diyers emjJil'orsy in Tu^caiiyj 
 Spoleto, Beneyento, Cofliea, and Payia. All these, -with 
 
 . 1 The red,, hat yae granted by Iimoc^at ly. (a.d. 1244), and the title of 
 " fipiinence," tjy tJrban viii. (a.d. 1623).— Bower, iv. 22. The title of 
 cardinal is still borne by two of the minor capons of St. Paul's, London. 
 
 2 Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent. viii. 2. Hence the iegen^ of Constan- 
 tino's grant was not forged, as is often supposed, in the tenth century, but 
 was current as early as the eighth. 
 
KENEWAL di? Tkfe IMAGE eONlfeOTERSY. 127 
 
 ne# gifts of llis divn, Ciiarlerllagiie i§ suppdSed to Hate 
 tlBts^ coiifltmed to St. Peter: but tHB true extent 
 of th.fe&e grants iS obscured by tile fictions with -U^hich 
 jtkpal forgeries have Enveloped thd WHdle 'Subject. 
 The iniportaiit |Joiiit is that, whatetGr the territbrie^, 
 they were held by the pope d^ h feudal prihcijiality 
 tlhdfer thd suzeraihty-ia-chibf of the king, like the 
 principalities of the Germaii ernpire down td riscent 
 titnfes. It %a^ the policy df Chiii"lemagne to endow the 
 Church with tenures df this description, sttppoiitig that 
 his clerical vassals would be niof 6 tf ustwdrthy thati secular 
 coiihts ahd barons. Thencefdrward bishop^ and abbots 
 %fere seeh heading their trdops in the field at the 
 ^iimtiioiis of their liege lord; and the scandal ensued of 
 placing ydtiths knd infants in ecclesiastical dignities for 
 the sake of theit temporal pdssessidhs. The Italian, 
 dukes, however, proved tfoiiblesorde neighbours,' and 
 th8 Trench king was wearied by repeated &pf)eal§ for 
 Assistance. 
 
 Tlie driginal ground df Separation from the empire 
 was taken away by the Second Council of Nicsea 
 (i;i). 787), -It-hich restored the Worship of imap^ tb as 
 ariiple an extent Ss thd pope hiflaself cohld de§ir8 : thfeiir 
 opponents Wete declared T^orse than Je^s, VkgiM, or 
 Mohamliifedatis. These decrees were cdhfirmed by the 
 fetti|)re^^ Irene, and fdndly ^up|jdsing thSt she had 
 thereby recohciled the Latin Chlirch, she sent an di-my 
 the iiext yetlr id drive the Franks oiit of Italy. 
 
 Charleiiiagne ndt only repelled this invasion, but 
 set hiinsdlf with great vi^dur to dohfute the Gri-eek 
 idolatry; In the fohr " Caroline Bdoks," Vritten 
 by the! ii8sista,llde 6f his librarian, Alcllin of "^ork, 
 the king denounced the late council as a false synod 
 of the Greeks, and their doctrine as repugnant to the 
 Scriptures, the fathers, and the traditidit of thd #hole 
 
128 THE CAELOVINGIAN EMPIEE. 
 
 Church. While condemning the destruction of sacred 
 images, and defending their use as hooks to the 
 unlearned, he strenuously repudiates all manner of 
 worship. This was the doctrine of pope Gregory the 
 Great, and though experience had proved it to be 
 impracticable, the English prelates repeated it at the 
 Council of Yerulam (a.d. 793). Alcuin then wrote to 
 Charlemagne in the name of the bishops and princes of 
 England, refuting image worship from the testimony of 
 Holy Scripture, and denouncing it as a thing "which 
 the Church of God utterly abhors.'" 
 
 The Church of England enjoyed at this time a 
 high reputation for learning, and fortified by its 
 authority, the Mug convened a council at Frankfort 
 (a.d. 794), which was attended by a large number 
 of bishops from England, France, Germany, and 
 Italy, including the pope's legates. Alcuin was 
 again present, the Caroline Books were declared 
 irrefragable, and aU worship, adoration, and service 
 of images was condenmed as execrable in the Church 
 of God.^ 
 
 Charlemagne had good reason to maintain the 
 religious no less than the political separation of the 
 West; but it was an unpleasant position for pope 
 Adrian, who had taken an active part in promoting the 
 rejected council. He had accepted its canons, and 
 transmitted them to the French king in expectation of 
 his ready acquiescence, and this contumelious rejection, 
 in the presence of his own legates, was a rude shock to 
 his spiritual authority. The pope, however, had no idea 
 of restoring his dominions to the emperor, nor conse- 
 quently of breaking with the only power that could 
 
 1 Howell's Synopsis Cone. Brit., p. 22. Sim. Dim., ad an. 792. 
 
 2 Cone, torn. vii. 103. 
 
CORONATION OF CHARLES. 129 
 
 defend them. While venturing to write against the 
 Caroline Books, he preserved a tone of the utmost 
 respect to the royal author. He was wUling enough to 
 pronounce the Greek emperor a heretic for retaining the 
 Church's patrimony ia Sicily. But Charlemagne was 
 inflexible. He wept at the pope's death, as for a 
 brother, and composed a tender, if not elegant, epitaph 
 in Latia elegiacs, which is still inscribed in gold letters 
 on the tomb at the door of St. Peter's,' But Adrian's 
 arguments made no impression ; they were even censured 
 as absurd ia the Council of Paris (a.d. 824)i 
 
 Leo III. succeeded to greater troubles and greater 
 honours. Two of Adrian's nephews, incensed by their 
 loss of influence under a new pontificate, surprised his 
 person, and beat him till left for dead. When brought 
 to trial they accused the pope of a number of crimes 
 which are not recorded. They were important enough 
 to bring Charlemagne for the fourth time to Eome. He 
 assembled a council in St. Peter's, where he sat on the 
 same throne with the pope, and proposed to inquire into 
 these allegations : but the council refused to judge the 
 Apostolic see, the head of all Churches, and Leo purged 
 himself by his own oath. 
 
 The Holy see was plainly in need of a powerful 
 protector, and the king was never indisposed for new 
 honours or influence. Charles had filled Eome with 
 magnificent presents, the spoils of his many victories ; 
 he always affirmed that he desired nothing in return 
 but the favour of the apostle, but it may be concluded 
 he was not altogether unprepared for the scene that was 
 now enacted. 
 
 On Christmas-day 800, he appeared in St. Peter's 
 arrayed in the patrician purple. Suddenly a shout 
 
 • This pope is famed for absolving the Mercian king Offa from the 
 murder of Ethelbert, king of the East Angles. On this occasion Offa, as 
 
 K 
 
130 THE CAELOVINGIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 arose among Ms attendants, the church resounded with 
 acclamations of " Life and victory to Charles Augustus, 
 most pious and pacific emperor, created by God !" The 
 pope immediately placed a crown upon his head, and 
 after anointing him with sacred oil, conducted him to a 
 throne, where Leo with all the clergy and people did 
 homage to him, after the fashion of the Csesars. He 
 returned to the palace attired in imperial rohes, and 
 the same day issued regulations for the government of 
 the Church, subscribed with the signature, " Charles, 
 emperor of the Eomans.'" 
 
 This transaction, which is termed the " translation of 
 the empire," is affirmed to have been so wholly unpre- 
 meditated that the pope was not in coronation vest- 
 ments, and the crown was hastily fashioned out of the 
 ornaments of the altar. The imperialist writers repre- 
 sent it as a celestial inspiration, the pope oflELciatiag as 
 chief prelate of an empire, which God had already 
 allotted to Charles by the dispensation of conquest. 
 The Papists, on the contrary, regard the empire as the 
 free gift of the sovereign pontiff whom God has " set 
 over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, 
 and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, 
 to build, and to plant."^ In later days this text was 
 a familiar weapon ia the armoury of the Yatican, but it 
 may be doubted whether the perversion was yet in 
 vogue. The fact appears to be that the pope acted 
 as the existing governor of Eome, wishing to pay a 
 compliment to the great monarch. Stephen had invested 
 the same prince and his father with the patrician 
 
 Ina did before, and Ethelwulf after, granted a tax of a penny from every 
 family in his dominions, to the English College at Rome. This was after- 
 wards made the pretence of claiming " Peter pence," or " Rome scot," 
 aa tribute to the pope. 
 
 ' Hist. dell. Imp. Rom. in Germ, di Greg. Letti., i. 107-9. 
 
 ° Jer. i. 10. 
 
DOMINIONS. 1'31 
 
 purple, and Leo, acknowledging him for the suzerain of 
 ■whom the see held its temporal possessions, saluted him 
 emperor.' The old senate, to whose authority the pope 
 had practically succeeded, did the same to Augustus, 
 only the senate conferred the sovereignty of their own 
 territories, while the pope affected to give away those 
 of others. Charlemagne, however, like Augustus, had 
 already established his title by the sword, and no one 
 was disposed to question the legitimacy of his claim. 
 His accession was greeted with universal acclamations at 
 Eome, and a gold medal was struck bearing the inscrip- 
 tion, " Renovatio Imperii." 
 
 The empire, which fell with Augustulus, rose 
 in greater majesty under Charlemagne. Two-thirds 
 of the old western empire obeyed his sway, and 
 the remainder was more than compensated by his 
 acquisitions in Germany. His hereditary kingdom 
 embraced all France and the Netherlands, from the 
 sea to the Ehine. Thirty years of conquest added 
 Germany as far as the Vistula, and from the Elbe to 
 the Danube. To the south, he was lord of Italy, down 
 to Calabria, and of the Spanish march which reached 
 from the Pyrenees to the Ebro.^ Eastward, he ruled 
 Dahnatia, Hungary, and the Danubian provinces. Had 
 he pushed his arms in that direction, instead of the 
 north, there was nothing to resist his advance to the 
 Bosphorus, and Eome might have, recovered in his 
 person the reunited empire of the Caesars.' His imperial 
 
 1 Leo had previously recognised the soTereignty of Charles, by solicit- 
 ing his confirmation of his own election to the see. 
 
 2 It was on Charlemagne's return from one of his Spanish expeditions 
 (a.d. 778) that he met with the disaster at Bonceyeaux, in the passes of 
 the Pyrenees, which form the subject of the romance of Roland his 
 nephew. 
 
 3 The Byzantine Court was certainly not inclined to provoke the ex- 
 periment. The empress Irene tempted the western Augustus with a 
 treacherous offer of marriage, and her successor recognised his right to 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE CARLOVINGIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 grandeur was augmented by tile absence of all com- 
 petition. Great Britain and Ireland were divided as 
 yet into petty states. Southern Spain languished under 
 the Arabs, and the Greek empire was rapidly decaying. 
 Charlemagne was recognised, as the second great sove- 
 reign of the world, by the famous Haroun al Easchid, 
 whose empire extended from Africa to India. 
 
 He assumed the double-headed eagle for the imperial 
 cognizance, signifying (as some authors report) the 
 union of the Eoman and German empires ; but a similar 
 monster has been traced on the column of Trajan, and 
 its adoption as the imperial ensign has been variously 
 ascribed to the times of Constantine, and to the division 
 of the empire between Arcadius and Honorius. Others 
 reduce it as low as the reign of Sigismund (a.d. 1387); 
 it would appear, however, to have been used by the 
 Greek emperors, and so passed to the crown of Eussia, 
 which still claims to represent the eastern empire.' 
 
 The eagle was the ancient standard of the Eomans, 
 adored by the legions as the omen and instrument 
 of victory. In the fourth century of Christianity, 
 this ensign was largely supplanted by the red dragon ^ 
 (introduced perhaps by the barbarians), which on that 
 account (according to some expositors) is adopted in 
 the Apocalypse to symbolise the power which, after 
 persecuting the primitive Church,' gave its authority 
 and seat to the beast,* and at a later stage of the 
 
 Italy north of Benevento, retaining only Calabria and Sicily to the 
 Greek empire. 
 
 • " Eussia, Ancient and Modern,'' p. 87. The Russian eagle is dis- 
 tinguished by the heads being crowned, and the claws grasping a sceptre 
 and orb. Morery says that its wings are turned downwards, while 
 those of the German eagle are elevated, but in ordinary representations, 
 this position is often reversed. Under the German empire the heir who 
 bore the title of " King of the Romans " used a single-headed eagle. 
 
 2 Amm. Marc, xvi. 10. 3 Rev. xii. S, 13. 
 
 * Rev. xiii. 1, 2, fi • comp. Dan. vii. 3, 7, 21. 
 
ALLIANCE OF CHTJECH AND STATE. 133 
 
 vision is seen carrying tlie moth.er of harlots on its 
 back.' Certainly, the alliance now inaugurated between 
 the empire and the see laid the foundation of the 
 temporal supremacy of the pope, as Constantino's 
 establishment did of his spiritual primacy. In both 
 cases the imperial favour was transformed iuto a 
 Divine and inalienable right. Charlemagne was hon- 
 oured as the patron and protector of the see. But 
 his successors were made to feel that another power 
 was, in fact, seated upon their empire and directed 
 its energies. 
 
 The authority and ritual of the Eoman Church 
 were now propagated with all the power of the State. 
 Charlemagne was a missionary of the Mohammedan 
 rather than the Apostolical type. His wars were 
 aU religious; as fast as any nation submitted to 
 his arms, he compelled it to share his faith. In this 
 way he dragooned the Saxons into baptism, and, 
 once baptised, apostasy was punished with death. 
 Bishoprics, schools, colleges, churches, were planted 
 in rapid succession. The emperor's mental and bodily 
 vigour was astonishing ; the sword, the Church, and 
 literature were propagated with equal ardour. But 
 
 ' Kev. xvii. 3, 4. Mr. Elliott understands the first beast to symbolise 
 pagan Borne, and the second papal Eome. An expositor of a different 
 school identifies the first beast with the "scarlet-coloured beast" of 
 Rev. vii. 3, which takes the harlot on its back (Rev. F. Meyrick on 
 Anti-Christ. Smith's Bible Diet., Appx. to Tol. i. p. 68. See also Dr. 
 Wordsworth's " Babylon "). All expositions concur in representing the 
 papacy, " the mother of abominations," as rising to power on the back of 
 the Roman empire, and this is in striking accordance with the historical 
 relations of the popes with Chaxlemagne and his successors. The 
 "number of the beast," or " the number of his name " (Rev. xiii. 17, 18), 
 is interpreted by an exposition as old as Irenseus to signify Lateinos 
 (Latin). This is the true orthography of the word in Greek — the language 
 of the Apocalypse, and the numerical value of its letters in that tongue 
 amount to the specified number 666 ; viz. : — X. = 30, a = 1, r = 300, e = 5, 
 t = 10, 1/ = 50, = 70, s = 200 = 666. 
 
134 THE CARLO VINGIAN EMPIEE. 
 
 while Ms military arguments sufficed to extermi- 
 nate Paganism, his literary efforts only kindled a few 
 watch-fires which soon died out in the blackness 
 of the surrounding night. It was possible to extir- 
 pate idolatry by slaying its votaries,* but ignorance, 
 which could not reeeiye sentence of death, took its 
 revenge by transferring Paganism into the precincts of 
 the Church. The emperor's exertions, however, de- 
 served so well of the Eoman Church, that he was 
 canonised by pope Pascal iii. (a.d. 1161). It is not 
 exactly the honour one would have expected from the 
 character of his private life ; but the devil's advocate 
 is often merciful at Eome, and St. Charlemagne may 
 be no worse than some of his neighbours.^ 
 
 Charlemagne died at Aix-la-Chapelle, fuU of years 
 and honours, 28th January 814. His son and suc- 
 cessor Louis le Ddbonnaire (translated pious and meeJc) 
 inherited his dominions and his defects, without his 
 
 ' Four thousand Saxons were put to death at one time by Charlemagne's 
 order. 
 
 2 The emperor's matrimonial relations might have been hard to defend. 
 He divorced his first wife, Himiltrude, in order to marry Hermengarde, 
 daughter to the Lombard king, but returned her to her father the next 
 year, when his dethronement was in view. His third queen, Hildegarde, 
 princess of Suevia, who brought him four sons and five daughters, died 
 April 783, and before the year was out her place was supplied by 
 Fastrade of Franconia. This princess dying, somewhat suspiciously, the 
 next year, the imperial widower took a fifth wife in Luitgarde, a German 
 lady, equally renowned for letters and hunting, who narrowly escaped the 
 imperial dignity by dying just before it was conferred. Pepin rejected 
 the hand of the Greek emperor Leo for his daughter, on the ground of his 
 heresy ; but Charlemagne's orthodoxy did not prevent his accepting Leo's 
 son for his daughter Eotrude, nor from listening to proposals for his 
 own marriage with Leo's widow, though stained with the blood of that 
 same son, and the great champion of the image worship which Charle- 
 magne denounced as " execrated by the Church of God." This sixth wife 
 would have united the eastern empire with his own, but Irene's proposals 
 (though not sincere) were so resented by her own court as to hasten her 
 second deposition and death. 
 
SEPARATION OF FRANCE AND GERMANY. 135 
 
 •virtues. Equal to his father in violence and cruelty, 
 he vas vastly his inferior in all regal and manly 
 accomplishments.' Louis associated his son Lothaire 
 in the empire, giving him the kingdom of Italy ; he 
 assigned other kingdoms to his younger sons, retaining 
 the sovereignty of France to himself. 
 
 The rebellion and quarrels of these princes, with 
 the vices of the younger Lothaire, led to continual 
 wars, in which the popes obtained opportunities of 
 interfering in the disposal of the imperial crown, which 
 materially augmented their own authority. On several 
 occasions they eluded the emperor's confirmation of their 
 elections ; but the tumults and disorders which ensued 
 made them glad to return to the protection of a pre- 
 rogative, which was invariably insisted upon by every 
 emperor strong enough to assert it. In the end, the 
 youngest brother Charles, surnamed the Bald, obtained 
 the crown of France, which was thenceforth perma- 
 nently separated from Germany; and in 875 he 
 compelled or persuaded pope John viii. to crown 
 him emperor and king of Italy, to the prejudice of 
 the German monarch, his elder brother. The pope 
 added the ill-merited title of " Most Christian King," 
 formerly given to Charlemagne, and still borne by the 
 French sovereigns. 
 
 His son Charles the Fat becoming imbecile, without 
 
 > Mosheim, ix. 1. Gratian has fathered upon this prince a decree 
 which adds the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica to the donations 
 made to the Holy see by his father and grandfather ; but Sicily was in 
 the possession of the Greek emperor, and was not included in the western 
 empire tiU recovered from the Saracens by the Normans in the eleventh 
 century. The same decree pretends to authorise the ordination of the 
 pope elect, without waiting for the imperial confirmation, a privilege 
 certainly not attempted at this time. The decree is first mentioned by 
 Leo Ostiensis, who died in the beginning of the twelfth century, and was 
 doubtless one of the numerous forgeries of that age. — Bower, iv, 188. 
 
136 THE CAELOTTNGIAIf EMPIRE. 
 
 male issue, pope Adrian iii. claimed for tlie Italians the 
 exclusive right to elect and consecrate their own king 
 and emperor. The states of Germany, incensed at this 
 pretension, immediately set aside Charles, and elected 
 Amulph, an illegitimate cousin, on the sole ground of 
 his German birth. The Italians on their part chose 
 Giiido, duke of Spoleto, who was of the blood of 
 Charlemagne by the female line. He receiyed the 
 imperial crown from the pope in St. Peter's (a.d. 891), 
 and the Italian succession was contiaued for nearly a 
 century. 
 
 The Germans never ceased to consider Italy and 
 the imperial crown as their inalienable appendages; 
 so that during this time there were always two, and 
 sometimes more, rival " emperors of the west." The 
 monarch who received the silver crown of Germany 
 deemed himself ipso facto emperor and king of the 
 Eomans ; he demanded at his leistu'e the iron crown 
 of Lombardy at the hands of the archbishop of Milan, 
 and the golden diadem of the empire from the chief 
 metropolitan at Eome. The Italian princes, on the other 
 hand, conceived themselves vastly more concerned in the 
 election of a Roman emperor than the barbarians of 
 Germany. The idea of submitting the Eternal City to 
 a Transalpine yoke was intolerable, and the pope was 
 cordially of their mind. Unfortunately, neither pope 
 nor princes possessed the patriotism which gave to 
 Germany its bond of union and the surest pledge of 
 success. 
 
 The power and influence of the Eoman see throve, in 
 fact, by means of the divisions among other rulers. On 
 one pretence and another, appeals were multiplied from 
 all parts of western Christendom ; even the eastern 
 Church stooped to the same humiliation, in the great 
 controversy which attended the elevation of Photius to 
 
QUAREEL WITH THE EASTERN CHURCH. 137 
 
 the see of Constantinople. The pope, eagerly leaping 
 into the chair of judgment, gaye sentence against the 
 patriarch, and pronounced him excommunicated. Photius 
 angrily retorted with a similar anathema fulminated in a 
 councU at Constantinople (a.d. 867). In this document 
 the Latin Church was accused of sundry grievous de- 
 partures from Catholic faith and practice ; hut except 
 for the lasting schism which it occasioned in the Church, 
 the controversy would be too frivolous for the notice 
 of history. The articles of accusation were eight : ' — 
 1. Fasting on Saturdays.'' 2. Cutting off the first week 
 of Lent, and indulging in milk and cheese. 3. Forbid- 
 ding the marriage of priests. 4. Eestricting the chrism 
 to bishops.' 5. Asserting " the horrid blasphemy " of 
 the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and 
 the Son. 6. Eaising deacons to the episcopate without 
 passing through the priesthood. 7. Offering a lamb 
 with the Eucharist at Easter, in imitation of the Jews.* 
 And 8. Eeqxiiring the clergy to shave their beards. Such 
 was the strange medley of doctrine and discipline then 
 accounted among the weightier matters of the Gospel. 
 Neither Church censured the other for its defects in 
 
 ' Bower's " Lives of the Popes," iv. 330. Some authors augment the 
 articles of acousation, but Mosheim reduces them to five, alleging that the 
 others were added at a later period of the schism. — Ec. Hist., cent. viii. 2. 
 
 2 Saturday was observed as a feast day in the primitive Church, and was 
 so kept at Milan as late as Ambrose, when it was a fast at Kome. That 
 bishop writes to Augustine, that when at Kome he did as the Romans did, 
 and when at Milan as the Milanese. 
 
 ^ This chrism the Greek Church administered to children immediately 
 after baptism, and by the hands of Presbyters. The Latin Church, by 
 restricting its use to bishops, rendered some postponement necessary ; and 
 so the ceremony was changed into the present office of Confirmation, which, 
 at a later period still, the Church of Rome erected into a sacrament. 
 
 ' The old Ordo Romanus contains a form for the consecration of a lamb 
 at Easter; but it is not probable that it was offered along with the 
 Eucharist. Cardinal Bona calls the assertion a,.puUdum mendacium. — 
 Rer. Liturg., ii. 8. 
 
138 THE CARLOVINGIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Neither 
 complained of Mariolatry, saint-worship, and the gross 
 superstitions universally practised with respect to pil- 
 grimages, relics, pictures, and images. Neither de- 
 manded the free circulation of the Word of God, or the 
 preaching of that saving faith through which the sinner, 
 justified by Christ, receives the sanctifying Spirit of 
 God. Only one of these eight charges touches a real 
 heresy — ^the enforced celibacy of the priesthood. The 
 fifth relates to a difference in words more than mean- 
 ing, though the Greeks still reject every explanation.' 
 It is certain that the clause was originally interpo- 
 lated into the ISTicene Greed without sufficient ecclesias- 
 tical authority ; but it has been repeatedly explained, 
 that it is not intended to assert (as the Greeks object) a 
 double procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and 
 the Son, as two original independent principles of being, 
 but only what our Lord Himself affirms, that the Son 
 partakes of aU things with the Father ; and therefore 
 the Holy Spirit is of the Father hy and with the Son. 
 This the Greeks also beKeve; but their zeal for a 
 formulary elaborated with so much pains in the first 
 two General Councils, has hitherto rendered them deaf 
 to aU explanation. 
 
 The six remaining points are questions of discipline 
 hardly caUing for discussion. 
 
 ' The western doctrine of the Double Procession, though so indig- 
 nantly denounced by the whole East, is, in fact, easy to be reconciled with 
 their own, and was so admitted at the Council of Florence, a.d. 1439 
 ("Russia, Ancient and Modem," p. 249). The word "Filioque " (and from 
 the Son) were first interpolated into the Nicene Creed by some of the 
 Spaidsh Churches, in the fifth or sixth century. The CouncU of GentUi, 
 imder Pepin i., sanctioned them (a.d. 764), and Charlemagne confirmed 
 them at Aix-la-ChapeUe (a.d. 808) ; but Leo in. disapproved the interpo- 
 lation, though upholding the doctrine. He omitted the clause in the creed 
 which he affixed in Greek and Latin to the tomb of St. Peter, but it was 
 again inserted. 
 
CONTEMPOEART SUCCESSIONS (GERMAN EMPIRE). 
 
 - 
 
 WESTEKN EMPIRE. 
 
 Eastebn 
 Empeeoks. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Italy. 
 
 Germany. 
 
 Fbakck. 
 
 Popes of Home. 
 
 
 885 
 
 Guido of Spo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 leto 
 
 Amulph ... 
 
 Eudes 
 
 Stephen vi. 
 
 
 886 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ... ... ... 
 
 Leo V. 
 
 890 
 
 '". '.'.'. .'.'. 
 
 , 
 
 ■■■ ■*. •>■ 
 
 Ponnosus. 
 
 
 893 
 
 Lambert ... 
 
 , 
 
 Charles in. 
 
 
 
 897 
 
 ... ... ... 
 
 
 
 
 Stephen vii. 
 
 
 899 
 
 
 
 Louis in. 
 
 
 
 
 900 
 
 Louis of Aries. 
 
 
 
 ' Theodore ii. 
 ■ John IX. 
 
 
 901 
 904 
 
 Berenger of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Friuli. 
 
 
 
 
 
 905 
 
 
 
 
 
 Benedict iv. 
 
 
 906 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ( Leo V. 
 
 X Christopher. 
 
 
 907 
 
 •t* ■•• •!• 
 
 ... ••• ... 
 
 
 
 Bergius ni. 
 
 
 910 
 
 
 
 ^, , 
 
 
 
 Anastasius ni. 
 
 
 911 
 
 >•• ■■• ■•• 
 
 Conrad i. ... 
 
 *.> ... ..• 
 
 ... •*• ... 
 
 Alexander. 
 
 912 
 
 
 
 ■*■ •.. *** 
 
 ,,^ 
 
 Lando 
 
 Oonstantinevi. 
 
 913 
 
 ■■■ >•■ ■•• 
 
 
 ,,, 
 
 John X. 
 
 
 919 
 
 ,,, 
 
 Heniy i. 
 
 
 
 
 923 
 
 ,,, 
 
 ... ... ■■( 
 
 Baoul. 
 
 
 
 924 
 
 Raoul. 
 
 
 
 
 
 926 
 
 Hugo, King of 
 
 
 
 
 
 928 
 
 , 
 
 ,, 
 
 , ,., 
 
 Leo VI. 
 
 
 929 
 
 ,,. 
 
 ,., 
 
 
 
 Stephen viii. 
 
 
 931 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 John XI. 
 
 
 936 
 
 "[ 
 
 Otho I. 
 
 Louis IV. ... 
 
 Leo VII. 
 
 
 939 
 
 •■■ •<• ••• 
 
 
 
 .•■ •*• ••■ 
 
 Stephen ix. 
 
 
 943 
 
 , ,,, 
 
 , ,.. 
 
 
 
 Martin iii. 
 
 
 946 
 
 Lothaire. 
 
 
 
 
 
 949 
 
 
 
 , ,„ 
 
 
 
 Agapetus n. 
 
 
 950 
 
 Berenger. 
 
 
 
 
 
 954 
 
 ••• ■•> <•■ 
 
 
 
 Lothaiie. 
 
 
 
 965 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 John xii. 
 
 
 959 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Leo viii. 
 
 Bomanus. 
 
 962 
 
 Otho, Emperor 
 
 ,,, 
 
 
 963 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 fNicephorns. 
 \Phocas. 
 
 964 
 
 , 
 
 *•* .u ••• 
 
 ... *•. •*■ 
 
 Benedict v. 
 
 
 965 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 John xm. 
 
 
 969 
 
 ■•> •■• ••• 
 
 ,,, 
 
 ,,, , 
 
 ... ... .1. 
 
 John Zimisces. 
 
 972 
 
 
 
 
 f DomnuB 11. 
 (.Benedict vi. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 973 
 
 Otlio II. 
 
 
 
 
 
 975 
 
 
 
 •■■ 
 
 ... ... ••■ 
 
 Benedict vii. 
 
 Basil II. 
 
 982 
 
 Otho m. 
 
 
 
 
 
 984 
 
 ••* ■■ ■■• 
 
 ... ... ... 
 
 
 
 John XIV. 
 
 
 985 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■>. •>* ... 
 
 John XV. 
 
 
 986 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 Louis V. 
 
 
 
 987 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hugh Capet. 
 
 
 
 996 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gregory v. 
 
 
 997 
 
 
 
 
 
 Eobert ... 
 
 John XVI., Art- 
 tipape. 
 
 
 999 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sylvester ii. 
 
 
 1001 
 
 Henry ii. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1003 
 
 
 
 
 f John XVII. 
 1 John xvm. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1009 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sergins iv. 
 
 
 1012 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Benedict vm. 
 
 
 1024 
 
 Conrad ii. ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 John xtx. 
 
 
 1026 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Constantino vii 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE GEEMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Saracen Alarms — ^Leonine City — Distractions of the Empire — State of 
 the Papacy — Root of the EvU — ^Italian Princes — ^Reign of Profligacy 
 — Reunion with Germany — ^Imperial Supremacy — Struggles of the 
 Papacy — Otho the Bloody — Otho iii. — Electors of Germany — 
 Henry II. — Conrad — Henry ill. — Grandeur of the Empire — Simony at 
 Rome — Political Power — Forged Decretals — Canon Law — Heathen 
 Acquisitions — State of Religion — Monks — Saints — Relics — Purga- 
 tory — Transubstantiation — Pious Frauds — Vices of the Clergy — 
 Universal Panic. 
 
 The Italians were not without good reason in demanding 
 a sovereign of their own. The French and German 
 armies had enough to do in defending their own coasts 
 from the incursions of the Northmen, while the Saracens, 
 after passing from Spain into Africa, had seized Sardinia, 
 Sicily,' and Calabria, and were beginning to ravage the 
 Tuscan shore. They had even appeared at the mouth of 
 the Tiber, and threatened the capital of Christendom (a.d. 
 834). Three years after, their corsairs burnt the suburbs 
 of Eome, and, after plundering the churches of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, retired with enormous spoils and a crowd 
 of miserable captives. This outrage determined Leo iv. 
 to enclose the Yatican Hill, which had been hitherto 
 without the walls, and the magnificent btuldings called 
 the Leonine City were begun and finished in four 
 
 ' Euphemius, the Greek exarch in Sicily, revolted a.d. 828, and called 
 the Saracens to his assistance. He was slain in the war, and the Moslems 
 having gained possession of that island and Calabria, all that remained 
 to the Greek emperor in Italy, kept them tiU expelled by the Normans in 
 the eleventh century. 
 
142 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 years (848-52) by the help of nmnificent contributions 
 from the western nations. 
 
 The Saracens, making a new attempt during the pro- 
 gress of the works, were repulsed by the Italian fleet 
 with great slaughter ; numbers of prisoners were taken 
 and gibbeted on the coast, while others were condemned 
 to work in chains at the churches of the conquerors. 
 StiU the corsairs swarmed on the coasts. A few years 
 later they compelled the duke of Naples to purchase 
 immunity by joining their expedition against Eome. 
 John VIII., after excommunicating the duke, and his 
 brother the bishop, to very little purpose, ransomed 
 the Eternal City by agreeing to pay a tribute of twenty- 
 five thousand mancuses yearly (877). 
 
 The pope was hardly free from the Moslems, when 
 he fell into the hands of the lords of Spoleto and 
 Tuscany, who seized him in his palace and plundered 
 the city. The pontiff fled to France, where he excom- 
 municated the aggressors, and crowned Charles the 
 Fat emperor (880). This prince, however, was too 
 much occupied with the Normans at home to render aid 
 to Italy; and the necessity for an Italian emperor grew 
 daily more imperative. The design failed from want of 
 union among the princes and states of Italy. They could 
 neither agree in their choice, nor submit to the vote of 
 the majority. The popes, wearied of mediating between 
 their petty factions, began again to look beyond the Alps 
 for a Defensor Ecclesice. Formosus invited the German 
 emperor Arnulph to drive out the Italian claimants and 
 crowned him at Eome (a.d. 896). 
 
 On this occasion, to guard against the violence 
 repeatedly practised at papal elections, the order was 
 renewed to await the imperial confirmation before 
 consecrating the elect. The empire itself, however, 
 was now in dispute: Arnulph left Eome after a 
 
STATE OF THE PAPACY. 143 
 
 sojourn of fifteen days, and returned to Bayaria. In 
 Italy the most profligate characters pursued one another 
 in the chase for power, and the effect on the Holy 
 see has been described by its most devoted historian. 
 In entering on the tenth century. Cardinal Baronius 
 denounces it as " an iron age, barren of aU goodness : a 
 leaden age, abounding with all wickedness : a dark age, 
 remarkable for the scarcity of writers and men of learn- 
 ing." " In this century," he continues, " the abomi- 
 nation of desolation was seen in the temple of the Lord : 
 in the see of St. Peter, revered by the angels, were 
 placed the most wicked of men — not pontiffs, but 
 monsters. And how hideous was the face of the Eoman 
 Church, when filthy and impudent courtesans governed 
 aU at Eome, changed sees at their pleasure, disposed of 
 bishoprics, and intruded their lovers into the see of St. 
 Peter. 'No mention was then made of the clergy 
 electing or consenting ; the canons were trodden under 
 foot, the decrees of the popes were despised, the ancient 
 traditions turned out of doors ; the old customs, the sacred 
 rites and former method of choosing popes, were quite 
 laid aside. The Church was then without a pope, hut not 
 without a head ; its Spiritual Head never abandoned it.'''' ^ 
 Such, by the confession of the Papists themselves, 
 was the result of erecting the bishop of Eome into 
 universal primate and a temporal prince. The papal 
 claims were never so extensively submitted to as at this 
 very time. The Churches of France and Germany were 
 subjugated by the power of Charlemagne. The trouble- 
 some Africans had been taken out of the way by the 
 Saracens. Constantinople and the East rendered a 
 homage never conceded before or since. The emperor 
 Leo V. humbly asked Stephen's' permission to appoint 
 
 ■ Baron., ad an. 900. 
 
144 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 liis own brother to the patriarchal see, and was refused, 
 though the Greek bishops supported the recommendation 
 in terms of the most abject submission : " We know 
 that we are to be corrected and reprimanded by your 
 Apostolic see ; we humbly beseech you to deal mercifally 
 with us, and receive those who have gone astray but 
 repent and return to the fold ; that by your means peace 
 may be restored in our days to a Church that has been 
 so long divided and rent into factions." ^ There was abso- 
 lutely no dissenting voice. Eeformation was a word as 
 yet unspoken. From all quarters of the world Greeks 
 and barbarians, kings, lords, and pilgrims of every rank 
 and both sexes, sought the oracle of the Yatican for the 
 remission of their sins, or the gratification of their 
 desires. To exempt the sacred arbitrator from aU secidar 
 control, the temporal sword had been united to the 
 spiritual, yet, by the confession of its advocate, the 
 Church was never so enslaved, nor the Christian world so 
 corrupt ! " Yaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself" had 
 destroyed the pope by exalting the papacy. The papal 
 chair was fiUed, but " the Church was without a pope ! " 
 
 Happy had it been for Eome and for Christendom, 
 if they who then made the discovery that the Church's 
 life is in her Spiritual Head, had been content to abandon 
 a deceitful phantom, and return to the Shepherd and 
 Bishop op Souls, who says indeed to His Church, " I 
 will never leave you nor forsake you." 
 
 The disorders complained of flowed directly from the 
 attempt to erect in the Eoman pontiff a master for all 
 
 ' Bar., ad an. 886. The objection to the emperor's brother -was that 
 he had been ordained deacon by Photius, and the pope had prohibited the 
 promotion of any of his clergy. This trifle the Koman pontiff haughtily 
 refused to dispense with, notwithstanding the entreaty of the Greeks. To 
 Photius himself the pope's objection was that he had been elevated from a 
 layman to the episcopate — a thing of constant occurrence in the primitive 
 Church, and in Kome itseK. 
 
ITALIAN PRINCES. 145 
 
 clmrches and all consciences. The splendour and influ- 
 ence of the position exposed it to the worst passions of a 
 corrupt nature. The robber-princes of Italy had only to 
 secure Eome and the pope to obtain the imperial title. 
 Each, as he captured a feebly-garrisoned capital, was 
 solemnly crowned by the representative of Heaven, and 
 when expelled by a rival was as quickly deposed, and 
 perhaps excommunicated. Bishops and clergy veered 
 about with every shifting wind from the Vatican. 
 Absolutions, divorces, benedictions, and curses were in 
 the power of any ruffian who could seize the person 
 of a trembling priest. Popes themselves were deposed 
 and created at the will of the temporary master of 
 Eome. 
 
 In this way Guy duke of Spoleto, and Lambert 
 his son, Berenger duke of Friuli, and Louis, son of 
 Boso king of Aries, enjoyed the coveted purple by. 
 turns ; but a more formidable prerogative was wielded 
 by Adalbert marquess of Tuscany, when he seized the 
 castle of St. Angelo, and made himself, more than any 
 emperor, lord of the Eternal City. His wife Marozia was 
 the most abandoned woman of the age, save her mother 
 Theodora : these two beautiful profligates not only 
 ruled the Eoman Court, but disposed of the pontifical 
 chair at their pleasure. John x., the paramour of the. 
 mother, was by her influence raised successively to 
 the sees of Bologna, Eavenna, and Eome. He was the 
 first pope who was seen at the head of his troops, 
 levying war like a secular prince. On Theodora's 
 death, he fell a prey to the intrigues of Marozia, who 
 caused him to be seized and put to death. Marozia, 
 left a widow, married her husband's son and suc- 
 cessor, Guy, and upon his death contracted another 
 incestuous union with his half-brother Hugh, count of 
 Provence and king of Lombardy. In spite of these 
 
146 
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 alliances, she had a son by pope Sergius iii., whom 
 Baronius calls "the slave of every vice, and the most 
 wicked of men." This child she intruded on the Holy 
 see at a tender age as John xi., hut his half-brother 
 Albericj son of Adalbert, was so incensed at his mother's 
 marriage with Hugh, that rallying his father's partisans, 
 he gained possession of the castle and kept Marozia 
 and the pope her son in custody for the rest of their 
 lives. The pontiff lay above two years in his dungeon 
 before death vacated the see, and left the new lord to 
 place his own puppet in St. Peter's chair. Twenty 
 years later, Octavian, son and heir of Alberic, nominated 
 himself pope, and, though only eighteen years old, was 
 dutifully elected by the enslaved Church. This pontiff, 
 who called himself John xii., introduced the practice 
 observed by aU his successors of taking a new name on 
 elevation to the Holy see. 
 
 The Eomans now saw the value of freedom of 
 election, under the tyrant of St. Angelo. No reUef 
 was attainable from Lombardy, which was ruled by 
 king Berenger with an iron hand, and all eyes were 
 turned again to Germany. The blood of Charlemagne 
 had become extinct with Louis iv., a.d. 912, when the 
 States elected Conrad duke of Franconia, who was 
 followed by Henry of Saxony. The Italian historians 
 please themselves by denying the title of emperor to 
 these three monarchs, because they were never crowned 
 at Eome. Otho, son of Henry, after subduing the 
 Sclaves and Bohemians, and driving the French out of 
 Lorraine, listened to the groans of Italy. Marching 
 to the relief of Adelaide, widow of Lothaire ii., whom 
 Berenger was besieging in her castle of Canossa, he 
 obtained her hand and queenly dowry for his reward.' 
 
 • Otho had previously wedded an English princess, the daughter of 
 Edmund I., and Sigebert affirms that she was still living. 
 
REUNION OF ITALY. 147 
 
 Then proceeding to Eome at the supplication of pope 
 John XII., he received the imperial crown at St. Peter's 
 (a.d. 962). The Italian empire expired with Berenger 
 the same year, and Italy returned under the shadow 
 of the German throne. 
 
 The pope and all the Eomans took the oath of 
 allegiance to Otho, who confirmed to the Holy see all 
 the grants of Pepin and Charlemagne. By a diploma 
 dated 13th February, 962, which is still extant in 
 letters of gold, the ancient right of conflrming the elec- 
 tion of the pope was restored to the imperial crown, 
 and its soToreignty recognised as supreme iu the ad- 
 mimstration of justice.^ The emperor, however, had 
 no sooner returned to Germany than pope John con- 
 spired with Adalbert, son of Berenger, to bring back 
 the reign of misrule. Otho again entered Eome, and 
 convoking a council, cited the pontiff to answer for his 
 crimes. John, who had fled with the Church treasures, 
 replied by excommunicating all the ecclesiastics, in 
 order that they might have no power to depose him 
 or ordain a successor. The council proceeded, never- 
 theless, to pass sentence, and Leo viii. was elected, 
 confirmed, and consecrated, 6th December, 963. But 
 the moment the emperor withdrew his troops, John's 
 brigands drove the new pope out of Eome, and restored 
 that unworthy pontiff. At his bidding, a council of 
 sixteen bishops, with the cardinal priests and deacons, 
 excommunicated the pope whom they had just elected, 
 and grovelled before the tyrant whom they had just 
 excommunicated. John being killed in a midnight 
 intrigue, his faction placed one Benedict in the see, but 
 the emperor returning with his troops, the council 
 once more faced about, and restored Leo. According 
 
 ' Bower, v. 106. 
 
 l2 
 
148 THE GEEMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 to De Marca and some other writers, they vested in 
 the emperor the absolute right of appointing the pope 
 for the future. 
 
 Otho's death (974) was the signal for fresh com- 
 motions at Eome. Benedict vi. was attacked in the 
 Lateran, dragged to St. Angelo, and there strangled 
 in the second year of his pontificate. The castle was 
 now in the possession of a Eoman chief named Cencio : 
 he was opposed by a Tuscan faction, and by their 
 alternate triumphs, no less than five " Apostolicals " 
 crossed the papal stage in ten years.' Otho ii. marched 
 into Italy to recover Calabria and Apulia, the dowry 
 of his wife Theophania, daughter of the Greek emperor 
 Eomanus ; but the Saracens and Greeks defeated him 
 in a great battle. The emperor making his escape 
 in a boat was captured by a Greek corsair, who, taking 
 him for a countryman, accepted a ransom after forty 
 days' captivity. Imputing this disaster to the treachery 
 of the Eomans and Beneventines, who fled in the crisis 
 of the action, Otho collected his forces, and marching 
 on Beneventum, put the bulk of the inhabitants to death. 
 Proceeding to Eome, he invited to a great feast above 
 a hundred senators, with the commanders and military 
 officers who had abandoned his standard in the field. 
 All these were remorselessly massacred by his order 
 in the banqueting-room. His coronation was to have 
 followed, but death intervened, and Otho the Bloody 
 received a grave instead of a crown, in the church of 
 St. Peter (983). His son Otho was in Eome at the 
 time, but being only twelve years old, and not yet 
 declared " King of the Eomans," the Italians refased 
 to elect him emperor, and the German lords rescuing 
 
 ' Boniface vn. deposed, 974 ; Bonus n. died, 975 ; Benedict vil. died, 
 984 ; John xiv. murdered, 985 ; Boniface vn. restored and died, 985 ; 
 John elected, but died before consecration, 985. 
 
PACTIONS AT ROME. 149 
 
 liis person with, some difficulty, carried him off and 
 crowned him at Aix-la-Chapelle.^ 
 
 Eome being again left a prey to her domestic 
 factions, Crescentius th.e consul, son of the younger 
 Theodora, obtained possession of the castle of St. 
 Angelo, and overawed the successor of St. Peter. On 
 the death of pope John xv. (996), Otho iii., wbo had 
 an army before Eavenna, was solicited by the terrified 
 clergy to name them a successor, and his nephew 
 Bruno, a young man of twenty-four, was elected, on 
 his mandate, as Gregory v. Otho following him to 
 Eome, received the imperial crown (a.d.- 996),^ then 
 besieging Crescentius in his castle, he induced him 
 to quit the fortress on a promise of safety, and put 
 biin to death. The perfidious emperor was in turn 
 compelled to flee from the exasperated populace. 
 Having recovered his authority, he promised to 
 marry the widow of the deceased consul, but the 
 lady finding herself deluded and insulted, sent him 
 a pair of poisoned gloves, which occasioned his death 
 (a.d. 1002). 
 
 Otho III. had conceived the design of restoring the 
 imperial residence to the Palatine Hill. To prevent 
 the civU wars that usually accompanied the election 
 to the German throne, he procured a law in which 
 the pope concurred, substituting the seven chief princes 
 as Electors in the room of the national estates. The 
 proceedings were thus reduced into a more manageable 
 form, but the state of Germany never admitted the 
 
 ' Leti., lib. iii. Morery's Diet. 
 
 2 On this occasion a decree was approved by the pope and cardinals to 
 this effect : that the Koman pontiffs should neither enjoy, nor pretend to, any 
 authority over the empire or the person of the emperor in all that respected 
 his temporal authority, but that the Holy see should be supported in all 
 spiritual matters as it was then commonly reverenced, and in the jurisdic- 
 tion conceded to it by Charlemagne. — Leti., iii. 
 
150 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 fulfilment of Otto's dream. At Ms death the Electors 
 chose Henry duke of Bavaria, who obtained the title 
 of Saint and Apostle of Hungary, from his zeal in the 
 conversion of the duke, his brother-in-law. He presided 
 at councils, erected bishoprics, monasteries, and hos- 
 pitals, and regulated, even at Eome itself, the liturgical 
 usages of the Church.' StUl his wars with France 
 and Bohemia admitted of only one visit to the Eternal 
 City, when he restored Benedict viii. to his see, and 
 received the imperial crown at his hands (a.d. 1014). 
 
 To prevent the recurrence of similar disorders, the old 
 obligations were repeated on either side. The emperor 
 confirmed the donations of Pepin, Charlemagne, and the 
 others : on the other ha,nd, with the entire consent 
 of the Church, he renewed the imperial rights in the 
 election and confirmation of the pope. Both, however, 
 died in the same year (1024), and while the empire 
 lay vacant for two years, the papacy was simoniacally 
 purchased by Benedict's brother, a layman, who was 
 ordaiaed and enthroned by the name of John xix. By 
 this pontiff the new emperor Conrad ii. (called the 
 Salic) was crowned in St. Peter's, in the presence of 
 Canute, king of Denmark and England, whose daughter 
 afterwards became the wife of the emperor's son." 
 
 Conrad was the first emperor who procured his 
 son to be elected " King of the Eomans " during 
 his own lifetime. Still Henry iii. was not admitted 
 to the imperial throne without opposition, though 
 the German empire rose under him to the plenitude 
 of its lustre. " From the eastern frontiers, where the 
 
 ' The vigils of the saints were instituted in his council at Dortmond 
 and they also introduced at Home the practice of singing the creed after 
 the Gospel. 
 
 » It was decreed by this emperor, that, in addition to the imperial and 
 Lombardic crowns, a third crown of Italy was to be assumed by the Caesar 
 at Modena. — ^Leti., iii. 
 
PAPAL SIMONY. 
 
 151 
 
 king of Poland had been compelled to do homage and 
 submit to a partition of his territories, and where the 
 duke of Bohemia was condemned to imprisonment, we 
 see Conrad ii. march westward to defend Burgundy 
 against the pretensions of the French nobles. He 
 defeated them on the plains of Champagne. His 
 Italian vassals crossed Mount St. Bernard to his as- 
 sistance. He caused himself to be crowned at Geneva, 
 and held his diet in Soleure. Immediately afterwards 
 we meet him in Lower Italy. Not less powerful 
 and glorious was the rpign of Henry in."' From 
 Flanders to Hungary, from Denmark to Spain, he 
 was the liege lord of the sovereigns of Christendom. 
 
 In Eome the imperial sovereignty had been suffered 
 to relax, and the city, in consequence, was the prey of 
 contending factions, which disposed of the papacy by 
 violence or simony. The brothers Benedict viii. and 
 John XIX. were kinsmen and nominees of the count 
 of Tusculum. On the death of John, the count pro- 
 cured the election of his own son, a youth of eighteen, 
 who took the name of Benedict ix. A later pontiff 
 describes him as a successor of Simon Magus, not 
 of Simon Peter. His notorious immoralities provoked 
 frequent insurrections, but the emperor Conrad sup- 
 ported him, and though more than once expelled, 
 he was always restored. At last he sold the papacy 
 to John, archpriest of Eome, for a large sum of 
 money, and betook himself to a career of unrestrained 
 debauchery. 
 
 Indignant at the tidings which reached biTu from 
 the imperial metropolis, Henry in. repaired to Italy, 
 and assembling a council at Sutri, deposed both the 
 simoniacs ; then proceeding to Eome for a new election, 
 
 ' Eanke, i. 1. 
 
152 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Hemy himself nominated the candidate, who was im- 
 mediately chosen, and taking the name of Clement ii., 
 crowned the emperor the same day. 
 
 Aware of the slender hold on Italian allegiance to 
 be obtained by means of occasional descents from across 
 the Alps, the German emperors cordially favoured the 
 growth of papal authority, only seeking to turn it to 
 their own purposes by exercising a strict control over 
 the appointment of the pope. The old restrictions were 
 carefully renewed by Henry m. No election was to 
 take place without the emperor's license, and the person 
 elected was to be approved and confirmed by imperial 
 authority before he entered on the office. These were 
 the regulations observed with respect to other bishop- 
 rics, and as both in Germany and Lombardy a large 
 measure of oivU authority pertained to the bishops, 
 the imperial rights were strictly enforced. Sa long as 
 the emperor exercised the same prerogative at Eome, 
 the political subjection of the pope was complete, and 
 the Caesar gladly promoted his spiritual primacy as a 
 second hold on the. allegiance of the empire. Though 
 stigmatised by Gregory the Great as a designation of 
 Anti-Christ, the universal bishopric of the pope was 
 now generally conceded. Other prelates regarded him 
 as the source of their spiritual authority, and though 
 the French and some Italian bishops stood out for 
 primitive rights and the authority of covmcils, the 
 almost universal doctrine of the tenth century made 
 the Eoman pontiff vicegerent of Christ, and infallible 
 judge of His Church.* 
 
 This persuasion was maintained by forged autho- 
 
 ' Mosh. E. H., cent. x. The dogma of papal infalliUlity has never 
 yet been formally authorised, and it is virtually denied whenever one pope 
 differs from another. Nevertheless, it is invariably implied in every ponti- 
 fical bull, and practically allowed by all Papists. 
 
HEATHEN ACQUISITIONS. 153 
 
 rities, with which, the popes never scrupled to silence 
 any who hesitated at their iacreasing demands. The 
 famous donation of Constantino to pope Sylvester was 
 forged in the decline of the Greek empire, in order to 
 induce Pepiu to imitate so illustrious an example. 
 Acts of Councils and writings of ancient authors were 
 freely interpolated ; ahove aU, in the ninth century, the 
 famous collection of " Decretal Epistles " was manu- 
 factured, and ascribed to the learned Isidore bishop of 
 SevUle, who died some three hundred years before.' 
 These "Decretals" were a collection of canons and 
 papal decrees, after the manner of the Code of Justinian ; 
 they became the text-book of a new faculty, called 
 the Oanon Law, and being unhesitatingly acted upon in 
 the Eoman Court, were imposed on the ecclesiastical 
 tribunals of the empire. 
 
 New accessions of power followed from the exertions 
 made in the conversion of the heathen, partly by pious 
 missionaries earnest for souls, but much oftener by 
 monarchs bent upon conquest. The Huns, Saxons, and 
 Frieslanders were driven to the baptismal font by the 
 sword of Charlemagne. The Cimbrians, Jutes, Swedes^ 
 and Danes were evangelised by the milder voice of the 
 good monks Ausgar and Authbert.^ The E"orwegian 
 pirate EoUo accepted Christianity together with the 
 hand of the French king's daughter, and the maritime 
 province thenceforth denominated Normandy. His 
 army following his example embraced without a scruple 
 a religion in which no one even pretended to instruct 
 them. Their paternal country had been visited with 
 some beams of Gospel light from the efforts of the king 
 Hagen Adelsteen, who was educated in England (933), 
 
 ' See the authorities quoted by Mosheim, cent. ix. 2. 
 2 Ausgar was created archbishop of Hamburgh, with the primacy of 
 the North, by Louis le DSbonnaire (844). 
 
154 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 diligeaitly followed up by the sainted Olaus, who 
 burnt the idol Thor in the presence of his wor- 
 shippers at Drontheim. The conquests of Swein, 
 who annexed the crown of Norway to that of Sweden 
 (a,d. 1031), completed the conversion. From Norway 
 the good tidings spread to the Orkneys, to Iceland, and 
 Greenland, all of which were evangelised in the tenth 
 century. 
 
 Otho the Great was scarcely inferior to Charlemagne 
 in the zeal with which he extirpated the remaining 
 seeds of Paganism, and fostered the infant Churches of 
 his dominions. The Hungarians, who had almost for- 
 gotten their military catechisings, were reclaimed by 
 Adalbert archbishop of Prague^ who baptised their 
 leader's son Stephen; and this prince, by a lavish adminis- 
 tration of rewards and punishments, coupled with some 
 little Christian instruction, succeeded in extirpating the 
 ancient idolatries.' The popes doing little themselves 
 in the missionary field, entered freely into the labours 
 of all others. John xui., hearing that Micislaus 
 duke of Poland had been baptised at the instigation 
 of his wife (a Bohemian princess), sent a bishop with 
 a numerous train of ecclesiastics to advance the cause. 
 The missionaries proved utterly ignorant of the lan- 
 guage, but the duke coming to their assistance, by dint 
 of pains and penalties compelled the reluctant Poles to 
 follow his example.^ 
 
 ' Sylvester li, sent him a crown with the titles of kiog and legate, and 
 appointed him Vicar-General of the Holy see within his dominions, with 
 the privilege of having the cross carried before him. 
 
 « Russia owed her Christianity about the same time to the Greek 
 Church, through the marriage of Vladimir the Great with the princess 
 Anne, as we have related in another work ("Russia, Ancient and 
 Modern," p. 57). To the Greeks belonged also the honour of Christianising 
 Bulgaria, though the popes thought fit to claim the spiiitual jurisdiction 
 by reason of some abortive efforts of Charlemagne. The monks Cyril and 
 
STATE OF RELIGION. 155 
 
 These conversions were very different from the 
 spiritual awakening and renewing of primitive Chris- 
 tianity. The religion now proposed to the Pagans 
 consisted, Kke their own, far more in external wor- 
 ship than in inward saving faith. The first rank in 
 the favoiir of God was assigned to monks and nuns, 
 styled, by way of pre-eminence, the "religious " orders. 
 Others were accounted religious in proportion as they 
 imitated the observances of these recluses.^ The core 
 and essence of religion was made to consist in the 
 worship of images and dead men. God could only be 
 approached by the intercession of the saints. Even the 
 merciful Eedeemer was supposed to need the entreaties 
 of His mother, to recommend to His favour the sinners 
 for whom He died. The Yirgin and saints were 
 thought to be most effectually invoked by worshipping 
 some relic of their bodies or clothes. Heads, limbs, 
 hairs, petticoats, even the filings of St. Peter's chains 
 had a magical effect in compelling the attention and 
 securing the favour of the glorified spirits. "The 
 mummy-pits of Egypt, and the catacombs of Pagan 
 Eome, furnished most of the relics ; but according to 
 the monks. He whom the psalmist adored as "taking 
 His way in the sea, and His path in the great waters, 
 whose footsteps are not known," was constantly inter- 
 posing, — ^not to attest revealed truth, or impart discoveries 
 beneficial to mankind, — ^but to disclose the spot where 
 the mouldering bones of some saint, real or imaginary, 
 
 Methodius, sent by the empress Theodora, were the real evangelists of the 
 Bulgarians, Moesians, Bohemians, and Moravians. 
 
 > Sacred virgins are mentioned as early as the fourth century, but the 
 first convents of females were the colleges of canonesses instituted by 
 Charlemagne on the same footing with his canons (a.d. 817). The popes 
 disapproved these orders because they imposed no vow of poverty, but 
 allowed the members to retain their property, and expend it on good works 
 at their own discretion. 
 
156 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 lay concealed. Miracles were asserted in greater abun- 
 dance than those of Christ and the apostles, hut their 
 object was almost invariably to verify a reUc, and 
 increase the profit of those who exhibited it. 
 
 The saints were multiplied in proportion to the 
 demand ; but as the privilege was precious, the manufac- 
 ture, once free to bishops and councils, was reserved 
 to the pope. John xv. was the first to exercise the 
 right of his sole prerogative in the canonisation of the 
 bishop TJdalric (a.d. 993). 
 
 Purgatory was now also an established doctrine, 
 and next to reHcs for the Kving, prayers for the dead 
 were the most meritorious objects in the eyes of a 
 "religious" Christian. Such prayers were originally 
 offered for friends and benefactors from motives of 
 private piety; then companies and colleges agreed to 
 pray for the souls specially commended to their devotion. 
 The monks of Cluny established a yearly festival to 
 implore the deliverance of all departed spirits from the 
 expiatory flames, and the feast was added to the Latin 
 calendar as AU Sotds-day (a.d. 998). It followed that 
 the celebration of the Eucharist, as the highest act of 
 the liturgy on earth, was deemed to extend to the 
 departed also, and when the figment of transubstantia- 
 tion was added, this completed the doctrine of the mass 
 as a sacrifice for quick and dead. 
 
 The rites and ceremonies of the Church multiplied in- 
 ordinately. A large part of them were copied directly from 
 the Pagans ; not only the same temples and altars, but the 
 same images, and probably the same relics, served alike 
 the old worship and the hew. Great powers of inven- 
 tion were shown in adapting the popular superstitions 
 to Christian uses, and then assigning them a Christian 
 history. The explanation of the " Divine Offices " afforded 
 scope for the ingenuity of several writers, and these 
 
DOCTRINAL ERROR. 157 
 
 works, though fall of puerilities, are the most important 
 of the times. 
 
 The ignorance which enveloped all classes of society- 
 has no parallel in our own day, except perhaps in the 
 iaterior of Africa. Charlemagne himself learnt to write 
 in mature age. The bidk of the laity, and not a few 
 of the clergy, were unable to read. Printing not being 
 invented, and manuscripts scarce, the price of books was 
 enormous, and they were seldom seen out of the monas- 
 teries. The Holy Scriptures were only known to the 
 people from the portions recited in the Church services, 
 and these were often either in a foreign tongue, or made 
 unintelligible by a foreign or uneducated reader. The 
 clergy themselves had but little knowledge of the Holy 
 Scriptures. The commentaries published for their as- 
 sistance consisted either of a dry summary of ancient 
 expositions, or of new and fanciful allegories. There 
 was very Little preaching of a solid Scriptural kind. 
 The sum and substance of human wisdom was supposed 
 to reside in Aristotle's logic, yet Aristotle, being only 
 known through the medium of the Arabs, was really 
 as little understood as St. Paul, and the most vital 
 doctrines were miserably perverted by a fantastic 
 application. 
 
 Eeasoning in this fashion, Paschasius Eadbert, a 
 monk of Corby, in Saxony (a. d. 831), propounded 
 the novel doctrine, that after the consecration of the 
 Holy Eucharist, though there be stiU the figure of 
 bread and wine, no other substance remains but the 
 body and blood of Christ our Lord; the very flesh 
 which was born of the Virgin and suffered on the 
 cross. This absurdity was refuted by Eabanus 
 Maurus archbishop of Mentz — then the great light of 
 Germany and France, by Johannes Sootus, the learned 
 Irish divine and logician, and by Eatramn or Bertram, 
 
158 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 another monk of Corby, unless Bertram be only another 
 name for one of the other two.' Eadbert's doctrine gave 
 great oJQfence to the French Church, and the king 
 requested Scotus to answer it. The teaching of the 
 monk was generally repudiated by the learned ; but in 
 the ignorance of the next two centuries his opinion 
 prevailed so widely, that when Berengarius (a.d. 1050) 
 revived the argument of Scotus, both were severely 
 censured, and the logical fallacy of transubstantiation 
 was formally received as a divine mystery. 
 
 The theological errors of the clergy may be palliated 
 on the ground of ignorance, but no amount of charity 
 can doubt their complicity in the impostures daily 
 practised with respect to relics and miracles, nor exempt 
 them from the awful guilt implied in the very con- 
 ception of a " pious fraud." 
 
 A candid mind might hesitate to receive statements 
 of the appaUing wickedness of an order of men separated 
 from others to maintain the influence of religion and 
 morals. But the man who can impose a falsehood in the 
 name of the all-seeing God, with the view of turning the 
 remorse of another's conscience to his own profit of 
 power, has forfeited aU claim upon Christian candour. 
 He has lost the conscience of right and wrong, and is so 
 
 ' Mosheim conceives Bertram and Ratramn to be the same person, but 
 Bower lias given good reasons for identifying Bertram with Scotus (v. 173). 
 Scotus was one of the few really learned divines of the day. He was the 
 friend and companion of the emperor Charles the Bald. William of 
 Malmsbury makes him a companion of Alcuin, preceptor of Alfred the 
 Great, and one of the first founders of the University of Paris. The 
 ultramontane writers contend there were two John Scotts, an ortho- 
 dox and a heretic — a desperate hypothesis which is contradicted by 
 the fact of the treatise against transubstantiation being written by the 
 emperor's desire. There is no doubt that the dispute originated in the 
 subtleties of the two great logical schools, the nominalists and the realists. 
 Kadbert's was an offensive illustration of the realist hypothesis, which 
 properly startled the divines. It was first ignorance, then gain, and 
 finally arrogance, which made it an article of religious belief. 
 
COERUPTION OF THE CLEEGY. 159 
 
 plainly prepared for every species of villany tliat we 
 cease to be surprised at the unspeakable abominations 
 of the Latin clergy. 
 
 As if by a kind of judicial reprobation, the two 
 iniquities universally charged on all orders, from the 
 pope to the parish priest, were concubinage and 
 simony. The former was, indeed, impudently alleged 
 of the married clergy for retaining their wives, as the 
 whole clergy of the eastern Churches do to this day. 
 But where the papal interdict of marriage prevailed, 
 the charge was in most cases too accurately worded. 
 Eepudiating the Divine ordinance in. the affectation of a 
 higher life, the celibate priesthood wallowed ia impurities 
 which it would be poUutiag to describe. Claiming the 
 awfal power of retaining and remitting sins at discretion, 
 they bought and sold the Divine trust with an audacity 
 exceeding the sin of Simon Magus. The most ignorant 
 and the most wicked of men obtained ordination as priests 
 and bishops, and churches were sold, without shame, to 
 the highest bidder. The pope himself sold the Holy 
 see ; and, what is more surprising, after receiving the 
 purchase-money, actually delivered possession. 
 
 Such were the results of the imperial and pontifical 
 alliance, when the horrible cloud of vice and ignorance 
 was suddenly pierced as by a flash of lightning. At the 
 close of the century a cry arose that the end of the world 
 was at hand. An exposition spread with amazing 
 rapidity that the thousand years of the Apocalypse dated 
 from the birth of Christ, and being now expired, Satan 
 was to be let loose, Anti-Christ to appear, and the imme- 
 diate conflagration of the world to ensue.' It might 
 well be said that already "there were many Anti- 
 christs,"* whose presence was far from being generally 
 
 > Rev. XX. 2^. 2 1 John ii. 18. 
 
160 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 un-weleome ; but the near prospect of judgment created 
 a wide and terrible panic. Numbers hastened to Pales- 
 tine, where they supposed Christ would appear ; others, 
 not so eager to meet Him, gave themselves as bondsmen 
 to the Church, trustiug by that humiliation to diminish 
 the rigour of the approaching sentence. An eclipse of 
 the sun or moon drove crowds of trembling sinners to 
 the rocks and caves. The opulent tried to bribe the 
 coming Judge by lavish donations to priests and monks. 
 Stately edifices were allowed to decay, or pulled down 
 as useless ; and no language can express the confusion 
 and despair that prevailed till the fated time had 
 passed.^ 
 
 It would be unjust to charge this melancholy panic 
 on the religious system prevalent at the time, because 
 daily experience shows that numbers remain unmoved 
 under the most evangelical teaching, and the Scripture 
 warns us that this fatal unbelief will continue to the 
 last. But it may well be questioned whether a Church 
 which grasps at temporal dominion, and places the 
 essence of faith in unreasoning submission to its own 
 decrees, can ever duly prepare the soul to "meet the 
 Lord in the air.'" The only genuine hope for that day 
 lies in personal unijon with the Lord our Eighteousness, 
 in the living faith of our justification by His blood, and 
 the Spirit of adoption bearing witness with our spirit 
 that we are the children of God.' Of this kind of faith 
 and holiness we read, alas ! nothing in the history of 
 the papacy during the tenth or any succeeding century. 
 
 ' Mosheim, x. 2. 2 1 Thess. iv. 17. « Rom. viii. 16. 
 
CONTEMPOEAEY SUCCESSIONS. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 ■WB9TMIH 
 
 Eupznons. 
 
 POPBS OP ROMH. 
 
 KiKOS OF Eba nce 
 
 Dukes OF Apulia 
 
 Bnoland. 
 
 1025 
 
 
 ,, 
 
 
 
 
 Canute. 
 
 1031 
 
 
 
 
 Henry i. 
 
 
 
 1034 
 
 
 
 Benedict ix. 
 
 
 
 
 1036 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ,,, 
 
 Harold i. 
 
 1039 
 
 Henry iii. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1040 
 
 
 
 
 
 , ,,, 
 
 Hamicanute. 
 
 1042 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Edward, Con 
 feasor. 
 
 1044 
 
 
 
 Gregory vi. 
 
 
 
 
 1046 
 
 
 
 Clement ii. 
 
 
 
 
 1048 
 
 
 
 Bamasos ii. 
 
 
 
 
 1049 
 
 
 
 Tifio IX. 
 
 
 
 
 1063 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 WiUiam, Bras 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 deFer. 
 
 
 1064 
 
 
 
 Victor u. 
 
 
 
 
 1066 
 
 Henry iv. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1067 
 
 
 Stephen x. 
 
 
 
 
 1069 
 
 
 
 Nicolas II. ... 
 
 
 Robert Qiiis- 
 card. 
 
 
 1060 
 
 
 
 
 
 Philip I. 
 
 
 
 1061 
 
 
 Alexander ii. 
 
 
 
 
 1066 
 
 
 
 
 
 j-Harold ii. 
 twilliam i. 
 
 1073 
 
 
 Gregory vii. 
 
 
 
 
 KIK OB OP THE TWO 
 BIOIIilEB. 
 
 
 1086 
 
 Robert, the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bmtchbaek. 
 
 
 1086 
 
 
 
 Victor 111. 
 
 
 
 
 1087 
 
 
 
 TJrban II. ... 
 
 
 
 Willinm ii. 
 
 1099 
 
 
 
 Paschal ii. 
 
 
 
 
 1100 
 1102 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Roger II. 
 
 Henry i. 
 
 1106 
 
 Henry v. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1108 
 
 
 
 
 
 Louis VI. 
 
 
 
 1118 
 
 
 
 Gelasius ii. 
 
 
 
 
 1119 
 
 
 
 Cg,lixtuB II. 
 
 
 
 
 1123 
 
 Pirst Zcfieran Co 
 
 mcil, called the IS 
 
 Hnth General Coi 
 
 ncil. 
 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 HII,DEBIIAND, 
 
 Relations of the See to the Empire — Early Life of Hildebjand— .Monk of 
 Cluny — .Legate in France — .In Germany — Cardinal Archdeacon — 
 Election of Alexander II. — .Cadolus Anti=-pope — Seizure of the Emperor 
 — ^His vicious Life — .HUdebrand Pope^^Styled Gregory vil.^Lay In- 
 vestiture and Marriage of the Clergy— ^Theory of Virginity-^Counoil of 
 Elvira— Nicsea — ^Apostolical Canons— ^Quinisext CouncJl=— Greek Prac- 
 tice — ^Latin Church — .Resistance of the Clergy — ^Efforts of Gregory^= 
 Consequent Immorality — Jjegantine Synods — Councils at Rome-^Con.. 
 troversy on the Investiture — State of Germany and Italy — ^Vices of the 
 Kings-^Confljct of the Pope and the Emperor — Deposition and Ex- 
 communication of Henry-^RegaUa of St, Peter — ^Power of the Curse — 
 Submission of the Emperor — -Absolutioij and Second Excommunication 
 — JRival Emperors and Popes-^Death of Rodolph-^Gregory relieved 
 by the Normans — .His Flight and Death^Continuance of his Policy — 
 Decrees of Victor and Otho — Rebellion of the Emperor's Sons — ^Hjs 
 Imprisonment, Escape, and Death — Contest continued by Henry v. — 
 Same Question in France and England — Anselm — Concordats — Arrest 
 of Pope Paschal — ^His Duplicity and Dea,th— ^Excommunication of the 
 Emperor by Calixtus — Final Concordat — Conflict of Obligations. 
 
 Down to the eleventli oentiiry the popes were content 
 to claim tlie spiritnal primacy of the Catholic Church. 
 Though never seriously conceded— hardly very seriously 
 urged — in the East, this claim was now generally 
 established in the West. The pope was acknowledged 
 as chief pastor, and his see as the centre of communion, 
 by the Latin Church. He was the general referee and 
 arbitrator on religious questions. He reproved the vices 
 of princes too great to be admonished by their own 
 bishops, and remonstrated with metropolitans when their 
 decisions violated the canons of the Church. As general 
 superintendent of the faith and morals of the clergy, it 
 
 M 2 
 
164 HILDEBEAND. 
 
 was his office to exhort them everywhere to do their 
 duty. TTia admonitions commanded respect with many 
 who, in the absence of a free press and an enlightened 
 public opiaion, were glad to uphold an ecclesiastical 
 chief against the wickedness of secular lords. 
 
 Stni this primacy was not an arbitrary power : it was 
 subject to the canons of the Church and the law of the 
 land. The pope himself was removable by a General 
 Council ; his decrees were disregarded, even by ecclesi- 
 astics, when they trenched on the rights or privileges of 
 their churches. The archbishops, in accepting the office 
 of papal legates, had not lost sight of their own national 
 primacy ; and the kings had no intention of surrendering 
 any rights of the crown. 
 
 The work of the eleventh century was to convert this 
 great pastoral authority into an absolute sovereignty over 
 all churches and nations. The clergy of every country 
 were claimed as the pope's subjects to the exclusion of 
 their native allegiance. Bishoj»s were merely his deputies, 
 holding office by his appointment, and deriving aU their 
 spiritual authority out of the Holy see. Finally, the 
 spiritual authority was declared to supersede, or rather 
 incorporate in itself, aU temporal power. All power 
 in heaven and in earth — ■ such was the blasphemous 
 assertion — ^belonged to the vicar of Christ. Kingdoms, 
 no less than bishoprics, were subject to the keys of St. 
 Peter : it appertained to his successor to give and to 
 take away crowns. Their wearers were to be guided 
 by the pope's counsels ; their revenues liable to the 
 pope's demands. Disobedience to the pope incurred the 
 penalty of deposition and excommunication; persons 
 excommunicated by the see of Kome might be assassi- 
 nated without the gmlt of murder. 
 
 This prodigious stride in the papacy was mainly due 
 to the genius, perseverance, and indomitable ambition 
 
HIS EARLY LIFE. 165 
 
 of one man. The monk Hildebrand ruled the councils 
 of the Holy see throughout the latter half of the century. 
 Though occupying the pontifical chair but twelve 
 years, he stood behind it during the reigns of five 
 predecessors, and bequeathed his mantle and spirit to 
 two successors of his own choice. Eight popes are thus 
 represented ia his person. The supremacy was so 
 notoriously his device, that some historians speak of it 
 as the Hildebrandine Heresy. 
 
 At the beginning of the eleventh century the Eoman 
 see was in as complete subjection to the imperial crown as 
 any other bishopric. Under Henry iii. four German popes 
 succeeded on the sole nomination of the emperor. The 
 Eoman delegates appeared at his court to sue out their 
 conge d^elire^ precisely like any other chapter ; and this 
 subjection, though resented by the more ardent Eomanists, 
 was found the only safeguard against local violence and 
 corruption. Such was the state of the Church when 
 Hildebrand was bom — the son of a poor carpenter, at 
 Saone, in Tuscany. His early education was probably 
 obtained in some neighbouring monastery ; his first ap- 
 pearance in history is in the family of the archpriest John, 
 who, notwithstanding the stupendous simony of pur- 
 chasing the see, is reported to have been a good man, 
 actuated only by a desire to get rid of the infamous 
 Benedict. Hildebrand accompanied bim 'va. his exile 
 into Germany ; and seems to have upheld his claim to 
 the see, since it is solely through his recognition that 
 Gregory vi. retains a place in the List of Popes. 
 
 On the death of his patron, Hildebrand took the 
 vows at Cluny in Burgundy, where as prior of that 
 famous monastery he had the honour of receiving Bruno 
 bishop of Toul, on his way to take possession of the 
 papacy, to which he had been elected by a council con- 
 voked by the emperor at "Worms. Hildebrand disclosed 
 
166 HILtoEBEAND. 
 
 to his guest the grief and indignation which animated his 
 breast, at the thought of the chair of St. Peter being 
 disposed of by the secular power. According to some 
 authorSj his glowing eloquence induced the bishop to 
 lay aside the pontifical ensigns, and pursue his journey 
 on foot in the habit of a pilgrim. His archdeacon, 
 however, relates that Bruno had travelled in that garb 
 out of Germany, and that in reluctantly yielding to the 
 imperial pleasure he had stiptdated for submitting him- 
 self to a free election at Home* 
 
 Certain it is that Bruno arrived at the Vatican as a 
 pilgrim, and Hildebrand with him. "Walking barefooted 
 into the chui-ch, they prostrated themselves at the tomb 
 of the apostle ; then submitting himself to the will of 
 the electors, Bruno was unanimously chosen and en- 
 throned by the name of Leo ix. One of his fiist acts 
 was to ordain HUdebrand sub-deacon, and employ him 
 in the affairs of the Holy see. The monk acquired such 
 influence, that at Leo's death, he was despatched to 
 the emperor with a proxy from the whole Eoman 
 Church to elect a successor. By Hildebrand's voice 
 the bishop of Eichsted became pope Victor ii., and 
 like Thomas-k-Becket in a later day, exchanged the 
 affection of his imperial master for the extreme phase 
 of the rising anti- imperial policy. Hildebrand was 
 rewarded with the appointment of legate in France, 
 with authority (though still but a sub- deacon in the 
 Church) to convene councils and preside over bishops 
 and metropolitans. To his Council of Tours the emperor 
 was foolish enough to send ambassadors, asking that the 
 king of Castile might be restrained by the spiritual arm 
 from assuming the imperial title, and compelled to obey 
 the emperor of the Eomans. Hildebrand eagerly caught 
 at the opportunity of asserting the papal authority. 
 With Victor's approval he sent legates into Spain, who, 
 
NEW COLLEGE OP CARDINALS. 167 
 
 by threats of exeommimication and interdict, reduced 
 the king to submission. 
 
 Victor dying in 1057, Hildebrand was put in nomi- 
 nation for the pontificate, but being still in France, 
 and apparently not pressing his claim, the choice 
 fell on Frederic of Lorraine, who assumed the title of 
 Stephen ix. The new pontiff's brother Godfrey had 
 married the widow of marquis Boniface, and was now 
 regent of Tuscany, on behalf of the infant MatUda. 
 This election, therefore, cemented the alliance of the 
 Holy see with that powerful state. The pope enter- 
 tained a design of investing his brother with the im- 
 perial power vacated by Henry, who died just before 
 Victor, leaving his infant son to Stephen's own guardian- 
 ship. "Whether to sound the princes on this project, or 
 to apologise to the empress-regent for entering on the 
 see without imperial confirjnation, Hildebrand was sent 
 as legate to Germany. During his absence the pope fell 
 sick and died, having strictly enjoined the clergy and 
 people not to elect a successor till the legate's return. 
 The injunction was disregarded, but on HUdebrand's 
 arrival he ejected the intruder, and procured the election 
 of the bishop of Florence, another of the Tuscan house, 
 for whom he brought with him the empress-regent's 
 approval. By this pope, Nicholas ii., Hildebrand was 
 created cardinal archdeacon, and universally recognised 
 as the ruling person in Eome. 
 
 To avoid the tumults still attendant on the popular 
 election, a canon was now passed confirming the 
 right of suffrage to the seven bishops of the Eoman 
 territory, and the twenty-eight presbyters who enjoyed 
 the title of cardinals. The remainder of the clergy with 
 the nobility and commonalty were only to be asked for 
 their assent to the person elected. This canon, passed at 
 a council in the Lateran (a.d. 1059), was the foundation 
 
168 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 of the Sacred College, and effected a great step to the 
 sacerdotal ascendancy which the archdeacon had in view. 
 The opportunity was further taken to limit the right of 
 confirmation to emperors duly recognised by the Apos- 
 tolic see. 
 
 'The pope dying three years after, Hildebrand ob- 
 jected to Henry iv. as a minor not yet crowned emperor, 
 notwithstanding that he had himself been the bearer of 
 the regent's letters for the confirmation of Nicholas. The 
 Eoman nobles took the alarm, and sending a deputation 
 to the king, presented him with a gold crown and the 
 patrician purple. The cardinals deemed it prudent to 
 apply for the customary conge d^elire, but the empress, 
 unwilling to recognise their new authority, returned the 
 letter unopened, and Hildebrand joyfuUy proceeded to 
 the election and enthronement of a new pontiff, who 
 assumed the name of Alexander ii. The empress regent 
 called a council at Basle, which annulled the election, and 
 appelated Cadolus bishop of Parma, a married man, and a 
 resolute opponent of compukory celibacy. This pontiff ad- 
 vancing at the head of the Lombard troops to Eome, was 
 encountered and repulsed by Godfrey duke of Tuscany. 
 The contest was arrested by an unexpected revolution 
 in the empire. The elector archbishop of Cologne 
 suddenly carried off the young king, and seizing the 
 reins of government, declared for Alexander. The 
 empress mother finding herself powerless, retired to 
 Eome, where she afterwards became the advocate of 
 the papacy against her own son. Henry's education 
 was neglected, and his morals shamefully corrupted 
 under the tutelage of his ecclesiastical guardians. On 
 coming of age he scandalised the world by vices which 
 neither the graces of his person, nor the indulgence 
 accorded to youth, could excuse. The first sovereign 
 in Europe was accused of crimes for which there were 
 
AGGRESSIONS OF THE PAPACY. 169 
 
 no names in the French or German languages, and which 
 could only be paralleled from the lives of the Ceesars.* 
 
 Hildebrand well knew how to profit by the evil 
 reputation of the crown. After directing the councils 
 of five successive pontiffs, he was engaged in the funeral 
 solemnities of Alexander, when a cry arose in the 
 church, " Hildebrand is pope, St. Peter has chosen 
 him." The archdeacon flew to the pulpit and implored 
 silence and regularity, but his voice was overborne : he 
 was seized and placed on the pontifical seat by accla- 
 mations, of which no one doubted the inspiration.* 
 StiU, he did not choose to be consecrated without 
 royal approval. - He even solicited Henry to withhold 
 the confirmation from one who was unworthy of the 
 charge. The emperor, unfortunately for himself, over- 
 ruled his modesty, and Hildebrand, consecrated in the 
 presence of his commissioners, was the last pope who 
 submitted to that restriction. 
 
 Taking the name of Gregory vii., out of respect to 
 his old patron, he plunged at once into the contest, for 
 which he had long- been preparing. He began by select- 
 ing two flagrant abuses for correction, taking care at the 
 same time to confound under their names two other things 
 perfectly different. This was Gregory's favourite artiflce. 
 The crimes he condemned were simony and incontinence^ 
 but under these names he anathematised lay investiture 
 
 • Aventinus, c. v. Henry was married at an early age, but was only 
 restrained by threats of ecclesiastical censure from divorcing his wife in 
 two years. His infamous treatment of his second consort was divulged by 
 herself at the Council of Placentia, and the rebellion of his son Conrad 
 was ascribed to an attempt.to implicate him in the crime. 
 
 2 Three modes of election were recognised in the Church. The first 
 was by " acclamation," when the electors concurred at once in calling for a 
 certain candidate. This was spoken of as an inspiration. The next course 
 was by " scrutiny," when each elector balloted for the man of his choice. 
 The last was by " compromise," which meant committing the election to a 
 delegacy of the different parties. 
 
170 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 and the marriage of the clergy. On these two questions 
 the great battle of the Church against the State was 
 waged. A few words will suffice to explaia them. 
 
 In endowing the Church with lands and titles, the 
 kings and nobles mostly reserved the patronage of the 
 benefi-ces to themselves. Under the feudal system the 
 bishops and abbots held their temporalities as fiefs of 
 the crown, and all fiefs reverted to the lord on the death 
 of the tenant ; the heir had to sue for restitution, and 
 to pay a fine on obtainiag it. To this burden the 
 ecclesiastical fief was liable in common with others ; 
 and as the successor had no natural claim of inheritance, 
 and the promotion was a pure gaia, the payment was 
 often more than would have been exacted from a tem- 
 poral baron. So far as the defence of the crown was 
 concerned, one ecclesiastic was as good as another : the 
 prince was tempted to think him the best who brought 
 the largest bag of gold in his hand. Some payment 
 was plainly reasonable, and the burdens of the laity 
 would have been largely augmented by the absolute 
 exemption of ecclesiastical fiefs. Nor was the mode 
 of payment very different from the exaction of fees and 
 stamps at the present day. The mischief was that, the 
 payments being undefined, a needy or ambitious eccle- 
 siastic could outbid his competitors, and then reimburse 
 himself by exacting higher sums from the fiock. The 
 rich preferments (as is too often the case under all 
 systems of patronage) fell to the worst candidates, and 
 the very sacraments were sold to make up the price. 
 
 So far as the patron was concerned, the obvious remedy 
 was to agree upon a fixed composition; with respect 
 to the clergy, they should have been absolutely deprived 
 of their simoniacal bargains. But neither of those 
 reforms answered Hildebrand's object. He pronounced 
 all ecclesiastical property to be indissolubly annexed 
 
LAY PATRONAGE AND CLEllICAL MaHHIAQE. 171 
 
 to the spiritual office : all nominations, therefore, were 
 spiritual acts, and aU payments in respect of them were 
 buying and selling the Holy Ghost. He claimed to 
 reduce the whole transaction under the canons of the 
 Church, — in other words, to transfer the entire patronage 
 of the western Church from the State to the spiritual 
 authority. This was the motive for stigmatising lay 
 investiture as simony. The pope was not insensible 
 to the prevalence of the genuine sin ; even the sale of 
 orders by the bishops was not uncommon. Gregory 
 persuaded himself, however, that these were the fruits of 
 lay investiture, and would all disappear if the patronage 
 could be wrested from the temporal lord. Consequently, 
 when ecclesiastics convicted of simony would resign 
 their preferment into his hands, instead of being for 
 ever disqualified, they often obtained them again with a 
 moderate penance. 
 
 The same wilful confusion of right and wrong charac- 
 terised the pope's denimeiations of clerical licentiousness. 
 His real object was to enforce the practice of celibacy, 
 hence the married clergy were confounded with the im- 
 moral, and their wives were stigmatised as concubines. 
 
 The theory which exalts virginity above holy wed- 
 lock is unquestionably of heathen origin. It is part 
 of the doctrine of the inherent evU of matter, common 
 to the Greek and oriental philosophies, which considered 
 the body the prison of the soul, and all its acts more 
 or less a clog upon the spiritual nature. The Gnostic 
 Mareion rejected marriage because, holding the world 
 and the flesh to be the creation of an inferior malevolent 
 deity, he refused to contiaue a race of slaves for 
 his dominion. Marriage was also temporarily dis- 
 couraged by the dangers and anxieties inseparable 
 from a state of persecution:' heiice the saints and 
 
 > 1 Cor. vii. 26. 
 
172 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 martyrs of highest repute were often single. When to 
 this was added the increasing rererence paid to the 
 Yirgin Mary, it is not wonderful that the voice of 
 nature and of Scripture yielded to the united force of 
 philosophy and superstition. A fanaticism, of which 
 even the best of the fathers did not escape the infection, 
 prevailed in favour of the really inferior condition.^ 
 Forgetting that marriage was the one blessing which 
 God added to His own image in man, in the time of 
 his innocency, they " vied with each other in exalting 
 the transcendant, holy, kngelic virtue of virginity.'" 
 
 Early in the fourth century, Hosius bishop of Cor- 
 dova is said to have bound the Spanish clergy to 
 celibacy at the Council of Elvira ; this is open to 
 question, and the decree, if enunciated, certainly did not 
 prevail in practice. Hosius brought the question for- 
 ward again at Mc88a, where he was warmly opposed 
 by Paphnutius an Egyptian bishop and confessor, who, 
 though unmarried himself, maintained the lawfnlness 
 and sanctity of wedlock, and defeated the proposition.' 
 Among the canons called Apostolical is one of uncertain 
 date, which forbids the marriage of bishops, priests, and 
 deacons, after ordination,^ but the restraint is justified 
 as a matter of discipline, and guarded by an express 
 caution against deeming marriage impure, since that 
 would be to blaspheme God who made them male 
 and female.' Married men were stUl freely admitted 
 in all ranks of the clergy, and so far from being 
 
 > This is one of the points on -which the marked opposition between 
 the Holy Scriptures and the writings of men proves the inspiration of the 
 former. 
 
 ' Mr'lman's Christianity, iii. 11. 
 
 " Soc. E. H., i. 11. Baronius and Bellarmine question the truth of 
 the historian, but he is confirmed bySozomen (E. H., i. 23) and Snidas 
 (In Vit. Paph.). 
 
 * Can. Apost., xxvi. » Ibid, li. 
 
CANONS FOR CELIBACY. 173 
 
 required to put away their wives, they were punished 
 with deposition if they did so.^ There was no fur- 
 ther alteration of the law, notwithstanding the efforts 
 of the ascetics, till the Quinisext Council, when 
 a canon was carried, forbidding any one to retain his 
 wife after his elevation to the episcopate. The order 
 was accompanied by a singular salvo, that nothing was 
 intended in derogation of the Apostolical canons.' 
 Henceforth, while the clergy continued to be married 
 as before, no one was promoted to the episcopate unless 
 he was a widower, or his wife would consent to take 
 the vows as a nun. This is still the practice of the 
 Greek Church, where the parish priests are required to be 
 married, but only widowers or monks are made bishops. 
 In the Latin Church, — notwithstanding that St. 
 Peter was a married man, and tradition made his wife 
 partake of his martyrdom at Eome, — a harsher course 
 was pursued. The Council of Aries (340) ordered that 
 no married man should be ordained unless his wife 
 agreed to separate. Syricius, said to be the first bishop 
 of Eome who styled himself pope, enjoined absolute 
 ceKbacy on aU priests and deacons : at that time, 
 however, thirty was the age for admitting deacons, and 
 thirty-five for presbyters,' Syricius's letter is the first 
 genuine Decretal, and supplies the fitrst canon in the 
 Eoman code. The prohibition was repeated by synods 
 in Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Germany; it was introduced 
 into Britain as part of the Eoman discipline by Augus- 
 tine. By Leo the Great (a.d, 440) the yoke of celibacy 
 was extended to sub -deacons. Gregory i. was a 
 strenuous advocate for its observance, and the pro- 
 hibition was now no longer limited to persons un- 
 married at the time of ordination, refusing admission to 
 married candidates, but holy orders were considered as 
 
 > Can. Apost., v. « Cone, in Trull., can. xii. ' Cone, i. p. 689. 
 
174 HILDEBEAND. 
 
 effecting a divorce ipso facto. There was no hesitation 
 in ordaining married men, but in defiance of Christ's 
 own words and the primitive canons, they were required 
 to put away their wives. 
 
 A regulation so contrary to Scripture, equity, and 
 humanity, was not easily carried out in practice. It 
 continued rare to marry after ordination, but a large 
 number of the parish clergy, and not a few of the 
 bishops, married before ordination, refused to put 
 away their wives at the call of the new Eoman disci- 
 pline. These were the offenders against whom Hilde- 
 brand levelled his fiercest anathemas. He was less 
 severe on the acknowledged pollutions of the votaries 
 of celibacy, because these only offended against Q-od, 
 and did not defy the Church ; they pretended to a virtue 
 if they had it not. The married clergy repudiated the 
 virtue itself. They opposed to the papal dictum, the 
 laws of Christ and of humanity ; they refused to 
 sacrifice the holy estate ordained of God in the time 
 of man's innocency to the commands of the Church. 
 They declined to quahfy as the pope's slaves, by tearing 
 out of their hearts the purest ties of nature and religion. 
 
 Against these, Gregory at the head of the whole 
 company of monks, clean and unclean, poured out a 
 torrent of defamation. Celibacy, which universal ex- 
 perience shows to be the parent of abominations un- 
 speakable, was extolled as the " angelic life." Marriage 
 was pronounced inferior to virginity in all, impossible 
 to clergymen. Their wives were branded as concu- 
 bines ; the laity were invited to seize them as slaves, 
 and to forsake tte ministry of their husbands. The 
 state which the word of God pronounces " honourable 
 in all men," was to Gregory more odious than that 
 which the same word declares " God will judge." To 
 fornicators and adulterers he held out easy penances 
 
MONASTIC PROFLIGACY. 175 
 
 and high promotion ; to " the husband of one wife," de- 
 gradation, ruin, and excommunication. This crushing 
 yoke Hndebrand succeeded in riveting on the neck of 
 the Latin Church. The laity applauded the vicarious 
 sanctity purchased by other men's wrongs, till the conse- 
 quences invaded their own homes in a flood of pollution, 
 which swept away the last barriers of law, disciplLQe, 
 and decency. 
 
 The most incontestable evidence of the results of 
 compulsory celibacy is afforded by the councils of the 
 Church which imposed it. A large proportion of their 
 acts are devoted to the repression of incontinence ; the 
 vices enumerated as of common occurrence can only 
 be paralleled, and are not exceeded, by the terrible 
 catalogue of heathen pollutions contained in the first 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans. Canon after 
 canon labours, with halting foot, to overtake the rapid 
 march of pollution among the clergy, monks, and 
 nuns. Their repeated penalties show the abominations 
 with which the law contended in vain. Where such 
 enormities could be continuously and increasingly de- 
 nounced, smaller sins must have remained undetected 
 in the tide of turpitude. This conclusion is not to be 
 rebutted by theoretical declamation ; it meets us as 
 the practical result of almost every monastic visitation, 
 whether conducted by friends or foes. If history has 
 established any one principle of human nature more 
 surely than another, it is tiiis, — ^that to bind large classes 
 of men and women by vows of oeUbacy, is not only to 
 shut out duties which God Himself has appointed, in the 
 constitution of the family and of society, but to ensure 
 a frightful amount of perjury and uncleanness. When 
 these classes include the national clergy, the very wells 
 of morality are poisoned ; the physicians of souls are 
 turned into agents of corruption. 
 
176 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 To carry out his views, Hildebrand sought to hold 
 synods in every kingdom under the presidency of his 
 own legates. The way for this irmoTation had been 
 unconsciously prepared by the arclibishops, who, with a 
 view of increasing their authority in their respective 
 provinces, had accepted the permanent title of legates 
 of the Holy see (legati nati). They were disgusted to 
 find themselves superseded by foreigners from Eome, 
 — legates a latere, as they were styled, — who took 
 their office out of their hands, and though of inferior 
 dignity presided in their councils, as coming directly 
 from the side of the pope. Many kings, the English 
 especially, refused to admit these interlopers into their 
 dominions. The pope then feU back on his council at 
 Eome, to which he summoned the bishops on their 
 canonical obedience, and so pretended to make laws for 
 the churches which they represented, without any 
 reference to the laity. The monarchs retaliated by 
 prohibiting their bishops from going to Eome without 
 royal permission, and from bringing any decrees into 
 their dominions without royal approval. 
 
 Six councils were held at Eome during this ponti- 
 fi.cate, in which the papal designs were manifested in 
 canons, releasing the bishops and clergy from allegiance 
 to their native princes, and binding them to the ex- 
 clusive sovereignty of Eome. Gregory maintained that 
 the pope was by divine right the universal and para- 
 mount lord of the world ; that aU monarchs held their 
 dominions as fiefs of the Holy see, and the bishops and 
 clergy formed the coiirt and officers of the suzerain 
 pontiff. This doctrine, he knew, could never be preached 
 by a married clergy, whose wives and children are so 
 many hostages to the State. Hence his desire for a 
 celibate priesthood : men in whom the anxieties of local 
 and domestic ties would be swallowed up in the pride of 
 
CONTROVERSY ON THE INVESTITURE. 177 
 
 an imaginary virtue, or the ambition of professional 
 advancement. 
 
 In attacking lay investiture, Hildebrand was at- 
 tacking tlie wliole political system of Europe. Th.e 
 biskops and abbots were secular almost as much as 
 ecclesiastical dignitaries. They were endowed with 
 vast territorial possessions ; they wielded judicial powers 
 affecting life and deatk; they sat in the councils of 
 State ; in Germany they were princes and electors of 
 the empire. No sovereign could allow these important 
 dignities to pass from his own nomination, or suffer a 
 foreign power to plant irresponsible authorities in his 
 realm, and secret enemies in his council. In poiat of 
 form, however, the pope had an advantage, of which 
 Hildebrand made the most. It was the custom for the 
 lord to enfeoff the new tenant by the delivery of a 
 portion or symbol of the fee ; a sod of ground, a wand 
 of office, a sword, or a lance, served the purpose. The 
 popes invested the dukes of Apulia by the delivery 
 of a standard. The ecclesiastical feudatory of the 
 empire received in like manner a symbolical inves- 
 titure. The pastoral staff of the deceased prelate, 
 and the ring which bore his seal and was said" 
 to wed him to his Church, were sent back by the 
 chapter to the king, and by him delivered to the new 
 prelate on his appointment. Gregory insisted that 
 these were manifestly spiritual, not temporal emblems ; 
 they were signs of a power which God had committed 
 to the Church, and could not be touched by a layman 
 without sacrilege. At the same time, it would be 
 sacrilege to rob the sacred symbols of the temporal 
 rights which they possessed. The fee was annexed 
 to the crosier and ring, and could not be taken away 
 from them. He suppressed the fact that the spiritual 
 commission was given by ordination, which no priace 
 
 N 
 
178 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 or peer attempted to interfere ■with, and evaded tne 
 obvious remedy (which was finally resorted to) of 
 changing the symbol to a less ambiguous form. He 
 was wise enough also not to claim the nominations 
 to himself, but to insist on the right of the chapters 
 to elect. The chapters were sure to fall, sooner or 
 later, under the pope's control, but their intervention 
 was a decent blind, which propitiated the nobles who 
 had relatives ia the electoral colleges. 
 
 It required no small measure of audacity to call 
 on the German emperor to surrender his imperial 
 rights, at the bidding of the bishop whom he regarded 
 as metropolitan and first chaplain of his realm. Nor 
 could the demand be sustained for a moment, while 
 Germany and Eome retained their origiaal political 
 relations. The imperial crown, however, had lost 
 much of the splendour that surrounded it on the head 
 of Henry iii. That monarch had himself failed in 
 the ambitious design of reducing the kingdoms of the 
 West under his paramount suzerainty, and the long 
 minority of his son weakened the authority of the 
 crown in Germany itself. The great vassals were im- 
 patient of the imperial yoke. The nobles and princes 
 were ready for a change, and the prelates, whose 
 authority was very great, might be generally counted 
 on by the pope. 
 
 The state of Italy also was now very different from 
 that which drove the Holy see to seek protection beyond 
 the Alps. Defenders had arisen on its own soil, en- 
 eoui aging the pope to act as an independent sovereign. 
 The Normans had become a power in Italy. The town 
 of Bari in Apulia, having revolted from the Greek 
 emperor, placed itself in the protection of the pope and 
 the western Augustus; but receiving no immediate 
 succour, the citizens applied to some Norman merce- 
 
KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES. 179 
 
 naries, who chanced to be in the neighbourhood, and a 
 little army of these hardy adventurers was soon 
 collected. These not only expelled the Greeks out of 
 the province, but appropriated the territory to them- 
 selves, and proclaimed their leader, William of the Iron 
 Arm, count of Apulia (1053). Pope Leo ix. venturing 
 to dispute his title in the field, was defeated and taken 
 prisoner, but the Normans treated him with such respect 
 that the pontiff adopted them for his allies, absolved 
 them from all his censures, and sent them with his 
 blessing to complete the expulsion of the Greeks. 
 
 Six years after, Eobert Guiscard (the Crafty) was 
 invested by pope Nicolas ii. as "duke of Apulia and 
 Calabria, and future duke of Sicily." The pontiff gave 
 him a consecrated banner, with the title of champion 
 and standard-bearer of holy Church. His conquests, 
 corresponding very nearly with the limits of the modem 
 kingdom of Naples, were held as a fief of the Church. 
 The pope, who. had never the slightest claim to bestow 
 them, received tribute as paramount suzerain, and his 
 pious vassal undertook the defence of his liege lord 
 against all his enemies. Eobert's younger brother 
 Eoger carried the Norman arms into SicUy, whence in 
 a war of thirty years (1060-90) he expelled both Greeks 
 and Saracens, and restored the churches to the Eoman 
 jurisdiction. Alexander granted him a plenary indul- 
 gence (the first instance of ...the kind) to complete the 
 expulsion of the infidels, and sent him a banner fi-om 
 the tomb of St. Peter, a favour soon after bestowed on 
 his kinsman "William for the conquest of England. 
 These priacipalities, afterwards united into the kingdom 
 of the Two Sicilies, formed a bulwark to the Holy see on 
 the south, which proved of the greatest advantage in 
 its struggles with the empire. 
 
 On the north, the election of Stephen allied the papacy 
 
 N 2 
 
180 HILDEBEAND. 
 
 with his brother the duke of Tuscany, one of the most 
 powerful princes of the age, and Hildebrand lost no 
 opportunity of cementing a friendship which inter- 
 posed a valuable barrier against the forces of Lom- 
 bardy and Germany. 
 
 Thus secure in Italy, the pope had no very for' 
 midable adversary abroad. England was ia the grasp 
 of another Norman power, marching under a banner also 
 consecrated by the pope. France was ia constant war- 
 fare with the great feudatories of Flanders, Gascony, 
 and Normandy. The crown was further weakened by 
 the iniquities with which Philip i. repeatedly provoked 
 the censures of the Church.' Indeed, the papal pre- 
 tensions have always found their surest ally in the vices 
 of monarchs. Their profligacy and rapacity, corrupting 
 and defying all national law, called for a more stringent 
 restraint from abroad. A foreign pastor was welcomed 
 when the native prince proved a wolf in the fold. 
 Even foreign servitude seemed preferable to a domestic 
 tyranny that neither feared God nor regarded man. 
 Against such princes the rebuke of the Church was 
 sure to be upheld by public opinion. 
 
 Gregory opened his conflict with the German throne 
 by renewing a citation, issued in the last days of 
 Alexander, for Henry's appearance at the papal tribunal, 
 to answer a charge of simony. Incensed at such a 
 message, and flushed with, his Saxon conquests, the 
 king retorted by summoning a council at "Worms, which 
 deposed the pope. Every crime under the sun was laid 
 to his charge — simony, perjury, usurpation, magic, and 
 
 ' Philip -vras the third in descent from Hugh Capet, count of Paris and 
 Orleans, on whom the French estates conferred the crown on the extinc- 
 tion of the Carlovingian dynasty in Louis le Faineant (987). Philip was 
 excommunicated at the Council of Cleremont (1095), for persisting in 
 adultery with the countess of Anjou, whom he forcibly abducted from the 
 Church at Toxirs, though both were married at the time. 
 
DEPOSITION AND EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE EMPEROR. 181 
 
 invoking the devil. This was the mere spite of party 
 spirit : Gregory's personal character was unimpeach- 
 able : in fact, two of the bishops who ventured to ask 
 for evidence, were roundly told to choose between the 
 emperor and his enemy. The bishops of Lombardy 
 readily endorsed the German decree;' and the king 
 sent it to Eome with a letter commanding the pope to 
 descend from the chair, of which he was unworthy. 
 The documents were delivered with dramatic effect in 
 full synod ; but Gregory was prepared. With the con- 
 sent of the whole council, he solemnly invoked "blessed 
 Peter, prince of the apostles," to depose the king from 
 the throne of Germany and Italy for insulting his 
 Church with unheard-of pride. The sentence proceeded 
 to absolve his subjects from their oath of allegiance, 
 and finally excommunicated Henry for despising the 
 pope's counsels for his welfare. The impious decree 
 was heard and approved by the empress-mother, who 
 sat at Gregory's feet, but it took the world outside by 
 surprise. 
 
 Excommunication is a privation of religious rites 
 intended to bring the sinner to repentance, and mean- 
 time to relieve the sacred services from profanation. 
 It was pronounced only for offences dangerous to 
 the faith or morals of the congregation, and then 
 not tiU after private and public admonition. The 
 law of the land might annex other penalties, but the 
 Church affected no authority, save over her own 
 spiritual offices. To deprive an emperor of his throne 
 for disobedience to the pope, was a step without parallel, 
 save among those barbarians whom the ban of the 
 
 ■ 1 At this very time Gregory was seized and nearly murdered by a 
 band of Eoman citizens, headed by Cencio, the prefect of the city. It is 
 singular that the popes have always been more unpopular in Italy and at 
 Eome than in any other country. 
 
182 HILDEBEAUD. 
 
 Druid -subjected to outlawry and death. As for ab- 
 solving men from oaths taken to another, it was a thing 
 never heard of tiU the intoxication of papal pride had 
 obscured the third Commandment. Henry, indeed, had 
 lost the right to complain by invoking the same penalty 
 on the king of CastUe ; but no such sentence had yet 
 been promulgated against a sovereign prince. When 
 questioned on that point, Gregory repHed that our Lord, 
 in granting to St. Peter the power of binding and 
 loosing, did not except kings. He quoted the examples 
 of Ambrose, who repelled the emperor Theodosius from 
 the Church, because his hands were stained with blood, 
 and of pope Zachary, who deposed king Childeric. Am- 
 brose, however, did but impose a temporary privation, 
 which it is to be hoped many a bishop, or inferior mini- 
 ster, would repeat to a royal sinner without any design 
 on his kingdom. As for Zachary, his conduct was bad 
 and treacherous enough, but after all he only gave an 
 opinion against the divine right of kings, and left it to 
 the French estates to apply it. It was reserved to 
 Hildebrand to extend the spiritual power of binding and 
 loosing to the abrogation of temporal rights. His 
 sentence proceeded on the doctrine that all authority, 
 temporal no less than spiritual, belongs to St. Peter, and 
 to the pope as the apostle's representative. Hence, he 
 first invoked the apostle to depose the king. Then 
 assuming that to be accomplished, he absolved the 
 people from an allegiance no longer due; and finally 
 having reduced the sovereign to a private person, he 
 excommunicated him for contumacy to his pastor. 
 
 This doctrine HUdebrand finally established in the 
 Church of Eome, under the name of the Regalia of 
 St. Peter. The oath which he framed for its defence is 
 still taken by every bishop of that communion. And 
 though it has been pretended in this country, for poli- 
 
ROYALTIES OF ST. PETER. 183 
 
 tical purposes, that the doctrine is no longer recognised, 
 it is still asserted in the public acts of the Church, 
 and maintained, .both in theory and in practice, by all 
 authorities of the Eoman Church. 
 
 In one respect Hildebrand was perfectly right. 
 There is no royal road to heaven, no immunity to 
 kings from restrictions laid upon other Christians. The 
 pope was as much entitled to deprive the emperor of 
 his crown, as to exclude the meanest peasant from the 
 kingdom of heaven — as much and no more. If St. Peter 
 has any cognizance of what is done at Eome, he might 
 quite as easily recognise a successor, in the pope who 
 taught men not to submit themselves to the king as 
 supreme,' as in the pope who pretends to close up the 
 entrance abundantly miaistered by grace, to all who 
 make their calling and election sure, into the ever- 
 lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.^ 
 
 Not that such curses are simply nugatory; their 
 power is terrible, biit it is a power of Satan, not of 
 God. They operate on the evil, not on the good, in 
 human nature, and can bring about their own accom- 
 plishment through covetousness or despair. Such was 
 the power that smote the emperor Henry iv. The 
 papal sentence no sooner reached Germany than the 
 ecclesiastical electors formed a league with the princes 
 opposed to his rule, and by practising on the super- 
 stition and envy of others, compelled the emperor to 
 submit his case to a diet, in which the pope should pre- 
 side. In the meantime he was required to disband his 
 army, and divest himself of the imperial ensigns. It 
 appeared indubitable that unless the excommunication 
 were removed before the day of assembly, the diet 
 woidd depose him from the throne. 
 
 ' 1 Pet. ii. 13. 2 2 Pet. i. 10. 
 
184 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 In this strait Henry was advised to seek absolution 
 from the hand which had proved so powerful to his in- 
 jury. Crossing the Alps in the depth of winter with his 
 queen and her infant, he arrived a forlorn pUgrim in the 
 plains of Lombardy. There the peers and prelates rallied 
 round him with all their resources, and offered to carry 
 him in arms to the gates of Eome. Henry preferred 
 a pacific solution. His messengers sought the fortress 
 of Canossa, where Grregory was enjoying the hospitality 
 of the countess Matilda, now in possession of her 
 government. Beleased from an unwelcome union by 
 the death of her affianced husband,' this beau- 
 tiful prin,cess devoted herself with all the ardour 
 of female enthusiasm to the cause of the papacy. 
 Though cousin-german to Henry, she did not hesitate 
 to head her troops in the field against him, and aU the 
 resources of her rich principality were at Gregory's 
 command. 
 
 It was not tiU the "great countess" joined her 
 entreaties with those of the messengers, that the pope 
 consented to admit the humbled monarch to his presence. 
 The favour was accompanied by unheard-of indignities. 
 At the outer gate of the castle the king was required to 
 part with his attendants, and enter alone. When this 
 gate had been shut upon him, he was told at the second 
 to exchange his royal attire for a coarse woollen tunic, 
 and so was admitted barefooted to the inner court. 
 Here he was commanded to wait tiU his Holiuess should 
 order the third door to be opened. For three successive 
 
 ' Matilda -was the sole child of Boniface marquis of Tuscany. Her 
 mother Beatrix was daughter to the emperor. Conrad il., grandfather of 
 Henry IV. She married in second nuptials Godfrey duke of Lorraine, who 
 governed Tuscany in the minority of Matilda. The yoimg countess was 
 affianced to his son, but the marriage was never consummated, and she 
 afterwards became the wife of Guelph duke of Bavaria. 
 
HUMILIATION OF THE EMPEROR. 185 
 
 days the royal penitent stood, shivering and fasting, at 
 this entrance from morning to night. Gregory's own 
 friends mnrmured at the severity, and the fourth day 
 the countess's entreaties obtained the king's admission. 
 
 The terms imposed were of a most humiliating 
 character. He was to abstain from the royal insignia 
 till the assembly of the diet, where the pope would 
 finally decide on his deposition. He was to consider 
 void the oath of allegiance, which the pope had dis- 
 solved, to dismiss his councillors, and promise entire 
 submission to the Holy see if he should be restored to 
 the crown. These humiliating conditions were signed 
 and sworn to by the emperor. The countess with other 
 intercessors pledged their oaths and honour for his 
 fidelity, and Gregory at last pronounced the absolu- 
 tion (January 25, 1077). To confirm the rite, he pro- 
 ceeded to celebrate mass ; taking the consecrated wafer 
 in his hand, he reminded Henry of the charges brought 
 against himself, and solemnly protesting his innocence, 
 invoked the Almighty to strike him dead if he were 
 guilty. With these words he received the sacrament. 
 Then fixing his eyes on Henry, he offered him the other 
 part of the same wafer, and dared him to a similar 
 exoneration. 
 
 The ordeal was, of course, impossible, after asking 
 and obtaining absolution, and the emperor had a more 
 secret motive in declining it. He had no sooner re- 
 joined the Lombard nobles than he repudiated all 
 the conditions, resumed the royal titles, and putting 
 himself at the head of the army, effectually prevented 
 the pope from going into Germany. The intended diet 
 being thus defeated, Henry's enemies assembled and 
 chose Eodolph duke of Suabia king. The pope sent 
 him the imperial crown, and renewing his sentence 
 against Henry, invoked the apostles Peter and Paul to 
 
186 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 htirl their vengeance upon him without delay. " May 
 God confound him (exclaimed the fanatic) that his 
 spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." 
 
 Henry upon his part called a council at Brixen 
 in the Tyrol, which, again deposing Gregory, elected 
 the archbishop of Eavenna pope, by the name of 
 Clement iii. Two emperors and two popes now chal- 
 lenged the allegiance of Church and State. Wars and 
 excommunications raged for twenty years. The rival 
 popes alternately chased each other out of Eome, or 
 kept possession together, one in the Lateran and the 
 other in the castle. The schism extended throughout 
 Europe. Every nation was called on to choose its pope, 
 and brave the malediction of his rival. If all were ex- 
 communicated before God, who were pronounced so by 
 His vicegerents, and all who communicated with them 
 shared the penalty, the true communion must in many 
 places have been reduced to those who never communi- 
 cated at all. 
 
 Eodolph fell in. battle June 15, 1080. His right 
 hand was severed in the action — " That hand," he ex- 
 claimed, in his dying moments, " with which I pi'omised 
 allegiance to my Uege lord." He died laying his broken 
 faith to the charge of Gregory.' Godfrey of Bouillon, 
 the hero of Jerusalem Delivered^ was the knight who 
 struck the fatal blow. Pour years later Gregory was 
 driven into the castle of St. Angelo, while Eome after 
 two sieges opened her gates to Henry, and he received 
 the imperial crown in St. Peter's from the anti-pope 
 Clement. The emperor was anticipating the fall of the 
 castle and the capture of his inveterate foe, when the 
 tables were turned by the arrival of Eobert Gniscard, 
 with an army of Normans and Saracens fresh from 
 Constantinople, The imperial forces made a precipitate 
 
 ■ Leti. 
 
FLIGHT AND DEATH OF THE POPE. 187 
 
 retreat, and Gregory, once more enthroned in the 
 Lateran, thundered out anathemas of which the frequent 
 repetition seems to betray a doubt of their validity. 
 
 The people of Eome paid dear for the release of their 
 orthodox pastor. The forces of Eobert took out their 
 wages iu indiscriminate plunder. The city was fired in . 
 seyeral places, and by the Light of the flames the 
 Norman and Moslem auxiliaries of the Church revelled 
 in aU the horrors of war. Two-thirds of the houses 
 were destroyed. Churches, convents, altars, were pro- 
 faned, and multitudes carried away to captivity and 
 slavery. The Romans may weU be pardoned their 
 insensibility to the blessings of " Apostolical " rule. 
 The pope's champions were no sooner withdrawn than 
 the exasperated citizens compelled the pope to foUow 
 them. Gregory fled to Salerno, and there died 
 May 25, 1086, "repenting," says an author, whose 
 wish was father to the thought, " of all his violence, and 
 absolving the emperor with his latest breath.'" The 
 " Life of Gregory " exhibits a deathbed more in keeping 
 Avith the inflexible and vindictive spirit of one who has 
 been called the Czar Peter of the Church.'' " I absolve 
 and bless (he is there reported to have said) all who , 
 firmly believe that I have such a power, except Henry 
 whom they caU king, the usurper of the Apostolic see, 
 and their chief assistants and councillors.'" Cherishing 
 his animosities to the last, he scrupled not to add, " I 
 have loved righteousness and hated iniquity : therefore 
 I die in exile." Then telling the bishops and cardinals 
 that he was going to heaven, the daring fanatic promised 
 to recommend them incessantly to the Almighty favour, 
 and so expired. 
 
 Hildebrand died, but his policy survived. As he 
 had counselled five popes before himself, he left his 
 
 ' Sigebert, ad an. 1085. ^ Guizot. ' Vit. Greg., c. 110. 
 
188 HILDEBEAND. 
 
 mantle to two successors of his own choice, par- 
 takers of his thoughts and ready to pursue his ambitious 
 designs. 
 
 The first was Victor m., who, in little more than 
 a year, fled hack to die ia the abbey which he had 
 reluctantly quitted. Even this brief pontificate was 
 long enough to renew the decree against lay inves- 
 titure, and to extend it to all Church preferments. Lay 
 patronage was accounted a heresy^ and the faithful were 
 told that " it was better to be deprived of the visible 
 communion and communicate iuvisibly with God, than 
 to be separated from Him by receiving it from a 
 heretic.'" 
 
 Otho, who had been Gregory's legate in Germany, 
 was the next pope, by the name of Urban ii. He is 
 famous for his judgment on the guilt of killing the 
 excomnnmicated. When asked what penance should 
 be imposed on such homicides, he replied, " They must 
 be judged according to their intention. If men, burn- 
 ing with zeal for their Catholic mother, happen to kiU 
 some of her enemies, that is not murder ; nevertheless 
 some penance should be enjoined to atone for their 
 frailty, in case they had not been actuated by simple 
 zeal !" This monstrous doctrine put the crowning stone 
 to the papal edifice. The life of an excommunicated 
 person might now be taken with impunity, provided 
 the murderer could persuade his confessor that he was 
 actuated by zeal for holy mother Church, 
 
 The war continued, as might be expected from such 
 principles. The German princes elected Herman duke 
 of Luxembourg in the place of Eodolph. Gregory 
 had encouraged Conrad, the eldest son of Henry, to 
 rebel in Italy ; and when death arrested his undutiful 
 career (1102), Paschal pursued the same wicked policy 
 
 ■ Bower, v. 316. 
 
IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH OP THE EMPEROR. 189 
 
 with his brother Henry. On takiag up arms against 
 his father, the priace was immediately absolved from 
 the censures incurred by obeyiiig him. After several 
 engagements, the lords of the empire endeavoured to 
 effect a reconciliation, and a diet was appointed for 
 the purpose at Mentz. The priace, afraid of the 
 result, repaired to his father in private, and confessing 
 his fault, obtained forgiveness. Then assuring him 
 that danger awaited him in the diet, he induced the 
 emperor to retire to Bingen; but no sooner had they 
 entered the castle, than the gate was shut, and the 
 father found himself prisoner to his son. Being taken 
 before the pope's legates at Ingelheim, he was compelled 
 to deliver the imperial insignia to the prince. The 
 legates told him his crown was forfeited by rebellion 
 against the Apostolic see, and his life could only be 
 saved by submission. They consecrated the prince 
 on the spot, and the whole proceeding was ratified by 
 Paschal ii. 
 
 The emperor soon after escaped from his dungeon, 
 and the war was renewed, but death claimed the 
 afflicted monarch at Liege, August 7, 1106, after 
 a reign of fifty years, no part of which was free 
 from papal persecution. He fought more battles 
 than Julius Caesar, and was victorious in sixty-two 
 general engagements. After learning wisdom and 
 repentance in the school of adversity, he succumbed 
 to "the pang that is sharper than a serpent's tooth," 
 being deprived of crown, character, and life, by the 
 treachery of a thanHess child, incited by a wicked 
 Church. The ecclesiastics, who had corrupted both 
 father and son, were paid in their own coin. Henry v. 
 no sooner felt himself safe on the throne, than he 
 forswore all his oaths, resumed the investiture, and 
 called upon the pope himself to solicit the staff and 
 
190 HILDEBEAWD. 
 
 ring at his hand, according to the usage of their 
 predecessors from the days of Gregory the Great and 
 Charlemagne.' 
 
 The kings of France and England engaged in 
 the same contest, but were more easily subdued. 
 Philip, occupied with his disgraceful amours, made 
 but a feeble resistance, and soon yielded his aid 
 against the emperor. In England there was a sharp 
 struggle. William Eufos succeeded to more than his 
 father's vices, with none of the qualities which made 
 the Conqueror respected. When at the point of death, 
 he importuned Anselm to ease his conscience by accept- 
 ing the archbishopric of Canterbury, but having re- 
 covered, he drove him out of the kingdom, that he 
 might again take possession of the temporalities. The 
 sees were notoriously sold by this rapacious tyrant, 
 and, to prevent remonstrance and rfeform, he allowed no 
 synods to be convened in his reign. Their suppression 
 was perfectly agreeable to the prelates who had bought 
 their sees, and were desirous of being left to their 
 enjoyment, but Anselm, who cared more for the flock 
 than the fleece, was driven like other good men to 
 invoke a superior at Bome. 
 
 He found pope Urban in the Lateran, and pope 
 Clement in the castle. By the former, whom he had 
 recognised both as abbot and archbishop, he was wel- 
 comed as "pope of the second orb." At the Council 
 of Bari (1098), Anselm distinguished himself by the 
 learning and eloquence with which he answered the 
 Greek objections to the doctrine of the Double Pro- 
 cession. The council was on the point of excommuni- 
 cating Rufas, when the good archbishop threw himself 
 at the pope's feet, and obtained a suspension of the 
 sentence. The king used the delay to bribe the court 
 
 ' Bower, v. 378. 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH CONCORDATS. 191 
 
 of Eome, and so kept possession of the archbisliop's 
 lands till tlie day of Ms death.. 
 
 Henry i. iavited Anselm to return and receive re- 
 iavestiture of his temporalities, but the archbishop 
 had been a member of the council at Eome (1099), 
 at which all who should give or receive lay investiture 
 were pronounced excommunicated. The question had 
 never before been mooted iu England. Lanfranc and 
 Anselm himself had received iavestiture from the king, 
 but the Hildebrand doctrine was now the law of the 
 Church, and Henry was menaced with excommunication 
 if he refused to obey. He was not strong enough, iu king- 
 dom or conscience, to despise the censure. He tried to 
 bully the pope and then to coax him : there was seldom 
 much difficulty in bribing the pope; but Anselm, 
 as an obedient son of the Church of Eome, urged the 
 new canon, and the pope told the king he would lose 
 his head rather than rescind it. In the end, Henry 
 renounced all interference with the election of bishops 
 and abbots, leaving the staff and ring to be given 
 by the pope as emblems of the spiritual authority. 
 On the other: hand. Paschal allowed the new prelates 
 to do homage to the king for their temporalities, so far 
 receding from the HUdebrandine policy, which insisted 
 on the exclusive allegiance of the clergy to the pope. 
 These terms were ratified by the Council of London, 
 1107. 
 
 A similar arrangement was adopted at a later period 
 in France; but the emperor stood out longer. He 
 offered to relinquish the right of investiture altogether, 
 on condition that the prelates should resign the estates 
 and temporalities which they held of the empire. 
 Strange to say. Paschal accepted the offer, and a treaty 
 to this effect was actually concluded and ratified at a 
 personal interview in St. Peter's, February 11, 1111. 
 
192 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 The pope, howerer, as miglit be anticipated, promised 
 more than he could perform. The German bishops 
 peremptorily refused to relLnqiiish their temporalities. 
 In vain Paschal exhorted them to render unto Caesar 
 the things which were Caesar's; they told the pope 
 to set the example himself. Meantime, the long de- 
 manded to be crowned; and the pope declaring it 
 impossible till the treaty was executed, Paschal was 
 arrested by the German guards in the church. A 
 rescue, attempted by the Eomans, was defeated with 
 much slaughter, and Henry left Kome, carrying the pope 
 and cardinals in his train, stripped of their pontifical 
 ornaments, and threatened with death. The pope was 
 obdurate, but the cardinals and nobles who shared his 
 danger at last prevailed on him to yield. A bull was 
 signed and sealed, granting the king the right to invest 
 by staff and ring, provided the bishops were freely 
 elected without simony. 
 
 The pope was now set at liberty, and crowned the king 
 in St. Peter's ; they took the sacrament together from 
 the same wafer ; the pope invoking judgment on which- 
 ever should attempt to break the agreement. Yet no 
 sooner was the emperor gone, than the cardinals who 
 had escaped imprisonment insisted that all was null and 
 void by reason of duresse. A council assembled at the 
 Lateran, wherfe the pope's concession was censured as 
 heretical, and he was called on to excommunicate the 
 emperor for extorting it. Henry having taken the 
 precaution to exact an oath from Paschal to the con- 
 trary, he refused to perjure himself, and was extricated 
 from the dilemma by the curious expedient of excom- 
 municating his own bull ; with any other document this 
 would be an excommunication of the author, but in the 
 present case it only cancelled the buU. Paschal permitted 
 his legates, however, to excommunicate the emperor. 
 
CONTINUANCE OF THE CONTEST WITH HENRY V. 193 
 
 and even confirmed tlie acts of tlie Council of Yienne, 
 containing the sentence which, he refused to pronounce 
 himself. At the Lateran Council of 1116 the pope 
 puhlicly confessed his fault in signiag the accursed 
 writiag, and was with some diflB.culty cleared from its 
 heresy. 
 
 The emperor came the next year to demand abso- 
 lution at the head of an army. The countess Matilda 
 beiag dead, he took possession of her dominions ia 
 Lombardy, without regard to her alleged donation to 
 Gregory vii.^ Paschal retired under the protection 
 of the Norman dukes of Apulia, while the emperor 
 entered Eome and persuaded the legate there to crown 
 him anew ia St. Peter's. Por this, Paschal deprived 
 and excommunicated the legate. The pope returned 
 to Eome on the emperor's departure, and there died, 
 resolute in the defence of the supremacy (1118). 
 
 His successor Gelasius, after suffering much personal 
 ill usage from the imperialists, narrowly escaped the 
 emperor's hands. Henry arriving ia Eome annulled 
 his election, and set up the excommunicated legate 
 by the name of Gregory viii. ; from him in the 
 character of pope he again received the imperial 
 crown. Gelasius, driven into Prance, died at Cluny, 
 January 29, 1119. The cardinals who accompanied 
 him elected the axchbishop of Yienne pope, by the name 
 of Calixtus II. He was the emperor's relative, but after 
 the failure of some negotiations he excommunicated him 
 with beU, book, and candle, in a council at.Eheims, the 
 
 ' Matilda carried on the war on behalf of the papacy, with unabated 
 ardour, for twenty-five years after Gregory's death. She accepted, at 
 Urban's request, Gruelph of Bavaria for her second husband, but the 
 papacy was her idol to the last. She died at seventy-six years of age 
 (1115) when the pope claimed her possessions in virtue of a donation to 
 Gregory ; but Tuscany being a fief of the empire, the donation (if it was 
 ever made) was clearly void without the emperor's consent. 
 
 
 
194 HILDEBRAND. 
 
 same year. Obtaining possession of Rome by the aid of 
 the Norman princes, Calixtus confined the anti-pope in 
 a monastery, after parading Mm tBrough the streets in 
 derision. 
 
 At last, the long dispute was closed by an agree- 
 ment confirmed ia a diet at "Worms, September 8, 1122, 
 and in a General Council held in the Lateran Church, 
 A.D, 1123. This concordat consisted of three conditions. 
 1. The bishops and abbots of Germany were to be 
 elected in the presence of the emperor or his deputy, 
 freely and without simony, the legality of the election 
 being determined by the crown with the advice of 
 the metropolitan. 2. The elect was to do homage for 
 the temporalities, and receive investiture from the king 
 by the delivery of a sceptre. 3. The crozier and ring 
 were reserved to the pope as badges of the spiritual 
 authority. 
 
 This arrangement, substantially the same as that 
 concluded with England sixteen years before, was re- 
 garded as a final settlement of the question. In 
 appearance it was a compromise, and even a defeat, of 
 the Hildebrandine theory, but the Eoman Church never 
 really recedes ; and practically the patronage, which was 
 the true question at issue, was transferred from the 
 crown to the pope. Free election was a mere cry to 
 keep out the king; the pope overruled the chapters 
 without scruple and without redress. He was the 
 supreme spiritual head ; the metropolitans who were to 
 decide on objections were the pope's legates ; at every 
 stage there was room for an appeal, and a new election 
 could always be compelled by refusing the staff and 
 ring. This amounted, as was soon proved, to giving 
 the pope the nomination. 
 
 The point where Hildebrand's policy was really 
 modified was in permitting the prelates to take an 
 
CONFLICT 01? OATHS. 195 
 
 oath, of allegiance to the crown : it is obvious, however, 
 that no secular power would submit to -their exemp- 
 tion, and the papal object was attained by imposing a 
 prior oath at consecration to defend the royalties of 
 St. Peter. The bishop was the pope's man before he 
 became the king's, and the king knew it. In case of 
 any conflict between the two allegiances, who can doubt 
 which would prevail ? The spiritual was the primary 
 and most binding obligation : the pope could dispense 
 from the other; but rebellion against the pope, accord- 
 ing to the doctrine now universally received, was sepa- 
 ration from the fountain of ecclesiastical authority, 
 and ipso facto loss of the episcopal function. These 
 penalties no earthly monarch could suspend for a 
 moment. They were liable to be followed by an 
 excommunication which reached beyond the grave 
 itself. If a bishop of the Church of Eome can be 
 true to his king against the pope, he must be first so 
 imtrue to his primary and most solemn profession, as 
 to render his allegiance to any one an object of greater 
 suspicion than ever. 
 
 2 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE MONKS AND THE CETTSADES. 
 
 Standing Army of the Papacy — Heathen Origin of Monasticism — Transfer 
 to Christianity — Egypt — Syria — Bnle of St. Basil — Spiritnal ineffi- 
 ciency — Introduced into the West— Kule of St. Benedict — ^Reformed 
 Benedictine Order — Cluny-^Vallonibrosa — La Chartreuse — Citeaux — 
 Fatal change — ^Ecclesiastical Ambition — ^Fapal Patronage — Canons 
 Begolar and Secular — Military Orders — Mendicants — ^Dominicans — 
 Franciscans — Carmelites — AngustinJans — ^Female Orders — Advantages 
 — Evils — Crusades — ^Ruinous results— Grains to the Papacy — ^Moral 
 consequences — Grievous mistake. 
 
 To comprehend the marvellous development of the 
 papal power, which is the strangest phenomenon in 
 European history, it is necessary to consider the 
 peculiar agencies supplied hy the circumstances of the 
 times. Of these the Monks and the Crusaders may be 
 justly considered the most important. The monastic 
 Orders have been ever, in the "West, the standing 
 army of the papacy. They flourished and decayed to- 
 gether. Monasticism is one of the institutions imported 
 into Christianity out of heathenism. There is no trace of 
 it in the Old or New Testament. The widows there men- 
 tioned as " serving God with fastings, and prayers night 
 and day,"^ were aged women, and mothers of families ; 
 they Uved neither in cells nor convents, but followed the 
 ordinary occupations of their time of life, and worshipped 
 in the general assembly of the Church. Similar was the 
 
 ' Comp. Luke ii. 37, 1 Tim. v. 5. 
 
OEIGIlSr OP MONASTICISM. 
 
 197 
 
 position, of the " consecrated virgins " in the early 
 Clrnrch. Tlie accounts of the Arian riots of the fourth 
 century show that they attended the ordinary place of 
 worship, and the age of admission was still the apos- 
 tolic threescore. The practice of deserting all the duties 
 of life, in order to undertake self-imposed mortifications 
 in solitude and contemplation, is of very ancient date in 
 the East, where it is still pursued among the JBrahmans 
 and Buddhists ojf India, Thibet, and China. The Jews 
 probably became acquainted with it during the captivity, 
 for before the Christian era they had planted societies of 
 this kind in the wildernesses of Syria, under the name of 
 Essenes ; and Philo describes others in the Alexandrian 
 desert by the name of Therapeiitce} 
 
 In the middle of the third century, the Decian 
 persecution compelled numbers of Christians to fly to 
 the deserts of Upper and Lower Egypt, where they 
 hid themselves in caves, and became anchorets, or 
 hermits. Some of these continued from choice the life 
 first imposed by necessity. After the establishment of 
 Christianity im^der Constantino, the hermits ventured 
 out of their cells and gathered into convents (Cceno- 
 bia), still apart from the world. The institution of 
 these communities is attributed to the famous Anthony, 
 the friend of Athanasius ; he was seconded by another 
 Egyptian, Pachomius, in the Thebaid. The " new phi- 
 losophy," as it was called, was embraced by vast num- 
 bers of proselytes, flying from the dangers and corruptions 
 of the times, so that, by the end of the fourth century, 
 the Egyptian deserts were studdied from end to end with 
 religious communities. The deserts of Mtria alone con- 
 tained 5000 Coenobites, and the total number of anchorets 
 and monks was estimated at 76,000 men and 27,700 
 
 ' See the Author's Egypt, pp. 97, 111. 
 
198 THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 
 
 females.' Both forms of monasticism existed also in 
 Syi-ia, where they adopted the severer discipline of fast- 
 ing, sackcloth, flagellations, iron collars, and other kinds 
 of torture. The Egyptian monks were content with 
 an abstemious diet, vigils and prayers twice in the 
 night. The day was given to manual labour : neither 
 soliciting nor accepting abns, they followed the apostolic 
 rule of working for their own bread.^ The monks were 
 all laymen, except that when at a distance from a church, 
 a priest was appointed to the charge of the community as 
 Hegowmenos^ or abbot. All were in strict subjection to 
 the bishop of the diocese. In this form the institution 
 was intioduced into Pontus, where the archbishop Basil 
 is said to have laid down a " rule " for their uniform 
 government, and to have first authorised the vow of 
 obedience. Nunneries seem to have been contempo- 
 raneous with the male communities, but were neither so 
 numerous nor so populous. 
 
 The spread of monachism in the East was gi'eatly 
 promoted by the disordered state of society under the 
 degenerate successors of Constantine. The corruptions 
 of the Byzantine Court rendered the rewards of public 
 service the prey of favouritism and intrigue ; its oriental 
 despotism extinguished the feelings of patriotism and 
 liberty ; while its feebleness left its subjects exposed 
 to the worst sxifferings of barbarous warfare. It was 
 easier to renounce the ties of marriage and paternity, 
 than to endure their violent extinction by the sword of 
 the spoiler. When the world was full of cruelty and 
 lust, the Christian lopged for the wings of the dove to 
 flee away and be at rest. 
 
 Pious and exalted minds always find refreshment 
 and edification in being alone with their God; and 
 
 I Milman's Christianity, iii. 11. « 2 Thess, iii. 10-12. 
 
SPIEITUAL INErnCIENCY. 199 
 
 Christians rejoice to bear the loss of all things for Christ, 
 when it is God that afflicts them. He knows how to 
 make His discipline instrumental to more grace ; hut a 
 self-imposed, vaia-glorious rule is so far from promoting 
 truer conceptions, either of humanity or religion, that 
 some of the worst examples of violence and impiety 
 issued from these secluded retreats. The swarms of 
 ruffians who turned the Council of Ephesus into a den of 
 robbers, followed their abbot, Barsumas, from a Syrian 
 monastery. The monks of Nitria poured into Alex- 
 andria by thousands to fight the battles of Cyril and 
 TheophUus, and men of the world were astonished to 
 find themselves assailed, with clubs and stones, by re- 
 cluses who had abandoned all for God. Their solitary 
 contemplations of the Deity resulted in believing Him 
 to be altogether such an one as themselves : when told 
 that the Creator has not really hands and limbs like a 
 man, they burst into tears, and exclaimed — " You have 
 taken away our God !" ' 
 
 Neither would the most exemplary monks appear to 
 have achieved the mastery of their passions by with- 
 drawing from external temptations. The devil, whom 
 they dreaded in their fellow-Creatures, followed in new 
 forms, created out of their own imagination. Their 
 bodily austerities seemed to fan, rather than extinguish, 
 the flames within. Jerome has left a pitiful picture of 
 his sufferings in the deserts of Syria, when, amid fast- 
 ing, and squalor, and nakedness, his mind remained 
 full of the luxuries and impurities of the city." God 
 conquers sin by grace, not by works of righteousness, 
 devised of our own counsel. 
 
 Monasticism is supposed to have been introduced 
 
 ■ Egypt, p. 248. 
 
 ' Hier., ep. xxii. ; see also his Life of Hilarion and the well-known 
 legends of Anthony. 
 
200 THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 
 
 into th.e West by the visit of Athanasius to Eome 
 (a.d. 341). The monks were always his staunch sup- 
 porters in Egypt, and large numbers ha-ving followed 
 him to Eome, they dispersed over Italy and Gaul. At 
 the end of the century, John Cassian, a. monk of Pales- 
 tine who had devoted seven years to visiting the 
 Egyptian monasteries, retired to Marseilles, and planted 
 similar societies on the adjacent shores and islands. 
 Islands were preferred from their natural seclusion ; 
 those of the Adriatic and Mediterranean were soon 
 peopled with monks, tUl crossing into Carthage and 
 Africa, the institution completed the circle to its parent 
 soil. 
 
 , The western prelates received this importation from 
 the East with extraordinary favour. Jerome at Eome, 
 Ambrose at Milan, and Martin at Tours, lent it all the 
 weight of their great names. Germain earnestly com- 
 mended it to the British churches as the best safeguard 
 against heresy. Ireland so abounded in monks that it 
 was called the island of saints : from its monasteries 
 Columba, Aidan, Finan, Cohnan, and KiUan carried 
 the Gospel light to the Caledonian or Albin Scots, the 
 Picts, and the Saxons. These labours naturally tended 
 to exalt the credit of the single life ; its superiority, 
 however, as a general principle, was warmly contested. 
 Many of the clergy openly denied that a higher place 
 in heaven was promised to virgins than to married men 
 and women. They condemned the monkish respect for 
 martyrs and their relics, questioned the miracles at 
 their tombs, and objected to the pagan practice of light- 
 ing lamps before them. They rejected the intercession of 
 the saints, and even asserted it was better to keep one's 
 goods for the judicious exercise of charity, than to sell aU 
 and give to the poor, according to the interpretation of 
 the monks. These opinions awoke the wrath of Jerome, 
 
BENEDICTINE RULE. 
 
 201 
 
 whose bodily mortifications never mitigated his bitter 
 and uncharitable temper. He overwhelmed the dis- 
 sentients with the fiercest invectives, and Jovinian 
 and Yigilantius were condemned as heretics' for being 
 Protestants before the time. 
 
 The rule of St, Basil was universally obeyed till a 
 new one, which emanated from the famous Benedict of 
 Nursia about the year. 529, was generally adopted in 
 the West. It differed little from the Egyptian model. 
 The divine offices consisted of vigils two hours after 
 midnight, and matins at daybreak, besides mental and 
 private prayer. Psalms were learnt by heart in the 
 intervals : two hours of reading and seven of manual 
 labour completed the day. Sunday was devoted exclu- 
 sively to reading and prayer. The monks had no private 
 property, and aU their earnings went into the common 
 fund; they slept in a common dormitory, lighted. by a 
 lamp, and in the strictest silence. Temperance, not 
 fasting or mortification, was the principle of their 
 dietary. The abbot was elected by the general voice ; 
 he consulted the brethren, but decided for himself. 
 Obedience, perseverance, and moral reform were the 
 profession made on admission ; censure, scourging, 
 
 ■ Milman's Christianity, iii. 11. Joviman was a monk at Milan under 
 Ambrose : he quitted his community, but continued to observe the obliga- 
 tion of celibacy. Jerome indignantly challenges him to marry at once, 
 since he dressed in white like a bridegroom, drank wine, and even indulged 
 in bathing and shampooing, preferring a ruddy countenance to the king- 
 dom of heaven. The monks always showed ^ bitter aversion to clean 
 linen, and the application of soap and water. Next to a wholesome skin, 
 Jovinian's greatest offence was persuading some Roman virgins to marry, 
 by asking them if they thought themselves better than Sarah and Hannah. 
 He was condemned by St. Ambrose in a synod at MUan (a.d. 390), and 
 exUed by the emperor Honorius (a.d. 412) to an island, where he perished. 
 Vigilantius revived his heresy in France (a.d. 406), but his sect was soon 
 extinguished. " It required no council (observes the historian) to con- 
 demn a doctrine so opposed to the tradition of the Church Universal." — 
 Fleury, torn. v. p. 278. 
 
202 THE MONKS AND THE CEtTSADES. 
 
 excommunication and expulsion, tlie penalties incurred 
 by its violation. 
 
 The moderation, or tlie neglect, of this simple rule 
 led to a revival by the second St. Benedict, abbot of 
 Aniane, ia the diocese of MontpelHer, at the end of the 
 eighth century. Under his regulations, confirmed by the 
 Coimcil of Aix-la-Chapelle (a.d. 817), the Benedictiae 
 Order became the parent of numberless communities 
 throughout Europe. The monks of Cluny,' Vallom- 
 brosa,^ and La Chartreuse,^ as well as the Cistercians of 
 St. Bernard,* were all Benedictines ; but a modification, 
 introduced in the eleventh century, proved fatal to the 
 original conception. The disuse of Latin as a vernacular 
 tongue, together with its obstinate retention as the 
 exclusive language of public worship, placed the repeti- 
 tion of the offices beyond the power of every member of 
 the community. It was deemed necessary to exempt a 
 portion from the demands of manual labour, in order to 
 devote them exclusively to this duty. The " brethren 
 of the choir" being thus elevated to an ecclesiastical 
 character, soon came to consist of priests and candi- 
 dates for the priesthood.* They appropriated the name 
 of monks, while the others, under the appellation of " lay 
 brethren," sank to the condition of menials and labourers. 
 
 ' Founded a.d. 910 by WiUiam dtike of Aquitaine, and perfected by 
 the abbot St. Odo. It held the highest rank for nearly two centuries. 
 
 s Founded' a.d. 1040 in the Florentine desert by John of Gualbert, a 
 monk of Cluny. 
 
 ' Founded in the mountains of Dauphing a.d. 1084 by St. Bruno, a 
 native of Cologne and canon of Rheims. It was bound to the strictest 
 silence and a rigid abstinence from flesh. 
 
 * St. Bernard was bom a.d. 1091, and died a.d. 1163. He was a 
 monk of Citeaux near Dijon, and at the age of twenty -four founded an 
 abbey at Clairvaux, which before his death was the mother of 160 monas- 
 teries. He was styled the last of the fathers, and exercised a predominant 
 influence in the ecclesiastical affairs of France, Germany, and Italy. 
 
 ' This alteration was first introduced by John of Gualbert at VaUom- 
 brosa. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL AMBITION. 203 
 
 This conversion from lay societies to ecclesiastical 
 colleges, multiplied tlie priesthood greatly beyond 
 the parochial demand. Some part of the overplus 
 was available for missionary labours, others devoted 
 themselves to the cultivation of letters ; the copying and 
 illustrating of manuscripts happily came to occupy some 
 of the houi-s vacated by the disuse of severer toils. StiU, 
 after these objects were supplied, there remained an 
 active and ambitious residue, a prey to other attractions. 
 By dispensing with bodily labour, the cloister opened 
 its doors to a class of churchmen who were little disposed 
 to undertake the obscure duties of a parochial charge. 
 The priest-monk, like the modern feUow of a college, could 
 enjoy the honours and prizes of the Church without its 
 burdens. Power and wealth were open to his aspira- 
 tions for his Order, if not for himself. The confes- 
 sional gave him access to the confidence of the great, 
 and the means of watching the course of public aflfairs ; 
 he became at once qualified and ambitious to sway 
 the destinies of society. Not a few of the world's 
 least scrupulous politicians have been trained in 
 retreats designed to be sacred to meditation and 
 prayer. 
 
 These men were the natural auxiliaries of the papacy. 
 To reserve them more exclusively to itself, the Eoman see 
 exempted the religious Orders from the diocesan autho- 
 rity. They were in every land its own "peculiars," the 
 obsequious instruments of its will, and the ready revilers 
 of all opponents. The Orders had their own mutual 
 rivalries, and waged them with unremitting zeal ; but they 
 were always ready to unite for the pope against fhe law of 
 the land and the national clergy who upheld it. As a 
 counterpoise to these privileged fraternities, the bishops 
 began to incorporate the diocesan clergy into chapters, 
 under their own immediate direction ; these assumed the 
 
204 TSE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 
 
 title of Canonici, from tlie canons or statutes by wMch. 
 they were boimd, as the monks were termed Regulars, 
 from the regula or rule of their profession. The canons 
 adopted the name of St. Augustine, from a notion that 
 he was the first bishop to lire with his clergy in com- 
 munity of property. A general constitution was approved 
 at the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, which, being neglected, 
 a reform ensued, ia which the stricter part adopted 
 the distraction of canons regular, leaving the name of 
 secular to the rest. The canons regular, by discharging 
 several very usefnl functions in the Church, acquired 
 much of the reputation, and no small share of the wealth, 
 attained by the monks ; then, imitating their example, 
 they obtained papal exemptions, and, without relinquish- 
 ing their contest with the older Orders, became enrolled 
 in the pontifical army. 
 
 The priestly fraternities were quickly followed by 
 the military Orders, instituted on a similar basis during 
 the crusades. The Knights of St. John — ^founded as 
 early as the seventh century by John the almoner of 
 Alexandria, and reconstructed by Godfrey of Bouillon 
 for the service of a hospital and chapel at Jerusalem — 
 were expanded, for the defence of the Latin kingdom, 
 into a threefold Order of military, priestly, and serving 
 brethren, aU taking the monastic vows of poverty, 
 celibacy, and obedience. The Order of the Temple was 
 purely military, founded in the year 1118 for the 
 extension and defence of the Christian kingdom, and 
 the protection of pilgrims from robbers and outlaws. 
 These renowned knights, though not priests, were monks, 
 and their rule was drawn up by St. Bernard. The 
 Teutonic Order, beginning (like that of St. John) in the 
 care of the sick and wounded at the siege of Acre, was 
 in Kke manner elevated to military rank, and, returning 
 to Germany on the termination of the crusades, em- 
 
MENDICANT OR PREACHING FRIARS. 205 
 
 ployed itself in the conversion, or more properly speaking 
 the conquest, of Prussia. 
 
 The two great mendicant, or preaching. Orders followed 
 in the thirteenth century, when the popes ceasing to 
 war with the Moslem enemy, turned their arms to the 
 subjugation of heresy at home. To the usual monastic 
 obligations they added a fourth vow of mendicity, and 
 assumed for their special duty the propagation of the 
 orthodox faith. The first was founded hy St. Dominic, 
 a canon regular of Spain : he was closely followed by 
 St. Francis of Assisi in Umbria, whose disciples, in 
 spite of his express prohibition, obtained a papal privi- 
 lege with new interpretations of his rule, in the thirteenth 
 century. Though similar in object, these celebrated 
 Orders were actuated by the most passionate jealousy of 
 each other ; they uniformly espoused opposite sides on 
 the open questions of theology. 
 
 The Dominicans were distinguished for their con- 
 troversial learning; but, not content with the sword 
 of the Spirit, they betook themselves to the material 
 weapon. The resistance to papal doctrine in this 
 century was so extensive that Gregory ix. empowered 
 special commissions, who obtained the odious name 
 of Inquisitors, to hunt out the offenders. This com- 
 mission was eagerly undertaken by the Dominicans, to 
 whom the pope entrusted it a.d. 1233. Beginning 
 in Toulouse, they established courts of inquiry where- 
 ever they had a convent. The emperor Frederick ii., 
 St. Louis of !France, and other princes were induced to 
 sustain their proceedings by the most inhuman penalties. 
 The horrible institution spread into every kingdom of 
 Europe, imprisoning, torturing, and burning all who 
 presumed to think differently from the Holy See, and 
 resorting to the most infamous violations of faith and 
 honesty in order to convict the suspected. Of this 
 
206 THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 
 
 detestable system Eome -was the centre and heart, and 
 the Dominican monks the unscrupulons executioners. 
 
 The Franciscans, though preachers also, were more 
 renowned for their success in the begging trade. In 
 spite of their founder's injunctions against the acquisi- 
 tion of fixed revenues, they amassed large possessions 
 by the dispensation of the Holy See. The example of 
 these two Orders led to numberless swarms of holy 
 mendicants ; the authorised vagrants, however, were 
 limited to the two further Orders of Carmelites,^ and 
 the Hermits of St. Augustine.^ 
 
 These four fraternities enjoyed, by papal decree, the 
 privilege of travelling into all countries, instructing the 
 young of every rank, confessing penitents, and even 
 preaching and administering the sacraments in the 
 churches, without regard to the episcopal or parochial 
 authorities. The courts and universities, the towns 
 and villages of Europe, were filled with swarms of 
 friars, among whom the Dominicans and Franciscans 
 were everywhere conspicuous.^ Boasting their great 
 superiority to the secular clergy in learning, sanctity, 
 and papal favour, they were, in fact, equal or superior 
 in ignorance and immorality. The courtiers com- 
 plained of their unscrupulous intrigues in the cabinets 
 of princes ; the clergy of their interested laxity in the 
 confessional. The death-beds of the rich and the 
 management of wills seemed to be their special charge. 
 
 ' This Order claims the prophet Elijah for its founder, and the Virgin 
 Mary with our Lord Himself for members ! It was really founded in 
 Palestine during the twelfth century, and erected into a community by 
 the patriarch of Jerusalem a.d. 1205. Being soon after transplanted into 
 Europe, it was recognised by Honorius ni. A.D. 1226. 
 
 ' Instituted by pope Alexander rv. A.D. 1256. 
 
 ' The Dominicans were called Black Friam, aad their name remains 
 on the site of their great convent in London, which was granted by the 
 lord mayor and aldermen A.D. 1276. The Franciscan Grey Friars settled 
 a little earlier where Christ Hospital now stands in Newgate Street. 
 
FEMALE OEDERS. 207 
 
 The secrets of domestic life "were in their power. A 
 profession of the profoundest humility wielded the 
 terrors of the Inquisition, and tows of perfect poverty 
 culminated in the possession of enormous estates. There 
 is but too much proof that the "angelical" obligation of 
 chastity was not more consistently observed. 
 
 Communities of female recluses appear to have been 
 coeval, in most countries, with those of the other sex. 
 Their institution in the West is ascribed to MarceUa, 
 a noble Eoman widow, who became acquainted with 
 Jerome during his visit to Eome (a.d. 382), and died 
 shortly after the capture of the city by the Goths. The 
 original nuns, like the monks, were strictly bound to 
 manual labour, the needle and the distaff supplying the 
 place of severer tools. These occupations relieved the 
 monotony and strain of feligious offices, which press 
 with greater weight on the female mind than the male. 
 At first, there were no vows ; the nun was at liberty 
 to quit the community and marry without scandal. 
 Basil, Ambrose, and Augustine vehemently protested 
 against such departures from what was fanatically deemed 
 a state of higher purity. The Council of Chalcedon 
 subjected them to the penalty of excommunication ; still 
 the bishop might show mercy if he thought fit, and the 
 marriage would appear to stand good.' The necessity 
 for such a canon proves the offence to be not unusual. 
 Innocent i. (a.d. 407) made the crime inexpiable in 
 nuns who had actually taken the veU ; and subsequent 
 ages, reverting to the example of heathen Eome, subjected 
 their frail vestals to imprisonment, tortures, and death. 
 
 The Benedictine Nuns were founded by Scholastica, 
 the sister of the saint, and in conformity to his rule. 
 
 • Cone. Chal., Can. xvi. By the fifteenth canon, the same penalty is 
 imposed on Deaconesses who marry : these were not then admitted under 
 forty years of age. 
 
208 THE MONKS AND THE CltUSADES. 
 
 Gregory the Great reports that Rome contained in his 
 time three thousand of these " handmaidens of God."^ 
 "When coarser lahours came to be despised, the nuns 
 were preserved from idleness by the tasks of embroider- 
 ing ecclesiastical vestments, copying and illuminatiag 
 manuscripts, and attending to the culinary and domestic 
 wants of the society. In process of time, they came, 
 like the monks, to affect an ecclesiastical character. 
 The abbess ruled her flock and bestowed her blessing 
 like a bishop. She attended councils and subscribed 
 decrees. It was found necessary to forbid the reverend 
 mothers (a.d. 813) from consecrating, ordaining, and per- 
 forming other sacerdotal functions. 
 
 Canonesses followed in imitation of canons, and 
 ''Nuns of the Hospital" were contemporary with the 
 knights. Catherine of Sieima, a zealous disciple of 
 Dominic, founded an Order of female mendicants. St. 
 Brigida, a Swedish princess, drew up a rule (pretended 
 to be dictated by Christ Himself in one of her 
 numerous visions) for a double convent of monks 
 and nuns, which was confirmed by pope Urban v. 
 A.D. 1360. By strictly imposing manual labour on both 
 orders, she endeavoured to revive the ancient spirit 
 from which monachism had so lamentably degenerated. 
 But no female Order achieved so valuable a ministry as 
 the UrsuUne Nuns, organised in the sixteenth century 
 by Angela di Brescia and Ursula, of Naples. "Without 
 the bond of any community, free from vows, and retain- 
 ing thefr family relations, these pious sisters devoted 
 themselves, for Christ's sake, to nursing the sick, re- 
 lieving the poor, and comforting the mourners. 
 
 Of every Order the earliest members were undoubtedly 
 the best. The first monks reclaimed waste lands, cleared 
 
 ' Ep. vi. 28. 
 
ABVANTAGE8 OP THE CLOISTER. 209 
 
 and cultivated the soil, preached the Gospel in the rural 
 districts, civilised the population, and instructed the 
 ignorant. Their labours added fire and eariiestness to 
 their prayers, while their prayers daily stimulated and 
 sanctified new exertions. A similar spirit actuated the 
 founders of each succeeding institution; but the as- 
 sumption of the priestly character, and the patronage 
 of the Holy See, involved all in the corruptions and 
 superstitions of the day. Eelics, miracles, saint worship, 
 penances, purgatory, found their most zealous adherents 
 among the idle inmates of the cloister. Luxury, envy, 
 malice, and uncleanness followed in natural sequence. 
 The rise of each new Order proclaimed the degeneracy 
 of the older ones, but the downward tendency was 
 universal and inevitable. 
 
 StUl, it is not to be doubted that many woimded souls 
 found healing, and strength in the seclusion of the 
 cloister. To females it afforded that shelter in times of 
 violence, which is stUl panted for in an age of covet- 
 ousness. Nor were its advantages restricted to the 
 inmates. Inestimable blessings were imparted to the 
 gick and penitent by the ministry of pious monks, whose 
 connection with the labouring classes gave them access 
 to sympathies not so readily reached by the established 
 clergy. Ignorance and poverty found relief at the 
 monasteries to the last. Signal also were their services 
 in the cause of literature. By preserving and copyiag 
 the manuscripts of earlier times, the monks and nuns 
 prevented the extinction of learning in the fall of the 
 empire : we are indebted to them for the Holy Scrip- 
 tures themselves, as well as the earliest commentaries 
 of the uninspired writers. The Benedictine edition of 
 the Pathers is one of the noblest monuments of literary 
 industry. 
 
 It may be questioned whether the monasteries could, 
 
210 THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 
 
 have maintained these claims to respect, during the 
 altered circumstances of succeeding ages, had they 
 seriously made the attempt; but the whole scope and 
 spirit of the origioal institution was changed by the 
 alliance with Eome. The papal exemptions substituted 
 a lax and distant visitor for the diocesan control strictly 
 enjoined by the Fourth General Council.' Their reli- 
 gious privileges tempted them to a lucrative trade in 
 consciences, and the wealth so acquired was dissipated 
 in luxury and vice. Their morals were corrupted by 
 indulgences, and their faith by a blind reliance on 
 the pope. The epithets hurled at the mendicants by an 
 angry Benedictine, might be appUed to the generality 
 of religious Orders. They were "the pope's beadles 
 and tax-gatherers, blind leaders of the blind." " When 
 the grand imposture of indulgences came to inflict the 
 last outrage on the conscience of Christeq^om, it was the 
 monks who todertook the sale and shared the commis- 
 sion. The papal alliance was as fatal to their patriotism 
 and honour as to their piety. In every independent 
 kingdom a monastery was always an enemy's outpost, 
 quartered on its resources and eating up its strength, 
 till the time arrived for its subjugation, and the trumpet 
 sounded for the attack. 
 
 While the monastic Orders were thus subduing 
 western Christendom to the pope, the Crusades ex- 
 hibited him at the head of its temporal forces, uniting 
 its princes, and directing its armies in the cause of 
 religion. By promising forgiveness of sins to aU who 
 assumed the cross, and at the same time opening to 
 more worldly adventurers a tempting prospect of riches 
 and power, the popes induced all classes, from the 
 monarch to the peasant, to embark in these romantic 
 but barbarous expeditions. " There was no nation so 
 
 > Cone. Glisl., Can, iy. » Matt. Paris, 1246-7. 
 
PAILTJEE or THE CRITSADES. 211 
 
 demote, no people so retired, that did not respond to the 
 papal appeal. It inspired not the continent only, but 
 the most distant and savage islands. The "Welshman 
 left his hunting, the Scotch his fellowship with vermin, 
 the Dane his drinking bouts, the Norwegian his raw 
 fish.'" " It is the wiU of God," exclaimed the multi- 
 tudes, excited by the oratory of pope Urban at the 
 Coimcil of Clermont (a.d. 1095): the pontiff accepted 
 the omen, and made it the battle-cry of the crusaders. 
 It was a French council, and Urban was the first 
 Frenchman who ascended the throne of St. Peter. The 
 spirit of that chivalrous nation presided over the in- 
 ception: yet none of the sovereigns of Europe risked 
 his person or his reputation till the establishment of 
 the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had created a political 
 interest out of the religious one. 
 
 The ruinous results of these expeditions on the 
 Eastern Church have been noticed in another publica- 
 tion." The cross was planted on Mount Zion amidst 
 horrors hardly paralleled since the conquest of Titus. 
 More than a million of crusaders, not to mention in- 
 fidels, perished in the first sanguinary effort. The 
 second, in spite of the prophecies of St. Bernard, and 
 the exploits of the two greatest monarchs of Europe,' 
 dwindled in two years to a miserable handful, which 
 returned utterly dispirited, a.d. 1149. Saladin recovered 
 the holy sepulchre amid the feuds of the Templars and 
 Hospitallers, a.d. 1187. The third crusade, though 
 illustrated by the prowess of the emperor Frederick 
 Barbarossa, and our own lion-hearted Eichard, only 
 wrested a truce, which the sagacious Moslem would 
 have accorded to a peaceful negotiation ; the fourth was 
 diverted to the plunder of Constantinople; the fifth 
 
 ' Maltosbury, p. 416. ' Egypt, chap. xvii. 
 
 ' The emperor Conrad m, and Loviis vii. of France, 
 
 p2. 
 
212 THE MONKS AND THE CETTSADBS. 
 
 saved its feeble remnant by an inglorious evacuation of 
 Egypt; the sixth, and seventh displayed the chivalry 
 of St. Louis at the cost, first of his liberty and then oi 
 his hfe. The result of the whole was to precipitate the 
 fall of Christianity ia the East, and establish Moham- 
 medanism on its ruins. 
 
 In the West, the crusades exhausted the finest 
 kingdoms of men and money; the social fabric of 
 Europe was shaken to the foundation ; its fairest pro- 
 vinces were devastated by the march of disorderly armies, 
 and two millions of its hardiest population perished in 
 the field and the sea. The papacy was the only gainer 
 by these tremendous sacrifices. The red cross was a 
 papal badge; — ^princes, prelates, knights, and soldiers 
 carried it to the holy war, while the pope and the 
 monks at home profited by their absence, and disposed 
 of the spoili It was the Crusades which indoctrinated 
 Christendom with the Mohammedan notion of gaining 
 heaven by fighting for religion instead of practising it. 
 The defence of the Church, which at Eome means the 
 temporal power of the pope, was recognised as a 
 just cause for taking up arms in the name of Christ. 
 The European kingdoms submitted to pay taxes to the 
 Apostolic see for the prosecution of the holy war. The 
 " Saladine tenth," imposed by Innocent in. (a.d. 1198) 
 for this service, was the foundation of the tribute after- 
 wards levied from aU ecclesiastical benefices by papal 
 authority. The treasury of Eome was filled, while its 
 spiritual ambition was gratified by insulting and invading 
 the Eastern Church. 
 
 The monks and the clergy participated in the ag- 
 grandisement of their chief, but religion, morals, and 
 society could only suffer from the example and effects of 
 the crusades. They were the occasion of the *' plenary 
 indulgences," by which the pope dispensed with the last 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ERROR. 218 
 
 shadows of spiritual discipline, and granted forgiveness 
 of sins in exoliange for military service or money pay- 
 ments. The profligacy of the crusading armies, mingling 
 the vices of the East with those of the West, brought in 
 a tide of unspeakable abominations on the populations of 
 Europe. Their barbarism tended to hinder, rather than 
 (as some haye imagined) to assist in the flow of letters. 
 Their cruelties to heathen enemies, perpetrated under 
 the sanction of religion, nourished the spirit of persecu- 
 tion ; and if their swords opened new markets to the 
 traders of Yenice, Genoa, and Pisa^ the gains of a few 
 Italian republics formed but a poor compensation for the 
 evil inflicted on the liberties, the property, the popula- 
 tion, and the piety of Europe.^ 
 
 Both Monks and Crusades were the outgrowth of 
 one grievous mistake, which is still the cardinal error 
 of Eome and the papacy. Both proceeded on the 
 melancholy notion that heaven is to be won by 
 "service" instead of faith. Many a wounded spirit 
 sought by their means to conquer for itself " with strong 
 crying and tears " a righteousness which might hide the 
 pollution of former sins. Their eyes were blinded to the 
 blessed truth, that Christ has borne all our sins in His 
 own body on the tree, and that it needs only to accept 
 His finished work by faith, to taste in His righteousness 
 a peace and love, through the Holy Ghost shed abroad 
 in the heart, which no wiprk or service of our own can. 
 either deserve or impart. 
 
 Milman's Christianity. 
 

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CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE MEDLSIVAIi PAPACY. 
 
 Sovereignty of the Pope — New Dogmas — ^Lateran Councfls — Discovery of 
 the Pandects — Civil and Canon Law — The Decretals — Three Faculties 
 — ^Revolution at Rome — Temporal Power denied — ^Arnold of Brescia 
 —Adrian rv., Conquest of Ireland — ^Islands, the Right of St. Peter — 
 ' Humiliation of the Emperor Barbarossa — Persecution of the Albi- 
 genses and Waldenses — Cardinals, sole Electors to the Papacy — 
 Submission of the City — Scotland removed from Province of York 
 — Despotism of Innocent in. — Langton, archbishop of Canterbury 
 — Resistance of the King — ^Interdict — Surrender of the Crown — 
 Infamy of John — ^Persecution — Quarrel with Emperor Frederick n. — 
 Guelphs and GhibeUines — War in Germany and Italy — French Con- 
 quest of Sicily — ^Death of Conradin — Council of Lyons — ^Extension 
 of States of the Church-Sicilian Vespers-^-Spamsh Succession — 
 Jubilee — ^BuUs of Boniface vm. — ^His Arrest and Death. 
 
 So long as the name of St. Peter was used to assert only 
 the spiritual primacy of the West, it received the sup- 
 port, more than the opposition, of the temporal powers. 
 Charlemagne saw the political advantage of subjecting 
 the ecclesiastics of his wide dominion to the see from 
 which he took his imperial title, and which he regarded 
 as the first fief of the empire. The other princes were 
 glad to possess an appeal, from the iatractable zeal of 
 their own clergy, to a pontiff more accessible to con- 
 siderations of State. To subject the priest to the 
 bishop, the bishop to the metropolitan, and the metro- 
 politan to the pope, appeared to that age the best 
 security against an authority which claimed to speak 
 with a higher sanction than its own. From a similar 
 motive, the laity were shortsighted enough to help the 
 papacy to impose the yoke of celibacy on the clergy. 
 They liked the idea of achieving a holiness, of which all 
 might participate, by mortifications not intended to affect 
 
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE POPE. 217 
 
 themselves. It was an age of vicarious merits, and the 
 people gladly laid on their priests a burden which they 
 would not touch with one of their own fingers. No 
 sooner, however, were the clergy reduced to the will of 
 the papacy, than the laity discovered they had put a 
 sword into its hand for the destruction of their own 
 liberties. The arguments, which had been admitted 
 against bishops and metropolitans, were equally effectual 
 against peers and princes. God had not given one law 
 for the shepherd and another for the flock. In com- 
 mitting the keys of His kingdom to St. Peter, Christ 
 made no exception for royalty ; there was one door for 
 all classes of men, and whoever would enter in must 
 submit to the same authorised guidance. 
 
 Nor was the argument without an agency well 
 qualified to enforce it. By yielding up the ecclesias- 
 tical body to the absolute authority of the pope, the 
 temporal powers had provided him with an army for 
 their own subjugation. An enslaved, denationalised 
 clergy, naturally turned against political rights in which 
 they had no part. They adhered to the chief who 
 alone could promote them to honour ; they were ready 
 to fulminate his censures in every kingdom and private 
 house; they would suspend their ministrations, and 
 refuse even to pray, for a people upon whom the pope 
 for any cause, personal, political, or superstitious, should 
 iay his sovereign interdict. 
 
 In such a state of society, it required more political 
 science than the age was possessed of, to prevent the 
 spiritual primacy fi?om culminating in imiversal sove- 
 reignty. But as if to destroy the last chance of inde- 
 pendence, the several rulers were always invoking the 
 papal sanction in their aggressions on one another. The 
 pope's consecrated banner was eagerly unfurled against 
 a neighbour: his authority was questioned, but tooi 
 
218 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 late, wlien it was turned against his accomplices iq the 
 robbery. There was not a monarch in Eiirope, not even 
 the Church's vassal-king of SicUy, who would bear to 
 be told that he held his crown by the favour of the 
 pope; yet there was hardly one who was not ready 
 to accept his neighbour's crown at the pope's hand, 
 and so endorse the most extravagant of Hildebrand's 
 pretensions. 
 
 The summit of this ambitious policy was reached in 
 the long pontificate of Innocent iii. The intervening 
 century witnessed the final sanction of the two most 
 cherished of papal dogmas — trans-substantiation' and the 
 celibacy of the clergy. The spread of monasticism, and 
 the departure of the crusades which Gregory desired to 
 conduct in person, were its most prominent features. 
 It was further distinguished by the assembly of those 
 large councils in the Lateran, to which the Latia Church 
 gives the appellation of General, and by which the papal 
 system was perfected in the "West. The first of these, 
 called the Ninth General Council, was held tinder pope 
 Calixtus II., A.D, 1123 ; the second by Innocent ii., a.d. 
 1139 ; and the third by Alexander iii., a.d. 1179. The 
 canons of all were steadily directed to the aggrandise- 
 ment of the ecclesiastical, and the suppression of lay, 
 usurpations. They continued the struggle against simony 
 
 • The dogma promulgated by Kadbertus, after making silent progress 
 during the tenth century, was vigorously assailed by Berenger archdeacon 
 of Angers (a.d. 1045). He was condemned in a council at Rome 
 (a.d. 1050), and again at Tours, where Hildebrand presided as legate 
 (a.d. 1055). StUlhe adhered to his positions, and Gregory (a.d. 1078) ac- 
 cepted his subscription to the Real Presence without insisting on the change 
 of substance. This may possibly explain the charge of perjury brought 
 against him for his repeated retractations ; his opponents confounded two 
 propositions together, of which Berenger could abjure one and retain the 
 other. ITie Romish tenet was finally enjoined by the Council of Placentia 
 (a.d. 1094), The practice of administering the eucharist in one species 
 is said to have been introduced by the crusaders from the East, 
 
CIVIL AND CANON LAW. 219 
 
 and the marriage of tlie clergy, and they betrayed, at 
 the same time, the rapid progress of corruption by 
 repeated enactments against the vices inseparable from 
 compulsory celibacy. 
 
 The same period furnished the two great Codes of 
 law -which contributed so po-werfuUy to rivet the papal 
 ascendancy. The original manuscript of the Pandects 
 of Justinian was discovered at Amalfi, on the capture 
 of that city by the emperor Lotharius ii., a.d. 1137. 
 Colleges were immediately erected for its study in 
 Italy, and the Salic, Lombard, and Burgundian codes, 
 which previously prevailed, yielded to the superior merit 
 of the Roman civil law. The popes immediately per- 
 ceived the necessity of a similar code for the Church. 
 The ancient canons, more or less arbitrarily inserted in 
 the Eoman collection, were continually modified, en- 
 larged, and abrogated by decretal epistles, issued by the 
 several popes for the instruction of their clergy, or in 
 answer to questions referred to their judgment. These 
 confused and discordant utterances were digested into a 
 code, on the model of Justinian's, by Gratian, a monk 
 of Bologna, and published by pope Eugenius iii. (a.d. 
 1151) for the guidance of the ecclesiastical courts. The 
 author termed his work a " concordance of discordant 
 canons;" it was, in fact, a subjugation of the ancient 
 canons to the decrees of the papacy. Not only were the 
 pope's letters treated as of equal force with the canons 
 of General Coxmcils, but ancient authorities were unscru- 
 pulously falsified for their support. 
 
 The Decretal, as the new code was termed, was 
 henceforth the sole standard of canon law under the 
 papacy.* To encourage its study, Eugenius instituted 
 
 > A supplement to Gratian, published a.d. 1191, was called the Book of 
 Extravagants, or things not comprised in the Decretal. Innocent m. 
 authorised a revised edition distinguished as the Soman Collection. The. 
 
220 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 the degrees of bachelor, licentiate, and doctor. The 
 civil law was constituted into a separate faculty with 
 similar degrees, and a third was introduced soon after 
 at the University of Paris, by Peter Lombard, for the 
 study of theology. As Gratian collected the canons, 
 Peter undertook to compile the theological dogmas (sen- 
 tentice) of the orthodox fathers; hence he was called 
 Master of the sentences, and his work was made the text- 
 book of the faculty of divinity.' 
 
 These institutions added strength and dignity to the 
 papacy, by constituting it the btilwark of learning and 
 civilisation no less than of religion. The public mind 
 became accustomed to hear the apostolic see spoken 
 of as the fountain of jurisdiction and honours, and 
 monarchs vied with one another in an abject respect to 
 the Holy Father. It excited scarcely any sensation when 
 Alexander ni. put in exercise the audacious conception 
 of HUdebrand, by conferring the title of King on the 
 Duke of Portugal, who had previously subjected his 
 dominions to the Eoman see.* 
 
 While thus ascending to empire abroad, the pontifical 
 throne was but insecurely planted at home. What- 
 ever may be thought of priestly and patriarchal govern- 
 ment by those who contemplate it at a distance, it 
 appears to be universally detested by aU who experience 
 its tender mercies. The Eoman citizens, once proud of 
 their bishop, cooled in their devotion as he became a 
 monarch. While HUdebrand was threatening princes 
 with excommunication, his person was not safe in his 
 
 whole was agaia revised and distributed into five books under Gregory ix. 
 Boniface vni. added a sixth book, and this was followed by the Clemen- 
 tines (A.D. 1371) and the Extravagants of subsequent pontiffs. 
 
 ' Bower, vi. 69. 
 
 ' Alphonso I. was really saluted king by his army after defeating the 
 Saracens, A.D. 1136. Baronius says he had made himself tributary to 
 pope Lucius n. (1114.) Alexander's buU treats him as a vassal. 
 
REVOLUTION AT ROME. 221 
 
 own city, unless surrounded by Norman mercenaries. 
 In the thirty years that followed the death of Calixtus, 
 the papal chair was ascended by sis pontifiPs, and 
 always shaken by schism and sedition. Honoring, 
 venturuig to oppose his powerful vassal, Eoger count 
 of Sicily, in taking possession of his deceased ne- 
 phew's duchy of Apulia, was defeated in. the field, and 
 compelled to admit his title. At his death (a.d. 1130), 
 a schism ensued by the election of two popes, of whom 
 Innocent ii. finally prevailed. He was opposed, how- 
 ever, by the Eomans, and driven into France, while the 
 great Count of Italy sided with his rival, who erected 
 his dominions into a kingdom (a.d. 1130). It was 
 not till 1139 that Innocent, though receiving the 
 support of the emperor, was left supreme by the death 
 of the anti-pope, and enabled to hold the Second Lateran 
 Council. After that he was taken prisoner by Eoger, 
 and obliged to acknowledge his kingdom, while the 
 close of his Hfe was hastened by a popular insurrection 
 at Eome. 
 
 The citizens refused to obey any longer the 
 temporal rule of the pope. The senate was re-estab- 
 lished and created magistrates; they even invited the 
 emperor to take possession of his ancient capital. On 
 the election of Lucius ii, (a.d. 1144), the Eomans, 
 acknowledging him only as bishop, assembled in the 
 capitol, and created a prince, with the ancient title of 
 Patrician. The senate seized the public revenues, and 
 issued edicts in the old republican style. The pope, 
 attempting force, was repulsed, and killed in the affray. 
 His successor, Eugenius iii., not being permitted to be 
 consecrated in Eome without surrendering the temporal 
 power, fied out of the city by night, and though restored 
 by the help of the Tiburtines,' who were always at feud 
 
 • The inhabitants of Tivoli, the ancient Tibur. 
 
222 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 with the Eomans, was again driven into France. Once 
 more reinstated by the king of Sicily, the pope was 
 again ejected the following year (a.d. 1149), at the in- 
 stigation of the famous monk, Arnold of Brescia, who 
 had been, for more than ten years, preaching against 
 the temporal power of the clergy. This, reformer being 
 condemned in the Second Lateran Council, retreated 
 into Switzerland, but was thence invited by the patriotic 
 party to Eome. Incited by his ardent declamaltions, the 
 revolt was renewed on the accession of Adrian iv. (a.d. 
 1155). In the commotions which ensued, a cardinal 
 was dangerously wounded, whereupon the pope (the 
 only Englishman that ever attained that title) instantly 
 placed the city under an interdict. Superstition proved 
 stronger than liberty ; the Eomans returned to the feet 
 of their Holy Father, and purchased his blessing by ex- 
 pelUng the patriots. Arnold fell into the hands of the 
 emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who delivered him up to 
 the pope, and he was biimt alive, in the presence of 
 a careless, ungrateful people. 
 
 In just return for his subserviency, this haughty 
 pope made the emperor hold Jiis stirrup, like a groom, 
 when he mounted his horse, to honour his vassal with 
 the crown of Charlemagne. Adrian has left a further 
 proof of the extravagance of the papal pretensions, in a 
 letter to the sovereign of his native land authorising the 
 conquest of Ireland. The language is so characteristic 
 of the superstition of the times, that we insert it 
 entire : — 
 
 "Adrian, servant of the servants of God, to his 
 •son in Christ Jesus, Henry, king of England, sends 
 greeting and apostolical benediction. The desire your 
 magnificence expresses to advance the glory of your 
 name on earth, and to obtain in heaven the prize of 
 eternal happiness, deserves, no doubt, great commen- 
 
CONQUEST or IRELAND. 223 
 
 dation. As a good Catliolic prince, you are very careful 
 to enlarge the borders of tlie Church, to spread the 
 knowledge of the truth among the barbarous and 
 ignorant, and to pluck up vice by the roots in the field 
 of the Lord ; and in order to this you apply to us for 
 countenance and direction. We are confident, therefore, 
 that by the blessing of the Almighty, your undertaking 
 wiU be crowned with a success suitable to the noble 
 motive which impels you, for whatever is taken in hand 
 from a principle of faith and religion never fails to 
 succeed. It is certain, as you yourself acknowledge, 
 that Ireland, as well as all other islands which have the 
 happiness to be enlightened by the Sun of Eighteousness, 
 and have submitted to the doctrines of Christianity, are 
 unquestionably St. Peter's right, and belong to the 
 jurisdiction of the Eoman Church. We judge, there- 
 fore, after maturely considering the enterprise you 
 propose to us, that it will be proper to settle in that 
 island colonies of the faithful, who may be well pleasing 
 to God. Tou have advertised us, most dear son in 
 Christ, of your design of an expedition into Ireland, to 
 subject the island to just laws, and to root out vice 
 which has long fiourished there. Tou promise to pay 
 us out of every house a yearly acknowledgment of one 
 penny, and to maintain the rights of the Church without 
 the least detriment or diminution. Upon which promise, 
 giving a ready ear to your request, we consent and allow 
 that you make a descent in that island, to enlarge the 
 bounds of the Church, to check the progress of im- 
 morality, to reform the manners of the natives, and to 
 promote the growth of virtue and the Christian religion. 
 We exhort you to do whatever you think proper to 
 advance the honour of God and the salvation of the 
 people, whom we charge to submit to your jurisdiction, 
 and own you for their sovereign lord : provided always, 
 
224 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 that the rights of the Church are inviolably preserved 
 and the Peter pence Atdj paid. If, therefore, you think 
 fit to put your design ia execution, labour above all 
 things to improve the islanders in virtue. Use your 
 own endeavours, and those of such as you judge worthy 
 to be employed ia the work, that the Church of God be 
 enriched more and more, that religion flourish in the 
 country, and that the things which make for God's 
 honour and the salvation of souls be so disposed as to 
 entitle you to an eternal reward in heaven and an 
 immortal fame upon earth.'" 
 
 It would be interesting to know whence the doctrine 
 originated, which was often repeated by the popes, that 
 islands are the peculiar property of St. Peter, who ia all 
 probability never crossed any sea but the lake in which 
 he was so nearly drowned.^ Perhaps it came from their 
 being the favoured abode of monks ; but the language 
 of this bull is little complimentary to the monasteries of 
 the Isle of Saiats. Eapin observes that the immorality 
 of the natives consisted ia not acknowledging the Papal 
 authority. The Holy Father certainly entertaiaed a 
 curious notion of "justice to Ireland" when he committed 
 her to the tender mercies of Strongbow. He showed 
 an equal want of sympathy for the cry of " Ireland for 
 the Irish," when he proposed to enlarge the borders of 
 the Church by levying Peter's pence from every house, 
 by means of English colonies armed with their formid- 
 able cross-bows. The way in which the pope jumbles up 
 
 ' Gir. Cam. Anno 1154. M. Paris, 35 ; Rapin's History of England. 
 
 * Urban n. gave the island of Corsica to the bishop of Pisa, a.d. 1091. 
 Clement vi. exercised the same prerogative by creating the earl of Cler- 
 mont king of the " Fortunate Islands," discovered in his pontificate, but 
 the war between France and England prevented the new king from' ever 
 reaching his dominions. The Spaniards having re-discovered the islands, 
 and re-christened them the Canaries — from the dogs with which they 
 abounded — pope John xxii. gave the sceptre to Alphonso. 
 
CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 225 
 
 earthly glory and heavenly rewards, — the enriching of the 
 Church with the progress of religion, — vindicates the dead- 
 ness to spiritual religion which forms the most painful 
 feature of the Papacy. The Irish were, at this time, 
 better educated,' quite as good Christians, and probably 
 more moral, than the English. The audacity of the 
 bishop, who could pretend to promote their salvation by 
 subjecting them to the tyranny of the perfidious and licen- 
 tious Henry, is only to be matched by the credulity of the 
 Irish, who now lavish their allegiance on this very see of 
 Eome, and charge all their wrongs on Protestant England. 
 A double election ensued on Adrian's death, which 
 entailed further humiliation on the emperor Barbarossa. 
 After calling a council to decide the question, putting 
 the rival candidate in possession of Eome, and employing 
 his forces in Italy to support his pretensions, he was 
 compelled to abandon his cause and make a humiliating 
 peace with Alexander iii., who treated him from the 
 first with contempt. The pope boasted that God had 
 enabled an unarmed priest to triumph over the Emperor 
 of the "West ; but the princes of this age forged their 
 own chains, and the emperor was not the only one who 
 tasted the bitterness of humiliation. The same pontiff 
 avenged the murder of Thomas-k-Becket on the despot 
 who incited it. The pope only did his duty as a Chris- 
 tian bishop in denouncing the crime, while the king 
 received far less than his due in the flagellations of 
 the brawny monks. It was England, whose crown the 
 Norman dishonoured, which suffered the indignity.* 
 
 ' In the seventh and eighth centuries the Saxons flocked to Ireland as 
 the great mart of learning and religion (Bed. iii. 7 and 27), and though the 
 island had been since desolated by Northumbrians, Danes, and " Bastmen" 
 from Germany, the people could hardly have fallen below the level of the 
 English, nor were their petty kings so barbarous as the Norman barons. 
 
 = No one can read the words that Hume allows to have been spoken, 
 without perceiving that Henry suggested, and was understood to suggest. 
 
226 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACT. 
 
 Alexander convened the Third Lateran Council, 
 memorable for inaugurating the persecution against the 
 Albigenses, who inhabited the proyince south of Erance, 
 and joined their neighbours, the Waldenses, in re- 
 jecting the authority of the Church of Eome.' This 
 independence was so intolerable, that these two 
 appellations have become general names for heretics in 
 the papal church, and the most monstrous errors are 
 indiscriminately charged upon them. The true Wal- 
 denses were orthodox Christians, if the Holy Scriptures 
 be . the standard and rule of Christian faith. Their 
 offences- — in papal eyes unpardonable — were the denial of 
 the pope's supremacy, auricular confession, and purgatory, 
 and the total rejection of indulgences and masses for 
 the dead. It was not unnatural that in the recoil from 
 the gross corruptions of the dominant church, they 
 should attempt a return to primitive practices under 
 circumstances little suited to their revival; but though 
 mistaken in supposing that Christian ministers are 
 invariably bound to support themselves by manual 
 labour, and that all warfare, capital punishments, seK- 
 defence, and even civil lawsuits, are forbidden to the 
 followers of Christ, their errors caEed for other argu- 
 
 the assassination of Becket. Of course, his subsequent orders " came too 
 late !" His majesty selected a fitting advocate with the pope when he 
 sent a bishop, who went by the appellation of " John, the liar of Oxford." 
 1 The Albigensea took their name from AM, a diocese in upper 
 Languedoc. The Waldenses or Vaudois inherited the valleys {yaux) of 
 Piedmont, and probably took their name from that circumstance. Mos- 
 heim, however, distingTiishes these peasants from the true Waldenses, 
 deriving the latter name from Peter Waldus, a merchant of Lyons, who, 
 about A.D. 1160, employed a priest to translate the four Gospels and other 
 scriptures (Eoc. Hist. xii.). jais followers were called "poor men of Lyons," 
 and Sabbatati or Insabbatati, from wearing the wooden shoes (sabots) of 
 the poorest class. There were probably many sects of these early Protes- 
 tants, having no other standard of faith and worship but the New Testa- 
 ment, hence the papists charged them with rejecting the Old Testament. 
 
STRUGGLES AT ROME. 227 
 
 ments than fire and sword. The stedfastness of their 
 faith in the Gospel of Christ, and the purity of their 
 lives, triumphed over all the malice of their persecutors, 
 and these despised sects survived to witness the re- 
 formation of which they were the early precursors. 
 
 In the Third Lateran Council the right of voting 
 in the election of the pope was first restricted to the 
 cardinals. The regulation was designed to guard 
 against the tumults and divisions attending the suffrages 
 of the clergy and people, and was so efficacious that 
 only one double election occurred in the course of the 
 six subsequent centuries. By the excluded majority, 
 however, the innovation was so resented that Lucius iii., 
 the first pope chosen by the cardinals, was obUged to 
 retire to Yeletri for his consecration. 
 
 The degenerate Eomans had not utterly lost the 
 memory of their ancestors. The senate still claimed the 
 civil government of the Eternal City, alleging the pope to 
 be only its spiritual chief. The limiting his election to a 
 few ecclesiastics naturally increased their discontent. The 
 pope was often absent from Eome, and as the cardinals 
 repaired to the place where he died, in order to elect a 
 successor, the citizens found themselves, both in Church 
 and State, at the mercy of a foreign junta. It was not 
 till the accession of Clement iii. (a.d. 1188), who, being 
 a native of Eome, was enabled to bring his refi-actory 
 fellow-citizens to terms, that an accommodation was 
 arrived at. It was then agreed that the sovereignty 
 should reside in the pope ; the office of patrician was 
 abolished, and a prefect appointed with definite powers. 
 The senators were to be elected annually, with the pope's 
 approval, and take an oath of allegiance to him. St. 
 Peter's church and revenues were restored to the See, 
 but the pope agreed to spend a third of the tolls and 
 public revenues on the walls and other common uses of 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 the city. The citizens further insisted oil the destruc- 
 tion of the walls of Tusoulum, a pontifical stronghold 
 which had often inflicted severe punishment on the 
 Eomans. 
 
 It was this pope who released the kingdom of Scot- 
 land from its dependence on the Church of England, by 
 exempting it from the jurisdiction of the archbishop of 
 York, and subjecting it immediately to the Holy See. 
 His successor, Celestine in., was implored to draw the 
 sword of St. Peter on behalf of the gallant Coeur de Lion, 
 whom the duke of Austria kept in captivity ; but the 
 royal crusader was not an ecclesiastic, and the pope left 
 him to his fate till the kingdom had raised 100,000 
 marks for his release. Then he excommunicated the 
 duke for taking the money. 
 
 The policy of HUdebrand was already in the zenith, 
 when the cardinal deacon Lotharius ascended the papal 
 chair at the early age of thirty-seven, and took the name 
 of Innocent iii. He began his reign by requiring the oath 
 of allegiance from the prefect and senate as absolute sove- 
 reign, without any reservation for the emperor. Next he 
 recovered the cities called the "patrimony of St. Peter," 
 from the marquis of Ancona, seneschal of the empire^ 
 The crown of SicUy having devolved on a minor, the 
 pope accepted the guardianship, but seized the oppor- 
 tunity to deprive his ward of the ecclesiastical preroga- 
 tives granted by his predecessors. He compelled the 
 duke of Suevia, as heir to the emperor Henry v., to 
 repay the ransom unjustly extorted from Eichard Coeur 
 de Lion.' He farther decided a triple candidature for 
 the crown of Germany in favour of Otho (a.d. 1200), 
 but afterwards deposing and excommunicating him, he 
 transferred the empire to his own ward, Frederick kiag 
 
 > Bo-wer, vi. 187. 
 
GRANDtlUE OF THE SEE. 229 
 
 of Sicily, and the electors humbly accepted the nomina- 
 tion. France he placed tinder an interdict the next 
 year, and by this means compelled the king to receive 
 hia^ -wife, whom he had unlawfully diyoroed. The king 
 of Armenia sent to implore his protection against the 
 Latin princes and knights in the east. Bulgaria and 
 Wallachia, having thrown off the Greek domioionj soli- 
 cited a crown and a pall from the Eoman pontiff. The 
 king of Arragon came to be crowned, and swore allegi- 
 ance to the pontifical see as a tributary. Constantiaople 
 itself fell to the Latin arms, and Innocent confirmed a 
 Latin patriarch in the primacy of the east. 
 
 To these triumphs he added the effectual humilia- 
 tion of the kingdom always most impatient of the papal 
 aiggressions. Adrian was the only Englishman who 
 ever ascended the pontifical throne, and Innocent 
 was the only pope who ever trampled on the English 
 crown. His spirit was shown in his inaugural sermon, 
 " Te see what manner of servant that is whom the 
 Lord hath set over His people, no other than the 
 vicegerent of Christ, the successor of Peter. He stands 
 in the midst between God and man ; below God, above 
 man; less than God, more than man. He judges allj 
 is judged by none, for it is written, I will judge.'" 
 Gregory vii. could not have spoken more arrogantly; 
 but England, at least, had never yet known the extent 
 of these claims. 
 
 It was reserved to the basest of our sovereigns to 
 exemplify the Hildebrandine policy in its maturity, and 
 the indignant censures of our historians show how 
 bitterly the nation felt the disgrace. On the death of 
 Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury (a.d. 1205), 
 the chapter duly elected John de Gray, bishop of 
 
 • Hook's " Lives of Abps. of Canterbury," ii. 666. 
 
230 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 Norwich, to the vacant see. The election was confirmed 
 by the king, and the temporalities were restored to the 
 new archbishop. On applying to the pope for his paU, 
 he was met by a counter-election, clandestinely made 
 by a few monks before the issue of the conge d'elire, and 
 afterwards abandoned by themselTes. The pope had no 
 difficulty in dismissing the pretender; but, instead of 
 acknowledging the true archbishop, he seized the oppor- 
 tunity to intrude his own nominee. He commanded the 
 monks, who attended in support of De Gray, to proceed 
 to a new election in his presence. In vain they repre- 
 sented that they were not the chapter, and had no 
 license from the king. The pope commanded them on 
 their obedience, and under penalty of immediate excom- 
 munication, to choose an archbishop, whom he would 
 name. Against the laws of England, the canons of the 
 Church, and the reclamations of the pretended electors. 
 Innocent forced through a fictitious election of Stephen 
 Langton, his feUow-student at Paris, whom he had 
 brought to Rome and created a cardiaal priest. This 
 daring aggression he communicated with a few con- 
 temptuous explanations to John, and on receiving for 
 reply that the king would die before he submitted to 
 such a supercession of his sovereignty. Innocent auda- 
 ciously consecrated his nominee to the English primacy 
 at Yiterbo (a.d. 1207). 
 
 The king enforcing the sentence of the law on the 
 monks who elected him, the pope retorted by putting 
 the whole kingdom under an interdict. By this senseless 
 piece of wickedness, the man who claimed obedience in 
 right of a spiritual office, forbad aU spiritual ministra- 
 tions. The vicegerent of Him who came to seek and to 
 save, punished a whole nation for the contumacy of the 
 king, and punished them by exclusion from rites which 
 he believed essential to the salvation of their souls. 
 
SURRENDER OF THE ENGLISH CROWN. 231 
 
 This judge of men sentenced (as lie supposed) many 
 millions of souls to perdition, because another person 
 refused to allow a particular ecclesiastic to minister 
 the gospel of salvation ia a particular place. In 
 fact, it was an ecclesiastical strike; and, as in other 
 strikes, the agents were directed by a distant head for 
 his own purposes, and the adversary was to be reduced 
 by the sufferiags of innocent parties. It is difficult to 
 believe that a pope can have any faith iu religious rites 
 which he thus abuses. 
 
 The interdict was proclaimed 23rd March, 1208 : the 
 papal clergy ceased to minister, and the king banished 
 the recusants, sequestering the property assigned for 
 the duty. The good sense of the English nation sus- 
 tained the shock better than the pope had anticipated. 
 The king was respected for his spirit, and it was 
 observed that his only two successful campaigns took 
 place while the kingdom was under the pope's curse. 
 Innocent next relaxed the severity of the interdict, and 
 excommunicated the king instead ; an experiment which 
 the people may have reasonably thought should have 
 come first. Knally, he deposed John for his immorali- 
 ties, and gave the vacant throne to the king of France, 
 together with a plenary remission of his sins. 
 
 It is to be hoped that Philip found the latter gift 
 more easy to realise than the.former. When he invaded 
 England, the bear, whose spoUs he proposed to appropriate, 
 declined to be captured. An army of sixty thousand men 
 rallied to the national standard. Moreover, the pope had 
 his agent already treating for a dififerent solution. John 
 could have expelled the French, but a wicked conscience 
 exposed him to the terrors of superstition. Caring too 
 little for religion to be affected by the suspension of its 
 rites, he cared enough for himself to be frightened at a 
 prophecy which portended his defeat or death. He sent 
 
232 THE MEDIiEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 for Pandiilph the legate, Burrendered his crown into his 
 hands, and did homage as a vassal to the pope, engaging 
 to pay a tribute of one thousand marks a year. The legate 
 kept the crown ia his possession five days, and then 
 restored it as a signal favour from the Holy See. 
 Langton entered upon his primacy in triumph; the 
 king fell at his feet and was absolved. They walked 
 together into the cathedral at Canterbury, and, after an 
 intermission of six years, the Holy Sacrament was again 
 ministered in the archiepiscopal church.' 
 
 John Lackland was now a "good Catholic." Pandulph 
 reported to Innocent that he had never seen a character 
 so humble, so moderate, so endowed with every ex- 
 cellence f but from that day to this, John Lackland has 
 been a name of infamy to the English nation. His 
 subjects were never so willing to surrender him to the 
 French, as when Philip, outwitted and baffled by the 
 pope, was compelled to withdraw from his enterprise. 
 In the reign of Edward iii, the whole proceeding was 
 examined in parliament ; when it was unanimously re- 
 solved that John had no power to subject the kingdom 
 to the pope, without the consent of the nation, and the 
 prelates, peers, and commons pledged themselves to 
 uphold the crown against the pontiff's demand of the 
 illegal tribute. 
 
 Inflated by this unprecedented triumph, Innocent 
 resolved to tread out the last embers of resistance by 
 proclaiming a crusade against the unfortunate Albigenses. 
 An army of five himdred thousand men was let loose, 
 under the banner of the cross, to carry fire and sword 
 
 ' The interdict, it Bsems, still continued, and the archbishop -was 
 reprimanded for disregarding it. He had the further mortification of 
 finding himself subject to the legate, who, though only a sub-deacon, 
 overruled all his decisions, and would not suffer him to carry his cross 
 in his presence. — Hook's " Archbishops of Canterbury." 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL. 233 
 
 among these inoffensive Cliristians. The counts of 
 Toulouse, Foix, Comminges, and Bearn, though good 
 Catholics themselves, were severely treated, for refusing 
 their assistance to massacre their subjects. Threescore 
 thousand persons were sacrificed to the fury of these 
 wretches ; yet they received the full approbation of four 
 hundred bishops, and the ambassadors of all the Christian 
 princes, at the Fourth Lateran Council ! 
 
 Innocent took the chair of this Council as Sovereign, 
 at last, of east and west. The ambassador of the Latiu 
 emperor of Constantinople, with the Latiu patriarchs in- 
 truded into the eastern sees, were present to attest the 
 universality of his sway. The canons are said to have 
 been aU written by himself, no one venturing to oppose or 
 criticise his draft. He first established both the word 
 and the doctrine of trans-substantiation : others required 
 aU princes to swear to extirpate heretics, and to be 
 excommunicated by their bishops if they refused the 
 'oath. The deposing power of the pope was recognised. 
 The privileges enjoyed by crusaders against the Saracens 
 were extended to aU who served against heretics. 
 Auricular confession was enjoined, once a year at least, 
 on pain of exclusion from church oflBlces and Christian 
 burial. The barons of England were excommunicated en 
 masse for persecuting the exemplary John, now a crusader 
 and vassal of the Holy Eoman Church, and Stephen Lang- 
 ton, the pope's own Mend and nominee, was suspended 
 for assisting them.' Neither prelates nor peers, however, 
 wavered in their purpose, till, in spite of pope and kings, 
 the great charter had secured the liberties of England. 
 
 ' Langton, though so tyrannically intruded, proved a true patriot, 
 resisting pontiff and king with equal courage in the cause of his country. 
 He was the chief agent in obtaining Magna Charta; though produced as an 
 old charter of Henry i., it was probably drawn up by the archbishop 
 himself. 
 
234 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 Innocent died at Perugia 16tli July 1216, renowned 
 for his learning as a civilian aiid a diviae, but more 
 memorable as completing tiie once hopeless conception 
 of the monk Hildebrand. In the sway which he held 
 over the greatest monarchs, there seemed to he some 
 ground for the words which the popes blasphemously 
 applied to themselves, — " He setteth up one and putteth 
 down another." 
 
 His successors followed diligently in the same path. 
 Honorius iii. condescended to accept the little Isle of 
 Man, and grant investiture to its petty prince as a 
 feudatory of the Apostolic See (a.d. 1219). Before 
 placing the imperial crown on the head of Frederick ii., 
 he obliged him to resign all the claims of the empire 
 upon Spoleto and Tuscany, and further to take the 
 cross ia the Holy Land. Gregory ix. excommuni- 
 cated the emperor for delaying the fulfilment of 
 this vow, and when he embarked, pursued him with 
 censures that alienated the Latin knights and prelates* 
 from his side. Frederick accomplished more than any 
 other prince since Godfrey of Bouillon, by making a 
 treaty with the Sultan which secured free access to 
 the Holy Places ; yet on his entering Jerusalem the 
 churches were interdicted by the patriarch, and not 
 even a German bishop would anpiat the aficursed of the 
 pope. The emperor took the crown from the altar, and 
 placed it on his head with his own hand.' 
 
 Eeturning to Italy, he found himself excommunicated 
 anew, and his territories overrun by an army of rebels, 
 under the command of a papal legate, styled the 
 Militia of Christ. This was the beginning of the 
 
 ' Frederick claimed the crown in right of his second wife Yolande, 
 daughter and heiress of John de Brienne, the last king of Jerusalem : 
 hence the union of that title with the crown of Sicily, his hereditary- 
 kingdom. 
 
GUELPHS AND GHIBBLLINES. 235 
 
 factions wHcli so long desolated Italy imder the appella- 
 tion of Guelphs and GHbellines. The former was the 
 name of a duke of Bavaria who contested the empire 
 with Conrad iii., and afterwards took part against him 
 in the dispute between Innocent ii. and his rival 
 Anacletus. The partisans of the pope adopted it as 
 their war-cry, while the imperialists took the watch- 
 word of GhibelUnes from a town in Suabia, where the 
 same emperor (or his son) was bom.' These party names 
 were revived by the adherents of Gregory and Frederick, 
 and taken up by the local factions of every state 
 and city, till all Italy was split into two parties strug- 
 gling for the mastery, with as little consciousness of 
 the original quarrel as the Tories and Whigs of our own 
 country. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the fury of the Eoman court 
 against the emperor Frederick, who, though the ward of 
 a pope, exhibited the strongest determination to recover 
 the rights of the empire. He was excommunicated four 
 or five times ; a crusade was proclaimed against him, 
 but with no other effect than to embitter and extend 
 the hostilities. The imperial troops conquered Milan, 
 Sardinia, TJrbino, and Tuscany, and laid siege to Eome 
 itself (1240). Gregory summoned a General Council to 
 enforce his anathema, but Frederick defeated the project 
 by capturing the Genoese fleet with a large number of 
 bishops on board, and consigning them to prison or 
 death. This disaster proved fatal to the pope, and the 
 vacancy occasioned by his death could not be filled tiU 
 the emperor released some of the captured cardinals to 
 
 ' The Italians, despising the barbarous language of Germany, found 
 another derivation for the Guelphs in '■'■ guardatori delta fe,^'' " defenders of 
 the faith," and for the GhibeUines in '■'■ gvdda belMca," "a strife-maker." 
 Others say that Guelph and Ghibel were names of two brothers who took 
 opposite sides in the wars of Gregory and Frederic. 
 
236 THE MEDIiEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 constitute a conclave. He was rewarded by the elevation 
 of an iatimate friend, the GhibelHne cardinal Fieschi; 
 but Innocent iv. had no sooner assumed the tiara 
 than he became a different man. He demanded the 
 emperor's unconditional submission to the church, with 
 the immediate release of his ecclesiastical prisoners. 
 Failiiig iu this, he retreated iuto France, and at the 
 Council of Lyons (a.d. 1245), again pronounced sentence 
 of excommunication and deposition against Frederick. 
 The proffered mediation of St. Louis the French king 
 was rejected, and the pope haughtUy enjoiaed the 
 German electors to fill the vacant throne. The new 
 king chosen on his recommendation fell in battle ; and 
 Frederick, supported by most of the lay princes, reta- 
 liated on the clergy and monks throughout his domi- 
 nions. Universal war raged in Germany and Italy. 
 The pope offered SicUy to any CathoUc prince who 
 would expel the church's enemy. Eichard earl of 
 Cornwall, Charles of Anjou, and Edmund the English 
 king's son, successively bid for the prize. The pope 
 made an attempt to reserve the crown to himself, but 
 his army was defeated by Frederick's son Manfred, and 
 Innocent followed the emperor to the grave a.d. 1254. 
 
 Frederick left his hereditary kingdom to Conradin 
 his infant grandson ; Manfred, who had possessed himself 
 of Calabria and Apulia, being nominated regent. On a 
 false report of the infant's death, Manfred ascended the 
 throne, but being defeated in a decisive engagement 
 with Charles of Anjou, the kingdom submitted to the 
 conqueror (1266). The French rule soon becoming 
 intolerable, the Sicilian lords recalled Conradin, whom 
 Alexander iv. had excluded firom the empire, by 
 threatening to excommunicate any elector who should 
 vote for him. This ill-fated prince, falling into the 
 hands of the French, was inhumanly beheaded in the 
 
COUNCIL OF LYONS. 237 
 
 market-place at Naples : he threw his glove from 
 the scaffold, entreating -whoever should pick it up to 
 carry it to his cousin Constantia, queen of Arragon. 
 The Spaniards, he knew, might be trusted to avenge 
 his wrongs. 
 
 This judicial murder has been laid at the door of the 
 pope, Clement iv. But he had died some months before, 
 leaving one of the most respectable names in the ponti- 
 fical succession. The dissensions among the cardinals 
 kept the See vacant three years, and it was not till 
 the magistrates of Yiterbo had locked them up in the 
 bishop's hall, and even taken off the roof and stopped 
 the supply of food, that Gregory x. was elected. He 
 presided at the great Council of Lyons (a.d. 1273), 
 called to unite the Greek and Latin churches. The 
 submission of the emperor Michael Paleetologus, and the 
 letters he produced from the Greek bishops, were 
 accepted as a happy reunion. But the letters were 
 forgeries, executed with a view to political aid, and the 
 churches remained as opposed as ever. In this council 
 the regulations were adopted for expediting the election 
 of a successor to the Holy See, which, with some 
 modifications, are stiU in force. The cardinals present 
 with any pope at his death, are to wait ten days for 
 others, and then be shut up in a common room, with a 
 cell for each, under the guard -of the magistrates till the 
 election is declared. A cardinal arriving before the 
 election may be admitted into the conclave, and allowed 
 to vote, even if under sentence of excommunication, but 
 no one once admitted can retire, except for sickness, and 
 no absent cardinal can vote. Wo election is effected, 
 save by a concurrence of two-thirds of the votes.^ 
 
 Gregory exerted himself with great energy to put 
 
 ' By the constitution of Gregory x., the cardinals were to be attended 
 
238 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 an end to the factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines. 
 The city of Florence, where party spirit ran highest, 
 he placed under an interdict ; but it was not till after a 
 long and bloody war between the republics of Lucca and 
 Pisa, that Innocent v. was enabled to proclaim the ex- 
 tinction of the feud. Eyen then the spirit of faction 
 was not dead, and the party names continued to recur in 
 connection with the disputes of the day. 
 
 These contests were attended by no inconsiderable 
 addition to the papal revenues. The first great aug- 
 mentation was in the pontificate of Innocent iii. To 
 obtain his countenance against Otho, Frederick ii. con- 
 firmed the long-disputed donation of the countess 
 Matilda of Tuscany, and further allowed the count of 
 Fundi, in Naples, to bequeath his entire possessions to 
 the Eoman See. The imperial crown was stripped of 
 Eomagna and Bologna by Nicholas iii., who exa6ted 
 their concession, or as the pope called it their restitu- 
 tion, from Eudolf of Hapsburgh, These acquisitions 
 carried the papal territory to its widest extent, for 
 Nicholas was disappointed in the attempt he meditated 
 on |he crown of Sicily. Charles of Anjou, who had 
 been created Eoman senator and vicar of the Church 
 States, was further honoured by John xxi. with the 
 titular crown of Jerusalem. Nicholas abolished the 
 vicariate (transferring the administration of Tuscany to 
 the emperor), and obliging Charles to relinquish the 
 senatorial dignity, conferred it on himself for life. He 
 would gladly have done the same with the crown of 
 Sicily, but death removed him before the conspiracy, 
 into which he had entered, had time to effect its design. 
 
 only by one servant each, and if the election were delayed Beyond three 
 days, to be allowed no more than one dish apiece for dinner, and one for 
 supper ; after a fortnight their diet was to be reduced to bread and water, 
 with a little wine ; but these rigorous injunctions are now relaxed. 
 
THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 239 
 
 The author of this famous treason was John of 
 Procida, a Sicilian nobleman, who had been banished 
 the island for his fidelity to the house of Suabia. 
 .Eepairing to Pedro iii., king of Arragon, he offered 
 to restore his wife Constantia to the throne of her 
 ancestors. Money to equip a fleet was obtained from 
 the emperor of Constantinople, who hoped by this means 
 to divert Chai-les from an expedition he was contem- 
 plating agaiast himself. Pedro put out to sea on 
 pretence of attacking the Saracens in Africa, ac- 
 cepting a contribution from Charles himself for that 
 laudable purpose. Meantime John, passing through 
 Sicily in disguise, enlisted the chief lords in his design. 
 The conspiracy was favoured by the king's absence in 
 attendance on the pope. On Easter-day 1282, as the 
 beUs began to ring for vespers, the Sicilians rose on the 
 French in every part of the island, and massacred them 
 without respect to sex or age. Priests, friars, and 
 monks, slaughtered their own brethren, and so effec- 
 tually was the bloody policy carried out, that eight 
 thousand French perished in the space of two hours. 
 The king and queen of Arragon, who were waiting for 
 the intelligence, quickly appeared with their fleet, and 
 were received and crowned with unanimous applause. 
 
 Pope Martin, who was a friend of the French, and 
 had reappointed Charles to the senatorship, no sooner re- 
 ceived intelligence of these "Sicilian Yespers" (as the 
 inhuman deed was called), than he excommunicated the 
 conspii^ators and their abettors, and laid an interdict on 
 the dominions of the Spanish king. Curses and inter- 
 dicts, however, had become too frequent to preserve 
 their terror. Pedro maintained his claim in right of his 
 wife, and the private investiture of Nicholas. After 
 much mutual reviling, the two kings agreed to decide 
 the quarrel by single combat at Bordeaux, and the 
 
240 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 French historians represent their hero as actually ap- 
 pearing in the lists with a hundred knights, vainly 
 caUing for the recreant Spaniard. The truth is, the 
 pope forbad the ridiculous combat, and Edward i.- 
 refased to permit it at Bordeaux.^ Pedro, paying no 
 attention to the papal censure, was formally deposed 
 from the throne of Arragon by a bull, dated 22nd 
 March 1283, in which the pope absolved his subjects 
 from their allegiance, and offered his dominions to 
 any prince that would seize them. The impracticable 
 monarch laughed at the sentence by writing himself in 
 derision, " Pedro, a gentleman of Arragon, father of two 
 kings and lord of the sea." The bull was treated with 
 equal contempt by the Spaniards. Charles died of grief, 
 leaving his son, the prince of Salerno, a prisoner, and 
 Martin followed him, before he could proclaim a general 
 crusade against the invader of the apostoUc fief. Pedro, 
 having enjoyed his two crowns to the day of his death, 
 left them to his sons, Alphonso and James respectively, 
 and both were excommunicated by Honorius iv. for their 
 accession. 
 
 The prince of Salerno, obtaining his release by the 
 mediation of Edward of England, was absolved by 
 Nicholas IV. from the conditions to which he had sworn, 
 and crowned at Eome king of Apulia (i.e. Naples) and 
 Sicily, A.D. 1289. His hopes of regaining the island 
 were constantly disappointed. James, having succeeded 
 to the crown of Arragon by the death of Alphonso, 
 was persuaded to resign Sicily to Charles on condition 
 of receiving his daughter in marriage, with an ample 
 dowry. Boniface viii. also graciously gave him leave 
 to conquer the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, from 
 the republics of Pisa and Genoa. The Sicilians, how- 
 
 ' Bower, vi. 320. 
 
INSTITUTION 01? THE JUBILEE. 241 
 
 ever, declining to be so bartered, bestowed their crown on 
 James's brother Frederic; and though James contributed 
 his fleet to reduce him, he retained the island throne, 
 while Charles and the pope were obliged to rest content 
 with the continental kingdom. Their only satisfaction 
 was to persist in calling Naples by the name of Sicily, 
 and to stigmatise their rival as king of Trinacvia. 
 
 Boniface vni. was a man of so much learning, that 
 Petrarch extols him as the wonder of the world. His craft 
 and cruelty, however, were shown in his treatment of 
 Celestine v., whom he first persuaded to resign the ponti- 
 ficate, five months after his election, on account of his 
 inexperience in politics ; and then, having succeeded to 
 the chair, instead of letting the good man return to the 
 cloister for which he panted, he kept him in confinement 
 to the day of his death. His resentment of the opposi- 
 tion of the two cardinals Colonna to his election, was so 
 bitter, that not content with degrading them, he. decreed 
 the whole family — one of the most illustrious in Bome — 
 to be for ever infamous, and incapable of ecclesiastical 
 dignities. He pulled down their town of Praeneste, and 
 ordered the site to be sown with salt to extinguish it, 
 like Carthage, for ever. 
 
 This pontificate is famous for the institution of 
 the Jubilee, though, according to some accounts, it 
 was established a century before by Innocent iii. 
 By a bull dated 22nd February 1300, Boniface 
 granted a plenary remission of sins to all who before 
 Christmas, in that and every subsequent hundredth year, 
 should visit the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul 
 daily, for thirty days if inhabitants of Rome, and for 
 half that time if strangers. His private enemies the 
 Colonnas, Frederic of Sicily, who had neglected to pay 
 his tribute, and the abettors of the Saracens were the 
 only persons excluded. The city was crowded with 
 
 R 
 
242 THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 strangers, who flocked to gain the indulgence ; enormous 
 sums were offered at the holy tomhs ; and the solemnity 
 became so profitable that Clement vi. reduced the period 
 for its observance from a hundred years to fifty, and later 
 popes hare brought it down to twenty-five. 
 
 Boniface appeared at the jubilee with the spiritual 
 and temporal swords carried before him, the bearers of 
 which proclaimed the text, — " Behold, here are two 
 swords.'" This irreverent parody on the words of 
 St. Peter, appeared still earlier on the seal of an English 
 confederation for the expulsion of the foreign eccle- 
 siastics, in the reign of Henry iii., and a bitter jest it 
 then proved to the pope's beneficiaries. 
 
 The pope had the pleasure of receiving a more 
 respectful recognition from the barons of Scotland. 
 Finding themselves hard pressed by the arms of 
 Edward i., they resolved to accept a distant, in pre- 
 ference to a neighbouring, master ; accordingly, they 
 tendered the kingdom to the pope, pretending that, 
 from the most ancient times, Scotland had been a fief 
 of the holy Eomari See. Boniface, eagerly embracing the 
 offer, commanded the archbishop of Canterbury to 
 require the king to withdraw his troops, and submit his 
 pretensions to the apostoUc tribunal. Edward gravely 
 replied, that in the time of the prophet Samuel, Brutus, 
 a noble Trojan, had expelled the giants from Albion, and 
 given the whole island to his sons, of whom Locrinus 
 the eldest and chief wore the crown of England. The 
 
 > Luke xxii. 38. It has often been observed that few things in the 
 papacy are new. It is indebted much more to imitation than to invention. 
 At the inauguration of Togrul Beg, as snltan or lieutenant of the prophet- 
 vicar (A.D. 1058), he received two crowns and the scimitars of east and west, 
 with a commission importing that the caliph entrusted to him all that part 
 of the world which God had committed to his care. The chair of St. Peter 
 itself is an importation from the east, and an Arabic inscription to 
 Mohammed is said to have been discovered upon it. 
 
BULLS OF BONIFACE, 
 
 243 
 
 Scots, without contesting these historical facts, replied 
 that Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh king of Egypt, had 
 wrested the northern part of the island from the power 
 of Loorinus, and transmitted it to her descendants, with 
 no superior but the pope ! Such was, in fact, the received 
 history of this island down to the publication of Camden's 
 Britannia; but Boniface got no other satisfaction than to 
 be told that the laws of England did not permit the 
 king to subject the rights of his crown to any foreign 
 tribunal. 
 
 His conflict with the king of France was still more 
 unfortunate. Philip the Pair, like our own Edward i., 
 thought fit to compel the clergy to contribute towards 
 the expenses of his repeated campaigns. The pope 
 thereupon issued a bull entitled Clericis laicos (a.d. 1296), 
 charging the laity with inveterate hostility to the clergy, 
 and prohibiting, under pain of excommunication, any pay- 
 ment out of ecclesiastical revenues without his consent. 
 The king retorted by prohibiting the export of coin or 
 treasure from his dominions, without license from the 
 crown. This was cutting off the pope's revenue at a 
 blow, and so modified his anger that he allowed the 
 clergy to grant a " free benevolence " to the king, when 
 in urgent need. A few years after (1301), PhiHp 
 imprisoned a bishop on charge of sedition, when 
 Boniface thundered out his bulls Salvator mund% 
 and Ausculta fili, the first of which suspended all 
 privileges accorded by the Holy See to the French 
 king and people, and the second, asserting the papal 
 power in the now familiar text from Jeremiah,* sum- 
 moned the superior clergy to Eome. PhiHp burned the 
 bull, and prohibited the clergy from obeying the sum- 
 mons. The peers and people of France stood by the 
 
 ' Jer. i. 10, 
 
 E 2 
 
244 THE MEDIAEVAL PAPACY. 
 
 cro-wit, treating the exhortations of the clergy with 
 defiance. The pope, incensed at this resistance, published 
 the Decretal called Jlnam sanctam, which affirms the 
 unity of the Church, without which there is no salva- 
 tion, and hence the unity of its head in the successor of 
 St. Peter. Under the pope are two swords, the spiritual 
 and the material — ^the one to be used % the church, the 
 other for the church. The former is in the hand of the 
 priest, the latter in the hand of the soldier at the 
 nod and sufferance of the priest. To declare these 
 swords e(3[ual, is to fall into the error of the Manichees, 
 who acknowledge two original principles. The temporal 
 sword is therefore subject to the spiritual, and the 
 spiritual to God only. The conclusion is, " that it is 
 absolutely essential to the salvation of every human 
 being that he be subject unto the Eoman pontiff." 
 
 The king, who showed great moderation, appealed to 
 a general council, and forbad his subjects to obey 
 any orders of Boniface till it shoilld be assembled. 
 The pope resorted to the usual weapons. He drew 
 up a bull for the excommunication of the king ; offered 
 France to Albert of Austria, king of the Eomans, and 
 wrote to the king of England to incite him to prosecute 
 his war.' 
 
 Meantime, Philip having sent William de Nogaret 
 on an embassy to the pope, this daring envoy conceived 
 
 1 Yet Edward had far exceeded Philip in his resistance to the pope. 
 When Abp. Winchelsey prodnced the bull Clericis laicos in answer to a 
 demand on the clergy, Edward, without quarrelling with the pope (who 
 was useful to himself), at once outlawed the whole English clergy for 
 obeying the chief whom he permitted to rule over them. The sheriffs seized 
 their property. They were robbed on the highway — false actions were 
 brought' against them, but no defence or complaint on their side was 
 allowed in the king's court. These methods of persuasion accomplished 
 their object. The clergy yielded their goods, and the pope never stirred 
 a finger to their assistance, nor as much as remonstrated with the king. 
 
SEIZURE AND DEATH OF BONIFACE. 245 
 
 the design of making him prisoner. Entering Anagni 
 at the head of a small force, priyately raised in the 
 neighbourhood, the conspirators, aided by some of the 
 papal household, gained possession of the palace and 
 burst into the pope's presence. Boniface, deeming 
 himself a dead man, had put on his pontifical robes and 
 crown, but these had little effect on the irreverent 
 intruders. De Nogaret was one of t3ie Albigenses ; his 
 companion, a Colonna, was so inflamed at the sight of 
 his persecutor, that he struck him on the face with his 
 mailed hand, and would have killed him but for the 
 intervention of the other. The captors unaccountably 
 delaying to carry off their prize, the people of the place 
 rose and rescued the Holy Father. He hastened back 
 to Eome, but died of the shock a month after, leaving a 
 dangerous fend- between the Church and her eldest son. 
 The next pope, Benedict xi., endeavoured to heal the 
 breach by annulling the decrees of Boniface against the 
 French king, and reinstating the Colonnas ; but he was 
 eut off by death in ten months from his election, and it 
 was generally suspected that his removal was effected 
 by poison administered by the enemies of peace 
 (A.ii. 1304). Of the contemporary writers some attri- 
 bute the crime to the party of Boniface, and others to 
 the Florentines, whom Benedict had excommunicated 
 for their murderous feud with the Pistoians. The cities 
 of Tuscany were at this time a prey to the violence of 
 the White and Black fections, the iprmer supported by 
 the Ghibellines, and the latter by the Guelphs. 
 
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CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 Clement v. — ^The Babylonish Captivity — Avignon — State of Rome — 
 Papal avarice — ^Provisions and reservations — Jjaj indignations- 
 Resistance of the English — Parliamentary measures — ^Papal sunony — 
 Annates — ^Dispensations — Clerical enormities — Council of Vienne — 
 ■ Fall of the Templars — Quarrel with the Empire — ^Anti-pope — Dispute 
 with the Franciscans — New Mendicants — ^Invocation of the Saints — 
 Heresy of John xxil. — Elogical solution — ^Revolution at Rome — 
 The Jubilee — Joanna of Sicily — Return of the See — Urban v. — 
 Gregory xi. 
 
 On the deatk of Benedict, many of tlie cardinals were 
 for closing the breach with France by electiag a Erench 
 pope; the others insisted that an Italian was essential 
 to the independence of the Holy See. The diflference 
 was compromised by the election of the archbishop 
 of Bordeaux, a Frenchman by birth, but owing his 
 preferments to Boniface, and an active supporter of his 
 quarrel against Philip.^ The archbishop, however, had 
 secretly come to terms with the king, and his first act 
 as Clement v. was to sunimon the cardinals to attend 
 him at Lyons, where he resolved to celebrate his 
 coronation. The Sacred College crossed the Alps with 
 undissembled repugnance, and two-and-seventy years 
 elapsed before the Papal court returned to Eome. This 
 
 ' The archbishop, who was named Bertrand de Gout, or d'Agout, was 
 born the subject of our own Edward I. as duke of Gascony and Gnienne, 
 and was, therefore, objectionable to the French party till he had reconciled 
 himself with their king. The ecclesiastics of this age had little respect to 
 the ties of patriotism, even if France had not properly the first claim on a 
 Gascon, 
 
248 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 period of humiliation and corruption tlie Italian writers 
 not inaptly stigmatise as the Babylonish captivity. 
 
 Clement began his pontificate by honourably ful- 
 filling his engagements with the French. He absolved 
 the king and all his subjects from the censures of his 
 predecessors, revoked the offensive bulls, restored the 
 Colonnas, and created ten new cardinals, who, with 
 the exception of one Englishman,' were natives of 
 Fmnce. He farther grauted Philip the ecclesiastical 
 tenths of his kingdom for five years. These conditions 
 had been expressly stipulated for as the price of the 
 French support in. the conclave. There was a further 
 concession reserved in Philip's own breast, which the 
 pope Was to comply with on his demand. If it be 
 true that the king claimed in this right the condemna- 
 tion of Boniface as a heretic, Clement had the manliness 
 to refuse. He ventured to inflict a further disappoint- 
 ment by supporting the claim of Heary of LuxemboTirg 
 to the empire in preference to the French king's brother. 
 To escape the further importunities of his too powerful 
 ally, the pope removed into the dominions of his own 
 vicar, the king of Naples (a.d. 1309). 
 
 The place selected was Avignon, belonging to 
 Oharies the Lame as count of Provence. The city is 
 pleasantly situated in a fertUe plain, having the Ehone 
 under its walls to the west, and an arm of the Sorgue 
 running through its midst. In the days of the ancient 
 republic it was one of the Latin cities, whose natives 
 enjoyed the proud title of Eomans. After being sulgect 
 to the Austrasian Franks, it was taken by the Saracens 
 
 ' Thomas Bradwarduie, chaplain and confessor to Edward ill., and 
 afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. He died of the plague in London 
 immediately on returning from his consecration at Avignon, 26th Augost, 
 1349. He was called the Doctor profundus^ and his great work De Causa 
 Dei, was the noblest vindication of the doctrines of grace since Augustine. 
 
PURCHASE OF THE CITY. 249 
 
 in 730, and twice rescued by Cliarles Martel. In the 
 ninth century it passed to the kings of Aries, or 
 Burgundy, but afterwards became a free republic, 
 governed by its own consuls, under the suzerainty of 
 the count of Provence. The authority of the chief 
 magistrate, who was called the Podesta^ continued till 
 the early part of the nineteenth century.' 
 
 . The Neapolitan dynasty, though of French origin, 
 was independent of the French crown, when the pope 
 took up his residence at Avignon. Charles the Lame 
 was soon after succeeded by his third son Robert, who, 
 dying in 1343, left his crown to his granddaughter 
 Joanna, the young and beautiful wife of Andrew, prince 
 of Hungary. The romantic and probably criminal 
 adventures of this princess, which bear so strong a 
 resemblance to those of Mary Queen of Scots, convulsed 
 the somth of Italy for many years. In one of her 
 frequent exiles Clement took advanta,ge of her neces- 
 sities to purchase her rights in Avignon for eighty 
 
 > In 1226, this little state shut its gates against the Prenoh king 
 Louis VIII. and the Papal Legate, as they were marcldng on the Albi- 
 genses, with whom the free citizens cherished a generous sympathy. This 
 act of independence cost them dear ; for the king immediately laid siege 
 to the town and demolished a large part of its walls. Not long after, the 
 French crown succeeded to a more legitimate authority, as heir to the 
 count of Toulouse, to whom the suzerainty had descended by marriage, 
 jointly with the count of Provence. Louis vili. of France created his son 
 Charles count of Anjou, on his marriage with Beatrice the heiress of Pro- 
 vence, A.D. 1246. Charles obtained the kingdom of Sicily foom Clement iv. 
 in 1266, and to his son Charles the Lame the claims of the French crown 
 were ceded by Philip the Fair, A.D. 1298. This king left a progeny of 
 princes and princesses, who were allied with half the thrones of Europe. 
 His eldest son was king of Hungary ; the f mirth, Philip of Tarentum, 
 titular emperor of Constantinople ; one daughter was espoused to the king 
 of Arragon, and another to Frederick, king of Trinacria, or the Island of 
 Sicily. The continental Sicily (or Naples) descended to his third son 
 Robert, and from him to his granddaughter Joanna, who married her 
 cousin Andrew, prince of Hungary. The struggles of his family for the 
 crowns of the Two Sicilies, occasioned the continual intervention of the 
 Holy See. 
 
250 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 thousand gold florins, but tliis inadequate price was 
 neyer paid. Tlie pope placed it to the account of the 
 tribute due to himself from the E'eapolitan crown, and 
 having procured a renunciation of the paramount suze- 
 rainty of the emperor, he took possession of the city 
 and territory as absolute sovereign (a.d. 1348).' 
 
 Avignon was the seat of a bishopric and a university. 
 The sojourn of the popes filled it with so many churches 
 and religious houses, that it received the nickname of 
 the "tinkling town."^ Petrarch, who often resided there, 
 and whose Laura lies buried in the church of the Cor- 
 deliers, speaks of the inhabitants as the most notorious 
 sinners under the sun ; but the outward symptoms were 
 those of supereminent holiness. Seven parishes, seven 
 colleges, seven monasteries, seven female convents, seven 
 hospitals, seven palaces, and seven gates, gave the city 
 a mystic sanctity in the eyes of the superstitious,' and 
 though the Eomans thought the See in captivity, the 
 popes were far from deploring their exile. 
 
 Eome was at this time a prey to anarchy : the great 
 houses at the head of their respective factions flUed the 
 streets with daily tumults. The Guelphs fought Tinder 
 the Ursini, the GhibeUines under the Colonnas. Con- 
 stant efforts were made to restore the republic, but the 
 people were too factious and too fickle to submit 
 to any permanent government. The king of Naples, 
 though vicar of the Ecclesiastical States, could not 
 prevent the chief cities from asserting their inde- 
 pendence under a republican magistracy, nor control 
 
 » The validity of the bargain was contested on several grounds. Joanna 
 was a minor, and at the time de facto deprived of the crown. Moreover, 
 the confirming authority was the pretender Charles, whom the pope had 
 created king of the Romans. Louis, the reigning emperor, was not con- 
 sulted. 
 
 2 La Ville Sonuanle, Rabelais, Book iv. 211. 
 
 ' Diet, de Morery. 
 
FECUNIAEY EXACTIONS. 251 
 
 the petty tyrants "who, seizing towns and districts by 
 the strong hand, acknowledged neither pope nor em- 
 peror on their domains. Italy was in its normal state of 
 brigandage, and the eflfect was most disastrous on the 
 territorial revenues of the Church. 
 
 Still the pontiffs of Avignon found means to 
 exceed their predecessors in luxury and opulence. 
 Clement v. was the richest pope that had yet 
 worn the fisherman's ring. His successor, John xxii., 
 left behind him a treasure of twenty-five millions 
 of gold fiorins in coin, jewels, and plate.' These 
 were the profits of their ecclesiastical patronage, and 
 the fees on dispensations and buUs. Never were the 
 exactions of the Holy See carried to such excess as 
 during its exile at Avignon. "Without directly denying 
 the rights of the proper patrons, the pope claimed, by 
 the plenitude of the apostolic power, to "provide" an 
 incumbent for any dignity or benefice that he chose. The 
 provision was made either in anticipation of the vacancy, 
 so as to prevent the right of election or patronage from 
 arising, or the person presented was objected to, and 
 the pope appointed by "provision" to prevent a fresh 
 nomination.^ Another common practice was to. reserve a 
 
 ' In England about this time the gold florin was current at ten shillings, 
 which would then be equal to £10 of our present money. This would 
 make the pope's savings exceed in value three years' revenue of the United 
 Kingdom, or one-quarter of our National debt ! 
 
 ' The objection ought to have been some canonical irregularity or 
 unfitness ; but the most frivolous pretences were resorted to. In 1229 
 Gregory ix. subjected the archbishop elect of Canterbury to an examina- 
 tion. He was asked whether Christ descended into heU in the flesh or 
 out of the flesh ? — how the Lord's body was produced on the altar ? — and 
 what would be-the effect of a contract of marriage, if one of the parties 
 should die an unbeUeyer ? His answers were pronounced utterly bad, and 
 Walter, the monk of Canterbury duly elected by his chapter, whose right 
 was indisputable, was set aside for Richard Grant, whom the pope gave to 
 the Church. To this illegal act Gregory was bribed by Henry iii. with a 
 tenth of his subjects' property, and most of the usuipations of Rome are 
 traceable to similar acts of royal treason. 
 
252 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 benefice, while full, for the pope's future disposal ; or to 
 appropriate its revenue to himself or a cardinal, leaving 
 the duties to he neglected, or performed by some ill-paid 
 deputy. Nominees, too, were quartered on the bishops 
 ■with orders to prefer them to the first vacancy. 
 
 AU the evils, and more than aU that we can now 
 conceive, of plurality, non-residence, and simony, were 
 practised on the most gigantic scale. The bishops and 
 abbots, with a large proportion of the inferior dignitaries 
 and incumbents, throughout Europe, were the pope's 
 nominees, many of them being foreigners who never 
 entered their churches. It was complained in England 
 under Henry iii., that the revenues drawn out of the 
 country by foreign ecclesiastics exceeded those of the 
 crown. The laity were so incensed at the usurpation 
 of their patronage, that they formed a league for the 
 expulsion of aU foreign priests, and in derision of a text 
 often quoted by the successors of St. Peter, the seal of 
 this association bore the device of two swords with the 
 motto, " Behold here are two swords.'" The opposition 
 was so threatening that Gregory ix. promised to abstain 
 from further interference with lay patrons ; but the 
 grievances continued imabated with respect to dignities 
 and benefices in the election or gift of ecclesiastical 
 persons. The popes were so accustomed to issue their 
 mandates to all ranks of the clergy, and the princes had 
 so shamefully surrendered this class of their subjects to 
 their absolute authority, that Clement v. declared these 
 mandates to be the inalienable prerogative of the Holy 
 See, as well in England as in other states. 
 
 In the reign of Edward iii. Parliament complained 
 that the sums paid to the pope for ecclesiastical digni- 
 ties, amounted to five-fold the annual taxes appertaining 
 
 ' Possibly iihese were only the arms of the see of London. 
 
E.ESIBTANCE OF THE ENGLISH. 253 
 
 to tte king: that aliens, enemies to tlie land, were in 
 possession of tlie best preferments, and acted worse than 
 Jews or Saracens : that God gave his sheep to the pope 
 to be pastured, not shorn or shaven : that no prince in 
 Christendom owned a fourth part the treasure which the 
 pope took out of this realm "most sinfally :" and that 
 lay patrons were encouraged by the pope's simony to 
 ^' seU their benefices to beasts, no otherwise than Christ 
 was sold to the Jews." The deans of York, Salisbury, 
 and Lincoln, the archdeacons of Canterbury, York, 
 Durham, and Suffolk, with several prebendaries, were 
 cardinals remaining at the papal court, and drawing 
 twenty-thousand marks yearly, in addition to an equal 
 sum sent to the pope for Peter-pence. The pope 
 (Gregory xi.) had created twelve new cardinals, making 
 a total of thirty (whereas there were wont to be but 
 twielve in aU) and with two or three exceptions, all were 
 the king's enemies. 
 
 The just resentment of the English people showed 
 itseK in the statutes of Mortmara, Provisors, and Pre- 
 munire,' and if our priaces had been equally true to their 
 people, the papal yoke would have been earlier shaken 
 off from this island. But in the middle ages the kings 
 of England were themselves foreigners, and generally in 
 quest of some personal advantage, for which the papal 
 influence was desired.^ Hence the Eeformation was 
 
 1 The first of these (Edward I.) forbade' the conveyance of land to 
 churches or monasteries without the king's license : the other two prohi- 
 bited aU papal collations, provisions, or reservations, and all appeals to 
 the pope in prejudice of the king or his subjects under pain of fine and 
 imprisonment at the king's pleasure. 
 
 " Edward i. at the very time of his dispute with Boniface viii. -about 
 Scotland, was employing his mediation with the king of France for the re- 
 storation of Gascony. Edward ll., when defeated at Bannockburn, and 
 on the point of losing Berwick, solicited John xxii. to mediate a peace with 
 Kobert Bruce, The pontiff sent his legates to proclaim a two years' truce 
 in his own name, and compel both kings tb observe it. Edward sub- 
 
254 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 delayed till, the French, provinces being lost, and tlie 
 Norman aristocracy thinned in the wars of the Eoses, a 
 national monarch arose at the head of a united people, to 
 deal more eflfectually with Eome.' 
 
 The patronage usurped by the popes was openly 
 sold to the highest bidder. Simony, for the suppression 
 of which Gregory vii. had demanded the supremacy, 
 was the beaten road to the Apostolic chamber at Avig- 
 non. John XXII. demanded Annates or first-fioiits from 
 every benefice ; and to increase their produce he 
 revelled in the uncanonical practice of translations. A 
 rich preferment was made the occasion of five or six 
 vacancies, each of which furnished a year's profits to the 
 court of Eome before the presentee was admitted.^- The 
 abuse was aggravated by multiplying bulls of nomina- 
 tion and dispensation, in order to enhance the fees. 
 
 Nor were these the only kind of dispensations which 
 ministered to the papal exchequer. Every sort of 
 obligation, canonical, legal, or moral, might be dispensed 
 with for a pecuniary consideration. There was no 
 promise or oath which the pope would not relax, no 
 marriage, or impediment to marriage, which he did not 
 assume the power to dissolve. Crime itself had its 
 price at this hideous tribunal ; a deacon or sub-deacon 
 might be absolved of a murder for twenty crowns, a 
 bishop was charged three hundred livres. Eoman 
 
 mitted, but Bruce refusing to let the legates enter Scotland, proceeded to 
 capture Berwick, for which he was excommunicated, and the kingdom put 
 under an interdict. 
 
 ■ In Germany the princes of the empire were content to yield the 
 entire church patronage to the pope, if he would only leave the revenue to 
 the resident incumbent. They complained that Gt«rmany was treated as 
 a gold mine, sending enormous sums to Avignon and receiving nothing in 
 return but epistles and speeches. — Fleury, 1. 96. 
 
 ^ The statute of pramunire, revived a.d. 1392, forbade English subjects 
 from soliciting at Rome, translations, excommunications, bUls, mandates, 
 ov any other process in prejudice of the crown. 
 
CLERICAL ENORMITIES. 255 
 
 Catholic writers themselves complain that kingdoms, 
 cities, and castles were esteemed the patrimony of 
 Christ, and gold, silver, and purple were valued before 
 humility, faith, and doctrine.' 
 
 The practical working of the system was painted in 
 terrible colours at the Council of Vienne (a. d. 131]). 
 Ecclesiastical censures had lost all terror from the noto- 
 rious venality of the authorities. Prebends and dignities 
 were engrossed by foreigners of dissolute habits, who 
 never entered their churches ; even children were made 
 dignitaries. The papal court detained large numbers of 
 the higher clergy in attendance on itself, defending their 
 rights or buying promotion. Pluralities were as common 
 as simony ; some held a dozen benefices, or more, and 
 resided on none.^ Divine service was omitted, or 
 performed with shockiug indecency. The people were 
 universally ignorant of the Christian faith and the way 
 of salvation. The clergy frequented tournaments and 
 other games, dressed like the military, to the great 
 scandal of their flocks.^ The monks, instead of living in 
 their monasteries, were running about like unbridled 
 horses, conmiitting deeds of which it was a shame to 
 
 ' Denina, xiv. 6. Gianone, xxii. 8. Villani, xi. 20. Waddington's 
 Ch. Hist. xxii. 
 
 2 Thomas Cobham, called the " good parson,'' who in 1313 was elected 
 archbishop of Canterbury, but set aside by a collusion between the pope 
 and the king, was at the time precentor of York, sub -dean of Salisbury, 
 archdeacon of Lewes, and canon of St. Paul's arid of Wells. 
 
 ' See the emperor Charles iv.'s letter to the archbishop of Mayence, 
 A.D. 1359 : " They adopt the military habit laced with gold and silver, 
 wear boots, and nourish beards and long hair." — Robertson, C. vi. In 
 England, archbishop Stratford's " Constitutions " (a.d. 1343) reprehend in 
 like manner the neglect of the tonsure, the effeminate lopks, and long beards 
 of the clergy, their costly girdles, imitation swords, shoes chequered with 
 red and green, furred cloaks, and other fopperies. Archdeacons took their 
 hounds with them on their visitations, and not only enjoyed their sport 
 while their officials held the visitation, but made the poor parsons pay the 
 keep of an enormous retinue, including these most unecclesiastical terriers. 
 
256 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 speak. "Oh!" exclaimed one of the bishops, "that 
 those winged creatures, the cardinals, full of eyes withia 
 and -without, would look into these things; but like 
 chooses Kke ; we must have reform in the head as well 
 as in the members." ' 
 
 Such were the complaints presented and admitted in the 
 council of the pope ; yet the canons then passed (fiffcy-six 
 ia number) were directed only to check the progress of 
 heresy, and impose some decent restraints on the monks 
 and inferior clergy. No reform was even attempted of 
 the head and fountaia of corruption^ the papal court. 
 
 At this council the French king again endeavoured to 
 procure the condemnation of the late pope as a heretic, a 
 piece of revenge in which Clement still refused to gratify 
 him. In another and more bloody persecution, the pope 
 ministered to the royal wishes so readily that many 
 writers suppose it to be the true subject of the secret 
 article. PhiHp had conceived the design of obtakung 
 the crown of Jerusalem for one of his sons, and endowing 
 it from the enormous possessions of the Templars. By 
 opposing this project, the grand-master, Jean Mol^, drew 
 upon himself the hatred of this implacable prince, and 
 the ruin of the Order. The king accused the whole 
 body of the most abominable crimes, including the formal 
 renunciation of the religion they were sworn to defend. 
 The adoration of an idol and spitting on the cross were 
 alleged to be among their forms of admission, and the 
 most infamous excesses were imputed to their daily con- 
 versation. The evidence was simply the confession of 
 two members of the Order, who, to escape a sentence 
 passed on themselves, became the accusers of their 
 brethren. On the unsupported statements of these con- 
 victs, Philip ordered all the Templars in Prance to be 
 arrested and subjected to torture by the Inquisition. On 
 
 ' Kaynaldus E. Cod. Vat. Wadd. iii. 7, n. 
 
FALL or THE TEMPLARS. 257 
 
 the confessions so obtained he denounced to all Europe a 
 body of the highest rank in Christian chivalry, which 
 was largely composed of the first families in every realm, 
 and solemnly dedicated to the defence of religion. 
 
 The accusation was received with a burst of disbelief; 
 the pope pronounced the charges incredible. The English 
 peers and prelates had never heard a whisper of them,^ 
 In Germany the Templars were honourably acquitted by 
 a provincial synod.^ Confessions, however, multiplied in 
 France imder the tender mercies of the Inquisition, and 
 Philip found means to impress the pope with his views. 
 The grand master, who kept his court at Cyprus like a 
 monarch, was summoned to answer before the pontiff, 
 and on obeying, with more courage than prudence, he 
 was seized at Paris and thrown into prison by the king. 
 Clement himself wrote to Edward ii. to exhort him to 
 follow the example by arresting the Templars, and 
 sequesteriag their property till the Holy See should 
 decide on its disposal.' This was a hint which no 
 Norman prince ever disregarded. Edward, who had 
 previously sent out a circular to the kings of Europe, 
 entreating them to turn a deaf ear to Philip's slanders, 
 turned round at once, arrested the Templars, and took 
 possession of their estates. 
 
 The true crimes of this famous Order were their 
 riches and their pride. From the "Poor of the Holy 
 City" they had risen to be companions of princes, 
 and owners of sixteen thousand lordships in various 
 kingdoms. Their grand master, like another pope, 
 stretched his baton from Cyprus into all the realms 
 
 ■ Feed, ii. pt. i. 10. Hook's " Lives of the Archbishops," iii. 444. 
 
 = Dupipi Nouv. Bib. Cent. xiv. 2, Wadd. iii. 4, n. 
 
 ' The pope disgraced himself so far as to urge the king to subject them 
 to the torture, and Edward consented, provided the inquisitors did not 
 inflict permanent mutilation, or proceed to a violent effusion of blood. — 
 Hook, iii. 450. 
 
258 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 of Christendom. The knights offended the aristocracy 
 by their insupportable arrogance, the clergy hated them 
 for their Papal exemptions. Their unquestioned valour 
 was staiaed by debauchery; to '' driok Kke a Templar'" 
 ■was a proverb even in England ; and their contempt of the 
 law left them without friend or aUy. Hence, when their 
 visitation came, they found neither mercy nor justice. 
 
 Still, the Council of Vienne could not be persuaded to 
 condemn so large a body on the confessions of a compa- 
 ratively few. The pope, therefore, committing the defini- 
 tive sentence to the provincial synods of each nation, took 
 upon himself to suppress the Order in the plenitude of his 
 apoStoHc power, reserving its estates for after considera- 
 tion. The Bull was passed in a private consistory, and pub- 
 lished in the council without submitting it to the vote. 
 Philip purchased this favour by resigning all pretensions 
 to the property, which by a second decree was assigned 
 to the Knights Hospitallers. Edward ii. was deeply dis- 
 gusted at being called on to surrender his spoils ; he kept 
 possession for twelve years, and would probably never have 
 yielded but for his unpopularity with his own subjects. 
 
 Philip to'ok his revenge in another way. The grand 
 master, who had been reserved to the personal judgment 
 of the pope, received sentence of perpetual imprisonment ; 
 but, as he continued to protest his innocence, the king 
 declared him a relapsed heretic, and ordered him to be 
 burned aKve. This inhuman murder determines the 
 character of the persecution, and brands the pontiff and 
 king with a common infamy. Both followed their victim 
 within a year, and it was said that, from the midst of the 
 flames, the grand master cited them to meet him within 
 that period at the judgment-seat of God.'' 
 
 > Collier, E. H. vi, — ^but in Italy the same proverb was used of the pope, 
 hibere papaliter, Bower, vi. 455. 
 ' Morery'g Diet., Jean Mole. 
 
QUAREEL WITH THE EMPIRE. 259 
 
 While thus unduly complaisant to the French crown, 
 the popes of Avignon pursued the old quarrel with the 
 empire to the farthest extreme. Henry of Luxem- 
 bourg was affronted by the ministration of a legate, 
 in place of the pope, at his coronation (a.d. 1312). 
 The ceremony took place in the Lateran, St. Peter's 
 Church being denied by the Guelphs, who held the 
 Leonine city under Cardinal Ursini. In attempting to 
 chastise this faction, the emperor was resisted by the 
 pope's vicar, the king of Naples, and the pope himself 
 had to make peace between them, as " twin sons " of the 
 Eoman See. On the next vacancy, John declared him- 
 self vicar of the empire, and forbade any election without 
 his permission.' Louis of Bavaria was excommunicated 
 for disobeying this decree, but, advancing to Eome, the 
 president of the Council of State placed the imperial 
 crown on his head, and the bishops of Yenice and 
 Corsica anointed him with the holy oil (a.d. 1328). 
 
 The emperor, now calling a council, deposed the pope 
 as a heretic, and elected a successor who took the name 
 of Nicholas v. The new pontiff recroWned the emperor, 
 and confirmed the sentence on his predecessor. The 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines rushed to their respective 
 sides, and aU Italy was iavolved in war. On the 
 emperor's return to Germany, Nicholas was obliged to 
 submit ; but Louis continued under the ban of the Holy 
 See till the day of his death. To strengthen himself, he 
 created Edward iii. of England vicar general of the 
 empire, and further supported his claim to the throne 
 of France. Philip of Valois, who obtained the crown in 
 virtue of the Salic law, was forbidden by Benedict, 
 the successor of John, to employ his ecclesiastical 
 tenths in maintaining the war with a brother Chris- 
 
 ' Const., 31 Mar. 1317. 
 
 s2 
 
260 THE AviGiirosr papacy. 
 
 tian. The pontiff would gladly have composed the 
 difference : at any i^ate, the Church's grant should not 
 assist in maintaining it. " If I had two souls," he wrote 
 to Philip, " I would sacrifice one to oblige you ; but 
 having but one, I must save it if I can." The rulers of 
 that age were little accustomed to such language from 
 the father of Christendom. 
 
 The next pope was not so scrupulous. Clement vi. 
 demanded as the price of absolution, that Louis should 
 not merely resign the empire as a fief of the Apostolie 
 See, but surrender his hereditary dominions, with himself, 
 his wife and family, to the absolute disposal of the Holy 
 Father. The emperor, who had survived no less than 
 six excommunications, drily communicated the extrava- 
 gant demand to the Estates of Germany, by whom it 
 was, of course, iadignantly prohibited. Clement threat- 
 ened to give away the crown himself if they did not 
 proceed to a new election : by deposing one of the 
 electoral archbishops, and absolving another from ex- 
 communication, he procured a mock election of Charles 
 of Bohemia^ who had previously sworn to the papal 
 conditions. The archbishop of Cologne forthwith 
 crowned him king of the Eomans, but the Imperial- 
 ists nicknamed him " king of the priests," and Louis 
 reigned with little molestation till he was killed by a 
 fall from his horse at a bear hunt (a.d. 1347). 
 
 During this conflict, a dispute arose among the 
 Franciscan friars, on the obligation by which their 
 founder absolutely forbade the acquisition of property, 
 enjoining the whole Order to subsist on daily alms. To 
 avoid this inconvenient injunction, the Holy See had 
 consented to hold lands in trust for the Order ; and by 
 this fiction the friars enjoyed enormous revenues. On 
 the other hand, it was contended that the pope himself 
 had no power over the will of St. Francis, and some of 
 
THE NEW MENDICANTS. 261 
 
 the more ardent mendicants formed a separate sect, 
 known as the Fratricelli, or little brothers.' Another 
 company were denominated Tertiarics (from their scru- 
 pulous adherence to the third of the monastic rules — 
 chastity, obedience, and poverty), and Beghards or 
 Beguines? The "Spirituals" were another portion of 
 the reformed Franciscans r discarding the flowing robes 
 of a degenerate age, they spread over Europe, 
 clad in the coarse garment and cowl of St. Francis. 
 Preaching everywhere the indispensable obligation of 
 poverty, they became as obnoxious as the Poor Men of 
 Lyons to the prelates and their more luxurious brethren. 
 John XXII, consigned them to the Inquisition as Dona- 
 tists, Waldenses, Manicheans, and all that was bad. 
 Numbers of the unoffending enthusiasts were actually 
 committed to the flames, for asserting that Christ 
 and his apostles were mendicants like St. Francis. 
 The emperor, on the other hand, was charmed with 
 this doctrine ; he would have been glad to see all the 
 prelates of the empire converted to it. He opened his 
 dominions freely to its preachers, and cordially agreed 
 with them that the persecutor of poverty was a heretic. 
 
 These were not the only persons who hurled this re- 
 proach at the pope. The whole Church was scandalised 
 by his assertion, that departed saiats do not see God till 
 the day of judgment, but remain with Christ in paradise. 
 The Church was realising a vast revenue from the inter- 
 cession of the saints ; and how were the purchasers to 
 be sure of their money's worth, if these venerated beings 
 
 » This Italian nickname is not to be confounded with the Latin 
 Fraterculi, or Friars-minor, which was the modest designation assumed 
 by ajl the Franciscans. 
 
 ' The two words are found united in an edict of Charles iv. (a.d. 
 1369) and interpreted " beggars."— Jl/e wilffen Armen. Mosheim, E. H. 
 xiv, 2, xjcsviii. These Franciscan Beguines were by no means the same 
 with the Beguines of Germany and Belgium.— Ibid. xiii. 2, xli. 
 
262 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 were not really with God ? Philip of Yalois, sumamed 
 the Catholic, took up the question with becoming 
 ardour. Speaking as a layman and a Christian, he must 
 say he saw no use in praying to the saints, or expecting 
 salyation by their merits, if our Lady and the blessed 
 apostles are not to see God till the day of judgment. 
 Such a doctrine invalidated every indulgence and pardon 
 granted, or to be granted, by Holy Church : it would 
 be the destruction of the Catholic faith.' The eldest 
 son of the Church would not endure this profanation. 
 Assembling the University of Paris, he reqtiired of them 
 a definition of the truth, and, waxing more and more 
 zealous, finally threatened to bum the pope for a heretic 
 if he did not subscribe it.'' 
 
 Had the spirit of the grand master of the Templars 
 hovered over Paris, it might now have been appeased. 
 The king of Sicily, the Dominicans, the bishops, all took 
 the alarm. John wavered, explained, equivocated ; but 
 finally, at ninety years of age, escaped the grave of a 
 heretic, by making a fall and humble retractation a few 
 hours before his death. Benedict xii. soldered up the 
 controversy by explaining that the ascension of Christ 
 had enabled departed souls to enjoy the beatific vision 
 from the moment of death, provided they were fully 
 purged from sin ; and if not, as soon as they are delivered 
 out of purgatory : but those who die in mortal, unrepented 
 sin, are cast into hell to be tormented for ever. This 
 explanation secured the important points; — ^the inter- 
 cession of the saints, the advantage of indulgences and 
 masses for the dead, and the revenues of Holy Church 
 derived from the same. Nevertheless it was added, out 
 of some lingering respect for the true Judge of men, 
 that all will stand at the last day before the tribunal 
 
 ' John Villani x. ' Card. (i'Aillac, Bower, vi. 442. 
 
EEVOLTJIION AT ROME. 263 
 
 of Christ, to giye au account of their deeds, and receive 
 their due punishment or reward. The pope made no 
 attempt to reconcile these contradictory propositions, 
 and they were confirmed, with equal contempt of logic, 
 by the Council of Trent.' 
 
 Throughout this dispute, it is melancholy to observe 
 the absolute indifference of pope, prelates, and princes, 
 towards that which the apostle counted the highest good, 
 viz., to " depart and be with Christ." To be with Christ 
 was now no boon at all : neither His presence nor His 
 righteousness entered into the contemplations of these 
 zealous "Catholics." They were anxious only to 
 provide an escape out of purgatory, and sustain the 
 solvency of the great bank of saintly merits, Jby means 
 of which the Church carried on her lucrative trade. 
 
 While these dissensions were weakening the papacy 
 at Avignon, Eome was a prey to anarchy. Despairing 
 of forming a permanent government of their own, the 
 citizens offered to elect Clement ruler for life, if he 
 would return to the Lateran, his proper cathedral and 
 the first church in the world.* On the pontiff decHning 
 to accept as a gift that which he claimed of divine right, 
 the Eomans resolved to restore the ancient republic in 
 its most popular development. Having expelled the 
 papal vicar with all the nobility, they elected a tribune 
 of the people, who sent out a manifesto to aU kings 
 
 ' The doctrine of an intermediate state between death and the resur- 
 rection was, undoubtedly, taught by the primitiye Fathers, grounded on 
 the Lord's words to the penitent thief ; but that Christ returned to para- 
 dise after His resurrection, was one of the mediaeval blunders. The 
 Scripture expressly records His ascension into heaven. 
 
 2 The GhibeUine party in Rome regarded St. Peter's and' the Leonine 
 city with dislike, and we find it on several occasions in possession of the 
 Guelphs. The Lateran was the old cathedral of Kome, and so late as 
 K.JJ. 1372, Gregory xi. issued a constitution, declaring it the church of the 
 See, and the first in the world. 
 
264 THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 
 
 and princes, notifying that Eome had resumed her 
 authority as the metropolis and mistress of the -world, 
 and demanding their universal submission. The mag- 
 niloquent tribune, whose name was Nicolo di Lorenzo, 
 popularly styled Cola di Eienzi, soon experienced, like 
 many a greater man before him, the fickleness of the 
 Eoman populace, and was glad to escape in disguise to 
 Naples. 
 
 The giddy people turned their attention to the 
 jubilee, which the pope, at their request, had ap- 
 pointed to be kept in the middle of the century 
 instead of waiting till the close. Notwithstanding the 
 great plague which raged throughout Europe for three 
 years (a.d. 1348-51), or perhaps in consequence of this 
 visitation, the streets of Eome were crowded with 
 pUgrims. From Christmas to Easter, a million or more 
 entered the gates daily} The crowd to see the holy 
 napkin of Yeronica, now first exhibited on Passion 
 Sunday, was so great that several persons were trampled 
 to death. It was calculated that not one in ten reached 
 their homes again in safety. Amid the ravages of a 
 superstition, scarcely exceeded by the concourses of 
 Juggernaut, the Eomans reaped their harvest heedless 
 alike of plague and pilgrimage. The prices were such 
 that even bread was unobtainable by the poor, and the 
 legate was threatened with death for endeavouring to 
 set some limits to the extortion. 
 
 The horrors of the times were aggravated by a 
 domestic tragedy in the kingdom of Naples, or, as it was 
 then called, Sicily citra Pharum. The young queen 
 Joanna, grand-daughter and heir of Eobert the Wise, 
 was married to the prince of Hungary, who in the year 
 1345 was strangled in his bed, and thrown out of a 
 
 ' Vill. i. 56. 
 
RETUEN OF THE SEE. 265 
 
 window. Eumour fixed tlie crime on the queen. The 
 king of Hungary, approaching at the head of an army to 
 take vengeance for hia brother, Joanna, who had chosen 
 a new consort, fled to Avignon. Clement vi. accepted 
 her protestations, and confirmed the marriage, though 
 within the forbidden degrees. The Hungarian monarch, 
 meantime, overran the kingdom, takiag condign ven- 
 geance of the conspirators, but the queen, having raised 
 a force in Provence, effected a landing in Naples and 
 recovered her crown.' 
 
 The continued clamours of the Italians for the 
 restoration of the See, obtaiaed a temporary concession 
 in the return of Urban v. to the Lateran (a.d. ]362). 
 The pontiff yielded to the eloquence of Petrarch. 
 " Would you rise at the last day," exclaimed the poet, 
 "in the company of the Avignonese, the most noto- 
 rious sinners under heaven, or among Peter and Paul, 
 St. Stephen and St. Lawrence ?" He was received with 
 the utmost rejoicings, and conducted in great state to 
 the Yatican. There he was visited by queen Joanna, 
 to whom he gave the golden rose and the sword, conse- 
 crated for the most favoured princes at Easter. The 
 emperor Charles iv. followed, with his fourth wife whom 
 the pope crowned at St. Peter's : he obliged the emperor, 
 however, to leave the next day, for fear of any attempt 
 on the city. The same year Urban received the rarer 
 honour of a visit from the Greek emperor, John Palseo- 
 logus, who, in the forlorn hope of obtaining aid against 
 the Turks, made a formal submission to the pope, and 
 solemnly professed the Latin faith.'* 
 
 Still , Urban, like a true Frenchman, sighed for his 
 
 ' It was during this year that Avignon passed to the Holy See by 
 purchase. 
 
 2 The document signed and sealed with a golden bull is stUl preserved 
 in the Castle of St. Angelo. 
 
266 THE AVIGNON PAPACY, 
 
 native climate. Three years of Eome determined Ms 
 return to Avignon, ia spite of many entreaties and 
 omens : the prediction of St. Bridget was fulfilled by 
 his dying three months after his arrival; and the 
 honour of bringing back the Apostolic See from cap- 
 tivity was reserved to Gregory xi. This pope was 
 nephew to Clement vi., whose fevour yaised him to the 
 cardinalate at eighteen years of age. He listened to 
 the embassies from Bome, and the exhortations of St. 
 Catherine of Sienna, in spite of the remonstrances of 
 the cardinals, though backed by the French king, and 
 the tears of his own family. The fleets of Naples, 
 Sicily, Yenice, and Genoa, conducted the Holy Father 
 with great pomp to the mouth of the Tiber. From 
 Ostia he advanced in triumphal procession to Eome. 
 No consul or Caesar ever entered with a prouder tri- 
 umph. The successor of St. Peter was restored to the 
 long-deserted tomb of the apostles, and the Eternal 
 City was beside itself with delight. 
 
 Matters flowed less pleasantly when the pope came 
 to require the fulfilment of the civic promises. The 
 twelve Bannerets who rode at the head of their wards, 
 more Hke knights than aldermen, refused to relinquish 
 their authority. Neither men nor money were forth- 
 coming for the covenanted war on the Florentines. The 
 Eomans wanted a pope among them for their own 
 advantage, not for his ; and having got him, nothing 
 more was necessary. Gregory had begun to contem- 
 plate a second " captivity," when death released him 
 from his perplexity in the forty-seventh year of his 
 age (a.d. 1 378). 
 
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CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 Decay of the Papacy — Tumultuous Election of Urban VI. — Flight of the 
 Cardinals — Election of Clement vn., who retires to Avignon — 
 Murder of Queen Joanna — ^Atrocities of Urban — Schism of the 
 National Churches — ^True centre of Union — Boniface ix. — ^Eival 
 Popes — Council of Pisa — ^Both deposed — Election of John xxiii. — 
 Council of Constance — Deposition of John — Gregory resigns — ^Resist- 
 ance of Benedict xm. — Election of Martin v. — Close of the Schism — 
 Process against Wiolif — Bule of Faith — Church authority preferred 
 to Scripture — ^Trial and Execution of Huss and Jerome — Communion 
 in one kind — ^Distraction in Italy — The Papal restoration. 
 
 In returniiig out of "the Babylonish captivity," the 
 Holy See found its reputation sensibly diminished by 
 long absence from Eome, and the means resorted to 
 for the supply of its exchequer. There was something 
 dazzling in the imperial ambition enthroned on the 
 seven hills, from Hildebrand to Boniface; but the 
 substitution of a mere lust for gold provoked at once 
 irritation and contempt. The subserviency to French 
 interests had excited the opposition of the English 
 and the rest of Europe. Spiritual aggressions had 
 been met in several states by temporal laws : prelates, 
 no less than princes, were loud in their dissatisfaction : 
 the Franciscans filled the world with their complaints. 
 The General Council, so often threatened, was now 
 seriously agitated. At the same time, light was break- 
 ing in on the dark and superstitious spirit of the day; 
 the universities were getting tired of the arrogant pre- 
 tensions of scholastic divinity ; and the Bible, after 
 fixing the attention of the learned, was beginning to be 
 translated for the vulgar. 
 
270 THE GEEAT SCHISM. 
 
 At Rome itself the anxiety was of another sort. 
 The States of the Church had been nsuiped by the 
 emperor, or some of the many local lay governments. 
 Fire and sword had been carried to the gates of the 
 Eternal City; the churches were in ruins; grass was 
 growing on the altars, and pilgrims no longer flocked to 
 worship St. Peter, and fill the purses of the Eomans. 
 The citizens were resolved not to suffer another trans- 
 lation. 
 
 On the death of Gregory xi. the magistrates inti- 
 mated to the cardinals the necessity for choosing a 
 Eoman, or at least an Italian, pope.' The suggestion 
 was enforced by the shouts of the populace, who sur- 
 roxmded the conclave; fires were kindled under their 
 windows, and the beUs of the capitol and St. Peter 
 sounded to arms. The bannerets broke into the conclave 
 itself; and a cardinal, who addressed the mob from the 
 window, was interrupted with cries of "A Eoman, 
 an Italian, or Death ! " The conclave hesitated no 
 longer; they elected the archbishop of Bari, a Neapo- 
 litan of good repute, but managing to let the mob think 
 their choice had fallen on a Eoman, they shuffled off 
 their copes, and got safe to their houses before the truth 
 was discovered. The archbishop being "at least an 
 Italian" the Bomans submitted, and he was peacefully 
 enthroned by the name of Urban vr. 
 
 A few weeks after, the French cardinals, withdraw- 
 ing unobserved from Eome, assembled at Avignon, and 
 declared the election void, as having been conducted 
 under fOTce. They then retired to Fondi in Naples, 
 and being joined by the four Italian cardinals, each 
 expecting the tiara for himself, the whole college entered 
 
 ' The conclave consisted of eleven French cardinals, four Italians, and 
 one Spaniard ; but the French were divided into two parties. 
 
PERFIDY OF URBAN. 271 
 
 into conclave. The French outwitted the Italians, and 
 the choice fell on the cardinal Eobert of Geneva, who 
 was installed by the name of Clement Vii. 
 
 This was tiie commencement of the Cheat Schism, 
 which divided the Church for forty years, producing 
 constant wars throughout Europe, and effecting a palpable 
 decliae in the papal authority. It is still undetermined 
 which was the fa-ue pope and which the antipope, but 
 there can hardly be a doubt that the first choice was much 
 the worst of the two. The supporters of Urban account 
 for the unanimous desertion of the cardinals, by the 
 severity with which he reprimanded their excesses ; but 
 a darker reason is assigned for the defection of queen 
 Joanna, who was the first to welcome the Neapolitan 
 pope, and supply him with men and money. She dis- 
 covered that, while accepting her favours. Urban was 
 conspiring with the presumptive heir to her crown to 
 depose herself, on condition of his making over the prin- 
 cipality of Capua to the pope's nephew. Shocked at this 
 treachery, the queen eagerly received the cardinals into 
 her dominions, and afforded her protection to the election 
 of Clement. 
 
 Urban, keeping possession at Eome, supplied the 
 defection of the sacred college by creating in one batch 
 twenty-six cardinals, mostly Italians. His rival, with 
 the advantage of the older body, retired to ITaples. But 
 the popular feeling for their compatriot Urban was too 
 strong for the royal favour, and Clement was driven to 
 the old retreat at Avignon. The cardinals who had 
 refused to move with Gfxegory gladly welcomed the return 
 of the pontifical court, and he was formally acknowledged 
 by the crown and church of France. 
 
 Meanwhile Urban revenged himself on his native 
 sovereign, by exeommimicating Joanna, and giving her 
 kingdom to the next heir, Charles of Durazzo. The 
 
272 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 beautiful queen, after losing her second husband, Louis 
 of Tarentum, had been captivated by the handsome 
 person of James of Arragon, son of the deposed Mng of 
 Majorca,^ and being a third time left a widow, was now 
 married to Otho of Brunswick. Neither of her four 
 marriages bringing any child, the succession was settled 
 on Charles, a descendant of Charles the Lame, whom 
 the queen had loaded with many favours. This prince 
 the pope invited to Eome, and there crowning him king 
 of Sicily (Naples) received in return the promise of 
 Capua, with one-third of the kingdom, for his own 
 nephew. To sustaia the war thus guiltily set on foot, 
 the pope stripped the very churches of their wealth, 
 while the queen purchased the aid of France, by trans- 
 ferring the succession to the king's brother, Louis of 
 Anjou. Clement as lord paramount, ratified the act, and 
 crowned him by anticipation at Avignon (a.d. 1382). 
 
 Charles, however, supported by the Hungarian army, 
 advanced to Naples, and defeated the duke of Brunswick 
 in a decisive engagement. The queen was compelled 
 to surrender, on terms which were perfidiously violated. 
 Charles put his benefactress to death in. the castle of 
 Muro, and by exposing the body at Naples, certified the 
 world that her life no longer stood between him and the 
 object of his ambition. 
 
 • The island of Majorca was conquered from the Mussulmans by 
 James I. of Arragon, who erected it, together with the French province 
 of Montpelier inherited from his mother, into a kingdom for his second 
 son, also called James. James ill. of this line was deposed by his brother- 
 in-law, Pedro rv. of Arragon, and flying to France sold Montpelier to the 
 king for a sum of money to recover his throne. He was slain, however, in 
 the attempt, and his son James, after languishing in an Arragonese prison, 
 escaped and married Joanna. Her refusal to give him the crown matri- 
 monial separated them in a few months, and the prince, after various 
 adventures, died 1375, bequeathing his claims to his friend and patron the 
 duke of Anjou, 
 
ATROCITIES OF URBAN. 273 
 
 Naples received its new king with the usual -welcome 
 of the fickle Italians. The cardinals of Clement's creation 
 had to burn their red hats and acknowledge the rival 
 pope. Bishops and dignitaries were deposed and thrown 
 into prison ; but when Urban appeared to claim the 
 promised transfer of Capua, Charles confined him ia the 
 castle, till he had renounced the condition, and disclaimed 
 farther interference in the affiairs of the kingdom. 
 
 Urban's temper, severely tried by this mortification, 
 broke into the fury of a wild beast on discovering a 
 conspiracy for his deposition among the new cardinals. 
 He arrested six of their number, confined them in nar- 
 row cells loaded with irons, and even subjected some to 
 the rack. One of his victims, Adam de Aston, beiog 
 an Englishman, was released on the interference of 
 Eichard ii., but the others were dragged about in the 
 pope's traia for several months, and finally put to death 
 at Genoa (a.d. 1386).' One bishop, whose limbs were 
 disjointed by torture, beiug unable to keep up on the 
 march, Urban ordered his myrmidons to murder him on 
 the spot, and left his body unburied by the road-side. 
 The horror excited by these atrocious deeds induced 
 some of Urban's own cardinals, who were at liberty, to 
 go over to Clement. The new king of Naples, whom the 
 pope implicated in the pretended conspiracy, was so 
 incensed at a sentence of excommunication and deposi- 
 tion being thundered out against him, that he disowned 
 Urban's authority, and offered a reward of ten thousand 
 gold fiorins for his head. 
 
 The kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon, which at first 
 
 • Some accounts say that they were enclosed in sacks and thrown into 
 the sea, others that they were beheaded in prison. Giannone adds that 
 two of the heads were baked and reduced to powder, which the sayage 
 pontiff had carried before him, along with the red hats of the offenders, to 
 deter other conspirators ! 
 
 T 
 
274 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 acknowledged TJrban, also forsook him, Clement had 
 before received the recognition of the crowns of France, 
 Scotland, and Cyprus, the courts of Savoy and Geneva, 
 the duke of Austeia, and some other German princes. 
 The emper-or, with the kings of England and Portugal, 
 sided as usual against their political rivals : Hungary, 
 Norway, and most of the Italian States, also adhered to 
 Urban. St. Catherine of Sienna declared loudly for the 
 Eoman pope, and, had the pontiff been somewhat more 
 of a Christian, his party might have attained to a deci- 
 sive preponderance. 
 
 Which was the true Church, no pontiff, doctor, or 
 saint can teU to this day : each excommunicated the 
 other, with that affluence of cursing for which the papacy 
 has so long been notorious ; but it is consoHng to learn 
 from their own divines, that no one was really the worse 
 for it. The great schism, we are informed, did not en- 
 danger the salvation of either side ; because, though no 
 one can be saved out of the Church, and the Church is 
 limited to the communion of the true pope, yet as each 
 party beUeved its own pope the true one, all were ly faith 
 and intention within the Church, and so in possession of the 
 means of salvation. What a pity that the same charit- 
 able construction cannot be extended to other differences, 
 besides those which concern the personal claims of two 
 very unworthy prelates ! If two centres of outward com- 
 munion may coalesce into spiritual unity by faith, why 
 not two hundred? If the communion of Urban and 
 Clement be alike valid and apostolical, to those who 
 conscientiously accept it as such, why not the com- 
 munions of Eome and Canterbury ? Why not (as was 
 actually proposed during this schism) have a pope m 
 every nation? If the national churches of Europe, 
 though separated for forty years from external com- 
 munion, were yet one, by reason of their attachment to a 
 
THE CENTRE OP UNION. 
 
 275 
 
 dogma which was indisputably the cause of their divi- 
 sion, it is hard to see why the apparent divisions of all 
 who cleave to Christ, — the undoubted centre and head 
 of the Church Catholic, — ^may not be merged in the 
 fulness of His all-reconciling love. Certainly it would 
 be difficult to reject this conclusion, without sentenciog 
 one of the two parties ia the great schism to perdition 
 in the lump. Good men on both sides, we doubt not, 
 survived the frantic anathemas of their opponents ; for 
 whatever may be said at Eome, the pope is at best but 
 a way to Christ, and if Christ can be found in the wrong 
 pope, we need not despair of finding Him in his holy 
 Word, without any pope at all. 
 
 To gratify the Bomans, Urban reduced the period 
 of the jubilee to thirty -three years, and the feast was 
 celebrated by his adherents (a.d. 1390). He himself 
 was removed by death the previous year, when all 
 moderate men hoped the schism might be closed by the 
 universal acknowledgment of Clement. 
 
 The cardinals at Eome, however, afraid of another 
 captivity of the See, hastily elected a successor, who took 
 the name of Boniface ix. His virtues attracted back 
 some of those who had fled fromTJrban: he conciliated 
 the Italians by placing the crown of Naples, which 
 Urban attempted to annex, on the head of Ladislaus, son 
 of Charles, and won all hearts at Eome by the old ex- 
 pedient of the jubilee, which he celebrated again at the 
 end of the century (a.d. 1400). To purchase this favour, 
 the city gave up the bannerets, and vested the absolute 
 government in the pope. Boniface had a warm sup- 
 porter in the emperor Eupert, elected on the deposition 
 of Wenceslaus, but died four years after, it is said from 
 the effects of passion, at being taxed with simony by the 
 legates of the anti-pope.' 
 
 ' Boniface was acknowledged in England, which vmif ormly differed from 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 On the deatli of Clement Tii. (a.d. 1394), the car- 
 dinals at Avignon hound themselves by a mutual oath, 
 that whichever should be chosen to succeed him would 
 resign when called upon by the majority of the college, 
 in order to restore the imity of the See. Peter de Luna 
 was elected and took the name of Benedict xiii., but 
 steadily refused to resign when requested, and was in 
 consequence abandoned and besieged at Avignon by the 
 French king for several years. 
 
 The cardinals at Eome next repeated the same ex- 
 periment. Innocent vii., elected, like Benedict, under 
 a promise to resign, evaded the obligation with equal 
 success. Angelus Corrarius, who succeeded him as 
 Gregory xii., went so far as to propose to his rival a 
 mutual resignation, but on a meeting being arranged 
 between them, he drew back and refused to appear. 
 It being now clear that neither pontiff was sincere, the 
 cardinals of both withdrew their obedience, and at a 
 united meeting resolved to summon a General Council at 
 Pisa. Both popes were invited to attend, but neither 
 appearing, the council pronounced them schismatics and 
 heretics, and by definitive sentence excommunicated and 
 deposed them both (a.d. 1409). This council was attended 
 
 France and Scotland whenever a difference was possible, and his conduct 
 with respect to the archbishopric of Canterbury gives a curious iUustra- 
 tion of the papal authority as then administered. Richard n., having 
 illegally exiled Arundel, wrote to the pope that he was dead (a fate which 
 he fuUy expected his emissaries to ensure), and, in violation of his own 
 statutes, requested Boniface to appoint Roger Walden to the see by " pro- 
 vision." Arundel, however, appeared at Rome safe and sound, when the 
 pope, afraid of losing Richard, translated the archbishop to St. Andrews 
 (where his authority was not acknowledged), and having so vacated the 
 see, bestowed it as the king desired. At the same time, he told Arundel 
 that all should be annulled whenever his friends might be in power again. 
 Arundel, of course, never attempted to take possession of St. Andrews 
 but, returning to England in company with Henry rv., he re-occupied 
 Canterbury in his own right, treating Walden as a mere usurper. 
 
COUNCIL OF PISA. 
 
 277 
 
 by nearly 200 bishops, a vast number of abbots and 
 other ecclesiastics, besides the ambassadors of Germany, 
 England, Erance, Sicily, and other States. The emperor 
 refused to concur in the decree, on the ground that the 
 cardinals had no power to call a council, nor a council to 
 judge the pope, but both points being afl&rmed by a vast 
 majority, the See was declared vacant. The cardinals 
 then entering into conclave, elected Peter of Candia, a 
 Friar Minorite, who took the name of Alexander v. 
 He died the same year at Bologna, not without suspicion 
 of poison (a, D. 1410), and Cardinal Baltazar Cossa, 
 who commanded at Bologna as legate, securing the 
 votes of the conclave by force or by fraud, became pope 
 by the title of John xxiii.' 
 
 This cardinal is said to have been reaUy chosen 
 at the previous vacancy, but though twice elevated 
 to the Eoman pontificate, it is admitted by all that he 
 was not actuated, even in appearance, by any sense of 
 religion, and was wholly disqualified for the ministry. 
 Made a clerk in his youth without any spiritual vocation, 
 he amused himself by turning pirate, and in his nocturnal 
 expeditions acquired the character of great daring. His 
 private life was deeply stained by immorality, but these 
 objections did not prevent his acquiring and retaining 
 many friends, in an age when even outward decency was 
 no longer demanded in a powerful ecclesiastic. He 
 received the valuable support of the new emperor Sigis- 
 mimd, but being involved in a severe struggle with 
 
 • It is generally stated that he bribed the cardinals of Gregory's 
 creation with large svuns of money. His biographer, Platina, attributes 
 his success to the forces at his command, ■which overawed the conclave. 
 Another writer says, that the cardinals not being able to agree, desired 
 Cossa to choose for them, who immediately flung the papal mantle on his 
 own shoulders, crying, " I am pope !" — Bower, vii. 132. At a time when 
 the chair of St. Peter seemed to have more to do with fighting than 
 praying, the pirate-cardinal might be an eligible occupant. 
 
278 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 Ladislaus, king of Naples, he was driven out of Eome 
 and obliged to resort to another coimcil to assert his 
 authority. Much to his mortification, the emperor in- 
 sisted on its assembling at Constance, ia Switzerland, an 
 imperial city, where he determined to imite the Chris- 
 tian powers in a resolute effort to extinguish the schism, 
 and reform the Church. 
 
 John refused to attend till he had exacted from 
 the magistrates an oath of obedience to his own 
 orders both in spirituals and temporals; but the con- 
 cession availed him little in the end. AU the leading 
 ecclesiastics and princes of Europe appeared, ia person 
 or by proxy. Thirty cardinals, four hundred bishops, 
 abbots, and other prelates, with a vast concourse of 
 princes, lords, and ambassadors, swelled the assembly. 
 The deposed antipopes, Gregory and Benedict, both sent 
 their nuncios. The emperor Sigismund was there in 
 person, and the crowns of Trance and England sent 
 their envoys. The total number, including the different 
 retinues, was not less than forty-thousand persons, and 
 it seemed that such a parliament of the Church must at 
 last determine the questions which agitated Europe. 
 
 The council assembled under the presidency of 
 John XXIII., pope by an uncontested election to the 
 vacancy created by the decree of the previous council. 
 Nevertheless, the cardinals determined that peace could 
 only be restored by all three pontiffs resigning their 
 pretensions. John acquiesced, but soon after he slipped 
 out of Constance disguised as a soldier, and taking 
 refuge with the duke' of Austria, bade defiance to the 
 council. His host, with the perfidy of the times, sur- 
 rendered him to the emperor, and he was brought back a 
 prisoner, charged with simony and neglect of the sacred 
 offices. A long list of darker crimes was suppressed out 
 of respect to the chair of St. Peter. He was solemnly 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 279 
 
 deprived of the pontificate the 26th. of July, 1416, and 
 committed to close custody.' 
 
 Gregory's turn came next. His legates insisted on 
 the council being formally convoked anew in his name ; 
 and this condition being complied with, they produced 
 his resignation ; but by his express direction the act was 
 delivered to the emperor and not to the council. It 
 now remained to dispose of Peter de Luna, or 'Bene- 
 dict XIII., who had retired into Spain, where he was 
 protected by the king of Arragon. The emperor went in 
 person to Narbonne to bring them to reason, but Bene- 
 dict coolly replied, that the schism being at an end by 
 the retirement of the antipopes, nothing more was 
 necessary than for the whole Church to return to his 
 obedience, as the true and undoubted Vicar of Christ ! 
 When his patron was persuaded to join the other 
 powers, he threw himself into a fortified rock at the 
 mouth of the Ebro, and there, excommunicatiag all the 
 world, maintained his empty pontificate to the day of his 
 death (a.d. 1424). Even then he bound his four cardinals 
 (whom he had created when deserted by the others) 
 to make a new election, and as they disagreed in their 
 choice, the schism was feebly prolonged by two succes- 
 sors, styled Clement viii. and Benedict xiv. The latter 
 disappeared without a struggle, and Clement was only 
 acknowledged by Alphonso of Arragon, on whose requi^ 
 sition he resigned his dignity, July 26, 1429. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Council of Constance, after summoning 
 
 > John was treated at first with a severity which provoked a reaction in 
 his favour. Many contended that a pope could not be deposed except for 
 heresy, and Balthazar was only wicked: his orthodoxy was unimpeachable. 
 Being released at the intercession of the repubHo of Florence, he was urged 
 to reclaim the tiara, but the soldier had had enough of the pontifical 
 dignity. He preferred to make friends with his successor, and, in spite of 
 his notorious crimes, he was appointed dean of the Sacred College, with 
 rank next to the pope, which he enjoyed till his death, December, 1419. 
 
280 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 De Luna to appear, pronotmced him excommimicate and 
 deposed. Then decreeing a new election, tlie cardinals of 
 the three obediences, amonntiag to twenty-one or twenty- 
 three, with six prelates out of each of the fiye nations 
 who attended the council, entered into conclave, and 
 with surprising rapidity agreed upon the cardinal Odo 
 di Colonna, who was forthwith consecrated and crowned 
 by the name of Martiu v. (21st November, 1417.) 
 
 "With this pope terminated the schism that had so 
 long scandalised the Church, and filled the world with 
 desolation and war. The council which completed this 
 difficult task, sat from the 16th November, 1414, to the 
 22nd April, 1418, and by express decree, no less than 
 by actually deposing three popes, established the supe- 
 riority of a council to all individuals whatsoever, not 
 excepting the successor of St. Peter. Their acts were 
 confirmed by Martin, and so published with all the 
 authority known to the Latin Church. Nevertheless, 
 the council was no sooner dissolved than the slippery 
 pontiflfs returned to their infallibility, and the whole 
 question came over again. 
 
 In restoring the integrity of the papacy,, the council 
 supposed they were securing the unity of the Church ; 
 but an enemy whom they knew not was among them, 
 and abeady preparing a more formidable schism. It 
 was at Constance that the Church of Eome came face to 
 face with the Bible. Many of its preachers had suffered 
 death from the bishops and inquisitors ; popes had pro- 
 claimed a crusade against them ; but these were the acts 
 of individual tyrants. It remained to be seen what the 
 assembled Church would say to Wiclif's grand maxim, 
 "The Scripture only is true." By adopting it, the 
 council would have obtained at once a perfect standard 
 for the reformation of all abuses, whether in discipline or 
 doctrine ; but nothing was further from the intention of 
 
JOHN WICLir. 
 
 281 
 
 these reformers than to admit even a question on matters 
 of doctrine. The Church's doctrine was sacred, though 
 manifestly resulting in a mass of practical corruptions, 
 and resting on the same false decretals -which, ia ques- 
 tions of discipliae, were freely impugned. The lords 
 and prelates had assembled to vindicate their own pri- 
 vileges, not to promote the sah^ation of souls ; and, as if 
 to anticipate any suspicion of such a heresy, the council 
 became a fiercer persecutor than the pope. 
 
 John WicHf, the evangelical doctor of England, had 
 gone to his rest thirty years before, after standing forth^ 
 at the request of two orthodox kings, to defend the 
 rights of the crown against papal aggressions. As one 
 of the king's chaplains, he was employed to write against 
 the pope's right to the tribute Ulegally granted by king 
 John. He was one of the commissioners sent to treat 
 with the papal representatives at Bruges (a.d. 1374), 
 when Gregory xi. was obliged to give up the reservations. 
 At Oxford, where he was professor of divinity, he had 
 exposed, with righteous severity, the enormous abuses 
 of the mendicant friars. In aU this Wiclif was supported 
 by the general voice of his countrymen, clergy no less 
 than laymen. Gregory had to chide the English prelates 
 for their remissness in detecting his heresies, and to urge 
 the king and the university to bring him to punishment. 
 When at last convened before the archbishop, he was 
 dismissed with an admonition, and returned to his 
 benefice. By the university, the papal bull was treated 
 with profound contempt. In the great schism, when 
 WicHf saw " the head of Antichrist cloven in twain, 
 and each part fighting against the other," he earnestly 
 advocated the suppression of the papacy altogether, in- 
 sisting on the sufficiency of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments to guide the Church. After this, he attacked 
 the doctrines of transubstantiation, auricular confession, 
 
282 
 
 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 excomnmaication, indulgences, and masses for tlie dead. 
 But tlie moment he entered on these doctrinal questions, 
 his patrons changed their countenance. The Duke of 
 Lancaster deserted him at once; the chancellor and 
 twelve doctors of Oxford condemned his tenets, and he 
 was obliged to quit the university. Still, he died 
 unmolested ia his parsonage (a.d. 1384), and the uni- 
 versity attested, under its common seal, that his Ufe 
 was free from blame.' His teaching was so effectual 
 that, twelve years after his death, the archbishop of 
 Canterbury complained that the whole university was 
 touched with heretical pravity.^ 
 
 "Wiclif 's great work — and his great offence — ^was the 
 translation and diligent circulation of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. " The Sceiptueb onlt is tehb," was his oft- 
 repeated maxim; in this lay his unpardonable crime 
 with those who wielded the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 
 Much paias have been wasted in comparing the par- 
 ticular tenets of WicHf, and other early reformers, with 
 the doctrines of modern Protestants. The comparison is 
 valuable ia showing the growth of evangelical views, 
 from the first effort at shaking off the papal yoke down 
 to the present matured enunciations of definite truth. 
 It is worse than worthless, when advanced to depreciate 
 the forerunners of the Eeformation, or to deprive their 
 sufferings of the sympathy of the Protestant world. 
 The ground of their battle vdth the papacy was ex- 
 pressed in Wiclif' s golden maxim, " The Bible only is 
 true." It was never the particular doctrine, so much as 
 the authority for determining all doctrine, which formed 
 the question on which they suffered. The position of 
 the ecclesiastical authorities was, that all men are bound 
 
 > Lewis's " life of Wiclif," p. 113. Colleetion 28. 
 2 This complaint seems to dispose of the objections brought against 
 the genuineness of the testimonial produced at the council of Constance. 
 
RULE OF FAITH. 283 
 
 to accept the faith and determination of Holy Church. 
 No opiaion, however irreligious, was culpable until the 
 Church condemned it ; and to persist in any opinion, 
 however reasonable, after the Church had decided 
 against it, was heresy. The law of the Church, like 
 the law of the land, was to be obeyed, not argued about. 
 To deny her authority was heresy, just as to deny the 
 long's authority was treason. The two offences, indeed, 
 were deemed strictly analogous, and treated in the same 
 way— pardoned to the ignorant, on submission and 
 recantation, but calling for death when repeated.' 
 "VVichf, on the other hand, maintained that the Church 
 could neither add to, nor take away from, Scripture. 
 The Word, and not the Church, is the ultimate authority 
 in all questions of faith ; a Christian is to believe for 
 his salvation what is revealed to his own apprehension 
 
 1 The nature of the controversy is well illustrated in Arundel's examina- 
 tion of Lord Cobham. The accused delivered in a written confession of 
 his faith on certain articles, naturally and properly adopting so much of 
 the received language of the Church, as he could at all reconcile with Scrip- 
 ture. Thus, he confessed the presence of Christ in the sacrament, in lan- 
 guage which to many ears sounds completely Romish. But Arundel knew 
 better. Admitting the confession, so far as it went, to be " Catholic 
 enough," he proceeded to press his prisoner with the determination of 
 Holy Church in regard to transubstantiation, the disappearance of the 
 substance of bread, and the remaining of the accidents. These are philo- 
 sophical explanations, for which no Scripture was ever pretended ; but, 
 for that very reason, they formed the best test of " heresy," in the Church 
 sense of the word. Accordingly, the archbishop put them to Cobham as 
 " the faith and determination of Holy Church," foUowiug them up with 
 the necessity of confession, the authority of the pope, and the worship of 
 relics. The most ignorant prelate could never think these the most im- 
 portant articles of the Christian faith, but they afforded the readiest test 
 of distinguishing between submission to the Church and submission to the 
 Bible. Therefore, it was demanded after each, " How feel ye this article? " 
 Having in -this way extracted the fact that Cobham did not accept the 
 authority of the Church, it was of no consequence how far he concurred in 
 her Faith. He was a heretip ; and, as such, was consigned to the flames. 
 The Process is printed at length in Dr. Hook's " Lives of the Arch- 
 bishops," iv. 512. 
 
284 
 
 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 in Holy Scripture, and not to surrender his convictions 
 save to further instruction from the same source. More- 
 over, he contended that no human conclusions, not 
 excepting the pope's, "were infallible ; they were only to 
 be accepted in so far as they professed to expound the 
 Scripture, and were always to be tried by that only 
 infalHble test. This was the broad ground on which 
 Wiclif and his followers joined issue with the authorities 
 of the Church, and the. questions of the day sink into 
 insignificance beside the grand principle so presented 
 for all times and controversies. 
 
 It is only by keeping this principle in mind that we 
 can understand the apparent vacillation both of per- 
 secutors and reformers. Concessions were made at one 
 time which were sternly refused at another. The same 
 language was treated differently in different persons ; 
 and those who at one time protected the reformers were 
 found presently leagued with their persecutors. Thus, 
 Wiclif was employed by the crown to resist the demands 
 of the papacy, but the crown cared nothin-g for the 
 Bible ; and when the insurrection of "Wat Tyler afforded 
 the clergy a pretence for ascribing the danger to the 
 democratical principles of the evangelical doctor, the 
 crown joined the Church to suppress the "Wiclifites and 
 Lollards.^ It was then that heresy began to be regarded 
 as treason in England.'' 
 
 > This name has given rise to much controversy, but is satisfactorily 
 derived by Mosheim, from a lay fraternity, established at Antwerp for 
 the burial of the dead. They were called LolUrt or Lullert, from the 
 German -word lullen (to sing in a low tone) on account of the dirges which 
 they chanted in the streets. From these the word was extended to the 
 reformers on account of their singing hymns, as Beghard was, from their 
 love of prayer. " Lollard " is, in fact, a " psalm-singer." It was only by 
 a malicious pun that the papists connected the name with lolia, " tares." 
 
 ' The first legislative enactment against heresy in England was Ric. il. 
 c. 5. It subjected preachers of heresy to arrest and imprisomrent till 
 
WICLIP'S ASHES, 285 
 
 In like manner, though, the council of Constance was 
 called to reform the Church, one of its earliest labours 
 was to brand the reformer who had defined heresy as an 
 error maintained against the Scripture, instead of error 
 maintained against the judgment of Holy Church. 
 Forty-five articles imputed to Wiclif (with more or less 
 truth), were condemned as heretical, his memory was 
 excommunicated, and his dead body ordered to be ex- 
 humed and cast out of the sepulchre of the church. 
 ■ This barbarous sentence lay unnoticed in England for 
 thirteen years. Then, at last, after repeated orders from 
 the pope, the officers of the Bishop of Lincoln invaded 
 the sanctity of Lutterworth churchyard. The remains 
 of the great reformer were taken up and burned, the 
 ashes were cast iato the adjoining brook, called Swift. 
 The Swift "conveyed them to the Avon; Avon into 
 Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; they into the 
 main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the 
 emblem of his doctriae, which now is dispersed aU the 
 world over." ' 
 
 The coimcil were not satisfied to wreak their ven- 
 geance on the dead. The queen of Eichard ii. was a 
 Bohemian priacess. On her death, her attendants, 
 returning to their native country, dispersed the doc- 
 trines of "Wiclif far and wide. They were embraced 
 
 reconciled to the Church. Henry iv., at the instance of the Commons, 
 passed the execrable statute De hceretico comburendo, which condemned 
 anyone whom the Church left to the secular power as a heretic (obstinate 
 or relapsed) to be burned. This punishment was first inflicted on William 
 Sautre, by sentence of archbishop Arundel (a.b. 1400). There is no 
 doubt that the clergy had taken advantage of the riots, to frighten the 
 king and parliament into a notion that the tranquillity of Church and State 
 could only be secured by exterminating religious liberty. This persuasion 
 kept possession of the legislature through all the changes of the Reforma- 
 tion and the Revolution, and has only slowly receded in our own century. 
 It is hardly extinct at the present moment. 
 » Fuller's Church Hist. 
 
286 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 "with great ardour by the queen-consort's confessor, John 
 Huss. His sermons, delivered in the vulgar tongue at 
 Prague, inveighed against the corruptions of the papal 
 court, but left no impeachment on his orthodoxy. 
 He was active in the cause of the cardinals and the 
 Cotmcil of Pisa; but, -when John xxiii. preached a 
 crusade against the king of Naples, accompanied by the 
 usual indulgences, Huss demanded — as Wiclif had done 
 —■whether it would not be better to promise men 
 pardon for keeping peace and quietness among Chris- 
 tians, than for slaying one another with the sword ? 
 This was touching on what we have before seen to be 
 a tender point. If the clergy insisted on the authority 
 of the Church, the laity were no less concerned for the 
 indulgences which cost them so dear. Philip of Yalois 
 would have burned the pope himself rather than sur- 
 render this imaginary treasure. Huss was soon cited to 
 the tribunal of the Yatican, and the council had issued 
 a peremptory summons for his appearance at Constance. 
 The Bohemian, who, while inveighing against the 
 papacy, cherished a noble confidence in the Church, 
 unhesitatingly obeyed. He had a passport from the 
 emperor Sigismund, guaranteeing a free passage and 
 return. The moment he arrived, however, he was 
 committed to prison by the pope ; and Sigismund, de- 
 manding his release, was coolly told that emperors had 
 no authority in questions of heresy. The pope himself, 
 who had also given assiirances of protection, remon- 
 strated at a later stage, but equally without effect. 
 The council which Huss had laboured for and trusted in, 
 as the representation of the whole Church, laid down 
 the detestable doctrine that no faith is to be kept with 
 heretics, and decreed that neither of the safe- conducts 
 should hinder the trial or condemnation. 
 
 It has been contended that Huss was not a 
 
JOHN HUS8. 287 
 
 heretic, even in the acceptation of the Eoman Church.' 
 In the doctrine of transubstantiation itself, Eoman 
 Catholic writers allow that he differed in no material 
 particular from their own Church.^ Why, then, was he 
 condemned ? Obviously, as we have seen, because the 
 test of heresy was not doctrine, but authority. Huss 
 appealed to Scripture and the primitive fathers. 
 His voice was drowned in derisive cries. He had 
 openly wished that his soul might be with WicMf's, 
 thereby impugning the judgment of the Church, which 
 anathematised the Englishman. He appealed to the 
 judgment of Christ in contempt of ecclesiastical 
 authority. "Would he retract these heresies, and promise 
 to believe and teach in all things according to the faith 
 and determination of Holy Church? Arguments the 
 council could neither hear nor answer, without abandon- 
 ing their own principle, and accepting the Eeformer's. 
 Huss refused to retract conclusions which either he 
 had never maintained, or which were not proved to be 
 
 <■ Bower's "lives of the Popes," vii. 179-183. 
 
 » Transubstantiation was always the favourite test of heresy, not so 
 much for the tenet itself, as for the authority on which it rested. Other 
 questions might turn on the meaning of Holy Scripture, with respect to 
 which the Roman See was not unwilling to allow a considerable latitude ; 
 but the "sacrament of the altar" was exclusively a question of Church 
 authority. The point insisted upon was hot the Presence of Christ, but 
 the absence of the substance of bread and wine from the consecrated 
 elements. This was emphatically a definition of Holy Church ; no scrip- 
 tural authority was ever pretended for it; hence it formed the most 
 searching test of allegiance. This distinction is overlooked when re- 
 formers like WicUf and Huss are quoted as agreeing with the papal 
 divines in the doctrine of the Real Presence, They adhered to received 
 expressiohs as far as they could reconcile them with Holy Scripture ; but 
 that they differed at bottom was always suspected, and was afterwards 
 made apparent in Luther's tenet of consubstantiation. Thus, the early 
 reformers could assert the real presence in words that would now be 
 thought popish ; but, when pressed with the change of substance, they 
 revolted. In like manner, the stories of their recantations often arise from 
 their admission of one point being regarded as a gerieral retractation. 
 
288 THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 contrary to Scripture.^ For this he -was protioimced an 
 incorrigible heretic, degraded from the priersthood, and 
 — after ''devoting his son! to the infernal devils" — 
 delivered to the secular power. Here the province of 
 the council and the Church ended. To the eternal 
 infamy of Sigismund, who now, at last, received charge 
 of the prisoner, he ordered the bearer of his own safe- 
 conduct to be burned alive the same day. The sentence 
 was executed in the presence of the vicar and marshal 
 of the empire, July 6, 1415. 
 
 There was yet another victim. Huss was accom- 
 panied by a lay disciple, a professor of the University of 
 Prague, named Jerome. On discovering the perfidy of 
 the emperor, Jerome affixed a protest to the door of the 
 cathedral, and hastily left for Bohemia. He was arrested 
 in the Black Forest and brought back to Constance, 
 where, terrified by the other's fate, he is said to have 
 recanted ; but repenting ere long, he pubHely revoked 
 his retractation, and suffered the fire on the same spot, 
 and with no less firmness than his master (a.d. 1416). 
 
 In the course of these examinations, it appeared that 
 Bohemia had recovered, or retained, the primitive insti- 
 tution of the Lord's Supper in both kinds." For twelve 
 hundred years at least after Christ, the cup was admi- 
 nistered to the laity at Eome itself.' Pope Julius (a.d. 
 336) declared it to be a necessary part of the Divine 
 ordinance.* Leo the Great (a.d. 440) regarded its refusal 
 as an indication of Manicheeism. Gelasius (a.d. 492) 
 
 • It was in vain for a suspected heretic to deny having taught the pro- 
 positions imputed to him.' The Church would not stoop to argue his 
 meaning any more than the meaning of Scripture. She decided his words 
 to be heretical, and retractation pure and simple was the only proof of 
 submission. 
 
 2 That Huss was the author of the restoration of the cup, is much to 
 be doubted. 
 
 " Bona de Reb. Ldt\irg. ii. 18. 
 
 * Ap. Gratian de Consecr., dist. ii. 7. 
 
COMMUNION IN ONE KIND. 289 
 
 declared that the mystery could not be divided without 
 sacrilege. Even as late as the Council of Clermont 
 (1094), both kinds were ordered to be separately ad- 
 ministered, except in sickness, when the bread might be 
 dipped in the wine. It is not known by whom the 
 practice of denying the cup to the laity was introduced,' 
 but it is admitted that it was not general in the Latin 
 Church till a little before the present council.^ Never- 
 theless, it was now pronounced the law of the Church. 
 Expressly admitting that Christ instituted the Sacra- 
 ment in both kinds, and that the primitive Church so 
 received it, the council ordained that it should be 
 administered in one kind only, under pain of heresy ! 
 The reason assigned for this insolent usurpation 
 was to "avoid scandal and danger;" in other words, 
 spilling the wine, and defiling the chalice by the touch 
 of lay hands and beards. These " dangers," however, 
 were well known when Christ said, "Drink ye all of 
 it ;" and the audacity which could set aside a positive 
 command on so frivolous a pretence, is another proof of 
 the determination of the council to make the authority 
 of the Church equal, or superior, to the authority of 
 Christ. 
 
 This was the only ecclesiastical " reform" attempted 
 by this numerous assembly. Convened avowedly to 
 remedy the corruptions of the Church, its energies were 
 exhausted in rehabilitating the papacy, burning the 
 reformers, and mutilating the Sacrament. Martin was 
 no sooner fairly seated in the pontifical chair, than he 
 objected to any further reformation and, all being 
 
 ' Thomas Aquinas, who warmly advocates the denial, yet mentions it 
 only as the custom of some churches. — ^Aquin. p. iij. qu. 80, art. 12. 
 
 ^ Greg, de Valentia de Legit, usu Euchar. — Bower, vii. 172. Strictly 
 speaking, the cup is received by none but the oflSciating priest; but as 
 every priest officiates at some time, the practical result is to exclude the 
 laity. 
 
 U 
 
290 THE GtEEAT SCHISM. 
 
 anxious to get home, the council was dissolved, with the 
 promise of another in five years, on the 22nd April 1418. 
 There -were potent reasons for the pope's return 
 to Eome. The state of Italy during the whole schism 
 had been one of constant warfare ; the struggles of the 
 French for the Sicilian succession deluged the south 
 with blood, while the Yisconti lords of Milan, obtain- 
 ing a ducal coronet, became aU powerftd in the north.' 
 The wars of Florence with Pisa and MUan, and of Yenice 
 with Genoa, added to the confusion, Ladislaus marched 
 an army to the gates of Eome on the death of Boniface, 
 and by inciting the people to re-demand the liberties 
 surrendered to the deceased pope, provoked an insurrec- 
 tion which drove Innocent to Yiterbo. The Neapolitans 
 were admitted into the castle of St. Angelo by Colonna, 
 who, taking possession of the Yatican, was ironically 
 greeted as pope (a.d. 1405). Ladislaus, who styled him- 
 self lord of Eome, held the fortress till he had extorted 
 a revocation of his father's excommunication and his 
 own ; but the next pope embracing the French interest, 
 he was defeated ia a great battle with the papal forces 
 in Campania (a.d. 1411) and again excommunicated. 
 He purchased his pardon and restoration by abandoning 
 the cause of the antipope, but again falling out with 
 John XXIII., he suddenly marched upon Eome, and 
 subjected the city to all the horrors of sack (1413). It 
 was to secure the emperor's protection against this re- 
 bellious vassal that John xxiii. agreed to a council, and 
 when his fears were removed by the death of Ladislaus 
 (a.d. 1414), he endeavoured to recall his consent. Eome 
 was in the hands of one Braceio, and the States of the 
 Church were usurped by local tyrants, when the council 
 broke up. 
 
 ' Milan was erected into an imperial duchy a.d. 1395, Gian Galeazzo 
 Visconti being the first duke. 
 
THE PAPAL RESTORATION. 291 
 
 Martin resided for some time at Geneva, and 
 afterwards at Florence, before he could obtain pos- 
 session of his capital. At the latter place his 
 revenues were so disproportionate to his station, that 
 he was insulted in the streets by the children singing, 
 "II papa Martino non vale un quattrino."^ The 
 Florentiaes, however, succeeded at last in appeasing 
 the commotions at Eome, and the pope made his public 
 entry into the city a.d. 1420. 
 
 ' " Poor pope- Martin is act worth a farthing." 
 
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CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 Councils the States General of the Church — Jealousy at Rome — Cry for 
 Reformation — France — England — Germany — ^Insincerity and defeat of 
 the Reformers — Council of Pisa — Constance — Success of the Popes — 
 Schism of Basle — ^Triumph of the Papacy — Pall of Constantinople—^ 
 The Sixth Trumpet — ^Danger of the West — ^Rise of Papal Feudatories 
 — Nepotism — Sixtusiv. — The Borgias — Neapolitan Succession — 
 Julius II. — Military Pope — Bloody Deeds — ^Wealth — ^The De Medicis 
 — iieo XI. — New Church of St. Peter. 
 
 "When the rising nationalities of Europe began to rebel 
 against the Eoman pontiff, the remedy that first sug- 
 gested itself was a General Council. To General 
 Councils the Church owed her canons and her creeds, 
 and it was natural to refer the questions which had 
 arisen under them, to the same authority. If the pope 
 were the monarch, councils were the States-general, 
 of Christendom; grievances which originated with 
 the sovereign could only be redressed by their 
 assembly. The note was struck when Philip the Pair 
 appealed to a General Council from the excommunica- 
 tion of Boniface viii. The emperor Louis followed the 
 example against John xxii.; but in neither case was the 
 appeal brought to a hearing. It was merely a form to 
 take off the edge of the censure, and induce a compro- 
 mise. Such an appeal was no more than a salve to the 
 conscience, unwilling to obey yet afraid to revolt. The 
 
294 STKUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 pontificate stood before the council, and obscured its 
 authority. If the pope were indeed the vicar of Christ, 
 how could he be overruled by a "council ? If a council 
 could correct or remove the pope, the communion of the 
 Holy See was not more indispensable than that of any 
 other bishop. 
 
 These results were clearly perceived at Eome, and 
 it was not till Eome was divided against herself, that 
 a council was ventured upon. The point to be 
 decided was, which was the true pope : but the power 
 to determine that question implied a geat deal more. 
 The councils of Pisa and Constance may be said to have 
 inaugurated the movement for reform, which culminated 
 in the council of Trent and the disruption of the 
 Western Church. The cardinals Vere intent only on 
 restoring the chair of St. Peter, but the emperor and lay 
 estates intended, from the first, a reformation of the 
 entire Church ia its head and in its members. The 
 language used within, the councU itself equalled the 
 strongest expressions of the poor men of Lyons. 
 John Gerson, the eloquent chancellor of the University 
 of Paris, was nothing behind John Wiclif the professor 
 of divinity at Oxford, or John Huss the preacher at 
 Prague. Gerson was one of the first to expose the 
 forgeries of the false Decretals. He attacked the papal 
 court with the most scathing denunciations. " Theirs are 
 the customs of Antichrist, not of Christ : we nowhere 
 read that Christ or St. Peter conferred bishoprics, digni- 
 ties, and lands." "As for the power of the keys, for all 
 that is written in Matthew xvi., Peter received nothing 
 but what is shared by the most insignificant bishop." 
 " Gregory might style himself servant of the servants 
 of God, because Gregory nourished the poor ; Gregory 
 preached the Gospel; Gregory delivered Eome from 
 pestilence by his prayers ; but in the mouth of John, 
 
CRY FOR REFORMATION. 295 
 
 Servus servorum is a lie : let him call himself lord of 
 lords, since he presumes to say that h.e has as much 
 power as Christ, the God-Man." This fiery orator was 
 selected to preach before the council of Constance. His 
 sermon laid down eight signs of the Church's ruin : 
 1, Eebellion and disobedience ; 2, Absence of shame ; 
 3, Immoderate inequalities ia preferments ; 4, Lu:xury 
 of ecclesiastics ; 5, Tyranny of prelates ; 6, Disorders of 
 princes and states ; 7, Hostility of the heads of the 
 Church to reform ; and 8, Novelty of religious opinions. 
 Under the last head, he complained that every one pre- 
 sumed to interpret the sacred writings and the dogmas 
 of tbe fathers after his own pleasure, and warned the 
 assembly that these things would be the destruction of 
 the Latin Church.' 
 
 The chancellor of Paris was supported by the 
 highest ecclesiastical authorities in France. Cardinal 
 D'AiUi of Cambray, one of the examiners on whose 
 report Wiclif and Huss were condemned, inveighed 
 with no less severity against the corruptions of his 
 order. It was become a proverb, he said, that the 
 Church was arrived at a state in which it was only fit 
 to be ruled by reprobates. The simony of the apostolic 
 chamber was exposed by one of its secretaries, Nicholas 
 de Clemangis. He asserts that some ecclesiastics held 
 500 benefices, and that others were at one and the same 
 time canons regular, canons secular, and monks, wearing 
 the habits and enjoying the rights, offices, and benefices 
 of all three orders. 
 
 Bolder language still was held in England. The 
 " Golden Mirror," a work which enjoyed extensive cir- 
 culation on the Continent, exposed the vices of the papal 
 court with unsparing hand, and among the English eeole- 
 
 > L'Enfant Hist. Cone. Const, vii.— Waddington, ch. xxiv. 
 
296 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 siastics present both at Pisa and Constance Eobert Hallam 
 bishop of Salisbury was a sturdy reformer. The German 
 writers lashed the monks and clergy with equal vigour ; 
 the cathedrals, they said, were dens of robbers, the 
 monasteries were tavemS, and the nunneries something 
 worse.' The emperor Sigismund demanded extensive 
 reforms, and none but the Italians who profited by the 
 pontifical corruptions ventured a word in their defence. 
 Still the Italians triumphed, and the corruptions 
 remained practically untouched, because their opponents 
 with all their zeal were utterly wanting in principle. 
 They felt the evils that pressed on themselves, and even 
 quoted Scripture against the wrong-doers; but the 
 moment Scripture was carried farther than they liked, 
 they turned upon its exponents and burned them as 
 heretics. Wiclif struck at the root of the whole system 
 in denying the headship of Eome, impugning auricular 
 confession and transubstantiation, by which the priest- 
 hood sustained their ascendancy, and stigmatising their 
 reckless excommunications as '' feigned censures in- 
 flicted by Antichrist's jurisdiction." He put the open 
 Bible into the hands of the laity, and bade them read 
 for themselves what the Church and the Gospel of Christ 
 really are. Therefore, D'Ailli and Gerson execrated 
 Wiclif, and consigned his disciples Huss and Jerome to 
 the flames. To reform the Church without touching its 
 authority was the dream of these selfish theorists. They 
 were trying to gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles. 
 It was not till the corruptions of the Church were traced 
 
 ' Langenstein's Consilium Pacts, ap. Von der Hardt, Cone. Cons. torn. ii. 
 So also Gerson in his Sermon at the Synod of Rheims, " Utinam nulla 
 sint monasteria mulierum, quse facta sunt prostibula meretricum efpro- 
 hibeat adhuc deteriora Deus !" The accusation is repeated in still stronger 
 terms by Clemangis— " Ut hodie idem sit puellam velare quod et publice 
 ad soortandum cxponere." — De Ruina Eccl. xxvi. ap. Von der Hardt, Cone. 
 Cons. torn. i. 
 
PROCRASTINA*riON OF THE POPES. 297 
 
 to the false doctrines propounded by its authority, and 
 the Word of God was honestly accepted as the true 
 standard of faith, that any real reformation became pos- 
 sible. Till then, the so-called Eeformers halted between 
 two opiaions, and were worsted in every collision. 
 
 The Council of Pisa bound the new pope by oath not 
 to dissolve the synod till a reformation had been com- 
 pleted; but Alexander dismissed them with a few vague 
 promises, which were never fulfilled. At Constance a 
 committee of reform was appointed (15th June 1415), 
 and was ready to report by the end of 1417 ; but the 
 see being then declared vacant, the cardiuals demanded 
 to proceed to an election before any other business. 
 The demand was supported by the Italians and Spaniards, 
 who insisted that the Church could do nothing without 
 its head. The English and Germans, on the other hand, 
 thought that if the Church could depose its head and 
 create another, it might take measures in the interval to 
 prevent the recurrence of a similar necessity. This 
 practical view was warmly supported by the emperor ; 
 but the French, either jealous of the victors of Agia- 
 court, or captives to a "remorseless logic," embraced 
 the opposite side. Admitting the principle of the 
 papacy, no other course, indeed, was consistent ; so the 
 bishop of Salisbury'being removed by death, the English 
 and Germans reluctantly yielded their consent, and the 
 emperor was defeated. Still he succeeded in binding 
 the new pope to proceed with the reformation, and the 
 report of the committee was presented (30th Oct., 
 1417), before his election. 
 
 It contained eighteen recommendations for the re- 
 form of the leading abuses of the papacy : they would 
 have passed by a large majority, but this was the last 
 occasion when the chair was occupied by the cardinal 
 Dean. At the next session it was taken by pope 
 
298 STETJGGLES OP THE COUNCILS. 
 
 Martin v., who, promising every assistance, immediately 
 appointed six cardinals to revise the labours of the com- 
 mittee. Divisions and delay ensued, till the council was 
 in despair, and when all were sufficiently wearied, Martin 
 published eight articles of his own, which granted no 
 real reform, and left what they did grant dependent 
 on the pleasure of the pope. He promised concordats 
 with the several nations, but delayed their publication 
 till the council was dissolved ; when they proved so de- 
 lusive, that the French rejected theirs as an aggression 
 on the liberties of the Gallican Church. 
 
 Two points, and two only, had been achieved by the 
 efforts of nine years : (1) the establishment of the pope's 
 subjection to a General Council ; and (2) a law for the 
 holding of General Councils at intervals not exceeding 
 ten years. Yet both were evaded without difficulty. 
 The first continued to be stoutly denied at Eome, though 
 even Eoman sophistry cannot escape the dilemma, that 
 either Constance was a legitimate council which all 
 are bound to obey, or Martin and all the succeeding line 
 of pontiffs were no true popes. The second was inopera- 
 tive, because it remained with the pope to fix the time 
 and place of meeting. In the government of churches as 
 of kingdoms, it is not argument but power which turns 
 the scale. 
 
 Martin held the see for upwards of thirteen years, 
 during which he recovered the States of the Church out 
 of the hands of the dififerent usurpers, and amassed a 
 large private fortune.' He found the Eternal City in a 
 deplorable condition, the churches in ruin, the streets 
 out of repair, the people in poverty. The pope, who 
 was a man of business no less than of talent, speedily 
 
 ' Before his death he converted his family mansion into the present 
 magnificent palazzo di Colonna, where the spoils of ancient temples give a 
 new significance to the name and cognizance of his house. 
 
PERSECUTION OF THE BOHEMIANS. 299 
 
 restored the place to such prosperity, that he was called 
 a second Eomulus. The castle of St. Angelo, with the 
 towns of Ostia and Civita Yecchia, which had been 
 seized by Ladislaus, were restored by his sister, 
 Joanna ii. This queen having no issue, the pope sup- 
 ported the succession of Louis of Anjou. The queen, 
 who had adopted Alfonso of Arragon, changed her 
 mind in favour of Louis, and the apostolic fief was 
 subjected to the miseries of a second protracted war of 
 succession. This misunderstanding with Spain pro- 
 longed the schism of Clement viii. till the year 1429, 
 when the king having come to terms, the antipope 
 resigned, and his cardinals went through the form of 
 electing the existing pope. 
 
 Freed at last from all shadow of check or compe- 
 tition, Martin,, like a true pope, proclaimed a crusade 
 against the Bohemian reformers. This is always the 
 pontifical reply to a secession, and it is the only reply 
 that can be made with consistency. The authority of 
 the Church demands the suppression of schism and 
 heresy, and these can only be suppressed by the sub- 
 mission or extermination of their adherents. The holy 
 war was conducted by the emperor in person. The 
 Bohemians encountered him imder the gallant Zisca 
 with signal success ; but they were unhappily ignorant 
 of the depth of their own principles. Zisca copied his 
 persecutors by turning his sword on fellow-Protestants, 
 who carried their private judgment beyond his own. 
 After his death, the Hussites listened to overtures of 
 peace, and they were still formidable enough to be 
 invited to a council summoned at Basle (a.d. 1431). 
 
 Martin dying a few months before the council was 
 opened, was succeeded by one of the most ignorant and 
 presumptuous of monks. Eugenius iv. plunged at once 
 into a quarrel with the council. The president was his 
 
300 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 own legate, cardinal Julian Cesarini, who had been on a 
 mission in Bohemia. He implored the pope to adopt a 
 conciliatory course; but Eugenius feared the council 
 far more than he hated heretics : he was determined to 
 avoid the toils which destroyed John xxiii. A bull was 
 published dissolving the councU, with the intention of 
 calling another within the papal dominions. The emperor 
 remonstrated, and the council refused to separate : a 
 General Council, lawfully assembled, could not be 
 adjourned or dissolved without its own consent. They 
 summoned the pope to appear in person, and on his 
 refusal suspended him for contumacy. The pope 
 annulled the decree, but the duke of MUan, marching 
 upon Eome, to assert the authority of the council, the 
 Eomans revolted, and Eugenius escaped with difficulty. 
 This misfortime obliged him to come to terms, but 
 another rupture took place before long. The pope trans- 
 ferred the council to Eerrara, under pretence of meeting 
 the Greek delegates who were shortly expected at Yenice. 
 The council, pronouncing the translation null, persisted in 
 sitting at Basle. Eugenius opened his synod at Eerrara 
 (]438), declared the " congregation of Basle" an unlaw- 
 ful assembly, and enjoined the magistrates to disperse 
 them. The fathers retorted by again suspending Euge- 
 nius, and being thereupon abandoned by the cardinal 
 legate, they chose the cardinal archbishop of Aries for 
 their president. On the 16th May 1439, they pro- 
 nounced it heresy to deny the superiority of a council 
 to the pope, and deposed Eugenius. He replied by ex- 
 communicating the whole assembly ; nevertheless, the 
 council proceeded to appoint thirty-two electors, by 
 whom Amadous, first duke of Savoy, was chosen pope. 
 Though a layman and formerly married, his reputation 
 as a hermit overcame all objections. A deputation in- 
 vaded his retreat on the lake of Geneva, for which he 
 
SCHISM OF BASLE. 301 
 
 tad abdicated his own priacipality, and called him to the 
 pontifical throne. Being consecrated and crowned by 
 the name of Felix v., he was owned as pope in Savoy, 
 Switzerland, Bavaria, and Austria; hut the kings of 
 England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary, with 
 the priaces and states of Italy, adhered to Eugenius. 
 This pontiff having translated his council from Ferrara 
 to Florence, and there settled the delusive union with 
 the Greeks, adjourned it to Eome, determined to sit in 
 future only at the Lateran. The assembly at Basle 
 wasted away from dejection and sickness : Felix removed 
 it to Lausanne, but the meetings were almost nominal ; 
 and when Eugenius had given place to a better man, 
 Felix closed the schism by resigning his pontificate 
 (a.d. 1448). 
 
 In this contest the papacy practically proved its 
 superiority over the council. The latter was deserted 
 by the higher ecclesiastics, as soon as it became apparent 
 that the great priaces went with Eugenius. Not twenty 
 mitred heads were to be seen, and though above four 
 hundred of the clergy and doctors of law thronged the 
 benches, their voice, like the voice of the people, was as 
 yet of little power in public affairs. Some valuable 
 propositions were discussed, which were afterwards, in 
 different kingdoms, made the grounds of concordats with 
 the Holy See. But concordats are but an armed truce : 
 they exist only to restrain the action of an authority felt 
 to be dangerous. It is simply to abolish the authority, 
 and they become as superfluous as treaties of commerce 
 under a system of free trade. 
 
 The fate of the Council of Basle should have satisfied 
 mankind that the chair of St, Peter is the insurmount- 
 able impediment to the unity and reformation of the 
 Church. Called to extirpate heresy, restore peace, and 
 effect a reformation of manners, its doctrinal labours 
 
302 
 
 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 consisted of a new article of the faith — ^the immaculate 
 conception of the Holy Yirgin — and an admission that 
 the sacrament of the encharist might be profitable to 
 the laity, even though administered in both kinds ! 
 The former was adopted at the thirty-sixth session 
 (17th September 1439), though it has only in our day 
 receiTed the papal imprimatur. The latter was guarded 
 by a proviso that communion in one kind was a 
 law introduced with good reason, and was not to be 
 altered without the authority of the Church. The 
 Bohemians obtaiaed the use of the cup by a concordat 
 with the emperor (a.d. 1436), but the pope refused to 
 confirm it, and the grievance continued for another war.' 
 Instead of promoting unity, the council was the cause of 
 a new schism, and though asserting the authority of the 
 Church, and presided over by two of the ablest and most 
 deserving ecclesiastics of the day,^ it was insulted, 
 
 • Under this decree two celebrants were appointed in some churches, 
 one to administer to those who claimed both kinds, the other for the 
 more dutiful children who were satisfied to obey the Church in preference 
 to Christ. Nothing so perplexed the self-styled reformers at Constance 
 as this question of the cup. Its disuse was an innovation of not more than 
 two centuries old, and a palpable contradiction of the words recited in 
 the consecration of the Sacrament. Gerson and his school must have 
 been anxious to grant the reform, but single communion was a neces- 
 sary consequence of the doctrine of transubstantiation. It was a Church 
 dogma, not a Scriptural one, and had the further advantage of drawing 
 a marked distinction between the clergy and the laity. Therefore Gerson 
 withheld the cup. 
 
 » Julian Cesarini was a man of capacious mind, enlightened by study 
 and practical employment in public affairs. He was one of the few 
 Italians who foresaw the coming revolt of the scandalised nations, and 
 one of the few papists who preferred spiritual efficiency to temporal power. 
 " Though you were certain (he wrote to the Pope) to lose Rome and the 
 whole patrimony of the Church, it were better to succour the faith and the 
 souls for which Christ died, than to cling to castles and walls. Dearer to 
 Christ is one single soul than all the patrimony of the Church, yea, than 
 aJl heaven and earth." The council could ill bear the defection of such a 
 champion. Yet the cardinal of Aries was no unworthy successor. He was 
 born, says the historian (^n. Sylv. de Oest. Bas. Cone. i. 25), for the 
 
TRIUMPH or THE PAPACT. 303 
 
 discredited, and utterly worsted by a pope without 
 talent or address. Incessantly at war with his clergy, 
 his subjects, and his benefactors, Eugenius wanted at 
 once honesty and policy. No tyrant is reproached with 
 more acts of cruelty and perfidy, no monarch ever gave 
 stronger proofs of incapacity and imbecility.' That such 
 a man should be permitted to triumph over such an 
 assembly, shows how low the Latin Church had fallen 
 under the yoke of the papacy, and how richly she de- 
 served the flagitious successors, whose vices at last awoke 
 the thunders of a genuine Eeformation. 
 
 The dissolution of the Council of !Basle left the papacy 
 unreformed, and more powerful than before. It was 
 universally felt that one pope was better than two or 
 three, and one persecutor than two or three hundred. 
 Councils, which had been resorted to for liberty of 
 conscience, had only rivetted the fetters more strongly; 
 and when the Sacred College, by accident more than 
 design, 2 placed a Christian and a scholar on the ponti- 
 fical throne in the person of Nicholas v., there was a 
 general cessation of complaints. The antipope laid 
 down his pretensions (a.d. 1449), and Nicholas re- 
 voked all censures against his adherents. The sixth 
 Jubilee (a.d. 1450) was celebrated at Eome with 
 unboimded revelry and superstition, and two years 
 
 government of General Councils. He out-manoBuvred the Italians with 
 all the address of a polished Frenchman, and when the plague broke out 
 and he was advised to quit Basle, he exhibited the gallantry of his 
 nation to equal advantage. His retirement would be the signal of disso- 
 lution, arid he remained at his pest. 
 
 ' Sismondi, Kep. Ital. Ixx., Wadd. iii. 144. 
 
 2 The levity exhibited in some of the papal elections is quite surprising. 
 The new pope, called Thomas of Sarzana, was about the most unlikely 
 candidate of the whole College, but a cardinal who meant to throw away his 
 vote, exclaimed, " I shall vote for Thomas, because this is St. Thomas's 
 eve." Others did the same, and Thomas was found to have the requisite 
 majority. 
 
304 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 after the citizens were gratified by another imposing 
 spectacle in the imperial coronation of Frederick in. and 
 his empress Eleonora. 
 
 The western empire displayed this unwonted magni- 
 ficence at the moment when the capital and crown of 
 the East fell a prey to the Turks. The triumph 
 of the Moslem arms in Europe was unquestionably 
 due to the ecclesiastical dissensions of the Greeks 
 and Latins. Constantinople, often threatened by 
 Goths and Saracens, was first taken and sacked by 
 the Latin soldiers of the cross. The first conquest and 
 partition of the empire was effected by the sons of the 
 Roman Church, and receiTed the sanction of its pontiff. 
 Nicholas himself is accused of purposely delaying the 
 succours designed for the East, in order to force the 
 Greek bishops to the recognition of his supremacy. His 
 menace at the jubilee, that in three years the unfruitful 
 fig-tree should be cut down,' hardly required the gift of 
 prophecy: Constantinople was but too surely doomed 
 by the treachery of apostates, the selfish policy of a 
 rival Church, and the pusillanimity engendered by the 
 cruelty, vice, and luxury of its own court. On the 29th 
 of May 1453, the Sultan Mohammed entered by the 
 breaches where the last Christian emperor (bearing the 
 same name with the first) fell bravely fighting; and 
 dismounting at the church of Justinian, he transferred at 
 once the crown and the altar to the faith of the false 
 prophet. 
 
 The catastrophe was precipitated by means of 
 the recent invention of gunpowder, joined with the 
 liquid and inextinguishable fire of the Greeks. The 
 circumstances have been thought to meet the descrip- 
 tion of the countless hordes of horsemen, that sallied 
 forth on the loosing of the four angels in the great 
 river Euphrates, and killed the third part of men by the 
 
SIXTH TRUMPET. 305 
 
 fire and smoke and brimstone that seemed to issue from 
 their horses' mouths.' Certainly the Eoman Church 
 presented at this time, and subsequently, a melancholy 
 fulfilment of the succeeding feature in the visioa: " The 
 rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues 
 yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they 
 should not worship devUs,'' and idols of gold, and silver, 
 and brass, and stone, and of wood : which can neither 
 see, nor hear, nor walk : Neither repented they of their 
 murders,' nor of their sorceries,* nor of their fornication,' 
 nor of their thefts." * 
 
 The Turkish power, which rose on the decline of the 
 Arabic, attained to the seat of the Caesars, just 396 years 
 from the time when Tegrul Bey marched out of Bagdad 
 
 » Rev. ix. 14—18. 
 
 ' Or dsemons, i.e. not necessarily e»j7 spirits but good, such as the " angels 
 and saints " of the papal mythology. A bull of Alexander vi. (1494), 
 canonising the English Anselm, declares it to be the duty of the pope thus 
 to promote dead men to the worship and adoration of the faithful. 
 
 • It has been computed that a million of men perished in the crusade 
 against the Waldenses, ordered by the Lateran Council, a.d. 1215. This 
 was before the Turkish invasion. The Inquisition was established after it, 
 and slew 150,000 persons in thirty years. The Jesuits have been thought 
 to have caused 900,000 deaths by persecution ; 50,000 were hanged, 
 burned, beheaded, or buried alive in the Netherlands under the edicts of 
 Charles v. Adding those who fell in France, England, Spain, and 
 America, it is calculated that more than sixty-eight millions of human 
 beings have been put to death for offences against the faith or practice 
 of the Papal church. 
 
 ' Miracles, relics, and other impostures. 
 
 •See the "Golden Legend," Hallam's "Middle Ages," Gibbon's 
 '> Decline and Fall," etc., for the weU-known union of popery with the 
 most frightful licentiousness. " All the convents in Rome," says th^ 
 historian Infessura, " were houses of ill-fame.'' 
 
 • To " rob men of their money " was, according to 'Wiolif, a main 
 pursuit of the papal priesthood. The jubilee at Rome brought in an 
 enormous revenue, and our own English Jubilee for St. Thomas of Canter- , 
 bury was not bad. The comparative table is familiar : — 
 
 First year, Christ's Altar, £3 2 6 Second year, £0 
 
 „ Virgin Mary's, 63 5 6 „ 4 18 
 
 Becket's, - 832 12 9 „ 954 6 2 
 
 X 
 
306 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS, 
 
 to the conquest of the East.' It now openly threatened 
 the remainder of Christendom. A descent upon Eome 
 and Western Europe was often imminent, and the popes 
 were in general sufficiently alive to the danger. Nicholas^ 
 whose death is by some writers attributed to remorse for 
 not adopting earlier measures, spent the remainder of his 
 pontificate in entreating the Latin princes to unite in 
 expelling the Moslems out of Europe. His successor, 
 Calixtus in., set them an example by fitting out a small 
 fleet, which, tmder the command of a cardinal, and with 
 the co-operation of the gallant knights of Ehodes, recap- 
 tured several of the Greek islands ; but exhortation and 
 example were aHke fruitless. The spirit of the crusades 
 was extinct. The western nations were no longer chil- 
 dren, nor the popes their fathers. Each was occupied 
 with its own political interests, and national rights had 
 so often found an enemy in the papacy, that its most 
 religious counsels were suspected of a political bias. 
 Hence the Turks were not only not driven back into 
 Asia, they were permitted to advance into Servia, and it 
 was the foresight and promptitude of Calixtus that saved 
 Europe by the victory of Belgrade, 6th August 1456. 
 
 Still, it was easier to arouse the jealousy of the Tartars, 
 than to unite the conflicting states of Eoman Christianity 
 in a common bond for their faith and liberty. The Turk, 
 in fact, was used as a check on the pope and the emperor. 
 Some of the most precious liberties of the Church were 
 
 ' The exact period indicated by the " hour, day, month, and year" of 
 Rev. ix. 15, viz. : — 
 
 One year . . . = 365^ years. 
 
 One month . . . ^30 years. 
 
 One day . . . =1 year. 
 
 One hour . . . = A y«ar. 
 
 396i + Jj, or 
 896 years, 106 days. 
 -Elliot, Apoc. i. 493. 
 
PERFIDY OF PIUS II. 307 
 
 extorted as the price of co-operating against the Moslem. 
 Pius II. exhausted his pontificate of six years in endea- 
 vouring to awaken the Christian powers to the dangers 
 which undoubtedly overhung thism; but he had little 
 success, one reason of which was the unblushing tergi- 
 versation of his own conduct. As -.^Eneas Sylvius, he had 
 been secretary to 'the council of Basle, and was distiu- 
 guished for the zeal and learning with which he argued 
 the superiority of a councU to the pope ; but no sooner 
 did the emperor espouse the cause of Eugenius than the 
 politic secretary implored his Holiness's pardon, and 
 turned against all his former priuciples. As pope, he 
 surpassed his predecessors in asserting the majesty and 
 infaUibility of the Holy See, condemning all appeals from 
 the vicar of Christ as impious and imreasonable. He 
 even issued a bull of retractations, in which he charged 
 the faithful to forget all they had heard from ^neas, 
 whose name was heathen and his writings heretical, and 
 listen only to the Christian father and orthodox pontiff 
 Pius. 
 
 This pontiff's zeal for the papacy induced him to 
 apply to Charles of France to cancel the Pragmatic Sanc- 
 tion. The king replied there could be nothing very 
 wrong in a concordat, of which every article had been 
 sanctioned by the council, aft.d vindicated by his HoU- 
 ness's own pen. Pius renewed his solicitations on the 
 accession of Louis xr., and that superstitious prince 
 received the title of most Christian king for consenting 
 to his request. The parliament and the university, 
 however, protested against the surrender, and the 
 GalHcan Church continued to insist on its rights. 
 
 Charles was greatly incensed by the pope's support- 
 ing the Spanish succession in ]S"aples, against himself as 
 heir to the line of Anjou. This dispute had kept Italy 
 in a state of war for many years, and the frequency 
 
 X 2 
 
308 8TBU&GLES OT THE COTTNCILS. 
 
 "with which the popes changed sides, as their own interest 
 or ambition dictated, contributed more than anything 
 else to the faUnre of their repeated crusades against the 
 Turks.' With the unbelievers threatening the coasts of 
 Italy, the father of Christendom was seen directing the 
 arms of Christians against each other for his own 
 aggrandisement. It is Httle to be wondered at that the 
 princes, his children, followed his example, and left the 
 Turk to advance unopposed. 
 
 Setting aside the iaconsisteneies inseparable from the 
 papal position, the immediate successors of Eugenius 
 reflected credit on the chair of St. Peter. Nicolas 
 was studious, devout, and charitable. Calixtus, though 
 a scandalous nepotist, possessed great ability and ex- 
 perience, and was the best canonist of his time. 
 Pius was an elegant Latin writer, and perhaps the 
 most accomplished and enlightened man of his day. 
 He was charitable to the poor, and remarkably free 
 from the standing vices of the Eoman court — simony, 
 nepotism, and pride. He died in the act of leading out 
 the Christian forces to arrest the long-threatened inva- 
 sion of the Turks." 
 
 After these, the lustre of the pontifical crown was 
 perceptibly tarnished. Paul ii., as a native of Yenice, 
 might have been expected to pursue his predecessor's 
 
 ' Eugenius, aiter confinnmg the Angevin claimant, and supporting him 
 in the field by a mUitary force, acknowledged Alphonso to purchase his 
 desertion of the antipope FeHx. Calixtus, himself a Spaniard, revoked 
 the buU of Eugenius, with the intention of placing his own nephew, Peter 
 Borgia, on the throne. Pius reverted to the Spanish interest, and had Fer- 
 dinand crowned. Paul excommunicated him for not paying his tribute^ 
 Innocent, again, having first tried to seize the crown to himself, called 
 in the French : in this way the unhappy kingdom, with all the neigh- 
 bouring states, were kept in constant warfare. 
 
 * It was this pope who remarked, that though marriage had for good 
 reasons been interdicted to the clergy, there were far better reasons for 
 j'estoring it. 
 
PAUL II. 
 
 309 
 
 preparations against the common danger. A confederacy 
 against tlie Turks was one of the numerous conditions 
 which he had sworn to in the conclave ; but the pope 
 dismissed them all, with the remark that every engage- 
 ment pretending to limit the Vicar of Christ is, in its 
 own nature, irreligious and void. He began his ponti- 
 ficate by a quarrel with the king' of Naples, which 
 embroiled the neighbouring states, and then renewed 
 the crusade against the Bohemians. Having excom- 
 municated and deposed the king George Podiebrad for 
 insisting on the double communion, he offered the 
 crown to Corvinus, who was defending the frontiers 
 of Christendom against the Turks. For seven years the 
 arms designed to guard against the common danger 
 were diverted to a domestic struggle, in which they 
 were happily defeated. 
 
 While thus , iadifferent io the safety of others, the 
 pope showed a morbid sensibility to his own. A 
 literary society formed at Eome being represented as 
 a dangerous conspiracy, he seized and tortured the 
 members so that one of them died on the rack. Nothing 
 criminal was ever discovered, but Paul was so convinced 
 that ignorance is the mother of devotion, that he closed 
 the schools, and exhorted the Eomans to content them- 
 selves with reading and writing. He indulged his 
 barbaric tastes by loa,ding the pontifical crown with 
 jewels, tUl it was compared to the turrets of Cybele, and 
 by adding more scarlet to the trappings of the cai'dinals, 
 as if to increase the resemblance of his court to the 
 apocalyptic harlot.^ His avarice urged him to reduce 
 the period of jubilee from thirty-three to twenty- 
 five years, but he was carried off by apoplexy four 
 years before the anticipated profits could be reaped 
 (a.d. 1471). 
 
 ' Genebrard in Chron. Mornay du Plessis. 
 
310 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 Sixtus IV. has tte merit of foundiag the Vatican 
 library, and of adorning his capital with many noble 
 buildings/ but after a feeble attempt to pursue the 
 policy of Pius ii. he resigned himself to the more con- 
 genial task of promoting wars and conspiracies through- 
 out Italy, for the aggrandisement of his own relatives. 
 He began the practice of erecting principalities for the 
 papal famUy out of the domains of the Church. The 
 barons and knights who had hitherto held of the see, 
 paying an annual tribute, were divided as usual into 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines, each party having its recog- 
 nised chief in Kome. The Colonnas headed the former, 
 the Orsini the other, and as these great families usually 
 had one or more members in the Sacred College, the 
 pope was confronted by political influences superior to 
 his own. To counterbalance these great cardinals was 
 the constant struggle of the reigning pontiff. Sixtus 
 succeeded in investing his nephew with the princely fief 
 of Eomagna ; but his designs upon Florence had a 
 different result. In order to reduce this flourishing 
 little republic to the pope, a plot was laid to assassinate 
 the brothers De' Medici, who were then the principal 
 magistrates.^ Julian de' Medici actually fell by the 
 stiletto, but Lorenzo escaped. The plot failed, and the 
 archbishop of Pisa was hanged in the pontificals in 
 which he had said mass for the conspirators the morning 
 of the attempt. The pope was undoubtedly engaged in 
 the conspiracy, but for the death of the archbishop he 
 excommumcated Lorenzo, who had no share in the deed, 
 and laid the city under an interdict tiU he shotdd be 
 expelled. The Florentines resisted, and a war ensued, 
 
 > His great work was rebuilding the bridge over the Tiber, anciently 
 named Pons Janicularis, and now Ponte Sesto. 
 
 2 The chief magistrate of Florence was the Gonfaloniere or " Standard- 
 bearer " of the republic. This office was held in the opening of the 
 
ADVANCE OF THE TUEKS. 
 
 311 
 
 during wMch tlie sultan approached unmolested to the 
 shores of Italy. It was not till Otranto was actually 
 stormed and captured (a.d. 1480), that the sanguinary 
 pontifif listened to conditions of peace with his flock. If 
 the death of Mohammed the next year had not com- 
 pelled the Turks to abandon their conquest, Italy might 
 have shared the fate of Greece, and the Church of St. 
 Peter, like that of Sophia, might have been a mosque at 
 this day. 
 
 Sixtus, though a Franciscan friar, was one of the 
 most scandalous nepotists that had yet appropriated 
 Church property to family aggrandisement. Dignities 
 and benefices were heaped on his worthless relatives : 
 
 fifteenth century by Giovanni de Medici, who died 1428, leaving two sons, 
 
 Cosmo and Lorenzo, each of whom was the progenitor of an iUustrious 
 
 posterity. 
 
 I. Cosuo D£ Medici, died 1464. 
 
 Fletro de' Mediel, died 1461. 
 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 I died 1402. 
 
 Qiuliano, killed 
 I 1478. 
 
 Pletro 11. Giovanni Glniliano Lucrezia San Magdaleaa Contesalna GiuUo 
 
 exiled 1494. (pope Leo x.) the Magnificent. Sabriatl. . Cibo. Ridolfl. (pope Clement vii.) 
 
 Lorenzo ii., Giovanni Sahrlati, Innocent Cibo, Nicholaa Ridolfl, 
 
 dukeof Urbino, 1519. _cardlnal, 1517. cardinall cardinal, 1517. 
 
 Catherine, queen 
 
 of France. Alexander, duke of Florence, 1531. 
 Married Margaret of Austria. 
 
 II. LOBENZO DE' Medici. 
 
 Pletro Francesco, killed, : 
 
 1477. 
 
 Lorenzo ii. 
 
 
 Giovanni. 
 
 1 
 
 
 Pletro Francesco 
 Lorenzo xii. 
 
 II. Everardo. 
 
 Ginliano 
 (archbishop). 
 
 Giovanni the Popula 
 
 Cosmo I, grand 
 duke, 1S69. 
 
 r. 
 
 
 Francesco i. 
 died, 1587. 
 
 Mary, ^ueen 
 ofFi'ance. 
 
 Fernando i., 
 cardinal, 1563. 
 
 
 
 Cosmo II. 
 
 Carlo, cardinal- 
 dean, 1GI.5. 
 
 
 Fernando ii, 
 Cosmo in. 
 
 Leopold, 
 cardinal, I6G3. 
 
 Giovanni Carlo, 
 cardinal of Tascany, 1644. 
 
312 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 his very valet received a cardinal's hat. His great 
 talents never condescended to the distinction between 
 virtue and vice. No amount of wickedness deterred 
 him from his projects. He was never happy when not 
 at warj and was said to have died of passion at the news 
 of a peace concluded withoiit his consent. 
 
 No force coiild tame the savage Sixtus' pride, 
 The moment that he heard of peace, he died.' 
 
 Innocent viii. is chiefly remarkable for the profli- 
 gacy of his private life," and the renewal of the war in 
 Naples. Having quarrelled with Ferdinand, he first 
 offered the crown to Eene of Lorraine, then seized it to 
 himself, then annexed it to the crown of Trance, and 
 finally restored it to Ferdinand, who had kept possession 
 undismayed by all his anathemas. His later .years 
 became remarkable from the flight of the sultan's 
 youngest son to Ehodes, whence he afterwards proceeded 
 to Eome. Bajazet, who succeeded Mohammed ii., sent a 
 large sum to the pope to induce him to detain his 
 brother, and the father of Christendom actually con- 
 descended to become the sultan's gaoler. 
 
 The next pope was the infamous Eoderic Borgia, by 
 whom the last remains of decency were trampled out, 
 and the pontifical throne sank below the level of the 
 Turkish seraglio. This bold bad man, though never 
 married, did not choose, like others, to abandon the 
 mother of his children, when invited by his uncle Calix- 
 tus III. to exchange a life of military profligacy for an 
 
 > Nonpotuit Bsevum vis ulla extinguere Sixtum ; Audito tandem nomine 
 pacis obit. — Bower, vii. 313. 
 
 ' Seven acknowledged illegitimate children received from this pontiff 
 the honours which others had accorded to their " nephews." It may be 
 suspected that the two designations were practically identical, but at all 
 events the public avowal of personal impurity in the Holy Father was a 
 novelty at Rome. It familiarised itself with frightful rapidity. 
 
THE BORGIAS. SI 3 
 
 archbishopric and a cardinal's hat. Along with the hat, 
 he assumed such an air of devotion, as to acquire in that 
 depraved court the reputation of a saint. The numerous 
 offices, benefices, and palaces, which he accumulated under 
 four popes, enabled him to bribe his brother cardinals, on 
 the death of Innocent, to elect him to the vacant chair. 
 Then taking the name of Alexander vi., he threw aside 
 the ftiask of sanctity, and, surrounded by children as 
 wicked as himself, turned the apostolic palace into a den 
 of lust and cruelty, not to be paralleled under the worst 
 of the ancient emperors. He was the Nero of the popes, 
 and, like Nero, corrupted all classes of society by his 
 profligacy. His eldest son, who was created duke of 
 Gandia by the Spanish king, and received the duchy of 
 Benevento from his father, fell by the hired bravoes of 
 his brother Caesar. This second son, the blackest monster 
 of the whole, was first a cardinal and archbishop of 
 Valentia, but abandoning the sacred function he obtained 
 a dispensation to marry, and converted himself into a 
 soldier and a prince. The youngest son married a 
 daughter of the king of Naples, and was created a 
 prince in that kingdom. The pope's daughter Lucrezia 
 scandalised the apostolical palace by three marriages, 
 celebrated with extraordinary magnificence; but the 
 court of Sardanapalus never equalled the shameless 
 orgies, in which this beautiful poisoner continued to 
 revel with her polluted father and brothers.' 
 
 It is a melancholy proof of the depravity which 
 the abominations of Eome had diffused over Chris- 
 
 > " Roscoe has endeavoured, in his ' Life of Leo x.,' to clear the memory 
 of Lucrezia Borgia from the load of infamous crimes imputed to her. He 
 has opposed the testimony of a number of favourable witnesses of a later 
 period to the accusations brought against her early life. The German editor 
 of his book, however, is not convinced, but thinks that she altered her 
 conduct for the better." — Ranke, Appx. i. 3. Such " conversions" are not 
 uncommon in the history of profligate women who have lost the oppor- 
 tunities of their youth. 
 
314 STEtTGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 tendom, that the courts of Europe seem to have been 
 little shocked by a flagitiousness which no decent pen 
 can describe. Neither princes nor prelates shunned these 
 incarnate fiends. The whole family enjoyed honour and 
 opulence, unchecked except by their own hand, and the 
 hoary sinner at its head was permitted to dispose of 
 kingdoms and territories, as the undoubted vicar of Him 
 to whom the ends of the earth are committed. "It is 
 impossible to offer a more convincing proof of the real 
 nature of the papacy. 
 
 Troubled by no schisms, censured by no councils, 
 harassed by no demands for reform, Alexander vi. 
 prospered in his day. The only protest agaiast his 
 wickedness came from a rival cardinal, whom he had 
 disappointed of the pontifical chair, and who, in 
 ascending it as his successor, proved equally devoid of 
 religion. His greatest danger was from the king of 
 Prance, whom his policy thwarted in his attempts upon 
 Naples. He had the incredible audacity to send pro- 
 posals to the Turkish Sultan, on the ground that if in 
 possession of Naples the French would certainly attack 
 the Mohammedans. Bajazet replied in terms of great 
 respect "to the most worthy father and lord of all 
 Christians ;" but nothing came of the negotiation, beyond 
 the payment of fifty thousand crowns for the sustenance 
 of the sultan's brother at Kome. Bajazet offered a further 
 sum of three hundred thousand ducats, to secure the young 
 prince from French intrigues by putting him out of the 
 world. The offer was not lost upon Alexander; and 
 being shortly after obliged to transfer the Moslem pre- 
 tender to the French, he took care, by his infamous art 
 of poisoning, to bring about his death in their custody. 
 The sultan's letters being intercepted and published, 
 all Europe knew that the Holy Father was bribed by 
 the enemy of Christianity to murder his unhappy charge. 
 
THE NEAPOLITAN SUCCESSION. 315 
 
 The Frencli king was so far from being deterred by 
 the pope's opposition that he marched to Eome, and 
 entering the city as a conqueror, compelled Alexander to 
 support his claim. Cardinal delle Eovere, with others, 
 implored the French to depose the pope, but Charles^ 
 " preferring to make use of him, declined any intervention 
 in Church matters. Proceeding to Naples, he gained 
 possession of the kingdom (a.d. 1495). Alphonso ii. 
 exchanged his crown for a cowl, and his son Ferdinand 
 fled to the island of Ischia. But the French triumph was 
 short. Before the year was out, Sforza, supposing him- 
 self safe at Milan, deserted the French, and formed a 
 league with the pope, the emperor, the king of Spain,' 
 and the republics of Yenice and Florence for their expul- 
 sion. Ferdinand was restored, and soon after succeeded 
 by his uncle Frederick, while the French were driven out 
 of Italy.'' 
 
 > Ferdinand v. of Arragon, by his marriage 'with Isabella of Castille 
 (A.D. 1469), united the two Spanish crowns, and succeeded in finally 
 expelling the Moors from G-ranada (1492). Alexander bestowed upon him 
 the title of " Most Catholic King," still annexed to the throne of Spain, of 
 which he was the founder. 
 
 2 The French claim rested on the bequest of Joanna I., who, being 
 childless, made Louis duke of Anjou her heir (a.d. 1380), but the queen 
 had previously settled the succession on her cousin Charles of Durazzo, 
 who possessed himself of the throne, and put her to death (a.d. 1382). 
 His daughter and heiress Joanna ll., called also Juanella, executed a similar 
 double adoption, in farour, first of Alphonso v. of Axragon ; secondly of 
 Rene of Anjou. The former took possession, and was succeeded by his son 
 Ferdinand (a.d. 1458), who died a.d. 1494. Kene, however, obtained the 
 county of Provence, and bequeathed it to his nephew Charles of Anjou, at 
 whose death his claim descended to Louis xi. of France. His son Charles 
 VIII. was instigated to revive the claim on Naples by Ludovico Sforza, 
 regent of MUan, for his nephew the young duke Giovanni. Ludovico was 
 conspiring to usurp the duchy : he obtained investiture of the emperor 
 Maximilian by giving him his beautiful niece Blanche for a third wife ; but, 
 being afraid of Ferdinand, who had married his grand-daughter to Giovanni, 
 he invited the French king into Italy, and on his axrival put his nephew to 
 death, and openly seized the ducal crown. The pope was pledged against 
 the French by the marriage of his youngest son with the daughter of 
 Alphonso II. 
 
316 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 The pope henceforth devoted himself to his infamous 
 pleasures, and the aggrandisement of his no less infamous 
 children. The murder of the duke, his eldest son, had 
 been rewarded by the transfer of his prospects to the 
 fratricide archbishop. Being appointed legate a latere 
 to crown the new king of Naples, he proposed himself to 
 Frederick in the further character of son-in-law and 
 heir to the throne. The pope promised to divest the 
 aspiring cardinal of his ecclesiastical character, and 
 sanction the marriage ; but the king declining the un- 
 precedented oflfer, the Borgias at once went over again to 
 the French. The death of Charles left the crown to his 
 cousin Loms xii,, whose first desire was to be released 
 from his marriage with the unhappy Joan, and retain 
 Brittany by espousing the duchess Anne, the late king's 
 widow. Next to this he burned to recover Naples and 
 Milan, which he claimed in his own right. Nothing 
 could be more opposed to the policy of the Eoman court 
 than ■ the establishment of the French in Italy, but 
 Alexander sacrificed every public consideration to his 
 family ambition. Caesar was divested of his orders and 
 sent ambassador to Paris, carrying the divorce and dis- 
 pensation for the second nuptials. The king created the 
 ex-cardinal duke of Valence and knight of St. Michael, 
 with a command in the French army, and a liberal 
 pension ; he further obtained him the hand of a prin- 
 cess, who, though not, as he had presumed to hope, of 
 the royal line of France, was sister to the king of 
 Navarre.' 
 
 Marching into Italy, Louis mastered Milan while 
 
 > She was a daughter of the Sire Alain, lord of Albret, whose son John 
 obtained the crown of Navarre by marrying Catherine de Foix, sister and 
 heiress of the late king. The offspring of this marriage, Henry, married 
 Margaret sister to Francis I. of France, and of them was born Henry iv. 
 of Navarre and France. 
 
PARTITION OF NAPLES. 317 
 
 the new duke Valentino reduced Eomagna, and received 
 it in fief to himself. Piombino was added by force, 
 and Urbino by fraud. Camerino followed, and the duke, 
 who had taken for his motto, aut Caesar aut nihil., 
 ventured to aspire to the throne of Italy. 
 
 Meantime, Naples experienced the astounding 
 treachery which, in that age, passed among princes for 
 policy. Ferdinand the Catholic, who already united 
 in himself and his consort Isabella the crowns of Spain 
 and the island of Sicily, secretly concerted the par- 
 tition of Naples between himself and Louis. With 
 this object he sent over troops under the great cap- 
 tain Gonsalvo de Cordova, in the guise of auxiliaries 
 to his kinsman and namesake ; and haviag thus gained 
 admittance, the Spaniards turned their arms against the 
 throne they professed to defend. Frederick surrendering 
 to Louis, ended his days in a French prison; and his 
 son, who capitulated to the great captain on condition 
 of his liberty, was sent in like manner to Spain. The 
 two conspirators then divided the spoil ; but speedily 
 quarrelling, by another act of that duplicity which the 
 Spanish historians call glory, the French -were expelled 
 from Naples ; and the crowns of the two Sicilies were 
 reunited on the head of the king of Spain. 
 
 Valentino's career was brought to a sudden termina- 
 tion by the righteous death of his father. It was an end 
 every way worthy of his life. Alexander had concerted 
 with the duke to poison a wealthy cardinal, in order to 
 possess themselves of his treasures. The deed was to 
 be perpetrated at a garden banquet given by the pope. 
 Alexander and his son arriving much heated, called loudly 
 for wine. In the haste the poisoned bottle was brought, 
 and both drank of it. The pope died the next day 
 (18th August 1503), but the duke having mixed his 
 draught with water, by taking instant remedies, narrowly 
 
318 STRUGGLES 01" THE COXJNCILS. 
 
 escaped with, life.' His greatness vanislied with its 
 author; succeeding pontifife deprived him. of allhishoiLours, 
 and after suffering imprisonment at Eome and in Spain, 
 he fell in an obscure affray at the petty court of Navarre. 
 This man's life was one continued succession of broken 
 vows, assassination, and violence; his dissimulation, 
 however, was so perfect, and for a time so successful, 
 that Machiavel extols him as a model for princes. In 
 such commendations the pope his father has a right to 
 be included, since no prince ever committed so many 
 crimes with impunity, nor so many robberies with 
 advantage. His profligate subjects were content to pelt 
 him with pasquinades. The Church was too dead to 
 throw off the incubus of his terrible , profanations. 
 When Columbus astonished Europe by the discovery of 
 a new world beyond the Western ocean, this scandalous 
 pontiff was allowed to dispose of it in the name of God. 
 He conferred on the Spanish monarchs the sovereignty 
 of all their Indian discoveries present or future; and 
 when the king of Portugal complained that his own 
 crown had received a similar grant from Eugenius iv., 
 Alexander graciously drew a line down the map, at 
 100 leagues west of the Cape de Verde Islands, telling 
 Spain to take the American side, and Portugal the 
 African. Such was the unbounded power then accorded 
 to a man of whom it was believed that he held nothing 
 sacred. The bitterest, and perhaps the truest, of the 
 satires uttered on his death, reflects at least as much 
 reproach on the Church itself, as on the pontiff who was 
 permitted to dispose of its ordinances : — 
 
 Keys, altar, Christ — he gave them all for gold : 
 He bought them first ; so with good right he sold.^ 
 
 ' Another accomit states that the cardinal bribed the pope's seneschal 
 to set the poisoned dish before his master instead of himself. — Ranke. 
 
 2 Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum ; emerat ille prius, vendere 
 jure potest. 
 
THE "golden period" OF JULIUS. 319 
 
 The chair of St. Peter, after passing for three weeks 
 to Pius III., nephew to Pius ii., fell at last to the ambi- 
 tious Julian delle Eovere, who, either from partiality to 
 his baptismal name, or from the ambition to revive 
 another imperial title, took the name of Julius ii.' The 
 spiritual character of the papacy was now quite eclipsed 
 by its temporal attributes. The Holy See disappeared in 
 the throne. Alexander and Julius were monarchs much 
 more than bishops ; the former treated his sacred func- 
 tion with a contempt which, in times of ordinary decency, 
 would have been a blunder no less than a crime ; Julius, 
 with better policy, exhibited always a decorous solemnity 
 in the imposing ceremonial of the Church, and made 
 himself as formidable with the spiritual weapon as with 
 the temporal. StUl there was no longer any pretence 
 of seeking power for spiritual purposes : that mask of 
 hypocrisy was at last fairly thrown aside. To aggran- 
 dise the Eoman state by conquest or treaty — ^to employ 
 force or dissimulation, as opportunity offered — and to 
 subordinate the restraints of conscience and religion to 
 the advancement of political objects, were now the ruling 
 principles of the Eoman court, as of others. The dif- 
 ference was that the pope was less restrained by religious 
 scruples, and more capable of calling in religious auxili- 
 
 ' The secular character now openly assumed by the papacy is apparent 
 in the frequent succession of pope's nephews. The nearest relations of 
 the reigning pontiff were installed, as a matter of eo:urse, in the apostolic 
 palace. An ecclesiastical and a secular " nephew " (who might often boast 
 of nearer ties) became established personages in the court of Rome, one to 
 assist the pope and bear the dignities of the Church, the other to found 
 a family among the princes of Italy. The elective throne of the Church 
 was thus converted to the uses of a narrow oligarchy, but as the last 
 comers were naturally the weakest, each papal family suffered an eclipse 
 on the death of its head, and the chair was disposed of by the connections 
 of a predecessor who had gradually acquired weight in the Sacred College. 
 DeUe Rovere was nephew to Sixtus iv., on whose death the prize was 
 obtained by Borgia, nephew to Calixtus iii. In like manner, Eugenius iv. 
 was nephew to Gregory xii., and Paul ii. to Eugenius. 
 
320 8TRUGGLE8 Or THE COUNCILS. 
 
 aries. Absolutions were always ready for his political 
 Mends, and censures for Lis political foes. If his tem- 
 poral cheek were smitten, he turned the other, not to 
 invite a repetition of the blow,, but to wither the 
 offender with its unearthly frown. This is the time 
 which an English cardinal of our own day has distin- 
 guished as " the golden period of Julius ii !" ' 
 
 He was a better pope than his predecessor, simply 
 as a military commander is more respectable than a 
 luxurious debauchee. He exhibited the strange spectacle 
 of the Yicar of Christ feeding his sheep by marching in 
 arms, at the head of his troops, to capture towns and slay 
 their defenders. This was no uncommon thing with 
 inferior prelates. Bishops and abbots, who refused to 
 soil their lawn by sitting in council or parliament 
 when a cause of blood was to be tried ; — who never cor- 
 rected heretics further than the rack, but when they 
 were to be burned, handed them over to the secular arm 
 with a pious entreaty to show mercy — had long managed 
 to ride in armour to the field of battle, and command in 
 the siege of towns and castles. They had maces hanging 
 at their saddle-bows, to kill their opponents without 
 shedding Christian blood. These bishops, however, were 
 barons, bound to attend their temporal lord : it was new- 
 to see the pope, after struggling so determinedly for a 
 sovereignty exempt from aU human accountability, use 
 it to fight his own battles like a duke or an emperor. 
 
 This novelty, however, little troubled the Church's 
 conscience. Thomas di Vio, cardinal of St. Sixtus 
 and general of the Dominicans (called Gaietan — Caje- 
 tan — ^from the place of his birth), was the most learned 
 and respectable member of the Sacred College. He 
 attended the council called in the Lateran 3rd May 
 
 » " Recollections of the Last Four Popes," by Cardinal Wiseman, p. 13-i. 
 
THE FIGHTING POPE. 
 
 321 
 
 1512, to curse all rebels against the pontifical authority. 
 Councils no less than individuals were included in this 
 anathema; and to enforce it the cardinal-general thus 
 addressed his mitred commander-in-chief: "That you 
 may imitate, holy father, the power, perfection, and 
 wisdom of God, gird yourself with your sword — that 
 sword which is especially your own. For you have two, 
 one in common with the princes of this world, the other 
 peouHar to yourself ; and which none can possess except 
 from you. Gird, then, this sword on your thigh (!) above 
 all the powers of the human race, and march against 
 errors, heresies, and dissensions. March and reign. 
 March and prosper, priest and king, utterly scatteruig 
 the nations that delight in war, and meditatiag and 
 searching after the things of peace.'" In the clang and 
 crash of his military metaphors, the cardinal forgot that 
 the sword of the Spirit is the "Word of God. His 
 Church has often mistaken fire and faggot for the 
 sword of St. Paul or St. Peter; but, although those 
 apostles did indeed fall by the sword, they were 
 expressly forbidden to smite with it. 
 
 Whatever Julius thought of the apostolical function, 
 to " scatter tho. nations that delight in war" was an em- 
 ployment entirely to his mind. He said the Diet and the 
 Conclave had each made a mistake: they should have 
 chosen himself emperor and Maximilian pope.' The 
 might that he showed and how he warred, we must 
 leave to the chronicles of the several kingdoms of 
 Europe. Suffice it to say, that his pontificate of ten 
 
 ' Seokend, Ap. i. 2 ; Waddington's Luther, i. 145. 
 
 " He thought the emperor a fool, and commonly spoke of Tiitn as a 
 " bestia." Maximilian was not more complimentary. " Immortal God 
 (he cried), if Thou didst not watch, it would fare badly with a world 
 governed by us two : I a miserable hunter, and that Julius a drunken 
 rascal !" It is a curious fact that Maximilian aspired to succeed Julius, 
 and actually offered himself as his coadjutor! — Ranke.. 
 
 Y 
 
322 STRUGGLES OP THE COUNCILS. 
 
 years was spent in campaigns wkich occasioned the 
 death, of ten thousand men ! ^ He reduced the lawless 
 feudatories on the estates of iiie Church to their proper 
 dependence on the Holy See. In alliance with the 
 emperor and the kings of France and Spaiu, he drore 
 the Venetians out of the Eomagna (which they had en- 
 tered on the fall of Csesar Borgia), appropriated several of 
 their strongholds to himself, and restrained the encroach- 
 ing republicans to their islands. Then quarrelling with 
 the French, he formed a new holy league with Spain, 
 Switzerland, and Yenice to drive them out of Italy. 
 Milan was restored to Maximilian, son of Lndovico 
 Sforza, while Julius obtained Parma, Piaoenza, and 
 Eeggio, heretofore fiefs of the empire.^ The Venetians 
 insisting on retaining Vicenza, Julius concluded an- 
 other alliance against them with the emperor, which 
 death did iiot permit him to prosecute. 
 
 As a monarch— the character he most affected-— Julius 
 far surpassed every former pontiff. If he fought without 
 mercy, and appropriated without scruple, he governed 
 wisely and well, and was rewarded by an unusual 
 fidelity on the part of his new subjects. The escheat of 
 Urbino, by the deprivation of Caesar Borgia, enabled him 
 to found a princely house without any further alienation 
 of Church lands. His talents and power were re- 
 garded with awe by the neighbouring states. " For- 
 merly (says Machiavelli) no baron was so insignificant 
 as not to despise the papal power : now a king of France 
 stands in awe of it."* 
 
 As a bishop, Julius, though an immoderate drunkard, 
 avoided the scandal occasioned by Alexander's contempt 
 of holy offices. He managed to perform the public 
 
 ' Some authors raise the number to 200,000.^ — Bower, vii. 398. 
 ' The rights of the empire were reseryed, which afterwards occasioned 
 frequent contests with the Church. " Banke, i. 2. 
 
DEATH OF JULIUS. 323 
 
 worskip with dignity, if not with piety. But his spiri- 
 tual office was always second to the political. He 
 excommunicated the French monarch, laid his dominions 
 under an interdict, and was on the point of transferring 
 the coveted style of " most Christian" to the king of 
 England when arrested by death. Louis had recourse to 
 the old remedy of a council, which actually met at Pisa, 
 on the summons of five cardinals, at the instance of the 
 emperor and himself: but Julius calling another at the 
 Lateran, interdicted the meeting at Pisa. - The cardinals 
 persevered under the protection of French troops, but 
 only a few bishops came to their council, and when, 
 after removing to Milan, they passed sentence of deposi- 
 tion on the pope (21st April 1512), the decree was re- 
 ceived only in France. The council expired on the Swiss 
 occupation, and it was before a higher tribunal that the 
 pope was summoned, at seventy years of age, to give an 
 account of his stewardship. He left a million of ducats 
 destined to a war against the Turks, The papal re- 
 venues, which . ordinarily amounted to 350,000 ducats, 
 were doubled or trebled by his exactions.* He gave no 
 benefice but to the incumbent of some lower preferment 
 or office, whose post was again given to an inferior, 
 and every one paid handsomely for his promotion. 
 Another source of profit was found in the improvement 
 of the coinage.^ In his personal expenditure the pope 
 was absolutely miserly. 
 
 All this power and wealth passed, on the 11th March 
 1513, to a successor as different as it is possible to 
 conceive. The cardinal, Giovanni de' Medici, who took 
 the name of Leo x., was a son of that Lorenzo de' 
 
 ' Under his successor it was reckoned at 320,000 ducats from tem- 
 poral sources, and 100,000 from eoclesiastical. 
 
 ' The giuli -with which he replaced the old carlini have only lately- 
 given place to the current paoli. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 Medici who so narrowly escaped the bravos of Sixtus iv. 
 An archbishop in the cradle, and a cardinal at thirteen, 
 he became pope at thirty-seven. Being devoted to the 
 French interest, his accession produced the immediate 
 submission and absolution of the king : the council 
 of Pisa was unanimously repudiated, and the cardinals 
 who summoned it asked pardon on their knees. Fran- 
 cis of Yalois, succeeding to the French crown in 1515, 
 surrendered the Pragmatic Sanction, and concluded a 
 concordat restoring annates to the Holy See. The 
 Lateran council had extinguished the insurrectionary 
 spirit manifested at Pisa, Constance and Basle, and 
 neither war, schism, nor heresy, disturbed the eight 
 years of Leo's splendid pontificate. 
 
 At Eome, this peacefiil magnificence was doubly 
 grateful after the two late reigns of terror and con- 
 quest. Leo's delight was to spend in luxury the 
 treasure Avhich his predecessor hoarded for war. His 
 education and tastes were worthy of a better man, 
 and the time was not yet come when piety was re- 
 quired in a successor of St. Peter. The point on 
 which he was most content to follow his predecessor, 
 was the completion of Bramante's ambitious design for 
 a new Church of St. Peter. It was the age in which 
 modern art attained its excellence in architecture, 
 sculpture, painting, and music. A new expression was 
 demanded for a worship which, undoubtedly, had vastly 
 altered in substance since the days of Constantino. The 
 artists were enthusiastic ; but the people were alarnied, 
 and the cardinals indignant, at the proposal to destroy a 
 Church venerated throughout the world, enriched with 
 sepulchres of saints, and memorable for illustrious 
 deeds. ^ Raphael and Michael Angelo had persuaded 
 
 > Ranke, 1, 2. 
 
ST. Peter's church. 325 
 
 Julius to overrule this opposition. The warrior pope 
 caused half the old Church to be pulled down, and 
 himself laid the foundation-stone of a new one (a.d. 
 1506). The popular misgivings were destined to be 
 realised in a way that no one expected. Leo gave 
 himself heart and soul to the prosecution of a work so 
 entirely to his taste. Enormous sums were levied from 
 the several kingdoms of Europe, by monkish men- 
 dicancy, for a structure designed to crown an uni- 
 versal recognition of the papal supremacy. But the 
 walls of St. Peter's had hai'dly appeared above ground, 
 before another Temple arose and stood over against it. 
 " A stone cut out without hands, smote the image and 
 became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." ' 
 
 ' Dan. ii. 35. 
 
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CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 THE PKOTESTANT EEFOEMATION. 
 
 Rapid Revolution — Strength of the Papacy — The Bible and the Press — 
 Indulgences — ^Luther Condemned — Burns the Bull — Protected by the 
 Elector — Adrian vi. — Zwingle^Clement vil. — ^Battle of Pavia — 
 Sack of Rome — ^Death of the Elector — "War of the Peasants— Protest 
 of Spires — Confession of Augsburg — Truce of Batisbon — Progress of 
 the Reformation in Europe — ^Persecution — ^Paul ill. — Attempts at 
 Reconciliation — Council of Trent — Breach with England — ^Rupture 
 between the Pope and the Emperor — -Return of the Council of Trent 
 — Triumph of German Reformers — Accession of Mary — Death of the 
 Pope — ^Abdication of the Emperor. 
 
 No event, since the publication of the Gospel, has pro- 
 duced so wide and lasting a change in human affairs 
 as the Protestant Eeformation. The rapidity of the 
 revolution was even more marvellous than its extent 
 and duration. It was almost compressed into the limits 
 of a single life. Martin Luther may be called its first 
 preacher, and before Luther died the Eeformation had 
 reached its existing limits. The greater part of Germany 
 and Switzerland, England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, 
 and Norway, openly separated from the Eoman com- 
 munion. Holland followed quickly after, and then the 
 Eoman reaction stayed the flood, and recovered what 
 had been lost in the remainder of Europe. The three 
 succeeding centuries have not enlarged the Protestant 
 area; they have only deepened and matured the 
 Protestant sentiment. They have supplied a succes- 
 sion of sound and learned divines, but nothing has been 
 added to the principles of the Eeformers, who rose like a 
 constellation in the sixteenth century. 
 
328 THE PEOTESTANT EEFOEMATION. 
 
 So singular a phenomenon indicates tlie presence 
 of a peculiar power: sometHng must have separated 
 that age from its predecessors, to enable it to set up 
 a mark which no successor has been able to overpass. 
 Papal corruption was unhappily not a novelty. The 
 indulgences, which first provoked the expostulations of 
 Luther, were an old grievance, and all his fiery de- 
 nunciations did not enlarge the catalogue of abtises 
 protested against for at least four centuries. The cir- 
 cumstances were so far from beiiig especially favourable 
 to attack, that the papacy was apparently stronger than 
 ever. The great schism had been healed, -the councils 
 humbled, the cry for reform was silenced, or confined 
 to the peasants of a few Alpine valleys : hardly a cloud 
 hung on the horizon of Eome. Her political prospects, 
 too, had been seldom less embroiled since the triple 
 crown first encircled the mitre. The wars of Julius had 
 resulted in the virtual conquest of Italy. Leo's first act 
 was a concordat with the French crown, which abolished 
 the Pragmatic Sanction, and replaced the eldest son 
 of the Church among her most dutiful children. The 
 emperor was the sworn and williiig champion of the 
 Holy See. The most Catholic sovereigns of Spain and 
 Portugal were subjugating new worlds to its obedience.^ 
 
 = Ferdinand, king of Sicily and Arragon, married (a.d. 1469) Isabella, 
 heiress of Castile and Leon : the conquest of Granada (1492) raised them 
 to the joint sovereignty of all Spain, with -which Navarre was incorporated 
 (1512). Naples was added by conquest (1503). The title of " Catholic 
 king," borne by some earlier sovereigns, was permanently attached to the 
 Spanish crown on the subjugation of the Moors by the conquest of Granada. 
 Christopher Columbus sailed to the discovery of America in virtue of a 
 contract with queen Isabella, dated 17th April 1492, after his offers had 
 been declined by the enterprising John n. of Portugal. This king, who 
 ascended the throne in 1482, in 1486 added the title of " Lord of Guinea," 
 and soon after bestowed the name of Cape of Good Hope on the southern 
 promontory of Africa, which his vessels under Bartholmo Dias rounded 
 (a.d. 1487). In the same reign, Brazil, and an extensive empire in India, 
 were added to the Portuguese crown. 
 
DISTINCTIVE ELEMENT. 329 
 
 The crown of England gained the title of Defender of 
 the Faith by the young king's zeal for absolute, unmiti- 
 gated popery. If Henry afterwards turned against his 
 idol, it was not till after the Eeformation had been 
 firmly planted in Germany, and begun to make pro- 
 gress in England. The superficial writers who ascribe 
 English Protestantism to the anger or policy of the 
 crown, should remember that similar quarrels in former 
 times had invariably terminated in the submission of 
 the king, and the triumph of the pope. 
 
 What, then, was the distinctive element in the 
 Eeformation of the sixteenth century ? It was un- 
 doubtedly the circulation of the Holy Bible. Luther 
 revived the maxim of Wiclif and Huss, that Scripture 
 only is true. He was opposed, as before, by the un- 
 changing dogma of Eome— the authority of the Holy 
 See. The battle was fought on a well-worn field from 
 beginning to end. In Wiclif 's days, however, the Bible 
 was comparatively a sealed book. All his exertions 
 could obtain only a limited circulation for his rude 
 English translation. The masses were unable to read, 
 and to the better-educated the labour of deciphering a 
 voluminous manuscript was a serious impediment. As 
 for oral preaching, the pope's great army of friars and 
 confessors were as a thousand to one against the Ee- 
 formers. 
 
 In the sixteenth century these conditions were 
 changed. The fall of Constantinople covered the shores 
 of Italy with the wreck of its religion and literature, 
 and the western universities were brought in contact 
 with the language of the New Testament and the 
 fathers. Greek was taught in Paris a.d. 1458: the 
 first Greek grammar was printed in 1476. Oxford and 
 Cambridge caught the infection of the " new learning," 
 and though the friars protested that to study Greek was 
 
330 THE PROTESTANT REFOEMATION. 
 
 the way to become a Pagan, and to study Hebrew the 
 way to become a Jew (!) the students of both lan- 
 guages so increased, that the English universities con- 
 tained- scholars who commanded the admiration of the 
 celebrated Erasmus, at his visits in 1497 and 1509-14. 
 
 This tide of scholarship began to flow just at the 
 moment when mechanical ingenuity had provided the 
 means of covering the world with the fertilising inunda- 
 tion. John ' Gutenburg, the inventor of movable types, 
 was born at Sulgeloch, near Mainz, a.d. 1397, and died 
 1478.' About the year 1455, he printed the Mazarin 
 edition of the Latin Yulgate ; the first book that ever 
 issued from the press, and the first instructor of Martin 
 Luther. It was a noble omen; and the Church of Eome, 
 "howbeit she meant not so, neither did her heart think 
 it," is entitled to the credit. In 1477 a Hebrew Psalter 
 was printed at Soncino, the Pentateuch in 1482, the Pro- 
 phets in 1486, and the whole of the Old Testament in 
 1488. In 1516 Erasmus printed the New Testament in 
 the original Greek. The Complutensian Bible, designed 
 by Cardinal Ximenes, appeared in 1520, containing the 
 Hebrew and Greek texts, with the Latin Yulgate in the 
 place of honour between them. The Bible, of which 
 Luther did not suspect the existence till he lighted 
 on the Yulgate in his monastery at Erfurth, a.d. 1503, 
 was now easily accessible to the literary classes, and it 
 began to be studied by the leading minds of every 
 nation with the utmost avidity. 
 
 The precious stream soon overflowed upon the 
 people. Luther published the New Testament in 
 German a.d. 1522, and the Old Testament from the 
 
 " Faust and SchoefFer were his assistants : the former has sometimes 
 been deemed the inventor, and other names are mentioned for the same 
 honour, as Costar of Haarlem, and Menzel of Strasburg : but Trithemius, 
 the first author who mentions the art, ascribes it to Gutenberg on the 
 authority of Schoeffcr himself. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PRESS. 
 
 331 
 
 Hebrew in portions till 1530, wlien the whole was 
 complete. Tyndal was but little behind with the 
 English version. His New Testament appeared in 
 1525, and before his cruel and treacherous martyrdom 
 at Ajitwerp (1545) he had finished, with the help of 
 John Eogers, the canonical books of the Old Testament.' 
 
 Evangelical expositions, replies by the Eomanists, 
 and rejoinders from the Eeformers, flowed in rapid' suc- 
 cession from the press. They removed the controversy 
 from the synods of prelates, and the cabinets of princes, 
 to the open field of public opinion. There the Bible, 
 and the Bible only, spoke with the voice of inspiration. 
 The Eeformation was the revolution of the Bible and 
 the press. 
 
 Its history is too extensive and familiar to call for 
 repetition in this volume. Some nations it altogether 
 emancipated from the yoke of Eome, others learned to 
 assert political independence, while content to retain the 
 spiritual bondage. These changes belong to the history 
 
 ' The same year appeared, the English version of Coverdale (also an 
 assistant of Tyndal), professing to be taken from the " Douche " (German 
 of Luther), and the Latin. This not giving satisfaction, Rogers was em- 
 ployed after Tyndal's death to edit his version from the original Hebrew 
 and Greek. The Apocrypha was added from Coverdale. This was 
 the Bible called "Matthew's," though the initials of Tyndal (whose name 
 it was thought prudent to suppress) are subscribed to the Old Testament. 
 It received the sanction of Henry viii., and was thus our first authorised 
 version. It is the parent of the existing version, of which the following 
 character is given by writers who are no friends to Protestantism : — " In 
 point of perspicacity and noble simplicity, propriety of idiom, and purity 
 of style, no English version has as yet surpassed it." — Geddes' (Roman 
 Catholic) Prospectus for a new Translation. " The peculiar genius, if such 
 a word may he permitted, which breathes through it, the mingled tenderness 
 and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the preternatural grandeur unequalled, 
 unapproached, in the attempted improvement of modern scholars ; all are 
 here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man, and that man WiUiam 
 Tyndal."— Froude's Hist, of England, iii. 84. These quotations are bor- 
 rowed from Mr. Plumptre's article on the Authorised Version in Smith's 
 Bible Dictionary, ii. 1669. 
 
332 THE PROTESTANT REFOEMATIOJf. 
 
 of Europe : what our plan requires to be noticed, is 
 the effect produced upon Eome herself. We have to 
 observe how the popeiB, walking blindly forward to the 
 destruction of their empire and their church, in the 
 impotent attempt to excommunicate the intelligence and 
 piety of Europe, stereotyped her corruptions, and sank 
 into a schism. 
 
 That the first preacher of the Eeformation was a 
 Saxon monk, is one of those coincidences which so often 
 mark the course of Divine retribution. The conquest of 
 Saxony, commenced by Charlemagne, under the sanction 
 of pope Adrian i. (a.d. 785), filled up the career which 
 constituted his title to the imperial crown. It was 
 Saxony, that rising under Otho of Nordheim to avenge 
 its wrongs against Henry iv., blindly aided Hildebrand 
 to reverse the original relations of the Empire and the 
 See. Finally, it was Saxony that, taking the lead in the 
 Eeformation, first defied the papacy, and dared to re- 
 nounce its authority at once in spiritual and temporal 
 questions. 
 
 The monks, again, had been the preachers, spies, 
 inquisitors, favourites, and ever-willing tools of the 
 papacy. It was from a cloister that the Bible was now 
 put into the hands of its opponents, and a monk was the 
 first to hurl the thunderbolts of inspiration at Eome. 
 Luther, like other monks, was a devoted child of the 
 Church ; but he was also a warm-hearted, earnest, pious 
 Christian. His great intellect never blinded his sim- 
 plicity, and his marvellous sagacity in the conduct of 
 affairs left him to the last a straightforward man of his 
 word. He had many faults, and belonged to a faulty age. 
 He was impetuous, self-confident, intolerant; but he 
 was also guileless, humble, believing, and fearless in the 
 cause of truth. The Bible was his rule of faith, and his 
 heart glowed with love to God and man. These were 
 
INDULGENCES. 
 
 333 
 
 the secrets of his success ; in these his errors were swal- 
 lowed up, and forgotten of good men. 
 
 Luther began his career with the ;pivptest, now so 
 familiar, against indulgences. Wiclif and Huss had 
 spoken to the same effect : it was comparatively a 
 recent abuse, and that which admitted of the least 
 defence. An indulgence was properly the relaxation 
 of some prescribed act of penance. A transgressor, 
 who had been appointed a certain term of exclusion 
 from the sacred mysteries, might, on proper evidence 
 of repentance, be indulged with a remission of part of 
 the time ; or an easier penalty might be substituted 
 for one that was too severe or impracticable. A pil- 
 grimage might be commuted for some other act of de- 
 votion ; a fast too rigorous for health might be reduced 
 to a practicable degree of abstinence. It was thought 
 reasonable also to exempt those in high station, or public 
 office, from penances which might impair the respect due 
 to their persons, or impede the discharge of their duties. 
 In such cases bishops, were wont to relax the penalties 
 of the canons, taking care to require proof of penitence 
 in some other way. For aU these outward acts of pen- 
 ance were designed to produce, or to evidence, that in- 
 ward contrition of the heart to which alone forgiveness 
 is granted by God. The first indiscriminate indulgence 
 was proclaimed by Urban ii. (1100), to enlist soldiers 
 for the delivery of the Holy Land, and the example was 
 followed in the subsequent crusades. The value and 
 extent of those remissions were not very closely scru- 
 tinised ; the theoretical view is that the crusaders were 
 dispensed from any act or term of penance, which might 
 happen to be enjoined to them, in consideration of their 
 devoting their persons and substance to the liberation of 
 Christ's sepulchre from infidels. There is no doubt, 
 however, that acts of penance were now generally re- 
 
334 THE PROTESTANT BEFOEMATION. 
 
 garded, not simply as evidences of repentance, but as 
 meritorions works atoning for sin, and cancelling the 
 penalty with God. It followed that a crusade, which 
 was of such worth as to compensate for all and eyery act 
 of penance, must avail with God for the forgiveness of 
 every kind of sin. It was a meritorious work, to be 
 reckoned in the other world against the crimes and de- 
 baucheries which defiled the crusader in this. This was 
 the practical view, whatever might be the doctrine of 
 divines, and it was this view which made indulgences 
 popular. Iimocent in. extended the expedient to the 
 crusade against the Albigenses : the cause of Christ was 
 better served by exterminating his enemies in Christen- 
 dom than in foreign parts. After this, Boniface granted 
 an indulgence to all who should visit the shrines of the 
 apostles at the jubilee ; and, finally, it became an ordi- 
 nary instrument for raising money, the condition being 
 simply a contribution to some holy work which the pope 
 desired to promote. 
 
 In the year 1517 Leo, being in want of funds to 
 carry on the building of St. Peter's, issued a plenary 
 indulgence to all who should contribute. The indul- 
 gences were committed, that is to say farmed out, to 
 bishops and other speculators, who paid the pope a sum 
 beforehand, and then sent their agents round to sell the 
 privilege to the public. In Saxony, the pope's sister 
 Magdalene, having obtained the contract, employed a 
 gentleman of Milan, named Arembaud (afterwards an 
 archbishop), as her agent. Under him, a Dominican 
 friar, named John Tetzel, was employed to retail the 
 spiritual wares. Tetzel set up a great red cross in the 
 churches, and summoned the faithful by beat of drum to 
 his money -table, If they had committed the grossest sin 
 that could be imagined — and his language was as foul as 
 his life — an indulgence would blot it out in a moment. 
 
THE HOLE IN THE DRUM. 335 
 
 He had saved more souls by these little charms than St. 
 Peter by his preachiug or his keys. Their virtue ex- 
 tended to the dead, as -well as the living : they had only 
 to contribute in the name of a deceased friend, and the 
 moment the money clinked in his coffer, the effect was 
 felt in the deepest caverns of purgatory, and the soul 
 flew up to heaven.' 
 
 That Tetzel grossly exaggerated the doctrine of the 
 Church, was doubtless the first conviction of the young 
 Augustinian, who listened in shame and anger to this 
 impudent declamation. Luther vowed to make a hole 
 in the friar's drum; but when he entered on the 
 controversy the hole extended much farther than he 
 expected. The impudent hawker had church- warrant 
 for every one of his puffs. The merit of religious per- 
 formances, and consequently of indulgences, had long 
 been declared applicable to souls in purgatory. Be- 
 ginning with simple prayers for the departed in Christ, 
 the Church of Eome had gone on to "saying mass" for 
 them ; the mass had become a sacrifice extended, by the 
 communion of the saints, beyond the grave ; it procured 
 remission of sins to quick and dead. By parity of 
 reasoning, whatever remitted sins was as efficacious for 
 one as the other ; and as it was easy to purchase two or 
 more " plenary " indulgences, it was obvious that the 
 superfluity might be made over to some poor soul in 
 purgatory, who had no money to buy for himself. This 
 charitable substitution was expressly authorised in the 
 terms of Leo's bull ; but why (demanded Luther), since 
 the pope is so powerful, does he not deliver all the souls 
 in purgatory at once, out of his own charity, instead of 
 making their friends bring them out by driblets ? This 
 question was never answered. 
 
 ' Tetzel was convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by the 
 emperor, but spared on the intercession of the elector of Saxony, 
 
336 THE PROTESTANT REFOEMATIOlSr. 
 
 At Eome the difficulty was to define the ground- 
 work of the indulgence itself. All who held to the 
 primitiTe use denied it any effect beyond the relaxation 
 of church discipline. Others, objecting that such relaxa- 
 tions would be injurious instead of beneficial to the soul, 
 if the sin remained unforgiven, maiatained the absolution 
 must confer real remission of sins. Still (as some added) 
 it was conditional on true repentance, and moreover to 
 be followed by Toluntary satisfaction, by way of com- 
 pensation to the Divine justice. This, however, plainly 
 took away all the value of the indulgence, since true 
 repentance would be equally efficacious without it. 
 Hence the doctrine of the communion of the saints was 
 pressed into the question, to give the destitute a share 
 in the merits of the more advanced. The Church was 
 held to be a general treasury of all good works, of 
 which the dispensing was committed to the pope, and, 
 for fear the balance should not be equal to his drafts, the 
 merits of Christ were thrown in as infinite. This last, 
 however, was dangerous ground, and the casuist had 
 to walk warily. It was asked how infinite merit 
 could admit of addition? why it was not equal to 
 the deliverance of all the souls in purgatory at one 
 moment, instead of needing to be eked out by papal 
 bulls and pecuniary collections? These, again, were 
 questions which Eome has never answered. While 
 repeating a creed which places the great privilege of 
 Christianity in remission of sins, the Church of Eome 
 has no definite answer to the sinner's demand, " What 
 shall I do to be saved ?" 
 
 Leo was a magnificent, refined, and luxurious prince, 
 fond of art and literature, but ignorant of theology, and 
 without a vestige of piety.' Luther's expostulations 
 
 ' He would have been a perfect pontiff, writes Fra Paolo, if to his other 
 
BURNING THE POPE's BULL. 337 
 
 afforded food for merriment to the parasites and jesters 
 with -whom the pope spent his private hours. He handed 
 the honest friar, and his ninety-five propositions, over 
 to his legate, with instructions to silence him either by 
 threats or bribes. When both failed, he decided (like 
 Pliny in the case of the primitive Christians) that autho- 
 rity must at aU events be upheld. In a brief dated 
 9th November 1518, the pope declared himself in- 
 vested with the power of remitting all sins by the 
 sacrament of penance, and all punishments by means 
 of indulgences. This doctrine he ordered to be univer- 
 sally taught and received on pain of excommunication. 
 Luther appealed to a General Council ; this was the 
 standing form of defying the papacy. The pope was 
 not slow at his weapon. In a bull dated 15th June 
 1520, Leo condemned ninety-one propositions as heresy, 
 and ordered Luther to retract them within sixty days, on 
 pain of being dealt with as a heretic. This, too, was in 
 due form ; the next step was to prepare the fagot and fire. 
 Here, however, the Saxon monk determined to be 
 beforehand with his opponents. Eemembering, perhaps, 
 how pope Paschal excommunicated his bull, instead of 
 himself, Luther adopted a similar vicarious revenge, and 
 on the 10th December 1520 startled the disciples of 
 Eome by publicly committing Leo's buU, with the whole 
 volume of Decretals, to the flames at Wittenberg. This 
 daring act was a violation of all rule. It amounted to a 
 repudiation of the pope, and secession from Eome, the 
 boasted centre of Christian unity. It was the inaugura- 
 tion of the Protestant Eeformation. 
 
 qualities he had united some knowledge of religion, and a little more incli- 
 nation to piety, but he bad no great love of either." — History of the Council 
 of Trent, i. 4. Leo's panegyrists do not care to contradict this statement. 
 Though an archbishop befOTe he was a man, his licentiousness was 
 atrocious. That he patronised' Raphael and the fine arts is but a poor 
 set- off in a Christian bishop. 
 
338 
 
 THE PROTESTANT REEOEMATION. 
 
 The pope, roused at last to active indignation, re- 
 sorted as usual to the secular arm. The emperor 
 Charles v. was the most powerful monarch of the age, 
 and a bigoted papist. The elector of Saxony, however, 
 refused to surrender his subject to the tender mercies 
 of the apostolical see, and Charles was obliged to 
 grant him a fair hearing before the imperial Diet at 
 Worms.' Luther presented himself at the appointed 
 time, undismayed by the fate of Huss. The precedent 
 of Constance- was repeated. The monk owned his books, 
 disclaimed misinterpretations, but refused to retract unless 
 convinced by Scripture and sound reason. The papists 
 insisted on submission to the Church : they even pressed 
 the emperor to violate his safe conduct, but Charles was 
 not a Sigismund ; he returned the memorable reply, that 
 Honour should retain its sway iu the breasts of kings, 
 though it were banished from aU the world beside. 
 Luther departed in safety, but the elector, knowing what 
 was at hand, caused him to be seized by a masked party, 
 who bore him to the castle of "Wartenburg, where he lay 
 concealed from his persecutors. 
 
 The precaution was not unnecessary. Hitherto the 
 state of politics had befriended the monk. The pope 
 had deeply offended the emperor, first by opposiug his 
 election to the empire, and then by deserting to the 
 French, when their arms were prevailiug in Italy. 
 Led had now reverted to the imperialists, and the 
 emperor was ready to put down his opponents. An 
 
 ' Charles succeeded his grandfather Maximilian in the empire a.d. 
 1519. He was archduke of Austria and the Netherlands, and wore the 
 crown of the Two Sicilies, besides that of " Spain and the Indies," ruling 
 at the same time in Vienna, Brussels, ValladoUd, Saragoza, and Naples. 
 The electors of Germany, however, knew their rights, and Frederick of 
 Saxony, who had refused the imperial cro'vni in order to consolidate the 
 power of Christendom imder Charles, against the Turks then threatening its 
 eastern boundary, was not the man to quail before a despot. 
 
POPE ADRIAN VI. 339 
 
 edict came out wliich inliibited the new opinions as 
 dangerous heresy, and placed Luther and his adherents 
 under the ban of the empire (1521). Leo was baulked 
 of the triumph by his sudden death, and his place, to the 
 great disappointment of the cardinal Wolsey, was filled by 
 the emperor's tutor, Adrian, once a poor charity-boy at 
 Utrecht, whom the late emperor Maximilian had pronloted 
 to the bishopric of Tortosa. 
 
 The election of a stranger who had never seen 
 Eome, and was wholly unknown to the rest of the 
 Sacred CoUege, was attributed to inspiration : but 
 the personal friendship of an emperor is an inspi- 
 ration of no uncommon character. Adrian vi. was 
 certainly not a pope to the taste of the Eoman court. 
 Beginning by retaining his baptismal appellation, he 
 expelled the whole tribe of poets and wits from the 
 apostolical palace, and reduced the luxurious table of 
 Leo to ecclesiastical simplicity. To his poor relations, 
 who came flocking out of Manders to share the spoils 
 after the accustomed rule, he presented a suit of clothes 
 with money to pay their passage home again ; exhorting 
 them to be content with the lot that God had awarded 
 them. He created but one cardiuEd, and canonised only 
 one saint ; the latter Luther denounced as " the new idol 
 and the new devil set up at Misnia." His epitaph, 
 composed by himself, declared that "he found nothing 
 in life more unhappy than to govern." Another, which 
 might be thought the epitaph of the Chm-ch, proclaimed 
 that " piety was buried in the same grave." The Eoman 
 courtiers pronounced him an excellent clergyman, but a 
 very poor pope.' 
 
 Nevertheless, Adrian was as anxious as any of 
 the cardinals to check the progress of Luther. That 
 
 ' Giovio in Vita Had. vi. 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 THE PEOTESTANT REFOEMATIOX. 
 
 reformation was needed, he frankly admitted ; but law 
 must first be enforced- against heretics. Luther was 
 as bad as Mohammed ; he was a cancer to be cut out 
 and cauterised ; he was Dathan and Abiram, and since 
 the earth would not open her mouth and swallow him 
 up, the German princes were exhorted to deal with him 
 as their famous ancestors had dealt with Huss and 
 Jerome. The elector of Saxony received a letter filled 
 with objurgations. Charlemagne and pope Adrian had 
 reclaimed the Saxons from idolatry, and Charles and 
 pope Adrian would save them from heresy, in spite of 
 his infatuated and diabolical blindness. If the elector 
 did not repent, everlasting burnings awaited him here- 
 after, and even in this world he should feel the edge of 
 either sword, the apostolical and the imperial. 
 
 The pope had studied neither Luther nor the Bible, 
 and did not know that others were wiser than himself. 
 The Diet of Nuremberg rejected his appeal without a 
 dissentient voice. They sent him a " hundred griev- 
 ances,"' resolving that no one should be hindered in 
 preaching the word of God, tiU the Council which 
 Adrian promised should assemble. The cardinals were 
 less gratified at the pope's abuse of Luther than incensed 
 at his admission that any reformation was required. 
 They told him he was ruining the Church, that heresy 
 must be nipped in the bud, and rebellion be encoun- 
 tered by submission first, and reform afterwards. If 
 they had prevailed, they would have said that, as there 
 was no longer any discontent, there was no occasion for 
 reform. 
 
 Meantime, Zwingle was conducting in Switzerland a 
 similar work to Luther's in Saxony. He had preached 
 evangelical doctriaes as early, perhaps earUer, than the 
 Augustine friar ; and the Alpine peasantry, who used to 
 think it glory to fight the pope's battles, began to stay 
 
POPE CLEMENT Vll. 341 
 
 at home. The senate of Zurich declared itself on the 
 side of the Bible. The pope wrote a flattering letter 
 in January 1523, offering him good preferment, but 
 Zwingle proceeded the same year, in company of two 
 other commissioners, with authority from the senate, to 
 destroy the images. " Of all the wooden gods (he re- 
 ported) not one had the virtue of resistuig the flames. A 
 miraculous stone virgin which, accordiug to the Church, 
 had returned to Altenbach after several removals, and 
 was by no force to be kept away from its convent, was 
 induced, by our persuasions, to move, and stranger stiU, 
 it has never returned!" The next year they dissolved 
 the monasteries. Then Zwingle, who was a priest though 
 not a monk, took a wife. In April 1625, the mass was 
 abolished, and the communion administered ia both kinds. 
 The same year witnessed the publication of a large por- 
 tion of Luther's version of the Bible in the Swiss dialect. 
 Before that, Adrian was in his grave, having consumed 
 his brief pontificate' in endeavours, equally fruitless, to 
 appease the differences in the Church, and to unite the 
 Christian princes in defence of Europe against the Turks, 
 now masters of Belgrade and Ehodes. 
 
 Clement vii. was another of the De' Medici." Pre- 
 cluded from the priesthood by the canonical impediment 
 of illegitimate birth, he entered the military order of 
 St. John, and carried its standard at the coronation of 
 his cousin Leo. The same day, while yet in his armour, 
 the pope made him archbishop of Florence, and soon 
 after cardinal and chancellor of the Eoman church, hav- 
 ing legitimised his birth by pontifical decree. In this 
 office he transacted most of the public business ; and by 
 
 ' Elected 9th January 1522, crowned 30th August, died 14th Sept 
 1523. 
 
 - He was a posthumous and illegitimate son of the Julian who was 
 murdered in the conspiracy of Sixtus iv. 
 
342 THE PROTESTANT EEITOEMATION. 
 
 now making it over to cardinal Colonna, with a magni- 
 ficent palace, lie purchased his support in the pontifical 
 election. Clement began by disowning the imperial 
 alliance against the French king — declaring that it be- 
 hoved the common father of Christendom to be neutral 
 in its unhappy dissensions. His real design was to 
 prevent either monarch from becoming too powerful. 
 When the French king had repossessed himself of MUan, 
 Clement opened negotiations, which were unexpectedly 
 interrupted by the defeat and capture of Francis in the 
 battle of Pavia, 25th February 1525.^ 
 
 This imperial victory alarmed aU Italy. The pope at 
 once formed a confederation with the States of Venice, 
 Florence, and Milan, for their common protection. Of 
 this holy league Henry viii. of England accepted the 
 protection. When Francis obtained his liberation, the 
 pope absolved him from the hard conditions to which he 
 had sworn, and received him into the alliance. To Cle- 
 ment the emperor was a greater object of terror than 
 the Reformers. The imperialist party at Eome, however, 
 headed by the Colonnas, were incensed at his perfidy. 
 They attacked the Yatican, and Clement fled into the 
 castle. A capitulation followed, which the pope set 
 aside as soon as he was at liberty, and carried fire and 
 sword into the territories of his opponents. He was in- 
 terrupted by a more formidable master of this bloody 
 game : the duke of Bourbon suddenly appeared before 
 Eome with the imperial army, demanding free passage 
 to Naples. Being refused, he attacked the suburbs next 
 day, but fell by a shot from an arquebus. The im- 
 perialists, under the command of the prince of Orange, 
 
 ■ The French lost 80,000 men in this famous combat. The king of 
 Navarre was also taken prisoner. Francis wrote to his mother, "Madam, 
 all is lost but honour." The imperial army was commanded by the duke 
 of Bourbon. 
 
IMPERIAL SACK OF ROME. 343 
 
 assaulted tlie -walls witli the utmost fury, and the same 
 evening they became masters of the city (6th May 
 1527). No heathen or barbarian sack of Eome was 
 ever attended by greater atrocities than were now per- 
 petrated by the troops of his Apostolic and Catholic 
 Majesty. The Spaniards behaved worse than the Ger- 
 mans.' Plunder and violence raged without restraint, 
 while the pope lay a helpless prisoner in his fortress. 
 
 The emperor receiving the inteUigenoe at Madrid 
 affected the deepest concern. He stopped the rejoicings 
 for his son's birth, put on mourning, and ordered public 
 prayers for the Holy Father's liberation. Nevertheless, 
 Charles took care to keep him a close prisoner, till he 
 had exacted a large sum of money, with several Eoman 
 cities, and hostages for his future behaviour. These 
 dissensions between the chief of the Church and the 
 chief of the State enabled the Eeformers not only to 
 resist the execution of the edict of Worms, but to ex- 
 tend their religious securities. 
 
 They were equally befriended by the disturbances in 
 the east. The Turks, whose advances had been neg- 
 lected, crossed the Christian frontier and seized on a large 
 portion of Hungary. King Louis ii., the last of the 
 Jaghellons, with the flower ^ of his nobility, fell in the 
 fatal battle of Mohatz, 29th August 1526. Buda, the 
 key of Christendom, passed to the Moslems, and the 
 vaivode of Transylvania accepted a tributary crown at 
 their hands. The diet of Presburg conferred the elective 
 crowns of Bohemia and Hungary on the archduke 
 Ferdinand, the emperor's brother and vicar, but to stay 
 the progress of Solyman it was indispensable to unite 
 the resources of Germany, and for that purpose to come 
 
 ' The Germans being mostly Protestants, destroyed the works of art 
 which they detested as idolatrous. The Spaniards were mere butchers and 
 rufSans. 
 
344 THE PROTESTANT EBFOEMATION. 
 
 to an understanding with the reforming princes and 
 cities. The Turk himself was thus made to minister in 
 the propagation of evangelical truth. From the univer- 
 sity of Wittenberg, whither Luther had returned, his 
 emissaries penetrated all Germany. His doctrines 
 gained the ear of the people : they were openly embraced 
 by some of the principal cities, and four or five consider- 
 able princes. In many places the monks and nuns 
 renounced their vows, the forsaken monasteries were 
 suppressed by the local authorities, the mass was 
 abolished, and the communion in both kinds restored. 
 Luther compiled a liturgy in the vernacular language, 
 which was observed throughout Saxony by the elector's 
 authority; it was no longer a party but a National' 
 Church that confronted and defied the Eoman See. 
 
 In vain its adherents urged the execution of the 
 edict of Worms. The diet at Spires (18th April 1524) 
 could only (after a severe struggle) carry a mixed 
 decree which satisfied neither side. A papal league, 
 signed at Eatisbon, was met by the antagonistic league 
 of Smalcald two years after. The elector of Saxony 
 dying 5th May 1525, was succeeded by a yet more 
 evangelical reformer in his brother John. A month after 
 Luther astonished and- scandalised the world by the 
 marriage of a monk with a nun.' The respect still 
 attached to vows of celibacy made his friends tremble, 
 while the papists expected a universal reprobation 
 both of the man and his doctrine. Yet no perceptible 
 check was experienced to the cause, and in now com- 
 menting on an act of which the two parties were the 
 only proper judges, it should be remembered that both 
 had long before publicly repudiated their unscriptural 
 
 • Erasmus alludes to a vulgar legend that anti-Christ was to be the 
 child of a monk and a nun :. but of such anti-Christs (he observes) there 
 were some thousands in the world before Luther married. 
 
WAR OF THE PEASANTS. 345 
 
 VOWS, as well as the false authority which imposed 
 them, and that twenty years of domestic happiness 
 crowned their union. 
 
 A far more serious matter was the war of the 
 peasants, which, like the English riots in the time of 
 Wiclif, were charged on the evangelical movement. 
 There was so much truth in the charge, as that every 
 righteous reform encourages the hope of others, and 
 every work of darkness has reason to tremble at any 
 beam that penetrates the gloom. The abuses fostered 
 in the State, under the perverted views encouraged by 
 the Eoman Church, were second only to those in the 
 Church. The people were everywhere shamefully op- 
 pressed, in most parts reduced to actual servitude. 
 The circulation of the Bible with its reiterated appeals 
 to conscience, and the courageous example of the evan- 
 gelical preachers, encouraged the exercise of private 
 judgment, in temporals no less than spirituals. The 
 discontent was exasperated by religious persecution, 
 and with the terrible proofs of sacerdotal immorality 
 now flooding the public mind, it is not surprising that 
 a peasantry, systematically kept in ignorance, should 
 rise against their tyrants in Church and State together. 
 Similar rebellions had occurred before Luther, but 
 Luther was so far from sympathising vrith rebellion 
 that he called for measures of repression absolutely 
 inhuman. 
 
 The rebellion was headed by Munzer, a dangerous 
 fanatic, who hurled his denunciations at Luther as 
 fiercely as at the pope. He called on the people to exter- 
 minate their rulers, as the Israelites treated the people 
 of Canaan; and numbers of his followers fell without 
 resistance, as they stood singing hymns, in expectation 
 of the celestial succours he had promised them. 
 
 During these disturbances Frederick of Saxony died. 
 
346 THE PEOTESTANT REFORMATION. 
 
 and was succeeded by his brother John, a still more de- 
 cided reformer than himself. He was joined by PhUip, 
 landgrave of Hesse, and the princes of Prussia, Bran- 
 denburg, Lauenburg, and some others, with the elector 
 palatine. A resolution was agreed upon at Salfleld 
 (a.d. 1528), to use their utmost exertions for the glory 
 of God, and the doctrine conformable to his word, of 
 justification through faith. On the other hand, Charles 
 summoned a diet to enforce the edict of Worms, and 
 fulfil his engagements with the pope ; but the attitude 
 of the princes, and the advance of the Turks, com- 
 pelled him to be cautious. 
 
 ■ The discovery of a conspiracy for the secret destruc- 
 tion of the reformers drove them into still closer alliance. 
 A book of doctrines and ceremonies, drawn up by Luther, 
 was published by the elector's authority, in Saxony. 
 At last, the states of the empire assembling at Spires 
 (a.d. 1529), the reformers, after much discussion, pre- 
 sented the memorable protest, which gave a name to the 
 evangelical movement throughout Europe.' This cele- 
 brated document bore the signatures of six princes and 
 the deputies of fourteen imperial cities. It charged all 
 the disorders of the empire on the notorious abuses in 
 the Church, declared the pontifical mass to be tainted 
 with impiety, and asserted the great doctrine that scrip- 
 ture was the true interpreter of scripture. The sub- 
 scribers appealed from the diet to the emperor, or a free 
 councU, and having delivered in their manifesto, de- 
 parted to their respective states and cities. 
 
 The Protest gave the utmost umbrage to the emperor, 
 
 > The word Protetiant'is not found in any formulary of the Church of 
 England, but it is freely adopted in the statute.law, and by aU higtorians 
 and divines. It was unhesitatingly accepted by Bishops Andrewes, Cosin, 
 and Laud, and is the official designation of the Episcopal Churches in 
 Scotland and the United States. 
 
COBSbNATION OF CHARLES V. 347 
 
 who conceived his own authority, no less than the 
 pope's, to be concerned in subduing this audacious 
 minority. He hastened to conclude his differences with 
 the pope, and cemented the alliance by the marriage of 
 his natural daughter, Margaret of Austria, with Clement's 
 kinsman, Alexander de' Medici. The treaty stipu- 
 lated for the reduction of the pope's native republic, 
 the transfer of Florence to Alexander, the restoration of 
 Naples to the emperor, and of some other places to the 
 pope. Finally, both were to put forth all their powers 
 for the suppression of heresy. 
 
 This treaty concluded, Charles proceeded into Italy 
 to receive the imperial crown. To be nearer Germany, he 
 iaduced the pope to meet him at Bologna, where the 
 ceremony was performed ia great state, 24th Feb. 1530. 
 It seems that a singular regulation required the em- 
 peror to be in holy orders : accordingly, before the 
 coronation, Charles was ordained deacon, and arrayed in 
 the surplice and amice of a canon of St. Peter and St. 
 John Lateran. In this capacity he served the mass, 
 which was celebrated by the pope. Having resumed the 
 imperial mantle, brought from Constantinople, the em- 
 peror knelt before the pope, who presented him with a 
 naked sword, charging him to use it for the defence of 
 the Church against her enemies.' "When the crown had 
 been placed on his head, the emperor kissed the white 
 cross embroidered on Clement's scarlet slipper, and ex- 
 claimed, " I swear ever to employ my utmost power in 
 defence of the pontifical dignity and the Church of 
 Eome." The two sovereigns were then seated on the 
 same dais, the papal chair being six inches higher than 
 the imperial.* 
 
 Proceeding into Germany, the emperor held a diet 
 
 ■ Compare Matt. xxvi. 52, xxviii. 19. 
 ' D'Aubigne Hist, de la Reformation, xiv. 2. 
 
348 THE PROTESTANT KEFOEMATION. 
 
 at Augsburg (a.d. 1530), which, was preceded by a 
 mass, at which the elector of Saxony, as grand marshal 
 of tbe empire, was bound to attend his sorereign. 
 John complied, by the advice of his divines, after much 
 hesitation ; but he disappointed the papists by remaining 
 on his feet, with the sword borne aloft, while the em- 
 peror prostrated himself at the elevation of the Host. 
 It was mainly on this pious and sagacious prince that 
 the weight of the contest now rested. He had left 
 Lutber at Coburg on account of the unbridled fierceness 
 of his tongue ; and Melancthon, who accompanied him, 
 was perpetually weakening the cause by an over-eager- 
 ness to conciliate opponents. Between these extremes 
 the elector pursued a firm, consistent course, sustained 
 by daily reading the Psalms, with fervent prayer, in his 
 chamber. He was warijily seconded by the younger 
 princes. " Eather would I renounce my subjects and my 
 estates," exclaimed the prince of Anhalt, "and leave 
 my fatherland with only a staff in my hand — ^rather 
 would I gain my bread as a shoeblack, than receive any 
 other doctrine than this confession." The margrave of 
 Brandenburg told the emperor tbat, before he woidd allow 
 the Word of God to be taken from him, he would kneel 
 at his feet and let him strike off bis head. Charles, who 
 spoke no German, was moved at the vivacity of his looks 
 and gesture. He heard the same language from aU : 
 they would do nothing in religion against their con- 
 science. The impetuous young landgrave of Hesse sent 
 the emperor as a present a richly-bound Summary of 
 Faith, which threw his Spanish prelates into an ecstasy 
 of fury. Nor should we omit the language of the honest 
 buxgber Franentrant, who, in laying tbe protest before 
 Charles, said that every one must give account to the 
 Supreme Judge, not to creatures changing with the wind. 
 "Better fall into the worst cruelties of man," he added. 
 
CONFESSION OF AUGSBUEG. 349 
 
 " than risk the vengeance of God. Our people will 
 not obey decrees which, are not founded on the Holy 
 Scriptures. Princes have no right to constrain their 
 subjects to sin." 
 
 Charles, though the most accomplished and gracious 
 prince of the age, was a despot and a bigot. Liberty, 
 civil or religious, was hateful to the king of the 
 kings of Europe. "His imperial majesty (said king 
 Perdiuand, his mouthpiece) must be obeyed." The 
 Protestants determined to obey God. "With great diffi- 
 culty they procured a confession of their faith, drawn 
 up by Melancthon, and approved by Luther, to be 
 solemnly read in the diet. It was the first formal 
 expression of the Protestant creed, and, as the elector 
 insisted on its being read in German, it produced a 
 powerful impression on all who heard it. The Eeforma- 
 tion had been so grossly maligned by the papists, that 
 many were surprised to hear the " heretics " confess 
 their belief in God, in Christ, the sacraments, and a 
 future life. 
 
 The confession consisted of twenty-eight articles, 
 of which the first twenty-one were devoted to the 
 profession of faith. After laying down the articles of 
 the trinity, incarnation,, original sin, and atonement, 
 it proceeded to assert justification by faith only, and the 
 relation of grace and works ; then followed the doctrine of 
 the one Church, in the communion of all saints, and 
 of the word and sacraments. The Lord's Supper was 
 defined according to Luther's teaching, to the exclusion 
 of Zwingle's : for after the conference of Marburg, where 
 these two reformers failed to agree, the doctor of Wit- 
 tenburg vehemently rejected all comprehension of the 
 sacramentarians.' The eighteenth article asserted the 
 
 ' The word cmisubstantiation does not occur in this confession, nor 
 is it ever admitted by Lutheran divines. The article simply says that 
 
350 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 
 
 necessity of the Holy Spirit to work the righteousness 
 of God, and the twenty-first, the mediation of Christ 
 only as our true priest an^ intercessor with God. Seven 
 articles were devoted to abuses requiring immediate 
 reform. They were : The retrenchment of the cup, com- 
 pulsory xjelibacy, the expiatory sacrifice of the mass, the 
 enumeration of sins in confession, meat fasts, monastic 
 vows, and the temporal power of the bishops. It was 
 added that indulgences, pilgrimages, excommunications, 
 and many other abuses, might be specified, but there was 
 no desire to- extend the catalogue. 
 
 The confession of Augsburg, singularly enough, is 
 silent on the subject of the papacy. To Luther, as to 
 Wiclif, the pope was anti-Christ. Melancthon, how- 
 ever, was willing to admit his primacy, as a human 
 ordinance, provided he would be ruled by the Gospel. 
 His morbid anxiety for peace kept him from touching a 
 point which was certain to prove unmanageable could 
 all else be arranged. Luther probably foresaw the rejec- 
 tion of all their articles at Eome, and was therefore the 
 easier reconciled to the omission. 
 
 The confession was presented by the same princes, 
 and by part of the cities, who had before subscribed the 
 protest ; but Philip of Hesse excepted to the article on 
 the Lord's Supper as too exclusive, desiring to com- 
 
 " in the Lord's i^upper the body and blood of the Lord are truly pre- 
 sent, and distributed to those who eat." The German copies add, 
 "under the spepies of bread and wine." Zwingle conceived that the 
 bread and wine were simply efScacious signs, which excited a lively 
 faith to appropriating Christ's presence in the heart. Wide as they 
 thought this diversity, both were really on one side of a great con- 
 troversy, and the Church of B.ome on the other. The papists always 
 insisted on the absence of the substance of bread and wine. This was their 
 test. Luther and Zwingle, on the other hand, both attributed the value 
 of the sacrament to Christ Himself received through _/ui(ft. They differed 
 on the modits operandi ; but both appealed to Scripture as the sole rule of 
 truth, and so gave their hearers the liberty whichthey took to themselves. 
 
TEUCE OF EATISBON. 351 
 
 prehend tlie sacramentaries. No sooner was it read, 
 tkan Herman,' electoral archbisliop of Cologne, gave it 
 Ms adhesion, and resolved to introduce it into his elec- 
 torate. Frederick, the Count Palatine, and some other 
 priaces, foUowed his example. The bishop of Augsburg 
 acknowledged its orthodoxy : " This is, all true, and we 
 caniiot deny it." *' I have no objection to his proposals," 
 said the archbishop of Salzburg, " but I cannot submit 
 to be reformed by a paltry monk." Charles himself, 
 with the stanchest adherents of the papacy, were for 
 granting the double communion and the marriage of the 
 clergy ; but the orders from Eome, incessantly repeated 
 by. the legate, insisted on "no reform." A violent 
 refutation of the confession was delivered in by Taber 
 and Eck. The emperor refused to receive the pro 
 testant rejoinder, and, after numerous conferences,, the 
 diet broke up with an edict to restore the papal obedience 
 throughout Germany, placing all dissentients under the 
 ban of the empire. 
 
 The Eoman Catholic princes signed a league for the 
 execution of this decree ; the Protestants responded by 
 a league of mutual defence. "War was imminent, when 
 a movement of the Turks against Austria compelling 
 the emperor to ask for subsidies, the Protestants refused 
 to furnish them while in peril themselves. Charles was 
 again obliged to temporise : finally it was agreed to 
 refer all further proceedings with respect to religion to 
 the decision of a free council. This concession, signed 
 at Eatisbon, 2nd August 1532, was the first legal 
 recognition of the principle of toleration. It alarmed 
 the pope beyond measure. A general council might 
 question his legitimacy: there was nothing it might 
 not question. He demanded conditions which he knew 
 to be impossible. He entered into a secret negotiation 
 with Francis i. of France : but Francis, though hating 
 
352 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 
 
 protestantism as much as the pope, was encouraging the 
 protestants, in order to harass his rival Charles. These 
 complications postponed the council ; but they postponed 
 also the war against protestantism, and the Eeformation 
 continued its career without check. 
 
 If Zwingle had gone beyond Luther, Calvin was 
 more anti-papal than Zwingle. His teaching roqted 
 itself in Switzerland, and made a great impression 
 throughout the west of Europe. In England, too, the 
 flame was spreading fast. . As early as 1525, "Wolsey 
 warned the Court of Rome that every county would 
 soon become Lutheran. The king, indeed, was a greater 
 papist than the pope : he was personally attached to 
 Clement, and sent him supplies while besieged in his 
 castle; but Henry was furious on the divorce ques- 
 tion. Clement would have granted his wish without 
 hesitation, but feared the emperor, who was Katharine's 
 nephew, and would not allow her child to be deprived 
 of the succession. A general council would be sure 
 to set aside the dispensation of Julius ii., as contrary 
 to the Levitical degrees and the canons of the Church, 
 and so cancel the marriage. But, in every point of 
 view, a council was formidable to Rome; hence the 
 pope temporised and delayed till Henry's patience was 
 exhausted, and England was irretrievably lost. 
 
 A good accord between the crown and the pope, at 
 this moment, might have crushed the opening germs of 
 inquiry in this country, as easily as in Italy, Spain, 
 and Austria ; but a gracious Providence kept its 
 opponents apart till their reconciliation was too late. 
 Henry was advised to rest his cause on the in- 
 competency of the pope to dispense with the prohi- 
 bitions of God's word written. This was, in effect, 
 the main question between Rome and the Protestants. 
 The universities and learned bodies of Europe declared 
 
ENGLAND, SWITZERLAND, AND SCANDINAVIA. 353 
 
 against the dispensation. The king then demanded 
 sentence, not of divorce but of nullity of marriage, in 
 the ecclesiastical court of his own realm. The arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, as metropolitan, was bound to 
 pronounce it, and then, to prevent a reversal at Eome, 
 parliament, like the African Chiirch of the fourth cen- 
 tury, prohibited appeals beyond sea. 
 
 This proceeding was a renunciation of papal usur- 
 pations, but not necessarily a separation from the Church 
 of Eome. The nation was still ignorant and bigoted; 
 the king, furious against Luther, and confident in his 
 own theology, was inflated by the most extravagant 
 conceptions of royal authority. He supposed himself 
 quite able to act the pope in his own dominions. In 
 this presumption he authorised the circulation of the 
 Bible, and when it began to bear fruit, burned pro- 
 testant and papist at the same stake. By this time, 
 however, the cause was out of the hand of either 
 king or pope. "The "Word of God increased, and the 
 number of the disciples multiplied^ and a great com- 
 pany of the priests were obedient to the faith. "^ Mary, 
 whose legitimacy was bound up ia the cause of the 
 papacy, could iadeied bribe a packed parliament to a 
 reconciliation with Eome by a promise (never meant 
 to be kept) of retaining the church lands. The truth, 
 however, had taken root too deeply to be consumed in 
 the flames of Smithfield ; they only added to the na- 
 tional conversion that peculiar horror and distrust, with 
 which the papacy has ever since been justly regarded in 
 this country. 
 
 Meantime the Eeformation advanced, with equal 
 or greater rapidity, in Switzerland and Scandinavia. 
 The mass was abolished at Geneva in 1535, and at 
 
 1 Acts vi. 7. 
 
 2 A 
 
354 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 
 
 Lausanne the year after. The bishops fled, and the 
 papacy lost its most valued recruiting ground for ever. 
 Denmark and Norway went next. Christian iii. pro- 
 claimed the protestant religion at Copenhagen (1537), 
 replacing the bishops by " superiatendents," ordained by 
 Luther's friend and disciple, John Bugenhagen. Iceland, 
 Sweden, and the eastern coast of the Baltic followed in 
 a few years. 
 
 The countries politically attached to the papacy 
 could not resist the general infection. In France, the 
 spread of evangelical views among the educated classes 
 was such as to arouse the. alarm of the king, who, in 
 spite of his aUiance with the German reformers, was 
 a bitter persecutor. In 1535, Francis walked in pro- 
 cession through the streets of Paris, bareheaded with a 
 torch in his hand, and -further to purify his capital, com- 
 mitted six Lutherans to the flames. Many fugitives 
 took refage in Switzerland, thereby materially aiding 
 the cause of truth in that country. Charles's hereditary 
 dominions, Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands, har- 
 boured disciples': all the power of the papacy coidd not 
 exclude them from Italy itself. The literary societies, 
 formerly tainted with the infidelity in fashion at the 
 court of Leo, felt the new power of the Bible. 
 
 Not a few of the leading men at Eome had long 
 seen, with Adrian vr., that extensive reforms were needed 
 in the church. Contarini, Sadolet, Giberto, Carafia — 
 who aU became cardioals, and the last pope — ^with many 
 others, established a meeting for spiritual exercises in the 
 Oratory of Love. Contarini wrote a treatise on justifica- 
 tion, entirely agreeing with the doctrine of Luther ; yet 
 Pole, who had fled from England to avoid the royal 
 reformation, spoke of this book in the highest praise. 
 "You have brought to light (he wrote) a jewel which 
 the church kept half concealed," One of the number fle- 
 
PEOQEESS IN ITALY. 365 
 
 scribes the gospel as "no other than the blessed tidings 
 that the only begotten Son of Xlod, clad in our flesh, 
 hath made satisfaction for us to the justice of the eternal 
 Father. He who believes this enters into the kingdoiiii 
 of God, he enjoys the universal pardon ; from a carnal 
 he becomes a spiritual creature, from a child of wrath a 
 child of grace ; he lies in a sweet peace of conscience." 
 This was the doctrine stigmatised as Lutheranism at 
 Eome, though it was unquestionably the teaching of Au- 
 gustine, Ambrose, and Bernard. "It is necessary (says 
 the latter) to believe that thou canst have remission of 
 sins only by the mercy of God; next, that thou canst 
 have no good work in thee unless He gives it thee ; 
 lastly, that thou canst never attain to eternal life by any 
 works, but only by His free gift of it. Yet neither is 
 this enough, but only the beginning and foimdation of 
 
 the faith Believe also this : that thine own sins 
 
 are forgiven by Him, for He himself forgives thy sins, 
 and confers thy merits, and nevertheless grants them a 
 reward.'" 
 
 These opinions extended themselves, in spite of the 
 Sacred College, through the literary circles of Italy. 
 The sack of Eome, with the subjugation of Florence and 
 Milan, drove their adherents to Yenice, Padua, Modena, 
 and even Naples. At the last they had a zealous 
 advocate in the viceroy's secretary Juan Yaldez, the 
 instructor of the Florentine monk Yermili, known to 
 Protestant Europe as Peter Martyr. Yaldez, or one of 
 his disciples, was the author of a book on the "Bentefit 
 of Christ," which was extensively circulated in IMlj, 
 Spain, Frsince, and England, and incurred the special 
 wrath of the Inquisition for " depreciating works as 
 meritorious acts, and ascribing all merit to faith alone." ^ 
 
 ■ Bern, in Ann. B. V. M. Sermon, i. 1, 3. 
 
 ' These are the words of the process which condemned the tract. 
 
 ^ A 2 
 
356 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 
 
 It was proof of heresy to be even a reader of this little 
 book,^ and the power of the Inquisition was so effectively- 
 exerted for its destruction, that it was believed that 
 not a single copy had been left to posterity. An old 
 English translation, however, was reprinted by the Ee- 
 ligious Tract Society in 1847; and, since then, two 
 copies, in Italian and French, dated 1643 and 1552, 
 presented by Dr. Ferrari of Naples to St. John's Col- 
 lege Cambridge, have been reprinted.^ Valdez possessed 
 great influence among the nobility and the literary 
 circles ; his opinions were largely diffused among the 
 middle classes, and wherever the new power of the 
 press could be exerted. The Inquisition complained 
 that three thousand schoolmasters were infected by the 
 heresy. 
 
 The Italian reformers, though many sealed their 
 confession with their blood, never contemplated actual 
 separation from the Church of Eome, which then, even 
 more than at present, stood in the place of religion 
 itself to the bulk of their countrymen. Evangelical 
 views had not yet received the formal condemnation 
 of a council, nor been driven from the communion of 
 the Holy See, by the Jesuits and the Inquisition. 
 The hope of the Italians was to bring about a re- 
 conciliation between the church and the protestants, 
 on an evangelical basis, and this idea was encouraged 
 by the pope himself. 
 
 ■ Pietro CameseccH suffered on this charge in 1567, and AonioFaleario 
 (supposed by many to be the author of the book) in 1570. 
 
 " The editor, the Rev. C. Babington, supports the pretensions of 
 Faleario to the authorship. Laderchius, the continuator of Baronius, 
 assigns it to' Valdez, and his name is connected with the authorship in the 
 process against Camesecchi. The question is fully discussed in the Rev. J. 
 Ayre's Introduction to the Religious Tract Society's edition (1859). It is 
 not improbable that there were two tracts, one by Valdez (perhaps in 
 Latin), and an -enlargement by Faleario in Italian. 
 
ATTEMPTS AT RECONCILIATION. 357 
 
 Alexander Farnese, who succeeded Gtement) by the 
 title of Paul iii., was a favourable specimen of the 
 educated Eoman of that age. Nothing warrants the 
 belief that his heart was touched with genuine piety ; 
 his early years were even sullied by immorality. He 
 was a man of the world, fond of elegant literature, and 
 full of selfish ambition ; but his vices occasioned little 
 scandal, his maimers were gracious and popular, and, 
 when his own interest did not interfere, he could do a 
 virtuous act with an air of religion. His first resolve 
 was to fill the Sacred College with the most eminent 
 men in the church, without respect to any consideration 
 but merit. He began with Gaspar Contarini, and on 
 his recommendation appointed Pole, Caraffa, and several 
 others. The new cardinals were authorised to submit a 
 Scheme for the reform of the papacy ; separate commis- 
 sions were appointed for the Eota^ and the Penitentiary. 
 Contarini presented a report which went to place the 
 papacy under the control of Scripture and reason. To 
 subject the whole church to the will of one man, 
 actively prone to evil and liable to numerous inflr- 
 mitieSj was a slavery (it said) so gross as to justify the 
 Lutherans in stigmatising it as the Babylonish captivity. 
 The pope was exhorted to submit all to God and the 
 common good. The good cardinal entertained the 
 highest hopes from the "Christian manner" in which 
 Paul received his labours.^ 
 
 The pontiff responded with greater alacrity to the 
 demand for a council. He liked the character and 
 power of a mediator ; and his greatest anxiety was to 
 
 ' The supreme court of appeal for ecclesiastics ; so called from the 
 floor of the chamber ■where it sits being tesselated in the figure of a 
 wheel. It was founded by John xxil., and is composed of twelve prelates of 
 different nations, wearing the violet robe and cord. — Morerifs Diet, 
 
 ' Ranke; 
 
358 THE PROTESTANT. EEFOEMATION. 
 
 stand well with the two great European monarchs, 
 Charles and Francis, to both of whom he succeeded in 
 allying his famiLy by marriage, while he knew them to 
 be actuated by a consuming jealousy of each other. 
 Paul sent Contarini as nuncio to the emperor, and 
 under his mediation an assembly of divines, papal and 
 protestant, arrived at an agreement, which fully ad- 
 mitting the doctrine of justification by faith, was en- 
 tirely satisfactory to Melancthon and Bucer. Luther, 
 whose greatest failing was intolerance of other men's 
 labours, ridiculed it as a patchwork combination of two 
 creeds. He was all too zealously seconded at Eome. 
 Caraffa, who had always opposed Contarini's doctrine, 
 carried the bulk of the cardinals with him. The pope 
 hesitated, unwilling either to approve or reject. IVan- 
 cis I. remonstrated with much warmth ; the last thing 
 he desired was the reunion of Germany. He affected 
 great alarm for the faith: the pope and the church 
 were in danger; their eldest son would defend them 
 with his life. Charles's enemies in Germany supported 
 the cry. The duke of Bavaria, the elector of Mentz, 
 and the violent papists, wanted no accommodation. The 
 moderate party were overborne, and Contarini's formula 
 was rejected by the pope as well as by Luther. 
 
 Both, ia fact, were equally averse to toleration, 
 Neither would be satisfi.ed with less than victory ; and 
 though they continued to appeal to a general council, 
 each side required it to be so constituted as to secure 
 the victory to itself. In the pope's idea, a general 
 Qouncil could only be called by himself, and must pro- 
 ceed on a recognition of his supremacy ia the church. 
 To Luther this supremacy was the manifestation of 
 Antichrist. What he meant by a free ooxmcil was a 
 synod of all orders, called by the emperor, and ruled 
 only by the Word of God, Such a synod obviously 
 
COUNCIL OP TEENT. 359 
 
 pre-supposed the abrogation of the papal supremacy. 
 Discovering, at last, the impossibility of proceeding with 
 his own reformation till the protestants were got out of 
 the way, Paul told the emperor, at his visit to Eome in 
 April 1535, that nothing but force remained. Charles 
 assented, but still thought a council necessary to justify 
 resort to the sword. Henceforth the destruction, not 
 the reconciliation, of the protestants was the object in 
 view. 
 
 Several places were named for the council, but the 
 diet refusing to go out of Germany, the city of Trent 
 was at last agreed upon. As the protestants steadily 
 refused to attend, it was from the first nothing but a 
 synod of the Eoman obedience. The discussions were 
 regulated at every point by orders from Eome. The 
 legates who presided allowed no question to be mooted 
 without the pope's previous sanction. Couriers were 
 contiaually posting to and fro, and the wits of France 
 wondered if the Spirit of Inspiration could be conveyed 
 from the totobs of the apostles in a cloak-bag. 
 
 The councU was not opened till the 13th December 
 1545, when the breach with England was complete by 
 the bulls of excommunication fulminated against Henry 
 on the 17th December, 1538. Consequently this king- 
 dom was not even nominally represented in. the synod, 
 and is in no way bound by its decrees. Neither werd 
 its decrees waited for, to attack the German protestants. 
 The emperor took the field against them early ia 1546, 
 and having defeated and taken prisoners both the elector 
 and landgrave, he was master of all Upper Germany. 
 These successes alarmed the pope, who never meant 
 to augment the imperial power. He adjourned the 
 council to Bologna, and soon came to an open rupture 
 with Charles, for seizing Parma, which Paul had erected 
 into a duchy for his son Pier Luigi. Suspecting the 
 
360 THE PROTESTiNT REFOEMATION. 
 
 emperor, farther, of complicity in tlie young duke's as- 
 sasginatioii, the pope threw himself irito the French cause 
 with all the fury of revenge. He threatened to ally 
 himself with the dey of Algiers and drive the Spaniards 
 out of Kaples. He woxild have every Spaniard in 
 Eome assassinated. In the midst of his rage, he made 
 the discovery that the grandsons^ for whom he had 
 sinned and suffered, were making their own terms with 
 his enemy. This treachery broke his heart; the old 
 man fell iato a fatal passion, and died 10th November 
 1549, at 83 years of age, more beloved than many a 
 better man. His nepotism, exceeding the usual average 
 of the Yatican, had purchased great connections abroad. 
 One grandchild was married to the emperor's natural 
 daughter ; a French prince of the blood aspired to the 
 hand of another ; a third was a cardinal. With aU his 
 disposition to reform, Paul suffered no abatement of 
 papal prerogative. It was under this pope, so genial, 
 popular, and in many respects tolerant, that its two most 
 bloodthirsty agencies — Jesuitism and the Inquisition — 
 took their rise. 
 
 The next pontiff, Julius iii., gratified, the emperor 
 by the return of the council to Trent. The triumph of 
 his arms induced some ,of the protestant princes to 
 send ambassadors, and Charles began again to cherish 
 the hope of a reconciliation. The illusion was quickly 
 dispelled. Octavius Famese, recovering Parma through 
 the justice or the policy of Julius, invited the French to 
 garrison it. Their appearance in Italy was the signal 
 for fresh disturbances. They renewed negotiations with 
 the Gierman protestants ; their troops advanced to the 
 Ehine. At the same time, Maurice of Saxony entered 
 the Tyrol, and, driving the emperor from Insbruck, 
 narrowly missed taking him prisoner. While the legates 
 at Trent were plotting to exclude the protestant dele- 
 
RELAPSE OF THE ENGLISH PAELIAMENT. 361 
 
 gates from any real voice in tke council, news arrived 
 that the elector had taken the cause into his own hands. 
 The bishops hastened away to their sees, and the legates 
 prorogued the synod, which did not meet again for ten 
 years. The fortune of war turning against Charles, the 
 treaty of Passau (1552) closed the hostilities and secured 
 to the protestant states liberty of religion, with the 
 possession of the church benefices, and the right of 
 admission, in due proportion, to the imperial chamber. 
 
 This completed the triumph of- the Eeformation in 
 Germany. In England, it suffered a check by the 
 death of Edward vi. Julius was comforted for the 
 loss of Germany, by the humiliatirig spectacle of the 
 English lords and commons, on tbeir knees before his 
 legate in "Westminster HaU, imploring and receiving his 
 absolution. The courtiers who thus sacrificed the spiri- 
 tual fruits of the Eeformation to the will of their queen, 
 were less prodigal of its .temporal profits. They stipu- 
 lated so stoutly for the retention of the church lands, 
 that cardinal Pole was obliged to concede the point ; and 
 though he told them it would be mortal sin to take 
 advantage of the permission, it was iinmediately secured 
 by act of parliament. The emperor had the gratification 
 of seeing his cousin, with all her kingdom, formally 
 reconciled to Eome, and her marriage consummated with 
 his son Philip. This was the last gleam in the che- 
 quered Hves both of pope and emperor. Julius died 
 wallowing in infamous pleasures,' 23rd March, 1555. 
 A few months after, Charles; voluntarily abdicated all 
 his crowns, and; withdrew, worsted and weary of life, to 
 end his days in the convent of St. Just. 
 
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CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 THE PAPAL EEACTION. 
 
 Cardinal Caraffa — Order of Theatins — Kesistance of Evangelical 
 Doctrine— Election and Death of Marcellua— Accession of Caraffa 
 as Paul IV. — Reception of English Ambassadors — Excomtnunication 
 of Elizabeth — Spanish Armada — POpe's quarrel with Spain — Political 
 Disappointments — Ecclesiastical Reforms — The Inquisition — Death 
 of Paul — Popular Rejoicings — Ke-assembly of Council of Trent — 
 Concordats — Its Dissolution — Church on a new basis — Tradition 
 joined with Scripture — Doctrine of Justification — ^Palse Principles — 
 Original Sin — Seven Sacraments — Transubstantiation — Adoration of 
 the Host — Confession — Sacrifice of the Mass — ^Penance — Extreme 
 Unction — Orders — Celibacy of the Clergy — Marriage and Divorce — 
 Purgatory-^Invooation of the Saints — Doctriae of Developement — 
 Heresy — Schism of the Papists — Questions of Disciplme — ^Tumults — ■ 
 Compromises — Supremacy of the Pope in Spirituals — ^Limitation of 
 Temporal Power — New Creed — Spread of the Reformation — Inquisi- 
 tion at Rome — Institution of the Jesuits — Subjugation of Conscience 
 — ^Last Papal Crusade — ^Political Tactics — Germany and France — 
 Massacre of St. BartholomeW'^-Conspiraoies in England and Ireland — 
 Sanguinary Results. 
 
 If th.e promiaence due to Luther in tlie Protestant Eefor- 
 mation, may be assigned to any iudividual in the papal 
 reaction, it would be Giampietro Caraffa, the Neapolitan 
 Dominican. Bom of one of the most illustrious houses in 
 Italy,' he was a man of earnest devotion and unblemished 
 Hfe, with an inflexible zeal for religion. Aiming always 
 at the strictest spirituality, he ^as never known to make 
 a compromise or a concession. His family interest 
 
 ' The name is said to be derived from a valiant commander, who, in the 
 wars of Otho, lost his life in saving the emperor's. His grateful master, 
 beholding the dead body-on the field, exclaimed, " carafe" (Oh ! precious 
 loyalty!), from which words the family adopted their name. The story adds 
 that the emperor placed his hand on the heart of the warrior, and left the 
 impression of his three fingers on the bloody corslet, whence the three 
 bars in the shield of the CarafEas. 
 
364 THE PAPAL EEACTION". 
 
 having obtained him, when young, a bishopric and an 
 archbishopric, he resigned both to found the new order of 
 Theatins, for the reformation of the clergy. These were 
 priests, with the vows of a monk ; they devoted them- 
 selves to preaching, visiting the sick, and carrying the 
 sacrament to the dying. Instead of going about begging, 
 they waited for alms, ia simple faith, at home. Caraffa 
 preached with a flow of vehement eloquence, which, 
 together with his rank and piety, gave him an extra- 
 ordinary influence with the upper classes. Contarini, 
 with whom he was associated in the spiritual exercises 
 of the Oratory, recommended him to Paul iii., who 
 made him cardinal, and archbishop of his native city. 
 Charles, however, so dreaded his uncompromising prin- 
 ciples, and the attachment of his famUy to French 
 interests, that he never suffered him to sit in the state 
 councU, or to enjoy his preferment in peace. 
 
 As dean of the Sacred CoUege, Caraffa's voice was 
 ever loudest in the demand for ecclesiastical reform : 
 he burned to see the Holy Eoman Church restored to 
 her primitive purity and power. So far he was cor- 
 dially at one with his friend and benefactor, Gaspar 
 Contarini. In doctrine, however, the two cardinals 
 were on the opposite sides of the ridge which stUl 
 divides the protestant from the popish waters. Caraffa 
 was the first to object to Contarini's basis of recon- 
 ciliation. As one of the presiding cardinals at Trent, 
 he defended vigorously the dogma of inherent against 
 imputedr righteousness. Seeing the full force of the dis- 
 tinction, and the impossibility of effecting a recon- 
 ciliation by argument or reform, he deliberately ad- 
 vocated the destruction of his opponents by the sword. 
 The emperor's moderation he regarded as dictated by 
 animosity to the pope. When asked for his own advice,"it 
 was thorough : he recommended to Paul iii. the establish- 
 
CARDINAL CARAFFA. 365 
 
 ment at Eome of a new Inquisition, on the Spanish 
 model, and was himself the first president. He was 
 heartily for reform, but it must be reform by authority, 
 and the first step was the extirpation of all heretics. 
 
 On the death of Paul iii. the influence in the con- 
 clave feU to the more religious party. They elected the 
 hope and admiration of the times, Marcellus ii. ; and 
 when death robbed them of him, on the twenty-second 
 day of his pontificate, transferred the tiara to Caraffa. 
 Conscious that he had never stooped to conciliate a single 
 vote, the new pope, who took tlie name of Paul, re- 
 garded himself as chosen by God, more than by his brother 
 cardinals. His first bull enunciated the object to which 
 his elevation was dedicated — "We promise and swear 
 to endeavour truly that the reform of the universal 
 Church and of the iRoman court be effected.'" 
 
 The character of the reforms in contemplation was 
 no secret. The English ambassadors arriving the very 
 day of his election, with the submission of the realm, 
 Paul IV. refused to admit them, because Mary called 
 herself queen of Ireland, in pursuance of an act passed 
 in her father's reign, (1542) to erect that island into a 
 kingdom. Paul had read that it belonged to the pope 
 alone to create, confer, and take away kingdoms : he ex- 
 cluded the ambassadors' until he had himself erected 
 Ireland into a kingdom, and conferred the crown upon 
 Mary. His next objection was to the condition respect- 
 ing the church lands. Julius had exceeded his autho- 
 rity in entering into such a stipulation : the law of God 
 and the church was imperative ; so long as a foot of con- 
 secrated ground remained in lay hands, the holocausts of 
 Smithfield were tmavaUiiig:: The ambassadors perceived 
 at once that this decision was destructive of the recon- 
 ciliation. The queen stood alone in the wish to make 
 
 • Banke, iii. 4. 
 
366 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 restitution, and her Bcruples were too deeply dyed in 
 blood to commend themselves to her subjects. Parlia- 
 ment was resolved to maintain the penalty of praemunire 
 against aU who should trouble the existing settlement of 
 property, and the death of the unhappy queen, deserted 
 by her husband, alienated from her sister, and detested 
 by her once-loving subjects, closed the door against Eome 
 for ever. 
 
 Paul IV. was not the man to part from us in peace. 
 He hurled his anathema at Elizabeth in the spirit of a 
 Hildebrand or a Lothaire ; he cast her out of the church, 
 took away her crown, absolved her subjects from the oath 
 of allegiance, and gave the kingdom to whatever prince 
 would conquer it. But (alas for Patd !) Elizabeth had 
 a Church of her own, a hand to guard her crown, and a 
 people who laughed at the pope's absolution. "When 
 the Spanish armada appeared to conquer the prize, Drake 
 could finish his game at bowls before he went to disperse 
 it, and the gallant Howard taught the pope how little 
 his authority ought to weigh, even with a Eomanist, 
 against his honour, his sovereign, and his country. 
 
 Paul hated the Spaniards worse than the English; 
 their attachment to his religious communion could 
 not conquer the political dislike with which he 
 viewed their ascendancy in Italy. His family had 
 always supported the French in Naples, and Paul be- 
 lieved that France was the ally pointed out by nature 
 and Providence for the defence of the Holy See. He 
 longed to drive the Spaniards back to their own 
 peninsula, and recover the golden days of Italian 
 independence. These antipathies involved him in dis- 
 putes, both with the brother and the son of Charles v., 
 which ended in his own mortification. He refused 
 to recognise Ferdinand's succession to the empire, 
 because the resignation was not made to himself: 
 
PAPAL REFORMATION. 367 
 
 with Philip, who succeeded in Spain, Italy, and the 
 Netherlands, he provoked a war which resulted in his 
 own total discomfiture, and left the Spanish ascendancy 
 more firmly established than ever. These political en- 
 tanglements, which consumed the first half of Paul's 
 pontificate, only served to delay the reforms he was so 
 anxious to promote m the church, and to strengthen the 
 protestant cause. 
 
 The pope's Mends were equally disappointed to see 
 him pursuiug the old routine of nepotism, with as much 
 ardour as if the idea of reform had never heen broached. 
 With all his piety, Paul clung to the temporal grandeur 
 of the papacy as a primary requisite. One nephew he 
 made a duke, another a marquis, a third a cardinal. 
 Suddenly discovering the unworthiness of these favoured 
 relatives, he banished them at once from his presence 
 and his affections, and even pursued their families with 
 the sentence of perpetual exile. 
 
 After proving, by these bitter experiences, the hol- 
 lowness of the old secular papacy, Paul returned to his 
 first ardour, and began to prosecute the ecclesiastical 
 reforms by which he still hoped to reconquer the world. 
 Eesuming the long-neglected duties of the episcopate, 
 the aged pope preached in a way to recall the memory of 
 his youthful eloquence. He made the cardinals preach 
 also ; visiting the churches and correcting abuses with 
 inflexible severity. Nor did he omit to put forth his 
 terrible vigour for the suppression of heresy. The 
 Inquisition was his favourite establishment. He made 
 a point of attending its meetings, authorised it to apply 
 torture to tiie suspected, and suffered no respect of per* 
 sons to arrest the process. He even established tiie 
 feast of St. Dominicus in honour of the first inquisitor^ 
 The Eomans exclaiming under this unwonted discipline, 
 some of the cardinals themselves were thrown, into 
 
368 THE PAPAL ENACTION. 
 
 prison, on suspicion of protestant tendencies, Eome 
 was no safe residence for an inquiring spirit. The 
 population, which numbered 80,000 under Leo x., 
 sunk to 45,000, aiid.the hunted jlock had often sighed 
 to ' be rid of its terrible pastor, when the stem old 
 man expired, at the age of 83. Never was any death 
 received with such indecent exultation. The populace 
 tore down his statues, and kicked the triple-crowned 
 heads about the streets ; then, rushing to the Inquisition, 
 they released seventeen hundred prisoners, and set fire to 
 the building. Every monument with the name and arms 
 of Caraffa was defaced. 
 
 This pope unquestionably laid the foundation on which 
 alone the Latin communion could be partially recon- 
 structed. His specious reforms and his repulsive severity 
 were alike indispensable ; for while the world was sick of 
 the old abominations, it was impossible to admit liberty 
 ^and inquiry without shaking the papacy to its founda- 
 tionis. Paul iv. was the last of the old imperial popes. 
 The HUdebraiid policy could never be revived. The 
 dream of universal empire had been dissipated by the 
 successful revolt of so many powerful states. The next 
 pope perceived the necessity of placing the papacy itself 
 under the protection of the sovereigns, whom it once 
 affected to create and depose. Pius iv. reassembled the 
 council of Trent, neither to recover nor to destroy the 
 protfestantSj but simply to strengthen his own commu- 
 nion with the secular powers that still adhered to it. 
 Austria, France, and Spaia demanded reforms, which 
 no pope can concede with safety to his own posi- 
 tion. The question was how to put them off, with- 
 out reliuquislung his iadispensable prerogatives. Not 
 in the council, but by concordats with the several 
 courts, were these difficulties adjusted. The coun- 
 cil was chiefly used to enunciate anti-protestant 
 
SCHISMATICAL EFFECTS. 
 
 369 
 
 dogmas, which was the last thing desired by the princes : 
 so that every one rejoiced when its sessions ended, 
 on the 3rd December 1563. Pius confirmed all its 
 definitions and decrees, taking care to assert that he 
 was free to disallow them all, and reserving to the 
 Holy See the all-important power of interpretation. 
 The long pending dispute between the papacy and the 
 church was thus brought to a conclusion. The Eoman 
 obedience was restored to peace within itself, but it was 
 at the cost of cutting off the dissentients, and establish- 
 ing a new basis, unknown to catholic antiquity. Tip to 
 this time the Latin church, while admitting many cor- 
 ruptions, had never formally repudiated vital truth. 
 The Church of Rome was still contained in the Catholic 
 Church. This position was now formally abandoned. 
 The Council of Trent separated the papal communion 
 from the common foundation, and precipitated it into 
 schism. This was done, not only by excommunicating 
 churches unquestionably orthodox, but by admitting 
 rank heresy into its own fundamental definitions. ■ 
 
 Contrary to the wish of the sovereigns, the pope 
 determined to. define the doctrines of the church before 
 reforming its discipline. The councU began with the 
 rule of faith ; and though in all the primitive councils 
 nothing but Holy Scripture was recognised in that cha- 
 racter, it was now decreed that equal regard is due to 
 the books of the Old and New Testaments (including 
 the Apocrypha), and to the unwritten traditions received 
 by the apostles from the mouth of Jesus Christ, and 
 delivered, under the dictation of the Holy Ghost, from 
 hand to hand to the church of the present day. It 
 was assumed that the existing doctrine of Eome was 
 in accordance with such traditions, and as the pope 
 was constituted interpreter of every doubt, he was 
 thus enabled to pronounce any dogma divine without 
 
 2b 
 
370 
 
 THE PAPAL EEACTIOIir. 
 
 possibility of appeal. This was in effect to equal the 
 word of man with the word of God, and subvert the 
 chief foundation of Christianity. The decree did not 
 pass without opposition. The bishop of Chiozza con- 
 tended that everything necessary to salvation was 
 written in the Bible; but the immense majority was 
 against him. A second decree declared the Eoman 
 Vulgate to be authentic scripture, though at the same 
 time a new and more exact edition was ordered to be 
 prepared. Thus a translation notoriously imperfect was 
 placed on equality with, if not above, the original,' 
 which alone can. pretend to the authority of inspiration. 
 Having thus tampered with the standard of faith, the 
 council proceeded to its most important article. Justifi- 
 cation by faith only was the foundation of the whole 
 body of Protestant doctrine. This was clearly perceived 
 by the Eoman divines ; accordingly, all their learning was 
 tasked to produce another definition. The result was an 
 elaborate treatise, of sixteen chapters, on grace, in which 
 the council declared that justification consists, not in the 
 remission of sins only, but in sanctification also. It has 
 five causes — ^the fiyml^ which is the glory of God and 
 
 • The Roman Vulgate was not even a homogeneous translation. The 
 Psalter was revised by Jerome, from the old Latin Vulgate, which was a 
 version frmn the Septuagini, made in Africa by some unknown hand, in the 
 second century. The other canonical books of the Old Testament (with Judith 
 and Tobit), were an original translation by Jerome from the Hebrew ; the re- 
 mainder were from the old Latin Vulgate, unrevised. TTie New Testament 
 was the old Latin, revised by Jerome. The printed texts at the time of the 
 council were Mazarin's (1455), and the Complutensian Bible (1602 — 17), 
 but neither was satisfactory, and the new edition ordered by the council 
 did not appear till forty-five years after its dissolution; so that this 
 assembly really gave the authority of Scripture to something not yet in 
 existence. Nor did the absurdity end there. .The Sixtine edition (1590), 
 which first claimed the submission of the Church under this decree, was 
 so erroneous that Clement vin. issued an improved version (1592) ; yet both 
 were invested with absolute authority over the conscience by " the 
 fulness of apostolic power " in those two popes ! 
 
DOCTBI'SfE OF JUSTIFICATION. 371 
 
 eternal life ; the efficient, which is God; the meritorious^ 
 which is Christ ; the instrumental, -which is the sacra- 
 ment ; and the formal, which is the righteousness given 
 by God to each,, according to the good pleasure of the 
 Holy Ghost. A belief- ia. the forgiveness of our sins is 
 not justifying faith ; every one must remain, to the end 
 of life, in doubt whether he is justified or not. The 
 just are justified more and more by keeping the com- 
 mandments of God and the church. Eepentance after 
 baptism demands not only contrition, but also sacra- 
 mental confession with sacerdotal absolution, and, more- 
 over, some satisfaction for the temporal punishment, 
 which is altogether remitted only in baptism : grace is 
 lost by mortal sin, even though faith may remain. The 
 justified obtain eternal life by the mercy of God, and as 
 a reward of their good works, in virtue of the promise. 
 Finally, it was concluded that this doctrine does not esta- 
 blish our own righteousness to the exclusion of God's, 
 but that the same righteousness is ours, as dwelling in: 
 us, and God's, as coming fi:om Him by the merits of 
 Christ. 
 
 This conclusion was in direct opposition, and was 
 meant to be so, to the doctrines of Luther. Both ad- 
 mitted two kinds of righteousness, imputed and inherent^- 
 but whereas Luther ascribed justification wholly to the 
 former — that is, to the merits of Christ only — the decree 
 conceives the imputed righteousness of Christ to be 
 merged in our own, not as completing, but as producing 
 it. Luther required an inward regeneration, followed by 
 good works ; still, as such works are never perfect or 
 meritorious, he ascribed their acceptance, and the entire 
 justification of the believer, to the merits of Christ. 
 The decree also relies on the merits of Christ, but limits 
 their operation to producing in us the regeneration 
 and good works to which eternal life is finally granted. 
 
 2 B 2 
 
372 
 
 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 In the one scheme, justification is all of grace; in the other, 
 it is of works, originating, indeed, in Divine grace, but 
 perfected in ourselves by the instrumentality of the 
 sacraments, and our own obedience to God and the 
 church.' 
 
 This complex tissue of false doctrine Was not ad- 
 mitted without strenuous resistance. No Erotestant 
 divines were present to oppose it, but their sentiments 
 found utterance from several in the council.^ Ambrose 
 Catharin maintained that though justification was not 
 the effect of such a confidence, yet the just could, and 
 ought to, believe they were in grace. He quoted 
 Augustin, Ambrose, Prosper, Anselm, and other fathers 
 to prove that there was no good work without grace ; 
 consequently, justification preceded works. He urged 
 the council to follow the fathers in preference to 
 the schoolmen, and to rely upon Scripture, the true 
 fountain of theology, rather than the subtleties of 
 scholastic philosophy.^ Marinier affirmed with St. Paul 
 that faith only justifies, and that the believer should 
 enjoy the assurance of grace. He was at once suspected 
 of Lutheran tendencies, and compelled to retract. 
 Cardinal Pole vainly entreated the council not to con- 
 demn an opinion merely because it was Luther's; it was 
 too clear that such was the determination. Yet Seripand, 
 the general of the Augustinian order, while protesting 
 
 ' Ranke, ii. 1 ; Fra Paolo, ii. Ixxxiii. Sarpi justly observes that " the 
 point of the difficulty was this, whether a man is first justified, before any 
 works of righteousness, or whether he becomes justified by the works of 
 righteousness which he performs " (bcxvi). 
 
 » " The archbishop of Sienna and the bishop of Cava, Giulio Contarini, 
 bishop of BeUuno, and with him five divines, attributed justification solely 
 and wholly to the merits of Christ, and to faith. Charity and hope they 
 declared to be the attendants, or handmaidens, works the proof of faith, 
 but nothing more ; they held that the sole ground of justification was 
 faith." — ^Ranke, ii. 1. 
 
 ' Fra Paolo, ii. Ixxvi. ' 
 
fundamejS'tal errors. 
 
 373 
 
 against Luther, sustained the views of Cardinal Contarini 
 (who was now dead) on imputed righteousness and the 
 non-yalidity of works. 
 
 The determined hostility to Protestantism, with 
 the arguments of the schoolmen, carried the day. 
 Caraffa led the debate from the chair. He was seconded 
 by Laynez, the new general of the new order of Jesuits, 
 who produced a treatise rather than a reply, in 
 answer to the evangelical doctrine. The Franciscans 
 took the same side; partly, no doubt, because their 
 old enemies, the Dominicans, qUoted Thomas Aquinas 
 on the other. They argued, with much heat, that it 
 was absurd to suppose that God made no difference 
 between a man who lived well, by the light of nature, 
 and one who was plunged in all manner of vice ; there 
 was a reason for giving grace to one and not to another ; 
 to deny this, was to make men indifferent to good deeds, 
 and afford the wicked an excuse from the want of 
 grace. 
 
 The evangelical and moderate views were overborne. 
 And in these two articles, tradition and justification, the 
 Council of Trent laid the foimdation on which all their 
 after conclusions were built. Tradition was received 
 because the Holy Ghost dwells perpetually in the church ; 
 the Yulgate, because the Church of Kome has been kept 
 free from aU error by the special grace of God.' From 
 these false principles it was easy to draw any conclusion 
 that might at any time be desired by the Eoman See. 
 To the definition of original siu a clause was appended, 
 exempting the Yirgin Mary, whose Immaculate Con- 
 ception was maintained by the Franciscans and denied by 
 the Dominicans. The pope had not yet decided either 
 for or against this tradition. The question was therefore 
 
 > Kauke, ii. 1, 5. 
 
374 
 
 THE PAPAL EEACTION. 
 
 kept open till our own day, wlien it was ruled, by a bull 
 of pope Pius IX. in favour of the Tranciscan view.* 
 
 By virtue of the same principles, the sacraments of 
 the New Testament were declared to be neither more nor 
 less than seven — all instituted by Christ, and conferring 
 grace ex opere operato — because this was the actual 
 number in the Chxirch of Eome ; their work, according 
 to the doctrine of justification, was to inftise more grace. 
 In like manner, the doctrine of baptism was defined to be 
 that of the Eoman Church, " the mother and mistress of 
 all Churches." 
 
 "With regard to the Eucharist, the Dominicans denied 
 both the natural and the sacramental presence of Christ. 
 They understood by transubstantiation a Eeal presence, yet 
 not as Christ is present in heaven, but of a kind peculiar 
 to the sacrament. This was approaching very closely to 
 the doctrine of Luther. The Franciscans argued for a 
 natural presence as to the substance, and a supernatural 
 as to the quantity, which sounds very like nonsense. 
 Each party advanced grave objections to the definition of 
 the other, but neither could establish its own theory. 
 The decree was, therefore, framed in general terms — ^that 
 by the words of consecration the substances of bread 
 and wine are converted into the substance of the Body 
 and Blood of Christ, anathematising all who shoiild deny 
 that the Eucharist contains, truly, really, and substan- 
 tially, the Body and Blood, with the Soul and Divinity of 
 Jesus Christ, or affirm that He is present only in 
 sign, figure, or virtue ; or that the substances of bread 
 and wine remain along with the Body and Blood of 
 Christ. 
 
 ' This doctrine affords a good proof of the falseness of the Roman 
 foundation. To be true in fact it must have been all along a genuine tradi- 
 tion, taught by Christ and His apostles, and preserved by the Holy Ghost 
 in the church ; yet for ages it was not admitted ; the Dominicans, the 
 Inquisitors of the faith, denied it. Where was the tradition then ? 
 
THE SACEAMENTS. 875 
 
 With the same determination to condemn the Pro- 
 testants and uphold the established worship, it was 
 ordered that the Host should be reserved in chxirches 
 with a light burning before it ; that it should be carried 
 ia procession to the sick, and be adored with the worship 
 due to God Himself. At the same time an anathema 
 was pronounced on all who should call such worship by 
 its natural appellation of idolatry. Another anathema 
 was hurled at those who taught that faith was a sufficient 
 preparation for communicating ; all who are conscious of 
 mortal sin being required further to have recourse to 
 sacramental confession.' The mass was pronounced to 
 be a true and proper, but unbloody, sacrifice, propitiatory 
 for the living and the dead. Communion in one kind was 
 declared to be sufficient for allbut the celebrant, though 
 the cup might be granted, as an indulgence, at the discre- 
 tion of the church. Private masses, in which the.priest 
 alone received, were approved, as offered for all the 
 faithful. 
 
 The sacrament of penance was defined as consisting 
 of the priest's words, ego te absolvo, for the form, and 
 for the matter, contrition, confession, and satisfaction. 
 It was instituted by Christ for the reconciliation of sin- 
 ners after baptism. The doctrine of Jerome and the 
 fathers, that absolution is only a declaratory act, was 
 anathematised as heretical, and the priest's sentence was 
 pronounced to be a judicial remission of sin, in virtue of 
 Christ's words in John xx. 33. 
 
 Extreme unction was also declared a proper sacra- 
 ment, of which the oil is the matter, and the minister's 
 words the form. The benefit is the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost to efface the remains of sin and comfort the soul ; 
 and, further, to restore bodily health when it would be 
 spiritually advantageous. 
 
 1 Cone. Trid. iv. 19. 
 
376 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 The sacrament of orders was defined as effecting a 
 visible external priesthood, instituted by God to con- 
 secrate, offer, and administer the sacrifice of the mass, 
 and to remit and retain sins. To affirm that priests 
 are merely ministers to preach the word of God (the 
 charge that Christ gave to His apostles) was punished by 
 excommunication. Bishops were declared superior to 
 priests, but the Divine institution of the episcopal order, 
 though warmly urged by the French and Spanish 
 prelates, was evaded after many debates, in order to 
 restrict the apostolical succession to the person of the 
 pope. A proposition to reconsider the law of celibacy, 
 earnestly pressed by the emperor, found only two sup- 
 porters among the bishops. This notorious fountain 
 of impurity was unanimously retained, and made 
 obligatory on all of the degree of subdeacon and 
 upwards. To the objection that aU have not the same 
 gift, it was answered (in direct contradiction to Christ) 
 that God will not refuse the gift to any who ask it of 
 Him. 
 
 Marriage was declared to be a sacrament, partly from 
 the word being used of it in the Vulgate translation of 
 Eph. V. 32, and partly because Christ has merited grace 
 to sanctify those who are married — a reason equally 
 applicable to every other relation in life.* The marriage 
 tie was affirmed to be dissolved by either party taking 
 the monastic vows ; but not hy adultery, — the only cause 
 allowed by Christ.'' To remit the cognisance of matri- 
 
 ■ It shocked some persons to be told that clandestine marriages were 
 true sacraments, and in the same breath that the church had always de- 
 tested them, and pronounced them invalid ! 
 
 <= The form of the canon anathematises those who shaU say that the 
 church has erred in teaching that the marriage tie is not broken by adul- 
 tery. It is open, we are told, to affirm the rupture, but not to impute error 
 to the church in teaching the contrary. Such are the pitfalls through 
 which a disciple of the Tridentine religion has to pick his way ! 
 
PAPAL DEVELOPEMBNTS. 377 
 
 monial causes to secular courts, was declared (in the 
 face of all history) to be heresy. 
 
 With the same hardy defiance of history and remon- 
 strance, the council determined that the Catholic Church 
 had always taught, in conformity with Scripture and 
 tradition, the existence of a purgatory, where souls are 
 benefited by the prayers of the faithful and the sacrifice 
 of the mass ; ' that the saints pray for men, and that it 
 is beneficial to invoke their intercession and aid. Who- 
 ever calls this idolatry, or contrary to God's word and 
 the honour of Jesus Christ, is excommunicated. Further, 
 the images of Christ, the Yirgin, and the saints, are to 
 be placed in churches and adored, because in them we 
 adore the persons they represent. This is the exact defi- 
 nition of idolatry as given in the Second Commandment, 
 and as held by the Hindus and other Gentiles to this 
 day. 
 
 When we compare these decrees with Scripture, and 
 the teaching of the early fathers, the contradictions are 
 obvious and amazing. It is difficult to understand how 
 a body of divines, neither ignorant nor consciously 
 fraudulent, should have ventured to bring forward such 
 a mass of corrupt innovations — the dates of whicL were 
 registered in their own annals — ^as a true representation 
 of primitive Christianity. The problem is only solved 
 by the docfeines of tradition and the infanibiHty of 
 the Church of Eome. As long ago as BUdebrand, a 
 justification was found for rescinding St. Paul's in- 
 junction to pray in the vernacular language, by the 
 dogma that the apostles and fathers had made con- 
 cessions to the times, which the church was bound to 
 withdraw, as soon as she was able. The Eoman See does 
 not admit primitive,, or even apostolical, Christianity 
 
 ' The Council wisely abstained from defining the value of Indulgences. 
 
378 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 to be the whole counsel of God. There was a 
 further revelation, not written or preached, never re- 
 duced to practice, utterly unknown to every Christian 
 for ages, nay condemned as impious,— rwhich, never- 
 theless, the Holy Ghost preserved, in the mysterious 
 recesses of '' the Church," till the Eoman See was 
 inspired to enunciate it. From that moment it became 
 entitled to equal respect with, the gospel itself ! This 
 theory, in fact, makeS: — not Christ or His apostles, but— 
 the Church of Eome for the time being, the revealer 
 of God to mankind. It was a similar heresy which 
 gave birth to the Marcionite an,d other Gnostic corrup- 
 tions of the early ages. Like the Novatians, Montanists, 
 and Donatists, it admits of no religion out of the visible 
 church, and of no. church beyond its own communion. 
 
 These decrees, deliberately adopted ia the teeth 
 of Scripture and the primitive fathers, and imposed as 
 terms of communion upon all other Christians, undoubt- 
 edly separated the Eoman see and its adherents from 
 the Catholic Church. Before this formal act of schism, 
 their position was fairly designated by the phrase 
 " Eoman-Catholic," but the Tridentine confession re- 
 quires a new appellation, and the only consistent one is 
 Papist. To the pope the council committed the per- 
 petual interpretation of the new religion. From the 
 pope it accepted the direction and confirmation of its 
 proceedings. In the pope it placed the central link of 
 communion with Christ. With the pope it left the 
 absolute sovereignty not of the church only, but of con- 
 science and the eternal world. Finally, the pope im- 
 posed a new creed, to be henceforth the symbol of the 
 Papal sect, as the Nicene is of the Catholic Church. 
 
 The dogmatic decrees were mostly settled at the 
 earlier meetings of the council, and to prevent their 
 being re-opened, the pope insisted on terming the second 
 
DEMANDS FOR EEFORM. 379 
 
 assembly a continuation, rather than a new council, which 
 in fact it was. The later meetings were mostly occupied 
 with questions of discipline ; on these the princes and 
 ambassadors were far more in earnest than the bishops 
 and divines. The German powers demanded a searching 
 reform of the Eoman court ; the grant of the communion 
 in both kinds ; permission for the clergy to marry ;^ re- 
 laxation of the rules of fastiag ; schools for the poor ; 
 an expurgation of the breviary, legends and postils; 
 more intelligible catechisms ; church music after the 
 modern taste ; and convent reformation. The French 
 prelates, seconding all these demands, further asserted 
 the superiority of a council over the pope, and their king 
 insisted on the cup as the best means of allaying the 
 disturbances in France. The Spaniards, on the other 
 hand, vehemently opposed the concession either of the 
 cup to the laity, or of marriage to the clergy ; and no 
 agreement could be come to, but to leave both points to 
 the discretion of the pope. The emperor complained 
 that there were two councils sitting — one at Trent,, the 
 other, which was the true one, at Eome. Pius was 
 himself disposed to allow the two great demands, but 
 the cardinals insisted on celibacy, and the only concession 
 eventually granted was the use of the cup in the domi- 
 nions of Ferdinand.' 
 
 The dissensions ran, at one time, so high that the 
 legates could hold no sitting of the council for ten 
 months. The mob was divided into two furious fac- 
 tions, shouting " Spain " and " Italy ;" blood even flowed 
 in the streets, on the question whether pope or 
 
 ' A memorial, supported by the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria, 
 affirmed that not one priest out of fifty really kept the vow of celibacy. 
 The children of celibates, even of caj^jiialSjand popes, were notorious at 
 Rome. 
 
 2 The bull is dated 15 April, 1564. The same concession was made to 
 Bavaria, but withheld by the duke. 
 
380 THE PAPAL KEACTION. 
 
 bishop were tlie true representative of the Good Shep- 
 herd who gave His life for the sheep ! ' Another quarrel 
 on a point of precedence' divided the Spaniards from 
 the French, so that final agreement was only arrived at 
 by the moderation of the princes. The emperdr withdrew 
 most of his demands, on an undertaking that they should 
 be considered. at Eome. The king of Spain abandoned 
 the Divine authority of bishops, in order to gain the 
 pope's support to his own arbitrary rule. The French 
 Court was conciliated by the Cardinal de Guise, and, 
 in the end, the long vaunted design of a "reform in 
 the head and the members" subsided into negotiations 
 for concordats between the Eoman pontiff and the several 
 sovereigns of his communion. 
 
 All that had been decreed at Pisa, Constance, and 
 Basle with respect to the subjection of the pope to a 
 council, was virtually undone»at Trent. The pope was 
 left in the unquestioned headship of the Latin Church, as 
 to all spiritual matters. , The bishops were everywhere 
 reduced to mere delegates of the Holy See, and its eccle- 
 siastical jurisdiction became absolute, except where 
 limited by political concordats. On the other hand, 
 the temporal sovereignty of HUdebrand and Innocent 
 practically disappeared. The spiritual power, instead of 
 commanding, was henceforward in. every nation subject 
 to the civil. In the States of the Church, only, the 
 pope was supreme, and even there he was made to 
 feel the force of international obligations, like other 
 kings. 
 
 In short, while the Protestant Eeformation pro- 
 claimed liberty of conscience under the. authority of 
 God's word written, the reaction inaugurated by the 
 Council of Trent effected only a partial transfer of 
 
 ' llauke, iii. 7. 
 
SCHISMATICAL CRBED OF PIUS IV. 381 
 
 power from the pope to the crown. A more stringent 
 church-discipline was enforced, and the most offensive 
 ahuses were removed, but no relief of conscience was 
 obtained by any individual bishop, priest, or layman. 
 The word of God was left more than ever a sealed 
 book. The faith and worship of the Christian were 
 more than ever prescribed to him by a human, yet 
 arbitrary, authority. The yoke was rivetted by a new 
 profession of faith, which every bishop is still obliged 
 to subscribe and swear to. As the great Councils of 
 antiquity preserved the unity of the church by re- 
 citing the Catholic Creed, so Pius iv. put his seal on 
 the Tridentine Schism, by adding the following articles, 
 which continue to separate it from the rest of Christen- 
 dom to the present day : — 
 
 1. I most firmly receive and embrace the apostolical and eccle- 
 siastical traditions, and all the other observances and constitutions 
 of the Holy Catholic Church. 
 
 2. I do receive the Holy Scriptures in the same sense that Holy 
 Mother Church does, and always hath, to whom it belongs to judge of 
 the true sense and interpretation of them ; neither will I receive and 
 interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of 
 the Fathers. 
 
 3. I do also profess that there are seven Sacraments, truly and 
 properly so-caUed, instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, and necessary 
 to the salvation of mankind, though not all to every one, viz.. Baptism, 
 Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and 
 Marriage, and that they do confer grace. I do also receive and admit 
 the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, in the solemn 
 administration of the above said Sacraments. 
 
 4. I do embrace and receive all and everything that hath been 
 defined and declared by the Holy Council of Trent, concerning original 
 sin and justification. 
 
 5. I do also profess, that in the Mass there is ofiered a true, 
 proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead ; and that 
 in the most toly Sacrament of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and 
 substantially, the Body and Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and that there is a change made of the 
 whole substance of bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of 
 
382 THE PAPAL EEACTIOX. 
 
 wine into the Blood, -which change the Catholic Church calls Tran- 
 substantiation. 
 
 ■ 6. I confess also, that under one kind only, whole and entire Christ, 
 and a true Sacrament, is taken and received. 
 
 7. I do firmly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls 
 there detained are relieved by the suffrages of the faithful. 
 
 8. I do likewise believe that the saints reigning together with 
 Christ are to be worshipped and prayed -unto ; and that they do offer 
 prayers unto God for us, and that their relics are to be had in 
 veneration. 
 
 9. I do most firmly assert, that the images of Christ and the ever- 
 Virgin Mother of Grod, and of the other saints, ought to be had and 
 retained, and that due honour and veneration ought to be given to 
 them. 
 
 10. r do afSrm that the power of Indulgences was left by Christ in 
 the Church, and that the use of them is very beneficial to Christian 
 people. 
 
 11. I do acknowledge the Holy Catholic and ApostoUo Koman 
 Church to be the mother and mistress of all Churches ; and hold that 
 true obedience is due to the Bishop of Eome, the successor of St. Peter, 
 the Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ. 
 
 12. I do also, without the least doubt, receive and profess aU other 
 things which have been delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred 
 canons and oecumenical councils, and especially by the holy Synod of 
 Trent ; and aU things contrary thereunto, and all heresies whatsoever 
 condemned, rejected, and anathematised by the Church, I do likewise 
 condemn, reject, and anathematise. This true Catholic faith, without 
 which no man can be saved, which at this tinle I freely profess and truly 
 embrace, I will be careful (by the help of God) that the same be 
 retained, and firmly professed whole and inviolate, as long as I Uve, 
 and that, as much as in me Ues, it be held, taught, and preached by 
 those under my power^ and by such as I shall have charge 'over 
 in my profession. So help me God, and these His Holy Gospels. 
 
 The Protestant Eeformation, as might be expected, 
 spread among the free populations of Europe, and the 
 papal reaction among those which were subjected to 
 arbitrary government. At the dissolution of the council 
 of Trent, protestant opinions had extended far and wide 
 over the Germanic, Sclavonic, and Eomance nations.' 
 
 ' Ranke, v. i. 
 
LOSSES OF THE PAPACY. 383 
 
 Gustavus Vasa made them the condition of ascending 
 the throne of Sweden by his will in 1560. Albert of 
 Brandeburg, grandmaster of the Teutonic order of 
 Prussia, embraced them as early as 1524, when, sup- 
 pressing the ecclesiastical and elective character of his 
 office, he secularised the estates into a duchy under the 
 crown of Poland, and, marrying, became an hereditary 
 prince. LiTonia was added in 1561. In Poland proper, 
 though the king was a papist, the majority of the senate 
 and some of the bishops were protestant. The Hungarian 
 diet were equally well inclined. The prince bishops of 
 Franconia and the duke of Bavaria were unable to prevent 
 many of their people from accepting the evangelical 
 doctrines. Austria, Salzburg,; and the Ehine were filled 
 with them. In short, throughout the whole of Germany 
 protestantism so predominated, that only one-tenth of the 
 population remained in the popish faith. 
 
 Scotland, embracing the Calvinistic form, was more 
 hostile to Eome than the Lutherans. The same views 
 were extensively disseminated in France and Italy. 
 Three-fourths of the former kingdom were filled with 
 them ; not one province was exempt. Churches orga- 
 nised on the model of Geneva, obtained legal and recog- 
 nised existence by the royal edict of Jan. 1562 : it was 
 only the peasantry who continued steadfast in the Eomish 
 superstition. In the Netherlands the massacre of thirty 
 thousand Protestants by the government of Charles v. 
 , could not extinguish their faith : their churches, also 
 Calvinistic, acquired political recognition in 1562. The 
 Moravian brethren, and the long-persecuted Waldenses, 
 partook of the sunshine. An official report at Eome 
 summed up the losses of the Holy See in these words : 
 "England, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and 
 aUthe northern countries, are alipnated; Germany is all 
 but lost; Bohemia and Poland are largely infected. 
 
384 
 
 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 The low countries of Flanders are so far gone that 
 the Duke of Alba's remedies will hardly recover them. 
 Finally, France is full of confusion; so that nothing 
 appears sound and secure to the papacy hut Spain and 
 Italy, with some few islands, and the Dalmatian and 
 Greek possessions of the Venetian republic.'" 
 
 Against this tide of evangelical truth, the main reliance 
 of the papacy was placed on agencies more powerful 
 than argument or the authority of the council of Trent. 
 The councU was wanted for the king and the clergy ; for 
 the people the instrumentalities relied upon were the 
 Inquisition and the Jesuits. The old Dominican inqui- 
 sition having died out, its place was supplied in Spain by a 
 royal commission, the success of which determined Caraffa 
 to take similar measures at Eome. " It was in Rome," 
 said the Cardinal, " that St. Peter vanquished the first 
 heresiarchs ; in Eome must the successors of Peter 
 subdue all the heresies of the world.'" Not, however, 
 with the weapons of St. Peter ; instead of wearing holes 
 in the stones by prayer (as the apostle was said to have 
 done), Caraffa persuaded Pius to erect a holy tribunal 
 of universal inquisition. He gave up his own house 
 for the purpose, and spent his own money in purchasing 
 chains and locks to convert the rooms into dungeons. 
 He undertook the office of first president with delight, 
 laying down for his rules of action — 1. Instantaneous 
 arrest on the slightest suspicion of heresy. 2. No respect 
 of persons, and no regard to privilege, royal or episcopal. 
 
 3. The utmost severity to all who sought protection from 
 others ; mercy only to such as submitted and confessed. 
 
 4. No toleration for heretics, especially Calvinists, on any 
 consideration whatever. Eecantation or the stake was the 
 
 ' Tiepolo, Relazione di Pio iv. e v. — Ranke, v. i. 
 ' Bromato, Vit. di Paolo rv., vii., 3. Ranke, ii. 1. 
 
THE INQUISITION AT HOME. 386 
 
 inflexible alternative of these apostles of the new Tri- 
 dentine Church ; more merciless than Mahommed, they 
 excluded his middle course of tribute. It is a fearful 
 alternative at any time ; but never was the wisdom of 
 the old serpent more conspicuous, than in proposing it 
 while the rising convictions were but slightly rooted in 
 public opiaion. The weak-minded, the timid, the un- 
 conscientious, yielded at the first moment. For them, 
 the new alliance of pontiff and king settled every scruple. 
 The few of stronger minds, who found their doubts 
 deepen under persecution, withdrew, when they could, 
 into safer retreats. 
 
 The States of the Church were crushed first. Ca- 
 raffa subjected the press to the Inquisition, and broke 
 up the literary movement at a blow. He hunted out 
 and destroyed every suspected writing ; whole piles were 
 burned at Eome, the little book on the "Benefit of the 
 Death of Christ " being especially marked for destruction. 
 It was in the course of these proceedings that the Index 
 of prohibited books was first compiled. Milan, Naples, 
 Tuscany, Venice, were reclaimed in the same fashion. 
 The majority recanted before the alternative of death or 
 flight. The fugitives found refuge in Germany and 
 Switzerland; the sea and the flames disposed of the 
 martyrs. At Venice they were cast out of boats into 
 the Adriatic. At Eome, the example of Petilius, who 
 burned the books of Numa, was renewed in constant 
 autos dafi before the Church of S. Maria alia Minerva. 
 
 The second great agency of the reaction was the 
 newly formed " Company of Jesus." This society owed 
 its origin to Ignatius Loyola, a knight of Biscay, whose 
 enthusiasm seemed to have not unirequently exceeded the 
 limits of sanity.' Its peculiarity was that, in addition 
 
 ' Inigo Lopez de Recalde, of the house of Loyola, fought in defence of 
 Pampeluna, when besieged by Francis i. (1.521.) Disdaining to capitulate 
 
 2 c 
 
386 THE PAPAL KEACTION. 
 
 to the ordinary monastic vows, th.e members took an oath, 
 to obey without question the commands of the existing 
 pope. "Although all Christians" (so runs the deed of 
 incorporation) " are, by the gospel and the orthodox faith, 
 subject to the Eoman pontiff, as their head and the vicar 
 of Jesus Christ, yet, for the greater humility of our 
 society and the perfecting of individual mortification 
 and abnegation of self-will, every member is to be bound, 
 beyond the common obligation, by a special vow that 
 whatsoever the Eoman pontiff for the time being shall 
 command, as much as in us lies we will perform." ^ 
 Ignatius was a soldier, and wished the Church and the 
 conscience to be ruled, Kke the army, by word of command. 
 The name " Company of Jesus," was borrowed from the 
 military bodies, then usually known by the names of their 
 commanders. His proposals received from Paul m. but 
 a hesitating and conditional sanction ; but their object 
 was too congenial with the spirit of Caraffa to be declined. 
 In three years, duriag which the foimder benefitted by 
 the knowledge of human nature, and the worldly wisdom, 
 possessed by the court of Eome, the constitution of the 
 new order was matured and approved (1540).^ 
 
 with the rest of the garrison, he retired iato the citadel, and held it with 
 a single follower, till his leg was shattered by a cannon-baU. His wound 
 disabling him from further service in the field, he dedicated himself, after 
 the fashion of chivalry in that age, to be the Knight of Our Lady ofMontser- 
 rat, and in that character rode about vindicating her perpetual virginity by 
 single combat. His visions may rival those of Swedenborg. "Some uncon- 
 scious love of power, a mind bewildered by many theoretical errors, and 
 perhaps some tinge qfijisanily, may be justly ascribed to Ignatius Loyola." 
 Founders of Jesuitism, Stephen's " Essays onEocl. Biography," i. 249. Yet 
 this author credits the enthusiast with genius, courage, and success beyond 
 any other uninspired man, 
 
 1 Bull Regimini, 27 Sept. 1540. 
 
 = It is admitted that some modifications were made in Loyola's designs ; 
 and Caraffa waa the man best qualified to mature his visionary concep- 
 tions into a practical system. The deep knowledge of men and the crafty 
 policy, which so strangely mix with the crazy romance of the Knight of 
 
THE JESUITS. 387 
 
 Ignatius boasted of being one of the first to support 
 Caraffa's Inquisition. His bosom friend and successor, 
 lago Laynez, was the chief advocate of Caraffa's doc- 
 triue of justification, at Trent. His principles and views 
 were identical with Caraffa's ; — to improve and educate 
 the church, but to tolerate no divergence from its 
 doctrine or discipline. Submission to the See of Eome 
 was the first of aU duties, and no consideration was 
 to weigh for a moment against enforcing it. To main- 
 tain this principle, the Jesuit constitutions require 
 blind, unreflecting obedience from every member of the 
 order to his superior, and from the superiors to the 
 general, while in the general all are placed at the feet 
 of the supreme pontiff. The discipline is all directed 
 to the subjugation of the iudividual — body, soul, and 
 spirit — to the will of his superior. The superior is not 
 to be regarded as a fallible man, but a^ Christ himself; 
 whatever the superior commands is the command and will 
 of God.^ Not even mortal sin is to be pleaded against 
 obeying an express command;^ the obedience is to be 
 absolute and unreasoning, perinde ac cadaver, as though 
 the agent had neither mind, wiU, nor conscience of his 
 own. !N'ay, conscience itself is subjected, to the same 
 yoke. Ignatiiis was the author of a work entitled 
 
 Our Lady of Montserrat, may be safely ascribed to some wiser head among 
 the astute members of the Roman Court. 
 
 ' " Non intueamini in persona superioris hominem obnoxium erroribus 
 atque miseriis, sed Christum ipsimi." " Quicquid superior prsecipit ipsius 
 Dei prseceptum esse ac voluntatem." — Const, vi. 1. 
 
 • ^ This horrible constitution has, naturally enough, been doubted ; the 
 ■words are : " NuUas oonstitutiones posse obligationem ad peccatum mor- 
 tals vel veniale inducere nisi superior ea in nomine D. J. C, vel in virtute 
 obedientise jubeat." — Const, vi. 5. The most obvious translation is that no 
 one is bound to sia unkss his superior commands him to sin ; but the wx)rds 
 may mean that no written constitution or rule binds to any particular act 
 under pain of sin, unless the superior commands that particular act to be 
 done. This rendering grants a complete immunity at pleasure from every 
 law of God or man not enforced at the moment by the living superior. 
 
 2c2 
 
388 THE PAPAL EEACTIOSr. 
 
 "Spiritual Exercises," in -which conversion is reduced 
 to a system, to be learnt (like the manual and platoon 
 exercise of the army) by every new recruit. The time 
 allotted for the spiritual drill is four weeks, to be 
 passed in seclusion, with a regular series of prayers and 
 meditations for every day. These ' ' exercises ' ' are not the 
 spontaneous effusions of a contrite heart, but the strict 
 observance of the evolutions prescribed in the book. 
 The spirit of military discipline pervades the whole ; all 
 the faculties of the mind are subjugated to the imagina- 
 tion, and the imagination itself is led captive to a series 
 of prescribed contemplations. Seven " stations " are 
 marked out in each day's course ; advancing from peni- 
 tential to eucharistical subjects, till the exercises close 
 iu a vision of the divine beatitude, before which "all 
 the delights and interests, of this sublunary state are to 
 be presented as U holocaust, to be consumed by the un- 
 dying flame of divine love on the altar of the regenerate 
 heart.'" 
 
 Along with much that is really spiritual and ediiy^ 
 ing, this system proceeds throughout on the unevan- 
 geUcal views of religion which produced the Tridentine 
 definitions of grace. It is everywhere a religion of 
 works. The heart is treated like a patient, to be healed 
 by medicines from without, rather than revived within 
 itself by the free spirit of God. When the prescribed 
 course had been gone through, the young Jesuit was 
 held to be " converted," and ready to join his regiment 
 in any part of the world. The authors of this system 
 had penetrated the secret how much easier it is to obey 
 an external authority in the name of God, than to exercise 
 ourselves in His law, and reconcile our own will to His. 
 Liberty of conscience once extinguished in themselves, 
 
 ' Essays in Eccl. Biography, by Sir J. Stephen, i. 164. Founders of 
 Jesuitism. 
 
THE WORK 01? THE JESUITS. 389 
 
 •would, of course, be refused to others. • The Jesuits 
 would, of necessity, be the slaves of the papacy, in its 
 endeavour to enslave mankind. The duties and destina- 
 tions of the several members were carefully apportioned 
 and imposed by authority. The monastic habit, the 
 cloister, and the daily round of devotional exercises, 
 were rejected, to make way for more necessary duties. 
 The Jesuits gave themselves to preaching, confessing 
 penitents, and educating the young. They were con- 
 versant with theology and casuistry ; studied carefully 
 the political views and private life of those to whom 
 they were sent ; wound themselves, by means of the 
 confessional and the academy, into the secrets of all 
 hearts ; and neglected no learning, art, or artifice which 
 could give them influence in the world. 
 
 They were not without formidable opponents withiu 
 their own church. The older monks and clergy disliked 
 their freedom from ecclesiastical rule, and the exaltation 
 of the " spiritual exercises " above the regular offices of 
 the church. The orthodox revolted from the semi- 
 Pelagian views which underlay Laynez's elaborate trea- 
 tise, and found a fuller expression in the writings of 
 Molina (1588). The popes themselves were alarmed at 
 their ambition ; — Sixtus v. thought the Saviour's name 
 profaned by their appropriation, and would have called 
 them Ignatians. There is hardly a state in Europe, 
 Papal or Protestant, that has not expelled them from 
 its limits ; in the eighteenth century, the united demand 
 of the Koman Catholic powers compelled the pope to 
 suppress the order altogether. 
 
 j!^evertheless, the Jesuits were inoontestably the most 
 efficient agents against the growth of Protestantism in 
 Europe, while their missions in America and the East 
 opened out conquests which, to a more spiritual church, 
 might have abundantly compensated every other loss. 
 
390 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 The peculiar principles of the order, however, dragged 
 the missions, also, into suspicion. Eome itself was 
 startled by an " economy" which incorporated the castes 
 and rites of avowed idolatry into the Christian Church; 
 which presented the gospel in the disguise of a forged 
 Yeda, and, instead of converting Brahmans to Chris- 
 tianity, turned the Christians into Brahmans. 
 
 These difficulties, however, were as yet in the future. 
 The Council of Trent, with the Inquisition and the 
 Jesuits for its ministers, inaugurated a last crusade for 
 the papacy. The Italian and Spanish peninsulas, where 
 the Church and the Crown were in intimate accord — 
 where the aristocracy were careless or intolerant, and 
 the people without power — were soon reported free from 
 heresy. The Bible had taken no hold on the population, 
 and the sparks of evangelical light, kindled here and 
 there by literary and intellectual agencies, were easily 
 trampled out. 
 
 Beyond the Alps it was necessary to proceed differ- 
 ently in different nations. The principle to be every- 
 where asserted was the authority of the pope; — ^this, and 
 this only, was divine : where the crown, the nobles, or 
 the bishops were obedient to the Eoman See, their 
 authority, also, was to be upheld as sacred ; but if this 
 were not the case, the papacy never hesitated to appeal 
 to the democracy, and counsel rebellion and revolution. 
 The Jesuits were, therefore, incessantly engaged in poli- 
 tical conspiracies. The doctrine of " the divine right of 
 kings," from the use to which it was applied by our 
 James ii., is associated in many minds with popery ; but 
 it was, in truth, a protestant* reaction against the pre- 
 tended sovereignty of the successor of St. Peter. When 
 the pope claimed the dominion of the world from the 
 text, " Thou art Peter," the reformers answered from 
 Peter himself, " Submit yourselves to every ordinance 
 
POLITICAL TACTICS. 391 
 
 of man for the Lord's sake — ^to the king as supreme ;" ' 
 and from St. Paul, " The powers that be are ordained of 
 God." * They taught that while every one must read 
 and beUeve for himself, it was the special duty of those 
 in authority to aid the people with the means of instruc- 
 tion, and especially to disseminate the Holy Scriptures. 
 In an age when power was wholly in the hands of 
 government, and the people did little for themselves, it 
 was natural to urge on the government the reformation 
 of the national church, and to exhort the people to obey 
 their native prince against a foreign usurper.' In so 
 doing, writers and preachers, who were not infallible, 
 sometimes attributed to the crown an authority in 
 religious matters, which coidd not consistently be main- 
 tained, and which they were the first to repudiate, 
 when directed against themselves. 
 
 This was conspicuously the case in England. The 
 crown was allowed to be despotic in the cause of the 
 Eeformation; Henry viii. erected a royal papacy, and was 
 addressed by evangelical bishops and divines in terms 
 which no English protestant now reads without a blush. 
 Yet those same divines knew how to resist the royal au- 
 thority in Mary ; they gave their bodies to the flames, 
 rather than allow either pope or queen to dictate their 
 religion. As the growth of constitutional principles 
 divided the powers of government between the crown 
 and the people. Protestantism, admitting of no sove- 
 reignty over the conscience but the word of God, per- 
 ceived that nothing in the Bible turns on the form of 
 
 ' 1 Peter ii. 13. ' Rom. xiii. 1. 
 
 » Such was Luther's vein, who enjoyed the protection and encourage- 
 ment of his prince. Zwingle and Calvin taught among republicans often 
 in arms for their rights. Melanothon, again, would have had the Church 
 reform herself by ecclesiastical synods. Most of the divergences observ- 
 able in the systems of these great men may be traced to their social and 
 political relations. 
 
392 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 government, whetlier regal or republican. Kings were 
 to be obeyed in so far only as tbe national law made 
 tbem " supreme ;" — not the crown but the " powers tbat 
 be " are ordained of God. This discovery initiated a re- 
 action against the Tudor type of royalty, which ended in 
 the fall of royalty itself. Then, as one excess naturally 
 produces another, the divine right of kings revived ; but, 
 being allied with profligacy in Charles, and with popery 
 in James, it never again obtained its former hold on the 
 nation. 
 
 In Germany, Luther, who owed his life and power 
 of usefulness to the protection of the elector, also wrote 
 strongly on the rights of princes. The Eeformation was 
 greatly promoted by their authority, and their influence 
 was everywhere predominant. Here, therefore, the 
 papacy also made every exertion to eoneiMate the tem- 
 poral power, always urging that religious concessions 
 must encourage political insubordination. It offered 
 ecclesiastical patronage, and even grants of ecclesiastical 
 revenues, as the price of supporting its pretensions ; and 
 these inducements foimd willing listeners. 
 
 The Jesuits were introduced into the universities 
 of Bavaria, and authorised to open new schools ia the 
 towns and villages, while all the power of the state was 
 employed against the protestants. The duke expelled 
 them from tbe diet and all public oifices. The magis- 
 trates were forbidden to show the sligbtest toleration of 
 their worship : even the peasantry were ordered to return 
 to the Eoman Church or quit his dominions. These 
 measures were so effectual that in two years (1570-1), 
 the whole duchy was restored to the papacy, and the 
 duke found his political power so increased by the 
 exchange that, when in compliance with his own urgent 
 representations at the Council of Trent, Pius iv. granted 
 the use of the cup to his subjects, the duke actually 
 
REACTION m GERMANY AND PRANCE. 393 
 
 suppressed the concession, and chose to be more popish 
 than the pope.' Similar measures were pursued by the 
 priuce-bishops of Austria, and with the same gloomy 
 results. In the Netherlands, however, the people offered 
 a resistance, which not even the savage atrocities of Alva 
 could extinguish. Ten thousand protestants are com- 
 puted to have perished in his horrible persecutions ; but 
 the S:truggle never ceased till the northern proviaces 
 achieved their independence, leaving Belgium to the 
 undivided allegiance of Eome. 
 
 The more complicated state of affairs in France gave 
 occasions for all the turns of policy, which the court of 
 Eome so well knows how to employ. It began with a 
 close alliance with the crown. Henry ii. exceeded his 
 father Francis i., ia the severity of his edicts against 
 Protestantism. The order of Saint Esprit was established 
 to attach the nobles to the falling Church, and the coun- 
 sellors who presumed to recommend liberty of conscience 
 were sent to the Bastile. The brief reign of Francis ii. 
 witnessed the execution of one of these prisoners, and 
 the capital condemnation of the prince de Condd, the 
 chosen protector of the reformed Churches. The queen- 
 mother Catherine de Medici, niece to pope Clement vii., 
 and the young queen's uncles, the duke and cardinal de 
 Guise, actively patronised the Jesuits. The Huguenots,^ 
 as the French called the Calvinists, were favoured by 
 the constable de Montmorenci and others of the French 
 
 ' Banke, v., 4. 
 
 » The origin of this word has been variously given. Some derive it 
 from the name of a gate at Tours, near which their nocturnal assemblies 
 were held ; others, from the Roi ffugon, the popular name of a goblin 
 supposed to roam the streets of that city : but the most probable deriva- 
 tion is from the Swiss word Eidgenossen, " confederates." The French Pro- 
 testants were disciples of Calvin, who, after his establishment at Geneva, 
 sent emissaries to his native country to rekindle the light temporarily 
 extinguished by Francis i. 
 
394 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 nobility, disgusted at the monopoly of power by the 
 Ghiises. Catherine herself is charged with secretly 
 encouraging the heretics in order to provide a counter- 
 poise to this haughty family. Becoming regent by the 
 death of Francis, this wily queen set Cond^ at liberty, 
 and even ordered a conference between the prelates and 
 the Huguenot ministers, with a view to a reconciliation. 
 At the " CoUoquy of Poissy "— held in 1561, before the 
 young king and his mother — Beza and Peter Martyr, with 
 the most eminent protestant divines of France, argued 
 in vaia for their view of the Church and the Sacraments. 
 The cardinal of Lorraine, sustained by all the French 
 prelates, declared it impossible to unite to the church 
 men who rejected the real presence of the Body of 
 Christ in the Eucharist. The arrival of the Papal 
 Legate, accompanied by the General of the Jesuits, 
 broke up the conference; but, in spite of their remon- 
 strances, the queen, hoping to rule by fomenting the 
 division, issued an edict for the protection of the Pro- 
 testants. This truce the duke of Ghiise violated by" the 
 barbarous massacre of Yassy, whereupon the Protestants 
 flew to arms, and the kingdom was desolated with the 
 horrors of civil war. The expedient of marrying the 
 protestant heir to the king's sister, was frustrated by 
 the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, when the 
 queen-mother threw off the veil she had worn for her 
 own purposes, and cast a yet deeper gloom over the 
 dark spirit of her short-lived son. This horrible crime, 
 which put the English court in mourning, and has never 
 ceased to receive the severest censure, even of Eoman 
 Catholic historians, was welcomed with fiendish rejoicing 
 at the Papal court. A medal was actually struck to 
 commemorate the cowardly triumph, and the name 
 and eifigies of Gregory xiii. are consigned to perpetual 
 infamy, by appearing on its obverse. 
 
CONSPIRACIES IN ENGLAND. 396- 
 
 The next king, finding himself compelled against 
 his will to proscribe his protestant subjects, took his re- 
 venge in the assassination of Guise, and his brother the 
 cardinal of Lorraine. Forthwith the pope thundered 
 out an anathema, which was promptly enforced by the 
 knife of a Jacobin monk.^ Large sums of money were 
 next sent from Eome, and the powers of Spain and 
 Savoy were invoked against a protestant succession. 
 Henry iv. was brought to sacrifice his religion to his 
 throne, and the edict of Nantes (a.d. 1598), while 
 securing an unprecedented toleration to the Huguenots, 
 still proclaimed the ascendancy of the papacy. Never- 
 theless, this king fell, like his predecessor, by the hand 
 of an assassin who thought that to oppose the pope was 
 to fight against God.^ 
 
 Our own country was that in which the pope most 
 conspicuously showed his contempt for the ordinance of 
 God. It was Eome who first taught the English to 
 conspire and rebel in the name of religion. The ac- 
 cession of Mary was loyally acquiesced in by the 
 Protestants, and all the persecutions of her bloody reign 
 provoked no insurrection. The national unity was 
 maintained also for several years after the accession of 
 Elizabeth, the people still attending the parish churches, 
 and only an insignificant number of the clergy refusing 
 to conform.' It was the pope who encouraged the 
 Scottish queen to assume the arms of England, and filled 
 
 1 The king was assassinated at St. Cloud, by a monk named Jacques 
 Clement, 1st Aug. 1589, and, having no issue, the house of Valois expired 
 with him. 
 
 2 Henry iv. was stabbed in his carriage, in the streets of Paris, by 
 Francis RavaUlac, 14th May, 1610. Two previous attempts, punished 
 with death, could not deter this enthusiast of the papacy from daring 
 the same penalty. 
 
 3 Out of 9400 clergy in England, only 150 refused the oath of 
 supremacy to Elizabeth. The bishops, having been all intruded by Mary, 
 rejected it in a body. 
 
396 THE PAPAX ENACTION. 
 
 the realm with secret conspirators.^ No sooner were the 
 Guises successful in France than Pius v. renewed the 
 excommunication and deposition of Elizabeth, offering 
 to shed his own blood in an invasion of her dominions. 
 This was followed by the first risings in the north 
 (a.d. 1570). 
 
 Gregory xni. abetted several rebellions in Ireland, 
 where the population adhered more largely to the 
 papacy.* In 1579 he established an English College at 
 Eome, under the care of the Jesuits, for the purpose of 
 rearing missionaries to their native land, and from that 
 time the "Seminarists" and Jesuits were constantly 
 plotting treason against the crown. The bulls against 
 the queen were diligently circulated by the Jesuits 
 Parsons and Campion, who had formerly held office as 
 protestants in the University of Oxford. Coming over 
 from Eome in disguise (a.d. 1580), they issued tracts, by 
 means of concealed printing presses, to dissuade the 
 people from attending the established worship. This 
 occasioned severe laws to be passed against the agents 
 of popery, whose views of religion inevitably entangled 
 them in high treason. The queen was menaced by 
 machinations abroad and by threats of assassination at 
 home. Her maids, of honour were exhorted to treat her 
 as Judith treated Holofemes. The Spanish ambassador 
 
 ' The pretence was that Elizabeth was deposed by the bulls of Paul 
 III. and Paul rv. The recusant English priests established a seminary at 
 Douai under W. AUen in 1568, and a branch of this establishment at 
 Kheims enjoyed the protection of the archbishop, Cardinal Guise. It was 
 the papacy which exiled these men, by compelling them to place their 
 religion in treason against their own sovereign. 
 
 ' One of these was plotted at Rome by an English adventurer named 
 Thomas Stutely, whom the pope advanced to the peerage by the title of 
 marquis of Leinster, and despatched with an expedition and a large 
 sum of money to join the Irish under the earl of Desmond. Stnkely, 
 however, choosing to lend his troops by the way to king Sebastian in an 
 expedition against the Moors, met his death in that adventure. 
 
THE SPANISH ARMADA. 397 
 
 was detected in a oorrespondenoe to raise soldiers in 
 England, in aid of tke expected invasion. Mary, now 
 a fugitive Jrom Scotland, was the object, if not the 
 accomplice, of all these conspiracies ; hence the strong 
 feeling in En^and against that unhappy queen. Her 
 death was loudly demanded after the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew, and when in 1585 the increasing peril 
 to the crown occasioned an Act of Parliament to banish 
 all Jesuits and Seminarists on pain of treason, it was 
 followed the next year by the trial and execution of 
 Mary.' 
 
 This decisive measure exploded the mine. Sixtus v., 
 raging in indecent invective against the English Jezebel, 
 created Allen a cardinal by way of defiance. He further 
 concluded a treaty with PhiUp of Spain, whiqh resulted in 
 the memorable Armada. It arrived, however, too late : 
 in the midst of treachery the heart of the country was 
 sound : the queen extorted the admiration of the pope 
 himself, and the gallant Howard, taking comm;and of her 
 fleet, taught the court of Rome that an English noble- 
 man could prefer his country and his honour to the 
 dictates of a foreign prelate. 
 
 Similar scenes were enacted in other countries. Eor 
 a hundred years after the Council of Trent, Europe was 
 deluged with blood by the persistent struggle of the 
 Eoman See to re-establish its ascendancy. So far from 
 fulfilling the idea of a Christian power controlling the 
 kingdoms of the earth by the majesty of religion, the 
 papacy has been the cause of more wars than Mahom- 
 medanism itself. In the four centuries of its existence 
 
 ■ Edwin Sandys, bishop of London, wrote to Lord Burghley, September, 
 1572 : — " Tlie safetie of our Quene and Realme yf God wU furtwith to 
 outte of the Scotish Quene's heade :" this sentiment, though as barbarous" 
 as the episcopal orthography, was but too generally shared in the heat 
 and indignation of the time. 
 
398 THE PAPAL REACTION. 
 
 it has never once left the world at peace. Every 
 difference of opinion is heresy, and every attempt at 
 reform impiety. When she has the power, Eome in- 
 variably delivers all opponents to the sword or the 
 stake. To retain or acquire this power ^he is ready, at 
 any moment, to array believers in Christ against each 
 other, or to ally them with infidels, in the battle field. 
 When the world turns a deaf ear to her pretensions, and 
 her power is weak, she conspires in secret; when the 
 artifices of this world are insufficient, she audaciously 
 usurps the terrors of the next. The Gospel and the 
 Church to her are swallowed up in the one text — " Thou 
 art Peter," — ^meaning (if we can believe it) that God 
 has created heaven and earth, the human race, and the 
 angelic host, to be ruled at the pleasure of an Italian 
 bishop ! While these pretensions were listened to, 
 Europe was always at war. In proportion as the world 
 gets tired of them, peace becomes more and more 
 attainable; and when they shall be finally exploded, 
 Christian unity and international concord wiU at last 
 become possible. 
 

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CHAPTER Xy. 
 
 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 Personal Character of the Popes — Persecution — Thirst for Blood-^ 
 Massacre of St. Bartholomew — Improvements at Rome — Protestant 
 Power — Papal Claims — Political Insignificance — Decay of Temporal 
 Power — European Wars — ^Protestant Triumphs — Peace of Westphalia 
 — State of the Temporal Power— Nepotism at Rome — Rise of Papal 
 Families — Jesuits and Jansenists — Jansen Condemned — Resistance 
 of Roman Catholic States — The Church of France — English Revo- 
 lution-^Sjianish Succession — Re-arrangement of Italy-^The Pro- 
 testant Pope — Expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal, Spain, and 
 France — Suppression of the Order — Humiliation of the Papacy- 
 Abolition of the Inquisition — French Revolution — Execution of 
 Louis XVI. — General War — Fall of the Roman Catholic Powers- 
 Napoleon Bonaparte — ^Italian Republics — Seizure of Rome — Abolition 
 of the Temporal Power — Pope carried into Exile — Extinction of the 
 Papacy. 
 
 One Tiirmistakeable blessing resulted to tlie Church of 
 Eome from the counteraction provoked in herself by the 
 Protestant Eeformation : the papal throne was never 
 again iavaded by the irreligious characters that so often 
 polluted it before. Not only were there no more such 
 monsters as Innocent viii., Alexander vi., and Julius ii., 
 but even another Leo x. was become impossible. 
 Paul IV. brought in a line of pontiffs distinguished 
 always by the semblance, and very often the reality, of 
 personal piety. If Pius iv. showed no decided proofs of 
 spiritual religion, he was free from moral stain, humble, 
 easy of access, and sincerely desirous of doing good. 
 He did his best to reform the Eoman court, and oblige 
 
 2 D 
 
402 DECLIJiTE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 the bishops to reside in their dioceses and attend to their 
 duties : his great superiority to the episcopal average 
 of the times was the cause of his beiag canonised after 
 death. His piety was of that kind on which the Eoman 
 Church sets the highest store. A Dominican monk at 
 fourteen, he was one of the few who preserved their 
 monastic vows inviolate through life. When pope he 
 fasted with all the rigour of the convent, attended mass 
 daily, and rose with the dawn to perform his spiritusJ 
 exercises free from the interruptions of public business. 
 Sincerity and devotion beamed in his face, as he walked 
 barefoot and bareheaded ia the processions, with his 
 long white beard falling on his breast. In private life 
 he was simple and unaffected, kind and bountiful to his 
 dependants, full of meekness and charity. 
 
 Still even he was, all his life long, a cruel, re- 
 morseless persecutor of every religious difference. He 
 filled the post of grand iuquisitor under Paul iv., and 
 in his own pontificate that gloomy tribunal revelled 
 in unrestrained authority. Even a brother inquisitor 
 was not safe from its fangs. Bartholomew Carranza 
 was one of the theologians and preachers at the council 
 of Trent ; Queen Mary of England chose him for her 
 confessor : her husband raised him to the archbishopric 
 of Toledo : he was summoned to attend the last hours 
 of Charles v. The suppression of heresy was the chief 
 object of his Ufe, and he boasted of having dug up the 
 bodies of many heretics, and burned them. Tet this 
 eminent prelate — the primate of Spain — ^for some ex- 
 pressions favouring the doctrine of justification by faith, 
 was thrown into the dungeons of the inquisition, and 
 all his property confiscated. On the accession of Pius 
 he appealed to the Holy See, and was removed to 
 Eome, There he was subjected to the most rigorous 
 treatment till the end of the pontificate, and finally only 
 
CHARACTER OF THE E0PE8. 403 
 
 escaped the stake by abjuring, to die in his convent a 
 few months after, at seventy-two years of age. 
 
 When such was the treatment of his own prelates 
 we are less surprised at this pope's sanguinary designs 
 upon Protestant England. Still it is startling to read 
 that he sent the consecrated hat and sword to Alva, in 
 commendation of his bloody carefer in the Netherlands ; 
 and that in France he not only assisted Charles ix. with 
 troops to make war upon his subjects, but gave express 
 orders to the papal commander to allow no quarter to 
 protestants. " Take no Huguenot prisoners ; kill every 
 one on the spot that falls into your hands :" this was how 
 St. Peter's successor read the injunction " Feed my 
 lambs!" What more terrible proof of the Satanic 
 delusion that blinded all eyes at Eome, than that such 
 sentiments could find place in the bosom of a Christian 
 bishop ! History places the glory of his pontificate in 
 the victory over the Turks at Lepanto ; but to the pope 
 the slaughter of his fellow-Christians seems to have 
 occasioned hardly less rejoicing. 
 
 Gregory xiii. though less strict by inclination, was 
 constrained by the force of public opinion at Eome, 
 under the influence of the Jesuits, to follow in the steps 
 of his predecessor. He attended carefully to his duties, 
 subscribed liberally to schools for the young (of course 
 under Jesuit direction), and signalised himself by the long 
 desired reform of the calendar — an advantage in which 
 the protestant nations did not participate^ for many years. 
 
 ' It was not introduced into England till 1751, when the error of com- 
 puting the year at exactly 365j days, and so adding a bissextile every 
 fourth year, amounted to eleven days. It was therefore enacted, that the 
 day after the 2nd September should be accounted the 14th, and- that in 
 future the bissextile should be omitted in the secular year (i.e., the year 
 completing the century), with the exception of the fourth century ; — ^Aot 
 24 Geo. III., c. 23. By the same act, the legal commencement of the year 
 was changed from the 25th March to the 1st January. 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 Yet even tMs enligliteiied and good-natured pope could 
 order rejoicings for the atrocious massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew. 
 
 Sixtus V. was one of the most trusted cardinals 
 of Pius V. — learned, prudent, and, after the Eomish 
 fashion, devout. Having risen from a condition of ab- 
 solute pauperism, when he kept swine, with a crust of 
 bread and the spring water for his single meal, he adopted 
 for his motto, " Thou, God, hast been my defender 
 even from my mother's womb." He, too, was a persecutor 
 like the rest, and active against Carranza ; when pope, 
 his severity rendered him the best prince that Eome 
 had long known. His stem suppression of the banditti 
 who iafested the papal states, his financial improvements, 
 and his statesmanlike administration of the government, 
 have caused him to be regarded almost as the founder 
 of the Eoman constitution. Under his protecting care 
 the city resumed an aspect worthy of the metropolis of 
 the world. 
 
 In the middle of the fifteenth century the Seven 
 hiUs were desolated, and the plain along the Tiber was 
 the only inhabited part. Eome was a city of herdsmen, 
 the cattle strayed in the narrow streets, as in the Italian 
 villages. The very memory of its antiquities was lost : 
 they called the capitol Goats' hill, and the forum the 
 Cows' field. St. Peter's was in danger of falling.' The 
 jubilee of 1450, when the unity of the Church was 
 restored, supplied funds for commencing a re-edification.. 
 The bridge of Sixtus iv. had improved the communi- 
 cation between the two sides of the river ; Julius ii. 
 restored the Yatican palace ; the cardinals and barons 
 emulated his example ; and the city attained to great 
 magnificence under Leo x. Then came the sack of 
 
 ' Ranke. 
 
IMPROVEMENTS AT ROME. 405 
 
 Bourbon with the pestilence and troubles under "Paul 
 IV. which caused a sad decline. Sixtus v. was the author 
 of the great aqueduct along the hills, two-and-twenty 
 mUes in length, which he called from his own baptismal 
 name the Acqua Felice. Buildings followed these im- 
 mediately, and the whole city felt the pontiff's active 
 hand. It was he who moved the obelisk from the 
 sacristy of old St. Peter's to its present situation in 
 front of the church.^ He added the cupola to the 
 Church, and being told that it would reqtiire ten 
 years in building, Sixtus (who always wished to see 
 the fruit of his work) put on six hundred men to 
 labour day and night, and finished it in twenty-two 
 months. His dealing with the antiquities was equally 
 peremptory and alarming : he proposed to clear away 
 the "ugly" monuments and "restore" the others? 
 Among the former was the tomb of Csecilia Metella !, 
 it was, with great difficulty that the cardinals and nobles 
 saved this sole remnant of the republic from destruction ! 
 Before all things his restorations were to be Christian. 
 He banished the statues of Jupiter and Apollo from, the 
 Capitol, and turned Minerva into Christian Rome by 
 giving her a cross instead of the spear. The pillars of 
 Trajan and Antonine he dedicated to the apostles Peter 
 and Paul, placing their figures on the top, and removing 
 the urn which was said to contain Trajan's ashes. Even 
 the obelisk in the Vatican was surmounted by a cross, 
 containing a piece of the Holy Wood. The erection 
 of the obelisks before the churches of St. John Lateran, 
 St. Mary Maggiore, and St. Mary del Popolo ; the Lateran 
 palace, the Yatican library, and the hospital for aged 
 
 ' A mass of stone, -weighing above a million of Koman pounds, was 
 raised from its base by thirty-flve windlasses, worked by seventy- horses 
 and 350 men, then lowered upon rollers and re-erected on its present sit,e 
 without mischance (a. d. 1586). 
 
406 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 and infirm near the Ponte Sisto, were also among the 
 works of this indefatigable pontiff. 
 
 Labours of this kind, added to the personal respect- 
 ability and learning of the popes of this age, greatly 
 augmented their influence in the struggles that were 
 now made, from political no less than religious motives, 
 to re-establish the authority of the Eoman Church. 
 The papacy, however, could never recover from the 
 wound inflicted by the Eeformation. The Protestant 
 States, instead of suffering from their revolt, rose to be 
 the leading powers of Europe. The pope himseK was 
 compelled to defer to them, and it was hardly to be 
 expected that the sovereigns who remained in his 
 communion, would be content with less than others 
 had taken by the Strong hand. They no longer trembled 
 before the transcendental prerogatives of Eome ; the 
 bolts, which used to leap so fiercely out of the armoury 
 of the Yatican, were restrained by the fear of provoking 
 ridicule, or resentment, rather than awe. 
 
 Not that Eome abated anything of its pretensions ; 
 on the contrary, it was just when the papacy was losing 
 its grasp of universal empire, and settling down into 
 one of the petty principalities of Italy, that its sovereign 
 claims were put forward more distinctly than ever. 
 Cardinal Bellarmine, the greatest of Jesuit writers, the 
 friend of nine popes, and the champion of their church 
 against our royal theologian, James i., asserted the Divine 
 authority of the pope and the clergy in the most absolute 
 terms. The supreme pontiff (he says) is simply and 
 absolutely over the Universal Church, above a General 
 Council, and responsible to no earthly tribunal.' He is 
 the absolute sovereign of the Christian priesthood 
 throughout the world; the clergy are bound to obey 
 
 ' De Cone, auctoritate, xvii.. 
 
HILDEBRANDINE BOCTEINES. 407 
 
 him by Divine command, and that not only in spiritual, 
 but in temporal, matters ; insomuch that it is impossible 
 for them to acknowledge any temporal sovereign, since 
 no man can serve two masters. The prince is the sheep, 
 and spiritual son, of the pope, but no priest is either son 
 or sheep to a prince : consequently the priest may judge 
 the emperor, but for the emperor to judge the priest 
 is as absurd as for the sheep to guide the shepherd.* If 
 Bellarmine did not, in express terms, claim all temporal 
 power for the pope, on the same Divine authority (an 
 omission which was greatly resented by Sixtus v.), he 
 arrived at the same point, by maintaining that ' the 
 temporal power is bound to obey the spiritual, as the 
 body obeys the soul. The spiritual power is the 
 ordinance of God ; the temporal power is the ordinance 
 of man.'' Temporal governments exist only by the will 
 of the people : the people originate, resume, and 
 alter them at pleasure, but the pontifical chair is 
 the visible seat of God, whom aU men are bound to 
 obey.^ 
 
 Baronius, the confessor of Gregory xm., created 
 a cardinal lay Clement viii., and within an ace of 
 being pope at his death, re-wrote the annals of the 
 church, falsifying documents, history, and chronology, 
 in order to impress the whole with the pontifical stamp. 
 Suarez and Mariana, Jesuit writers of the first reputa- 
 tion, sought to sustain the papal throne by the most 
 extravagant assertions of popular rights. Mariana went 
 so far as to justify the assassination, as well as the 
 dethronement, of temporal princes. He avowed that 
 Jacques Clement had learned from his spiritual advisers 
 
 » De clericis, i. 30. 
 
 2 This is just the reverse to the doctrine of Peter and Paul, 1 Pet. ii. 13 
 — ^Rom. xiii. 1. 
 
 '- De Horn. Pont., v., vi. 
 
408 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 the lawfulness of slaying a tyrant; and openly com- 
 mended him for the glorious exploit.^ 
 
 HUdehrand himself never put forth greater claims, 
 nor sustained them on such lofty authority. But the 
 world had grown wiser since the Protestant Eeformation, 
 and the Jesuits found powerful opponents even within 
 the bosom of the Latin Chxirch. Monarchs, who valued 
 the church as an instrument in political government, were 
 disgusted to be told that the pontifical power exceeded 
 the regal. Philip of Spain was the first to abridge the 
 immunities of these ecclesiastical democrats. In Prance, 
 where the Sorbonne maintained the Apostolical doctrine 
 of non-resistance, the Jesuits fell into such odium that 
 they were expelled the kingdom in the year 1766. A 
 similar result was effected at "Venice by the able 
 arguments of Paolo Sarpi. In vain the Eoman court 
 strove to enforce its reactionary doctrine. Even the 
 most friendly powers took their own course on political 
 questions, and, instead of ruling the councils of Europe, 
 the Holy See was reduced to an abject dependence on 
 the powers of France and Spain. Its freedom of action 
 depended on fomenting the jealousies, or mediating in 
 the wars, of these two kingdoms : and its chief anxiety 
 was to prevent either from becoming supreme. 
 
 As the Protestant States came to affect, and even- 
 tually to control, the balance of power, the political 
 influence of Eome dwindled and expired. Its decay is 
 traceable through aU the counteraction which repelled 
 the first triumphs of Protestantism. Pius v. was a 
 Hildebrand all over. He took upon himself to make 
 Cosmo of Tuscany a Grand Duke without consulting 
 the emperor, who refused to acknowledge the title. 
 Besides excommunicating Queen Elizabeth, and giving 
 
 ' Franc. Suarez, Be fid. cathol, iii. Mariana, De Rege. 
 
DECAY OF THE TEMPORAL POWER. 409 
 
 away her domimons, he was the author of the famous 
 bull In Ccena Domini, which repeats the most extra- 
 vagant pretensions of Gregory vii. So changed, how- 
 ever, were the times, that the vassal king of Naples 
 refused to admit this hull into his dominions, and though 
 the Eoman court has continiied, to the present time, to 
 read it every year on the day before Good Friday, the 
 thunder, which once shook the thrones of Europe, 
 has shrunk to the muttered curses of an impotent 
 conclave. When Gregory xiii. laid claim to Portugal, 
 on the fall of Sebastian without heirs, Philip of Spain 
 would not so much as discuss his pretensions, but 
 entering the kingdom by force, annexed it to his own 
 dominions. 
 
 Sixtus v., who was a firm and jealous prince himself, 
 felt the incongruity of these anti-monarchial pretensions, 
 and had the greatest dislike to the Jesuits in conse- 
 quence. He looked with equal displeasure on the aris- 
 tocratical rebels of the French League, and the spiritual 
 democracy of the bull In Ccena Domini. His maxim 
 was that the Holy See ought to uphold the prerogatives 
 of monarchs ; still the pope clung to the superior mon- 
 archy of Eome, and his great object in embellishing 
 the city was to make it once more the capital of the 
 civilised world. In alliance with Spain he intended, 
 after conquering England, to subjugate France. Tuscany 
 was to be appropriated single handed. He talked of 
 wresting Egypt from the Turks, and re-opening the 
 canal to the Bed Sea. In his own idea, he wielded the 
 thunders of omnipotence; the murder of the French 
 king was a Divine ratification of the pope's anathema. 
 Yet this ambitious pontiff met with nothing but defeat. 
 Braved by Yenice, in the recognition of Henry iv., he 
 was threatened by Spain with instant revolt, if he lent 
 any countenance to her Protestant adversary. The pope 
 
410 DECLINIE AND PALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 was clearly no longer tlie arbiter of kingdoms : by good 
 management be migbt still retain tbe primacy of tbe 
 Latin Cbnrcb, bnt bis temporal power was reduced to 
 tbe sovereignty of tbe Papal States, and even in tbat be 
 was made to feel tbe growtb of an international policy, 
 adverse to all bis traditions. 
 
 Clement viii., after augmenting tbe possessions of 
 tbe See by tbe resumption of tbe ducby of Ferrara, on 
 tbe extinction of tbe DeUa Eovere family (a.d. 1597), 
 was able to emancipate tbe pontificate from tbe ascend- 
 ancy, wbicb Spain bad retained in its councils since tbe 
 sack of Eome. His inclinations were towards tbe 
 Prencb, wbom Baronius, to tbe infinite disgust of tbe 
 Spaniards, proclaimed to be tbe truest benefactors, in all 
 ages, of the Eoman See. In spite of tbe remonstrances 
 of Spain, and of tbe expulsion of tbe Jesuits from 
 France, tbe pope absolved Henry iv. at Eome, 17tb 
 December 1595, and tbe Eldest Son of tbe Cburcb 
 returned to bis place in tbe Latin communion. Tbe 
 apostate king purcbased tbe favour by re-introducing 
 popery into Beam : be afterwards consented (1603) to 
 restore tbe Jesuits, as a kind of counterpoise to tbe 
 Edict of Nantes : stiU tbe Galilean Cburcb maintained 
 an attitude of independence, wbicb bas only in our own 
 days been excbanged for TJltramontanism. 
 
 Paul V. revived all tbe most extravagant conceptions 
 of pontifical power. He permitted bimself to be styled 
 Vice-God upon eartb, and monarcb of Cbristendom. Yet 
 tbe Yenetian republic braved bis bottest anger ratber 
 tban surrender tbe rule of its own territories. Paul 
 was amazed at tbeir audacity ; and aU tbe old spiritual 
 artillery was opened on tbe rebels. Tbe doge was ex- 
 communicated, tbe cburcbes were laid under an interdict, 
 and tbe clergy were commanded to publisb tbe anatbema. 
 Tbe republic calmly ordered tbem to proceed in tbeir 
 
EUEOPEAN WARS. 411 
 
 accustomed duties, and all but the Jesuits and a few 
 monks obeyed. The recusants were instantaneously 
 banished, and their places supplied by other priests. 
 The pope began to arm his troops for an inyasion, but, 
 afraid of Protestant interrention, he submitted to French 
 mediation, and granted a private absolution, the Yene- 
 tians refasing to solicit, or even to receive it, iu public : 
 the Jesuits remained expelled. 
 
 A significant intimation of the decline of the papacy 
 was given by the parliament of Paris in 1606, when 
 they ordered Suarez's book, on the pope's power of 
 deposing princes, to be burned by the common exe- 
 cutioner, in spite of the pontifical imprimatur. The 
 Hildebrandine doctrine was universally rejected, and 
 the Jesuits were everywhere chastised by the govern- 
 ments for promulgating it. 
 
 Still, the pope could incite to a large amount of 
 bloodshed, by taking advantage of the ambition or 
 animosities of rival princes. Some of them heartily 
 shared his intolerance. The young archduke Perdinand 
 of Austria, being told on his accession that only three 
 papists were to be found iu his capital, took a vow to 
 restore the Eoman creed, even at the cost of civil war. 
 When elected emperor, he headed a catholic league, 
 which utterly routed the protestants at the battle of 
 Prague (a.d. 1620). The duke of Bavaria seized the 
 palatine electorate, the pope obtaining the Heidelberg 
 library as his share of the spoil. In Bohemia the 
 measures adopted by the emperor drove 30,000 pro- 
 testant artisans, and 200 of the nobility, into foreign 
 lands ; but they succeeded in subjugating that kingdom, 
 with Hungary and Austria, to the Eoman creed. In 
 these terrible persecutions the pope vigorously co- 
 operated both by anathemas and subsidies. 
 
 The next year witnessed the capture of the Grisons 
 
412 DECLINE AND BALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 by the Austrians and Spaniards, wlio laid the protestant 
 villages waste with fire and sword. Paul urged the 
 prosecution of similar measures in the Netherlands, but 
 he was struck with apoplexy, while rejoicing over the 
 victory of Prague, and did not live to witness the fruits of 
 his bloody counsels. The thirty years' war followed, in 
 which the sacred name of religion was strangely mixed up 
 with the succession to the kingdoms of the earth earthy. 
 Gregory xv. showed his delight at the successes of 
 the Chtirch, by canonising Ignatius and Xavier in grati- 
 tude to the Jesuits. He further doubled the subsidy 
 to the emperor, suppressed the communion of the cup in 
 Bohemia, and caused the mass to be celebrated in Latin, 
 according to the Eoman ritual, in every church of that 
 afflicted kingdom. In a more enlightened hour he 
 founded a congregation of the Propaganda at Rome to 
 extend the creed of his church to distant lands.' 
 Gregory enjoyed great personal consideration with the 
 Eoman Catholic powers. Entering with much interest 
 on the project of uniting the prince of "Wales to the 
 Spanish Infanta, he expressed his hope " that the ancient 
 
 > Gregory's " Congregation " was enlarged, by the addition of a College 
 Or Seminary for the education of missionaries, under Urban viii., who en- 
 dowed it with large possessions ; and from this establishment proceeded 
 legions of ardent missionaries to America and the East. The Dominicans, 
 Franciscans, and Capuchins, all co-operated in the work, but the greatest, 
 and most questionable, successes were achieved by the Jesuits, who in 
 China, Abyssinia, Japan, and India, dishonoured the name of Christ by 
 associating it with some of the most corrupt usages of their idolatrous 
 converts, both in morals and worship. They resorted to every artifice to 
 conceal the truth from their superiors at Rome, treating the orders of 
 the Congregation, and of the pope himself, with profound contempt. Of 
 this order was Robert de' Nobili, who gave himself out for a Brahman at 
 Madura, and even swore before an Assembly of Brahmans to his own 
 descent from Brahma. — See the authorities quoted by Mosheim and Maclaine 
 (Eccl. Hist., cent. xvii. sect, i.) The French Jesuit, Martin, was hardly 
 less scrupulous in his compliances with idolatry. — See Lettres Edifinntes et 
 Curimses quoted in the present author's India, its Natives and Missions, 
 p. 291. 
 
PE0TE8TANT TRIUMPHS. 413 
 
 seed of Christian piety, which had of old borne fruit in 
 English kings, would once more spring up and flourish 
 in him.'" James i. actually- swore to marriage articles, 
 which stipulated for the education of the children by the 
 mother, and the repeal of all laws in England against 
 papists. He contracted similar engagements when, on 
 the rupture of the Spanish match, a French princess 
 was selected for the future queen of England. It was 
 this which sowed the seeds of the not unreasonable 
 suspicions, which eventually brought his son to the 
 scaffold, and drove his family from the throne. 
 
 The refusal of the English to fulfil obligations, which 
 the crown had no power to contract, was urged on the 
 French by pope Urban as ample cause of war, and 
 having engaged Spain in the same quarrel, he proposed 
 an invasion of England, which it was hoped would 
 finally destroy the most formidable bulwark of the 
 Reformation. The design was defeated by the English 
 invading France in the cause of the Huguenots. The 
 right arm of the conspiracy was at once paralysed, and 
 but for the mismanagement of Buckingham, and the 
 cabinet of St. James's, the prospects of protestantism 
 might have materially brightened throughout Europe. 
 
 The pope's next exploit was to sow dissension be- 
 tween his best allies. Taking alarm at the growth of 
 the imperial power in Italy, he fortified the Vatican, and 
 invoked the protection of the French. Louis xiii. 
 marching to his assistance^ was met by the imperial 
 
 ' The highest expectations were cherished at Rome of the son of the 
 " martyred " Scottish queen. Clement vin. sent word to James, before he 
 came to the English throne, that he prayed for the son of so virtuous a 
 mother, and hoped to see him a Catholic. His accession was celebrated 
 in Rome with solemn services and processions. — Ranke, vii. 2, 7. These 
 statements go far to acquit the Court of Rome of any complicity in the 
 gunpowder plot. Garnet never was the superior of the English Jesuits, 
 and Digby repudiated any other motive but " zeal for God's religion." 
 
414 DECLINE AND PALL OP THE PAPACY. 
 
 forces under "Wallenstein, wliose successes obliged Urban 
 to bave recourse to intrigues in tbe diet, wbicb pro- 
 cured tbe recall of tbe dreaded commander. Tbe pro- 
 testants tben inviting tbe aid of Gustavus Adolpbus, 
 king of Sweden, tbe pope deserted tbe emperor, and 
 in tbese political divisions tbrew away tbe cause of bis 
 cburcb. 
 
 Tbe long struggle was closed by tbe peace of West- 
 pbalia (1648), wbicb gave enormous advantages to tbe 
 protestants. Sweden retained a large part of ber con- 
 quests from tbe empire. Switzerland and HoUand were 
 recognised as independent republics ; tbe elector palatuie 
 was restored, tbe peace of Augsburg was renewed, and 
 tbe creation of an eigbtb electorate at Hanover gave 
 tbe protestants tbe long-wisbed-for equality of voices in 
 tbe diet. 
 
 Tbese arrangements replaced tbe ecclesiastical affairs 
 of Germany on tbe footing of tbe year 1624. Beiug 
 carried out in defiance of tbe pope's remonstrances, it 
 was manifest tbat tbe European powers were at last tired 
 of wasting tbeir resources, and tbe lives of tbeir subjects, 
 in ecclesiastical differences. Tbe political advantages 
 of tbe several States were tbe only objects now regarded ; 
 in stipulating tbat tbe provisions sbould be carried 
 out, " witbout regard to tbe opposition of any personage, 
 spiritual or temporal," tbe treaty of Osnabriick ex- 
 cluded tbe papal pretensions from tbe councils of 
 Europe. From tbat time Eome ceased to bave any 
 voice in tbe political world. Tbe Holy See remained 
 tbe ultimate autbority in tbe Latin Cburcb on ecclesias- 
 tical questions ; but even so its action was circum- 
 scribed by concordats, and tbe temporal governments 
 everywbere succeeded in reducing tbe Cburcb, more 
 or less, under tbe control of tbe State. 
 
 Tbe temporal power of tbe pope sbrank to tbe govern- 
 
NEPOTISM AT ROME, 415 
 
 ment of his own dominions. A valuable addition arose 
 from the escheat of Urbino -vdiich lapsed, to the deep 
 regret of its inhabitants, by the death of Alfonso ii., the 
 last of the Estess. TJrban's attempt on Parma, however, 
 was not successful : the duke Odoardo Farnese was re- 
 inforced by the neighbouring priaces, and after spending 
 twenty millions of crowns in the war, and narrowly 
 escaping a hostile occupation of Eome, the pope was de- 
 feated on every point. This mortification so touched his 
 vanity that he swooned as he signed the treaty, and died 
 imploring vengeance on the impious princes who had 
 forced their spiritual pastor into war. 
 
 From the time of the complete constitution of the 
 Papal States, through the lapse of Ferrara and the 
 escheat of Urbino, the families of the respective popes 
 aspired more and more to the character of an hereditary 
 aristocracy. They not only filled the principal posts 
 imder the government of their reigning chief, but 
 by securing lands and permanent possessions out of the 
 church revenues, were enabled to play the part of 
 the nobUity under their successors. The popes could 
 no longer confer principalities on their nephews or other 
 nearer connections, but being bound by no vow of 
 poverty they regarded the entire revenues of the See 
 as their personal property, and bestowed the surplus, 
 after providing for their armies and subsidies, the public 
 buildings, and the administration of the government, at 
 their own discretion. Had these expenses, indeed, been 
 honestly defrayed from the current revenue, little would 
 have remained to the privy purse ; but the popes, like 
 other princes, found it necessary to supplement the taxes 
 by frequent loans, and being subject to no check, but 
 that of conscience, in separating the public from the 
 personal income, it happened that the government debt 
 was constantly increasing, while the private exchequer 
 
416 DECLINE AND PALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 could always overflow upon the MndrecL of tHe reigning 
 pontiff. 
 
 Sixtus V. invented a system of nepotism wHoh was so 
 actively followed up by his successors, that even a short 
 reign provided the means of accumulating a brilliant 
 fortune.' That pontiff raised one nephew to the rank of 
 cardinal, with a share of the public business and an 
 ecclesiastical income of a hundred thousand crowns. 
 Another he created a marquess, with large estates in 
 the Neapolitan territory. The house of Ferretti thus 
 founded, long maintained a high position, and was fre- 
 quently represented in the College of Cardinals. The 
 Aldobrandtni, founded in like manner by Clement viii., 
 the Borghesi by Paul v., the Ludovisi by Gregory xv., 
 and the Barberid. by Urban viii., now vied in rank and 
 opulence with the ancient Eoman houses of Colonna and 
 Orsitii, who boasted that for centuries no , peace had 
 been concluded in Christendom in which they were not 
 expressly included. 
 
 On the death of Urban viii. {29th July 1644) the 
 Barberinis commanded the votes of eight-and-forty 
 cardinals, the most powerful faction ever seen in the 
 conclave. Still, the other papal families were able to 
 resist their dictation, and the struggle terminated in the 
 election of Cardinal Pamfili, who took the name of 
 Innocent x. During the interval of three months, the 
 city was abandoned to complete lawlessness; assassi- 
 nations in. the streets were frequent ; no private house 
 was safe without a military guard, and a whole army 
 of soldiers found occupation in protecting the property 
 of their employers. This was then the usual state of 
 things during an interregnum. 
 
 Innocent x., though seventy- two years of age at his 
 
 ' Eauke, book viii., sec. 3. 
 
INNOCENT X. 417 
 
 elaction, was full of energy. He restrained the disorders 
 in the city, compelled the barons to pay their debts, and 
 even enforced this unwelcome obligation on the Duke of 
 Parma, by the seizure and destruction of Castro, which 
 Urban had been compelled to relinquish. Innocent 
 brought the Barberini to strict account for malpractices 
 under his predecessor, and wrested from them large 
 portions of their ill-gotten gain. So far, however, from 
 reforming the system out of which these abuses sprung, 
 his nepotism exhibited itself in a form which scandalised 
 even the Eoman courtiers. The pope brought his sister- 
 in-law, Donna Olimpia Maidalchina, from Viterbo to 
 Kome, and established her in a palace, where She received 
 the first visits of foreign ambassadors on their arrival, 
 gave magnificent entertainments, and dispensed for her 
 own benefit the public offices of the government. The 
 cardinals had her portrait hanging in their rooms, like 
 that of a sovereign. Her daughters were married into 
 the noblest families. Her son, having first been appointed 
 the cardinal-nephew, soon after renounced his orders, 
 married, and became the secular-nephew. The struggle 
 for power between his mother and his wife divided Eome 
 into new factions, and the feud was enlarged by the 
 ambition of a more distant kinsman, whom Innocent 
 appointed to the vacant post of cardinal-nephew. The 
 pontiff sank under a deep cloud from the disorders in his 
 family and the palace, and when he died (5th January, 
 1655) the corpse lay three days uncared for, tUl an old 
 canon, who had been long dismissed from his household, 
 expended half-a-crown on its interment. The successor 
 of St. Peter must have sunk low in official as well as 
 personal repute when such contempt could be possible. 
 Fabio Chigi, who came next as Alexander viii., 
 brought to the tottering chair a spotless reputation, and 
 abilities long proved in the service of the church, His 
 
 2.E 
 
418 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 first act "was to banish the scandalous widow ; her son 
 was allowed to retain her palace and fortune. Be- 
 ginning with the loudest protestations against nepotism, 
 now the best established institution at llonie, in the 
 phrase of the time, the pope soon "became a man." 
 The courtiers remonstrated on his leaying his family to 
 live a plain citizens' life at Siena : it might involve the 
 Holy See in a misunderstanding with Tuscany. The 
 rector of -the Jesuits' college went farther : he declared 
 the pope was bound, under pain of mortal sin, to place 
 his nephew in high office, because the foreign am- 
 bassadors would confide in no one else. The question 
 was gravelly proposed in consistory, and the flood-gates 
 being there authoritatively unclosed, the waters of pre- 
 ferment flowed abundantly on all who had the merit to 
 be allied with Fabio Chigi.^ 
 
 After discharging this arduous duty, the pope re- 
 lieved himself of further attention to business, and spent 
 his days in literary leisure. His nephews, however, had 
 less power than formerly, from the growth of the con- 
 stitutional principle. The cardinals, in their different 
 congregations, with the official secretaries, aspired to 
 the functions of responsible advisers. The infallibility 
 of the pope was confined, they said, to spiritual things ; 
 in affairs»of state he was to be guided by his council, like 
 
 > RanKe, viii. 6. None of the papal advisers seem to have hit on the 
 view of a modem Protestant dignitary, who tells us that a prelate "is in 
 duty bound to prefer those whom God by His providence brings nearest to 
 him,''^ and that those who violate this rule are selfish persons ; they 
 sacrifice duty for the sake of a popularity which they do not win. The 
 author, of course, inserts the proviso required by decency, "provided 
 they be worthy of the patronage;" but a worth as yet untried, and of 
 which the patron is the sole judge, must weigh but little in the scale of 
 natural affection, when sanctioned by " Divine Providence " itself. Surely, 
 it is begging the question to assume that kinsmanship is the index of God's 
 will in the matter of preferment. Why not rather the respective labours 
 and merits of the several candidates ? 
 
THE JESUITS AND THE JANSENISTS. 419 
 
 other princes. Thus, a question involving the salvation 
 of souls, would be left to the sole pleasure of the pontiff: 
 hut to levy a bajocco on the mutton and vegetables 
 passing the gates of Eome, required the deliberate advice 
 of the cardinals. Truly a singular conclusion to be 
 arrived at by the ministers of Him who said, " how much 
 is a man better than a sheep !" 
 
 Alexander was doomed to hear his infallibility ques- 
 tioned in spirituals no less than temporals. Under the 
 late pontificate he had taken an active part in the 
 controversy between the Jesuits and the Jansenists; 
 this was but the continuance of a difference that had 
 agitated the church ever since the Council of Trent 
 laid down the doctrine of justification by works. The 
 Dominicans, who were then overruled, complained loudly 
 of the semi-pelagian consequences developed by Molina : 
 they were seconded by all who revered the authority of 
 Thomas Aquinas. The Jesuits, treating all arguments, 
 and the saint himself, with contempt, proceeded t& 
 elaborate a system as pernicious to the morals, as their 
 theology was to the faith of Christianity. They taught 
 that mortal sin, being the wilful transgression of the, 
 law, is not incurred unless the agent not only knows 
 the law and the character of the act, but intends at the 
 moment to affront and defy the lawgiver. If he takes 
 no thought or care about God whatever, but simply 
 means to please himself at all hazards, the transgression 
 is venial. Again, if a man swears outwardly, but with 
 an inward mental reservation, he is not bound by his 
 oath, for he did not swear, but jest.^ To these repulsive 
 maxims they added a doctrine oi prohalilitp, which made 
 it lawful to act against one's own conscience, as long 
 
 ' Qui exterius tantmn juravit, sine animo jurandi, non obligatur, nisi 
 forte ratione scandali, cum non juraverit sed luserit." — Busembaum, iii., 
 tract, ii. 4, 8. Kanke, viii. 11. 
 
 2 E 2 
 
420 DECLINE AND FALL OP THE PAPACY. 
 
 as there was a probability, or even a possibility, shown 
 by the laser opinions of others, of the thing not being 
 forbidden. These doctrines, so dangerous in themselves, 
 became stUl more alarming when avowed by a powerful 
 Order, whose special aims were the direction of con- 
 sciences, and the education of the young. The Holy 
 See was appealed to, but two popes, Clement viii. and 
 Paul v., presided over discnssions by their famous theo- 
 logians, without venturing on a decision. The truth 
 was, that at the bottom of all lay the Tridentine view of 
 justification, which they could not get rid of. 
 
 The question assumed a new shape from the labours 
 of Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres in Flanders, and 
 his college companion, Jean du Verger, abbot of St. 
 Cyran ini France. These men, from an unremitting 
 Study of the works of Augustine, had embraced convic- 
 tions closely approaching to those now called " evan- 
 gelical." They founded themselves, however, on the 
 ferthers rather than the Scriptures, admitted the claims 
 of the Eoman Church, and proposed to revive primitive 
 teaching without injury to any existing authority. 
 Jansen sent his book to the pope from his death-bed, 
 with a letter submitting all to the censure of the 
 apostolic see : within an hour he expired, after receiving 
 the last sacraments in the communion of the Church 
 of Eome (1638). The Jesuits, whom Jansen had assailed 
 with undisguised opposition, demanded the censure of 
 the Holy See, and Urban's unbounded self-esteem in- 
 duced him to pronounce a decision from which his pre- 
 decessors had recoiled.' In Jansen's " Augustinus " a 
 
 > It was this Urban viii. (Maffeo Barberini) who brought the aged 
 Galileo, his own personal friend, to a second trial in 1633 (after Bellannine 
 had hushed up the scandal under Paul v.), and compelled the astronomer, 
 after three days' imprisonment in the Inquisition, to recant his demonstra- 
 tion of the earth's movement round the sun. 
 
BULL AGAINST JANSEN. 421 
 
 passage "was found attributing to the Eoman See a custom 
 of occasionally condemning a doctrine for peace sake 
 rather than, from a conviction of its being false. The 
 papal infallibility took umbrage, and Urban condemned 
 the book as reviving exploded errors. The decree, how- 
 ever, had little weight. The nuns of Port Eoyal, who 
 had taken St. Cyran for their spiritual guide, continued 
 the evangelical labours which had excited the wrath of 
 the Jesuits and their friends, throughout France, Five 
 propositions were now, therefore, extracted from Jansen's 
 writings, and presented to the Holy See for special con- 
 demnation. The Congregation to whom they were re- 
 ferred was divided in its judgment. Cardinal Chigi 
 belonged to the majority, who condemned the proposi- 
 tions; and being Secretary of State he presented the 
 decree for Innocent's signature. The pope, who was 
 no theologian, at first refused, but yielding to Chigi's 
 importunities, the bull was signed and published.. 
 
 The Jansenists denied that the propositions drawn 
 up by their opponents at all represented the meaning of 
 their great teacher. They subscribed to the condemna- 
 tion of the five invidious articles set out in the bmll, but 
 declared their own opinions and practices whoUy un- 
 affected. This raised a new and momentous question. 
 The pope was practically admitted to be infallible on 
 matters of doctrine, but did his prerogative extend to 
 matters of fact ? It was his right to declare amy number 
 of given propositions heretical ; but coisdd he decree that 
 such propositions were eontained in a certain book where 
 they were not tO' be found ? could he fasten upon an 
 author a sentiment which he himself rejected ? It may 
 seem that, after swallowing the decree of transubstanti- 
 ation, no Eoman Catholic could consistently object to 
 the pope deciding the matter of fact, in common with 
 the matter of faith : but the difference was real. The 
 
422 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACT. 
 
 infallibility rested on the doctrine of tradition, of whieli 
 the See of Eome was supposed to be tbe incorruptible 
 guardian : it applied to the truths revealed by Christ and 
 His apostles, contained in Scripture, or handed down by 
 oral tradition. In defining any particular dogma, the 
 Holy See was supposed to promulgate the original truth 
 which, though either imperfectly apprehended or in- 
 sufficiently expressed by the early church, was still ever 
 the intention of the Divine Eevealer. Now, that Jansen 
 was the author of a certain work in the seventeenth 
 century, or that certain propositions triily represented his 
 sentiments, were statements which could never have 
 made part of the origiaal revelation, and could only be 
 infallibly affirmed by a new one. Every one who could 
 read Jansen was as well able to judge of his meaning as 
 the pope. To invest him with the faculty of reading 
 all men's thoughts, was to assert not an infallible tra- 
 dition in the See, but the actual omniscience of thes pope. 
 This the Jansenists conceived to be monstrous, but, 
 after wringing the censure from Innocent, Alexander 
 would not permit it to be evaded by their distinctions. 
 He issued a further buU (1657) declaring plainly and 
 formally that the five propositions were contained in 
 Jansen's book, and had been condemned in the sense 
 intended by the author. The Jansenists replied that such 
 declaration exceeded the power even of the supreme 
 pontiff : the intention of Jansen was a matter of fact, not 
 of faith, known only to God, and forming no part of His 
 revelation to the Church. They allowed the five propo- 
 sitions to be heretical, but contended that their condem- 
 nation in no way touched the doctrines of Jansen, as 
 taught by himself and propagated by his genuine dis- 
 ciples. They suffered the bitterest persecution in Trance 
 from the Crown and the Jesuits, but their constancy 
 was invincible, and in- 1668, Clement ix. admitted a 
 
PROTESTANTISM A POWEE IN EUROPE. 423 
 
 form of subscription which, in granting liberty of con- 
 science to the Jansenists, reflected of necessity on the 
 Jesuits, and even on the papacy itself. 
 
 The religious ardour of the sixteenth century, had so 
 cooled down by the middle of the next, that the secular- 
 governments were not only averse to wage wars in 
 defence of the papal creed, but began to perceive the 
 political wisdom of tolerating differences which they had 
 no power to eradicate. Protestantism became an element 
 ia the European system in spite of the pope, and with 
 the recognition of this fact the great religious parties 
 assumed their permanent limits. The court of Eome 
 made the most determined exertions to retain its 
 arbitrary jurisdiction, at least ia ecclesiastical affairs. 
 Urban viii. appointed a Congregation of Immunity to 
 defend it, and the consequence was a constant series 
 of altercations with the different governments. Spain, 
 Naples, Austria, Yenice, Genoa, Savoy, above all 
 France, were contiuually receiving objurgations, and 
 not unfrequently withdrew their ambassadors from 
 Eome. Eichelieu, under whose long administration 
 France attained the foremost place in Europe, though 
 a cardinal and a controversialist, did not hesitate to 
 ally himself with the Protestant powers against the 
 confederacy of the pope with Spain and Austria. 
 Louis XIV., while vigorously persecuting the Jansenists, 
 took a malicious pleasure ia mortifying the. pope in his 
 own capital. On pretence of an insult offered to his 
 ambassador at Eome, he seized Avignon, and, sending 
 troops into Italy, exacted an apology. The Grand 
 Monarch farther iasisted on the pope's building a 
 pyramid in Eome, with an iascription to perpetuate 
 the memory of his humiliation. 
 
 Louis asserted the rights of his crown at home, with a 
 vigour which Eome was not prepared for. He claimed to 
 
424 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 dispose of the episcopal patronage during the vacancy 
 of a see, and to invest the new bishop. He forbade the 
 introduction into France of any bulls to the contrary, 
 and the bishops and clergy stood by their king. In 
 1682 a National Council at Paris passed four resolutions 
 affirming it to be the ancient doctrine of that church, 
 1. That neither St. Peter nor his successors have any au- 
 thority in civil or temporal matters. . 2. That the pope is 
 subordinate to a General Council. 3. That the National 
 Church of France ought to preserve its own customs. 
 4. That the decisions of the pope are not to be accounted 
 infallible till confirmed by the assent of the church. 
 These propositions express a doctrine, which, however 
 condemned at Eome, has prevailed with moderate and 
 enlightened Roman Catholics elsewhere. 
 
 Innocent had the wisdom to abstain from extremi- 
 ties: he censured the Galilean doctrine, but withheld 
 the anathema, which might have driven France to 
 follow the example of England. The " Great Monarch," 
 however, was only a great bully. He disputed the 
 pope's authority to regulate his own capital, and con- 
 tended in arms for a right of asylum, which had been 
 abolished as a common nuisance. On the pope ex- 
 communicating the ambassador, Louis again invested 
 Avignon, appealed to a General Council, arrested the 
 papal nuncio at his court, and talked of creating the 
 archbishop of Paris patriarch of France. Yet, after all 
 this bluster, the king not only abandoned his pretensions 
 and restored Avignon, but allowed the pope to make the 
 French clergy retract their propositions, and " prostrate 
 at the feet of his holiness," implore pardon for asserting 
 the rights of their national church. Louis acted 
 exactly like our own Plantagenet princes : he used the 
 clergy to frighten the pope, and the pope to pillage the 
 clergy. He was never at any moment true to his creed. 
 
ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 425 
 
 his church, or his crown. "The State," he said, "is 
 myself," and certainly he thought no interests so im- 
 portant as his own. 
 
 Innocent xi. was a man of talent, firmness, and 
 piety. " They come with horses and chariots," he said, 
 when the French ambassador entered Eome, "but we 
 will- walk in the name of the Lord." As much beyond 
 the reach of bribery as of fear, he was one of the very 
 few pontiffs who have shown themselves superior to that 
 standing reproach of ecclesiastical governors, the ap- 
 propriation to themselves and their relatives of the power 
 and revenue entrusted to them for the good of the 
 church. Innocent found that since the beginning of 
 the century,^ not less than 17,000,000 of crowns had 
 been consumed on private affection out of the revenues 
 of the Holy See. Shocked at such a misuse of the con- 
 tributions of the faithful, he issued a bull to suppress 
 the practice for ever. 
 
 One of the most curious chapters in history is this 
 pope's alleged connection with our own English Eevo- 
 lution of 1688. He was far too good and wise a man to 
 hope anything from such a prince as James ii. ; and 
 when Louis xiv. sought his approval of the barbarous 
 measures against the Huguenots, the pope answered, 
 " that was not the method employed by Christ : men 
 must be led, not dragged, into the temple."' Instead 
 of abetting his tyranny. Innocent joined the alHanee 
 against Louis as the common enemy of Europe. He 
 was not repelled when told that the prince of Orange 
 was to have the command on the Ehine, though the 
 correspondence between that prince and his English 
 adherents was certainly known at Eome. In fact, it 
 was from that court that James was first apprised of the 
 
 > Ranke, viii. 16. 
 
426 BECLINE AND FALL OP THE PAPACY. 
 
 intended invasion. James was a mere vassal to France, 
 and France was insulting the pope in Ms own capital. 
 Hence the singular result that the expulsion of popery 
 from the British throne was partly the act of the pope 
 himself. The papacy was obliged to lean on Protestant 
 arms to rebut the outrages of the Eldest Son of the 
 Church ! 
 
 A deeper humiliation befel the pontificate from 
 trustiag to the power of France, after its reconciliation 
 with Louis. Charles ii. of Spain, who died chUdless in 
 1700, bequeathed the succession to Philip of Anjou, the 
 Dauphin's second son.' His will was made under the 
 advice of Innocent xii., and Clement xi. did not hesitate 
 to recommend the dangerous legacy to the acceptance of 
 the French monarch. But Louis had previously con- 
 cluded with England and Holland, a treaty of partition 
 between the rival claimants. Spain, the Indies, and the 
 Netherlands were to go to Ferdinand of Bavaria, Milan 
 to the archduke Charles, and only the Two SiciHes to the 
 Dauphin. The accession of a French prince to the undi- 
 vided monarchy, was, therefore, resolutely opposed by 
 the other powers, and, the Bavarian prince being dead, 
 England and Holland formed a grand alliance with the 
 emperor to place the archduke Charles on the Spanish 
 throne.^ On the other hand, France was joined by the 
 
 • The Dauphjai was the son of Charles's eldest sister, and next heir, 
 had not his mother renounced the Spanish succession on her marriage 
 with the French king. The elector of Bavaria was grand-nephew by 
 another sister, who had also executed a renunciation, but this was said 
 not to have been confirmed by the Cortes. A third claimant was the 
 emperor Leopold, the husband of Charles's second sister, and sole male 
 descendant of Ferdinand and Isabella : his rights were ceded to his second 
 son Charles. 
 
 2 A second treaty had been executed on the death of Ferdinand, which 
 also came to nothing. These transactions were managed by William iii., 
 unknown to his ministers ; and Lord Somers, the chancellor, pleaded 
 ignorance in answer to an impeachment of the House of Commons, in 1701. 
 
EE-AEEANGEMENTS OP ITALY. 427 
 
 elector of Bavaria, the elector of Cologne, the king of 
 Portugal, and the dukes of Savoy and Milan. The 
 elector of Brandenburg, who seized the opportunity to 
 crown himself king of Prussia, declared for the grand 
 alliance. All Europe was again plunged in war, and the 
 pope had the misfortune to be on the unsuccessful side. 
 The Imperial and Prussian armies entered Italy, and 
 Clement xi., after formally congratulating Philip v., was 
 compelled to recognise Charles in. as the Most Catholic 
 King. The French ambassador left Eome declaring it 
 was no longer the seat of the church, and the pope was 
 often heard to say that he wished he repented of his sins 
 as sincerely as he did of ascending the pontifical throne. 
 To add to the bitterness of his sorrow, it was Protestant 
 England which mainly decided the fortunes of the war, 
 and thereby changed the aspect of Europe. 
 
 The peace of Utrecht (11th April, 1713) which 
 closed the war of the Spanish succession, was concluded 
 without any reference to the pontiff who claimed 
 autiiority to create and depose kings. Charles having 
 succeeded his brother Joseph in the empire (a.d. 1711) 
 relinquished the crown of Spain to PhiKp, retaining to 
 himself the Netherlands and Lombardy, together with 
 Naples an acknowledged fief of the Holy See, and 
 Sardinia which it had claimed for centuries. Sicily, 
 another papal fief, was bestowed with the title of king 
 on Yictor Amadeus, duke of Savoy, whUe England 
 retained only her conquests of Gibraltar and Minorca. 
 Seven years after, the treaty of Lojidon gave Sardinia 
 to Savoy in exchange for Sicily, which was reunited to 
 Naples. Parma and Placentia, which had been fiefs of 
 the church for two centuries, were assigned without 
 asking the pope's leave to Don Carlos of Spain, who 
 soon after succeeded to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. 
 These possessions he induced the emperor to accept in 
 
428 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 exchange for the crown of the Two SiciKes, and they 
 ■were given to Francis, the husband of the emperor's 
 only daughter, Maria Theresa. 
 
 The German wars of succession which ensued on the 
 death of Charles vi., resulted ia the elevation of Francis 
 to the imperial crown, and by the peace of Aix la 
 Chapelle (1748), Italy was again redistributed without 
 the least reference to the pope. France obtained the 
 Austrian Netherlands, Lombardy was restored to the 
 emperor, and Parma went to the Spanish Infante Philip. 
 The pope, who once created kingdoms of Divine right, 
 had lost all voice in the country which stUl looked on 
 Eome as its capital. His ecclesiastical prerogatives were 
 angrily questioned both in Spain and Italy, and the 
 Venetian envoy reported that "whether it proceeded 
 (as many people maintained) from the spread of en- 
 lightened ideas, or from a tyrannical disposition to crush 
 the weaker party, it was certain that the kings of Europe 
 were making rapid progress in stripping the Eoman See 
 of aU its temporal rights and privileges.'" 
 
 Benedict xiv. acquired the odious denomination 
 of the " Protestant " pope, from the concessions which 
 he felt obliged to consent to in order to prevent 
 . a general revolt. To the crown of Spain he re- 
 linquished nearly all his patronage ia that kingdom 
 ioT the sum of 1,143,330 crowns. The court of 
 Naples obtained the power of taxing the clergy, and 
 diminishing the number of holidays, two very un- 
 welcome innovations to the priesthood and the laz- 
 zaroni. Portugal was pacified with the title of 
 " Most Faithfnl King," in addition to some extension of 
 the crown patronage. StiU Europe was far from being 
 
 ' Ranke, Append., No. 162. Relasione di Mocenigo, where the differences 
 are detailed with the Courts of Naples, Spain, Turin, France, Portugal, 
 and the empire (1737). 
 
ATTACK ON THE JESUITS. 429 
 
 satisfied. The long accumulating distrust and hatred of 
 the Jesuits found expression at the court of Eome, and 
 the Protestant pope adopted measures of great severity 
 for a thorough reform of the order. The secularity and 
 immorality of its members were continually denounced 
 not only by Jansenists, but by all who cherished evan- 
 gelical opinions in the Latin Church. The Dominicans 
 and other missionaries complained of their criminal 
 compliance with idolatrous usages in India and China. 
 This point was solemnly decided against the Jesuits in 
 1704, but persistiag in their own course, they obtained 
 a new decree in 1715, which virtually sanctioned all 
 they desired. Clement xi. gave them a still greater 
 triumph in the bull Uni^enitus (17 IS), which condemned* 
 the Jansenist doctrines of sm, grace, and justification, in 
 stronger language than ever ; it even pronounced them 
 heretical. The court of Eome was now afraid of its 
 slaves. " The Jesuits dare everything," said the pope, 
 and he had not the courage to offend them. 
 
 ' StUl the Jansenists, however oppressed and perse- 
 cuted, propagated their views, not only in France, but 
 throughout Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and even at 
 Vienna and Brussels.^ The persecutions they endured 
 were more damaging to the church than to themselves, 
 and public opinion set strongly against the Jesuits. 
 Their wealth and influence excited the notice of the 
 different governments : the first was the product of vast 
 commercial and manufacturing speculations, the other 
 arose from a monopoly of the confessionals and the 
 schools. The sway thus acquired being directed to 
 political more than spiritual ends, Benedict xiv. insti- 
 tuted a searching reform ; but his successor falling back 
 on the famous non possumus, declared it impossible to 
 
 ' Llorente, Hist, de I'lnquis., iii. 93-97. 
 
430 DECLINE AND PALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 alter wliat had been sanctioned by the Council of Trent. 
 The courts of Europe then proceeded after their own 
 fashion. 
 
 The first to act was Portugal, where the Jesuits 
 were implicated in a plot to murder the king. The 
 truth of the accusation remains in dispute,' but it shows 
 the altered temper of the times, that it was readily 
 belieyed in a country on which the Order had very 
 strong claims. The missionaries were torn from their 
 simple Indians ia Brazil, and carried (packed like 
 negroes in a slave vessel) to Lisbon. !Prom thence the 
 whole Order was transported to Italy, and discharged, 
 with a small allowance for their support, on the papal 
 4;erritories (1759). 
 
 Similar measures followed soon after in Spain. The 
 king caused the Jesuit colleges to be surrounded by 
 troops at midnight on an appointed day, and the inmates 
 to be seized and hurried to the coast, where they were, 
 embarked in vessels previously provided. On the follow- 
 ing morning, not a Jesuit remained in Spain (1767). 
 The involuntary emigrants were transported to Civita 
 Yecchia, but the pope refused to let his children land, 
 saying, that if all princes were to do the same his 
 dominions would be too small to hold such unwelcome 
 returns. The poor Jesuits, after being kept tossing 
 three months on the Mediterranean, were landed in 
 Corsica, without beds or other necessaries. The crowded 
 vessels, the climate, and the hardships disposed of the 
 aged and infirm. The king of Spain was at last pre- 
 vailed on to grant the survivors a shilling a day, and 
 with this provision they were allowed to settle in the 
 Papal States. 
 
 In France the Order was impleaded and formally 
 suppressed, as an illegal association, by a decree of the 
 parliament of Paris in 1762. Clement declared the 
 
SUPPRESSION OF THE OEDEE. 431 
 
 sentence null and void, but lie was afraid to publish 
 his allocution: the society was abolished, and the 
 revenues confiscated to the State. The example 
 was followed by thg courts of Naples and Parnia, 
 which, together with Tuscany and Sardinia, were now 
 included in the Bourbon Family Compact. The pope 
 protested in vain. The duke of Parma forbade all 
 appeals to Eome. The Bourbon courts menaced further 
 aggression. The Italian States, Genoa, Modena, Yenice, 
 took part against the pope : the emperor was deaf to his 
 entreaties. At last the ambassadors of the Bourbon 
 sovereigns demanded the abolition of the Order itself, 
 and Clement xiii. had summoned a consistory to con- 
 sider the demand, when he was seized with convulsions 
 and died (1769), not without suspicion of poison. 
 
 His successor was the Franciscan friar Ganganelli, 
 who had already shown in the Sacred College his sense 
 of the dangers which menaced the church from the 
 resolute attitude of the chief sovereigns of Europe* 
 On the 21st July, 1773, he signed the bull which had 
 been demanded for the entire suppression of the Jesuits. 
 It was conceived in few but momentous words : 
 "Inspired as we humbly trust by the Divine Spirit, 
 urged by the duty of restoring the unanimity of the 
 Church, convinced that the Company of Jesus can no 
 longer render those services for which it was instituted, 
 and moved by other reasons of prudence and state 
 poHcy which we hold locked in bur breast, we aboHsh 
 and annul the Society of Jesus, their funotions, houseS) 
 and institutions." 
 
 This decree amounted to a confession of the de- 
 thronement of the papacy, and the triumph of Pro- 
 testantism. Though demanded by papal states, and eon- 
 ceded by the pope himself, it was a measure to facilitate 
 not the subdual of heresy, but the extension of anti-papal 
 
432 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 principles within the countries adhering to the Roman 
 communion. The pope could not throw overboard an 
 Order founded expressly to defend his supremacy, 
 without danger to the supremacy itself. Clement xiv. 
 observed as he signed the decree, that it would be the 
 cause of his death, and the following year he expired, 
 "being the second pope who was suspected of faUing a 
 sacrifice to Jesuit revenge. Clement, like his prede- 
 cessor, was a good and pious man, but unlike him, he was 
 forward with concessions to the demand of the times. 
 He suppressed the reading of the bull In coena Domini, 
 enlarged the concessions to Sardinia and Portugal, and 
 withdrew the process against Parma. " The popes of the 
 18th century were, for the most part, as wise, liberal, and 
 moderate as any who ever sat in the chair of St. Peter, 
 but they felt the doom incurred by the deeds of their 
 predecessors, they seemed to be haunted by forebodings 
 of imminent destruction.'" The tide of change swept 
 on, and the Holy See, instead of directing its course, 
 floated helplessly on the surface. 
 
 The sons of Maria Theresa, Joseph and Leopold, 
 successively grand-dukes of Tuscany, were princes of 
 large and enlightened views. The elder was elected 
 king of the Eomans in 1764, and on succeeding to the 
 imperial crown on the death of his father, the following 
 year, resigned Tuscany to his brother. The emperor 
 Joseph n. was a bold and ambitious reformer, but 
 wanting in ballast. His rapid assaults shook the papal 
 system in Germany to its foundation. Anxious to 
 consolidate the imperial dominions under one govern- 
 ment, and to supersede their ten languages by the 
 Austrian dialect, he would endure no interference from 
 without. He declared all religious Orders free from 
 
 > Mariotti. 
 
ABOLITION OF THE INaUISITION. 483 
 
 foreign dependence, and the clergy entitled to grant 
 marriage licenses without any foreign sanction. He 
 superseded by imperial edict the canons against mixed 
 marriages, abolished the censorship of the press, together 
 with pilgrimages and many other superstitious obser- 
 vances. Above all,- he suppressed two-thirds of the 
 monasteries. Pius vi. made a journey to Yienna in 
 order to remonstrate, but the emperor, alternately stig- 
 matised as Jansenist and Infidel, remained immovable. 
 He was supported by the ecclesiastical electors, who, 
 in a declaration at Ems, desired the Eoman pontiff to 
 content himself with the primacy enjoyed by his see in 
 the priinitive church. 
 
 None of these movements, however, were based on 
 really evangelical principles, or had any higher object 
 than to advance the power of the crown and the prelates 
 at the expense of the papacy. They were accordingly 
 doomed to failure. The Austrian populace resented the 
 abrogation of their favourite superstitions, and the 
 ambition of Prussia inaugurated a Germanic confederacy 
 to check the rising power of Austria. The political 
 struggles that ensued effaced almost all the imperial 
 reforms. Still the German church was permanently 
 shaken in its attachment to the papacy. Leopold, who 
 was confessedly a Jansenist, introduced similar reforms 
 in Tuscany, and the synod of Pistoia discussed, at the 
 very gates of Eome, fifty-seven propositions, which 
 struck at the roots of the entire papal system (1787). 
 
 The Inquisition was abolished in I^aples, Tuscany, 
 and Parma, in 1782. Naples followed up the step with 
 farther rfefooms; monasteries were suppressed in 1784, 
 and in VI'SS the Queen Eegent formally renounced the 
 feudal dependence on Eome which had existed from the 
 foundation of the kingdom! Prom one end of Europe 
 to the other there was not a single state reposing con- 
 
 2 F 
 
434 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 fidenee in the Eoman cotirt, when the French Revolution 
 btirst like a hurricane on its devoted head, and swept it 
 away in a moment. 
 
 Many causes conduced to the long-gathered hate 
 and fury of this terrible explosion. The despotism and 
 frightful licentiousness of the French court, the cor- 
 ruption of all pubHo offices, including the courts of 
 justice, and the oppressive privileges of the nobles, had 
 thoroughly disiategrated the social fabric. The in- 
 human pride of the aristocracy was repaid by the savage 
 animosity of the canaille. The suecessfiil insurrection 
 of the British proviaces in America had excited a re- 
 publican spirit, which the literary men labojired to 
 extend and inflame. War and peculation had reduced 
 the finances to the brink of national bankruptcy, and in 
 the circle which monopolised the government, and looked 
 with contempt on the common people, there was not one 
 who possessed the intellect, the principle, and the heart 
 necessary to a great statesman. 
 
 The greatest source of danger, however, was the 
 Church: so far from doing its rightful work by 
 uniting the different classes of society in the bonds of 
 Christian fellowship, the French church was itself the 
 most disintegrated and the most detested portion of the 
 constitution. The old Gallican independence had been 
 prostrated at the feet of the crown and the pope ; the 
 persecution of the Jansenists had alienated the pious ; 
 while the dissensions of the clergy excited the contempt 
 of the scoffer. The wealth and secularity of the prelates 
 and court favourites contrasted scandalously with the 
 apostolical poverty of the country clergy. The un- 
 believer could even, point at ecclesiastics who outran 
 the lay sceptics in turpitude and infidelity. Notwith- 
 standing the zeal and learning of some of the clergy, 
 and the ignorant affectionate piety still subsisting among 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 435 
 
 the peasantry, the Church was diseased to the core, and 
 the fountain of the poison was universally felt to be at 
 Eome. 
 
 The infidel philosophy of the eighteenth century was 
 unquestionably the offspring of the superstitious bigotry 
 and pecuniary corruption which reigned in the Holy 
 See. Wlien the necessities of the young king obliged his 
 minister of finance to have recourse to the States General, 
 the fusion of the three Chambers into one National 
 Assembly, whereby the entire power was transferred to 
 the most numerous order, was brought about by the 
 lower clergy and the nobility- The classes which in 
 England would be called the country gentry and clergy, 
 united with the burgesses against the prelates and 
 grand seigneurs. The first act of this national assembly 
 (while the king was yet upon the throne) was the con- 
 fiscation of the church property, and the conversion of 
 the clergy into State stipendiaries. A new distribution 
 of dioceses and duties followed, coupled with a dissolu- 
 tion of vows, and the suppression of religious orders. 
 The connexion with Eome was dissolved, and the clergy 
 were required to swear obedience to the State. These 
 reforms were cordially approved by the Jansenists, 
 and, with the exception of the abolition of the papal 
 supremacy and the religious orders, they have been 
 retained to the present day. 
 
 The Jansenists gave their consent also to the more 
 extreme measure of substituting popular election for 
 canonical institution, which the then existing authorities 
 refused to grant. In all this it was the papacy, more 
 than the National Church, which was assailed. It was 
 an attempt to pull down Babylon, without destroying 
 the substructure on which she was seated. Tor alas ! 
 the Word of God, the primitive rule of faith, and the 
 rule of the Protestant Eeformation, was not the rule 
 
 2 F 2 
 
436 DECLINE AND FALL OP THE PAPACY. 
 
 of the Frerieii Eevolution. The Huguenots had been 
 crushed and scattered ; the Jansenists halted between 
 two opinions, and reformers of another spirit quickly 
 seized the reins. Men of blood, confounding the church 
 with her ministers, defied God Himself, on account of 
 the wickedness perpetrated in His name. 
 
 These men hurled the whole power of France with 
 insane animosity against the rest of Europe. They 
 entered on a universal war of propagandism, everywhere 
 calling on the ruled to rise against their rulers; and so 
 numerous were the abuses both in Church and State, 
 that everywhere the' appeal was responded to. It is 
 worthy of observation that only those nations which 
 eschewed popery were able to resist the tide. Every 
 throne and every church, without exception, that owned the 
 supremacy of Rome, was prostrated in the dust. The 
 Holy Eoman Empire itself was dissolved, and the chair 
 of St. Peter overturned : the powers opposed to popery 
 were those alone which stood fast, and eventually rescued 
 the others. 
 
 Hostilities began with a declaration of war by the 
 French republic against the queen's father, the emperor 
 Leopold, for protesting against the principles of the 
 Eevolution. The coalition of Austria with Prussia and 
 HoUand was replied to by the trial andrr Execution of 
 the unhappy Louis xvi., 21st January, 1793,. and ten 
 days after the National Assembly extended the field 
 of war to England and Spain. All that remained of 
 the French people, after the slaughter or flight of the 
 royalists, rushed into these hostilities. The kingdom!, 
 was one entire camp. The conscription drafted intathe 
 ranks all the single men between 18 and 25 years of 
 age : the married men were employed in makiag arms, 
 the women military clothing: the old men were re- 
 quired to preach republicanism : even the children were 
 
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. "437 
 
 made to pull lint for the field hospitals. It was a 
 people's crusade against crowns and mitres. Belgium 
 was annexed at a swoop. Nice and Savoy followed, and 
 the Eevolution was at the gates of Italy. Ferdinand, 
 grand-duke of Tuscany, brother to the French queen 
 whose life still hung in the balance, acknowledged the 
 republic ; the king of Naples declared war against it ; 
 the pope excommunicated it. The Corsioans placed their 
 island under British protection (1794); bat the same 
 year a young Corsican oflicer, in the French Artillery, 
 was examining the fortifications of Genoa, and two years 
 later the same officer led a French army to the subju- 
 gation of Italy. 
 
 The Eeign of Terror, and the worship of Eeason, 
 came to an end in 1794. Eobespierre, who acted as 
 high priest to the God of Nature, with seventy of his 
 adherents, were sent to the guillotine, and the tri- 
 coloured flag supplanted the blood-stained banner of 
 Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. The first effect of this 
 halt in the rush of democracy was peace, the next 
 the renewal of war on a more gigantic scale, under the 
 direction of Napoleon Bonaparte. His rigorous sup- 
 pression of the Paris mob (5th October, 1795) changed 
 the destinies not of France only, but of Europe, The 
 Eevolution, which began with the rights of man, passed 
 under the control of a professor of war ; a man who 
 regarded neither law, liberty, nor life itself, in the 
 acquisition of power ; who, more than any other, 
 bartered nations like cattle, and bestowed crowns as 
 mere pieces of patronage ; with whom religion was 
 always a jest or a matter of politics ; whose remorse- 
 less despotism abrogated even the . most sacred ties 
 of humanity ; who divorced his innocent wife at the 
 call of a,mbition, and made his brothers repudiate the 
 mothers of their children. The philosophy which had 
 
438 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACT. 
 
 exchanged the Gospel for the worship of Eeason, and 
 enthroned the God of Nature in a reign of terror, 
 culminated in, perhaps, the greatest incarnation of self 
 which the world has ever seen. 
 
 A single campaign was enough to make Bonaparte, 
 then only in his 29th year,' master of Italy. Sardinia, 
 Parma, Naples, were successively reduced. Milan 
 was wrested from the Austrians, and the Legations from 
 the pope.^ Modena, Eeggio, Bologna, and Ferrara 
 were formed into the Oispadane Republic under the 
 protection of France. The next year witnessed the fall 
 of Yerona, Genoa, Leghorn, and Yenice. The Austrians, 
 who alone had continued the war, were everywhere 
 defeated, and the peace of Campo Formio, signed 
 17th Octoher, 1797, attested their humiliation. By this 
 treaty the merchant princes of Venice, after a career of 
 more than ten centuries, suffered the fate they once 
 helped to inflict on the eastern empire. Their do- 
 minions were partitioned between the French and the 
 Austrians : the sincerity of French republicanism was 
 shown by delivering up the seat of the only republic 
 that held place among European sovereigns to an abso- 
 lute monarchy ; its enlightenment, by consigning the 
 proudest home of Italian civilisation to a German 
 autocrat. 
 
 The French portion of the spoil, united with the 
 Cispadane Republic, Milan, Mantua, Massa, Carrara, 
 Eavenna, Farenza, and Eimini, constituted the Cisalpiae 
 Eepublic. Many of these were unquestioned fiefs of the 
 Holy See ; but far from asking the pope's consent to 
 
 > He was bom February 5, 1768, but he citose to say August, 1769, 
 because Corsica had then been incorporated into the French monarchy. — 
 Alison's "■History of Europe,^' cap. xx., note. 
 
 2 The Legations were those acquisitions of the Holy See which the 
 pope governed by Legates, viz., Bologna, Komagna, and Ferrara. 
 
EXTINCTION OF THE PAPACY. 439 
 
 their alienation, Bonaparte exacted of him five millions 
 of livres towards the expenses of the war ; while Pius vi. 
 was pleading the neutrality of his position as the common 
 father of Christendom, the unscrupulous soldier attacked 
 and routed his troops, and forced him to a treaty which 
 closed his ports against the adversaries of France, ceded 
 Avignon and the Yenaisin to the French, abandoned 
 the Legations, and contributed a further subsidy to the 
 conqueror of thirty millions of francs, with a hundred of 
 the finest works of art in Eome.' 
 
 The object of the French directory was the destruc- 
 tion of the pontifical government, as. the irreconcilable 
 enemy of the republic. They urged their general to 
 drive the pope and cardiuals out of Eome. Bonaparte 
 proposed to give the Eternal City to the king of Spain, 
 on condition of his recognising the French republic. 
 Failiiig iu this, he resorted to a system of pillage which 
 exhausted its resources, and finally a democratical 
 demonstration was got up at Eome in the accustomed 
 manner, in which one of the French envoys was kUled 
 by the fire of the pontifical troops. This misfortune 
 afforded the desired pretext. The French army pouring 
 in under Berthier planted the tri-colour on the Capitol, 
 while their Eoman confederates displaying the famous 
 insignia, S. P. Q. E., shouted for Liberty. The aged 
 pope was summoned to surrender the temporal govern- 
 ment ; on his refusal, he was dragged from the altar, 
 and the soldiers plundered the Vatican in presence 
 of its owner. They stripped his own chamber : when 
 he asked to be left to die in peace, he was brutally 
 answered that any place would serve to die in. His 
 rings were torn from his fingers, and finally, after de- 
 claring the temporal power abolished, the victors carried 
 
 ' Treaty of Tolentino, February 19, 1797.— AlisonS " History of 
 Emope^^'' cap. xx. 
 
440 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 the pope prisoner into Tuscany, whence he never re- 
 turned (1798). 
 
 The Papal States, converted into the Roman Republic, 
 were declared to be in perpetual alliance with France, 
 but the French general was the real master at Eome. 
 The citizens groaned under his terrible exactions. 
 Churches, convents, palaces, were stripped to the bare 
 walls. The works of art were nearly all carried off. 
 The territorial possessions of the clergy and monks 
 were declared national property, and their former owners 
 cast into prison. The papacy was extinct : not a vestige 
 of its existence remained; and among aU the Roman 
 ■ Catholic powers not a finger was stirred in its defence. 
 The Eternal City had no longer prince or pontiff; its 
 bishop was a dying captive in foreign lands ; and the 
 decree was already announced that no successor would 
 be allowed in his place, 
 

 
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CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE FEENCH EECONSTEUCTION, 
 
 Revolution in France — Resistance of Protestant Evirope — ^Death of the 
 pope in a French Prison — Accession of Pius vii. — Bonaparte's 
 Conquest of Italy — Concordat with France — Humiliation of the 
 Papacy — Coronation of Napoleon — His Importunities, on the pope — 
 Tergiversation of Prussia — Kingdom of Italy — Dissolution of Holy 
 RomanjEmpire — ^Arrest of the pope — Removal to France — Annexation 
 of the Papal States- — Surrender of Pius — Fall of Napoleon — ^Release 
 of the pope — ^Return to Rome — Cardinal in London — Reorganisation 
 of Italy — -Restitution of Papal States — Popish gratitude to England 
 — Intolerance — Pope Leo xii. — Jubilee — Unchristian Epitaph — 
 Pius VIII. — English Cardinal — Second French Revolution — 
 Gregory xvi. — Repression of Revolution — Pius ix. — Liberal Tenden- 
 cies — Alliance with Sardinia — Riot at Rome — Flight of Pius — -Inter- 
 ference of the French Republic — Papal Aggression — Coalition of 
 France and Sardinia. Expulsion of Austrians from Lombardy — 
 Revolution in Kingdom of Naples — The Legations — ^New Kingdom 
 of Italy. 
 
 The fury with, which, the French Eepublic poured its 
 forces upon Europe carried for the moment everything 
 before it. Few were the Governments strong enough 
 in the confidence of their subjects to despise an armed 
 appeal to disaffection. The Reign of Terror and the 
 Conscription drove the bulk of the French population 
 into the field, and the first successes awoke that iu- 
 toxicating passion for military glory which is never 
 long dormant in this impidsive nation. Army after 
 army was discharged upon the adjoining kingdoms, with 
 the violence of a volcano, and the scathing torrent bore 
 down all resistance. It was not long, however, before 
 the powers of Europe saw the necessity of uniting 
 agaiust the common enemy. Austria, Prussia, and 
 HoUand formed a coalition in 1792, but the two former, 
 gorged with the spoils of unhappy Poland, were in 
 
444 THE FEENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 no condition to champion the rights of nations. Prussia 
 quickly changed sides to partake the spoils of the 
 invader. Of the continental powers Eussia made the 
 strongest stand, but England was the only country that, 
 seeking no unlawful gain in the confusion, opposed the 
 tide of aggression from first to last, and at one time 
 sustained alone the cause of national independence. 
 
 To the champions of justice the Eoman State was an 
 object of equal interest with any other subverted nation- 
 ality. Hence the singular phenomenon, that the only 
 defenders of the papal government were the powers most 
 opposed to popery. It was no authority of the Eoman 
 See which repelled the waves of democracy and irre- 
 ligion; nor was it a Eoman Catholic hand that replaced 
 the fallen chair of St. Peter. The pontifical throne 
 owed its re-establishment to Eussia, whose emperor is 
 the pope of a rival communion, and to England, so long 
 the object of papal anathemas, whose constitution 
 demands the exclusion of popery from the throne. 
 
 The French, after a furious struggle with Naples and 
 Sardinia, had possessed themselves of the entire penin- 
 sula, when the army of Suwarrow entered Italy in April 
 1799. Bonaparte was then absent on his Egyptian 
 expedition, and a succession of defeats reversed the 
 French successes with marvellous rapidity. Lombardy 
 and Sardinia were recovered by the allied Austrians 
 and Eussians. The English fleet liberated Naples, and 
 Commodore Troubridge, anchoring at the mouth of 
 the Tiber, received the surrender of Eome on the 
 29th September, 1799. The Neapolitan forces took 
 possession of the Castle of St. Angelo the next month. 
 
 The pope was still languishing in captivity, and his 
 gaolers, alarmed at the prospect of losing their prisoner, 
 hurried him away to France, where death released him 
 from his suffering the following March. The cardinals 
 
ELECTION OP PIUS VII, 445 
 
 took advantage of the mftmentary abasement of the 
 French to proceed to the election of a successor : but 
 not at Eome, nor with wonted pontifical pomp, was the 
 new pope enthroned. The Eternal City groaned under 
 the military exactions of the Neapolitans. The Papal 
 States were traversed by opposing armies. It was at 
 Venice that the conclave, with maimed and mutilated 
 rites, proclaimed the cardinal Gregory Barnabas Chiara- 
 monte, by the title of Pius vii. 
 
 Proceeding soon after to Eome, Pius commenced 
 the arduous task of restoring the finances and trade 
 of his exhausted dominions : but peace was yet distant 
 from Italy.^ Bonaparte having escaped from Egypt, 
 and been invested with the authority of First Consul, 
 crossed the Great St. Bernard with an army of 
 36,000 men and forty guns, and descended like 
 another Hannibal on the plains of Italy, resolved to 
 recover the tarnished honours of Prance. The Eussians 
 were now on his side, and the Austrians proved incapable 
 of resisting him. The victory of Marengo (14th June, 
 1800) changed again the fate of Italy : the Cisalpine 
 republic was restored ; Genoa became the Ligurian 
 republic ; Tuscany was converted into the kingdom of 
 Etruria, and Piedmont annexed to France.^ 
 
 The pope again trembled for Eome, but the First 
 
 ' Cardinal Wisemau claims for Pius vii. at this early period the honour 
 of estabUsldiig the currency and free trade on the enlightened basis of 
 modern policy. — Recollections of the Last Four Popes. 
 
 2 The emperor was compelled to recognise these arrangemwats by the 
 treaty of Lanneville (9th February, 1801), -which confirmed the humiliating 
 conditions of Campo Formic, and ceded the left bank of the Ehine to 
 France. Bonaparte gays the Etrurian crown to Louis, prince of Parma, in 
 exchange for that duchy. Bonaparte insisted on Francis signing this 
 treaty, as emperor of Germany, on behalf of the empire, and not only of 
 Austria. The act was obviously in excess of his power, and the diet 
 made some difficulty in confirming it. The princes saw that the empire 
 was no longer able to protect itself, and the Confederation of the Rhine, 
 formed under Napoleon, effected the dissolution of the German empire. 
 
446 THE FRENCH EECONSTEUCTION. 
 
 Consul had acquired new views witli his new title and 
 authority. Meditating further assaults on the French 
 democracy, he saw the advantage of connecting them 
 with national traditions, by restoring the Established 
 Church, From the field of Marengo he sent proposals 
 to Pius VII., which resulted in a concordat. The pope 
 conceded the alienation of the church lands, amounting 
 to £16,000,000 in value, and the new organisation of 
 the clergy as stipendiaries of the State. The First 
 Consul on his part restored the right of canonical 
 institution, and even abandoned the State veto on the 
 appointments. On these conditions the Church of Eome 
 became agaiu the Established Church in France ; but 
 Napoleon had no idea of restoring the papacy of old 
 times. The primacy of Eome was not only limited to 
 purely spiritual questions, but the GaUican declaration 
 of 1682 was insisted on as a fundamental principle of 
 the constitution. The church was subjected to State 
 control. No monastic vows were tolerated ; marriage 
 was made a civil rite ; Protestant churches were legal- 
 ised ; and all was carried out in an anti-Eoman Spirit. 
 
 The papal authority was assailed with still greater 
 rudeness by Bonaparte's proceedings in. Germany. The 
 ecclesiastical electorates of the Holy Eoman Empire 
 were occupied with as little scruple as any other princi- 
 palities. He gave away bishoprics, as temporal lordships, 
 to protestant and papist indifferently. Some Eoman 
 Catholic States became Protestant. The canon law was 
 everywhere contemptuously swept away. Nearer home 
 the ruthless and ambitious destroyer declared himself 
 president of the Italian republic which replaced the 
 Cisalpine ; and the concordat effected in this capacity 
 with Pius deprived the pope of all temporal patronage; 
 Pius declined to publish its provisions, for fear of losing 
 his last hold on the respect of his subjects. 
 
CORONATION OF NAPOLEON, 447 
 
 In this humiliated condition the pope was summoned 
 to Paris to assist in the coronation of the modern Charle^ 
 magne. His function was limited to the benediction : 
 Napoleon would allow no hand but his own to place the 
 imperial crown on his head, and that of his consort 
 Josephine. As the price of his condescension, Pius ven- 
 tured to solicit the abrogation of the declaration of 1682, 
 and the restoration of the Legations to the Holy See. 
 Napoleon refused both, but advised him to quit Bome 
 and trust to the eldest son of the church ; giving him the 
 choice of residing either at Paris, or at Avignon, now 
 incorporated with the French empire. The offer sounded 
 so like a command, that Pius told him that, before be- 
 coming his guest, a resignation of the papacy had been 
 duly deposited at Palermo, in order that a successor 
 might be chosen, in the event of his sharing the fate of 
 his predecessor. 
 
 The intrepid pontiff was allowed to withdraw from 
 these too pressing hospitalities, but could not escape, 
 in his own capital, the importunities of the French 
 emperor, who regarded Rome and the church itself as 
 subject to his dominion. "Tou are sovereign of Rome," 
 he wrote to Pius, " but I am its emperor : all Italy 
 must be subject to my law : your holiness must pay 
 me the same respect in temporal matters that I pay you 
 in spiritual matters." To the viceroy of Italy he wrote 
 that "the rights of the tiara consist in humiliation and 
 prayer : I hold my crown from God and my people. 
 The court of Rome will always find me a Charlemagne, 
 never a Louis le D^bonnaire. Jesus Christ has not 
 instituted a pilgrimage to Rome as Mohammed did to 
 Mecca." "With these views he imperiously demanded 
 the expulsion of the English, Russian, Sardinian, and 
 Swedish envoys from the Court of Rome : "my enemies 
 Jnust be yours," was his arrogant decree. 
 
448 THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 These pretensions became the more embarrassing, as 
 all Europe seemed to be yielding before the new power. 
 Napoleon practised on a gigantic scale the art of buying 
 support with other people's property. The breach be- 
 tween Austria and Kussia in 1799, was occasioned by 
 his offering Malta to Paul, and partly by a fear on the 
 part of the Austrians that Russian zeal might insist on 
 restoring Yenice with the rest of Italy to the legitimate 
 owners. The first power to take up arms against the 
 French repubHe was Prussia ; it was also the first to 
 secede from the coalition and make peace, after seizing 
 Poland on pretence of suppressing Jacobinism. In 1796, 
 Prussia, becoming the secret ally of France, in order 
 to obtain Munster, thwarted all the measures taken 
 against her in the empire. In December 1800, Prussia 
 rejoined the coalition, but the following year was 
 bribed back again to France by the offer of Hanover, 
 Hildesheim, and Goslar. The Prussian monarch entered 
 Hanover in the guise of an aUy of George iii. ; then 
 seizing the government, he closed the Elbe and the 
 Weser against the vessels of the lawful ruler. The 
 king of Prussia was the first, again, to pay homage to 
 the emperor Napoleon, and wear the grand cross of the 
 new Legion of Honour. The crown of Hanover rewarded 
 his servility, but when Napoleon offered George iii. his 
 own dominions again, as one of the conditions of peace 
 with England, Prussia complained of the "robbery," 
 and talked loudly of the sin of foreign aggression ! The 
 French eagle, however, tolerated no rebellion among the 
 kites. Napoleon turned upon his vassal, scattered his 
 forces at Jena, and, occupying Berlin as a conqueror, 
 dictated from that capital the celebrated " continental 
 system," by which England was to be isolated from 
 Europe on pain of the modern Charlemagne's imperial 
 displeasure. 
 
EXTINCTION OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. 449 
 
 In 1805, Napoleon, having erected northern Italy 
 into a kingdom, assumed the iron crown at Milan :^ the 
 Ligurian republic he annexed to France, and gave the 
 duchies of Lucca and Guastalla to two of his sisters. 
 The same year he entered Vienna, and extinguished the 
 German empire on the field of Austerlitz. The emperor 
 Francis ceded his Yenetian territories to the new king- 
 dom of Italy, and a large part of Austria to Eapoleon's 
 German allies. In exchange for two thousand square 
 miles of territory and two and a-half millions of subjects, 
 he received the dominions of the suppressed archi- 
 episcopal electorate of Saltzburg, and the grand master- 
 ship of the Teutonic Order which was taken from Prus- 
 sia. Afber thi^ treaty the German empire was a farce. 
 The Confederation of the Ehine placed its leading 
 princes under the protection of Napoleon, and Francis, 
 finding himself deserted, issued a manifesto renouncing 
 the Teutonic sceptre, and limiting himself to the title of 
 emperor of Austria (August 1806). 
 
 Thus expired the last relic of the Holy Eoman 
 empire. The crown which Leo placed on the head of 
 Charlemagne, a thousand years before, was abandoned 
 before the resistless swoop of the French eagles. Napo- 
 leon asserted the ancient title of emperor of the 
 Franks, and nowhere was he more determined to main- 
 tain its authority than in Eome. 
 
 Pius rejected his pretensions with the gentle but 
 invincible firmness which constituted the strength of 
 his character. To punish his refusal to declare war 
 against England, the French troops again entered Eome 
 (2nd February 1808), exiled the cardinals,' and kept 
 the pope a prisoner in his palace on Monte Cavallo, 
 
 ' Again the self-confident monarch placed the crown upon his own 
 head, and Josephine's, refusing to receive it at the band of the arch- 
 bishop. 
 
 .2 G 
 
450 THE FEENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 His secretary of state, cardinal Pacca, only escaped arrest 
 by becoming tbe pontijff's companion ia Ms private 
 apartments. For a whole year they endured their 
 confinement without yielding. In May 1809, Napoleon 
 annexed the Papal States to the French empire, of 
 which Kome was declared to be the second city. 
 When informed of the decree, the pope excommunicated 
 the emperor by a btdl, written with his own hand, which 
 was affixed at St. Peter's, and other churches, by agents 
 who escaped detection. This daring act provoked the 
 resentment and alarm of the French troops. They broke 
 into the palace by night, arrested the pope and the 
 cardinal, and conveyed them out of Eome with so much 
 haste that their two purses contained but a single 
 papetto (lOd). 
 
 At Florence the cardinal was separated from the 
 pope, and sent to a prison in Savoy, where he lay a 
 close prisoner for nearly four years. Pius was hurried 
 across the Alps to Grenoble, whence by Napoleon's 
 order he was transferred to Savona. Affecting to 
 disclaim the violence of his officers, the emperor took 
 care to sanction what had been done : he revoked the 
 gift of Charlemagne, and confirmed the annexation of the 
 Papal States. He subsequently acknowledged that his 
 object was to have the pope in France, and, by making 
 him his own instrument, rule the Latin Church, as the 
 Czar ruled the Eussian. The pope, however, remained 
 impracticable, and was detained a close prisoner till 
 the allied armies crossed the Ehine in the spring of 1814. 
 
 Meantime, the Eoman states enjoyed the unques- 
 tionable advantages of French administration. The 
 improvements at Eome were marvellous : monuments 
 disin.terred from the accumulations of centuries,^ the 
 
 » The columns of Jupiter Tonans and Jupiter Stator, the interior of 
 the ColiBeum, the Forum, with the Via Sacra, Trajan's pillar, the temple 
 
ABDICATION OF XHE TEMPOfiAL POWER. 451 
 
 rapid suppression of brigandage, and surveys for the 
 long neglected drainage of the Pontine marshes, attested 
 the superiority of secular to priestly goTernment. 
 If Napoleon had been the lawful king, and could have 
 been content to rule at amity with other nations, Eome 
 and the Italians might lament the day when the modern 
 Charlemagne was discrowned. The emperor, however, 
 could tolerate no power but his own. The pope, presuming 
 to exercise his spiritual functions to the displeasure of 
 his gaoler, was treated with great severity at Savona. 
 His counsellors were taken from him and confined in 
 different dungeons. The emperor had the meanness to 
 reduce the table allowance of the pope and his household 
 to five paoli (2s. 6d.) a day : the supreme pontiff was 
 even seen mending his own clothes. 
 
 On Napoleon's departure for Moscow, Pius was 
 removed to Fontainebleau, and treated with greater 
 liberality, but still carefully secluded from all advisers 
 Kkely to counsel resistance to the imperial will. He 
 agreed to abdicate the temporal authority, and the 
 emperor was sanguine of inducing him to accept the 
 archbishopric of Paris in commendam with the See of 
 Eome, translating the seat of power to the French me- 
 tropolis. He promised to invest this new Holy See 
 with greater authority than had ever been known 
 at Eome. AU nations should obey it : aU the world 
 should tremble at its thunder. It was for this that he 
 filled Paris with the art-treasures of other capitals, and 
 lamented that he could not transport St. Peter's itself. 
 
 On his return from Moscow, Napoleon's first act was 
 to visit the pope, when, exercising his well-known powers 
 of dissimulation, he cajoled the old man into a con- 
 cordat, which tacitly abandoned the temporal power, 
 
 of Vesta, and the baths of Titiis, owe their discovery or restoration to this 
 period. , . -.. i - 
 
 2 G 2 
 
452 THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 and placed the spiritual functions of the papacy in 
 accord with the French empire. Pius was at once set 
 at liberty and loaded with favours. The cardinals were 
 allowed to rejoin him from their several exiles ; but 
 when Pacca arrived, the pope told him with tears that 
 he had been overreached and deluded. The secretary 
 agreed that the concordat was dishonourable, and, in a 
 letter to the emperor, Pius retracted his consent, and 
 publicly owned his repentance. 
 
 By this time Napoleon was in no condition to resort 
 to violence. The retreat from Moscow had sealed his 
 doom. Pius, taking heart, declared he would listen to 
 no further proposals, save in Eome. He was suffered 
 to depart from Fontainebleau (22nd January 1813), and 
 a decree of the 10th February 1814, restored Eome and 
 the district of Thrasymene to his sovereignty. Still he 
 was detained, on various pretexts, in the south of Prance, 
 tUl Napoleon's power was no more. The pope was still in 
 Provence when Paris capitulated to the allied sovereigns, 
 30th March 1814. Orders were instantly issued to con- 
 duct him with all the honours of his rank to the Italian 
 frontier, and he entered Eome on the 24th May. 
 
 Pius's first object was to recover the entire sovereignty 
 of the ecclesiastical states ; and again it was on protes- 
 tant England that he relied for support. During the 
 visit of the allied sovereigns to London in June 1814, 
 cardinal Consalvi presented himself with a letter from 
 the pope, and was admitted to an audience of the prince 
 Eegent. For the first time for above two centuries, a 
 cardinal legate was seen in his ecclesiastical habit in the 
 streets of London. The prince Eegent further violated 
 the restraints of the constitution by writing to the pope 
 in reply : the cost of conveying to Eome the works of 
 art, restored to their owners from the spoils accumulated 
 in Paris, was paid by the English sovereign. 
 
RESTORATION OF THE PAPACY. 453 
 
 In the reorganisatian of Italy, Austria gave vip 
 Parma as an appanage for the empress Maria Louisa 
 and the infant king of Eome ; ' while the late master of 
 Europe retired to the dimiautive " empire " of the 
 island of Elba. This restless spirit could not long 
 be caged in that obscure retreat. Eelanding in France, 
 Napoleon made that desperate attempt to recover his 
 former throne, which ended in dethronement and exile. 
 Murat, who', on the last occasion, had saved his crown at 
 Naples by abandoning his benefactor now threw away both 
 throne and life in his cause. The Bourbons returned to 
 Naples and to Paris ; and Italy, so long tossed on the 
 waves of Prench aggression, was invited to repose under 
 the restoration effected at the Congress af Vienna.. 
 
 The arrangements thus briefly noted had in view the 
 restoration of the balance of power, as it stood before the 
 eruption of Prench republicanism. Eeligious differences 
 were merged in political concord, and the papacy, re- 
 garded as a temporal power, owed its restitution almost 
 entirely to protestant and antipapal arms. Of the great 
 powers who dictated the peace of Europe, Austria alone 
 shared the religious communion of Eome, but if Aus^tria 
 had prevailed, the pope would hardly have recovered his 
 dominions unciirtailed. The British plenipotentiaries 
 were instructed to support restitution pure and simple, 
 and, Prussia adopting the same view, Pius recovered the 
 sovereignty of the three Legations, the Marches of 
 Ancona, and the duchies of Benevento and Ponte Corvo. 
 It was not unnatural to suppose that such liberality on 
 
 » Napoleon bestowed this title on Ms son, born the 20th March 1811. 
 The emperor's divorce from Josephine, and his marriage with the Austrian 
 archduchess Maria Louisa, took place the previous year : both were in 
 open breach of the laws of God and man, and only legalised by his 
 arbitrary wUl. The pride of Austria was, indeed, humiliated when the 
 emperor's dd,tighter was delivered over as second wife, in the lifetime of 
 the lawful partner, to a Corsican soldier. 
 
454 THE FRENCH EECONSTRTJCTION. 
 
 tte part of the antipapal powers, coupled with, the mani- 
 fest change in the situation of the world, would have im- 
 pressed even the Eoman See with a spirit of moderation 
 and gratitude. British statesmen openly indulged the 
 belief that nothing was again to be apprehended from the 
 intolerance of the papacy. Shocked at the enormous 
 crimes which had flowed from infidelity, they were 
 anxious to encourage any form of Christianity. A strong 
 desire was manifested to obliterate distinctions of creed, 
 and restore equality and political rights to papists and 
 protestants alike. 
 
 Such sentiments may be simulated, but are never 
 truly reciprocated, at Eome. Pius vii. acknowledged 
 his obligations to England with every appearance of 
 sincerity ; but the way in which he thought fit to 
 manifest his gratitude, was by labouring for our return 
 to the papal yoke. He revived the English coUege 
 at Eome for the conversion of his benefactors. He 
 encouraged the brdlding of a Eoman Catholic chapel, 
 caUing -itself a pro-cathedral, in London. On presenting 
 it with a magnificent chalice, he said that "nothing was 
 too good for the English catholics." This was his 
 reading of his obligations to England. In the same 
 spirit he hastened to revive the order of Jesuits at 
 Eome (7th August 1814), an example immediately 
 followed in Spain. The inquisition was next restored. 
 In Sardinia, Tuscany, andNaples, the priests resumedtheir 
 intolerance, and the cry of popular discontent rose loud in 
 Italy, before the thunders of Waterloo had ceased to re- 
 verberate. In France, the government of Louis xviii. 
 sacrificed the last vestige of GaUican independence, to 
 place the Church in a dependence on Eome never tole- 
 rated in any former age. 
 
 In 1817 the pope fulminated a condemnation of Bible 
 societies, and the censure was renewed by his successor 
 
JUBILEE AT EOME. 455 
 
 Leo XII. : the Word of God was again subjected to 
 persecution from the inquisition. Pius vii. closed his 
 long and troubled pontificate on the 16th August 1823, 
 enjoying, according to his admiring biographer, the 
 steady and unvarying love and veneration of his subjects. 
 A cardinal may be pardoned for believing that " there is 
 no instance in history where the judgment of posterity 
 is less likely to reverse the verdict of contemporaries.'" 
 His successor, notwithstanding the formidable ap- 
 pellations of Hannibal (della Genga) and Leo'' was a 
 quiet, respectable prelate, chiefly renowned for cele- 
 brating the jubilee, which the troubles of his prede- 
 cessor had prevented from inaugurating the century. 
 The Eoman Catholic powers, afraid of political disturb- 
 ances, threw cold water on the project ; but, unmoved 
 by aU remonstrances, the pope knocked with his silver 
 hammer on the long closed " Holy Gate " of St. Peter's 
 on Christmas Eve 1824, and, to the joy of an eye wit- 
 ness, admitted in his train the first of that sad succession 
 of apostates from the ministry of the English Church, 
 whose perversion is the disgrace of our times.^ "The 
 Holy See did all it could to make Eome spiritually at- 
 tractive."* Indidgences were copiously imparted, and 
 " multitudes went back full of gratitude to heaven and the 
 Holy See for the blessings they had received, and the edi- 
 fying scenes in which they had been allowed to partake."^ 
 
 » Wiseman, p. 205. 
 
 ' It is not generally known that in the signature to the originals of 
 bulls the pope retains his original Christian name, thus : Leo xu. would 
 continue to sign himself " Hannibal." — Card. Wiseman, p. 223, note. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 271. ♦ Ibid., p. 272. 
 
 5 Among these edifying scenes, the cardinal describes with great 
 unction tie pope's washing the feet of the pilgrims in the Holy Week. 
 He probably does not mean the blasphemy contained in his words when he 
 writes of the pilgrim so honoured that, "he would find himself waited on at 
 table by that Master who, coming suddeiily in the night upon his servants, 
 and finding them watching, knows how to gird himself, and passing along, 
 ministers to them," p. 281. After this, it is amusing to find the cardinal 
 
456 THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman, whose expressions these are, asserts 
 that, in a financial point of view, Eome was no gainer 
 by the ceremonial ; a striking evidence of the advance 
 of intelligence in Europe, where "pUgrims" are no 
 longer disposed to throw away their money on Friar 
 Tetzel's ware. Leo died in 1829, after approving an 
 epitaph much admired by his friends, but which, ex- 
 pressing no hope in Christ or in God, commends 
 his soul " to Leo the Great, his patron in heaven .'"^ 
 
 Cardinal Castiglioni, who succeeded as Pius viii., 
 and held the See but twenty months, probably owed his 
 elevation to the age and infirmities, which promised the 
 conclave an early repetition of its function. His brief 
 pontificate was signalised by the creation of an English 
 cardinal, in prompt acknowledgment of the Emancipation 
 Act of 1829." Death took him away from the troubles 
 that burst upon Rome, and upon Europe, from the second 
 French Eevolution of 1830. 
 
 His successor, Gregory xvi. (cardinal Cappellani), 
 received, on the very day of his coronation, the first 
 rumours of the infection having reached his own 
 dominions. In two days more, Bologna was in insurrec- 
 tion : in less than a week shots were fired in Eome, and 
 the carnival was suspended. Provisional governments 
 were formed in the provincial cities, and a revolutionary 
 army marched upon Rome, demanding a republic. 
 Gregory did not shrink from staining his white robe 
 
 msinuating that the poor peasantry were really noblemen in disguise : nay, 
 " it was whispered that one couple, a German and his wife, were of even 
 higher blood I " 
 
 ' The following is a translation : "To Leo the Great, my patron in 
 heaven, suppliantly commending myself, here amid his sacred ashes have 
 I selected my sepulchre ; Leo xii., a humble client, of the inheritors of so 
 great a- name the least." Cardinal Wiseman produces this unchristian 
 epitaph as an elegant specimen of the "lapidary style," so rduch valued 
 at Rome ! 
 
 2 Bishop Weld was named to the cardinalate 25th May 1830. 
 
SEVERITIES OP THE POPE. 457 
 
 in the blood of his subjects / he called the Austrians 
 to his aid, and crushed the insurrection. He had no 
 objection to revolution, when it separated Roman 
 Catholic Belgium from the Protestant kingdom of the 
 Netherlands, but he regarded with different feelings 
 the progress of "young Italy" in the opposite direction. 
 A second insurrection at Bologna in 1843, and another 
 at Rimini in 1845, were quelled with equal severity. 
 In spite of Gregory's love of literature and art, 
 and the liberality with which he acknowledged 
 revolutionary governments in all other states, he 
 was so resolute in suppressing the first symptoms of 
 discontent in his own, that when the tiara descended to 
 the present pope in 1846, his first act was to issue an 
 amnesty to no less than three thousand subjects of the 
 papacy, who were languishing in prison and exile, for 
 the crime of not sufficiently valuing the government of 
 St. Peter's successor. 
 
 Pius IX., of the noble house of Ferretti, came to 
 the pontifical throne (1846) with the loudest professions 
 of liberality. He followed up the amnesty by the 
 appointment of a National Guard, and the expulsion 
 of the Austrian troops from the territories of the 
 Church. Eushing to the van of the revolutionary 
 movement, that was now agitating Italy from the 
 Alps to the sea, the pope declared war against 
 Austria, the hereditary champion of the papacy, in 
 concert with the king of Sardinia, who was more than 
 suspected of an eye to its possessions. The red white 
 and green flag, for embroidering which the young 
 countess Eosa Testi was condemned to three years' 
 
 ' He -was a monk of the Camaldoleae order, a branch of the Benedic- 
 tines, whose habit is white : and as monks assume no colour but their 
 own in any dignity, Cappellani wore the same as monk, cardiaal, and pope. 
 — "Wiseman, p. 420, note. 
 
458 THE PEENCH EECONSTETJCTION. 
 
 imprisonment at Florence in 1831, went forth at the head 
 of the Sardinian army, with the sanction of the Holy 
 See, to be the banner of a united Italy in 1848. This 
 incongruous alKance was of brief duration. Lombardy 
 had been annexed, and Naples was in a state of siege, 
 when an insurrection at Eome at once alienated the pope, 
 and gave occasion to foreign intervention. The Erench 
 envoy, count Eossi, was assassinated, and the populace, 
 besieging the papal palace, demanded extensive reforms. 
 Pius, deserted by his National guard, yielded for the 
 moment, but fled a few days after in disguise. Forth- 
 with a republic was proclaimed, which at once abolished 
 the temporal power (9th February 1849). Again the 
 pontifical government was extinct, this time by the 
 act of its nearest children, the people of Rome. Again 
 it was destined to be reconstructed, and the restoration 
 was undertaken by the very power which, forty years 
 before, had been the first to assaU it. 
 
 Pius having reached Civitk Yecchia in safety, pro- 
 tested against all that had been done in Eome, and 
 appealed to the powers of his communion for aid to 
 subdue his subjects. A National Assembly was again 
 sitting in Paris, and, singularly enough, it was a 
 French republic that sprang forward to answer the papal 
 appeal, and compel the Eoman people to receive again 
 the ruler whom they had expelled. 
 
 An expedition marched from Civitk Vecchia to 
 Rome, which, assaulting the city, suffered a repulse 
 from its defenders. This rebuff, by compromisiag the 
 French "honour," rendered retreat impossible. By 
 siege and storm Rome was reduced to capitulate 
 (30th June 1849), and marshal Oudinot sent the keys 
 to the pope at Gaeta. The pontiff resumed his authority 
 under the protection of a French army, and has ever 
 since held his power solely by their support. 
 
SECOND FALL AND RESTORATION. 459 
 
 The Liberal moTement was at once repressed through- 
 out Italy. Pius, going over to the other side in a panic, 
 renewed his relations with Naples. The Austrians 
 recovering Lombardy and Venice, restored also the 
 grand duke of Tuscany, to continue his persecution of 
 the Bible and its disseminators. Charles Albert paid 
 the penalty of his zeal by abdicating the throne of Sar- 
 dinia, and Italy relapsed into her chronic condition of 
 tyranny, brigandage, and conspiracy. 
 
 In these proceedings the Protestant powers took no 
 part beyond the expression of public opinion on the side 
 of liberty. The freedom with which this opinion is 
 always uttered in England, speedily cancels all recollec- 
 tion of favours extended . to the government, or the 
 religion, of Rome. The confidence reposed by the British 
 Parliament in the progress of toleration, had been 
 shown by its passing the Emancipation Act, without 
 insisting on securities admitted by Roman Catholics 
 themselves to be reasonable. Yet Pius ix. was no 
 sooner restored to Rome than, from a spiritual tribunal 
 surrounded by French bayonets, he issued a decree 
 (prepared by Gregory) for the reconstitution of the papal 
 hierarchy ia England, with territorial designations, in open 
 contempt of the prerogative of the British crown. An 
 aggression, which woiild certainly not have been tolerated 
 or attempted in any Roman Catholic state, could not 
 faU to provoke resentment, yet it has been permitted 
 to take its course in England. The multiplication of 
 churches, monasteries, titles, orders, and ceremonies 
 familiarise the public mind with papal institutions, 
 and they are watched with profound dissatisfaction by 
 all reflecting disciples of the Protestant Reformation. 
 
 The last few years have witnessed another revolution 
 in the Holy See, which, though as yet incomplete, 
 presages a third extinction of at least the temporal 
 
460 THE FEElfCH EECONSTRTJCTION. 
 
 power. In the long struggle against French propa- 
 gandism, England alone was consistent, because England 
 only desired the triumph of civil and religious liberty. 
 Neither Austria, Prussia, nor Eussia was free from the 
 worst crimes of Napoleon i. They could never resist 
 the temptation of plunder. The Grand Alliance for the 
 independence of Europe was constantly interrupted by 
 private attempts at appropriation, and the partitions of 
 Poland and Yenice will ever prove the insincerity of 
 the despots concerned in it. "When England at the 
 congress of Yienna talked of restoring these nationalities, 
 she was answered that a million of bayonets were ready 
 to perpetuate their oppression. 
 
 For the same reason England again stood alone in 
 refusing to join the " Holy Alliance," framed by her 
 allies in the hour of Napoleon's downfall. The despots 
 thought only of the selfish interests of thrones and 
 dynasties ; they imagined these to be the chief care of 
 Christianity itself. Great Britain, who thought of the 
 people also, stood forth at the next disturbance of peace 
 in conjunction with France, represented by another 
 Napoleon, against the propagandism of Russia. Sardinia 
 seized the opportunity to recall her name to the disciples 
 of liberty. Austria was reluctantly and dubiously drawn 
 in : Prussia, seeing nothing to be gaiaed on either side, 
 was neutral. It was little expected that the cannon fired 
 at Sebastopol would shake the chair of St. Peter; but 
 the papacy is always consistent in repressing movement : 
 whatever is not stagnation may prove destruction. 
 
 The appearance of Sardinia in arms by the side of 
 England and France, awoke the spirit of liberty in 
 Italy. At the treaty of peace, signed at Paris 27th 
 April, 1856, the British and French plenipotentiaries 
 declared against the continued occupation of the States 
 of the Church, and the duchies, by foreign troops. They 
 
WAR IN THE CRIMEA AND IN ITALY. 461 
 
 added that the misgovemment of the king of Naples 
 was dangerous to the peace of Europe. On these points 
 Austria refused to concur, and Russia was silent. An 
 Anglo-French remonstrance to the Neapolitan court was 
 followed by the recall of both ambassadors. These 
 warnings were replied to by extending the powers of the 
 inquisition to an espionage on domestic life. Sardinia 
 beginning to arm was peremptorily summoned by 
 Austria to desist ; and ten days after France declared war 
 against Austria (3rd May 1859). 
 
 To the surprise of Europe, the German art of war 
 proved wholly unequal to the contest which it had 
 challenged. At Montebello, Palestro, Magenta, Malignano, 
 and Solferino, the Austrians were defeated with a loss 
 of 40,000 killed and wounded. The surprise was stUl 
 greater when from the field of Solferino Napoleon rode 
 to meet the emperor of Austria at Yillafranca, and 
 concluded an armistice without consulting his ally. 
 "France," he afterwards announced, " had gone to war for 
 an idea," but the idea clearly did not include a great and 
 united Italy, independent of France, perhaps outstripping 
 her in the march of freedom. The treaty of Zurich 
 (10th November 1859) added Lombardy to Sardinia, 
 but left Yenice to the Austrians, and Eome to the pope, 
 sustained by a French garrison. 
 
 In the South of Italy events proceeded faster than 
 was anticipated. Ferdinand of Naples dying on the 
 2§lnd May 1859, the chronic misrule inherited and 
 persevered in by his son, Francis ii., provoked a 
 general insurrection the following year. Garibaldi 
 leaving Genoa with 2000 men, landed at Marsala, 
 captured Palermo, and was master of the island 
 in a single engagement. Returning to the continent, 
 the victor entered Naples, while Francis fled to Gaeta. 
 The movement extended to the States of the Church, in 
 
462 THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 which general Lamoriciere commanded the papal troops. 
 The Sardinian general opposed him without hesitation, 
 Cialdiai took Pesaro, Faro, and TJrbino. Perugia and 
 Foligno surrendered to Delia Rooca. Spoleto was carried 
 by storm. At Castel Fidardo, Lamoriciere was routed, 
 and fled to Aneona, the siege and capture of which 
 completed this brilliant campaign (29th September 1860). 
 Two days after Garibaldi defeated the Neapolitan army 
 at Yoltumo, and accompanyuig Victor Emmanuel into 
 Naples, resigned his conquests to his sovereign as king 
 of Italy. The title was formally promulgated by the 
 Turin senate on the 26th February 1861, and the 
 Bourbon struggle was at an end. 
 
 The unity of Italy was celebrated by a national 
 festival at Florence, 2nd June; but two things were 
 stUl wanting to the hopes inspired by Napoleon when he 
 summoned the ItaKans to the conflict. Italy was to be 
 liberated from the Alps to the sea : but Venice was yet 
 in the hands of the Austrians, and Rome bristled with 
 French bayonets. Victor Emmanuel attempted in vain to 
 complete the splendid vision which had so captivated 
 the national enthusiasm. His imperial ally now frowned 
 on his ambition, and sternly repressed his intrigues. 
 Austria (he began to see) needed support against Prussia, 
 now openly aspiring to the lead in Germany, and Rome 
 was indispensable to his own policy at home. Moreover, 
 France always Ukes to protect its neighbours better 
 than to see them strong enough to protect themselves. 
 Napoleon bade Italy rest and be thankful ; while, in 
 payment for the assistance already rendered, he exacted 
 a cession of Savoy and Nice from the reluctant king, 
 and called upon the French to rejoice in the restoration 
 of their natural boundaries on the side of the Alps. 
 
 In Germany, however, things had gone too far to 
 recede. Prussia declared war against Austria, and, by 
 
KINGDOM OF ITALY. 463 
 
 a series of rapid blows, crowned by a decisive victory 
 at Sadowa, reduced her to a capitulation which, united 
 Germany under the lead of her opponent, and put out of 
 the question all further iaterference in Italy. 
 
 The Italians, at the first outburst of hostilities, 
 eagerly offered their alliance to Prussia, ia the expecta- 
 tion of wrestuig Venice from the common enemy. But 
 Austria was unable to fight out the game ; after inflict- 
 ing a severe defeat on the Italian forces by land and by 
 sea, she resigned Venice to the French emperor, by 
 whom it was handed over to Italy. The gift was 
 received with little gratitude by a people who saw the 
 enemy's honour saved at the expense of their own. The 
 nominal evacuation of Eome by the French troops was 
 still more distasteful ; since their place was supplied by 
 foreign soldiers commanded by French officers, and 
 avowedly under the French protection. The delusion 
 was exposed to all the world, when on Garibaldi ad- 
 vancing against Rome, with the countenance and secret 
 support of the Italian Government, Napoleon despatched 
 an expedition to its defence, and once more rescued the 
 papacy from the hands of a baffled and indignant 
 nationality. 
 
 This anomalous condition of affairs still continues. 
 Italy never ceases to demand Eome for its capital, 
 nor the Eomans themselves to demand a share in 
 there own government. Against these legitimate 
 requirements, aU that is pretended are the wishes of 
 Eoman Catholics in other countries, who being them- 
 selves exempt from the yoke, insist on the temporal 
 government of the pope as necessary to the free exercise 
 of his spiritual authority. In vain the Eomans ask 
 why they alone of aU mankind are to be condemned to 
 perpetual bondage. In vain is it shown from history, 
 that in the days when the Eoman See acquired and best 
 
464 THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 exercised its spiritual authority, the bishops had no 
 temporal rule whatever; that the Church was never 
 worse cared for than when the popes were most absolute, 
 and that every council, and every kingdom, has un- 
 ceasingly sought the common welfare in abridging their 
 pretensions. The French emperor, for his own purposes, 
 still upholds the tottering chair, which his uncle twice 
 overthrew, and the Protestant monarchies rehabilitated 
 on the ruin of his dynasty. The triple crown is held 
 again, as in the days of Charlemagne, at the sole 
 pleasure of the French monarch. But the Holy Eoman 
 empire is no more : the kings of Europe no longer fly to 
 the Holy Father's support. Austria, excluded from 
 Italy and humiliated in Germany, has torn up the 
 concordat withEome, and now opposes her mitred crown 
 against the tiara, in almost Protestant independence. 
 Italy, united and ambitious, will quit the religious com- 
 munion, rather than recede from the political possession, 
 of Eome : even Spain, so long the most docile and devoted 
 of subjects, as these pages are passing from the 
 press, has expelled the Most Catholic sovereign in a 
 revolution of three days' duration, and, proclaiming 
 freedom of religion, welcomes the Bible to her noble 
 but benighted population. 
 
 The Eoman Catholic world is falling away on 
 every side from the false centre, to the preservation 
 of which the rights of humanity have so long been 
 sacrificed. If the French emperor will still defend 
 it, he must defend it alone. Among his own subjects 
 the zeal for the papacy is confined to the peasantry 
 of the rural districts, and out of France the only 
 European population that exhibits any attachment to it 
 are the priest-led people of Ireland. In this country, it 
 is true, the singular liberality of the law allows a scope 
 for papal machinations which every Eoman Catholic 
 
PRESENT PROSPECTS. 465 
 
 govemment deems inconsistent with, its own safety. If 
 the Protestant heart of England were less resolute than 
 it is, the Romish hierarchy, aided by Eomanisers among 
 ourselves, might with some reason indulge the hope 
 (recently avowed by its chief at Westminster) of recom- 
 mencing the conquest of the world by the conversion of 
 England. 
 
 This dream of perverts and enthusiasts will soon 
 be dispelled. History is not about to recoil upon her 
 path. The religious supremacy of the pope will pro- 
 bably last as long as there are men who' crave "the 
 consolations " of religion, apart from its spiritual experi- 
 ence ; who trust the priest before the Eedeemer ; and 
 would take Eevelation at second hand, rather than listen 
 to its majestic voice ia the written Word of God. But 
 the temporal government of Eome can endure no longer 
 than it pleases the French emperor to oppose the legions 
 and the aspirations of Italy. Its fall can hardly be far 
 distant, and there will be no one to buUd it again. 
 Not in that political change, however, are we to 
 expect the fulfilment of the " last woe." Further and 
 more extensive revolutions must probably be carried 
 out, before the great millstone wiU be cast into the sea, 
 and the mighty angel shall proclaim, "Babylon is 
 thrown down and shall be found no more at all." 
 Nevertheless, that day also will surely come, and in the 
 anticipation of it, all faithful voices are even now repeat- 
 ing the Eedeemer's cry, " Come out of her, my people, 
 that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive 
 not of her plagues." 
 
 EEBATXTM. 
 Page 261. For Tcrtiarics read Itrtimics. 
 
IN"DEX. 
 
 The names in small catitals refer to emperors : those in italics to iishops of Rome. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 Adalbert (marq.) .. ..145 
 ,, (abp.) .. .. IM 
 
 Adoiplius 45 
 
 Adrian I. 128 
 
 „ III. 136 
 
 „ IT. 236 
 
 „ VI. 839 
 
 AetiiiB 47 
 
 Agametua I. 92 
 
 Aiilnlpli 98 
 
 Aldan 200 
 
 Alailo 46 
 
 Atberio 146 
 
 Albigenses . . 22C, 232, 334 
 Alboin 89 
 
 Alcnin 
 Alemands 
 Alexander II. . . 
 III. 
 
 ir. 
 V. .. 
 YI. 
 
 Yin. 
 
 12? 
 
 , 2T7 
 , 313 
 . 416 
 
 Atiiadt 
 
 Amalsont 52 
 
 Ambrose 39 
 
 Angles 97 
 
 Anicetus 72 
 
 Anselm 190 
 
 Apostles, Tombs of . . . . 57 
 
 Aqueducts 404 
 
 AltCADltrB 39 
 
 ArclLbisliops 31 
 
 Arlans 42 
 
 Aries, Council of . . 35, 74, 173 
 Armada, Spanish , . . . 397 
 
 Ain^ 26, 113 
 
 Arnold 222 
 
 Arnttlphub 142 
 
 Astulphus .. ,. ..118 
 Athanasius .. ,. ..74 
 
 Attila 41,47 
 
 Augsburg, Confession of . . 347 
 
 Auerostine, St. .. 40,46 
 
 „ (abp.) .. ..100 
 
 Auguatinians 206 
 
 AU&UBTULTJS 49 
 
 AuousTUB . . 8,11, 12, 123 
 
 Ausgar 153 
 
 Austrians, Retirement of ,. 463 
 
 Autbbert 163 
 
 Avars 89 
 
 Arentine Hill . , . . 4 
 
 Avignon '.. 248,271 
 
 Babylon .. 9,46,63,466 
 
 Babylonish Captivity , . 248 
 
 Bajazet 312 
 
 Bannerets . . . . 260, 275 
 
 BaroniuB 407 
 
 Basle, Council of . . . . 299 
 Beatific vision ,, ..262 
 
 Eeghards 261 
 
 Eeguines 261 
 
 Bebrade 306 
 
 BelTaTmine 406 
 
 BelisariuB 52 
 
 Benedict V 147 
 
 VI 148 
 
 VII 150 
 
 „ IX 167 
 
 XI 246 
 
 PAGH 
 
 BehedioxXII. .. 259,262 
 
 XIII. .. 
 
 , 279 
 
 XTV. .. 
 
 4a« 
 
 Benedictine Order . . 
 
 . 201 
 
 BerengariuB 
 
 168 
 
 Bebeitgeb 
 
 146 
 
 Berlin Decrees 
 
 44tl 
 
 Bertha 
 
 10(1 
 
 Bertram 
 
 157 
 
 Bible 261 
 
 ,»29 
 
 Bishops 28,69 
 
 Bologna 
 
 Bon-ffaceYIII 
 
 2,H« 
 
 240 
 
 ,, IX. 
 
 275 
 
 Bomf aoe of England 
 
 115 
 
 BorgiaB 
 
 . 312 
 
 Bradwardine, St. . . 
 
 . il48 
 
 Brigida 
 
 208 
 
 Britain 30,41,101 
 
 Bruno 140.166 
 
 Bugenhagen 
 
 364 
 
 BuU, Ezicommumcation of 192 
 
 „ Burning of 
 
 . 3.'i7 
 
 Burgundians . . . . 
 
 . 42 
 
 Byzantium . . . . 
 Oadolus 
 
 . 21 
 
 . 168 
 
 CssUanHill 
 
 4 
 
 CiBBAB, Julius 
 
 . 7 
 
 ,, OctavlanuB.. 
 
 . 7 
 
 „ Titleof .. 
 
 , n 
 
 Oaius {preeb.} 
 
 . 65 
 
 Oajetan 
 
 . .H20 
 
 CalixtMsII. 
 
 . 193 
 
 „ III. 
 
 ,S(lli 
 
 CalTOi 
 
 sat 
 
 Oampo Formic 
 
 . 438 
 
 Canon taw .. .. 153,219 
 
 Canons, Begular & Secular 204 
 
 CanonesBes 
 
 . 208 
 
 CanoBSa 
 
 UH 
 
 Canterbury 
 
 . 100 
 
 OapitolineHill 
 
 . 3 
 
 Caraffa .. .. 36 i, 363 
 
 Cardinals .. .. 126,167 
 
 Carmelites 
 
 . 206 
 
 Caroline Booia 
 
 . 127 
 
 Carranga 
 
 . 402 
 
 Carthusians . . 
 
 . 202 
 
 Catharin, Ambrose 
 
 . »72 
 
 Catherine of Sienna 
 
 , SON 
 
 Ceadwalla 
 
 . 116 
 
 Oelestine I. 
 
 . 78 
 
 „ III. .. 
 
 •m 
 
 „ V. .. 
 
 241 
 
 Celibacy . . 137, 171, 376 
 
 Gencio 
 
 . 148 
 
 Cesarini 
 
 . 302 
 
 Ohaloedon, Council of 
 
 78 
 
 Chalons 
 
 48 
 
 Chapters, Three 
 
 . 93 
 
 Chablemagne 126, 129, 134 
 
 Ohajiles, Bald 
 
 135 
 
 „ V. .. 260,266,338 
 
 VI. 
 
 . 426 
 
 Charles in. dSTaplea) 
 
 . 272 
 
 Charles Kartel 
 
 . 123 
 
 Charles of Aojon . . 
 
 . 2.16 
 
 
 i«n 
 
 Childebert 
 
 124 
 
 Chosroos 
 
 . 106 
 
 Church and State . . 
 Church of England . . 
 Circumcelliones 
 Cisterciane 
 City of Sod . . 
 Glement I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. .. 
 
 IT. .. 
 
 Y. 
 
 YI. .. 
 
 YII. (Avign.) 
 
 YII. .. 
 
 YII.. .. .. 
 
 YIII. 
 
 XI. .. 
 
 XIII. 
 „ XIY. .. 
 Clementines . . 
 Olermont^ouncil of 
 Cloisters, tJse of 
 Clotilda 
 Clovia 
 
 PAGE 
 33, 110 
 .. 128 
 
 46 
 
 .. 152 
 .. 186 
 .. 237 
 .. 247 
 242, 260 
 .. 271 
 .. 279 
 .. 341 
 .. 409 
 .. 425 
 
 220, n. 
 .. 211 
 .. 209 
 .. 122 
 52, 122 
 
 146 
 150 
 
 19 
 
 Chilstianity, Establishment 
 of 18 
 
 dnny 150 
 
 CoblwrnThos 255 
 
 Lord .. .. 283 
 
 Code, Justinian .. 86,219 
 Colman .. ..81 
 
 Columban 200 
 
 Columbus 318 
 
 Compluteneian Bible 
 
 OOHBAD I 
 
 „ II 
 
 Conradin 
 
 Conscience 
 
 Conatanoe, Council of 
 
 COHBTAlf S II. .. ..108 
 OOITSTANTINB 1 13 
 
 Donation of .. 33,125 
 
 Oonstantine 115 
 
 Constantinople 21, 804 
 
 Council of 77 
 
 Constitution, Imperial . . 27 
 
 Consul 6,26,123 
 
 Consulara 26 
 
 Contarini .. ,. ..854 
 
 Corvinus 309 
 
 Corsica 240 
 
 Oossa 277 
 
 CounGilBL<Eoumenical 31, 293 
 „ Fifth (Jeneral .. 95 
 „ Sixth General .. US 
 „ InTruUo .. . 116 
 
 Counts 26 
 
 Coverdale 331 
 
 Creed of Pius IV 881 
 
 Crescentius 149 
 
 Crimean "War 461 
 
 Cross, True IW 
 
 Crown, Early 12 
 
 „ Golden .. ..130 
 „ Iron .. .. 89,126 
 
 „ Silver 186 
 
 Cruaades 210 
 
 Cuop, Eucharistio, 288, 302, 
 
 376, 379, 392 
 
 Cyprian 73 
 
 Da^obert 123 
 
 Damaeua I. .. . . . 70 
 
 D'Ailli .. .. ..295 
 
 Decretals .. 163,210 
 
 Defender of the Faith .. 329 
 
INDEX. 
 
 467 
 
 Deaiderlus 120 
 
 DiociiBTiAH 12 
 
 Bin^ma, Gktldeu . . U7 
 
 Di^ensations .. ..254 
 
 Divmity, Facility of .. 220 
 
 Domiiiioaiis 205 
 
 Bonatists 35 
 
 Double Prooession ,. ..138 
 
 Dragon, Bed 132 
 
 Duhes 26 
 
 B^le, Imperial .. ..132 
 Eaeter, Gontroversy on . . 72 
 
 Edwin, King 101 
 
 Elegtion, Papal U7, 152, 165, 
 ,_ 227,237,270 
 
 <lSlIzabeth, Queen .. 366,396 
 Elvira, Oounoil of . . . . 172 
 
 !Emperor 
 
 Empire, Old Boman . . 8 
 „ Christian .. ., 8 
 „ Garlovingian 120, 130 
 England, Papacy in, 112, 
 
 220, 395, 452, 454 
 
 EpheBus, Gomunl of 
 
 Esquiline 1 
 Ethelbert 
 Eucharist 
 Eugenius III, . 
 ■■ IT. . 
 Exarchate 
 Exarchs 
 
 78 
 
 376 
 
 4 
 
 99 
 167 
 
 .. ..181 
 
 Faitb., Bule of .. ..283 
 
 iWx V. 301 
 
 ferrara. Council of . . . . 300 
 
 !Finaa 200 
 
 Morence, Council of . . 301 
 
 Forum 3 
 
 Franciscans . . , . 205, 260 
 
 Franks 42 
 
 Fratcicelli 261 
 
 Fkbdebick H. . . 228, 234 
 
 rtl 304 
 
 Frederick, Elector .. ..345 
 
 Friars 206 
 
 G-ALEKIUS 13 
 
 Crallican Church, 243, 307, 
 
 410, 422, 434 
 
 Ganffanelli 429 
 
 Gelasius I, 80 
 
 „ //. . . 
 G^enserio 
 G^ermaine 
 German Empire 
 Gerson, John . . 
 
 .. 193 
 
 .. 46 
 
 .. 79 
 
 .. 136 
 
 .. 294 
 GhibeUines, 235, 238, 260, 269, 310 
 
 Gladiators 40 
 
 GliTCEBinS 49 
 
 Greeks, Union with, 237, 265, 300 
 
 Gregory I. 96 
 
 .. 115 
 
 //. .. 
 „ III.\.. 
 
 :; h.v. :: 
 
 , vn. 
 
 , JX .. 
 
 , XI. .. 
 
 , XII. 
 
 , XIII. 
 
 „ xr. 
 
 XYI. 
 
 Gfrievances, Hundred . . 340 
 Guelph8,_ 235, 238, 260, 259, 310 
 
 .. 149 
 .. 166 
 .. 169 
 284,262 
 266, 281 
 .. 276 
 .. 394 
 .. 411 
 
 Gunpowder 
 
 Gustavus Adolphns 
 
 Gutenhurg 
 
 Gtjy 
 
 Hadrian, Mole of 
 
 Hagen, Adelsteen 
 
 Hbitky I. 
 
 „ II. . . 
 
 „ III. . . 
 
 „ IV. 
 
 „ V. 
 
 304 
 . 413 
 . 330 
 . 145 
 . 53 
 , 163 
 . 146 
 . J60 
 
 151 
 . 168 
 
 189 
 
 Henry II. of England .. 222 
 
 „ VIII 342 
 
 HbBAOIiIUS 106 
 
 Heresy (capital) ..284 
 
 HotuII 42 
 
 Hierai'ohy, Imperial . . 24 
 „ Eoolesiastioal.. 29 
 
 Hilary 80 
 
 Hilary of Aries ..80 
 
 HUdelranci 163 
 
 Holy See .. ..66 
 
 HoHOKirs . . 38, 40 
 
 Monorius I. .. .. .,107 
 
 „ II. 221 
 
 „ III. 234 
 
 Host, Adoration of . . . . 376 
 
 Huguenots 393 
 
 Huns 46 
 
 Hubs, John 286 
 
 Idolatw.. 377 
 
 Image Worship . . 116, 128 
 Immaculate Conception 362, 373 
 
 Imperator 10 
 
 Ina 116 
 
 Indulgences .. ., 281,833 
 
 InfalBbiUty 377 
 
 Infidelity, Pagan . . . . 19 
 
 IhhooxntII. .. ..221 
 
 „ III. 218, 228, 233 
 
 „ IV 234 
 
 „ V 288 
 
 „ VII 276 
 
 „ Vin 312 
 
 „ X 419 
 
 „ XI 423 
 
 Inquisition, 206, 367, 384, 433, 454 
 Institutes, Justinian's . . 86 
 
 Interdict 231 
 
 Investiture . . 1169, 177, 194 
 
 Ireland 223, 365 
 
 Irenseus.. .. .. ..73 
 
 Iron Crown . . 89, 126, 449 
 Isidorus of Seville .. ..153 
 
 iBtamboal 24 
 
 ItaUan Empire . . 136, 145 
 „ Kingdom, 426, 438, 468, 
 
 .. 462,463 
 Italy, Spoil of .. ..53 
 
 Jansenists 417 
 
 Jerome of Prague . . . . 288 
 Jerusalem . . 47, 105, 233 
 Jesuits, 385, 408, 410, 417, 427, 464 
 Joanna of Naples 249, 264, 271 
 
 Johnir. 108 
 
 VIII. 136 
 
 XI. 146 
 
 XII. 146 
 
 XIII. 164 
 
 XY. 166 
 
 XIX. 130 
 
 XXII. .. .. 251,262 
 XXIIl. 277 
 
 John, King of England . , 229 
 
 Joseph II 430 
 
 Jubilee 241, 264, 275, 303, 309 
 Judgment Day . . . . 159 
 JvliuB I. 74 
 
 „ n. 319 
 
 „ III. 360 
 
 Justification 370 
 
 JOTTiiriAJir I. . . 62, 86 
 
 ,, II 114 
 
 Keys, Power of . , . . 71 
 
 EiUan 200 
 
 Kings, Boman . . . . 5 
 „ Bights of . . . . 390 
 
 Iiabarum 17 
 
 Iiainez 373, 387 
 
 liAMB^BT 146 
 
 Iian^on, Stephen . . . . 230 
 
 Latm Church . . . . 86 
 
 Lateran, St. John't^,, .. 65 
 
 „ Councils .. ..218 
 
 Lausanne 301 
 
 legates .. ..176 
 
 Lao II 116 
 
 hvo I. 30, 79, 80 
 
 „ III. 129 
 
 .. yill- 147 
 
 ,. IX. 106 
 
 „ X 32S 
 
 V VI- „, 456 
 
 LeonmeOlty 141 
 
 LEOEOIiDlI. 481 
 
 IMerius 74 
 
 LlOlBriTTS IS 
 
 Lingerers 42 
 
 lAnus .,69 
 
 Lollajrds 284 
 
 Lombards 42 
 
 London, Counoil of . . . . 191 
 
 LoTHAiBB 1 136 
 
 Louis (Clovis) . . . . 128 
 Loots I. 134 
 
 „ V. 259 
 
 Louis IX. (France) . . . , 205 
 
 „ XrV. , 421 
 
 „ XVI 430 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius , , 386, 411 
 lAioms IJ\ 221 
 
 ,, III. 227 
 
 Luther, Martin . . . . .327 
 Lyons, Oounoil of . . . . 237 
 Magna Oharta . . . . 238 
 
 Man, Isle of 234 
 
 Manfred 236 
 
 Marcella 207 
 
 MabceliiusII 365 
 
 Marengo .. ,. ,,446 
 
 Mariana 407 
 
 Marinier 372 
 
 Marozia 146 
 
 Marriage . . 87, 172, 376 
 
 Mabtin 1 108 
 
 „ IV. 239 
 
 „ V. 280 
 
 Mary, Queen 353 
 
 Masses for the Dead, 281, 
 
 . . 335, 377 
 Matilda, Countess . . 167, 238 
 
 Maxiullian 321 
 
 Mazarin Bible . . . . 330 
 
 Medici de' 310 
 
 Melohiades 35 
 
 Mendicant Orders . . 208, 261 
 Meutz, Synod of . . . . 116 
 Merovingians .. ..122 
 Metropolitans . . . . 28 
 Micislaus 154 
 
 MXOHAEL PAJj^OliOG-TTB .. 237 
 
 Milan . . . . ' . . . . 12 
 Milvian Bridge, Battle of. . 13 
 Mirror, Golden . . . . 295 
 Missions, Jesuit .. ..389 
 
 Mole, Jean 256 
 
 Monasticiam . . . . 176, 196 
 Monks, Eastern . . . , 197 
 
 ,, Western .. ,. 200 
 
 MoHna 389 
 
 Mortmain, Statute of . . 253 
 
 Munzer 345 
 
 Nantes, Edict of .. ..395 
 
 Naples 90,240 
 
 Portitionof 317 
 
 Napoleon Buonaparte, 437, 447 
 Neapolitan Succession, 307, 315 
 Nephews, Pope's, . . 319, 416 
 Nicfca, Council of .. ..74 
 
 „ Seoond ditto .. 127 
 Nioene Creed . . . . 138 
 Nicholas II. 16T 
 
 „ V. (Antipope) . . 269 
 
 Nioomedia 12 
 
 Normandy 163 
 
 Normans 178 
 
 Novels, Justinian's,. .. 86 
 Numa, Pompilius . . . 5 
 
 Nuns 1 207 
 
 Obelisks 406 
 
 Octavian, Pope 146 
 
468 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 FAGB 
 .. i» 
 .. 115 
 .. 154 
 
 Odoaoer 
 
 OfPa 
 
 Olaus 
 
 Orders, Beligioua . . 
 
 ,j Military 
 Ordination oi Charles T. 
 
 Origen 
 
 Ostrogoths . . 
 
 Oswy 
 
 Otho I. 
 
 „ II 
 
 ,, III ilO 
 
 Palatine TTill 8 
 
 Paleario 356 
 
 PaU, The 103 
 
 Palladius 79 
 
 Pandects, Justinian's 86, 219 
 
 Papaoy 143 
 
 Papal States Annexed to 
 
 Borne 450 
 
 Papal Aggression , . , . 460 
 Partition of the Empire . . 38 
 
 Faachalll. 188 
 
 PaschasiusBadbert., .. 157 
 
 Paphnnsius 172 
 
 Patriarchs 29 
 
 Patrioian 25 
 
 Patronage, Church 
 Paul, Saint 
 Bmd II. 
 , „ III. 
 
 „ IV. 
 
 „ F. 
 PaulinuB 
 Peasants, War of 
 Pedro of Arragon 
 
 Pepin 123 
 
 Pebtinax 11 
 
 Pestilence . . , . 96, 264 
 
 Peter St., Episcopacy of . . 62 
 
 „ Martyrdom of 57, 61 
 
 „ Patrimony of 125, 228 
 
 171 
 
 357 
 365 
 410 
 101 
 345 
 
 Successors of 
 ,, Tears of 
 „ liombard 
 
 Peter, Martyr 
 
 Peterpence 
 
 Petrarch 
 
 Philip I. of France 
 
 Phocas . . 
 
 Pisa, Council of 
 
 Pistoia, Synod of 
 
 Mus II. 
 
 SI 
 
 253 
 
 .. 180 
 .. 104 
 276, 297, 323 
 .. 431 
 .. 307 
 363, 401 
 .. 408 
 
 IT. 
 
 ., F. 
 
 „ VI. 
 
 „ VII. 445 
 
 „ VIII. 456 
 
 „ IX. 
 Poissy, OoUoauy of 
 Poitiers, Battle of . . . . 123 
 Pole, Cardinal . . 361, 372 
 
 Polycarp 72 
 
 Polycratea ,, ..72 
 
 Pontif ex, Maxlmus . . 10, 19 
 Pope, Title of . . 29, 104 
 
 PortBoyal 419 
 
 Pragmatic Sanction 307, 824 
 Prfietoria, Imperial . . . . 26 
 Prffltorian Prefect .. ..25 
 Prelacy, Growth of . . . . 81 
 
 Premunire 254 
 
 Presidents 25 
 
 Primaoy, Boman . . 67, 163 
 Printing, Invention of .. 330 
 
 Proconsuls 25 
 
 Prooida, John of , , . , 239 
 
 Propaganda 412 
 
 Protest at Spires ..346 
 
 FAas 
 Provinces, Eastern . . .'.26 
 „ Western ' .. 27. 
 Provisions, Papal . . . . 251 
 Provisora, Statute of >. . 253 
 Prussia .. .. 383,424,448 
 Purgatory .. .. 156,377 
 Quinisext Council . . 115, 173 
 
 Quirinal Hill 3 
 
 Babanus Marus . . . . 157 
 Batisbon, League of' , . 344 
 „ Truce of . . 351 
 
 Bavenna . . . . 40, 85 
 Beformation, Protestant, 
 
 353, 382 
 Eegalia, St. Peter's . . 182 
 
 Belies 182 
 
 Bepublic, Boman . . . . 440 
 Beservations, Papal . , 251 
 Bestorations at Borne . . 405 
 Bevenues, Papal , . . . 252 
 Bevolution; French . . 434 
 
 ,-, Boman 457, 458 
 
 Bloimer 48 
 
 Bienzi .. 264 
 
 Bobert Q-uisoard . . . . 179 
 Bock of the Church . . 70 
 
 BoDOIiFH 185 
 
 Boger ai Sicily . . 179, 221 
 
 BoUo 153 
 
 Bomagua 236 
 
 Borne, Origin of . . . . 2 
 „ Sack of 44, 47, 141, 187, 
 
 290, 343 
 „ Church of .. ..67 
 „ Duoiiyof .. 90,118 
 Bomulus . . .3 
 
 Boumania . . . . 1 
 
 Ettpeet .. ..275 
 
 Sacraments, Seven . . 372 
 
 Badotra .. .. 4S3 
 
 Saint Bartholomew, Mas- 
 sacre of .. ..394 
 St. Cyran . . . .'. 418 
 St. John, Knight of , 204, 258, 306 
 St. Peteifla Church .. ..324 
 Saints, Intercession of . . 261 
 SaladlnX. .. ..212 
 Salisbury, Bobert of .. 295 
 Saracens . . . . 123, 141 
 Sardica, Council of . , 77 
 Sardinia . . . . 240, 425 
 
 Savoy 425 
 
 Saxons 50 
 
 Saxony, Conversion of . . 133 
 Schism of East and,West 137 
 ,, Tridentiae .369, 378 
 
 Scotland, Church of 228, 242 
 Scotus, John .. ,.158 
 
 Scripture, Holy, 157, 282, 329, 369 
 Seat of Gkjvernment, Be- 
 
 movaJ 21 
 
 Sepulchre, Holy .. ..106 
 
 SergiuB I. .... 114 
 
 „ III. .. ..146 
 
 Senpand 372 
 
 Seven-Hilled City .. .. 4 
 
 Sforza 315 
 
 Sicilian Vespers .. ..239 
 
 Sicily 179,425 
 
 SIOISMITOT) ... . . 277, 286 
 Simon Magils .. .,60 
 
 Simony ,. .. 169,254 
 
 Sixtmiy. 310 
 
 „ F. .. .. 403,409 
 
 Smaloald, liOague of . . 344 
 Spanish SuooesBlon ; ..424 
 
 Spirituals 261 
 
 Spires, Diet of .. ..344 
 State Ohnioh .. ..32 
 
 FAQS 
 
 I. 73 
 
 „ III. .. . . 124 
 
 Style, New 403 
 
 , Siiburbioarian Provinoes . . 27 
 Successions, Contemporary 
 xi., 38, 84, 120, 140, 162, 246, 
 
 268, 292, 326, 362, 309, 442 
 
 Supremacy- 164 
 
 Suwarow - 444 
 
 Swein 154 
 
 SyUa 7 
 
 BylveHue 52, 92 
 
 Synods, Legatine . , . , 176 
 ,, Primitive ,. ,.29 
 
 Syncius 173 
 
 Temple, Order of . . 204, 256 
 
 Tertiaries 261 
 
 Tetzel 334 
 
 Teutonic Order .. ..204 
 
 Thbodoba 92 
 
 Theodora 145 
 
 Theodore 108 
 
 Theodore of Canterbury . . Ill 
 
 Theodorio 51 
 
 THEonosins 38 
 
 Theolinda 89 
 
 TogrulBey 305 
 
 Tonsure Ill 
 
 ToMla .. 54 
 
 Tradition .. .. 373,419 
 
 Traditors 34 
 
 Trent, Council of . . . . 359 
 Transubstantiation 233, 281 
 Trullo, Oounoil in . . . , 115 
 Trumpet, Sixth . . . . 305 
 
 Turks 305,843 
 
 Tuscany 425 
 
 -Tyndal ,. .. .. 331 
 
 TTlphilas 42 
 
 Unction, Extreme ,. .. 375 
 Universal Bishop , , . . 104 
 Urbojnll. .. .. 188,211 
 
 „ V. 265 
 
 ,, VI. 271 
 
 Urbmo .. .. .. ..322 
 
 Utrecht, Peace of . . . . 425 
 
 Valdez, Juan . . . . 355 
 
 TALBNTIiriAlff II 76 
 
 III. 47, 80 
 
 Valentino 317 
 
 Vallambrosa, Monks of . . 202 
 
 Vandals 41 
 
 Vatican Hill .. ., 65,141 
 
 Venice 90,438 
 
 Veronica 264 
 
 Verulam, CouncU of 79, 128 
 Vicars, Diocesan . . . . 26 
 Vietor I. .. . . 72 
 
 „ 11. 166 
 
 „ ///, 188 
 
 Vienne, Council of . , , . 255 
 
 VigiHus 92 
 
 ViminalHill 4 
 
 Visigoths , . . . .42 
 
 Vttat.tatt 112 
 
 Vulgate, Boman . . . , 370 
 Waldenses .. ,. ., 226 
 Westphalia, Peace of . . 413 
 
 Wielif 281 
 
 Wiehord Ill 
 
 Wifired 81,112 
 
 WiUiamEufuB ,. ..190 
 
 „ Iron Arm ., ,.179 
 
 „ deNogaret ,, 245 
 
 Wiseman, 'Cardinal ,, 466 
 
 Worms, Diet of . . , . 338 
 
 Xavier 411 
 
 York 101 
 
 Ij01?S0]S'; FRllTTED BY HANKBN AHn 00,, DBUBY HOtTjIE, ST, MAaY-l,E-SIllANl>.