History of the Intellectual Development of Europe Volume I Part 32

If thus Europe, by its conversion, received from Rome an immense benefit, it repaid the obligation at length by infusing into Latin Christianity what was sadly needed--a higher moral tone. Earnestness is the attribute of savage life. That divorce between morality and faith which the southern nations had experienced was not possible among these converts. If, by communicating many of their barbarous and pagan conceptions to the Latin faith, they gave it a tendency to develop itself in an idolatrous form, their influence was not one of unmitigated evil, for while they lowered the standard of public belief, they elevated that of private life. In truth, the contamination they imparted is often over-rated. The infusion of paganism into religion was far more due to the people of the cla.s.sical countries. The inhabitants of Italy and Greece were never really alienated from the idolatries of the old times. At the best, they were only Christianized on the surface. With many other mythological practices, they forced image-wors.h.i.+p on the clergy. But Charlemagne, who, in this respect, may be looked upon as a true representative of Frankish and German sentiment, totally disapproved of that idolatry.

[Sidenote: The conspiracy of the papacy and the Franks.]

2nd. From this consideration of the psychical revolution that had occurred in Central Europe, I turn to an investigation of the position of the papacy and its compact with the Franks.

[Sidenote: Position of the Franks and Saracens.]

[Sidenote: Relations of Charles Martel to the Church.]

Scarcely had the Arabs consolidated their conquest of Africa when they pa.s.sed into Spain, and quickly, as will be related in a subsequent chapter, subjugating that country, prepared to overwhelm Europe. It was their ambition and their threat to preach the unity of G.o.d in Rome. They reached the centre of France, but were beaten in the great battle of Tours by Charles Martel, the Duke of the Franks, A.D. 732. That battle fixed the religious destiny of Europe. The Saracens did not, however, give up their attempt. Three years afterward they returned into Provence, and Charles was himself repulsed. But by this time their power had expanded too extensively for consolidation. It was already giving unmistakable tokens of decomposition. Scarcely, indeed, had Musa, the conqueror of Spain, succeeded in his expedition, when he was arrested at the head of his army, and ordered to give an account of his doings at Damascus. It was the occurrence of such disputes among the Saracens in Spain that const.i.tuted the true check to their conquest of France.

Charles Martel had permitted Chilperic II. and Thierry IV. to retain the t.i.tle of king; but his foresight of approaching events seems to be indicated by the circ.u.mstance that after the death of the latter he abstained from appointing any successor. He died A.D. 741, leaving a memory detested by the Church of his own country on account of his having been obliged to appropriate from its property sufficient for the payment of his army. He had taken a t.i.the from the revenues of the churches and convents for that purpose. The ignorant clergy, alive only to their present temporal interests, and not appreciating the great salvation he had wrought out for them, could never forgive him. Their inconceivable greed could not bear to be taxed even in its own defence.

"It is because Prince Charles," says the Council of Kiersi to one of his descendants, "was the first of all the kings and princes of the Franks who separated and dismembered the goods of the Church; it is for that sole cause that he is eternally d.a.m.ned. We know, indeed, that St.

Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans, being in prayer, was carried up into the world of spirits, and that among the things which the Lord showed to him, he beheld Charles tormented in the lowest depths of h.e.l.l. The angel who conducted him, being interrogated on this matter, answered him that, in the judgment to come, the soul and body of him who has taken, or who has divided the goods of the Church, shall be delivered over, even before the end of the world, to eternal torments by the sentence of the saints, who shall sit together with the Lord to judge him. This act of sacrilege shall add to his own sins the acc.u.mulated sins of all those who thought that they had purchased their redemption by giving for the love of G.o.d their goods to holy places, to the lights of divine wors.h.i.+p, and to the alms of the servants of Christ." This amusing but instructive quotation strikingly shows how quickly the semi barbarian Frankish clergy had caught the methods of Rome in the defence of temporal possessions.

[Sidenote: The epoch of Pepin.]

[Sidenote: His conspiracy with the pope.]

[Sidenote: Its results.]

Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, introduces us to an epoch and a policy resembling in many respects that of Constantine the Great; for he saw that by an alliance with the Church it would be possible for him to displace his sovereign and attain to kingly power. A thorough understanding was entered upon between Pepin and the pope. Each had his needs. One wanted the crown of France, the other liberation from Constantinople and the Lombards. Pepin commenced by enriching the clergy with immense gifts, and a.s.signing to the bishops seats in the a.s.sembly of the nation. In thus consolidating ecclesiastical power he occasioned a great social revolution, as was manifested by the introduction of the Latin and the disuse of the Frankic on those occasions, and by the trans.m.u.ting of military reviews into theological a.s.semblies. Meantime Pope Zachary, on his part, made ready to accomplish his engagement, the chaplain of Pepin being the intermedium of negotiation. On the demand being formally made, the pope decided that "he should be king who really possessed the royal power." Hereupon, in March, A.D. 752, Pepin caused himself to be raised by his soldiers on a buckler and proclaimed King of the Franks. To give solemnity to the event, he was anointed by the bishops with oil. The deposed king, Childeric III., was shut up in the convent of St. Omer. Next year Pope Stephen III., driven to extremity, applied to Pepin for a.s.sistance against the Lombards. It was during these transactions that he fell upon the device of enforcing his demand by a letter which he feigned had been written by St. Peter to the Franks. And now, visiting France, the pope, as an earnest of his friends.h.i.+p, and as the token of his completion of the contract, in the monastery of St. Denis, placed, with his own hands, the diadem on Pepin's brow, and anointed him, his wife, and children, with "the holy oil," thereby reviving the Jewish system of creating kings by anointment, and imparting to his confederate "a divine right." Pepin now finally defeated the Lombards, and a.s.signed a part of the conquered territory to the pope. Thus, by a successful soldier, two important events had been accomplished--a revolution in France, attended by a change of dynasty, and a revolution in Christendom--the Bishop of Rome had become a temporal sovereign. To the hilt of the sword of France the keys of St. Peter were henceforth so firmly bound that, though there have been great kings, and conquerors, and statesmen who have wielded that sword, not one to this day has been able, though many have desired, to wrench the enc.u.mbrance away.

[Sidenote: The reign of Charlemagne.]

Charlemagne, on succeeding his father Pepin, thoroughly developed his policy. At the urgent entreaty of Pope Stephen III. he entered Italy, subjugated the Lombards, and united the crown of Lombardy to that of France. Upon the pagan Saxons burning the church of Deventer, he commenced a war with them which lasted thirty-three years, and ended in their compulsory Christianization. As the circle of his power extended, he everywhere founded churches and established bishoprics, enriching them with territorial possessions. To the petty sovereigns, as they successively succ.u.mbed, he permitted the t.i.tle of counts. True to his own and his father's understanding with the pope, he invariably insisted on baptism as the sign of submission, punis.h.i.+ng with appalling barbarity any resistance, as on the occasion of the revolt, A.D. 782, when, in cold blood, he beheaded in one day 4500 persons at Verden. Under such circ.u.mstances, it is not to be wondered at that clerical influence extended so fast; yet, rapid as was its development, the power of Charlemagne was more so.

[Sidenote: He is crowned Emperor of the West,]

In the church of St. Peter at Rome, on Christmas-day, A.D. 800, Pope Leo III., after the celebration of the holy mysteries, suddenly placed on the head of Charlemagne a diadem, amid the acclamations of the people, "Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by G.o.d, the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans." His head and body were anointed with the holy oil, and, as was done in the case of the Caesars, the pontiff himself saluted or adored him. In the coronation oath Charlemagne promised to maintain the privileges of the Church.

[Sidenote: and carries out his compact with the papacy.]

The n.o.ble t.i.tle of "Emperor of the West" was not inappropriate, for Charlemagne ruled in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary. An inferior dignity would not have been equal to his deserts. His princely munificence to St. Peter was worthy of the great occasion, and even in his minor acts he exhibited a just appreciation of his obligations to the apostle. He proceeded to make in his dominions such changes in the Church organization as the Italian policy required, subst.i.tuting, for instance, the Gregorian for the Ambrosian chant, and, wherever his priests resisted, he took from them by force their antiphonaries. As an example to insubordinates he, at the request of the pope, burnt some of the singers along with their books.

[Sidenote: He declines image-wors.h.i.+p,]

[Sidenote: but permits relic-wors.h.i.+p.]

[Sidenote: His policy as respects slavery.]

The rapid growth of the power of Charlemagne, his overshadowing pre-eminence, and the subordinate position of the pope, who had really become his Italian lieutenant, are strikingly manifested by the event of image-wors.h.i.+p in the West. On this, as we shall in another chapter see, the popes had revolted from their iconoclastic sovereigns of Constantinople. The second Council of Nicea had authorized image-wors.h.i.+p, but the good sense of Charlemagne was superior to such idolatry. He openly expressed his disapproval, and even dictated a work against it--the Carolinian books. The pope was therefore placed in a singular dilemma, for not only had image-wors.h.i.+p been restored at Constantinople, and the original cause of the dispute removed, but the new protector, Charlemagne, had himself embraced iconoclasm. However, it was not without reason that the pope at this time avoided the discussion, for a profitable sale of bones and relics, said to be those of saints but in reality obtained from the catacombs of Rome, had arisen. To the barbarian people of the north these gloomy objects proved more acceptable than images of wood, and the traffic, though contemptible, was more honourable than the slave-trade in va.s.sals and peasant children which had been carried on with Jews and Mohammedans.

Like all the great statesmen of antiquity, who were unable to comprehend the possibility of a highly civilized society without the existence of slavery, Charlemagne accepted that unfortunate condition as a political necessity, and attempted to draw from it as much benefit as it was capable of yielding to the state. From certain cla.s.ses of slaves he appointed, by a system of apprentices.h.i.+p, those who should be devoted to the mechanical arts and to trade. It was, however, slavery and warfare which, during his own life, by making the possession of property among small proprietors an absolute disadvantage, prepared the way for that rapid dissolution of his empire so quickly occurring after his death.

[Sidenote: The European slave-trade.]

Yet, though Charlemagne thus accepted the existence of slavery as a necessary political evil, the evidences are not wanting that he was desirous to check its abuses wherever he could. When the Italian dukes accused Pope Adrian of selling his va.s.sals as slaves to the Saracens, Charlemagne made inquiry into the matter, and, finding that transactions of the kind had occurred in the port of Civita Vecchia, though he did not choose to have so infamous a scandal made public, he ever afterwards withdrew his countenance from that pope. At that time a very extensive child slave-trade was carried on with the Saracens through the medium of the Jews, ecclesiastics as well as barons selling the children of their serfs.

[Sidenote: Improvements of the physical state of the people.]

[Sidenote: State of the clergy.]

Though he never succeeded in learning how to write, no one appreciated better than Charlemagne the value of knowledge. He laboured a.s.siduously for the elevation and enlightenment of his people. He collected together learned men; ordered his clergy to turn their attention to letters; established schools of religious music; built n.o.ble palaces, churches, bridges; transferred, for the adornment of his capital, Aix-la-Chapelle, statues from Italy; organized the professions and trades of his cities, and gave to his towns a police. Well might he be solicitous that his clergy should not only become more devout, but more learned. Very few of them knew how to read, scarcely any to write. Of the first half of the eighth century, a period of great interest, since it includes the invasion of France by the Saracens, and their expulsion, there is nothing more than the most meagre annals; the clergy understood much better the use of the sword than that of the pen. The schools of Charlemagne proved a failure, not through any fault of his, but because the age had no demand for learning, and the Roman pontiffs and their clergy, as far as they troubled themselves with any opinion about the matter, thought that knowledge was of more harm than good.

[Sidenote: Private life of Charlemagne.]

[Sidenote: His relations with the Saracens.]

The private life of Charlemagne was stained with great immoralities and crimes. He indulged in a polygamy scarcely inferior to that of the khalifs, solacing himself with not less than nine wives and many concubines. He sought to increase the circle of the former, or perhaps it should be said, considering the greatness of his statesmans.h.i.+p, to unite the Eastern and Western empires together by a marriage with the Empress Irene. This was that Irene who put out the eyes of her own son in the porphyry chamber at Constantinople. His fame extended into Asia.

The Khalif Haroun al Raschid, A.D. 801, sent him from Bagdad the keys of our Saviour's sepulchre as a mark of esteem from the Commander of the Faithful to the greatest of Christian kings. However, there was doubtless as much policy as esteem in this, for the Asiatic khalifs perceived the advantage of a good understanding with the power that could control the emirs of Spain. Always bearing in mind his engagement with the papacy, that Roman Christianity should be enforced upon Europe wherever his influence could reach, he remorselessly carried into execution the penalty of death that he had awarded to the crimes of, 1, refusing baptism; 2, false pretence of baptism; 3, relapse to idolatry; 4, the murder of a priest or bishop; 5, human sacrifice; 6, eating meat in Lent. To the pagan German his sword was a grim, but a convincing missionary. To the last he observed a savage fidelity to his bond. He died A.D. 814.

[Sidenote: Course of events after the death of Charlemagne.]

[Sidenote: Social condition of Europe.]

Such was the compact that had been established between the Church and the State. As might be expected, the succeeding transactions exhibit an alternate preponderance of one and of the other, and the degradation of both in the end. Scarcely was Charlemagne dead ere the imbecile character of his son and successor, Louis the Pious, gave the Church her opportunity. By the expulsion of his father's numerous concubines and mistresses, the scandals of the palace were revealed. I have not the opportunity to relate in detail how this monarch disgracefully humiliated himself before the Church; how, under his weak government, the slave-trade greatly increased; how every sh.o.r.e, and, indeed, every country that could be reached through a navigable river, was open to the ravages of pirates, the Northmen extending their maraudings even to the capture of great cities; how, in strong contrast with the social decomposition into which Europe was falling, Spain, under her Mohammedan rulers, was becoming rich, populous, and great; how, on the east, the Huns and Avars, ceasing their ravages, accepted Christianity, and, under their diversity of interests the nations that had been bound together by Charlemagne separated into two divisions--French and German--and civil wars between them ensued; how, through the folly of the clergy, who vainly looked for protection from relics instead of the sword, the Saracens ranged uncontrolled all over the south, and came within an hair's-breadth of capturing Rome itself; how France, at this time, had literally become a theocracy, the clergy absorbing everything that was worth having; how the pope, trembling at home, nevertheless maintained an external power by interfering with domestic life, as in the quarrel with King Lothaire II. and his wife; how Italy, France, and Germany became, as Africa and Syria had once been, full of miracles; how, through these means the Church getting the advantage, John VIII. thought it expedient to a.s.sert his right of disposing of the imperial crown in the case of Charles the Bald (the imperial supremacy that Charlemagne had obtained in reality implied the eventual supremacy of the pope); how an opportunity which occurred for reconstructing the empire of the West under Charles the Fat was thwarted by the imbecility of that sovereign, an imbecility so great that his n.o.bles were obliged to depose him; how, thereupon, a number of new kingdoms arose, and Europe fell, by an inevitable necessity, into a political chaos; how, since there was thus no protecting government, each great landowner had to protect himself, and the rightfulness of private war became recognised; how, through this evil state, the strange consequence ensued of a great increase in the population, it becoming the interest of every lord to raise as many peasants as he could, offering his lands on personal service, the value of an estate being determined by the number of retainers it could furnish, and hence arose the feudal system; how the monarchical principle, once again getting the superiority, a.s.serted its power in Germany in Henry the Fowler and his descendants, the three Othos; how, by these great monarchs, the subjection of Italy was accomplished, and the morality of the German clergy vindicated by their attempts at the reformation of the papacy, which fell to the last degree of degradation, becoming, in the end, an appanage of the Counts of Tusculum, and, shameful to be said, in some instances given by prost.i.tutes to their paramours or illegitimates, in some, to mere boys of precociously dissolute life; before long, A.D. 1045, it was actually to be sold for money. We have now approached the close of a thousand years from the birth of Christ; the evil union of the Church and State, their rivalries, their intrigues, their quarrels, had produced an inevitable result, doing the same in the West that they had done in the East; disorganizing the political system, and ending in a universal social demoralization. The absorption of small properties into large estates steadily increased the number of slaves; where there had once been many free families, there was now found only a rich man. Even of this cla.s.s the number diminished by the same process of absorption, until there were spa.r.s.ely scattered here and there abbots and counts with enormous estates worked by herds of slaves, whose numbers, since sometimes one man possessed more than 20,000 of them, might deceive us, if we did not consider the vast surface over which they were spread. Examined in that way, the West of Europe proves to have been covered with forests, here and there dotted with a convent or a town. From those countries, once full of the splendid evidences of Roman civilization, mankind was fast disappearing. There was no political cause, until at a later time, when the feudal system was developed, for calling men into existence.

Whenever there was a partial peace, there was no occasion for the multiplication of men beyond the intention of extracting from them the largest possible revenue, a condition implying their destruction. Soon even the necessity for legislation ceased; events were left to take their own course. Through the influence of the monks the military spirit declined; a vile fetichism of fact.i.tious relics, which were working miracles in all directions, const.i.tuted the individual piety. Whoever died without bequeathing a part of his property to the Church, died without confession and the sacraments, and forfeited Christian burial.

Trial by battle, and the ordeals of fire and boiling water, determined innocence or guilt in those accused of crimes. Between places at no great distance apart intercommunication ceased, or, at most, was carried on as in the times of the Trojan War, by the pedlar travelling with his packs.

[Sidenote: Expected end of the world, A.D. 1000.]

[Sidenote: Effects of the union of Church and state.]

In these deplorable days there was abundant reason to adopt the popular expectation that the end of all things was at hand, and that the year 1000 would witness the destruction of the world. Society was dissolving, the human race was disappearing, and with difficulty the melancholy ruins of ancient civilization could be traced. Such was the issue of the second attempt at the union of political and ecclesiastical power. In a former chapter we saw what it had been in the East, now we have found what it was in the West. Inaugurated in selfishness, it strengthens itself by violence, is perpetuated by ignorance, and yields as its inevitable result, social ruin.

And while things were thus going to wreck in the state, it was no better in the Church. The ill-omened union between them was bearing its only possible fruit, disgrace to both--a solemn warning to all future ages.

[Sidenote: Value of the new system estimated from the lives of the popes.]

3d. This brings me to the third and remaining topic I proposed to consider in this chapter, to determine the actual religious value of the system in process of being forced upon Europe, using, for the purpose, that which must be admitted as the best test--the private lives of the popes.

[Sidenote: Apology for referring to the biography of the popes.]

To some it might seem, considering the interests of religion alone, desirable to omit all biographical reference to the popes; but this cannot be done with justice to the subject. The essential principle of the papacy, that the Roman pontiff is the vicar of Christ upon earth, necessarily obtrudes his personal relations upon us. How shall we understand his faith unless we see it ill.u.s.trated in his life? Indeed, the unhappy character of those relations was the inciting cause of the movements in Germany, France, and England, ending in the extinction of the papacy as an actual political power, movements to be understood only through a sufficient knowledge of the private lives and opinions of the popes. It is well, as far as possible, to abstain from burdening systems with the imperfections of individuals. In this case they are inseparably interwoven. The signal peculiarity of the papacy is that, though its history may be imposing, its biography is infamous. I shall, however, forbear to speak of it in this latter respect more than the occasion seems necessarily to require; shall pa.s.s in silence some of those cases which would profoundly shock my religious reader, and therefore restrict myself to the ages between the middle of the eighth and the middle of the eleventh centuries, excusing myself to the impartial critic by the apology that these were the ages with which I have been chiefly concerned in this chapter.

[Sidenote: The popes from A.D. 757.]

On the death of Pope Paul I., who had attained the pontificate A.D. 757, the Duke of Nepi compelled some bishops to consecrate Constantine, one of his brothers, as pope; but more legitimate electors subsequently, A.D. 768, choosing Stephen IV., the usurper and his adherents were severely punished; the eyes of Constantine were put out; the tongue of the Bishop Theodorus was amputated, and he was left in a dungeon to expire in the agonies of thirst. The nephews of Pope Adrian seized his successor, Pope Leo III., A.D. 795, in the street, and, forcing him into a neighbouring church, attempted to put out his eyes and cut out his tongue; at a later period, this pontiff trying to suppress a conspiracy to depose him, Rome became the scene of rebellion, murder, and conflagration. His successor, Stephen V., A.D. 816, was ignominiously driven from the city; his successor, Paschal I., was accused of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace; it was necessary that imperial commissioners should investigate the matter, but the pope died, after having exculpated himself by oath before thirty bishops. John VIII., A.D. 872, unable to resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute; the Bishop of Naples, maintaining a secret alliance with them, received his share of the plunder they collected. Him John excommunicated, nor would he give him absolution unless he would betray the chief Mohammedans and a.s.sa.s.sinate others himself. There was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the pope; some of the treasures of the Church were seized; and the gate of St.

Pancrazia was opened with false keys, to admit the Saracens into the city. Formosus, who had been engaged in these transactions, and excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of John, was subsequently elected pope, A.D. 891; he was succeeded by Boniface VI., A.D. 896, who had been deposed from the diaconate, and again from the priesthood, for his immoral and lewd life. By Stephen VII., who followed, the dead body of Formosus was taken from the grave, clothed in the papal habiliments, propped up in a chair, tried before a council, and the preposterous and indecent scene completed by cutting off three of the fingers of the corpse and casting it into the Tiber; but Stephen himself was destined to exemplify how low the papacy had fallen: he was thrown into prison and strangled. In the course of five years, from A.D. 896 to A.D. 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo V., who succeeded in A.D. 904, was in less than two months thrown into prison by Christopher, one of his chaplains, who usurped his place, and who, in his turn, was shortly expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who, by the aid of a military force, seized the pontificate, A.D. 905. This man, according to the testimony of the times, lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated prost.i.tute Theodora, who, with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, also prost.i.tutes, exercised an extraordinary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by John X.: she gave him first the archbishopric of Ravenna, and then translated him to Rome, A.D. 915, as pope. John was not unsuited to the times; he organized a confederacy which perhaps prevented Rome from being captured by the Saracens, and the world was astonished and edified by the appearance of this warlike pontiff at the head of his troops. By the love of Theodora, as was said, he had maintained himself in the papacy for fourteen years; by the intrigues and hatred of her daughter Marozia he was overthrown. She surprised him in the Lateran Palace; killed his brother Peter before his face; threw him into prison, where he soon died, smothered, as was a.s.serted, with a pillow. After a short interval Marozia made her own son pope as John XI., A.D. 931. Many affirmed that Pope Sergius was his father, but she herself inclined to attribute him to her husband Alberic, whose brother Guido she subsequently married. Another of her sons, Alberic, so called from his supposed father, jealous of his brother John, cast him and their mother Marozia into prison. After a time Alberic's son was elected pope, A.D. 956; he a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of John XII., the amorous Marozia thus having given a son and a grandson to the papacy. John was only nineteen years old when he thus became the head of Christendom. His reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German clergy to interfere. A synod was summoned for his trial in the Church of St. Peter, before which it appeared that John had received bribes for the consecration of bishops, that he had ordained one who was but ten years old, and had performed that ceremony over another in a stable; he was charged with incest with one of his father's concubines, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel; he put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic and castrated another, both dying in consequence of their injuries; he was given to drunkenness, gambling, and the invocation of Jupiter and Venus. When cited to appear before the council, he sent word that "he had gone out hunting;" and to the fathers who remonstrated with him, he threateningly remarked "that Judas, as well as the other disciples, received from his master the power of binding and loosing, but that as soon as he proved a traitor to the common cause, the only power he retained was that of binding his own neck." Hereupon he was deposed, and Leo VIII. elected in his stead, A.D. 963; but subsequently getting the upper hand, he seized his antagonists, cut off the hand of one, the nose, finger, tongue of others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced.

[Sidenote: The papacy bought at auction A.D. 1045, by Gregory VI.]

After such details it is almost needless to allude to the annals of succeeding popes: to relate that John XIII. was strangled in prison; that Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict VII., and killed him by starvation; that John XIV. was secretly put to death in the dungeons of the Castle of St. Angelo; that the corpse of Boniface was dragged by the populace through the streets. The sentiment of reverence for the sovereign pontiff, nay, even of respect, had become extinct in Rome; throughout Europe the clergy were so shocked at the state of things, that, in their indignation, they began to look with approbation on the intention of the Emperor Otho to take from the Italians their privilege of appointing the successor of St. Peter, and confine it to his own family. But his kinsman, Gregory V., whom he placed on the pontifical throne, was very soon compelled by the Romans to fly; his excommunications and religious thunders were turned into derision by them; they were too well acquainted with the true nature of those terrors; they were living behind the scenes. A terrible punishment awaited the Anti-pope John XVI. Otho returned into Italy, seized him, put out his eyes, cut off his nose and tongue, and sent him through the streets mounted on an a.s.s, with his face to the tail, and a wine-bladder on his head. It seemed impossible that things could become worse; yet Rome had still to see Benedict IX., A.D. 1033, a boy of less than twelve years, raised to the apostolic throne. Of this pontiff, one of his successors, Victor III., declared that his life was so shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a captain of banditti rather than a prelate. The people at last, unable to bear his adulteries, homicides, and abominations any longer, rose against him. In despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy to auction. It was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI., A.D. 1045.

[Sidenote: Conclusion respecting this biography.]

More than a thousand years had elapsed since the birth of our Saviour, and such was the condition of Rome. Well may the historian shut the annals of those times in disgust; well may the heart of the Christian sink within him at such a catalogue of hideous crimes. Well may he ask, Were these the vicegerents of G.o.d upon earth--these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pa.s.s?

[Sidenote: The philosophical conclusion at last attained.]