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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40135 ***
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved.  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+      THE MAKERS
+      OF
+      MODERN ROME
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: POPE GREGORY.
+    _Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+      THE MAKERS
+      OF
+      MODERN ROME
+
+      IN FOUR BOOKS
+
+      I. HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW
+      II. THE POPES WHO MADE THE PAPACY
+      III. LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE
+      IV. THE POPES WHO MADE THE CITY
+
+      BY
+      MRS. OLIPHANT
+      AUTHOR OF "THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE"
+
+      _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HENRY P. RIVIERE, A.R.W.S.
+      AND JOSEPH PENNELL_
+
+
+      New York
+      MACMILLAN AND CO.
+      AND LONDON
+      1896
+      _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+      COPYRIGHT, 1895,
+      BY MACMILLAN AND CO.
+
+      Set up and electrotyped November, 1895. Reprinted
+      January, 1896.
+
+      Norwood Press
+      J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith.
+      Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+      I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK
+      WITH THE DEAR NAMES OF THOSE OF MINE
+      WHO LIE UNDER THE WALLS OF ROME:
+      AND OF HIM, THE LAST OF ALL,
+      WHO WAS BORN IN THAT SAD CITY:
+      ALL NOW AWAITING ME, AS I TRUST,
+      WHERE GOD MAY PLEASE.
+
+      F. W. O.
+      M. W. O.
+      F. R. O.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Nobody will expect in this book, or from me, the results of original
+research, or a settlement--if any settlement is ever possible--of
+vexed questions which have occupied the gravest students. An
+individual glance at the aspect of these questions which most clearly
+presents itself to a mind a little exercised in the aspects of
+humanity, but not trained in the ways of learning, is all I attempt or
+desire. This humble endeavour has been conscientious at least. The
+work has been much interrupted by sorrow and suffering, on which
+account, for any slips of hers, the writer asks the indulgence of her
+unknown friends.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+      BOOK I.
+      HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW.
+
+
+      CHAPTER I.                                                  PAGE
+      ROME IN THE FOURTH CENTURY                                     1
+
+      CHAPTER II.
+      THE PALACE ON THE AVENTINE                                    14
+
+      CHAPTER III.
+      MELANIA                                                       29
+
+      CHAPTER IV.
+      THE SOCIETY OF MARCELLA                                       43
+
+      CHAPTER V.
+      PAULA                                                         65
+
+      CHAPTER VI.
+      THE MOTHER HOUSE                                              89
+
+
+      BOOK II.
+      THE POPES WHO MADE THE PAPACY.
+
+
+      CHAPTER I.
+      GREGORY THE GREAT                                            119
+
+      CHAPTER II.
+      THE MONK HILDEBRAND                                          181
+
+      CHAPTER III.
+      THE POPE GREGORY VII                                         230
+
+      CHAPTER IV.
+      INNOCENT III                                                 307
+
+
+      BOOK III.
+      LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+      CHAPTER I.
+      ROME IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY                               381
+
+      CHAPTER II.
+      THE DELIVERER                                                402
+
+      CHAPTER III.
+      THE BUONO STATO                                              428
+
+      CHAPTER IV.
+      DECLINE AND FALL                                             460
+
+      CHAPTER V.
+      THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE                                       486
+
+      CHAPTER VI.
+      THE END OF THE TRAGEDY                                       493
+
+
+      BOOK IV.
+      THE POPES WHO MADE THE CITY.
+
+
+      CHAPTER I.
+      MARTIN V.--EUGENIUS IV.--NICOLAS V.                          513
+
+      CHAPTER II.
+      CALIXTUS III.--PIUS II.--PAUL II.--SIXTUS IV.                552
+
+      CHAPTER III.
+      JULIUS II.--LEO X.                                           581
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+POPE GREGORY                                            _Frontispiece_
+
+COLOSSEUM BY MOONLIGHT, _by H. P. Riviere_                          37
+
+TEMPLE OF VENUS AND RIVER FROM THE COLOSSEUM (1860), _by
+H. P. Riviere_                                                      73
+
+TEMPLE OF VESTA, _by H. P. Riviere_                                111
+
+ARCH OF CONSTANTINE, _by H. P. Riviere_                            153
+
+THE FORUM, _by H. P. Riviere_                                      171
+
+ARCH OF TITUS, _by H. P. Riviere_                                  209
+
+SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE, _by H. P. Riviere_                           247
+
+ARCH OF DRUSUS (1860), _by H. P. Riviere_                          267
+
+ISLAND ON TIBER, _by H. P. Riviere_                                287
+
+THE CAPITOL, _by J. Pennell_                                       317
+
+PORTA MAGGIORE, _by H. P. Riviere_                                 327
+
+IN THE CAMPAGNA (1860), _by H. P. Riviere_                         347
+
+ST. PETER'S AND THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, _by H. P. Riviere_       367
+
+APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL (1860), _by H. P. Riviere_                 387
+
+THEATRE OF MARCELLUS, _by J. Pennell_                              407
+
+AQUA FELICE, _by H. P. Riviere_                                    463
+
+THE TARPEIAN ROCK, _by J. Pennell_                                 481
+
+ANCIENT, MEDIÆVAL, AND MODERN ROME, _by J. Pennell_                503
+
+MODERN ROME: SHELLEY'S TOMB, _by J. Pennell_                       519
+
+FOUNTAIN OF TREVI, _by H. P. Riviere_                              527
+
+SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO, _by H. P. Riviere_                         547
+
+PIAZZA COLONNA, _by J. Pennell_                                    565
+
+OLD ST. PETER'S, _from the engraving by Campini_                   585
+
+MODERN ROME: THE GRAVE OF KEATS, _by J. Pennell_                   593
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.
+
+THE COLOSSEUM, _by J. Pennell_                                       1
+
+THE PALATINE, FROM THE AVENTINE, _by J. Pennell_                    13
+
+THE RIPETTA, _by J. Pennell_                                        14
+
+ON THE PALATINE, _by J. Pennell_                                    27
+
+THE WALLS BY ST. JOHN LATERAN, _by J. Pennell_                      29
+
+THE TEMPLE OF VESTA, _by J. Pennell_                                42
+
+CHURCHES ON THE AVENTINE, _by J. Pennell_                           43
+
+THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL, _by J. Pennell_                           51
+
+THE LATERAN FROM THE AVENTINE, _by J. Pennell_                      64
+
+PORTICO OF OCTAVIA, _by J. Pennell_                                 65
+
+TRINITA DE' MONTI, _by J. Pennell_                                  76
+
+FROM THE AVENTINE, _by J. Pennell_                                  87
+
+THE CAPITOL FROM THE PALATINE, _by J. Pennell_                      89
+
+SAN BARTOLOMMEO, _by J. Pennell_                                    97
+
+ST. PETER'S, FROM THE JANICULUM, _by J. Pennell_                   103
+
+ST. PETER'S, FROM THE PINCIO, _by J. Pennell_                      107
+
+PORTA SAN PAOLA, _by J. Pennell_                                   115
+
+THE STEPS OF SAN GREGORIO, _by J. Pennell_                         119
+
+VILLA DE' MEDICI, _by J. Pennell_                                  133
+
+SAN GREGORIO MAGNO, AND ST. JOHN AND ST. PAUL, _by J.
+Pennell_                                                           145
+
+THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, _by J. Pennell_                             157
+
+MONTE PINCIO, FROM THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, _by J. Pennell_          167
+
+PONTE MOLLE, _by J. Pennell_                                       180
+
+THE PALATINE, _by J. Pennell_                                      181
+
+PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTIUS, _by J. Pennell_                          197
+
+TRINITA DE' MONTI, _by J. Pennell_                                 207
+
+THE VILLA BORGHESE, _by J. Pennell_                                220
+
+WHERE THE GHETTO STOOD, _by J. Pennell_                            228
+
+FROM SAN GREGORIO MAGNO, _by J. Pennell_                           230
+
+IN THE VILLA BORGHESE, _by J. Pennell_                             306
+
+THE FOUNTAIN OF THE TORTOISE, _by J. Pennell_                      307
+
+ALL THAT IS LEFT OF THE GHETTO, _by J. Pennell_                    377
+
+ON THE TIBER, _by J. Pennell_                                      381
+
+ON THE PINCIO, _by J. Pennell_                                     402
+
+THE LUNGARA, _by J. Pennell_                                       428
+
+PORTA DEL POPOLO (FLAMINIAN GATE), _by J. Pennell_                 459
+
+THEATRE OF MARCELLUS, _by J. Pennell_                              460
+
+THE BORGHESE GARDENS, _by J. Pennell_                              486
+
+TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA, _by J. Pennell_                           493
+
+LETTER WRITER, _by J. Pennell_                                     510
+
+PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, _by J. Pennell_                                 513
+
+ON THE PINCIO, _by J. Pennell_                                     533
+
+IN THE CORSO: CHURCH DOORS, _by J. Pennell_                        542
+
+MODERN DEGRADATION OF A PALACE, _by J. Pennell_                    552
+
+FOUNTAIN OF TREVI, _by J. Pennell_                                 581
+
+A BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP, _by J. Pennell_                                600
+
+
+
+
+      BOOK I.
+      HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM.]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ROME IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.
+
+
+There is no place in the world of which it is less necessary to
+attempt description (or of which so many descriptions have been
+attempted) than the once capital of that world, the supreme and
+eternal city, the seat of empire, the home of the conqueror, the
+greatest human centre of power and influence which our race has ever
+known. Its history is unique and its position. Twice over in
+circumstances and by means as different as can be imagined it has
+conquered and held subject the world. All that was known to man in
+their age gave tribute and acknowledgment to the Cæsars; and an
+ever-widening circle, taking in countries and races unknown to the
+Cæsars, have looked to the spiritual sovereigns who succeeded them as
+to the first and highest of authorities on earth. The reader knows, or
+at least is assisted on all hands to have some idea and conception of
+the classical city--to be citizens of which was the aim of the whole
+world's ambition, and whose institutions and laws, and even its
+architecture and domestic customs, were the only rule of
+civilisation--with its noble and grandiose edifices, its splendid
+streets, the magnificence and largeness of its life; while on the
+other hand most people are able to form some idea of what was the Rome
+of the Popes, the superb yet squalid mediæval city with its great
+palaces and its dens of poverty, and that conjunction of exuberance
+and want which does not strike the eye while the bulk of a population
+remains in a state of slavery. But there is a period between, which
+has not attracted much attention from English writers, and which the
+reader passes by as a time in which there is little desirable to dwell
+upon, though it is in reality the moment of transition when the old is
+about to be replaced by the new, and when already the energy and
+enthusiasm of a new influence is making its appearance among the
+tragic dregs and abysses of the past. An ancient civilisation dying in
+the impotence of luxury and wealth from which all active power or
+influence over the world had departed, and a new and profound internal
+revolt, breaking up its false calm from within, before the raging
+forces of another rising power had yet begun to thunder at its gates
+without--form however a spectacle full of interest, especially when
+the scene of so many conflicts is traversed and lighted up by the most
+lifelike figures, and has left its record, both of good and evil, in
+authentic and detailed chronicles, full of individual character and
+life, in which the men and women of the age stand before us, occupied
+and surrounded by circumstances which are very different from our
+own, yet linked to us by that unfailing unity of human life and
+feeling which makes the farthest off foreigner a brother, and the most
+distant of our primeval predecessors like a neighbour of to-day.
+
+The circumstances of Rome in the middle and end of the fourth century
+were singular in every point of view. With all its prestige and all
+its memories, it was a city from which power and the dominant forces
+of life had faded. The body was there, the great town with its high
+places made to give law and judgment to the world, even the officials
+and executors of the codes which had dispensed justice throughout the
+universe; but the spirit of dominion and empire had passed away. A
+great aristocracy, accustomed to the first place everywhere, full of
+wealth, full of leisure, remained; but with nothing to do to justify
+this greatness, nothing but luxury, the prize and accompaniment of it,
+now turned into its sole object and meaning. The patrician class had
+grown by use, by the high capability to fill every post and lead every
+expedition which they had constantly shown, which was their original
+cause and the reason of their existence, into a position of unusual
+superiority and splendour. But that reason had died away, the empire
+had departed from them, the world had a new centre: and the sons of
+the men who had conducted all the immense enterprises of Rome were
+left behind with the burden of their great names, and the weight of
+their great wealth, and nothing to do but to enjoy and amuse
+themselves: no vocations to fulfil, no important public functions to
+occupy their time and their powers. Such a position is perhaps the
+most dreadful that can come to any class in the history of a nation.
+Great and irresponsible wealth, the supremacy of high place, without
+those bonds of practical affairs which, in the case of all
+rulers--even of estates or of factories--preserve the equilibrium of
+humanity, are instruments of degradation rather than of elevation. To
+have something to do for it, something to do with it, is the
+condition which alone makes boundless wealth wholesome. And this had
+altogether failed in the imperial city. Pleasure and display had taken
+the place of work and duty. Rome had no longer any imperial affairs in
+hand. Her day was over: the absence of a court and all its intrigues
+might have been little loss to any community--but that those threads
+of universal dominion which had hitherto occupied them had been
+transferred to other hands, and that all the struggles, the great
+questions, the causes, the pleas, the ordinances of the world were now
+decided and given forth at Constantinople, was ruin to the once
+masters of the world. It was worse than destruction, a more dreadful
+overthrow than anything that the Goths and barbarians could bring--not
+death which brings a satisfaction of all necessities in making an end
+of them--but that death in life which fills men's blood with cold.
+
+The pictures left us of this condition of affairs do indeed chill the
+blood. It is natural that there should be a certain amount of
+exaggeration in them. We read daily in our own contemporary annals,
+records of society of which we are perfectly competent to judge, that
+though true to fact in many points, they give a picture too dark in
+all its shadows, too garish in its lights, to afford a just view of
+the state of any existing condition of things. Contemporaries know how
+much to receive and how much to reject, and are apt to smile at the
+possibility of any permanent impression upon the face of history being
+made by lights and darks beyond the habit of nature. But yet when
+every allowance has been made, the contemporary pictures of Rome at
+this unhappy period leave an impression on the mind which is not
+contradicted but supported and enforced by the incidents of the time
+and the course of history. The populace, which had for ages been fed
+and nourished upon the bread of public doles and those entertainments
+of ferocious gaiety which deadened every higher sense, had sunk into
+complete debasement. Honest work and honest purpose, or any hope of
+improving their own position, elevating themselves or training their
+children, do not seem to have existed among them. A half-ludicrous
+detail, which reminds us that the true Roman had always a trifle of
+pedantry in his pride, is noted with disgust and disdain even by
+serious writers--which is that the common people bore no longer their
+proper names, but were known among each other by nicknames, such as
+those of Cabbage-eaters, Sausage-mongers, and other coarse familiar
+vulgarisms. This might be pardoned to the crowd which spent its idle
+days at the circus or spectacle, and its nights on the benches in the
+Colosseum or in the porch of a palace; but it is difficult to
+exaggerate the debasement of a populace which lived for amusement
+alone, picking up the miserable morsels which kept it alive from any
+chance or tainted source, without work to do or hope of amelioration.
+They formed the shouting, hoarse accompaniment of every pageant, they
+swarmed on the lower seats of every amphitheatre, howling much
+criticism as well as boisterous applause, and keeping in fear, and
+disgusted yet forced compliance with their coarse exactions, the
+players and showmen who supplied their lives with an object. According
+to all the representations that have reached us, nothing more degraded
+than this populace--encumbering every portico and marble stair,
+swarming over the benches of the Colosseum, basking in filth and
+idleness in the brilliant sun of Rome, or seeking, among the empty
+glories of a triumphal age gone by, a lazy shelter from it--has ever
+been known.
+
+The higher classes suffered in their way as profoundly, and with a
+deeper consciousness, from the same debasing influences of stagnation.
+The descriptions of their useless life of luxury are almost too
+extravagant to quote. "A loose silken robe," says the critic and
+historian of the time, Ammianus Marcellinus, speaking of a Roman
+noble,--"for a toga of the lightest tissue would have been too heavy
+for him--linen so transparent that the air blew through it, fans and
+parasols to protect him from the light, a troop of eunuchs always
+round him." This was the appearance and costume of a son of the great
+and famous senators of Rome. "When he was not at the bath, or at the
+circus to maintain the cause of some charioteer, or to inspect some
+new horses, he lay half asleep upon a luxurious couch in great rooms
+paved with marble, panelled with mosaic." The luxurious heat implied,
+which makes the freshness of the marble, the thinness of the linen, so
+desirable, as in a picture of Mr. Alma Tadema's, bids us at the same
+time pause in receiving the whole of this description as
+unquestionable; for Rome has its seasons in which vast chambers paved
+with marble are no longer agreeable, though the manners and utterances
+of the race still tend to a complete ignoring of this other side of
+the picture: but yet no doubt its general features are true.
+
+When this Sybarite went out it was upon a lofty chariot, where he
+reclined negligently, showing off himself, his curled and perfumed
+locks, his robes, with their wonderful embroideries and tissues of
+silk and gold, to the admiration of the world; his horses' harness
+were covered with ornaments of gold, his coachman armed with a golden
+wand instead of a whip, and the whole equipage followed by a
+procession of attendants, slaves, freedmen, eunuchs, down to the
+knaves of the kitchen, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, to
+give importance to the retinue, which pushed along through the streets
+with all the brutality which is the reverse side of senseless display,
+pushing citizens and passers-by out of the way. The dinner parties of
+the evening were equally childish in their extravagance: the tables
+covered with strange dishes, monsters of the sea and of the mountains,
+fishes and birds of unknown kinds and unequalled size. The latter
+seems to have been a special subject of pride, for we are told of the
+servants bringing scales to weigh them, and notaries crowding round
+with their tablets and styles to record the weight. After the feast
+came a "hydraulic organ," and other instruments of corresponding
+magnitude, to fill the great hall with resounding music, and
+pantomimical plays and dances to enliven the dulness of the luxurious
+spectators on their couches--"women with long hair, who might have
+married and given subjects to the state," were thus employed, to the
+indignation of the critic.
+
+This chronicler of folly and bad manners would not be human if he
+omitted the noble woman of Rome from his picture. Her rooms full of
+obsequious attendants, slaves, and eunuchs, half of her time was
+occupied by the monstrous toilette which annulled all natural charms
+to give to the Society beauty a fictitious and artificial display of
+red and white, of painted eyelids, tortured hair, and extravagant
+dress. An authority still more trenchant than the heathen historian,
+Jerome, describes even one of the noble ladies who headed the
+Christian society of Rome as spending most of the day before the
+mirror. Like the ladies of Venice in a later age, these women, laden
+with ornaments, attired in cloth of gold, and with shoes that crackled
+under their feet with the stiffness of metallic decorations, were
+almost incapacitated from walking, even with the support of their
+attendants; and a life so accoutred was naturally spent in the display
+of the charms and wealth thus painfully set forth.
+
+The fairer side of the picture, the revolt of the higher nature from
+such a life, brings us into the very heart of this society: and
+nothing can be more curious than the gradual penetration of a
+different and indeed sharply contrary sentiment, the impulse of
+asceticism and the rudest personal self-deprivation, amid a community
+spoilt by such a training, yet not incapable of disgust and impatience
+with the very luxury which had seemed essential to its being. The
+picturesqueness and attraction of the picture lies here, as in so many
+cases, chiefly on the women's side.
+
+It is necessary to note, however, the curious mixture which existed in
+this Roman society, where Christianity as a system was already strong,
+and the high officials of the Church were beginning to take gradually
+and by slow degrees the places abandoned by the functionaries of the
+empire. Though the hierarchy was already established, and the Bishop
+of Rome had assumed a special importance in the Church, Paganism still
+held in the high places that sway of the old economy giving place to
+the new, which is at once so desperate and so nerveless--impotence and
+bitterness mingling with the false tolerance of cynicism. The worship
+of the gods had dropped into a survival of certain habits of mind and
+life, to which some clung with the angry revulsion of terror against a
+new revolutionary power at first despised: and some held with the
+loose grasp of an imaginative and poetical system, and some with a
+sense of the intellectual superiority of art and philosophy over the
+arguments and motives that moved the crowd. Life had ebbed away from
+these religions of the past. The fictitious attempt of Julian to
+re-establish the worship of the gods, and bring new blood into the
+exhausted veins of the mythological system, had in reality given the
+last proof of its extinction as a power in the world: but still it
+remained lingering out its last, holding a place, sometimes dignified
+by a gleam of noble manners and the graces of intellectual life--and
+often, it must be allowed, justified by the failure of the Church to
+embody that purity and elevation which its doctrines, but scarcely its
+morals or life, professed. Thus the faith in Christ, often real, but
+very faulty--and the faith in Apollo, almost always fictitious, but
+sometimes dignified and superior--existed side by side. The father
+might hold the latter with a superb indifference to its rites, and a
+contemptuous tolerance for its opponents, while the mother held the
+first with occasional hot impulses of devotion, and performances of
+penance for the pardon of those worldly amusements and dissipations to
+which she returned with all the more zest when her vigils and prayers
+were over.
+
+This conjunction of two systems so opposite in every impulse,
+proceeding from foundations so absolutely contrary to each other,
+could not fail to have an extraordinary effect upon the minds of the
+generations moved by it, and affords, I think, an explanation of some
+events very difficult to explain on ordinary principles, and
+particularly the abandonment of what would appear the most
+unquestionable duties, by some of the personages, especially the women
+whose histories and manners fill this chapter of the great records of
+Rome. Some of them deserted their children to bury themselves in the
+deserts, to withdraw to the mountains, placing leagues of land and sea
+between themselves and their dearest duties--why? the reader asks. At
+the bidding of a priest, at the selfish impulse of that desire to save
+their own souls, which in our own day at least has come to mean a
+degrading motive--is the general answer. It would not be difficult,
+however, to paint on the other side a picture of the struggle with the
+authorities of her family for the training of a son, for the marriage
+of a daughter, from which a woman might shrink with a sense of
+impotence, knowing the prestige of the noble guardian against whom she
+would have to contend, and all the forces of family pride, of
+tradition and use and wont, that would be arrayed against her. Better
+perhaps, the mother might think, to abandon that warfare, to leave the
+conflict for which she was not strong enough, than to lose the love of
+her child as well, and become to him the emblem of an opposing faction
+attempting to turn him from those delights of youth which the
+hereditary authority of his house encouraged instead of opposing. It
+is difficult perhaps for the historians to take such motives into
+consideration, but I think the student of human nature may feel them
+to be worth a thought, and receive them as some justification, or at
+least apology, for the actions of some of the Roman women who fill the
+story of the time.
+
+Unfortunately it is not possible to leave out the Church in Rome when
+we collect the details of depravity and folly in Society. One cannot
+but feel how robust is the faith which goes back to these ages for
+guidance and example when one sees the image in St. Jerome's pages of
+a period so early in the history of Christianity. "Could ye not watch
+with me one hour?" our Lord said to the chosen disciples, His nearest
+friends and followers, in the moment of His own exceeding anguish,
+with a reproach so sorrowful, yet so conscious of the weakness of
+humanity, that it silences every excuse. We may say, for a poor four
+hundred years could not the Church keep the impress of His teaching,
+the reality of the faith of those who had themselves fallen and
+fainted, yet found grace to live and die for their Master? But four
+centuries are a long time, and men are but men even with the
+inheritance of Christians. They belonged to their race, their age, and
+the manifold influences which modify in the crowd everything it
+believes or wishes. And they were exposed to many temptations which
+were doubly strong in that world to which by birth and training they
+belonged. How is an ordinary man to despise wealth in the midst of a
+society corrupted by it, and in which it is supreme? how learn to be
+indifferent to rank and prestige in a city where without these every
+other claim was trampled under foot? "The virtues of the primitive
+Church," says Villemain of a still later period, "had been under the
+guard of poverty and persecution: they were weak in success and
+triumph. Enthusiasm became less pure, the rules of life less severe.
+In the always increasing crowd of proselytes were many unworthy
+persons, who turned to Christianity for reasons of ambition and
+self-interest, to make way at Court, to appear faithful to the
+emperor. The Church, enriched at once by the spoil of the temples and
+the offerings of the Christian crowd, began to clothe itself in
+profane magnificence." Those who attained the higher clerical honours
+were sure, according to the evidence of Ammianus, "of being enriched
+by the offerings of the Roman ladies, and drove forth like noblemen in
+lofty chariots, clothed magnificently, and sat down at tables worthy
+of kings." The Church, endowed in an earlier period by converts, who
+offered sometimes all their living for the sustenance of the community
+which gave them home and refuge, had continued to receive the gifts of
+the pious after the rules of ordinary life regained their force; and
+now when she had yielded to a great extent to the prevailing
+temptations of the age, found a large means of endowment in the gifts
+of deathbed repentance and the weakness of dying penitents, of which
+she was reputed to take large advantage: wealth grew within her
+borders, and luxury with it, according to the example of surrounding
+society. It is Jerome himself who reports the saying of one of the
+highest of Roman officials to Bishop Damasus. "If you will undertake
+to make me Bishop of Rome, I will be a Christian to-morrow." Not even
+the highest place in the Government was so valuable and so great. It
+is Jerome also who traces for us--the fierce indignation of his
+natural temper, mingling with an involuntary perception of the
+ludicrous side of the picture--a popular young priest of his time,
+whose greatest solicitude was to have perfumed robes, a well fitting
+shoe, hair beautifully curled, and fingers glittering with jewels, and
+who walked on tip-toe lest he should soil his feet.
+
+      "What are these men? To those who see them pass they are
+      more like bridegrooms than priests. Some among them devote
+      their life and energies to the single object of knowing the
+      names, the houses, the habits, the disposition of all the
+      ladies in Rome. I will sketch for you, dear Eustochium, in
+      a few lines, the day's work of one of them, great in the
+      arts of which I speak, that by means of the master you may
+      the more easily recognise his disciples.
+
+      "Our hero rises with the sun: he regulates the order of his
+      visits, studies the shortest ways, and arrives before he is
+      wanted, almost before his friends are awake. If he
+      perceives anything that strikes his fancy, a pretty piece
+      of furniture or an elegant marble, he gazes at it, praises
+      it, turns it over in his hands, and grieves that he has not
+      one like it--thus extorting rather than obtaining the
+      object of his desires; for what woman would not hesitate to
+      offend the universal gossip of the town? Temperance,
+      modesty (_castitas_), and fasting are his sworn enemies. He
+      smells out a feast and loves savoury meats.
+
+      "Wherever one goes one is sure to meet him; he is always
+      there before you. He knows all the news, proclaims it in an
+      authoritative tone, and is better informed than any one
+      else can be. The horses which carry him to the four
+      quarters of Rome in pursuit of this honest task are the
+      finest you can see anywhere; you would say he was the
+      brother of that King of Thrace known in story by the speed
+      of his coursers.
+
+      "This man," adds the implacable satirist in another letter,
+      "was born in the deepest poverty, brought up under the
+      thatch of a peasant's cottage, with scarcely enough of
+      black bread and millet to satisfy the cravings of his
+      appetite; yet now he is fastidious and hard to please,
+      disdaining honey and the finest flour. An expert in the
+      science of the table, he knows every kind of fish by name,
+      and whence come the best oysters, and what district
+      produces the birds of finest savour. He cares only for what
+      is rare and unwholesome. In another kind of vice he is not
+      less remarkable; his mania is to lie in wait for old men
+      and women without children. He besieges their beds when
+      they are ill, serves them in the most disgusting offices,
+      more humble and servile than any nurse. When the doctor
+      enters he trembles, asking with a faltering voice how the
+      patient is, if there is any hope of saving him. If there is
+      any hope, if the disease is cured, the priest disappears
+      with regrets for his loss of time, cursing the wretched old
+      man who insists on living to be as old as Methusalem."
+
+The last accusation, which has been the reproach of the Church in many
+different ages, had just been specially condemned by a law of the
+Emperor Valentinian I., declaring null and void all legacies made to
+priests, a law which called forth Jerome's furious denunciation, not
+of itself, but of the abuse which called it forth. This was a graver
+matter than the onslaught upon the curled darlings of the priesthood,
+more like bridegrooms than priests, who carried the news from boudoir
+to boudoir, and laid their entertainers under contribution for the
+bibelots and ancient bric-a-brac which their hearts desired. Thus
+wherever the eye turned there was nothing but luxury and the love of
+luxury, foolish display, extravagance and emulation in all the arts of
+prodigality, a life without gravity, without serious occupation, with
+nothing in it to justify the existence of those human creatures
+standing between earth and heaven, and capable of so many better
+things. The revulsion, a revulsion inspired by disgust and not without
+extravagance in its new way, was sure to come.
+
+  [Illustration: THE PALATINE, FROM THE AVENTINE.]
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE RIPETTA.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE PALACE ON THE AVENTINE.
+
+
+The strong recoil of human nature from those fatal elements which time
+after time have threatened the destruction of all society is one of
+the noblest things in history, as it is one of the most divine in
+life. There are evidences that it exists even in the most wicked
+individuals, and it very evidently comes uppermost in every
+commonwealth from century to century to save again and again from
+utter debasement a community or a nation. When depravity becomes the
+rule instead of the exception, and sober principle appears on the
+point of yielding altogether to the whirl of folly or the thirst of
+self-indulgence, then it may always be expected that some ember of
+divine indignation, some thrill of high disgust with the miserable
+satisfactions of the world will kindle in one quarter or another and
+set light to a thousand smouldering tires over all the face of the
+earth. It is one of the highest evidences of that charter of our being
+which is our most precious possession, the reflection of that image of
+God which amid all degradations still holds its place in human nature,
+and will not be destroyed. We may mourn indeed that so short a span of
+centuries had so effaced the recollection of the brightest light that
+ever shone among men, as to make the extravagance of a human revulsion
+and revolution necessary in order to preserve and restore the better
+life of Christendom. At the same time it is our salvation as a race
+that such revolutions, however imperfect they may be in themselves,
+are sure to come.
+
+This revulsion from vice, degradation, and evil of every kind, public
+and personal, had already come with the utmost excess of
+self-punishment and austerity in the East, where already the deserts
+were mined with caverns and holes in the sand, to which hermits and
+coenobites, the one class scarcely less exalted in religious passion
+and suffering than the other, had escaped from the current of evil
+which they did not feel themselves capable of facing, and lived and
+starved and agonised for the salvation of their own souls and for a
+world lying in wickedness. The fame of the Thebaid and its saints and
+martyrs, slowly making itself known through the great distances and
+silences, had already breathed over the world, when Athanasius, driven
+by persecution from his see and his country, came to Rome, accompanied
+by two of the monks whose character was scarcely understood as yet in
+the West, and bringing with him his own book, the life of St. Antony
+of the desert, a work which had as great an effect in that time as the
+most popular of publications, spread over the world in thousands of
+copies, could have now. It puzzles the modern reader to think how a
+book should thus have moved the world and revolutionised hundreds of
+lives, while it existed only in manuscript and every example had to be
+carefully and tediously copied before it could touch even those who
+were wealthy enough to secure themselves such a luxury. What readings
+in common, what earnest circles of auditors, what rapt intense hanging
+upon the lips of the reader, there must have been before any work,
+even the most sacred, penetrated to the crowd!--but to us no doubt the
+process seems more slow and difficult than it really was when scribes
+were to be found everywhere, and manuscripts were treated with
+reverence and respect. When Athanasius found refuge in Rome, which was
+during the pontificate, or rather--for the full papal authority had as
+yet been claimed by no one--the primacy--of Liberius, and about the
+year 341, he was received by all that was best in Rome with great
+hospitality and sympathy. Rome so far as it was Christian was entirely
+orthodox, the Arian heresy having gained no part of the Christian
+society there--and a man of genius and imposing character, who brought
+into that stagnant atmosphere the breath of a larger world, who had
+shared the councils of the emperor and lived in the cells of Egypt--an
+orator, a traveller, an exile, with every kind of interest attaching
+to him, was such a visitor as seldom appeared in the city deserted by
+empire. Something like the man who nine centuries later went about the
+Italian streets with the signs upon him of one who had been through
+heaven and hell, the Eastern bishop must have appeared to the languid
+citizens, with the brown of the desert still on his cheeks, yet
+something of the air of a courtly prelate, a friend of princes; while
+his attendants, one with all the wildness of a hermit from the desert
+in his eyes and aspect, in the unfamiliar robe and cowl--and the other
+mild and young like the ideal youth, shy and simple as a girl--were
+wonderful apparitions in the fatigued and _blasé_ society, which
+longed above everything for something new, something real, among all
+the mocks and shows of their impotent life.
+
+One of the houses in which Athanasius and his monks were most welcome
+was the palace of a noble widow, Albina, who lived the large and
+luxurious life of her class in the perfect freedom of a Roman matron,
+Christian, yet with no idea in her mind of retirement from the world,
+or renunciation of its pleasures. A woman of a more or less
+instructive mind and lively intelligence, she received with the
+greatest interest and pleasure these strangers who had so much to
+tell, the great bishop flying from his enemies, the monks from the
+desert. That she and her circle gathered round him with that rapt and
+flattering attention which not the most abstracted saint any more than
+the sternest general can resist, is evident from the story, and it
+throws a gleam of softer light upon the impassioned theologian who
+stood fast, "I, Athanasius, against the world" for that mysterious
+splendour of the Trinity, against which the heretical East had risen.
+In the Roman lady's withdrawingroom, in his dark and flowing Eastern
+robes, we find him amid the eager questionings of the women,
+describing to them the strange life of the desert which it was such a
+wonder to hear of--the evensong that rose as from every crevice of the
+earth, while the Egyptian after-glow burned in one great circle of
+colour round the vast globe of sky, diffusing an illumination weird
+and mystic over the fantastic rocks and dark openings where the
+singers lived unseen. What a picture to be set before that soft, eager
+circle, half rising from silken couches, clothed with tissues of gold,
+blazing with jewels, their delicate cheeks glowing in artificial red
+and white, their crisped and curled tresses surmounted by the
+fantastic towering headdress which weighed them down!
+
+Among the ladies was the child of the house, the little girl who was
+her mother's excuse for retaining the freedom of her widowhood,
+Marcella: a thoughtful and pensive child, devouring all these
+wonderful tales, listening to everything and laying up a store of
+silent resolutions and fancies in her heart. Her elder sister Asella
+would seem to have already secluded herself in precocious devotion
+from the family, or at least is not referred to. The story which
+touched the general mind of the time with so strange and strong an
+enthusiasm, fell into the virgin soil of this young spirit like the
+seed of a new life. But the little Roman maiden was no ascetic. She
+had evidently no impulse, as some young devotees have had, to set out
+barefoot in search of suffering. When Athanasius left Rome, he left in
+the house which had received him so kindly his life of St. Antony, the
+first copy which had been seen in the Western world. This manuscript,
+written perhaps by the hand of one of those wonderful monks, the
+strangest figures in her luxurious world whom Marcella knew, became
+the treasure of her youth. Such a present, at such a time, was enough
+to occupy the visionary silence of a girl's life, often so full of
+dreams unknown and unsearchable even to her nearest surroundings. She
+went through however the usual routine of a young lady's life in Rome.
+Madame Albina the mother, though full of interest and curiosity in
+respect to all things intellectual and Christian, held still more
+dearly a mother's natural desire to see her only remaining child nobly
+married and established in the splendour and eminence to which she was
+born. We are told that Marcella grew up to be one of the beauties of
+Rome, but as this is an inalienable qualification of all these
+beautiful souls, it is not necessary to believe that the "insignem
+decorem corporis" meant any extraordinary distinction. She carried out
+at all events her natural fate and married a rich and noble husband,
+of whom however we know no details, except that he died some months
+after, leaving her without child or tie to the ordinary life of the
+world, in all the freedom of widowhood, at a very early age.
+
+Thus placed in full command of her fate, she never seems to have
+hesitated as to what she should do with herself. She was, as a matter
+of course, assailed by many new suitors, among whom her historian, who
+is no other than St. Jerome himself, makes special mention of the
+exceptionally wealthy Cerealis ("whose name is great among the
+consuls"), and who was so splendid a suitor that the fact that he was
+old scarcely seems to have told against him. Marcella's refusal of
+this great match and of all the others offered to her, offended and
+alienated her friends and even her mother, and there followed a moment
+of pain and perplexity in her life. She is said to have made a
+sacrifice of a part of her possessions to relatives to whom, failing
+herself, it fell to keep up the continuance of the family name, hoping
+thus to secure their tolerance. And she acquired the reputation of an
+eccentric, and probably of a _poseuse_, so general in all times when a
+young woman forsakes the beaten way, as she had done by giving up the
+ridiculous fashions and toilettes of the time, putting aside the rouge
+and antimony, the disabling splendour of cloth of gold, and assuming a
+simple dress of a dark colour, a thing which shocked her generation
+profoundly. The gossip rose and flew from mouth to mouth among the
+marble salons where the Roman ladies languished for a new subject, or
+in the ante-rooms, where young priests and deacons awaited or
+forestalled the awakening of their patronesses. It might be the Hôtel
+Rambouillet of which we are reading, and a fine lady taking refuge at
+Port Royal who was being discussed and torn to pieces in those antique
+palaces. What was the meaning that lay beneath that brown gown? Was it
+some unavowed disappointment, or, more exciting still, some secret
+intrigue, some low-placed love which she dared not acknowledge?
+Withdrawn into a villa had she, into the solitude of a suburban
+garden, hid from every eye? and who then was the companion of
+Marcella's solitude? The ladies who discussed her had small faith in
+austerities, nor in the desire of a young and attractive woman to live
+altogether alone.
+
+It is very likely that Marcella herself, as well as her critics, soon
+began to feel that the mock desert into which she had made the gardens
+of her villa was indeed a fictitious way of living the holy life, and
+the calumny was more ready and likely to take hold of this artificial
+retirement, than of a course of existence led within sight of the
+world. She finally took a wiser and more reasonable way. Her natural
+home was a palace upon the Aventine to which she returned,
+consecrating a portion of it to pious uses, a chapel for common
+worship and much accommodation for the friends of similar views and
+purposes who immediately began to gather about her. It is evident that
+there were already many of these women in the best society of Rome. A
+lively sentiment of feminine society, of the multiplied and endless
+talks, consultations, speculations, of a community of women, open to
+every pleasant curiosity and quick to every new interest, rises
+immediately before us in that first settlement of monasticism--or, as
+the ecclesiastical historians call it, the first convent of Rome,
+before our eyes. It was not a convent after all so much as a large and
+hospitable feminine house, possessing the great luxury of beautiful
+rooms and furniture, and the liberal ways of a large and wealthy
+family, with everything that was most elegant, most cultured, most
+elevated, as well as most devout and pious. The "Souls," to use our
+own jargon of the moment, would seem indeed to have been more truly
+represented there than the Sisters of our modern understanding, though
+we may acknowledge that there are few communities of Sisters in which
+this element does not more or less flourish. Christian ladies who were
+touched like herself with the desire of a truer and purer life,
+gathered about her, as did the French ladies about Port Royal, and
+women of the same class everywhere, wherever a woman of influential
+character leads the way.
+
+The character and position of these ladies was not perhaps so much
+different as we might suppose from those of the court of Louis XIV. or
+any other historical period in which great luxuries and much
+dissipation had sickened the heart of all that was good and noble. Yet
+there were very special characteristics in their lot. Some of them
+were the wives of pagan officials of the empire, holding a sometimes
+devious and always agitated course through the troubles of a divided
+household: and there were many young widows perplexed with projects of
+remarriage, of whom some would be tempted by the prospects of a
+triumphant re-entry into the full enjoyments of life, although a
+larger number were probably resistant and alarmed, anxious to retain
+their freedom, or to devote themselves as Marcella had done to a
+higher life. Women of fashion not unwilling to add a devotion _à la
+mode_ to their other distractions, women of intellectual aspirations,
+lovers of the higher education, seekers after a society altogether
+brilliant and new, without any special emotions of religious feeling,
+no doubt filled up the ranks. "A society," says Thierry, in his _Life
+of Jerome_, "of rich and influential women, belonging for the great
+part to patrician families, thus organised itself, and the oratory on
+the Aventine became a seat of lay influence and power which the clergy
+themselves were soon compelled to reckon with."
+
+The heads of the community bore the noblest names in Rome, which
+however at that period of universal deterioration was not always a
+guarantee of noble birth, since the greatest names were sometimes
+assumed with the slenderest of claims to their honours. Marcella's
+sister, Asella, older than the rest, and a sort of mother among them,
+had for a long time before "lived the life" in obscurity and
+humbleness, and several others not remarkable in the record, were
+prominent associates. The actual members of the community, however,
+are not so much remarked or dwelt upon as the visitors who came and
+went, not all of them of consistent religious character, ladies of the
+great world. One of these, Fabiola, affords an amusing episode in the
+graver tale, the contrast of a butterfly of society, a _grande dame_
+of fascinating manners, airs, and graces, unfortunate in her husbands,
+of whom she had two, one of them divorced--and not quite unwilling to
+divorce the second and try her luck again. Another, one of the most
+important of all in family and pretensions, and by far the most
+important in history of these constant visitors, was Paula, a
+descendant (collateral, the link being of the lightest and easiest
+kind, as was characteristic of the time) of the great Æmilius Paulus,
+the daughter of a distinguished Greek who claimed to be descended from
+Agamemnon, and widow of another who claimed Æneas as his ancestor.
+These large claims apart, she was certainly a great lady in every
+sense of the word, delicate, luxurious, following all the fashions of
+the time. She too was a widow, with a family of young daughters, in
+that enviable state of freedom which the Roman ladies give every sign
+of having used and enjoyed to the utmost, the only condition in which
+they were quite at liberty to regulate their own fate. Paula is the
+most interesting of the community, as she is the one of whom we know
+the most. No fine lady more exquisite, more fastidious, more splendid
+than she. Not even her Christianity had beguiled her from the
+superlative finery of her Roman habits. She was one of the fine ladies
+who could not walk abroad without the support of her servants, nor
+scarcely cross the marble floor from one silken couch to another
+without tottering, as well she might, under the weight of the heavy
+tissues interwoven with gold, of which her robes were made. A widow at
+thirty-five, she was still in full possession of the charms of
+womanhood, and the sunshine of life (though we are told that her grief
+for her husband was profound and sincere)--with her young daughters
+growing up round her, more like her sisters than her children, and
+sharing every thought. Blæsilla, the eldest, a widow at twenty, was,
+like her mother, a Roman exquisite, loving everything that was
+beautiful and soft and luxurious. In the affectionate gibes of the
+family she is described as spending entire days before her mirror,
+giving herself up to all the extravagances of dress and personal
+decoration, the tower of curls upon her head, the touch of rouge on
+her cheeks. A second daughter, Paulina, was on the eve of marriage
+with a young patrician, as noble, as rich, and, as was afterwards
+proved, as devoutly Christian as the family into which he married. The
+third member of the family, Eustochium, a girl of sixteen, of a
+character contrasting strongly with those of her beautiful mother and
+sister, a saint from her birth, was the favourite, and almost the
+child, of Marcella, instructed by her from her earliest years, and had
+already fixed her choice upon a monastic life, and would seem to have
+been a resident in the Aventine palace to which the others were such
+frequent visitors. Of all this delightful and brilliant party she is
+the one born recluse, severe in youthful virtue, untouched by any of
+the fascinations of the world. The following very pretty and graphic
+story is told of her, in which we have a curious glimpse into the
+strangely mixed society of the time.
+
+The family of Paula though Christian, and full of religious fervour,
+or at least imbued with the new spirit of revolt against the
+corruption of the time, was closely connected with the still existing
+pagan society of Rome. Her sister-in-law, sister of her husband and
+aunt of her children, was a certain lady named Prætextata, the wife of
+Hymettius, a high official under the Emperor Julian the Apostate, both
+of them belonging, with something of the fictitious enthusiasm of
+their master, to the faith of the old gods. No doubt one of the
+severest critics of that society on the Aventine, Prætextata saw with
+impatience and wrath, what no doubt she considered the artificial
+gravity, inspired by her surroundings, of the young niece who had
+already announced her intention never to marry, and to withdraw
+altogether from the world. Such resolutions on the part of girls who
+know nothing of the world they abandon have exasperated the most
+devout of parents, and it was not wonderful if this pagan lady thought
+it preposterous. The little plot which she formed against the serious
+girl was, however, of the most good-natured and innocent kind. Finding
+that words had no effect upon her, the elder lady invited Eustochium
+to her house on a visit. The young vestal came all unsuspicious in her
+little brown gown, the costume of humility, but had scarcely entered
+her aunt's house when she was seized by the caressing and flattering
+hands of the attendants, interested in the plot as the favourite maids
+of such an establishment would be, who unloosed her long hair and
+twisted it into curls and plaits, took away her humble dress, clothed
+her in silk and cloth of gold, covered her with ornaments and led her
+before the mirror which reflected all these charms, to dazzle her eyes
+with the apparition of herself, so different from the schoolroom
+figure with which she was acquainted. The little plot was clever as
+well as innocent, and might, no doubt, have made a heart of sixteen
+beat high. But Eustochium with her Greek name, and her virgin heart,
+was the grave girl we all know, the one here and there among the
+garden of girls, born to a natural seriousness which is beyond such
+temptations. She let them turn her round and round, received sweetly
+in her gentle calm the applauses of the collected household, looked at
+her image in the mirror as at a picture--and went home again in her
+little brown gown with her story to tell, which, no doubt, was an
+endless amusement and triumph to the ladies on the Aventine, repeated
+to every new-comer with many a laugh at the foolishness of the clever
+aunt who had hoped by such means to seduce Eustochium--Eustochium, the
+most serious of them all!
+
+Such was the first religious community in Rome. It was the natural
+home of Marcella to which her friends gathered, without in most cases
+deserting their own palaces, or forsaking their own place in the
+world--a centre and home of the heart, where they met constantly, the
+residents ever ready to receive, not only their closer associates, but
+all the society of Roman ladies, who might be attracted by the higher
+aspirations of intellect and piety. Not a stone exists of that noble
+mansion now, but it is supposed to have stood close to the existing
+church of Sta. Sabina, an unrivalled mount of vision. From that mount
+now covered with so many ruins the ladies looked out upon the yet
+unbroken splendour of the city, Tiber far below sweeping round under
+the walls. Palatinus, with the "white roofs" of that home to which
+Horatius looked before he plunged into the yellow river, still stood
+intact at their right hand: and, older far, and longer surviving, the
+wealth of nature, the glory of the Roman sky and air, the
+white-blossomed daphne and the starry myrtle, and those roses which
+are as ancient inhabitants of the world as any we know flinging their
+glories about the marble balustrades and making the terraces sweet.
+There would they walk and talk, the recluses at ease and simple in
+their brown gowns, the great ladies uneasy under the weight of their
+toilettes, but all eager to hear, to tell, to read the last letter
+from the East, from the desert or the cloister, to exchange their
+experiences and plan their charities. There is nothing ascetic in the
+picture, which is a very different one from that of those austere
+solitudes of the desert, which had suggested and inspired it--the lady
+Paula tottering in, with a servant on either side to conduct her to
+the nearest couch, and young Blæsilla making a brilliant irruption in
+all her bravery, with her jewels sparkling and her transparent veil
+floating, and her golden heels tapping upon the marble floor. This is
+not how we understand the atmosphere of a convent; yet, if fact were
+taken into due consideration, the greatest convents have been very
+like it, in all ages--the finest ladies having always loved that
+intercourse and contrast, half envious of the peace of their
+cloistered sisters, half pleased to dazzle them with a splendour which
+never could be theirs.
+
+      "No fixed rule," says Thierry, in his _Life of St. Jerome_,
+      "existed in this assembly, where there was so much
+      individuality, and where monastic life was not even
+      attempted. They read the Holy Scriptures together, sang
+      psalms, organised good works, discussed the condition of
+      the Church, the progress of spiritual life in Italy and in
+      the provinces, and kept up a correspondence with the
+      brothers and sisters outside of a more strictly monastic
+      character. Those of the associates who carried on the
+      ordinary life of the world came from time to time to
+      refresh their spirits in these holy meetings, then returned
+      to their families. Those who were free gave themselves up
+      to devotional exercises, according to their taste and
+      inclination, and Marcella retired into her desert. In a
+      short time these exercises were varied by the pursuit of
+      knowledge. All Roman ladies of rank knew a little Greek, if
+      only to be able to say to their favourites, according to
+      the _mot_ of Juvenal, repeated by a father of the Church,
+      [Greek: Zôê kai psuchê], my life and my soul: the Christian
+      ladies studied it better and with a higher motive. Several
+      later versions of the Old and New Testament were in general
+      circulation in Italy, differing considerably from each
+      other, and this very difference interested anxious minds in
+      referring to the original Greek for the Gospels, and for
+      the Hebrew books to the Greek of the Septuagint, the
+      favourite guide of Western translators. The Christian
+      ladies accordingly set themselves to perfect their
+      knowledge of Greek, and many, among whom were Marcella and
+      Paula, added the Hebrew language, in order that they might
+      sing the psalms in the very words of the prophet-king.
+      Marcella even became, by intelligent comparison of the
+      texts, so strong in exegetical knowledge that she was often
+      consulted by the priests themselves."
+
+It was about the year 380 that this establishment was formed. "The
+desert of Marcella" above referred to was, as the reader will
+remember, a great garden in a suburb of Rome, which she had pleased
+herself by allowing to run wild, and where occasionally this great
+Roman lady played at a hermit's life in solitude and abstinence.
+Paula's desert, perhaps not so easy a one, was in her own house,
+where, besides the three daughters already mentioned, she had a
+younger girl Rufina, not yet of an age to show any marked tendencies,
+and a small boy Toxotius, her only son, who was jealously looked after
+by his pagan relatives, to keep him from being swept away by this tide
+of Christianity.
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE PALATINE.]
+
+Such was the condition of the circle on the Aventine, when a great
+event happened in Rome. Following many struggles and disasters in the
+East, chiefly the continually recurring misfortune of a breach of
+unity, a diocese here and there exhibiting its freedom by choosing two
+bishops representing different parties at the same time, and thus
+calling for the exercise of some central authority--Pope Damasus had
+called a council in Rome. He was so well qualified to be a judge in
+such cases that he had himself won his see at the point of the sword,
+after a stoutly contested fight in which much blood was shed, and the
+church of S. Lorenzo, the scene of the struggle, was besieged and
+taken like a castle. If he had hoped by this means to establish the
+universal authority of his see, a pretension as yet undeveloped, it
+was immediately forestalled by the Bishop of Constantinople, who at
+once called together a rival council in that place. The Council of
+Rome, however, is of so much more importance to us that it called into
+full light in the Western world the great and remarkable figure of
+Jerome: and still more to our record of the Roman ladies of the
+Aventine, since it suddenly introduced to them the man whose name is
+for ever connected with theirs, who is supposed erroneously, as the
+reader will see, to have been the founder of their community, but who
+henceforward became its most trusted leader and guide in the spiritual
+life.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE WALLS BY ST. JOHN LATERAN.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MELANIA.
+
+
+It may be well, however, before continuing this narrative to tell the
+story of another Roman lady, not of their band, nor in any harmony
+with them, which had already echoed through the Christian world, a
+wild romance of enthusiasm and adventure in which the breach of all
+the decorums of life was no less remarkable than the abandonment of
+its duties. Some ten years before the formation of Marcella's
+religious household (the dates are of the last uncertainty) a young
+lady of Rome, of Spanish origin, rich and noble and of the highest
+existing rank, found herself suddenly left in the beginning of a
+splendid and happy life, in desolation and bereavement. Her husband,
+whose name is unrecorded, died early leaving her with three little
+children, and shortly after, while yet unrecovered from this crushing
+blow, another came upon her in the death of her two eldest children,
+one following the other. The young woman, only twenty-three, thus
+terribly stricken, seems to have been roused into a fever of
+excitement and passion by a series of disasters enough to crush any
+spirit. It is recorded of her that she neither wept nor tore her hair,
+but advancing towards the crucifix with her arms extended, her head
+high, her eyes tearless, and something like a smile upon her lips,
+thanked God who had now delivered her from all ties and left her free
+to serve Himself. Whether she had previously entertained this desire,
+or whether it was only the despair of the distracted mother which
+expressed itself in such words, we are not told. In the haste and
+restlessness of her anguish she arranged everything for a great
+funeral, and placing the three corpses on one bier followed them to
+Rome to the family mausoleum alone, holding her infant son, the only
+thing left to her, in her arms. The populace of Rome, eager for any
+public show, had crowded upon the course of many a triumph, and
+watched many a high-placed Cæsar return in victory to the applauding
+city, but never had seen such a triumphal procession as this, Death
+the Conqueror leading his captives. We are not told whether it was
+attended by the overflowing charities, extravagant doles and offerings
+to the poor with which other mourners attempted to assuage their
+grief, or whether Melania's splendour and solitude of mourning was
+unsoftened by any ministrations of charity; but the latter is more in
+accordance with the extraordinary fury and passion of grief, as of a
+woman injured and outraged by heaven to which she thus called the
+attention of the spheres.
+
+The impression made by that funeral splendour and by the sight of the
+young woman following tearless and despairing with her one remaining
+infant in her arms, had not faded from the minds of the spectators
+when it was rumoured through Rome that Melania had abandoned her one
+remaining tie to life and gone forth into the outside world no one
+knew where, leaving her child so entirely without any arrangement for
+its welfare that the official charged with the care of orphans had to
+select a guardian for this son of senators and consuls as if he had
+been a nameless foundling. What bitterness of soul lay underneath such
+an incomprehensible desertion, who could say? It might be a sense of
+doom such as overwhelms some sensitive minds, as if everything
+belonging to them were fated and nothing left them but the tragic
+expedient of Hagar in the desert, "Let me not see the child die."
+Perhaps the courage of the heartbroken young woman sank before the
+struggle with pagan relations, who would leave no stone unturned to
+bring up this last scion of the family in the faith or no-faith of his
+ancestors; perhaps she was in reality devoid of those maternal
+instincts which make the child set upon the knee the best comforter of
+the woman to whom they have brought home her warrior dead. This was
+the explanation given by the world which tore the unhappy Melania to
+pieces and held her up to universal indignation. Not even the
+Christians already touched with the enthusiasm and passion of the
+pilgrim and ascetic could justify the sudden and mysterious
+disappearance of a woman who still had so strong a natural bond to
+keep her in her home. But whatever the character of Melania might be,
+whether destitute of tenderness, or only distracted by grief and
+bereavement, and hastening to take her fatal shadow away from the
+cradle of her child, she was at least invulnerable to any argument or
+persuasion. "God will take care of him better than I can," she said as
+she left the infant to his fate. It was probably a better one than had
+he been the charge of this apparently friendless young woman, with her
+pagan relations, her uncompromising enthusiasm and self-will, and with
+all the risks surrounding her feet which made the path of a young
+widow in Rome so full of danger; but it is fortunate for the world
+that few mothers are capable of counting those risks or of turning
+their backs upon a duty which is usually their best consolation.
+
+There is, however, an interest in the character and proceedings of
+such an exceptional woman which has always excited the world, and
+which the thoughtful spectator will scarcely dismiss with the common
+imputation of simple heartlessness and want of feeling. Melania was a
+proud patrician notwithstanding that she flung from her every trace of
+earthly rank or wealth, and a high-spirited, high-tempered individual
+notwithstanding her subsequent plunge into the most self-abasing
+ministrations of charity. And these features of character were not
+altered by her sudden renunciation of all things. She went forth a
+masterful personage determined, though no doubt unconsciously, to sway
+all circumstances to her will, though in the utmost self-denial and
+with all the appearances and surroundings of humility. This is a
+paradox which meets us on every side, in the records of such
+world-abandonment as are familiar in every history of the beginnings
+of the monastic system, in which continually both men and women give
+up all things while giving up nothing, and carry their individual will
+and way through circumstances which seem to preclude the exercise of
+either.
+
+The disappearance of Melania made a great sensation in Rome, and no
+doubt discouraged Christian zeal and woke doubts in many minds even
+while proving to others the height of sacrifice which could be made
+for the faith. On the other hand the adversary had boundless occasion
+to blaspheme and denounce the doctrines which, as he had some warrant
+for saying, thus struck at the very basis of society and weakened
+every bond of nature. What more dreadful influence could be than one
+which made a woman forsake her child, the infant whom she had carried
+in her arms to the great funeral, in the sight of all Rome, the son
+of her sorrow? Nobody except a hot-headed enthusiast could take her
+part even among her fellow-Christians, nor does it appear that she
+sought any support or made any apology for herself. Jerome, then a
+young student and scholar from the East, was in Rome, in obscurity,
+still a catechumen preparing for his baptism, at the time of Melania's
+flight; and though there is no proof that he was even known to her,
+and no probability that so unknown a person could have anything to do
+with her resolution, or could have influenced her mind, it was
+suggested in later times when he was well known, that probably he had
+much to do--who can tell if not the most powerful and guilty of
+motives?--in determining her flight. Such a vulgar explanation is
+always adapted to the humour of the crowd, and gives an easy solution
+of the problems which are otherwise so difficult to solve. As a matter
+of fact these two personages, not unlike each other in force and
+spirit, had much to do with each other, though mostly in a hostile
+sense, in the after part of their life.
+
+We find Melania again in Egypt, to which presumably she at once
+directed her flight as the headquarters of austere devotion and
+self-sacrifice, on leaving Rome--alone so far as appears. This was in
+the year 372 (nothing can be more delightful than to encounter from
+time to time a date, like an angel, in the vague wilderness of letters
+and narratives), when Athanasius the great Bishop was near his end.
+The young fugitive, whose arrival in Alexandria would not be attended
+by such mystery as shrouded her departure from Rome, was received
+kindly by the dying saint, to whom she had probably been known in her
+better days, and who in his enthusiasm for the life of monastic
+privation and sacrifice probably considered her flight and her
+resolution alike inspired by heaven. He gave her, let us hope, his
+blessing, and much good counsel--in addition to the sacred sheepskin
+which had formed the sole garment of the holy Macarius in his cell in
+the desert, which she carried away with her as her most valued
+possession. The great Roman lady then pursued her way into the
+wilderness, which was indeed a wilderness rather in name than in fact,
+being peopled on every side by communities both of men and women,
+while in every rocky fissure and cavern were hermits jealously shut
+each in his hole, the more inaccessible the better. Nothing can be
+more contradictory than the terms used. This desert of solitaries gave
+forth the evening hymn over all its extent as if the very sands and
+rocks sang, so many were the unseen worshippers. And the traveller
+went into the wilderness alone so to speak, in the utmost
+self-abnegation and humility, yet attended by an endless retinue of
+servants whose attendance was indispensable, if only to convey and
+protect the store of provisions and presents which she carried with
+her.
+
+The conception of a lonely figure on the edge of a trackless sandy
+waste facing all perils, and encountering perhaps after toilsome days
+of solitude a still more lonely anchorite in his cell, to give her the
+hospitality of a handful of peas, and a shrine of prayer, which is the
+natural picture which rises before us--changes greatly when the
+details are examined. Melania evidently travelled with a great
+caravanserai, with camels laden with grain and every kind of provision
+that was necessary to sustain life in those regions. The times were
+more troublous even than usual. The death of Athanasius was the signal
+for one of those outbursts of persecution which rent the Christian
+world in its very earliest ages, and which alas! the Church herself
+has never been slow to learn the use of. The underground or overground
+population of the Egyptian desert was orthodox; the powers that were,
+were Arian; and hermits and coenobites alike were hunted out of
+their refuges and dragged before tribunals, where their case was
+decided before it was heard and every ferocity used against them. In a
+country so rent by the most violent of agitations Melania passed like
+an angel of charity. She became the providence of the hunted and
+suffering monks. She is said for a short period to have provided for
+five thousand in Nitria, which proves that however secret her
+disappearance from Rome had been, her address as we should say must
+have been well known to her bankers, or their equivalent. Thus it is
+evident that a robe of sackcloth need not necessarily imply poverty,
+much less humility, and that a woman may ride about on the most sorry
+horse (chosen it would seem because it was a more abject thing than
+the well-conditioned ass of the East) and yet demean herself like a
+princess.
+
+There is one story told of this primitive Lady Bountiful by Palladius
+which if it did not recall the action of St. Paul in somewhat similar
+circumstances would be highly picturesque. The proconsul in Palestine,
+not at all aware who was the pestilent woman who persisted in
+supplying and defending the population of the religious which it was
+his mission to get rid of--even going so far as to visit and nourish
+them in his prisons--had her arrested to answer for her interference.
+There is nothing more likely than that Melania remembered the method
+adopted by St. Paul to bring his judges to his feet. She sent the
+consul a message in which a certain compassionate scorn mingles with
+pride. "You esteem me by my present dress," she said, "which it is
+quite in my power to change when I will. Take care lest you bring
+yourself into trouble by what you do in your ignorance." This incident
+happened at Cæsarea, the great city on the Mediterranean shore which
+Herod had built, and where the prodigious ruins still lie in sombre
+grandeur capable of restoration to the uses of life. The governor of
+the Syrian city trembled in his gilded chair. The names which Melania
+quoted were enough to unseat him half a dozen times over, though,
+truth to tell, they are not very clearly revealed to the distant
+student. He hastened to set free the sunburnt pilgrim in her brown
+gown, and leave her to her own devices. "One must answer a fool
+according to his folly," she said disdainfully, as she accepted her
+freedom. This lady's progress through the haunted deserts, her
+entrance into town after town, with the shield of rank ready for use
+in any emergency, attended by continual supplies from the stewards of
+her estates, and the power of shedding abundance round her wherever
+she went, could hardly be said to merit the rewards of privation and
+austerity even if her delicate feet were encased in rude sandals and
+the cloth of gold replaced by a tunic of rough wool.
+
+  [Illustration: COLOSSEUM BY MOONLIGHT.
+    _To face page 36._]
+
+Melania had been, presumably for some time before this incident,
+accompanied by a priest named Rufinus, a fellow-countryman,
+schoolfellow and dear friend of Jerome, the future Father of the
+Church, at this period a young religious adventurer if we may use the
+word:--which indeed seems the only description applicable to the bands
+of young, devout enthusiasts, who roamed about the world, not bound to
+any special duties, supporting themselves one knows not how, aiming at
+one knows not what, except some devotion of mystical religious life,
+or indefinite Christian service to the world. The object of saving
+their souls was perhaps for most the prevailing object, and the
+greater part of them had at least passed a year or two in those
+Eastern deserts where renunciation of the world had been pushed to its
+furthest possibilities. But they were also hungry for learning, for
+knowledge, for disciples, and full of that activity of youth which is
+bound to go everywhere and see everything whether with possible means
+and motives or not. Whatever they were, they were not so far as can be
+made out missionaries in any sense of the word. They were received
+wherever they went, in devout households here and there, in any of the
+early essays at monasteries which existed by bounty and Christian
+charity, among the abounding dependents of great houses, or by the
+bishop or other ecclesiastical functionary. They were this man's
+secretary, that man's tutor--seldom so far as we can see were they
+employed as chaplains. Rufinus indeed was a priest, but few of the
+others were so, Jerome himself only having consented to be ordained
+from courtesy, and in no way fulfilling the duties of the priesthood.
+There were, however, many offices no doubt appropriate to them in the
+household of a bishop, who was often the distributor of great
+charities and the administrator of great possessions. But it is
+evident that there were always a number of these scholar-student monks
+available to join any travelling party, to serve their patron with
+their knowledge of the desert and their general experience of the ways
+of the world. "To lead about a sister":--St. Paul perhaps had already
+in his time some knowledge of the usefulness of such a functionary,
+and of the perfectly legitimate character of his office. Rufinus
+joined Melania in this way, to all appearance as the other head of the
+expedition, on perfectly equal terms, though it was her purse which
+supplied everything necessary. Jerome himself (with a train of
+brethren behind him) travelled in the same way with Paula--Oceanus
+with Fabiola. Nothing could be more completely in accordance with the
+fashion of the time. Perhaps the young men provided for their own
+expenses as we say, but the caravan was the lady's and all the immense
+and indiscriminate charity which flowed from it.
+
+It is not necessary for us to follow the career of Rufinus any more
+than we intend to follow that of Jerome, into the violent controversy
+which is the chief link which connects their names, or indeed in any
+way except that of their association with the women of our tale.
+Rufinus was a Dalmatian from the shores of the Adriatic, learned
+enough according to the fashion of his time, though not such a scholar
+as Jerome, and apt to despise those elegances of literature which he
+was incapable of appreciating. He too, no doubt, like Jerome, had
+some following of other men like himself, ready for any adventure, and
+glad to make themselves the almoners of Melania and form a portion of
+her train. It is a strange conjunction according to our modern ideas,
+and no doubt there were vague and flying slanders, such as exist in
+all ages, accounting for anything that is unusual or mysterious by the
+worse reasons. But it must be remembered that such partnerships were
+habitual in those days, permitted by the usage of a time of which
+absolute purity was the craze and monomania, if we may so speak, as
+well as the ideal: and also that the solitude of those pilgrims was at
+all times that of a crowd--the supposed fugitive flying forth alone
+being in reality, as has been explained already, accompanied on every
+stage of the way by attendants enough to fill her ship and form her
+caravan wherever she went.
+
+From Cæsarea, where Melania discomfited the government by her high
+rank and connections, it is but a little way to Jerusalem, where the
+steps of the party were directed after their prolonged journey through
+the desert. It had already become the end of many pilgrimages, the one
+place in the world which most attracted the hearts and imaginations of
+the devout throughout all the world; and we can well realise the
+sensation of the wanderers when they came in sight of that green hill,
+dominating the scene of so many tragedies, the still half-ruined but
+immortal city of which the very dust was dear to the primitive
+Christians. Who that has come suddenly upon that scene in quiet,
+without offensive guidance or ciceroneship, has not named to himself
+the Mount of Olives with such a thrill of identification as would move
+him in scarcely any other landscape in the world? It was still
+comparatively virgin soil in the end of the fourth century. The
+Empress Helena had been there, making, as we all feel now, but too
+easy and too exact discoveries: but the country was unexplored by any
+vain searchings of curiosity, and the calm of solitude, as perfect
+and far sweeter than amid the sands of the deserts, was still to be
+found there. The pilgrims went no further. They chose each their site
+upon the soft slope of that hill of divine memories. Rufinus took up
+his abode in a rocky cell, Melania probably in some house in the city,
+while their monasteries were being built. The great Roman lady with
+her faithful stewards, always sending those ever valuable supplies, no
+doubt provided for the expenses of both: and soon two communities
+arose near each other preserving the fellowship of their founders,
+where after some years of travel and movement Melania, with strength
+and courage restored, took up her permanent abode.
+
+It is difficult to decide what is meant by sacrifice and
+self-abnegation in this world of human subterfuge and self-deception.
+It is very likely that Melania, like Paula after her, gave herself to
+the most humble menial offices, and did not scorn, great lady as she
+was, to bow the haughty head which had made the proconsul of Palestine
+tremble, to the modest necessities of primitive life. Perhaps she
+cooked the spare food, swept the bare cells with her own hands:
+undoubtedly she would superintend the flocks and herds and meagre
+fields which kept her community supplied. We know that she rode the
+sorriest horse, and wore the roughest gown. These things rank high in
+the catalogue of privations, as privations are calculated in the
+histories of the saints. And yet it is doubtful how far she is to be
+credited, if it were a merit, with any self-sacrifice. She had
+attained the full gratification of her own will and way, which is an
+advantage not easily or often computed. She had settled herself in the
+most interesting spot in the world, in the midst of a landscape which,
+notwithstanding all natural aridity and the depressing effects of ruin
+everywhere, is yet full of beauty as well as interest. Most of all
+perhaps she was in the way of the very best of company, receiving
+pilgrims of the highest eminence, bishops, scholars, princes,
+sometimes ladies of rank like herself, who were continually coming and
+going, bringing the great news of the world from every quarter to the
+recluses who thus commanded everything that wealth could supply. One
+may be sure that, as Jerome and Paula afterwards spent many a serene
+evening in Bethlehem under their trees, Melania and Rufinus would
+often sit under those hoary olives doubly grey with age, talking of
+all things in heaven and earth, looking across the little valley to
+the wall, all the more picturesque that it was broken, and lay here
+and there in heaps of ruin, of Jerusalem, and hearing, in the pauses
+of their conversation, the tinkling of that little brook which has
+seen so many sacred scenes and over which our Lord and His favourite
+disciples crossed to Gethsemane, on such a night as that on which His
+servants sat and talked of Him. It is true that the accursed Arians,
+and grave news of the fight going on between them and the Catholics,
+or perhaps the question of Origen's orthodoxy, or how the struggle was
+going between Paulinus and Meletius at Antioch, might occupy them more
+than those sacred memories. But it is much to be doubted whether any
+grandeur of Roman living would have been so much to Melania's mind as
+the convent on the Mount of Olives, the stream of distinguished
+pilgrims, and the society of her ever devoted companion and friend.
+
+  [Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF VESTA.]
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: CHURCHES ON THE AVENTINE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE SOCIETY OF MARCELLA.
+
+
+The council which was held in Rome in 382 with the intention of
+deciding the cases of various contending bishops in distant sees,
+especially in Antioch where two had been elected for the same seat--a
+council scarcely acknowledged even by those on whose behalf it was
+held, and not at all by those opposed to them--was chiefly remarkable,
+as we have said, from the appearance for the first time, as a marked
+and notable personage, of one of the most important, picturesque, and
+influential figures of his time--Jerome: a scholar insatiable in
+intellectual zeal, who had sought everywhere the best schools of the
+time and was learned in all their science: and at the same time a monk
+and ascetic fresh from the austerities of the desert and one of those
+struggles with the flesh and the imagination which formed the epic of
+the solitary. It was not unnatural that the régime of extreme
+abstinence combined with utter want of occupation, and the
+concentration of all thought upon one's self and one's moods and
+conditions of mind, should have awakened all the subtleties of the
+imagination, and filled the brooding spirit with dreams of every wild
+and extravagant kind; but it would not occur to us now to represent
+the stormy passage into a life dedicated to religion as filled with
+dancing nymphs and visions of the grossest sensual enjoyment--above
+all in the case of such a man as Jerome, whose chief temptations one
+would have felt to be of quite another kind. This however was the
+fashion of the time, and belonged more or less to the monkish ideal,
+which exaggerated the force of all these lower fleshly impulses by way
+of enhancing the virtue of him who successfully overcame them. The
+early fathers all scourged themselves till they were in danger of
+their lives, rolled themselves in the snow, lay on the cold earth, and
+lived on a handful of dried grain, perhaps on the grass and wild herbs
+to be found in the crevices of the rocks, in order to get the body
+into subjection: which might have been more easily done, we should
+have supposed, by putting other more wholesome subjects in the place
+of these visionary temptations, or filling the vacancy of the hours
+with hard work. But the dulness of an English clown or athlete, in
+whom muscular exercise extinguishes all visions, would not have been
+at all to the mind of a monkish neophyte, to whom the sharpest stings
+of penitence and agonies of self-humiliation were necessary, whether
+he had done anything to call them forth or not.
+
+Jerome had gone through all these necessary sufferings without sparing
+himself a pang. His face pale with fasting, and his body so worn with
+penance and privation that it was almost dead, he had yet felt the
+fire of earthly passions burning in his soul after the truest orthodox
+model. "The sack with which I was covered," he says, "deformed my
+members; my skin and flesh were like those of an Ethiop. But in that
+vast solitude, burnt up by the blazing sun, all the delights of Rome
+appeared before my eyes. Scorpions and wild beasts were my companions,
+yet I seemed to hear the choruses of dancing girls."
+
+      Finding no succour anywhere, I flung myself at the feet of
+      Jesus, bathing them with tears, drying them with the hair
+      of my head. I passed day and night beating my breast, I
+      banished myself even from my cell, as if it were conscious
+      of all my evil thoughts; and, rigid against myself,
+      wandered further into the desert, seeking some deeper cave,
+      some wilder mountain, some riven rock which I could make
+      the prison of this miserable flesh, the place of my
+      prayers.
+
+Sometimes he endeavoured to find refuge in his books, the precious
+parchments which he carried with him even in those unlikely regions:
+but here another temptation came in. "Unhappy that I am," he cries, "I
+fasted yet read Cicero. After spending nights of wakefulness and tears
+I found Plautus in my hands." To lay aside dramatist, orator, and
+poet, so well known and familiar, and plunge into the imperfectly
+known character of the Hebrew which he was learning, the
+uncomprehended mysteries and rude style of the prophets, was almost as
+terrible as to fling himself fasting on the cold earth and hear the
+bones rattle in the skin which barely held them together. Yet
+sometimes there were moments of deliverance: sometimes, when all the
+tears were shed, gazing up with dry exhausted eyes to the sky blazing
+with stars, "I felt myself transported to the midst of the angels, and
+full of confidence and joy, lifted up my voice and sang, 'Because of
+the savour of thy ointments we will run after thee.'" Thus both were
+reconciled, his imagination freed from temptation, and the poetry of
+the crabbed books, which were so different from Cicero, made suddenly
+clear to his troubled eyes.
+
+This was however but a small part of the training of Jerome. From his
+desert, as his spirit calmed, he carried on a great correspondence,
+and many of his letters became at once a portion of the literature of
+his time. One in particular, an eloquent and oratorical appeal to one
+of his friends, the Epistle to Heliodorus, with its elaborate
+description of the evils of the world and impassioned call to the
+peace of the desert, went through the religious circles of the time
+with that wonderful speed and facility of circulation which it is so
+difficult to understand, and was read in Marcella's palace on the
+Aventine and learnt by heart by some fervent listeners, so precious
+were its elaborate sentences held to be. This letter boldly proclaimed
+as the highest principle of life the extraordinary step which Melania,
+as well as so many other self-devoted persons, had taken--and called
+every Christian to the desert, whatever duties or enjoyments might
+stand in the way. Perhaps such exhortations are less dangerous than
+they seem to be, for the noble ladies who read and admired and learned
+by heart these moving appeals do not seem to have been otherwise
+affected by them. Like the song of the Ancient Mariner, they have to
+be addressed to the predestined, who alone have ears to hear.
+Heliodorus, upon whom all that eloquence was poured at first hand,
+turned a deaf ear, and lived and died in peace among his own people,
+among the lagoons where Venice as yet was not, notwithstanding all his
+friend could say.
+
+"What make you in your father's house, oh sluggish soldier?" cried
+that eager voice; "where are your ramparts and trenches, under what
+tent of skins have you passed the bitter winter? The trumpet of heaven
+sounds, and the great Leader comes upon the clouds to overcome the
+world. Let the little ones hang upon other necks; let your mother rend
+her hair and her garments; let your father stretch himself on the
+threshold to prevent you from passing: but arise, come thou! Are you
+not pledged to the sacrifice even of father and mother? If you believe
+in Christ, fight with me for His name and let the dead bury their
+dead." There were many who would dwell upon these entreaties as upon
+a noble song rousing the heart and charming the ear, but the balance
+of human nature is but rarely disturbed by any such appeal. Even in
+that early age we may in the greater number of cases permit it to move
+all hearers without any great fears for the issue.
+
+Jerome, however, did not himself remain very long in his desert; he
+was invaded in his very cell by the echoes of polemical warfare
+drifting in from the world he had left: and was called upon to
+pronounce himself for one side or the other, while yet, according to
+his own account, unaware what it was all about. He left his retirement
+unwillingly after some three years, quoting Virgil as to the barbarity
+of the race which refused him the hospitality of a little sand, and
+plunged into the fight at Antioch between contending bishops and
+parties, the heresy of Apollinaris, and all the rage of religious
+polemics. It was probably his intimate acquaintance with all the
+questions so strongly contested in the East, and his power of giving
+information on points which the Western Council could only know at
+second hand, which led him to Rome on the eve of the Council already
+referred to, called by Pope Damasus, in 382. The primary object of
+this Council was to settle matters of ecclesiastical polity, and
+especially the actual question as to which of the competitors was
+lawful bishop of Antioch, besides other questions concerning other
+important sees. It was no small assumption on the part of the bishops
+of the West, an assumption supported in those days by no dogma as to
+the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, to interfere in the affairs of
+the East to this extent. And it was at once crushed by the action of
+the Church in the East, which immediately held a council of its own at
+Constantinople, and authoritatively decided every practical question.
+Jerome was the friend of all those bishops whose causes would have
+been pleaded at Rome, had not their own section of the Church thus
+made short work with them: and this no doubt commended him to the
+special attention of Damasus, even after these practical questions
+were set aside, and the heresy of Apollinaris, which had been intended
+to be treated in the second place, was turned into the only subject
+before the house. Jerome was deeply learned on the subject of
+Apollinaris too. It was on account of this new heresy that his place
+in Egypt had become untenable. His knowledge could not but be of the
+utmost importance to the Western bishops, who were not as a rule
+scholars, nor given to the subtle reasoning of the East. He was very
+welcome therefore in Rome, especially after the illness of the great
+Ambrose had denuded that Council, shorn of so much of its prestige, of
+almost the only imposing name left to it. This was the opportunity of
+such a man as Jerome, in himself, as we have said, still not much
+different from the many young religious adventurers who scoured the
+world. He was already, however, a distinguished man of letters: he was
+known to Damasus, who had baptized him: he had learning enough to
+supplement the deficiencies of an entire Council, and for once these
+abilities were fully appreciated and found their right place. He had
+scarcely arrived in Rome when he was named Secretary of the Council--a
+temporary office which was afterwards prolonged and extended to that
+of Secretary to the Pope himself: thus the stranger became at once a
+functionary of the utmost importance in the proceedings of the See of
+Rome and in its development as a supreme power and authority in the
+Church.
+
+There is something strangely familiar and quaint in the appearance, so
+perfectly known to ourselves, of the gathering of a religious
+congress, convocation, or general assembly, when every considerable
+house and hospitable family is moved to receive some distinguished
+clerical visitor--which thus took place in Rome in the end of the
+fourth century, while still all was classic in the aspect of the
+Eternal City, and the altars of the gods were still standing. The
+bishops and their trains arrived, making a little stir, sometimes even
+at the marble porticoes of great mansions where the master or mistress
+still professed a languid devotion to Jove or Mercury. Jerome, burnt
+brown by Egyptian suns, meagre and sinewy in his worn robe, with a
+humble brother or two in his train, accepted, after a little modest
+difficulty, the invitation or the allotment which led him to the
+Aventine, to the palace of Marcella, where he was already well known,
+and where, though his eyes were downcast with a becoming reserve at
+the sight of all the ladies, he yet felt it right to follow the
+example of the Apostle and industriously overcome his own bashfulness.
+It was not perhaps a quality very strong in his nature, and very soon
+his new and splendid habitation became to the ascetic a home more dear
+than any he had yet known.
+
+It is curious to find how completely the principle of the association
+and friendship of a man and woman, failing closer ties, was adopted
+and recognised among these mystics and ascetics, without apparent fear
+of the comments of the world, or any of the self-consciousness which
+so often spoils such a relationship in ordinary society. Perhaps the
+gossips smiled even then upon the close alliance of Jerome with Paula,
+or Rufinus with Melania. There were calumnies abroad of the coarsest
+sort, as was inevitable; but neither monk nor lady seem to have been
+affected by them. It has constantly been so in the history of the
+Church, and it is interesting to collect such repeated testimony from
+the most unlikely quarter, to the advantage of this natural
+association. Women have had hard measure from Catholic doctors and
+saints. Their conventional position, so to speak, is that of the
+Seductress, always studying how to draw the thoughts of men away from
+higher things. The East and the West, though so much apart on other
+points, are at one in this. From the anguish of the fathers in the
+desert to the supposed difficulties of the humblest ordinary priest of
+modern times, the disturbing influence is always supposed to be that
+of the woman. Gruesome figure as he was for any such temptation,
+Antony of Egypt himself was driven to extremity by the mere thought of
+her: and it is she who figures as danger or as victim in every
+ultra-Protestant plaint over the condition of the priest (except in
+Ireland, wonderful island of contradictions! where priests and all men
+are more moved to fighting than to love). Yet notwithstanding there
+has been no founder of ecclesiastical institutions, no reformer,
+scarcely any saint, who has not been accompanied by the special
+friendship and affection of some woman. Jerome, who was so much the
+reverse, if we may venture to use these words, of a drawing-room hero,
+a man more used to vituperation than to gentleness of speech, often
+harsh as the desert from which he had come, was a notable example of
+this rule. From the time of his arrival on the Aventine to that of his
+death, his name was never dissociated from that of Paula, the pious
+lady _par excellence_ of the group, the exquisite and delicate
+patrician who could scarcely plant her golden shoe firmly on the
+floor, but came tottering into Marcella's great house with a slave on
+either side to support her, in all the languid grace which was the
+highest fashion of the time. That such an example of conventional
+delicacy and luxury should have become the humble friend and secretary
+of Jerome, and that he, the pious solitary, acrid with opposition and
+controversy, should have found in this fine flower of society his
+life-long companion, both in labour and life, is more astonishing than
+words can say.
+
+  [Illustration: THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL.]
+
+His arrival in Marcella's hospitable house, with its crowds of
+feminine visitors, was in every way a great event. It brought the
+ladies into the midst of all the ecclesiastical questions of the time:
+and one can imagine how they crowded round him when he returned from
+the sittings of the Council--perhaps in the stillness of the evening
+after the dangerous hour of sunset, when all Rome comes forth to
+breathe again--assembling upon the marble terrace, from which that
+magical scene was visible at their feet: the long withdrawing distance
+beyond the river, out of which some gleam might be apparent of the
+great church which already covered the tombs of the Apostles, and the
+white crest of the Capitol close at hand, and the lights of the town
+scattered dimly like glowworms among the wide openings and level lines
+of classical building which made the Rome of the time. The subjects
+discussed were not precisely those which the lighter conventional
+fancy, Boccaccio or Watteau, has associated with such groups, any more
+than the dark monk resembled the troubadour. But they were subjects
+which up to the present day have never lost their interest. The
+debates of the Council were chiefly taken up with an extremely
+abstruse heresy, concerning the humanity of our Lord, how far the
+nature of man existed in him in connection with the nature of God, and
+whether the Redeemer of mankind had taken upon himself a mere ethereal
+appearance of flesh, or an actual human body, tempted as we are and
+subject to all the influences which affect man. It is a question which
+has arisen again and again at various periods and in various manners,
+and the subtleties of such a controversy have proved of the
+profoundest interest to many minds. Jerome was not alone to report to
+those eager listeners the course of the debates, and to demolish over
+again the intricate arguments by which that assembly of divines
+wrought itself to fever heat. The great Bishop Epiphanius, the great
+heresy-hunter of his day--who had fathomed all the fallacious
+reasonings of all the schismatics, and could detect a theological
+error at the distance of a continent, in whatever garb it might shield
+itself--was the guest of Paula, and no doubt, along with his hostess,
+would often join these gatherings. The two doctors thus brought
+together would vie with each other in making the course of the
+controversy clear to the women, who hung upon their lips with keen
+apprehension of every phrase and the enthusiastic partisanship which
+inspires debate. There could be no better audience for the fine-drawn
+arguments which such a controversy demands. How strange to think that
+these hot discussions were going on, and the flower of the artificial
+society of Rome keenly occupied by such a question, while still the
+shadow of Jove lingered on the Capitol, and the Rome of the heathen
+emperors, the Rome of the great Republic, stood white and splendid, a
+shadow, yet a mighty one, upon the seven hills!
+
+Before his arrival in Rome, Jerome had been but little known to the
+general world. His name had been heard in connection with some
+eloquent letters which had flown about from hand to hand among the
+finest circles; but his true force and character were better known in
+the East than in the West, and it was in part this Council which gave
+him his due place in the ranks of the Church. He was no priest to be
+promoted to bishoprics or established in high places. He had indeed
+been consecrated against his will by an enthusiastic prelate, eager to
+secure his great services to the Church; but, monk and ascetic as he
+was, he had no inclination towards the sacerdotal character, and had
+said but one mass, immediately after his ordination, and no more. It
+was not therefore as spiritual director in the ordinary sense of the
+words that he found his place in Marcella's house, but at first at
+least as a visitor merely and probably for the time of the Council
+alone. But the man of the desert would seem to have been charmed out
+of himself by the unaccustomed sweetness of that gentle life. He would
+indeed have been hard to please if he had not felt the attraction of
+such a retreat, not out of, but on the edge of, the great world, with
+its excitements and warfare within reach, the distant murmur of the
+crowd, the prospect of the great city with its lights and rumours, yet
+sacred quiet and delightful sympathy within. The little community had
+given up the luxuries of the age, but they could not have given up the
+refinements of gentle breeding, the high-born manners and grace, the
+charm of educated voices and cultivated minds. And there was even more
+than these attractions to gratify the scholar. Not an allusion could
+be made to the studies of which he was most proud, the rugged Hebrew
+which he had painfully mastered, or ornate Greek, but some quick
+intelligence there would take it up; and the poets and sages of their
+native tongue, the Cicero and Virgil from whom he could not wean
+himself even in the desert, were their own literature, their valued
+inheritance. And not in the most devoted community of monks could the
+great orator have found such undivided attention and interest in his
+work as among the ladies of the Aventine, or secretaries so eager and
+ready to help, so proud to be associated with it. He was at the same
+time within reach of Bishop Damasus, a man of many experiences, who
+seems to have loved him as a son, and who not only made him his
+secretary, but his private counsellor in many difficulties and
+dangers: and Jerome soon became the centre also of a little band of
+chosen friends, distinguished personages in Roman society connected in
+faith and in blood with the sisterhood, whom he speaks of as Daniel,
+Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, some of whom were his own old companions
+and schoolfellows, all deeply attached to him and proud of his
+friendship. No more delightful position could have been imagined for
+the repose and strengthening of a man who had endured many hardships,
+and who had yet before him much more to bear.
+
+Jerome remained nearly three years in this happy retreat, and it was
+here that he executed the first portion of his great work, that first
+authoritative translation of the entire Canon of Scripture which still
+retains its place in the Church of Rome--the Vulgate, so named when
+the Latin of Jerome, which is by no means that of Cicero, was the
+language of the crowd. In every generation what is called the higher
+education of women is treated as a new and surprising thing by the
+age, as if it were the greatest novelty; but we doubt whether Girton
+itself could produce graduates as capable as Paula and Marcella of
+helping in this work, discussing the turning of a phrase or the
+meaning of an abstruse Hebrew word, and often holding their own
+opinion against that of the learned writer whose scribes they were so
+willing to be. This undertaking gave a double charm to the life, which
+went on with much variety and animation, with news from all quarters,
+with the constant excitement of a new charity established, a new
+community founded: and never without amusement either, much knowledge
+of the sayings and doings of society outside, visits from the finest
+persons, and a daily entertainment in the flutterings of young
+Blæsilla between the world and the convent, and her pretty ways, so
+true a woman of the world, yet all the same a predestined saint: and
+the doings of Fabiola, one day wholly absorbed in the foundation of
+her great hospital, the first in Rome, the next not so sure in her
+mind that love, even by means of a second divorce, might not win the
+day over devotion. Even Paula in these days was but half decided, and
+came, a dazzling vision in her jewels and her crown, to visit her
+friends, in all the pomp of autumnal beauty, among her daughters, of
+whom that serious little maiden Eustochium was the only one quite
+detached from the world. For was there not also going on under their
+eyes the gentle wooing of Pammachius and Paulina to make it apparent
+to the world that the ladies on the Aventine did not wholly discredit
+the ordinary ties of life, although they considered with St. Paul that
+the other was the better way? The lovers were as devout and as much
+given up to good works as any of them, yet, as even Jerome might
+pardon once in a way, preferred to the cloister the common happiness
+of life. These good works were the most wonderful part of all, for
+every member of the community was rich. Their fortunes were like the
+widow's cruse. One hears of great foundations like that of Fabiola's
+hospital and Melania's provision for the monks in Africa, for which
+everything was sacrificed; yet, next day, next year, renewed
+beneficences were forthcoming, and always a faithful intendant, a good
+steward, to continue the bountiful supplies. So wonderful indeed are
+these liberalities, and so extraordinary the details, that it is
+surprising to find that no learned German, or other savant, has, as
+yet, attempted to prove that the fierce and vivid Jerome never
+existed, that his letters were the work of half a dozen hands, and the
+subjects of his brilliant narrative altogether fictitious--Melania and
+Paula being but mythical repetitions of the same incident, wrapt in
+the colours of fable. This hypothesis might be made to seem very
+possible if it were not, perhaps, a little too late in the centuries
+for the operations of that high-handed criticism, and Jerome himself a
+very hard fact to encounter.
+
+But the great wealth of these ladies remains one of the most singular
+circumstances in the story. When they sell and sacrifice everything it
+is clear it must only be their floating possessions, leaving untouched
+the capital, as we should say, or the estates, perhaps, more justly,
+the wealthy source from which the continued stream flowed. This gave a
+splendour and a largeness of living to the home on the Aventine. There
+was no need to send any petitioner away empty, charity being the rule
+of life, and no thought having as yet entered the most elevated mind
+that to give to the poor was inexpedient for them, and apt to
+establish a pauper class, dependent and willing to be so. These ladies
+filled with an even and open hand every wallet and every mouth. They
+received orphans, they provided for widows, they filled the poor
+quarters below the hill--where all the working people about the
+Marmorata clustered near the river bank, in the garrets and courtyards
+of the old houses--with asylums and places of refuge. The miserable
+and idle populace of which the historian speaks so contemptuously, the
+fellows who hung about the circuses, and had no name but the nicknames
+of coarsest slang, the Cabbage-feeders, the Sausage-eaters, &c., the
+Porringers and Gluttons, were, no doubt, left all the more free to
+follow their own foul devices; but the poor women, who though perhaps
+far from blameless suffer most in the debasement of the population,
+and the unhappy little swarms of children, profited by this universal
+balm of charity, and let us hope grew up to something a little better
+than their sires. For however paganism might linger among the higher
+class, the multitudes were all nominally Christian. It was to the
+tombs of the Apostles that they made their pilgrimages, rather than to
+the four hundred temples of the gods. "For all its gilding the Capitol
+looks dingy," says Jerome himself in one of his letters; "every temple
+in Rome is covered with soot and cobwebs, and the people pour past
+those half-ruined shrines to visit the tombs of the apostles."
+
+The house of Marcella was in the condition we have attempted to
+describe when Jerome became its guest. It was in no way more rigid in
+its laws than at the beginning. The little _ecclesia domestica_, as he
+happily called it, seems to have been entirely without rule or
+conventual order. They sang psalms together (sometimes we are led to
+believe, in the original Hebrew learned for the purpose--but it must
+have been few who attained to this height), they read together, they
+held their little conferences on points of doctrine, with much
+consultation of learned texts; but there is no mention even of any
+regular religious service, much less of matins, and vespers, and nones
+and compline, and the other ritualistic divisions of a monastic day;
+for indeed no rule had been as yet invented for any coenobites of
+the West. We do not hear even of a daily mass. Often there were
+desertions from the ranks, sometimes a young maiden withdrawing from
+the social enclosure, sometimes a young widow drawn back into the
+vortex of the fashionable world. But on the whole the record of the
+little domestic church, with its bodyguard of faithful friends and
+servitors outside, and Jerome, its pride and crown of glory, within,
+is one of serene and happy life, dignified by everything that was best
+in the antique world.
+
+It was after the arrival of Jerome that the little tragedy of
+Blæsilla, the eldest daughter of Paula, occurred, rending their gentle
+hearts. "Our dear widow," as Jerome called her, had no idea of second
+marriage in her mind. The first, it would appear, had not been happy;
+and Blæsilla, fair and rich and young, had every mind to enjoy her
+freedom, her fine dresses, and all the pleasures of her youth. Safely
+lodged under her mother's wing, with those irreproachable friends 011
+the Aventine about her, no gossip touched her gentle name. The
+community amused itself with her light-hearted ways. "Our widow loves
+to adorn herself. She is the whole day before her mirror," says
+Jerome, and there is no harsh tone in his voice. But in the midst of
+her gay and innocent life she fell ill of a fever, no unusual thing.
+It lingered, however, more than a month and took a dangerous form, so
+that the doctors began to despair. When things were at this point
+Blæsilla had a dream or vision, in her fever, in which the Saviour
+appeared to her and bade her arise as He had done to Lazarus. It was
+the crisis of the disease, and she immediately began to recover, with
+the deepest faith that she had been cured by a miracle. The butterfly
+was touched beyond measure by this divine interposition, as she
+believed, in her favour, and as soon as she was well, made up her mind
+to devote herself to God. "An extraordinary thing has happened," cries
+Jerome. "Blæsilla has put on a brown gown! What a scandal is this!" He
+launches forth thereupon into a diatribe upon the fashionable ladies,
+with faces of gypsum like idols, who dare not shed a tear lest they
+should spoil their painted cheeks, and who are the true scandal to
+Christianity: then narrates with growing tenderness the change that
+has taken place in the habits of the young penitent. She, whose
+innocent head was tortured with curls and plaits and crowned with the
+fashionable _mitella_, now finds a veil enough for her. She lies on
+the ground who found the softest cushions hard, and is up the first in
+the morning to sing Alleluia in her silvery voice.
+
+The conversion rang through Rome all the more that Blæsilla was known
+to have had no inclination toward austerity of life. Her relations,
+half pagan and altogether worldly, were hot against the fanatic monk,
+who according to the usual belief tyrannised over the whole house in
+which he had been so kindly received, and the weak-minded mother who
+had lent herself to his machinations. The question fired Rome, and
+became a matter of discussion under every portico and wherever men or
+women assembled. Was it lawful, had it any warrant in law or history,
+this new folly of opposing marriage and representing celibacy as a
+happier and holier state? It was against every tradition of the race;
+it tore families in pieces, abstracted from society its most brilliant
+members, alienated the patrimony of families, interfered with
+succession and every natural law. In the turmoil raised by this event,
+a noisy public controversy arose. Two assailants presented themselves,
+one a priest, who had been for a time a monk, and one a layman, to
+maintain the popular canon, the superiority of marriage and the
+natural life of the world. These arguments had a great effect upon the
+public mind, naturally prone to take fright at any interference with
+its natural laws. They had very serious results at a later period both
+in the life of Paula and that of Jerome, and they seem to have
+threatened for a time serious injury to the newly established convents
+which Marcella's community had planted everywhere, and from which
+half-hearted sisters took this opportunity of separating themselves.
+It is amusing to find that, by a curious and furious twist of the
+usual argument, Jerome in his indignant and not always temperate
+defence describes these deserters as old and ugly, and unable to find
+husbands notwithstanding the most desperate efforts. It has been very
+common to allege this as a reason for the self-dedication of nuns: and
+it is always a handy missile to throw.
+
+Jerome was not the man to let any such fine opening for a controversy
+pass. He burst forth upon his opponents, thundering from the heights
+of the Aventine, reducing the feeble writers who opposed him to
+powder. Helvidius, the layman above mentioned, had taken up the
+question--a question always offensive and injurious to natural
+sentiment and prejudice, exclusive even of religious feeling, and
+which, whatever opinions may prevail, it must always be profane to
+touch--of the Virgin Mary herself, and the existence of persons called
+brothers and sisters of our Lord. To him Jerome replied by a flood of
+angry eloquence, as well as some cogent argument--though argument,
+however strong, is insupportable on such a subject. And he launched
+forth upon the other, Jovinian, the false monk, that famous letter on
+Virginity, nominally addressed to Eustochium, in which one of the most
+trenchant pictures ever made of society, both lay and clerical--the
+habits, the ideas, the follies of debased and fallen Rome--is of far
+more force and importance than the argument, and furnishes us with
+such a spectacle as very few writers at any time or in any place are
+capable of placing before the eyes of the world. I have already quoted
+from this wonderful composition the portrait of the popular priest.
+
+The foolish virgin who puts on an appearance of indifference to
+worldly things, and "under the ensign of a holy profession draws
+towards her the regard of men," is treated with equal severity.
+
+      We cast out and banish from our sight those virgins who
+      only wish to seem to be so. Their robes have but a narrow
+      stripe of purple, they let their hair hang about their
+      shoulders, their sleeves are short and narrow, and they
+      have cheap shoes upon their feet. This is all their
+      sanctity. They make by these pretences a higher price for
+      their innocence. Avoid, dear Eustochium, the secret
+      thought that having ceased to court attention in cloth of
+      gold you may begin to do so in mean attire. When you come
+      into an assembly of the brothers and sisters do not, like
+      some, choose the lowest seat or plead that you are unworthy
+      of a footstool. Do not speak with a faltering voice as if
+      worn out with fasting, or lean upon the shoulders of your
+      neighbours as if fainting. There are some who thus
+      disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to fast.
+      As soon as they are seen, they begin to groan, they look
+      down, they cover their faces, all but one eye. Their dress
+      is sombre, their girdles are of sackcloth. Others assume
+      the mien of men, blushing that they have been born women,
+      who cut their hair short, and walk abroad with effrontery,
+      confronting the world with the impudent faces of
+      eunuchs.... I have seen, but will not name, one among the
+      noblest of Rome who in the very basilica of the blessed
+      Peter gave alms with her own hands at the head of her
+      retinue of servants, but struck in the face a poor woman
+      who had twice held out her hand. Flee also the men who wear
+      an iron chain, who have long hair like women against the
+      rule of the Apostle, a miserable black robe, who go
+      barefooted in the cold, and have in appearance at least an
+      air of sadness and anxiety.
+
+The following sketch of the married woman who thinks of the things of
+the world, how she may please her husband, while the unmarried are
+free to please God, has an interest long outliving the controversy, in
+the light it throws upon contemporary Roman life.
+
+      Do you think there is no difference between one who spends
+      her time in fastings, and humbles herself night and day in
+      prayer--and her who must prepare her face for the coming of
+      her husband, ornament herself, and put on airs of
+      fascination? The first veils her beauty and the graces
+      which she despises; the other paints herself before a
+      mirror, to make herself more fair than God has made her.
+      Then come the children, crying, rioting, hanging about her
+      neck, waiting for her kiss. Expenses follow without end,
+      her time is spent in making up her accounts, her purse
+      always open in her hand. Here there is a troop of cooks,
+      their garments girded like soldiers for the battle, hashing
+      and steaming. Then the women spinning and babbling. Anon
+      comes the husband, followed by his friends. The wife flies
+      about like a swallow from one end of the house to the
+      other, to see that all is right, the beds made, the marble
+      floors shining, flowers in the vases, the dinner prepared.
+      Is there in all that, I ask, a thought of God? Are these
+      happy homes? No, the fear of God is absent there, where the
+      drum is sounded, the lyre struck, where the flute breathes
+      out and the cymbals clash. Then the parasite abandons shame
+      and glories in it, if he amuses the host who has invited
+      him. The victims of debauch have their place at these
+      feasts; they appear half naked in transparent garments
+      which unclean eyes see through. What part is there for the
+      wife in these orgies? She must learn to take pleasure in
+      such scenes, or else to bring discord into her house.
+
+He paints for us, in another letter, a companion picture of the widow
+remarried.
+
+      Your contract of marriage will scarcely be written when you
+      will be compelled to make your will. Your new husband
+      pretends to be very ill, and makes a will in your favour,
+      desiring you to do the same. But he lives, and it is you
+      who die. And if it happens that you have sons by your
+      second marriage, war blazes forth in your house, a domestic
+      contest without term or conclusion. Those who owe life to
+      you, you are not permitted to love equally, fully. The
+      second envies the caress which you give to the son of the
+      first. If, on the contrary, it is he who has children by
+      another wife, although you may be the most loving of
+      mothers, you are condemned as a stepmother by all the
+      rhetoric of the comedies, the pantomimes, and orators. If
+      your stepson has a headache you have poisoned him. If he
+      eats nothing you starve him, if you serve him his food it
+      is worse still. What compensation is there in a second
+      marriage to make up for so many woes?
+
+This tremendous outburst and others of a similar kind raised up, as
+was natural, a strong feeling against Jerome. It was not likely that
+the originals of these trenchant sketches would forgive easily the man
+who put them up in effigy on the very walls of Rome. That the pictures
+were identified was clear from another letter, in which he asks
+whether he is never to speak of any vice or folly lest he should
+offend a certain Onasus, who took everything to himself. Little cared
+he whom he offended, or what galled jade might wince. But at last the
+remonstrances of his friends subdued his rage. "When you read this you
+will bend your brows and check my freedom, putting a finger on my
+mouth to stop me from speaking," he wrote to Marcella. It was full
+time that the prudent mistress of the house which contained such a
+champion should interfere.
+
+While still the conflict raged which had been roused by the retirement
+of Blæsilla from the world, and which had thus widened into the
+general question, far more important than any individual case, between
+the reforming party in the Church, the Puritans of the time--then
+specially represented by the new development of monasticism--and the
+world which it called all elevated souls to abandon: incidents were
+happening which plunged the cheerful home on the Aventine into sorrow
+and made another noble house in Rome desolate. The young convert in
+the bloom of her youthful devotion, who had been raised up
+miraculously as they all thought from her sick bed in order that she
+might devote her life to Christ, was again struck down by sickness,
+and this time without any intervention of a miracle. Blæsilla died in
+the fulness of her youth, scarcely twenty-two, praying only that she
+might be forgiven for not having been able to do what she had wished
+to do in the service of her Lord. She was a great lady, though she had
+put her natural splendour away from her, and it was with all the pomp
+of a patrician funeral that she was carried to her rest. It is again
+Jerome who makes visible to us the sad scene of this funeral, and the
+feeling of the multitude towards the austere reformers who had by
+their cruel exactions cut off this flower of Roman society before her
+time. Paula, the bereaved mother, followed, as was the custom, the
+bier of her daughter through the crowded streets of Rome, scarcely
+able in the depths of her grief to support herself, and at last fell
+fainting into the arms of the attendants and had to be carried home
+insensible. At this sight, which might have touched their hearts, the
+multitude with one voice cried out against the distracted mother. "She
+weeps, the daughter whom she has killed with fastings," they cried.
+"Why are not these detestable monks driven from the city? why are they
+not stoned or thrown into the river? It is they who have seduced this
+miserable woman to be herself a monk against her will--this is why she
+weeps for her child as no woman has ever wept before." Paula, let us
+hope, did not hear these cries of popular rage. The streets rung with
+them, the populace always ready for tumult, and the disgusted and
+angry nobles encouraging every impulse towards revolt. No doubt many
+of the higher classes had looked on with anxiety and alarm at the new
+movement which dissipated among the poor so many fine inheritances
+and threatened to carry off out of the world, of which they had been
+the ornaments, so many of the most distinguished women. Any sudden
+rising which might kill or banish the pestilent monk or disperse the
+troublesome community would naturally find favour in their eyes.
+
+  [Illustration: THE LATERAN FROM THE AVENTINE.]
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: PORTICO OF OCTAVIA.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+PAULA.
+
+
+Paula was a woman of very different character from the passionate and
+austere Melania who preceded and resembled her in many details of her
+career. Full of tender and yet sprightly humour, of love and
+gentleness and human kindness, a true mother benign and gracious, yet
+with those individualities of lively intelligence, understanding, and
+sympathy which quicken that mild ideal and bring in all the elements
+of friendship and the social life--she was the most important of those
+visitors and associates who made the House on the Aventine the
+fashion, and filled it with all that was best in Rome. Though her
+pedigree seems a little delusive, her relationship to Æmilius Paulus
+resolving itself into a descent from his sister through her own
+mother, it is yet apparent that her claims of the highest birth and
+position were fully acknowledged, and that no Roman matron held a
+higher or more honourable place. She was rich as they all were, highly
+allied, the favourite of society, neglecting none of its laws, though
+always with a love of intellectual intercourse and a tendency to
+devotion. Which of these tendencies drew her first towards Marcella
+and her little society we cannot tell: but it is evident that both
+found satisfaction there, and were quickened by the strong impulse
+given by Jerome when he came out of the schools and out of the wilds,
+at once Scholar and Hermit, to this house of friendship, the Ecclesia
+Domestica of Rome. That all this rising tide of life, the books, the
+literary work, the ever-entertaining companionship, as well as the
+higher influence of a life of self-denial and renunciation, as
+understood in those days--should have at first added a charm even to
+that existence upon its border, the life in which every motive
+contradicted the new law, is very apparent. Many a great lady, deeply
+plunged in all the business of the world, has felt the same
+attraction, the intense pleasure of an escape from those gay
+commotions which in the light of the other life seem so insignificant
+and wearisome, the sensation of rest and tranquillity and something
+higher, purer, in the air--which yet perhaps at first gave a zest to
+the return into the world, in itself once more a relief from that
+higher tension and those deeper requirements. The process by which the
+attraction grew is very comprehensible also. Common pleasures and
+inane talk of society grow duller and duller in comparison with the
+conversation full of wonders and revelations which would keep every
+faculty in exercise, the mutual studies, the awe yet exhilaration of
+mutual prayers and psalms, the realisation of spiritual things. And no
+doubt the devout child's soul so early fixed, the little daughter who
+had thought of nothing from her cradle but the service of God, must
+have drawn the ever-tender, ever-sympathetic mother still nearer to
+the centre of all. The beautiful mother among her girls, one
+betrothed, one self-consecrated, one in all the gay emancipation of
+an early widowhood, affords the most charming picture among the graver
+women--women all so near to each other in nature,--mutually related,
+members of one community, linked by every bond of common association
+and tradition.
+
+When Blæsilla on her recovery from her illness threw off her gaieties
+and finery, put on the brown gown, and adopted all the rules of the
+community, the life of Paula, trembling between two spheres, was
+shaken by a stronger impulse than ever before. But how difficult was
+any decision in her circumstances! She had her boy and girl at home as
+yet undeveloped--her only boy, dragged as much as might be to the
+other side, persuaded to think his mother a fanatic and his sisters
+fools. Paula did all she could to combine the two lives, indulging
+perhaps in an excess of austerities under the cloth of gold and jewels
+which, as symbols of her state and rank, she could not yet put off.
+The death of Blæsilla was the shock which shattered her life to
+pieces. Even the coarse reproaches of the streets show us with what
+anguish of mourning this first breach in her family overwhelmed her.
+"This is why she weeps for her child as no woman has ever wept
+before," the crowd cried, turning her sorrow into an accusation, as if
+she had thus acknowledged her own fault in leaving Blæsilla to
+privations she was not able to endure. Did the cruel censure perhaps
+awake an echo in her heart, ready as all hearts are in that moment of
+prostration to blame themselves for something neglected, something
+done amiss? At least it would remind Paula that she herself had never
+made completely this sacrifice which her child had made with such
+fatal effect. She was altogether overcome by her sorrow: her sobs and
+cries rent the hearts of her friends. She refused all food, and when
+exhausted by the paroxysms of violent grief fell into a lethargy of
+despair more alarming still. When every one else had tried their best
+to draw her from this excess of affliction, the ladies had recourse
+to Jerome in their extremity: for it was clear that Paula must be
+roused from this collapse of all courage and hope, or she must die.
+
+Jerome did not refuse to answer the appeal: though helpless as even
+the most anxious affection is in face of this anguish of the mother
+which will not be comforted, he did what he could; he wrote to her
+from the house of their friends who shared yet could not still her
+sorrow, a letter full of grief and sympathy, in the forlorn hope of
+bringing her back to life. Such letters heaven knows are common
+enough. We have all written, and most of us have received them, and
+found in their tender arguments, in their assurances of final good and
+present fellow feeling, only fresh pangs and additional sickness of
+heart. Yet Jerome's letter was not of a common kind. No one could have
+touched the shrinking heart with a softer touch than this fierce
+controversialist, this fiery and remorseless champion: for he had yet
+a more effectual spell to move the mourner, in that he was himself a
+mourner, not much less deeply touched than she. "Who am I," he cries,
+"to forbid the tears of a mother who myself weep? This letter is
+written in tears. He is not the best consoler whom his own groans
+master, whose being is un-manned, whose broken words distil into
+tears. Yes, Paula, I call to witness Christ Jesus whom our Blæsilla
+now follows, and the angels who are now her companions, I, too, her
+father in the spirit, her foster-father in affection, could also say
+with you--Cursed be the day that I was born. Great waves of doubt
+surge over my soul as over yours. I, too, ask myself why so many old
+men live on, why the impious, the murderers, the sacrilegious, live
+and thrive before our eyes, while blooming youth and childhood without
+sin are cut off in their flower." It is not till after he has thus
+wept with her that he takes a severer tone. "You deny yourself food,
+not from desire of fasting, but of sorrow. If you believed your
+daughter to be alive, you would not thus mourn that she has migrated
+to a better world. Have you no fear lest the Saviour should say to
+you, 'Are you angry, Paula, that your daughter has become my daughter?
+Are you vexed at my decree, and do you with rebellious tears grudge me
+the possession of Blæsilla?' At the sound of your cries Jesus,
+all-clement, asks, 'Why do you weep? the damsel is not dead but
+sleepeth.' And when you stretch yourself despairing on the grave of
+your child, the angel who is there asks sternly, 'Why seek ye the
+living among the dead?'"
+
+In conclusion Jerome adds a wonderful vow: "So long as breath animates
+my body, so long as I continue in life, I engage, declare and promise
+that Blæsilla's name shall be for ever on my tongue, that my labours
+shall be dedicated to her honour, and my talents devoted to her
+praise." It was the last word which the enthusiasm of tenderness could
+say: and no doubt the fervour and warmth of the promise, better kept
+than such promises usually are, gave a little comfort to the sorrowful
+soul.
+
+When Paula came back to the charities and devotions of life after this
+terrible pause a bond of new friendship was formed between her and
+Jerome. They had wept together, they bore the reproach together, if
+perhaps their trembling hearts might feel there was any truth in it,
+of having possibly exposed the young creature they had lost to
+privations more than she could bear. But it is little likely that this
+modern refinement of feeling affected these devoted souls; for such
+privations were in their eyes the highest privileges of life, and in
+fasting man was promoted to eat the food of angels. At all events, the
+death of Blæsilla made a new bond between them, the bond of a mutual
+and most dear remembrance never to be forgotten.
+
+This natural consequence of a common sorrow inflamed the popular rage
+against Jerome to the wildest fury. Paula's relations and connections,
+half of them, as in most cases in the higher ranks of society, still
+pagan--who now saw before them the almost certain alienation to
+charitable and religious purposes of Paula's wealth, pursued him with
+calumny and outrage, and did not hesitate to accuse the lady and the
+monk of a shameful relationship and every crime. To make things worse,
+Damasus, whose friend and secretary, almost his son, Jerome had been,
+died a few months after Blæsilla, depriving him at once of that high
+place to which the Pope's favour naturally elevated him. He complains
+of the difference which his close connection with Paula's family had
+made on the general opinion of him. "All, almost without exception,
+thought me worthy of the highest sacerdotal position; there was but
+one word for me in the world. By the mouth of the blessed Damasus it
+was I who spoke. Men called me holy, humble, eloquent." But all this
+had changed since the recent events in Paula's house. She on her side,
+wounded to the heart by the reproaches poured upon her, and the
+shameful slanders of which she was the object, and which had no doubt
+stung her into renewed life and energy, resolved upon a step stronger
+than that of joining the community, and announced her intention of
+leaving Rome, seeking a refuge in the holy city of Jerusalem, and
+shaking the dust of her native country, where she had been so
+vilified, from her feet. This resolution was put to Jerome's account
+as might have been expected, and when his patron's death left him
+without protection every enemy he had ever made, and no doubt they
+were many, was let loose. He whom courtiers had sought, whose hands
+had been kissed and his favour implored by all who sought anything
+from the Pope, was now greeted when he appeared in the streets by
+fierce cries of "Greek," "Impostor," "Monk," and his presence became a
+danger for the peaceful house in which he had found a refuge.
+
+It is scarcely possible to be very sorry for Jerome. He had not minced
+his words; he had flung libels and satires about that must have stung
+and wounded many, and in such matters reprisals are inevitable. But
+Paula had done no harm. Even granting the case that Blæsilla's health
+had been ruined by fasting, the mother herself had gone through the
+same privations and exulted in them: and her only fault was to have
+followed and sympathised in, with enthusiasm, the new teaching and
+precepts of the divine life in the form which was most highly esteemed
+in her time. No cry from that silent woman comes into the old world,
+ringing with so many outcries, where the rude Roman crowd bellowed
+forth abuse, and the ladies on their silken couches whispered the
+scandal of Paula's liaison to each other, and the men scoffed and
+sneered over their banquets at the mere thought of such a friendship
+being innocent. Some one of their enemies ventured to speak or write
+publicly the vile accusation, and was instantly brought to book by
+Jerome, and publicly forswore the scandal he had spread. "But," as
+Jerome says, "a lie is hard to kill; the world loves to believe an
+evil story: it puts its faith in the lie, but not in the recantation."
+And the situation of affairs became such that he too saw no expedient
+possible but that of leaving Rome. He would seem to have been, or to
+have imagined himself, in danger of his life, and his presence was
+unquestionably a danger for his friends. A man of more patient
+temperament and quiet mind might have thought that Paula's resolution
+to go away was a reason for him to stay, and thus to bear the scandal
+and outrage alone, at least until she was safe out of its
+reach--giving no possible occasion for the adversary to blaspheme. But
+Jerome was evidently not disposed to any such self-abnegation, and
+indeed it is very likely that his position had become intolerable and
+that his only resource was departure. It was in the summer of 385,
+nearly three years after his arrival in Rome--in August, seven months
+after the death of Damasus, and not a year after that of Blæsilla,
+that he left "Babylon," as he called the tumultuous city, writing his
+farewell with tears of grief and wrath to the Lady Asella, now one of
+the eldest and most important members of the community, and thanking
+God that he was found worthy of the hatred of the world. We are apt to
+speak as if travelling were an invention of our time: but as a matter
+of fact facilities of travelling then existed little inferior to those
+we ourselves possessed thirty or forty years ago, and it was no
+strange or unusual journey from Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, by
+the soft Mediterranean shores, past the vexed rocks of the Sirens in
+the blazing weather, to Cyprus that island of monasteries, and Antioch
+a vexed and heresy-tainted city yet full of friends and succour.
+Jerome had a cluster of faithful followers round him, and was escorted
+by a weeping crowd to the very point of his embarkation: but yet swept
+forth from Rome in a passion of indignation and distress.
+
+  [Illustration: TEMPLE OF VENUS AND ROME FROM THE COLOSSEUM (1860).
+    _To face page 72._]
+
+It was while waiting for the moment of departure in the ship that was
+to carry him far from his friends and the life he loved, that Jerome's
+letters to Asella were written. They were full of anger and sorrow,
+the utterance of a heart sore and wounded, of a man driven almost to
+despair. "I am said," he cries, "to be an infamous person, a deceiver
+full of guile, an impostor with all the arts of Satan at his fingers'
+ends.... These men have kissed my hands in public, and stung me in
+secret with a viper's tooth; they compassionate me with their lips and
+rejoice in their hearts. But the Lord saw them, and had them in
+derision, reserving them to appear with me, his unfortunate servant,
+at the last judgment. One of them ridicules my walk, and my laugh:
+another makes of my features a subject of accusation: to another the
+simplicity of my manners is the evil thing: and I have lived three
+years in the company of such men!" He continues his indignant
+self-defence as follows:
+
+"I have lived surrounded by virgins, and to some of them I
+explained as best I could the divine books. With study came an
+increased knowledge of each other, and with that knowledge mutual
+confidence. Let them say if they have ever found anything in my
+conduct unbecoming a Christian. Have I not refused all presents, great
+or small? Gold has never sounded in my palm. Have they heard from my
+lips any doubtful word, or seen in my eyes a bold or hazardous look?
+Never, and no one dares say so. The only objection to me is that I am
+a man: and that objection only appeared when Paula announced her
+intention of going to Jerusalem. They believed my accuser when he
+lied: why do they not believe him when he retracts? He is the same man
+now as then. He imputed false crimes to me, now he declares me
+innocent. What a man confesses under torture is more likely to be true
+than that which he gives forth in a moment of gaiety: but people are
+more prone to believe such a lie than the truth.
+
+"Of all the ladies in Rome Paula only, in her mourning and fasting,
+has touched my heart. Her songs were psalms, her conversations were of
+the Gospel, her delight was in purity, her life a long fast. But when
+I began to revere, respect, and venerate her, as her conspicuous
+virtue deserved, all my good qualities forsook me on the spot.
+
+"Had Paula and Melania rushed to the baths, taken advantage of their
+wealth and position to join, perfumed and adorned, in one worship God
+and their wealth, their freedom and pleasure, they would have been
+known as great and saintly ladies; but now it is said they seek to be
+admired in sackcloth and ashes, and go down to hell laden with fasting
+and mortifications: as if they could not as well have been damned
+along with the rest, amid the applauses of the crowd. If it were
+Pagans and Jews who condemned them, they would have had the
+consolation of being hated by those who hated Christ, but these are
+Christians, or men known by that name.
+
+"Lady Asella, I write these lines in haste, while the ship spreads its
+sails. I write them with sobs and tears, yet giving thanks to God to
+have been found worthy of the hatred of the world. Salute Paula and
+Eustochium, mine in Christ whether the world pleases or not, salute
+Albina your mother, Marcella your sister, Marcellina, Felicita: say to
+them that we shall meet again before the judgment seat of God, where
+the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. Remember me, oh example
+of purity! and may thy prayers tranquillise before me the tumults of
+the sea!"
+
+  [Illustration: TRINITA DE' MONTI.]
+
+The agitation with which the community of ladies must have received
+such a letter may easily be imagined. They were better able than any
+others to judge of the probity and honour of the writer who had lived
+among them so long: and no doubt all these storms raging about, the
+injurious and insulting imputations, all the evil tongues of Rome let
+loose upon the harmless house, their privacy invaded, their quiet
+disturbed, must, during the whole course of the deplorable incident,
+have been the cause of pain and trouble unspeakable to the gentle
+society on the Aventine. Marcella it is evident had done what she
+could to stop the mouth of Jerome when the trouble began; it is
+perhaps for this reason that the letter of farewell is addressed to
+the older Asella, perhaps a milder judge.
+
+Paula's preparations had begun before Jerome had as yet thought of his
+more abrupt departure. They were not so easily made as those of a
+solitary already detached from the world. She had all her family
+affairs to regulate, and, what was harder still, her children to part
+with, the most difficult of all, and the special point in her conduct
+with which it is impossible for us to sympathise. But it must be
+remembered that Paula, a spotless matron, had been branded with the
+most shameful of slanders, that she had been shrieked at by the crowd
+as the slayer of her daughter, and accused by society of having
+dishonoured her name. She had been the subject of a case of libel, as
+we should say, before the public courts, and though the slanderer had
+confessed his falsehood (under the influence of torture it would seem,
+according to the words of Jerome), the imputation, as in most cases,
+remained. Outraged and wounded to the quick, it is very possible that
+she may have thought that it was well for her younger children that
+she should leave them, that they might not remain under the wing of a
+mother whose name had been bandied about in the mouths of men. Her
+daughter Paulina was by this time married to the good and faithful
+Pammachius, whose protection might be of greater advantage to the
+younger girl and boy than her own. And Paula had full knowledge of the
+tender mercies of her pagan relations, and of the influence they were
+likely to exercise against her, even in her own house. The staid young
+Eustochium, grave and calm, clung to her mother's side, her youthful
+head already covered by the veil of the dedicated virgin, a serene
+and unfaltering figure in the midst of all the agitations of the
+parting. All Rome poured forth to accompany them to the port, brothers
+and sisters with their wives and husbands, relations less near, a
+crowd of friends. All the way along the winding banks of the Tiber
+they plied Paula with entreaties and reproaches and tears. She made
+them no reply. She was at all times slow to speak, as the tender
+chronicle reports. "She raised her eyes to heaven, pious towards her
+children but more pious to God." She retained her self-command until
+the vessel began to move from the shore, where little Toxotius, the
+boy of ten years old, stood stretching out his hands to her in a last
+appeal, his sister Rufina silent, with wistful eyes, by his side.
+Paula's heart was like to burst. She turned her eyes away unable to
+bear that cruel sight, while Eustochium, firm and steadfast, supported
+her weaker mother in her arms.
+
+Was it a cruel desertion, a heartless abandonment of duty? Who can
+tell? There are desertions, cruelties in this kind, which are the
+highest sacrifice, and sometimes the most bitter proof of
+self-devotion. Did Paula in her heart believe, most painful thought
+that can enter a mother's mind, that her boy would be better without
+her, brought up in peace among his uncles and guardians, who, had she
+been there, would have made his life a continual struggle between two
+sides? Was Rufina more likely to be happy in her gentle sister's
+charge, than with her mind disturbed, and perhaps her marriage
+spoiled, by her mother's religious vows, and all that was involved in
+them? She might be wrong in thinking so, as we are all wrong often in
+our best and most painfully pondered plans. But condemnation is very
+easy, and gives so little trouble--there is surely a word to be said
+on the other side of the question.
+
+When these pilgrims leave Rome they cease to have any part in the
+story of the great city with which we have to do. Yet their after-fate
+may be stated in a few words. No need to follow the great lady in her
+journey over land and sea to the Holy Land with all its associations,
+where Jerusalem out of her ruins, decked with a new classic name, was
+already rising again into the knowledge and the veneration of the
+world. These were not the days of excursion trains and steamers, it is
+true; but the number of pilgrims ever coming and going to those more
+than classic shores, those holy places, animated with every higher
+hope, was perhaps greater in proportion to the smaller size and less
+population of the known world than are our many pilgrimages now,
+though this seems so strange a thing to say. But is there not a
+Murray, a Baedeker, of the fourth century, still existent, the
+_Itinéraire de Bordeaux à Jerusalem_, unquestioned and authentic,
+containing the most careful account of inns and places of refuge and
+modes of travel for the pilgrims? It is possible that the lady Paula
+may have had that ancient roll in her satchel, or slung about the
+shoulders of her attendant for constant reference. Her ship was
+occupied by her own party alone, and conveyed, no doubt, much baggage
+and many provisions as an emigration for life would naturally do; and
+it was hindered by no storms, as far as we hear, but only by a great
+calm which delayed the vessel much and made the voyage tedious,
+necessitating the use of the galley's oars, which very likely the
+ladies would like best, though it kept them so many more days upon the
+sea. They reached Cyprus at last, that holy island now covered with
+monasteries, where Epiphanius, once Paula's guest in Rome, awaited and
+received her with every honour, and where there were many visits to be
+paid to monks and nuns in their new establishments, the favourite
+dissipation of the cloister. The ladies afterwards continued their
+voyage to Antioch, where they met Jerome; and proceeded on their
+journey, having probably had enough of the sea, along the coast by
+Tyre and Sidon, by Herod's splendid city of Cæsarea, and Joppa with
+its memories of the Apostles--not without a thought of Andromeda and
+her monster as they looked over the dark and dangerous reefs which
+still scare the traveller: for they loved literature, notwithstanding
+their separation from the world. They formed by this time a great
+caravanserai, not unlike, to tell the truth, one of those parties
+which we are so apt to despise, under charge of guides and attendants
+who wear the livery of Cook. But such an expedition was far more
+dignified and important in those distant days. Jerome and his monks
+made but one family of sisters and brothers with the Roman ladies and
+their followers, who endured so bravely all the fatigues and dangers
+of the way. Paula the pilgrim was no longer a tottering fine lady, but
+the most animated and interested of travellers, with no mere mission
+of hermit-hunting like Melania, but the truest human enthusiasm for
+all the storied scenes through which she passed. When they reached
+Jerusalem she went in a rapture of tears and exaltation from one to
+another of the sacred sites, kissing the broken stone which was
+supposed to have been that which was rolled against the door of the
+Holy Sepulchre, and following with pious awe and joy the steps of
+Helena into the cave where the True Cross was found. The legend was
+still fresh in those days, and doubts there were none. The enthusiasm
+of Paula, the rapture and exaltation, which found vent in torrents of
+tears, in ecstasies of sacred emotion, joy and prayer, moved all the
+city, thronged with pilgrims, devout and otherwise, to whom the great
+Roman lady was a wonder: the crowd followed her about from point to
+point, marvelling at her devotion and the warmth of natural feeling
+which in all circumstances distinguished her. The reader cannot but
+follow still with admiring interest a figure so fresh, so
+unconventional, so profoundly touched by all those holy and sacred
+associations. Amid so many who are represented as almost more
+abstracted among spiritual thoughts than nature permits, her frank
+emotion and tender, natural enthusiasm are always a refreshment and a
+charm.
+
+We come here upon a break in the hitherto redundant story. Melania and
+Rufinus were in possession of their convents, and fully established as
+residents on the Mount of Olives, when the other pilgrims arrived; and
+there can be but little doubt that every grace of hospitality was
+extended by the one Roman lady to the other, as well as by the old
+companions of Jerome to her friend. But in the course of the
+after-years these dear friends quarrelled bitterly, not on personal
+matters, so far as appears, but on points of doctrine, and fell into
+such prolonged warfare of angry and stinging words as hurt more than
+blows. By means of this very intimacy they knew everything that had
+ever been said or whispered of each other, and in the heat of conflict
+did not hesitate to use every old insinuation, every suggestion that
+could hurt or wound. The struggle ran so high that the after-peace of
+both parties was seriously affected by it; and one of its most
+significant results was that Jerome, a man great enough and little
+enough for anything, either in the way of spitefulness or magnanimity,
+cut off from his letters and annals all mention of this early period
+of peace, and all reference to Melania, whom he is supposed to have
+praised so highly in his first state of mind that it became impossible
+in his second to permit these expressions of amity to be connected
+with her name. This is a melancholy explanation of the silence which
+falls over the first period of Paula's residence in Palestine, but it
+is a very natural one: and both sides were equally guilty. The quarrel
+happened, however, years after the first visit, which we have every
+reason to believe was all friendliness and peace.
+
+After this first pause at Jerusalem, the caravanserai got under way
+again and set out on a long journey through all the scenes of the Old
+Testament, the storied deserts and ruins of Syria, not much less
+ancient to the view and much less articulate than now. This was in
+the year 387, two years after their departure from Rome. Even now,
+with all our increased facilities for travel--neutralised as they are
+by the fact that these wild and desert lands will probably never be
+adapted to modern methods--the journey would be a very long and
+fatiguing business. Jerome and his party "went everywhere," as we
+should say; they were daunted by no difficulties. No modern lady in
+deer-stalker's costume could have shrunk less from any dangerous road
+than the once fastidious Paula. They stopped everywhere, receiving the
+ready hospitality of the convents in every awful pass of the rocks and
+stony waste where such homes of penance were planted. Those
+wildernesses of ruin, from which our own explorers have picked
+carefully out some tradition of Gilgal or of Ziklag, some Philistine
+stronghold or Jewish city of refuge--were surveyed by these
+adventurers fourteen hundred years ago, when perhaps there was greater
+freshness of tradition, but none of the aids of science to decipher
+what would seem even more hoary with age to them than it does to us.
+How trifling in our pretences at exploration do the luxurious parties
+of the nineteenth century seem, abstracted from common life for a few
+months at the most, and with all the resources of civilisation to fall
+back upon, in comparison with that of these patient wanderers, eating
+the Arab bread and clotted milk, and such fare as was to be got at,
+finding shelter among the dark-skinned ascetics of the desert
+communities, taking refuge in the cave which some saint but a day or
+two before had inhabited, wandering everywhere, over primeval ruin and
+recent shrine!
+
+When they came back from these savage wildernesses to green Bethlehem
+standing up on its hillside over the pleasant fields, the calm and
+sweetness of the place went to their hearts. It was in this sacred
+spot that they decided to settle themselves, building their two
+convents, Jerome's upon the hill near the western gate, Paula's upon
+the smiling level below. He is said to have sold all that he had,
+some remains of personal property in Dalmatia belonging to himself and
+his brother, who was his faithful and constant companion, to provide
+for the expenses of the building, on his side; and no doubt the
+abundant wealth of Paula supplemented all that was wanting. Gradually
+a conventual settlement, such as was the ideal of the time, gathered
+in this spot. After her own convent was finished Paula built two
+others near it, which were soon filled with dedicated sisters. And she
+built a hospice for the reception of travellers, so that, as she said
+with tender smiles and tears, "If Joseph and Mary should return to
+Bethlehem, they might be sure of finding room for them in the inn."
+This soft speech shines like a gleam of tender light upon the little
+holy city with all its memories, showing us the great lady of old in
+her gracious kindness, full of noble natural kindness, and seeing in
+every poor pilgrim who passed that way some semblance of that simple
+pair, who carried the Light of the World to David's little town among
+the hills.
+
+All these homes of piety and charity are swept away, and no tradition
+even of their site is left; but there is one storied chamber that
+remains full of the warmest interest of all. It is the rocky room, in
+one of the half caves, half excavations close to that of the Nativity,
+and communicating with it by rudely hewn stairs and passages, in which
+Jerome established himself while his convent was building, which he
+called his Paradise, and which is for ever associated with the great
+work completed there. All other traditions and memories grow dim in
+the presence of the great and sacred interest of the place. Yet it
+will be impossible even there for the spectator who knows their story
+to stand unmoved in the scene, practically unaltered since their day,
+where Jerome laboured at his great translation, and Paula and
+Eustochium copied, compared, and criticised his daily labours. A
+great part of the Vulgate had been completed in Rome, but since
+leaving that city Jerome had much increased his knowledge of Hebrew,
+losing no opportunity, during his travels, of studying the language
+with every learned Rabbi he encountered, and acquiring much
+information in respect to the views and readings of the doctors in the
+law. He took the opportunity of his retirement at Bethlehem to revise
+what was already done and to finish the work. His two friends had both
+learned Hebrew in a greater or less degree before leaving Rome. They
+had no doubt shared his studies on the way. They read with him daily a
+portion of the Scriptures in the original; and it was at their
+entreaty and with their help that he began the translation of the
+Psalms, so deeply appropriate to this scene, in which the voice of the
+shepherd of Bethlehem could almost be heard, singing as he led his
+flock about the little hills. I quote from M. Amédée Thierry a
+sympathetic description of the method of this work as it was carried
+out in the rocky chamber at Bethlehem, or in the convent close by.
+
+      His two friends charged themselves with the task of
+      collecting all the materials, and this edition, prepared by
+      their care, is that which remains in the Church under
+      Jerome's name. We have his own instructions to them for
+      this work, even to the lines traced for greater exactness,
+      and the explanation of the signs which he had adopted in
+      the collation of the different versions with his text,
+      sometimes a line underscored, sometimes an obelisk or
+      asterisk. A comma followed by two points indicated the
+      cutting out of superfluous words coming from some
+      paraphrase of the Septuagint; a star followed by two points
+      showed, on the contrary, where passages had to be inserted
+      from the Hebrew; another mark denoted passages borrowed
+      from the translation of Theodosius, slightly different from
+      the Septuagint as to the simplicity of the language. In
+      reading these various symbols it is pleasant to think of
+      the two noble Roman ladies seated before the vast desk upon
+      which were spread the numerous manuscripts, Greek, Hebrew,
+      and Latin--the Hebrew text of the Bible, the different
+      editions of the Septuagint, the Hexapla of Origen,
+      Theodosius, Symmachus, Aquila, and the Italian
+      Vulgate--whilst they examined and compared, reducing to
+      order under their hands, with piety and joy, that Psalter
+      of St. Jerome which we still sing, at least the greater
+      part of it, in the Latin Church at the present day.
+
+It is indeed a touching association with that portion of Scripture
+which next to the Gospel is most dear to the devout, that the
+translation still in daily use throughout the churches of Continental
+Europe, the sonorous and noble words which amid all the babble of
+different tongues still form a large universal language, of which all
+have at least a conventional understanding--should have been thus
+transcribed and perfected for the use of the generations. Jerome is no
+gentle hero, and, truth to tell, has never been much loved in the
+Church which yet owes so much to him. Yet there is no other work of
+the kind which carries with it so many soft and tender associations.
+The cave at Bethlehem is as little adapted as a scene for that
+domestic combination as Jerome is naturally adapted to be its centre.
+And no doubt there are unkindly critics who will describe this austere
+yet beautiful interior as the workshop of two poor female slaves
+dragged after him by the tyranny of their grim taskmaster to do his
+work for him. No such idea is consistent with the record. The gentle
+Paula was a woman of high spirit as well as of much grace and
+courtesy, steadfastness and humour, the last the most unusual quality
+of all. The imaginative devotion which had induced her to learn Hebrew
+in order to sing the Psalmist's songs in the original, among the
+little band of Souls, under Marcella's gilded roof, had its natural
+evolution in the gentle pressure laid upon Jerome to make of them an
+authoritative translation: and where could so fit a place for this
+work have been found as in the delightful rest after their travels
+were over, in the very scene where these sacred songs were first
+begun? It would be almost as impertinent and foolish to suppose that
+any modern doubt of their authenticity existed in Paula's mind as to
+suggest that these were forced and dreary labours to which she was
+driven by a spiritual tyrant. To our mind this mutual labour and study
+adds the last charm to their companionship. The sprightly, gentle
+woman who shed so much light over that curious self-denying yet
+self-indulgent life, and the grave young daughter who never left her
+side, whose gentle shadow is one with her, so that while Paula lived
+we cannot distinguish them apart--must have found a quiet happiness
+above all they had calculated on in this delightful intercourse and
+work. Their minds and thoughts occupied by the charm of noble poetry,
+by the puzzle of words to be cleared and combined aright, and by
+constant employment in a matter which interested them so deeply, which
+is perhaps the best of all--must have drawn closer and ever closer,
+mother to child, and child to mother, as well as both to the friend
+and father whom they delighted to serve, and whose large intellect and
+knowledge kept theirs going in constant sympathy--not unmingled with
+now and then a little opposition, and the pleasant stir of independent
+opinion.
+
+It is right to give Jerome himself, so fierce in quarrel and
+controversy, the advantage of this gentle lamp which burns for ever in
+his little Paradise. And can any one suppose that Paula, once so
+sensitive and exquisite, now strong and vigorous in the simplicity of
+that retirement, with her hands full and her mind, plenty to think of,
+plenty to do, had not her advantage also? The life would be ideal but
+for the thought that must have come over her by times, of the young
+ones left in Rome, and what was happening to them. She was indeed
+prostrated by grief again and again by the death of her daughters
+there, one after another, and mourned with a bitterness which makes us
+wonder whether that haunting doubt and self-censure, which perhaps
+gave an additional sting to her sorrow in the case of Blæsilla, may
+not have overwhelmed her heart again though on a contrary ground--the
+doubt whether perhaps the austerities she enjoined and shared had been
+fatal to one, the contradictory doubt whether to leave them to the
+usual course of life might not have been fatal to the others. Such a
+woman has none of the self-confidence which steels so many against
+fate--and, finding nothing effectual for the safety of those she
+loved, neither a sacred dedication nor that consent to commonplace
+happiness which is the ordinary ideal of a mother's duty, might well
+sometimes fall into despair--a despair silently shared by many a
+trembling heart in all ages, which finds its best-laid plans, though
+opposite to each other, fall equally into downfall and dismay.
+
+  [Illustration: FROM THE AVENTINE.]
+
+But she had her compensations. She had her little glory, too, in the
+books which went forth from that seclusion in Bethlehem, bearing her
+name, inscribed to her and her child by the greatest writer of the
+time. "You, Paula and Eustochium, who have studied so deeply the books
+of the Hebrews, take it, this book of Esther, and test it word by
+word; you can tell whether anything is added, anything withdrawn: and
+can bear faithful witness whether I have rendered aright in Latin this
+Hebrew history." Few women would despise such a tribute, and fewer
+still the place of these two women in the Paradise of that laborious
+study, and at the doors of that beautiful Hospice on the Jerusalem
+road, where Joseph and Mary had they but come again would have run no
+risk of finding room!
+
+They died all three, one after another, and were laid to rest in the
+pure and wholesome rock near the sacred spot of the Nativity. There is
+a touching story told of how Eustochium, after her mother's death,
+when Jerome was overwhelmed with grief and unable to return to any of
+his former occupations, came to him with the book of Ruth still
+untranslated in her hand, at once a promise and an entreaty. "Where
+thou goest I will go. Where thou dwellest I will dwell"--and a
+continuation at the same time of the blessed work which kept their
+souls alive.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE CAPITOL FROM THE PALATINE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MOTHER HOUSE.
+
+
+Amid all these changes the house on the Aventine--the mother house as
+it would be called in modern parlance--went on in busy quiet, no
+longer visible in that fierce light which beats upon the path of such
+a man as Jerome, doing its quiet work steadily, having a hand in many
+things, most of them beneficent, which went on in Rome. Albina the
+mother of Marcella, and Asella her elder sister, died in peace: and
+younger souls, with more stirring episodes of life, disturbed and
+enlivened the peace of the cloister, which yet was no cloister but
+open to all the influences of life, maintaining a large correspondence
+and much and varied intercourse with the society of the times. In the
+first fervour of the settlement in Bethlehem both Paula and Jerome
+(she by his hand) wrote to Marcella urging her to join them, to
+forsake the world in a manner more complete than she had yet done.
+"... You were the first to kindle the fire in us" (the letter is
+nominally from Paula and Eustochium): "the first by precept and
+example to urge us to adopt our present life. As a hen gathers her
+chickens, who fear the hawk and tremble at every shadow of a bird, so
+did you take us under your wing. And will you now let us fly about at
+random with no mother near us?"
+
+This letter is full not only of affectionate entreaties but of
+delightful pictures of their own retired and peaceful life. "How shall
+I describe to you," the writer says, "the little cave of Christ, the
+hostel of Mary? Silence is more respectful than words, which are
+inadequate to speak its praise. There are no lines of noble
+colonnades, no walls decorated by the sweat of the poor and the labour
+of convicts, no gilded roofs to intercept the sky. Behold in this poor
+crevice of the earth, in a fissure of the rock, the builder of the
+firmament was born." She goes on with touching eloquence to put forth
+every argument to move her friend.
+
+      Read the Apocalypse of St. John and see there what he says
+      of the woman clothed in scarlet, on whose forehead is
+      written blasphemy, and of her seven hills, and many waters,
+      and the end of Babylon. "Come out of her, my people," the
+      Lord says, "that ye be not partakers of her sins." There is
+      indeed there a holy Church; there are the trophies of
+      apostles and martyrs, the true confession of Christ, the
+      faith preached by the apostles, and heathendom trampled
+      under foot, and the name of Christian every day raising
+      itself on high. But its ambition, its power, the greatness
+      of the city, the need of seeing and being seen, of greeting
+      and being greeted, of praising and detracting, hearing or
+      talking, of seeing, even against one's will, all the crowds
+      of the world--these things are alien to the monastic
+      profession and they have spoiled Rome, they all oppose an
+      insurmountable obstacle to the quiet of the true monk.
+      People visit you: if you open your doors, farewell to
+      silence: if you close them, you are proud and unfriendly.
+      If you return their politeness, it is through proud
+      portals, through a host of grumbling insolent lackeys. But
+      in the cottage of Christ all is simple, all is rustic:
+      except the Psalms, all is silence: no frivolous talk
+      disturbs you, the ploughman sings Allelujah as he follows
+      his plough, the reaper covered with sweat refreshes himself
+      with chanting a psalm, and it is David who supplies with a
+      song the vine dresser among his vineyards. These are the
+      songs of the country, its ditties of love, played upon the
+      shepherd's flute. Will the time never come when a
+      breathless courier will bring us the good news, your
+      Marcella has landed in Palestine? What a cry of joy among
+      the choirs of the monks, among all the bands of the
+      virgins! In our excitement we wait for no carriage but go
+      on foot to meet you, to clasp your hand, to look upon your
+      face. When will the day come when we shall enter together
+      the birthplace of Christ: when, leaning over the divine
+      sepulchre, we weep with a sister, a mother, when our lips
+      touch together the sacred wood of the Cross: when on the
+      Mount of Olives our hearts and souls rise together in the
+      rising of our Lord? Would not you see Lazarus coming out of
+      his tomb, bound in his shroud? and the waters of Jordan
+      purified for the washing of the Lord? Then we shall hasten
+      to the shepherds' folds, and pray at the tomb of David.
+      Listen, it is the prophet Amos blowing his shepherd's horn
+      from the height of his rock; we shall see the monuments of
+      Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the three famous women, and
+      Samaria and Nazareth, the flower of Galilee, and Shiloh and
+      Bethel and other holy places, accompanied by Christ, where
+      churches rise everywhere like standards of the victories of
+      Christ. And when we return to our cavern we will sing
+      together always, and sometimes we shall weep; our hearts
+      wounded with the arrow of the Lord, we will say one to
+      another, "I have found Him whom my soul loveth; I will hold
+      Him, and will not let Him go!"
+
+Similar words upon the happiness of rural life and retirement Jerome
+had addressed to Marcella before. He had warned her of the danger of
+the tumultuous sea of life, and how the frail bark, beaten by the
+waves, ought to seek the shelter of the port before the last hurricane
+breaks. The image was even more true than he imagined; but it was not
+of the perils of Rome in the dreadful time of war and siege which was
+approaching that he spoke, but of the usual dangers of common life to
+the piety of the recluse. "The port which we offer you, it is the
+solitude of the fields," he says:
+
+      Brown bread, herbs watered by our own hands, and milk, the
+      daintiest of the country, supply our rustic feasts. We have
+      no fear of drowsiness in prayer or heaviness in our
+      readings, on such fare. In summer we seek the shade of our
+      trees; in autumn the mild weather and pure air invite us to
+      rest on a bed of fallen leaves; in spring, when the fields
+      are painted with flowers, we sing our psalms among the
+      birds. When winter comes, with its chills and snows, the
+      wood of the nearest forest supplies our fire. Let Rome keep
+      her tumults, her cruel arena, her mad circus, her luxurious
+      theatres; let the senate of matrons pay its daily visits.
+      It is good for us to cleave to the Lord and to put all our
+      hope in Him.
+
+But Marcella turned a deaf ear to these entreaties. Perhaps she still
+loved the senate of matrons, the meetings of the Souls, the irruption
+of gentle visitors, the murmur of all the stories of Rome, and the
+delicate difficulties of marriage and re-marriage brought to her for
+advice and guidance. The allusions in both these letters point to such
+a conclusion, and there is no reason why it should not have been so.
+The Superior of a convent has in this fashion in much later days
+fulfilled more important uses than the gentle nun of the fields. At
+all events this lady remained in her home, her natural place, and
+continued to pour forth her bounty upon the poor of her native city:
+which many would agree was perhaps the better, though it certainly was
+not the safer, way. The death of her mother, which made a change in
+her life, and might have justified a still greater breaking up of all
+old customs and ties, was perhaps the occasion of these affectionate
+arguments; but Marcella would herself be no longer young and in a
+position much resembling that of a mother in her own person, the
+trusted friend of many in Rome, and their closest tie to a more
+spiritual and better life. The light of such a guest as Jerome,
+attracting all eyes to the house and bringing it within the records of
+literary history, that sole mode of saving the daily life of a
+household from oblivion--had indeed died away, leaving life perhaps a
+little flat and blank, certainly much less agitated and visible to the
+outer world than when he was pouring forth fire and flame upon every
+adversary from within the shelter of its peaceful walls. But no other
+change had happened in the circumstances under which Marcella opened
+her palace to a few consecrated sisters, and made it a general oratory
+and place of pious counsel and retreat for the ladies of Rome. The
+same devout readings, the same singing of psalms (sometimes in the
+original), the same life of mingled piety and intellectualism must
+have gone on as before: and other fine ladies perhaps not less
+interesting than Paula must have sought with their confessions and
+confidences the ear of the experienced woman, who as Paula says in
+respect to herself and her daughters, "first carried the sparkle of
+light to our hearts, and collected us like chickens under your wing."
+She was the same, "our gentle, our sweet Marcella, sweeter than
+honey," open to every charity and kindness: not refusing, it would
+seem, to visit as well as to be visited, and willing to "live the
+life" without forsaking any ordinary bonds or traditions of existence.
+There is less to tell of her for this reason, but not perhaps less to
+praise.
+
+Marcella had her share no doubt in forming the minds of the two
+younger spirits, vowed from their cradle to the perfect life of
+virginhood, the second Paula, daughter of Toxotius and his Christian
+wife; and the younger Melania, daughter also of the son whom his
+mother had abandoned as an infant. It is a curious answer to the stern
+virtue which reproaches these two Roman ladies with the cruel
+desertion of their children, to find that both those children, grown
+men, permitted or encouraged the vocation of their daughters, and were
+proud of the saintly renown of the mothers who had left them to their
+fate. The consecrated daughters however leave only a faint trace as of
+two spotless catechumens in the story. Incidents of a more exciting
+character broke now and then the calm of life in the palace on the
+Aventine. M. Thierry in his life of Jerome gives us perhaps a sketch
+too entertaining of Fabiola, one of the ladies more or less associated
+with the house of Marcella, a constant visitor, a penitent by times,
+an enthusiast in charity, a woman bent on making, or so it seemed, the
+best of both worlds. She had made early what for want of a better
+expression we may call a love match, in which she had been bitterly
+disappointed. That a divorce should follow was both natural and lawful
+in the opinion of the time, and Fabiola had already formed a new
+attachment and made haste to marry again. But the second marriage was
+a disappointment even greater than the first, and this repeated
+failure seems to have confused and excited her mind to issues by no
+means clear at first, probably even to herself. She made in the
+distraction of her life a sudden and unannounced visit to Paula's
+convent at Bethlehem, where she was a welcome and delightful visitor,
+carrying with her all the personal news that cannot be put into
+writing, and the gracious ways of an accomplished woman of the world.
+She is supposed to have had a private object of her own under this
+visit of friendship, but the atmosphere and occupations of the place
+must have overawed Fabiola, and though her object was hidden in an
+artful web of fiction she was not bold enough to reveal it, either to
+the stern Jerome or the mild Paula. What she did was to make herself
+delightful to both in the little society upon which we have so many
+side-lights, and which doubtless, though so laborious and full of
+privations, was a very delightful society, none better, with such a
+man as Jerome, full of intellectual power, and human experience, at
+its head, and ladies of the highest breeding like Paula and her
+daughter to regulate its simple habits. We are told of one pretty
+scene where--amid the talk which no doubt ran upon the happiness of
+that peaceful life amid the pleasant fields where the favoured
+shepherds heard the angels' song--there suddenly rose the voice of the
+new-comer reciting with the most enchanting flattery a certain famous
+letter which Jerome long before had written to his friend Heliodorus
+and which had been read in all the convents and passed from hand to
+hand as a _chef d'oeuvre_ of literary beauty and sacred enthusiasm.
+Fabiola, quick and adroit and emotional, had learned it by heart, and
+Jerome would have been more than man had he not felt the charm of such
+flattery.
+
+For a moment the susceptible Roman seems to have felt that she had
+attained the haven of peace after her disturbed and agitated life.
+Her hand was full and her heart generous: she spread her charities far
+and wide among poor pilgrims and poor residents with that undoubting
+liberality which considered almsgiving as one of the first of
+Christian duties. But whether the little busy society palled after a
+time, or whether it was the great scare of the rumour that the Huns
+were coming that frightened Fabiola, we cannot tell, nor precisely how
+long her stay was. Her coming and going were at least within the space
+of two years. She was not made to settle down to the revision of
+manuscripts like her friends, though she had dipped like them into
+Hebrew and had a pretty show of knowledge. She would seem to have
+evidenced this however more by curious and somewhat frivolous
+questions than by any assistance given in the work which was going on.
+Nothing could be more kind, more paternal, than Jerome to the little
+band of women round him. He complains, it is true, that Fabiola
+sometimes propounded problems and did not wait for an answer, and that
+occasionally he had to reply that he did not know, when she puzzled
+him with this rapid stream of inquiry. But it is evident also that he
+did his best sincerely to satisfy her curiosity as if it had been the
+sincerest thing in the world. For instance, she was seized with a
+desire to know the symbolical meaning of the costume of the high
+priest among the Jews: and to gratify this desire Jerome occupied a
+whole night in dictating to one of his scribes a little treatise on
+the subject, which probably the fine lady scarcely took time to read.
+Nothing can be more characteristic than the indications of this bright
+and charming visitor, throwing out reflections of all that was going
+on round her, so brilliant that they seemed better than the reality,
+fluttering upon the surface of their lives, bringing all under her
+spell.
+
+There seems but little ground however for the supposition of M.
+Thierry that it was in the interest of Fabiola that Amandus, a priest
+in Rome, wrote a letter laying before Jerome a case of conscience,
+that of a woman who had divorced her husband and married again, and
+who now was troubled in her mind as to her duty; whether the second
+husband was wholly unlawful, and whether she could remain in full
+communion with the Church, having made this marriage? If she was the
+person referred to no one has been able to divulge what the question
+meant--whether she had a third marriage in her mind, or if a wholly
+unnecessary fit of compunction had seized her; for as a matter of fact
+she had never been subjected by the Church to any pains or penalties
+in consequence of her second marriage. Jerome however, as might have
+been expected of him, gave forth no uncertain sound in his reply.
+According to the Church, he said, there could be but one husband, the
+first. Whatever had been his unworthiness, to replace him by another
+was to live in sin. Whether it was this answer which decided her
+action, or whether she had been moved by the powerful fellowship of
+Bethlehem to renounce the more agitating course of worldly life, at
+least it is certain that Fabiola's career was changed from this time.
+Perhaps it was her desire to shake off the second husband which moved
+her. At all events on her return to Rome she announced to the bishop
+that she felt herself guilty of a great sin, and that she desired to
+make public penance for the same.
+
+  [Illustration: SAN BARTOLOMMEO.]
+
+Accordingly on the eve of Easter, when the penitents assembled under
+the porch of the great Church of St. John Lateran, amid all the wild
+and haggard figures appearing there, murderers and criminals of all
+kinds, the delicate Fabiola, with her hair hanging about her
+shoulders, ashes on her head and on the dark robe that covered her,
+her face pale with fasting and tears, stood among them, a sight for
+the world. Under many aspects had all Rome seen this daughter of the
+great Fabian race, in the splendour of her worldly espousals, and at
+all the great spectacles and entertainments of a city given up to
+display and amusement. Her jewels, her splendid dresses, her fine
+equipages, were well known. With what curiosity would all her old
+admirers, her rivals in splendour, those who had envied her luxury and
+high place, gather to see her now in her voluntary humiliation,
+descending to the level of the very lowest as she had hitherto been on
+the very highest apex of society! All Rome we are told was there,
+gazing, wondering, tracing her movements under the portico, among
+these unaccustomed companions. Perhaps there might be a supreme
+fantastic satisfaction to the penitent--with that craving for
+sensation which the exhaustion of all kinds of triumphs and pleasures
+brings--in thus stepping from one extreme to the other, a
+gratification in the thought that Rome which had worshipped her beauty
+and splendour was now gazing aghast at her bare feet and dishevelled
+hair. One can have no doubt of the sensation experienced by the _Tota
+urbe spectante Romana_. It was worth while frequenting religious
+ceremonies when such a sight was possible! Fabiola,--once with mincing
+steps, and gorgeous liveried servants on either hand, descending
+languidly the great marble steps from her palace to the gilded
+carriage in which she sank fatigued when that brief course was over,
+the mitella blazing with gold upon her head, her robe woven with all
+the tints of the rainbow into metallic splendour of gold and silver
+threads. And now to see her amid that crowd of ruffians from the
+Campagna, and unhappy women from the purlieus of the city, her
+splendid head uncovered, her thin hands crossed in the rough sleeves
+of the penitent's gown! It might be to some perhaps a salutary
+sight--moving other great ladies with heavier sins on their heads than
+Fabiola's to feel the prickings of remorse; though no doubt it is
+equally possible that they might think they saw through her, and the
+new form of self-exhibition which attracted all the world to gaze. We
+are not told whether Fabiola found refuge in the house on the Aventine
+with Marcella, who had lit the fire of Christian faith in her heart as
+well as in that of Paula: or whether she remained, like Marcella, in
+her own house, making it another centre of good works. But at all
+events her life from this moment was entirely given up to charity and
+spiritual things. Her kinsfolk and noble neighbours still more or less
+Pagan, were filled with fury and indignation and that sharp disgust at
+the loss of so much good money to the world, which had so much to do
+in embittering opposition: but the Christians were deeply impressed,
+the homage of such a great lady to the faith, and her recantation of
+her errors affecting many as a true martyrdom.
+
+If it was really compunction for the sin of the second marriage which
+so moved her, her position would much resemble that of the _fine
+fleur_ of French society as at present constituted, in its tremendous
+opposition to the law of divorce, now lawful in France of the
+nineteenth century as it was in Rome of the fourth--but resisted with
+a splendid bigotry of feeling, altogether independent of morality or
+even of reason, by all that is noblest in the country. Fabiola's
+divorce had been perfectly lawful and according to all the teaching
+and traditions of her time. The Church had as yet uplifted no voice
+against it. She had not been shut out from the society even of the
+most pious, or condemned to any penance or deprivation. Not even
+Jerome (till forced to give a categorical answer), nor that purest
+circle of devout women at Bethlehem, had refused her any privilege.
+Her action was unique and unprecedented as a protest against the
+existing law of the land, as well as universal custom and tradition.
+We are not informed whether it had any lasting effect, or formed a
+precedent for other women. No doubt it encouraged the formation of the
+laws against divorce which originated in the Church itself but have
+held through the intervening ages a doubtful sway, broken on every
+side by Papal dispensations, until now that they have settled down
+into a bond of iron on the consciences of the devout--chiefly the
+women, more specially still the gentlewomen--of Catholic Europe, where
+as in Fabiola's time they are once more against the law of the land.
+
+The unworthy second husband we are informed had died even before
+Fabiola's public act of penitence; but no further movements towards
+the world, or the commoner ways of life reveal themselves in her
+future career. If she returned to life with the veiled head and bare
+feet of her penitence, or if she resumed, like Marcella, much of the
+ordinary traffic of society, we have no information. But she was the
+founder of the first public hospital in Rome, besides the usual
+monasteries, and built in concert with Pammachius a hospice at Ostia
+at the mouth of the Tiber, where strangers and travellers from all
+parts of the world were received, probably on the model of that
+hospice for pilgrims which Paula had established. And she was herself
+the foremost nurse in her own hospital, shrinking from no office of
+charity. The Church has always and in all circumstances encouraged
+such practical acts of self-devotion.
+
+The ladies of the Aventine and all the friends of Jerome had been
+disturbed a little before by the arrival of a stranger in Rome, also a
+pretended friend of Jerome, and at first very willing to shelter
+himself under that title, Rufinus, who brought with him--after a
+moment of delusive amiability during which he had almost deceived the
+very elect themselves--a blast of those wild gales of polemical
+warfare which had been echoing for some time with sacrilegious force
+and inappropriateness from the Mount of Olives itself. The excitement
+which he raised in Rome in respect to the doctrines of Origen caused
+much commotion in the community, which lived as much by news of the
+Church and reports of all that was going on in theology as by the
+daily bread of their charities and kindness. It was to Marcella that
+Jerome wrote, when, reports having been made to him of all that had
+happened, he exploded, with the flaming bomb of his furious rhetoric,
+the fictitious statements of Rufinus, by which he was made to appear a
+supporter of Origen. Into that hot and fierce controversy we have no
+need to enter. No one can study the life of Jerome without becoming
+acquainted with this episode and finding out how much the wrath of a
+Father of the Church is like the rage of other men, if not more
+violent; but happily as Rome was not the birthplace of this fierce
+quarrel it is quite immaterial to our subject or story. It filled the
+house of Marcella with trouble and doubt for a time, with indignation
+afterwards when the facts of the controversy were better known; but
+interesting as it must have been to the eager theologians there,
+filling their halls with endless discussions and alarms, lest this
+new agitation should interfere with the repose of their friend, it is
+no longer interesting except to the student now. Rufinus was finally
+unmasked, and condemned by the Bishop of Rome, chiefly by the
+exertions of Marcella, whom Oceanus, coming hot from the scene of the
+controversy, and Paulinian the brother of Jerome, had instructed in
+his true character. Events were many at this moment in that little
+Christian society. The tumult of controversy thus excited and all the
+heat and passion it brought with it had scarcely blown aside, when the
+ears of the Roman world were made to tingle with the wonderful story
+of Fabiola, and the crowd flew to behold in the portico of the Lateran
+her strange appearance as a penitent; and the commotion of that event
+had scarcely subsided when another wonderful incident appears in the
+contemporary history filling the house with lamentation and woe.
+
+The young Paulina, dear on all accounts to the ladies of the Aventine
+as her mother's daughter, and as her husband's wife (for Pammachius,
+the friend and schoolfellow of Jerome, was one of the fast friends and
+counsellors of the community), as well as for her own virtues, died in
+the flower of life and happiness, a rich and noble young matron
+exhibiting in her own home and amid the common duties of existence,
+all the noblest principles of the Christian faith. She had not chosen
+what these consecrated women considered as the better way: but in her
+own method, and amid a world lying in wickedness, had unfolded that
+white flower of a blameless life which even monks and nuns were
+thankful to acknowledge as capable of existing here and there in the
+midst of worldly splendours and occupations. She left no children
+behind her, so that her husband Pammachius was free of the anxieties
+and troubles, as well as of the joy and pride, of a family to regulate
+and provide for. His young wife left to him all her property on
+condition that it should be distributed among the poor, and when he
+had fulfilled this bequest the sorrowful husband himself retired from
+life, and entered a convent, in obedience to the strong impulse which
+swayed so many. Before this occurred however "all Rome" was roused by
+another great spectacle. The entire city was invited to the funeral of
+Paulina as if it had been to her marriage, though those who came were
+not the same wondering circles who crowded round the Lateran gate to
+see Fabiola in her humiliation. It was the poor of Rome who were
+called by sound of trumpet in every street, to assemble around the
+great Church of St. Peter, where were those tombs of the Apostles
+which every Christian visited as the most sacred of shrines, and where
+Paulina was laid forth upon her bier, the mistress of the feast. The
+custom was an old one, and chambers for these funeral repasts were
+attached to the great catacombs and all places of burial. The funeral
+feast of Paulina however meant more than ordinary celebrations of the
+kind, as the place in which it was held was more impressive and
+imposing than an ordinary sepulchre however splendid. She must have
+been carried through the streets in solemn procession, from the
+heights on which stood the palaces of her ancient race, across the
+bridge, and by the tomb of Hadrian to that great basilica where the
+Apostles lay, her husband and his friends following the bier: and in
+all likelihood Marcella and her train were also there, replacing the
+distant mother. St. Peter's it is unnecessary to say was not the St.
+Peter's we know; but it was even then a great basilica, with wide
+extending porticoes and squares, and lofty roof, though the building
+was scarcely quite detached from the rock out of which the back part
+of the cathedral had been hewn.
+
+  [Illustration: ST. PETER'S, FROM THE JANICULUM.]
+
+Many strange sights have been seen in that spot which once was the
+centre of the civilised world, and this which seems to us one of the
+strangest was in no way unusual or against the traditions of the age
+in which it occurred. The church itself, and all its surroundings,
+nave and aisles and porticoes, and the square beyond, were filled with
+tables, and to these from all the four quarters of Rome, from the
+circus and the benches of the Colosseum, where the wretched slept and
+lurked, from the sunny pavements, and all the dens and haunts of the
+poor by the side of the Tiber, the crowds poured, in those
+unconceivable yet picturesque rags which clothe the wretchedness of
+the South. They were ushered solemnly to their seats, the awe of the
+place, let us hope, quieting the voices of a profane and degraded
+populace, and overpowering the whispering, rustling, many-coloured
+multitude. Outside the later comers would be more unrestrained, and
+the roar, even though subdued, of thronging humanity must have come in
+strangely to the silence of the great church, and of the mourners,
+bent upon doing Paulina honour in this curious way. Did she lie there
+uplifted on her high bier to receive her guests? Or was the
+heart-broken Pammachius the host, standing pale upon the steps, over
+the grave of the Apostles? When they were "saturated" with food and
+wine, the first assembly left their places and were succeeded by
+another, each as he went away receiving from the hands of Pammachius
+himself a sum of money and a new garment. "Happy giver, unwearied
+distributor!" says the record. The livelong day this process went on;
+a winter day in Rome, not always warm, not always genial, very cold
+outside in the square under the evening breeze, and no doubt growing
+more and more noisy as one band continued to succeed another, and the
+first fed lingered about comparing their gifts, and hoping perhaps for
+some remnants to be collected at the end from the abundant and
+oft-renewed meal. There were no doubts in anybody's mind, as we have
+said, about encouraging pauperism or demoralising the recipients of
+these gifts; perhaps it would have been difficult to demoralise
+further that mendicant crowd. But one cannot help wondering how the
+peace was kept, whether there were soldiers or some manner of
+classical police about to keep order, or if the disgusted Senators
+would have to bestir themselves to prevent this wild Christian
+carnival of sorrow and charity from becoming a danger to the public
+peace.
+
+We are told that it was the sale of Paulina's jewels, and her splendid
+toilettes which provided the cost of this extraordinary funeral feast.
+"The beautiful dresses woven with threads of gold were turned into
+warm robes of wool to cover the naked; the gems that adorned her neck
+and her hair filled the hungry with good things." Poor Paulina! She
+had worn her finery very modestly according to all reports; it had
+served no purposes of coquetry. The reader feels that something more
+congenial than that coarse and noisy crowd filling the church with its
+deformities and loathsomeness might have celebrated her burial. But
+not so was the feeling of the time; that they were more miserable than
+words could say, vile, noisome, and unclean, formed their claim of
+right to all these gifts--a claim from which their noisy and rude
+profanity, their hoarse blasphemy and ingratitude took nothing away.
+Charity was more robust in the early centuries than in our fastidious
+days. "If such had been all the feasts spread for thee by thy
+Senators," cried Bishop Paulinus, the historian of this episode, "oh
+Rome thou might'st have escaped the evils denounced against thee in
+the Apocalypse." We must remember that whatever might have been the
+opinion later, there was no doubt in any Christian mind in the fourth
+century that Rome was the Scarlet Woman of the Revelation of St. John,
+and that a dreadful fate was to overwhelm her luxury and pride.
+
+Pammachius, when he had fulfilled the wishes of his wife in this way,
+thrilling the hearts of the mourning mother and sister in Bethlehem
+with sad gratification, and edifying the anxious spectators on the
+Aventine, carried out her will to its final end by becoming a monk,
+but with the curious mixture of devotion and independence common at
+the time, retired to no cloister, but lived in his own house,
+fulfilling his duties, and appearing even in the Senate in the gown
+and cowl so unlike the splendid garb of the day. He was no doubt one
+of the members for the poor in that august but scarcely active
+assembly, and occupied henceforward all his leisure in works of
+charity and religious organisations, in building religious houses, and
+protecting Christians in every necessity of life.
+
+We have said that Rome in these days was as freely identified with the
+Scarlet Woman of the Apocalypse as ever was done by any Reformer or
+Puritan in later times. To Jerome she was as much Babylon, and as
+damnable and guilty in every way as if he had been an Orangeman or
+Covenanter. Mildness was not general either in speech or thought: it
+has seldom been so perhaps in religious controversy. It is curious
+indeed to mark how, so near the fount of Christianity, the Church had
+already come to rend itself with questions of doctrine, and expend on
+discussions of philosophical subtlety the force that was wanted for
+the moral advantage of the world. But that no doubt was one of the
+defects of the great principle of self-devotion which aimed at
+emptying the mind of everything worldly and practical, and fixing it
+entirely upon spiritual subjects, thus substituting them for the ruder
+obstacles which occupied in common life the ruder forces of nature.
+
+  [Illustration: ST. PETER'S, FROM THE PINCIO.]
+
+All things however were now moving swiftly towards one of the great
+catastrophes of the ages. Though Christianity was young, the entire
+system of the world's government was old and drawing towards its fall.
+Rome was dead, or virtually so, and all the old prestige, the old
+pride and pretension of her race, were perishing miserably in those
+last vulgarities of luxury and display which were all that was left to
+her. It is no doubt true that the crumbling of all common ties which
+took place within her bosom, under the invasion of the monkish
+missionaries from the East, and the influence of Athanasius, Jerome,
+and others--had been for some time undermining her unity, and that the
+rent between that portion of the aristocracy of Rome which still held
+by the crumbling system of Paganism, and those who had adopted the new
+faith, was now complete. Rome which had been the seat of empire, the
+centre from which law and power had gone out over all the earth, the
+very impersonation of the highest forces of humanity, the pride of
+life, the eminence of family and blood--now saw her highest names
+subjected voluntarily to strange new laws of humiliation, whole
+households trooping silently away in the garb of servants to the
+desert somewhere, to the Holy Land on pilgrimages, or living a life of
+hardship and privation and detachment from all public interests, in
+the very palaces which had once been the seats of authority. Her
+patricians moved silent about the streets in the rude sandals and
+mean robes of the monk: her great ladies drove forth no longer
+resplendent as Venus on her car, but stood like penitent Magdalenes
+upon the steps of a church; and bridegroom and bride no longer linked
+with flowery garlands, but with the knotted cord of monastic rule,
+lived like vestals side by side. What was to come to a society so
+broken up and undermined, knowing no salvation save in its own
+complete undoing, preparing unconsciously for some convulsion at hand?
+The interpreter of the dark sayings of prophecy goes on through one
+lingering age after another, holding the threats of divine justice as
+still and always unfulfilled, and will never be content that it is any
+other than the present economy which is marked with the curse and
+threatened with the ruin of Apocalyptic denunciations. But no one
+could doubt that the wine was red in that cup of the wrath of God
+which the city of so many sins held in her hand. The voice that called
+"Come out of her, my people," had rung aloud in tones unmistakable,
+calling the best of her sons and daughters from her side; her natural
+weapons had fallen from her nerveless hands; she had no longer any
+heart even to defend herself, she who had once but to lift her hand
+and the air had tingled to the very boundaries of the known world as
+if a blazing sword had been drawn. It requires but little imagination
+to appropriate to the condition of Rome on the eve of the invasion of
+Alaric every strophe of the magnificent ode in the eighteenth chapter
+of Revelation. There are reminiscences in that great poem of another,
+of the rousing of Hell to meet the king of the former Babylon echoing
+out of the mists of antiquity from the lips of the Hebrew prophet.
+Once more that cry was in the air--once more the thrill of approaching
+destruction was like the quiver of heat in the great atmosphere of
+celestial blue which encircled the white roofs, the shining temples,
+the old forums as yet untouched, and the new basilicas as yet scarce
+completed, of Rome. The old order was about to change finally, giving
+place to the new.
+
+All becomes confused in the velocity and precipitation of descending
+ruin. We can trace the last hours of Paula dying safe and quiet in her
+retreat at Bethlehem, and even of the less gentle Melania; but when we
+attempt to follow the course of the events which overwhelmed the home
+of early faith on the Aventine, the confusion of storm and sack and
+horrible sufferings and terror fills the air with blackness. For years
+there had existed a constant succession of danger and reprieve, of
+threatening hosts (the so-called friends not much better than the
+enemies) around the walls of the doomed city, great figures of
+conquerors with their armies coming and going, now the barbarian, now
+the Roman general upon the height of the wave of battle, the city
+escaping by a hair's breadth, then plunged into terror again. And
+Marcella's house had suffered with the rest. No doubt much of the
+gaiety, the delightful intellectualism of that pleasant refuge, had
+departed with the altering time. Age had subdued the liveliness and
+brightness of a community still full of the correspondences, the much
+letter-writing which women love. Marcella's companions had died away
+from her side; life was more quickly exhausted in these days of
+agitation, and she herself, the young and brilliant founder of that
+community of Souls, must have been sixty or more when the terrible
+Alaric, a scourge of God like his predecessor Attila, approached Rome.
+What had become of the rest we are not told, or if the relics of the
+community, nameless in their age and lessened importance, were still
+there: the only one that is mentioned is a young sister called
+Principia, her adopted child and attendant. Nothing can be more likely
+than that the remainder of the community had fled, seeking safety, or
+more likely an unknown death, in less conspicuous quarters of the city
+than the great palace of the Aventine with its patrician air of wealth
+and possible treasure. In that great house, so far as appears,
+remained only its mistress, her soul wound up for any martyrdom, and
+the girl who clung to her. If they dared to look forth at all from the
+marble terrace where so often they must have gazed over Rome shining
+white in the sunshine in all her measured lines and great proportions,
+her columns and her domes, what a dread scene must have met their
+eyes, clouds of smoke and wild gleams of flame, and the roar of outcry
+and slaughter mounting up into the air, soiling the very sky. There
+the greatest ladies of Rome had come in their grandeur to enjoy the
+piquant contrast and the still more piquant talk, the philosophies
+which they loved to penetrate and understand, the learning which went
+over their heads. There Jerome, surrounded with soft flatteries and
+provocations, had talked his best, giving forth out of his stores the
+tales of wonder he had brought from Eastern cells and caves and all
+the knowledge of the schools, to dazzle the amateurs of the Roman
+gynæceum. What gay, what thrilling, what happy memories!--mingled with
+the sweetness of remembrance of gentle Paula who was dead, of Asella
+dead, of Fabiola in all her fascinations and caprices, dead too so far
+as appears--and no doubt in those thirty years since first Marcella
+opened her house to the special service of God, many more; till now
+that she was left alone, grey-headed, on that height whither the
+fierce Goths were coming, raging, flashing round them fire and flame,
+with the girl who would not leave her, the young maiden in her
+voiceless meekness whom we see only at this awful moment, she who
+might have a sharper agony than death before her, the most appalling
+of martyrdoms.
+
+One final triumph however remained for Marcella. By what wonderful
+means we know not, by her prayers and tears, by supplication on her
+knees, to the rude Goths who after their sort were Christians, and
+sometimes spared the helpless victims and sometimes listened to a
+woman's prayer, she succeeded in saving her young companion from
+outrage, and in dragging her somehow to the shelter of the nearest
+church, where they were safe. But she was herself in her age and
+weakness, tortured, flogged, and treated with the utmost cruelty, that
+she might disclose the hiding-place in which she had put her treasure.
+The treasure of the house of the Aventine was not there: it had fed
+the poor, and supplied the wants of the sick in all the most miserable
+corners of Rome. The kicks and blows of the baffled plunderers could
+not bring that long-expended gold and silver together again. But these
+sufferings were as nothing in comparison to the holy triumph of saving
+young Principia, which was the last and not the least wonderful work
+of her life. The very soldiers who had struck and beaten the mistress
+of the desolate house were overcome by her patience and valour,
+"Christ softened their hard hearts," says Jerome. "The barbarians
+conveyed both you and her to the basilica that you might find a place
+of safety or at least a tomb." Nothing can be more extraordinary in
+the midst of this awful scene of carnage and rapine than to know
+that the churches were sanctuaries upon which the rudest assailants
+dared not to lift a hand, and that the helpless women, half dead of
+fright and one of them bleeding and wounded with the cruel treatment
+she had received, were safe as soon as they had been dragged over the
+sacred threshold.
+
+  [Illustration: TEMPLE OF VESTA.
+    _To face page 110._]
+
+The church in which Marcella and her young companion found shelter was
+the great basilica of St. Paul _fuori le mura_, beyond the Ostian
+gate. They were conducted there by their captors themselves, some
+compassionate Gaul or Frank, whose rude chivalry of soul had been
+touched by the spectacle of the aged lady's struggle for her child.
+What a terrible flight through the darkness must that have been "in
+the lost battle borne down by the flying" amid the trains of trembling
+fugitives all bent on that one spot of safety, the gloom lighted up by
+the gleams of the burning city behind, the air full of shrieks and
+cries of the helpless, the Tiber rushing swift and strong by the path
+to swallow any helpless wayfarer pushed aside by stronger fugitives.
+The two ladies reached half-dead the great church on the edge of the
+Campagna, the last refuge of the miserable, into which were crowded
+the wrecks of Roman society, both Pagan and Christian, patrician and
+slave, hustled together in the equality of doom. A few days after, in
+the church itself, or some of its dependencies, Marcella died. Her
+palace in ruins, her companions dead or fled, she perished along with
+the old Rome against whose vices she had protested, but which she had
+loved and would not abandon: whose poor she had fed with her
+substance, whose society she had attempted to purify, and in which she
+had led so honourable and noble--may we not also believe amid all her
+austerities, in the brown gown which was almost a scandal, and the
+meagre meals that scarcely kept body and soul together?--so happy a
+life. There is no trace now of the noble mansion which she devoted to
+so high a purpose, and few of the many pilgrims who love to discover
+all that is interesting in the relics of Rome, have even heard the
+name of Marcella--"Illam mitem, illam suavem, illam omni melle et
+dulcedine dulciorem"--whose example "lured to higher worlds and led
+the way." But her pleasant memory lingers on the leafy crest of the
+Aventine where she lived, and where the church of Sta. Sabina now
+stands: and her mild shadow lies on that great church outside the
+gates, often destroyed, often restored, the shrine of Paul the
+Apostle, where, wounded and broken, but always faithful to her trust,
+she died. The history of the first dedicated household, the first
+convent, the _ecclesia domestica_, which was so bright a centre of
+life in the old Rome, not yet entirely Christian, is thus rounded into
+a perfect record. It began in 380 or thereabouts, it ended in 410. Its
+story is but an obscure chapter in the troubled chronicles of the
+time; but there is none more spotless, and scarcely any so serenely
+radiant and bright.
+
+Pammachius also died in the siege, whether among the defenders of the
+city or in the general carnage is not known, "with many other brothers
+and sisters whose death is announced to us" Jerome says, whom that
+dreadful news threw into a stupor of horror and misery, so that it was
+some time before he could understand the details or discover who was
+saved and who lost. The saved indeed were very few, and the losses
+many. Young Paula, the granddaughter of the first, the child of
+Toxotius, who also was happily dead before these horrors, had been for
+some years in Bethlehem peacefully learning how to take the elder
+Paula's place, and shedding sweetness into the life of the old prophet
+in his rocky chamber at Bethlehem, and of the grave Eustochium in her
+convent. Young Melania, standing in the same relationship to the
+heroine of that name, whose fame is less sweet, was out of harm's way
+too. They and many humbler members of the community had escaped by
+flight, among the agitated crowds which had long been pouring out of
+Italy towards the East, some from mere panic, some by the vows of
+self-dedication and retirement from the world. Many more as has been
+seen escaped in Rome itself, before its agony began, by the still more
+effectual way of death. Only Marcella, the first of all, the pupil of
+Athanasius, the mother and mistress of so many consecrated souls, fell
+on the outraged threshold of her own house, over which she had come
+and gone for thirty years, with those feet that are beautiful on the
+mountains, the feet of those who bring good tidings, and carry charity
+and loving kindness to every door.
+
+  [Illustration: PORTA SAN PAOLO.]
+
+
+
+
+      BOOK II.
+
+      THE POPES WHO MADE THE PAPACY.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE STEPS OF SAN GREGORIO.]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+THE POPES WHO MADE THE PAPACY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+GREGORY THE GREAT.
+
+
+When Rome had fallen into the last depths of decadence, luxury,
+weakness, and vice, the time of fierce and fiery trial came. The great
+city lay like a helpless woman at the mercy of her foes--or rather at
+the mercy of every new invader who chose to sack her palaces and throw
+down her walls, without even the pretext of any quarrel against the
+too wealthy and luxurious city, which had been for her last period at
+least nobody's enemy but her own. Alaric, who, not content with the
+heaviest ransom, returned to rage through her streets with all those
+horrors and cruelties which no advance in civilisation has ever yet
+entirely dissociated from the terrible name of siege: Attila, whose
+fear of his predecessor's fate and the common report of murders and
+portents, St. Peter with a sword of flame guarding his city, and other
+signs calculated to melt the hearts of the very Huns in their bosoms,
+kept at a distance: passed by without harming the prostrate city. But
+Genseric and his Vandals were kept back by no such terrors. The
+ancient Rome, with all her magnificent relics of the imperial age,
+fell into ruin and was trampled under foot by victor after victor in
+the fierce license of barbarous triumph. Her secret stores of
+treasure, her gold and silver, her magnificent robes, her treasures of
+art fell, like her beautiful buildings, into the rude hands which
+respected nothing, neither beauty nor the traditions of a glorious
+past. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! All the
+pathetic and wonderful plaints of the Hebrew prophet over a still
+holier and more ancient place, trodden under foot and turned into a
+desert, rise to the mind during this passion and agony of imperial
+Rome. But the mistress of the world had no such fierce band of
+patriots to fight inch by inch for her holy places as had the old
+Jerusalem. There were few to shed their blood for her in the way of
+defence. The blood that flowed was that of murdered weakness, not that
+freely shed of valiant men.
+
+During this terrible period of blood and outrage and passion and
+suffering, one institution alone stood firm amid the ruins, wringing
+even from the fiercest of the barbarians a certain homage, and
+establishing a sanctuary in the midst of sack and siege in which the
+miserable could find shelter. As every other public office and potency
+fell, the Church raised an undaunted front, and took the place at once
+of authority and of succour among the crushed and downtrodden people.
+It is common to speak of this as the beginning of that astute and
+politic wisdom of Rome which made the city in the middle ages almost a
+greater power than in her imperial days, and equally mistress of the
+world. But there is very little evidence that any great plan for the
+aggrandisement of the Church, or the establishment of her supremacy,
+had yet been formed, or that the early Popes had any larger purpose in
+their minds than to do their best in the position in which they stood,
+to avert disaster, to spread Christianity, and to shield as far as was
+possible the people committed to their care. No formal claim of
+supremacy over the rest of the Church had been as yet made: it was
+indeed formally repudiated by the great Gregory in the end of the
+sixth century as an unauthorised claim, attributed to the bishops of
+Rome only by their enemies, though still more indignantly to be
+denounced when put forth by any other ecclesiastical authority such as
+the patriarch of Constantinople. To Peter, he says in one of his
+epistles, was committed the charge of the whole Church, but his
+successors did not on that account call themselves rulers of the
+Church universal--how much less a bishropic of the East who had no
+such glorious antecedents!
+
+But if pretension to the primacy had not yet been put forth, there had
+arisen the practical situation, which called the bishops of Rome to a
+kind of sovereignty of the city. The officials of the empire, a
+distant exarch at Ravenna, a feeble prætor at Rome, had no power
+either to protect or to rescue. The bishop instinctively, almost
+involuntarily, whenever he was a man of strength or note, was put into
+the breach. Whatever could be done by negotiation, he, a man of peace,
+was naturally called to do. Innocent procured from Alaric the
+exemption of the churches from attack even in the first and most
+terrible siege; there wounded men and flying women found refuge in the
+hottest of the pillage, and Marcella struggling, praying for the
+deliverance of her young nun, through the brutal crowd which had
+invaded her house, was in safety with her charge, as we have seen, as
+soon as they could drag themselves within the sanctuary. This was
+already a great thing in that dread conflict of force with
+weakness--and it continued to be the case more or less in all the
+successive waves of fire and flame which passed over Rome. And when
+the terrible tide of devastation was over, one patriot Pope at least
+took the sacred vessels of gold and silver, which had been saved along
+with the people in their sanctuaries, and melted them down to procure
+bread for the remnant, thus doubly delivering the flock committed to
+his care. These facts worked silently, and there seems no reason to
+believe other than unconsciously at first, towards the formation of
+the great power which was once more to make Rome a centre of empire.
+The historian is too apt to perceive in every action an early-formed
+and long-concealed project tending towards one great end; and it is
+common to recognise, even in the missionary expeditions of the Church,
+as well as in the immediate protection exercised around her seat, this
+astute policy and ever-maturing, ever-growing scheme. But neither Leo
+nor Gregory require any such explanation of their motives; their duty
+was to protect, to deliver, to work day and night for the welfare of
+the people who had no other protectors: as it was their first duty to
+spread the Gospel, to teach all nations according to their Master's
+commission. It is hard to take from them the credit of those measures
+which were at once their natural duty and their delight, in order to
+make all their offices of mercy subservient to the establishment of a
+universal authority to which neither of them laid any claim.
+
+While Rome still lay helpless in the midst of successive invasions,
+now in one conqueror's hands, now in another, towards the middle of
+the sixth century a young man of noble race--whose father and mother
+were both Christians, the former occupying a high official position,
+as was also the case with the son, in his earlier years--became
+remarkable among his peers according to the only fashion which a high
+purpose and noble meaning seems to have been able to take at that
+period. Perhaps such a spirit as that of Gregory could never have been
+belligerent; yet it is curious to note that no patriotic saviour of
+his country, no defender of Rome, who might have called forth a spirit
+in the gilded youth, and raised up the ancient Roman strength for the
+deliverance of the city, seems to have been possible in that age of
+degeneration. No Maccabæus was to be found among the ashes of the race
+which once had ruled the world. Whatever excellence remained in it was
+given to the new passion of the cloister, the instinct of sacrifice
+and renunciation instead of resistance and defence. It may be said
+that the one way led equally with the other to that power which is
+always dear to the heart of man: yet it is extraordinary that amid all
+the glorious traditions of Rome,--notwithstanding the fame of great
+ancestors still hanging about every noble house, and the devotion
+which the city itself, then as now, excited among its children, a
+sentiment which has made many lesser places invulnerable, so long as
+there was a native arm to strike a blow for them, no single bold
+attempt was ever made, no individual stand, no popular frenzy of
+patriotism ever excited in defence of the old empress of the world.
+The populace perhaps was too completely degraded to make any such
+attempt possible, but the true hero when he appears does not
+calculate, and is able to carry out his glorious effort with sometimes
+the worst materials. However, it is needless to attempt to account for
+such an extraordinary failure in the very qualities which had made the
+Roman name illustrious. Despair must have seized upon the very heart
+of the race. That race itself had been vitiated and mingled with baser
+elements by ages of conquest, repeated captivities, and overthrows,
+and all the dreadful yet monotonous vicissitudes of disaster, one
+outrage following another, and the dreadful sense of impotence, which
+crushes the very being, growing with each new catastrophe. It must
+have appeared to the children of the ancient conquerors that there
+was no refuge or hope for them, save in that kingdom not of this
+world, which had risen while everything else crumbled under their
+feet, which had been growing in silence while the old economy fell
+into ashes, and which alone promised a resurrection and renewal worthy
+of the highest hopes.
+
+This ideal had been growing throughout the world, and had penetrated
+into almost every region of Christendom before the period of Gregory's
+birth. Nearly a hundred and fifty unhappy years had passed since
+Marcella ended her devout life amid the fire and flame of the first
+siege; but the times had so little changed that it was at first under
+the same aspect which attracted that Roman lady and so many of her
+contemporaries, that the monastic life recommended itself to the young
+patrician Gregorius, in the home of his parents, the Roman villa on
+the edge of that picturesque and splendid wood of great oak-trees
+which gave to the Coelian Hill its first title of Mons Querquetulanus.
+It had been from the beginning of his life a devout house, full of the
+presence and influence of three saintly women, all afterwards
+canonised, his mother Silvia and his father's sisters. That father
+himself was at least not uncongenial to his surroundings, though
+living the usual life, full of magnificence and display, of the noble
+Roman, filling in his turn great offices in the state, or at least the
+name and outward pomp of offices which had once been great. Some
+relics of ancient temples gleaming through the trees beyond the
+gardens of the villa must still have existed among the once sacred
+groves; and the vast buildings of the old economy, the Colosseum
+behind, the ruined and roofless palaces of the Palatine, would be
+visible from the terrace on which the meditative youth wandered,
+pondering over Rome at his feet and the great world lying beyond, in
+which there were endless marchings and countermarchings of barbarous
+armies, one called in to resist the other, Huns and Vandals from one
+quarter, irresistible Franks, alien races all given to war, while the
+secret and soul of peace lay in that troubled and isolated stronghold
+of Him whose kingdom was not of this world. Gregory musing can have
+had no thought, such as we should put instinctively into the mind of a
+noble young man in such circumstances, of dying upon the breached and
+crumbling walls for his country, or leading any forlorn hope; and if
+his fancy strayed instead far from those scenes of battle and trouble
+to the convent cells and silent brotherhoods, where men disgusted and
+sick of heart could enter and pray, it was as yet with no thought or
+intention of following their example. He tells us himself that he
+resisted as long as he could "the grace of conversion," and as a
+matter of fact entered into the public life such as it was, of the
+period, following in his father's footsteps, and was himself, like
+Gordianus, _prætor urbis_ in his day, when he had attained the early
+prime of manhood. The dates of his life are dubious until we come to
+his later years, but it is supposed that he was born about 540; and he
+was recommended for the Prætorship by the Emperor Julius, which must
+have been before 573, at which date he would have attained the age of
+thirty-three, that period so significant in the life of man, the
+limit, as is believed, of our Lord's existence on earth, and close to
+that _mezzo del cammin_ which the poet has celebrated as the
+turning-point of life. In his splendid robes, attended by his throng
+of servants, he must no doubt have ruffled it with the best among the
+officials of a state which had scarcely anything but lavish display
+and splendour to justify its pretence of government; but we hear
+nothing either of the early piety or early profanity which generally
+distinguish, one or the other, the beginning of a predestined saint.
+Neither prodigal nor devotee, the son of Gordianus and Silvia did
+credit to his upbringing, even if he did not adopt its austerer
+habits. But when his father died, the attraction which drew so many
+towards the cloister must have begun to operate upon Gregory. When
+all the wealth came into his hands, when his devout mother retired to
+her nun's cell on the Aventine, close to the old basilica of S. Sabba,
+giving up the world, and the young man was left in full possession of
+his inheritance and the dwelling of his fathers, he would seem to have
+come to a serious pause in his life. Did he give a large slice of his
+fortune to endow monasteries in distant Sicily, as far out of the way,
+one might say, as possible, by way of compromising with his
+conscience, and saving himself from the sweep of the current which had
+begun to catch his feet? Perhaps it was some family connection with
+Sicily--estates, situated there as some think, which prompted the
+appropriation of his gifts to that distant island; but this is mere
+speculation, and all that the authorities tell us is that he did
+establish and endow six monasteries in Sicily, without giving any
+reason for it. This was his first step towards the life to which later
+all his wishes and interests were devoted.
+
+It would seem, however, if there is any possible truth in the idea,
+that the Sicilian endowments were a sort of ransom for himself and the
+personal sacrifice of the world which his growing fervour demanded of
+him, that the expedient was not a successful one. He did not resist
+the grace of conversion very long; but it is curious to find him, so
+long after, adopting the same expedient as that which had formed a
+middle ground for his predecessors in an earlier age, by converting
+his father's house into a convent. St. Benedict, the first of monastic
+founders in Europe, was scarcely born when Marcella first called about
+her the few pious maidens and widows who formed her permanent
+household in Rome; but by the time of Gregory, the order of Benedict
+had become one of the great facts and institutions of the time--and
+his villa was soon filled with a regular community of black-robed
+monks with their abbot and other leaders. Remaining in the beloved
+shelter of his natural home, he became a member of this community. He
+did not even retain, as Marcella did, the government of the new
+establishment in his own hand, but served humbly, holding no office,
+as an undistinguished brother. It was not without difficulty that he
+made up his mind to this step. In the letter to Leander which forms
+the dedication of his commentary on Job, he gives a brief and vague
+account of his own hesitations and doubts. The love of things eternal,
+he says, had taken hold upon his mind while yet custom had so wound
+its chains round him that he could not make up his mind to change his
+outward garb. But the new influence was so strong that he engaged in
+the service of the world as it were in semblance only, his purpose and
+inclination turning more and more towards the cloister. When the
+current of feeling and spiritual excitement carried him beyond all
+these reluctances and hesitations, and he at last "sought the haven of
+the monastery," having, as he says, "left all that is of the world as
+at that time I vainly believed, I came out naked from the shipwreck of
+human life." His intention at this crisis was evidently not that of
+fitting himself for the great offices of the Church or entering what
+was indeed one of the greatest professions of the time, the
+priesthood, the one which, next to that of the soldier, was most apt
+for advancement. Like Jerome, Gregory's inclination was to be a monk
+and not a priest, and he expressly tells us that "the virtue of
+obedience was set against my own inclination to make me take the
+charge of ministering at the holy altar," which he was obliged to
+accept upon the ground that the Church had need of him. This
+disinclination to enter the priesthood is all the more remarkable that
+Gregory was evidently a preacher born, and seems early in his monastic
+life to have developed this gift. The elucidation of so difficult and
+mysterious a book as that of Job was asked of him by his brethren at
+an early period of his career.
+
+We have no guidance of dates to enable us to know how long a time he
+passed in the monastery, which was dedicated to St. Andrew, after he
+turned it from a palace-villa into monastic cells and cloisters; but
+the legend which comes in more or less to every saintly life here
+affords us one or two delightful vignettes to illustrate the history.
+His mother Silvia in her nun's cell, surrounded by its little garden,
+at S. Sabba, sent daily, the story goes--and there is no reason to
+doubt its truth--a mess of vegetables to her son upon the Coelian,
+prepared by her own tender hands. One can imagine some shockheaded
+Roman of a lay brother, old servant or retainer, tramping alone, day
+by day, over the stony ways, across the deep valley between the two
+hills, with the simple dish tied in its napkin, which perhaps had some
+savour of home and childhood, the mother's provision for her boy.
+
+Another story, less original, relates how having sold everything and
+given all his money to the poor, Gregory was beset by a shipwrecked
+sailor who came to him again and again in the cell where he sat
+writing, and to whom at last, having no money, he gave the only thing
+of value he had left, a silver dish given him by his mother--perhaps
+the very bowl in which day by day his dinner of herbs was sent to him.
+Needless to say that the mysterious sailor assumed afterwards a more
+glorious form, and Gregory found that he had given alms, if not as in
+most such cases to his Master, at least to a ministering angel. Then,
+too, in those quiet years arose other visionary legends, that of the
+dove who sat on his shoulder and breathed inspiration into his ear,
+and the Madonna who spoke to him as he sat musing--a Madonna painted
+by no mortal hands, but coming into being on the wall--a sweet and
+consoling vision in the light that never was by sea or shore. These
+are the necessary adjuncts of every saintly legend. It is not needful
+that we should insist upon them; but they help us to realise the
+aspect of the young Roman who had, at last, after some struggles
+attained that "grace of conversion" which makes the renunciation of
+every worldly advantage possible, but who still dwelt peacefully in
+his own house, and occupied the cell he had chosen for himself with
+something of the consciousness of the master of the house, although no
+superiority of rank among his brethren, finding no doubt a delightful
+new spring of life in the composition of his homilies, and the sense
+that a higher sphere of work and activity was thus opening before his
+feet.
+
+The cell of St. Gregory and his marble chair in which he worked and
+rested, are still shown for the admiration of the faithful on the
+right side of the church which bears his name: but neither church nor
+convent are of his building, though they occupy the sites consecrated
+by him to the service of God. "Here was the house of Gregory,
+converted by him into a monastery," says the inscription on the
+portico. And in one spot at least the steps of the Roman gentleman
+turned monk, may still be traced in the evening freshness and among
+the morning dews--in the garden, from which the neighbouring summits
+of the sun-crowned city still rise before the rapt spectator with all
+their memories and their ruins. There were greater ruins in Gregory's
+day, ruins still smoking from siege and fire, roofless palaces telling
+their stern lesson of the end of one great period of empire, of a
+mighty power overthrown, and new rude overwhelming forces, upon which
+no man could calculate, come in, in anarchy and bloodshed, to turn the
+world upside down. We all make our own somewhat conventional
+comparisons and reflections upon that striking scene, and moralise at
+our leisure over the Pagan and the Christian, and all that has been
+signified to the world in such an overthrow and transformation. But
+Gregory's thoughts as he paced his garden terrace must have been very
+different from ours. He no doubt felt a thrill of pleasure as he
+looked at the desecrated places over which Goth and Vandal had raged,
+in the thought that the peaceful roof of his father's house was safe,
+a refuge for the chosen souls who had abjured the world; and
+self-withdrawn from all those conflicts and miseries, mused in his
+heart over the new world which was dawning, under the tender care of
+the Church and the ministration of those monks denuded of all things,
+whose sole inspiration was to be the love of God and the succour of
+the human race. The world could not go on did not every new economy
+form to itself some such glorious dream of the final triumph of the
+good, the noble, and the true. Great Rome lay wrecked and ended in the
+sight of the patrician monk who had schooled himself out of all the
+bitterness of the vanquished in that new hope and new life of the
+cloister. Did he already see his brethren, the messengers of the
+faith, going forth to all the darkest corners of the unknown world
+with their gospel, and new skies and new lands turning to meet the
+shining of the new day?--or with thoughts more profound in awe, more
+sacred in mysterious joy, did he hold his breath to think what all
+these ragings of nations and overturning of powers might portend, the
+glorious era when all misery should be ended, and the Lord come in the
+clouds to judge the earth and vindicate His people? The monks have
+failed like the emperors since Gregory's day--the Popes have found no
+more certain solution for the problems of earth than did the
+philosophers. But it is perhaps more natural on one of those seven
+hills of Rome, to think of that last great event which shall fulfil
+all things, and finally unravel this mortal coil of human affairs,
+than it is on any other spot of earth except the mystic Mount of the
+Olives, from which rose the last visible steps of the Son of Man.
+
+We have no knowledge how long this quiet life lasted, or if he was
+long left to write his sermons in his cell, and muse in his garden,
+and receive his spare meal from his mother's hands, the mess of
+lentils, or beans, or artichokes, which would form his only fare; but
+it is evident that even in this seclusion he had given assurance of a
+man to the authorities of the Church and was looked upon as one of its
+hopes. He had no desire, as has been said, to become a priest, but
+rather felt an almost superstitious fear of being called upon to
+minister at the holy altar, a sentiment very usual in those days among
+men of the world converted to a love of the life of prayer and
+penitence, but not of the sacerdotal charge or profession. It is
+curious indeed how little the sacramental idea had then developed in
+the minds of the most pious. The rule of Benedict required the
+performance of the mass only on Sundays and festivals, and there is
+scarcely any mention of the more solemn offices of worship in the age
+of Jerome, who was a priest in spite of himself, and never said but
+one mass in his life. It was to "live the life," as in the case of a
+recent remarkable convert from earthly occupations to mystical
+religionism, that the late prætor, sick of worldly things, devoted
+himself: and not to enter into a new caste, against which the
+tradition that discredits all priesthoods and the unelevated character
+of many of its members, has always kept up a prejudice, which exists
+now as it existed then.
+
+But Gregory could not struggle against the fiat of his ecclesiastical
+superiors, and was almost compelled to receive the first orders. After
+much toiling and sifting of evidence the ever careful Bollandists have
+concluded that this event happened in 578 or 579--while Baronius,
+perhaps less bigoted in his accuracy, fixes it in 583. Nor was it
+without a distinct purpose that this step was taken; there was more to
+do in the world for this man than to preach homilies and expound
+Scripture in the little Roman churches. Some one was wanted to
+represent Pope Benedict the First in Constantinople, some one who knew
+the world and would not fear the face of any emperor; and it was
+evidently to enable him to hold the post of Apocrisarius or Nuncio,
+that Gregory was hastily invested with deacon's orders, and received
+the position later known as that of a Cardinal deacon. It is a little
+premature, and harmonises ill with the other features of the man, to
+describe him as a true mediæval Nuncio, with all the subtle powers and
+arrogant assumptions of the Rome of the middle ages. This however is
+Gibbon's description of him, a bold anachronism, antedating by several
+ages the pretensions which had by no means come to any such
+development in the sixth century. He describes the Apocrisarius of
+Pope Benedict as one "who boldly assumed in the name of St. Peter a
+tone of independent dignity which would have been criminal and
+dangerous in the most illustrious layman of the empire."
+
+There is little doubt that Gregory would be an original and remarkable
+figure among the sycophants of the imperial court, where the vices of
+the East mingled with those of the West, and everything was venal,
+corrupt, and debased. Gregory was the representative of a growing
+power, full of life and the prospects of a boundless future. There was
+neither popedom nor theories of universal primacy as yet, and he was
+confronted at Constantinople by ecclesiastical functionaries of as
+high pretensions as any he could put forth; but yet the Bishop of Rome
+had a unique position, and the care of the interests of the entire
+Western Church was not to be held otherwise than with dignity and a
+bold front whoever should oppose.
+
+  [Illustration: VILLA DE' MEDICI.]
+
+There was however another side to the life of the Nuncio which is
+worthy of note and very characteristic of the man. He had been
+accompanied on his mission by a little train of monks; for these
+coenobites were nothing if not social, and their solitude was always
+tempered by the proverbial companion to whom they could say how
+delightful it was to be alone. This little private circle formed a
+home for the representative of St. Peter, to which he retired with
+delight from the wearisome audiences, intrigues, and ceremonies of the
+imperial court. Another envoy, Leander, a noble Spaniard, afterwards
+Bishop of Seville, and one of the favourite saints of Spain, was in
+Constantinople at the same time, charged with some high mission from
+Rome "touching the faith of the Visigoths," whose conversion from
+Arianism was chiefly the work of this apostolic labourer. And he too
+found refuge in the home of Gregory among the friends there gathered
+together, probably bringing with him his own little retinue in the
+same Benedictine habit. "To their society I fled," says Gregory, "as
+to the bosom of the nearest port from the rolling swell and waves of
+earthly occupation; and though that office which withdrew me from the
+monastery had with the point of its employments stabbed to death my
+former tranquillity of life, yet in their society I was reanimated."
+They read and prayed together, keeping up the beloved punctilios of
+the monastic rule, the brethren with uninterrupted attention, the
+Nuncio and the Bishop as much as was possible to them in the intervals
+of their public work. And in the cool atrio of some Eastern palace,
+with the tinkling fountain in the midst and the marble benches round,
+the little company with one breath besought their superior to exercise
+for them those gifts of exposition and elucidation of which he had
+already proved himself a master. "It was then that it seemed good to
+those brethren, you too adding your influence as you will remember, to
+oblige me by the importunity of their requests to set forth the book
+of the blessed Job--and so far as the Truth should inspire me, to lay
+open to them these mysteries." We cannot but think it was a curious
+choice for the brethren to make in the midst of that strange
+glittering world of Constantinople, where the ecclesiastical news
+would all be of persecuting Arians and perverse Eastern bishops, and
+where all kinds of subtle heresies, both doctrinal and personal, were
+in the air, fine hair-splitting arguments as to how much or how little
+of common humanity was in the sacred person of our Lord, as well as
+questions as to the precise day on which to keep Easter and other
+regulations of equal importance. But to none of these matters did the
+monks in exile turn their minds. "They made this too an additional
+burden which their petition laid upon me, that I would not only
+unravel the words of the history in allegorical senses, but that I
+would go on to give to the allegorical sense the turn of a moral
+exercise: with the addition of something yet harder, that I would
+fortify the different meanings with analogous passages, and that
+these, should they chance to be involved, should be disentangled by
+the aid of additional explanation."
+
+This abstruse piece of work was the recreation with which his brethren
+supplied the active mind of Gregory in the midst of his public
+employments and all the distractions of the imperial court. It need
+not be said that he did not approach the subject critically or with
+any of the lights of that late learning which has so much increased
+the difficulty of approaching any subject with simplicity. It is not
+supposed even that he had any knowledge of the original, or indeed any
+learning at all. The Nuncio and his monks were not disturbed by
+questions about that wonderful scene in which Satan stands before God.
+They accepted it with a calm which is as little concerned by its
+poetic grandeur as troubled by its strange suggestions. That
+extraordinary revelation of an antique world, so wonderfully removed
+from us, beyond all reach of history, was to them the simplest preface
+to a record of spiritual experience, full of instruction to
+themselves, lessons of patience and faith, and all the consolations of
+God. Nothing is more likely than that there were among the men who
+clustered about Gregory in his Eastern palace, some who like Job had
+seen everything that was dear to them perish, and had buried health
+and wealth and home and children under the ashes of sacked and burning
+Rome. We might imagine even that this was the reason why that
+mysterious poem with all its wonderful discoursings was chosen as the
+subject to be treated in so select an assembly. Few of these men if
+any would be peaceful sons of the cloister, bred up in the stillness
+of conventual life; neither is it likely that they would be scholars
+or divines. They were men rescued from a world more than usually
+terrible and destructive of individual happiness, saddened by loss,
+humiliated in every sensation either of family or national pride, the
+fallen sons of a great race, trying above all things to console
+themselves for the destruction of every human hope. And the exposition
+of Job is written with this end, with strange new glosses and
+interpretations from that New Testament which was not yet six hundred
+years old, and little account of any difference between: for were not
+both Holy Scripture intended for the consolation and instruction of
+mankind? and was not this the supreme object of all--not to raise
+antiquarian questions or exercise the mind on metaphysical arguments,
+but to gather a little balsam for the wounds, and form a little prop
+for the weakness of labouring and heavily laden men? _Moralia_: "The
+Book of the Morals of St. Gregory the Pope" is the title of the
+book--a collection of lessons how to endure and suffer, how to hope
+and believe, how to stand fast--in the certainty of a faith that
+overcomes all things, in the very face of fate.
+
+"Whosoever is speaking concerning God," says Gregory, "must be careful
+to search out thoroughly whatsoever furnishes moral instruction to his
+hearers; and should account that to be the right method of ordering
+his discourse which permits him when opportunity for edification
+requires it, to turn aside for a useful purpose from that which he had
+begun to speak of. He that treats of sacred writ should follow the way
+of a river: for if a river as it flows along its channel meets with
+open valleys on its side, into these it immediately turns the course
+of its current, and when they are copiously supplied presently it
+pours itself back into its bed. Thus unquestionably should it be with
+every one that treats the Divine word, so that if discussing any
+subject he chances to find at hand any occasion of seasonable
+edification he should as it were force the streams of discourse
+towards the adjacent valley, and when he has poured forth enough upon
+its level of instruction fall back into the channel of discourse which
+he had proposed to himself."
+
+We do not know what the reader may think of Gregory's geography; but
+certainly he carries out his discursive views to the full, and fills
+every valley he may chance to come to in his flowing, with pools and
+streams--no doubt waters of refreshing to the souls that surrounded
+him, ever eager to press him on. A commentary thus called forth by the
+necessities of the moment, spoken in the first place to anxious
+listeners who had with much pressure demanded it, and who nodded their
+heads over it with mingled approbation and criticism as half their
+own, has a distinctive character peculiar to itself, and requires
+little aid from science or learning. A large portion of it was written
+as it fell from his lips, without revision Gregory informs us,
+"because the brethren drawing me away to other things, would not leave
+time to correct this with any great degree of exactness."
+
+A gleam of humour comes across the picture as he describes his
+position among this band of dependent and applauding followers, who
+yet were more or less the masters of his leisure and private life.
+"Pursuing my object of obeying their instructions, _which I must
+confess were sufficiently numerous_, I have completed this work," he
+says. The humour is a little rueful, the situation full of force and
+nature. The little group of lesser men would no doubt have fully
+acknowledged themselves inferior to the eloquent brother, their
+founder, their instructor, so much greater a man in every way than
+themselves: but yet not able to get on without the hints of Brother
+John or Brother Paul, helped so much by that fine suggestion of the
+Cellarius, and the questions and sagacious remarks of the others. The
+instructions of the brethren! who does not recognise the scene, the
+nods aside, the objections, the volunteered information and directions
+how to say this or that, which he knew so much better how to say than
+any of them! while he sat listening all the time, attending to every
+criticism, taking up a hint here and there, with that curious alchemy
+of good humour and genius, turning the dull remarks to profit, yet
+always with a twinkle in his eye at those advices "sufficiently
+numerous" which aimed at teaching him how to teach them, a position
+which many an ecclesiastic and many an orator must have realised since
+then. Gregory reveals his consciousness of the state of affairs quite
+involuntarily, nothing being further from his mind than to betray to
+his reverend and saintly brother anything so human and faulty as a
+smile; and it is clear that he took the animadversions in good part
+with as much good nature as humour. To make out the features of the
+same man in Gibbon's picture of an arrogant priest assuming more than
+any layman durst assume, is very difficult. The historian evidently
+made his study from models a few hundred years further down in the
+record.
+
+Gregory seems to have held the place of Apocrisarius twice under two
+different Popes--Benedict I. and Pelagius II.; but whether he returned
+to Rome between the two is not clear. One part of his commission from
+Pelagius was to secure help from the Emperor against the Lombards who
+were threatening Rome. The Pope's letter with its lamentable account
+of the undefended and helpless condition of the city, and the urgency
+with which he entreats his representative to support the pleading of a
+special envoy sent for that purpose, is interesting. It is sent to
+Gregory by the hands of a certain Sebastian, "our brother and
+coadjutor," who has been in Ravenna with the general Decius, and
+therefore is able to describe at first hand the terrible state of
+affairs to the Emperor. "Such misfortunes and tribulations," says the
+Pope, "have been inflicted upon us by the perfidy of the Lombards
+contrary to their own oath as no one could describe. Therefore speak
+and act so as to relieve us speedily in our danger. For the state is
+so hemmed in, that unless God put it into the heart of our most pious
+prince to show pity to his servants, and to vouchsafe us a grant of
+money, and a commander and leader, we are left in the last extremity,
+all the districts round Rome being defenceless, and the Exarch unable
+to do anything to help us. Therefore may God persuade the Emperor to
+come quickly to our aid before the armies of that most accursed race
+have overrun our lands."
+
+What a strange overturn of all things is apparent when such a piteous
+appeal is conveyed to the Eastern empire already beginning to totter,
+from what was once imperial and triumphant Rome!
+
+It was in 586, four years before the end of the life of Pelagius, that
+Gregory returned home. The abbot of his convent, Maximianus, had been
+promoted to the see of Syracuse, though whether for independent
+reasons or to make room for Gregory in that congenial position we are
+not informed; and the Nuncio on his return succeeded naturally to the
+vacant place. If it was now or at an earlier period that he bestowed
+all his robes, jewels, etc., on the convent it is difficult to decide,
+for there seems always to have been some reserve of gifts to come out
+on a later occasion, after we have heard of an apparent sacrifice of
+all things for the endowment of one charity or another. At all events
+Gregory's charities were endless and continued as long as he lived.
+
+No retirement within the shadow of the convent was however possible
+now for the man who had taken so conspicuous a position in public
+life. He was appointed secretary to the Pope, combining that office
+with the duties of head of his convent, and would appear besides to
+have been the most popular preacher in Rome, followed from one church
+to another by admiring crowds, and moving the people with all the
+force of that religious oratory which is more powerful than any other
+description of eloquence: though to tell the truth we find but little
+trace of this irresistible force in his discourses as they have come
+down to us. Popular as he was he does not seem to have had any special
+reputation either for learning or for literary style.
+
+One of the best known of historical anecdotes is the story of
+Gregory's encounter with the group of English children brought to Rome
+as slaves, whom he saw accidentally, as we say, in one of his walks.
+It belongs in all probability to this period of his life, and no doubt
+formed an episode in his daily progress from St. Andrew's on its hill
+to the palace of the Bishop of Rome which was then attached to the
+great church of the Lateran gate. In this early home of the head of
+the Roman hierarchy there would no doubt be accommodation for pilgrims
+and strangers, in addition to the spare court of the primitive Pope,
+but probably little anticipation of the splendours of the Vatican, not
+yet dreamed of. Gregory was pursuing his musing way, a genial figure
+full of cheerful observation and interest in all around him, when he
+was suddenly attracted as he crossed some street or square, amid the
+crowd of dark heads and swarthy faces by a group, unlike the rest, of
+fair Saxon boys, long-limbed and slender, with their rose tints and
+golden locks. The great ecclesiastic appears to us here all at once in
+a new light, after all we have known of him among his monastic
+brethren. He would seem to have been one of those inveterate punsters
+who abound among ecclesiastics, as well as a tender-hearted man full
+of fatherly instincts. He stopped to look at the poor children so
+unlike anything he knew. Who were they? Angles. Nay, more like angels,
+he said in his kind tones, with no doubt a smile in return for the
+wondering looks suddenly raised upon him. And their country? Deiri.
+Ah, a happy sign! _de ira eruti_, destined to rise out of wrath into
+blessedness. And their king? the boys themselves might by this time be
+moved to answer the kind monk, who looked at them so tenderly.
+Ella--Alle, as it is reported in the Latin, softening the narrower
+vowel. And was it still all heathen that distant land, and unknown
+rude monarch, and the parents of these angelic children? Then might it
+soon be, good Lord, that Allelujah should sound wherever the barbarous
+Alle reigned! Perhaps he smiled at his own play upon words, as
+punsters are apt to do, as he strolled away, not we may be sure
+without a touch of benediction upon the shining tawny heads of the
+little Saxon lions. But smiling was not all it came to. The thought
+dwelt with him as he pursued his way, by the great round of the
+half-ruined Colosseum, more ruinous probably then than now, and down
+the long street to the Latin gate, where Pelagius and all the work of
+his secretaryship awaited him. The Pope was old and wanted cheering,
+especially in those dark days when the invader so often raged without,
+and Tiber was slowly swelling within, muttering wrath and disaster;
+while no force existed, to be brought against one enemy or another but
+the prayers of a few old men. Gregory told the story of his encounter,
+perhaps making the old Pope laugh at the wit so tempered with
+devotion, before he put forth his plea for a band of missionaries to
+be sent to those unknown regions to convert that beautiful and
+wonderful fair-haired race. Pelagius was very willing to give his
+consent; but where were men to be found to risk themselves and their
+lives on such a distant expedition among the savages of that unknown
+island? When it was found that nobody would undertake such a perilous
+mission, Gregory, who would naturally have become more determined in
+respect to it after every repulse, offered himself; and somehow
+managed to extort a consent from the Pope, of which he instantly took
+advantage, setting out at once with a band of faithful brethren, among
+whom no doubt must have been some of those who had accompanied him
+when he was Nuncio into scenes so different, and pressed him on with
+their advice and criticism while he opened to them the mysteries of
+Scripture. They might be tyrannical in their suggestions, but no doubt
+the impulse of the apostles--"let us die with him"--was strong in
+their hearts.
+
+No sooner was it known, however, in Rome that Gregory had left the
+city on so distant and perilous a mission than the people rose in a
+sudden tumult. They rushed together from all the quarters of the city
+in excited bands towards the Lateran, surrounding the Pope with angry
+cries and protests, demanding the recall of the preacher, whose
+eloquence as well as his great benefactions to the poor had made him
+to the masses the foremost figure in the Church. The Pope, frightened
+by this tumult, yielded to the demand, and sent off messengers in hot
+haste to bring the would-be missionary back. The picture which his
+biographers afford us is less known than the previous incidents, yet
+full of character and picturesque detail. The little band had got
+three days on in their journey--one wonders from what port they meant
+to embark, for Ostia, the natural way, was but a few hours from
+Rome--when they made their usual halt at noon for refreshment and rest
+"in the fields." Gregory had seated himself under the shade of a tree
+with a book to beguile the warm and lingering hours. And as he sat
+thus reading with all the bustle of the little encampment round him,
+men and horses in the outdoor freedom enjoying the pause, the shade,
+and needful food--a locust suddenly alighted upon his page, on the
+roll of parchment which was then the form of the latest editions. Such
+a visitor usually alights for a moment and no more; but Gregory was
+too gentle a spectator of all life to dash the insect off, and it
+remained there with a steadiness and "mansuetude" unlike the habits of
+the creature. The good monk began to be interested, to muse and pun,
+and finally to wonder. "Locusta," he said to himself, groping for a
+meaning, "loca sta." What could it signify but that in this place he
+would be made to stay? He called to his attendants to make ready with
+all speed and push on, eager to get beyond the reach of pursuit; but
+before the cumbrous train could be got under way again, the Pope's
+messengers arrived "bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste," and
+the missionaries were compelled to return to Rome. Thus his first
+attempt for the conversion of England was to have been made, could he
+have carried out his purpose, by himself.
+
+There is a curious story also related of Gregory in his walks through
+Rome, the issue of which, could an unbelieving age put faith in it,
+would be even more remarkable. One day as he passed by the Forum of
+Trajan--then no doubt a spot more wildly ruinous than now, though
+still with some of its great galleries and buildings standing among
+overthrown monuments and broken pillars--some one told him the story
+of Trajan and the widow, which must have greatly affected the mediæval
+imagination since Dante has introduced it in his great poem. The
+prayer addressed to the Emperor on his way to the wars was the same as
+that of the widow in the parable, "Avenge me of mine adversary." "I
+will do so when I return," the Emperor replied. "But who will assure
+me that you will ever return?" said the importunate widow; upon which
+the Emperor, recognising the justice of the objection, stopped his
+warlike progress until he had executed the vengeance required, upon
+one of his own officials (is it not said by one authority his own
+son?) who had wronged her. Gregory was as much impressed by this tale
+as Dante. He went on lamenting that such a man, so just, so tolerant
+of interruption, so ready to do what was right, should be cut off from
+the Divine mercy. He carried this regret with him all the way to the
+tomb of the apostles, where he threw himself on his knees and prayed
+with all his heart that the good Trajan, the man who did right
+according to the light that was in him, at all costs, should be saved.
+Some versions of the story add that he offered to bear any penance
+that might be put upon him for his presumption, and was ready to incur
+any penalty to secure this great boon. It can never be put to proof in
+this world whether Gregory's petition was heard or not, but his monks
+and biographers were sure of it, and some of them allege that his own
+bodily sufferings and weakness were the penalty which he accepted
+gladly for the salvation of that great soul. The story proves at least
+the intense humanity and yearning over the unhappy, which was in his
+heart. Whether he played and punned in tender humour with the objects
+of his sympathy, or so flung himself in profoundest compassion into
+the abyss of hopelessness with them, that he could wish himself like
+Paul accursed for his brethren's sake--Gregory's being was full of
+brotherly love and fervent feeling, a love which penetrated even
+beyond the limits of visible life.
+
+The four years that elapsed between his return to his convent and his
+election to the Popedom (or to speak more justly the bishopric of
+Rome) were years of trouble. In addition to the constant danger of
+invasion, the misery, even when that was escaped, of the tales brought
+to Rome by the fugitives who took refuge there from all the
+surrounding country, in every aggravation of poverty and wretchedness,
+and the efforts that had to be made for their succour--a great
+inundation of the Tiber, familiar yet terrible disaster from which
+Rome has not even now been able to secure herself, took place towards
+the end of the period, followed by a terrible pestilence, its natural
+result. Gregory was expounding the prophet Ezekiel in one of the Roman
+churches at the time of this visitation: but as the plague increased
+his sorrowful soul could not bear any bondage of words or thoughts
+apart from the awful needs of the moment, and closing the book, he
+poured forth his heart to the awed and trembling people, exhorting all
+to repent, and to fling themselves upon God's mercy that the
+pestilence might be stayed. In all such terrible emergencies it is the
+impulse of human nature to take refuge in something that can be done,
+and the impulse is no doubt itself of use to relieve the crushing
+weight of despair, whatever may be the form it takes.
+
+  [Illustration: SAN GREGORIO MAGNO, AND ST. JOHN AND ST. PAUL.]
+
+We clean and scrub and whitewash in our day, and believe in these
+ways of arresting the demons; but in old Rome the call for help was
+more impressive at least, and probably braced the souls of the
+sufferers as even whitewash could not do. The manner in which Gregory
+essayed to turn the terrible tide was by a direct appeal to Heaven. He
+organised a great simultaneous procession from all the quarters of
+Rome to meet at "the Church of the Virgin"--we are not informed
+which--in one great united outcry to God for mercy. The septiform
+litany, as it was called, was chanted through the desolate streets by
+gradually approaching lines, the men married and unmarried, the
+priests and monks each approaching in a separate band; while
+proceeding from other churches came the women in all their
+subdivisions, the wives, the widows, the maidens, the dedicated
+virgins, Ancillæ Dei, each line converging towards the centre, each
+followed no doubt from windows within which the dying lay with tears
+and echoes of prayers. Many great sights there have been in old Rome,
+but few could have been more melancholy or impressive than this. We
+hear of no miraculous picture, no saintly idol as in later
+ceremonials, but only the seven processions with their long-drawn
+monotones of penitence, the men by themselves, the women by
+themselves, the widows in their mourning, the veiled nuns, the younger
+generation, boys and girls, most precious of all. That Gregory should
+have had the gift to see, or believe that he saw, a shining angel upon
+Hadrian's tomb, pausing and sheathing his sword as the long line of
+suppliants drew near, is very soothing and human to think of. Fresh
+from his studies of Ezekiel or Job, though too sick at heart with
+present trouble to continue them, why should he have doubted that the
+Hearer of Prayer might thus grant a visible sign of the acceptance
+which He had promised? We do not expect such visions nowadays, nor do
+we with such intense and united purpose seek them; but the same legend
+connects itself with many such periods of national extremity. So late
+as the Great Plague of London a similar great figure, radiant in
+celestial whiteness, was also reported to be seen as the pestilence
+abated, sheathing, in the same imagery, a blazing sword.
+
+The story of the septiform litany relates how here and there in the
+streets as they marched the dead and dying fell out of the very ranks
+of the suppliants. But yet the angel sheathed his sword. It is hard to
+recall the splendid monument of Hadrian with its gleaming marbles and
+statues as the pilgrim of to-day approaches the vast but truncated and
+heavy round of the Castle of St. Angelo; but it does not require so
+great an effort of the mind to recall that scene, when the great angel
+standing out against the sky existed but in Gregory's anxious eyes,
+and was reflected through the tears of thousands of despairing
+spectators, who stood trembling between the Omnipotence which could
+save in a moment and the terrible Death which seized and slew while
+they were looking on. No human heart can refuse to beat quicker at
+such a spectacle--the good man in his rapture of love and earnestness
+with his face turned to that radiant Roman sky, and all the dark lines
+of people arrested in their march gazing too, the chant dying from
+their lips, while the white angel paused for a moment and sheathed the
+sword of judgment over their heads.
+
+It was not till many centuries later, when every relic of the glories
+of the great Emperor's tomb had been torn from its walls, that the
+angel in marble, afterwards succeeded by the present angel in bronze,
+was erected on the summit of the Castle of St. Angelo, which derives
+from this incident its name--a name now laden with many other
+associations and familiar to us all.
+
+Pope Pelagius was one of the victims of this great plague; and it is
+evident from all the circumstances recorded that Gregory was already
+the most prominent figure in Rome, taking the chief place, not only in
+such matters as the public penitence, but in all the steps necessary
+to meet so great a calamity. Not only were his powers as an
+administrator very great, but he had the faculty of getting at those
+sacred hordes of ecclesiastical wealth, the Church's treasures of gold
+and silver plate, which a secular ruler could not have touched.
+Gregory's own liberality was the best of lessons, and though he had
+already sacrificed so much he had yet, it would appear, something of
+his own still to dispose of, as we have already found to be the case
+in so many instances, no doubt rents or produce of estates which could
+not be alienated, though everything they produced was freely given up.
+Already the wealth of the Church had been called into requisition to
+provide for the fugitives who had taken refuge from the Lombards in
+Rome. These riches, however, were now almost exhausted by the wants of
+the disorganised commonwealth, where every industry and occupation had
+been put out of gear, and nothing but want and misery, enfeebled
+bodies, and discouraged hearts remained. It was inevitable that at
+such a time Gregory should be the one man to whom every eye turned as
+the successor of Pelagius. The clergy, the nobles, and the populace,
+all accustomed to take a part in the choice of the bishop, pronounced
+for him with one voice. It is a kind of fashion among the saints that
+each one in his turn should resist and refuse the honours which it is
+wished to thrust upon him; but there was at least sufficient reason in
+Gregory's case for resistance. For the apostolical see, which was far
+from being a bed of roses at any time, was at that period of distress
+and danger one of the most onerous posts in the world.
+
+Pelagius died in January 590, but it was late in that year before his
+successor was forced into the vacant place. In the meantime Gregory
+had appealed to the Emperor, begging that he would oppose the election
+and support him in his resistance. This letter fell into the hands of
+the Præfect of Rome, who intercepted it, and wrote in his own name and
+that of the people a contrary prayer, begging the Emperor Maurice to
+sanction and give authority to their choice. It was only when the
+answer was received confirming the election, that Gregory became aware
+of the trick played upon him; and all his natural aversion
+strengthened by this deceitful proceeding, he withdrew secretly from
+the city, hiding himself, it is said, in a cave among the woods.
+Whether this means that he had made his way to the hills, and found
+this refuge among the ruins of Tusculum, or in some woodland grotto
+about Albano, or that some of the herdsmen's huts upon the Campagna
+amid the broken arches of the aqueducts received and concealed him, it
+is impossible to tell. It is said that the place of his retreat was
+made known by a light from heaven which made an illumination about him
+in his stony refuge, for the legend is unsparing in the breadth of its
+effects and easily appropriates the large miracle which in the Old
+Testament attends the passage of a whole nation to the service of an
+individual, without any of that sense of proportion which is to be
+found in older records. This light suggests somehow the wide breadth
+of the Campagna where its distant glow could be seen from afar, from
+the battlements of Rome herself, rather than the more distant hills.
+And we must hope that this direct betrayal by Heaven of his
+hiding-place showed Gregory that the appointment against which he
+struggled had in fact the sanction of the higher powers.
+
+He speaks, however, in many of his works of the great repugnance he
+felt to take the cares of such an office upon him. He had allowed
+himself to be ordained a deacon with reluctance, and only apparently
+on an understanding that when the emergency which called for his
+services was over he might be permitted to retire again to his
+cloister. His letter to Leander already referred to is full of the
+complaint that "when the ministry of the altar was so heavy a weight,
+the further burden of the pastoral charge was fastened on me, which I
+now find so much the more difficulty in bearing as I feel myself
+unequal to it, and cannot find consolation in any comfortable
+confidence in myself." To another correspondent he remonstrates
+against the censure he met with for having endeavoured to escape from
+so heavy a charge. These hesitations are not like those with which it
+is usual to find the great men of the Church refusing honours, since
+it is no profession of humility which moves Gregory, but his
+overwhelming sense of the difficulties and danger to which the chief
+pastor of the Church would necessarily be exposed. His idea of his
+position is indeed very different from that of those who consider him
+as one of the first to conceive the great plan of the papacy, and as
+working sedulously and with intention at the foundations of an
+institution which he expected to last for hundreds of years and to
+sway the fortunes of the world. He was on the contrary fully persuaded
+that all the signs of the times foretold instead, the end of the
+world and final winding up of human history. The apostles had believed
+so before him, and every succeeding age had felt the catastrophe to be
+only for a little while delayed. Nation was rising against nation
+under his very eyes, earthquakes destroying the cities of the earth,
+and pestilence their populations. There had been signs in heaven
+generally reported and believed, fiery ranks of combatants meeting in
+conflict in the very skies, and every token of judgment about to fall.
+Little thought was there in his mind of a triumphant and potent
+ecclesiastical economy which should dominate all things. "I being
+unworthy and weak have taken upon me the care of the old and battered
+vessel," he says in one of his epistles written soon after his
+election; "the waves make their way in on all sides, and the rotten
+planks, shattered by daily and violent storms, threaten imminent
+shipwreck." An old and battered vessel, it had borne the strain of six
+centuries--a long time to those who knew nothing of the ages to come:
+and now struggled on its way beaten by winds and waves, not knowing
+when the dreadful moment expected by so many generations might come,
+when the sun should be turned into darkness and the moon into
+blood--the only signs that were yet wanting of the approach of that
+great and terrible day. How different were these anticipations from
+any conscious plan of conquest or spiritual empire; and how much more
+fully justified by all that was happening around that broken,
+suffering, poor, breathless and hopeless capital of the world!
+
+Yet it is evident enough that this one resolute man, toiling in every
+possible way for the protection of the people round him, did put a
+certain heart in the city which had come through so many convulsions.
+Crowded with fugitives, decimated with pestilence, left for many
+months without any more able head than the half-hearted prætors and
+officials of the state and the distant exarch at Ravenna, with all of
+whom, according to Gregory's own witness, the exaction of taxes was
+the chief object--a strong and steadfast ruler in the midst of this
+distracted people changed in every way the disposition of affairs. For
+one thing he seems to have taken upon him from the beginning the care
+and nourishment of the poor. It had been the principle of the Church
+from her earliest days that almsgiving was one of the first of duties,
+and the care of the poor her inalienable right; but such a time of
+disaster made something more heroic needful than the usual doles and
+charities. A large proportion of the population of Rome came upon
+Gregory's hands to be fed and provided for. Lists of the destitute
+poor, of their houses and circumstances, were kept with the greatest
+care; and we are told that before the Pope sat down to any meal the
+tables for the poor outside were first supplied. How dreadful to any
+philanthropist now this straightforward and matter-of-fact feeding of
+the hungry! but it was the manner of Christianity, most understood and
+approved in the early ages, the one with which even the most
+enlightened of politicians had no fault to find. This was the first
+idea in every evangelical soul, but it was by no means the limit of
+Gregory's exertions. He had learned diplomacy as well as charity in
+the experiences of his past life, and every resource of his skill and
+knowledge were needed for the salvation of the otherwise hopeless
+city. In all the dignity of his spiritual office, yet with all the
+arts of a statesman, we can see him standing as it were before the
+gates of Rome, as Horatius stood on the banks of the Tiber. It is
+sometimes to Constantinople, sometimes to the host of the invaders,
+that he turns explaining, arguing, pleading on one side and another
+for the safety of his city and people. His letters to the Emperor and
+to the Empress on one hand, and those to Queen Theodolinda on the
+other hand, the wife of the invader--show with what persistency and
+earnestness he defended Rome and its people who were his special
+charge and flock, and who had neither ruler nor defender save himself.
+This was one of his ways of establishing the sway of the papacy, it is
+said; it was at the same time, and primarily, the stepping forth of
+the only man who could or would put himself at the head of a
+disorganised and trembling host without leader or defender. He, only
+he, stood fast to strike for them, to intercept destruction hanging
+over their heads, and it, would be a curious fact indeed in human
+nature if such a man performed his first duty for the sake of an
+unformed empire to come after hundreds of years had passed. He
+succeeded with the barbarians, preserving Rome from the attacks which
+were often threatened but never carried out; but he did little good
+with Maurice, who on his side had few troops to send and no general
+able to make a successful campaign against the Lombards. The officers
+and the armies of the empire were of use in exacting taxes for the
+imperial treasury, but not for opposing a vigorous invader or rescuing
+a defenceless people.
+
+It is never pretended by any of his biographers or admirers that
+Gregory was a man of learning, or even interested very much in the
+preservation of letters, or the progress of intellectual life.
+Learning and philosophy were the inheritance of the Greek Church,
+which was the very presumptuous and arrogant rival of Rome, and the
+cradle of most of the heresies and all the difficult and delicate
+questions which had troubled the peace of the Church. He is accused,
+though without sufficient evidence, of burning a library of Latin
+poets, a thing which he might well have done, according to his ideas,
+without much sense of guilt. There has never been an age in which
+certain books have not been liable to that reformation by fire, and
+the principle is quite as strong now as in the sixth century, so we
+need not take pains to exonerate Gregory from such an imputation. He
+did not, like Jerome, love the literature which was full of
+classical images and allusions. Neither Cicero nor Plato would have
+tempted him to occupy himself with vain studies. "The same mouth," he
+says, "should not pronounce the name of Jupiter and that of Christ;"
+yet at the same time he expresses strong regret that letters had died
+out of Rome, amid all the tumults through which she had passed. Amid
+the jargon of barbarians heard on every side, Greek, he complains, had
+fallen almost out of knowledge. There were few men learned enough to
+settle a question of doctrine by reference to the original text of
+Scripture. "Those we have are good for little but to translate word by
+word; they are unable to grasp the sense, and it is with difficulty
+that we understand their translations." He does not take any credit
+for his own style, which indeed is anything but Ciceronian. He
+complains with great simplicity, at the end of his dedication to
+Leander of his Moralia, of the "collisions of metacism," a difficulty
+about the letter _m_ which would seem to have been as troublesome as
+the letter _h_ in our own day; and anticipates criticism by confessing
+that he has neglected the "cases of prepositions." "For I account it
+far from meet," he says, taking as we should say in Scotland, "the
+first word of flyting," and with a high hand, "to submit the words of
+the Divine Oracle to the rules of (the grammarian) Donatus." As who
+should say Lindley Murray has nothing to do with the language of a
+sermon. This was a great deal for a man to say, one of whose early
+feats in life had been the conviction and conversion by argument of
+Eutychius, whose heresy in respect to the body of the resurrection (a
+sufficiently distant and far-off subject to disturb the Church
+about--but such twists of impossible doctrine have always affected
+some minds) survived himself--but who acknowledged with his dying
+breath that he was wrong and Gregory right.
+
+  [Illustration: ARCH OF CONSTANTINE.
+    _To face page 152._]
+
+Doctrine, however, was not the point on which Gregory was most
+strong--his Dialogues, written it is said for the edification and
+strengthening in the faith of the Empress Theodolinda, are nothing
+more than pious discussions and sanctions of the miracles performed by
+the saints, which we fear would have a very contrary effect if
+published in our day. His works upon the pastoral law and the
+discipline of the Church are the most valuable and important of his
+productions; though in these also his point of view is extraordinarily
+different from ours, and he advises a kind and degree of toleration
+which is somewhat appalling to hear of. For instance, in his
+instructions to Augustine and his band of missionaries Gregory
+instructs them to interfere as little as possible with the customs,
+especially in the matter of religious observances, of the people among
+whom they were sent. They were not to put down the familiar
+accompaniments of their converts' native rites and ceremonies. The old
+temples of Woden and Thor were not to be abandoned but turned to a new
+and better use; even the system of sacrifice to these gods was not to
+be altogether set aside. "Let there be no more victims to demons," he
+says with curious casuistry, "but let them kill and eat giving thanks
+to God; for you must leave them some material enjoyments that they may
+so much more easily enter into the delights of the soul." On the other
+hand, his instructions to a bishop of Sardinia bear a curiously
+different character. He recommended this prelate to put a pressure
+more or less gentle upon the peasants there who still remained pagan,
+in the form of an increased rent and taxes until such time as they
+should become Christian. "Though, conversion does not come by force,"
+he says with sagacious cynicism, "yet the children of these mercenary
+converts will receive baptism in their innocence and will be better
+Christians than their fathers;" an argument which certainly embodies
+much economic truth if not exactly the spirit of the Gospel.
+
+  [Illustration: THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO.]
+
+Strangely different from these worldly-wise suggestions, however, are
+the detailed instructions for pastoral work, quoted by Bede, in
+Gregory's answer to the questions of Augustine, in which the
+artificial conscience of the confessional suddenly appears in full
+development, by the side of those strange counsels of a still
+semi-pagan age. Nothing can be more remarkable than this contrast,
+which exacts a more than Levitical punctilio of observance from the
+devout, while leaving open every door for the entrance of the profane.
+Though he entered with so much reluctance upon the pastoral care of
+the Church, no one has laid down more detailed directions for the cure
+of souls. It would seem to have been in reality one of the things
+which interested him most. His mind was in some respects that of a
+statesman full of the broadest sense of expediency and of the
+practicable, and of toleration and compromise carried to a length
+which fills us with dismay; while on the other it was that of a parish
+legislator, an investigator of personal details, to whom no trifle was
+unimportant, and the most fantastic stipulations of ritualistic
+purification of as great moment as morality itself.
+
+In contrast however with those letters which recommended what was
+little more than a forced conversion, and which have been frequently
+cited as examples of the unscrupulousness of the early missionaries,
+we must here quote some of Gregory's pastoral instructions in which
+the true spirit of a pastor shines forth. "Nothing," he says in one of
+his epistles to the bishops with whom he kept up constant
+communications, "is so heavy a burden upon a priest as so to bend the
+force of his own mind in sympathy, as _to change souls_ (_cum personis
+supervenientibus animam mutare_) with each new person who approaches
+him; yet this is very necessary." Nothing could be more happy in
+expression or fine in sentiment, and it shows how completely the
+monk-Pope, in cloister and on throne, understood the essential
+character of his great profession. Still more remarkable, as more
+involved in personal matters, is his advice to Augustine, who had
+consulted him as to the differences in worship between the Gallican
+churches and those of Rome.
+
+      "You know, my brother, the custom of the Roman Church in
+      which you were bred up. But it will please me if when you
+      have found anything, either in the Roman or Gallican or any
+      other Church, which may be more acceptable to Almighty God,
+      you will carefully make choice of the same, and sedulously
+      teach the Church of the English, which as yet is new in the
+      faith, whatsoever good thing you can gather from the
+      several Churches. For things are not to be loved for the
+      sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.
+      Choose therefore from every Church those things that are
+      pious, religious and upright, and when you have as it were
+      made them into one system, let the minds of the English be
+      accustomed thereto."
+
+This is surely the truest and highest toleration.
+
+The Papacy of Gregory began in trouble and distress; Rome was more
+disorganised, more miserable, more confused and helpless than almost
+ever before, although she had already passed through many a terrible
+crisis; and he had shrunk from the terrible task of setting her right.
+But when he had once undertaken that task there was neither weakness
+nor hesitation in the manner with which he carried it out. The public
+penance and humiliation to which he moved the people, the septiform
+litany with its chanting and weeping crowds, the ceaseless prayers and
+intercessions in the Church were not all, though no doubt the chief
+part to Gregory, of those methods by which he sustained the courage,
+or rather put a heart into, the broken-down population, so that for
+once a show of resistance was made when the Lombards threatened the
+city. And his anxious negotiations never ceased. The Emperor, far off
+and indifferent, not to say helpless, in Constantinople, had no rest
+from the constant remonstrances and appeals of the ever-watchful
+Bishop. Gregory complained and with reason that no efforts, or at
+least but fictitious ones, were made for the help of Rome, and that
+the indifference or hostility of the Emperor was more dangerous to her
+than the arms of the Lombards. On the other hand he addressed himself
+to the headquarters of the invaders, taking as his champion--as was
+his custom, as it has always been the custom of the Churchman--the
+Queen Theodolinda, who had become a Catholic and baptized her son in
+that faith, notwithstanding the opposition of her Arian husband, and
+was therefore a very fitting and natural intercessor. "What an
+overwhelming charge it is!" he cries to one of his correspondents, "to
+be at once weighted with the supervision of the bishops and clergy, of
+the monasteries and the entire people, and to remain all the time
+watchful to every undertaking of the enemy and on my guard against the
+robbery and injustice of our rulers." It was indeed a burden under
+which few men could have stood.
+
+Gregory appears to have neglected no movement of the foe, to have
+noted every exaction and treachery from Constantinople, to have
+remembered every bishop in the furthest-off regions, and to have
+directed to each in turn his expostulations, his entreaties, his
+reproofs. We have been told in our own day of the overwhelming weight
+of business (attributed to facilities of post and daily
+communications) which almost crushes an English archbishop, although
+that dignitary besides the care of the Church has but such an amount
+of concern in public matters as a conscientious adviser must have. But
+Gregory was responsible for everything, the lives and so far as was
+possible the liberties of his city and people, their daily bread,
+their safety, their very existence, besides that cure of souls which
+was his special occupation. The mass of correspondence, which beside
+all his other work he managed to get through, forgetting nothing, is
+enough to put any modern writer of hasty notes and curt business
+letters to shame. On this point there may be said a word of apology
+for the much-harassed Pope in respect to that one moment in his
+history, in which his conduct cannot be defended by his warmest
+admirer. His prayers and appeals were treated with contempt at
+Constantinople, a contempt involving not his own person alone, but
+Rome and the Church, for which the Emperor Maurice did not even
+pretend to care. And when that Emperor was suddenly swept away, it is
+natural enough that a sensation of relief, a touch of hope in the new
+man who, notwithstanding the treachery and cruelty of the first step
+in his career, might turn out better than his predecessor, should have
+gleamed across the mind of a distant, and perhaps at first imperfectly
+informed spectator, whose interests were so closely concerned. The
+complacency with which Gregory wrote to Phocas, the amazing terms he
+used to that murderer and tyrant, will always be the darkest stain on
+his reputation. Under Maurice the ministers of the empire had been
+more oppressive than the invaders. Perhaps under Phocas better things
+might be hoped for. It is all that can be said for this unfortunate
+moment of his career; but it is something nevertheless.
+
+It was not till 597, when he had occupied his bishopric for seven
+years, that Gregory succeeded in carrying out the long-cherished
+scheme of the mission to England, which had been for many years so
+near his heart. It is said that he himself had purchased some of the
+captive boys who caught his eye in the streets, and trained them in
+the Christian doctrine and faith, in order that they might act as
+interpreters and commend the missionaries to their people, an
+expedient which has been so largely followed (and of course boasted of
+as an original thought) in recent missions. These boys would by this
+time have attained the age of manhood, and perhaps this determined the
+moment at which Augustine and his companions were sent forth. They
+were solemnly consecrated in the chapel of the convent on the
+Coelian hill, Gregory's beloved home, to which he always returned
+with so much affection, and to which they also belonged, monks of the
+same house. Their names are inscribed in the porch of the present
+church after that of their master, with designations strangely
+familiar to our British ears--S. Augustine, Apostle of England; S.
+Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury; S. Mellitus, of London and
+Canterbury; S. Justus, of Rochester; S. Paulinus, of York, appear in
+the record, the first teachers and ecclesiastical dignitaries of Saxon
+England. The church in which this consecration took place exists no
+longer; the present building, its third or fourth successor, dates
+only from the eighteenth century, and is dedicated to S. Gregory
+himself; but the little piazza now visited by so many pilgrims is
+unchanged, and it was from this small square, so minute a point amid
+the historic places of Rome, that the missionary party set forth,
+Augustine and his brethren kneeling below, while the Pope, standing at
+the head of the steps, gave them his parting blessing. No doubt the
+young Angles, with their golden locks of childhood matured into russet
+tones, who had filled Gregory's mind with so many thoughts, were in
+the group, behind the black-robed Benedictine brothers whose guides
+and interpreters they were to be.
+
+This is an association full of interest for every Englishman, and has
+attracted many pilgrims from the nation whose faith has undergone so
+many vicissitudes, and in which the Pope's authority has been as
+vehemently decried in one age as strongly upheld in another; but
+whatever our opinions on that point may be, there can be nothing here
+but affectionate and grateful remembrance of the man of God who had so
+long cherished the scheme, which thus at length with fatherly
+benedictions and joy at heart, he was able to carry out. He himself
+would fain have gone on this mission many years before; but the care
+of all the Churches, and the tribulations of a distracted world, had
+made that for ever impossible, and he was now growing old, in feeble
+health, and with but a few years of work before him. The hearts of the
+missionaries were not so strong as that of this great Servant of the
+servants of God who sent them away with his blessing. Terrors of the
+sea and terrors of the wilds, the long journey and the savage tribes
+at the end of it, were in their hearts. When they had got nearly over
+their journey and were resting a little to recover their health among
+the Gauls,--fierce enough indeed, but still with sanctuaries of peace
+and holy brethren among them--before crossing the terrible channel,
+Augustine wrote beseeching letters, begging to be recalled. But let us
+hope that at the moment of dedication these terrors had scarcely yet
+got hold upon them. And to Gregory the occasion was one of unmingled
+satisfaction and joy. The Pope did not in those days wear the white
+robes which distinguish his dignity now. Gregory was presumably
+indifferent to such signs and tokens; for in the portrait of him which
+still exists in the description given of it by John the Deacon, he
+wears a dress scarcely distinguishable from the ordinary dress of a
+layman. But as he stood upon the steps in front of the church,
+separated from all the attendants, and raised his hands in blessing,
+the scene is one that any painter might covet, and which to many a
+visitor from these distant islands of the seas will make the little
+Piazza di San Gregorio more interesting in its simplicity than any
+other spot in storied Rome.
+
+It would occupy too much time to quote here his long and careful
+letters to the bishops of the West generally--from Sicily which always
+seems to have been the object of his special care, to those in Gaul
+and his missionaries in England. That he assumed an unquestioned
+authority over them is clear, an authority which had more or less been
+exercised by the Bishop of Rome for many generations before him: and
+that he was unfeignedly indignant at the pretensions of John of
+Constantinople to be called Universal Bishop is also certain. These
+facts however by no means prove that a great scheme of papal authority
+was the chief thing in his mind, underlying all his undertakings. When
+the historians speak of Gregory as spreading the supremacy of the
+Church of Rome by his missions, notably by that mission to England of
+which I have just spoken, they forget that the salvation of the souls
+lying in darkness is a motive which has moved men in every age to the
+greatest sacrifices, and that we have no reason in the world to
+believe that it was not the faith of Christ rather than the supremacy
+of Rome which was Gregory's object. The Apostles themselves might be
+said in the same way to have been spreading their own supremacy when
+they obeyed the injunction of their Master to go over the whole world
+and preach the Gospel to every creature. The one sovereignty was
+actually implied in the other--but it requires a very robust faith in
+a preconceived dogma, and a very small understanding of human nature,
+to be able to believe that when the meditative monk paused in his
+walk, with compassion and interest, to look at the angelic boys, and
+punned tenderly with tears in his eyes over their names and nation
+and king, the idea immediately sprang up in his mind not that
+Allelujah should be sung in the dominions of King Alle, but that this
+wild country lost in the midst of the seas should be brought under a
+spiritual sceptre not yet designed.
+
+Gregory thought as the Apostles thought, that the days of the world
+were numbered, and that his own generation might see its records
+closed. That is an idea which never has stopped any worthy man in
+undertakings for the good of the world--but it was a belief better
+established, and much more according to all the theories and dogmas of
+the age, than a plan of universal dominion for the Church such as is
+attributed to him. He did his duty most energetically and strenuously
+in every direction--never afraid of being supposed to interfere, using
+the prestige of the Apostolical See freely for every ecclesiastical
+purpose. And he became prince in Rome, an absolute sovereign by stress
+of circumstance and because every other rule and authority had failed.
+Whether these practical necessities vaguely formed themselves into
+visions of spiritual empire before the end of his life it is
+impossible to tell: as it is equally impossible to tell what dreams of
+happiness or grandeur may enter into any poor man's brain. But so
+large and world-embracing a plan seldom springs fully formed into any
+mind, and in his words he never claimed, nay, vehemently denied and
+repudiated, any pretension of the kind. It is curious how difficult it
+is to get the world to believe that a man placed in a position of
+great responsibility, at the head of any institution, is first of all
+actuated by the desire of doing his work, whatever the ulterior
+results may be.
+
+Gregory's activity was boundless, though his health was weak, and his
+sufferings many. Fastings in his youth and neglect at all times told
+early upon his constitution. The dinner of herbs which his mother sent
+him daily, and which is sometimes described as uncooked--salad to wit,
+which enters so largely into the sustenance of the Italian poor--is a
+kind of fare which does not suit a delicate digestion; but he spared
+himself nothing on this account, though he had reached such a pitch of
+weakness that he was at last, as he bitterly laments, unable to fast
+at all, even on Easter Eve, when even little children abstain from
+food. Beside all the labours which I have already noted, there remains
+one detail which has done perhaps more to make the common world
+familiar with his name than all the rest; and that is the reformation
+in music which he accomplished among all his other labours. Church
+music is the only branch of the art of which we have any authentic
+record which dates so far back, and the Gregorian chant still exists
+among us, with that special tone of wailing mingled with its solemn
+measures which is characteristic of all primitive music.
+
+      "Four scales," says Mr. Helmore in _The Dictionary of
+      Music_, "traditionally ascribed to St. Ambrose, existed
+      before the time of St. Gregory. These, known as the
+      Authentic Modes, and since the thirteenth century named
+      after the ancient Greek scales from which they were
+      supposed to be derived, are as follows: 1, Dorian; 2,
+      Phrygian; 3, Lydian; 4, Mixo-Lydian. To the four Authentic
+      St. Gregory added four Plagal, _i.e._ collateral or
+      relative Modes. Each is a fourth below its corresponding
+      original, and is called by the same name with the prefix
+      hypo ([Greek: hypo], below), as follows: 5, Hypo-Dorium; 6,
+      Hypo-Phrygian; 7, Hypo-Lydian; 8, Hypo-Mixo-Lydian....
+      Handel's 'Hanover' among modern tunes, which ranges from F
+      to F has its finale on B flat. 'Should auld acquaintance be
+      forgot' is also a specimen of a tune in a Plagal Mode
+      descending about a fourth below its final, and rising above
+      it only six notes, closing upon the final of its tone."
+
+This may be a little too learned for the ordinary reader, but it is
+interesting to find how far the influence of the busy old Pope, who
+had a finger in every pie, could go. There is a very curious
+commentary by John the Deacon, Gregory's later biographer, upon this
+new musical system and its adoption throughout Europe, which makes a
+good pendant to the scientific description. The Italians seem then as
+now to have had a poor opinion of German modes of singing.
+
+      "This music was learned easily by the Germans and Gauls,
+      but they could not retain it because of making additions of
+      their own, and also because of their barbarous nature.
+      Their Alpine bodies resounding to their depths with the
+      thunders of their voices, do not properly give forth the
+      sweetness of the modulation, the savage roughness of their
+      bibulous throat when it attempts to give forth a delicate
+      strain, producing rather harsh sounds with a natural crash,
+      as of waggons sounding confusedly over the scales."
+
+This is not flattering; but one can imagine something very like it
+coming from the lips of an Italian Maestro in our own day. The
+tradition goes that Gregory himself instructed the choristers, for
+whom he had established schools endowed each with its little property,
+one in the precincts of St. Peter's, the other in those of St. John
+Lateran, where his own residence was. And a couch is still shown on
+which he lay while giving or superintending their lessons, and even
+the whip with which he is said to have threatened the singers when
+they made false notes. The last is little in accord with the Pope's
+character, and we can scarcely imagine the twang through the air of
+any whip in Gregory's hand: but it is probably as true as other more
+agreeable circumstances of the legend. One can scarcely believe
+however that amid his multitudinous occupations he could have had time
+for more than a flying visit to the schools, however they might
+interest him.
+
+Nor did he limit his exertions on behalf of ritual to the arrangement
+of the music. We are told that the Missal of Pope Gelasius then used
+in the Church was revised by him, and that he took away much, altered
+some things and added a little, among other things a confession of
+faith or _Credo_ of his own writing, which is something between the
+Athanasian and Nicene Creeds. The Ordinary of the Mass remains now,
+another authority tells us, very much as it came from his hands. Thus
+his immediate authority and the impress of his mind remain on things
+which are still in daily use.
+
+  [Illustration: MONTE PINCIO, FROM THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO.]
+
+And there could be no more familiar or characteristic figure in Rome
+than that of this monk-Pope threading everywhere those familiar
+streets, in which there were more ruins, and those all fresh and
+terrible in their suggestions of life destroyed--than now: the gentle
+spectator full of meditation, who lingered among the group of slaves,
+and saw and loved and smiled at the Saxon boys: who passed by Trajan's
+Forum which we all know so well, that field of broken pillars, not
+then railed off and trim in all the orderliness of an outdoor museum,
+but wild in the neglect of nature: and heard the story of the Emperor,
+and loved him too, and poured out his soul to God for the great
+heathen, so that the gates of Hades were rolled back and the soul set
+free--strange parable of brotherly kindness as the dominant principle
+of heart and life. We can follow him through all the lists of the poor
+laid up in his Scrivii, like the catalogues of books enclosed in
+caskets, in an old-fashioned library--with careful enumeration of
+every half-ruined tenement and degraded palace where the miserable
+had found shelter: or passing among the crowds who received their
+portions before, not after, the Pope in the precincts of the great
+basilica; or "modulating," with a voice broken by age and weakness,
+the new tones of his music which the "bibulous throats" of the
+barbarian converts turned into thunder, and of which even his own
+choristers, careless as is their use, would make discords, till the
+whip of the Master trembled in the air, adding the sting of a sharper
+sound to the long-drawn notes of the monotone, and compelling every
+heedless tenor and frivolous soprano to attention. These are his
+simpler aspects, the lower life of the great Benedictine, the picture
+of the Pope as he endeared himself to the popular imagination, round
+which all manner of tender legends grew. His aspect is less familiar
+yet not less true as he sits at the head of affairs, dictating or
+writing with his own hand those innumerable letters which treat of
+every subject under heaven, from the safety of Rome to the cross which
+is to be hung round a royal infant's neck, or the amethyst ring for
+the finger of a little princess; from the pretensions of John of
+Constantinople, that would-be head of the Church, down to the ass sent
+by the blundering intendant from Sicily. Nothing was too great,
+nothing too little for his care. He had to manage the mint and cummin
+without leaving graver matters undone.
+
+And the reader who has leisure may follow him into the maze of those
+Dialogues in which Peter the Deacon serves as questioner, and the Pope
+discourses gently, to improve his ignorance, of all the wonderful
+things which the saints have done, chiefly in Italy, turning every law
+of nature upside down: or follow him through the minute and endless
+rules of his book of discipline, and note the fine-drawn scruples with
+which he has to deal, the strange cases of conscience for which he
+provides, the punctilio of extravagant penitence, so strangely
+contrasted with the other rough and ready modes of dealing with the
+unconverted, to which he gives the sanction of his recommendation. He
+was a man of his time, not of ours: he flattered Phocas while his
+hands were still wet with his predecessor's blood--though we may still
+hope that at such a distance Gregory did not know all that had
+happened or what a ruffian it was whom he thus addressed. He wrote
+affectionately and with devotion to Queen Brunhild without inquiring
+into that lady's character, which no doubt he knew perfectly. Where
+the good of Rome, either the city or the Church, was concerned, he
+stopped at nothing. I have no desire to represent him as faultless.
+But the men who are faultless, if any are to be found, leave but a
+limited record, and there is little more to say of perfection than
+that it is perfect. Gregory was not so. He got very angry sometimes,
+with bishops in Sicily, with stupid intendants, above all with that
+Eastern John--and sometimes, which is worse, he was submissive and
+compliant when he ought to have been angry and denounced a criminal.
+But on the other hand he was the first of the great ecclesiastical
+princes who have made Modern Rome illustrious--he was able, greatest
+of miracles, to put a heart into the miserable city which had allowed
+herself to be overrun by every savage: and stood between her and all
+creation, giving the whole world assurance of a man, and fighting for
+her with every weapon that came to his hand. Doing whatsoever he found
+to do thoroughly well, he laid the foundations of that great power
+which still extends over the whole world. I do not believe that he
+acted on any plan or had the supremacy of the Pontificate in his mind,
+or had conceived any idea of an ecclesiastical empire which should
+grasp the universe. To say, for instance, that the mission to England
+which he had cherished so long was undertaken with the idea of
+extending the sway of the Papacy seems one of those follies of the
+theorist which requires no answer. St. Paul might as well be accused
+of intending to spread a spiritual empire when he saw in his dream
+that man of Macedonia, and immediately directed his steps thither,
+obeying the vision. What Gregory hoped and prayed for was to bring in
+a new nation, as he judged a noble and vigorous race, to Christianity.
+And he succeeded in doing so: with such secondary consequences as the
+developments of time, and the laws of progress, and the course of
+Providence brought about.
+
+There is a certain humour in the indignation, which has been several
+times referred to, with which he turned against the Patriarch of
+Constantinople and his pretensions to a supremacy which naturally was
+in the last degree obnoxious to the Bishop of Rome. The Eastern and
+Western Churches had already diverged widely from each other, the one
+nourished and subdued under the shadow of a Court, in a leisure which
+left it open to every refinement and every temptation, whether of
+asceticism or heresy--both of which abounded: the other fighting hard
+for life amid the rudest and most practical dangers, obliged to work
+and fight like Nehemiah on the walls of Jerusalem with the tool in one
+hand and the sword in the other. John the Faster, so distinguished
+because of the voluntary privations which he imposed upon himself,
+forms one of the most startling contrasts of this age with Gregory,
+worn by work and warfare, whose spare and simple meal could not be
+omitted even on the eve of Easter. That he who, sitting in St. Peter's
+seat, with all the care of Church and country upon his shoulders,
+obeyed by half the world, yet putting forth in words no such
+pretension--should be aggrieved almost beyond endurance by the dignity
+conferred on, or assumed by, the other bishop, whose see was not
+apostolical but the mere creation of an emperor, and the claim put
+forth by him and the Council called by him for universal obedience, is
+very natural; yet Gregory's wrath has a fiercely human sense of
+injury in it, an aggrieved individuality to which we cannot deny our
+sympathy. "There is no doubt," he says with dignity, writing to the
+Emperor on the subject, "that the keys of heaven were given to Peter,
+the power of binding and loosing, and the care of the whole Church;
+and yet he is not called Universal Apostle. Nor does it detract from
+the honour of the See that the sins of Gregory are so great that he
+ought to suffer; for there are no sins of Peter that he should be
+treated thus. The honour of Peter is not to be brought low because of
+us who serve him unworthily." "Oh tempora, oh mores!" he exclaims;
+"Europe lies prostrate under the power of the barbarians. Its towns
+are destroyed, its fortresses thrown down, its provinces depopulated,
+the soil has no longer labourers to till it; and yet priests who ought
+to humble themselves with tears in the dust strive after vain honours
+and glorify themselves with titles new and profane!" To John himself
+he writes with more severity, reminding him of the vaunt of Lucifer in
+Isaiah, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven." Now
+bishops, he says, are the stars of heaven, they shine over men; they
+are clouds (the metaphors are mixed) that rain words and are lighted
+up by the rays of good works. "What, then," he asks, "is the act of
+your paternity, in looking down upon them and pressing them into
+subjection, but following the example of the ancient enemy? When I see
+this I weep that the holy man, the Lord John, a man so renowned for
+self-sacrifice, should so act. Certainly Peter was first in the whole
+Church. Andrew, James, and the others were but heads of the people;
+yet all made up one body, and none were called Universal."
+
+  [Illustration: THE FORUM.
+    _To face page 170._]
+
+The argument with which Gregory replies to a letter from Eulogius,
+Bishop of Alexandria, who had wished him to assume himself a similar
+title, is curious. The Apostolical See, he says, consists of three
+bishoprics, all held by St. Peter, that of Antioch, that of
+Alexandria, and that of Rome, and the honour of the title is shared
+between them. "If you give me more than my due," he adds, "you rob
+yourself. If I am named Pope, you own yourself to be no pope. Let no
+such thing be named between us. My honour is the honour of the
+Universal Church. I am honoured in the honour paid to my brethren."
+Nothing could be more determined than this oft-repeated refusal. Yet
+he never fails to add that it was Peter's right. The Council of
+Chalcedon, he says, offered that supreme title to the Church of Rome,
+which refused it. How much greater then, was the guilt of John, to
+whom it was never offered, but who assumed it, injuring all priests by
+setting himself above them, and the Empire itself by a position
+superior to it? Such were the sentiments of Gregory, in which the
+wrath of a natural heir, thus supplanted by a usurper, gives fervour
+to every denunciation. The French historian Villemain points out, what
+will naturally occur to the reader, that many of these arguments were
+afterwards used with effect by Luther and his followers against the
+assumptions of the Church of Rome. It will also be remembered that
+Jerome put the case more strongly still, denouncing the Scarlet Woman
+with as much fervour as any No-Popery orator.
+
+But while he rejected all such titles and assumed for himself only
+that, conceived no doubt in all humility and sincere meaning, but
+afterwards worn with pride surpassing that of any earthly monarch, of
+Servus Servorum Dei, the servant of the servants of God, Gregory
+occupied himself, as has been said, with the care of all the churches
+in full exercise of the authority and jurisdiction of an overseer, at
+least over the western half of Christendom. Vain titles he would have
+none, and we cannot doubt his sincerity in rejecting them; but the
+reality of the pastoral supervision, never despotic, but continual,
+was clearly his idea of his own rights and duties. It has been seen
+what license he left to Augustine in the regulation of the new
+English Church. He acted with an equally judicious liberality in
+respect to the rich and vigorous Gallican bishops, never demanding too
+servile an obedience, but never intermitting his superintendence of
+all. But he does not seem to have put forth the smallest pretension to
+political independence, even when that was forced upon him by his
+isolated and independent position, and he found himself compelled to
+make his own terms with the Lombard invaders. At the moment of his
+election as Bishop of Rome, he appealed to the Emperor against the
+popular appointment, and only when the imperial decision was given
+against him allowed himself to be dragged from his solitude. And one
+of his accusations against John of Constantinople was that his
+assumption injured the very Empire itself in its supreme authority.
+Thus we may, and indeed I think must, conclude that Gregory's supposed
+theory of the universal papal power was as little real as are most
+such elaborate imputations of purpose conceived long before the event.
+He had no intention, so far as the evidence goes, of making himself an
+arbitrator between kings, and a judge of the world's actions and
+movements. He had enough and too much work of his own which it was his
+determination to do, as vigorously and with as much effect as
+possible--in the doing of which work it was necessary to influence, to
+conciliate, to appeal, as well as to command and persuade: to make
+terms with barbarians, to remonstrate with emperors, as well as to
+answer the most minute questions of the bishops, and lay out before
+them the proper course they were to pursue. There is nothing so easy
+as to attribute deep-laid plans to the great spirits among men. I do
+not think that Gregory had time for any such ambitious projects. He
+had to live for the people dependent upon him, who were a multitude,
+to defend, feed, guide and teach them. He had never an unoccupied
+moment, and he did in each moment work enough for half a dozen men.
+That it was his duty to superintend and guide everything that went on,
+so far as was wise or practicable, in the Church as well as in his
+immediate diocese, was clearly his conviction, and the reader may find
+it a little difficult to see why he should have guarded that power so
+jealously, yet rejected the name of it: but that is as far as any
+reasonable criticism can go.
+
+What would seem an ancient complaint against Gregory appears in the
+sketch of his life given by Platina, in his _Lives of the Popes_--who
+describes him as having been "censured by a few ignorant men as if the
+ancient stately buildings were demolished by his order, lest strangers
+coming out of devotion to Rome should less regard the consecrated
+places, and spend all their gaze upon triumphal arches and monuments
+of antiquity." This curious accusation is answered by the author in
+words which I quote from an almost contemporary translation very
+striking in its forcible English. "No such reproach," says Platina in
+the vigorous version of Sir Paul Rycant, Knight, "can justly be
+fastened on this great Bishop, especially considering that he was a
+native of the city, and one to whom, next after God, his country was
+most dear, even above his life. 'Tis certain that many of those ruined
+structures were devoured by time, and many might, as we daily see, be
+pulled down to build new houses; and for the rest 'tis probable that,
+for the sake of the brass used in the concavity of the arches and the
+conjunctures of the marble or other square stones, they might be
+battered or defaced not only by the barbarous nations but by the
+Romans too, if Epirotes, Dalmatians, Pannonians, and other sorry
+people who from all parts of the world resorted hither, may be called
+Romans."
+
+This is a specious argument which would not go far toward establishing
+Gregory's innocence were he seriously accused: but the accusation,
+like that of burning classical manuscripts, has no proof. Little
+explanation, however, is necessary to account for the ruins of a city
+which has undergone several sieges. That Gregory would have helped
+himself freely as everybody did, and has done in all ages, to the
+materials lying so conveniently at hand in the ruined palaces which
+nobody had any mission to restore, may be believed without doubt; for
+he was a man far too busy and preoccupied to concern himself with
+questions of Art, or set any great price upon the marble halls of
+patrician houses, however interesting might be their associations or
+beautiful their structure. But he built few new churches, we are
+expressly told, though he was careful every year to look into the
+condition of all existing ecclesiastical buildings and have them
+repaired. It seems probable that it might be a later Gregory however
+against whom this charge was made. In the time of Gregory the First
+these ruins were recent, and it was but too likely that at any moment
+a new horde of unscrupulous iconoclasts might sweep over them again.
+
+There came however a time when the Pope's suffering and emaciated body
+could bear no longer that charge which was so burdensome. He had been
+ill for many years, suffering from various ailments and especially
+from weakness of digestion, and he seems to have broken down
+altogether towards the year 601. Agelulphus thundering at his gates
+had completed what early fastings and the constant work of a laborious
+life had begun, and at sixty Gregory took to his bed, from which, as
+he complains in one of his letters, he was scarcely able to rise for
+three hours on the great festivals of the Church in order to celebrate
+Mass. He was obliged also to conclude abruptly that commentary on
+Ezekiel which had been so often interrupted, leaving the last vision
+of the prophet unexpounded, which he regretted the more that it was
+one of the most dark and difficult, and stood in great need of
+exposition. "But how," he says, "can a mind full of trouble clear up
+such dark meanings? The more the mind is engaged with worldly things
+the less is it qualified to expound the heavenly." It was from Ezekiel
+that Gregory was preaching when the pestilence which swept away his
+predecessor Pelagius was raging in Rome, and when, shutting the book
+which was no longer enough with its dark sayings to calm the troubles
+of the time, he had called out to the people, with a voice which was
+as that of their own hearts, to repent. All his life as Pope had been
+threaded through with the study of this prophet. He closed the book
+again and finally when all Rome believed that another invasion was
+imminent, and his courage failed in this last emergency. It is curious
+to associate the name of such a man, so full of natural life and
+affection, so humorous, so genial, so ready to take interest in
+everything that met his eyes, with these two saddest figures in all
+the round of sacred history, the tragic patriarch Job, and the exiled
+prophet, who was called upon to suffer every sorrow in order to be a
+sign to his people and generation. Was it that the very overflowing of
+life and sympathy in him made Gregory seek a balance to his own
+buoyant spirit in the plaints of those two melancholy voices? or was
+it the misfortunes of his time, so distracted and full of miserable
+agitation, which directed him at least to the latter, the prophet of a
+fallen nation, of disaster and exile and penitence?
+
+Thus he lay after his long activities, suffering sorely, and longing
+for the deliverance of death, though he was not more, it is supposed,
+than sixty-two when the end came. From his sick bed he wrote to many
+of his friends entreating that they would pray for him that his
+sufferings might be shortened and his sins forgiven. He died finally
+on the 12th of March, ever afterwards consecrated to his name, in the
+year 603. This event must have taken place in the palace at the
+Lateran, which was then the usual dwelling of the Popes. Here the sick
+and dying man could look out upon one of the finest scenes on earth,
+the noble line of the Alban Hills rising over the great plains of the
+Campagna, with all its broken lines of aqueduct and masses of ruin.
+The features of the landscape are the same, though every accessory is
+changed, and palace and basilica have both crumbled into the dust of
+ages, to be replaced by other and again other buildings, handing down
+the thread of historic continuity through all the generations. There
+are scarcely any remains of the palace of the Popes itself, save one
+famous mosaic, copied from a still earlier one, in which a recent
+learned critic sees the conquest of the world by papal Rome already
+clearly set forth. But we can scarcely hope that any thought of the
+first Gregory will follow the mind of the reader into the precincts of
+St. John of the Lateran Gate. His memory abides in another place, in
+the spot where stood his father's house, where he changed the lofty
+chambers of the Roman noble into Benedictine cells, and lived and
+wrote and mused in the humility of an obedient brother. But still more
+does it dwell in the little three-cornered piazza before the Church of
+St. Gregorio, from whence he sent forth the mission to England with
+issues which he could never have divined--for who could have told in
+those days that the savage Angles would have overrun the world further
+than ever Roman standard was carried? The shadow of the great Pope is
+upon those time-worn steps where he stood and blessed his brethren,
+with moisture in his eyes and joy in his heart, sending them forth
+upon the difficult and dangerous way which he had himself desired to
+tread, but from which their spirits shrank. We have all a sacred right
+to come back here, to share the blessing of the saint, to remember the
+constant affection he bore us, his dedication of himself had it been
+permitted, his never-ending thought of his angel boys which has come
+to such wonderful issues. He would have been a more attractive apostle
+than Augustine had he carried out his first intention; but still we
+find his image here, fatherly, full of natural tenderness, interest
+and sympathy, smiling back upon us over a dozen centuries which have
+changed everything--except the historical record of Pope Gregory's
+blessing and his strong desire and hope.
+
+He was buried in St. Peter's with his predecessors, but his tomb, like
+so many others, was destroyed at the rebuilding of the great church,
+and no memorial remains.
+
+  [Illustration: PONTE MOLLE.]
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE PALATINE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE MONK HILDEBRAND.
+
+
+It is a melancholy thing looking back through the long depths of
+history to find how slow the progress is, even if it can be traced at
+all, from one age to another, and how, though the dangers and the
+evils to which they are liable change in their character from time to
+time, their gravity, their hurtfulness, and their rebellion against
+all that is best in morals, and most advantageous to humanity,
+scarcely diminish, however completely altered the conditions may be.
+We might almost doubt whether the vast and as yet undetermined
+possibilities of the struggle which has begun in our days between what
+is called Capital and Labour, the theories held against all experience
+and reason of a rising Socialism, and the mad folly of Anarchism,
+which is their immediate climax--are not quite as dangerous to the
+peace of nations as were the tumults of an age when every man acted
+by the infallible rule that
+
+      He should take who had the power
+      And he should keep who can--
+
+the principle being entirely the same, though the methods may be
+different. This strange duration of trouble, equal in intensity though
+different in form, is specially manifest in a history such as that
+which we take up from one age to another in so remarkable a
+development of life and government as Mediæval Rome. We leave the city
+relieved of some woes, soothed from some troubles, fed by much
+charity, and weeping apparently honest tears over Gregory the first of
+the name--although that great man was scarcely dead before the crowd
+was taught to believe that he had impoverished the city by feeding
+them, and were scarcely prevented from burning his library as a wise
+and fit revenge. Still it might have been expected that Rome and her
+people would have advanced a step upon the pedestal of such a life as
+that of Gregory: and in fact he left many evils redressed, the
+commonwealth safer, and the Church more pure.
+
+But when we turn the page and come, four hundred years later, to the
+life of another Gregory, upon what a tumultuous world do we open our
+eyes: what blood, what fire, what shouts and shrieks of conflict: what
+cruelty and shame have reigned between, and still remained, ever
+stronger than any influence of good men, or amelioration of knowledge!
+Heathenism, save that which is engrained in the heart of man, had
+passed away. There were no more struggles with the relics of the
+classical past: the barbarians who came down in their hordes to
+overturn civilisation had changed into settled nations, with all the
+paraphernalia of state and great imperial authority--shifting indeed
+from one race to another, but always upholding a central standard. All
+the known world was nominally Christian. It was full of monks
+dedicated to the service of God, of priests, the administrants of the
+sacraments, and of bishops as important as any secular nobles--yet
+what a scene is that upon which we look out through endless smoke of
+battle and clashing of swords! Rome, at whose gates Alaric and Attila
+once thundered, was almost less secure now, and less easily visited
+than when Huns and Goths overran the surrounding country. It was
+encircled by castles of robber nobles, who infested every road,
+sometimes seizing the pilgrims bound for Rome, with their offerings
+great and small, sometimes getting possession of these offerings in a
+more thorough way by the election of a subject Pope taken from one of
+their families, and always ready on every occasion to thrust their
+swords into the balance and crush everything like freedom or purity
+either in the Church or in the city. In the early part of the eleventh
+century there were two if not three Popes in Rome. "Benedict IX.
+officiated in the church of St. John Lateran, Sylvester III. in St.
+Peter's, and John XX. in the church of St. Mary," says Villemain in
+his life of Hildebrand: the name of the last does not appear in the
+lists of Platina, but the fact of this profane rivalry is beyond
+doubt.
+
+The conflict was brought to an end for the moment by a very curious
+transaction. A certain dignified ecclesiastic, Gratiano by name, the
+Cardinal-archdeacon of St. John Lateran, who happened to be rich,
+horrified by this struggle, and not sufficiently enlightened as to the
+folly and sin of doing evil that good might come--always, as all the
+chronicles seem to allow, with the best motives--bought out the two
+competitors, and procured his own election under the title of Gregory
+VI. But this mistaken though well-meant act had but brief success.
+For, on the arrival in 1046 of the Emperor Henry III. in Italy, at a
+council called together by his desire, Gregory was convicted of the
+strange bargain he had made, or according to Baronius of the violent
+means taken to enforce it, and was deposed accordingly, along with his
+two predecessors. It was this Pope, in his exile and deprivation, who
+first brought in sight of a universe which he was born to rule, a
+young monk of Cluny, Hildebrand--German by name, but Italian in heart
+and race--who had already moved much about the world with the
+extraordinary freedom and general access everywhere which we find
+common to monks however humble their origin. From his monastic home in
+Rome he had crossed the Alps more than once; he had been received and
+made himself known at the imperial court, and was on terms of kindness
+with many great personages, though himself but a humble brother of his
+convent. No youthful cleric in our modern world nowadays would find
+such access everywhere, though it is still possible that a young
+Jesuit for instance, noted by his superiors for ability or genius,
+might be handed on from one authority to another till he reached the
+highest circle. But it is surprising to see how free in their
+movements, how adventurous in their lives, the young members of a
+brotherhood bound under the most austere rule then found it possible
+to be.
+
+Hildebrand was, like so many other great Churchmen, a child of the
+people. He was the son of a carpenter in a Tuscan village, who,
+however, possessed one of those ties with the greater world which a
+clergy drawn from the people affords to the humblest, a brother or
+other near relation who was the superior of a monastery in Rome. There
+the little Tuscan peasant took his way in very early years to study
+letters, having already given proof of great intelligence such as
+impressed the village and called forth prophecies of the highest
+advancement to come. His early education brings us back to the holy
+mount of the Aventine, on which we have already seen so many
+interesting assemblies. The monastery of St. Mary has endured as
+little as the house of Marcella, though it is supposed that in the
+church of S. Maria Aventina there may still remain some portion of the
+original buildings. But the beautiful garden of the Priorato, so great
+a favourite with the lovers of the picturesque, guards for us, in that
+fidelity of nature which time cannot discompose, the very spot where
+that keen-eyed boy must have played, if he ever played, or at least
+must have dreamed the dreams of an ambitious young visionary, and
+perhaps, as he looked out musing to where the tombs of the Apostles
+gleamed afar on the other side of Tiber, have received the inheritance
+of that long hope and vision which had been slowly growing in the
+minds of Popes and priests--the hope of making the Church the mistress
+and arbiter of the nations, the supreme and active judge among all
+tumults of earthly politics and changes of power. He was nourished
+from his childhood in the house of St. Peter, says the biographer of
+the Acta Sanctorum. It would be more easy to realise the Apostle's
+sway, and that of his successors, on that mount of vision, where day
+and night, by sun and moon, the great temple of Christendom, the
+centre of spiritual life, shone before his eyes, than on any other
+spot. That wonderful visionary sovereignty, the great imagination of a
+central power raised above all the disturbances of worldly life, and
+judging austerely for right and against wrong all the world
+over--unbiassed, unaffected by meaner motives, the great tribunal from
+which justice and mercy should go forth over the whole earth--could
+there be a more splendid ideal to till the brain of an ardent boy? It
+is seldom that such an ideal is recognised, or such dreams as these
+believed in. We know how little the Papacy has carried it out, and how
+the faults and weaknesses even of great men have for many centuries
+taken all possibility from it. But it was while that wonderful
+institution was still fully possible, the devoutest of imaginations, a
+dream such as had never been surpassed in splendour and glory, that
+young Hildebrand looked out to Peter's prison on the Janiculum
+opposite, and from thence to Peter's tomb, and dreamt of Peter's white
+throne of justice dominating the darkness and the self-seeking of an
+uneasy world.
+
+The monastery of St. Mary, a Benedictine house, must have been noted
+in its time. Among the teachers who instructed its neophytes was that
+same Giovanni Gratiano of whom we have just spoken, the arch-priest
+who devoted his wealth to the not ignoble purpose of getting rid of
+two false and immoral Popes: though perhaps his motives would have
+been less misconstrued had he not been elected in their place. And
+there was also much fine company at the monastery in those
+days--bishops with their suites travelling from south and north,
+seeking the culture and piety of Rome after long banishment from
+intellectual life--and at least one great abbot, more important than a
+bishop, Odilon of Cluny, at the head of one of the greatest of
+monastic communities. All of these great men would notice, no doubt,
+the young nephew of the superior, the favourite of the cloister, upon
+whom many hopes were already beginning to be founded, and in whose
+education every one loved to have a hand. One of these bishops was
+said afterwards to have taught him magical arts, which proves at least
+that they took a share in the training of the child of the convent. At
+what age it was that he was transferred to Cluny it is impossible to
+tell. Dates do not exist in Hildebrand's history until he becomes
+visible in the greater traffic of the world. He was born between 1015
+and 1020--this is the nearest that we can approach to accuracy. He
+appears in full light of history at the deposition of Gratiano
+(Gregory VI.) in 1045. In the meantime he passed through a great many
+developments. Probably the youth--eager to see the world, eager too to
+fulfil his vocation, to enter upon the mortifications and
+self-abasement of a monk's career, and to "subdue the flesh" in true
+monkish fashion, as well as by the fatigues of travel and the
+acquirement of learning--followed Odilon and his train across _i
+monti_, a favourite and familiar, when the abbot returned from Rome to
+Cluny. It could not be permitted in the monkish chronicles, even to a
+character like that of the austere Hildebrand all brain and spirit,
+that he had no flesh to subdue. And we are not informed whether it was
+at his early home on the Aventine or in the great French monastery
+that he took the vows. The rule of Cluny was specially severe. One
+poor half hour a day was all that was permitted to the brothers for
+rest and conversation. But this would not matter much, we should
+imagine, to young Hildebrand, all on fire for work, and full of a
+thousand thoughts.
+
+How a youth of his age got to court, and was heard and praised by the
+great Emperor Henry III., the head of Christendom, is not known.
+Perhaps he went in attendance on his abbot, perhaps as the humble
+clerk of some elder brethren bearing a complaint or an appeal; the
+legend goes that he became the tutor and playfellow of the little
+prince, Henry's son, until the Emperor had a dream in which he saw the
+stranger, with two horns on his head, with one of which he pushed his
+playfellow into the mud--significant and alarming vision which was a
+reasonable cause for the immediate banishment of Hildebrand. The
+dates, however, if nothing else, make this story impossible, for the
+fourth Henry was not born within the period named. At all events the
+young monk was sufficiently distinguished to be brought under the
+Emperor's notice and to preach before him, though we are not informed
+elsewhere that Hildebrand had any reputation as a preacher. He was no
+doubt full of earnestness and strong conviction, and that heat of
+youth which is often so attractive to the minds of sober men. Henry
+declared that he had heard no man who preached the word of God with so
+much faith: and the imperial opinion must have added much to his
+importance among his contemporaries. On the other hand, the great
+world of Germany and its conditions must have given the young man many
+and strange revelations. Nowhere were the prelates so great and
+powerful, nowhere was there so little distinction between the Church
+and the world. Many of the clergy were married, and left, sometimes
+their cures, often a fortune amassed by fees for spiritual offices, to
+their sons: and benefices were bought and sold like houses and lands,
+with as little disguise. A youth brought up in Rome would not be
+easily astonished by the lawlessness of the nobles and subject princes
+of the empire, but the importance of a central authority strong enough
+to restrain and influence so vast a sphere, and so many conflicting
+powers, must have impressed upon him still more forcibly the supreme
+ideal of a spiritual rule more powerful still, which should control
+the nations as a great Emperor controlled the electors who were all
+but kings. And we know that it was now that he was first moved to that
+great indignation, which never died in his mind, against simony and
+clerical license, which were universally tolerated, if not
+acknowledged as the ordinary rule of the age. It was high time that
+some reformer should arise.
+
+It was not, however, till the year 1046, on the occasion of the
+deposition of Gregory VI. for simony, that Hildebrand first came into
+the full light of day. Curiously enough, the first introduction of
+this great reformer of the Church, the sworn enemy of everything
+simoniacal, was in the suite of this Pope deposed for that sin. But in
+all probability the simony of Gregory VI. was an innocent error, and
+resulted rather from a want of perception than evil intention, of
+which evidently there was none in his mind. He made up to the rivals
+who held Rome in fee, for the dues and tributes and offerings which
+were all they cared for, by the sacrifice of his own fortune. If he
+had not profited by it himself, if some one else had been elected
+Pope, no stain would have been left upon his name: and he seems to
+have laid down his dignities without a murmur: but his heart was
+broken by the shame and bitter conviction that what he had meant for
+good was in reality the very evil he most condemned. Henry proceeded
+on his march to Rome after deposing the Pope, apparently taking
+Gregory with him: and there without any protest from the silenced and
+terrified people, nominated a German bishop of his own to the papal
+dignity, from whose hands he himself afterwards received the imperial
+crown. He then returned to Germany, sweeping along with him the
+deposed and the newly-elected Popes, the former attended in silence
+and sorrow by Hildebrand, who never lost faith in him, and to the end
+of his life spoke of him as his master.
+
+A stranger journey could scarcely have been. The triumphant German
+priests and prelates surrounding the new head of the Church, and the
+handful of crestfallen Italians following the fallen fortunes of the
+other, must have made a strange and not very peaceful conjunction.
+"Hildebrand desired to show reverence to his lord," says one of the
+chronicles. Thus his career began in the deepest mortification and
+humiliation, the forced subjection of the Church which it was his
+highest aim and hope to see triumphant, to the absolute force of the
+empire and the powers of this world.
+
+Pope Gregory reached his place of exile on the banks of the Rhine,
+with his melancholy train, in deep humility; but that exile was not
+destined to be long. He died there within a few months: and his
+successor soon followed him to the grave. For a short and disastrous
+period Rome seems to have been left out of the calculations
+altogether, and the Emperor named another German bishop, whom he sent
+to Rome under charge of the Marquis, or Margrave, or Duke of
+Tuscany--for he is called by all these titles. This Pope, however, was
+still more short-lived, and died in three weeks after his
+proclamation, by poison it was supposed. It is not to be wondered at
+if the bishops of Germany began to be frightened of this magnificent
+nomination. Whether it was the judgment of God which was most to be
+feared, or the poison of the subtle and scheming Romans, the prospect
+was not encouraging. The third choice of Henry fell upon Bruno, the
+bishop of Toul, a relative of his own, and a saintly person of
+commanding presence and noble manners. Bruno, as was natural, shrank
+from the office, but after days of prayer and fasting yielded, and was
+presented to the ambassadors from Rome as their new Pope. Thus the
+head of the Church was for the third time appointed by the Emperor,
+and the ancient privilege of his election by the Roman clergy and
+people swept away.
+
+But Henry was not now to meet with complete submission and compliance,
+as he had done before. The young Hildebrand had shown no rebellious
+feeling when his master was set aside: he must have, like Gregory,
+felt the decision to be just. And after faithful service till the
+death of the exile, he had retired to Cluny, to his convent, pondering
+many things. We are not told what it was that brought him back to
+Germany at this crisis of affairs, whether he were sent to watch the
+proceedings, or upon some humbler mission, or by the mere restlessness
+of an able young man thirsting to be employed, and the instinct of
+knowing when and where he was wanted. He reappeared, however, suddenly
+at the imperial court during these proceedings; and no doubt watched
+the summary appointment of the new Pope with indignation, injured in
+his patriotism and in his churchmanship alike, by an election in which
+Rome had no hand, though otherwise not dissatisfied with the Teutonic
+bishop, who was renowned both for piety and learning. The chronicler
+pauses to describe Hildebrand in this his sudden reintroduction to the
+great world. "He was a youth of noble disposition, clear mind, and a
+holy monk," we are told. It was while Bishop Bruno was still full of
+perplexities and doubts that this unexpected counsellor appeared, a
+man, though young, already well known, who had been trained in Rome,
+and was an authority upon the customs and precedents of the Holy See.
+He had been one of the closest attendants upon a Pope, and knew
+everything about that high office--there could be no better adviser.
+The anxious bishop sent for the young monk, and Hildebrand so
+impressed him with his clear mind and high conception of the papal
+duties, that Bruno begged him to accompany him to Rome.
+
+He answered boldly, "I cannot go with you." "Why?" said the Teuton
+prelate with amazement. "Because without canonical institution," said
+the daring monk, "by the sole power of the emperor, you are about to
+seize the Church of Rome."
+
+Bruno was greatly startled by this bold speech. It is possible that
+he, in his distant provincial bishopric, had no very clear knowledge
+of the canonical modes of appointing a Pope. There were many
+conferences between the monk and the Pope-elect, the young man who was
+not born to hesitate but saw clear before him what to do, and his
+elder and superior, who was neither so well informed nor so gifted.
+Bruno, however, if less able and resolute, must have been a man of a
+generous and candid mind, anxious to do his duty, and ready to accept
+instruction as to the best method of doing so, which was at the same
+time the noblest way of getting over his difficulties. He appeared
+before the great diet or council assembled in Worms, and announced his
+acceptance of the pontificate, but only if he were elected to it
+according to their ancient privileges by the clergy and people of
+Rome. It does not appear whether there was any resistance to this
+condition, but it cannot have been of a serious character, for shortly
+after, having taken farewell of his own episcopate and chapter, he set
+out for Rome.
+
+This is the account of the incident given by Hildebrand himself when
+he was the great Pope Gregory, towards the end of his career. It was
+his habit to tell his attendants the story of his life in all its
+varied scenes, during the troubled leisure of its end, as old men so
+often love to do. "Part I myself heard, and part of it was reported to
+me by many others," says one of the chroniclers. There is another
+account which has no such absolute authority, but is not unreasonable
+or unlikely, of the same episode, in which we are told that Bishop
+Bruno on his way to Rome turned aside to visit Cluny, of which
+Hildebrand was prior, and that the monk boldly assailed the Pope,
+upbraiding him with having accepted from the hand of a layman so great
+an office, and thus violently intruded into the government of the
+Church. In any case Hildebrand was the chief actor and inspirer of a
+course of conduct on the part of Bruno which was at once pious and
+politic. The papal robes which he had assumed at Worms on his first
+appointment were taken off, the humble dress of a pilgrim assumed, and
+with a reduced retinue and in modest guise the Pope-elect took his way
+to Rome. His episcopal council acquiesced in this change of demeanour,
+says another chronicler, which shows how general an impression
+Hildebrand's eloquence and the fervour of his convictions must have
+made. It was a slow journey across the mountains lasting nearly two
+months, with many lingerings on the way at hospitable monasteries, and
+towns where the Emperor's cousin could not but be a welcome guest.
+Hildebrand, who must have felt the great responsibility of the act
+which he had counselled, sent letter after letter, whenever they
+paused on their way, to Rome, describing, no doubt with all the skill
+at his command, how different was this German bishop from the others,
+how scrupulous he was that his election should be made freely if at
+all, in what humility he, a personage of so high a rank, and so many
+endowments, was approaching Rome, and how important it was that a
+proper reception should be given to a candidate so good, so learned,
+and so fit in every way for the papal throne. Meanwhile Bishop Bruno,
+anxious chiefly to conduct himself worthily, and to prepare for his
+great charge, beguiled the way with prayers and pious meditations, not
+without a certain timidity as it would appear about his reception. But
+this timidity turned out to be quite uncalled for. His humble aspect,
+joined to his high prestige as the kinsman of the emperor, and the
+anxious letters of Hildebrand had prepared everything for Bruno's
+reception. The population came out on all sides to greet his passage.
+Some of the Germans were perhaps a little indignant with this
+unnecessary humility, but the keen Benedictine pervaded and directed
+everything while the new Pope, as was befitting on the eve of assuming
+so great a responsibility, was absorbed in holy thought and prayer.
+The party had to wait on the further bank of the Tiber, which was in
+flood, for some days, a moment of anxious suspense in which the
+pilgrims watched the walls and towers of the great city in which lay
+their fate with impatience and not without alarm. But as soon as the
+water fell, which it did with miraculous rapidity, the whole town,
+with the clergy at its head, came out to meet the new-comers, and Leo
+IX., one of the finest names in the papal lists, entering barefooted
+and in all humility by the great doors of St. Peter's, was at once
+elected unanimously, and received the genuine homage of all Rome. One
+can imagine with what high satisfaction, yet with eyes ever turned to
+the future, content with no present achievement, Hildebrand must have
+watched the complete success of his plan.
+
+This event took place, Villemain tells us (the early chroniclers, as
+has been said, are most sparing of dates), in 1046, a year full of
+events. Muratori in his annals gives it as two years later. Hildebrand
+could not yet have attained his thirtieth year in either case. He was
+so high in favour with the new Pope, to whom he had been so wise a
+guide, that he was appointed at once to the office of Economico, a
+sort of Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Court of Rome, and at the
+same time was created Cardinal-archdeacon, and abbot of St. Paul's,
+the great monastery outside the walls. Platina tells us that he
+received this charge as if the Pope had "divided with him the care of
+the keys, the one ruling the church of St. Peter and the other that of
+St. Paul."
+
+That great church, though but a modern building now, after the fire
+which destroyed it seventy years ago, and standing on the edge of the
+desolate Campagna, is still a shrine universally visited. The Campagna
+was not desolate in Hildebrand's days, and the church was of the
+highest distinction, not only as built upon the spot of St. Paul's
+martyrdom, but for its own splendour and beauty. It is imposing still,
+though so modern, and with so few relics of the past. But the pilgrim
+of to-day, who may perhaps recollect that over its threshold Marcella
+dragged herself, already half dead, into that peace of God which the
+sanctuary afforded amid the sack and the tortures of Rome, may add
+another association if he is so minded in the thought of the great
+ecclesiastic who ruled here for many years, arriving, full of zeal and
+eager desire for universal reform, into the midst of an idle crew of
+depraved monks, who had allowed their noble church to fall into the
+state of a stable, while they themselves--a mysterious and awful
+description, yet not perhaps so alarming to us as to them--"were
+served in the refectory by women," the first and perhaps the only,
+instance of female servants in a monastery. Hildebrand made short work
+of these ministrants. He had a dream--which no doubt would have much
+effect on the monks, always overawed by spiritual intervention,
+however material they might be in mind or habits--in which St. Paul
+appeared to him, working hard to clear out and purify his desecrated
+church. The young abbot immediately set about the work indicated by
+the Apostle, "eliminating all uncleanness," says his chronicler: "and
+supplying a sufficient amount of temperate food, he gathered round him
+a multitude of honest monks faithful to their rule."
+
+Hildebrand's great business powers, as we should say, enabled him very
+soon to put the affairs of the convent in order. The position of the
+monastery outside the city gates and defences, and its thoroughly
+disordered condition, had left it open to all the raids and attacks of
+neighbouring nobles, who had found the corrupt and undisciplined monks
+an easy prey; but they soon discovered that they had in the new abbot
+a very different antagonist. In these occupations Hildebrand passed
+several years, establishing his monastery on the strongest foundations
+of discipline, purity, and faith. Reform was what the Church demanded
+in almost every detail of its work. Amid the agitation and constant
+disturbance outside, it had not been possible to keep order within,
+nor was an abbot who had bought his post likely to attempt it: and a
+great proportion of the abbots, bishops, and great functionaries of
+the Church had bought their posts. In the previous generation it had
+been the rule. It had become natural, and disturbed apparently no
+man's conscience. A conviction, however, had evidently arisen in the
+Church, working by what influences we know not, but springing into
+flame by the action of Hildebrand, and by his Pope Leo, that this
+state of affairs was monstrous and must come to an end. The same
+awakening has taken place again and again in the Church as the
+necessity has unfortunately arisen: and never had it been more
+necessary than now. Every kind of immorality had been concealed under
+the austere folds of the monk's robe; the parish priests, especially
+in Germany, lived with their wives in a calm contempt of all the
+Church's laws in that respect. This, which to us seems the least of
+their offences, was not so in the eyes of the new race of Church
+reformers. They thought it worse than ordinary immoral relations, as
+counterfeiting and claiming the title of a lawful union; and to the
+remedy of this great declension from the rule of the Church, and of
+the still greater scandal of simony, the new Pope's utmost energies
+were now directed.
+
+  [Illustration: PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTIUS.]
+
+A very remarkable raid of reformation, which really seems the most
+appropriate term which could be used, took place accordingly in the
+first year of Leo IX.'s reign. We do not find Hildebrand mentioned as
+accompanying him in his travels--probably he was already too deeply
+occupied with the cleansing out of St. Paul's physically and morally,
+to leave Rome, of which, besides, he had the care, in all its external
+as well as spiritual interests, during the Pope's absence: but no
+doubt he was the chief inspiration of the scheme, and had helped to
+organise all its details. Something even of the subtle snare in which
+his own patron Gregory had been caught was in the plan with which
+Hildebrand, thus gleaning wisdom from suffering, sent forth his Pope.
+After holding various smaller councils in Italy, Leo crossed the
+mountains to France, where against the wish of the Emperor, he held a
+great assembly at Rheims. The nominal occasion of the visit was the
+consecration of that church of St. Remy, then newly built, which is
+still one of the glories of a city so rich in architectural wealth.
+The body of St. Remy was carried, with many wonderful processions,
+from the monastery where it lay, going round and round the walls of
+the mediæval town and through its streets with chants and psalms, with
+banner and cross, until at last it was deposited solemnly on an altar
+in the new building, now so old and venerable. Half of France had
+poured into Rheims for this great festival, and followed the steps of
+the Pope and hampered his progress--for he was again and again unable
+to proceed from the great throngs that blocked every street. This,
+however, though a splendid ceremony, and one which evidently made much
+impression on the multitude, was but the preliminary chapter. After
+the consecration came a wholly unexpected visitation, the council of
+Rheims, which was not concerned like most other councils with
+questions of doctrine, but of justice and discipline. The throne for
+the Pope was erected in the middle of the nave of the cathedral--not,
+it need scarcely be said, the late but splendid cathedral now
+existing--and surrounded in a circle by the seats of the bishops and
+archbishops. When all were assembled the object of the council was
+stated--the abolition of simony, and of the usurpation of the
+priesthood and the altar by laymen, and the various immoral practices
+which had crept into the shadow of the Church and been tolerated or
+authorised there. The Pope in his opening address adjured his
+assembled counsellors to help him to root out those tares which choked
+the divine grain, and implored them, if any among them had been
+guilty of the sin of simony, either by sale or purchase of benefices,
+that he should make a public confession of his sin.
+
+Terrible moment for the bishops and other prelates, immersed in all
+the affairs of their times and no better than other men! The reader
+after all these centuries can scarcely fail to feel the thrill of
+alarm, or shame, or abject terror that must have run through that
+awful sitting as men looked into each other's faces and grew pale. The
+archbishop of Trèves got up first and declared his hands to be clean,
+so did the archbishop of Lyons and Besançon. Well for them! But he of
+Rheims in his own cathedral, he who must have been in the front of
+everything for these few triumphant days of festival, faltered when
+his turn came. He begged that the discussion might be adjourned till
+next day, and that he might be allowed to see the Pope in private
+before making his explanations. It must have been with a kind of grim
+benignancy, and awful toleration, that the delay was granted and the
+inquisition went on, while that great personage, one of the first
+magnates of the assembly, sat silent, pondering all there was against
+him and how little he had to say in his defence. The council became
+more lively after this with accusations and counter-accusations. The
+bishop of Langres procured the deposition of an abbot in his diocese
+for immoral conduct; but next day was assailed himself of simony,
+adultery, and the application of torture in order to extort money.
+After a day or two of discussion this prelate fled, and was finally
+excommunicated. Pope Leo was not a man to be trifled with. And so the
+long line of prelates was gone through with many disastrous
+consequences as the days ran on.
+
+It is less satisfactory to find him easily excommunicating rebels and
+opponents of the Emperor, whose arms were too successful or their
+antagonism too important. Even the best of priests and Popes err
+sometimes--and to have such a weapon as excommunication at hand like
+a thunderbolt must have been very tempting. Leo at the same time
+excommunicated also the people of Benevento, who had rebelled against
+the Emperor, and the archbishop of Ravenna, who was in rebellion
+against himself.
+
+The travels and activity of this Pope on his round of examination and
+punishment were extraordinary. He appears in one part of Italy after
+another: in the far south, in the midland plains, holding councils
+everywhere, deposing bishops, scourging the Church clean. Again he is
+over the hills in his own country, meeting the Emperor, as active as
+himself, and almost as earnest in his desire to cleanse the Church of
+simony--moving here and there, performing all kinds of sacred
+functions from the celebration of a feast to the excommunication of a
+city. His last, and as it proved fatal enterprise was an expedition
+against the Normans, who had got possession of a great part of
+Southern Italy, and against whom the Pope went, most inappropriately,
+at the head of an army, made up of the most heterogeneous elements,
+and which collapsed in face of the enemy. Leo himself either was made
+prisoner or took refuge in the town of Benevento, which had recently,
+by a bargain with the Emperor, become the property of the Holy See.
+Here he was detained for nearly a year, more or less voluntarily, and
+when, at length, he set out for Rome, with a strong escort of the
+Normans and every mark of honour, it was with broken health and
+failing strength. He died shortly after reaching his destination, in
+his own great church, having caused himself to be carried there as he
+grew worse; and nothing could be more imposing than the scene of his
+death, in St. Peter's, which was all hung with black and illuminated
+with thousands of funeral lights for this great and solemn event. All
+Rome witnessed his last hours and saw him die. He was one of the great
+Popes, though he did not fully succeed even in his own appropriate
+work of Church reform, and failed altogether when he took,
+unfortunately, sword in hand. Not a word, however, could be said
+against the purity of his life and motives, and these were universally
+acknowledged, especially among the Normans against whom he led his
+unfortunate army, and who worshipped, while probably holding captive,
+their rash invader.
+
+During the eight years of Leo's popedom Hildebrand had been at the
+head of affairs in Rome, where erring priests and simoniacal bishops
+had been not less severely brought to book than in other places. He
+does not seem to have accompanied the Pope on any of his many
+expeditions; but with the aid of a new brother-in-arms, scarcely less
+powerful and able than himself, Peter Damian, then abbot of
+Fontavellona and afterwards bishop of Ostia, did his best under Leo to
+sweep clean the ecclesiastical world in general as he had swept clean
+his own church of St. Paul. When Leo died, Hildebrand was one of the
+three legates sent to consult the Emperor as to the choice of another
+Pope. This was a long and difficult business, since the
+susceptibilities of the Romans, anxious to preserve their own real or
+apparent privilege of election, had to be reconciled with the claims
+of Henry, who had no idea of yielding them in any way, and who had the
+power on his side. The selection seems to have been finally made by
+Hildebrand rather than Henry, and was that of Gebehard, bishop of
+Aichstadt, another wealthy German prelate, also related to the
+Emperor. Why he should have consented to accept this mission, however,
+he who had so strongly declined to follow Leo as the nominee of the
+Emperor, and made it a condition of his service that the new Pope
+should go humbly to Rome as a pilgrim to be elected there, is
+unexplained by any of the historians.
+
+It was in the spring of 1055 that after long delays and much waiting,
+the Roman conclave came back, bringing their Pope with them. But
+Victor II. was like so many of his German predecessors, short-lived.
+His reign only lasted two years, the half of which he seems to have
+spent in Germany. "He was not one who loved the monks," and probably
+Hildebrand found that he would do but little with one whose heart
+would seem to have remained on the other side of _i monti_--as the
+Alps are continually called. No second ambassador was sent to the
+Imperial Court for a successor: for in the fateful year 1056 the
+Emperor also died, preceding Victor to the grave by a few months.
+Without pausing to consult the German Court, with a haste which proves
+their great anxiety to reassert themselves, the Roman clergy and
+people elected Frederick, abbot of Monte Cassino and brother of the
+existing prince of Tuscany--Gottfried of Lorraine, the second husband
+of Beatrice of Tuscany and step-father of Matilda the actual heir to
+that powerful duchy. Perhaps a certain desire to cling to the only
+power in Italy which could at all protect them against an irritated
+Imperial Court mingled with this choice: but it was a perfectly
+natural and worthy one. Frederick, unfortunately, lived but a few
+months, disappointing many hopes. He had sent Hildebrand to the
+Imperial Court to explain and justify his election, but when he found
+his health beginning to give way, a sort of panic seems to have seized
+him, and collecting round him all the representatives of priests and
+people who could be gathered together, he made them swear on pain of
+excommunication to elect no successor until the return of Hildebrand.
+He died at Florence shortly after.
+
+There is something monotonous in these brief records: a great turmoil
+almost reaching the length of a convulsion for the choice, and then a
+short and agitated span, a year or two, sometimes only a month or two,
+and all is over and the new Pope goes to rejoin the long line of his
+predecessors. It was not, either, that these were old men, such as
+have so often been chosen in later days, venerable fathers of the
+Church whose age brought them nearer to the grave than the
+throne:--they were all men in the flower of their age, likely
+according to all human probability to live long. It was not wonderful
+if the German bishops were afraid of that dangerous elevation which
+seemed to carry with it an unfailing fate.
+
+Hildebrand was at the German Court when this sad news reached him. He
+was in the position, fascinating to most men--and he was not superior
+to others in this respect--of confidant and counsellor to a princess
+in the interesting position of a young widow, with a child, upon whose
+head future empire had already thrown its shadow. The position of the
+Empress Agnes was, no doubt, one of the most difficult which a woman
+could be called on to occupy, surrounded by powerful princes scarcely
+to be kept in subjection by the Emperor, who was so little more than
+their equal, though their sovereign--and altogether indisposed to
+accept the supremacy of a woman. There is nothing in which women have
+done so well in the world as in the great art of government, but the
+Empress Agnes was not one of that kind. She had to fall back upon the
+support of the clergy in the midst of the rude circle of potentates
+with whom she had to contend, and the visit of Hildebrand with his
+lofty views, his great hopes, his impetuous determination to vanquish
+evil with good, though not perhaps in the way recommended by the
+Apostles, was no doubt a wonderful refreshment and interest to her in
+the midst of all her struggles. But it was like a thunderbolt bursting
+at their feet to hear of the death of Frederick--(among the Popes
+Stephen IX.): and the swiftly following outburst in Rome when, in a
+moment, in the absence of any spirit strong enough to control them,
+the old methods were put into operation, and certain of the Roman
+nobles ever ready to take advantage of an opportunity--with such
+supporters within the city as terror or bribes could secure them,
+taking the people by surprise--procured the hurried election of a Pope
+without any qualifications for the office. Nothing could be more
+dramatic than the entire episode. A young Count of Tusculum, a
+stronghold seated amid the ruins of the old Roman city, above
+Frascati, one of a family who then seem to have occupied the position
+afterwards held by the Orsinis and Colonnas, was the leader of this
+conspiracy and the candidate was a certain Mincio, Bishop of Velletri,
+a member of the same family. The description in Muratori's _Annals_
+though brief is very characteristic.
+
+      "Gregorio, son of Albanio Count Tusculano, of Frascati,
+      along with some other powerful Romans, having gained by
+      bribes a good part of the clergy and people, rushed by
+      night, with a party of armed followers, into the Church of
+      St. Peter, and there, with much tumult, elected Pope,
+      Giovanni, Bishop of Velletri, afterwards called Mincio (a
+      word perhaps drawn from the French _Mince_ and which
+      probably was the original of the phrase now used _Minciono,
+      Minchione_), who assumed the name of Benedict X. He was a
+      man entirely devoid of letters."
+
+The sudden raid in the night, all Rome silent and asleep, except the
+disturbed and hastily awakened streets by which the party had entered
+from across the Campagna and their robber fortress among the ruins of
+the classic Tusculum, makes a most curious and dramatic picture. The
+conspirators had among them certain so-called representatives of the
+people, with a few abbots who felt their seats insecure under a
+reforming Pope, and a few priests very desirous of shutting out all
+new and disturbing authority. They gathered hastily in the church
+which suddenly shone out into the darkness with flare of torch and
+twinkle of taper, while the intruder, _Mincio_, a lean and fantastic
+bishop, with affectations of pose and attitude such as his nickname
+implies, was hurried to the altar by his rude patrons and attendants.
+He was consecrated by the terrified archpriest of Ostia, upon whom the
+Frascati party had somewhere laid violent hands, and who faltered
+through the office half stupefied by fear. It was the privilege of
+the Bishop of Ostia to be the officiating prelate at the great
+solemnity of a Pope's consecration. When he could not be had the
+careless and profane barons no doubt thought his subordinate would do
+very well instead.
+
+The news was received, however, though with horror, yet with a
+dignified self-restraint by the Imperial Court. Hildebrand set out at
+once for Florence to consult with the Sovereigns there, a royal family
+of great importance in the history of Italy, consisting of the widowed
+duchess Beatrice, her second husband Gottfried of Lorraine, and her
+young daughter Matilda, the actual heiress of the principality, all
+staunch supporters of the Church and friends of Hildebrand. That he
+should take the command of affairs at this sudden crisis seems to have
+been taken for granted on all sides. A council of many bishops "both
+German and Italian" was called together in Sienna, where it was met by
+a deputation from Rome, begging that fit steps might be taken to meet
+the emergency, and a legitimate Pope elected. The choice of this Council
+fell upon the Bishop of Florence, "who for wisdom and a good life was
+worthy of such a sublime dignity;" and the new Pope was escorted to
+Rome by a strong band of Tuscan soldiers powerful enough to put down
+all tumult or rebellion in the city. The expedition paused at Sutri, a
+little town, just within the bounds of the papal possessions, which
+had already on that account been the scene of the confusing and
+painful council which dethroned Gregory VI. to destroy the strongholds
+of the Counts of Tusculum near that spot, and make an end of their
+power. Mincio, however, poor fantastic shadow, had no heart to confront
+a duly elected Pope, or the keen eye of Hildebrand, and abdicated at
+once his ill-gotten power. His vague figure so sarcastically indicated
+has a certain half-comic, half-rueful effect, appearing amid all these
+more important forms and things, first in the dazzle of the midnight
+office, and afterwards in a hazy twilight of obscurity, stealing off,
+to be seen no more, except by the keen country folk and townsmen of
+his remote bishopric who, _burlando_--jesting as one is glad to hear
+they were able to do amid all their tumults and troubles--gave him his
+nickname, and thus sent down to posterity the fantastic vision of the
+momentary Pope with his mincing ways--no bad anti-pope though as
+Benedict X. he holds a faint footing in the papal roll--but a
+historical _burla_, a mediæval joke, not without its power to relieve
+the grave chronicle of the time.
+
+The tumultuous public of Rome, which did not care very much either
+way, yet felt this election of the Pope to be its one remaining claim
+to importance, murmured and grumbled its best about the interference
+of Tuscany, a neighbour more insulting, when taking upon herself airs
+of mastery, than a distant and vaguely magnificent Emperor; and there
+was an outcry against Hildebrand, who had erected "a new idol" in
+concert with Beatrice and without the consent of the Romans. But it
+was in reality Hildebrand himself who now came to reign under the
+shadow of another insignificant and short-lived Pope. Nicolas II. and
+Alexander II. who followed were but the formal possessors of power;
+the true sway was henceforth in the hands of the ever-watchful monk,
+Cardinal-archdeacon, deputy and representative of the Holy See. It is
+one of the few instances to be found in the records of the world of
+that elevation of the man who _can_--so strongly preached by
+Carlyle--to the position which is his natural right. While Hildebrand
+had been scouring the world, an adventurous young monk, passing _i
+monti_ recklessly as the young adventurer now crosses the Atlantic,
+more times than could be counted--while he was, with all the zeal of
+his first practical essay in reform, cleaning out his stable at St.
+Paul's, making his presence to be felt in the expenditure and
+revenues of Rome--there had been, as we have seen, Pope after Pope in
+the seat of the Apostle, most of them worthy enough, one at least, Leo
+IX., heroic in effort and devotion--but none of them born to guide the
+Church through a great crisis. The hour and the man had now come.
+
+It was not long before the presence of a new and great legislator
+became clearly visible. One of the first acts of Hildebrand, acting
+under Nicolas, was to hold a council in Rome in 1059, at which many
+things of importance were decided. The reader will want no argument
+to prove that there was urgent need of an established and certain rule
+for the election of the Popes, a necessity constantly recurring and
+giving rise to a continual struggle. It had been the privilege of the
+Roman clergy and people; it had become a prerogative of the Emperors;
+it was exercised by both together, the one satisfying itself with a
+fictitious co-operation and assent to what the other did, but neither
+contented, and every vacancy the cause of a bitter and often
+disgraceful struggle. The nominal election by the clergy and people
+was a rule impossible, and meant only the temporary triumph of the
+party which was strongest or wealthiest for the moment, and could best
+pay for the most sweet voices of the crowd, or best overawe and cow
+their opponents. On the other hand, the action of the secular power,
+the selection or at least nomination of a Pope--with armies behind, if
+necessary, to carry out his choice--by the Emperor across the Alps,
+was a transaction subject to those ordinary secular laws, which induce
+a superior in whatever region of affairs to choose the man who is
+likely to be most serviceable to himself and his interests--interests
+which were very different from those which are the objects of the
+Church. No man had seen the dangers and difficulties of this divided
+and inconsistent authority more than Hildebrand, and his determination
+to establish a steadfast and final method for the choice and election
+of the first great official of the Church was both wise and
+reasonable. Perhaps it was not without thought of the expediency of
+breaking away from all precedents, and thus preparing the way for a
+new method, that he had, apparently on his own authority, transferred
+in a manner, what we may call the patronage of the Holy See, to
+Tuscany. The moment was propitious for such a change, for there was no
+Emperor, the heir of Henry III. being still a child and his mother not
+powerful enough to interfere.
+
+  [Illustration: TRINITA DE MONTI.]
+
+The new law introduced by Hildebrand and passed by the council was
+much the same in its general regulations as that which still exists.
+There was no solemn mysterious Conclave, and the details were more
+simple; but the rules of election were virtually the same. The
+Cardinal-bishops made their choice first, which they then submitted to
+the other Cardinals of lower rank. If both were agreed the name of the
+Pope-elect was submitted to the final judgment of the people, no doubt
+a mere formula. This, we believe, is nominally still the last step of
+the procedure. The name is submitted, _i.e._, announced to the eager
+crowd in St. Peter's who applaud, which is all that is required of
+them: and all is done. This decree was passed _salvo debito honore et
+reverentia delecti filii nostri Henrici_, a condition skilfully
+guarded by the promise to award the same honour (that is, of having a
+voice in the election) to those of his successors to whom the Holy See
+shall have personally accorded the same right. It was thus the Holy
+See which honoured the Emperors by according them a privilege, not the
+Emperors who had any right to nominate, much less elect, to the Holy
+See.
+
+Other measures of great importance for the purification and internal
+discipline of the Church were made law by this council, which was held
+in April 1059, the year of the accession of Nicolas II.; but none of
+such fundamental importance as this, or so bold in their claim of
+spiritual independence. Hildebrand must by this time have been in the
+very height of life, a man of forty or so, already matured by much
+experience and beginning to systematise and regulate the dreams and
+plans of his youth. He must have known by this time fully what he
+wanted and what was, or at least ought to be, his mission in the
+world. It is very doubtful, however, we think, whether that mission
+appeared to him what it has appeared to all the historians since--a
+deep-laid and all-overwhelming plan for the establishment of the
+Papacy on such a pinnacle as never crowned head had attained. His
+purposes as understood by himself were first the cleansing of the
+Church--the clearing out of all the fleshly filth which had
+accumulated in it, as in his own noble Basilica, rendering it useless,
+hiding its beauty: and second the destruction of that system of buying
+and selling which went on in the Holy Temple--worse than
+money-changing and selling of doves, the sale of the very altars to
+any unworthy person who could pay for them. These were his first and
+greatest purposes--to make the Church pure and to make her free, as
+perhaps she never has been, as perhaps, alas, she never will wholly
+be: but yet the highest aim for every true churchman to pursue.
+
+  [Illustration: ARCH OF TITUS.
+    _To face page 208._]
+
+These purposes were elevated and enlarged in his mind by the noble and
+beautiful thought of thus preparing and developing the one great
+disinterested power in the world, with nothing to gain, which should
+arbitrate in every quarrel, and adjust contending claims and bring
+peace on earth, instead of the clashing of swords; the true work of
+the successor of Peter, Christ's Vicar in the world. This was not a
+dream of Hildebrand alone. Three hundred years later the great soul of
+Dante still dreamt of that Papa Angelico, the hope of ages, who might
+one day arise and set all things right. Hildebrand was not of the
+Angelical type. He was not that high priest made of benign charity,
+and love for all men--of whom the mediæval sages mused. But who will
+say that his dream, too, was not of the noblest or his ideal less
+magnanimous and great? Such an arbiter was wanted--what words could
+say how much?--in all those troubled and tumultuous kingdoms which
+were struggling against each other, overcoming and being overcome,
+always in disorder, carrying out their human fate with a constant
+accompaniment of human groans and sufferings and tears--one who would
+set all things right, who would judge the cause of the poor and
+friendless, who would have power to pull down a tyrant and erect with
+blessing and honour a new throne of justice in his dishonoured place.
+Have we less need of a Papa Angelico now? But unfortunately,[1] we
+have lost faith in the possibility of him, which is a fate which
+befalls so many high ideals from age to age.
+
+Did Hildebrand, a proud man and strong, a man full of ambition, full
+of the consciousness of great powers--did he long to grasp the reins
+of the universe in his own hand? to drive the chariots of the sun, to
+direct everything, to rule everything, to be more than a king, and
+hold Emperors trembling before him? It is very possible: in every
+great spirit, until fully disenchanted, something of this desire must
+exist. But that it was not a plan of ambition only, but a great ideal
+which it seemed to him well worth a man's life to carry out, there
+can, we think, be no reasonable doubt.
+
+Thus he began his reign, in reality, though not by title, in Rome. The
+cloisters were cleansed and the integrity of the Church vindicated,
+though not by any permanent process, but one that had to be repeated
+again and again in every chapter of her history. The Popes were
+elected after a few stormy experiments in the manner he had decreed,
+and the liberty of election established and protected--even to some
+extent and by moments, his Papacy, that wonderful institution answered
+to his ideal, and promised to fulfil his dream: until the time came
+common to all men, when hope became failure, and he had to face the
+dust and mire of purpose overthrown. But in the meantime no such
+thoughts were in his mind as he laboured with all the exhilaration of
+capacity, and with immense zeal and pains, at his own affairs, which
+meant in those days to the Archdeacon of Rome the care of all the
+Churches. The letters of the Pope in Council which carried the
+addition of the name of that humblest of his sons and servants,
+Hildebrand, bore the commands of such a sovereign as Hildebrand dreamt
+of, to bishops and archbishops over all the world. Here is one of
+these epistles.
+
+      Although several unfavourable reports have reached the
+      Apostolic See in respect to your Fraternity which cannot be
+      rejected without inquiry--as, for example, that you have
+      favoured our enemies, and have neglected pontifical
+      ordinances: yet as you have defended yourself from these
+      accusations by the testimony of a witness of weight and
+      have professed fidelity to St. Peter, we are disposed to
+      pass over these reports and to hope that the testimony in
+      your favour is true. Therefore take care in future so to
+      live, that your enemies shall have no occasion to sadden us
+      on your account. Exert yourself to fulfil the hopes which
+      the Apostolical See has formed of you: reprimand, entreat
+      and warn your glorious king that he may not be corrupted by
+      the counsels of the wicked, who hope under cover of our own
+      troubles to elude Apostolic condemnation. Let him take care
+      how he resists the sacred canons, or rather St. Peter
+      himself, thereby rousing our wrath against him, who rather
+      desire to love him as the apple of our eye.
+
+These were high words to be said to a dubious, not well-assured
+archbishop, occupying a very high place in the Church and powerful for
+good or for evil: but Hildebrand did not mince matters, whatever he
+might have to say.
+
+Meanwhile the good Pope, Nicolas, went on with his charities while his
+Cardinal Archdeacon thundered in his name. He went, in the end of his
+life, with his court on a visit to the Normans, who had now, for some
+time--since they defeated Pope Leo before the gates of Benevento and
+came under the charm of papal influence, though in the person of their
+prisoner--become the most devout and generous servants of the Papacy:
+which indeed granted them titles to the sovereignty of any chance
+principality they might pick up--which was a good equivalent. When
+the troops of Guiscard escorted his Holiness back to Rome they were so
+obliging as to destroy a castle or two of those robber nobles who
+infested all the roads and robbed the pilgrims, and were, in the midst
+of all greater affairs, like a nest of venomous wasps about the ears
+of the Roman statesmen and legislators--especially those of the ever
+turbulent family of Tusculum, the Counts of Frascati, who kept watch
+afar upon the northern gates and every pilgrim path. This Pope died
+soon after in 1061 in Florence, his former episcopal see, which he
+often revisited and loved.
+
+And now came the opportunity for Hildebrand to carry out his own bold
+law, and elect at once, by the now legal methods, a new head to the
+Church. But his coadjutors probably had not his own courage: and
+though bold enough under his inspiration to pass that law, hesitated
+to carry it out. It is said, too, that in Rome itself there was the
+strong opposition of a German party really attached to the imperial
+order, or convinced that without the strong backing of the empire the
+Church could not stand. Reluctantly Hildebrand consented to send a
+messenger to consult the imperial court, where strong remonstrances
+and appeals were at once presented by the Germans and Lombards who
+were as little desirous of having an Italian Pope over them as the
+Romans were of a Teutonic one. The Empress Agnes had been alarmed
+probably by rumours in the air of her removal from the regency. She
+had been alienated from Hildebrand by the reports of his enemies, and
+no doubt made to believe that the rights of her son must suffer if any
+innovation was permitted. She forgot her usual piety in her panic, and
+would not so much as receive Hildebrand's messenger, who, alone of all
+the many deputations arriving on the same errand, was left five days
+(or seven) waiting at the gates of the Palace--"For seven days he
+waited in the antechamber of the king," says Muratori--while the
+others were admitted and listened to. This was too much for
+Hildebrand, to whom his envoy, Cardinal Stefano, returned full of
+exasperation, as was natural. The Cardinals with timidity, but
+sustained by Hildebrand's high courage and determination, then
+proceeded to the election, which was duly confirmed by the people
+assembled in St. Peter's, and therefore perfectly legal according to
+the latest law. We are told much, however, of the excited state of
+Rome during the election, and of the dislike of the people to the
+horde of monks, many of them mendicant, and even more or less
+vagabond, who were let loose upon the city, electioneering agents of
+the most violent kind, filling the streets and churches with clamour.
+This wild army, obnoxious to the citizens, was at Hildebrand's
+devotion, and prejudiced more than they promoted, his views among the
+crowd.
+
+"Here returned to the Romans," says Muratori, whose right to speak on
+such a subject will not be doubted, "complete freedom in the election
+of the Popes, with the addition of not even awaiting the consent of
+the Emperors for their consecration; an independence ever maintained
+since, down to our own days." This daring act made a wonderful
+revolution in the politics of Rome: it was the first erection of her
+standard of independence. The Church had neither troops nor vassals
+upon whom she could rely, and to defy thus openly the forces of the
+Empire was a tremendous step to take. Nor was it only from Germany
+that danger threatened. Lombardy and all the north of Italy was, with
+the exception of Tuscany, in arms against the audacious monk. Only
+those chivalrous savages of Normans, who, however, were as good
+soldiers as any Germans, could be calculated on as faithful to the
+Holy See: and Godfried of Tuscany stood between Rome and her enemies
+_fidelissimo_, ready to ward off any blow.
+
+The election passed over quietly, and Alexander II. (Anselm the Bishop
+of Lucca) took his place, every particular of his assumption of the
+new dignity being carefully carried through as though in times of
+deepest peace. In Germany, however, the news produced a great
+sensation and tumult. A Diet was held at Bâle, for the coronation in
+the first place of the young king Henry, now twelve years old--but
+still more for the immediate settlement of this unheard-of revolt.
+When that ceremonial was over the court proceeded to the choice of a
+Pope with a contemptuous indifference to the proceedings in Rome. This
+anti-pope has no respect from history. He is said by one authority to
+have been chosen because his evil life made him safe against any such
+fury of reform as that which made careless prelate and priest fall
+under the rod of Hildebrand on every side. Muratori, whose concise
+little sentences are always so refreshing after the redundancy of the
+monkish chronicles, is very contemptuous of this pretender, whose name
+was Cadalous or Cadulo, an undistinguished and ill-sounding name. "The
+anti-pope Cadaloo or Cadalo occupied himself all the winter of this
+year" (says Muratori) "in collecting troops and money, in order to
+proceed to Rome to drive out the legitimate successor of St. Peter and
+to have himself consecrated there. Some suppose that he had already
+been ordained Pope, and had assumed the name of Honorius II., but
+there is no proof of this. And if he did not change his name it is a
+sign that he had never been consecrated." Other authorities boldly
+give him the title of Honorius II.: but he is generally called the
+anti-pope Cadalous in history.
+
+A conflict immediately arose between the two parties. Cadalous, at the
+head of an army appeared before Rome, but not till after Hildebrand
+had placed his Pope, who was for the moment less strong than the
+Emperor's Pope, in Tuscany under the protection of Beatrice and her
+husband Godfried. Then followed a stormy time of marches and
+countermarches round and about the city, in which sometimes the
+invaders were successful and sometimes the defenders. At length the
+Tuscans came to the rescue with the two Countesses in their midst who
+were always so faithful in their devotion to Hildebrand, Beatrice in
+the maturity of her beauty and influence, and the young Matilda, the
+real sovereign of the Tuscan states, fifteen years old, radiant in
+hope and enthusiasm and stirring up the spirits of the Florentines and
+Tuscan men at arms. Cadalous withdrew from that encounter making such
+terms as he could with Godfried, with many prayers and large presents,
+so that he was allowed to escape to Parma his bishopric, _testa
+bassa_. Yet the records are not very clear on these points, Muratori
+tells us. Doubts are thrown on the loyalty of Duke Godfried. He is
+said to have invited the Normans to come to the help of the Pope, and
+then invaded their territories, which was not a very knightly
+proceeding: but there is no appearance at this particular moment of
+the Normans, or any force but that of the Tuscan army with young
+Countess Matilda and her mother flashing light and courage into the
+ranks.
+
+The anti-pope, if he deserved that title, did not trouble the
+legitimate authorities long. He was suddenly dropped by the Germans in
+the excitement of a revolution, originating in the theft of little
+Henry the boy-monarch, whom the Bishop of Cologne stole from his
+mother Agnes, as it became long afterwards a pleasant device of state
+to carry off from their mothers the young fatherless Jameses of Scots
+history. Young Henry was run away with in the same way, and Agnes
+humiliated and cast off by the Teutonic nobility, who forgot all about
+such a trifle as a Pope in the heat of their own affairs. It was only
+when this matter was settled that a council was held in Cologne by the
+archbishop who had been the chief agent in the abduction of Henry, and
+was now first in power. Of this council there seems no authoritative
+record. It is only by the answer to its deliberations published by
+Peter Damian in which, as is natural, that able controversialist has
+an easy victory over the other side--that anything is known of it.
+Whether Cadalous was formerly deposed by this council is not known:
+but he was dropped by the authorities of the Empire which had a
+similar result.
+
+Notwithstanding, this rash pretender made one other vain attempt to
+seize the papal throne, being encouraged by various partisans in Rome
+itself, by whose means he got possession of St. Peter's, where the
+unfortunate man remained for one troubled night, making such appeals
+to God and to his supporters as may be imagined, and furtively
+performing the various offices of the nocturnal service, perhaps not
+without a sense of profanation in the minds of those who had stolen
+into the great darkness and silence of the Basilica to meet him, with
+a political rather than a devotional intention. Next day all Rome
+heard the news, and rising seized its arms and drove his handful of
+defenders out of the city. Cadalous was taken by one of his
+supporters, Cencio or Vincencio "son of the præfect" to St. Angelo,
+where he held out against the Romans for the space of two years,
+suffering many privations; and thence escaping on pain of his life
+after other adventures, disappears into the darkness to be seen no
+more.
+
+This first distinct conflict between Rome and the Empire was the
+beginning of the long-continued struggle which tore Italy asunder for
+generations--the strife of the two parties called Guelfs and
+Ghibellines, the one for the Empire, the other for the Church, with
+all the ramifications of that great question.
+
+The year in which Cadalous first appeared in Rome, which was the year
+1062, was also distinguished by a very different visitor. The Empress
+Agnes deprived of her son, shorn of her power, had nothing more to do
+among the subject princes who had turned against her. She determined,
+as dethroned monarchs are apt to do, to cast off the world which had
+rejected her, and came to Rome, to beg pardon of the Pope and find a
+refuge for herself out of the noise and tumult. She had been in Rome
+once before, a young wife in all the pomp and pride of empire,
+conducted through its streets in the midst of a splendid procession,
+with her husband to be crowned. The strongest contrasts pleased the
+fancy of these days. She entered Rome the second time as a penitent in
+a black robe, and mounted upon the sorriest horse--"it was not to call
+a horse, but like a beast of burden, a donkey, no bigger than an ass."
+It is a curious sign of humiliation and accompanying elevation of
+mind, but this is not the first time that we have heard of a pilgrim
+entering Rome on a miserable hack, as if that were the highest sign of
+humility. She was received with enthusiasm, notwithstanding her late
+actions of hostility, and soon the walls of many churches were radiant
+with the spoils of her imperial toilettes, brocades of gold and silver
+encrusted with jewels, and wonders of rich stuffs which even Peter
+Damian with his accomplished pen finds it difficult to describe. "She
+laid down everything, destroyed everything, in order to become, in her
+deprivation yet freedom, the bride of Christ." We are not told if
+Agnes entered a convent or only lived the life of a religious person
+in her own house; but she had the frequent company of Hildebrand and
+Peter Damian, and of the Bishop of Como, who seems to have been
+devoted to her service; and perhaps like other penitents was not so
+badly off in her humility, thus delivered out of all the tumults
+against which she had so vainly attempted to make head for years.
+
+  [Illustration: THE VILLA BORGHESE.]
+
+While these smaller affairs--for even the anti-pope never seems to
+have been really dangerous to Rome notwithstanding his many efforts to
+disturb the peace of the Church--the world of Christendom which
+surrounded that one steady though constantly contested throne of the
+papacy, was in commotion everywhere. It seems strange to speak in one
+breath of Hildebrand's great and noble ideal of a throne always
+standing for righteousness, and of a sacred monarch supreme and high
+above all worldly motives, dispensing justice and peace: and in the
+next to confess his perfect acquiescence in, and indeed encouragement
+of, the undertaking of William the Conqueror, so manifest an act of
+tyranny and robbery, and interference with the rights of an
+independent nation, an undertaking only different from those of the
+brigands from Tusculum and other robber castles who swept the roads to
+Rome, by the fact of its much higher importance and its complete
+success. The Popes had sanctioned the raids of the Normans in Italy,
+and confirmed to them by legal title the possessions which they had
+taken by the strong hand: with perhaps a conviction that one strong
+rule was better than the perpetual bloodshed of the frays between the
+existing races--the duke here, the marquis there, all seeking their
+own, and no man thinking of his neighbour's or his people's advantage.
+But the internal discords of England were too far off to secure the
+observation of the Pope, and the mere fact of Harold's renunciation in
+favour of William, though it seems so specious a pretence to us, was
+to the eyes of the priests by far the most important incident in the
+matter, a vow taken at the altar and which therefore the servants of
+the altar were bound to see carried out. These two reasons however
+were precisely such as show the disadvantage of that grand papal ideal
+which was burning in Hildebrand's brain; for a Pope, with a sacred
+authority to set up and pull down, should never be too far off to
+understand the full rights of any question were it in the remotest
+parts of the earth: and should be far above the possibility of having
+his judgment confused by a foregone ecclesiastical prejudice in favour
+of an unjust vow.
+
+Hildebrand however not only gave William, in his great stroke for an
+empire, the tremendous support of the Pope's authority but backed him
+up in many of his most high-handed and arbitrary proceedings against
+the Saxon prelates and rich abbeys which the Conqueror spoiled at his
+pleasure. It must not be forgotten, in respect to these latter
+spoliations, that the internal war which was raging in the Church all
+over the world, between the new race of reformers and the mass of
+ordinary clergy--who had committed many ecclesiastical crimes, who
+sometimes even had married and were comfortable in the enjoyment of a
+sluggish toleration, or formed connections that were winked at by a
+contemptuously sympathetic world; or who had bought their benefices
+great and small, through an entangled system of gifts, graces, and
+indulgences, as well as by the boldest simony--made every kind of
+revolution within the Church possible, and produced endless
+depositions and substitutions on every side. When, as we have seen,
+the bishop of a great continental see in the centre of civilisation
+could be turned out remorselessly from his bishopric on conviction of
+any of these common crimes and forced into the Cloister to amend his
+ways and end his life, it is scarcely likely that more consideration
+would be shown for an unknown prelate far away across the Northern
+seas, though it would seem to be insubordination rather than any
+ecclesiastical vice with which the Saxon clergy were chiefly charged.
+This first instance however of the papal right to sanction revolution,
+and substitute one claimant for another as the selection of Heaven, is
+perhaps the strongest proof that could be found of the impossibility
+of that ideal, and of the tribunal thus set up over human thrones and
+human rights. The papal see was thus drawn in to approve and uphold
+one of the most bloody invasions and one of the most cruel conquests
+ever known--and did so with a confidence and certainty, in an
+ignorance, and with a bias, which makes an end of all those lofty
+pretensions to perfect impartiality and a judgment beyond all
+influences of passion which alone could justify its existence.
+
+A great change had come over the firmament since the days when Leo IX.
+cleansed the Church at Rheims, and held that wonderful Council which
+set down so many of the mighty from their seats. Henry III., the
+enemy of simony, was dead, and the world had changed. As we shall
+often have occasion to remark, the papal rule of justice and purity
+was strong and succeeded--so long as the forces of the secular powers
+agreed with it. But when, as time went on, the Church found itself in
+conflict with these secular powers, a very different state of affairs
+ensued.
+
+The action of Rome in opposition to the young Henry IV., was as
+legitimate as had been its general agreement with, and approval of,
+his predecessor. The youth of this monarch had developed into ways
+very different from those of his father, and under his long minority
+all the evils which Henry III. had honestly set his face against,
+reappeared in full force. Whether it was his removal from the natural
+and at least pure government of his mother, or from his native
+disposition which no authority or training had a chance in such
+circumstances of repressing, the young Henry grew up dissolute and
+vicious, and his court was the centre of a wild and disorganised
+society. Married at twenty, it was not very long before he tried by
+the most disreputable means to get rid of his young wife, and failing
+in that, called, or procured to be called by a complaisant archbishop,
+a council, in order to rid him of her. Rome lost no time in sending
+off to this council as legate, Peter Damian whose gift of speech was
+so unquestionable that he could even on occasion make the worse appear
+the better cause. But his cause in the present case was excellent, and
+his eloquence no less so, and he had all that was prudent as well as
+all that was wise and good in Germany on his side, notwithstanding the
+complaisance of the priests. The legate remonstrated, exhorted,
+threatened. The thing Henry desired was a thing unworthy of a
+Christian, it was a fatal example to the world; finally no power on
+earth would induce the Pope, whose hands alone could confer that
+consecration, to crown as Roman Emperor a man who had sinned so
+flagrantly against the laws of God. The great German nobles added
+practical arguments not less urgent in their way; and Henry surrounded
+on all sides with warnings was forced to give way. But this downfall
+for the moment had little effect on the behaviour of the young
+potentate, and his vices were such that his immediate vassals in his
+own country were on the point of universal rebellion, no man's castle
+or goods or wife or daughter being safe. The Church, which his father
+had given so much care and pains to cleanse and purify, sank again
+into the rankest simony, every stall in a cathedral, and cure in a
+bishopric selling like articles of merchandise. It was time in the
+natural course of affairs when the young monarch attained the full age
+of manhood that he should be promoted to the final dignity of emperor,
+and consecrated as such--a rite which only the Pope could perform: and
+no doubt it was with a full consciousness of the power thus resting
+with the Holy See, as well as in consequence of numerous informal but
+eager appeals to the Pope against the ever-increasing evils of his
+sway that Hildebrand proceeded to take such a step as had never been
+ventured on before by the boldest of Churchmen. He summoned Henry
+formally to appear before the papal court and defend himself against
+the accusations brought against him. "For the heresy of simony," says
+the papal letter, this being the great ecclesiastical crime which came
+immediately under the cognizance of the Pope.
+
+This citation addressed to the greatest monarch then existing, and by
+a power but barely escaped from his authority and still owing to him a
+certain allegiance, was enough to thrill the world from end to end.
+Such a thing had never happened in the knowledge of man. But before we
+begin so much as to hear of the effect produced, the Pope who had,
+nominally at least, issued the summons, the good and saintly Alexander
+II., after holding the papacy for twelve years, died on the 21st of
+April, 1073. His reign for that time had been to a great degree the
+reign of Hildebrand, the ever watchful, ever laborious archdeacon,
+who, let the Pope travel as he liked--and his expeditions through
+Italy were many--was always vigilant at his post, always in the centre
+of affairs, with eyes and ears open to everything, and a mind always
+intent on its purpose. Hildebrand's great idea of the position and
+duties of the Holy See had developed much in those twelve years. It
+had begun to appear a fact, in the eyes of those especially who had
+need of its support. The Normans everywhere believed and trusted in
+it, with good secular reason for so doing, and they were at the moment
+a great power in the earth, especially in Italy. If it had not already
+acquired an importance and force in the thoughts of men, more subtle
+and less easy to obtain than external power, it would have been
+impossible for the boldest to launch forth a summons to the greatest
+king of Christendom the future Emperor. Already the first step towards
+that great visionary sway, of which poets and sages, as well as
+ecclesiastics, so long had dreamed, had been made.
+
+Hildebrand had been virtually at the head of affairs since the year
+1055, when he had brought across the Alps Victor II. chosen by
+himself, whose acts and policy were his. He might have attained the
+papacy in his own right on more than one occasion had he been so
+minded, but had persistently held back from the rank while keeping the
+power. But now humility would have been cowardice, and in the face of
+the tremendous contest which he had invited no other course was
+possible to him save to assume the full responsibility. Even before
+the ceremonies of the funeral of the Pope were completed, while
+Alexander lay in state, there was a rush of the people and priests to
+the church of the Lateran, where Hildebrand was watching by the bier,
+shouting "Hildebrand! The blessed St. Peter has elected Hildebrand."
+A strange scene of mingled enthusiasm and excitement broke the
+funereal silence in the great solemn church, amid its forest of
+columns all hung with black, and glittering with the silver ornaments
+which are appropriate to mourning, while still the catafalque upon
+which the dead Pope lay rose imposing before the altar. Hildebrand,
+startled, was about to ascend the pulpit to address the people, but
+was forestalled by an eager bishop who hurried into it before him, to
+make solemn announcement of the event. "The Archdeacon is the man who,
+since the time of the holy Pope Leo, has by his wisdom and experience
+contributed most to the exaltation of the Church, and has delivered
+this town from great danger," he cried. The people responded by shouts
+of "St. Peter has chosen Hildebrand!" We all know how entirely
+fallacious is this manner of testing the sentiment of a people; but
+yet it was the ancient way, the method adopted in those earlier times
+when every Christian was a tried and tested man, having himself gone
+through many sufferings for the faith.
+
+It appears that Hildebrand hesitated, which seems strange in such a
+man; one who, if ever man there was, had the courage of his opinions
+and was not likely to shrink from the position he himself had created;
+and it is almost incredible that he should have sent a sort of appeal,
+as Muratori states, to Henry himself--the very person whom he had so
+boldly summoned before the tribunal of the Church--requesting him to
+withhold his sanction from the election. Muratori considers the
+evidence dubious, we are glad to see, for this strange statement. At
+all events, after a momentary hesitation Hildebrand yielded to the
+entreaties of the people. The decree in which his election is recorded
+is absolutely simple in its narrative.
+
+"The day of the burial of our lord, the Pope Alexander II. (22nd
+April, 1073), we being assembled in the Basilica of San Pietro in
+Vincoli,[2] members of the holy Roman Church catholic and apostolic,
+cardinals, bishops, clerks, acolytes, sub-deacons, deacons,
+priests--in presence of the venerable bishops and abbots, by consent
+of the monks, and accompanied by the acclamations of a numerous crowd
+of both sexes and of divers orders, we elect as pastor and sovereign
+pontiff a man of religion, strong in the double knowledge of things
+human and divine, the love of justice and equity, brave in misfortune,
+moderate in good fortune, and following the words of the apostle, a
+good man, chaste, modest, temperate, hospitable, ruling well his own
+house, nobly trained and instructed from his childhood in the bosom of
+the Church, promoted by the merit of his life to the highest rank in
+the Church, the Archdeacon Hildebrand, whom, for the future and for
+ever, we choose; and we name him Gregory, Pope. Will you have him?
+Yes, we will have him. Do you approve our act? Yes, we approve."
+
+Nothing can be more graphic than this straightforward document, and
+nothing could give a clearer or more picturesque view of the primitive
+popular election. The wide-reaching crowd behind, women as well as
+men, a most remarkable detail, filled to its very doors the long
+length of the Basilica. The little group of cardinals and their
+followers made a glow of colour in the midst: the mass of clergy in
+the centre of the great nave lighted up by bishops and abbots in their
+distinctive dresses and darkening into the surrounding background of
+almost innumerable monks: while the whole assembly listened
+breathless to this simple yet stately declaration, few understanding
+the words, though all knew the meaning, the large Latin phrases
+rolling over their heads: until it came to that well-known name of
+Hildebrand--Ildebrando--which woke a sudden storm of shouts and
+outcries. Will you have this man? Yes, we will have him! Do you
+approve? _Approviamo! Approviamo!_ shouted and shrieked the crowd. So
+were the elections made in Venice long years after, under the dim
+arches of St. Marco; but Venice was still a straggling village,
+fringing a lagoon, when this great scene took place.
+
+  [Illustration: WHERE THE GHETTO STOOD.]
+
+Hildebrand was at this time a man between fifty and sixty, having
+spent the last eighteen years of his life in the control and
+management of the affairs of Rome. He was a small, spare man of the
+most abstemious habits, allowing himself as few indulgences in the
+halls of the Lateran as in a monastic cell. His fare was vegetables,
+although he was no vegetarian in our modern sense of the word, but ate
+that food to mortify the flesh and for no better reason. Not long
+before he made the rueful, and to us comic, confession that he had
+"ended by giving up leeks and onions, having scruples on account of
+their flavour, which was agreeable to him." Scruple could scarcely go
+further in respect to the delights of this world. We are glad however
+that he who was now the great Pope Gregory denied himself that onion.
+It was a dignified act and sacrifice to the necessities of his great
+position.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] It is touching and pathetic to divine, in the present Pope,
+something of that visionary and disinterested ambition, that longing
+to bless and help the universe, which was in those dreams of the
+mediæval mind, prompted by a great pity, and a love that is half
+divine. Leo XIII. is too wise a man to dream of temporal power
+restored, though he is a martyr to the theory of it: but there would
+seem to be in his old age which makes it impossible if nothing else
+did, a trembling consciousness of capacity to be in himself a Papa
+Angelico, and gather us all under his wings.
+
+[2] It is supposed by some from this that the election took place in
+this church and not in the Lateran; but that is contradicted by
+Gregory himself, who says it took place in Ecclesia S. Salvatoris, a
+name frequently used for the Lateran. Bowden suggests that "at the
+close of the tumultuous proceedings in the Lateran the cardinal
+clergy" may have "adjourned to St. Peter ad Vincula formally to ratify
+and register the election."
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: FROM SAN GREGORIO MAGNO.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE POPE GREGORY VII.
+
+
+The career of Hildebrand up to the moment in which he ascended the
+papal throne could scarcely be called other than a successful one. He
+had attained many of his aims. He had awakened the better part of the
+Church to a sense of the vices that had grown up in her midst,
+purified in many quarters the lives of her priests, and elevated the
+mind and ideal of Christendom. But bad as the vices of the clergy
+were, the ruling curse of simony was worse, to a man whose prevailing
+dream and hope was that of a great power holding up over all the world
+the standards of truth and righteousness in the midst of the wrongs
+and contentions of men. A poor German priest holding fast in his
+distant corner by the humble wife or half-permitted female companion
+at whose presence law and charity winked, was indeed a dreadful
+thought, meaning dishonour and sacrilege to the austere monk; but the
+bishops and archbishops over him who were so little different from the
+fierce barons, their kin and compeers, who had procured their
+benefices by the same intrigues, the same tributes and subserviences,
+the same violence, by which these barons in many cases held their
+fiefs, how was it possible that such men could hold the balance of
+justice, and promote peace and purity and the reign of God over the
+world? That they should help in any way in that great mission which
+the new Pope felt himself to have received from the Head of the Church
+was almost beyond hope. They vexed his soul wherever he turned, men
+with no motive, no inspiration beyond that of their fellows, ready to
+scheme and struggle for the aggrandisement of the Church, if you
+will--for the increase of their own greatness and power and those of
+the corporations subject to them: but as little conscious of that
+other and holier ambition, that hope and dream of a reign of
+righteousness, as were their fellows and brethren, the dukes and
+counts, the fighting men, the ambitious princes of Germany and
+Lombardy. Until the order of chiefs and princes of the Church could be
+purified, Hildebrand had known, and Gregory felt to the bottom of his
+heart, that nothing effectual could be done.
+
+The Cardinal Archdeacon of Rome, under Popes less inspired than
+himself--who were, however, if not strong enough to originate, at
+least acquiescent, and willing to adopt and sanction what he did--had
+carried on a holy war against simony wherever found. He had condemned
+it by means of repeated councils, he had poured forth every kind of
+appeal to men's consciences, and exhortations to repentance, without
+making very much impression. The greatest offices were still sold in
+spite of him. They were given to tonsured ruffians and debauchees who
+had no claim but their wealth to ascend into the high places of the
+Church, and who, in short, were but secular nobles with a difference,
+and the fatal addition of a cynicism almost beyond belief, though
+singularly mingled at times with superstitious terrors. Hildebrand
+had struggled against these men and their influence desperately, by
+every means in his power: and Pope Gregory, with stronger methods at
+command, was bound, if possible, to extirpate the evil. This had
+raised him up a phalanx of enemies on every side, wherever there was a
+dignitary of the Church whose title was not clear, or a prince who
+derived a portion of his revenue from the traffic in ecclesiastical
+appointments. The degenerate young King not yet Emperor, who supported
+his every scheme of rapine and conquest by the gold of the ambitious
+priests whom he made into prelates at his will, was naturally the
+first of these enemies: Guibert of Ravenna, more near and readily
+offensive, one of the most powerful ecclesiastical nobles in Italy,
+sat watchful if he might catch the new Pope tripping, or find any
+opportunity of accusing him: Robert Guiscard, the greatest of the
+Normans, who had been so much the servant and partisan of the late
+Popes, remained sullen and apart, giving no allegiance to this: Rome
+itself was surrounded by a fierce and audacious nobility, who had
+always been the natural enemies of the Pope, unless when he happened
+to be their nominee, and more objectionable than themselves. Thus the
+world was full of dark and scowling faces. A circle of hostility both
+at his gates and in the distance frowned unkindly about him, when the
+age of Hildebrand was over, and that of Gregory began. All his great
+troubles and sufferings were in this latter part of his life. Nothing
+in the shape of failure had befallen him up to this point. He had met
+with great respect and honour, his merit and power had been recognised
+almost from his earliest years. Great princes and great men--Henry
+himself, the father of the present degenerate Henry, a noble Emperor,
+honouring the Church and eager for its purification--had felt
+themselves honoured by the friendship of the monk who had neither
+family nor wealth to recommend him. But when Pope Gregory issued from
+his long probation and took into his hand the papal sceptre, all
+these things had changed. Whether he was aware by any premonition of
+the darker days upon which he had now fallen who can say? It is
+certain that confronting them he bated no jot of heart or hope.
+
+He appears to us at first as very cautious, very desirous of giving
+the adversary no occasion to blaspheme. The summons issued in the name
+of the late Pope to Henry requiring him to appear and answer in Rome
+the charges made against him, seems to have been dropped at
+Alexander's death: and when his messengers came over the Alps
+demanding by what right a Pope had been consecrated without his
+consent, Gregory made mild reply that he was not consecrated, but was
+awaiting not the nomination but the consent of the Emperor, and that
+not till that had been received would he carry out the final rites.
+These were eventually performed with some sort of acquiescence from
+Henry, given through his wise and prudent ambassador, on the Feast of
+St. Peter, the 29th June, 1073. Gregory did what he could, as appears,
+to continue this mild treatment of Henry with all regard to his great
+position and power. He attempted to call together a very intimate
+council to discuss the state of affairs between the King and himself:
+a council of singular construction, which, but that the questions as
+to the influence and place of women are questions as old as history,
+and have been decided by every age according to no formal law but the
+character of the individuals before them, might be taken for an
+example of enlightenment before his time in Gregory's mind. He invited
+Duke Rudolf of Suabia, one of Henry's greatest subjects, a man of
+religious character and much reverence for the Holy See, to come to
+Rome, and in common with himself, the Empress Agnes, the two
+Countesses of Tuscany, the Bishop of Como (who was the confessor of
+Agnes), and other God-fearing persons, to consider the crisis at which
+the Church had arrived, and to hear and give advice upon the Pope's
+intentions and projects. The French historian Villemain throws
+discredit upon this projected consultation of "an ambitious vassal of
+the King of Germany and three women, one of whom had once been a
+prisoner in the camp of Henry III., the other had been brought up from
+infancy in the hate of the empire and the love of the Church, and the
+last was a fallen empress who was more the penitent of Rome than the
+mother of Henry." This seems, however, a futile enumeration. There
+could surely be no better defender found for a son accused than his
+mother, who we have no reason to suppose was ever estranged from him
+personally, and who shortly after went upon an embassy to him, and was
+received with every honour. Beatrice, on the other hand, had been the
+prisoner of his father the great Emperor, and not of young Henry of
+whom she was the relative and friend, and between whom and the Pope,
+as all good statesmen must have seen, it was of the greatest
+importance to Europe that there should be peace; while any strong
+personal feeling which might exist would be modified by Gregory
+himself, by Raymond of Como, and the wisest heads of Rome.
+
+But this board of advice and conciliation never sat, so we need not
+comment upon its possible concomitants. In every act of his first
+year, however, Gregory showed a desire to conciliate Henry rather than
+to defy him. The young king had his hands very full, and his great
+struggle with the Saxon nobles and people was not at the moment
+turning in his favour. And he had various natural defenders and
+partisans about the Roman Court. The Abbot Hugo of Cluny, who was one
+of Gregory's dearest friends, had been the young king's preceptor, and
+bore him a strong affection. We have no reason to believe that the
+influence of Agnes was not all on the side of her son, if not to
+support his acts, at least to palliate and excuse them. With one of
+these in his most intimate council, and one an anxious watcher
+outside, both in command of his ear and attention, it would have been
+strange if Gregory had been unwilling to hear anything that was in
+Henry's favour.
+
+And in fact something almost more than a full reconciliation seems to
+have been effected between the new Pope and the young king, so
+desirous of winning the imperial crown, and conscious that Gregory's
+help was of the utmost importance to him. Henry on his side wrote a
+letter to his "most loving lord and father," his "most desired lord,"
+breathing such an exemplary mind, so much penitence and submission,
+that Gregory describes it as "full of sweetness and obedience:" while
+the Pope, if not altogether removing the sword that hung suspended
+over Henry's head, at least received his communications graciously,
+and gave him full time and encouragement to change his mind and become
+the most trusted lieutenant of the Holy See. The King was accordingly
+left free to pursue his own affairs and his great struggle with the
+Saxons without any further question of ecclesiastical interference:
+while Gregory spent the whole ensuing year in a visitation of Italy,
+and much correspondence and conference on the subject of simony and
+other abuses in the Church. When he returned to Rome he endeavoured,
+but in vain, to act as peacemaker between Henry and the Saxons. And it
+was not till June in the year 1074, when he called together the first
+of the Lateran Councils, an assembly afterwards renewed yearly, a sort
+of potential Convocation, that further steps were taken. With this the
+first note of the great warfare to follow was struck. The seriousness
+of the letters by which he summoned its members sufficiently shows the
+importance attached to it.
+
+      "The princes and governors of this world, seeking their own
+      interest and not that of Jesus Christ, trample under foot
+      all the veneration they owe to the Church, and oppress her
+      like a slave. The priests and those charged with the
+      conduct of the Church sacrifice, the law of God, renounce
+      their obligations towards God and their flocks, seeking in
+      ecclesiastical dignities only the glory of this world, and
+      consuming in pomp and pride what ought to serve for the
+      salvation of many. The people, without prelates or sage
+      counsellors to lead them in the way of virtue, and who are
+      instructed by the example of their chiefs in all pernicious
+      things, go astray into every evil way, and bear the name of
+      Christian without its works, without even preserving the
+      principle of the faith. For these reasons, confident in the
+      mercies of God, we have resolved to assemble a Synod in
+      order to seek with the aid of our brethren for a remedy to
+      these evils, and that we may not see in our time the
+      irreparable ruin and destruction of the Church. Wherefore
+      we pray you as a brother, and warn you in the name of the
+      blessed Peter, prince of apostles, to appear at the day
+      fixed, convoking by this letter, and by your own, your
+      suffragan bishops; for we can vindicate the freedom of
+      religion and of ecclesiastical authority with much more
+      surety and strength according as we find ourselves
+      surrounded by the counsels of your prudence, and by the
+      presence of our brethren."
+
+A few Italian princes, Gisulfo of Salerno, Azzo d'Este, Beatrice and
+Matilda of Tuscany, were convoked to the council and held seats in it.
+The measures passed were very explicit and clear. They condemned the
+simoniacal clergy in every rank, deposing them from their positions
+and commanding them to withdraw from the ministrations of the altar.
+The same judgment was passed upon those who lived with wives or
+concubines. Both classes were put beyond the pale of the Church, and
+the people were forbidden, on pain of sharing their doom, to receive
+the sacraments from them, or to yield them obedience. Nothing more
+thorough and far-reaching could be. Hitherto the Popes had proceeded
+by courts of investigation, by examination of individuals, in which
+the alternative of repentance and renunciation was always open to the
+prelate who had perhaps inadvertently fallen into these crimes. But
+such gentle dealings had been but very partially successful. Here and
+there an archbishop or great abbot had been convicted by his peers,
+and made to descend from his high estate--here and there a great
+personage had risen in his place and made confession. Some had retired
+to the cloister, putting all their pomps and glories aside, and made a
+good end. But as is usual after every religious revival, life had
+risen up again and gone upon its usual course, and the bishoprics
+thus vacated had probably been sold to the highest bidder or yielded
+to the most violent assailant, as if no such reformation had ever
+been.
+
+The matter had gone too far now for any such occasional alleviations;
+and Gregory struck at the whole body of proud prelates, lords of
+secular as well as ecclesiastical greatness, men whose position was as
+powerful in politics and the affairs of the empire as was that of the
+princes and margraves who were their kin, and whom they naturally
+supported--as the others had supported them by money and influence in
+their rise to power: but who had very little time for the affairs of
+the Church, and less still for the preservation of peace and the
+redress of wrong.
+
+The other measures passed at this council were more searching still;
+they were aimed against the disorders into which the clergy had
+fallen, and chiefly what was to Gregory and his followers the great
+criminality, of married priests, who abounded in the Church. In this
+the lower orders of the clergy were chiefly assailed, for the more
+important members of the hierarchy did not marry though they might be
+vicious otherwise. But the rural priests, the little-educated and but
+little-esteemed clerks who abounded in every town and village, were
+very generally affected by the vice--if vice it was--of marriage,
+which was half legal and widely tolerated: and their determination not
+to abandon it was furious. Meetings of the clergy to oppose this
+condemnation were held in all quarters, and often ended in riot, the
+priests declaring that none of the good things of the Church fell to
+their lot, but that rather than give up their wives, their sole
+compensation, they would die. This was not likely to make Gregory's
+proceedings less determined: but it may easily be imagined what a
+prodigious convulsion such an edict was likely to make in the
+ecclesiastical world.
+
+It is said by the later historians that the Empress Agnes was made use
+of, with her attendant bishop and confessor, to carry these decrees
+to Henry's court: though this does not seem to be sanctioned by the
+elder authorities, who place the mission of Agnes in the previous
+year, and reckon it altogether one of peace and conciliation. But
+Henry still continued in a conciliatory frame of mind. His own affairs
+were not going well, and he was anxious to retain the Pope's support
+in the midst of his conflicts with his subjects. Neither do the great
+dignitaries appear to have made any public protest or resistance: it
+was the poor priests upon whom individually this edict pressed
+heavily, who were roused almost to the point of insurrection.
+
+One of the most curious effects of the decree was the spirit roused
+among the laity thus encouraged to judge and even to refuse the
+ministrations of an unworthy priest. Not only was their immediate
+conduct affected to acts of spiritual insubordination, but a
+fundamental change seems to have taken place in their conception of
+the priest's character. No doubt Gregory's legislation must have
+originated that determined though illogical opposition to a married
+priesthood, and disgust with the idea, which has had so singular a
+sway in Catholic countries ever since, and which would at the present
+moment we believe make any change in the celibate character of the
+priesthood impossible even were all other difficulties overcome. We
+are not aware that it had existed in any force before. The thing had
+been almost too common for remark: and there seems to have been no
+fierce opposition to the principle. It arose now gradually yet with a
+force beyond control: there were many cases of laymen baptizing their
+children themselves, rather then give them into the hands of a
+polluted priest--until there arose almost a risk of general
+indifference to this sacrament because of the rising conviction that
+the hands which administered it were unworthy: and other religious
+observances were neglected in the same way, an effect which must have
+been the reverse of anything intended by the Pope. To this hour in
+all Catholic countries an inexpressible disgust with the thought,
+mingles even with the theory that perhaps society might be improved
+were the priest a married man, and so far forced to content himself
+with the affairs of his own house. Probably it was Gregory's strong
+denunciation, and his charge to the people not to reverence, not to
+obey men so soiled: as well as the conviction long cultivated by the
+Church, and by this time become a dogma, that the ascetic life was in
+all cases the holiest--which originated this powerful general
+sentiment, more potent in deciding the fact of a celibate clergy than
+all the ecclesiastical decrees in the world.
+
+In the second Lateran Council held in the next year, at the beginning
+of Lent, along with the reiteration of the laws in respect to simony
+and the priesthood, a solemn decree against lay investiture was passed
+by the Church. This law transferred the struggle to a higher ground.
+It was no longer bishops and prelates of all classes, no longer simple
+priests, but the greatest sovereigns, all of whom had as a matter of
+course given ecclesiastical benefices as they gave feudals fiefs, who
+were now involved. The law was as follows:
+
+"Whosoever shall receive from the hands of a layman a bishopric, or an
+abbey, shall not be counted among the bishops and abbots, nor share
+their privileges. We interdict him from entrance into the Church and
+from the grace of St. Peter until he shall have resigned the dignity
+thus acquired by ambition and disobedience, which are equal to
+idolatry. Also, if any emperor, duke, marquis, count, or other secular
+authority shall presume to give investiture of a bishopric or other
+dignity of the Church, let him understand that the same penalty shall
+be exacted from him."
+
+The position of affairs between Pope and Emperor was thus
+fundamentally altered. The father of Henry, a much more faithful son
+of the Church, had almost without opposition made Popes by his own
+will where now his son was interdicted from appointing a single
+bishop. The evil was great enough perhaps for this great remedy, and
+Gregory, who had gone so far, was restrained now by no prudent
+precautions from proceeding to the utmost length possible. The day of
+prudence was over; he had entered upon a path in which there was no
+drawing back. That it was not done lightly or without profound and
+painful thought, and a deep sense of danger and impending trouble, is
+apparent from the following letter in which the Pope unbosoms himself
+to the head of his former convent, the great Hugo of Cluny, his own
+warm friend, and at the same time Henry's tutor and constant defender.
+
+      "I am overwhelmed (he writes) with great sorrow and
+      trouble. Wherever I look, south, north, or west, I see not
+      a single bishop whose promotion and conduct are legal, and
+      who governs the Christian people for the love of Christ,
+      and not by temporal ambition. As for secular princes, there
+      is not one who prefers the glory of God to his own, or
+      justice to interest. Those among whom I live--the Romans,
+      the Lombards, the Normans--are, as I tell them to their
+      faces, worse than Jews and Pagans. And when I return within
+      myself, I am so overwhelmed by the weight of life that I
+      feel no longer hope in anything but the mercy of Christ."
+
+Notwithstanding the supreme importance of this question, and Gregory's
+deep sense of the tremendous character of the struggle on which he had
+thus engaged, matters of public morality in other ways were not
+sacrificed to these great proceedings for the honour of the Church. He
+not only himself assumed, but pressed upon all spiritual authorities
+under him, the duty and need of prompt interference in the cause of
+justice and public honesty. The letters which follow were called forth
+by a remarkable breach of these laws of honesty and the protection due
+to strangers and travellers which are fundamental rules of society.
+This was the spoliation of certain merchants robbed in their passage
+through France, and from whom the Pope accuses the young King Philip
+I. to have taken, "like a brigand, an immense sum of money." Gregory
+addresses himself to the bishops of France in warning and entreaty as
+follows:
+
+      "As it is not possible that such crimes should escape the
+      sentence of the Supreme Judge, we pray you and we warn you
+      with true charity to be careful and not to draw upon
+      yourself the prophet's curse: 'Woe to him who turns back
+      his sword from blood'--that is to say, as you well
+      understand, who does not use the sword of the Word for the
+      correction of worldly men; for you are in fault, my
+      brethren, you who, instead of opposing these vile
+      proceedings with all the rigour of the priesthood,
+      encourage wickedness by your silence. It is useless to
+      speak of fear. United and armed to defend the just, your
+      force will be such that you will be able to quench evil
+      passions in penitence. And even if there were danger, that
+      is no reason for giving up the freedom of your priesthood.
+      We pray you, then, and we warn you by the authority of the
+      Apostles, to unite in the interest of your country, of your
+      glory and salvation, in a common and unanimous counsel. Go
+      to the king, tell him of his shame, of his danger and that
+      of his kingdom. Show him to his face how criminal are his
+      acts and motives, endeavour to move him by every inducement
+      that he may undo the harm which he has done.
+
+      "But if he will not listen to you, and if, scorning the
+      wrath of God, and indifferent to his own royal dignity, to
+      his own salvation and that of his people, he is obstinate
+      in the hardness of his heart, let him hear as from our
+      mouth that he cannot escape much longer the sword of
+      apostolic punishment."
+
+These are not such words as Peter was ever commissioned in Holy Writ
+to give forth; but granting all the pretensions of Peter's successors,
+as so many good Christians do, it is no ignoble voice which thus
+raises itself in warning, which thus denounces the vengeance of the
+Church against the evil-doer, be he bishop, clown, or king. Gregory
+had neither armies nor great wealth to support his interference with
+the course of the world--he had only right and justice, and a profound
+faith in his mission. He risked everything--his life (so small a
+matter!), his position, even the safety of the Church itself, which
+these potentates could have crushed under their mailed shoes; but that
+there should be one voice which would not lie, one champion who would
+not be turned aside, one witness for good, always and everywhere,
+against evil, was surely as noble a pretension as ever was lifted
+under heaven. It was to extend the power of Rome, all the historians
+say; which no doubt he wished to do. But whether to extend the power
+of Rome was his first object, or to pursue guilt and cruelty and
+falsehood out of the very boundaries of the world if one man could
+drive them forth, God only can judge. When there are two evident
+motives, however, it is not always wise to believe that the worst is
+the one to choose.
+
+In most curious contrast to these great and daring utterances is the
+incident, quite temporary and of no real importance, in his life,
+which occurred to Pope Gregory at the very moment when he was thus
+threatening a world lying in wickedness with the thunderbolts of Rome.
+The city which had gone through so many convulsions, and was now the
+centre of the pilgrimages of the world, was still in its form and
+construction the ancient Rome, and more or less a city of ruins. The
+vast open spaces, forums, circuses, great squares, and amphitheatres,
+which made old Rome so spacious and magnificent, still existed as they
+still to a certain extent exist. But no great builder had as yet
+arisen among the Popes, no one wealthy enough or with leisure enough
+to order the city upon new lines, to give it a modern shape, or reduce
+it to the dimensions necessary for its limited population. It was
+still a great quarry for the world, full of treasures that could be
+carried away, a reservoir and storehouse of relics to which every man
+might help himself. Professor Lanciani, the accomplished and learned
+savant to whom we owe so much information concerning the ancient city,
+has shown us how much mediæval covetousness in this way had to do with
+the actual disappearance of ancient buildings, stone by stone. But
+this was not the only offence committed against the monuments of the
+past. The great edifices of the classic age were often turned, not
+without advantage in the sense of the picturesque, into strongholds of
+the nobles, sometimes almost as much isolated amid the great gaps of
+ruins as in the Campagna outside. The only buildings belonging to the
+time were monasteries, generally surrounded by strong walls, capable
+of affording protection to a powerful community, and in which the
+humble and poor could find refuge in time of trouble. These
+establishments, and the mediæval fortresses and towers built into the
+midst of the ruins, occupied with many wild spaces between, where the
+luxuriant herbage buried fallen pillars and broken foundations, the
+wastes of desolation which filled up half the area of the town. The
+population seems to have clustered about the eastern end of the city;
+all the life of which one reads, except an occasional tumult around
+St. Peter's and north of St. Angelo, seems to have passed on the
+slopes or under the shadow of the Aventine and Coelian hills, from
+thence to the Latin gate, and the Pope's palace there, the centre of
+government and state--and on the hill of the Capitol, where still the
+people gathered when there was a motive for a popular assembly. The
+ordinary populace must have swarmed in whatsoever half-ruined barracks
+of old palaces, or squalid huts of new erection hanging on to their
+skirts, might be attainable in these quarters, clustering together for
+warmth and safety, while the rest of the city lay waste, sprinkled
+with ruins and desolate paths, with great houses here and there in
+which the strangely mixed race bearing the names, often
+self-appropriated, of ancient Roman patrician families, lived and
+robbed and made petty war, and besieged each other within their strong
+walls.
+
+One of these fortified houses or towers, built at or on the bridge of
+St. Angelo--in which the noble owner sat like a spider, drawing in
+flies to his web, taking toll of every stranger who entered Rome by
+that way--belonged to a certain Cencio[3] or Cencius of the family of
+Tusculum, the son of the Præfect of Rome. The Præfect, unlike his
+family, was one of the most devoted adherents of the Popes; he is,
+indeed, in the curious glimpse afforded to us by history, one of the
+most singular figures that occur in that crowded foreground. A
+mediæval noble and high official, he was at the same time a
+lay-preacher, delighted to exercise his gift when the more legitimate
+sermon failed from any cause, and only too proud, it would appear, of
+hearing his own voice in the pulpit. That his son should be of a very
+different disposition was perhaps not to be wondered at. Cencius was
+as turbulent as his father was pious; but he must have been a soldier
+of some note, as he held the post of Captain of St. Angelo, and in
+that capacity had maintained during a long siege the anti-pope
+Cadalous, or Honorius II., from whom, brigand as he was, he exacted a
+heavy ransom before permitting the unfortunate and too ambitious
+prelate to steal away like a thief in the night when his chance was
+evidently over. Cencius would seem to have lost his post in St.
+Angelo, but he maintained his robber's tower on the other end of the
+bridge, and was one of the most dangerous and turbulent of these
+internal enemies of Rome. During an interval of banishment, following
+a more than usually cruel murder, he had visited Germany, and had met
+at young Henry's court with many people to whom Pope Gregory was
+obnoxious, from Gottfried the Hunchback, the husband of the Countess
+Matilda, to the young king himself. Whether what followed was the
+result of any conspiracy, however, or if it was an outburst of mad
+vengeance on the part of Cencius himself, or the mere calculating
+impulse of a freebooter to secure a good ransom, is not known. A
+conspiracy, with Godfrey at the head of it, not without support from
+Henry, and the knowledge at least of the Archbishop of Ravenna and
+Robert Guiscard, all deeply irritated by the Pope's recent
+proceedings, was of course the favourite idea at the time. But no
+clear explanation of motives has ever been attained, and only the
+facts are known.
+
+On Christmas-eve it was the habit of the Popes to celebrate a midnight
+mass in the great basilica of Sta. Maria Maggiore in what was then a
+lonely and dangerous neighbourhood, though not very far from the
+Lateran Church and palace. It was usually the occasion of a great
+concourse from all parts of the city, attracted by the always popular
+midnight celebration. But on Christmas-eve of the year 1076 (Muratori
+says 1075) a great storm burst over the city as the hour approached
+for the ceremony. Torrents of rain, almost tropical in violence, as
+rain so often is in Rome, poured down from the blackness of the skies,
+extinguishing even the torches by which the Pope and his diminished
+procession made their way to the great church, blazing out cheerfully
+with all its lighted windows into the night. Besides the priests only
+a very small number of the people followed, and there was no such
+murmur and rustle of sympathy and warmth of heart as such an assembly
+generally calls forth. But the great altar was decorated for
+Christmas, and the Pope attired in his robes, and everything shining
+with light and brightness within, though the storm raged without. The
+mass was almost over, Gregory and the priests had communicated, the
+faithful company assembled were receiving their humbler share of the
+sacred feast, and in a few minutes the office would have been
+completed, when suddenly the church was filled with noise and clamour
+and armed men. There was no one to defend the priests at the altar,
+even had it been possible in the suddenness of the assault to do so.
+Cencius's band was composed of ruffians from every region, united only
+in their lawlessness and crime; they seized the Pope at the altar, one
+of them wounding him slightly in the forehead. It is said that he
+neither asked for mercy nor uttered a complaint, nor even an
+expostulation, but permitted himself without a word to be dragged out
+of the church, stripped of his robes, placed on a horse behind one of
+the troopers, and carried off into the night not knowing where.
+
+All this happened before the terrified priests and people--many of the
+latter probably poor women from the hovels round about--recovered
+their surprise. The wild band, with the Pope in the midst, galloped
+out into the blackness and the rain, passing under garden walls and
+the towers of silent monasteries, where the monks, too much accustomed
+to such sounds to take much notice, would hear the rush of the horses
+and the rude voices in the night with thankfulness that no thundering
+at the convent gates called upon them to give the free lances shelter.
+It appears that it was not to Cencius's stronghold on the bridge but
+to the house of one of his retainers that this great prize was
+conveyed. Here Gregory, in the cassock which he had worn under his
+gorgeous papal dress, wet and bleeding from the wound in his forehead,
+was flung without ceremony into an empty room. The story is that some
+devout man in the crowd and a Roman lady, by some chance witnessing
+the arrival of the band, stole in with them, and found their way to
+the place in which the Pope lay, covering him with their own furs and
+mantles and attending to his wound. And thus passed the Christmas
+morning in the misery of that cruel cold which, though rare, is
+nowhere more bitter than in Rome.
+
+  [Illustration: SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE.
+    _To face page 246._]
+
+In the meantime the terrified congregation in Sta. Maria Maggiore had
+recovered its senses, and messengers hurried out in all directions to
+trace the way by which the freebooters had gone, and to spread the
+news of the Pope's abduction. The storm had by this time passed over,
+and the people were easily roused on the eve of the great festival.
+Torches began to gleam by all the darkling ways, and the population
+poured forth in the excitement of a great event. It would seem that in
+all the tumultuous and factious city there was but one thought of
+horror at the sacrilege, and determination to save the Pope if it
+were still possible. Gregory was not, like his great predecessor the
+first of that name, the idol of his people. He had not the wealth with
+which many great ecclesiastics had secured the homage of the often
+famished crowd; and a stern man, with no special geniality of nature,
+and views that went so far beyond the local interests of Rome, he does
+not seem the kind of ruler to have secured popular favour. Yet the
+city had never been more unanimous, more determined in its resolution.
+The tocsin was sounded in all the quarters of Rome during that night
+of excitement; every soldier was called forth, guards were set at all
+the gates, lest the Pope should be conveyed out of the city; and the
+agitated crowd flocked to the Capitol, the only one of the seven hills
+of Rome where some kind of repair and restoration had been attempted,
+to consult, rich and poor together, people and nobles, what was to be
+done. To this spot came the scouts sent out in search of information,
+to report their discoveries. They had found that the Pope was still in
+Rome, and where he was--a prisoner, but as yet unharmed.
+
+With one impulse the people of Rome, forming themselves into an
+undignified but enthusiastic army, rushed down from their place of
+meeting towards the robber's castle. We hear of engines of war, and
+all the cumbrous adjuncts of a siege and means of breaching the walls,
+as if those articles had been all ready in preparation for any
+emergency. The palace, though strong, could not stand the assault of
+the whole population, and soon it was necessary to bring the Pope from
+his prison and show him at a window to pacify the assailants. Cencius
+did all that a ruffian in such circumstances would naturally do. He
+first tried to extract money and lands from the Pope's terrors, and
+then flung himself on his knees before Gregory, imploring forgiveness
+and protection. The first attempt was useless, for Gregory was not
+afraid; the second was more successful, for remorseless to the
+criminals whose evil acts or example injured the Church, the Pope was
+merciful enough to ordinary sinners, and had never condemned any man
+to death. "What you have done to me I pardon you as a father; but what
+you have done against God and the Church must be atoned for," said
+Gregory, still at the mercy of any rude companion in that band of
+ruffians: and he commanded his captor to make a pilgrimage to
+Jerusalem, to cleanse himself from this sin. The Pope was conveyed out
+of his prison by the excited and enthusiastic crowd, shouting and
+weeping, half for joy, and half at sight of the still bleeding scar on
+his forehead. But weak and exhausted as he was, without food, after a
+night and almost a day of such excitement, in which he had not known
+from one hour to another what might happen, helpless in the hands of
+his enemies, Gregory had but one thought--to conclude his mass which
+he had not finished when he was interrupted at the altar. He went back
+in his cassock, covered by the stranger's furred cloak, along the same
+wild way over which he had been hurried in the darkness; and followed
+by the entire population, which swarmed into every corner and blocked
+every entrance, returned to the great basilica, where he once more
+ascended the altar steps, completed the mass, offered his
+thanksgivings to God, and blessed and thanked his deliverers, before
+he sought in the quick falling twilight of the winter day the rest of
+his own house.
+
+It is common to increase the effect of this most picturesque scene by
+describing Gregory as an aged man, old and worn out, in the midst of
+his fierce foes; but he was barely sixty and still in the fulness of
+his strength, though spare and shrunken by many fasts and still more
+anxieties. That he had lost nothing of his vigour is evident, and in
+fact the incident, though never forgotten as a dramatic and telling
+episode by the historians, was a mere incident of no importance
+whatever in his life.
+
+In the meantime the Emperor Henry, who had been disposed to humility
+and penitence by the efforts of his mother, and by the distresses of
+his own position during a doubtful and dangerous intestine war, in
+which all at the time seemed to be going against him, had subdued the
+Saxons and recovered the upper hand: and, thus victorious in his own
+country, was no longer disposed to bow his neck under any spiritual
+yoke. He had paid no attention to Gregory's commands in respect to
+simony nor to the ordinance against lay investiture which had
+proceeded from the Council of 1075; but had, on the contrary, filled
+up several bishoprics in the old way, continued to receive the
+excommunicated nobles, and treated Gregory's decrees as if they had
+never been. His indignation at the Pope's interference--that
+indignation which every secular prince has always shown when
+interfered with by the Holy See, and which so easily translates the
+august titles of the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ, into
+a fierce denunciation of the "Italian priest" whom mediæval princes
+feared and hated--was only intensified by his supreme pretensions as
+Emperor, and grew in virulence as Gregory's undaunted front and
+continued exercise, so far as anathemas would do it, of the weapons of
+church discipline, stood steadily before him. It is very possible that
+the complete discomfiture of Cencius's attempt upon the Pope's liberty
+or life, to which Henry is believed to have been accessory, and the
+disgrace and ridicule of that failure, irritated and exasperated the
+young monarch, and that he felt henceforward that no terms could be
+kept with the man whom he had failed to destroy.
+
+Gregory, on the other hand, finding all his efforts unsuccessful to
+gain the submission of Henry, had again taken the strong step of
+summoning him to appear before the yearly council held in Rome at the
+beginning of Lent, there to answer for his indifference to its
+previous decisions. The following letter sent to Henry a short time
+after the attempt of Cencius, but in which not a word of that attempt
+is said, is a remarkable example of Gregory's dignified and unyielding
+attitude:
+
+      "Gregory, servant of the servants of God.
+
+      "To Henry, king, salutation and the blessing of the
+      apostles, if he obeys the apostolic see, as becomes a
+      Christian king.
+
+      "Considering with anxiety, within ourselves, to what
+      tribunal we have to give an account of the dispensation of
+      the ministry which has been extended to us by the Prince of
+      the apostles, we send you with doubt our apostolic
+      blessing, since we are assured that you live in close union
+      with men excommunicated by the judgment of the Apostolic
+      See and the censure of the synod. If this is true, you will
+      yourself perceive that you cannot receive the grace of
+      blessing either divine or apostolic, until you have
+      dismissed from your society these excommunicated persons,
+      or in forcing them to express their repentance have
+      yourself obtained absolution by penitence and expiation. We
+      counsel your highness, if you are guilty in this respect,
+      to have recourse, without delay, to the advice of some
+      pious bishop, who, under our authority, will direct you
+      what to do, and absolve you, informing us with your consent
+      of your penitence."
+
+The Pope goes on to point out, recalling to Henry's mind the promises
+he had made, and the assurances given--how different his conduct has
+been from his professions.
+
+      "In respect to the church of Milan, how you have kept the
+      engagements made with your mother, and with the bishops our
+      colleagues, and with what intention you made these
+      promises, the event itself shows. And now to add wound to
+      wound, you have disposed of the churches of Spoleto and of
+      Fermo. Is it possible that a man dares to transfer or give
+      a church to persons unknown to us, while the imposition of
+      hands is not permitted, except on those who are well known
+      and approved? Your own dignity demands, since you call
+      yourself the son of the Church, that you should honour him
+      who is at her head, that is the blessed Peter, the prince
+      of the apostles, to whom, if you are of the flock of the
+      Lord, you have been formally confided by the voice and
+      authority of the Lord--him to whom Christ said 'Feed my
+      sheep.' So long as we, sinful and unworthy as we are, hold
+      his place in his seat and apostolical government, it is he
+      who receives all that you address to us either by writing
+      or speech; and while we read your letters or listen to your
+      words, it is he who beholds with a penetrating eye what
+      manner of heart it is from which they come."
+
+In this dignified and serious remonstrance there is not a word of the
+personal insult and injury which the Pope himself had suffered. He
+passes over Cencius and his foiled villainy as if it had never been;
+but while Gregory could forget, Henry could not: and historians have
+traced to the failure of this desperate attempt to subdue or
+extinguish the too daring, too steadfast Pontiff, the new spirit--the
+impulse of equally desperate rage and vengeance--which took possession
+of the monarch, finding, after all his victories, that here was one
+opponent whom he could not overcome, whose voice could reach over all
+Christendom, and who bore penalties in his unarmed hand at which no
+crowned head could afford to smile. To crush the audacious priest to
+the earth, if not by the base ministry of Roman bravos, then by the
+scarcely more clean hands of German barons and excommunicated bishops,
+was the impulse which now filled Henry's mind. He invoked a council in
+Worms, a month after the failure in Rome, which was attended by a
+large number, not only of the German nobility, but of the great
+ecclesiastics who nowhere had greater power, wealth, and influence
+than in Teutonic countries. Half of them had been condemned by Gregory
+for simony or other vices, many of them were aware that they were
+liable to similar penalties. The reformer Pope, who after the many
+tentatives and half-measures of his predecessors, was now supreme, and
+would shrink from nothing in his great mission of purifying the
+Church, was a constant danger and fear to these great mediæval nobles
+varnished over with the names of churchmen. One stroke had failed: but
+another was quite possible which great Henry the king, triumphant over
+all his enemies, might surely with their help and sanction bring to
+pass.
+
+The peers spiritual and temporal, the princes who scorned the
+interference of a priest, and the priests who feared the loss of all
+their honours and the disgrace and humiliation with which the Pope
+threatened them, came together in crowds to pull down their enemy from
+his throne. Nothing so bold had ever been attempted since Christendom
+had grown into the comity of nations it now was. Cencius had pulled
+the Pope from the altar steps in the night and dark: Henry and his
+court assembled in broad day, with every circumstance of pomp and
+publicity, to drag him from his spiritual throne. It would be
+difficult to say whether the palm of fierceness and brutality should
+be given to the brigand of the Tusculan hills, or to the great king,
+princes, archbishops, and bishops of the Teutonic empire. Cencius
+swore in his beard, unheard of after generations; the others, less
+fortunate, have left on record what were the manner of words they
+said. This is the solemn act signed by all the members of the
+assembly, by which the Pope was to learn his doom. It is a long and
+furious scold from beginning to end.
+
+      "Hildebrand, taking the name of Gregory, is the first who,
+      without our knowledge, against the will of the emperor
+      chosen by God, contrary to the habit of our ancestors,
+      contrary to the laws, has, by his ambition alone, invaded
+      the papacy. He does whatever pleases him, right or wrong,
+      good or evil. An apostate monk, he degrades theology by new
+      doctrines and false interpretations, alters the holy books
+      to suit his personal interests, mixes the sacred and
+      profane, opens his ears to demons and to calumny, and makes
+      himself at once judge, witness, accuser, and defender. He
+      separates husbands from wives, prefers immodest women to
+      chaste wives, and adulterous and debauched and incestuous
+      connections to legitimate unions; he raises the people
+      against their bishops and priests. He recognises those only
+      as legally ordained who have begged the priesthood from his
+      hands, or who have bought it from the instruments of his
+      extortions; he deceives the vulgar by a feigned religion,
+      fabricated in a womanish senate: it is there that he
+      discusses the sacred mysteries of religion, ruins the
+      papacy, and attacks at once the holy see and the empire. He
+      is guilty of _lèse-majesté_ both divine and human, desiring
+      to deprive of life and rank our consecrated emperor and
+      gracious sovereign.
+
+      "For these reasons, the emperor, the bishops, the senate,
+      and the Christian people declare him deposed, and will no
+      longer leave the sheep of Christ to the keeping of this
+      devouring wolf."
+
+Among the papers sent to Rome this insolent act is repeated at greater
+length, accompanied by various addresses to the bishops and people,
+and two letters to the Pope himself, from one of which, the least
+insolent, we quote a few sentences.
+
+      "Henry, king by the grace of God, to Hildebrand.
+
+      "While I expected from you the treatment of a father, and
+      deferred to you in everything, to the great indignation of
+      my faithful subjects, I have experienced on your part in
+      return the treatment which I might have looked for from the
+      most pernicious enemy of my life and kingdom.
+
+      "First having robbed me by an insolent procedure of the
+      hereditary dignity which was my right in Rome, you have
+      gone further--you have attempted by detestable artifices to
+      alienate from me the kingdom of Italy. Not content with
+      this, you have put forth your hand on venerable bishops who
+      are united to me as the most precious members of my body,
+      and have worn them out with affronts and injustice against
+      all laws human and divine. Judging that this unheard-of
+      insolence ought to be met by acts, not by words, I have
+      called together a general assembly of all the greatest in
+      my kingdom, at their own request, and when there had been
+      publicly produced before them things hidden up to that
+      moment, from fear or respect, their declarations have made
+      manifest the impossibility of retaining you in the Holy
+      See. Therefore adhering to their sentence, which seems to
+      me just and praiseworthy before God and men, I forbid to
+      you the jurisdiction of Pope which you have exercised, and
+      I command you to come down from the Apostolic See of Rome,
+      the superiority of which belongs to me by the gift of God,
+      and the assent and oath of the Romans."
+
+The other letter ends with the following adjuration, which the king
+prefaces by quoting the words of St. Paul: "If an angel from heaven
+preach any other doctrine to you than that we have preached unto you,
+let him be accursed":
+
+      "You who are struck by this curse and condemned by the
+      judgment of the bishops and by our own, come down, leave
+      the apostolic chair; let another assume the throne of St.
+      Peter, not to cover violence with the mantle of religion,
+      but to teach the doctrine of the blessed apostle. I, Henry,
+      king by the grace of God, and all my bishops, we command
+      you, come down, come down!"
+
+These letters were sent to Rome by Count Eberhard, the same who had
+come to inquire into the election of Gregory two years before, and had
+confirmed and consented to it in the name of his master. He was
+himself one of the excommunicated barons whom Gregory had struck for
+simoniacal grants of benefices; but he had not the courage to carry
+fire and flame into the very household of the Pope. He did, however,
+all the harm he could, publishing the contents of the letters he
+carried in the great Italian cities, where every guilty priest
+rejoiced to think that he had thus escaped the hands of the terrible
+Gregory. But when he came within reach of Rome the great German baron
+lost heart. He found a substitute in a priest of Parma, a hot-headed
+partisan, one of those instruments of malice who are insensible to the
+peril of burning fuse or sudden explosion. The conspirators calculated
+with a sense of the dramatic which could scarcely have been expected
+from their nationality, and which looks more like the inspiration of
+the Italian himself--that he should arrive in Rome on the eve of the
+yearly council held in the Lateran at the beginning of Lent. This
+yearly synod was a more than usually important one; for already the
+news of the decision at Worms was known in Italy, and a great number
+of the clergy, both small and great, had crowded to Rome. A hundred
+and ten prelates are reckoned as present, besides many other
+dignitaries. Among them sat, as usual on such occasions, Beatrice and
+Matilda of Tuscany, the only secular protectors of Gregory, the
+greatest and nearest of Italian sovereigns. It was their presence that
+was aimed at in the strangely abusive edict of Worms as making the
+Council a womanish senate: and it was also Matilda's case which was
+referred to in the accusation that the Pope separated husbands from
+their wives. The excitement of expectation was in the air as all the
+strangers in Rome, and the people, ever stirred like the Athenians by
+the desire to hear some new thing, thronged the corridors and
+ante-chapels of the Lateran, the great portico and square which were
+for the moment the centre of Rome. Again the vast basilica, the
+rustling mediæval crowd in all its glow of colour and picturesqueness
+of grouping, rises before us. Few scenes more startling and dramatic
+have ever occurred even in that place of many histories.
+
+The Pope had seated himself in the chair of St. Peter, the long
+half-circular line of the great prelates extending down the long
+basilica on either side, the princes in a tribune apart with their
+attendants, and the crowd of priests filling up every corner and
+crevice: the _Veni Creator_ had been sung: and the proceedings were
+about to begin--when Roland of Parma was introduced, no doubt with
+much courtesy and ceremony, as the bearer of letters from the Emperor.
+When these letters were taken from him, however, the envoy, instead of
+withdrawing, as became him, stood still at the foot of the Pope's
+chair, and to the consternation, as may be supposed, of the assembly,
+addressed Gregory. "The king, my master," he cried, "and all the
+bishops, foreign and Italian, command you to quit instantly the Church
+of Rome, and the chair of Peter." Then turning quickly to the
+astonished assembly, "My brethren," he cried, "you are hereby warned
+to appear at Pentecost in the presence of the king to receive your
+Pope from him; for this is no Pope but a devouring wolf."
+
+The intensity of the surprise alone can account for the possibility of
+the most rapid speaker delivering himself of so many words before the
+assembly rose upon him to shut his insolent mouth. The Bishop of Porto
+was the first to spring up, to cry "Seize him!" but no doubt a hundred
+hands were at his throat before the Prætorian guard, with their naked
+swords making a keen line of steel through the shadows of the crowded
+basilica, now full of shouts and tumult, came in from the gates. The
+wretch threw himself at the feet of the Pope whom he had that moment
+insulted, and who seems to have come down hurriedly to rescue him from
+the fury of the crowd: and was with difficulty placed under the
+protection of the soldiers. It is not difficult to imagine the supreme
+excitement which must have filled the church as they disappeared with
+their prisoner, and the agitated assembly turned again towards their
+head, the insulted pontiff. Gregory was not the man to fail in such an
+emergency. He entreated the assembly to retain its composure and calm.
+"My children," he said, "let not the peace of the Church be broken by
+you. Perilous times, the gospel itself tells us, shall come: times in
+which men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,
+disobedient to parents. It must needs be that offences come, and the
+Lord has sent us as sheep into the midst of wolves. We have long lived
+in peace, but it may be that God would now water his growing corn with
+the blood of martyrs. We behold the devil's force at length displaying
+itself against us in the open field. Now, therefore, as it behoves the
+disciples of Christ with hands trained to the war, let us meet him and
+bravely contend with him until the holy faith which through his
+practices appears to be throughout the world abandoned and despised
+shall, the Lord fighting through us, be restored."
+
+It seems a strange descent from the dignity of this address, that the
+Pope should have gone on to comment upon a marvellous egg which it was
+said had been found near the church of St. Peter, with a strange
+design raised upon its surface--a buckler with the figure of a serpent
+underneath, struggling with bent head and wriggling body to get free.
+This had seemed, however, a wonderful portent to all Rome, and though
+his modern historians censure Gregory for having no doubt prepared the
+prodigy and taken a despicable advantage of it, there does not seem
+the slightest reason to suppose either that Gregory was guilty of
+this, or that he was so little a man of his time as not to be himself
+as much impressed by it as any one else there. Appearances of the
+kind, which an age on the lookout for portents can define, and make
+others see, are not wanting in any period. The crowd responded with
+cries that it was he, the father of the Church, who was supreme, and
+that the blasphemer should be cut off from the Church and from his
+throne.
+
+The sensation was not lessened when the full text[4] of Henry's
+letters, parts of which we have already quoted, was read out to the
+reassembled council next day. The words which named their Pope--their
+head who had been the providence and the guide of Rome for so many
+years--with contemptuous abuse as "the monk Hildebrand," must have
+stirred that assembly to its depths. The council with one voice
+demanded from Gregory the excommunication of the Emperor, and of the
+impious bishops, false to every vow, who had ventured to launch an
+anathema against the lawful head of the Church. The solemn sentence of
+excommunication was accordingly pronounced against Henry: his subjects
+were freed from their oath of allegiance, and his soul cut off from
+the Church which he had attempted to rend in twain. Excommunications
+had become so common in these days that the awe of the extraordinary
+ceremonial was much lessened: but it was no mere spiritual
+deprivation, as all were aware, but the most tremendous sentence which
+could be launched against a man not yet assured in his victories over
+his own rebellious tributaries, and whose throne depended upon the
+fidelity of powerful vassals, many of whom were much more impressed by
+the attitude of the Pope than by that of the king.
+
+Thus after so many preliminaries, treaties of peace and declarations
+of war, the great conflict between Pope and Emperor, between the
+Church and the State, began. The long feud which ran into every local
+channel, and rent every mediæval town asunder with the struggles of
+Guelfs and Ghibellines, thus originated amid events that shook the
+world. The Synod of Worms and the Council of Rome, with their sudden
+and extraordinary climax in the conference of Canossa, formed the
+first act in a drama played upon a larger stage and with more
+remarkable accompaniments than almost any other in the world.
+
+The effect of Henry's excommunication was extraordinary. The world of
+Christendom, looking on beyond the sphere of Henry's immediate
+surroundings and partisans, evidently felt with an impulse almost
+unanimous that the anathema launched by a partly lay assembly and a
+secular King against a reigning Pope unassailable in virtue, a man of
+power and genius equal to his position, was a sort of grim jest, the
+issue of which was to be watched for with much excitement, but not
+much doubt as to the result, the horror of the profanity being the
+gravest point in the matter. But no one doubted the power of Gregory
+on his part, amid his lawful council, to excommunicate and cut off
+from the Church the offending king. Already, before the facts were
+known, many bishops and other ecclesiastics in Germany had sent timid
+protests against the act to which in some cases they had been forced
+to append their names: and the public opinion of the world, if such an
+expression can be used, was undoubtedly on Gregory's side. Henry's
+triumphant career came to a pause. Not only the judgment of the Church
+and the opinion of his peers, but the powers of Heaven seemed to be
+against him. One of his greatest allies and supporters, Gottfried,
+surnamed Il Gobbo, the son of that Gottfried of Lorraine who married
+Beatrice of Tuscany, and who had imposed his hunchback son as her
+husband upon the young Matilda, the daughter of Beatrice--was murdered
+immediately after. The Bishop of Utrecht, who had been one of the
+king's chief advisers and confidants in his war with Gregory, died in
+misery and despair, declaring with his last breath that he saw his bed
+surrounded by demons, and that it was useless to offer prayers for
+him. On the other hand, the great Dukes of Suabia, Bavaria, and
+Carinthia, all faithful to the Church, abandoned the excommunicated
+king. Some of the greater bishops, trembling before the just ire of
+the Pope whom they had bearded, took the same part. The half-assuaged
+rebellion of the Saxon provinces broke forth with greater force than
+ever. Henry had neither arms nor supporters left to secure further
+victories, and the very air of the empire was full of the letters of
+Gregory, in which all his attempts to win the young king to better
+ways, and all the insults which that king had poured forth against the
+Holy See, were set forth. The punishment, as it appeared on all sides,
+was prompt as thunderbolts from heaven to follow the offence.
+
+While Henry hesitated in dismay and alarm, not knowing what step to
+take, seeing his friends, both lay and clerical, abandon him on every
+side, consequences more decisive still followed. The great princes met
+together in an assembly of their own in Ulm without any reference to
+Henry, whom they named in their proceedings the ex-king, and decided
+upon another more formal meeting later to choose a new sovereign.
+These potentates became doubly religious, doubly Catholic, in their
+sudden revulsion. They surrounded Gregory's legates with reverence,
+they avoided all communion with simoniacal prelates, and
+even--carrying the Pope's new influence to the furthest extent--with
+the married priests against whom he had long fulminated in vain. A
+reformation of all evils seemed to be about to follow. They formally
+condemned the excommunicated Henry on every point moral and political,
+and though they hesitated over the great step of the threatened
+election of a king in his place, they announced to him that unless he
+could clear himself of the interdict before the beginning of the
+following year, when they had decided to call a diet in Augsburg to
+settle the question, his fall would be complete and without remedy. At
+the same time they formally and solemnly invited the presence of the
+Pope at Augsburg to preside over and confirm their conclusions. This
+invitation Gregory accepted at once, and Henry, with no alternative
+before him, consented also to appear before the tribunal of his
+subjects, and to receive from their hands, and those of the Pope whom
+he had so insulted and outraged, the sentence of his fate. His
+humiliation was complete.
+
+The assembly which was to make this tremendous decision was convoked
+for the 2nd February, 1077, the feast of the Purification, at
+Augsburg. Gregory had accepted the invitation of the German potentates
+without fear; but there was much alarm in Rome at the thought of such
+a journey--of the passage through rebellious Lombardy, of the terrible
+Alps and their dangers, and at the end of all the fierce German
+princes, who did not always keep faith, and whose minds before this
+time might have turned again towards their native prince. The Pope set
+out, however, under the guard of Matilda of Tuscany and her army, to
+meet the escort promised him from beyond the Alps. On the other hand,
+Henry was surrounded by dangers on every side. He had been compelled
+to give up his own special friends, excommunicated like himself; he
+had no arms, no troops, no money; the term which had been allowed him
+to make his peace with the Pope was fast passing, and the dreadful
+moment when it would be his fate to stand before his revolted subjects
+and learn their decision, appeared before him in all its humiliation
+and dishonour. Already various offenders had stolen across the
+mountains privately, to make their submission to Gregory. It seemed
+the only course for the desperate king to take. At length, after much
+wavering, he made up his mind, and escaping like a fugitive from the
+town of Spires to which he had retired, he made his way in the midst
+of a rigorous winter, and with incredible difficulty, across the Alps,
+with the help and under the guardianship of Adelaide of Susa, his
+mother-in-law, who, however, it is said, made him pay a high price for
+her help. He had begged of the Pope to give him audience at Rome, but
+this was refused: and in partial despair and confusion he set out to
+accomplish his hated mission somehow, he did not know where or by what
+means. A gleam of comfort, however, came to Henry on his travels. He
+was received with open arms in Lombardy where the revolted bishops
+eagerly welcomed him as their deliverer from Gregory and his
+austerities: but there was too much at stake for such an easy solution
+of the matter as this.
+
+In the meantime Gregory travelled northwards surrounded by all the
+strength of Tuscany, accompanied by the brilliant and devoted Matilda,
+a daughter in love and in years, the pupil and youthful friend, no
+doubt the favourite and beloved companion, of a man whose age and
+profession and character alike would seem to have made any other idea
+impossible even to the slanderers of the middle ages. Matilda of
+Tuscany has had a great fate: not only was she the idol of her own
+people and the admired of her own age--such an impossible and absurd
+piece of slander as that which linked the name of a beautiful young
+woman with that of the austere and aged Gregory being apparently the
+only one which had ever been breathed against her:--but the great
+poets of her country have placed her, one in the sweeter aspect of a
+ministering angel of heaven, the other in that of the most heroic of
+feminine warriors, on the heights of poetic fame. Matilda on the banks
+of that sacred river of Lethe where all that is unhappy is forgotten,
+who is but one degree less sacred to Dante than his own Beatrice in
+Paradise: and Clorinda, the warrior maiden of Tasso, have carried the
+image of this noble princess to the hearts of many an after age. The
+hunchback husband imposed upon her in her extreme youth, the close
+union between her and her mother Beatrice, the independent court held
+by these two ladies, their prominent place among all the great minds
+of their time--and not least the faithful friendship of both with the
+great Gregory, combine to make this young princess one of the most
+interesting figures of her day. The usual solaces of life had been cut
+off from her at the beginning by her loveless marriage. She had no
+children. She was at this period of her career alone in the world, her
+mother having recently died, following Il Gobbo very closely to the
+grave. Henceforward Matilda had more to do in the field and council
+chamber than with the ordinary delights of life.
+
+The Pope had left Rome with many anxieties on his mind, fully
+appreciating the dangers of the journey before him, and not knowing if
+he might ever see the beloved city again. While he was on the way the
+news reached him that Henry, whom he had refused to receive in Rome,
+was on his way across the Alps, and as probably the details of that
+painful journey were unknown, and the first idea would be that the
+king was coming with an army in full force--still greater anxieties,
+if not alarms, must have been awakened among the Pope's supporters. It
+was still more alarming to find that the German escort which was to
+have met him at Mantua had not been sent, the hearts of the princes
+having failed them, and their plans having fallen into confusion at
+the news of the king's escape. Henry had been received with enthusiasm
+in Lombardy, always rebellious, and might make his appearance any day
+to overpower the chivalry of Tuscany, and put the lives of both Pope
+and Princess in danger. They were on the road to Mantua when this news
+reached them, and in the anxious council of war immediately held, it
+was resolved that the strong castle of Canossa, supposed to be
+impregnable, should be, for the moment at least, the Pope's shelter
+and resting-place. One of the great strongholds of Italy, built like
+so many on a formidable point of rock, of itself almost inaccessible,
+and surrounded by three lines of fortified walls, among which no doubt
+clustered the rude little dwellings of a host of retainers--the
+situation of this formidable place was one which promised complete
+protection: and the name of the Tuscan castle has since become one of
+the best-known names in history, as the incident which followed
+contains some of the most picturesque and remarkable scenes on record.
+The castle had already a romantic story; it had sheltered many a
+fugitive; forlorn princesses had taken refuge within its walls from
+the pursuit of suitors or of enemies, the one as dangerous as the
+other. Painfully carried up in his litter by those steep and dangerous
+ways, from one narrow platform of the cliff to another, with the great
+stretch of the landscape ever widening as he gained a higher point,
+and the vast vault of heaven rounding to a vaster horizon, the Pope
+gained this eyrie of safety, this eagle's nest among the clouds.
+
+We hear of no luxuries, not even those of intellectual and spiritual
+discourse, which to many an ascetic have represented, and represented
+well, the happiness of life, in this retreat of Gregory with his
+beautiful hostess, amid his and her friends. By his side, indeed, was
+Hugo, Abbot of Cluny, one of his most cherished and life-long
+companions; but the Pope spent his days of seclusion in prayer and
+anxious thought. The great plain that lay at his feet, should it be
+deluged with Christian blood once more, should brother stand against
+brother in arms, and Italy be crushed under the remorseless foot which
+even the more patient Teuton had not been able to bear? Many
+melancholy thoughts were no doubt in Gregory's mind in that great
+fastness surrounded by all the ramparts of nature and of art. He had
+dreamed--before the name of Crusade had yet been heard or thought
+of--of an expedition to Jerusalem at the head of all who loved the
+Lord, himself in his age and weakness the leader of an army composed
+of valiant and generous hearts from every quarter of the world, to
+redeem the Sepulchre of the Lord, and crush the rising power of the
+Saracens. This had been the favourite imagination of his mind--though
+as yet it called forth little sympathy from those about him--for some
+years past. Instead of that noble expedition was it possible that,
+perhaps partly by his fault, Christians were about to fly at each
+other's throats and the world to be again torn asunder by intestine
+warfare? But such thoughts as these were not the thoughts of the
+eleventh century. Gregory might shed tears before his God at the
+thought of bloodshed: but that his position in the presence of the
+Highest was the only right one, and his opponent's that of the most
+dangerous wrong, was no doubt his assured conviction. He awaited the
+progress of events, knowing as little as the humblest man-at-arms what
+was going to happen, with a troubled heart.
+
+Nevertheless the retirement of these first days was broken by many
+hurried arrivals which were more or less of good omen. One by one the
+proud German bishops specially designated in Gregory's acts of
+excommunication, and nobles more haughty still, under the same burden,
+climbed the steep paths of Canossa, and penetrated from gate to gate,
+barefooted pilgrims denuding themselves of every vestige of power.
+"Cursed be he who turns back his sword from the blood," that is, who
+weakly pauses in the execution of a divine sentence--was one of
+Gregory's maxims. He received these successive suppliants with more
+sternness than sweetness. "Mercy," he said, "can never be refused to
+those who acknowledge and deplore their sins; but long disobedience,
+like rust on a sword, can be burned out only by the fire of a long
+repentance;" and he sent them one by one to solitary chambers in
+which, with the sparest of nourishment, they might reflect upon their
+sins. After a sufficient seclusion, however, they were liberated and
+sent away, reprimanded yet blessed--at least the laymen among them. It
+remained now to see what Henry would do.
+
+  [Illustration: ARCH OF DRUSUS (1860).
+    _To face page 266._]
+
+Henry was no longer at the lowest ebb of his fortunes. The princes of
+Germany had come to a pause: they had not sent the promised escort for
+the Pope; they were irresolute, not knowing what step to take next:
+and all Lombardy had risen to welcome the king; he had the support of
+every schismatic bishop, every censured priest, and of the excited
+people who were hostile to the pretensions of Rome, or rather to the
+severe purity of Gregory which was so uncompromising and determined.
+But by some unaccountable check upon his high spirit Henry, for the
+moment, was not moved to further rebellion either by the support of a
+Lombard army at his back, or by the hopes of his reviving followers at
+home. He was accompanied by his wife and by her mother, Adelaide of
+Susa, and perhaps the veneration of the women for the authority of the
+Church and dread of its penalties, affected him, although he had no
+love for the wife of whom he had tried so hard to get rid. Whatever
+was the explanation it is very evident, at least, that his spirit was
+cowed and that he saw nothing before him but submission. He went on
+probably to Parma, with a small and unarmed retinue, leaving his
+turbulent Lombard followers behind. On the way he sent various
+messengers before him, asking for an interview with Matilda, who was
+supposed likely to move the Pope in his favour. We are not told where
+the meeting took place, but probably it was in some wondering village
+at the foot of the hill, where the princely train from the castle, the
+great Contessa, the still greater abbot, Hugo of Cluny, and "many of
+the principal Italian princes," met the wandering pilgrim party,
+without sign or evidence of royalty--Henry and his Queen, the Marchesa
+Adelaide of Este, her son Amadeo, and other great persons in the same
+disguise of humility. The ladies on either side were related to each
+other, and all belonged to that close circle of the reigning class, in
+which every man calls his neighbour brother or cousin. Hugo of Cluny
+was the godfather of the king and loved him, and Adelaide, though on
+the side of her son-in-law, and now his eager champion, was a true and
+faithful daughter of the Church. Henry declared on the other side to
+his anxious friends that the accusations of the Germans were not true,
+that he was not as they had painted him: and implored their
+intercession with the Pope, not for any temporal advantage, but solely
+to be delivered from the anathema which weighed upon his soul. And
+Matilda and the others were but too anxious to make peace and put
+faith in all he said.
+
+It is very likely that Gregory believed none of these protestations,
+but now or never, certainly he was bound to fulfil his own maxim, and
+not to turn back his sword from the blood. All the arguments of
+Henry's friends could not induce him to grant an easy absolution at
+the king's first word. Finally he consented to receive him as a
+penitent, but in no other character. Probably it was while the prayers
+and entreaties of Matilda and of Abbot Hugo were still going on in the
+castle that Henry came day by day, barefooted, in a humble tunic of
+woollen cloth, and waited at the gates to know the result. It was "an
+atrocious winter," such as had never been seen before, with continual
+snowstorms, and the rugged paths and stairs up the cliff, never easy,
+were coated with frost. Twice over the king climbed with naked feet as
+far as the second circle of the walls, but only to be turned away. It
+seems little short of a miracle that such a man, in such
+circumstances, should have so persevered. On the third day the
+pleaders within had been successful, and Henry was admitted, on the
+generous guarantee of Matilda, who took upon her to answer for him
+that his repentance was genuine. At last the culprit was led into the
+Pope's presence. He was made to give various promises of amendment,
+which were accepted, not on his oath, a last and supreme humiliation,
+but on the undertaking of various of his friends who swore, rashly one
+cannot but think, on the relics of the saints that the king would keep
+his promises. This is the document to which these generous friends set
+their seals.
+
+      "I, Henry, King, in respect to the complaints of the
+      archbishops, bishops, dukes, counts and other princes of
+      the Teutonic kingdom, and of all those who follow them,
+      within the time fixed by the Lord Pope will do justice
+      according to his sentence, or make peace according to his
+      advice if no unavoidable hindrance occurs; and in that
+      case, the moment the hindrance is taken away I will be
+      ready to fulfil my promise. In addition, if the Lord Pope
+      Gregory desires to cross the Alps, or go into other
+      countries, he shall be held safe on my part, and on the
+      part of those whom I command, from all danger of death,
+      mutilation, or captivity, himself and those who form his
+      escort, both during the journey, as long as he remains, and
+      on the return; nothing shall be done by me contrary to his
+      dignity, and if anything is done by others, I will lend him
+      my help in good faith according to my power."
+
+This does not seem a very large bond.
+
+Next day, the 25th January, 1077, Henry came again in the same
+penitential dress, but this time according to formal appointment. He
+came into the room where the Pope awaited him, followed by all the
+excommunicated princes in his train, barefooted and half frozen with
+the painful climb up the rocky paths; and throwing himself on the
+floor before Gregory, asked his pardon, which Gregory gave, shedding
+many tears over the penitents. They were then received back into the
+Church with all the due ceremonials, the Pope in his vestments, the
+penitents naked to the waist, despoiled of all ornaments and
+dignities. In the castle church, of which now nothing but the
+foundations remain, Gregory solemnly absolved the miserable party, and
+offered them the Communion. At this act a very strange scene took
+place. The Pope, the great assailant of Simony, had himself been
+accused of it, ridiculous as was the accusation in a case like his, of
+which every circumstance was so perfectly known, and formally by Henry
+himself in the insolent command already quoted to abandon the papal
+see. At the moment of communion, in the most solemn part of the
+service, the Pope turned to Henry, standing before the altar, with the
+host in his hands. He appealed to God in the most impressive manner
+according to the usage of the time.
+
+"You have long and often accused me," said the Pope, "of having
+usurped the Apostolical chair by Simony.... I now hold the body of the
+Saviour in my hands, which I am about to take. Let Him be the witness
+of my innocence: let God Himself all powerful absolve me to-day of the
+crime imputed to me if I am innocent, or strike me with sudden death
+if I am guilty." Then after a solemn pause he added: "My son, do as I
+have done: if you are certain of your innocence, if your reputation is
+falsely attacked by the lies of your rivals, deliver the Church of God
+from a scandal and yourself from suspicion; take the body of Our Lord,
+that your innocence may have God for witness, that the mouth of your
+enemies may be stopped, and that I--henceforward, your advocate and
+the most faithful defender of your cause--may reconcile you with your
+nobles, give you back your kingdom, and that the tempest of civil war
+which has so long afflicted the State may henceforth be laid at rest."
+
+Would a guilty king in these unbelieving days venture upon such a
+pledge? Henry at least was incapable of it. He dared not call God to
+witness against the truth, and refused, trembling, murmuring confused
+excuses to take this supreme test. The mass was accomplished without
+the communion of the king; but not the less he was absolved and the
+anathema taken from his head.
+
+In a letter written immediately after, Gregory informed the German
+princes of what he had done, adding that he still desired to cross the
+Alps and assist them in the settlement of the great question
+remaining, Henry having been avowedly received by him as a penitent,
+but not in any way as a restored king.
+
+This great historical event, which has been the subject of so much
+commentary and discussion, and has been supposed to mark so great a
+step in the power and pretensions of the Popes, was in fact without
+any immediate effect in history. Henry went forth wroth and sore,
+humiliated but not humbled, and thinking of nothing so much as how to
+return to Gregory the shame he had himself suffered. And Gregory
+remained in his stronghold as little convinced of any advantage
+attained, as he had been of Henry's repentance. He is said to have
+answered the Saxon envoys who reproached him with his leniency, by a
+grim reassurance which is almost cynical. "He goes back worse than he
+came," said the Pope. It was indeed impossible that the eye of a man
+so conversant with men as Gregory should not have perceived how
+entirely his penitent's action was diplomatic and assumed for a
+purpose, and what a solemn farce Henry was playing as he stood
+barefooted in the snow, to obtain the absolution which was his only
+chance for Germany. It is perfectly permissible to believe that not
+only the determination not "to turn back his sword from the blood" or
+to fail in exacting every punctilio of penance, but a natural impulse
+of scorn for the histrionic exhibition made for the benefit of the
+great audience across the Alps, induced the Pope to keep the king
+dangling at those icy gates. That there should have been in Gregory's
+mind, along with this conviction, momentary relentings of hope that
+the penitent's heart might really be touched, was equally natural, and
+that it was one of these sudden impulses which moved him to the
+startling and solemn appeal to God over the sacramental host which
+formed so remarkable an incident in the ceremonial, may be taken for
+granted. In that age miracles were more than common, they were looked
+for and expected; and in all ages the miracle which we call
+conversion, the sudden and inexplainable movement of a heart, touched
+and turned in an instant from evil to good, has been known and proved.
+That a priest at the altar should hope that it might be his, by some
+burning word or act, to convey that inexpressible touch was a very
+human and natural hope: and yet Gregory knew well in his after survey
+of what had passed that the false penitent went away worse than he
+came. He wrote, however, an account of the matter to the German
+princes, who looked on trembling for the consequences, and probably
+blaming the Pope for an action that might destroy all their
+combinations--in which he described to them Henry's penitence and
+promise, without implying a doubt of the sincerity of either, but with
+a full statement of the fact that the absolution awarded to the man
+made no difference in respect to the king.
+
+      "Things being thus arranged [writes the Pope] in order to
+      secure, by the help of God, the peace of the Church and the
+      union of the Kingdom, which we have so long desired, we are
+      anxious to pursue our journey into your countries on the
+      first occasion possible; for we desire you to know, as you
+      may perceive from the written engagements, that everything
+      is still in suspense, so that our arrival among you and the
+      unanimity of your council is absolutely necessary to settle
+      matters. Therefore be very attentive to continue as you
+      have begun in faith and the love of justice, and understand
+      that we have done nothing for the king, except to tell him
+      that he might trust to us to help him in such things as may
+      touch his salvation and his honour, with justice and with
+      mercy, without putting our soul and his in peril."
+
+In the meantime Henry had enough to do in winning back again to his
+side the rebellious Lombards, who considered his submission to the
+Pope, however artificial, a desertion of their cause, and shut upon
+him the gates of their cities, which before his visit to Canossa had
+been thrown wide open. He had apparently, though only for a moment,
+lost them, while he had not regained the sympathies of Germany. There
+was nothing for it but a new apostasy, throwing over of his promises,
+and reassumption of the leadership of the schismatic party, which made
+the position of Gregory, surrounded by that angry sea of Lombard
+rebellion which beat against the base of his rocky stronghold, a very
+dangerous one. Through the whole spring of 1077 the Pope was more or
+less confined to the Castle of Canossa or other similar fortresses,
+under the vigilant care of Matilda; and it was from these strong
+places that he wrote a succession of remarkable letters to the nobles
+of Germany, who, strongly set upon the Diet in which the affairs of
+the kingdom were to be placed on a permanent footing, were proceeding
+to carry out their intention without waiting either for the presence
+of Gregory which they had invited, or Henry whose interests were at
+stake. Gregory did everything that was possible to delay the Diet
+until he could be present at it. He was anxious also to delay whatever
+great step might be in contemplation until the mind of the country was
+a little less anxious and disturbed: and he desired to be present, not
+only in the position of Arbitrator, but also to moderate with his
+counsels the excited spirits, and prevent if possible any great
+catastrophe.
+
+We may allow, as it is one of the conventionalities of history to
+assert, that Gregory's intention was to establish in such matters the
+jurisdiction of the Popes and make it apparent to the world that
+thrones and principalities were at the disposition of the Church. But
+at the same time Gregory was, like all men, chiefly moved by the
+immediate question before him, and he was a man sincerely occupied
+with what was best for both Church and State, fearing the rashness of
+an angry and excited assembly, and remembering his promise to do what
+he could for his most unworthy penitent; and we see no reason to
+believe that his purposes were not, according to his perception of his
+duty, honest and noble. He retained his hope of proceeding to Germany
+as long as that was possible, asking again and again for the guide and
+escort promised, even asking from Henry a safe conduct through the
+territory now held by him. Even after the election at Forchheim of
+Rudolf of Suabia as king in the place of Henry, he continued to urge
+upon the legates whom he had sent to that assembly the necessity for
+his presence. And he undoubtedly did this on the highest ground
+possible, putting forth his right to judge in the matter in the very
+clearest words. He bids his messengers in the name of St. Peter to
+summon the heads of both parties, Henry and Rudolf, to make his
+journey possible.
+
+      "With the advice of the clergy and laymen fearing God, we
+      desire to judge between the two kings, by the grace of God,
+      and point out which of the two parties is most justly to be
+      entrusted with the government of the State. You are aware
+      that it is our duty, and that it appertains to the
+      providential wisdom of the Apostolic See, to judge the
+      governments of the great Christian kingdoms and to regulate
+      them under the inspiration of justice. The question between
+      these two princes is so grave, and the consequences may be
+      so dangerous, that if it was for any reason neglected by
+      us, it would bring not only upon us and upon them, but on
+      the Church entire, great and lamentable misfortune.
+      Therefore, if one or other of these kings refuses to yield
+      to our decision and conform to our counsels, and if,
+      lighting the torch of pride and human covetousness against
+      the honour of God, he aspires in his fury to the desolation
+      of the Roman Empire, resist him in every way, by every
+      means, to the death if necessary, in our name and by the
+      authority of the blessed Peter."
+
+The Pope in another letter makes his appeal no longer to the ruling
+class but to the entire people. He informs "all the faithful of Christ
+in the Teutonic empire" that he has sent his legates to both kings to
+demand of them both "either in their own persons or by sufficient
+messengers" to open the way for his journey to Germany in order with
+the help of God to judge the question between them.
+
+      "Our heart is full of sadness and sorrow to think that for
+      the pride of one man so many thousands of Christians may be
+      delivered over to death both temporal and eternal, the
+      Christian religion shaken to its foundations, and the Roman
+      Empire precipitated into ruin. Both of these kings seek aid
+      from us, or rather from the Apostolic See, which we occupy,
+      though unworthy; and we, trusting in the mercy of Almighty
+      God, and the help of the blessed Peter, with the aid of
+      your advice, you who fear God and love the Church, are
+      ready to examine with care the right on either side and to
+      help him whom justice notoriously calls to the
+      administration of the kingdom....
+
+      "You know, dear brethren, that since our departure from
+      Rome we have lived in the midst of dangers among the
+      enemies of the faith; but neither from fear nor from love
+      have we promised any help, but justice to one or other of
+      these kings. We prefer to die, if necessary, rather than to
+      consent by our own will that the Church of God should be
+      put from her place; for we know that we have been ordained
+      and set upon the apostolic chair in order to seek in our
+      life not our own interests but those of Christ, and to
+      follow through a thousand labours in the steps of the
+      fathers to the future and eternal repose, by the mercy of
+      God."
+
+The reader must remember that Gregory had very good reason for all
+that he said, and that irrespective of the claims of the Church a
+wise and impartial umpire at such a moment might have been of the last
+importance to Germany; also that his services had been asked for in
+this capacity, and that therefore he had a right to insist upon being
+heard. The position which he claimed had been offered to him; and he
+was entitled to ask that such an important matter should not be
+settled in his absence.
+
+The remonstrances which the Pope continued to make by his own voice
+and those of his legates as long as any remonstrance was possible,
+were however regarded by neither party. Neither the authority of Rome
+nor the visible wisdom of settling a question which must convulse the
+world and tear Germany in pieces, peacefully and on the foundation of
+justice if that were possible, as urged by Gregory--could prevail, nor
+ever has prevailed on any similar occasion against the passions and
+ambitions of men. It was a devout imagination, appealing to certain
+minds here and there by the highest motives, and naturally by very
+different ones to all the interested souls likely to be advantaged by
+it, which always form the reverse of the medal; but men with arms in
+their hands and all the excitements of faction and party, of imperial
+loss and gain around them, were little like to await a severe and
+impartial judgment. The German bishops made a curious remonstrance in
+their turn against the reception by Gregory of Henry's professions of
+penitence, and on either side there was a band of ecclesiastics,
+presumably not all good or all bad perplexing every judgment.
+
+We have fortunately nothing to do with the bloody struggles of Rudolf
+and Henry. When the latter made his way again over the Alps, to defend
+his rights, carrying with him the Iron Crown which Gregory's refusal
+had prevented him from assuming--he carried it away however, though he
+did not dare to put it on, a curious mixture of timidity and furtive
+daring--the Pope, up to that moment virtually confined within the
+circle of the mountain strongholds of Tuscany, returned to Rome: where
+he continued to be assailed by constant and repeated entreaties to
+take up one or the other side, his own council of the Lateran
+inclining towards Henry. But nothing moved him from his determination
+that this question should be decided by a Diet under his own
+presidence, and by that alone. This question runs through the entire
+story of the period from year to year. No council--and in addition to
+the usual yearly council held always in the beginning of Lent, at the
+Lateran, there seem to have been various others between whiles, made
+compulsory by the agitation of the time--could take place without the
+arrival of the two bands of German ambassadors, one from Henry and the
+other from Rudolf, to plead the cause of their respective masters,
+both professing all obedience, and inviting a decision in their favour
+by every argument: but neither taking a single step to bring about the
+one thing which the Pope demanded--a lawful assembly to settle the
+question.
+
+There is no pretence that Gregory treated them with anything but the
+severest impartiality, or that he at any time departed from the
+condition he had proposed from the first--the only preference given to
+one above the other being that he is said to have sent his apostolical
+blessing to Rudolf, a virtuous prince and his friend, and not to Henry
+the apostate and false penitent, which is scarcely wonderful. But it
+is easy to understand the agitation in which the constant arrival of
+these ambassadors must have kept Rome, a city so prone to agitation,
+and with so many parties within its own walls, seditious nobles and
+undisciplined priests, and the ever-restless, ever-factious populace,
+struggling continually for some new thing. The envoys of Henry would
+seem to have had more or less the popular favour: they were probably a
+more showy band than the heavier Saxons: and Henry's name and the
+prestige of his great father, and all those royal shows which must
+still have been remembered in the city, the coronation of the former
+Henry in St. Peter's, and all its attendant ceremonials and expenses,
+must have attached a certain interest to his name. Agnes too, the
+empress, who had died so recently in the odour of sanctity among them,
+must have left behind her, whether she loved him or not, a certain
+prepossession in favour of her son. And the crowd took sides no doubt,
+and in its crushing and pressing to see the strangers, in the great
+Lateran square or by the gates of their lodging, formed itself into
+parties attracted by a glance or a smile, made into enemies by a hasty
+word, and preparing for the greater troubles and conflicts which were
+about to come.
+
+In the midst of these continual arrivals and departures and while the
+trumpets of the Saxon or the German party were still tingling in the
+air, and the velvet and jewels of the ambassadors had scarcely ceased
+to gleam among the dark robes of the clergy, there came up other
+matters of a nature more suitable to the sacred courts and the
+interests of the Church. Berengarius of Tours, a mild and speculative
+thinker, as often convincing himself that he was wrong as proving
+himself to be right, appeared before the council of 1079 to answer for
+certain heresies respecting the Eucharist, of which there had often
+already been question. His opinions were those of Luther, of whom he
+is constantly called the precursor: but there was little of Luther's
+strength in this gentle heretic, who had already recanted publicly,
+and then resumed his peculiar teachings, with a simplicity that for a
+time disarmed criticism. Gregory had always been his friend and
+protector, tolerating if not sharing his opinions, which were not such
+as moved or interested deeply the Church at the moment: for the age
+was not heretical, and the example of such a candid offender, who did
+not attempt to resist the arguments brought against him, was rather
+edifying than otherwise. At least there were no theological arguments
+of fire and sword, no rack or stake for the heretic in Gregory's day.
+The pressure of theological judgment, however, became too strong for
+the Pope to resist, preoccupied as he was with other matters, and
+Berengarius was once more compelled to recant, which he did cordially,
+with the same result as before.
+
+It was a more congenial occupation for the vigilant head of the Church
+to watch over the extension of the faith than to promote the internal
+discipline of the fold of Christ by prosecutions for heresy. His gaze
+penetrated the mists of the far north, and we find Gregory
+forestalling (as indeed his great predecessor the first Gregory had
+done before him) the missionaries of our own day in the expedient of
+training young natives to preach the faith among their countrymen,
+over which there was much modern rejoicing when it was first adopted
+in recent days, as an entirely new and altogether wise thing. Gregory
+the Great had already practised it with his Anglo-Saxon boys: and
+Gregory VII. recommended it to Olaf, king of Norway, to whom he wrote
+that he would fain have sent a sufficient number of priests to his
+distant country: "But as this is very difficult because of the great
+distance and difference of language, we pray you, as we have also
+asked from the king of Denmark, to send to our apostolical court some
+young nobles of your country in order that being nourished with care
+in divine knowledge under the wings of St. Peter and St. Paul, they
+may carry back to you the counsels of the Apostolical See, arriving
+among you, not as men unknown, but as brothers--and preaching to you
+the duties of Christianity, not as strangers and ignorant, but as men
+whose language is yours, and who are yet trained and powerful in
+knowledge and morals." Thus, while the toils were gathering round his
+feet at home, and the most ancient centre of Christianity was ready to
+cast him out as a fugitive, the great Pope was extending the invisible
+links of Christian fealty to the ends of the earth.
+
+It was in the year 1080, three years after the events of Canossa, that
+the next step was taken by Gregory. In that long interval he had never
+ceased to insist upon the only lawful mode of settling the quarrel,
+_i.e._, the assembly in Germany of all the persons most concerned, to
+take the whole matter into solemn consideration and come to a
+permanent conclusion upon grounds more solid than the appeal to arms
+which ravaged the empire, and which, constantly fluctuating, gave the
+temporary victory now to one side, now to the other. The age was far
+from being ripe for any such expedient as arbitration, and the ordeal
+of arms was its most natural method: yet the proposal had proceeded in
+the first place from the Teutonic princes themselves, and it was
+entirely in accordance with German laws and primitive procedure. And
+except the Pope, or some other great churchman, there was no possible
+president of such a Diet, or any one who could have had even a
+pretence of impartiality. He was the only man who could maintain the
+balance and see justice done, even in theory: for the awe of his
+presence and of his spiritual powers might have restrained these
+fierce princes and barons and made some sort of reasonable discussion
+possible. For all these reasons, and also no doubt to assert
+practically the claim he had made for himself and his successors to be
+the judges of the earth and settle all such disputes as
+representatives of God, he was very unwilling to give up the project.
+It had come to be evident, however, in the spring of 1080 when Lent
+began and the usual Council of the Lateran assembled, that Henry would
+never consent to this Diet, the very reason for which was the
+discussion of claims which he held as divine and infallible. Rudolf,
+his rival, was, or professed to be, as anxious for it as the Pope,
+though he never had taken any step to make Gregory's journey across
+the Alps possible. But at last it would seem that all parties gave up
+the thought of any such means of making peace. The state of affairs
+in Germany was daily becoming more serious, and when the envoys of
+Rudolf, after many fruitless visits to Rome, appeared at last with a
+sort of ultimatum, demanding that some decisive step should be taken
+to put an end to the suspense, there was no longer any possibility of
+further delay. Henry also sent ambassadors on the same occasion: but
+they came late, and were not received. The Council of the Lateran met,
+no doubt with many searchings of heart and a great excitement
+pervading the assembly where matters of such importance were about to
+be settled, and such a decision as had never been asked from any Pope
+before, was about to be given from the chair of St. Peter to a
+half-believing, half-rebellious world. Whether any one really believed
+that a question involving the succession to the empire could be solved
+in this way, it is impossible to tell: but the envoys of Rudolf, whose
+arms had been for the moment victorious, and who had just driven Henry
+a fugitive before him, made their appeal to the Pope with a vehemence
+almost tragic, as to one whose power and responsibility in the matter
+were beyond doubt. The statement of their case before the Council was
+as follows:
+
+      "We delegates of our lord the King, Rudolf, and of the
+      princes, we complain before God, and before St. Peter to
+      you our father and this holy Council, that Henry, set aside
+      by your Apostolic authority from the kingdom, has
+      notwithstanding your prohibition invaded the said kingdom,
+      and has devastated everything around by sword and fire and
+      pillage; he has with impious cruelty, driven bishops and
+      archbishops out of their sees, and has distributed their
+      dignities as fiefs among his partisans. Werner of holy
+      memory, archbishop of Magdeburg, has perished by his
+      tyranny; Aldebert, bishop of Worms, is still held in prison
+      contrary to the Apostolic order; many thousands of men have
+      been slaughtered by his faction, many churches pillaged,
+      burned and destroyed. The assaults of Henry upon our
+      princes because they withdrew their obedience from him
+      according to the command of the Apostolic See, are
+      numberless. And the assembly which you have desired to call
+      together, Holy Father, for the establishment of the truth
+      and of peace, has not been held, solely by the fault of
+      Henry and his adherents. For these reasons we supplicate
+      your clemency in our own name and that of the Holy Church
+      of God to do justice upon the sacrilegious violator of the
+      Church."
+
+It will be remarked that the whole blame of the struggle is here
+thrown upon the Church:--as in the remonstrance of the Saxon bishops,
+who say not a word of their national grievances against Henry, which
+nevertheless were many and great, and the real foundation of the
+war--but entirely attribute it to the action of Gregory in
+excommunicating and authorising them to withdraw their homage from the
+king. Nobody, we think, can read the chaotic and perplexing history of
+the time without perceiving how mere a pretext this was, and how
+little in reality the grievances of the Church had to do with the
+internecine struggle. The curious thing however, is that Gregory,
+either in policy or self-deception, accepts the whole responsibility
+and is willing to be considered the cause and maker of these deadly
+wars, as if the struggle had been one between the Church and the King
+alone. A sense of responsibility was evidently strong in his mind as
+he rose from his presiding chair on this great occasion, in the
+breathless silence that followed the complaint and appeal of Rudolf's
+emissaries. Not a voice in defence of Henry had been raised in the
+Council, which, as many voices were in his favour in preceding
+assemblies, shows the consciousness of the conclave that another and
+more desperate phase of the quarrel had been reached.
+
+Gregory himself had sat silent for a moment, overwhelmed with the awe
+of the great crisis. When he rose it was with a breaking voice and
+tears in his eyes: and the form of the deliverance was as remarkable
+as its tenor. Gregory addressed--not the Council: but, with an
+extraordinary outburst of emotion, the Apostle in whose name he
+pronounced judgment and in whose chair he sat. Nothing could have been
+more impressive than this sudden and evidently spontaneous change from
+the speech expected from him by the awed and excited assembly, to the
+personal statement and explanation given forth in trembling accents
+but with uplifted head and eyes raised to the unseen, to the great
+potentate in heavenly places whose representative he believed himself
+to be. However vague might be the image of the apostle in other eyes,
+to Gregory St. Peter was his living captain, the superior officer of
+the Church, to whom his second in command had to render an account of
+his procedure in face of the enemy. The amazement of that great
+assembly, the awe suddenly imposed even on the great body of priests,
+too familiar perhaps with holy things to be easily impressed--much
+more on the startled laymen, Rudolf's envoys and their attendants, by
+this abstract address, suddenly rising out of the midst of the rapt
+assembly to a listener unseen, must have been extraordinary. It
+marked, as nothing else could have done, the realisation in Gregory's
+mind of a situation of extraordinary importance, such an emergency as
+since the Church came into being had seldom or never occurred in her
+history before. He stood before the trembling world, himself a
+solitary man shaken to the depths, calling upon his great predecessor
+to remember that it was not with his own will that he had ascended
+that throne or accepted that responsibility--that it was Peter, or
+rather the two great leaders of the Church together, Peter the Prince
+of the Apostles, Paul the Doctor and instructor of the nations, who
+had chosen him, not he who had thrust himself into their place. To
+these august listeners he recounted everything, the whole story of the
+struggle, the sins of Henry, his submission and absolution, his
+renewed rebellion, always against the Church, against the Apostles,
+against the Ecclesiastical authority: while the breathless assembly
+around, left out in this solemn colloquy, sat eager, drinking in every
+word, overcome by the wonder of the situation, the strange attitude of
+the shining figure in the midst, who was not even praying, but
+reporting, explaining every detail to his unseen general above. Henry
+had been a bad king, a cruel oppressor, an invader of every right:
+and it would have been the best policy of the Churchman to put forth
+these effective arguments for his overthrow. But of this there is not
+a word. He was a rebel against the Church, and by the hand of the
+Church it was just and right that he should fall.
+
+One cannot but feel a descent from this high and visionary ground in
+the diction of the sentence that followed, a sentence not now heard
+for the first time, and which perhaps no one there felt, tremendous as
+its utterance was, to be the last word in this great quarrel.
+
+      "Therefore trusting to the judgment and to the mercy of
+      God, and of the Holy Mother of God, and armed with your
+      authority, I place under excommunication and I bind with
+      the chains of anathema, Henry called King, and all his
+      fellow sinners; and on the part of Almighty God, and of
+      You, shutting him out henceforward from the kingdoms of
+      Germany and of Italy, I take from him all royal power and
+      dignity; I forbid any Christian to obey him as king; and I
+      absolve from their sworn promises all those who have made,
+      or may make, oaths of allegiance to him. May this Henry
+      with his fellow sinners have no force in fight and obtain
+      no victory in life!"
+
+Having with like solemnity bestowed upon Rudolf the kingdom of Germany
+(Italy is not named) with all royal rights, the Pope thus concludes
+his address to the spiritual Heads in heaven of the Church on earth:
+
+      "Holy Fathers and Lords! let the whole world now know and
+      understand that as you can bind and loose in heaven, you
+      can also upon earth give and take away from each according
+      to his merits, empires, kingdoms, principalities, duchies,
+      marquisates, counties, and all possessions. You have often
+      already taken from the perverse and the unworthy,
+      patriarchal sees, primacies, archbishoprics, and
+      bishoprics, in order to bestow them upon religious men. If
+      you thus judge in things spiritual, with how much more
+      power ought you not to do so in things secular! And if you
+      judge the angels who are the masters of the proudest
+      princes, what may you not do with the princes, their
+      slaves! Let the kings and great ones of the earth know
+      to-day how great you are, and what your power is; let them
+      fear to neglect the ordinances of the Church! Accomplish
+      quickly your judgment on Henry so that to the eyes of all
+      it may be apparent that it falls upon him not by chance but
+      by your power. Yet may his confusion turn to repentance,
+      that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord."
+
+Whether the ecstasy of his own rapt and abstract communion with the
+unseen, that subtle inspiration of an Invisible too clearly conceived
+for human weakness to sustain, had gone to Gregory's head and drawn
+him into fuller expression of this extraordinary assertion and claim
+beyond all reason: or whether the long-determined theory of his life
+thus found complete development it is difficult to tell. These
+assumptions were, indeed, the simple and practical outcome of claims
+already made and responsibilities assumed: claims which had been
+already put feebly into operation by other Popes before. But they had
+never before been put into words so living or so solemn. Gregory
+himself had, hitherto, claimed only the right to judge, to arbitrate
+at the head of a National Diet. He had not himself, so far as we can
+see, assumed up to this moment the supposed rights of Peter, alone and
+uncontrolled. He had given England to William, but only on the warrant
+of the bond of Harold solemnly sworn before the altar. He had made
+legitimate the claims already established by conquest of Robert
+Guiscard and others of the Norman conquerors. But the standard set up
+in the Lateran Council of 1080 was of a far more imperative kind, and
+asserted finally through Peter and Paul, his holy fathers and lords,
+an authority absolute and uncompromising such as made the brain reel.
+This extraordinary address must have sent a multitude, many of them no
+doubt ordinary men with no lofty ideal like his own, back to their
+bishoprics and charges, swelling with a sense of spiritual grandeur
+and power such as no promotion could give, an inspiration which if it
+made here and there a high spirit thrill to the necessities of a great
+position, was at least as likely to make petty tyrants and oppressors
+of meaner men. The only saving clause in a charge so full of the
+elements of mischief, is that to the majority of ordinary minds it
+would contain very little personal meaning at all.
+
+  [Illustration: ISLAND ON TIBER.
+    _To face page 286._]
+
+From this time nothing was possible but war to the death between
+Gregory and Henry, the deposed king, who was as little disposed to
+accept his deposition as any anathema was able to enforce it. We have
+already remarked on various occasions, and it is a dreadful coming
+down from the height of so striking a scene, and so many great words,
+to be obliged to repeat it: yet it is very evident that
+notwithstanding the terrible pictures we have had of the force of
+these anathemas, they made very little difference in the life of the
+world. There were always schismatic or rebellious priests enough to
+carry on, in defiance of the Pope, those visible ceremonies and
+offices of religion which are indispensable to the common order of
+life. There were, no doubt, great individual sufferings among the
+faithful, but the habits of ordinary existence could only have been
+interfered with had every bishop and every priest been loyal to the
+Pope, which was far from being the case.
+
+It was at the conclusion of this Council that Gregory is said to have
+sent to Rudolf the famous imperial crown bearing the inscription
+
+      _Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rodolpho_,
+
+of which Villemain makes the shabby remark that, "After having held
+the balance as uncertain, and denied the share he had in the election
+of Rudolf, now that it was confirmed by success Gregory VII. claimed
+it for himself and the Church."--a conclusion neither in consonance
+with the facts nor with the character of the man.
+
+That Henry should receive this decision meekly was of course
+impossible. Once more he attempted to make reprisals in an assembly
+held at Brixen in the following June, when by means of the small
+number of thirty bishops, chiefly excommunicated persons, and, of
+course, in any case without any right to judge their superior, Gregory
+himself was once more deposed, excommunicated, and cut off from the
+communion of these ecclesiastics and their followings. In the sentence
+given by this paltry company, Gregory is accused of following the
+heresy of Berengarius, whose recantation had the year before been
+received at the Lateran: and also of being a necromancer and magician,
+and possessed by an evil spirit. These exquisite reasons are the chief
+of the allegations against him, and the principal ground upon which
+his deposition was justified. Guibert of Ravenna, long his enemy, and
+one of the excommunicated, was elected by the same incompetent
+tribunal as Pope in his place, naturally without any of the canonical
+requirements for such an election; though we are told that Henry laid
+violent hands on the bishop of Ostia whose privilege it was to
+officiate at the consecration of the Popes, and who was then in
+foreign parts acting as legate, in order to give some show of legality
+to the election. Guibert however, less scrupulous than the former
+intruder Cadalous, took at once the title of Clement III. The great
+advantage of such a step, beside the sweetness of revenge, no doubt
+was that it practically annulled the papal interdict so far as the
+knowledge of the vulgar was concerned: for so long as there were
+priests to officiate, a bishop to preside, and a Pope to bless and to
+curse, how should the uninstructed people know that their country was
+under any fatal ban? To make such a universal excommunication possible
+the whole priesthood must have been subject and faithful to the one
+sole authority in the Church.
+
+Unfortunately for the prestige of Gregory, Henry was much more
+successful in the following year in all his enterprises, and it was
+Rudolf, the friend and elected of the Pope, and not his adversary, who
+died after a battle which was not otherwise decisive. This event must
+have been a great blow and disappointment as well as an immediate and
+imminent danger. For some time, however, the ordinary course of life
+went on in Rome, and Gregory, by means of various negotiations, and
+also no doubt by reason of his own consciousness of the pressing need
+for a champion and supporter, made friends again with Robert Guiscard,
+exerting himself to settle the quarrels between him and his
+neighbours, and to win him thus by good offices to the papal side. To
+complete this renewal of friendship Gregory, though ailing, and amid
+all these tumults beginning to feel the weight of years, made a
+journey to Benevento, which belonged to the Holy See, and there met
+his former penitent and adversary, the brave and wily Norman. The
+interview between them took place in sight of a great crowd of the
+followers of both and the inhabitants of the whole region, assembled
+in mingled curiosity and reverence, to see so great a scene. The
+Norman, relieved of the excommunications under which he had lain for
+past offences, and endowed with the Pope's approval and blessing,
+swore fealty and obedience to Gregory, promising henceforward to be
+the champion of Holy Church, protecting her property and her servants,
+keeping her counsel and acknowledging her authority.
+
+"From this hour and for the future I will be faithful to the Holy
+Roman Church, and to the Apostolic See, and to you, my lord Gregory,
+the universal Pope. I will be your defender, and that of the Roman
+Church, aiding you according to my power to maintain, to occupy, and
+to defend the domains of St. Peter and his possessions, against all
+comers, reserving only the March of Fermo, of Salerno, and of Amalfi,
+concerning which no definite arrangement has yet been made."
+
+These last, and especially the town of Salerno, one of the cities _la
+piu bella e piu deliziosa_ of Italy, says old Muratori, had been
+recently taken by Guiscard from their Prince Gisolfo, a _protégé_ and
+friend of the Pope, who excepts them in the same cautious manner from
+the sanction given to Robert's other conquests. Gregory's act of
+investiture is altogether a very cautious document:
+
+      I Gregory, Pope, invest you Duke Robert, with all the lands
+      given you by my predecessors of holy memory, Nicolas and
+      Alexander. As for the lands of Salerno, Amalfi and a
+      portion of the March of Fermo, held by you unjustly, I
+      suffer it patiently for the present, having confidence in
+      God and in your honesty, and that you will conduct yourself
+      in future for the honour of God and St. Peter in such a
+      manner as becomes you, and as I may tolerate, without
+      risking your soul or mine.
+
+It is not likely that Gregory hoped so much from Guiscard's probity as
+that he would give up that _citta deliziosa_, won by his bow and his
+spear. Nor was he then aware how his own name and all its associations
+would remain in Salerno, its chief distinction throughout all the ages
+to come.
+
+The life of Gregory had never been one of peace or tranquillity. He
+had been a fighting man all his days, but during a great part of them
+a successful one: the years which remained to him, however, were one
+long course of agitations, of turmoil, and of revolution. In 1081
+Henry, scarcely successful by arms, but confident in the great
+discouragement of the rival party through the death of Rudolf, crossed
+the Alps again, and after defeating Matilda, ravaging her duchy and
+driving her to the shelter of Canossa, marched upon Rome. Guibert of
+Ravenna, the Anti-Pope, accompanied him with many bishops and priests
+of his party. On his first appearance before Rome, the energy of
+Gregory, and his expectation of some such event, had for once inspired
+the city to resistance, so that the royal army got no further than the
+"fields of Nero," outside the walls of the Leonine city to the north
+of St. Peter's, by which side they had approached Rome. Henry had
+himself crowned emperor by his anti-pope in his tent, an act performed
+by the advice of his schismatic bishops, and to the great wonder,
+excitement, and interest of the surrounding people, overawed by that
+great title which he had not as yet ventured to assume. This futile
+coronation was indeed an act with which he amused himself
+periodically during the following years from time to time. But the
+heats of summer and the fever of Rome soon drove the invaders back. In
+1082 Henry returned to the attack, but still in vain. In 1083 he was
+more successful, and seized that portion of Rome called the Leonine
+city, which included St. Peter's and the tombs of the Apostles, the
+great shrine which gave sanctity to the whole. The Pope, up to this
+time free, though continually threatened by his enemies, and still
+carrying on as best he could the universal affairs of the Church, was
+now forced to retire to St. Angelo. He was at this moment without
+defender or champion on any side. The brave Matilda, ever faithful,
+was shut up in impregnable Canossa. Guiscard, after having secured all
+that he wanted from Gregory, had gone off upon his own concerns, and
+was now struggling to make for himself a footing in Greece,
+indifferent to the Pope's danger. The Romans, after the brief interval
+of inspiration which gave them courage to make a stand for the Pope
+and the integrity of their city, had fallen back into their usual
+weakness, dazzled by Henry's title of Emperor, and cowed by the
+presence of his Germans at their gates. They had never had any spirit
+of resistance, and it was scarcely to be expected of a corrupt and
+fickle population, accustomed for ages to be the toys of circumstance,
+that they should begin a nobler career now. And there the Pope
+remained, shut up in that lonely stronghold, overlooking the noisy and
+busy streets which overflowed with foreign soldiers and the noise of
+arms, while in the Church of St. Peter close by, Guibert the mock Pope
+assembled a mock council to absolve the new Emperor from all the
+anathemas that had followed one another upon his head.
+
+There was much discussion and debate in that strange assembly, in
+which every second man at least must have had in his secret heart a
+sense of sacrilege, over this subject. They did not apparently deny
+the legal weight of these anathemas, which they recognised as the
+root and origin of all the misfortunes that had followed; but they
+maintained a feeble contention that the proceedings of Gregory had
+been irregular, seeing that Henry had never had the opportunity of
+defending himself. Another of the pretensions attributed to the Roman
+Church by her enemies, and this time with truth, as it has indeed
+become part of her code--was, as appears, set up on this occasion for
+the first time, and by the schismatics. Gregory had forbidden the
+people to accept the sacraments from the hands of vicious or
+simoniacal priests. Guibert, called Clement III., and his fictitious
+council declared with many learned quotations that the sacraments in
+themselves were all in all, and the administrators nothing; and that
+though given by a drunkard, an adulterer, or a murderer, the rites of
+the Church were equally effectual. It was however still more strange
+that in this assembly, made up of schismatics, many of them guilty of
+these very practices, a timid remonstrance should have been made
+against the very sins which had separated them from the rest of the
+Church and which Gregory had spent his life in combating. The Pope had
+not been successful either in abolishing simony or in maintaining
+celibacy and continence among the clergy, but he had roused a
+universal public opinion, a sentiment stronger than himself, which
+found a place even in the mind of his antagonist and rival in arms.
+
+Thus the usurper timidly attacked with arguments either insignificant
+or morally dangerous the acts of the Pope--yet timidly echoed his
+doctrine: with the air throughout all of a pretender alarmed by the
+mere vicinity of an unfortunate but rightful monarch. Guibert had been
+bold enough before; he had the air now of a furtive intruder trembling
+lest in every chance sound he might hear the step of the true master
+returning to his desecrated house.
+
+The next event in this curious struggle is more extraordinary still.
+Henry himself, it is evident, must have been struck with the feeble
+character of this unauthorised assembly, notwithstanding that the new
+Pope was of his own making and the council held under his auspices; or
+perhaps he hoped to gain something by an appearance of candour and
+impartiality though so late in the day. At all events he proposed,
+immediately after the close of the fictitious council, to the citizens
+and officials who still held the other portions of the city, in the
+name of Gregory--to withdraw his troops, to leave all roads to Rome
+free, and to submit his cause to another council presided over by
+Gregory and to which, as in ordinary cases, all the higher ranks of
+the clergy should be invited. It is impossible to conceive a more
+extraordinary contradiction of all that had gone before. The proposal,
+however, strange as it seems, was accepted and carried out. In
+November, 1083, this assembly was called together. Henry withdrew with
+his army towards Lombardy, the peaceful roads were all reopened, and
+bishops and abbots from all parts of Christendom hastened, no doubt
+trembling, yet excited, to Rome. Henry, notwithstanding his liberality
+of kind offers, exercised a considerable supervision over these
+travellers, for we hear that he stopped the deputies whom the German
+princes had sent to represent them, and also many distinguished
+prelates, two of whom had been specially attached to his mother Agnes,
+along with one of the legates of the Pope. The attempt to pack the
+assembly, or at least to weed it of its most remarkable members in
+this way was not, however, successful, and a large number of
+ecclesiastics were got together notwithstanding all the perils of the
+journey.
+
+The meeting was a melancholy one, overshadowed by the hopelessness of
+a position in which all the right was on one side and all the power on
+the other. After three days' deliberation, which came to nothing, the
+Pope addressed--it was for the last time in Rome--his faithful
+counsellors. "He spoke with the tongue of an angel rather than of a
+man," bidding them to be firm and patient, to hold fast to the faith,
+and to quit themselves like men, however dark might be the days on
+which they had fallen. The entire convocation broke forth into tears
+as the old man concluded.
+
+But Gregory would not be moved to any clemency towards his persecutor.
+He yielded so far as not to repeat his anathema against him,
+excommunicating only those who by force or stratagem had turned back
+and detained any who were on their way to the Council. But he would
+not consent to crown Henry as emperor, which--notwithstanding his
+previous coronation in his tent by Guibert, and a still earlier one,
+it is said, at Brixen immediately after the appointment of the
+anti-pope--was what the rebellious monarch still desired; nor would he
+yield to the apparent compulsion of circumstances and make peace,
+without repentance on the part of Henry. No circumstances could coerce
+such a man. The fruitless council lasted but three days, and separated
+without making any change in the situation. The Romans, roused again
+perhaps by the brief snatch of freedom they had thus seemed to have,
+rose against Henry's garrison and regained possession of the Leonine
+city which he had held: and thus every particular of the struggle was
+begun and repeated over again.
+
+This extraordinary attempt, after all that had happened--after the
+council in which Henry had deposed Gregory, the council in St. Peter's
+itself, held by the anti-pope, and all the abuse he had poured upon
+"the monk Hildebrand," as he had again and again styled the Pope--by
+permitting an assembly in which the insulted pontiff should be
+restored to all his authority and honours, to move Gregory to accept
+and crown him, is one of the most wonderful things in history. But the
+attempt was the last he ever made, as it was the most futile. After
+the one flash of energy with which Rome renewed the struggle, and
+another period of renewed attacks and withdrawals, Henry became
+master of the city, though never of the castle of St. Angelo where
+Gregory sat indomitable, relaxing not a jot of his determination and
+strong as ever in his refusal to withdraw, unless after full
+repentance, his curse from Henry. Various castles and fortified places
+continued to be held in the name of the Pope, both within and without
+the walls of the city: which fact throws a curious light upon its
+existing aspect: but these remnants of defence had little power to
+restrain the conqueror and his great army.
+
+And then again Rome saw one of those sights which from age to age had
+become familiar to her, the triumph of arms and overwhelming force
+under the very eyes of the imprisoned ruler of the city. The Lateran
+Palace, so long deserted, awoke to receive a royal guest. The sober
+courts of the papal house blazed with splendid costumes and resounded
+with all the tumult of rejoicing and triumph. The first of the great
+ceremonies was the coronation of the Archbishop Guibert as Clement
+III., which took place in Passion Week in the year 1084. Four months
+before Gregory had descended from his stronghold to hold the council
+in which Henry had still hoped to persuade or force him to
+complaisance, flinging Guibert lightly away; but the king's hopes had
+failed and Guibert was again the temporary symbol of that spiritual
+power without which he could not maintain himself. On Easter Sunday
+following, three great processions again streamed over the bridge of
+St. Angelo under the eyes, it may be, of Gregory high on the
+battlements of his fortress, or at least penetrating to his seclusion
+with the shouts and cheers that marked their progress--the procession
+of the false Pope, that of the king, that of Bertha the king's wife,
+whom it had required all the efforts of Gregory and his faithful
+bishops to preserve from a cruel divorce: she who had set her maids
+with baton and staff to beat the life half out of that false spouse
+and caitiff knight in his attempt to betray her. The world had
+triumphed over the Church, the powers of darkness over those of light,
+a false and treacherous despot, whose word even his own followers held
+as nothing, over the steadfast, pure, and high-minded priest, who,
+whatever we may think of his motives--and no judgment upon Gregory can
+ever be unanimous--had devoted his life to one high purpose and held
+by it through triumph and humiliation, unmoved and immovable. Gregory
+was as certain of his great position now, the Vicar of Christ
+commissioned to bind and to loose, to judge with impartiality and
+justice all men's claims, to hold the balance of right and wrong all
+over the world, as he watched the gay processions pass, and heard the
+heralds sounding their trumpets and the anti-pope, the creature of
+Henry's will, passing by to give his master (for the third time) the
+much-longed-for imperial crown, as when he himself stood master within
+the battlements of Canossa and raised that suppliant king to the
+possibilities of empire from his feet.
+
+It is a curious detail adding a touch to the irony which mingles with
+so many human triumphs and downfalls, that the actual imperial crown
+seems at one time at least to have been in Gregory's keeping. During
+the abortive council, for which, for three days he had returned to the
+Lateran, he offered, though he refused to place it on his head, to
+give it up to Henry's hands, letting it down with a cord from a window
+of St. Angelo. This offer, which could scarcely be other than
+ironical, seems to have been refused; but whether Gregory retained it
+in St. Angelo, or left it to be found in the Lateran treasury by the
+returning king, there is no information. If it was a fictitious crown
+which was placed upon Henry's head by the fictitious Pope, the curious
+travesty would be complete. And history does not say even why the
+ceremony performed before by the same hands on the banks of the Tiber,
+should have dropped out of recollection as a thing that had not been.
+
+During all this time nothing had been heard of Robert Guiscard who had
+so solemnly taken upon him the office of champion of the Holy See and
+knight of St. Peter. He had been about his own business, pursuing his
+conquests, eager to carve out new kingdoms for himself and his sons:
+but at last the Pope's appeals became too strong to be resisted.
+Henry, whose armies had doubtless not improved in force during the
+desultory warfare which must have affected more or less the
+consciences of many, and the hot summers, unwholesome for northerners,
+did not await the coming of this new and formidable foe. Matilda's
+Tuscans were more easily overcome than Guiscard's veterans of northern
+race. He called in his men from all the petty sieges which were
+wearing them out, and from that wall which he had forced the Romans
+with their own pitiful hands to build as a base of attacks against St.
+Angelo, and withdrew in haste, leaving the terrified citizens whom he
+had won over to his party, as little apt to arms as their forefathers
+had been, and in the midst of a half-ruined city--the strong positions
+in which were still held by the friends of the Pope--to do what they
+could against the most dreaded troops of Christendom. The catastrophe
+was certain before it occurred. The resistance of the Romans to Robert
+Guiscard was little more than nominal, only enough to inflame the
+Normans and give the dreadful freedom of besiegers to their armed
+hordes. They delivered the Pontiff, but sacked the town which lay
+helpless in its ruins at their feet; not even the churches were
+spared, nor their right of sanctuary acknowledged as six hundred years
+before Attila had acknowledged it. And all the fault of the Pope, as
+who could wonder if the sufferers cried? It was he who had brought
+these savages upon them, as it was he who had exposed them before to
+the hostility of Henry. Gregory had scarcely come forth from his
+citadel and returned to his palace when Rome was filled with scenes of
+blood and carnage, such as recalled the invasions of Huns and
+Vandals. The flames of the burning city lighted up the skies as he
+came forth in sorrow, delivered from his bondage, but a sad and
+burdened man. The chroniclers tell us that he flung himself at the
+feet of Guiscard to beg him to spare the city, crying out that he was
+Pope for edification and not for ruin. And though his prayer was to
+some extent granted, there is little doubt that here at the last the
+heart of Gregory and his courage were broken, and that though his
+resolution was never shaken, his strength could bear little more. This
+was the greatest, as it was the most uncalled for, misfortune of his
+life.
+
+He held a strange council in desolate Rome in the few days that
+followed, in which he repeated his anathema against Henry, Guibert,
+and all the clergy who were living in rebellion or in sin. But it
+would seem that even at such a moment the council was not unanimous
+and that the spirit of his followers was broken and cowed, and few
+could follow him in the steadfastness of his own unchangeable mind.
+And when this tremulous and disturbed assembly was over, held in such
+extraordinary circumstances, fierce Normans, wild Saracens forming the
+guard of the Pontiff, fire and ruin, and the shrieks of victims still
+disturbing the once peaceful air--Gregory, sick at heart, turned his
+back upon the beloved city which he had laboured so hard to make once
+more mistress of the world. Perhaps he was not aware that he left Rome
+for ever; but the conditions of that last restoration had broken his
+heart. He to bring bloodshed and rapine! he who was Pope to build up
+and not to destroy! It was more than the man who had borne all things
+else could endure. No doubt it was a crowning triumph for Guiscard to
+lead away with him the rescued Pontiff, and pose before all the world
+as Gregory's deliverer. The journey itself, however, was not without
+perils. The Campagna and all the wilder country beyond, about the
+Pontine marshes, was full of freebooting bands, Henry's partisans, or
+calling themselves so, who harassed the march with guerilla attacks.
+In one such flying combat a monk of Gregory's own retinue was killed,
+and the Pope had to ride like the men-at-arms, now starting at
+daybreak, now travelling deep into the night. At Monte Cassino, in the
+great convent where his friend Desiderius, who was to be his successor
+reigned, there was a welcome pause, and he had time to refresh himself
+among his old friends, the true brethren and companions of his soul.
+The legends of the monks--or was it the pity of the ages beginning
+already to awaken and rising to a great height of human compunction by
+the time the early historians began to write his story?--accord to him
+here that compensation of divine acknowledgment which the heart
+recognises as the only healing for such wounds. Some one among the
+monks of Monte Cassino saw a dove hovering over his head as he said
+mass. Perhaps this was merely a confusion with the legend of Gregory
+the Great, his predecessor, to whom that attribute belongs; perhaps
+some gentle brother whose heart ached with sympathy for the suffering
+Pope had glamour in his eyes and saw.
+
+Gregory continued his journey, drawn along in the army of Robert
+Guiscard as in a chariot, which began now to be, as he reached the
+south Italian shores, a chariot of triumph. All the towns and villages
+on the way came out to greet the Pope, to ask his blessing. The bishop
+of Salerno, with his clergy, came forth in solemn procession with
+shining robes and sacred standards to meet him. Neither Pope nor
+prince could have found a more exquisite retreat from the troubles of
+an evil world. The beautiful little city, half Saracenic, in all the
+glory of its cathedral still new and white and blooming with colour
+like a flower, sat on the edge of that loveliest coast, the sea like
+sapphire surging up in many lines of foam, the waves clapping their
+hands as in the Psalms, and above, the olive-mantled hills rising
+soft towards the bluest sky, with on every point a white village, a
+little church tower, the convent walls shining in the sun. It is still
+a region as near Paradise as human imagination can grasp, more fair
+than any scene we know. One wonders if the Pope's heart had sufficient
+spring left in it to take some faint delight in that wonderful
+conjunction of earth and sea and sky. But such delights were not much
+thought of in his day, and it is very possible he might have felt it
+something like a sin to suffer his heart to go forth in any such
+carnal pleasure.
+
+But at least something of his old energy came back when he was settled
+in this wonderful place of exile. He sent out his legates to the
+world, charged with letters to the faithful everywhere, to explain the
+position of affairs and to assert, as if now with his last breath,
+that it was because of his determination to purify the Church that all
+these conspiracies had risen against him--which was indeed,
+notwithstanding all the developments taken by the question, the
+absolute truth. For it was Gregory's strongly conceived and faithfully
+held resolution to cleanse the Church from simony, to have its
+ministers and officers chosen for their worth and virtue, and power to
+guide and influence their flocks for good, and not because they had
+wealth to pay for their dignity and to maintain it, which was the
+beginning of the conflict. Henry who refused obedience and made a
+traffic of the holiest offices, and those degenerate and rebellious
+priests who continued to buy themselves into rich bishoprics and
+abbacies in defiance of every ecclesiastical law and penalty, were the
+original offenders, and ought before posterity at least to bear the
+brunt.
+
+It is perhaps indiscreet to speak of an event largely affecting modern
+life in such words, but there is a whimsical resemblance which is apt
+to call forth a smile between the action of a large portion of the
+Church of Scotland fifty years ago, and the life struggle of Gregory.
+In the former case it was the putting in of ministers to
+ecclesiastical benefices by lay authority, however veiled by supposed
+popular assent, which was believed to be an infringement of the divine
+rights of the Church, and of the headship of Christ, by a religious
+body perhaps more scornful and condemnatory than any other of
+everything connected with a Pope. It was not supposed in Scotland that
+the humble candidates for poor Scotch livings bought their
+advancement; but the principle was the same.
+
+In the case of Gregory the positions thus bought and sold were of very
+great secular importance, carrying with them much wealth, power, and
+outward importance, which was not the case in the other; but in
+neither case were the candidates chosen canonically or for their
+suitableness to the charge, but from extraneous motives and in spite
+of the decisions of the Church. This was to destroy the headship of
+Peter, the authority of his representative, the rights of the sacred
+Spouse of Christ. Both claims were perfectly honest and true. But
+Gregory, as in opposition to a far greater grievance, and one which
+overspread all Christendom, was by far the more distinguished
+confessor, as he was the greater martyr of the Holy Cause.
+
+For this was undoubtedly the first cause of all the sufferings of the
+Pontiff, the insults showered upon him, the wrongs he had to bear, the
+exile in which he died. The question has been settled against him, we
+believe, in every country, even the most deeply Christian. Scotland
+indeed has prevailed in having her own way, but that is because she
+has no important benefices, involving secular rank and privilege. No
+voice in England has ever been raised in defence of simony, but the
+_congé d'élire_ would have been as great an offence to Pope Gregory,
+and as much of a sin to Dr. Chalmers, as the purchase of an
+archbishopric in one case, or the placing of an unpopular preacher in
+another. The Pope's claim of authority over both Church and world,
+though originally and fundamentally based upon his rights as the
+successor of Peter, developed out of this as the fruit out of the
+flower. From a religious point of view, and if we could secure that
+all Popes, candidates for ecclesiastical offices, and electors to the
+same, should be wise and good men, the position would be unassailable;
+but as it is not so, the question seems scarcely worth risking a man's
+living for, much less his life. But perhaps no man since, if it were
+not his successors in the popedom, had such strenuous reasons to spend
+his life for it as Gregory, as none has ever had a severer struggle.
+
+This smaller question, however, though it is the fundamental one, has
+been almost forgotten in the struggle between the Pope and the
+Emperor--the sacred and the secular powers--which developed out of it.
+The claim to decide not only who was to be archbishop but who was to
+be king, rose into an importance which dwarfed every other. This was
+not originated by Gregory, but it was by his means that it became the
+great question of the age, and rent the world in twain. The two great
+institutions of the Papacy and the Empire had been or seemed to be an
+ideal method of governing the world, the one at the head of all
+spiritual concerns, the other commanding every secular power and all
+the progress of Christendom. Circumstances indeed, and the growth of
+independence and power in other nations, had circumscribed the sphere
+of the Empire, while the Papacy had grown in influence by the same
+means. But still the Empire was the head of the Christian world of
+nations, as the Pope was the head of those spiritual princedoms which
+had developed into so much importance. When the interests were so
+curiously mingled, it was certain that a collision must occur one time
+or another. There had been frequent jars, in days when the power of
+the Empire was too great for anything but a momentary resistance on
+the part of the Pope. But when the decisive moment came and the
+struggle became inevitable, Gregory--a man fully equal to the
+occasion--was there to meet it. His success, such as it was, was for
+later generations. To himself personally it brought the crown of
+tragedy only, without even any consciousness of victory gained.
+
+The Pope lived not quite a year in Salerno. He died in that world of
+delight in the sweetness of the May, when all is doubly sweet by those
+flowery hills and along that radiant shore. Among his last words were
+these:--"My brethren, I make no account of my good works: my only
+confidence is that I have always loved justice and hated
+iniquity:--and for that I die in exile," he added before his end. In
+the silence and the gathering gloom one of his attendants cried out,
+"How can you say in exile, my lord, you who, the Vicar of Christ and
+of the apostles, have received all the nations for your inheritance,
+and the world for your domain?" With these words in his ears the Pope
+departed to that country which is the hope of every soul, where
+iniquity is not and justice reigns.
+
+He died on the 25th May, 1085, not having yet attained his seventieth
+year. He had been Pope for twelve years only, and during that time had
+lived in continual danger, fighting always for the Church against the
+world. A suffering and a melancholy man, his life had none of those
+solaces which are given to the commonest and the poorest. His dearest
+friends were far from him: the hope of his life was lost: he thought
+no doubt that his standard fell with him, and that the labours of his
+life were lost also, and had come to nothing. But it was not so;
+Gregory VII. is still after these centuries one of the greatest Popes
+of Rome: and though time has wrought havoc with that great ideal of
+the Arbiter and universal Judge which never could have been made into
+practical reality, unless the world and the Church had been assured of
+a succession of the wisest and holiest of men--he yet secured for a
+time something like that tremendous position for a number of his
+successors, and created an opinion and sentiment throughout
+Christendom that the reforms on which he insisted ought to be, which
+is almost the nearest that humanity can come to universal reformation.
+The Church which he left seemed shattered into a hundred fragments,
+and he died exiled and powerless; but yet he opened the greatest era
+of her existence to what has always been one of the wisest, and still
+remains one of the strongest institutions in the world, against which,
+in spite of many errors and much tribulations, it has never been in
+the power of the gates of hell to prevail.
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE VILLA BORGHESE.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] This personage is always called Cencio in the Italian records. He
+is supposed by some to have been of the family of the Crescenzi, of
+which name, as well as of Vincenzo, this is the diminutive.
+
+[4] On this subject the records differ, some asserting these letters
+to have been read at once on Roland's removal, some that the sitting
+was adjourned after that wonderful incident.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE FOUNTAIN OF THE TORTOISE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+INNOCENT III.
+
+
+It is not our object, the reader is aware, to give here a history of
+Rome, or of its pontiffs, or of the tumultuous world of the Middle
+Ages in which a few figures of Popes and Princes stand out upon the
+ever-crowded, ever-changing background, helping us to hear among the
+wild confusion of clanging swords and shattering lances, of war cries
+and shouts of rage and triumph--and to see amidst the mist and smoke,
+the fire and flame, the dust of breached walls and falling houses. Our
+intention is solely to indicate those among the chiefs of the Church
+who are of the most importance to the great city, which, ever
+rebelling against them, ever carrying on a scarcely broken line of
+opposition and resistance, was still passive in their hands so far as
+posterity is concerned, dragged into light, or left lying in
+darkness, according as its rulers were. It is usual to say that the
+great time of the Church, the age of its utmost ascendency, was during
+the period between Gregory VII. and Innocent III., the first of whom
+put forth its claim as Universal Arbiter and Judge as no one had ever
+done before, while the second carried that claim to its climax in his
+remarkable reign--a reign all-influencing, almost all-potent,
+something more like a universal supremacy and rule over the whole
+earth than has ever been known either before or since. The reader has
+seen what was the effect upon his world of the great Hildebrand: how
+he laboured, how he proclaimed his great mission, with what
+overwhelming faith he believed in it, and, it must be added, with how
+little success he was permitted to carry it out. This great Pope,
+asserting his right as the successor of Peter to something very like a
+universal dominion and the power of setting down and raising up all
+manner of thrones, principalities, and powers, lived fighting for the
+very ground he stood on, in an incessant struggle not only with the
+empire, but with every illiterate and ignoble petty court of his
+neighbourhood, with the robber barons of the surrounding hills, with
+the citizens in his streets, with the villagers on his land--and,
+after having had more than once his independent realm restricted to
+the strong walls of St. Angelo, had at last to abandon his city for
+mere safety's sake, and die in exile far from the Rome he loved.
+
+The life of the other we have now to trace, as far as it is possible
+to keep the thread of it amid the tremendous disorders, disastrous
+wars and commotions of his time, in all of which his name is so
+mingled that in order to distinguish his story the student must be
+prepared to struggle through what is really the history of the world,
+there being scarcely a corner of that world--none at least with which
+history was then acquainted--which was not pervaded by Innocent,
+although few we think in which his influence had any such power as is
+generally believed.
+
+This Pope was not like Hildebrand a man of the people. He had a
+surname and already a distinguished one. Lothario Conti, son of
+Trasimondo, lord of Ferentino, of the family of the Dukes of Spoleto,
+was born in the year 1161 in the little town of Anagni, where his
+family resided, a place always dear to him, and to which in the days
+of his greatness he loved to retire, to take refuge from the summer
+heats of Rome or other more tangible dangers. He was thus a member of
+the very nobility with which afterwards he had so much trouble, the
+unruly neighbours who made every road to Rome dangerous, and the
+suzerainty of the Pope in many cases a simple fiction. The young
+Lothario had three uncles in the Church in high places, all of them
+eventually Cardinals, and was destined to the ecclesiastical
+profession, in which he was so certain of advancement, from his birth;
+he was educated partly at Rome, at the school of St. John Lateran,
+specially destined for the training of the clergy, and therefore spent
+his boyhood under the shadow of the palace which was to be his home in
+later years. From Rome he went to the University of Paris, one of the
+greatest of existing schools, and studied canon law so as to make
+himself an authority on that subject, then one of the most engrossing
+and important branches of learning. He loved the "beneficial tasks,"
+and perhaps also the freedom and freshness of university life, where
+probably the bonds of the clerical condition were less felt than in
+other places, though Innocent never seems to have required indulgence
+in that respect. Besides his readings in canon law, he studied with
+great devotion the Scriptures, and their interpretation, after the
+elaborate and highly artificial fashion of the day, dividing each text
+into a myriad of heads, and building up the most recondite argument on
+a single phrase with meanings spiritual, temporal, scholastic, and
+imaginary. There he made several warm friends, among others Robert
+Curzon, an Englishman who served him afterwards in various high
+offices, not so much to the credit of their honour in later times as
+of the faithfulness of their friendship.
+
+Young Conti proceeded afterwards to Bologna, then growing into great
+reputation as a centre of instruction. He had, in short, the best
+education that his age was acquainted with, and returned to his
+ecclesiastical home at Rome and the protection of his Cardinal-uncles
+a perfectly well-trained and able young man, learned in all the
+learning of his day, acquainted more or less with the world, and ready
+for any service which the Church to which he was wholly devoted might
+require of him. He was a young man certain of promotion in any case.
+He had no sooner taken the first orders than he was made a canon of
+St. Peter's, of itself an important position, and his name very soon
+appears as acting in various causes brought on appeal to Rome--claims
+of convents, complaints among others of the monks of Canterbury in
+some forgotten question, where he was the champion of the complainants
+who were afterwards to bring him into so much trouble. These appeals
+were constantly occurring, and occupied a great deal of the time and
+thoughts of that learned and busy court of Rome, the Consistory, which
+became afterwards, under Innocent himself, the one great court of
+appeal for the world.
+
+About a hundred years had passed between the death of the great Pope
+Gregory, the monk Hildebrand, and the entrance of Lothario Conti upon
+public life; but when the reader surveys the condition of that surging
+sea of society--the crowded, struggling, fighting, unresting world,
+which gives an impression of being more crowded, more teeming with
+wild life and force, with constant movement and turmoil, than in our
+calmer days, though no doubt the facts are quite the reverse--he will
+find but little change apparent in the tremendous scene. As Gregory
+left the nations in endless war and fighting, so his great successor
+found them--king warring against king, prince against prince, count
+against count, city against city, nay, village against village, with a
+wide margin of personal struggle around, and a general war with the
+Church maintained by all. A panorama of the kingdoms of the world and
+the glory of them, could it have been furnished to any onlooker, would
+have showed its minutest lines of division by illuminations of
+devastating fire and flame, by the clangour of armies in collision, by
+wild freebooters in roaming bands, and little feudal wars in every
+district: every man in pursuit of something that was his neighbour's,
+perhaps only his life, a small affair--perhaps his wife, perhaps his
+lands, possibly the mere satisfaction of a feud which was always on
+hand to fill up the crevices of more important fighting.
+
+With more desperate hostility still the cities in pairs set themselves
+against each other, all flourishing, busy places, full of industry,
+full of invention, but fuller still of rage against the brother close
+by, of the same tongue and race, Milan against Parma, Pisa against
+Genoa, Florence against all comers. Bigger wars devastated other
+regions, Germany in particular in all its many subdivisions, where it
+seems impossible to believe there could ever be a loaf of bread or a
+cup of wine of native growth, so perpetually was every dukedom ravaged
+and every principality brought to ruin. Two Emperors claiming the
+allegiance of that vast impossible holy Empire which extended from the
+northern sea to the soft Sicilian shores, two Popes calling themselves
+heads of the Church, were matters of every day. The Emperors had
+generally each a show of right; but the anti-popes, though they had
+each a party, were altogether false functionaries with no show of law
+in their favour, generally mere creatures of the empire, though often
+triumphant for a moment. In Gregory's day Henry IV. and Rudolf were
+the contending Emperors. In those of Innocent they were Philip and
+Otho. There were no doubt different principles involved, but the
+effect was the same; in both cases the Popes were deeply concerned,
+each asserting a prerogative, a right to choose between the contending
+candidates and terminate the strife. That prerogative had been boldly
+claimed and asserted by Gregory; in the century that followed every
+Pope had reasserted and attempted with all his might to enforce it;
+but though Innocent is universally set forth as the greatest and most
+powerful of all who did so, and as in part responsible for almost
+every evil thing that resulted, I do not myself see that his
+interference was much more potential than that of Gregory, of which
+also so much is said, but which was so constantly baulked, thwarted,
+and contradicted in his day. So far as the Empire was concerned the
+Popes certainly possessed a right and privilege which gave a certain
+countenance to their claim, for until crowned by the ruling Pontiff no
+Emperor had full possession of his crown: but this did not affect the
+other Christian kingdoms over which Innocent claimed and attempted to
+exercise the same prerogative. The state of things, however, to the
+spectator is very much the same in the one century as the other. The
+age of storm and stress for the world of Christendom extended from one
+to another; no doubt progress was being made, foundations laid, and
+possibilities slowly coming into operation, of which the beginnings
+may be detected even among all the noise and dust of the wars; but
+outwardly the state of Europe was very much the same under Innocent as
+under Gregory: they had the same difficulties to encounter and the
+same ordeals to go through.
+
+Several short-lived Popes succeeded each other on the papal throne
+after Innocent began to ascend the steps of ecclesiastical dignity,
+which were so easy to the nephew of three Cardinals. He became a canon
+of St. Peter's while little more than twenty-one. Pope Lucius III.
+employed him about his court, Pope Gregory VIII. made him a
+sub-deacon of Rome. Pope Clement III. was his uncle Octavian, and made
+him Cardinal of "St. Sergius and St. Bacchus," a curious combination,
+and one which would better have become a more jovial priest. Then
+there came a faint and momentary chill over the prospects of the most
+rising and prosperous young ecclesiastic in Rome. His uncle was
+succeeded in the papal chair by a certain Cardinal, old and pious but
+little known to history, a member of the Orsini family and hostile to
+the Conti, so that our young Cardinal relapsed a little into the cold
+shade. It is supposed to be during this period that he turned his
+thoughts to literature, and wrote his first book, a singular one for
+his age and position--and yet perhaps not so unlike the utterance of
+triumphant youth under its first check as might be supposed--_De
+contemptu mundi, sive de miseriis humanæ conditionis_, is its title.
+It was indeed the view of the world which every superior mind was
+supposed to take in his time, as it has again become the last juvenile
+fashion in our own; but the young Cardinal Conti had greater
+justification than our young prophets of evil. His work is full, as it
+always continues to be in his matured years, of the artificial
+constructions which Paris and Bologna taught, and which characterise
+the age of the schoolmen: and it is not to be supposed that he had
+much that was new to say of that everlasting topic which was as
+hackneyed in the twelfth century as it is in the nineteenth. After he
+has explained that "every male child on his birth cries A and every
+female E; and when you say A with E it makes Eva, and what is Eva if
+not heu! ha!--alas!"--he adds a description of the troubles of life
+which is not quite so fanciful.
+
+      "We enter life amid pains and cries, presenting no
+      agreeable aspect, lower even than plants and vegetables,
+      which give forth at least a pleasant odour. The duration of
+      life becomes shorter every day; few men reach their
+      fortieth year, a very small number attain the sixtieth....
+      And how painful is life! Death threatens us constantly,
+      dreams frighten us, apparitions disturb us, we tremble for
+      our friends, for our relations; before we are prepared for
+      it misfortune has come: sickness surprises us, death cuts
+      the thread of our life. All the centuries have not been
+      enough to teach even to the science of medicine the
+      different kind of sufferings to which man's fragility
+      exposes him. Human nature is more corrupt from day to day;
+      the world and our bodies grow old. Often the guilty is
+      acquitted and the innocent is punished.... Every thought,
+      every act, all the arts and devices are employed for no
+      other end but to secure the glory and favour of men. To
+      gain honour he uses flattery, he prays, he promises, he
+      tries every underground way if he cannot get what he wants
+      by direct measures; or he takes it by force if he can
+      depend on the support of friends or of relations. And what
+      a burden are those high dignities! When the ambitious man
+      has attained the height of his desires his pride knows no
+      bounds, his arrogance is without restraint; he believes
+      himself so much a better man as he is more elevated in
+      position; he disdains his friends, recognises no one,
+      despises his oldest connections, walking proudly with his
+      head high, insolent in words, the enemy of his superiors
+      and the tyrant of his dependents."
+
+The young Cardinal spares no class in his animadversions, but the rich
+are held up as warnings rather than the poor, and the vainglory of the
+miserable sons of Adam is what disgusts him most. Here is a passage
+which carries us into the inner life of that much devastated, often
+ruined Rome, which nevertheless at its most distracted moment was
+never quite devoid of the splendours and luxuries it loved.
+
+      "Has not the prophet declared his anathema against luxury
+      in dress? Yet the face is coloured with artificial colours
+      as if the art of man could improve the work of God. What
+      can be more vain than to curl the hair, to paint the
+      cheeks, to perfume the person? And what need is there for a
+      table ornamented with a rich cover, and laid with knives
+      mounted in ivory, and vases of gold and silver? What more
+      vain again than to paint the rooms, to cover the doors with
+      fine carvings, to lay down carpets in the ante-chambers, to
+      repose one's self on a bed of down, covered with silken
+      stuffs and surrounded with curtains?"
+
+Some historical commentators take exception to this picture as
+imaginary, and too luxurious for the age; but after all a man of the
+time must have known better than even Muratori our invaluable guide:
+and we find again and again in the descriptions of booty taken in the
+wars, accounts of the furniture of the tents of the conquered, silver
+and gold vases, and costly ornaments of the table which if carried
+about to embellish the wandering and brief life of a campaign would
+surely be more likely still to appear among the riches of a settled
+dwelling-place. Cardinal Lothario however did not confine himself
+altogether to things he had intimate knowledge of, for one of his
+illustrations is that of a discontented wife, a character of which he
+could have no personal experience: the picture is whimsically correct
+to conventional precedent; it is the established piece which we are so
+well acquainted with in every age.
+
+      "She desires fine jewels and dresses, and beautiful
+      furniture without regard to the means of her husband; if
+      she does not get them she complains, she weeps, she
+      grumbles and murmurs all night through. Then she says,
+      'So-and-so is much more expensive than I am, and everybody
+      respects her; while I, because I am poor, they look at me
+      disdainfully over their shoulders.' Nobody must be praised
+      or loved but herself; if any other is beloved she thinks
+      herself hated; if any one is praised she thinks herself
+      injured. She insists that everybody should love what she
+      loves, and hate what she hates; she will submit to nothing
+      but dominates all; everything ought to be permitted to her,
+      and nothing forbidden. And after all (adds the future pope)
+      whatever she may be, ugly, sick, mad, imperious,
+      ill-tempered, whatever may be her faults, she must be kept
+      if she is not unchaste; and even then though the man may
+      separate from her, he may not take another."
+
+This sounds as if the young Cardinal would have been less severe on
+the question of divorce than his clerical successors. The book however
+is quite conventional, and gives us little insight into the manner of
+man he was. Nevertheless there are some actual thoughts in the
+perennial and often repeated argument, as when he maintains the sombre
+doctrine of eternal punishment with the words: "Deliverance will not
+be possible in hell, for sin will remain as an inclination even when
+it cannot be carried out." He also wrote a book upon the Mass in the
+quiet of these early days; and was diligent in performing his duties
+and visiting the poor, to whom he was always full of charity.
+
+When the old Pope died, however, there seems not to have been a
+moment's doubt as to who should succeed him. The Cardinal Lothario
+was but thirty-seven, his ability and learning were known indeed, but
+had as yet produced no great result: his family was distinguished but
+not of force enough to overawe the Conclave, and nothing but the
+impression produced upon the minds of his contemporaries by his
+character and acquirements could account for his early advancement.
+Pope Celestine in dying had recommended with great insistence the
+Cardinal John Colonna as his successor; but this seems scarcely to
+have been taken into consideration by the electors, who now, according
+to Hildebrand's institution, somewhat modified by succeeding Popes,
+performed their office without any pretence of consulting either
+priests or people, and still less with any reference to the Emperor.
+The election was held, not in the usual place, but in a church now
+untraceable, "Ad Septa Solis," situated somewhere near the Colosseum.
+The object of the Cardinals in making the election there, was safety,
+the German troops of the Emperor being at the time in possession of
+the entire surrounding country up to the very gates of Rome, and quite
+capable of making a raid upon the Lateran to stop any proceedings
+which might be disagreeable to their master; for the imperial
+authorities on their part had never ceased to assert their right to be
+consulted in the election of a Pope. Lothario made the orthodox
+resistance without which perhaps no early Pope ever ascended the papal
+throne, protesting his own incapacity for so great an office; but the
+Cardinals insisted, not granting him even a day's delay to think over
+it. The first of the Cardinal-deacons, Gratiano, an old man, invested
+him with the pluvial and greeted him as Innocent, apparently leaving
+him no choice even as to his name. Thus the grave young man, so
+learned and so austere, in the fulness of his manhood ascended St.
+Peter's chair. There is no need to suppose that there was any
+hypocrisy in his momentary resistance; the papal crown was very far
+from being one of roses, and a young man, even if he had looked
+forward to that position and knew himself qualified for it, might well
+have a moment's hesitation when it was about to be placed on his head.
+
+  [Illustration: THE CAPITOL.
+    _To face page 316._]
+
+When the announcement of the election was made to the crowd outside,
+it was received with cries of joy: and the entire throng--consisting
+no doubt in a large degree of the clergy, mingled with the
+ever-abundant masses of the common people,--accompanied the Cardinals
+and the Pope-elect to the Lateran, though that church, one would
+suppose, must still have been occupied by the old Pope on his bier,
+and hung with the emblems of mourning: for it was on the very day of
+Celestine's death that the election took place. Muratori suggests a
+mistake of dates. "Either Pope Celestine must have died a day sooner,
+or Innocent have been elected a day later," he says. After the
+account, more full than usual, of the ceremonies of the election, the
+brilliant procession, and the rejoicing crowd, sweep away into the
+silence, and no more is heard of them for six weeks, during which time
+Lothario waited for the Rogation days, the proper time for
+ordinations; for though he had already risen so high in the Church, he
+was not yet a priest, but only in deacon's orders, which seems to have
+been the case in so many instances. The two ordinations took place on
+two successive days, the 22nd and 23rd of February, 1198.
+
+When he had received the final consecration, and had been invested
+with all the symbols of his high office--the highest in the world to
+his own profound consciousness, and to the belief of all who
+surrounded him--Pope Innocent III. rose from the papal chair, of which
+he had just taken possession, and addressed the immense assembly.
+Whether it had become the custom to do so we are not informed.
+Innocent, so far as can be made out from his writings, was no
+heaven-born preacher, yet he would seem to have been very ready to
+exercise his gift, such as it was; it appears to have been his habit
+to explain himself in all the most important steps in life, and there
+could be no greater occasion than this. He stood on the steps of his
+throne in all the glory of his shining robes, over the dark and eager
+crowd, and there addressed to them a discourse in which the highest
+pretensions, yet the most humble faith, are conjoined, and which shows
+very clearly with what intentions and ideas he took upon himself the
+charge of Christendom, and supreme authority not only in the Church
+but in the world. He had been deeply agitated during the ceremonies of
+his consecration, shedding many tears; but now he had recovered his
+composure and calm.
+
+There are four sermons existing among his works which bear the title
+_In consecratione Romani Pontificis_. Whether they were all written
+for this occasion, in repeated essays before he satisfied himself with
+what he had to say, is unknown. Perhaps some of them were used on the
+occasion of the consecration of other great dignitaries of the Church;
+but this is merely conjecture. We have at all events under his own
+hand the thoughts which arose in the mind of such a man at the moment
+of such an elevation: the conception of his new and great dignity
+which he had formed and held with the faith of absolute conviction:
+and the purposes with which he began his work. His text, if text was
+necessary for so personal a discourse, was the words of our Lord: "Who
+then is that faithful and wise steward whom his lord shall make ruler
+over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?"
+We quote of course from our own authorised version: the words of the
+Vulgate, used by Innocent, do not put this sentence in the form of a
+question. His examination of the meaning of the word "house" is the
+first portion of the argument.
+
+      "He has constituted in the fulness of his power the
+      pre-eminence of the Holy See that no one may be so bold as
+      to resist the order which He has established, as He has
+      Himself said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this stone I will
+      build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail
+      against it.' For as it is He who has laid the foundations
+      of the Church, and is himself that foundation, the gates of
+      hell could in nothing prevail against it. And this
+      foundation is immovable: as says the Apostle, no man can
+      lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is
+      Jesus Christ.... This is the building set upon a rock of
+      which eternal truth has said: 'The rain fell and the wind
+      blew and beat upon that house; but it stood fast, for it
+      was built upon a rock,' that is to say, upon the rock of
+      which the Apostle said: 'And this Rock was Christ.' It is
+      evident that the Holy See, far from being weakened by
+      adversity, is fortified by the divine promise, saying with
+      the prophet: 'Thou hast led me by the way of affliction.'
+      It throws itself with confidence on that promise which the
+      Lord has made to the Apostles: 'Behold I am with you
+      always, even unto the end of the world.' Yes, God is with
+      us, who then can be against us? for this house is not of
+      man but of God, and still more of God made man: the heretic
+      and the dissident, the evil-minded wolf endeavours in vain
+      to waste the vineyard, to tear the robe, to smother the
+      lamp, to extinguish the light. But as was said by Gamaliel:
+      'If the work is of man it will come to naught; if it is of
+      God ye cannot overthrow it: lest haply ye should find that
+      you are fighting against God.' The Lord is my trust. I fear
+      nothing that men can do to me. I am the servant whom God
+      has placed over His house; may I be prudent and faithful so
+      as to give the meat in due season!"
+
+He then goes on to describe the position of the faithful steward.
+
+      "I am placed over this house. God grant that I were as
+      eminent by my merit as by my position. But it is all the
+      more to the honour of the mighty Lord when He fulfils His
+      will by a feeble servant; for then all is to His glory, not
+      by human strength but by force divine. Who am I, and what
+      is my father's house, that I should be set over kings, that
+      I should occupy the seat of honour? for it is of me that
+      the prophet has said, 'I have set thee over people and
+      kingdoms, to tear and to destroy, to build and to plant.'
+      It is of me that the Apostle has said, 'I have given thee
+      the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatsoever thou bindest
+      on earth is bound in heaven.' And again it is to me (though
+      it is said by the Lord to all the Apostles in common), 'The
+      sins which you remit on earth shall be remitted; and those
+      you retain shall be retained.' But speaking to Peter alone
+      He said: 'That which thou bindest on earth shall be bound
+      in heaven.' Peter may bind others but he cannot be bound
+      himself.
+
+      "You see now who is the servant placed over the house; it
+      is no other than the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Successor
+      of Peter. He is the intermediary between God and men,
+      beneath God, yet above men, much lower than God but more
+      than men; he judges all but is judged by none as the
+      Apostle says: 'It is God who is my judge.' But he who is
+      raised to the highest degree of consideration is brought
+      down again by the functions of a servant that the humble
+      may be raised up and greatness may be humiliated--for God
+      resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. O greatest
+      of wise counsels--the greater you are the more profoundly
+      must you humble yourself before them all! You are there as
+      a light on a candlestick that all in the house may see;
+      when that light becomes dark, how thick then is the
+      darkness? You are the salt of the earth: when that salt
+      becomes without savour, with what will you be seasoned? It
+      is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden under
+      foot of men. For this reason much is demanded from him to
+      whom much is given."
+
+Thus Innocent began his career, solemnly conscious of the greatness of
+his position. But the reader will perceive that nothing could be more
+evangelical than his doctrine. Exalting as he does the high claims of
+Peter, he never falls into the error of supposing him to be the Rock
+on which the foundations of the Church are laid. On the other hand his
+idea of the Pope as beneath God but above men, lower than God but
+greater than men, is startling. The angel who stopped St. John in his
+act of worship proclaiming himself one of the Apostles' brethren the
+prophets, made no such pretension. But Innocent was strong in the
+consciousness that he himself, the arbiter on earth of all reward and
+punishment, was the judge of angels as well as men, and held a higher
+position than any of them in the hierarchy of heaven.
+
+The first act of Innocent's papacy was the very legitimate attempt to
+establish his own authority and independence at home. The long
+subsistence of the idea that only a Pope-king with enough of secure
+temporal ascendency to keep him free at least from the influence of
+other sovereigns, could be safe in the exercise of his spiritual
+functions--is curious when we think of the always doubtful position of
+the Popes, who up to this time and indeed for long after retained the
+most unsteady footing in their own metropolis, the city which derived
+all its importance from them. The Roman citizens took many centuries
+to learn--if they were ever taught--that the seat of a great
+institution like the Church, the court of a monarch who claimed
+authority in every quarter of the world, was a much more important
+thing than a mere Italian city, however distinguished by the memories
+and relics of the past. We doubt much whether the great Innocent, the
+most powerful of the Popes, had more real control over the home and
+centre of his supposed dominions at the outset of his career than Pope
+Leo XIII., dispossessed and self-imprisoned, has now, or might have if
+he chose. No one can doubt that Innocent chose--and that with all the
+strength and will of an unusually powerful character--to be master in
+his own house: and he succeeded by times in the effort; but, like
+other Popes, he was at no time more than temporarily successful. Twice
+or oftener he was driven by the necessity of circumstances, if not by
+actual violence, out of the city: and though he never altogether lost
+his hold upon it, as several of his predecessors had done, it was at
+the cost of much trouble and exertion, and at the point of the sword,
+that he kept his place in Rome.
+
+He was, however, in the first flush of his power, almost triumphant.
+He succeeded in changing the fluctuating constitution of the Roman
+commonwealth, which had been hitherto presided over by a Præfect,
+responsible to the Emperor and bound to his service, along with a
+vague body of senators, sometimes larger, sometimes smaller in number,
+and swayed by every popular demonstration or riot--the very best
+machinery possible for the series of small revolutions and changes of
+policy in which Rome delighted. It was in every way the best thing for
+the interests of the city that it should have learnt to accept the
+distinction, all others having perished, of being the seat of the
+Church. For Rome was by this time, as may be said, the general court
+of appeal for Europe; every kind of cause was tried over again before
+the Consistory or its delegates; and a crowd of appellants, persons of
+all classes and countries, were always in Rome, many of them
+completely without acquaintance in the place, and dependent only upon
+such help and guidance as money could procure, money which has always
+been the great object of desire to most communities, the means of
+grandeur and greatness, if also of much degradation. It must not be
+supposed, however, that the Pope took advantage of any such mean
+motive to bind the city to himself. He guarded against the dangers of
+such a situation indeed by a strenuous endeavour to clear his court,
+his palace, his surroundings, of all that was superfluous in the way
+of luxury, all that was merely ostentatious in point of attendants and
+services, and all that was mercenary among the officials. When he
+succeeded in transferring the allegiance of the Præfect from the
+Emperor to himself, he made at the same time the most stringent laws
+against the reception of any present or fee by that Præfect and his
+subordinate officers, thus securing, so far as was possible, the
+integrity of the city and its rulers as well as their obedience. And
+whether in the surprise of the community to be so summarily dealt
+with, or in its satisfaction with the amount of the present, which
+Innocent, like all the other Popes, bestowed on the city on his
+consecration, he succeeded in carrying out these changes without
+opposition, and so secured before he went further a certain shelter
+and security within the walls of Rome.
+
+He then turned his eyes to the States of the Church, the famous
+patrimony of St. Peter, which at that period of history St. Peter was
+very far from possessing. Certain German adventurers, to whom the
+Emperor had granted the fiefs which Innocent claimed as belonging to
+the Holy See, were first summoned to do homage to the Pope as their
+suzerain, then threatened with excommunication, then laid under
+anathema: and finally--Markwald and the rest remaining unconvinced and
+unsubdued--were driven out of their ill-gotten lands by force of arms,
+which proved the most effectual way. The existence of these German
+lords was the strongest argument in favour of the Papal sway, and was
+efficacious everywhere. The towns little and great, scattered over the
+March of Ancona, the duchy of Spoleto, and the wealthy district of
+Umbria, received the Pope and his envoys as their deliverers. The
+Tedeschi were as fiercely hated in Italy in the twelfth century as
+they were in recent times; and with greater reason, for their cruelty
+and exactions were indescribable. And the civic spirit which in the
+absence of any larger patriotism kept the Italian race in energetic
+life, and produced in every little centre of existence a longing for
+at least municipal liberty and independence, hailed with acclamations
+the advent of the head of the Church, a suzerain at least more
+honourable and more splendid than the rude Teuton nobles who despised
+the race over which they ruled.
+
+That spirit had already risen very high in the more important cities
+of Northern Italy. The Lombard league had been already in existence
+for a number of years, and a similar league was now formed by the
+Tuscan towns which Innocent also claimed, in right of the legacy made
+to the Church more than a hundred years before by the great Countess
+Matilda, the friend of Hildebrand, but which had never yet been
+secured to the Holy See. The Tuscans had not been very obedient
+vassals to Matilda herself in her day; and they were not likely
+perhaps to have afforded much support to the Popes had the Church ever
+entered into full enjoyment of Matilda's splendid legacy. But in the
+common spirit of hatred against the Tedeschi, the cruel and fierce
+German chiefs to whom the Emperor had freely disposed of the great
+estates and castles and rich towns of that wonderful country, the
+supremacy of the Church was accepted joyfully for the moment, and all
+kinds of oaths taken and promises made of fidelity and support to the
+new Pope. When Innocent appeared, as in the duchy of Spoleto, in
+Perugia, and other great towns, he was received with joy as the
+saviour of the people. We are not told whether he visited Assisi,
+where at this period Francis of that city was drawing crowds of
+followers to his side, and the idea of a great monastic order was
+rising out of the little church, the Portiuncula, at the bottom of the
+hill: but wherever he went he was received with joy. At Perugia, when
+the papal procession streamed through the crowded gates, and reached
+the old palazzo appropriated for its lodging, there suddenly sprang up
+a well which had been greatly wanted in the place, a spring of fresh
+water henceforward and for ever known as the Fontana di Papa. These
+cities all joined the Tuscan league against the Germans with the
+exception of Pisa, always arrogant and self-willed, which stood for
+those same Germans perhaps because their rivals on every side were
+against them. It was at this period, some say, and that excellent
+authority Muratori among them, that the titles of Guelf and Ghibelline
+first came into common use, the party of the Pope being Guelf, and
+that of the empire Ghibelline--the one derived from the house of Este,
+which was descended from the old Teutonic race of Guelf on the female
+side, the other, Waiblingen, from that of Hohenstaufen, also descended
+by the female side from a traditionary German hero. It is curious that
+these distant ancestors should have been chosen as godfathers of a
+struggle with which they had nothing to do, and which arose so long
+after their time.
+
+  [Illustration: PORTA MAGGIORE.
+    _To face page 326._]
+
+Innocent, however, was not so good a Guelf as his party, for the Pope
+was the guardian and chief defender, during his troubled royal childhood,
+of Frederic of Sicily, afterwards the Emperor Frederic II., but at the
+beginning of Pope Innocent's reign a very helpless baby prince,
+fatherless, and soon, also, motherless, and surrounded by rapacious
+Germans, each man fighting for a scheme of his own, by which to
+transfer the insecure crown to his own head, or at least to rob it of
+both power and revenue. The Pope stood by his helpless ward with much
+steadfastness through the very brief years of his minority--for
+Frederic seems to have been a married man and ambitious autocrat at an
+age when ordinary boys are but beginning their studies--and had a
+large share eventually in his elevation to the imperial throne:
+notwithstanding that he belonged to the great house which had steadily
+opposed the claims of the Papacy for generations. It must be added,
+however, that the great enterprises of Innocent's first years could
+not have been taken up, or at least could not have been carried to so
+easy and summary a conclusion--whole countries recovered, the
+Emperor's nominees cast out, the cities leagued against their constant
+invaders and oppressors--had there been a fierce Emperor across _i
+monti_ ready to descend upon the always struggling, yet continually
+conquered, Italy. Henry VI., the son of Barbarossa, had died in the
+preceding year, 1198, in the flower of his age, leaving only the
+infant Frederic, heir to the kingdom of Sicily in right of his mother,
+behind him to succeed to his vast possessions. But the crown of
+Germany was, at least nominally, elective not hereditary; and
+notwithstanding that the Emperor had procured from his princes a
+delusive oath of allegiance to his child, that was a thing which in
+those days no one so much as thought of keeping. The inactivity of the
+forces of the Empire was thus accounted for; the holders of imperial
+fiefs in Italy were left to fight their own battles, and thus the Pope
+with very moderate forces, and the cities of Tuscany and Umbria, each
+for its own hand, were able to assert themselves, and drive out the
+oppressors. And there was a period of hopefulness and comparative
+peace.
+
+Innocent, however, who had the affairs of the world on his hands, and
+could not long confine himself to those of St. Peter's patrimony, was
+soon plunged into the midst of those ever-recurring struggles in
+Germany, too important in every way not to call for his closest
+attention. The situation was very much, the same as that in which
+Gregory VII. had found himself involved: with this great difference,
+however, that both competitors for the German crown were new men, and
+had neither any burden of crime against the Church nor previous
+excommunications on their head. Philip of Suabia, the brother of Henry
+VI., had been by him entrusted--with that curious confidence in the
+possibility of self-devotion on the part of others, which dying men,
+though never capable of it themselves, so often show--with the care
+and guardianship of his child and its interests, and the impossible
+task of establishing Frederic, as yet scarcely able to speak, upon a
+throne so important and so difficult. Philip did, it is said, his best
+to fulfil his trust and hurried from Sicily to the heart of Germany as
+soon as his brother was dead, with that object; but the princes of his
+party feared an infant monarch, and he was himself elected in the year
+1199 to the vacant seat. There seems no criminality in this in the
+circumstances, for the little Frederic was in any case impossible; but
+Philip had inherited a hatred which he had not done anything
+personally to deserve. "So exasperated were the Italians against the
+Germans by the barbarous government of Frederic I. and Henry VI. his
+son, that wherever Philip passed, whether through Tuscany or any other
+district, he was ill-used and in danger of his life, and many of his
+companions were killed," says Muratori. He had thus a strong feeling
+against him in Italy independent of any demerit of his own.
+
+It is a little difficult, however, to understand why Pope Innocent, so
+careful of the interests of the little king in Sicily, should have so
+strongly and persistently opposed his uncle. Philip had been granted
+possession of the duchy of Tuscany, which the Pope claimed as his own,
+and some offence on this account, as well as the shadow of an anathema
+launched against him for the same reason by one of Innocent's
+predecessors, may have prepossessed the Pope against him; but it is
+scarcely possible to accept this as reason enough for his determined
+opposition.
+
+The rival emperor Otho, elected by the Guelf party, was the son of
+Henry the Lion, the nephew of Richard Plantagenet of England the
+Coeur de Lion of our national story, and of a family always devoted
+to the Church. The two men were both young and full of promise,
+equally noble and of great descent, related to each other in a distant
+degree, trained in a similar manner, each of them quite fit for the
+place which they were called to occupy. It seems to the spectator now
+as if there was scarcely a pin to choose between them. Nor was it any
+conflict of personal ambition which set them up against each other.
+They were the choice of their respective parties, and the question was
+as clearly one of faction against faction as in an Irish village
+fight.
+
+These were circumstances, above all others, in which the arbitration
+of such an impartial judge as a Pope might have been of the greatest
+advantage to the world. There never was perhaps such an ideal
+opportunity for testing the advantage and the possibility of the power
+claimed by the Papacy. Otho was a young gallant at Richard's court
+expecting nothing of the kind, open to all kinds of other promotions,
+Earl of Yorkshire, Count of Poitou--the first not successful because
+he could not conciliate the Yorkshiremen, perhaps difficult in that
+way then as now: but without, so far as appears, any thought of the
+empire in his mind. And Philip had the right of possession, and was
+the choice of the majority, and had done no harm in accepting his
+election, even if he had no right to it. The case was quite different
+from that of the similar struggle in which Gregory VII. took part. At
+the earlier period the whole world, that was not crushed under his
+iron foot, had risen against Henry IV. His falsehood, his cruelty, his
+vices, had alienated every one, and nobody believed his word or put
+the smallest faith even in his most solemn vows. The struggle between
+such an Emperor and the head of the Church was naturally a struggle to
+death. One might almost say they were the impersonations of good and
+evil, notwithstanding that the good might be often alloyed, and the
+evil perhaps by times showed gleams of better meaning. But the case of
+Philip and Otho was completely different. Neither of them were bad men
+nor gave any augury of evil. The one perhaps by training and
+inclination was slightly a better Churchman than the other at the
+beginning of his career; but, on the other hand, Philip had various
+practical advantages over Otho which could not be gainsaid.
+
+Had Pope Innocent been the wholly wise man and inspired judge he
+claimed by right of his office to be, without prejudice or bias, nobly
+impartial, holding the balance in a steady hand, was not this the very
+case to test his powers? Had he helped the establishment of Philip in
+the empire and deprecated the introduction of a rival, a great deal of
+bloodshed might have been avoided, and a satisfactory result, without
+any injustice, if not an ideal selection, might have been obtained.
+All this was problematical, and depended upon his power of getting
+himself obeyed, which, as it turned out, he did not possess. But in
+this way, in all human probability, he might have promoted peace and
+secured a peaceful decision; for Philip's election was a _fait
+accompli_, while Otho was not as yet more than a candidate. The men
+were so equal otherwise, and there was so little exclusive right on
+one side or the other, that such facts as these would naturally have
+been taken into the most serious consideration by the great,
+impartial, and unbiassed mind which alone could have justified the
+interference of the Pope, or qualified him to assume the part of
+arbitrator in such a quarrel. He did not attempt this, however, but
+took his place with his own faction as if he had been no heaven-sent
+arbiter at all, but a man like any other. He has himself set forth the
+motives and reasons for his interference, with the fulness of
+explanation which he loved. The bull in which he begins by setting
+aside the claims of his own infant ward, Frederic, to whom his father
+Henry had caused the German princes to swear fealty, as
+inadmissible--the said princes being freed of their oath by the death
+of the Emperor, a curious conclusion--is in great part an indictment
+of Philip, couched in the strongest and most energetic terms. In this
+document it is stated in the first place that Philip had been
+excommunicated by the previous Pope, as having occupied by violence
+the patrimony of St. Peter, an excommunication taken off by the
+legate, but not effectually; again he was involved in the
+excommunication of Markwald and the other invaders of Sicily whom he
+had upheld; in the next place he had been false to the little
+Frederic, whose right he had vowed to defend, and was thus perjured,
+though the princes who had sworn allegiance to the child were not so.
+Then follows a tremendous description of Philip's family and
+predecessors, of their dreadful acts against the Popes and Church, of
+the feuds of Barbarossa with the Holy See, of the insults and injuries
+of which all had been equally guilty. A persecutor himself and the son
+of persecutors, how could the Pope support the cause of Philip? The
+argument is full of force and strengthened by many illustrations, but
+it proves above all things that Innocent was no impartial judge, but a
+man holding almost with passion to his own side.
+
+The pleas in favour of Otho are much weaker. It is true, the Pope
+admits, that he had been elected by a minority, but then the number of
+notable and important electors were as great on his side as on
+Philip's: his house had a purer record than that of Philip: and
+finally he was weaker than Philip and more in need of support;
+therefore the Holy See threw all its influence upon his side. Nothing
+could be feebler than this conclusion after the force of the hostile
+judgments. We fear it must be allowed that Innocent being merely a man
+(which is the one unsurmountable argument against papal infallibility)
+went the way his prepossessions and inclinations--and also, we have no
+doubt, his conviction of what was best--led him, and was no more
+certain to be right in doing so than any other man.
+
+Having come to this conclusion, Innocent took his stand with all the
+power and influence he possessed upon Otho's side--a support which
+probably kept that prince afloat and made the long struggle possible,
+but was quite inadequate to set him effectually on the throne, or
+injure his rival in any serious way. In this partisan warfare,
+excommunication was the readiest of weapons; but excommunications, as
+we have already said, were very ineffectual in the greater number of
+cases; for Germany especially was full of great prelates as great as
+the princes, in most cases of as high race and as much territorial
+power, and they by no means always agreed with the Pope, and made no
+pretence of obeying him; and how was the people to find out that they
+lay under anathema when they saw the offices of the Church carried on
+with all the splendour of the highest ritual, its services unbroken,
+however the Pope might thunder behind? Some of these prelates--such as
+Leopold of Mainz, appointed by the Emperor, to whom Innocent refused
+his sanction, electing on his own part another archbishop, Siegfried,
+in his stead, who was not for many years permitted even to enter the
+diocese of which he was the titular head--maintained with Rome a
+struggle as obstinate as any secular prince. They were as powerful as
+the princes among whom they sat and reigned, and elected emperors.
+Most of the German bishops, we are told, were on Philip's side
+notwithstanding the decision of the Pope against him. In such
+circumstances the anathema was little more than a farce. The
+Archbishop of Mainz was excommunicated as much as the emperor, but
+being all the same in full possession of his see and its privileges,
+naturally acted as though nothing had happened, and found plenty of
+clergy to support him, who carried on the services of the Church as
+usual and administered the sacraments to Philip as much as if he had
+been in the full sunshine of Papal favour.
+
+Such a chance had surely never been foreseen when the expedient of
+excommunication was first thought of, for it is apt to turn every
+claim of authority into foolishness--threats which cannot be carried
+out being by their nature the most derogatory things possible to the
+person from whom they proceed. The great prelates of Germany were in
+their way as important as the Pope, their position was more steadily
+powerful than his, they had vassals and armies to defend them, and a
+strong and settled seat, from which it was as difficult, or indeed
+even dangerous, to displace them as to overthrow a throne. And what
+could the Pontiff do when they disobeyed and defied him? Nothing but
+excommunicate, excommunicate, for which they cared not a straw--or
+depose, which was equally unimportant, when, as happened in the case
+of Mainz, the burghers of the cathedral city vowed that the
+substituted bishop should never enter their gates.
+
+Thus the ten years' struggle produced nothing but humiliation for
+Innocent. The Pope did not relax in his determined opposition, nor
+cease to threaten penalties which he could not inflict until nearly
+the end of the struggle; and then when the logic of events began, it
+would appear, to have a little effect upon his mind, and he extended
+with reluctance a sort of feeble olive-branch towards the
+all-victorious Philip--a larger fate came in, and changed everything
+with the sweeping fulness of irresistible power. It is not said
+anywhere, so far as we know, that the overtures of Innocent brought
+the Emperor ill-luck; but it would certainly have been so said had
+such an accident occurred under Pio Nono, for example, who, it is
+well known, had the evil eye. For no sooner had Innocent taken this
+step than Philip's life came to a disastrous end. The Count Palatine
+of Wittelsbach, a great potentate of Germany, who had some personal
+grievance to avenge, demanded a private audience and murdered him in
+his temporary dwelling, in the moment of his highest prosperity. Thus
+in the twinkling of an eye everything was changed. The House of
+Hohenstaufen went down in a moment without an attempt made to prop it
+up. And Otho, who was at hand, already a crowned king, and demanding
+no further trouble, at once took the vacant place. This occurred in
+the year 1208--ten years after the beginning of the struggle. But in
+this extraordinary and sudden transformation of affairs Innocent
+counted for nothing; he had not done it nor even contributed to the
+doing of it: though he had kept the air thunderous with anathemas, and
+the roads dusty with the coming and going of his legates for all these
+unhappy years.
+
+Otho, however, did not at first forget the devotion which the Pope had
+shown him in his evil days, when triumph so unexpected and accidental
+(as it seemed) came to him. After taking full possession of the
+position which now there was no one to contest with him, he made a
+triumphal progress across the Alps, and was crowned Emperor at Rome,
+the last and crowning dignity which Philip had never been able to
+attain: where he behaved himself with much show of affection and
+humility to Innocent, whose stirrup he held like the most devoted son
+of the Church as he professed to be. There was much swearing of oaths
+at the same time. Otho vowed to preserve all the rights of the Church,
+and, with reservations, to restore the Tuscan fiefs of Matilda, and
+all the presents with which from time to time the former Emperors had
+endowed the Holy See, to the Pope's undisturbed possession. Rome was a
+scene of the utmost display and splendour during this imperial visit.
+Otho had come at the head of his army, and lay encamped at the foot of
+Monte Mario, where now the little group of pines stand up against the
+sky in the west, dark against the setting sun. It was October when all
+the summer glow and heat is mellowed by autumnal airs, and the white
+tents shone outside the city gates with every kind of splendid
+cognisance of princes and noble houses, and magnificence of mediæval
+luxury. The ancient St. Peter's, near the camp, was then planted, we
+are told, in the midst of a great number of convents, churches, and
+chapels, "Like a majestic mother surrounded by beautiful
+daughters"--though there was no Vatican as yet to add to its
+greatness: but the line of the walls on the opposite side of the river
+and the ancient splendour of Rome, more square and massive in its
+lingering classicism than the mediæval towns to which the German
+forces were more accustomed, shone in the mid-day sun: while towards
+the left the great round of St. Angelo dominated the bridge and the
+river, and all the crowds which poured forth towards the great church
+and shrine of the Apostles. There was, however, one shadow in this
+brilliant picture, and that was the fact that Rome within her gates
+lay not much unlike a couching lion, half terrified, half excited by
+the army outside, and not sure that the abhorred Tedeschi might not at
+any moment steal a march upon her, and show underneath those splendid
+velvet gloves, all heavy with embroideries of gold, the claws of that
+northern wolf which Italy had so often felt at her very heart. It is a
+curious sign of this state of agitated feeling that Otho published in
+Rome before his coronation a solemn engagement in his own name and
+that of his army that no harm should be done to the city, to the Pope
+and Cardinals, or to the people and their property, while he remained
+there. He had strong guards of honour at all the adjacent gates as a
+precautionary measure while the great ceremonies of his consecration
+went on.
+
+It was not the present St. Peter's, it need not be said, which, hung
+with splendid tapestries and lit with innumerable candles, glistening
+with precious marbles and gilding, and decorated with all the
+splendour of the church in silver and gold, received this great German
+potentate for that final act which was to make his authority sacred,
+and establish him beyond all question Emperor of the Holy Roman
+Empire, a dignity which only the Pope could complete, which was
+nothing, bringing no additional dominion with it, yet of the utmost
+importance in the estimation of the world. It cannot but have been
+that a sense of elation, perhaps chequered with doubt, but certainly
+sanctioned by many noble feelings--convictions that God had favoured
+his side in the long run, and that a better age was about to
+begin--must have been in Innocent's mind as he went through the
+various ceremonies of the imposing ritual, and received the vows of
+the monarch and placed the imperial crown on his head. We are not
+told, however, whether there was any alarm in the air as the two
+gorgeous processions conjoined, sweeping forth from the gates of St.
+Peter's, and across the bridge and by all the crowded ways, to the
+other side of the city, to the Lateran palace, where the great banquet
+was held. Otho with his crown on his head held the stirrup of the Pope
+at the great steps of St. Peter's as Innocent mounted; and the two
+greatest potentates of earth, the head of the secular and the head of
+the spiritual, dividing, with the most confusing elasticity of
+boundary between them, the sway of the world, rode alone together,
+followed by all that was most magnificent in Germany and Italy, the
+great princes, the great prelates vying with each other in pomp and
+splendour. The air was full of the ringing of bells and the chanting
+of the priests; and as they went along through the dark masses of the
+people on every side, the officers of Otho scattered largesse through
+all the crowded streets, and everything was festivity and general
+joy.
+
+But when the great people disappeared into the papal palace, and the
+banquet was spread, the German men-at-arms began to swagger about the
+streets as if they were masters of all they surveyed. There is no
+difference of opinion as to the brutality and insolence of the German
+soldiers in those days, and the Romans were excited and in no humour
+to accept any insult at such a moment. How they came to blows at last
+was never discovered, but after the great spectacle was over, most
+probably when night was coming on, and the excitement of the day had
+risen to irritability and ready passion, a fray arose in the streets
+no one knowing how. The strangers had the worst of it, Muratori says.
+"Many of the Teutons were killed," says one of the older chronicles,
+"and eleven hundred horses;" which would seem to imply that the dregs
+of the procession had been vapouring about Rome on their charges,
+riding the inhabitants down. Nor was it only men-at-arms: for a number
+of Otho's more distinguished followers were killed in the streets. How
+long it was before it came to the ears of the Emperor we are not
+informed, nor whether the banquet was interrupted. Probably Otho had
+returned to his tent (Muratori says he did so at once, leaving out all
+mention of any banquet) before the "calda baruffa" broke out: but at
+all events it was a startling change of scene. The Emperor struck his
+tents next morning, and departed from the neighbourhood of Rome in
+great rage and indignation:--and this, so far as Pope Innocent was
+concerned, was the last good that was ever heard of Otho. He broke all
+his vows one by one, took back the Tuscan States, seized the duchy of
+Spoleto and every city he passed on his way, and defied the Pope, to
+whom he had been so servile, having now got all from him that Innocent
+could give.
+
+The plea by which Otho defended himself for his seizure of the States
+of Tuscany was worthy of that scholastic age. He had vowed, he said,
+it was true, to preserve St. Peter's patrimony and all the
+ecclesiastical possessions: but he had vowed at the same time to
+preserve and to recover all imperial rights and possessions, and it
+was in discharge of this obligation that he robbed the Pope. Thus
+ended Innocent's long and faithful support of Otho; he had pledged the
+faith of heaven for his success, which was assured only by accident
+and crime; but no sooner had that success been secured, than the
+Emperor deserted and betrayed the Pope who had so firmly stood by him.
+It is said that Innocent redoubled from that moment his care of the
+young Frederic, the King of Sicily, the head of the Hohenstaufen house
+and party, and prepared him to revenge Otho's broken oaths by a
+downfall as complete as his elevation had been; but this is an
+assumption which has no more proof than any other uncharitable
+judgment of motives unrevealed. At all events it is very apparent that
+in this long conflict, which occupied so much of his life, the Pope
+played no powerful or triumphant part.
+
+In France the action of Innocent was more successful. The story of
+Philip Augustus and his wives, which is full of romantic incidents, is
+better known to the general reader than the tragedy of the Emperors.
+Philip Augustus had married a wife, a Danish princess, who did not
+please him. Her story, in its first chapter at least, is like that of
+Anne of Cleves, the fortunate princess who had the good luck not to
+please Henry VIII. (or perhaps still more completely resembles a
+comparatively recent catastrophe in our own royal house, the relations
+of George IV. and his unlucky wife). But the French king did not treat
+Ingelburga with the same politeness which Henry Tudor exhibited,
+neither had she the discretion to hold her tongue like the lady of
+Flanders. The complaints of the injured queen filled the world, and
+she made a direct appeal to the Pope, who was not slow to reply. When
+Philip procured a divorce from his wife from the complacent bishops of
+his own kingdom on one of those absurd allegations of too close
+relationship (it might be that of third or fourth cousin), which were
+of so much use to discontented husbands of sufficient rank, and
+married the beautiful Agnes of Meran, with whom he was in love,
+Innocent at once interfered. He began by commands, by entreaties, by
+attempts at settling the question by legal measures, commissioning his
+legates to hold a solemn inquiry into the matter, examining into
+Ingelburga's complaints, and using every endeavour to bring the king
+back to a sense of his duty. There could be no doubt on which side
+justice lay, and the legates were not, as in the case of Henry and
+Catherine, on the side of the monarch. It was the rejected queen who
+had the Pope's protection and not her powerful husband.
+
+Philip Augustus, however, was summoned in vain to obey. The litigation
+and the appeals went on for a long time, and several years elapsed
+before Innocent, after much preparation and many warnings, determined
+not merely as on former occasions to excommunicate the offender, but
+to pronounce an interdict upon the kingdom. Perhaps Innocent had
+learned the lesson which had been taught him on such a great scale,
+that excommunication was not a fortunate weapon, and that only the
+perfect subordination of the higher clergy could make it successful at
+all. The interdict was a much greater and more dreadful thing; it was
+dependent not upon the obedience of a great prelate, but upon every
+priest who had taken the sacred vows. Had he excommunicated the king
+as on former occasions, no doubt there would always have been some
+lawless bishop in France who would have enabled his sovereign to laugh
+at the Pope and his sentence. But an interdict could not thus be
+evaded, the mass of the clergy being obedient to the Pope whatever
+important individual exceptions there might be. The interdict was
+proclaimed accordingly with all the accessories of ritualistic
+solemnity. After a Council which had lasted seven days, and which was
+attended by a great number of the clergy, the bells of the
+cathedral--it was that of Dijon--began to toll as for a dying man: and
+all the great bishops with their trains, and the legate at their head,
+went solemnly from their council chamber to the church. It was
+midnight, and the long procession went through the streets and into
+the great cathedral by the wavering and gloomy light of torches. For
+the last time divine service was celebrated, and the canons sang the
+_Kyrie Eleison_ amid the silence, faintly broken by sobs and sounds of
+weeping, of the immense crowds who had followed them. The images of
+Christ and the saints were covered with crape, the relics of the
+saints, worshipped in those days with such strange devotion, were
+solemnly taken away out of the shrines and consecrated places to
+vaults and crypts underground where they were deposited until better
+times; the remains of the consecrated bread which had sustained the
+miracle of transubstantiation were burned upon the altar. All these
+details of the awful act of cutting off France from the community of
+the faithful were performed before a trembling and dismayed crowd,
+which looked on with a sense of the seriousness of the proceedings
+which was overwhelming.
+
+      "Then the legate, dressed in a violet stole, as on the day
+      of the passion of our Lord, advanced to the altar steps,
+      and in the name of Jesus Christ pronounced the interdict
+      upon all the realm of France. Sobs and groans echoed
+      through the great aisles of the cathedral; it was as if the
+      day of judgment had come."
+
+Once more after this tremendous scene there was a breathing space, a
+place of repentance left for the royal sinner, and then through all
+the churches of France the midnight ceremonial was repeated. The voice
+of prayer was silenced in the land, no more was psalm sung or mass
+said; a few convents were permitted by special grace, in the night,
+with closed doors and whispering voices, to celebrate the holy
+mysteries. For all besides the public worship of God and all the
+consolations of religion were cut off. We have seen how lightly
+personal excommunication was treated in Germany; but before so
+terrible a chastisement as this no king could hold out. Neither was
+the cause one of disobedience to the Holy See, or usurpation of the
+Church's lands, or any other offence against ecclesiastical supremacy:
+it was one into which every peasant, every clown could enter, and
+which revolted the moral sense of the nation. Matrimonial infidelities
+of all kinds have always been winked at in a monarch, but the strong
+step of putting away a guiltless queen and setting another in her
+place is a different matter. The nation was on the side of the Church:
+the clergy, except in very rare cases, were unanimous: and for once
+Innocent in his severity and supremacy was successful. After seven
+months of this terrible _régime_ the king yielded. It had been a time
+of threatening rebellion, of feuds and dissensions of all kinds, of
+diminished revenues and failing prosperity. Philip Augustus could not
+stand against these consequences. He sent away the fictitious wife
+whom he loved--and who died, as the world, and even history at its
+sternest, loves to believe, of a broken heart, the one victim whom no
+one could save, a short time after--and the interdict was removed. One
+is almost glad to hear that even then the king would have none of
+Ingelburga, the woman who had filled the world with her cries and
+complaints, and brought this tremendous anathema on France. She
+continued to cry and appeal to the Pope that her captivity was
+unchanged or even made harder than ever, but Innocent was too wise to
+risk his great expedient a second time. He piously advised her to have
+recourse to prayer and to have confidence in God, and promised not to
+abandon her. But the poor lady gained little by all the misery that
+had been inflicted to right her wrongs. Many years after, when no one
+thought any more of Ingelburga, the king suddenly took her out of her
+prison and restored her to her share, such as it was, of the throne,
+for what reason no man can tell.
+
+This, however, was the only great success of Innocent in the exercise
+of his papal power. It was an honourable and a just employment of that
+power, very different from the claim to decide between contending
+Emperors, or to nominate to the imperial crown; but it was in reality,
+as we think, the only triumphant achievement of the Pope, in whom all
+the power and all the pretensions of the papacy are said to have
+culminated. He had his hand in every broil, and interfered with
+everything that was going on in every quarter. Space fails us to tell
+of his endless negotiations, censures, recommendations and commands,
+sent by legates continually in motion or by letters of endless
+frequency and force, to regions in which Christianity itself was as
+yet scarcely established. Every little kingdom from the utmost limits
+of the north to the east were under this constant supervision and
+interference: and no doubt there were instances, especially among the
+more recent converts of the Church, and in respect to ecclesiastical
+matters, in which it was highly important; but so far as concerned the
+general tenor of the world's history, it can never be said to have had
+any important result.
+
+In England, Innocent had the evil fortune to have to do with the worst
+of the Plantagenet kings, the false and cowardly John, who got himself
+a little miserable reputation for a time by the temporary
+determination of his resolve that "no Italian priest, should tithe or
+toll in our dominions," and who struggled fiercely against Innocent on
+the question of the Archbishopric of Canterbury and other great
+ecclesiastical offices, as well as in matters more personal, such as
+the dower of Berengaria, the widow of Coeur de Lion, which the Pope
+had called upon him to pay. John drove the greater part of the clergy
+out of England in his fury at the interdict which Innocent pronounced,
+and took possession, glad of an occasion of acquiring so much wealth,
+of the estates and properties of the Church throughout the realm. But
+the interdict which had been so efficacious in France failed
+altogether of its effect in England. It was too early for any
+Protestant sentiment, and it is extraordinary that a people by no
+means without piety should have shown so singular an indifference to
+the judgment of the Church. Perhaps the fact that so many of the
+superior clergy were of the conquering Norman race, and, therefore,
+still sullenly resisted by the passive obstinacy of the humiliated
+Saxons, had something to do with it: while at the same time the
+banishment of many prelates would probably leave a large portion of
+the humbler priests in comparative ignorance of the Pope's decree.
+
+But whatever were the operative causes this is plain, that whereas in
+France the effect of the interdict was tremendous in England it
+produced scarcely any result at all. The banished bishops and
+archbishops, and at their head Stephen Langton, the patriotic
+Englishman of whom the Pope had made wise choice for the Archbishopric
+of Canterbury, stood on the opposite shore in consternation, and
+watched the contempt of their flocks for this greatest exercise of the
+power of Rome; and with still greater amazement perceived the success
+that followed the king in his enterprises, and the obedience of the
+people, with whom he had never been so popular before.
+
+We are not told what Innocent felt at the sight of this unexpected
+failure. He proceeded to strike King John with special excommunication,
+going from the greater to the smaller curse, in a reversal of the
+usual method; but this being still ineffectual, Innocent turned to
+practical measures. He proceeded to free King John's subjects from
+their oath of allegiance and to depose the rebellious monarch; and not
+only so, for these ordinances would probably have been as little
+regarded as the other--but he gave permission and authority to the
+King of France, the ever-watchful enemy of the Plantagenets, to invade
+England and to place his son Louis upon the vacant throne. Great
+preparations were made in France for this congenial Crusade--for it
+was in their quality as Crusaders that the Pope authorised the
+invasion. Then and not till then John paused in his career. He had
+laughed at spiritual dangers, but he no longer laughed when the French
+king gathered his forces at Boulogne, and the banished and robbed
+bishops prepared to return, not penitent and humiliated, but
+surrounded by French spears.
+
+Then at last the terrified king submitted to the authority of the
+Pope; he received the legates of Innocent in a changed spirit, with
+the servility of a coward. He vowed with his hand on the Gospels to
+redress all ecclesiastical wrongs, to restore the bishops, and to
+submit in every way to the judgment of the Church. Then in his craven
+terror, without, it is said, any demand of the kind on the part of the
+ecclesiastical ambassadors, John took a step unparalleled in the
+annals of the nations.
+
+      "In order to obtain the mercy of God for the sins we have
+      done against His holy Church, and having nothing more
+      precious to offer than our person and our kingdom, and in
+      order to humiliate ourself before Him who humbled Himself
+      for us even to death: by an inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
+      neither formed by violence nor by fear, but in virtue of
+      our own good and free will we give, with the consent of our
+      barons, to God, to His holy apostles, Peter and Paul, to
+      our mother the Holy Roman Church, to our Lord the Pope
+      Innocent and to his Catholic successors, in expiation of
+      our sins and those of our family, living and dead, our
+      kingdoms of England and Ireland with all their
+      accompaniments and rights, in order that we may receive
+      them again in the quality of vassal of God and of Holy
+      Church: in faith of which we take the oath of vassal, in
+      the presence of Pandulphus, putting ourselves at the
+      disposition of the Pope and his successors, as if we were
+      actually in the presence of the Pope; and our heirs and
+      successors shall be obliged to take the same oath."
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE CAMPAGNA (1860)
+    _To face page 346._]
+
+So John swore, but not because of the thunders and curses of
+Innocent--because of Philip Augustus of France hurrying on his
+preparations on the other side of the Channel, while angry barons and
+a people worn out with constant exactions gave him promise of but poor
+support at home. The Pope became now the only hope of the
+humiliated monarch. He had flouted the sentences and disdained the
+curses of the Holy See; but if there was any power in the world which
+could restore the fealty of his vassals, and stop the invader on his
+way, it was Innocent: or so at least in this last emergency it might
+be possible to hope.
+
+Innocent on his part did not despise the unworthy bargain.
+Notwithstanding his powerful intellect and just mind, and the
+perception he must have had of the miserable motives underneath, he
+did not hesitate. He received the oath, though he must have well known
+that it would be so much waste paper if John had ever power to cast it
+off. Of all men Innocent must have been most clearly aware what was
+the worth of the oaths of kings. He accepted it, however, apparently
+with a faith in the possibility of establishing the suzerainty thus
+bestowed upon him, which is as curious as any other of the facts of
+the case, whether flattered by this apparent triumph after his long
+unsuccess, or believing against all evidence--as men, even Popes, can
+always believe what they wish--that so shameful a surrender was
+genuine, and that here at last was a just acknowledgment of the rights
+of the Holy See. Henceforward the Pope put himself on John's side. He
+risked the alienation of the French king by forbidding the enterprise
+which had been undertaken at his command: he rejected the appeal of
+the barons, disapproved Magna Charta, transferred the excommunication
+to its authors with an ease which surely must have helped these
+unlikely penitents to despise both the anathema and its source. It is
+impossible either to explain or excuse this strange conduct. The
+easiest solution is that he did not fully understand either the facts
+or the characters of those with whom he had to deal: but how then
+could he be considered fit to judge and arbitrate between them?
+
+The death of John liberated the Pope from what might have been a
+deliberate breach of his recommendations on the part of France. And
+altogether in this part of his conduct the imaginary success of
+Innocent was worse than a defeat. It was a failure from the high
+dignity he claimed, more conspicuous even than that failure in Germany
+which had already proved the inefficacy of spiritual weapons to affect
+the business of the world: for not only had all his efforts failed of
+success, until the rude logic of a threatened invasion came in to
+convince the mind of John--but the Pope himself was led into unworthy
+acts by a bargain which was in every way ignoble and unworthy. If the
+Church was to be the high and generous umpire, the impartial judge of
+all imperial affairs which she claimed to be--and who can say that had
+mortal powers been able to carry it out, this was not a noble and
+splendid ideal?--it was not surely by becoming the last resort against
+just punishment of a traitor and caitiff, whose oath made one day was
+as easily revoked the next, as the putting on or pulling off of a
+glove. It is almost inconceivable that a man like Innocent should have
+received with joy and with a semblance of faith such a submission on
+the part of such a man as John. But it is evident that he did so, and
+that probably the Roman court and community took it as a great event
+and overwhelming proof of the progress of the authority of the Church.
+
+But perhaps an Italian and a Churchman in these days was the last
+person in the world to form a just idea of what we call patriotism, or
+to understand the principle of independence which made a nation, even
+when divided within itself, unite in fierce opposition to interference
+from without. Italy was not a country, but a number of constantly
+warring states and cities, and to Innocent the Church was the one sole
+institution in the world qualified and entitled to legislate for
+others. He accepted the gift of England almost with elation,
+notwithstanding all he had learned of that distant and strange country
+which cared not for an interdict, and if it could in any circumstances
+have loved its unworthy king, would have done so on account of his
+resistance to the Pope. And it would appear that the Pontiff believed
+in something serious coming of that suzerainty, all traditions and
+evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Thus Innocent's part in the
+bloody and terrible drama that was then being played in England was
+neither noble nor dignified, but a poor part unworthy of his character
+and genius. His interference counted for nothing until France
+interfered with practical armies which had to be reckoned with--when
+the hand which had launched so many ineffectual thunderbolts was
+gripped at by an expedient of cowardly despair which in reality meant
+and produced nothing. Both sides were in their turn excommunicated,
+given over to every religious penalty; but unconcerned fought the
+matter out their own way and so settled it, unanimous only in
+resisting the jurisdiction of Rome. The vehement letters of the Pope
+as the struggle grew more and more bitter sound through the clang of
+arms like the impotent scoldings of a woman:
+
+      "Let women ... war with words,
+      With curses priests, but men with swords."
+
+Let Pope or prelate do what they might, the cold steel carried the
+day.
+
+Not less complete in failure, though with a flattering promise in it
+of prosperity and advantage, was the great crusade of Innocent's
+day--that which is called the Venetian Crusade, the immense expedition
+which seemed likely to produce such splendid results but ended so
+disastrously, and never set foot at all in the Holy Land which was its
+object. The Crusades were, of all other things, the dearest object to
+the hearts of the Popes, small and great. The first conception of them
+had risen, as the reader will remember, in the mind of Gregory VII.,
+who would fain have set out himself at the head of the first, to
+recover out of the hands of the infidel the sacred soil which
+enshrined so many memories. The idea had been pursued by every worthy
+Pope between Hildebrand and Innocent, with fluctuations of success and
+failure--at first in noble and pious triumph, but latterly with all
+the dissensions, jealousies, and internal struggles, which armies,
+made up of many differing and antagonistic nationalities, could with
+difficulty avoid. Before Innocent's accession to the papacy there had
+been a great and terrible reverse, which was supposed to have broken
+the heart of the old Pope under whom it occurred, and which filled
+Christendom with horror, woe, and shame. The sacred territory for
+which so much blood had been shed fell again entirely into the hands
+of the Saracens. In consequence of this, one of the first acts of
+Innocent was to send out letters over all the world, calling for a new
+Crusade, exhorting princes and priests alike to use every means for
+the raising of a sufficient expedition, and promising every kind of
+spiritual advantage, indulgence, and remission to those who took the
+cross.
+
+The first result of these impassioned appeals was to fire the spirits
+of certain priests in France to preach the Crusade, with all the fiery
+enthusiasm which had first roused Christendom: and a very large
+expedition was got together, chiefly from France, whose preliminary
+negotiations with the doge and government of Venice to convey them to
+Palestine furnishes one of the most picturesque scenes in the history
+of that great and astute republic. It was in the beginning of the
+thirteenth century, the opening of the year 1201, when the bargain,
+which was a very hard one, was made: and in the following July the
+expedition was to set sail. But when the pilgrims assembled at Venice
+it was found that with all their exertions they had not more than half
+the sum agreed upon as passage money. Perhaps the Venetians had
+anticipated this and taken their measures accordingly. At all events,
+after much wrangling and many delays, they agreed to convey the
+Crusaders on condition only of obtaining their assistance to take the
+town of Zara on the Dalmatian coast, which had once been under
+Venetian rule, but which now belonged to the King of Hungary, and was
+a nest of pirates hampering the trade of Venice and holding her
+merchants and seamen in perpetual agitation. Whether Innocent had
+surmised that some such design was possible we are not told, but if
+not his instructions to the Crusaders were strangely prophetic. He
+besought them on no account whatever to go to war with any Christian
+people. If their passage were opposed by any, they were permitted to
+force their way through that like any other obstacle, but even in such
+a case were only to act with the sanction of the legate who
+accompanied them. The Pope added a word of sorrowful comment upon the
+"very different aims" which so often mingled in the minds of the
+Crusaders with that great and only one, the deliverance of the Holy
+Land, which was the true object of their expedition; and complained
+sadly that if the heads of the Christian Church had possessed as much
+power as they had goodwill, the power of Mahomet would have been long
+since broken, and much Christian blood remained unshed.
+
+He could not have spoken with more truth had he been prophetically
+aware of the issues to which that expedition was to come. The
+Crusaders set out, in 1202, covering the sea with their sails,
+dazzling every fishing boat and curious merchantman with reflections
+from their shining bucklers and shields, and met with such a course of
+adventure as never had befallen any pilgrims of the Cross before. The
+story is told in the most picturesque and dramatic pages of Gibbon;
+and many a historian more has repeated the tale. They took Zara, and
+embroiled themselves, as the Pope had feared, with the Hungarians,
+themselves a chivalrous nation full of enthusiasm for the Cross, but
+not likely to allow themselves to be invaded with impunity; then,
+professedly in the cause of the young Alexis, the boy-king of the
+Greek Empire, went to Constantinople--which they took after a
+wonderful siege, and in which they found such booty as turned the
+heads of the great penniless lords who had mortgaged every acre and
+spent every coin for the hire of the Venetian ships, and of the rude
+soldiers who followed them, who had never possessed a gold piece
+probably in their lives, and there found wealth undreamt of to be had
+for the taking. There is no need for us to enter into that
+extraordinary chapter in the history of the Greek Empire, of which
+these hordes of northern invaders, all Christian as they were, and
+with so different an object to start with, possessed themselves--with
+no less cruelty and as great rapacity as was shown by the barbarians
+of an elder age in the sack and destruction of Rome.
+
+Meantime the Pope did not cease to protest against this turning aside
+of the expedition from its lawful object. The legate had forbidden the
+assault of Zara, but in vain; the Pope forbade the attack upon
+Constantinople also in vain, and vainly pressed upon the Crusaders, by
+every argument, the necessity of proceeding to the Holy Land without
+delay. Innocent, it is true, did not refuse his share of the splendid
+stuffs and ornaments which fell into their hands, for ecclesiastical
+uses: and he was silenced by the fictitious submission of the Greek
+Church, and the supposed healing of the schism which had rent the East
+and the West from each other. Nevertheless he looked on upon the
+progress of affairs in Constantinople with unquiet eyes. But what
+could the Pope do in his distant seat, armed with those spiritual
+powers alone which even at home these fierce warriors held so lightly,
+against the rage of acquisition, the excitement of conquest, even the
+sweep and current of affairs, which carried the chiefs of the armies
+in the East so much further and in so changed a direction from that
+which even they themselves desired? He entreated, he commanded, he
+threatened: but when all was said he was but the Pope, far off and
+powerless, who could excommunicate indeed, but do no more. The only
+thing possible for Innocent was to look on, sometimes with a gleam of
+high hope as when the Greek Church came over to him, as appeared, to
+be received again into full communion with the rest of Christendom:
+sometimes with a half unwilling pleasure as when Baldwin's presents
+arrived, cloth of gold and wonderful embroideries to decorate the
+great arches of St. Peter's and the Lateran: and again with a more
+substantial confidence when Constantinople itself had become a Latin
+empire under the same Baldwin--that it might henceforward become a
+basis of operations in the holy war against the Saracens and promote
+the objects of the Crusade more effectually than could be done from a
+distance. Amid all his disappointments and the impatient sense of
+futility and helplessness which must have many a time invaded his
+soul, it is comfortable to know that Innocent died in this last
+belief, and never found out how equally futile it was.
+
+There was, however, one other great undertaking of his time in which
+it would seem that the Pontiff was more directly influential, even
+though, for any reader who respects the character and ideal of
+Innocent, it is sickening to the heart to realise what it was. It was
+that other Crusade, so miserable and so bloody, against the
+Albigenses, which was the only successful enterprise which with any
+show of justice could be set down to the account of the Church. Nobody
+seems even now to know very well what the heresies were, against
+which, in the failure of other schemes, the arms of the defenders of
+religion were directed. They were, as Dissent generally is, manifold,
+while the Church regarded them as one. Among them were humble little
+sects who desired only to lead a purer and truer life than the rude
+religionists among whom they dwelt; while there were also others who
+held in various strange formulas all kinds of wild doctrine: but
+between the Poor Men of Lyons, the Scripture-Readers whose aim was to
+serve God in humility, apart from all pomps of religion and splendour
+of hierarchies--and the strange Manichean sects with their elaborate
+and confused philosophical doctrine--the thirteenth century knew no
+difference. It ranked them all under the same name of heretic, and
+attributed to all of them the errors of the worst and smallest
+section. Even so late as the eighteenth century, Muratori, a scholar
+without prejudice, makes one sweeping assertion that they were
+Manicheans, without a doubt or question. It is needless to say that
+whatever they were, fire and sword was not the way to mend them of
+their errors; for that also was an idea wholly beyond the
+understanding of the time.
+
+When Innocent came first to the Papacy his keen perception of the many
+vices of the Church was increased by a conviction that error of
+doctrine accompanied in certain portions of Christendom the general
+corruption of life. In some of his letters he comments severely,
+always with a reference to the special evils against which he
+struggled, on the causes and widening propagation of heresy. "If the
+shepherd is a hireling," he says, "and thinks not of the flock, but
+solely of himself: if he cares only for the wool and the milk, without
+defending them from the wolves that attack them, or making himself a
+wall of defence against their enemies: and if he takes flight at the
+first sound of danger: the ruin and loss must be laid to his charge.
+The keeper of the sheep must not be like a dumb dog that cannot bark.
+When the priesthood show that they do not know how to separate holy
+things from common, they resemble those vile wine-sellers who mingle
+water with their wine. The name of God is blasphemed because of those
+who love money, who seek presents, who justify the wicked by allowing
+themselves to be corrupted by them. The vigilance of the ministers of
+religion can do much to arrest the progress of evil. The league of
+heretics should be dissolved by faithful instruction: for the Lord
+desires not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be
+converted and live."
+
+It may be curious also to quote here the cautious utterance of
+Innocent upon the pretension of the more pious sectarians to found
+everything on Scripture and to make the study of the Bible their chief
+distinction. The same arguments are still used in the Catholic Church,
+sometimes even in the same terms.
+
+      "The desire to know the Holy Scriptures and to profit by
+      their teaching is praiseworthy, but this desire must not be
+      satisfied in secret, nor should it degenerate into the wish
+      to preach, or to despise the ministers of religion. It is
+      not the will of God that His word should be proclaimed in
+      secret places as is done by these heretics, but publicly in
+      the Church. The mysteries of the faith cannot be explained
+      by every comer, for not every intellect is capable of
+      understanding them. The Holy Scriptures are so profound
+      that not only the simple and ignorant but even intelligent
+      and learned men are unqualified to interpret them."
+
+At no time however, though he spoke so mildly and so candidly,
+acknowledging that the best way to overcome the heretics was to
+convert and to convince them, did Innocent conceal his intention and
+desire to carry proceedings against them to the sternest of
+conclusions. If it were possible by any exertions to bring them back
+to the bosom of the Church, he charged all ecclesiastical authorities,
+all preachers, priests, and monastic establishments to do everything
+that was possible to accomplish this great work; but failing that, he
+called upon all princes, lords, and civil rulers to take stringent
+measures and cut them off from the land--recommendations that ended in
+the tremendous and appalling expedient of a new Crusade, a Crusade
+with no double motive, no object of restoration and deliverance
+combined with that of destruction, but bound to the sole agency of
+sheer massacre, bloodshed, and ruin, an internecine warfare of the
+most horrible kind.
+
+It must be added, however, that the preachers who at Innocent's
+command set out, more or less in state, high officials, ecclesiastics
+of name and rank, to convince the heretics, by their preaching and
+teaching, took the first part in the conflict. According to his lights
+he spared no pains to give the doomed sects the opportunity of
+conversion, though with very little success. Among his envoys were two
+Spaniards, one a bishop, one that great Dominic, the founder of the
+Dominican order, who filled so great a part in the history of his
+time. Amid the ineffectual legates these two were missionaries born:
+they represented to the other preachers that demonstrations against
+heresy in the cathedrals was no way of reaching the people, but that
+the true evangelists must go forth into the country, humble and poor
+as were the adversaries whom they had to overcome. They themselves set
+out on their mission barefoot, without scrip or purse, after the
+manner of the Apostles. Strange to think that it was in Provence, the
+country of the Troubadours, the land of song, where poetry and love
+were supreme according to all and every tradition of history, that the
+grimmest heresy abounded, and that this stern pair carried on their
+mission! but so it was. Toulouse, where Courts of Love sate yearly,
+and the trouvères held their tournaments of song, was the centre of
+the tragedy. But not even those devoted preachers, nor the crowd of
+eager priests and monks who followed in their steps, succeeded in
+their mission. The priesthood and the religion it taught had fallen
+very low in Provence, and no one heeded the new missionaries, neither
+the heretics nor the heedless population around.
+
+No doubt the Pope, the man of so many disappointments, had set his
+heart on this as a thing in which for once he must not fail, and
+watched with a sore and angry heart the unsuccess of all these
+legitimate efforts. But it was not until one of the legates, a man
+most trusted and honoured, Pierre de Castelnau, was treacherously
+killed in the midst of his mission, that Innocent was fully roused.
+Heretofore he had rained excommunications over all the world, and his
+curses had come back to him without avail. But on this occasion at
+least he had a sure weapon in hand. The Pope proclaimed a Crusade
+against the heretics. He proclaimed throughout Europe that whoever
+undertook this holy enterprise it should be counted to him as if he
+had fought for Jerusalem: all the indulgences, blessings, hopes for
+heaven and exemptions for earth, which had been promised to those who
+were to deliver the Holy Sepulchre, were equally bestowed on those who
+went no further than the south of France, one of the richest districts
+in Christendom, where fair lands and noble castles were to be had for
+the conquest without risking a stormy voyage or a dangerous climate.
+The goods of unrepentant heretics were confiscated, and every one was
+free to help himself as if they had been Turks and infidels. In none
+of his undertakings was the Pope so hotly in earnest. There is
+something of the shrillness of a man who has found himself impotent in
+many undertakings in the passion which Innocent throws into this.
+"Rise, soldier of Christ!" he cries to the king of France; "up, most
+Christian prince! The groans of the Church rise to your ears, the
+blood of the just cries out: up, then, and judge my cause: gird on
+your sword; think of the unity of the cross and the altar, that unity
+taught us by Moses, by Peter, by all the fathers. Let not the bark of
+the Church make shipwreck. Up, for her help! Strike strongly against
+the heretics, who are more dangerous than the Saracens!"
+
+The appeal came to a host of eager ears. Many good and true men were
+no doubt among the army which gathered upon the gentle hill of Hyères
+in the blazing midsummer of the year 1209, cross on breast and sword
+in hand, sworn to exterminate heresy, and bring back the country to
+the sway of the true religion; but an overwhelming number besides, who
+were hungry for booty however obtained, and eager to win advancement
+for themselves, filled up the ranks. Such motives were not absent
+even from the bosom of Simon de Montfort, their general, otherwise a
+good man and true. The sovereignty of Toulouse glimmered before him
+over seas of blood, which was as the blood of the Saracen, no better,
+though it flowed in the veins of Frenchmen; but the Provençaux could
+scarcely be called Frenchmen in those early days. They were no more
+beloved of their northern neighbours than the English were by the
+Scots, and the expedition against them was as much justified by
+distinctions of race as was the conflict of Bannockburn.
+
+The chapter of history that followed we would fain on all sides
+obliterate, if we could, from the records of humanity, and we doubt
+not that the strictest Catholic as much as the most indignant
+Protestant would share this wish; but that, alas, cannot be done. And
+no such feeling was in any mind of the time. The remedy was not
+thought to be too terrible for the disease, for centuries after: and
+the most Christian souls rejoiced in the victories of the Crusade, the
+towns destroyed, the nests of heretics broken up. The very heretics
+themselves, who suffered fiercely and made reprisals when they could,
+had no doctrine of toleration among themselves, and would have
+extirpated a wicked hierarchy, and put down the mass with a high hand,
+as four hundred years later their more enlightened successors did,
+when the power came to them. There are many shuddering spectators who
+now try to represent to themselves that Innocent so far off was but
+half, or not at all, acquainted with the atrocities committed in his
+name; that his legates over-stepped their authority, as frequently
+happened, and were carried away by the excitement of carnage and the
+terrible impulse of destruction common to wild beasts and men when
+that fatal passion is aroused; and that his generals soon converted
+their Crusade, as Crusades more or less were converted everywhere,
+into a raid of fierce acquisition, a war for booty and personal
+enrichment. And all this is true for as much as it is worth in
+reducing the guilt of Innocent; but that is not much, for he was a man
+very well acquainted with human nature, and knew that such things must
+be.
+
+As for Simon de Montfort and his noble companions, they were not, much
+less were the men-at-arms under their orders, superior to all that
+noble chivalry of France which had started from Venice with so fine a
+purpose, but had been drawn aside to crush and rob Constantinople on
+their way, only some seven years before. Baldwin of Flanders became
+Emperor of the great eastern city in 1204. Simon de Montfort named
+himself Count de Toulouse in 1215. Both had been sent forth with the
+Pope's blessing on quite a different mission, both had succumbed to
+the temptation of their own aggrandisement. But of the two, at the end
+Simon was the more faithful. If he committed or permitted to be
+committed the most abominable cruelties, he nevertheless did stamp out
+heresy. Provence regained her gaiety, her courts of love, her gift of
+song. Innocent, for once in his life, with all the dreadful drawbacks
+accompanying it, was successful in the object for which he had
+striven.
+
+It is a dreadful thing to have to say of the most powerful of Popes,
+in whose time the Papacy, we are told, reached its highest climax of
+power in the affairs of men: he was successful once: in devastating a
+country and slaughtering by thousands its inhabitants in the name of
+God and the Church. All his attempts to set right the affairs of the
+world failed. He neither nominated an emperor, nor saved a servile
+king from ruin, nor struck a generous blow for that object of the
+enthusiasm of his age, the deliverance of Jerusalem. All of these he
+attempted with the utmost strain and effort of his powers, and many
+more, but failed. Impossible to say that it was not truth and justice
+which he set before him at all times; he was an honest man and loved
+not bloodshed; he had a great intelligence, and there is no proof
+that his heart was cold or his sympathies dull. But his career, which
+is so often quoted as an example of the supremacy of the Papacy, seems
+to us the greatest and most perfect demonstration that such a
+supremacy was impossible. Could it have been done, Innocent would have
+done it; but it could not be done, and in the plenitude of his power
+he failed over and over again. What credit he might have had in
+promoting Otho to the empire fades away when we find that it was the
+accident of Philip's death and not the support of the Pope that did
+it. In England his assumed suzerainty was a farce, and all his efforts
+ineffectual to move one way or the other the destinies of the nation.
+At Constantinople his prayers and commands and entreaties had about as
+much power as the outcries of a woman upon his own special envoys and
+soldiers. In France he had one brief triumph indeed, and broke a poor
+woman's heart, a thing which is accomplished every day by much easier
+methods; though his action then was the only moral triumph of his
+reign, being at least in the cause of the weak against the strong. And
+he filled Provence with blood and misery, and if he crushed heresy,
+crushed along with it that noble and beautiful country, and its royal
+house, and its liberties. Did he ever feel the contrast between his
+attempts and his successes? Was he sore at heart with the long and
+terrible failure of his efforts? or was he comforted by such small
+consolations as fell to him, the final vindication of Ingelburga, the
+fictitious submission of the Greek Church, the murderous extinction of
+heresy? Was it worth while for a great man to have endured and
+struggled, to have lived sleepless, restless, ever vigilant, watching
+every corner of the earth, keeping up a thousand espionages and secret
+intelligences all for this, and nothing more?
+
+He was the greatest of the Popes and attained the climax of papal
+power. He carried out the principles which Hildebrand had
+established, and asserted to their fullest all the claims which that
+great Pontiff, also a deeply disappointed man, had made. Gregory and
+Innocent are the two most prominent names in the lists of the Papacy;
+they are the greatest generals of that army which, in its way, is an
+army invincible, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. Let
+us hope that the merciful illusions which keep human nature going
+prevented them from seeing how little all their great claims had come
+to. Gregory indeed, dying sad and in exile, felt it more or less, but
+was able to set it down to the wickedness of the world in which truth
+and justice did not reign. And there is a profound sadness in the last
+discourse of Innocent; but perhaps they were neither of them aware
+what a deep stamp of failure remains, visible for all the world to
+see, upon those great undertakings of theirs which were not for the
+Church but for the world. God had not made them judges and dividers
+among men, though they believed so to the bottom of their hearts.
+
+It is perhaps overbold in a writer without authority to set forth an
+individual opinion in the face of much more powerful judgments. But
+this book pretends to nothing except, so far as it is possible to form
+it, a glance of individual opinion and impression in respect to
+matters which are otherwise too great for any but the most learned and
+weighty historian. The statement of Dean Milman that "He (Innocent)
+succeeded in imposing an Emperor on Germany" appears to us quite
+inconsistent with the facts of the case. But we would not for a moment
+pretend that Milman does not know a hundred times better than the
+present writer, whose rapid glance at the exterior aspects of history
+will naturally go for what it is worth and no more. The aspect of a
+pageant however to one who watches it go by from a window, is
+sometimes an entertaining variety upon its fullest authoritative
+description.
+
+It will be understood that we have no idea of representing the reign
+of these great Popes as without power in many other matters. They
+strengthened greatly the authority and control exercised by the Holy
+See over its special and legitimate empire, the Church. They drew to
+the court of Rome so many appeals and references of disputed cases in
+law and in morals as to shed an increased influence over the world
+like an unseen irrigation swelling through all the roots and veins of
+Christendom. They even gave so much additional prestige and importance
+to Church dignitaries as to increase the power which the great
+Prelates often exercised against themselves. But the highest
+pretensions of the Successors of Peter, the Vicars of God, to be
+judges and arbiters of the world, setters up and pullers down of
+thrones, came to no fulfilment. The Popes were flattered by appeals,
+by mock submissions on the weaker side, even by petitions for the ever
+ready interference which they seem to have attempted in good faith,
+always believing in their own authority. But in the end their
+decisions and decrees in Imperial questions were swept away like chaff
+before the strong wind of secular power and policy, and history cannot
+point to one important revolution[5] in the affairs of the world or
+any separate kingdom made by their unaided power.
+
+The last great act of Innocent's life was the council held in the year
+1215 in Rome, known as the fourth Lateran Council. It was perhaps the
+greatest council that had ever been held there, not only because of
+the large number of ecclesiastics present, but because for the first
+time East and West sat together, the Patriarch of Constantinople (or
+rather two patriarchs, for the election was contested) taking their
+place in it, in subordination to the Pope, as if the great schism had
+never been. From all the corners of the earth came the bishops and
+archbishops, the not less important abbots, prelates who were nobles
+as well as priests, counting among them the greatest lords in their
+respective districts as well as the greatest ecclesiastics. Innocent
+himself was a man of fifty-five, of most temperate life, vigorous in
+mind and body, likely to survive for years, and to do better than he
+had ever yet done--and he was so far triumphant for the moment that
+all the kings of Christendom had envoys at this council, and
+everything united to make it magnificent and important. Why he should
+have taken for his text the ominous words he chose when addressing
+that great and splendid assembly in his own special church and temple,
+surrounded with all the emblems of power and supremacy, it is
+impossible to tell; and one can imagine the thrill of strange awe and
+astonishment which must have run through that vast synod, when the
+Pope rose, and from his regal chair pronounced these words, first
+uttered in the depths of the mysterious passion and anguish of the
+greatest sufferer on earth. "With desire I have desired to eat this
+passover with you before I suffer." What was it that Innocent
+anticipated or feared? There was no suffering before him that any one
+knew, no trouble that could reach the chief of Christendom,
+heavy-hearted and depressed, amid all his guards, spiritual and
+temporal, as he may have been. What could they think, all those great
+prelates looking, no doubt, often askance at each other, brethren in
+the church, but enemies at home? Nor were the first words of his
+discourse less solemn.
+
+      "As to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain, I should
+      not refuse to drink the cup of suffering, were it presented
+      to me, for the defence of the Catholic Church, for the
+      deliverance of the Holy Land, or for the freedom of the
+      Church, even although my desire had been to live in the
+      flesh until the work that has been begun should be
+      accomplished. Notwithstanding not my will, but the will of
+      God be done! This is why I say, 'With desire I have desired
+      to eat this passover with you before I suffer.'"
+
+These words sound in our ears as if the preacher who uttered them was
+on the verge, if not of martyrdom, at least of death and the premature
+end of his work. And so he was: although there was as yet no sign in
+heaven or earth, or so far as appears in his own consciousness, that
+this end was near.
+
+The discourse which followed was remarkable in its way, the way of the
+schoolmen and dialecticians so far as its form went. He began by
+explaining the word Passover, which in Hebrew he said meant
+passage--in which sense of the word he declared himself to desire to
+celebrate a triple Passover, corporal, spiritual, and eternal, with
+the Church around him.
+
+"A corporal Passover, the passage from one place to another to deliver
+Jerusalem oppressed: a spiritual Passover, a passage from one
+situation to another for the sanctification of the universal Church;
+an eternal Passover, a passage from one life to another, to eternal
+glory." For the first, the deliverance of the Holy Land and the Holy
+Sepulchre, after a solemn description of the miseries of Jerusalem
+enslaved, he declares that he places himself in the hands of the
+brethren.
+
+      "There can be no doubt that it ought to be the first object
+      of the Church. What ought we now to do, dear brethren? I
+      place myself in your hands. I open my heart entirely to
+      you, I desire your advice. I am ready, if it seems good to
+      you, to go forth on a personal mission to all the kings,
+      princes, and peoples, or even to the Holy Land--and if I
+      can to awaken them all with a strong voice that they may
+      arise to fight the battle of the Lord, to avenge the insult
+      done to Jesus Christ, who has been expelled by reason of
+      our sins from the country and dwelling which He bought with
+      His blood, and in which He accomplished all things
+      necessary for our salvation. We, the priests of the Lord,
+      ought to attach a special importance to the redemption of
+      the Holy Land by our blood and our wealth; no one should
+      draw back from such a great work. In former times the Lord
+      seeing a similar humiliation of Israel saved it by means of
+      the priests; for he delivered Jerusalem and the Temple from
+      the infidels by Matthias the son of the priest Maccabæus."
+
+  [Illustration: ST. PETER'S AND THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.
+    _To face page 366._]
+
+He goes on to describe the spiritual passage by the singular emblem to
+be found in the prophecies of Ezekiel, of the man clothed in white
+linen who inscribed a _Tau_ upon the foreheads of all those who
+mourned over the iniquities committed around them, the profanations of
+the temple and the universal idol worship--while the executors of
+God's will went after him, to slay the rest. There could be no doubt
+of the application of this image. It had already been seen in full
+fulfilment in the streets of Beziers, Carcassone, and Toulouse, and
+many of those present had taken part in the carnage. It is true that
+the rumour went that the men marked with a mark had not even been
+looked for, and one of the wonderful sayings which seem to spring up
+somehow in the air, at great moments, had been fathered upon a
+legate--_Tuez les tous_. _Dieu reconnaîtra les siens_--a phrase which,
+like the "Up, Guards, and at them!" of Waterloo, is said to have no
+historical foundation whatever. Innocent was, however, clear not only
+that every good Catholic should be marked with the _Tau_--but that the
+armed men whom he identifies with the priests, his own great army,
+seated there round him, men who had already seen the blood flow and
+the flames arise, should strike and spare not.
+
+      "You are commanded then to go through the city; obey him
+      who is your supreme Pontiff, as your guide and your
+      master--and strike by interdict, by suspension, by
+      excommunication, by deprivation, according to the weight of
+      the fault. But do no harm to those who bear the mark, for
+      the Lord says: 'Hurt not the earth, neither the sea,
+      neither the trees till we have sealed on their foreheads
+      the servants of God.' It is said in other places, 'Let your
+      eye spare no man, and let there be no acceptance of persons
+      among you,' and in another passage, 'Strike in order to
+      heal, kill in order to give life.'"
+
+These were the Pope's sentiments, and they were those of his age; how
+many centuries it took to modify them we are all aware; four hundred
+years at least, to moderate the practical ardour of persecution--for
+the theory never dies. But there is at the same time something savage
+in the fervour of such an address to all these men of peace. It is
+perhaps a slight modification that like Ezekiel it is the priests
+themselves, the dwellers in the Temple, who fill it with false gods
+and abominations, that he specially threatens. There were, however, so
+far as appears, few priests among the slaughtered townsfolk of those
+unhappy cities of Provence.
+
+The Council responded to the uncompromising directions of their head
+by placing among the laws of the Church many stringent ordinances
+against heretics; their goods were to be confiscated, they were to be
+turned out of their houses and possessions; every prince who refused
+to act against them was to be excommunicated, his people freed from
+their vow of allegiance. If any one ventured to preach without the
+permission of the Pope he also was subject to excommunication. A great
+many laws for the better regulation of the Church itself followed, for
+Innocent had always acknowledged the fact that the worldliness of the
+Church, and the failure of the clergy to maintain a high ideal of
+Christian life, was the great cause of heresy. The Council was also
+very distinct in refusing temporal authority to the priests. The
+clergy had their sphere and laymen theirs; those spheres were
+separate, they were inviolable each by the other. It is true that this
+principle was established chiefly with the intention of freeing the
+clergy from the necessity of answering before civil tribunals; but
+logically it cuts both ways. The Jews, to whom Innocent had been just
+and even merciful, were also dealt with and placed under new and
+stringent disabilities, chiefly on account, it seems, of the
+extortions they practised on needy Crusaders, eager at any price to
+procure advances for their equipment. Various doctrinal points were
+also decided, as well as many questions of rank and precedence in the
+hierarchy, and the establishment of the two new monastic orders of St.
+Francis and of St. Dominic. It is needless to add a list of who was
+excommunicated and who censured throughout the world. Among the former
+were the barons of Magna Charta and Louis of France, the son of
+Philip Augustus, who had gone to England on their call and to their
+relief, a movement set on foot by Innocent himself before the
+submission of King John. As usual, neither of them took any notice of
+the anathema, though other combinations shortly arose which broke
+their alliance.
+
+The great event of the Council, however, was the appeal of the
+forfeited lords of Provence against the leaders of the late Crusade.
+Raymond of Toulouse, accompanied by the Counts of Foix and of
+Comminges, appeared before the Pontiff and the high court of the
+Church to make their plaint against Simon de Montfort, who had
+deprived all three of their lands and sovereignties. A great
+recrimination arose between the two sides, both so strongly
+represented. The dethroned princes accused their conquerors with all
+the vehemence of men wronged and robbed; and such a bloodstained
+prelate as Bishop Fulk of Toulouse was put forth as the advocate on
+the other side. "You are the cause of the death of a multitude of
+Catholic soldiers," cried the bishop, "six thousand of whom were
+killed at Montjoye alone." "Nay, rather," replied the Comte de Foix,
+"it is by your fault that Toulouse was sacked and 10,000 of the
+inhabitants slain." Such pleas are strange in any court of justice;
+they were altogether new in a Council of the Church. The princes
+themselves, who thus laid their wrongs before the Pope, were not
+proved to be heretics, or if they had ever wavered in the faith were
+now quite ready to obey; and Innocent himself was forced to allow
+that: "Since the Counts and their companions have promised at all
+times to submit to the Church, they cannot without injustice be
+despoiled of their principalities." But the utterance, it may well be
+understood, was weak, and choked by the impossibility of denouncing
+Simon de Montfort, the leader of a Crusade set on foot by the Church,
+the Captain of the Christian army. It might be that he had exceeded
+his commission, that the legates had misunderstood their instructions,
+and that all the leaders, both secular and spiritual, had been carried
+away by the horrible excitement and passion of bloodshed: but yet it
+was impossible to disown the Captain who had taken up this enterprise
+as a true son of the Church, although he had ended in the spirit (not
+unusual among sons of the Church) of an insatiable raider and
+conqueror. The love of gain had warped the noble aims even of the
+first Crusade: what wonder that it became a fiery thirst in the
+invaders of lands so rich and tempting as those of the fertile and
+sunny Provence. And the Pope could not pronounce against his own
+champion. He would fain have preserved Raymond of Toulouse and Simon
+de Montfort too--but that was impossible. And the Council decreed by a
+great majority that Raymond had been justly deprived of his lands, and
+that Simon, the new Count, was their rightful possessor. The defender
+of Innocent can only say that the Pope yielded to and sanctioned this
+judgment in order that the bishops of France might not be alienated
+and rendered indifferent to the great Crusade upon which his heart was
+set, which he would fain have led himself had Providence permitted it
+so to be.
+
+There is a most curious postscript to this bloody and terrible
+history. Young Raymond of Toulouse, whose fate seemed a sad one even
+to the members of the Council who finally confirmed his deprivation,
+attracted the special regard--it is not said how, probably by some
+youthful grace of simplicity or gallant mien--of Innocent, who bade
+him take heart, and promised to give him certain lands that he might
+still live as a prince. "If another council should be held," said the
+Pope with a curious casuistry, "the pleas against Montfort may be
+listened to." "Holy Father," said the youth, "bear me no malice if I
+can win back again my principalities from the Count de Montfort, or
+from those others who hold them." "Whatever thou dost," said the Pope
+piously, "may God give thee grace to begin it well, and to finish it
+still better." Innocent is scarcely a man to tolerate a smile. We dare
+not even imagine a touch of humour in that austere countenance; but
+the pious hope that this fair youth might perhaps overcome his
+conqueror, who was the very champion and captain of the army of the
+Lord as directed by the Pope, is remarkable indeed.
+
+The great event of the Council was over, the rumour of the new Crusade
+which the Pope desired to head himself, and for which in the meantime
+he was moving heaven and earth, began to stir Europe. If, perhaps, he
+had accomplished little hitherto of all that he had hoped, here
+remained a great thing which Innocent might still accomplish. He set
+out on a tour through the great Italian towns to rouse their
+enthusiasm, and, if possible, induce them, in the first place, to
+sacrifice their mutual animosities, and then to supply the necessary
+ships, and help with the necessary money for the great undertaking.
+The first check was received from Pisa, which would do whatever the
+Pope wished except forego its hatred against Genoa or give up its
+revenge. Innocent was in Perugia, on his way towards the north, when
+this news arrived to vex him: but it was not unexpected, nor was there
+anything in it to overwhelm his spirit. It was July, and he was safer
+and better on that hillside than he would have been in his house at
+the Lateran in the heats of summer: and an attack of fever at that
+season is a simple matter, which the ordinary Roman anticipates
+without any particular alarm. He had, we are told, a great love for
+oranges, and continued to eat them, notwithstanding his illness,
+though it is difficult to imagine what harm the oranges could do.
+However, the hour was come which Innocent had perhaps dimly foreseen
+when he rose up among all his bishops and princes in the great Lateran
+church, and, knowing nothing, gave forth from his high presiding
+chair the dying words of our Lord, "With desire I have desired to eat
+this passover with you before I suffer." One wonders if his text came
+back to him, if he asked himself in his heart why his lips should have
+uttered those fateful words unawares, and if the bitterness of that
+withdrawal, while still full of force and life, from all the hopes and
+projects to which he had set his hand, was heavy upon him? He had
+proclaimed them in the hush and breathless silence of that splendid
+crowd in the ruddy days of the late autumn, St. Martin's festival at
+Rome: and the year had not gone its round when, in the summer weather
+at Perugia, he "suffered"--as he had--yet had not, perhaps foreseen.
+
+Thus ended a life of great effort and power, a life of disappointment
+and failure, full of toil, full of ambition, the highest aims, and the
+most consistent purpose--but ending in nothing, fulfilling no lofty
+aim, and, except in the horrible episode of bloodshed and destruction
+from which his name can never be dissociated, accomplishing no change
+in the world which he had attempted, in every quarter, to transform or
+to renew. Never was so much attempted with so little result. He
+claimed the power to bind and loose, to set up and to pull down, to
+decide every disputed cause and settle every controversy. But he
+succeeded in doing only one good deed, which was to force the king of
+France to retain an unloved wife, and one ill one, to print the name
+of Holy Church in blood across a ruined province, to the profit of
+many bloody partisans, but never to his own, nor to any cause which
+could be considered that of justice or truth. This, people say, was
+the age of history in which the power of the Church was highest, and
+Innocent was its strongest ruler; but this was all which, with his
+great powers, his unyielding character and all the forces at his
+command, he was able to achieve. He was in his way a great man, and
+his purpose was never ignoble; but this was all: and history does not
+contain a sadder page than that which records one of the greatest of
+all the pontificates, and the strongest Pope that history has known.
+
+During the whole of Innocent's Popedom he had been more or less at war
+with his citizens notwithstanding his success at first. Rome murmured
+round him never content, occasionally bursting out into fits of rage,
+which, if not absolute revolt, were so near it as to suggest the
+withdrawal of the Pope to his native place Anagni, or some other quiet
+residence, till the tumult calmed down. The greatest of these
+commotions occurred on the acquisition of certain properties in Rome,
+by the unpopular way of foreclosure on mortgages, by the Pope's
+brother Richard, against whom no doubt some story of usury or
+oppression was brought forth, either real or invented, to awaken the
+popular emotion: and in this case Innocent's withdrawal had very much
+the character of an escape. The Papa-Re was certainly not a popular
+institution in the thirteenth century. This same brother Richard had
+many gifts bestowed upon him to the great anger and suspicion of the
+people, and it was he who built, with money given him, it is said,
+from "the treasury of the Church," the great Torre dei Conti, which
+for many generations stood strong and sullen near the Baths of Titus,
+and within easy reach of the Lateran, "for the defence of the family,"
+a defence for which it was not always adequate. Innocent afterwards
+granted a valuable fief in the Romagna to his brother, and he was
+generally far from unmindful of his kindred. All that his warmest
+defenders can say for him indeed in this respect is that he made up
+for his devotion to the interests of the Conti by great liberality
+towards Rome. On one occasion of distress and famine he fed eight
+thousand people daily, and at all times the poor had a right to the
+remnants left from his own table--which however was not perhaps any
+great thing as his living was of the simplest.
+
+What was still more important, he built or perhaps rather rebuilt and
+enlarged, the great hospital, still one of the greatest charitable
+institutions of the world, of the Santo Spirito, which had been first
+founded several centuries before by the English king Ina for the
+pilgrims of his country. The Ecclesia in Saxia, probably forsaken in
+these days when England had become Norman, formed the germ of the
+great building, afterwards enlarged by various succeeding Popes. It is
+said now to have 1,600 beds, and to be capable, on an emergency, of
+accommodating almost double that number of patients, and is, or was, a
+sort of providence for the poor population of Rome. It was Innocent
+also who began the construction, or rather reconstruction, for in that
+case too there was an ancient building, of the Vatican, now the seat
+and title of the papal court--thinking it expedient that there should
+be a house capable of receiving the Popes near the church of St. Peter
+and St. Paul the tomb and shrine of the Apostles. It is not supposed
+that the present building retains any of the work of that early time,
+but Innocent must have superintended both these great edifices, and in
+this way, as also by many churches which he built or rebuilt, and some
+which he decorated with paintings and architectural ornament, he had
+his part in the reconstruction and embellishment of that mediæval Rome
+which after long decay and much neglect, and the wholesale robbery of
+the very stones of the older city, was already beginning to lift up
+its head out of the ashes of antiquity.
+
+  [Illustration: ALL THAT IS LEFT OF THE GHETTO.]
+
+Thus if he took with one hand--not dishonestly, in the interest of his
+family, appropriating fiefs and favours which probably could not have
+been better bestowed, for the safety at least of the reigning Pope--he
+gave liberally and intelligently with the other, consulting the needs
+of the people, and studying their best interests. Yet he would not
+seem ever to have been popular. His spirit probably lacked the
+bonhomie which conciliates the crowd: though we are told that he
+loved public celebrations, and did not frown upon private gaiety. His
+heart, it is evident, was touched for young Raymond of Toulouse, whom
+he was instrumental in despoiling of his lands, but whom he blessed in
+his effort to despoil in his turn the orthodox and righteous spoiler.
+He was neither unkind, nor niggardly, nor luxurious. "The glory of his
+actions filled the great city and the whole world," said his epitaph.
+At least he had the credit of being the greatest of all the Popes, and
+the one under whom, as is universally allowed, the papal power
+attained its climax. The reader must judge how far this climax of
+power justified what has been said.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] The Vice-Provost of Eton who has kindly read these pages in the
+gentle criticism which can say no harsh word, here remarks: "If
+success is measured less by immediate results than by guiding the way
+in which men think, I should say that Innocent was successful. 'What
+will the Pope say?' was the question asked in every corner of the
+world--though he was not always obeyed."
+
+
+
+
+      BOOK III.
+
+     LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE TIBER.]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ROME IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+When the Papal Seat was transferred to Avignon, and Rome was left to
+its own devices and that fluctuating popular government which meant
+little beyond a wavering balance of power between two great families,
+the state of the ancient imperial city became more disorderly,
+tumultuous and anarchical than that of almost any other town in Italy,
+which is saying much. All the others had at least the traditions of an
+established government, or a sturdy tyranny: Rome alone had never been
+at peace and scarcely knew how to compose herself under any sway. She
+had fought her Popes, sometimes desperately, sometimes only captiously
+with the half-subdued rebelliousness of ill-temper, almost from the
+beginning of their power; and her sons had long been divided into a
+multiplicity of parties, each holding by one of the nobles who built
+their fortresses among the classic ruins, and defied the world from
+within the indestructible remnants of walls built by the Cæsars. One
+great family after another entrenched itself within those monuments of
+the ancient ages. The Colosseum was at one time the stronghold of the
+great Colonna: Stefano, the head of that name, inhabited the great
+building known as the Theatre of Marcellus at another period, and
+filled with his retainers an entire quarter. The castle of St. Angelo,
+with various flanking towers, was the home of the Orsini; and these
+two houses more or less divided the power between them, the other
+nobles adhering to one or the other party. Even amid the tumults of
+Florence there was always a shadow of a principle, a supposed or real
+cause in the name of which one party drove another _fuori_, out of the
+city. But in Rome even the great quarrel of Guelf and Ghibelline took
+an almost entirely personal character to increase the perpetual
+tumult. The vassals of the Pope were not on the Pope's side nor were
+they against him,
+
+                    non furon rebelli
+      Nè fur fedeli a Dio, mà per sé foro.
+
+The community was distracted by mere personal quarrels, by the feuds
+of the great houses who were their lords but only tore asunder, and
+neither protected nor promoted the prosperity of that greatest of
+Italian cities, which in its miserable incompetence and tumult was for
+a long time the least among them.
+
+The anonymous historian who has left to us the story of Cola di Rienzi
+affords us the most lively picture of the city in which, in his terse
+and vivid record, there is the perpetual sound of a rushing,
+half-armed crowd, of blows that seem to fall at random, and trumpets
+that sound, and bells that ring, calling out the People--a word so
+much misused--upon a hundred trifling occasions, with little bloodshed
+one would imagine but a continual rushing to and fro and disturbance
+of all the ordinary habits of life. We need not enter into any
+discussion of who this anonymous writer was. He is the only
+contemporary historian of Rienzi, and his narrative has every
+appearance of truth. He narrates the things he saw with a
+straightforwardness and simplicity which are very convincing. "I will
+begin," he says, "with the time when these two barons (the heads of
+the houses of Colonna and Orsini) were made knights by the people of
+Rome. Yet," he adds, with an afterthought, "I will not begin with an
+account of that, because I was then at too tender an age to have had
+clear knowledge of it." Thus our historian is nothing if not an
+eye-witness, very keenly aware of every incident, and viewing the
+events, and the streams of people as they pass, with the never-failing
+interest of a true chronicler. We may quote the incident with which he
+does begin as an example of his method: his language is the Italian of
+Rome, a local version, yet scarcely to be called a _patois_: it
+presents little difficulty after the first moment to the moderately
+instructed reader, who however, I trust, will kindly understand that
+the eccentricities are the chronicler's and not errors of the press.
+
+      "With what new thing shall I begin? I will begin with the
+      time of Jacopo di Saviello. Being made Senator solely by
+      the authority of King Robert, he was driven out of the
+      Capitol by the Syndics, who were Stefano de la Colonna,
+      Lord of Palestrina, and Poncello, and Messer Orso, lord of
+      the Castle of St. Angelo. These two went to the Aracoeli,
+      and ringing the bell collected the people, half cavalry and
+      half on foot. All Rome was under arms. I recollect it well
+      as in a dream. I was in Sta. Maria del Popolo (di lo
+      Piubbico). And I saw the line of horsemen passing, going
+      towards the Capitol: strongly they went and proudly. Half
+      of them were well mounted, half were on foot. The last of
+      them (If I recollect rightly) wore a tunic of red silk, and
+      a cap of yellow silk on his head, and carried a bunch of
+      keys in his hand. They passed along the road by the well
+      where dwell the Ferrari, at the corner of the house of
+      Paolo Jovenale. The line was long. The bell was ringing and
+      the people arming themselves. I was in Santa Maria di lo
+      Piubbico. To these things I put my seal (as witness).
+      Jacopo di Saviello, Senator, was in the Capitol. He was
+      surrounded on all sides with fortifications: but it did him
+      no good to entrench himself, for Stefano, his uncle, went
+      up, and Poncello the Syndic of Rome, and took him gently by
+      the hand and set him on his horse that there might be no
+      risk to his person. There was one who thought and said,
+      'Stefano, how can you bring your nephew thus to shame?' The
+      proud answer of Stefano was: 'For two pennyworth of wax I
+      will set him free,--but the two pence were not
+      forthcoming."
+
+Jacopo di Saviello, thus described as a nominee of the King of Naples,
+is a person without much importance, touching whose individuality it
+would take too much space to inquire. He appears afterwards as the
+right hand man of his cousin, Sciarra Colonna, and the incident has no
+doubt some connection with the story that follows: but we quote it
+merely as an illustration of the condition of Rome at the beginning of
+the fourteenth century. In the month of September in the year 1327
+there occurred an episode in the history of the city which affords
+many notable scenes. The city of Rome had in one of its many caprices
+taken the part of Louis of Bavaria, who had been elected Emperor to
+the great displeasure of John XXII., the Pope then reigning in
+Avignon. According to the chronicler, though the fact is not mentioned
+in other histories, the Pope sent his legate to Rome, accompanied by
+the "Principe de la Morea" and a considerable army, in order to
+prevent the reception there of Il Bavaro as he is called, who was then
+making his way through Italy with much success and triumph. By this
+time there would seem to have been a complete revolution in the
+opinions of Rome, and the day when two-pennyworth of wax could not be
+got for the ransom of Saviello was forgotten under the temporary rule
+of Sciarra Colonna, the only one of his family who was a Ghibelline,
+and who held strongly for Louis of Bavaria, rejecting all the
+traditions of his house. Our chronicler, who is very impartial, and
+gives us no clue to his own opinions, by no means despised the party
+of the Pope. There arrived before Rome, he tells us, "seven hundred
+horsemen and foot soldiers without end. All the barons of the house of
+Orsini," and many other notable persons: and the whole army was _molto
+bella e bene acconcia_, well equipped and beautiful to behold. This
+force gained possession of the Leonine city, entering not by the gates
+which were guarded, but by the ruined wall: and occupied the space
+between that point and St. Peter's, making _granne festa_, and filling
+the air with the sound of their trumpets and all kinds of music.
+
+      "But when Sciarra the bold captain (_franco Capitano_)
+      heard of it, it troubled him not at all. Immediately he
+      armed himself and caused the bell to be rung. It was
+      midnight and men were in their first sleep. A messenger
+      with a trumpet was sent through the town, proclaiming that
+      every one should arm himself, that the enemy had entered
+      the gates (_in Puortica_) and that all must assemble on the
+      Capitol. The people who slept, quickly awakened, each took
+      up his arms. Cossia was the name of the crier. The bell was
+      ringing violently (_terribilmente_). The people went to the
+      Capitol, both the barons and the populace: and the good
+      Capitano addressed them and said that the enemy had come to
+      outrage the women of Rome. The people were much excited.
+      They were then divided into parties, of one of which he was
+      captain himself. Jacopo Saviello was at the head of the
+      other which was sent to the gate of San Giovanni, then
+      called Puorta Maggiore. And this was done because they knew
+      that the enemy was divided in two parties. But it did not
+      happen so. When Jacopo reached the gate he found no one. On
+      the other hand Sciarra rode with his barons. Great was the
+      company of horsemen. Seven Rioni had risen to arms and
+      innumerable were the people. They reached the gate of San
+      Pietro. I remember that on that night a Roman knight who
+      had ridden to the bridge heard a trumpet of the enemy, and
+      desiring to fly jumped from his horse, and leaving it came
+      on on foot. I know that there was no lack of fear (_non
+      habe carestia di paura_). When the people reached the
+      bridge it was already day, the dawn had come. Then Sciarra
+      commanded that the gate should be opened. The crowd was
+      great, and the enemy were much troubled to see on the
+      bridge the number of pennons, for they knew that with each
+      pennon there were twenty-five men. Then the gate was
+      opened. The Rione of li Monti went first: the people filled
+      the Piazza of the Castello: they were all ranged in order,
+      both soldiers and people.
+
+      "Now were seen the rushing of the horses, one on the top of
+      another. One gave, another took (_che dao, che tolle_),
+      great was the noise, great was the encounter. Trumpets
+      sounded on this side and that. One gave, and another took.
+      Sciarra and Messer Andrea di Campo di Fiore confronted each
+      other and abused each other loudly. Then they broke their
+      lances upon each other: then struck with their swords:
+      neither would have less than the life of the other.
+      Presently they separated and came back each to his people.
+      There was great striking of swords and lances and some
+      fell. It could be seen that it was a cruel fight. The
+      people of Rome wavered back and forward like waves of the
+      sea. But it was the enemy that gave way, the people gained
+      the middle of the Piazza. Then was done a strange thing.
+      One whose name was Giovanni Manno, of the Colonna, carried
+      the banner of the people of Rome. When he came to the great
+      well, which is in that Piazza, in front of the Incarcerate,
+      where was the broken wall, he took the banner and threw it
+      into the well. And this he did to discourage the people of
+      Rome. The traitor well deserved to lose his life. The
+      Romans however did not lose courage, and already the Prince
+      of the Morea began to give way. He had either to fly or to
+      be killed. Then Sciarra de la Colonna, like a good mother
+      with her son, comforted the people and made everything go
+      well, such great sense did he show. Also another novel
+      thing was done. A great man of Rome (Cola de Madonna
+      Martorni de li Anniballi was his name) was a very bold
+      person and young. He was seized with desire to take
+      prisoner the Prince himself. He spurred his horse, and
+      breaking through the band of strong men who encircled the
+      Prince put out his hand to take him. So he had hoped to do
+      at least, but was not successful, for the Prince with an
+      iron club wounded his horse. The strength of the Prince's
+      charger was such that Cola was driven back: but the horse
+      of Cola had not sufficient space to move, and its hind feet
+      slipping, it fell into the ditch which is in front of the
+      gate of the Hospital of Santo Spirito, to defend the
+      garden. In the ditch both his horse and he, trying to
+      escape, fell, pressed by the soldiers of the Prince: and
+      there was he killed. Great was the mourning which Rome made
+      over so distinguished a baron--and all the people were
+      fired with indignation.
+
+      "The Prince now retired, his troops yielded. They began to
+      fly. The flight was great. Greater was the slaughter. They
+      were killed like sheep. Much resistance was made, many
+      people were killed, and the Romans gained much prey. Among
+      those taken was Bertollo the chief of the Orsini, Captain
+      of the army of the Church, and of the Guelf party: and if
+      it had not been that Sciarra caught him up on the croup of
+      his horse, he would have been murdered by the people."
+
+Then follows a horrible account of the number of dead who lay
+mutilated and naked on every roadside, and even among the vineyards:
+and the story ends with Sciarra's return to the Capitol with great
+triumph, and of a beautiful pallium which was sent to the Church of
+Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, along with a chalice, "in honour of this
+Roman victory."
+
+  [Illustration: APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL (1860).
+    _To face page 386._]
+
+Curiously enough our chronicler takes no notice of the episode of
+which this attack and repulse evidently form part, the reception of Il
+Bavaro in Rome, which is one of the unique incidents in Roman history.
+It took place in May of the following year, and afforded a very
+striking scene to the eager townsfolk, never quite sure that they
+could tolerate the Tedeschi, though pleased with them for a novelty
+and willing enough to fight their legitimate lord the Pope on behalf
+of the strangers. It was in January 1328 that Louis of Bavaria made
+his entrance into Rome--Sciarra Colonna above named being still
+Senator, head of the Ghibelline party, and the friend of the new-made
+Emperor. After being met at Viterbo by the Roman officials and
+questioned as to his intentions, Louis marched with his men into the
+Leonine city and established himself for some days in what is called
+the palace of St. Peter, the beginning of the Vatican, where, though
+there was still a party not much disposed to receive him, he was
+hailed with acclamations by the people, always eager for a new event,
+and not unmindful of the liberal largesse which an Emperor on his
+promotion, and especially when about to receive the much coveted
+coronation in St. Peter's, scattered around him. Louis proposed to
+restore the city to its ancient grandeur, and to promote its interests
+in every way, and flattered the people by receiving their vote of
+approval on the Capitol. "Going up to the Capitol," says Muratori, "he
+caused an oration to be made to the Roman people with many expressions
+of gratitude and praise, and with promises that Rome should be raised
+up to the stars." These honeyed words so pleased the people that he
+was declared Senator and Captain of Rome, and in a few days was
+crowned Emperor with every appearance of solemnity and grandeur.
+
+This would seem to be the first practical revival of the strange
+principle that Rome, as a city, not by its Emperor nor by its Pope,
+but in its own right, was the fountain of honour, the arbiter of the
+world--everything in short which in classical times its government
+was, and in the mediæval ages, the Papacy wished to be. It is curious
+to account for such an article of belief; for the populace of Rome had
+never in modern times possessed any of the characteristics of a great
+people, and was a mixed and debased race according to all authorities.
+This theory, however, was now for a time to affect the whole story of
+the city, and put a spasmodic life into her worn-out veins. It was the
+only thing which could have made such a story as that of Rienzi
+possible, and it was strongly upheld by Petrarch and other eager and
+philosophic observers. The Bavarian Louis was, however, the first who
+frankly sought the confirmation of his election from the hands of the
+Roman people. One cannot, however, but find certain features of a
+farce in this solemn ceremony.
+
+The coronation processions which passed through the streets from Sta.
+Maria Maggiore, according to Sismondi, to St. Peter's, were splendid,
+the barons and counsellors, or _buon-homini_ of Rome leading the
+_cortège_, and clothed in cloth of gold. "Behind the monarch marched
+four thousand men whom he had brought with him; all the streets which
+he traversed were hung with rich tapestries." He was accompanied by a
+lawyer eminent in his profession, to watch over the perfect legality
+of every point in the ceremonial. The well-known Castruccio
+Castracani, who had followed him to Rome, was appointed by the Emperor
+to be his deputy as Senator, and to watch over the city; and in this
+capacity he took his place in the procession in a tunic of crimson
+silk, embroidered with the words in gold on the breast, "He is what
+God wills"; on the back, "He will be what God pleases." There was no
+Pope, it need not be said, to consecrate the new Emperor. The Pope was
+in Avignon, and his bitter enemy. There was not even a Bishop of Ostia
+to present the great monarch before St. Peter and the powers of
+heaven. Nevertheless the Church was not left out, though it was placed
+in a secondary position. Some kind of ceremony was gone through by the
+Bishop of Venice, or rather of Castello, the old name of that restless
+diocese, and the Bishop of Alecia, both of them deposed and under
+excommunication at the moment: but it was Sciarra Colonna who put the
+crown on Louis's head. The whole ceremonial was secular, almost pagan
+in its meaning, if meaning at all further than a general throwing of
+dust in the eyes of the world it could be said to have. But there is a
+fictitious gravity in the proceedings which seems almost to infer a
+sense of the prodigious folly of the assumption that these quite
+incompetent persons were qualified to confer, without any warrant for
+their deed, the greatest honour in Christendom upon the Bavarian. John
+XXII. was not a very noble Pope, but his sanction was a very different
+matter from that of Sciarra Colonna. No doubt however the people of
+Rome--Lo Popolo, the blind mob so pulled about by its leaders, and
+made to assume one ridiculous attitude after another at their
+fancy--was flattered by the idea that it was from itself, as the
+imperial city, that the Emperor took the confirmation of his election
+and his crown.
+
+Immediately afterwards a still more unjustifiable act was performed by
+the Emperor thus settled in his imperial seat. Assisted by his
+excommunicated bishops and his rebellious laymen, Louis held, Muratori
+tells us, in the Piazza of St. Peter a _gran parlamento_, calling upon
+any one who would take upon him the defence of Jacques de Cahors,
+calling himself Pope John XXII., to appear and answer the accusations
+against him.
+
+      "No one replied: and then there rose up the Syndic of that
+      part of the Roman clergy who loved gold better than
+      religion, and begged Louis to take proceedings against the
+      said Jacques de Cahors. Various articles were then produced
+      accusing the Pope of heresy and treason, and of having
+      raised the cross (_i.e._ sent a crusade, probably the
+      expedition of the Prince of the Morea in the chronicle)
+      against the Romans. For which reasons the Bavarian declared
+      Pope John to be deposed from the pontificate and to be
+      guilty of heresy and treason, with various penalties which
+      I leave without mention. On the 23rd of April, with the
+      consent of the Roman people, a law was published that every
+      Pope in the future ought to hold his court in Rome, and not
+      to be absent more than three months in the year on pain of
+      being deposed from the Papacy. Finally on the twelfth day
+      of May, in the Piazza of San Pietro, Louis with his crown
+      on his head, proposed to the multitude that they should
+      elect a new Pope. Pietro de Corvara, a native of the
+      Abbruzzi, of the order of the Friars Minor, a great
+      hypocrite, was proposed: and the people, the greater part
+      of whom hated Pope John because he was permanently on the
+      other side of the Alps (_dè la dai monti_), accepted the
+      nomination. He assumed the name of Nicolas V. Before his
+      consecration there was a promotion of seven false
+      cardinals: and on the 22nd of May he was consecrated bishop
+      by one of these, and afterwards received the Papal crown
+      from the hands of the said Louis, who caused himself to be
+      once more crowned Emperor by this his idol.
+
+      "The brutality of Louis the Bavarian in arrogating to
+      himself (adds Muratori) the authority of deposing a Pope
+      lawfully elected, who had never fallen into heresy as was
+      pretended: and to elect another, contrary to the rites and
+      canons of the Catholic Church, sickened all who had any
+      conscience or light of reason, and pleased only the
+      heretics and schismatics, both religious and secular, who
+      filled the court of the Bavarian, and by whose counsels he
+      was ruled. Monstrosity and impiety could not be better
+      declared and detested. And this was the step which
+      completed the ruin of his interests in Italy."
+
+The apparition of this German court in Rome, with its curious
+ceremonials following one upon another: the coronation in St. Peter's,
+so soon to be annulled by its repetition at the hands of the puppet
+Pope whom Louis had himself created, in the vain hope that a crown
+bestowed by hands nominally consecrated would be more real than that
+given by those of Sciarra Colonna--makes the most wonderful episode in
+the turbulent story. In the same way Henry IV. was crowned again and
+again--first in his tent, afterwards by his false Pope in St. Peter's,
+while Gregory VII. looked grimly on from St. Angelo, a besieged and
+helpless refugee, yet in the secret consciousness of all parties--the
+Emperor's supporters as well as his own--the only real fountain of
+honour, the sole man living from whom that crown could be received
+with full sanction of law and right. Perhaps when all is said, and we
+have fully acknowledged the failure of all the greater claims of the
+Papacy, we read its importance in these scenes more than in the
+loftiest pretensions of Gregory or of Innocent. Il Bavaro felt to the
+bottom of his heart that he was no Emperor without the touch of those
+consecrated hands. A fine bravado of triumphant citizens delighting to
+imagine that Rome could still confer all honours as the mother city of
+the world, was well enough for the populace, though even for them the
+excommunicated bishops had to be brought in to lend a show of
+authenticity to the unjustifiable proceedings; but the uneasy Teuton
+himself could not be contented even by this, and it is to be supposed
+felt that even an anti-pope was better than nothing. It is tempting to
+inquire how Sciarra Colonna felt when the crown he had put on with
+such pride and triumph was placed again by the Neapolitan monk, false
+Pope among false cardinals, _articles d'occasion_, as the French
+say--on the head of the Bavarian. One cannot but feel that it must
+have been a humiliation for Colonna and for the city at this summit of
+vainglory and temporary power.
+
+The rest of the story of Sciarra and his emperor is quickly told, so
+far as Rome is concerned. Louis of Bavaria left the city in August of
+the same year. He had entered Rome in January amid the acclamations of
+the populace: he left it seven months later amid the hisses and
+abusive cries of the same people, carrying with him his anti-pope and
+probably Sciarra, who at all events took flight, his day being over,
+and died shortly after. Next day Stefano della Colonna, the true head
+of the house, arrived in Rome with Bartoldo Orsini, and took
+possession in the name of Pope John, no doubt with equal applause from
+the crowd which so short a time before had witnessed breathless his
+deposition, and accepted the false Nicolas in his place. Such was
+popular government in those days. The legate so valiantly defeated by
+Sciarra, and driven out of the gates according to the chronicle,
+returned in state with eight hundred knights at his back.
+
+We do not attempt to follow the history further than in those scenes
+which show how Rome lived, struggled, followed the impulse of its
+masters, and was flung from one side to the other at their pleasure,
+during this period of its history. The wonderful episode in that
+history which was about to open is better understood by the light of
+the events which roused Lo Popolo into wild excitement at one moment,
+and plunged them into disgust and discouragement the next.
+
+The following scene, however, has nothing to do with tumults of arms.
+It is a mere vignette from the much illustrated story of the city. It
+relates the visit of what we should now call a Revivalist to Rome, a
+missionary friar, one of those startling preachers who abounded in the
+Middle Ages, and roused, as almost always in the history of human
+nature, tempests of short-lived penitence and reformation, with but
+little general effect even on the religious story of the time. Fra
+Venturino was a Dominican monk of Bergamo, who had already when he
+came to Rome the fame of a great preacher, and was attended by a
+multitude of his penitents, dressed in white with the sacred monogram
+I.H.S. on the red and white caps or hoods which they wore on their
+heads, and a dove with an olive branch on their breasts. They came
+chiefly from the north of Italy and were, according to the chronicle,
+honest and pious persons of good and gentle manners. They were well
+received in Florence, where many great families took them in, gave
+them good food, good beds, washed their feet, and showed them much
+charity. Then, with a still larger contingent of Florentines following
+his steps, the preacher came on to Rome.
+
+      "It was said in Rome that he was coming to convert the
+      Romans. When he arrived he was received in San Sisto. There
+      he preached to his own people, of whom there were many
+      orderly and good. In the evening they sang Lauds. They had
+      a standard of silk which was afterwards given to La Minerva
+      (Sta. Maria sopra Minerva). At the present day it may
+      still be seen there in the Chapel of Messer Latino. It was
+      of green silk, long and large. Upon it was painted the
+      figure of Sta. Maria, with angels on each side, playing
+      upon viols; and St. Dominic and St. Peter Martyr and other
+      prophets. Afterwards he preached in the Capitol, and all
+      Rome went to hear him. The Romans were very attentive to
+      hear him, quiet, and following carefully if he went wrong
+      in his bad Latin. Then he preached and said that they ought
+      to take off their shoes, for the place on which they stood
+      was holy ground. And he said that Rome was a place of much
+      holiness from the bodies of the saints who lay there, but
+      that the Romans were wicked people: at which the Romans
+      laughed. Then he asked a favour and a gift from the Romans.
+      Fra Venturino said, 'Sirs, you are going to have one of
+      your holidays which costs much money. It is not either for
+      God or the saints: therefore you celebrate this idolatry
+      for the service of the Demon. Give the money to me. I will
+      spend it for God to men in need, who cannot provide for
+      themselves.' Then the Romans began to mock at him, and to
+      say that he was mad: thus they said and that they would
+      stay no longer: and rising up went away leaving him alone.
+      Afterwards he preached in San Giovanni, but the Romans
+      would not hear him, and would have driven him away. He then
+      became angry and cursed them, and said that he had never
+      seen people so perverse. He appeared no more, but departed
+      secretly and went to Avignon, where the Pope forbade him to
+      preach."
+
+We may conclude these scraps of familiar contemporary information with
+a companion picture which does not give a reassuring view of the state
+of the Church in Rome. It is the story of a priest elected to a great
+place and dignity who sought the confirmation of his election from the
+Pope at Avignon.
+
+      "A monk of St. Paolo in Rome, Fra Monozello by name, who at
+      the death of the Abbot had been elected to fill his place,
+      appeared before Pope Benedict. This monk was a man who
+      delighted in society, running about everywhere, seeing the
+      dawn come in, playing the lute, a great musician and
+      singer. He spent his life in a whirl, at the court, at all
+      the weddings, and parties to the vineyards. So at least
+      said the Romans. How sad it must have been for Pope
+      Benedict to hear that a monk of his did nothing but sing
+      and dance. When this man was chosen for Abbot, he appeared
+      before the sanctity of the Pope and said, 'Holy Father, I
+      have been elected to San Paolo in Rome.' The Pope, who knew
+      the condition of all who came to him, said, 'Can you sing?'
+      The Abbot-elect replied, 'I can sing.' The Pope, 'I mean
+      songs' (_la cantilena_). The Abbot-elect answered, 'I know
+      concerted songs' (_il canzone sacro_). The Pope asked
+      again, 'Can you play instruments' (_sonare_)? He answered,
+      'I can.' The Pope, 'I ask can you play (_tonare_) the organ
+      and the lute?' The other answered, 'Too well.' Then the
+      Pope changed his tone and said, 'Do you think it is a
+      suitable thing for the Abbot of the venerable monastery of
+      San Paolo to be a buffoon? Go about your business.'"
+
+Thus it would appear that, careless as they might be and full of other
+thoughts, the Popes in Avignon still kept a watchful eye upon the
+Church at Rome. These are but anecdotes with which the historian of
+Rienzi prepares his tragic story. They throw a little familiar light,
+the lanthorn of a bystander, upon the town, so great yet so petty,
+always clinging to the pretensions of a greatness which it could not
+forget, but wholly unworthy of that place in the world which its
+remote fathers of antiquity had won, and incapable even when a
+momentary power fell into its hands of using it, or of perceiving in
+the midst of its greedy rush at temporary advantage what its true
+interests were--insubordinate, reckless, unthinking, ready to rush to
+arms when the great bell rang from the Capitol _a stuormo_, without
+pausing to ask which side they were on, with the Guelfs one day and
+the Ghibellines the next, shouting for the Emperor, yet
+terror-stricken at the name of the Pope--obeying with surly reluctance
+their masters the barons, but as ready as a handful of tow to take
+flame, and always rebellious whatever might be the occasion. This is
+how the Roman Popolo of the fourteenth century appear through the eyes
+of the spectators of its strange ways. Fierce to fight, but completely
+without object except a local one for their fighting, ready to rebel
+but always disgusted when made to obey, entertaining a wonderful idea
+of their own claims by right of their classic descent and connection
+with the great names of antiquity, while on the other hand they
+allowed the noblest relics of those times to crumble into irremediable
+ruin.
+
+The other Rome, the patrician side, with all its glitter and splendour
+of the picturesque, is on the surface a much finer picture. The
+romance of the time lay altogether with the noble houses which had
+grown up in mediæval Rome, sometimes seizing a dubious title from an
+ancient Roman potentate, but most often springing from some stronghold
+in the adjacent country or the mountains, races which had developed
+and grown upon highway robbery and the oppression of those weaker than
+themselves, yet always with a surface of chivalry which deceived the
+world. The family which was greatest and strongest is fortunately the
+one we know most about. The house of Colonna had the good luck to
+discover in his youth and extend a warm, if condescending, friendship
+to the poet Petrarch, who was on his side the most fortunate poet who
+has lived in modern ages among men. He was in the midst of everything
+that went on, to use our familiar phraseology, in his day: he was the
+friend and correspondent of every notable person from the Pope and the
+Emperor downward: only a poor ecclesiastic, but the best known and
+most celebrated man of his time. The very first of all his
+contemporaries to appreciate and divine what was in him was Giacomo
+Colonna, one of the sons of old Stefano, whom we have already seen in
+Rome. He was Bishop of Lombez in Gascony, and his elder brother
+Giovanni was a Cardinal. They were in the way of every preferment and
+advantage, as became the sons of so powerful a house, but no promotion
+they attained has done so much for them with posterity as their
+friendship with this smooth-faced young priest of Vaucluse, to whom
+they were the kindest patrons and most faithful friends.
+
+Petrarch was but twenty-two, a student at Bologna when young Colonna,
+a boy himself, took, as we say, a fancy for him, "not knowing who I
+was or whence I came, and only by my dress perceiving that what he was
+I also was, a scholar." It was in his old age that Petrarch gave to
+another friend a description of this early patron, younger apparently
+than himself, who opened to him the doors of that higher social life
+which were not always open to a poet, even in those days when the
+patronage of the great was everything. "I think there never was a man
+in the world greater than he or more gracious, more kind, more able,
+more wise, more good, more moderate in good fortune, more constant and
+strong against adversity," he writes in the calm of his age, some
+forty years after the beginning of this friendship and long after the
+death of Giacomo Colonna. When the young bishop first went to his
+diocese Petrarch accompanied him. "Oh flying time, oh hurrying life!"
+he cries. "Forty-four years have passed since then, but never have I
+spent so happy a summer." On his return from this visit the bishop
+made his friend acquainted with his brother Giovanni, the Cardinal, a
+man "good and innocent more than Cardinals are wont to be." "And the
+same may be said," Petrarch adds, "of the other brothers, and of the
+magnanimous Stefano, their father, of whom, as Crispus says of
+Carthage, it is better to be silent than to say little." This is a
+description too good, perhaps, to be true of an entire family,
+especially of Roman nobles and ecclesiastics in the middle of the
+fourteenth century, between the disorderly and oppressed city of Rome,
+and the corrupt court of Avignon: but at least it shows the other
+point of view, the different aspect which the same man bears in
+different eyes: though Petrarch's enthusiasm for his matchless friends
+is perhaps as much too exalted as the denunciations of the populace
+and the popular orator are excessive on the other side.
+
+It was under this distinguished patronage that Petrarch received the
+great honour of his life, the laurel crown of the Altissimo Poeta, and
+furnished another splendid scene to the many which had taken place in
+Rome in the midst of all her troubles and distractions. The offer of
+this honour came to him at the same time from Paris and Rome, and it
+was to Cardinal Giovanni that he referred the question which he should
+accept: and he was surrounded by the Colonnas when he appeared at the
+Capitol to receive his crown. The Senator of the year was Orso, Conte
+d'Anquillara, who was the son-in-law of old Stefano Colonna, the
+husband of his daughter Agnes. The ceremony took place on Easter
+Sunday in the year 1341, the last day of Anquillara's office, and so
+settled by him in order that he might himself have the privilege of
+placing the laurel on the poet's head. Petrarch gives an account of
+the ceremony to his other patron King Robert of Naples, attributing
+this honour to the approbation and friendship of that monarch--which
+perhaps is a thing necessary when any personage so great as a king
+interests himself in the glory of a poet. "Rome and the deserted
+palace of the Capitol were adorned with unusual delight," he says: "a
+small thing in itself one might say, but conspicuous by its novelty,
+and by the applause and pleasure of the Roman people, the custom of
+bestowing the laurel having not only been laid aside for many ages,
+but even forgotten, while the republic turned its thoughts to very
+different things--until now under thy auspices it was renewed in my
+person." "On the Capitol of Rome," the poet wrote to another
+correspondent, "with a great concourse of people and immense joy, that
+which the king in Naples had decreed for me was executed. Orso Count
+d'Anquillara, Senator, a person of the highest intelligence, decorated
+me with the laurel: all went better than could have been believed or
+hoped," he adds, notwithstanding the absence of the King and of
+various great persons named--though among these Petrarch, with a
+policy and knowledge of the world which never failed him, does not
+name to his Neapolitan friends Cardinal Giovanni and Bishop Giacomo,
+the dearest of his companions, and his first and most faithful
+patrons, neither of whom were able to be present. Their family,
+however, evidently took the lead on this great occasion. Their brother
+Stefano pronounced an oration in honour of the laureate: he was
+crowned by their brother-in-law: and the great celebration culminated
+in a banquet in the Colonna palace, at which, no doubt, the father of
+all presided, with Colonnas young and old filling every corner. For
+they were a most abundant family--sons and grandsons, Stefanos and
+Jannis without end, young ones of all the united families, enough to
+fill almost a whole quarter of Rome themselves and their retainers.
+"Their houses extended from the square of San Marcello to the Santi
+Apostoli," says Papencordt, the modern biographer of Rienzi. The
+ancient Mausoleum of Augustus, which has been put to so many uses,
+which was a theatre not very long ago, and is now, we believe a
+museum, was once the headquarters and stronghold of the house.
+
+This ceremonial of the crowning of the poet was conducted with immense
+joy of the people, endless applause, a great concourse, and every
+splendour that was possible. So was the reception of Il Bavaro a few
+years before; so were the other strange scenes about to come. The
+populace was always ready to form a great concourse, to shout and
+applaud, notwithstanding its own often miserable condition, exposed to
+every outrage, and finding justice nowhere. But the reverse of the
+medal was not so attractive. Petrarch himself, departing from Rome
+with still the intoxicating applause of the city ringing in his ears,
+was scarcely outside the walls before he and his party fell into the
+hands of armed robbers. It would be too long to tell, he says, how he
+got free; but he was driven back to Rome, whence he set out again next
+day, "surrounded by a good escort of armed men." The _ladroni armati_
+who stopped the way might, for all one knows, wear the badge of the
+Colonnas somewhere under their armour, or at least find refuge in some
+of their strongholds. Such were the manners of the time, and such was
+specially the condition of Rome. It gave the crown of fame to the
+poet, but could not secure him a safe passage for a mile outside its
+gates. It still put forth pretensions, as on this, so in more
+important cases, to exercise an authority over all the nations, by
+which right it had pleased the city to give Louis of Bavaria the
+imperial crown; but no citizen was safe unless he could protect
+himself with his sword, and justice and the redress of wrong were
+things unknown.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE PINCIO.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE DELIVERER.
+
+
+It was in this age of disorder and anarchy that a child was born, of
+the humblest parentage, on the bank of the Tiber, in an out-of-the-way
+suburb, who was destined to become the hero of one of the strangest
+episodes of modern history. His father kept a little tavern to which
+the Roman burghers, pushing their walk a little beyond the walls,
+would naturally resort; his mother, a laundress and water-carrier--one
+of those women who, with the port of a classical princess, balance on
+their heads in perfect poise and certainty the great copper vases
+which are still used for that purpose. It was the gossip of the time
+that Maddalena, the wife of Lorenzo, had not been without adventures
+in her youth. No less a person than Henry VII. had found shelter, it
+was said, in her little public-house when her husband was absent. He
+was in the dress of a pilgrim, but no doubt bore the mien of a gallant
+gentleman and dazzled the eyes of the young landlady, who had no one
+to protect her. When her son was a man it pleased him to suppose that
+from this meeting resulted the strange mixture of democratic
+enthusiasm and love of pomp and power which was in his own nature. It
+was not much to be proud of, and yet he was proud of it. For all the
+world he was the son of the poor innkeeper, but within himself he felt
+the blood of an Emperor in his veins. Maddalena died young, and when
+her son began to weave the visions which helped to shape his life, was
+no longer there to clear her own reputation or to confirm him in his
+dream.
+
+These poor people had not so much as a surname to distinguish them.
+The boy Niccola was Cola di Rienzo, Nicolas the son of Laurence, as he
+is called in the Latin chronicles, according to that simplest of all
+rules of nomenclature which has originated so many modern names. "He
+was from his youth nourished on the milk of eloquence; a good
+grammarian, a better rhetorician, a fine writer," says his biographer.
+"Heavens, what a rapid reader he was! He made great use of Livy,
+Seneca, Tully, and Valerius Maximus, and delighted much to tell forth
+the magnificence of Julius Cæsar. All day long he studied the
+sculptured marbles that lie around Rome. There was no one like him for
+reading the ancient inscriptions. All the ancient writings he put in
+choice Italian; the marbles he interpreted. How often did he cry out,
+'Where are these good Romans? where is their high justice? might I but
+have been born in their time?' He was a handsome man, and he adopted
+the profession of a notary."
+
+We are not told how or where Cola attained this knowledge. His father
+was a vassal of the Colonna, and it is possible that some of the
+barons coming and going may have been struck by the brilliant, eager
+countenance of the innkeeper's son, and helped him to the not
+extravagant amount of learning thus recorded. His own character, and
+the energy and ambition so strangely mingled with imagination and the
+visionary temperament of a poet, would seem to have at once separated
+him from the humble world in which he was born. It is said by some
+that his youth was spent out of Rome, and that he only returned when
+about twenty, at the death of his father--a legend which would lend
+some show of evidence to the suggestion of his doubtful birth: but his
+biographer says nothing of this. It is also said that it was the death
+of his brother, killed in some scuffle between the ever-contending
+parties of Colonna and Orsini, which gave his mind the first impulse
+towards the revolution which he accomplished in so remarkable a way.
+"He pondered long," says his biographer, "of revenging the blood of
+his brother; and long he pondered over the ill-governed city of Rome,
+and how to set it right." But there is no definite record of his early
+life until it suddenly flashes into light in the public service of the
+city, and on an occasion of the greatest importance as well for
+himself as for Rome.
+
+This first public employment which discloses him at once to us was a
+mission from the thirteen _Buoni homini_, sometimes called _Caporoni_,
+the heads of the different districts of the city, to Pope Clement VI.
+at Avignon, on the occasion of one of those temporary overturns of
+government which occurred from time to time, always of the briefest
+duration, but carrying on the traditions of the power of the people
+from age to age. He was apparently what we should call the spokesman
+of the deputation sent to explain the matter to the Pope, and to
+secure, if possible, some attention on the part of the Curia to the
+condition of the abandoned city.
+
+      "His eloquence was so great that Pope Clement was much
+      attracted towards him: the Pope much admired the fine style
+      of Cola, and desired to see him every day. Upon which Cola
+      spoke very freely and said that the Barons of Rome were
+      highway robbers, that they were consenting to murder,
+      robbery, adultery, and every evil. He said that the city
+      lay desolate, and the Pope began to entertain a very bad
+      opinion of the Barons."
+
+"But," adds the chronicler, "by means of Messer Giovanni of the
+Colonna, Cardinal, great misfortunes happened to him, and he was
+reduced to such poverty and sickness that he might as well have been
+sent to the hospital. He lay like a snake in the sun. But he who had
+cast him down, the very same person raised him up again. Messer
+Giovanni brought him again before the Pope and had him restored to
+favour. And having thus been restored to grace he was made notary of
+the Cammora in Rome, so that he returned with great joy to the city."
+
+This succinct narrative will perhaps be a little more clear if
+slightly expanded: the chief object of the Roman envoy was to disclose
+the crimes of the "barons," whose true character Cola thus described
+to the Pope, on the part of the leaders of a sudden revolt, a sort of
+prophetical anticipation of his own, which had seized the power out of
+the hands of the two Senators and conferred it upon thirteen _Buoni
+homini_, heads of the people, who took the charge in the name of the
+Pope and professed, as was usual in its absence, an almost extravagant
+devotion to the Papal authority. The embassy was specially charged
+with the prayers and entreaties of the people that the Pope would
+return and resume the government of the city: and also that he would
+proclaim another jubilee--the great festival, accompanied by every
+kind of indulgence and pious promise to the pilgrims, attracted by it
+from all the ends of the earth to Rome--which had been first
+instituted by Pope Boniface VIII. in 1300 with the intention of being
+repeated once every century only. But a century is a long time; and
+the jubilee was most profitable, bringing much money and many gifts
+both to the State and the Church. The citizens were therefore very
+anxious to secure its repetition in 1350, and its future celebration
+every fifty years. The Pope graciously accorded the jubilee to the
+prayers of the Romans, and accepted their homage and desire for his
+return, promising vaguely that he would do so in the jubilee year if
+not before. So that whatever afterwards happened to the secretary or
+spokesman, the object of the mission was attained.
+
+Elated by this fulfilment of their wishes, and evidently at the moment
+of his highest favour with the Pope, Cola sent a letter announcing
+this success to the authorities in Rome, which is the first word we
+hear from his own mouth. It is dated from Avignon, in the year 1343.
+He was then about thirty, in the full ardour of young manhood, full of
+visionary hopes and schemes for the restoration of the glories of
+Rome. The style of the letter, which was so much admired in those
+days, is too florid and ornate for the taste of a severer period,
+notwithstanding that his composition received the applause of
+Petrarch, and was much admired by all his contemporaries. He begins by
+describing himself as the "consul of orphans, widows and the poor, and
+the humble messenger of the people."
+
+      "Let your mountains tremble with happiness, let your hills
+      clothe themselves with joy, and peace and gladness fill the
+      valleys. Let the city arise from her long course of
+      misfortunes, let her re-ascend the throne of her ancient
+      magnificence, let her throw aside the weeds of widowhood
+      and clothe herself with the garments of a bride. For the
+      heavens have been opened to us and from the glory of the
+      Heavenly Father has issued the light of Jesus Christ, from
+      which shines forth that of the Holy Spirit. Now that the
+      Lord has done this miracle, brethren beloved, see that you
+      clear out of your city the thorns and the roots of vice, to
+      receive with the perfume of new virtue the Bridegroom who
+      is coming. We exhort you with burning tears, with tears of
+      joy, to put aside the sword, to extinguish the flames of
+      battle, to receive these divine gifts with a heart full of
+      purity and gratitude, to glorify with songs and
+      thanksgiving the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also to
+      give humble thanks to His Vicar, and to raise to that
+      supreme Pontiff, in the Capitol or in the amphitheatre, a
+      statue adorned with purple and gold that the joyous and
+      glorious recollection may endure for ever. Who indeed has
+      adorned his country with such glory among the Ciceros, the
+      Cæsars, Metullus, or Fabius, who are celebrated as
+      liberators in our old annals and whose statues we adorn
+      with precious stones because of their virtues? These men
+      have obtained passing triumphs by war, by the calamities of
+      the world, by the shedding of blood: but he, by our prayers
+      and for the life, the salvation and the joy of all, has won
+      in our eyes and in those of posterity an immortal triumph."
+
+  [Illustration: THEATRE OF MARCELLUS.
+    _To face page 406._]
+
+It is like enough that these extravagant phrases expressed an
+exultation which was sufficiently genuine and sincere, for while he
+was absent the city of Rome desired and longed for its Pope, although
+when present it might do everything in its power to shake off his
+yoke. And Cola the ambassador, in whose mind as yet his own great
+scheme had not taken shape, might well believe that the gracious Pope
+who flattered him by such attention, who admitted him so freely to his
+august presence, and to whom he was as one who playeth very sweetly
+upon an instrument, was the man of all men to bring back again from
+anarchy and tumult the imperial city. He had even given up, it would
+seem, his enthusiasm for the classic heroes in this moment of hope
+from a more living and present source of help.
+
+This elation however did not last. The Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, son
+of old Stefano, the head of that great house, of whose magnificent old
+age Petrarch speaks with so much enthusiasm, himself a man of many
+accomplishments, a scholar and patron of the arts--and to crown all,
+as has been said, the dear friend and patron of the poet--was one of
+the most important members of the court at Avignon, when the
+deputation from Rome, with that eloquent young plebeian as its
+interpreter, appeared before the Pope. We may imagine that its first
+great success, and the pleasure which the Pope took in the
+conversation of Cola, must have happened during some temporary absence
+of the Cardinal, whose interest in the affairs of his native city
+would be undoubted. And it was natural that he should be a little
+scornful of the ambassadors of the people, and of the orator who was
+the son of Rienzo of the wine-shop, and very indignant at the account
+given by the advocate of lo Popolo, of the barons and their behaviour.
+The Colonna were, in fact, the least tyrannical of the tyrants; they
+were the noblest of all the Roman houses, and no doubt the public
+sentiment against the nobles in general might sometimes do a more
+enlightened family wrong. Certainly it is hard to reconcile the
+pictures of this house as given by Petrarch with the cruel tyranny of
+which all the nobles were accused. This no doubt was the reason why,
+after the triumph of that letter, the consent of the Pope to the
+prayer of the citizens, and his interest in Cola's tale and
+descriptions, the young orator fell under the shadow of courtly
+displeasure, and after that intoxication of victory suffered all those
+pangs of neglect which so often end the temporary triumph of a success
+at court. The story is all vague, and we have no explanation why he
+should have lingered on in Avignon, unless perhaps with hopes of
+advancement founded on that evanescent favour, or perhaps in
+consequence of his illness. There is a forlorn touch in the
+description of the chronicler that "he lay like a snake in the sun,"
+which is full of suggestion. The reader seems to see him hanging about
+the precincts of the court under the stately walls of the vast Papal
+palace, which now stands in gloomy greatness, absorbing all the light
+out of the landscape. It was new then, and glorious like a heavenly
+palace; and sick and sad, disappointed and discouraged, the young
+envoy, lately so dazzled by the sunshine of favour, would no doubt
+haunt the great doorway, seeking a sunny spot to keep himself warm,
+and waiting upon Providence. Probably the Cardinal, sweeping out and
+in, in his state, might perceive the young Roman fallen from his
+temporary triumph, and be touched by pity for the orator who after all
+had done no harm with his pleading; for was not Stefano Colonna again,
+in spite of all, Senator of Rome? Let us hope that the companion at
+his elbow, the poet who formed part of his household, and who probably
+had heard, too, and admired, like Pope Clement, the _parole ornate_ of
+the speaker, who, though so foolish as to assail with his eloquent
+tongue the nobles of the land, need not after all be left to perish on
+that account--was the person who pointed out to his patron the poor
+fellow in his cloak, shivering in the mistral, that chill wind
+unknown in the midlands of Italy. It is certain that Petrarch here
+made Cola's acquaintance, and that Cardinal Colonna, remorseful to see
+the misery he had caused, took trouble to have his young countryman
+restored to favour, and procured him the appointment of Notary of the
+city, with which Cola returned to Rome--"_fra i denti minacciava_,"
+says his biographer, swearing between his teeth.
+
+It was in 1344 that his promotion took place, and for some years after
+Cola performed the duties of his office _cortesemente_, with courtesy,
+the highest praise an Italian of his time could give. In this
+occupation he had boundless opportunities of studying more closely the
+system of government which had resumed its full sway under the old
+familiar succession of Senators, generally a Colonna and an Orsini.
+"He saw and knew," says the chronicler, himself growing vehement in
+the excitement of the subject, "the robbery of those dogs of the
+Capitol, the cruelty and injustice of those in power. In all the
+commune he did not find one good citizen who would render help." It
+would seem, though there is here little aid of dates, that he did not
+act precipitately, but, probably with the hope of being able himself
+to do something to remedy matters, kept silence while his heart
+burned, as long as silence was possible. But the moment came when he
+could do so no longer, and the little scene at the meeting of the
+Cammora, the City Council, stands out as clearly before us as if it
+had been a municipal assembly of the present day. We are not told what
+special question was before the meeting which proved the last straw of
+the burden of indignation and impatience which Cola at his table,
+writing with the silver pen which he thought more worthy than a goose
+quill for the dignity of his office, had to bear. (One wonders if he
+was the inventor, without knowing it, of that little instrument, the
+artificial pen of metal with which, chiefly, literature is
+manufactured in our days? But silver is too soft and ductile to have
+ever become popular, and though very suitable to pour forth those
+mellifluous sentences in which the young spokesman of the Romans wrote
+to his chiefs from Avignon, would scarcely answer for the sterner
+purposes of the council to inscribe punishments or calculate fines
+withal.) One day, however, sitting in his place, writing down the
+decrees for those fines and penalties, sudden wrath seized upon the
+young scribe who already had called himself the consul of widows and
+orphans, and of the poor.
+
+      "One day during a discussion on the subject of the taxes of
+      Rome, he rose to his feet among all the Councillors and
+      said, 'You are not good citizens, you who suck the blood of
+      the poor and will not give them any help.' Then he
+      admonished the officials and the Rectors that they ought
+      rather to provide for the good government, _lo buono
+      stato_, of their city of Rome. When the impetuous address
+      of Cola di Rienzi was ended, one of the Colonna, who was
+      called Andreozzo di Normanno, the Camarlengo, got up and
+      struck him a ringing blow on the cheek: and another who was
+      the Secretary of the Senate, Tomma de Fortifiocca, mocked
+      him with an insulting sign. This was the end of their
+      talking."
+
+We hear of no more remonstrances in the council. It is said that Cola
+was not a brave man, though we have so many proofs of courage
+afterwards that it is difficult to believe him to have been lacking in
+this particular. At all events he went out from that selfish and
+mocking assembly with his cheek tingling from the blow, and his heart
+burning more and more, to ponder over other means of moving the
+community and helping Rome.
+
+The next incident opens up to us a curious world of surmise, and
+suggests to the imagination much that is unknown, in the lower regions
+of art, a crowd of secondary performers in that arena, the unknown
+painters, the half-workmen, half-artists, who form a background
+wherever a school of art exists. Cola perhaps may have had relations
+with some of these half-developed artists, not sufficiently advanced
+to paint an altar-piece, the scholars or lesser brethren of some
+local _bottega_. There was little native art at any time in Rome. The
+ancient and but dimly recorded work of the Cosimati, the only Roman
+school, is lost in the mists, and was over and ended in the fourteenth
+century. But there must have been some humble survival of trained
+workmen capable at least of mural decorations if no more. Pondering
+long how to reach the public, Cola seems to have bethought himself of
+this humble instrument of art. As we do not hear before of any such
+method of instructing the people, we may be allowed to suppose it was
+his invention as well as the silver pen. His active brain was buzzing
+with new things in every way, both great and small, and this was the
+first device he hit upon. Even the poorest art must have been of use
+in the absence of books for the illustration of sacred story and the
+instruction of the ignorant, and it was at this kind of instantaneous
+effect that Cola aimed. He had the confidence of the visionary that
+the evil state of affairs needed only to be known to produce instant
+reformation. The grievance over and over again insisted upon by his
+biographer, and which was the burden of his outburst in the council,
+was that "no one would help"--_non si trovava uno buon Cittatino, che
+lo volesse adjutare_. Did they but know, the common people, how they
+were oppressed, and the nobles what oppressors they were, it was
+surely certain that every one would help, and that all would go right,
+and the _buono stato_ be established once more.
+
+Here is the strange way in which Cola for the first time publicly
+"admonished the rectors and the people to do well, by a similitude."
+
+      "A similitude," says his biographer, "which he caused to be
+      painted on the palace of the Capitol in front of the
+      market, on the wall above the Cammora (Council Chamber).
+      Here was painted an allegory in the following form--namely,
+      a great sea with horrible waves, and much disturbed. In the
+      midst of this sea was a ship, almost wrecked, without helm
+      or sails. In this ship, in great peril, was a woman, a
+      widow, clothed in black, bound with a girdle of sadness,
+      her face disfigured, her hair floating wildly, as if she
+      would have wept. She was kneeling, her hands crossed,
+      beating her breast and ready to perish. The superscription
+      over her was _This is Rome_. Round this ship were four
+      other ships wrecked: their sails torn away, their oars
+      broken, their rudders lost. In each one was a woman
+      smothered and dead. The first was called Babylon; the
+      second Carthage; the third Troy; the fourth Jerusalem.
+      Written above was: _These cities by injustice perished and
+      came to nothing._ A label proceeding from the women dead
+      bore the lines:
+
+        'Once were we raised o'er lords and rulers all,
+        And now we wait, Oh Rome, to see thee fall.'
+
+      "On the left hand were two islands: on one of these was a
+      woman sitting shamefaced with an inscription over her _This
+      is Italy_. And she spoke and said:
+
+        'Once had'st thou power o'er every land,
+        I only now, thy sister, hold thy hand.'
+
+      "On the other island were four women, with their hands at
+      their throats, kneeling on their knees, in great sadness,
+      and speaking thus:
+
+        'By many virtues once accompanied
+        Thou on the sea goest now abandonëd.'
+
+      "These were the four Cardinal virtues, Temperance, Justice,
+      Prudence and Fortitude. On the other side was another
+      little isle, and on this islet was a woman kneeling, her
+      hands stretched out to heaven as if she prayed. She was
+      clothed in white and her name was Christian Faith: and this
+      is what her verse said:
+
+        'Oh noblest Father, lord and leader mine,
+        Where shall I be if Rome sink and decline?'
+
+      "Above on the right of the picture were four kinds of
+      winged creatures who breathed and blew upon the sea,
+      creating a storm and driving the sinking ship that it might
+      perish. The first order were Lions, Wolves, and Bears, and
+      were thus labelled: _These are the powerful Barons and the
+      wicked Officials_. The second order were Dogs, Pigs, and
+      Goats, and over them was written: _These are the evil
+      counsellors, the followers of the nobles_. The third order
+      were Sheep, Goats, and Foxes, and the label: _These are the
+      false officials, Judges and Notaries_. The fourth order
+      were Hares, Cats, and Monkeys, and their label: _These are
+      the People, Thieves, Murderers, Adulterers, and Spoilers of
+      Men_. Above was the sky: in the midst the Majesty Divine as
+      though coming to Judgment, two swords coming from His
+      mouth. On one side stood St. Peter, and on the other St.
+      Paul praying. When the people saw this similitude with
+      these figures every one marvelled."
+
+Who painted this strange allegory, and how the work could be done in
+secret, in such a public place, so as to be suddenly revealed as a
+surprise to the astonished crowd, we have no means of knowing. It
+would be, no doubt, of the rudest art, probably such a scroll as
+might be printed off in a hundred examples and pasted on the walls by
+our readier methods, not much above the original drawings of our
+pavements. We can imagine the simplicity of the symbolism, the
+agitated sea in curved lines, the galleys dropping out of the picture,
+the symbolical figures with their mottoes. The painting must have been
+executed by the light of early dawn, or under cover of some license to
+which Cola himself as an official had a right, perhaps behind the veil
+of a scaffolding--put up on some pretence of necessary repairs: and
+suddenly blazing forth upon the people in the brightness of the
+morning, when the early life of Rome began again, and suitors and
+litigants began to cluster on the great steps, each with his private
+grievance, his lawsuit or complaint. What a sensation must that have
+occasioned as gazer after gazer caught sight of the fresh colours
+glowing on what was a blank wall the day before! The strange
+inscriptions in their doggerel lines, mystic enough to pique every
+intelligence, simple enough to be comprehensible by the crowd, would
+be read by one and another to show their learning over the heads of
+the multitude. How strange a thing, catching every eye! No doubt the
+plan of it, so unusual an appeal to the popular understanding, was
+Cola's; but who could the artist be who painted that "similitude"? Not
+any one, we should suppose, who lived to make a name for himself--as
+indeed, so far as we know, there were none such in Rome.
+
+This pictorial instruction was for the poor: it placed before them
+Rome, their city, for love of which they were always capable of being
+roused to at least a temporary enthusiasm--struggling and unhappy,
+cheated by those she most trusted, ravaged by small and great, in
+danger of final and hopeless shipwreck. In all her ancient greatness,
+the peer and sister of the splendid cities of the antique world, and
+like them falling into a ruin which in her case might yet be avoided,
+the suggestion was one which was admirably fitted to stir and move the
+spectators, all of them proud of the name of Roman, and deeply
+conscious of ill-government and suffering. This, however, was but one
+side of the work which he had set himself to do. A short time after,
+when his picture had become the subject of all tongues in Rome, Cola
+the notary invited the nobles and notables of the city to meet in the
+Church of St. John Lateran to hear him expound a certain inscription
+there which had hitherto (we are told) baffled all interpreters. It
+must be supposed that he stood high in the favour of the Church, and
+of Raymond the Bishop of Orvieto, the Pope's representative, or he
+would scarcely have been permitted to use the great basilica for such
+a purpose.
+
+The Church of the Lateran, however, as we know from various sources,
+was in an almost ruined state, nearly roofless and probably, in
+consequence, open to invasions of such a kind. Cola must have already
+secured the attention of Rome in all circles, notwithstanding that box
+on the ear with which Andreozzo of the Colonna had tried to silence
+him. He was taken by some for a _burlatore_, a man who was a great
+jest and out of whom much amusement could be got; and this was the
+aspect in which he appeared to one portion of society, to the young
+barons and gilded youth of Rome--a delusion to which he would seem to
+have temporarily lent himself, in order to diffuse his doctrine; while
+the more serious part of the aristocracy seem to have become curious
+at least to hear what he had to say, and prescient of meanings in him
+which it would be well to keep in order by better means than the
+simple method of Andreozzo. The working of Cola's own mind it is less
+easy to trace. His picture had been such an allegory as the age loved,
+broad enough and simple enough at the same time to reach the common
+level of understanding. When he addressed himself to the higher class,
+it was with an instinctive sense of the difference, but without
+perhaps a very clear perception what that difference was, or how to
+bear himself before this novel audience. Perhaps he was right in
+believing that a striking spectacle was the best thing to startle the
+aristocrats into attention: perhaps he thought it well to take
+advantage of the notion that Cola of Rienzo was more or less a
+buffoon, and that a speech of his was likely to be amusing whatever
+else it might be. The dress which his biographer describes minutely,
+and which had evidently been very carefully prepared, seems to favour
+this idea.
+
+      "Not much time passed (after the exhibition of the picture)
+      before he admonished the people by a fine sermon in the
+      vulgar tongue, which he made in St. John Lateran. On the
+      wall behind the choir, he had fixed a great and magnificent
+      plate of metal inscribed with ancient letters, which none
+      could read or interpret except he alone. Round this tablet
+      he had caused several figures to be painted which
+      represented the Senate of Rome conceding the authority over
+      the city to the Emperor Vespasian. In the midst of the
+      Church was erected a platform (_un parlatorio_) with seats
+      upon it, covered with carpets and curtains--and upon this
+      were gathered many great personages, among whom were
+      Stefano Colonna, and Giovanni Colonna his son, who were the
+      greatest and most magnificent in the city. There were also
+      many wise and learned men, Judges and Decretalists, and
+      many persons of authority. Cola di Rienzo came upon the
+      stage among these great people. He was dressed in a tunic
+      and cape after the German fashion, with a hood up to his
+      throat in fine white cloth, and a little white cap on his
+      head. On the round of his cap were crowns of gold, the one
+      in the front being divided by a sword made in silver, the
+      point of which was stuck through the crown. He came out
+      very boldly, and when silence was procured he made a fine
+      sermon with many beautiful words, and said that Rome was
+      beaten down and lay on the ground, and could not see where
+      she lay, for her eyes were torn out of her head. Her eyes
+      were the Pope and the Emperor, both of whom Rome had lost
+      by the wickedness of her citizens. Then he said (pointing
+      to the pictured figures), 'Behold, what was the
+      magnificence of the Senate when it gave the authority to
+      the Emperor.' He then read a paper in which was written the
+      interpretation of the inscription, which was the act by
+      which the imperial power was given by the people of Rome to
+      Vespasian. Firstly that Vespasian should have the power to
+      make good laws, and to make alliances with any whom he
+      pleased, and that he should be entitled to increase or
+      diminish the _garden of Rome_, that is Italy: and that he
+      should give accounts less or more as he would. He might
+      also raise men to be dukes and kings, put them up or pull
+      them down, destroy or rebuild cities, divert rivers out of
+      their beds to flow in another channel, put on taxes or
+      abolish them at his pleasure. All these things the Romans
+      gave to Vespasian according to their Charter to which
+      Tiberius Cæsar consented. He then put aside that paper and
+      said, 'Sirs, such was the majesty of the people of Rome
+      that it was they who conferred this authority upon the
+      Emperor. Now they have lost it altogether.' Then he entered
+      more fully into the question and said, 'Romans, you do not
+      live in peace: your lands are not cultivated. The Jubilee
+      is approaching and you have no provision of grain or food
+      for the people who are coming, who will find themselves
+      unprovided for, and who will take up stones in the rage of
+      their hunger: but neither will the stones be enough for
+      such a multitude.' Then concluding he added: 'I pray you
+      keep the peace.' Then he said this parable: 'Sirs, I know
+      that many people make a mock at me for what I do and say.
+      And why? For envy. But I thank God there are three things
+      which consume the slanderers. The first luxury, the second
+      jealousy, the third envy.' When he had ended the sermon and
+      come down, he was much lauded by the people."
+
+The inscription thus set before the people was the bronze table,
+called the Lex Regia. Why it was that no one had been able to
+interpret it up to that moment we are not told. Learning was at a very
+low ebb, and the importance of such great documents whether in metal
+or parchment was as yet but little recognised. This was evidently one
+of the results of Cola's studies of the old inscriptions of which we
+are told in the earliest chapter of his career. It had formed part of
+an altar in the Lateran Church, being placed there as a handy thing
+for the purpose in apparent ignorance of any better use for it, by
+Pope Boniface VIII. when he restored the church. No doubt some of the
+feeble reparations that were going on had brought the storied stone
+under Cola's notice, and he had interest enough to have it removed
+from so inappropriate a place. It is now let into the wall in the Hall
+of the Faun on the Capitol.
+
+We have here an instance not only of the exaltation of Cola's mind and
+thoughts, imaginative and ardent, and his possession by the one idea
+of Roman greatness, but also of his privileges and power at this
+moment, before he had as yet struck a blow or made a step towards his
+future position. That he should have been allowed to displace the
+tablet from the altar (which however may have been done in the course
+of the repairs) to set it up in that conspicuous position, and to use
+the church, he a layman and a plebeian, for his own objects, testifies
+to very strong support and privilege. The influence of the Pope must
+have been at his back, and the resources of the Church thrown open to
+him. Neither his audacious speech nor his constant denunciation of
+barons and officials seem to have been attended by the risks we should
+have expected. Either the authorities must have been very magnanimous,
+or he was well protected by some power they did not choose to
+encounter. Some doubt as to his sanity or his seriousness seems to
+have existed among them. Giovanni Colonna, familiarly Janni, grandson
+of old Stefano, a brilliant young gallant likely to grow into a fine
+soldier, the hope of the house, invited him constantly to
+entertainments where all the gilded youth of Rome gathered as to a
+play to hear him talk. When he said, "I shall be a great lord, perhaps
+even emperor," the youths gave vent to shouts of laughter. "All the
+barons were full of it, some encouraging him, some disposed to cut off
+his head. But nothing was done to him. How many things he prophesied
+about the state of the city, and the generous rule it required!" Rome
+listened and was excited or amused according to its mood, but nothing
+was done either to conform that rule to his demands or to stop the
+bold reformer.
+
+By this time it had become the passion of his life, and the occupation
+of all his leisure. He could think of nothing but how to persuade the
+people, how to make their condition clear to them. Once more his
+painter friends, the journeymen of the _bottega_, whoever they were,
+came to his aid and painted him again a picture, this time on the wall
+of St. Angelo in Pescheria, which we may suppose to have been Cola's
+parish church, as it continually appears in the narrative--where once
+more they set forth in ever bolder symbolism the condition of Rome.
+Again she was represented as an aged woman, this time in the midst of
+a great conflagration, half consumed, but watched over by an angel in
+all the glories of white attire and flaming sword, ready to rescue her
+from the flames, under the superintendence of St. Peter and St. Paul
+who looked on from a tower, calling to the angel to "succour her who
+gave shelter to us"; while a white dove fluttered down from the skies
+with a crown of myrtle to be placed upon the head of the woman, and
+the legend bore "I see the time of the great justice--and thou, wait
+for it." Once more the crowd collected, the picture was discussed and
+what it meant questioned and expounded. There were some who shook
+their heads and said that more was wanted than pictures to amend the
+state of affairs; but it may easily be supposed that as these
+successive allegories were represented before them, in a language
+which every one could understand, the feeling grew, and that there
+would be little else talked about in Rome but those strange writings
+on the walls and what their meanings were. The picture given by Lord
+Lytton in his novel of _Rienzi_, of this agitated moment of history,
+is very faithful to the facts, and gives a most animated description
+of the scenes; though in the latter part of his story he prefers
+romance to history.
+
+All these incidents however open to our eyes side glimpses of the
+other Rome underneath the surface, which was occupied by contending
+nobles and magnificent houses, and all the little events and
+picturesque episodes with which a predominant aristocracy amused the
+world. If Mr. Browning had expounded Rome once more on a graver
+subject, as he did once in _The Ring and the Book_, what groups he
+might have set before us! The painters who had as yet produced no one
+known to fame, but who, always impressionable, would be agitated
+through all the depths of their workshops by the breath of revolution,
+the hope of something fine to come, would have taken up a portion of
+the foreground: for with the withdrawal of the Pope and the court,
+the occupation of a body of artist workmen, good for little more than
+decoration, ecclesiastical or domestic, must have suffered greatly:
+and none can be more easily touched by the agitation of new and
+aspiring thought than men whose very trade requires a certain touch of
+inspiration, a stimulus of fancy. No doubt in the studios there were
+many young men who had grown up with Cola, who had hung upon his
+impassioned talk before it was known to the world, and heard his vague
+and exalted schemes for Rome, for the renovation of all her ancient
+glories, not forgetting new magnificences of sculpture and of painting
+worthy of the renovated city, the mistress of the world. Their eager
+talk and discussions, their knowledge of his ways and thoughts, the
+old inscriptions he had shown them, the new hopes which he had
+described in his glowing language, must have filled with excitement
+all those _bottegas_, perched among the ruins, those workshops planned
+out of abandoned palaces, the haunt of the Roman youth who were not
+gentlemen but workmen, and to whom Janni Colonna and his laughing
+companions, who thought Cola so great a jest in his mad brilliancy,
+were magnificent young patrons half admired, half abhorred. How great
+a pride it must have been to be taken into Cola's confidence, to
+reduce to the laws of possible representation those "similitudes" of
+his, the stormy sea with its galleys and its islets, the blaze of the
+fatal fire: and to hurry out by dawn, a whole band of them, in all the
+delight of conspiracy, to dash forth the joint conception on the wall,
+and help him to read his lesson to the people!
+
+And Browning would have found another Rome still to illustrate in the
+priests, the humbler clergy, the curé of St. Angelo in the Fishmarket,
+and so many more, of the people yet over the people, the humble
+churchmen with their little learning, just enough to understand a
+classical name or allusion, some of whom must have helped Cola himself
+to his Latin, and pored with him over his inscriptions, and taken
+fire from his enthusiasm as a mind half trained, without the
+limitations that come with completer knowledge, is apt to do--feeling
+everything to be possible and ignoring the difficulties and inevitable
+disasters of revolution. The great ideal of the Church always hovering
+in the air before the visionary priest, and the evident and simple
+reason why it failed in this case from the absence of the Pope, and
+the widowhood of the city, must have so tempered the classical
+symbolism of the leader as to make his dreams seem possible to men so
+little knowing the reality of things, and so confident that with the
+strength of their devotion and the purity of their aims everything
+could be accomplished. To such minds the possible and impossible have
+no existence, the world itself is such a thing as dreams are made of,
+and the complete reformation of all things, the heavens and the earth
+in which shall dwell righteousness, are always attainable and near at
+hand, if only the effort to reach them were strong enough, and the
+minds of the oppressed properly enlightened. No one has sufficiently
+set forth, though many have essayed to do so, this loftiness of human
+futility, this wild faith of inexperience and partial ignorance, which
+indeed sometimes does for a moment at least carry everything before it
+in the frenzy of enthusiasm and faith.
+
+On the other side were Janni Colonna and his comrades, the young
+Savelli, Gaetani, all the gallant band, careless of all things, secure
+in their nobility, in that easy confidence of rank and birth which is
+perhaps the most picturesque of all circumstances, and one of the most
+exhilarating, making its possessor certain above all logic that for
+him the sun shines and the world goes round. There were all varieties
+among these young nobles as among other classes of men; some were
+_bons princes_, careless but not unthoughtful in any cruel way of
+others, if only they could be made to understand that their triumphant
+career was anyhow hurtful of others--a difficult thing always to
+realise. The Colonnas apart from their feuds and conflicts were
+generally _bons princes_. They were not a race of oppressors; they
+loved the arts and petted their special poet, who happened at that
+moment to be the great poet of Italy, and no doubt admired the
+eloquent Cola and were delighted with his discourses and sallies,
+though they might find a spice of ridicule in them, as when he said he
+was to be a great seigneur or even emperor. That was his jest, could
+not one see the twinkle in his eye? And probably old Stefano, the
+noble grandsire, would smile too as he heard the laughter of the boys,
+and think not unkindly of the mad notary with his enthusiasms, which
+would no doubt soon enough be quenched out of him, as was the case
+with most men when experience came with years to correct those not
+ungenerous follies of youth. The great churchmen would seem to have
+been still more tolerant to Cola--glad to find this unexpected
+auxiliary who helped to hold the balance in favour of the Pope, and
+keep the nobles in check.
+
+In the meantime Cola proceeded with his warnings, and by and by with
+more strenuous preparation. We come to a date fortunately when we read
+of a sudden issue of potent words which came forth like the
+handwriting on the wall one morning, on February 15th, 1347. "In a
+short time the Romans shall return to their ancient good government."
+_In brievo tempo_--the actual sonorous words sounding forth large and
+noble like flute and trumpet in our ear, are worth quoting for the
+sound if no more: _In brievo tempo I Romani tornaraco a lo loro antico
+buono stato_. What a thrill of excitement to turn round a sudden
+corner and find this facing you on the church wall, words that were
+not there yesterday! _Lo antico buono stato!_ the most skilful
+watchword, which thereafter became the special symbol of the new
+reformation. It is after this that we hear of the gathering of a
+little secret assembly in some quiet spot on the Aventine, "a secret
+place"--where on some privately arranged occasion there came serious
+men from all parts of the city, "many Romans of importance and _buoni
+homini_," which was the title, as we have seen, given to the popular
+leaders. "And among them were some of the gentry (_cavalerotti_) and
+rich merchants"--to consider what could be done to restore the good
+government (_lo buono stato_) of the city of Rome.
+
+      "Among whom Cola rose to his feet, and narrated, weeping,
+      the misery, servitude and peril in which lay the city. And
+      also what once was the great and lordly state which the
+      Romans were wont to enjoy. He also spoke of the loss of all
+      the surrounding country which had once been in subjection
+      to Rome. And all this he related with tears, the whole
+      assembly weeping with him. Then he concluded and said that
+      it behoved them to serve the cause of peace and justice,
+      and consoled them adding: 'Be not afraid in respect to
+      money, for the Roman Cammora has much and inestimable
+      returns.' In the first place the fires: each smoke paying
+      four soldi, from Cepranno to the Porta della Paglia. This
+      amounts to a hundred thousand florins. From the salt tax a
+      hundred thousand florins. Then come the gates of Rome and
+      the castles, and the dues there amount to a hundred
+      thousand florins which is sent to his Holiness the Pope,
+      and that his Vicar knows. Then he said, 'Sirs, do not
+      believe that it is by the consent or will of the Pope that
+      so many of the citizens lay violent hands on the goods of
+      the Church.' By these parables the souls of the assembly
+      were kindled. And many other things he said weeping. Then
+      they deliberated how to restore the Buono Stato. And every
+      one swore this upon the Holy Gospels--(in the Italian 'in
+      the letter,' by a recorded act)."
+
+It appears very probable by the allusion to the Pope's Vicar that he
+was present at this secret assembly. At all events he was informed of
+all that was done, and took part in the first overt act of the
+revolution. To give fuller warrant for these secret plans and
+conspiracies, the state of the city went on growing worse every day.
+The two parties, that of Colonna, and that of Orsini, so balanced each
+other, the one availing itself of every incident which could discredit
+and put at a disadvantage the other, that justice and law were brought
+to a standstill, every criminal finding a protector on one side or the
+other, and every kind of rapine and violence going unpunished. "The
+city was in great travail," our chronicler says, "it had no lord,
+murder and robbery went on on every side. Women were not safe either
+in convents or in their own houses. The labourer was robbed as he came
+back from his work, and even children were outraged; and all this
+within the gates of Rome. The pilgrims making their way to the shrines
+of the Apostles were robbed and often murdered. The priests themselves
+were ready for every evil. Every wickedness flourished: there was no
+justice, no restraint: and neither was there any remedy for this state
+of things. He only was in the right who could prove himself so with
+the sword." All that the unfortunate people could do was to band
+themselves together and fight, each for his own cause.
+
+In the month of April of the year 1347 this state of anarchy was at
+its height. Stefano Colonna had gone to Corneto for provisions, taking
+with him all the _milice_, the Garde Nationale or municipal police of
+Rome. Deprived even of this feeble support and without any means of
+keeping order, the Senators, Agapito Colonna and Robert Orsini,
+remained as helpless to subdue any rising as they were to regulate the
+internal affairs of the city. The conspirators naturally took
+advantage of this opportunity. They sent a town crier with sound of
+trumpet to call all men to prepare to come without arms to the
+Capitol, to the Buono Stato at the sound of the great bell. During the
+night Cola would seem to have kept vigil--it was the eve of
+Pentecost--in the Church of St. Angelo in Pescheria hearing "thirty
+masses of the Holy Ghost," says the chronicler, spending the night in
+devotion as we should say. At the hour of tierce, in the early
+morning, he came out of Church, having thus invoked with the greatest
+solemnity the aid of God. It was the 20th of May, a summer festival,
+when all Rome is glorious with sunshine, and the orange blossoms and
+the roses from every garden fill the air with sweetness. He was fully
+armed except his head, which was bare. A multitude of youths encircled
+him with sudden shouts and cheering, breaking the morning quiet, and
+startling the churchgoers hastening to an early mass, who must have
+stood gaping to see one banner after another roll out between them and
+the sky, issuing from the church doors. The first was red with letters
+of gold, painted with a figure of Rome seated on two lions, carrying
+an orb, and a palm in her hands--"un Mundo e una Palma"--signs of her
+universal sovereignty. "This was the Gonfalon of Liberty"--and it was
+carried by Cola Guallato distinguished as "Lo buon dicitore"--another
+orator like Rienzi himself. The second was white with an image of St.
+Paul, on the third was St. Peter and his keys. This last was carried
+by an old knight who, because he was a veteran, was conveyed in a
+carriage. By this time the great bell of the Capitol was ringing and
+the men who had been invited were hurrying there through all the
+streets. "Then Cola di Rienzo took all his courage, though not without
+fear, and went on alone with the Vicar of the Pope and went up to the
+Palace of the Capitol." There he addressed the crowd, making a
+_bellissima diceria_ upon the misery and anarchy in Rome, saying that
+he risked his life for the love of the Pope and the salvation of the
+people. The reader can almost hear the suppressed quiver of excitement
+"not without fear" in his voice. And then the rules of the Buono Stato
+were read. They were very simple but very thorough. The first was that
+whoever murdered a man should die for it, without any exception. The
+second that every case heard before the judges should be concluded
+within fifteen days; the third that no house should be destroyed for
+any reason, except by order of the authorities. The fourth that every
+_rione_ or district of the city should have its force of defenders,
+twenty-four horsemen and a hundred on foot, paid by and under the
+order of the State. Further, that a ship should be kept for the
+special protection of the merchants on the coast; that taxes were
+necessary and should be spent by the officers of the Buono Stato; that
+the bridges, castles, gates and fortresses should be held by no man
+except the rector of the people, and should never be allowed to pass
+into the hands of a baron: that the barons should be set to secure the
+safety of the roads to Rome and should not protect robbers, under a
+penalty of a thousand marks of silver:--that the Commune should give
+help in money to the convents; that each _rione_ should have its
+granary and provide a reserve there for evil times; that the kin of
+every man slain in battle in the cause of the Commune should have a
+recompense according to their degree:--that the ancient States subject
+to Rome should be restored; and that whoever brought an accusation
+against a man which could not be proved should suffer the penalty
+belonging to the offence if it had been proved. This and various other
+regulations which pleased the people much were read, and passed
+unanimously by a show of hands and great rejoicing. "And it was also
+ordained that Cola should remain there as lord, but in conjunction
+with the Vicar of the Pope. And authority was given to him to punish,
+slay, pardon, to make laws and alliances, determine boundaries; and
+full and free _imperia_, absolute power, was given him in everything
+that concerned the people of Rome."
+
+Thus was Cola's brag which so much amused the young lords made true
+over all their heads before many weeks were past. He had said that he
+would be a great lord, as powerful as an emperor. And so he was.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE LUNGARA.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE BUONO STATO.
+
+
+The first incident in this new reign, so suddenly inaugurated, was a
+startling one. Stefano Colonna was the father of all the band--he of
+whom Petrarch speaks with such enthusiasm: "_Dio immortale!_ what
+majesty in his aspect, what a voice, what a look, what nobility in his
+air, what vigour of soul and body at that age of his! I seemed to
+stand before Julius Cæsar or Africanus, if not that he was older than
+either. Wonderful to say, this man never grows old, while Rome is
+older and older every day." He was absent from Rome, as has been said,
+on the occasion of the wonderful overthrow of all previous rule, and
+establishment of the Buono Stato; but as soon as he heard what had
+happened, he hastened back, with but few followers, never doubting
+that he would soon make an end of that mountebank revolution. Early in
+the following morning he received from Cola a copy of the edict made
+on the Capitol and an order to leave Rome at once. Stefano took the
+paper and tore it in a thousand pieces. "If this fool makes me angry,"
+he said, "I will fling him from the windows of the Capitol." When this
+was reported to Cola, he caused the bell of the Capitol to be sounded
+_a stuormo_, and the people rushed from all quarters to the call.
+Everything went rapidly at this moment of fate, and even the brave
+Colonna seems to have changed his mind in the twinkling of an eye. The
+aspect of affairs was so threatening that Stefano took the better part
+of valour and rode off at once with a single attendant, stopping only
+at San Lorenzo to eat, and pushing on to Palestrina, which was his
+chief seat and possession. Cola took instant advantage of this
+occurrence: with the sanction of the excited people, he sent a similar
+order to that which Stefano had received, to all the other barons,
+ordering them to leave the city. Strange to say the order of the
+popular leader was at once obeyed. Perhaps no one ventured to stand
+after the head of the Roman chivalry had fled. These gallant cavaliers
+yielded to the _Pazzo_, the madman, with whom the head of the Colonnas
+had expected to make such short work, without striking a blow, in a
+panic sudden and complete. Next day all the bridges were given up and
+officials of the people set over them. "One was served in one way,
+another in another--these were banished and those had their heads cut
+off without mercy. The wicked were all judged cruelly." Afterwards
+another _Parlamento_ was held on the Capitol, and all that had been
+done approved and confirmed--and the people with one voice declared
+Cola, and with him the Pope's Vicar, who had a share in all these
+wonderful proceedings, Tribunes of the People and Liberators.
+
+There would seem after this alarmed dispersion of the nobles to have
+been some attempt on their part to regain the upper hand, which failed
+as they could not agree among themselves: upon which they received
+another call from Cola to appear in the Capitol and swear to uphold
+the Buono Stato. One by one the alarmed nobles came in. The first was
+Stefanello Colonna, the son of the old man, the first of his children
+after the two ecclesiastics, and heir of his influence and lands. Then
+came Ranello degli Orsini, then Janni Colonna, he who had invited Cola
+to dinner and laughed loud and long with his comrades over the
+buffoonery of the orator. What Cola said was no longer a merry jest.
+Then came Giordano of the same name, then Messer Stefano himself, the
+fine old man, the magnanimous--bewildered by his own unexpected
+submission yet perhaps touched with some sense of the justice there
+was in it, swearing upon the Evangels to be faithful to the Commune,
+and to busy himself with his own share of the work: how to clear the
+roads, and turn away the robbers, to protect the orphans and the poor.
+The nobles gazed around them at the gathering crowd; they were daunted
+by all they saw, and one by one they took the oaths. One of the last
+was Francesco Savelli, who was the proper lord of Cola di Rienzo, his
+master--yet took the oath of allegiance to him, his own retainer. It
+was such a wonder as had never been seen. But everything was
+wonderful--the determination of the people, the Pope's Vicar by the
+side of that mad Tribune, the authority in Cola's eyes, and in his
+eloquent voice.
+
+There must, however, have been a strong sense of the theatrical in the
+man. As he had at first appealed to the people by visible allegories,
+by pictures and similitudes, he kept up their interest now by
+continual spectacles. He studied his dress, as we have already seen,
+on all occasions, always aiming at something which would strike the
+eye. His robe of office was "of a fiery colour as if it had been
+scarlet." "His face and his aspect were terrible." He showed mercy to
+no criminal, but exercised freely his privilege of life and death
+without respect of persons. A monk of San Anastasio, who was a person
+of infamous conduct, was beheaded like any other offender; and a still
+greater, Martino di Porto, head of one of the great houses, met the
+same fate. Sometimes, his biographers allow, Cola was cruel. He would
+seem to have been a man of nervous courage "not without fear"; very
+keenly alive to the risk he was running and not incapable, as was
+afterwards proved, of a sudden panic, as quickly roused as his flash
+of excessive valour. In one mood he was pushed by the passion of the
+absolute to rash proceedings, sudden vengeance, which suited well
+enough with the instincts of his followers; in another his courage was
+apt to sink and his composure to fail at the first frown of fortune.
+The beginning of his career is like that of a man inspired--what he
+determined on was carried out as if by magic. He seemed to have only
+to ordain and it was accomplished. Within a very short time the courts
+of law, the markets, the public life in Rome were all transformed. The
+barons, unwilling as they were, must have done their appointed work,
+for the roads all at once became safe, and the disused processes of
+lawful life were resumed. "The woods rejoiced, for there were no
+longer robbers in them. The oxen began to plough. The pilgrims began
+again to make their circuits to the Sanctuaries, the merchants to come
+and go, to pursue their business. Fear and terror fell on the tyrants,
+and all good people, as freed from bondage, were full of joy." The
+bravos, the highwaymen, all the ill-doers who had kept the city and
+its environs in terror fled in their turn, finding no protectors, nor
+any shelter that could save them from the prompt and ready sword of
+justice. Refinements even of theoretical benevolence were in Cola's
+courts of law. There were Peacemakers to hear the pleas of men injured
+by their neighbours and bring them, if possible, into accord. Here is
+one very curious scene: the law of compensations, by which an injury
+done should be repaid in kind, being in full force.
+
+      "It happened that one man had blinded the eye of another;
+      the prosecutors came and their case was tried on the steps
+      of the Capitol. The culprit was kneeling there, weeping,
+      and praying God to forgive him when the injured person came
+      forward. The malefactor then raised his face that his eye
+      might be blinded, if so it was ordained. But the other was
+      moved with pity, and would not touch his eye, but forgave
+      him the injury."
+
+No doubt the ancient doctrine of an eye for an eye, has in all times
+been thus tempered with mercy.
+
+It would appear that Cola now lived in the Capitol as his palace; and
+he gradually began to surround himself with all the insignia of rank.
+This was part of his plan from the beginning, for, as has been said,
+he lost no opportunity of an effective appearance, either from a
+natural inclination that way, or from a wise appreciation of the
+tastes of the crowd, which he had such perfect acquaintance with. But
+there was nothing histrionic in the immediate results of his new
+reign. That he should have styled himself in all his public documents,
+letters and laws, "Nicholas, severe and clement, Tribune of peace,
+freedom, and justice, illustrious Liberator of the holy Roman
+Republic," may have too much resembled the braggadocio which is so
+displeasing to our colder temperaments; but Cola was no Englishman,
+neither was he of the nineteenth century: and there was something
+large and harmonious, a swing of words such as the Italian loves, a
+combination of the Brutus and the Christian, in the conjunction of
+these qualities which recommends itself to the imaginative ear. But
+however his scarlet robes and his inflated self-description may be
+objected to, nothing could mar the greatness of the moral revolution
+he effected in a city restored to peace and all the innocent habits of
+life, and a country tranquillised and made safe, where men came and
+went unmolested. Six years before, as we have noted, Petrarch, the
+hero of the moment, was stopped by robbers just outside the walls of
+Rome, and had to fly back to the city to get an armed escort before he
+could pursue his way. "The shepherd armed," he says, "watches his
+sheep, afraid of robbers more than of wolves; the ploughman wears a
+shirt of mail and goads his oxen with a lance. There is no safety, no
+peace, no humanity among the inhabitants, but only war, hate, and the
+work of devils."
+
+Such was the condition of affairs when Cola came to power. In a month
+or two after that sudden overturn his messengers, unarmed, clothed,
+some say, in white with the scarcella at their girdle embroidered with
+the arms of Rome, and bearing for all defence a white wand, travelled
+freely by all the roads from Rome, unmolested, received everywhere
+with joy. "I have carried this wand," says one of them, "over all the
+country and through the forests. Thousands have knelt before it and
+kissed it with tears of joy for the safety of the roads and the
+banishment of the robbers." The effect is still as picturesque as eye
+of artist could desire; the white figures with their wands of peace
+traversing everywhere those long levels of the Campagna, where every
+knot of brushwood, all the coverts of the _macchia_ and every
+fortification by the way, had swarmed with robber bands--unharmed,
+unafraid, like angels of safety in the perturbed country. But it was
+none the less real, an immense and extraordinary revolution. The Buono
+Stato was proclaimed on the day of Pentecost, Whit Sunday, May 20th,
+1347: and in the month of June following, Cola was able to inform the
+world--that is to say, all Italy and the Pope and the Emperor--that
+the roads were safe and everything going well. Clement VI. received
+this report at Avignon and replied to it, giving his sanction to what
+had been done, "seeing that the new constitution had been established
+without violence or bloodshed," and confirming the authority of Cola
+and of his bishop and co-tribune, in letters dated the 27th of June.
+
+Nor was the change within the city less great. The dues levied by
+their previous holders on every bridge, on all merchandise and every
+passer-by, were either turned into a modest octroi, or abolished
+altogether; every man's goods were safe in his house; the women were
+free to go about their various occupations, the wife safe in the
+solitude of her home, in her husband's absence at his work, the girls
+at their sewing--in itself a revolution past counting. Rome began to
+breathe again and realise that her evil times were over, and that the
+Buono Stato meant comfort as well as justice. The new Tribune made
+glorious sights, too, for all bystanders in these June days. He rode
+to Church, for example, in state on the feast of Santo Janni di
+Jugnio, St. John the Baptist, the great Midsummer _festa_, a splendid
+sight to behold.
+
+      "The first to come was a militia of armed men on horseback,
+      well dressed and adorned, to make way before the Præfect.
+      Then followed the officials, judges, notaries, peacemakers,
+      syndics, and others; followed by the four marshals with
+      their mounted escort. Then came Janni d'Allo carrying the
+      cup of silver gilt in which was the offering, after the
+      fashion of the Senators: who was followed by more soldiers
+      on horseback and the trumpeters, sounding their silver
+      trumpets, the silver mouths making an honest and
+      magnificent sound. Then came the public criers. All these
+      passed in silence. After came one man alone, bearing a
+      naked sword in sign of justice. Baccio, the son of Jubileo,
+      was he. Then followed a man scattering money on each side
+      all along the way, according to the custom of the Emperors:
+      Liello Magliari was his name--he was accompanied by two
+      persons carrying a sack of money. After this came the
+      Tribune, alone. He rode on a great charger, dressed in
+      silk, that is velvet, half green and half yellow, furred
+      with minever. In his right hand he carried a wand of steel,
+      polished and shining, surmounted by an apple of silver
+      gilt, and above the apple a cross of gold in which was a
+      fragment of the Holy Cross. On one side of this were
+      letters in enamel, 'Deus,' and on the other 'Spiritus
+      Sanctus.' Immediately after him came Cecco di Alasso,
+      carrying a banner after the mode of kings. The standard was
+      white with a sun of gold set round with silver stars on a
+      field of blue: and it was surmounted by a white dove,
+      bearing in its beak a crown of olive. On the right and left
+      came fifty vassals of Vetorchiano on foot with clubs in
+      their hands, like bears clothed and armed. Then followed a
+      crowd of people unarmed, the rich and the powerful,
+      counsellors, and many honest people. With such triumph and
+      glory came he to the bridge of San Pietro, where every one
+      saluted, the gates were thrown wide, and the road left
+      spacious and free. When he had reached the steps of San
+      Pietro all the clergy came forth to meet him in their
+      vestments and ornaments. With white robes, with crosses and
+      with great order, they came chanting _Veni Creator
+      Spiritus_, and so received him with much joy."
+
+This is how Cola rode from the Capitol to St. Peter's, traversing
+almost the whole of the existing city: his offering borne before him
+after the manner of the Senators: money scattered among the people
+after the manner of the Emperors: his banner carried as before kings:
+united every great rank in one. _Panem et circenses_ were all the old
+Roman populace had cared for. He gave them peace and safety and
+beautiful processions and allegories to their hearts' content. There
+were not signs wanting for those who divined them afterwards, that
+with all this triumph and glory the Tribune began a little to lose his
+self-restraint. He began to make feasts and great entertainments at
+the Capitol. The palaces of the forfeited nobles were emptied of their
+beautiful tapestries, and hangings, and furniture, to make the long
+disused rooms there splendid; and the nobles were fined a hundred
+florins each for repairs to this half-royal, half-ruinous abode,
+making it glorious once more.
+
+But in the meantime everything went well. One of the Colonnas, Pietro
+of Agapito[6]--who ought to have been Senator for the year--was taken
+and sent to prison, whether for that offence merely or some other we
+are not told; while the rest of the house, with old Stefano at their
+head, kept a stormy quiet at Palestrina, saying nothing as yet.
+Answers to Cola's letters came from all the states around, in
+congratulation and friendship, the Pope himself, as we have seen, at
+the head of all. "All Italy was roused," says Petrarch. "The terror of
+the Roman name extended even to countries far away. I was then in
+France and I know what was expressed in the words and on the faces of
+the most important personages there. Now that the needle has ceased to
+prick, they may deny it; but then all were full of alarm, so great
+still was the name of Rome. No one could tell how soon a movement so
+remarkable, taking place in the first city of the world, might
+penetrate into other places." The Soldan of Babylon himself, that
+great potentate, hearing that a man of great justice had arisen in
+Rome, called aloud upon Mahomet and Saint Elimason (whoever that might
+be) to help Jerusalem, meaning Saracinia, our chronicler tells us.
+Thus the sensation produced by Cola's revolution ran through the
+world: and if after a while his mind lost something of its balance, it
+is scarcely to be wondered at when we read the long and flattering
+letters, some of which have been preserved, which Petrarch talks of
+writing to him "every day": and in which he is proclaimed greater than
+Romulus, whose city was small and surrounded with stakes only, while
+that of Cola was great and defended by invincible walls: and than
+Brutus who withstood one tyrant only, while Cola overthrew many: and
+than Camillus, who repaired ruins still smoking and recent, while Cola
+restored those which were ancient and inveterate almost beyond hope.
+For one wonderful moment both friends and foes seem to have believed
+that Rome had at one step recovered the empire of the world.
+
+Cola had thus triumphed everywhere by peaceful methods, but he had yet
+to prove what he could do in arms; and the opportunity soon occurred.
+The only one of the nobles who had not yielded at least a pretence of
+submission was Giovanni di Vico, of the family of the Gaetani, who had
+held the office of Præfect of Rome, and was Lord of Viterbo. Against
+him the Tribune sent an expedition under one of the Orsini, which
+defeated and crushed the rebel, who, on hearing that Cola himself was
+coming to join his forces, gave himself up and was brought into Rome
+to make his submission: so that in this way also the triumph of the
+popular leader was complete. All the surrounding castles fell into his
+hands, Civita Vecchia on one hand and Viterbo on the other; and he
+employed a captain of one family against the rebels of another with
+such skill and force that all were kept within control.
+
+Up to the end of July this state of affairs continued unbroken;
+success on every side, and apparently a new hope for Italy, possibly
+deliverance for the world. The Tribune seemed safe as any monarch on
+his seat, and still bore himself with something of the simplicity and
+steadfastness of his beginning. But this began to modify by degrees.
+Especially after his easy victory over Giovanni di Vico, he seems to
+have treated the nobles whom he had crushed under his heel with
+contemptuous incivility, which is the less wonderful when we see how
+Petrarch, courtly as he was, speaks of the same class, acknowledging
+even his beloved Colonnas to be unworthy of the Roman name. The
+Tribune sat in his chair of state, while the barons were required to
+stand in his presence, with their arms folded on their breasts and
+their heads uncovered. His wife, who was beautiful and young, was
+escorted by a guard of honour wherever she went and attended by the
+noblest ladies of Rome. The old palace of the Campidoglio was gay with
+feasts; its dilapidated walls were adorned with the rich hangings
+taken from the confiscated houses of the _potenti_. And then the
+Tribune's poor relations began to be separated from the crowd, to ride
+about on fine horses and dwell in fine houses. And the sights and
+spectacles provided for the people, as well as the steps taken by Cola
+himself to enhance his dignity and to occupy the attention of
+everybody around, began to assume a fantastic character. An uneasy
+vainglory, a desire to be always executing some feat or developing
+some new pretension, a restless strain after the histrionic and
+dramatic began to show themselves in him--as if he felt that his
+tenure somehow demanded a continued supply of such amusements for the
+people, who rushed to gaze and admire whatever he did, and filled the
+air with _vivas_: yet began secretly in their hearts, as Lo Popolo
+always does, to comment upon the extravagance of the Tribune, and the
+elevation over their heads of Janni the barber, for instance, who now
+rode about so grandly with a train of attendants, as if, instead of
+being _popolo_ like themselves, he were one of the _potenti_ whom his
+nephew Cola had cast down from their seats.
+
+One of the first great acts which denotes this trembling of sound
+reason in the Tribune's soul was the fantastic ceremony by which he
+made himself a knight, to the wonder of all Rome. It was not, all the
+historians tell us, a strange or unheard-of thing that the City should
+create _cavalieri_ of its own. Florence had done it, and Rome also had
+done it--in the case of Stefano Colonna and some others very shortly
+before--but with at least the pretence of an honour conferred by the
+people on citizens selected by their fellow-citizens. Nothing of the
+kind was possible with Cola di Rienzi, and no illusion was attempted
+on the subject. He was supreme in all things, and it pleased him to
+take this dignity to himself. No doubt there was an ambitious purpose
+hidden under the external ceremony, which from the outside looked so
+much like a dramatic interlude to amuse the people, and a satisfaction
+of vanity on his own part. Both these things no doubt had their share,
+but they were not all. He made extraordinary preparations for the
+success and _éclat_, of what was in reality a _coup d'état_ of the
+most extraordinary kind. First of all he fortified himself by the
+verdict of all the learned lawyers in Rome, to whom he submitted the
+question whether the Roman people had the right to resume into their
+own hands, and exercise, the authority which had been used by tyrants
+in the name of the city--a question to which there could be but one
+answer, by acclamation. These rights had always been claimed as
+absolute and supreme by whatsoever leaders the people of Rome had
+permitted to speak for them, or whom, more truly, they had followed
+like sheep. Twenty years before, as we have seen, they had been by way
+of conferring the crown of the Empire upon Louis of Bavaria. It was a
+pretension usually crushed in its birth as even Il Bavaro did by
+receiving the same crown a second time from his anti-Pope; but it was
+one which had been obstinately held, especially in the disorderly
+ranks of Lo Popolo, and by visionaries of all kinds. The Popes had
+taken that control out of the hands of Rome and claimed it for the
+Church with such success as we have attempted to trace; but that in
+one form or another the reigning city of the world had always a right
+to this supremacy was held by all. In both cases it had been in a
+great degree a visionary and unreal claim, never practically accepted
+by the world, and the cause of endless futile struggles to overcome
+might with (hypothetical) right.
+
+Cola however, as we have seen, had as high a conception of those
+claims of Rome as Gregory had, or Innocent. He believed that in its
+own right the old Imperial race--which was as little Imperial by this
+time, as little assured in descent and as devoid of all royal
+qualities as any tribe of barbarians--retained still the sway over the
+world which had been enforced by the Imperial legions under the
+greatest generals in the world. The enthusiasts for this theory have
+been able to shut their eyes to all the laws of nature and government,
+and with the strangest superstition have clung to the ghost of what
+was real only by stress of superior power and force, when all force
+had departed out of the hands which were but as painted shadows of the
+past. It is strange to conceive by what possible reasoning a
+conflicting host of mediæval barons of the most mixed blood, this from
+the Rhine, that from the south of Italy, as Petrarch describes on
+more than one occasion, of no true patrician stock: and the remains of
+a constantly subject and enslaved people, never of any account except
+in moments of revolution--could be made to occupy the place in the
+world which Imperial Rome, the only conqueror, the sole autocrat of
+the world, had held. The Popes had another and more feasible claim.
+They were the heads of a spiritual Empire, standing by right of their
+office between God and the world, with a right (as they believed) to
+arbitrate and to ordain, as representatives of heaven; a perfectly
+legitimate right, if allowed by those subject to it, or proved by
+sufficient evidence. Cola, with a curious twist of intelligence and
+meaning, attempted to combine both claims. He was the messenger of the
+Holy Ghost as well as the Tribune of the City. Only by the immediate
+action of God, as he held, could such a sudden and complete revolution
+as that which had put the power into his hands have been accomplished:
+therefore he was appointed by God. But he was also the representative
+of the people, entrusted by Rome with complete power. The spheres of
+these two sublime influences were confused. Sometimes he acted as
+inspired by one, sometimes asserted himself as the impersonation of
+the other. Knight of the Holy Ghost, he was invested with the white
+robes of supernatural purity and right--Tribune of Rome, he held the
+mandate of the people and wielded the power which was its birthright.
+This was the dazzling, bewildering position and supremacy which he was
+now to claim before the world.
+
+He had invited all the States of Italy to send deputations of their
+citizens to Rome, and the invitation had been largely accepted. From
+Florence, Sienna, Perugia, and many other lesser cities, the
+representatives of the people came to swell his train. The kings of
+France and England made answer by letter in tones of amity; from
+Germany Louis of Bavaria hailed the Tribune in friendly terms,
+requesting his intercession with the Pope. The Venetians, and "Messer
+Luchino il granne tyranno de Milano" also sent letters; and
+ambassadors came from Sicily and from Hungary, both claiming the help
+of Rome. Everything was joy and triumph in the city. It was the 1st of
+August--a great festival, the day of the _Feriae Augusti_--Feragosto,
+according to the Roman _patois_--among the populace which no longer
+knew what that meant; but Cola, who was better instructed, had chosen
+it because of its significance. He rode to the Lateran in the
+afternoon in great splendour. It was in the Church's calendar the
+vigil of San Pietro in Vincoli, the anniversary of the chains of the
+Apostle, which the Empress Eudoxia had brought with great solemnity to
+Rome. "All Rome," says the chronicler, "men and women rushed to St.
+John Lateran, taking places under the portico to see the _festa_, and
+crowding the streets to behold this triumph.
+
+      "Then came many cavaliers of all nations, barons and
+      people, and _Foresi_ with breastplates of bells, clothed in
+      samite, and with banners; they made great festivity, and
+      there were games and rejoicings, jugglers and buffoons
+      without end. There sounded the trumpets, here the bagpipes,
+      and the cannon was fired. Then, accompanied with music,
+      came the wife of Cola on foot with her mother, and attended
+      by many ladies. Behind the ladies came young men finely
+      dressed, carrying the bridle of a horse gilt and
+      ornamented. There were silver trumpets without number, and
+      you could see the trumpeters blow. Afterwards came a
+      multitude of horsemen, the first of whom were from Perugia
+      and Corneto. Twice they threw off their silver robes.[7]
+      Then came the Tribune with the Pope's Vicar by his side.
+      Before the Tribune was seen one who carried a naked sword,
+      another carried a banner over his head. In his own hand he
+      bore a steel wand. Many and many nobles were with him. He
+      was clothed in a long white robe, worked with gold thread.
+      Between day and night he came out into the Chapel of Pope
+      Benedict to the _loggia_ and spoke to the people, saying,
+      'You know that this night I am to be made knight. When you
+      come back you shall hear things which will be pleasing to
+      God in heaven and to men on earth.' He spoke in such a way
+      that in so great a multitude there was nothing but
+      gladness, neither horror nor arms. Two men quarrelled and
+      drew their swords, but were soon persuaded to return them
+      to their scabbards.... When all had gone away the clergy
+      celebrated a solemn service, and the Tribune entered into
+      the Baptistery and bathed himself in the shell[8] of the
+      Emperor Constantine which was of precious porphyry.
+      Marvellous is this to say; and much was it talked of among
+      the people. Then he slept upon a venerable bed, lying in
+      that place called San Giovanni in Fonte within the circuit
+      of the columns. There he passed the night, which was a
+      great wonder. The bed and bedding were new, and as the
+      Tribune got up from it some part of it fell to the ground
+      in the silence of the night. In the morning he clothed
+      himself in scarlet; the sword was girt upon him by Messer
+      Vico degli Scotti, and the gold spurs of a knight. All
+      Rome, and every knight among them, had come back to San
+      Giovanni, also all the barons and strangers, to behold
+      Messer Cola di Rienzi as a knight."
+
+The chronicle goes on to tell us after this, how Cola went forth upon
+the _loggia_ of Pope Benedict's Chapel, while a solemn mass was being
+performed, and addressed the people.
+
+      "And with a great voice he cited, first, 'Messer Papa
+      Chimente' to return to his See in Rome, and afterwards
+      cited the College of the Cardinals. Then he cited the
+      Bavarian. Then he cited the electors of the Empire in
+      Germany saying, 'I would see what right they have to
+      elect,' for it was written that after a certain time had
+      elapsed the election fell to the Romans. When this citation
+      was made, immediately there appeared letters and couriers
+      to carry them, who were sent at once on their way. Then he
+      took the sword and drew it from its scabbard, and waved it
+      to the three quarters of the world saying, 'This is mine;
+      and this is mine; and this is mine.' The Vicar of the Pope
+      was present, who stood like a dumb man and an idiot
+      stupefied by this new thing. He had his notary with him,
+      who protested and said that these things were not done by
+      his consent, and that he had neither any knowledge of them,
+      nor sanction from the Pope. And he prayed the notary to
+      draw out his protest publicly. While the notary made this
+      protest crying out with a loud voice, Messer Cola commanded
+      the trumpets and all the other instruments to play, that
+      the voice of the notary might not be heard, the greater
+      noise swallowing up the lesser."
+
+These were the news which Cola had promised to let the crowd know when
+they returned--news pleasing to God and to men. But there were no
+doubt many searchings of heart in the great crowd that filled the
+square of the Lateran, straining to hear his voice, as he claimed the
+dominion of the world, and called upon Pope and Emperor to appear
+before him. No wonder if the Pope's Vicar was "stupefied" and would
+take no part in these strange proceedings. It was probably the Notary
+of the Commune and not Cola himself who published the citations, and
+the authority for them, set forth at length, which were enough to
+blanch the cheeks of any Vicar of the Pope.
+
+      "In the sanctuary, that is the Baptistery, of the holy
+      prince Constantine of glorious memory, we have received the
+      bath of chivalry; under the conduct of the Holy Spirit,
+      whose unworthy servant and soldier we are, and for the
+      glory of the Holy Church our mother, and our lord the Pope,
+      and also for the happiness and advantage of the holy city
+      of Rome, of holy Italy and of all Christendom, we, knight
+      of the Holy Spirit, and as such clothed in white, Nicolas,
+      severe and clement, liberator of the city, defender of
+      Italy, friend of mankind, and august Tribune, we who wish
+      and desire that the gift of the Holy Ghost should be
+      received and should increase throughout Italy, and intend,
+      as God enables us, to imitate the bounty and generosity of
+      ancient princes, we make known: that when we accepted the
+      dignity of Tribune the Roman people, according to the
+      opinions of all the judges, lawyers, and learned
+      authorities, recognised that they possessed still the same
+      authority, power and jurisdiction over all the earth which
+      belonged to them in primitive times, and at the period of
+      their greatest splendour: and they have revoked formally
+      all the privileges accorded to others against that same
+      authority, power, and jurisdiction. Therefore in conformity
+      with those ancient rights and the unlimited power which has
+      been conferred upon us by the people in a general assembly,
+      and also by our lord the Pope, as is proved by his bulls
+      apostolical: and that we may not be ungrateful to the grace
+      and gift of the Holy Spirit, or avaricious of this same
+      grace and gift in respect to the Roman people and the
+      peoples of Italy above mentioned: in order also that the
+      rights and jurisdiction of the Roman people may not be
+      lost: we resolve and announce, in virtue of the power and
+      grace of the Holy Spirit, and in the form most feasible and
+      just, that the holy city of Rome is the head of the world
+      and the foundation of Christian faith: and we declare that
+      all the cities of Italy are free, and we accord and have
+      accorded to these cities an entire freedom, and from to-day
+      constitute them Roman citizens, declaring, announcing, and
+      ordaining that henceforward they should enjoy the
+      privileges of Roman freedom.
+
+      "In addition, and in virtue of the same puissance and grace
+      of God, of the Holy Spirit, and of the Roman people, we
+      assert, recognise and declare that the choice of the Roman
+      Emperor, the jurisdiction and dominion over all the holy
+      empire, belongs to the Holy City itself, and to holy Italy
+      by several causes and reasons; and we make known by this
+      decree to all prelates, elected emperors, and electors, to
+      the kings, dukes, princes, counts, and margraves, to the
+      people, to the corporations, and to all others who
+      contradict this and exercise any supposed right in respect
+      to the choice of the empire, that they are called to appear
+      to explain their pretensions in the Church of the Lateran,
+      before us and the other commissioners of our lord the Pope
+      between this and Pentecost of next year, and that after
+      that time we shall proceed according to our rights and the
+      inspiration of the Holy Ghost."
+
+The instrument is very long drawn out and entangled in its sentences,
+but the claim set forth in it is very clear, and arrogant as that of
+any Forged Decretals or Papal Bull. Its tone makes every pretension of
+the Popes sound humble, and every assertion of their power reasonable.
+But there is no reason to doubt that it was perfectly sincere. Rome
+was a word which went to the heads of every one connected with that
+wonderful city. Nothing was too great for her; no exaltation too high.
+To transfer the election of the Emperor from the great German princes
+to the populace of Rome, fickle and ignorant, led by whoever came
+uppermost, was a fantastic imagination, which it is almost impossible
+to believe any sane man could entertain. Yet Cola thought it just and
+true, the only thing to be done in order to turn earth into a sort of
+heaven; and Petrarch, a more prudent man, thought the same. To the
+poet Cola's enterprise was the hope of Italy and of the world: and it
+was at this moment, when the Tribune was in the full flush of his
+triumph, that Petrarch addressed to him, besides a promise of a poem
+supposed to be fulfilled in the _Spirito Gentil_, a long letter,
+_Esortatoria_, in which he exhorts him to pursue the "happy success"
+of his "most glorious undertaking," by sobriety and modesty it is
+true, but also by gladness and triumph, in order that the city "chosen
+by all the world as the seat of empire," should not relapse into
+slavery. "Rome, queen of cities, lady of the world, head of the
+empire, seat of the great Pontiff," her claim to dominion was not
+doubted by those strange enthusiasts. She was an abstraction, an ideal
+wisdom and power personified--not even in a race, not in a great man
+or men, but in the city, and that ever wavering tumultuous voice of
+the populace, blown hither and thither by every wind. And Cola
+believed himself to hold in his hands the fortunes and interests of
+Christendom entire, the dominion of the whole world. No enthusiasm, no
+delusion, could be more extraordinary.
+
+The ceremonies of August did not finish with this. Another prodigious
+ceremonial was celebrated on the day of the Assumption of the Virgin,
+the fifteenth of that month, also a great Roman holiday. On this day
+there was once more a great function in the Church of the Lateran. The
+Pope's Vicar refused to preside, awaiting in the meantime orders from
+headquarters. But this did not arrest these curious proceedings. This
+time it was the coronation of the Tribune that was in question. He had
+made himself a knight, and even had invented an order for himself, the
+order of those "Clothed in White," the Knights of the Holy Spirit. Now
+he was to be crowned according to his fashion. The chronicler of the
+life of Cola, however, takes no notice of this ceremony. It was begun
+by the Prior of St. John Lateran, who advanced to the Tribune and gave
+him a crown of oak-leaves, with the words, "Take this oaken crown
+because thou hast delivered the citizens from death." After him came
+the Prior of St. Peter's with a crown of ivy, saying, "Take this ivy
+because thou hast loved religion." The Dean of St. Paul's came next
+with a crown of myrtle, "Because thou hast done thy duty and preserved
+justice, and hast hated bribes." The Prior of St. Lorenzo brought a
+crown of laurel, he of Sta. Maria Maggiore one of olive, with the not
+very suitable address, "Take this, man of humble mind, because in thee
+humility has overcome pride." Finally the Prior of the hospital of
+Santo Spirito presented Cola with a silver crown and a sceptre,
+saying, "Illustrious Tribune, receive this crown and sceptre, the
+gifts of the Holy Ghost, along with the spiritual crown." This, one
+would suppose, must have been an interpolation; for Goffredo degli
+Scotti, who had belted on his sword as a knight, was present with
+another silver crown, given by the people of Rome, which was
+surmounted by a cross, and which was presented to Cola with the words:
+"Illustrious Tribune, receive this: exercise justice, and give us
+freedom and peace."
+
+The reader will be tempted to imagine that Cola must have been weighed
+down by this pyramid of wreaths, like a French schoolboy in his moment
+of triumph. But in the midst of all these glorious surroundings his
+dramatic imagination had conceived a telling way of getting rid of
+them. By his side stood a man very poorly dressed and carrying a
+sword, with which he took off in succession every crown as it was
+placed upon the Tribune's head, "in sign of humility and because the
+Roman Emperors had to endure every incivility addressed to them in the
+day of their triumph." We find, however, the beggar man with all the
+crowns spitted upon his sword, a ridiculous rather than an expressive
+figure. The last of all, the silver crown, remained on the Tribune's
+brows, the Archbishop of Naples having the courtly inspiration of
+interposing when the ragged attendant would have taken it. All the
+different wreaths had classical or Scriptural meanings. They were made
+from the plants that grew wild about the Arch of Constantine;
+everything was symbolical, mystic--the seven gifts of the Spirit; and
+all pervaded by that fantastic mixture of the old and the new, of
+which the world was then full.
+
+After this final assertion of his greatness Cola made a speech to the
+people confirming the assertions and high-flown pretensions of his
+former proclamation, and forbidding any emperor, king, or prince
+whatsoever, to touch the sacred soil of Italy without the consent of
+the Pope and the Roman people. He seems to have concluded by
+forbidding the use of the names of Guelf and Ghibelline--an admirable
+rule could it have been carried out.
+
+While all Rome was thus swarming in the streets, filling up every
+available inch of space under the porticoes and in the square to see
+this great sight, a certain holy monk, much esteemed by the people,
+was found weeping and praying in one of the chapels of Sta. Maria
+Maggiore, while the Tribune in all his state was receiving crowns and
+homage. One of Cola's domestic priests, who officiated in the private
+chapel at the Capitol, asked Fra Guglielmo why in the midst of so much
+rejoicing he alone was sorrowful. "Thy master," said the monk, "has
+fallen from heaven to-day! Oh that such pride should have entered into
+his soul! With the help of the Holy Spirit he has driven the tyrants
+out of Rome without striking a blow, he has been raised to the dignity
+of a Tribune, and all the towns and all the lords of Italy have done
+him honour. Why is he so proud and so ungrateful towards the Most
+High, and why does he dare in an insolent address to compare himself
+to his Creator? Say to thy master that nothing will expiate such a
+crime but tears of penitence." Thus it will be seen that there were
+checks, very soon apparent, to the full flood of enthusiasm and faith
+with which the Tribune had been received.
+
+Meanwhile there remained, outside of all these triumphs and rejoicings
+and the immense self-assertion of the man who in the name of Rome
+claimed a sort of universal dominion--a strong band of nobles still in
+possession of their castles and strongholds round the city, grimly
+watching the progress of affairs, and no doubt waiting the moment when
+the upstart who thus had pranked himself in all the finery and the
+follies of royalty, should take that step too far which is always to
+be expected and which should decide his fate. No doubt to old Stefano
+Colonna, with all his knowledge of men, this end would seem coming on
+very surely when he heard of, or perhaps witnessed, the melodrama of
+the knighthood, the farce of the coronation. Cola had been forced to
+take advantage of the services of these barons, even though he hated
+them. He had put an Orsini at the head of his troops against the
+Præfect Giovanni di Vico. He appointed Janni Colonna, his former
+patron, who had laughed at him so heartily, to lead the expedition
+against the Gaetani. Nowhere, it would seem, among the men who were
+_popolari_, of the people, was the ghost of a general to be found. The
+nobles had been at first banished from Rome; but their good behaviour
+in that great matter of the safety of the roads, or else the
+difficulty of acting against them individually, and the advice of
+Petrarch and others who advised great caution, had no doubt tacitly
+broken this sentence, and permitted their return. Many of them were
+certainly in Rome, going and coming, though none held any office; and
+we are told that old Stefano was present at the great dinner after
+Cola made himself a knight. Perhaps comments were made upon those
+ceremonies which reached the ears of the Tribune; perhaps there were
+whispers of growing impatience in the other party, or hints of plots
+among them. Or perhaps Cola, having exhausted all other methods of
+giving to himself and Rome a new sensation, bethought himself of these
+enemies of the Republic, always no doubt desirous of acting against
+her, whether they did so openly or not. His proceedings had now become
+so histrionic that it is permissible to surmise a motive which
+otherwise would have been unworthy a man of his genius and natural
+power; and in face of the curious tragi-comedy which followed it is
+difficult not to suspect something of the kind. One day in September
+the Tribune invited a number of the nobles to a great dinner. The list
+given in the _Vita_ includes the noblest names in Rome. Stefano
+Colonna with three of his sons--Agapito and "the prosperous youth"
+Janni (grandson) and Stefanello, the eldest lay member of the family,
+along with a number of the Orsini, Luca de Savelli, the Conte di
+Vertolle, and several others. The feast would seem to have begun with
+apparent cordiality and that strained politeness and watchfulness on
+the part of the guests, which has distinguished many fatal banquets
+in which every man mistrusted his neighbour. Cola had done nothing as
+yet to warrant any downright suspicion of treachery, but most likely
+the barons had an evil conscience, and it might have been observed
+that the Tribune's courtesy also was strained.
+
+      "Towards evening the _popolari_ who were among the guests
+      began to talk of the defects of the nobles, and the
+      goodness of the Tribune. Then Messer Stefano the elder
+      began a question, which was best in a Ruler of the people,
+      to be prodigal or economical? A great discussion arose upon
+      this, and at the last Messer Stefano took up a corner of
+      Cola's robe, and said, 'To thee, Tribune, it would be more
+      suitable to wear an honest costume of cloth, than this
+      pompous habit,' and saying this he showed the corner of the
+      robe. When Cola heard this he was troubled. He called for
+      the guard and had them all arrested. Messer Stefano the
+      veteran was placed in an adjoining hall, where he remained
+      all night without any bed, pacing about the room, and
+      knocking at the door prayed the guards to free him; but the
+      guards would not listen to him. Then daylight appeared. The
+      Tribune deliberated whether he should not cut off their
+      heads, in order to liberate completely the people of Rome.
+      He gave orders that the _Parlatorio_ should be hung with
+      red and white cloth, which was the signal of execution.
+      Then the great bell was rung and the people gathered to the
+      Capitol. He sent to each of the prisoners a confessor, one
+      of the Minor friars, that they might rise up to repentance
+      and receive the body of Christ. When the Barons became
+      aware of all these preparations and heard the great bell
+      ringing, they were so frozen with fear that they could not
+      speak. Most of them humbled themselves and made their
+      penitence, and received the communion. Messer Rainallo
+      degli Orsini and some others, because they had in the
+      morning eaten fresh figs, could not receive, and Messer
+      Stefano Colonna would not confess, nor communicate, saying
+      that he was not ready, and had not set his affairs in
+      order.
+
+      "In the meanwhile, several of the citizens, considering the
+      judgment that was about to be made, used many arguments to
+      prevent it in soothing and peaceful words. At last the
+      Tribune rose from the council and broke up the debate. It
+      was now the hour of Tierce. The Barons as condemned persons
+      came down sadly into the _Parlatorio_. The trumpets sounded
+      as if for their execution, and they were ranged in face of
+      the people. Then the Tribune changed his purpose, ascended
+      the platform, and made a beautiful sermon. He repeated the
+      Pater Noster, that part which says 'Forgive us our debts.'
+      Then he pardoned the Barons and said that he wished them to
+      be in the service of the people, and made peace between
+      them and the people. One by one they bowed their heads to
+      the people. After this their offices were restored to them,
+      and to each was given a beautiful robe trimmed with vair:
+      and a new Gonfalon was made with wheatears in gold. Then he
+      made them dine with him and afterwards rode through the
+      city, leading them with him; and then let them go freely on
+      their way. This that was done much displeased all discreet
+      persons who said, 'He has lighted a fire and flame which he
+      will not be able to put out.'"
+
+"And I," adds the chronicler, "said this proverb," which was by no
+means a decorous one: its meaning was that it was useless to make a
+smell of gunpowder and shoot no one.
+
+The Tribune's dramatic instincts had gone too far. He had indeed
+produced a thrilling sensation, a moment of extreme and terrible
+tragic apprehension; but he forgot that he was playing with men, not
+puppets, and that the mercy thus accorded after they had been brought
+through the bitterness of death, was not likely to be received as a
+generous boon by these shamed and outraged patricians, who were as
+much insulted by his mercy as they were injured by his fictitious
+condemnation. They must have followed him in that ride through Rome
+with hearts burning within them, the furred mantles which were his
+gifts like badges of shame upon their shoulders: and each made his
+way, as soon as they were free, outside the gates to their own
+castles, with fury in their hearts. These men were not of the kind
+upon whom so tragic a jest could be played. Old Stefano and his sons,
+having suffered the further indignity of being created by that rascal
+multitude patricians and consuls, went off to their impregnable
+Palestrina, and the Orsini to Marino, an equally strong place.
+Henceforward there was no peace possible between the Tribune and the
+nobles of Rome. "He drew back from the accomplishment of his
+treachery," says his modern biographer Papencordt. Did he ever intend
+to do more than was done? It seems to us very doubtful. He was a man
+of sensations, and loved a thrilling scene, which he certainly
+secured. He humiliated his foes to the very dust, and made a situation
+at which all Rome held its breath: the tribunal draped as for a
+sentence of death, the confessor at every man's elbow, the populace
+solemnly assembled to see the tyrants die, while all the while the
+robes with their border of royal minever were laid ready, and the
+banners worked with ears of wheat. There is a touch almost of the
+mountebank in those last details. Petrarch, it is curious to note,
+disapproved, not of the trap laid for the nobles, or the circumstances
+of the drama, but of the failure of Cola to take advantage of such an
+opportunity, "an occasion such as fortune never gave to an Emperor,"
+when he might have cut off at a single blow the enemies of freedom.
+Perhaps the poet was right: but yet Cola in his folly would have been
+a worse man if he had been a wiser one. As it was his dramatic
+instinct was his ruin.
+
+The barons went off _fra denti minacciavano_, swearing through their
+teeth, and it was not long before the Orsini, who had been, up to that
+tragic banquet, his friends and supporters, had entrenched themselves
+in Marino, and were in full rebellion, resuming all the ancient
+customs of their race, and ravaging the Campagna to the very gates of
+Rome. It was the time of the vintage, which for once it had seemed
+likely would be made in peace that first year of the republic, if
+never before. But already the spell of the short-lived peace was
+broken, and once more the raiders were abroad, carrying terror and
+loss to all the surrounding country. "So great was the folly of the
+Tribune," his primitive biographer resumes, losing patience, that
+instead of following the rebels at once to their lair, he gave them
+time to fortify Marino and set everything in order for defence, so
+that it proved a hard task when at last he bestirred himself and went
+against the stronghold with an army of unusual strength, chiefly
+raised among the irritated Romans themselves, with which he spoiled
+all the surrounding country, took a smaller fortress belonging to the
+Orsini, and so alarmed them that they offered to surrender on
+condition of having their safety secured. Cola would make no
+conditions, but he did not succeed in taking Marino, being urgently
+called back to Rome to meet the Legate of the Pope, who had been sent
+to deal with him with the severest threats and reprimands. The Tribune
+upon this returned to the city, raising the siege of Marino; and
+instantly on his arrival gave orders for the destruction of the palace
+of the Orsini, near the Castle of St. Angelo. He then went on to St.
+Peter's, where with his usual love of costume, and in the strange
+vanity which more and more took possession of him, he took from the
+treasury of the Chief of the Apostles the dalmatic usually worn by the
+Emperors during the ceremonies of their coronation, a garment of great
+price, "all embroidered," says the chronicler, "with small pearls."
+This he put on over his armour, and so equipped, and with the silver
+crown on his head which was his distinction as Tribune, and the
+glittering steel sceptre in his hand, went to the Papal palace, where
+the Legate awaited him. "Terrible and fantastic was his appearance,"
+says his biographer; and he was in no mood to receive the Legate as so
+high a functionary expected. "You have come to see us--what is your
+pleasure?" he said. The Legate replied: "I have much to say to you
+from the Pope." When the Tribune heard these words, he spoke out
+loudly in a high voice, "What have you to say?" but when the Legate
+heard this rampant reply, he stood astonished and was silent; then the
+Tribune turned his back upon him.
+
+_Rampagnosa_ indeed was his air and manner, touched with that madness
+which the gods send to those whom they would destroy; and _fantastico_
+the appearance of the leader, unaccustomed to arms, with the Emperor's
+splendid mantle over the dust of the road, and the pacific simplicity
+of the little civic crown over his steel cap. Probably the stately
+Cardinal-Legate, accustomed to princes and statesmen, thought the
+Tribune mad; he must have been partially so at least, in the
+excitement of his first campaign, and the rising tide of his
+self-confidence, and the hurry and commotion of fate.
+
+In the meantime, however, Marino was not taken, and another fire of
+rebellion had broken out among the Colonnas, who were now known to be
+making great preparations for a descent upon Rome. The Legate had
+retired to Monte Fiascone, whence he opened a correspondence with both
+divisions of these rebel nobles; and a formidable party was thus
+organised, from one point to another, against Rome: while the city
+itself began to send forth secret messengers on all sides, the
+populace changing its mind as usual, while the wealthy citizens were
+alarmed by their isolation, or offended by the arrogance of their
+chief. Cola, too, by this time had begun, it would seem, to feel in
+his sensitive person the reaction of so much excitement and
+exaltation, and was for a short time ill and miserable, feeling the
+horror of the gathering tempest which began to rise round him on every
+side. But he was reinvigorated by various successes in Rome itself and
+by the still greater encouragement given by the arrival of the first
+rebel, the Lord of Viterbo, Giovanni di Vico, who came in the guise of
+friendship and with offers of aid, but at the same time with airs of
+importance and pretension which Cola did not approve. He was promptly
+secured by the usual but too easy method of an invitation to a
+banquet, a snare into which the Roman nobles seem to have fallen with
+much readiness, and was imprisoned. Then Cola, fully restored to
+himself, prepared to meet his foes. It was winter weather, a dark and
+cold November, when the rumour rose that the Colonna were approaching
+Rome. Cola called together his army, which had been increased by some
+bands of allies from neighbouring cities, and was headed by several
+Orsini of another branch of the house. He had already encouraged the
+people by public addresses, in which he related the appearance to him
+first of St. Martin, who told him to have no fear, and secondly of St.
+Boniface, who declared himself the enemy of the Colonna, who wronged
+the Church of God. Such visions show something of the disturbed
+condition of the Tribune's mind vainly trying to strengthen himself in
+a confidence which he did not feel. On the twentieth of November, in
+the gray of the morning, the great bell rang, and the trumpets sounded
+for the approach of the enemy: and with his forces divided into three
+bands, one under his own command, the others led by Cola and Giordano
+Orsini, he set forth to meet the rebels who by the gate of St. Lorenzo
+were drawing near to Rome.
+
+The enemy had no great mind for the battle. They had marched all night
+through the bitter rain and cold. Old Stefano had been attacked by
+fever and was trembling like a leaf. Agapito, his nephew, had had a
+bad dream in which he saw his wife a widow, weeping and tearing her
+hair. They arrived before the gate in indifferent heart and with
+divided counsels, though there had been information sent them of a
+conspiracy within, and that the gate would be opened to them without
+any struggle. Stefano Colonna the younger, who was general of the
+host, then rode up alone and demanded entrance. "I am a citizen of
+Rome. I wish to return to my house. I come in the name of the Buono
+Stato," he said. The Captain of the Gate replied with great
+simplicity. It is evident that Stefano had called some one by name,
+expecting admittance. "The guards to whom you call are not here. The
+guard has been changed. I have newly come with my men. You cannot by
+any means come in. The gate is locked. Do you not know in what anger
+the people are against you for having disturbed the Buono Stato? Do
+not you hear the great bell? I pray you for God's sake go away. I wish
+you no harm. To show you that you cannot enter here, I throw out the
+key." The key, which was useless on the outer side of the gate, fell
+into a pool made by the rain: but the noise of its fall startled the
+already troubled nerves of the leaders, and they held hasty counsel
+what to do. "They deliberated if they could retire with honour," says
+the chronicler. It is most curious to hear this parleying, and the
+murmur of the army, uneasy outside, not knowing what further step to
+take, in the miserable November dawn, after their night march. They
+had expected to be admitted by treachery, and evidently had not taken
+this _contretemps_ into their calculations. "They resolved to retire
+with honour," says Papencordt: and for this purpose troop by troop
+advanced to the gate, and then turned to retreat: perhaps in obedience
+to some punctilio of ancient warfare. The third battalion contained
+the pride of the army (_li pruodi, e le bene a cavallo, e tutta la
+fortezza_), young Janni Colonna, at its head. One portion of Cola's
+army had by this time reached the same spot inside, and were eager for
+a sortie, but could not open the gate in the usual manner, the key
+being lost; they therefore broke open one portion of it with great
+clamour and noise. The right side opened, the left remained closed.
+
+      "Janni Colonna approached the gate, hearing the noise
+      within, and considering that there had been no order to
+      open it, he thought that his friends must have made that
+      noise, and that they had broken the gate by force. Thus
+      considering, Janni Colonna quickly crossed the threshold
+      with his lance in rest, spurring his courser, riding boldly
+      without precaution. He entered the gate of the city. _Deh_!
+      how terrified were the people! Before him all the cavalry
+      in Rome turned to fly. Likewise the Popolo retreated
+      flying, for the space of half a turn. But not for this did
+      his friends follow Janni, so that he remained alone there,
+      as if he had been called to judgment. Then the Romans took
+      courage, perceiving that he was alone: the greater was his
+      misfortune. His horse caught its foot in an open cellar
+      (_grotta_) which was by the left side of the gate, and
+      threw him, trampling upon him. Janni perceiving his
+      misfortune, called out to the people for quarter, adjuring
+      them for God's sake not to strip him of his armour. How can
+      it be said? He was stripped and struck by three blows and
+      died. Fonneruglio de Trejo was the first to strike. He
+      (Janni) was a young man of a good disposition. His fame was
+      spread through every land. He lay there naked, wounded and
+      dead, in a heap against the wall of the city within the
+      gate, his hair all plastered with mud, scarcely to be
+      recognised. Then was seen a great marvel. The pestilential
+      and disturbed weather began to clear, the sun shone out,
+      the sky from being dark and cloudy became serene and gay."
+
+This, however, was but the first chapter of this dreadful tragedy. And
+still greater misery was to come.
+
+      "Stefano della Colonna, among the multitude outside in
+      front of the gate, demanded anxiously where was his son
+      Janni, and was answered: 'We know not what he has done or
+      where he has gone.' Then Stefano began to suspect that he
+      had gone in at the gate. He therefore spurred his horse and
+      went on alone, and saw his son lying on the ground
+      surrounded by many people, between the cellar and the pool
+      of water. Seeing that, Stefano fearing for himself, turned
+      back; he went out from the gate and his good sense
+      abandoned him. He was confounded; the loss of his son
+      overcame him. He said not a word, but turned back and again
+      entered the gate, if by any means he might save his son.
+      When he drew near he saw that his son was dead. The
+      question now was to save his own life, and he turned back
+      again sadly. As he went out of the gate, and was passing
+      under the Tower, a great piece of stone struck him on the
+      shoulder and his horse on the croup. Then followed lances,
+      thrown from every side. The wounded horse threw out its
+      heels, and the rider unable to keep his seat fell to the
+      ground, when the Popolo rushed upon him in front of the
+      gate, in that place where the image stands, in the middle
+      of the road. There he lay naked in sight of the people and
+      of every one who passed by. He had lost one foot and was
+      wounded in many places, one terrible blow having struck him
+      between the nose and the eyes. Janni was wounded only in
+      the breast and in one of his feet. Then the people flung
+      themselves forth from the gate furiously without order or
+      leader, seeking merely whom to kill. They met the young
+      Cavaliers, foremost of whom was Pietro of Agapito di
+      Colonna who had been Præfect of Marseilles, and a priest.
+      He had never used arms till that day. He fell from his
+      horse and could not recover himself, the ground being so
+      slippery, but fled into a vineyard close by. Bald he was,
+      and old, praying for God's sake to be forgiven. But vain
+      was his prayer. First his money was taken, then his arms,
+      then his life. He lay in that vineyard naked, dead, bald,
+      fat--not like a man of war. Near him lay another baron,
+      Pandolfo of the lords of Belvedere. In a small space lay
+      twelve of them; prostrate they lay. All the rest of the
+      army, horsemen as well as footmen, flung their arms from
+      them here and there, and without order, in great terror,
+      turned their backs: and there was not one who struck a
+      blow."
+
+Thus ended the first attack upon the Tribune--horribly, vilely, with
+panic on both sides, and the rage of wild beasts among the victorious
+people, not one on either side, except those two murdered Colonnas,
+bearing himself like a man. The record of the struggle, so intense in
+its brevity, so brutal and terrible, with its background of leaden
+skies and falling rain, and the muddy earth upon which both horses and
+men slipped and fell, is placed before us like a picture: and the
+sudden clearing of the weather, the sun breaking out suddenly upon
+those white prostrate figures, white and red with horrible wounds.
+There could not be a more appalling scene--amid all the records of
+internecine warfare one of the most squalid, unredeemed even by any
+feat of arms; for poor young Janni walked into the snare unconscious,
+and a blind chance, horrible and unpremeditated, seemed to reign over
+all--all but the father, heart-broken, retiring by instinct in the
+first discovery of danger, then turning back to save, if it were
+possible, his dying boy, who had been so brutally struck down and cut
+to pieces. The old father of all, the great Stefano, too old for war,
+and trembling with fever, was borne along in the crowd of the flying,
+to hide his bereaved head in his old fortress and sternly lament his
+children lost.
+
+Cola, the chronicle says, shared the consternation of the people when
+young Janni's noble figure appeared in the opening of the gate. The
+Tribune's banner was overturned in the backward rush of the people
+before that solitary invader: and he himself, raising his eyes to
+heaven, cried out no other word than this: "Ah, God, hast thou
+betrayed me?" But when the sudden rush of murder and pursuit was over
+he recovered all his dramatic instincts along with his courage. The
+silver trumpets were sounded, a wreath of olive was placed upon his
+head above the silver crown, he waved his steel wand in the now
+brilliant sunshine, and marched into Rome, triumphant--as indeed he
+had good reason to be--to the Church of the Ara Coeli, where he
+deposited the olive crown and the steel wand before the altar of the
+Virgin. "After this," says the indignant chronicler, "he never carried
+sceptre again, nor wore crown, nor had a banner borne over his head."
+Once more he addressed the people from the _Parlatorio_, with the
+intonation of victory in every word. Drawing his sword, he wiped it
+with his robe, and said: "I have cut off with this such a head as
+neither the Pope nor the Emperor could touch."
+
+Meanwhile the three dead Colonnas had been carried into Rome to the
+chapel of their house in the Ara Coeli. "The Contesse (the
+relations, wives and sisters) came, attended by many women tearing
+their hair, to wail (_ululare_) over the dead," but Cola had them
+driven away and forbade any funeral honours. "If they trouble me any
+more about these accursed corpses," he said, "I will have them thrown
+into a ditch. They were perjurers--they were not worthy to be buried."
+The three dead knights were carried secretly by night to the Church of
+San Silvestro, and buried by the monks _senza ululato_, without any
+lament made over them. Thus ended the noble Colonna, the hopes of the
+house--and with them, though he knew it not, the extravagant hopes and
+miraculous good fortune of Cola di Rienzi, which began to fall from
+that day.
+
+We have dwelt upon the details of this history, because there is
+scarcely any other which gives so clear a vision of the streets and
+palaces, the rushing of the Popolo, the uncertain counsels of the
+nobles, the mingled temerity and panic which prevailed among all on
+both sides. The confusion is extraordinary; the ignorant crowd with
+its enthusiast leader scarcely less ignorant of men and the just
+course of human affairs, who defied with a light heart the greatest
+powers in Christendom, and retreated before the terrific vision of one
+young warrior in the gate: the nobles with their army, which sought
+only how to get away again without disgrace when they found themselves
+in front of a defended gate, and fled before a rabble sortie, of men
+as much frightened as themselves, and brave only when pursuing another
+demoralised troop. Whether we look to one side or the other, the
+effect is equally vivid. The revelation, at first so romantic and
+splendid, if always fantastic and theatrical, falls now into a squalid
+horror and mad brag, and cowardice, and fury, in which the spectacle
+of the Tribune, wiping the sword guiltless of blood upon his mantle,
+reaches perhaps the highest point of tragic ridicule: while all the
+chivalry of Rome galloping along the muddy roads to their strongholds,
+flying before a civic mob, is its lowest point of humiliating misery.
+It seems almost impossible to believe that the best blood and highest
+names of Italy, as well as on the other side its most visionary
+aspirations, should come to such degrading confusion and downfall.
+
+  [Illustration: PORTA DEL POPOLO (FLAMINIAN GATE).]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] A necessary distinction when there were so many of the same
+name--_i.e._, Pietro the son of Agapito, nephew of old Stefano.
+
+[7] Changed their dresses, throwing those which they took off among
+the people.
+
+[8] The bath, or baptismal vase of Constantine (so-called) here
+referred to, still stands in the Baptistery of the Lateran.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THEATRE OF MARCELLUS.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+DECLINE AND FALL.
+
+
+After so strange and so complete a victory over one party, had the
+Tribune pushed his advantage, and gone against the other with all the
+prestige of his triumph, he would in all probability have ended the
+resistance of the nobles altogether. But he did not do this. He had no
+desire for any more fighting. It is supposed, with insufficient reason
+we think, that personally he was a coward. What is more likely is that
+so sensitive and nervous a man (to use the jargon of our own times)
+must have suffered, as any fine temperament would have done, from that
+scene at the gate of San Lorenzo, and poor young Janni Colonna lying
+in his blood; and that when he declared "he would draw his sword no
+more," he did so with a sincere disgust for all such brutal methods.
+His own ways of convincing people were by argument and elocution, and
+pictures on the walls, which, if they did not convince, did nobody any
+harm. The next scene, however, which he prepared for his audience does
+not look much like the horror for which we have given him credit. He
+had informed his followers before he first set out against the nobles
+that he was taking his son with him--something in the tone with which
+the presence of a Prince Imperial might be proclaimed to an army; and
+we now find the young Lorenzo placed still more in the foreground. The
+day after that dreadful victory Cola called together the militia of
+the city by the most touching argument. "Come with me," he said, "and
+afterwards you shall have your pay." They turned out accordingly to
+accompany him, wondering, but not knowing what he had in his mind.
+
+      "The trumpets sounded at the place where the fight
+      (_sconfitto_) had taken place. No one knew what was to be
+      done there. He went with his son to the very spot where
+      Stefano Colonna had died. There was still there a little
+      pool of water. Cola made his son dismount and threw over
+      him the water which was still tinged with the blood of
+      Stefano, and said to him: 'Be thou a Knight of Victory.'
+      All around wondered and were stupefied. Then he gave orders
+      that all the commanders should strike his son on the
+      shoulder with their swords. This done he returned to the
+      Capitol, and said: 'Go your ways. We have done a common
+      work. All our sires were Romans, the country expects that
+      we should fight for her.' When this was said the minds of
+      the people were much exercised, and some would never bear
+      arms again. Then the Tribune began to be greatly hated, and
+      people began to talk among themselves of his arrogance
+      which was not small."
+
+This grotesque and horrible ceremony seems to have done Cola more harm
+than all that had gone before. The leader of a revolution should have
+no sons. The excellent instinct of providing for his family after him,
+and making himself a stepping stone for his children, though
+proceeding from "what is best within the soul," has spoiled many a
+history. Cola di Rienzi was a most conspicuous and might have been a
+great man: but Rienzo di Cola, which would have been his son's natural
+name, was nobody, and is never heard of after this terrible baptism of
+blood, so abhorrent to every natural and generous impulse. Did the
+gazers in the streets see the specks of red on young Lorenzo's dress
+as he rode along through the city from the Tiburtine gate, and through
+the Forum to the Capitol, where all the train was dismissed so
+summarily? As the Cavallerotti, the better part of the gathering,
+turned their horses and rode away offended, no doubt the news ran
+through quarter after quarter with them. The blood of Stefanello, the
+heir of great Colonna! And thoughts of the old man desolate, and of
+young Janni so brave and gay, would come into many a mind. They might
+be tyrants, but they were familiar Roman faces, known to all, and with
+some reason to be proud, if proud they were; not like this upstart,
+who called honest men away from their own concerns to do honour to his
+low-born son, and sent them packing about their business afterwards
+without so much as a dinner to celebrate the new knight!
+
+This was all in November, the 20th and 21st: and it was on the 20th of
+May that Cola had received his election upon the Capitol and been
+proclaimed master of the destinies of the universe, by inference, as
+master of Rome. Six months, no more, crammed full of gorgeous pageants
+and exciting events. Then, notwithstanding the extraordinary character
+of his revolution, he had been believed in, and encouraged by all
+around. He had received the sanction of the Pope, the friendly
+congratulations of the great Italian towns, and above all the
+applause, enthusiastic and overflowing, of Petrarch the greatest of
+living poets. By degrees all these sympathies and applauses had fallen
+from him. Florence and the other great cities had withdrawn their
+friendship, the Pope had cancelled his commission, the Pope's Vicar
+had left the Tribune's side. The more his vanity and self-admiration
+grew, the more his friends had fallen from him. That very day--the
+day after the defeat of the Colonna, before the news could have
+reached any one at a distance, Petrarch on his way to Italy, partly
+brought back thither by anxiety about his friend, received from
+another friend a copy of one of the arrogant and extraordinary letters
+which Cola was sending about the world, and read and re-read it and
+was stupefied. "What answer can be made to it? I know not," he cries.
+"I see that fate pursues the country, and on whatever side I turn, I
+find subjects of grief and trouble. If Rome is ruined what hope
+remains for Italy? and if Italy is degraded what will become of me?
+What can I offer but tears?" A few days later, arrived at Genoa, the
+poet wrote to Rienzi himself in reproof and sorrow:
+
+  [Illustration: AQUA FELICE.
+    _To face page_ 462.]
+
+      "Often, I confess it, I have had occasion upon thy account
+      to repeat with immense joy what Cicero puts in the mouth of
+      Scipio Africanus:--'What is this great and delightful sound
+      that comes to my ears?' And certainly nothing could be
+      better applied to the splendour of thy name and to the
+      frequent and joyful account of thy doings: and it was
+      indeed good to my heart to speak to thee in that
+      exhortation, full of thy praise and of encouragements to
+      continue, which I sent thee. _Deh!_ do nothing, I conjure
+      thee, to make me now ask, whence is this great and fatal
+      rumour which strikes my ear so painfully? Take care, I
+      beseech thee, not thyself to soil thine own splendid fame.
+      No man in the world except thyself can shake the
+      foundations of the edifice thou hast constructed; but that
+      which thou hast founded thou canst ruin: for to destroy his
+      own proper work no man is so able as the architect. You
+      know the road by which you have risen to glory: if you turn
+      back you shall soon find yourself in the lowest place; and
+      going down is naturally the quicker.... I was hastening to
+      you and with all my heart: but I turn upon the way. Other
+      than what you were, I would not see you. Adieu, Rome, to
+      thee also adieu, if that is true which I have heard. Rather
+      than come to thee I would go to the Indies, to the end of
+      the world.... Oh, how ill the beginning agrees with the
+      end! Oh, miserable ears of mine that, accustomed to the
+      sound of glory, do not know how to bear such announcements
+      of shame! But may not these be lies and my words false? Oh
+      that it might be so! How glad should I be to confess my
+      error!... If thou art indeed so little careful of thy fame,
+      think at least of mine. You well know by what tremendous
+      tempest I am threatened, how many are the crowd of
+      faultfinders ready to ruin me. While there is still time
+      put your mind to it, be vigilant, look well to what you do,
+      guide yourself continually by good counsel, consider with
+      yourself, not deceiving yourself, what you are, what you
+      were, from whence you have come, and to what point, without
+      detriment to the public weal, you can attain: how to
+      attire yourself, what name to assume, what hopes to awaken,
+      and of what doctrine to make open confession; understanding
+      always that not Lord, but solely Minister, you are of the
+      Republic."
+
+The share which Petrarch thus takes to himself in Cola's fortunes may
+seem exaggerated; but it must be remembered that the Colonna were his
+chief patrons and friends, that it was under their protecting shadow
+that he had risen to fame, and that his warm friendship for Rienzi had
+already deeply affected the terms of his relationship with them. That
+relationship had come to a positive breach so far as his most powerful
+protector, the Cardinal Giovanni, was concerned, a breach of feeling
+on one side as well as of protection on the other. His letter to the
+Cardinal after this catastrophe, condoling with him upon the death of
+his brothers, is one of the coldest of compositions, very unlike the
+warm and eager affection of old, and consisting chiefly of elaborate
+apologies for not having written. The poet had completely committed
+himself in respect to the Tribune; he had hailed his advent in the
+most enthusiastic terms, he had proclaimed him the hope of Italy, he
+had staked his own reputation upon his friend's disinterestedness and
+patriotism; therefore this downfall with all its humiliating
+circumstances, the vanities and self-intoxication which had brought it
+about, were intolerable to Petrarch: his own credit as well as Cola's
+was concerned. He had been so rash as to answer for the Tribune in all
+quarters, to pledge his own judgment, his power of understanding men,
+almost his honour, on Cola's behalf; and to be proved so wrong, so
+little capable of estimating justly the man whom he believed himself
+to know so well, was bitterness unspeakable to him.
+
+The interest of his tragic disappointment and sorrow is at the same
+time enhanced by the fact, that the other party to this dreadful
+quarrel had been the constant objects of the poet's eulogies and
+enthusiasm. It is to Petrarch that we owe most of our knowledge of
+the Colonna family at this remarkable period of a long history which
+is filled with the oft-repeated incidents of an endless struggle for
+power, either with the rebellious Romans themselves, or with the other
+little less great family of the Orsini who, unfortunately for
+themselves, had no Petrarch to bring them fully into the light of day.
+The many allusions in Petrarch's letters, his reminiscences of the
+ample and gracious household, all so friendly, and caressing, all of
+one mind as to his own poetical qualities, and anxious to heap honours
+upon him, light up for us the face of the much complicated story, and
+give interest to many an elaborate poetical or philosophical
+disquisition. Especially the figure of the father, the old Stefano
+with his seven sons and the innumerable tribe of nephews and cousins,
+not to say grandsons, still more cherished, who surrounded him--rises
+clear, magnanimous, out of the disturbed and stormy landscape. His
+brief appearances in the chronicle which we have quoted, with a keen
+brief speech here and there, imperative, in strong accents of common
+sense as well as of power, add a touch of energetic life to the many
+anecdotes and descriptions of a more elaborate kind. And the poet
+would seem never to have failed in his admiration for the old
+Magnanimo. At an earlier period he had described in several letters to
+the son Giovanni, the Cardinal, the reception given to him at Rome,
+and conversations, some of them very remarkable. One scene above all,
+of which Petrarch reminds Stefano himself in his bereavement, gives us
+a most touching picture of the noble old man.
+
+      "One day at sunset you and I alone were walking by that
+      spacious way which leads from your house to the Capitol,
+      when we paused at that point where it is crossed by the
+      other road by which on one hand you ascend to the Arch of
+      Camillus, and on the other go down to the Tiber: we paused
+      there without interruption from any and talked together of
+      the condition of your house and family, which, often
+      assailed by the enmity of strangers, was at that time moved
+      by grievous internal commotions:--when the discourse fell
+      upon one of your sons with whom, more by the work of
+      scandal-mongers than by paternal resentment, you were
+      angry, and by your goodness it was given to me, what many
+      others had not been able to obtain, to persuade you to
+      receive him again to your good grace. After you had
+      lamented his faults to me, changing your aspect all at once
+      you said (I remember not only the substance of your
+      discourse but the very words). 'This son of mine, thy
+      friend, whom, thanks to thee, I will now receive again with
+      paternal affection, has vomited forth words concerning my
+      old age, of which it is best to be silent; but since I
+      cannot refuse you, let us put a stone over the past and let
+      a full amnesty, as people say, be conceded. From my lips I
+      promise thee, not another word shall be heard.
+
+      "'One thing I will tell you, that you may make perpetual
+      remembrance of it. It is made a reproach to my old age that
+      I am mixed up with warlike factions more than is becoming,
+      and more than there is any occasion, and that thus I will
+      leave to my sons an inheritance of peril and hate. But as
+      God is true, I desire you to believe that for love of peace
+      alone I allow myself to be drawn into war. Whether it be
+      the effect of my extreme old age which chills and enfeebles
+      the spirit in this already stony bosom, or whether it
+      proceeds from my long observation of human affairs, it is
+      certain that more than others I am greedy of repose and
+      peace. But fixed and immovable as is my resolution never to
+      shrink from trouble though I may prefer a settled and
+      tranquil life, I find it better, since fate compels me, to
+      go down to the sepulchre fighting, than to submit, old as I
+      am, to servitude. And for what you say of my heirs I have
+      but one thing to reply. Listen well, and fix my words in
+      your mind. God grant that I may leave my inheritance to my
+      sons. But all in opposition to my desires are the decrees
+      of fate (the words were said with tears): contrary to the
+      order of nature it is I who shall be the heir of all my
+      sons.' And thus saying, your eyes swollen with tears, you
+      turned away."
+
+At the corner where the Corso is crossed by the street which borders
+the Forum of Trajan, let whoso will pause amid the bustle of modern
+traffic and think for a moment of those two figures standing together
+talking, "without interruption from any one," in the middle of that
+open space, while the long level rays of the sunset streamed upon them
+from beyond the Flaminian gate. Was there some great popular meeting
+at the Capitol which had cleared the streets, the hum of voices rising
+on the height, but all quiet here at this dangerous, glorious hour,
+when fever is abroad and the women and children are all indoors? "I
+made light of it, I confess," says Petrarch, though he acknowledges
+that he told the story of this dreadful presentiment to the Cardinal,
+who, sighing, exclaimed, "Would to God that my father's prediction may
+not come true!" But old Stefano with his weight of years upon him, and
+his front like Jove, turned away sighing, stroking his venerable
+beard, unmoved by the poet's reassurances, with that terrible
+conviction in his heart. They were all young and he old: daring,
+careless young men, laughing at that same Cola of the little
+_albergo_, the son of the wine-shop, who said he was to be an emperor.
+But the shadow on the grandsire's heart was one of those which events
+cast before them. Young Janni was to go among the first, the brave boy
+who ought to have been heir of all. To him, too, his grandfather, the
+great Stefano, the head of the full house, was to be heir.
+
+The terrible event of the Porta di San Lorenzo shows in still darker
+colours when we look at it closer. Stefano, the son of Stefano, and
+Janni his son, are the two most conspicuous names: but there were
+more. Camillo, _figlio naturale, morto il 20 November 1347,
+all'assalto di Porta San Lorenzo_; Pietro, _figlio naturale, rimase
+occiso a Porta San Lorenzo_. Giovanni of Agapito, Pietro of Agapito,
+nephews of old Stefano, _morti nell'assalto di Porta San Lorenzo_.
+Seven in all were the scions of Colonna who ended their life that
+horrible November morning in the mud and rain; or more dreadful still
+under the morning sun which broke out so suddenly, showing those white
+dreadful forms all stripped and abandoned, upon the fatal way. It was
+little wonder if between the house of Colonna and the upstart Cola no
+peace should ever be possible after a lost battle so fatal and so
+humiliating to the race.
+
+Perhaps after the first moment of terrible joy and relief to find
+himself uninjured, and his enemies so deeply punished, compunction
+seized the sensitive mind of Cola: or perhaps he was alarmed by the
+displeasure of the Pope, his abandonment by all his friends, and the
+solemn adjuration of Petrarch. It is certain that after this he
+dropped many of his pretensions, subdued the fantastic arrogance of
+his titles and superscription, gave up his claim to elect emperors and
+preside over the fortunes of the world, and began to devote himself
+with humility to the government of the city which had fallen into
+something of its old disorderliness within the walls; while outside
+there was again, as of old, no security at all. The rebel barons had
+resumed their turbulent sway, the robbers reappeared in all their old
+coverts; and once again every road to Rome was as unsafe as that on
+which the traveller of old fell among thieves. Cola, Knight and
+Lieutenant of our Lord the Pope, now headed his proclamations, instead
+of Nicolas, severe and clement. His crown of silver and sceptre of
+steel, fantastic emblems, were hung up before the shrine of Our Lady
+in the Ara Coeli, and everything about him was toned down into
+gravity. By this means he kept up a semblance of peace, and replaced
+the Buono Stato in its visionary shrine. But Cola had gone too far,
+and lost the confidence of the people too completely to rise again.
+His very humility would no doubt be against him, showing the weakness
+which a man unsupported on any side should perhaps have been bold
+enough to defy, hardihood being now his only chance in face of so many
+assailants. Pope Clement thundered against him from Avignon; the
+nobles lay in Palestrina and Marino, and many a smaller fortress
+besides, irreconcilable, watching every opportunity of assailing him.
+The country was once more devastated all round Rome, provisions short,
+corn dear, and funds failing as well as authority and respect. And
+Cola's heart had failed him along with his prosperity. He had bad
+dreams; he himself tells the story of this moral downfall with a
+forlorn attempt to show that it was not, after all, his visible
+enemies, or the power of men, which had cast him down.
+
+      "After my triumph over the Colonna," he writes, "just when
+      my dominion seemed strongest, my stoutness of heart was
+      taken from me, and I was seized by visionary terrors. Night
+      after night awakened by visions and dreams I cried out,
+      'The Capitol is falling,' or 'The enemy comes!' For some
+      time an owl alighted every night on the summit of the
+      Capitol, and though chased away by my servants always came
+      back again. For twelve nights this took my sleep and all
+      quiet of mind from me. It was thus that dreams and
+      nightbirds tormented one who had not been afraid of the
+      fury of the Roman nobles, nor terrified by armies of armed
+      men."
+
+The brag was a forlorn one, but it was all of which the fallen Tribune
+was now capable. Cola received back the Vicar of the Pope, who
+probably was not without some affection for his old triumphant
+colleague, with gladness and humility, and seated that representative
+of ecclesiastical authority beside himself in his chair of judgment,
+before which he no longer summoned the princes and great ones of the
+earth. The end came in an unexpected way, of which the writer of the
+_Vita_ gives the popular account: it is a little different from that
+of the graver history but only in details. A certain Pepino, Count
+Palatine of Altamura, a fugitive from Naples, whose object in Rome was
+to enlist soldiers for the service of Louis of Hungary, then eager to
+avenge the murder of his brother Andrew, the husband of Queen Joan of
+Naples--had taken up his abode in the city. He was in league with
+several of the nobles, and ready to lend a hand in any available way
+against the Tribune. Fearing to be brought before the tribunal of
+Cola, and to be obliged to explain the object of his residence in
+Rome, he shut himself up in his palace and made an effort to raise the
+city against its head.
+
+      "Messer the Conte Paladino at this time threw a bar
+      (barricade) across the street, under the Arch of Salvator
+      (to defend his quarters apparently). A night and a day the
+      bells of St. Angelo in Pescheria rang a _stuormo_, but no
+      one attempted to break down the bar. The Tribune sent a
+      party of horsemen against the bar, and an officer named
+      Scarpetta, wounded by a lance, fell dead in the skirmish.
+      When the Tribune heard that Scarpetta was dead and that the
+      people were not affected by the sound of the tocsin,
+      although the bell of St. Angelo continued to ring, he
+      sighed deeply: chilled by alarm he wept: he knew not what
+      to do. His heart was beaten down and brought low. He had
+      not the courage of a child. Scarcely could he speak. He
+      believed that ambushes were laid for him in the city, which
+      was not true, for there was as yet no open rebellion: no
+      one, as yet, had risen against the Tribune. But their zeal
+      had become cold: and he believed that he would be killed.
+      What can be said more? He knew he had not the courage to
+      die in the service of the people as he had promised.
+      Weeping and sighing, he addressed as many as were there,
+      saying that he had done well, but that from envy the people
+      were not content with him. 'Now in the seventh month am I
+      driven from my dominion.' Having said these words weeping,
+      he mounted his horse and sounded the silver trumpets, and
+      bearing the imperial insignia, accompanied by armed men, he
+      came down as in a triumph, and went to the Castle of St.
+      Angelo, and there shut himself in. His wife, disguised in
+      the habit of a monk, came from the Palazzo de Lalli. When
+      the Tribune descended from his greatness the others also
+      wept who were with him, and the miserable people wept. His
+      chamber was found to be full of many beautiful things, and
+      so many letters were found there that you would not believe
+      it. The barons heard of this downfall, but three days
+      passed before they returned to Rome because of their fear.
+      Even when they had come back fear was in their hearts. They
+      made a picture of the Tribune on the wall of the Capitol,
+      as if he were riding, but with his head down and his feet
+      above. They also painted Cecco Manneo, who was his Notary
+      and Chancellor, and Conte, his nephew, who held the castle
+      of Civita Vecchia. Then the Cardinal Legate entered into
+      Rome, and proceeded against him and distributed the greater
+      part of his goods, and proclaimed him to be a heretic."
+
+Thus suddenly Cola fell, as he had risen. His heart had failed him
+without reason or necessity, for the city had not shown any open signs
+of rebellion, and there seems to have been no reason why he should
+have fled to St. Angelo. The people, though they did not respond to
+his call to arms, took no more notice of the tocsin of his opponent or
+of his cry of Death to the Tribune. Rome lay silent pondering many
+things, caring little how the tide turned, perhaps, with the instinct
+of Lo Popolo everywhere, thinking that a change might be a good thing:
+but it was no overt act on the part of the populace which drove its
+idol away. The act was entirely his own--his heart had failed him. In
+these days we should say his nerves had broken down. The phraseology
+is different, but the things were the same. His downfall, however, was
+not perhaps quite so sudden in reality as it appears in the
+chronicle. It would seem that he endeavoured to escape to Civita
+Vecchia where his nephew was governor, but was not received there, and
+had to come back to Rome, and hide his head once more for a short time
+in St. Angelo. But it is certain that before the end of January, 1438,
+he had finally disappeared, a shamed and nameless man, his titles
+abolished, his property divided among his enemies. Never was a
+downfall more sudden or more complete.
+
+Stefano Colonna and his friends re-entered Rome with little appearance
+of triumph. The remembrance of the Porta San Lorenzo was too recent
+for rejoicings, and it must be put to the credit of the old chief,
+bereaved and sorrowful, that no reprisals were made, that a general
+amnesty was proclaimed, and the peace of the city preserved. Cola's
+family, at least for the time, remained peaceably at Rome, and met
+with no harm. We hear nothing of the unfortunate young Knight of
+Victory who had been sprinkled with the blood of the Colonnas. The
+Tribune went down like a stone, and for the moment, of him who had
+filled men's mouths and minds with so many strange tidings, there was
+no more to tell.
+
+Cola's absence from Rome lasted for seven years; of which time there
+is no mention whatever in the _Vita_, which concerns itself
+exclusively with things that happened in Rome; but his steps can be
+very clearly traced. We never again find our enthusiast, he who first
+ascended the Capitol in a passion of disinterested zeal and
+patriotism, approved by every honest visionary and every suffering
+citizen, a man chosen of God to deliver the city. That his motives
+were ever ill motives, or that he had begun to seek his own prosperity
+alone, it would be hard to say: but he appears to us henceforward in a
+changed aspect as the eager conspirator, the commonplace plotter and
+schemer, hungry for glory and plunder, and using every means, by hook
+or by crook, to recover what he has lost, which is a far more
+familiar figure than the ideal Reformer, the disinterested
+revolutionary. We meet with that vulgar hero a hundred times in the
+stormy record of Italian politics, a man without scruples, sticking at
+nothing. But Rienzi was of a different nature: he was at once a less
+and a greater sinner. It would be unjustifiable to say that he ever
+gave up the thought of the Buono Stato, or ceased to desire the
+welfare of Rome. But in the long interval of his disappearance from
+the scene, he not only plotted like the other, but used that higher
+motive, and the mystic elements that were in the air, and the tendency
+towards all that was occult, and much that was noble in the
+aspirations of the visionaries of his time, to further the one object,
+his return to power, to the Capitol, and to the dominion of Rome. A
+conspirator is the commonplace of Italian story, at every period: and
+the pretender, catching at every straw to get back to his unsteady
+throne, besieging every potentate that can help him, pleading every
+inducement from the highest to the lowest--self-interest,
+philanthropy, the service of God, the most generous and the meanest
+sentiments--is also a very well known figure; but it is rare to find a
+man truly affected by the most mystic teachings of religion, yet
+pressing them also into his service, and making use of what he
+conceives to be the impulses of the Holy Spirit for the furtherance of
+his private ends, without, nevertheless, so far as can be asserted,
+becoming a hypocrite or insincere in the faith which he professes.
+
+This was the strange development to which the Tribune came. After some
+vain attempts to awaken in the Roman territory friends who could help
+him, his heart broken by the fickleness and desertion of the Popolo in
+which he had trusted, he took refuge in the wild mountain country of
+the Apennines, where there existed a rude and strange religious party,
+aiming in the midst of the most austere devotion at a total overturn
+of society, and that return of a primeval age of innocence and bliss
+which is so seductive to the mystical mind. In the caves and dens of
+the earth and in the mountain villages and little convents, there
+dwelt a severe sect of the Franciscans, men whose love of Poverty,
+their founder's bride and choice, was almost stronger than their love
+of that founder himself. The Fraticelli were only heretics by dint of
+holding their Rule more strictly than the other religious of their
+order, and by indulging in ecstatic visions of a renovated state and a
+purified people--visions less personal though not less sincere or
+pious, than those which inflicted upon Francis himself the semblance
+of the wounds of the Redeemer, in that passion of pity and love which
+possessed his heart. The exile among them, who had himself been
+aroused out of the obscurity of ordinary life by a corresponding
+dream, found himself stimulated and inspired over again by the
+teaching of these visionaries. One of them, it is said, found him out
+in the refuge where he thought himself absolutely unknown, and,
+addressing him by name, told him that he had still a great career
+before him, and that it should be his to restore to Rome the double
+reign of universal dominion, to establish the Pope and the Empire in
+the imperial city, and reconcile for ever those two joint rulers
+appointed of God.
+
+It is curious to find that what is to some extent the existing state
+of affairs--the junction in one place of the two monarchs of the
+earth--should have been the dream and hope of religious visionaries in
+the middle of the fourteenth century. The Emperor to them was but a
+glorified King of Italy, with a vague and unknown world behind him;
+and they believed that the Millennium would come, when that supreme
+sovereign on the Capitol and the Holy Father from the seat of St.
+Peter should sway the world at their will. The same class, in the same
+order now--so much as confiscation after confiscation permits that
+order to exist--would fight to its last gasp against the forced
+conjunction, which its fathers before it thus thought of as the thing
+most to be prayed for, and schemed for, in the whole world.
+
+When others beside the Fraticelli discovered Rienzi's hiding-place,
+and he found himself, or imagined himself, in some danger, he went to
+Prague to seek shelter with the Emperor Charles IV., and a remarkable
+correspondence took place between that potentate on one side and the
+Archbishop of Prague, his counsellor, and Rienzi on the other, in
+which the exile promised many splendours to the monarch, and offered
+himself as his guide to Rome, and to lend him the weight of his
+influence there with the people over whom Rienzi believed that he
+would yet himself preside with greater power than ever. That Charles
+himself should reply to these letters, and reason the matter out with
+this forlorn wanderer, shows of itself what a power was in his words
+and in the fervour of his purpose. But it is ill talking between a
+great monarch and a penniless exile, and Charles seems to have felt no
+scruple in handing him over, after full exposition of his views, to
+the archbishop as a heretic. That prelate transferred him to the Pope,
+to be dealt with as a man already excommunicated under the ban of the
+Church, and now once more promulgating strange doctrines, ought to be;
+and thus his freedom, and his wandering, and the comparative safety of
+his life came to an end, and a second stage of strange development
+began.
+
+The fortunes of Rienzi were at a very low ebb when he reached Avignon
+and fell into the hands of his enemies, of those whom he had assailed
+and those whom he had disappointed, at that court where there was no
+one to say a good word for him, and where all that was best in him was
+even more greatly against him than that which was worst. In the
+dungeons of Avignon, in the stronghold of the Pope who had so much
+cause to regret having once sanctioned and patronised the Tribune, his
+cause had every appearance of being lost for ever. It was fortunate
+for him that there was no longer a Cardinal Colonna at that court; but
+there was, at the same time, no champion to take up his cause. Things
+indeed went so badly with him, that he was actually condemned to death
+as a heretic, himself allowing that he was guilty and worthy of death
+in some moment of profound depression, or perhaps with the hope of
+touching the hearts of his persecutors by humility as great as had
+been the pretensions of his brief and exciting reign. For poor Cola
+after all, if the affair at Porta San Lorenzo is left out--and that
+was no fault of his--had done nothing worthy of death. He had been
+carried away by the passion and madness of an almost impossible
+success; but he had scarcely ever been rebellious to the Church, and
+his vagaries of doctrine were rather due to the mingling together of
+the classical with the religious, and the inflation of certain not
+otherwise unorthodox ideas, than any real rebellion; but he carried
+his prevailing sentiment and character into everything, being lower
+than any in the depths of his downfall as he had been higher than any
+on the heights of his visionary pride and short-lived triumph.
+
+He was saved from this sentence in a manner as fantastical as himself.
+It may be believed that it was never intended to be carried out, and
+that, especially after his acknowledgment of the justice of his
+sentence, means would have been found of preserving him from its
+execution; very likely, indeed, the curious means which were found,
+originated in some charitable whisper that a plausible pretence of a
+reason for letting him off would not be disagreeable to the Pope. He
+was saved by the suggestion that he was a poet! We have the story in
+full detail from Petrarch himself, who is not without a perception of
+its absurdity, and begins his letter by an indignant description of
+the foolish and pretended zeal for poetry of which this was so strange
+an example. "Poetry," he says, "divine gift and vouchsafed by heaven
+to so few, I see it, friend, if not prostituted, at least made into a
+vulgar thing.
+
+      "I feel my heart rise against this, and you, if I know you
+      well, will not tolerate such an abuse for any
+      consideration. Neither at Athens, nor at Rome, even in the
+      lifetime of Horace, was there so much talk of poets and
+      poetry as at the present day upon the banks of the
+      Rhone--although there never was either time or place in
+      which men understood it less. But now I will check your
+      rising bile by laughter and show how a jest can come in the
+      midst of melancholy.
+
+      "There has lately come to this court--or rather has not
+      come but has been brought--a prisoner, Niccola di Lorenzo,
+      once the formidable Tribune of Rome, now of all the men the
+      most unhappy--and what is more, not perhaps worthy of the
+      compassion which the misery of his present state calls
+      forth. He might have ended his days gloriously upon the
+      Capitol, but brought himself down instead, to the great
+      shame of the Republic and of the Roman name, into the
+      condition of a prisoner, first in Bohemia and now here.
+      Unfortunately, many more than I now like to think of are
+      the praises and encouragements which I myself have written
+      to him. Lover of virtue as I am, I could not do less than
+      exalt and admire the generous undertaking of the strong
+      man: and thankful on account of Italy, hoping to see the
+      Empire of Rome arise again and secure the peace of the
+      whole world, my heart was inundated by such joy, on account
+      of so many fine events, that to contain myself was
+      impossible; and it seemed to me that I almost took part in
+      his glory by giving encouragement and comfort to his
+      enterprise: by which as both his messengers and his letters
+      showed, he was himself set on fire--and always more and
+      more willingly I set myself to increase this stimulus with
+      every argument I could think of, and to feed the flame of
+      that ardent spirit, well knowing that every generous heart
+      kindles at the fire of praise and glory. For this reason
+      with an applause which to some seemed extravagant but to me
+      very just, I exalted his every act, encouraging him to
+      complete the magnanimous task which he had begun. The
+      letters which I then wrote went through many hands: and
+      since I am no prophet and still less was he ever a prophet
+      I am not ashamed of what I wrote: for certainly what he did
+      in those days and promised to do, not in my opinion alone
+      but to the praise and admiration of the whole world, were
+      very worthy, and I would not abolish the memory of these
+      letters of mine from my memory solely because he prefers an
+      ignoble life to a glorious death. But it is useless to
+      discuss a thing which is impossible; and however much I
+      might desire to destroy them I could not do it. As soon as
+      they come into the hands of the public, the writer has no
+      more power over them. Let us return to our story.
+
+      "This man then, who had filled the wicked with terror, the
+      good with expectation, and with joyful hope the universe,
+      has come before this Court humiliated and abject; and he
+      whom the people of Rome and all the cities of Italy
+      exalted, was seen passing through our streets between two
+      soldiers, affording a miserable spectacle to the rabble
+      eager to see face to face one whose name they had heard to
+      sound so high. He came from the King of Rome (a title of
+      the Emperor) to the Roman Pontiff, oh marvellous commerce!
+      As soon as he had arrived the Pope committed to three
+      princes of the Church the charge of examining into his
+      cause, and judging of what punishment he was guilty who had
+      attempted to free the State."
+
+The letter is too long to quote entire, and Petrarch, though
+maintaining the cause of his former friend, is perhaps too anxious to
+make it clear that, had Rienzi given due attention to his own letters,
+this great reverse would never have happened to him; yet it is on the
+whole a noble plea for the Tribune. "In this man," the poet declares,
+"I had placed the last hope of Italian liberty, and, having long known
+and loved him from the moment when he put his hand to this great work,
+he seemed to me worthy of all veneration and honour. Whatever might be
+the end of the work I cannot cease to hold as magnificent its
+beginning:" and he regrets with great indignation that it was this
+beginning which was chiefly brought against him, and that his
+description of himself as Nicolas, severe and clement, had more weight
+with his judges than his good government or the happy change that took
+place in Rome during his sway. We must hasten, however, to the irony
+of the Tribune's deliverance.
+
+      "In this miserable state (after so much that is sorrowful,
+      here at last is something to laugh at), I learn from the
+      letters of my friends that there is still a hope of saving
+      him, and that because of a notion which has been spread
+      abroad among the vulgar, that he is a famous poet.... What
+      can we think of this? Truly I, more than I can say in
+      words, comfort myself and rejoice in the thought that the
+      Muses are so much honoured--and what is still more
+      marvellous, among those who never knew anything about
+      them--as to save from a fatal sentence a man who is
+      shielded by their name. What greater sign of reverence
+      could be given than that the name of Poetry should thus
+      save from death a man who rightly or wrongly is abhorred by
+      his judges, who has been convicted of the crime laid to his
+      charge and has confessed it, and by the unanimous sentence
+      of the tribunal has been found worthy of death? I rejoice,
+      I repeat, I congratulate him and the Muses with him: that
+      he should have such patrons, and they so unlooked-for an
+      honour--nor would I to a man so unhappy, reduced to such
+      an extreme of danger and of doubt, grudge the protecting
+      name of poet. But if you would know what I think, I will
+      say that Niccola di Lorenzo is a man of the greatest
+      eloquence, most persuasive and ready of speech, a writer
+      lucid and harmonious and of an elegant style. I do not
+      remember any poet whom he has not read; but this no more
+      makes him a poet than a man would be a weaver who clothed
+      himself with garments woven by another hand. To merit the
+      name of poet it is not enough to have made verses. But this
+      man has never that I know written a single line."
+
+There is not a word of all this in the _Vita_. To the chronicler,
+Rienzi, from the moment when he turned his face again towards Rome,
+was never in any danger. As he came from Germany to Avignon all the
+people in the villages came out to greet him, and would have rescued
+him but for his continual explanation that he went to the Pope of his
+own will; nor does his biographer seem to be aware that the Tribune
+ran any risk of his life. He did escape, however, by a hair's breadth
+only, and, as Petrarch had perfect knowledge of what was going on, no
+doubt in the very way described by the poet. But he was not delivered
+from prison until Cardinal Albornoz set out for Rome with the Pope's
+orders to pacify and quiet the turbulent city. Many and great had been
+its troubles in those seven years. It had fallen back into the old
+hands--an Orsini and a Colonna, a Colonna and an Orsini. There had
+been a temporary lull in the year of the Jubilee (1350), when all the
+world flocked to Rome to obtain the Indulgence, and to have their sins
+washed away in the full stream of Papal forgiveness. It is said that
+Rienzi himself made his way stealthily back to share in that
+Indulgence, but without making himself known: and the interest of the
+citizens was so much involved in peace, and it was so essential to
+keep a certain rule of order and self-restraint on account of the many
+guests who brought money to the city, that there was a temporary lull
+of its troubles. The town was no more than a great inn from Easter to
+Christmas, and wealth, which has always a soothing and quieting
+influence, poured into the pockets of the citizens, fully occupied
+as they were by the care of their guests, and by the continual
+ceremonials and sacred functions of those busy days. The Jubilee
+brought not only masses of pious pilgrims from every part of the
+world, but innumerable lawsuits--cases of conscience and of secular
+disputes--to be settled by the busy Cardinal who sat instead of the
+Pope, hearing daily what every applicant might have to say. There had
+been a new temporary bridge built in order to provide for the pressure
+of the crowd, and avoid that block of the old bridge of St. Angelo
+which Dante describes in the _Inferno_, when the mass of pilgrims
+coming and going broke down one of the arches. Other large if hasty
+labours of preparation were also in hand. The Capitol had to be
+repaired, and old churches furbished up, and every scrap of drapery
+and tapestry which was to be had employed to make the city fine. So
+that for one year at least there had been no thought but to put the
+best possible face on things, to quench internal disorders for the
+moment, and make all kinds of temporary arrangements for comfort and
+accommodation, as is often done in a family when important visitors
+force a salutary self-denial upon all; so that there were a hundred
+inducements to preserve a front of good behaviour and fit decorum
+before the world.
+
+  [Illustration: THE TARPEIAN ROCK.
+    _To face page_ 480.]
+
+After the Jubilee however, things fell back once more into the old
+confusion: once more there was robbery and violence on every road to
+Rome; once more an Orsini and a Colonna balanced and struggled with
+each other as Senators, with no time to attend to anything but their
+personal interests, and no thought for the welfare of the people. In
+1352, however, things had come to such a pass that a violent remedy
+had to be tried again, and the Romans once more took matters in their
+own hands and elected an official of their own, a certain Cerroni, in
+the place of the unworthy Senators. He however held the position a
+very short time, and being in his turn deserted by the people, gave
+up the thankless task. That year there was a riot in which the Orsini
+Senator was stoned to death at the foot of the stairs which lead to
+the Capitol, while his colleague Colonna, another Stefano, escaped by
+the other side. Then once more the expedient of a popular election was
+attempted and a certain Francesco Baroncelli was elected who styled
+himself the second Tribune of the people. The Pope had also attempted
+to do what he could, once by a committee of four Cardinals, constantly
+by Legates sent to guide and protect the ever-troubled city. The
+hopelessness of these repeated efforts was proved over and over again.
+Villani the historian writes with dismay that "the changes which took
+place in the ancient mother and mistress of the universe did not
+deserve to be recorded because of their frivolity and baseness."
+Baroncelli too fell after a short time, and it seemed that no
+government, and no reformation, could last.
+
+In the meantime Pope Clement VI. died at Avignon, and Innocent VI.
+reigned in his stead. At the beginning of this new reign a new attempt
+to pacificate Rome, and to restore it to order and peace, was made. As
+it was the general feeling that a stranger was the safest ruler in the
+midst of the network of private and family interests in which the city
+was bound, the new Pope with a sincere desire to ameliorate the
+situation sent the Spanish Cardinal Albornoz to the rescue of Rome.
+All this was in the year 1353 when Rienzi, his death sentence remitted
+because of the illusion that he was a poet, lay in prison in Avignon.
+His story was well known: and it was well known too, that the people
+of Rome, after having deserted him, were eager to have him back, and
+had to all appearance repented very bitterly their behaviour to him.
+The Pope adopted the strong and daring expedient of taking the old
+demagogue from his prison and giving him a place in the Legate's
+council. There was no intention of replacing him in his former
+position, but he was eager to accept the secondary place, and to give
+the benefit of his advice and guidance to the Legate. All appearance
+of his old ambition seemed indeed to have died out of him. He went
+simply in the train of Albornoz to Montefiascone,[9] which had long
+been the headquarters of the Papal representative, and from whence the
+Legate conducted a campaign against the towns of the "Patrimony," each
+of whom, like the mother city, occasionally secured a gleam of
+uncertain independence, or else--which was oftener the case--fell into
+the clutches of some one of the band of nobles who had so long held
+Rome in fee. It is very likely that Rienzi had no ambitious motive,
+nor thought of a new revolution when he set out. He took part like the
+rest of the Cardinal's following in several of the expeditions,
+especially against his old enemy Giovanni di Vico, still as masterful
+and as dangerous as ever, but attempted nothing more.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[9] An amusing story used to be told in Rome concerning this place,
+which no doubt sprang from the legend of that old ecclesiastical
+inhabitation. It was that a bishop, travelling across the country (it
+is always a bishop who is the _bon vivant_ of Italian story), sent a
+messenger before him with instructions to write on the wall of every
+town his opinion of the wine of the place, that his master might judge
+whether he should alight there or not. If it was good _Est_ was to be
+the word. When the courier came to Montefiascone he was so delighted
+with the vintage there that he emblazoned the gate with a triple
+legend of _Est_, _Est_, _Est_. The bishop arrived, alighted; and never
+left Montefiascone more. The wine in its native flasks is still
+distinguished by this inscription.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE BORGHESE GARDENS.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.
+
+
+The short episode which here follows introduces an entirely new
+element into Rienzi's life. His nature was not that of a conspirator
+in the ordinary sense of the word; and though he had schemed and
+struggled much to return to Rome, it had lately been under the shield
+of Pope or Emperor, and never with any evident purpose of
+self-aggrandisement. But the wars which were continually raging in
+Italy, and in which every man's hand was against his neighbour's, had
+raised up a new agent in the much contested field, by whose aid, more
+than by that of either Pope or Emperor, principalities rose and fell,
+and great fortunes were made and lost. This was the singular
+institution of the Soldier of Fortune, the Free Lance, whose bands,
+without country, without object except pay and some vulgar version of
+fame, without creed or nationality or scruples of any kind, roamed
+over Europe, ready to adopt any cause or throw their weight on any
+side, and furnishing the very material that was necessary to carry on
+those perpetual struggles, which kept Italy in particular, and most
+other countries more or less, in constant commotion. These men took
+service with the utmost impartiality on whatever side was likely to
+give them the highest pay, or the best opportunity of acquiring
+wealth--their leaders occasionally possessing themselves of the
+lordship of a rich territory, the inferior captains falling into
+lesser fiefs and windfalls of all kinds, the merest man-at-arms apt to
+enrich himself, either by the terror he inspired, or the protection he
+could give. It was their existence indeed, it may almost be said, that
+made these endless wars, which were so generally without motive,
+demonstrations of vanity of one city against another, or attempts on
+the part of one to destroy the liberties and trade of another, which,
+had they been carried on by the citizens themselves, must have in the
+long run brought all human affairs to a deadlock, and become
+impossible: but which, when carried on through the agency of the
+mercenaries, were little more than an exciting game, more exciting
+than any _Kriegsspiel_ that has been invented since. The men were
+themselves moving castles, almost impregnable, more apt to be
+suffocated in their armour than killed in honest fight, and as a
+matter of fact their campaigns were singularly bloodless; but they
+were like the locusts, the scourge of the country, leaving nothing but
+destruction and rapine behind them wherever they moved. The dreadful
+army known as La Grande Compagnia, of which Fra Moreale (the Chevalier
+de Monreal, but always bearing this name in Italy) was the head, was
+at this time pervading Italy--everywhere feared, everywhere sought,
+the cruel and terrible chief being at the same time a romantic and
+high born personage, a Knight Hospitaller, the equal of the great
+Seigneurs whom he served, and ready to be himself some time a great
+Seigneur too, the head of the first principality which he should be
+strong enough to lay hold of, as the Sforza had done of Milan. The
+services of such a man were of course a never-failing resource and
+temptation to every adventurer or pretender who could afford to
+procure the money to pay for them.
+
+There is no proof that Rienzi had any plan of securing the dominion of
+Rome by such means; indeed his practice, as will be seen, leads to the
+contrary conclusion; but the transaction to which he became a party
+while he was in Perugia--under the orders of Cardinal Albornoz--shows
+that he was, for the moment at least, attracted by the strange
+possibilities put within his reach: as it also demonstrates the
+strangely business-like character and trade aspect of an agency so
+warlike and romantic. At Perugia and other towns through which he
+passed, the Tribune was recognised and everywhere followed by the
+Romans, who were to be found throughout the Patrimony, and who had but
+one entreaty to make to him. The chronicler recovers all his wonted
+energy when he resumes his narrative, leaving with delight the dull
+conflicts of the Roman nobles among themselves, and with the Legate
+vainly attempting to pacify and negotiate between them--for the living
+figure of the returned leader, and the eager populace who hailed him
+again, as their deliverer, as if it had been others and not themselves
+who had driven him away! Even in Montefiascone our biographer tells,
+there was such recourse of Romans to him that it was _stupore_,
+stupefying, to see them.
+
+      "Every Roman turned to him, and multitudes visited him. A
+      great tail of the populace followed him wherever he went.
+      Everybody marvelled, including the Legate, to see how he
+      was followed. After the destruction of Viterbo, when the
+      army returned, many Romans who were in it, some of them
+      important men, came to Rienzi. They said, 'Return to thy
+      Rome, cure her of her sickness. Be her lord. We will give
+      thee help, favour, and strength. Be in no doubt. Never were
+      you so much desired or so much loved as at present.' These
+      flatteries the Romans gave him, but they did not give him a
+      penny of money: their words however moved Cola di Rienzi,
+      and also the glory of it, for which he always thirsted by
+      nature, and he began to think what he could do to make a
+      foundation, and where he would find people and money to go
+      to Rome. He talked of it with the Legate, but neither did
+      he supply him with any money. It had been settled that the
+      people of Perugia should make a provision for him, giving
+      him enough to live upon honourably; but that was not
+      sufficient for raising an army. And for this reason he went
+      to Perugia and met the Counsellors there. He spoke well and
+      promised better, and the Counsellors were very eager to
+      hear the sweetness of his words, to which they lent an
+      attentive ear. These they licked up like honey. But they
+      were responsible for the goods of the commune, and not one
+      penny (Cortonese) could he obtain from them.
+
+      "At this time there were in Perugia two young gentlemen of
+      Provence, Messer Arimbaldo, doctor of laws, and Messer
+      Bettrom, the knight of Narba (Narbonne), in Provence,
+      brothers; who were also the brothers of the famous Fra
+      Moreale, who was at the head of La Grande Compagnia.... He
+      had acquired much wealth by robbery and booty, and
+      compelled the Commune of Perugia to provide for his
+      brothers who were there. When Cola di Rienzi heard that
+      Messer Arimbaldo of Narba, a young man who loved letters,
+      was in Perugia, he invited him to visit him, and would have
+      him dine at his hostel where he was. While they were at
+      table Cola di Rienzi began to talk of the greatness of the
+      Romans. He mingled stories of Titus Livius with things from
+      the Bible. He opened the fountain of his knowledge. Deh!
+      how he talked--all his strength he put into his reasoning;
+      and so much to the point did he speak that every man was
+      overwhelmed by such wonderful conversation; every one rose
+      to his feet, put his hand to his ear, and listened in
+      silence. Messer Arimbaldo was astonished by these fine
+      speeches. He admired the greatness of the Romans. The
+      warmth of the wine raised his spirit to the heights. The
+      fantastic understand the fantastic. Messer Arimbaldo could
+      not endure to be absent from Cola di Rienzi. He lived with
+      him, he walked with him; one meal they shared, and slept in
+      one bed. He dreamt of doing great things, of raising up
+      Rome, of restoring its ancient state. To do this money was
+      wanted--three thousand florins at least. He pledged himself
+      to procure the three thousand florins, and it was promised
+      to him that he should be made a citizen of Rome and
+      captain, and be much honoured, all which was arranged to
+      the great despite of his brother Messer Bettrom. Therefore,
+      Arimbaldo took from the merchants of Perugia four thousand
+      florins, to give them to Cola di Rienzi. But before Messer
+      Arimbaldo could give this money to Cola, he had to ask
+      leave of his elder brother, Fra Moreale, which he did,
+      sending him a letter in these words: 'Honoured brother,--I
+      have gained in one day more than you have done in all your
+      life. I have acquired the lordship of Rome, which is
+      promised to me by Messer Cola di Rienzi, Knight, Tribune,
+      who is much visited by the Romans and called by the
+      people. I believe that such a plan cannot fail. With the
+      help of your genius nothing could injure such a great
+      State; but money is wanted to begin with. If it pleases
+      your brotherly kindness, I am taking four thousand florins
+      from the bank, and with a strong armament am setting out
+      for Rome.' Fra Moreale read this letter and replied to it
+      as follows:
+
+      "'I have thought much of this work which you intend to do.
+      A great and weighty burden is this which you take upon you.
+      I do not understand your intention; my mind does not go
+      with it, my reason is against it. Nevertheless go on, and
+      do it well. In the first place, take great care that the
+      four thousand florins are not lost. If anything evil happen
+      to you, write to me. I will come to your help with a
+      thousand or two thousand men, and do the thing
+      magnificently. Therefore do not fear. See that you and your
+      brother love each other, honour each other, and make no
+      quarrel between you.'
+
+      "Messer Arimbaldo received this letter with much joy, and
+      arranged with the Tribune to set out for Rome."
+
+Fra Moreale was a good brother and a far-seeing chief. He saw that the
+Signoria of Rome, if it could be attained, would be a good investment
+for his four thousand florins, and probably that Cola di Rienzi was an
+instrument which could easily be thrown away when it had fulfilled its
+end, so that it was worth while letting young Arimbaldo have his way.
+No prevision of the tragedy that was to come, troubled the spirit of
+the great brigand. He would no doubt have laughed at the suggestion,
+that his young brother's eloquent demagogue, the bel dicitore, a
+character always disdained of fighting men, could do him, with all his
+martial followers behind him, and his money in the bank, any harm.
+
+The first thing that Rienzi did we are told, was to clothe himself
+gloriously in scarlet, furred with minever and embroidered with gold,
+in which garb he appeared before the Legate who had heretofore known
+him only in a sober suit of ordinary cloth--accompanied by the two
+brothers of Moreale and a train of attendants. There had been a report
+of more disorder than usual in Rome, a condition of things with which
+a recently appointed Senator, appointed as a stranger to keep the
+factions in order, was quite unable to cope: and there was therefore a
+certain reason in the request, when the Tribune in all his new
+finery, came into the presence of the Legate, although he asked no
+less than to be made Senator, undertaking, at the same time, to secure
+the peace of the turbulent city. The biographer gives a vivid picture
+of Rienzi in his sudden revival. "Splendidly he displayed himself with
+his scarlet hood on his shoulders, and scarlet mantle adorned with
+various furs. He moved his head back and forward, raising himself on
+his toes, as who would say 'Who am I?--I, who may I be?'" The Legate
+as usual was "stupefied" by this splendid apparition, but gave serious
+ear to his request, no doubt knowing the reality of his pretensions so
+far as the Roman people were concerned. He finally agreed to do what
+was required of him, no doubt like Fra Moreale, confident that the
+instrument, especially being so vain and slight a man as this, could
+easily be got rid of when he had served his turn.
+
+Accordingly, with all the strength he could muster--a troop of 250
+free lances, Germans and Burgundians, the same number of infantry from
+Tuscany, with fifty young men of good families in Perugia--a very
+tolerable army for the time--and the two young Provençals, along with
+other youths to whom he had promised various offices, the new Senator
+set out for Rome. He was now a legal official, with all the strength
+of the Pope and constituted authority behind him; not a penny of money
+it is true from the Legate, and only those four thousand florins in
+his treasury: but with all the taxes and offerings in Rome in front of
+him, and the highest promise of success. It was a very different
+beginning from that of seven years ago, when young, penniless,
+disinterested, with no grandeur to keep up, and no soldiers to pay, he
+had been borne by the shouting populace to the Capitol to an unlimited
+and impossible empire. He was now a sober man, experienced in the
+world, forty, and trained by the intercourse of courts, in other ways
+than those of his youth. He had now been taught how to scheme and
+plot, to cajole and flatter, to play one party against another, and
+change his plans to suit his circumstances. So far as we know, he had
+no motive that could be called bad, except that of achieving the
+splendour he loved, and surrounding himself with the paraphernalia of
+greatness. The devil surely never before used so small a bribe to
+corrupt a nature full of so many fine things. He meant to establish
+the Buono Stato, probably as sincerely as of old. He had learned that
+he could not put forth the same unlimited pretensions. The making of
+emperors and sway of the world had to be resigned; but there is no
+evidence that he did not mean to carry out in his new reign the high
+designs for his city, and for the peace and prosperity of the
+surrounding country, which he had so triumphantly succeeded in doing
+for that one happy and triumphant moment in his youth.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE END OF THE TRAGEDY.
+
+
+It was in the beginning of August 1354 that Rienzi returned to Rome.
+Great preparations had been made for his reception. The municipal
+guards, with all the cavalry that were in Rome, went out as far as
+Monte Mario to meet him, with branches of olive in their hands, "in
+sign of victory and peace. The people were as joyful as if he had been
+Scipio Africanus," our biographer says. He came in by the gate of the
+Castello, near St. Angelo, and went thence direct to the centre of the
+city, through streets adorned with triumphal arches, hung with
+tapestry, resounding with acclamations.
+
+      "Great was the delight and fervour of the people. With all
+      these honours they led him to the Palazzo of the Capitol.
+      There he made them a beautiful and eloquent speech, in
+      which he said that for seven years he had been absent from
+      his house, like Nebuchadnezzar; but by the power of God he
+      had returned to his seat and was Senator by the appointment
+      of the Pope. He added that he meant to rectify everything
+      and raise up the condition of Rome. The rejoicing of the
+      Romans was as great as was that of the Jews when Jesus
+      Christ entered Jerusalem riding upon an ass. They all
+      honoured him, hanging out draperies and olive branches, and
+      singing 'Blessed is he that cometh.' When all was over they
+      returned to their homes and left him alone with his
+      followers in the Piazza. No one offered him so much as a
+      poor repast. The following day Cola di Rienzi received
+      several ambassadors from the surrounding country. Deh! how
+      well he answered. He gave replies and promises on every
+      side. The barons remained on the watch, taking no part. The
+      tumult of the triumph was great. Never had there been so
+      much pomp. The infantry lined the streets. It seemed as if
+      he meant to govern in the way of the tyrants. Most of the
+      goods he had forfeited were restored to him. He sent out
+      letters to all the States to declare his happy return, and
+      he desired that every one should prepare for the Buono
+      Stato. This man was greatly changed from his former ways.
+      It had been his habit to be sober, temperate, abstinent.
+      Now he became an excessive drinker, and consumed much wine.
+      And he became large and gross in his person. He had a
+      paunch like a tun, triumphal, like an Abbate Asinico. He
+      was full of flesh, red, with a long beard. His countenance
+      was changed, his eyes were as if they were
+      inflamed--sometimes they were red as blood."
+
+This uncompromising picture of a man whom adversity had not improved
+but deteriorated, is very broad and coarse with those personalities
+which the mob loves. Yet his biographer does not seem to have been
+hostile to Rienzi. He goes on to describe how the new senator on the
+fourth day after his arrival sent a summons to all the barons to
+present themselves before him, and among others he summoned Stefanello
+Colonna who had been a child at the time of the dreadful rout of San
+Lorenzo, but was now head of the house, his noble old heart-broken
+grandfather being by this time happily dead. It was scarcely likely
+that the third Stefano should receive that summons in friendship. He
+seized the two messengers and threw them into prison, then after a
+time had the teeth of one drawn, an insulting infliction, and
+despatched the other to Rome to demand a ransom for them: following
+this up by a great raid upon the surrounding country, in which his
+lightly armed and flying forces "lifted" the cattle of the Romans as
+might have been done by the emissaries of a Highland chief. Rienzi
+seems to have rushed to arms, collecting a great miscellaneous
+gathering, "some armed, some without arms, according as time
+permitted" to recover the cattle. But they were misled by an artifice
+of the most transparent description, and stumbled on as far as Tivoli
+without finding any opponent. Here he was stopped by the mercenaries
+clamouring for their pay, which he adroitly obtained from the two
+young commanders, Arimbaldo and Bettrom, by representing to them that
+when such a difficulty arose in classical times it was met by the
+chief citizens who immediately subscribed what was necessary. The
+apparently simple-minded young men (Bettrom or Bertram having
+apparently got over his ill-temper) gave him 500 florins each, and so
+the trouble was got over for the moment, and the march towards
+Palestrina was resumed. But the expedition was quite futile, neither
+Rienzi nor the young men whom he had placed at the head of affairs
+knowing much about the science of war. There were dissensions in the
+camp, the men of Velletri having a feud with those of Tivoli; and the
+picture which the biographer affords us of the leaders looking on,
+seeing a train of cattle and provision waggons entering the town which
+they were by way of besieging, and inquiring innocently what it was,
+gives the most vivid impression of the ignorance and helplessness
+which reigned in the attacking party: while Stefanello Colonna, to the
+manner born, surrounded by old warriors and fighting for his life,
+defended his old towers with skill as well as desperation.
+
+While the Romans thus lost their chances of victory and occupied
+themselves with that destruction of the surrounding country, which was
+the first word of warfare in those days--the peasants and the
+villages always suffering, whoever might escape--there was news
+brought to Rienzi's camp of the arrival in Rome of the terrible Fra
+Moreale himself, who had arrived in all confidence, with but a small
+party in his train, in the city for which his brothers were fighting
+and in which his money formed the only treasury of war. He was a bold
+man and used to danger; but it did not seem that any idea of danger
+had occurred to him. There had been whispers among the mercenaries
+that the great Captain entertained no amiable feelings towards the
+Senator who had beguiled his young brothers into this dubious warfare:
+and this report would seem to have come to Rienzi's ears: but that Fra
+Moreale stood in any danger from Rienzi does not seem to have occurred
+to any spectator.
+
+One pauses here with a wondering inquiry what were his motives at this
+crisis of his life. Were they simply those of the ordinary and vulgar
+villain, "Let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours"?--was he
+terrified by the prospect of the inquiries which the experienced man
+of war would certainly make as to the manner in which his brothers had
+been treated by the leader who had attained such absolute power over
+them? or is it possible that the patriotism, the enthusiasm for Italy,
+the high regard for the common weal which had once existed in the
+bosom of Cola di Rienzi flashed up now in his mind, in one last and
+tremendous flame of righteous wrath? No one perhaps so dangerous to
+the permanent freedom and well-being of Italy existed as this
+Provençal with his great army, which held allegiance to no leader but
+himself--without country, without creed or scruple--which he led about
+at his pleasure, flinging it now into one, now into the other scale.
+The Grande Compagnia was the terror of the whole Continent. Except
+that it was certain to bring disaster wherever it went, its movements
+were never to be calculated upon. Whatever fluctuations there might
+be in state or city, this roving army was always on the side of evil;
+it lived by fighting and disaster alone; and to drive it out of the
+country, out of the world if possible, would have been the most true
+and noble act of deliverance which could have been accomplished. Was
+this the purpose that flashed into Rienzi's eyes when he heard that
+the head of this terror, the great brigand chief and captain, had
+trusted himself within the walls of Rome? With the philosophy of
+compromise which rules among us, and which forbids us to allow an
+uncomplicated motive in any man, we dare hardly say or even surmise
+that this was so; but we may allow some room for the mingled motives
+which are the pet theory of our age, and yet believe that something
+perhaps of this nobler impulse was in the mind of the Roman Senator,
+who, notwithstanding his decadence and his downfall, was still the
+same man who by sheer enthusiasm and generous wrath, without a blow
+struck, had once driven its petty tyrants out of the city. Whatever
+may be the judgment of the reader in this respect, it is clear that
+Rienzi dropped the siege of Palestrina when he heard of Fra Moreale's
+arrival, as a dog drops a bone or an infant his toys, and hastened to
+Rome; while his army melted away as was usual in such wars, each band
+to its own country. Eight days had been passed before Palestrina, and
+the country round was completely devastated: but no effectual
+advantage had been gained when this sudden change of purpose took
+place.
+
+As soon as Rienzi arrived in Rome he caused Fra Moreale to be
+arrested, and placed him with his brothers in the prison of the
+Capitol, to the great astonishment of all; but especially to the
+surprise of the great Captain, who thought it at first a mere
+expedient for extorting money, and comforted by this explanation the
+unfortunate brothers for whose sake he had placed himself in the
+snare. "Do not trouble yourselves," he said, "let me manage this
+affair. He shall have ten thousand, twenty thousand florins, money and
+people as much as he pleases." Then answered the brothers, "Deh! do
+so, in the name of God." They perhaps knew their Rienzi by this time,
+young as they were, and foolish as they had been, better than their
+elder and superior. And no doubt Rienzi might have made excellent
+terms for himself, perhaps even for Rome; but he does not seem to have
+entertained such an idea for a moment. When the Tribune set his foot
+within the gates of the city the Condottiere's fate was sealed. The
+biographer gives us a most curious picture of the agitation and
+surprise of this man in face of his fate. When he was brought to the
+torture (_menato a lo tormento_) he cried out in a consternation which
+is wild with foregone conclusions. "I told you what your rustic
+villain was," he exclaimed, as if still carrying on that discussion
+with the foolish young brothers. "He is going to put me to the
+torment! Does he not know that I am a knight? Was there ever such a
+clown?" Thus storming, astonished, incredulous of such a possibility,
+yet eager to say that he had foreseen it, the dismayed Captain was
+_alzato_, pulled up presumably by his hands as was one manner of
+torture, all the time murmuring and crying in his beard, half-mad and
+incoherent in the unexpected catastrophe. "I am Captain of the Great
+Company," he cried; "and being a knight I ought to be honoured. I have
+put the cities of Tuscany to ransom. I have laid taxes on them. I have
+overthrown principalities and taken the people captive." While he
+babbled thus in his first agony of astonishment the shadow of death
+closed upon Moreale, and the character of his utterances changed. He
+began to perceive that it was all real, and that Rienzi had now gone
+too far to be won by money or promises. When he was taken back to the
+prison which his brothers shared he told them with more dignity, that
+he knew he was about to die. "Gentle brothers, be not afraid," he
+said. "You are young; you have not felt misfortune. You shall not
+die, but I shall die. My life has always been full of trouble." (He
+was a man of sentiment, and a poet in his way, as well as a soldier of
+fortune.) "It was a trouble to me to live, of death I have no fear. I
+am glad to die where died the blessed St. Peter and St. Paul. This
+misadventure is thy fault, Arimbaldo; it is you who have led me into
+this labyrinth; but do not blame yourself or mourn for me, for I die
+willingly. I am a man: I have been betrayed like other men. By heaven,
+I was deceived! But God will have mercy upon me, I have no doubt,
+because I came here with a good intention." These piteous words, full
+to the last of astonishment, form a sort of soliloquy which runs on,
+broken, to the very foot of the Lion upon the great stairs, where he
+was led to die, amid the stormy ringing of the great bell and rushing
+of the people, half exultant and half terrified, who came from all
+quarters to see this great and terrible act of that justice to which
+the city in her first fervour had pledged herself. "Oh, Romans, are ye
+consenting to my death?" he cried. "I never did you harm; but because
+of your poverty and my wealth I must die." The chronicler goes on
+reporting the last words with fascination, as if he could not refrain.
+There is a wildness in them, of wonder and amazement, to the last
+moment. "I am not well placed," he murmured, _non sto bene_, evidently
+meaning, I am not properly placed for the blow: as he seems to have
+changed his position several times, kneeling down and rising again. He
+then kissed the knife and said, "God save thee, holy justice," and
+making another round knelt down again. The narrative is full of life
+and pity; the great soldier all bewildered, his brain failing,
+overwhelmed with dolorous surprise, seeking the right spot to die in.
+"This excellent man (_honestis probisque viris_, in the Latin
+version), Fra Moreale, whose fame is in all Italy for strength and
+glory, was buried in the Church of the Ara Coeli," says our
+chronicler. His execution took place on the spot where the Lion still
+stands on the left hand of the great stairs. There Fra Moreale
+wandered in his distraction to find a comfortable place for the last
+blow. The association is grim enough, and others yet more appalling
+were soon to gather there.
+
+This perhaps was the only step of his life in which Rienzi had the
+approbation of all. The Pope displayed his approval in the most
+practical way by confiscating all Fra Moreale's wealth, of which
+60,000 gold florins were distributed among those who had suffered by
+him. The funds which he had in various cities were also seized, though
+we are told that of those in Rome Rienzi had but a small part, a
+certain notary having managed, by what means we are not told, to
+secure the larger sum. By the interposition of the Legate, the foolish
+Arimbaldo, whom Rienzi's fair words had so bitterly deceived, was
+discharged from his prison and permitted to leave Rome, but the
+younger brother Bettrom, or Bertram, who, so far as we see, was never
+a partisan of Rienzi, was left behind; and though his presence is
+noted at another tragic moment, we do not hear what became of him
+eventually. With the money he received Rienzi made haste to pay his
+soldiers and to renew the war. He was so fortunate as to secure the
+services of a noble and valiant captain, of whom the free lances
+declared that they had never served under so brave a man: and whose
+name is recorded as Riccardo Imprennante degli Annibaldi--Richard the
+enterprising, perhaps--and the war was pursued with vigour under him.
+Within Rome things did not go quite so well. Rienzi had to explain his
+conduct in respect to Fra Moreale to his own councillors. "Sirs," he
+said, "do not be disturbed by the death of this man; he was the worst
+man in the world. He has robbed churches and towns; he has murdered
+both men and women; two thousand depraved women followed him about. He
+came to disturb our state, not to help it, meaning to make himself the
+lord of it. And this is why we have condemned that false man. His
+money, his horses, and his arms we shall take for our soldiers." We
+scarcely see the eloquence for which Rienzi was famed in these
+succinct and staccato sentences in which his biographer reports him;
+but this was our chronicler's own style, and they are at least
+vigorous and to the point.
+
+"By these words the Romans were partly quieted," we are told, and the
+course of the history went on. The siege of Palestrina went well, and
+garrisons were placed in several of the surrounding towns, while
+Rienzi held the control of everything in his hands. Some of his troops
+withdrew from his service, probably because of Fra Moreale; but others
+came--archers in great numbers, and three hundred horsemen.
+
+      "He maintained his place at the Capitol in order to provide
+      for everything. Many were the cares. He had to procure
+      money to pay the soldiers. He restricted himself in every
+      expense; every penny was for the army. Such a man was never
+      seen; alone he bore the cares of all the Romans. He stood
+      in the Capitol arranging that which the leaders in their
+      places afterwards carried out. He gave the orders and
+      settled everything, and it was done--the closing of the
+      roads, the times of attack, the taking of men and spies. It
+      was never ending. His officers were neither slow nor cold,
+      but no one did much except the hero Riccardo, who night and
+      day weakened the Colonnese. Stefanello and his Colonnas,
+      and Palestrina consumed away. The war was coming to a good
+      end."
+
+To do all this, however, the money of Moreale was not enough. Rienzi
+had to impose a tax upon wine, and to raise that upon salt, which the
+citizens resented. Everything was for the soldiers. His own expenses
+were much restricted, and he seemed to expect that the citizens would
+follow his example. One of them, a certain Pandolfuccio di Guido,
+Rienzi seized and beheaded without any apparent reason. He was said to
+have desired to make himself lord over the people, the chronicler
+says. This arbitrary step seems to have caused great alarm. "The
+Romans were like sheep, and they were afraid of the Tribune as of a
+demon."
+
+  [Illustration: ANCIENT, MEDIÆVAL, AND MODERN ROME.
+    _To face page_ 502.]
+
+By this time Rienzi once more began to show signs of that confusion of
+mind which we call losing the head--a confusion of irritation and
+changeableness, the resolution of to-day giving place to another
+to-morrow--and the giddiness of approaching downfall seized upon every
+faculty. As had happened on the former occasion, this dizziness of
+doom caught him when all was going well. He displaced his Captain, who
+was carrying on the siege of Palestrina with so much vigour and
+success, for no apparent reason, and appointed other leaders whose
+names even the biographer does not think it worth while to give. The
+National Guard--if we may so call them--fifty for each Rione--who were
+the sole guardians of Rome, were kept without pay, while every penny
+that could be squeezed from the people was sent to the army. These
+things raised each a new enemy to the Tribune, the Senator, once so
+beloved, who now for the second time, and more completely than before,
+had proved himself incapable of the task which he had taken upon him.
+It was on the 1st of August, 1354, that he had entered Rome with a
+rejoicing escort of all its cavalry and principal inhabitants--with
+waving flags and olive branches, and a throng that filled all the
+streets, the Popolo itself shouting and acclaiming--and had been led
+to the Piazza of the Ara Coeli, at the foot of the great stairs of
+the Capitol. On the last day of that month, a sinister and tragic
+assembly, gathered together by the sound of the great bell, thronged
+once more to the foot of these stairs, to see the great soldier, the
+robber knight, the terror of Italy, executed. And it was still only
+September, the _Vita_ says--though other accounts throw the
+catastrophe a month later--when the last day of Rienzi himself came.
+We know nothing of the immediate causes of the rising, nor who were
+its leaders. But Rome was in so parlous a state, seething with so many
+volcanic elements, that it must have been impossible to predict from
+morning to morning what might happen. What did happen looks like a
+sudden outburst, spontaneous and unpremeditated; but no doubt, from
+various circumstances which followed, the Colonna had a hand in it,
+who ever since the day of San Lorenzo had been Cola's bitterest
+enemies. This is how his biographer tells the tale:
+
+      "It was the month of September, the eighth day. In the
+      morning Cola di Rienzi lay in his bed, having washed his
+      face with Greek wine (no doubt a reference to his supposed
+      habits). Suddenly voices were heard shouting _Viva lo
+      Popolo! Viva lo Popolo!_ At this sound the people in the
+      streets began to run here and there. The sound increased,
+      the crowd grew. At the cross in the market they were joined
+      by armed men who came from St. Angelo and the Ripa, and
+      from the Colonna quarter and the Trevi. As they joined,
+      their cry was changed into this, Death to the traitor, Cola
+      di Rienzi, death! Among them appeared the youths who had
+      been put in his lists for the conscription. They rushed
+      towards the palace of the Capitol with an innumerable
+      throng of men, women and children, throwing stones, making
+      a great clamour, encircling the palace on every side before
+      and behind, and shouting, 'Death to the traitor who has
+      inflicted the taxes! Death to him!' Terrible was the fury
+      of them. The Tribune made no defence against them. He did
+      not sound the tocsin. He said to himself, 'They cry _Viva
+      lo Popolo_, and so do we. We are here to exalt the people.
+      I have written to my soldiers. My letter of confirmation
+      has come from the Pope. All that is wanted is to publish it
+      in the Council.' But when he saw at the last that the thing
+      was turning badly he began to be alarmed, especially as he
+      perceived that he was abandoned by every living soul of
+      those who usually occupied the Capitol. Judges, notaries,
+      guards--all had fled to save their own skin. Only three
+      persons remained with him--one of whom was Locciolo
+      Pelliciaro, his kinsman."
+
+This was the terrible awaking of the doomed man--without preparation,
+without the sound of a bell, or any of the usual warnings, roused from
+his day-dream of idle thoughts, his Greek wine, the indulgences to
+which he had accustomed himself, in his vain self-confidence. He had
+no home on the heights of that Capitol to which he had returned with
+such triumph. If his son Lorenzo was dead or living we do not hear.
+His wife had entered one of the convents of the Poor Clares, when he
+was wandering in the Apennines, and was far from him. There is not a
+word of any one who loved him, unless it might chance to be the poor
+relation who stood by him, Locciolo, the furrier, perhaps kept about
+him to look after his robes of minever, the royal fur. The cry that
+now surged round the ill-secured and half-ruinous palace would seem to
+have been indistinguishable to him, even when the hoarse roar came so
+near, like the dashing of a horrible wave round the walls: _Viva lo
+Popolo!_ that was one thing. With his _belle parole_ he could have
+easily turned that to his advantage, shouting it too. What else was he
+there for but to glorify the people? But the terrible thunder of sound
+took another tone, a longer cry, requiring a deeper breath--_Death to
+the traitor_:--these are not words a man can long mistake. Something
+had to be done--he knew not what. In that equality of misery which
+makes a man acquainted with such strange bedfellows, the Senator
+turned to the three humble retainers who trembled round him, and asked
+their advice. "By my faith, the thing cannot go like this," he said.
+It would appear that some one advised him to face the crowd: for he
+dressed himself in his costume as a knight, took the banner of the
+people in his hand, and went out upon the balcony:
+
+      "He extended his hand, making a sign that all were to be
+      silent, and that he was about to speak. Without doubt if
+      they had listened to him he would have broken their will
+      and changed their opinion. But the Romans would not listen;
+      they were as swine; they threw stones and aimed arrows at
+      him, and some ran with fire to set light to the door. So
+      many were the arrows shot at him that he could not remain
+      on the balcony. Then he took the Gonfalone and spread out
+      the standard, and with both his hands pointed to the
+      letters of gold, the arms of the citizens of Rome--almost
+      as if he said 'You will not let me speak; but I am a
+      citizen and a man of the people like you. I love you; and
+      if you kill me, you will kill yourselves who are Romans.'
+      But he could not continue in this position, for the people,
+      without intellect, grew worse and worse. 'Death to the
+      traitor,' they cried."
+
+A great confusion was in the mind of the unfortunate Tribune. He could
+no longer keep his place in the balcony, and the rioters had set fire
+to the great door below, which began to burn. If he escaped into the
+room above, it was the prison of Bertram of Narbonne, the brother of
+Moreale, who would have killed him. In this dreadful strait Rienzi
+had himself let down by sheets knotted together into the court behind,
+encircled by the walls of the prison. Even here treachery pursued him,
+for Locciolo, his kinsman, ran out to the balcony, and with signs and
+cries informed the crowd that he had gone away behind, and was
+escaping by the other side. He it was, says the chronicler, who killed
+Rienzi; for he first aided him in his descent and then betrayed him.
+For one desperate moment of indecision the fallen Tribune held a last
+discussion with himself in the court of the prison. Should he still go
+forth in his knight's dress, armed and with his sword in his hand, and
+die there with dignity, "like a magnificent person," in the sight of
+all men? But life was still sweet. He threw off his surcoat, cut his
+beard and begrimed his face--then going into the porter's lodge, he
+found a peasant's coat which he put on, and seizing a covering from
+the bed, threw it over him, as if the pillage of the Palazzo had
+begun, and sallied forth. He struggled through the burning as best he
+could, and came through it untouched by the fire, speaking like a
+countryman, and crying "Up! Up! _a glui, traditore!_ As he passed the
+last door one of the crowd accosted him roughly, and pushed back the
+article on his head, which would seem to have been a _duvet_, or heavy
+quilt: upon which the splendour of the bracelet he wore on his wrist
+became visible, and he was recognised. He was immediately seized, not
+with any violence at first, and taken down the great stair to the foot
+of the Lion, where the sentences were usually read. When he reached
+that spot, "a silence was made" (_fo fatto uno silentio_). "No man,"
+says the chronicler, "showed any desire to touch him. He stood there
+for about an hour, his beard cut, his face black like a furnace-man,
+in a tunic of green silk, and yellow hose like a baron." In the
+silence, as he stood there, during that awful hour, he turned his head
+from side to side, "looking here and there." He does not seem to have
+made any attempt to speak, but bewildered in the collapse of his
+being, pitifully contemplated the horrible crowd, glaring at him, no
+man daring to strike the first blow. At last a follower of his own,
+one of the leaders of the mob, made a thrust with his sword--and
+immediately a dozen others followed. He died at the first stroke, his
+biographer tells us, and felt no pain. The whole dreadful scene passed
+in silence--"not a word was said," the piteous, eager head, looking
+here and there, fell, and all was over. And the roar of the dreadful
+crowd burst forth again.
+
+The still more horrible details that follow need not be here given.
+The unfortunate had grown fat in the luxury of these latter days.
+_Grasso era horriblimente. Bianco come latte ensanguinato_, says the
+chronicler: and again he places before us, as at San Lorenzo seven
+years before, the white figure lying on the pavement, the red of the
+blood. It was dragged along the streets to the Colonna quarter; it was
+hung up to a balcony; finally the headless body, after all these
+dishonours, was taken to an open place before the Mausoleum of
+Augustus, and burned by the Jews. Why the Jews took this share of the
+carnival of blood we are not told. It had never been said that Rienzi
+was hard upon them; but no doubt at a period so penniless they must
+have had their full share of the taxes and payments exacted from all.
+
+There is no moral even, to this tale, except the well-worn moral of
+the fickleness of the populace who acclaim a leader one moment, and
+kill him the next; but that is a commonplace and a worn-out one. If
+there were ever many men likely to sin in that way, it might be a
+lesson to the enthusiast thrusting an inexperienced hand into the web
+of fate, to confuse the threads with which the destiny of a country is
+wrought, without knowing either the pattern or the meaning of the
+weaving. He began with what we have every reason for believing to have
+been a noble and generous impulse to save his people. But his soul
+was not capable of that high emprise. He had the greatest and most
+immediate success ever given to a popular leader. The power to change,
+to mend, to make over again, to vindicate and to carry out his ideal
+was given him in the fullest measure. For a time it seemed that there
+was nothing in the world that Cola di Rienzi, the son of the
+wine-shop, the child of the people, might not do. But then he fell;
+the promise faded into dead ashes, the impulse which was inspiration
+breathed out and died away. Inspiration was all he had, neither
+knowledge nor the noble sense and understanding which might have been
+a substitute for it; and when the thin fire blazed up like the
+crackling of thorns under a pot, it blazed away again and left nothing
+behind. Had he perished at the end of his first reign, had he been
+slain at the foot of the Capitol, as Petrarch would have had him, his
+story would have been a perfect tragedy, and we might have been
+permitted to make a hero of the young patriot, standing alone, in an
+age to which patriotism was unknown. But the postscript of his second
+effort destroys the epic. It is all miserable self-seeking, all
+squalid, the story of any beggar on horseback, any vulgar adventurer.
+Yet the silent hour when he stood at the foot of the great stairs, the
+horrible mob silent before him, bridled by that mute and awful
+despair, incapable of striking the final blow, is one of the most
+intense moments of human tragedy. A large overgrown man, with
+blackened face and the rough remnants of a beard, half dressed,
+speechless, his head turning here and there--And yet no one dared to
+take that step, to thrust that eager sword, for nearly an hour.
+Perhaps it was only a minute, which would be less unaccountable,
+feeling like an hour to every looker on who was there and stood by.
+
+No one in all the course of modern Roman history has so illustrated
+the streets and ways of Rome and set its excited throngs in evidence,
+and made the great bell sound in our very ears, a _stuormo_, and
+disclosed the noise of the rabble and the rule of the nobles, and the
+finery of the gallants, with so real and tangible an effect. The
+episode is a short one. The two periods of Rienzi's power put together
+scarcely amount to eight months; but there are few chapters in that
+history which is always so turbulent, yet lacks so much the charm of
+personal story and adventure, so picturesque and complete.
+
+  [Illustration: LETTER WRITER.]
+
+
+
+
+      BOOK IV.
+
+      THE POPES WHO MADE THE CITY.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: PIAZZA DEL POPOLO.]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+THE POPES WHO MADE THE CITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+MARTIN V.--EUGENIUS IV.--NICOLAS V.
+
+
+It is strange to leave the history of Rome at the climax to which the
+ablest and strongest of its modern masters had brought it, when it was
+the home of the highest ambition, and the loftiest claims in the
+world, the acknowledged head of one of the two powers which divided
+that world between them, and claiming a supreme visionary authority
+over the other also; and to take up that story again (after such a
+romantic episode as we have just discussed) when its rulers had become
+but the first among the fighting principalities of Italy, men of a
+hundred ambitions, not one of which was spiritual, carrying on their
+visionary sway as heads of the Church as a matter of routine merely,
+but reserving all their real life and energy for the perpetual
+internecine warfare that had been going on for generations, and the
+security of their personal possessions. From Innocent III. to such a
+man as Eugenius IV., still and always fighting, mixed up with all the
+struggles of the Continent, hiring Condottieri, marshalling troops,
+with his whole soul in the warfare, so continuous, so petty, even so
+bloodless so far as the actual armies were concerned--which never for
+a moment ceased in Italy: is a change incalculable. Let us judge the
+great Gregory and the great Innocent as we may, their aim and the
+purpose of their lives were among the greatest that have ever been
+conceived by man, perhaps the highest ideal ever formed, though like
+all high ideals impossible, so long as men are as we know them, and
+those who choose them are as helpless in the matter of selecting and
+securing the best as their forefathers were. But to set up that
+tribunal on earth--that shadow and representation of the great White
+Throne hereafter to be established in the skies--in order to judge
+righteous judgment, to redress wrongs, to neutralise the sway of might
+over right--let it fail ever so completely, is at least a great
+conception, the noblest plan at which human hands can work. We have
+endeavoured to show how little it succeeded even in the strongest
+hands; but the failure was a greater thing than any lesser
+success--certainly a much greater thing than the desire to be first in
+that shouting crowd of Italian princedoms and commonwealths, to pit
+Piccinino and Carmagnola against each other, to set your honour on the
+stake of an ironbound band of troopers deploying upon a harmless
+field, in wars which would have been not much more important than
+tournaments; if it had not been for the ruin and murder and
+devastation of the helpless peasants and the smitten country on either
+side.
+
+But the pettier rôle was one of which men tired, as much as they did
+of that perpetual strain of the greater which required an amount of
+strength and concentration of mind not given to many, such as could
+not (and this was the great defect of the plan) be secured for a line
+of Popes any more than for any other line of men. The Popes who would
+have ruled the world failed, and gave up that forlorn hope; they were
+opposed by all the powers of earth, they were worn out by fictions of
+anti-Popes, and by real and continual personal sufferings for their
+ideal:--and they did not even secure at any time the sympathy of the
+world. But when among the vain line of Pontiffs who not for infamy and
+not for glory, but _per se_ lived, and flitted, a wavering file of
+figures meaning little, across the surface of the world--there arose a
+Pope here and there, forming into a short succession as the purpose
+grew, who took up consciously the aim of making Rome--not Rome
+Imperial nor yet Rome Papal, which were each a natural power on the
+earth and Head of nations, but Rome the City--the home of art, the
+shrine of letters, in another way and with a smaller meaning, yet
+still meaning something, the centre of the world--their work and
+position have always attracted a great deal of sympathy, and gained at
+once the admiration of all men. English literature has not done much
+justice to the greater Popes. Mr. Bowden's life of Gregory VII. is the
+only work of any importance specially devoted to that great ruler.
+Gregory the Great to whom England owes so much, and Innocent III., who
+was also, though in no very favourable way, mixed up in her affairs,
+have tempted no English historian to the labours of a biography. But
+Leo X. has had a very different fate: and even the Borgias, the worst
+of Papal houses, have a complete literature of their own. The
+difference is curious. It is perhaps by this survival of the
+unfittest, so general in literature, that English distrust and
+prejudice have been so crystallised, and that to the humbler reader
+the word Pope remains the synonym of a proud and despotic priest,
+sometimes Inquisitor and sometimes Indulger--often corrupt, luxurious,
+or tyrannical--a ruler whose government is inevitably weak yet cruel.
+The reason of this strange preference must be that the love of art is
+more general and strong than the love of history; or rather that a
+decorative and tangible external object, something to see and to
+admire, is more than all theories of government or morals. The period
+of the Renaissance is full of horror and impurity, perhaps the least
+desirable of all ages on which to dwell. But art has given it an
+importance to which it has no other right.
+
+Curious it is also to find that of all the cities of Italy, Rome has
+the least native right to be considered in the history of art. No
+great painter or sculptor, architect or even decorator, has arisen
+among the Roman people. Ancient Rome took her art from Greece. Modern
+Rome has sought hers over all Italy--from Florence, from the hills and
+valleys of Umbria, everywhere but in her own bosom. She has crowned
+poets, but, since the days of Virgil and Horace, neither of whom were
+Romans born, though more hers than any since, has produced none. All
+her glories have been imported. This of course is often the case with
+her Popes also. Pope Martin V., to whom may be given the first credit
+of the policy of rebuilding the city, was a native-born Roman; but
+Pope Eugenius IV., who took up its embellishment still more seriously,
+was a Venetian, bringing with him from the sea-margin the love of
+glowing colour and that "labour of an age in pilëd stones" which was
+so dear to those who built their palaces upon the waters. Nicolas was
+a Pisan, Pope Leo, who advanced the work so greatly, was a Florentine.
+But their common ambition was to make Rome a wonder and a glory that
+all men might flock to see. The tombs of the Apostles interested them
+less perhaps than most of their predecessors: but they were as
+strongly bent as any upon drawing pilgrims from the ends of the earth
+to see what art could do to make those tombs gorgeous: and built their
+own to be glories too, admired of all the world. These men have had a
+fuller reward than their great predecessors. Insomuch as the aim was
+smaller, it was more perfectly carried out; for though it is a great
+work to hang a dome like that of St. Peter's in the air, it is easier
+than to hold the hearts of kings in your hand, and decide the destiny
+of nations. The Popes who made the city have had better luck in every
+way than those who made the Papacy. Neither of them secured either the
+gratitude or even the consent of Rome herself to what was done for
+her. But nevertheless almost all that has kept up her fame in the
+world for, let us say, the last four hundred years, was their work.
+
+This period of the history of the great city began when Pope Martin V.
+concluded what has been called the schism of the West, and brought
+back the seat of the Papacy from Avignon, where it had been exiled, to
+Rome. We have seen something of the moral and economical state of the
+city during that interregnum. Its physical condition was yet more
+desolate and terrible. The city itself was little more than a heap of
+ruins. The little cluster of the inhabited town was as a nest of life
+in the centre of a vast ancient mass of building, all fallen into
+confusion and decay. No one cared for the old Forums, the palaces
+ravaged by many an invasion, burned and beaten down, and quarried out,
+by generations of men to whom the meaning and the memory of their
+founders was as nothing, and themselves only so many waste places, or
+so much available material for the uses of the vulgar day. Some one
+suggests that the early Church took pleasure in showing how entirely
+shattered was the ancient framework, and how little the ancient gods
+had been able to do for the preservation of their temples; and with
+that intention gave them over to desolation and the careless hands of
+the spoiler. We think that men are much more often swayed by immediate
+necessities than by any elaborate motive of this description. The
+ruins were exceedingly handy--every nation in its turn has found such
+ruins to be so. To get the material for your wall, without paying
+anything for it, already at your hand, hewn and prepared as nobody
+then working could do it--what a wonderful simplification of labour!
+Everybody took advantage of it, small and great. Then, when you wanted
+to build a strong tower or fortress to intimidate your neighbours,
+what an admirable foundation were those old buildings, founded as on
+the very kernel and central rock of the earth! For many centuries no
+one attempted to fill up those great gaps within the city walls, in
+which vines flourished and gardens grew, none the worse for the
+underlying stones that covered themselves thickly with weeds and
+flowers by Nature's lavish assistance. Buildings of various kinds,
+adapted to the necessities of the moment, grew up by nature in all
+kinds of places, a church sometimes placed in the very lap of an
+ancient temple. Indeed the churches were everywhere, some of them
+humble enough, many of great antique dignity and beauty, almost all
+preserving the form of the basilica, the place of meeting where
+everything was open and clear for the holding of assemblies and
+delivery of addresses, not dim and mysterious as for sacrifices of
+faith.
+
+  [Illustration: MODERN ROME: SHELLEY'S TOMB.
+    _To face page_ 518.]
+
+So entirely was this state of affairs accepted, that there is more
+talk of repairing than of building in the chronicles; at all times of
+the Church, each pious Pope undertook some work of the kind, mending a
+decaying chapel or building up a broken wall; but we hear of few
+buildings of any importance, even when the era of the builders first
+began. Works of reparation must have been necessary to some extent
+after every burning or fight. Probably the scuffles in the streets did
+little harm, but when such a terrible inundation took place as that of
+the Normans, and still worse the Saracens, who followed Robert
+Guiscard in the time of Gregory VII., it must have been the work of a
+generation to patch up the remnants of the place so as to make it in
+the rudest way habitable again. It was no doubt in one of these great
+emergencies that the ancient palaces, most durable of all buildings,
+were seized by the people, and converted each into a species of
+rabbit-warren, foul and swarming. It does not appear however that any
+plan of restoring the city to its original grandeur, or indeed to any
+satisfactory reconstruction at all, was thought of for centuries. In
+the extreme commotion of affairs, and the long struggle of the Popes
+with the Emperors, there was neither leisure nor means for any great
+scheme of this kind, nor much thought of the material framework of the
+city, while every mind was bent upon establishing its moral position
+and lofty standing ground among the nations. As much as was
+indispensable would be done: but in these days the requirements of the
+people in respect to their lodging were few: as indeed they still are
+to an extraordinary extent in Italy, where life is so much carried on
+out of doors.
+
+It is evident, however, that Rome the city had never yet become the
+object of any man's life or ambition, or that a thought of anything
+beyond what was needful for actual use, for shelter or defence, had
+entered into the thoughts of its masters when the Papal Court returned
+from Avignon. The churches alone were cared for now and then, and
+decorated whenever possible with rich hangings, with marbles and
+ancient columns generally taken from classical buildings, sometimes
+even from churches of an older date; but even so late as the time of
+Petrarch so important a building as St. John Lateran, the Papal church
+_par excellence_, lay roofless and half ruined, in such a state that
+it was impossible to say mass in it. The poet describes Rome itself,
+when, after a long walk amid all the relics of the classical ages, his
+friend and he sat down to rest upon the ruined arches of the Baths of
+Diocletian, and gazed upon the city at their feet--"the spectacle of
+these grand ruins." "If she once began to recognise of herself the low
+estate in which she lies, Rome would make her own resurrection," he
+says with a confidence but poorly merited by the factious and restless
+city. But Rome, torn asunder by the feuds of Colonna and Orsini,
+seizing every occasion to do battle with her Pope, only faithful to
+him in his absence, of which she complained to heaven and earth--was
+little likely to exert herself to any such end.
+
+This was the unfortunate plight in which Rome lay when Martin V., a
+Roman of the house of Colonna, came back in the year 1421, with all
+the treasures of art acquired by the Popes during their stay in
+France, to the shrine of the Apostles. The historian Platina, whose
+records are so full of life when they approach the period of which he
+had the knowledge of a contemporary, gives a wonderful description of
+her. "He found Rome," says the biographer of the Popes, "in such ruin
+that it bore no longer the aspect of a city but rather of a desert.
+Everything was on the way to complete destruction. The churches were
+in ruins, the country abandoned, the streets in evil state, and an
+extreme penury reigned everywhere. In fact it had no appearance of a
+city or a sign of civilisation. The good Pontiff, moved by the sight
+of such calamity, gave his mind to the work of adorning and
+embellishing the city, and reforming the corrupt ways into which it
+had fallen, which in a short time were so improved by his care that
+not only Supreme Pontiff but father of his country he was called by
+all. He rebuilt the portico of St. Peter's which had been falling into
+ruins, and completed the mosaic work of the pavement of the Lateran
+which he covered with fine works, and began that beautiful picture
+which was made by Gentile, the excellent painter." He also repaired
+the palace of the twelve Apostles, so that it became habitable. The
+Cardinals in imitation of him executed similar works in the churches
+from which each took his title, and by this means the city began to
+recover decency and possible comfort at least, if as yet little of its
+ancient splendour.
+
+"As soon as Pope Martin arrived in Rome," says the chronicle, _Diarium
+Romanum_, of Infessura, "he began to administer justice, for Rome was
+very corrupt and full of thieves. He took thought for everything, and
+especially to those robbers who were outside the walls, and who robbed
+the poor pilgrims who came for the pardon of their sins to Rome." The
+painter above mentioned, and who suggests to us the name of a greater
+than he, would appear to have been Gentile da Fabriano, who seems to
+have been employed by the Pope at a regular yearly salary. These good
+deeds of Pope Martin are a little neutralised by the fact that he gave
+a formal permission to certain other of his workmen to take whatever
+marbles and stones might be wanted for the pavement of the Lateran,
+virtually wherever they happened to find them, but especially from
+ruined churches both within and outside of the city.
+
+Eugenius IV., who succeeded Pope Martin in the year 1431, was a man
+who loved above all things to "guerrare e murare"--to make war and to
+build--a splendid and noble Venetian, whose fine and commanding person
+fills one of his biographers, a certain Florentine bookseller and
+book-collector, called Vespasiano, with a rapture of admiration which
+becomes almost lyrical, in the midst of his simple and garrulous
+story.
+
+      "He was tall in person, beautiful of countenance, slender
+      and serious, and so venerable to behold that there was no
+      one, by reason of the great authority that was in him, who
+      could look him in the face. It happened one evening that an
+      important personage went to speak with him, who stood with
+      his head bowed, never raising his eyes, in such a way that
+      the Pope perceived it and asked him why he so bowed his
+      head. He answered quickly that the Pope had such an aspect
+      by nature that none dared meet his eye. I myself recollect
+      often to have seen the Pope with his Cardinals upon a
+      balcony near the door of the cloisters of Sta Maria
+      Novella (in Florence) when the Piazza de Sta Maria
+      Novella was full of people, and not only the Piazza, but
+      all the streets that led into it. And such was the devotion
+      of the people that they stood entranced (_stupefatti_) to
+      see him, not hearing any one who spoke, but turning every
+      one towards the Pontiff: and when he began according to the
+      custom of the Pope to say the _Adjutorium nostrum in nomine
+      Domini_ the Piazza was full of weeping and cries, appealing
+      to the mercy of God for the great devotion they bore
+      towards his Holiness. It appeared indeed that this people
+      saw in him not only the vicar of Christ on earth, but the
+      reflection of His true Divinity. His Holiness showed such
+      great devotion, and also all his Cardinals round him, who
+      were all men of great authority, that veritably at that
+      moment he appeared that which he represented."
+
+There is much refreshment to the soul in the biographies of
+Vespasiano, who was no more than a Florentine bookseller as we have
+said, greatly employed in collecting ancient manuscripts, which was
+the special taste of the time, with a hand in the formation of all the
+libraries then being established, and in consequence a considerable
+acquaintance with great personages, those at least who were patrons of
+the arts and had a literary turn. Pope Eugenius is not in ordinary
+history a highly attractive character, and the general records of the
+Papacy are not such as to allure the mind as with ready discovery of
+unknown friends. But the two Popes whom the old bookman chronicles,
+rise before us in the freshest colours, the first in stately serenity
+and austerity of mien, dazzling in his _aspetto di natura_, as Moses
+when he came from the presence of God--moving all hearts when he
+raised his voice in the prayers of the Church, every listener hanging
+on his breath, the crowd gazing at him overwhelmed as if upon Him whom
+the Pope represented, though no man dared face his penetrating eyes.
+It is a great thing for the most magnificent potentate to have such a
+biographer as our bookseller. Eugenius was as kind as he was splendid,
+according to Vespasiano. One day a poor gentleman reduced to want went
+to the Pope, appealing for charity "being in exile, poor, and _fuori
+della patria_," words which are more touching than their English
+synonyms, out of his country, banished from all his belongings: an
+evil which went to the very hearts of those who were themselves at any
+moment subject to that fate, and to whom _la patria_ meant an
+ungrateful fierce native city--never certain in its temper from one
+moment to another. The Pope sent for a purse full of florins, and bade
+the exile take from it as much as he wanted. "Felice, abashed, put in
+his hand timidly, when the Pope turned to him laughing and said, 'Put
+in your hand freely, I give it to you willingly.'" This being his
+disposition we need not wonder that Vespasian adds:--"He never had
+much supply of money in the house; according as he had it, quickly he
+expended it." Remembering what lies before us in history (but not in
+this broken record of men), soon to be filled with Borgias and such
+like, the reader would do well to sweeten his thoughts on the edge of
+the horrors of the Renaissance, with Vespasian's kind and humane
+tales. Platina takes up the story in a different tone.
+
+      "Among other things Eugenius, in order that it might not
+      seem that he thought of nothing but fighting (his wars were
+      perpetual, _guerrare_ winning the day over _murare_; he
+      built like Nehemiah with the sword in his other hand),
+      canonized S. Nicola di Tolentino of the order of S.
+      Augustine, who did many miracles. He built the portico
+      which leads from the Church of the Lateran to the Sancta
+      Sanctorum, and remade and enlarged the cloister inhabited
+      by the priests, and completed the picture of the Church
+      begun under Martin by Gentile. He was not easily moved by
+      wrath, or personal offence, and never spoke evil of any
+      man, neither by word of mouth nor hand of write. He was
+      gracious to all the schools, specially to those of Rome,
+      where he desired to see every kind of literature and
+      doctrine flourish. He himself had little literature, but
+      much knowledge, especially of history. He had a great love
+      for monks, and was very generous to them, and was also a
+      great lover of war, a thing which seems marvellous in a
+      Pope. He was very faithful to the engagements he
+      made--unless when he saw that it was more expedient to
+      revoke a promise than to fulfil it."
+
+Martin and Eugenius were both busy and warlike men. They were involved
+in all the countless internal conflicts of Italy; they were confronted
+by many troubles in the Church, by the argumentative and persistent
+Council of Bâle, and an anti-Pope or two to increase their cares. The
+reign of Eugenius began by a flight from Rome with one attendant, from
+the mob who threatened his life. Nevertheless it was in these agitated
+days that the first thought of Rome rebuilt, as glorious as a bride,
+more beautiful than in her climax of classic splendour, began to enter
+into men's thoughts.
+
+  [Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF TREVI.
+    _To face page 526._]
+
+The reign of their immediate successor, the learned and magnificent
+Nicolas V., who was created Pope in 1447, was, however, the actual era
+of this new conception. It is not necessary, we are thankful to think,
+to enter here into any description of the Renaissance, that age so
+splendid in art, so horrible in history--when every vice seemed let
+loose on the earth, yet the evil demons so draped themselves in
+everything beautiful, that they often attained their most dangerous
+and terrible aspect, that of angels of light. The Renaissance has had
+more than its share in history; it has flooded the world with scandals
+of every kind, and such examples of depravity as are scarcely to be
+found in any other age; or perhaps it is that no other age has
+commanded the same contrasts and incongruities, the same picturesque
+accessories, the splendour and external grace, the swing of careless
+force and franchise, without restraint and without shame. To many
+minds these things themselves are enough to attract and to dazzle, and
+they have captivated many writers to whom the brilliant society, the
+triumphs of art, the ever shifting, ever glittering panorama with its
+startling succession of scenes, spectacles, splendours, and tragedies,
+have made the more serious and more worthy records of life appear
+sombre, and its nobler motives dull in comparison. When Thomas of
+Sarzana was born in Pisa--in a humble house of peasants who had no
+surname nor other distinction, but who managed to secure for him the
+education which was sufficiently easy in those days for boys destined
+to the priesthood--the age of the Renaissance was coming into full
+flower. Literature and learning, the pursuit of ancient
+manuscripts, the worship of Greece and the overwhelming influence of
+its language and masterpieces, were the inspiration of the age, so far
+as matters intellectual were concerned. To read and collate and copy
+was the special occupation of the literary class. If they attempted
+any original work, it was a commentary: and a Latin couplet, an
+epigram, was the highest effort of imagination which they permitted
+themselves. The day of Dante and Petrarch was over. No one cared to be
+_volgarizzato_--brought down in plain Italian to the knowledge of
+common men. The language of their literary traffic was Latin, the
+object of their adoration Greek. To read, and yet to read, and again
+to go on reading, was the occupation of every man who desired to make
+himself known in the narrow circles of literature; and a small
+attendant world of scribes was maintained in every learned household,
+and accompanied the path of every scholar. The world so far as its
+books went had gone back to a period in which gods and men were alike
+different from those of the existing generation; and the living age,
+disgusted with its own unsatisfactory conditions, attempted to gain
+dignity and beauty by pranking itself in the ill-adapted robes of a
+life totally different from its own.
+
+Between the classical ages and the Christian there must always be the
+great gulf fixed of this complete difference of sentiment and of
+atmosphere. And the wonderful contradiction was more marked than usual
+in Rome of a world devoted outside to the rites and ceremonies of
+religion, while dwelling in its intellectual sphere in the air of a
+region to which Christianity was unknown. The routine of devotion
+never relaxing--planned out for every hour of every day, calling for
+constant attention, constant performance, avowedly addressing itself
+not to the learned or wise, avowedly restricting itself in all those
+enjoyments of life which were the first and greatest of objects in the
+order of the ancient ages--yet carried on by votaries of the Muses,
+to whom Jove and Apollo were more attractive than any Christian
+ideal--must have made an unceasing and bewildering conflict in the
+minds of men. No doubt that conflict, and the evident certainty that
+one or the other must be wrong, along with the strong setting of that
+tide of fashion which is so hard to be resisted, towards the less
+exacting creed, had much to do with the fever of the time. Yet the
+curious equalising touch of common life, the established order
+whatever it may be, against which only one here and there ever
+successfully rebels, made the strange conjunction possible; and the
+final conflict abided its time. Such a man as Nicolas V. might indeed
+fill his palace with scholars and scribes, and put his greatest pride
+in his manuscripts: but the affairs of life around were too urgent to
+affect his own constitution as Pope and priest and man of his time. He
+bandied epigrams with his learned convives in his moments of leisure:
+but he had himself too much to do to fall into dilettante heathenism.
+Perhaps the manuscripts themselves, the glory of possessing them, the
+busy scribes all labouring for that high end of instructing the world:
+while courtiers never slow to catch the tone that pleased, celebrated
+their sovereign as the head of humane and liberal study as well as of
+the Church--may have been more to Nicolas than all his MSS. contained.
+He remained quite sincere in his mass, quite simple in his life,
+notwithstanding the influx of the heathen element: and most likely
+took no note in his much occupied career of the great distance that
+lay between.
+
+Nicolas V. was the first of those Pontiffs who are the pride of modern
+Rome--the men who, by a strange provision, or as it almost seems
+neglect of Providence, appear in the foremost places of the Church
+pre-occupied with secondary matters, when they ought to have been
+preparing for that great Revolution which, it was once fondly hoped,
+was to lay spiritual Rome in ruins, at the very moment when material
+Rome rose most gloriously from her ashes. But, notwithstanding that he
+was still troubled by that long-drawn-out Council of Bâle, it does not
+seem that any such shadow was in the mind of Nicolas. He stood calm in
+human unconsciousness between heathendom at his back, and the
+Reformation in front of him, going about his daily work thinking of
+nothing, as the majority of men even on the eve of the greatest of
+revolutions so constantly do. Nicolas was, like so many of the great
+Popes, a poor man's son, without a surname, Thomas of Sarzana taking
+his name from the village in which he was brought up. He had the good
+fortune, which in those days was so possible to a scholar, recommended
+originally by his learning alone, to rise from post to post in the
+household of bishop and Cardinal until he arrived at that of the Pope,
+where a man of real value was highly estimated, and where it was above
+all things important to have a steadfast and faithful envoy, one who
+could be trusted with the often delicate negotiations of the Holy See,
+and who would neither be daunted nor led astray by imperial caresses
+or the frowns of power.
+
+"He was very learned, _dottissimo_, in philosophy, and master of all
+the arts. There were few writers in Greek or in Latin of any kind that
+he had not read their works, and he had the whole of the Bible in his
+memory, and quoted from it continually. This intimate knowledge of the
+Holy Scriptures gave the greatest honour to his pontificate and the
+answers he was called upon to make." There were great hopes in those
+days of the reunion of the Greek Church with the Latin, an object much
+in the mind of all the greater Popes: to promote which happy
+possibility Pope Eugenius called a Council in Ferrara in 1438, which
+was also intended to confound the rebellious and heretical Council of
+Bâle, as well as to bring about, if possible, the desired union. The
+Emperor of the East was there in person, along with the patriarch and
+a large following; and it was in this assembly that Thomas of Sarzana,
+then secretary and counsellor of the Cardinal di Santa Croce--who had
+accompanied his Cardinal over _i monti_ on a mission to the King of
+France from which he had just returned--made himself known to
+Christendom as a fine debater and accomplished student. The question
+chiefly discussed in the Council of Ferrara was that which is formally
+called the Procession of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine which has
+always stood between the two Churches, and prevented mutual
+understanding.
+
+      "In this council before the Pope, the Cardinals, and all
+      the court of Rome, the Latins disputed daily with the
+      Greeks against their error, which is that the Holy Spirit
+      proceeds from the Father only not from the Son: the Latins,
+      according to the true doctrine of the faith, maintaining
+      that He proceeds from the Father and the Son. Every morning
+      and every evening the most learned men in Italy took part
+      in this discussion as well as many out of Italy, whom Pope
+      Eugenius had called together. One in particular, from
+      Negroponte, whose name was Niccolo Secondino: wonderful was
+      it to hear what the said Niccolo did; for when the Greeks
+      spoke and brought together arguments to prove their
+      opinion, Niccolo Secondino explained everything in Latin
+      _de verbo ad verbum_, so that it was a thing admirable to
+      hear: and when the Latins spoke he expounded in Greek all
+      that they answered to the arguments of the Greeks. In all
+      these disputations Messer Tommaso held the part of the
+      Latins, and was admired above all for his universal
+      knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and also of the doctors,
+      ancient and modern, both Greek and Latin."
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE PINCIO.]
+
+Messer Tommaso distinguished himself so much in this controversy that
+he was appointed by the Pope to confer with certain ambassadors from
+the unknown, Ethiopians, Indians, and "Jacobiti,"--were these the
+envoys of Prester John, that mysterious potentate? or were they
+Nestorians as some suggest? At all events they were Christians and
+persons of singularly austere life. The conference was carried on by
+means of an interpreter, "a certain Venetian who knew twenty
+languages." These three nations were so convinced by Tommaso, that
+they placed themselves under the authority of the Church, an incident
+which does not make any appearance in more dignified history. Even
+while these important matters of ecclesiastical business were going
+on, however, this rising churchman kept his eyes open as to every
+chance of a new, that is an old book, and would on various occasions
+turn away from his most distinguished visitors to talk apart with
+Messer Vespasiano, who once more is our best guide, about their mutual
+researches and good luck in the way of finding rare examples or making
+fine copies. "He never went out of Italy with his Cardinal on any
+mission that he did not bring back with him some new work not to be
+found in Italy." Indeed Messer Tommaso's knowledge was so well
+understood that there was no library formed on which his advice was
+not asked, and specially by Cosimo dei Medici, who begged his help as
+to what ought to be done for the formation of the Library of S. Marco
+in Florence--to which Tommaso responded by sending such instructions
+as never had been given before, how to make a library, and to keep it
+in the highest order, the regulations all written in his own hand.
+"Everything that he had," says Vespasian in the ardour of his
+admiration, "he spent on books. He used to say that if he had it in
+his power, the two things on which he would like to spend money would
+be in buying books and in building (_murare_); which things he did in
+his pontificate, both the one and the other." Alas! Messer Tommaso had
+not always money, which is a condition common to collectors; in which
+case Vespasian tells us (who approved of this mode of procedure as a
+bookseller, though perhaps it was a bad example to be set by the Head
+of the Church) he had "to buy books on credit and to borrow money in
+order to pay the scribes and miniaturists." The books, the reader will
+perceive, were curious manuscripts, illustrated by those schools of
+painters in little, whose undying pigments, fresh as when laid upon
+the vellum, smile almost as exquisitely to-day from the ancient page
+as in Messer Tommaso's time.
+
+There is an enthusiasm of the seller for the buyer in Vespasian's
+description of the dignified book-hunter which is very characteristic,
+but at the same time so natural that it places the very man before us,
+as he lived, a man full of humour, _facetissimo_, saying pleasant
+things to everybody, and making every one to whom he talked his
+partisan.
+
+      "He was a man open, large and liberal, not knowing how to
+      feign or dissimulate, and the enemy of all who feigned. He
+      was also hostile to ceremony and adulation, treating all
+      with the greatest friendliness. Great though he was as a
+      bishop, as an ambassador, he honoured all who came to see
+      him, and desired that whoever would speak with him should
+      do so seated by his side, and with his head covered; and
+      when one would not do so (out of modesty) he would take one
+      by the arm and make one sit down, whether one liked or
+      not."
+
+A delightful recollection of that flattering compulsion, the great
+man's touch upon his arm, the seat by his side, upon which Vespasian
+would scarcely be able to sit for pleasure, is in the bookseller's
+tone; and he has another pleasant story to tell of Giannozzo Manetti,
+who went to see their common patron when he was Cardinal and
+ambassador to France, and tried hard, in his sense of too much honour
+done him, to prevent the great man from accompanying him, not only to
+the door of the reception room, but down stairs. "He stood firm on the
+staircase to prevent him from coming further down: but Giannozzo was
+obliged to have patience, being in the Osteria del Lione, for not only
+would Messer Tommaso accompany him down stairs, but to the very door
+of the hotel, ambassador of Pope Eugenius as he was."
+
+We must not, however, allow ourselves to be seduced into prolixity by
+the old bookseller, whose account of his patron is so full of
+gratitude and feeling. As became a scholar and lover of the arts,
+Nicolas V. was a man of peace. Immediately after his elevation to the
+papacy, he declared his sentiments to Vespasian in the prettiest
+scene, which shines like one of the miniatures they loved, out of the
+sober page.
+
+      "Not long after he was made Pope, I went to see him on
+      Friday evening, when he gave audience publicly, as he did
+      once every week. When I went into the hall in which he gave
+      audience it was about one hour of the night (seven o'clock
+      in the evening); he saw me at once, and called to me that I
+      was welcome, and that if I would have patience a little he
+      would talk to me alone. Not long after I was told to go to
+      his Holiness. I went, and according to custom kissed his
+      feet; afterwards he bade me rise, and rising himself from
+      his seat, dismissed the court, saying that the audience was
+      over. He then went to a private room where twenty candles
+      were burning, near a door which opened into an orchard. He
+      made a sign that they should be taken away, and when we
+      were alone began to laugh, and to say 'Do the Florentines
+      believe, Vespasiano, that it is for the confusion of the
+      proud, that a priest only fit to ring the bell should have
+      been made Supreme Pontiff?' I answered that the Florentines
+      believed that his Holiness had attained that dignity by his
+      worth, and that they rejoiced much, believing that he would
+      give Italy peace. To this he answered and said: 'I pray God
+      that He will give me grace to fulfil that which I desire to
+      do, and to use no arms in my pontificate except that which
+      God has given me for my defence, which is His cross, and
+      which I shall employ as long as my day lasts.'"
+
+The cool darkness of the little chamber, near the door into the
+orchard, the blazing candles all sent away, the grateful freshness of
+the Roman night--come before us like a picture, with the Pope's
+splendid robes glimmering white, and the sober-suited citizen little
+seen in the quick-falling twilight. It must have been in the spring or
+early summer, the sweetest time in Rome. Pope Eugenius had died in the
+month of February, and it was on the 16th of March, 1447, that Nicolas
+was elected to the Holy See.
+
+A few years after came the jubilee, in the year 1450, as had now
+become the habit, and the influx of pilgrims was very great. It was a
+time of great profit not only to the Romans who turned the city into
+one vast inn to receive the visitors, but also to the Pope. "The
+people were like ants on the roads which led from Florence to Rome,"
+we are told. The crowd was so immense crossing the bridge of St.
+Angelo, that there were some terrible accidents, and as many as two
+hundred people were killed on their way to the shrine of the Apostles.
+"There was not a great lord in all Christendom who did not come to
+this jubilee." "Much money came to the Apostolical See," continues the
+biographer, "and the Pope began to build in many places, and to send
+everywhere for Greek and Latin books wherever he could find them,
+without regard to the price.
+
+      "He also had many scribes from every quarter to whom he
+      gave constant employment; also many learned men both to
+      compose new works, and to translate those which had not
+      been translated, making great provision for them, both
+      ordinary and extraordinary; and to those who translated
+      books, when they were brought to him, he gave much money
+      that they might go on willingly with that which they had to
+      do. He collected a very great number of books on every
+      subject, both in Greek and Latin, to the number of five
+      thousand volumes. These at the end of his life were found
+      in the catalogue which did not include the half of the
+      copies of books he had on every subject; for if there was a
+      book which could not be found, or which he could not have
+      in any other way, he had it copied. The intention of Pope
+      Nicolas was to make a library in St. Peter's for the use of
+      the Court of Rome, which would have been a marvellous thing
+      had it been carried out; but it was interrupted by death."
+
+Vespasian adds for his own part a list of these books, which occupies
+a whole column in one of Muratori's gigantic pages.
+
+Another anecdote we must add to show our Pope's quaint ways with his
+little court of literary men.
+
+      "Pope Nicolas was the light and the ornament of literature,
+      and of men of letters. If there had arisen another Pontiff
+      after him who would have followed up his work, the state of
+      letters would have been elevated to a worthy degree. But
+      after him things went from bad to worse, and there were no
+      prizes for virtue. The liberality of Pope Nicolas was such
+      that many turned to him who would not otherwise have done
+      so. In every place where he could do honour to men of
+      letters, he did so, and left nobody out. When Messer
+      Francesco Filelfo passed through Rome on his way to Naples
+      without paying him a visit, the Pope, hearing of it, sent
+      for him. Those who went to call him said to him, 'Messer
+      Francesco, we are astonished that you should have passed
+      through Rome without going to see him.' Messer Francesco
+      replied that he was carrying some of his books to King
+      Alfonso, but meant to see the Pope on his return. The Pope
+      had a scarsella at his side in which were five hundred
+      florins which he emptied out, saying to him, 'Take this
+      money for your expenses on the way.' This is what one calls
+      liberal! He had always a scarsella (pouch) at his side
+      where were several hundreds of florins and gave them away
+      for God's sake, and to worthy persons. He took them out of
+      the scarsella by handfuls and gave to them. Liberality is
+      natural to men, and does not come by nobility nor by
+      gentry: for in every generation we see some who are very
+      liberal and some who are equally avaricious."
+
+But the literary aspect of Pope Nicolas's character, however
+delightful, is not that with which we are chiefly concerned. He was
+the first Pope to conceive a systematic plan for the reconstruction
+and permanent restoration of Rome, a plan which it is needless to say
+his life was not long enough to carry out, but which yet formed the
+basis of all after-plans, and was eventually more or less accomplished
+by different hands.
+
+It was to the centre of ecclesiastical Rome, the shrine of the
+Apostles, the chief church of Christendom and its adjacent buildings
+that the care of the Builder-Pope was first directed. The Leonine
+city, or Borgo as it is more familiarly called, is that portion of
+Rome which lies on the left side of the Tiber, and which extends from
+the castle of St. Angelo to the boundary of the Vatican
+gardens--enclosing the church of St. Peter, the Vatican Palace with
+all its wealth, and the great Hospital of Santo Spirito, surrounded
+and intersected by many little streets, and joined to the other
+portions of the city by the bridge of St. Angelo. Behind the mass of
+picture galleries, museums, and collections of all kinds, which now
+fill up the endless halls and corridors of the Papal palace, comes a
+sweep of noble gardens full of shade and shelter from the Roman sun,
+such a resort for the
+
+                        "learnèd leisure
+      Which in trim gardens takes its pleasure"
+
+as it would be difficult to surpass. In this fine extent of wood and
+verdure the Pope's villa or casino, now the only summer palace which
+the existing Pontiff chooses to permit himself, stands as in a domain,
+small yet perfect. Almost everything within these walls has been built
+or completely transformed since the days of Nicolas. But then as now,
+here was the heart and centre of Christendom, the supreme shrine of
+the Catholic faith, the home of the spiritual ruler whose sway reached
+over the whole earth. When Nicolas began his reign, the old church of
+St. Peter was the church of the Western world, then as now, classical
+in form, a stately basilica without the picturesqueness and romantic
+variety, and also, as we think, without the majesty and grandeur of a
+Gothic cathedral, yet more picturesque if less stupendous in size and
+construction than the present great edifice, so majestic in its own
+grave and splendid way, with which through all the agitations of the
+recent centuries, the name of St. Peter's has been identified. The
+earlier church was full of riches, and of great associations, to which
+the wonderful St. Peter's we all know can lay claim only as its
+successor and supplanter. With its flight of broad steps, its portico
+and colonnaded façade crowned with a great tower, it dominated the
+square, open and glowing in the sun without the shelter of the great
+existing colonnades or the sparkle of the fountains. Behind was the
+little palace begun by Innocent III. to afford a shelter for the Popes
+in dangerous times, or on occasion to receive the foreign guests whose
+object was to visit the Shrine of the Apostles. Almost all the
+buildings then standing have been replaced by greater, yet the
+position is the same, the shrine unchanged, though everything else
+then existing has faded away, except some portion of the old wall
+which enclosed this sacred place in a special sanctity and security,
+which was not, however, always respected. The Borgo was the holiest
+portion of all the sacred city. It was there that the blood of the
+martyrs had been shed, and where from the earliest age of Christianity
+their memory and tradition had been preserved. It is not necessary for
+us to enter into the question whether St. Peter ever was in Rome,
+which many writers have laboriously contested. So far as the record of
+the Acts of the Apostles is concerned, there is no evidence at all for
+or against, but tradition is all on the side of those who assert it.
+The position taken by Signor Lanciani on this point seems to us a very
+sensible one. "I write about the monuments of ancient Rome," he says,
+"from a strictly archæological point of view, avoiding questions which
+pertain, or are supposed to pertain, to religious controversy."
+
+      "For the archæologist the presence and execution of SS.
+      Peter and Paul in Rome are facts established beyond a
+      shadow of doubt by purely monumental evidence. There was a
+      time when persons belonging to different creeds made it
+      almost a case of conscience to affirm or deny _a priori_
+      those facts, according to their acceptance or rejection of
+      the tradition of any particular Church. This state of
+      feeling is a matter of the past at least for those who have
+      followed the progress of recent discoveries and of critical
+      literature. There is no event of the Imperial age and of
+      Imperial Rome which is attested by so many noble
+      structures, all of which point to the same conclusion--the
+      presence and execution of the Apostles in the capital of
+      the empire. When Constantine raised the monumental
+      basilicas over their tombs on the Via Cornelia and the Via
+      Ostiensis: when Eudoxia built the Church ad Vincula: when
+      Damasus put a memorial tablet in the Platonia ad
+      Catacombos: when the houses of Pudens and Aquila and Prisca
+      were turned into oratories: when the name of Nymphæ Sancti
+      Petri was given to the springs in the catacombs of the Via
+      Nomentana: when the 29th June was accepted as the
+      anniversary of St. Peter's execution: when sculptors,
+      painters, medallists, goldsmiths, workers in glass and
+      enamel, and engravers of precious stones, all began to
+      reproduce in Rome the likeness of the apostle at the
+      beginning of the second century, and continued to do so
+      till the fall of the Empire: must we consider them as
+      labouring under a delusion, or conspiring in the commission
+      of a gigantic fraud? Why were such proceedings accepted
+      without protest from whatever city, whatever community--if
+      there were any other--which claimed to own the genuine
+      tombs of SS. Peter and Paul? These arguments gain more
+      value from the fact that the evidence on the other side is
+      purely negative."
+
+This is one of those practical arguments which are always more
+interesting than those which depend upon theories and opinions.
+However, there are many books on both sides of the question which may
+be consulted. We are content to follow Signor Lanciani. The special
+sanctity and importance of Il Borgo originated in this belief. The
+shrine of the Apostle was its centre and its glory. It was this that
+brought pilgrims from the far corners of the earth before there was
+any masterpiece of art to visit, or any of those priceless collections
+which now form the glory of the Vatican. The spot of the Apostle's
+execution was indicated "by immemorial tradition" as between the two
+goals (_inter duas metas_) of Nero's circus, which spot Signor
+Lanciani tells us is exactly the site of the obelisk now standing in
+the piazza of St. Peter. A little chapel, called the Chapel of the
+Crucifixion, stood there in the early ages, before any great basilica
+or splendid shrine was possible.
+
+This sacred spot, and the church built to commemorate it, were
+naturally the centre of all those religious traditions which separate
+Rome from every other city. It was to preserve them from assault, "in
+order that it should be less easy for the enemy to make depredations
+and burn the church of St. Peter, as they have heretofore done," that
+Leo IV., the first Pope, whom we find engaged in any real work of
+construction built a wall round the mount of the Vatican, the "Colle
+Vaticano"--little hill, not so high as the seven hills of Rome--where
+against the strong wall of Nero's circus Constantine had built his
+great basilica. At that period--in the middle of the ninth
+century--there was nothing but the church and shrine--no palace and no
+hospital. The existing houses were given to the Corsi, a family which
+had been driven out of their island, according to Platina, by the
+Saracens, who shortly before had made an incursion up to the very
+walls of Rome, whither the peoples of the coast (_luoghi maritimi del
+Mar Terreno_) from Naples northward had apparently pursued the
+Corsairs, and helped the Romans to beat them back. One other humble
+building of some sort, "called Burgus Saxonum, Vicus Saxonum, Schola
+Saxonum, and simply Saxia or Sassia," it is interesting to know,
+existed close to the sacred centre of the place, a lodging built for
+himself by Ina, King of Wessex, in 727. Thus we have a national
+association of our own with the central shrine of Christianity. "There
+was also a Schola Francorum in the Borgo." The pilgrims must have
+built their huts and set up some sort of little oratory--favoured, as
+was the case even in Pope Nicolas's day, by the excellent quarry of
+the circus close at hand--as near as possible to the great shrine and
+basilica which they had come so far to say their prayers in; and
+attracted too, no doubt, by the freedom of the lonely suburb between
+the green hill and the flowing river. Leo IV. built his wall round
+this little city, and fortified it by towers. "In every part he put
+sculptures of marble and wrote a prayer," says Platina. One of these
+gates led to St. Pellegrino, another was close to the castle of St.
+Angelo, and was "the gate by which one goes forth to the open
+country." The third led to the School of the Saxons; and over each was
+a prayer inscribed. These three prayers were all to the same
+effect--"that God would defend this new city which the Pope had
+enclosed with walls and called by his own name, the Leonine City, from
+all assaults of the enemy, either by fraud or by force."
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE CORSO: CHURCH DOORS.]
+
+This was then from the beginning the citadel and innermost sanctuary
+of Rome. It was not till much later, under the reign of Innocent III.,
+that the idea of building a house for the Pope within that enclosure
+originated. The same great Pope founded the vast hospital of the Santo
+Spirito--on the site of a previous hospice for the poor either within
+or close to its walls. Thus it came to be the lodging of the Sovereign
+Pontiff, and of the scarcely less sacred sick and suffering, as well
+as the most holy and chiefest of all Christian sanctuaries. Were we to
+be very minute, it might be easily proved that almost every Pope
+contributed something to the existence and decoration of the Leonine
+city, the _imperium in imperio_; and specially, as was natural, to the
+great basilica.
+
+The little Palazzo di San Pietro being close to St. Angelo, the
+stronghold and most safe resort in danger, was occupied by the court
+on its return from Avignon, and probably then became the official home
+of the Popes; though for some time there seems to have been a
+considerable latitude in that respect. Pope Martin afterwards removed
+to the Palace of the Apostles. Another of the Popes preferred to all
+others the great Palazzo Venezia, which he had built: but the name of
+the Vatican was henceforth received as the title of the Papal court.
+The enlargement and embellishment of this palace thus became naturally
+the great object of the Popes, and nothing was spared upon it. It is
+put first in every record of achievement even when there is other
+important work to describe. "Nicolas," says Platina, "builded
+magnificently both in the Vatican, and in the city. He rebuilt the
+churches of St. Stefano Rotondo and of St. Teodoro," the former most
+interesting church being built upon the foundations of a round
+building of classical times, supposed, Mr. Hare tells us, to have
+belonged to the ancient Fleshmarket, as we should say, the Macellum
+Magnum. S. Teodoro is also a _rotondo_. It would seem that there were
+different opinions as to the success of these restorations in the
+fifteenth century such as arise among ourselves in respect to almost
+every work of the same kind. A certain "celebrated architect,"
+Francesco di Giorgio di Martino, of Sienna, was then about the world,
+a man who spoke his mind. "_Hedifitio ruinato_," he says of St.
+Stefano, with equal disregard to spelling and to manners. "Rebuilt,"
+he adds, "by Pope Nichola; but much more spoilt:" which is such a
+thing as we now hear said of the once much-vaunted restorations of Sir
+Gilbert Scott. Our Pope also "made a leaden roof for Sta. Maria
+Rotonda in the middle of the city, built by M. Agrippa as a temple for
+all the gods and called the Pantheon." He must have been fond of this
+unusual form; but whether it was a mere whim of personal liking, or if
+there was any meaning in his construction of these round temples, we
+have no information. Perhaps Nicolas had a special admiration of the
+solemn and beautiful Pantheon, in which we completely sympathise. The
+question is too insignificant to be inquired into. Yet it is curious
+in its way.
+
+These were however, though specially distinguished by Platina, but a
+drop in the ocean to the numberless undertakings of Pope Nicolas
+throughout the city; and all these again were inferior in importance
+to the great works in St. Peter's and the Vatican, to which his
+predecessors had each put a hand so long as their time lasted. "In the
+Vatican," says Platina, "he built those apartments of the Pontiff,
+which are to be seen to this day: and he began the wall of the
+Vatican, great and high, with its incredible depth of foundation, and
+high towers, to hold the enemy at a distance, so that neither the
+church of St. Peter (as had already happened several times) nor the
+palace of the Pope should ever be sacked. He began also the tribune of
+the church of St. Peter, that the church might hold more people, and
+might be more magnificent. He also rebuilt the Ponte Molle, and
+erected near the baths of Viterbo a great palace. Having the aid of
+much money, he built many parts of the city, and cleansed all the
+streets." Great also in other ways were his gifts to his beloved
+church and city--"vases of gold and silver, crosses ornamented with
+gems, rich vestments and precious tapestry, woven with gold and
+silver, and the mitre of the Pontificate, which demonstrated his
+liberality." It was he who first placed a second crown on the mitre,
+which up to this time had borne one circlet alone. The complete tiara
+with the three crowns was adopted in a later reign.
+
+The two previous Popes, his predecessors, had been magnificent also in
+their acquisitions for the Church in this kind; both of them being
+curious in goldsmiths' work, then entering upon its most splendid
+development, and in their collections of precious stones. The valuable
+work of M. Muntz, _Les Arts à la cour des papes_, abounds in details
+of these splendid jewels. Indeed his sober records of daily work and
+its payment seem to transport us out of one busy scene into another as
+by the touch of a magician's wand, as if Rome the turbulent and idle,
+full of aimless popular rushes to and fro, had suddenly become a
+beehive full of energetic workers and the noise of cheerful labour,
+both out of doors in the sun, where the masons were loudly at work,
+and in many a workshop, where the most delicate and ingenious arts
+were being carried on. Roman artists at length began to appear amid
+the host of Florentines and the whole world seems to have turned into
+one great _bottega_ full of everything rich and rare.
+
+The greatest, however, of all the conceptions of Pope Nicolas, the
+very centre of his great plan, was the library of the Vatican, which
+he began to build and to which he left all the collections of his
+life. Vespasian gives us a list of the principal among those 5,000
+volumes, the things which he prized most, which the Pope bequeathed to
+the Church and to Rome. These cherished rolls of parchment, many of
+them translations made under his own eyes, were enclosed in elaborate
+bindings ornamented with gold and silver. We are not, however,
+informed whether any of the great treasures of the Vatican library
+came from his hands--the good Vespasian taking more interest in the
+work of his scribes than in Codexes. He tells us of 500 scudi given to
+Lorenzo Valle with a pretty speech that the price was below his
+merits, but that eventually he should have more liberal pay; of 1,500
+scudi given to Guerroni for a translation of the Iliad, and so forth.
+It is like a bookseller of the present day vaunting his new editions
+to a collector in search of the earliest known. But Pope Nicolas, like
+most other patrons of his time, knew no Greek, nor probably ever
+expected that it would become a usual subject of study, so that his
+translations were precious to him, the chief way of making his
+treasures of any practical use.
+
+  [Illustration: SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO.
+    _To face page 546._]
+
+The greater part, alas! of all this splendour has passed away. One
+pure and perfect glory, the little chapel of San Lorenzo, painted by
+the tender hand of Fra Angelico, remains unharmed, the only work of
+that grand painter to be found in Rome. If one could have chosen a
+monument for the good Pope, the patron and friend of art in every
+form, there could not have been a better than this. Fra Angelico seems
+to have been brought to Rome by Pope Eugenius, but it was under
+Nicolas, in two or three years of gentle labour, that the work was
+done. It is, however, impossible to enumerate all the undertakings of
+Pope Nicolas. He did something to re-establish or decorate almost all
+of the great basilicas. It is feared--but here our later historians
+speak with bated breath, not liking to bring such an accusation
+against the kind Pope, who loved men of letters--that the destruction
+of St. Peter's, afterwards ruthlessly carried out by succeeding Popes
+was in his plan: on the pretext, so constantly employed, and possibly
+believed in, of the instability of the ancient building. But there is
+no absolute certainty of evidence, and at all events he might have
+repented, for he certainly did not do that deed. He began the tribune,
+however, in the ancient church, which may have been a preparation for
+the entire renewal of the edifice; and he did much towards the
+decoration of another round church, that of the Madonna delle Febbre,
+an ill-omened name, attached to the Vatican. He also built the
+Belvedere in the gardens, and surrounded the whole with strong walls
+and towers (round), one of which according to Nibby still remained
+fifty years ago; which very little of Nicolas's building has done. His
+great sin was one which he shared with all his brother-Popes, that he
+boldly treated the antique ruins of the city as quarries for his new
+buildings, not without protest and remonstrance from many, yet with
+the calm of a mind preoccupied and seeing nothing so great and
+important as the work upon which his own heart was set.
+
+This excellent Pope died in 1455, soon after having received the news
+of the downfall of Constantinople, which is said to have broken his
+heart. He had many ailments, and was always a small and spare man of
+little strength of constitution; but "nothing transfixed his heart so
+much as to hear that the Turk had taken Constantinople and killed the
+Europeans, with many thousands of Christians," among them that same
+"Imperadore de Gostantinopli" whom he had seen seated in state at the
+Council of Ferrara, listening to his own and other arguments, only a
+few years before--as well as the greater part, no doubt, of his own
+clerical opponents there. When he was dying "being not the less of a
+strong spirit," he called the Cardinals round his bed, and many
+prelates with them, and made them a last address. His pontificate had
+lasted a little more than eight years, and to have carried out so
+little of his great plan must have been heavy on his heart; but his
+dying words are those of one to whom the holiness and unity of the
+Church came before all. No doubt the fear that the victorious Turks
+might spread ruin over the whole of Christendom was first in his mind
+at that solemn hour.
+
+      "'Knowing, my dearest brethren, that I am approaching the
+      hour of my death, I would, for the greater dignity and
+      authority of the Apostolic See, make a serious and
+      important testament before you, not committed to the memory
+      of letters, not written, neither on a tablet nor on
+      parchment, but given by my living voice that it may have
+      more authority. Listen, I pray you, while your little Pope
+      Nicolas (papa Niccolajo) in the very instant of dying makes
+      his last will before you. In the first place I render
+      thanks to the Highest God for the measureless benefits
+      which, beginning from the day of my birth until the present
+      day, I have received of His infinite mercy. And now I
+      recommend to you this beautiful spouse of Christ, whom, so
+      far as I was able, I have exalted and magnified, as each of
+      you is well aware; knowing this to be to the honour of God,
+      for the great dignity that is in her, and the great
+      privileges that she possesses, and so worthy, and formed by
+      so worthy an Author, who is the Creator of the Universe.
+      Being of sane mind and intellect, and having done that
+      which every Christian is called to do, and specially the
+      Pastor of the Church, I have received the most sacred body
+      of Christ with penitence, taking from His table with my two
+      hands, and praying the Omnipotent God that he would pardon
+      my sins. Having had these sacraments I have also received
+      the extreme unction which is the last sacrament for the
+      redeeming of my soul. Again I recommend to you, as long as
+      I am able, the Roman Church, notwithstanding that I have
+      already done so; for this is the most important duty you
+      have to fulfil in the sight of God and men. This is that
+      true Spouse of Christ which He bought with his blood. This
+      is that robe without seam, which the impious Jews would
+      have torn but could not. This is that ship of St. Peter,
+      Prince of the Apostles, agitated and tossed by varied
+      fortunes of the winds, but sustained by the Omnipotent God,
+      so that she can never be submerged or shipwrecked. With all
+      the strength of your souls sustain her and rule her: she
+      has need of your good works, and you should show a good
+      example by your lives. If you with all your strength care
+      for her and love her, God will reward you, both in this
+      present life and in the future with life eternal; and to do
+      this with all the strength we have, we pray you: do it
+      diligently, dearest brethren.'
+
+      "Having said this he raised his hands to heaven and said,
+      'Omnipotent God, grant to the Holy Church, and to these
+      fathers, a pastor who will preserve her and increase her;
+      give to them a good pastor who will rule and govern thy
+      flock the most maturely that one can rule and govern. And I
+      pray for you and comfort you as much as I know and can.
+      Pray for me to God in your prayers.' When he had ended
+      these words, he raised his right arm and, with a generous
+      soul, gave the benediction--Benedicat vos Deus, Pater et
+      Filius et Spiritus Sanctus--speaking with a raised voice
+      and solemnly, _in modo Pontificale_."
+
+These tremulous words, broken and confused by the weakness of his last
+hours, were taken down by the favourite scribe, Giannozzo Manetti, in
+the chamber of the dying Pope: with much more of the most serious
+matter to the Church and to Rome. His eager desire to soften all
+possible controversies and produce in the minds of the conclave about
+his bed, so full of ambition and the force of life, the softened heart
+which would dispose them to a peaceful and conscientious election of
+his successor, is very touching, coming out of the fogs and mists of
+approaching death.
+
+In the very age that produced the Borgias, and himself the head of
+that band of elegant scholars and connoisseurs, everything but
+Christian, to whom Rome owes so much of her external beauty and
+splendour, it is pathetic to stand by this kind and gentle spirit as
+he pauses on the threshold of a higher life, subduing the astute and
+worldly minded Churchmen round him with the tender appeal of the dying
+father, their Papa Niccolajo, familiar and persuasive--beseeching them
+to be of one accord without so much as saying it, turning his own
+weakness to account to touch their hearts, for the honour of the
+Church and the welfare of the flock.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: MODERN DEGRADATION OF A PALACE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CALIXTUS III.--PIUS II.--PAUL II.--SIXTUS IV.
+
+
+It is not unusual even in the strictest of hereditary monarchies to
+find the policy of one ruler entirely contradicted and upset by his
+successor; and it is still more natural that such a thing should
+happen in a succession of men, unlike and unconnected with each other
+as were the Popes; but the difference was more than usually great
+between Nicolas and Calixtus III., the next occupant of the Holy See,
+elected 1455, died 1458, who was an old man and a Spaniard, and loved
+neither books nor pictures, nor any of the new arts which had
+bewitched (as many people believed) Pope Nicolas and seduced him into
+squandering the treasure of the Papacy upon unnecessary buildings,
+and still more unnecessary decorations. Calixtus was a Borgia, the
+first to introduce the horror of that name: but he was not in himself
+a harmful personage. "He spent little in building," says Platina, "for
+he lived but a short time, and saved all his money for the undertaking
+against the Turks," an enterprise which had become a very real and
+necessary one, now that Constantinople had fallen; but which had no
+longer the romance and sentiment of the Crusades to inspire it, though
+successive Pontiffs did their best to rouse Christendom on the
+subject. The aged Spanish Cardinal threw himself into it with all the
+fervour of his nature, which better than many others knew the mettle
+of the Moor. His short term of power was entirely occupied with this.
+A little building went on, which could not be helped: the walls had
+always to be looked to; but Pope Nicolas's army of scribes were all
+turned off summarily; the studios were closed, the artist people
+turned away about their business; all the great works put a stop to.
+Worse even than that--for Calixtus was a short-lived interruption, and
+perhaps might only have stopped the progress of events for some three
+years or so--Pope Nicolas's great plan, which was so complete, went
+out of sight, and was lost in the limbo of good intentions. His
+workmen were dispersed, and the fashion to which he had accustomed the
+world, changed. It was only resumed with earnestness after several
+generations, and never quite in the great lines which he had laid out.
+Neither did the new Pope get his Crusade, which might have been a
+better thing. Yet Calixtus was a person _assai generoso_, Platina
+tells us; in any case he occupied his great post for a very short
+time.
+
+His successor, Pius II., 1458, on the other hand, was such a man as
+might well have inherited the highest purpose. He is almost better
+known as Eneas Silvius, a famous traveller and writer--not the usual
+peasant monk without a surname as so many had been, but one of the
+Piccolomini of Sienna, a great house, though ruined or partially
+ruined in his day. He was a man who had travelled much, and was known
+at all the courts; at one time young, heretical, adventurous, and
+ready to pull down all authorities, the life and soul of that famous
+Council of Bâle which took upon itself to depose Pope Eugenius; but
+not long after that outburst of independent youthfulness and energy
+was over, we find him filling the highest offices, the Legate of
+Eugenius and a very rising yet always much-opposed Cardinal. He it was
+who travelled to a remote and obscure little country called Scotland,
+in the Pope's name, to arrange matters there; and found the people
+very savage, digging stones out of the earth to make fires of them:
+but having plenty of fish and flesh, and surprisingly comfortable on
+the whole. He was one of the ablest men who ever sat on the Papal
+throne, but too reasonable, too moderate, too natural for the
+position. He loved literature, or at least he loved books, which is
+not always the same thing, and himself wrote a great many on various
+subjects; and he was so fortunate as to have the historian of the
+Popes, Platina--our guide, who we would have wished might live for
+ever--for his librarian, who was worth all the marble tombs in the
+world and all the epitaphs to a man whom he liked, and worse than any
+heathen conqueror to the man who was unkind to him.
+
+Platina gives us a beautiful character of Pope Pius. He is very
+lenient to the faults of his youth, as indeed most historians are in
+respect to personages afterwards great, finding in their peccadilloes,
+we presume, a welcome and picturesque relief to the perfections that
+become a Pope. Yet Pius II. was never too perfect. He was a man who
+disliked the narrowness of a court, and loved the fresh air, and to
+give audience in his garden, and to eat his modest meal beside the
+tinkling of a fountain or under the shade of trees. He loved wit and a
+joke, and even gave ear to ridiculous things and to the excellent
+mimicry of a certain Florentine, who "took off" the courtiers and
+other absurd persons, and made his Holiness laugh. And he was hasty in
+temper, but bore no malice, and paid no attention to evil reports
+raised about himself. "He never punished those who spoke ill of him,
+saying that in a free city like Rome, every one should speak freely
+what he thought." He hated lying and story-tellers, and never made war
+unless he was forced to it. Whenever he was freed from the trials of
+business he took his pleasure in reading or in writing. "Books were
+more dear to him than sapphires or emeralds," says Platina, with a
+shrewd prick by the way at his successor, Paul, as we shall afterwards
+see, "and he was used to say that his chrysolites and other jewels
+were all enclosed in them." He never took a meal alone if he could
+help it, but loved a lively companion, and to make his little feasts
+in his garden as we have said, shocking much the scandalised
+courtiers, who declared that no other Pope had ever done such a thing;
+for which Pope Pius cared nothing at all. He wrote upon all kinds of
+subjects; from a grammar which he made for the little King of Hungary,
+to histories of various kingdoms, and philosophical disquisitions.
+Indeed the list of his subjects is like that of a series of popular
+lectures in our own day. "He wrote many books in dialogue--upon the
+power of the Council of Bâle, upon the sources of the Nile, upon
+hunting, upon Fate, upon the presence of God." If he had been a
+University Extension lecturer, he could scarcely have been more
+many-sided. And he wrote largely upon peace, no less than thirty-two
+orations "upon the peace of kings, the concord of princes, the
+tranquillity of nations, the defence of religion, and the quiet of the
+world." There was neither peace among kings, concord among princes,
+nor tranquillity among nations when Pope Pius delivered and collected
+his orations. They ought to have had all the greater effect; but we
+fear he was too wise a man to put much faith in any immediate result.
+His greatest work, however, was his _Commentaries_, an enlarged and
+philosophical study of his own times, which he did not live long
+enough to finish.
+
+This Pontiff carried on the work of his predecessor more or less, but
+without any great zeal for it. "He collected manuscripts, but with
+discretion; he built, but it was in moderation," Bishop Creighton
+says. Platina, with more warmth, tells us that "he took great delight
+in building," but he seems to have confined himself to his own
+immediate surroundings, working at the improvement of St. Peter's,
+building a chapel, putting up a statue, restoring the great flight of
+stairs which then as now led up to the portico which previous Popes
+had adorned; and adding a little to the defences and decoration of the
+Vatican. He is suspected of having had a guilty liking for the Gothic
+style in architecture which greatly shocked the Roman _dilettanti_;
+and certainly expressed his admiration for some of the great churches
+in Germany with enthusiasm. One great piece of architectural work he
+did, but it was not at Rome. It was in the headquarters of his family
+at Sienna, and specially in the little adjacent town of Corsignano,
+where he was born, one of those little fortified villages which add so
+much to the beauty of Italy. This little place he made glorious with
+beautiful buildings, forgetting his native wisdom and discretion in
+the foolishness of that narrow but intense patriotism which bound the
+Italian to his native town, and made it the joy of the whole earth to
+his eyes. It gives a charm the more to his interesting character that
+he should have been capable of such a folly; though not perhaps that
+he should have changed its name to Pienza, a reflection of his own
+pontifical name.
+
+With this, however, we have nothing to do, and not very much
+altogether with the great Piccolomini, though he is one of the most
+interesting and sympathetic figures which has ever sat upon the papal
+throne. His death was a strange and painful conclusion to a life full
+of work, full of admirable sense and intelligence without exaggeration
+or pretence. He followed the policy of his predecessors in desiring to
+institute a Crusade, one more strenuously called for perhaps than any
+which preceded it, since Constantinople had now fallen into the hands
+of the Turks, and Christendom was believed to be in danger. It is
+scarcely possible to imagine that his full and active life should have
+been much occupied by this endeavour: nor can we think that this great
+spectator and observer of human affairs was consumed with anxiety in
+respect to a danger about which the civilised world was so careless:
+but in the end of his life he seems to have taken it up with tragical
+earnestness, perhaps out of compunction for previous indifference. The
+impulse which once moved whole nations to take the cross had died out;
+and not even the sight of the beautiful metropolis of Eastern
+Christianity fallen into the hands of the infidel, and so splendid a
+Christian temple as St. Sophia turned into a mosque had power to rouse
+Europe. The King of Hungary was the only monarch who showed any real
+energy in the matter, feeling his own safety imperilled, and Venice,
+also for the same reason, was the only great city; and except in these
+quarters the remonstrances and entreaties of Pius had no success. In
+these circumstances the Pope called his court about him and announced
+to them the plan he had formed, a most unlikely plan for such a man,
+yet possible enough if there was any remorseful sense of carelessness
+in the past. The Duke of Burgundy had promised to go if another prince
+would join him. The Pope determined that in the absence of any other
+he himself would be that prince. Old as he was, and sick, and no
+warrior, and perhaps with but little of the zeal which makes such a
+self-devotion possible, he would himself go forth to repel the
+infidel. "We do not go to fight," he said, with faltering voice. "We
+will imitate those who, when Israel fought against Amalek, prayed on
+the mountain. We will stand on the prow of our ship or upon some hill,
+and with the holy Eucharist before our eyes, we will ask from our Lord
+victory for our soldiers." After a pause of alarm and astonishment the
+Cardinals consented, and such preparations as were possible were made.
+It was published throughout all Christendom that the Pope was to sail
+from Ancona at a certain date, and that every one who could provide
+for the expenses of the journey should meet him there. He invited the
+old Doge of Venice to join with himself and the Duke of Burgundy, also
+an old man. "We shall be three old men," he said, "and our trinity
+will be aided by the Trinity of Heaven." A kind of sublimity was in
+the suggestion, a sublimity almost trembling on the borders of the
+ridiculous; for the enterprise was no longer one which accorded with
+the spirit of the time, and all was hesitation and difficulty. A
+miscellaneous host crowded to Ancona, where the Pope, much suffering,
+was carried in his litter, quite unfit for a long journey; but the
+most of them had no money and had to be sent back; and the Venetian
+galleys engaged to transport those who were left did not arrive till
+the pilgrims had waited long, and were worn out with delay and
+confusion. They arrived at last a day or two before Pope Pius died,
+when he was no longer capable of moving--and with his death the
+ill-fated Crusade fell to pieces and was heard of no more. It was the
+most curious end, in an enthusiasm founded upon anxious calculation,
+of a man who was never an enthusiast, whose eyes were always too
+clear-sighted to permit him to be led away by feeling, a man of
+letters and of thought, rather than of romantic-solemn enterprises or
+the zeal of a martyr. That he was a kind of martyr to the strong
+conviction of a danger which threatened Christendom, and the forlorn
+hope of repelling it, there can be no doubt.
+
+Pius II. was succeeded in 1464 by Paul II., also in his way a man of
+more than usual ability and note. He was a Venetian, the nephew of
+the last Venetian Pope, Eugenius; and it was he who built, to begin
+with, the fine palace still called the Palazzo Venezia, with which
+all visitors to Rome are so well acquainted. It was built for his own
+residence during his Cardinalate, and remained his favourite dwelling,
+a habitation still very much more in the centre of everything, as we
+say, than the remote and stately Vatican. The reader will easily
+recall the imposing appearance of this fine building, placed at the
+end of the straight street--the chief in Rome--in which were run the
+many races which formed part of the carnival festivities, a recent
+institution in Pope Paul's day. The street was called the Corso in
+consequence; and it is not long since the last of these races, one
+of horses without riders, was abolished. The Palazzo Venezia
+commanded the long straight street from its windows, and all the
+humours and wonders of the town, in which the Pope took pleasure. It
+was Paul's fate to make himself an implacable enemy in the often
+contemned, but--as regards the place in history of either pope or
+king--all-important class of writers, which it must have seemed
+ridiculous indeed for a Sovereign Pontiff to have kept terms with, on
+account of any power in their hands. But this was a shortsighted
+conclusion, unworthy the wisdom of a Pope. And the result of the
+Pontiff's ill-treatment of the historian Platina, to whom we are so
+much indebted, especially for the lives of those Popes who were his
+contemporaries, has been a lasting stigma upon his character, which
+the researches of the impartial critics of a later age have shown to
+be partly without foundation, but which until quite recently was
+accepted by everybody. In this way a writer has a power which is
+almost absolute. We have seen in our own days a conspicuous instance
+of this in the treatment by Mr. Froude of the life of Thomas Carlyle.
+Numbers of Carlyle's friends made instant protest against the view
+taken by his biographer; but they did so in evanescent methods--in
+periodical literature, the nature of which is to die after it has had
+its day--while a book remains. Very likely many of Pope Paul's friends
+protested against the coolly ferocious account of his life given by
+the aggrieved and revengeful author; but it is only quite recently, in
+the calm of great distance, that people have come to think--charitably
+in respect to Pope Paul II.--that perhaps Platina's strictures might
+not be true.
+
+Platina, however, had great provocation. He was one of the disciples
+of the famous school of Humanists, the then new school of learning,
+literature, and criticism, which had arisen under the papacy and
+patronage of Pope Nicolas V., and had continued to exist, though with
+less encouragement, under his successors. Pius II. had not been their
+patron as Nicolas was, but he had not been hostile to them, and his
+tastes were all of a kind congenial to their work. But Paul looked
+coldly upon the group of contemptuous scholars who had made themselves
+into an academy, and vapoured much about classical examples and the
+superiority of ancient times. He had no quarrel with literature, but
+he persuaded himself to believe that the academy which talked and
+masqueraded under classic names, and played with dangerous theories of
+liberty, and criticism of public proceedings, was a nest of
+conspirators and heretics scheming against himself. There was no
+foundation whatever for his fears, but that mattered little in those
+arbitrary days. This is Platina's own account of the matter:
+
+      "When Pius was dead and Paul created in his place, he had
+      no sooner grasped the keys of Peter, than he
+      proceeded--whether in consequence of a promise to do so, or
+      because the decrees and proceedings of Pius were odious to
+      him--to dismiss all the officials elected by Pius, on the
+      ground that they were useless and ignorant (as he said):
+      and deprived them of their dignity and revenues without
+      permitting them to say a word in their own defence, though
+      they were men who for their erudition and doctrine had been
+      gathered together from all the ends of the world, and
+      attracted to the court of Rome by the promise of great
+      reward. The College was full of men of letters and virtuous
+      persons learned in the law both divine and human. Among
+      them were poets and orators who gave no less ornament to
+      the court than they received from it. Paul sent them all
+      away as incapable and as strangers, and deprived them of
+      everything, although those who had bought their offices
+      were allowed to retain them. Those who suffered most
+      attempted to dissuade him from this intention, and I, who
+      was one of them, begged earnestly that our cause might be
+      committed to the judge of the Rota. Then he fixed on me his
+      angry eyes. 'So,' he said, 'thou wouldst appeal to other
+      judges against the decision we have made! Know ye not that
+      all justice and law are in the casket of our bosom? Thus I
+      will it to be. Begone, all of you! for, whatever you may
+      wish I am Pope, and according to my pleasure can make and
+      unmake.'"
+
+After hearing this determined assertion of right, the displaced
+scholars withdrew, but continued to plead their cause by urgent
+letters, which ended at last in an unwise threat to make the
+continental princes aware how they were treated, and to bring about
+the Pope's ears a Council, to which he would be obliged to give
+account. The word Council was to a Pope what the red flag is to a
+bull, and in a transport of rage Paul II. threw Platina into prison.
+He never in his life did a more foolish thing. The historian was kept
+in confinement for two years, and passed one long winter without fire,
+subjected to every hardship; but finally was set free by the
+intercession of Cardinal Gonzaga, and remained, by order of the Pope,
+under observation in Rome, where watching with a vigilant eye all that
+went on, he laid up his materials for that brief but scathing
+biography of Paul II. which forms one of the keenest effects in his
+work, and from which the Pope's memory has never recovered. It is a
+dangerous thing to provoke a man of letters who has a keen tongue and
+a gift of recollection, especially in those days when such men were
+not so many as now.
+
+Nevertheless Platina did a certain justice to his persecutor. "He
+built magnificently," he says, "splendidly in St. Marco, and in the
+Vatican." The Church of St. Marco is close to the Palazzo Venezia
+where Paul chiefly lived; he had taken his title as Cardinal from his
+native saint. Both in St. Peter's and in the Vatican he carried on
+the works begun by his predecessors, and though he was unkind to the
+scholars, he was not so in every case. "He expended his money
+liberally enough," says Platina, "giving freely to poor Cardinals and
+bishops, and to princes and persons of noble houses when cast out of
+their homes, and especially to poor women and widows, and the sick who
+had no one else to think of them. And he also took great trouble to
+secure that corn and other things necessary to life should be
+furnished in abundance, and at lower prices than had been known ever
+before." These were good and noble qualities which his enemy did not
+attempt to disguise.
+
+The special service done by Pope Paul to the city would seem, however,
+to have been the restoration of some of those ancient monuments which
+belonged to imperial Rome, of which none of his predecessors had made
+much account. If he still helped himself freely, like them, from the
+great reservoir of the Colosseum, he bestowed an attention and care,
+which they had not dreamed of, upon some of the great works of classic
+art, the arches of Titus and of Septimus Severus in particular, and
+the famous statue of Marcus Aurelius. M. Muntz comments with much
+spirit on the reason why this Pope's works of restoration have been so
+little celebrated. His taste was toward sculpture rather than
+painting. "To the eyes of the world," says the historian of the arts,
+"the smallest fresco is of more account than the finest monuments of
+architecture, or of sculpture. Nicolas V. did better for his fame in
+engaging Fra Angelico than in undertaking the reconstruction of St.
+Peter's. Pius II. owes a sort of posthumous celebrity to the paintings
+in the library of the cathedral of Sienna."
+
+The same classical tastes of which he thus gave token made Pope Paul a
+great collector of bronzes, cameos, medals, intaglios, the smaller
+precious objects of ancient art; the love of which he was the first to
+bring back as a special study and pursuit. His collection of these
+was wonderful for his time, and great for any time. All the other
+adornments of ancient art were dear to him, and his palace, which,
+after all, is his most complete memorial in Rome, was adorned like a
+bride with every kind of glory in carved and inlaid work, in vessels
+of gold and silver, embroideries and tapestries. He had the still more
+personal and individual characteristic of a love for fine clothes,
+which the gorgeous costumes of the popedom permitted him to indulge in
+to a large extent: and jewels, which he not only wore like an Eastern
+prince, but kept about him unset in drawers and cabinets for his
+private delight, playing with them, as Platina tells us, in the silent
+hours of the night. Some part at least of these magnificent tastes
+arose no doubt from the fact that he was himself a magnificent
+specimen of manhood, so distinguished in personal appearance that he
+had the naïve vanity of suggesting the name of Formosus for himself
+when elected Pope, though he yielded the point to the scandalised
+remonstrances of the Cardinals. This simplicity of self-admiration, so
+undoubting as to be almost a moral quality, no doubt gave meaning to
+the glorious mitres and tiara encrusted with the richest jewels, which
+it gave him so much pleasure to wear, and which take rank with the
+other great embellishments of Rome, though their object was more
+personal than official. The habits of his life were strange, for he
+slept during the day, and performed the duties of life during the
+night, the reason assigned for this being that he was tormented by a
+cough which prevented him from sleeping at the usual hours. "It was
+difficult to come to speech of him," Platina says, for this reason.
+"And when, after long waiting, he opened the door, you were obliged
+rather to listen than to speak; for he was very copious and long in
+speaking. In everything he desired to be thought astute, and therefore
+his conversation was in very intricate and ambiguous language He
+liked many sorts of viands on his table, all of the worst taste; and
+took much pleasure in eating melons, crawfish, pastry, fish, and salt
+pork, from which, I believe, came the apoplexy from which he died."
+Thus the prejudices of his enemy penetrated the most private details
+of the Pope's life. The venom of hatred defeats itself and becomes
+ridiculous when carried so far.
+
+His fine collection was seized by his successor and broken up, as is
+the fate of such treasures; and his works in St. Peter's, as we shall
+see, had much the same fate, along with the great works of his
+predecessor for the embellishment of the same building, all of which
+perished or were set aside in the fever of rebuilding which ensued.
+But there is still a sufficient memorial of him in the sombre
+magnificence of his Venetian palace, to recall to us the image of a
+true Renaissance Pope, mingling the most exquisite tastes with the
+rudest, the perfection of personal vanity--for he loved to see himself
+in a procession, head and shoulders over all the people--with the
+likings of a gondolier. Thus we see him in the records of his
+contemporaries, watching from his windows the strange sports in the
+long street newly named the Corso, races of men and of horses, and
+carnival processions accompanied by all the cumbrous and coarse humour
+of the period; or a stranger sight still, seated by night in his
+cabinet turning over his wealth of sparkling stones, enjoying the glow
+of light in them and twinkle of many colours, while the big candles
+flared, or a milder light shone from the beaks of the silver lamps.
+Notwithstanding which strange humours, tastes, and vanities, he
+remains in all these records a striking and remarkable figure, no
+intellectualist, but an effective and notable man.
+
+  [Illustration: PIAZZA COLONNA.
+    _To face page 564._]
+
+It is not the intention of these chapters to enter at all into the
+political life of the Popes of this period. They were still a power in
+Christendom, perhaps no less so that the Papacy had ceased to maintain
+those great pretensions of being the final arbiter in all disputes
+among the nations. But the papal negotiations, as always, came to very
+little when not aided by the events which are in no man's hand.
+Matthias of Hungary, though supported by all the influence and
+counsels of Pope Paul, made little head against the heretical George
+Podiebrad of Bohemia, until death suddenly overtook that prince, and
+left a troubled kingdom without a head, at the mercy of the invaders,
+an event such as constantly occurred to overturn all combinations and
+form the crises of history under a larger providence than that of
+human effort. And Paul no more than Pius could move Christendom
+against the Turk, or form again, when all its elements had crumbled,
+and the inspiration of enthusiasm was entirely gone, a new crusade. So
+far as our purpose goes, however, the Venetian Palace, the Church of
+St. Marco attached to it, and certain portions of the Vatican, better
+represent the life of this Pope, to whom the picturesque circumstances
+of his life and the rancour of a disappointed man of letters have
+given a special place of his own in the long line, than any summary we
+could give of the agitated sea of continental politics. The history of
+Rome was working up to that climax, odious, dazzling, and terrible, to
+which the age of the Renaissance, with all its luxury, its splendour,
+and its vice, brought the great city, and even the Church so
+irrevocably bound to it. Nicolas, Pius, and Paul at the beginning of
+that period, yet but little affected by its worst features, give us a
+pause of satisfaction before we get further. They were very different
+men. Pope Nicolas, with his crowd of copyists forming a ragged
+regiment after him, and the noise of all the workshops in his ears;
+and Paul, alone in his chamber pouring from one hand to another the
+stream of glowing and sparkling jewels which threw out radiance like
+the waterways of his own Venice under the light, afford images as
+unlike as it is possible to conceive; while the wise and thoughtful
+Pius, with those eyes "which had kept watch o'er man's mortality,"
+stands over both, the perennial spectator and commentator of the
+world. They were all of one mind to glorify Rome, to make her a wonder
+in the whole earth, as Jerusalem had been, if not to pave her streets
+with gold, yet to line them with noble edifices more costly than gold,
+and to build and adorn the first of Christian churches, the shrine to
+which every Christian came. Alas! by that time it was beginning to be
+visible that all Christians would not long continue to come to the one
+shrine, that the pictorial age of symbols and representations was
+dying away, and that Rome had not learned at all how to meet that
+great revolution. It was not likely to be met by even the most
+splendid restoration of the fated city, any more than the necessities
+of the people were to be met by those other resurrections of
+institutions dead and gone, attempted by Rienzi, and his still less
+successful copyist Porcaro; but how were these men to know? They did
+their best, the worst of them not without some noble meaning, at least
+at the beginning of their several careers; but they are all reduced to
+their place, so much less important than they believed, by the large
+sweep of history, and the guidance of a higher hand.
+
+Paul II. died in August 1471. Another order of man now succeeded these
+remarkable personages, the first of the line of purely secular
+princes, men of the world, splendid, unprincipled, and more or less
+vicious, although in this case it is once more a peasant, without so
+much as a surname, Sixtus IV., who takes his place in the scene, and
+who has left his name more conspicuously than any of his predecessors
+upon the later records of Rome. So far as the reader is concerned, the
+inscription at the end of the life of Pope Paul is a more melancholy
+one than anything that concerns that Pope. "Fin qui, scrisse il
+Platina," says the legend. We miss in the after-records his individual
+touch, the hand of the contemporary, in which the frankness of the
+chronicler is modified by the experience and knowledge of an educated
+mind. The work of Panvinio, _scriba del Senato e popolo Romano_, who
+completes the record, is without the same charm.
+
+We have said that Pope Sixtus IV. was a man without a surname,
+Francesco of Savona, his native place furnishing his only patronymic:
+but there was soon found for him--probably for the satisfaction of the
+nephews who took so large a place in his life--a name which bore some
+credit, that of a family of gentry in which it is said the young monk
+had fulfilled the duties of tutor in the beginning of his career. By
+what imaginary pedigree this was brought about we are not told; but it
+is unlikely that the real della Roveres would reject the engrafting of
+a great Pope into their stock, and it soon became a name to conjure
+with throughout Italy. Although he also vaguely made proposals about a
+Crusade, and languidly desired to drive back the Turk, he was a man
+much more interested in the internal squabbles of Italy, and in his
+plans for endowing and establishing his nephews, than in any larger
+purpose. But he was also a man of boundless energy and power, cooped
+up for the greater part of his life, but now bursting forth like the
+strong current of a river. Whether it was from a natural inclination
+towards beauty and splendour, or because he saw it to be the best way
+in which to distinguish himself and make his own name as well as that
+of his city glorious, matters little to the result. He was, in the
+fullest sense of the words, one of the chiefest of the Popes who made
+the modern city of Rome, as still existing and glorious in the sight
+of all the world.
+
+It was still a confused and disorderly place, in which narrow streets
+and tortuous ways, full of irregularities and projections of all
+kinds, threaded through the large and pathetic desert of the ancient
+city, leaving a rim of ruin round the too-closely clustered centre of
+life where men crowded together for security and warmth after the
+custom of the mediæval age--when Sixtus began to reign; and this it
+was which specially impressed King Ferdinand of Naples when he paid
+his visit to the Pope in the year 1475, and had to be led about by
+Cardinals and other high officials, sometimes, it would appear, by his
+Holiness himself, to see the sights. The remarks he made upon the town
+were very useful if not quite civil to the seat of Roman influence and
+authority. Infessura gives this little incident vividly, so that we
+almost see the streets with their outer stairs crowded with
+bystanders, their balconies laden with bright tapestries and fair
+women, and every projecting gable and pillared doorway pushing out
+into the pavement at its own unfettered will. The course of
+sightseeing followed by the King, conducted by the Pope and Cardinals,
+is fully set forth in these quaint pages. King Ferrante came to make
+his devotions _allo perdono_, probably the Jubilee of 1475, and
+offered to each of the three churches of St. Peter, St. John Lateran,
+and St. Paul, a pallium of gold for each, besides many other gifts.
+
+      "He went over all Rome to see the great buildings, and to
+      Santa Maria Rotonda, and the columns of Antonius and of
+      Trajan; and every man did him great honour. And when he had
+      seen all these things he turned back to the palace, and
+      talking to Pope Sixtus said that he (the Pope) could never
+      be the lord of the place, nor ever truly reign over it,
+      because of the porticoes and balconies which were in the
+      streets; and that if it were ever necessary to put men at
+      arms in possession of Rome the women in the balconies, with
+      small bombs, could make them fly; and that nothing could be
+      more easy than to make barricades in the narrow streets;
+      and he advised him to clear away the balconies and the
+      porticoes and to widen the streets, under pretence of
+      improving and embellishing the city. The Pope took this
+      advice, and as soon as it was possible cast down all those
+      porticoes, and balconies, and widened the ways under
+      pretence of improving them. And the said King remained
+      there three days, and then went away."
+
+This story and the spirit in which the suggestion was made recall
+Napoleon's grim whiff of grapeshot, and the policy which has made the
+present Paris a city of straight lines which a battery of artillery
+could clear in a moment, instead of all the elbows and corners of the
+old picturesque streets. Pope Sixtus appreciated the suggestion,
+knowing how undisciplined a city he had to deal with, and what a good
+thing it might be to fill up those hornets' nests, with all their
+capabilities of offence. Probably a great many picturesque dwellings
+perished in the destruction of those centres of rebellion, which
+recall to us so vividly the scenes in which Rienzi the tribune
+fluttered through his little day, and which were continually filled
+with the rustle and tumult of an abounding populace. We cannot be so
+grateful to King Ferdinand, or so full of praise for this portion of
+the work of Pope Sixtus, as were his contemporaries, though no doubt
+it gave to us almost all the leading thoroughfares we know. It was
+reserved for his kinsman-Pope to strike Rome the severest stroke that
+was possible, and commit the worst of iconoclasms; but we do not doubt
+that the destruction of the porches, and stairheads, and balconies
+must have greatly diminished the old-world attraction of a city--in
+which, however, it was the mediæval with all its irregularities that
+was the intruder, while what was new in the hand of Sixtus and his
+architects linked itself in sympathy with the most ancient, the
+originator yet survivor of all.
+
+It was with the same purpose and intentions that the Pope built in
+place of the Ponte Rotto--which had lain long in ruins--a bridge over
+the Tiber, which he called by his own name, and which still remains,
+affording a second means of reaching the Borgo and the Sanctuaries, as
+a relief to the bridge of St. Angelo, upon which serious accidents
+were apt to happen by reason of the crowd. Both the chroniclers,
+Infessura and Panvinio, the continuator of Platina, describe the
+bridge as being a rebuilding of the actual Ponte Rotto itself. "It was
+his intention to mend this bridge," says the former authority, and he
+takes the opportunity to point out the presumptuous and proud attempt
+of Sixtus to preserve his own name and memory by it, a fault already
+committed by several of his predecessors; "he accordingly descended to
+the river and placed in the foundations by the said bridge a square
+stone on which was written: _Sixtus Quartus Pontifex Maximus fecit
+fieri sub Anno Domini 1473_. Behind this stone the Pope placed certain
+gold medals bearing his head, and afterwards built that bridge, which
+after this was no longer called _Ponte Rotto_, but _Ponte Sisto_, as
+is written on it." It is a wonderful point of view, commanding as it
+does both sides of the river, St. Peter's on one hand and the Palatine
+on the other, with all the mass of buildings which are Rome. The
+_Scritte_ on the Ponte Sisto begs the prayers of the passer-by for its
+founder, who certainly had need of them both for his achievements in
+life and in architecture. There is still, however, a Ponte Rotto
+further up the stream.
+
+Besides the work of widening the streets, which necessitated much
+pulling down and rebuilding of houses, and frequent encounters with
+the inhabitants, who naturally objected to proceedings so summary--and
+removing the excrescences, balconies, and porticoes, "which occupied,
+obscured, and made them ugly (_brutte_) and disorderly:" Pope Sixtus
+rebuilt the great Hospital of the Santo Spirito, which had fallen into
+disrepair, providing shelter in the meantime for the patients who had
+to be removed from it, and arranging for the future in the most
+grandfatherly way. This great infirmary is also a foundling hospital,
+and there was a large number of children to provide for. "Seeing that
+many children both male and female along with their nurses were thrown
+out on the world, he assigned them a place where they could live, and
+ordained that the marriageable girls should be portioned and honestly
+married, and that the others who would not marry should become the
+nurses of the sick. He also arranged that there should be (in the new
+hospital) more honourable rooms and better furnished for sick
+gentle-folks, so that they might be kept separate from the common
+people": an arrangement which is one of the things (like so many
+ancient expedients) on which we now pride ourselves as an invention of
+our own age, though the poor gentle-folks of Pope Sisto were not
+apparently made to pay for their privileges. This hospital in some of
+its details is considered the most meritorious of the Pope's
+architectural work.
+
+Sixtus IV. was a man of the most violent temper, which led him into
+some curious scenes which have become historical. When one of the
+unfortunate proprietors of a house which stood in the way of his
+improvements resisted the workmen, Sixtus had him cast into prison on
+the moment, and savagely stood by to see the house pulled down before
+he would leave the spot. He delighted, the chroniclers say, in the
+ruins he made. A more tragic instance of his rage was the judicial
+murder of the Protonotary Colonna, who paid with his life for crossing
+the will of the Pope. But this masterful will and impetuous temper
+secured an incredible swiftness in the execution of his work.
+
+The prudent suggestion of Ferdinand resulted in the clearance of those
+straight streets which led from the Flaminian Gate--now called the
+Porta del Popolo, which Sixtus built or restored, as well as the
+church of Sta. Maria del Popolo, which stands close by--to all the
+principal places in the city; the Corso being the way to the Capitol,
+the Ripetta to St. Angelo and the Borgo. He repaired once more the
+church and ancient palace of the Lateran, which had so long been the
+home of the Popes, and was still formally their diocesan church to
+which they went in state after their election. It is unnecessary,
+however, to give here a list of the many churches which he repaired or
+rebuilt. His work was Rome itself, and pervaded every part, from St.
+Peter's and the Vatican to the furthest corners of the city. The
+latter were, above all, the chief objects of his care, and he seems to
+have taken up with even a warmer ardour, if perhaps with a less
+cultivated intelligence, the plan of Nicolas V. in respect to the
+Palace at least. Like him he gathered a crowd of painters, chiefly
+strangers, around him, so that there is scarcely a great name of the
+time that does not appear in his lists; but he managed these great
+craftsmen personally like a slave-driver, pushing them on to a
+breathless speed of execution, so that the works produced for him are
+more memorable for their extent than for their perfection.
+
+The fame of a sanitary reformer before his time seems an unlikely one
+for Pope Sixtus, yet he seems to have had no inconsiderable right to
+it. _Nettare_ and _purgare_ are two words in constant use in the
+record of his life. He restored to efficient order the Cloaca Maxima.
+He brought in, a more beautiful office, the Acqua Vergine, a name of
+itself enough to glorify any master-builder, "remaking," says the
+chronicler, "the aqueducts, which were in ruins, from Monte Pincio to
+the fountain of Trevi." Here is perhaps a better reason for blessing
+Pope Sixtus than even his bridge, for those splendid and abundant
+waters which convey coolness and freshness and pleasant sound into the
+very heart of Rome were brought hither by his hand, a gift which may
+be received without criticism, for not upon his name lies the guilt of
+the prodigious construction, a creation of the eighteenth century,
+through which they now flow. The traveller from the ends of the earth
+who takes his draught of this wonderful unfailing fountain, rejoicing
+in the sparkle and the flow of water so crystal-clear and cold even in
+the height of summer, and hoping to secure as he does so his return to
+Rome, may well pour a libation to Papa Sisto, who, half pagan as they
+all were in those days, would probably have liked that form of
+recollection quite as much as the prayers he invokes according to the
+formal requirements of piety and the custom of the Church. However,
+they found it quite easy to combine the two during that strange age.
+The chief thing of all, however, which perpetuates the name of Sixtus
+is the famous Sistine chapel, although its chief attraction is not
+derived from anything ordained by him. Some of the greatest names in
+art were concerned in its earlier decorations--Perugino, Botticelli,
+Ghirlandajo, along with many others. Michael Angelo was not yet,
+neither had Raphael appeared from the Umbrian _bottega_ with his charm
+of grace and youth. But the Pope collected the greatest he could find,
+and set them to work upon his newly-built walls with a magnificence
+and liberality which deserved a more lasting issue. The reader will
+shiver, yet almost laugh with consternation and wonder, to hear that
+several great pictures of Perugino were destroyed on these walls by
+the orders of another Pope in order to make room for Michael Angelo.
+There could not be a more characteristic token of the course of events
+in the Papal succession, and of the wanton waste and destruction by
+one of the most cherished work of another.
+
+Sixtus was none the less a warlike prince, struggling in perpetual
+conflict with the princes of the other states, perhaps with even a
+fiercer strain of ambition, fighting for wealth and position with
+which to endow the young men who were as his sons--as worldly in his
+aims as any Malatesta or Sforza, as little scrupulous about his means
+of carrying them out, shedding blood or at least permitting it to be
+shed in his name, extorting money, selling offices, trampling upon the
+rights of other men. Yet amid all these distractions he pursued his
+nobler work, not without a wish for the good of his people as well as
+for his own ends, making his city more habitable, providing a lordly
+habitation for the sick, pouring floods of life-giving water into the
+hot and thirsty place. The glory of building may have many elements of
+vanity in it as well as the formation of galleries of art, and the
+employment of all the greatest art-workmen of their time. But ours is
+the advantage in these latter respects, so that we may well judge
+charitably a man who, in devising great works for his own honour and
+pleasure, has at the same time endowed us, and especially his country
+and people, with a lasting inheritance. Perhaps, even in competition
+with these, it is most to his credit that he fulfilled offices which
+did not so much recommend themselves to his generation, and cleansed
+and cleared out and let in air and light like any modern sanitary
+reformer. The Acqua Vergine and the Santo Spirito Hospital are as fine
+things as even a Botticelli for a great prince's fame. He may even be
+forgiven the destruction of the balconies and all the picturesque
+irregularities which form the charm of ancient streets, in
+consideration of the sewerage and the cleaning out. The pictures, the
+libraries, and all the more beautiful things of life, in which we of
+the distant lands and centuries have our share of benefit, are good
+deeds which are not likely to be forgotten.
+
+It is however naturally the beautiful things of which it is most
+pleasant to think. The chroniclers, whom we love to follow, curiously
+enough, have nothing to say about the pictures, perhaps because it was
+not an art favoured by the Romans, or which they themselves pursued,
+except in its lower branches. Infessura mentions a certain Antonazzo
+Pintore, who was the author of a Madonna, painted on the wall near the
+church of Sta. Maria, below the Capitol at the foot of the hill, which
+on the 26th of June, in the year 1470, began to do miracles, and was
+afterwards enshrined in a church dedicated to our Lady of
+Consolations. Antonazzo was a humble Roman artist, whose name is to be
+found among the workmen in the service of Pope Paul II., who was not
+much given to pictures. Perhaps he is mentioned because he was a
+Roman, more likely because he had the good luck to produce a
+miraculous Madonna. The same writer makes passing mention of I
+Fiorentini, under which generic name all the _bottegas_ were included.
+
+"He renewed the Palace of the Vatican, drawing it forth under great
+colonnades," says, picturesquely, the chronicler Panvinio, working
+probably from Platina's notes, "and making under his chapel a
+library": which was the finest thing of all, for he there reinstated
+Platina, who had been kept under so profound a shadow in the time of
+Paul II., and called back the learned men whom his predecessor had
+discouraged, sending far and near through all Europe for books, and
+thus enlarging the library begun by Pope Nicolas which is one of the
+most celebrated which the world possesses, and to which he secured a
+revenue, "enough to enable those who had the care of it to live, and
+even to buy more books." This provision still exists, though it is no
+longer sufficient for the purpose for which it was dedicated. The
+Cardinals emulated the Pope both in palace and church, each doing his
+best to leave behind him some building worthy of his name. Ornament
+abounded everywhere; sometimes rather of a showy than of a refined
+kind. There is a story in Vasari of how one of the painters employed
+on the Sistine, competing for a prize which the Pope had offered,
+piled on his colours beyond all laws of taste or harmony, and was
+laughed at by his fellows; but proved the correctness of his judgment
+by winning the prize, having gauged the knowledge and taste of Sixtus
+better than the others whose attempt had been to do their best--a
+height entirely beyond his grasp.
+
+All these buildings, however, were fatal to the remnants still
+existing of ancient Rome. The Colosseum and the other great relics of
+antiquity were still the quarries out of which the new erections were
+built. The Sistine Bridge was founded upon huge blocks of travertine
+brought directly from the ruins of the Colosseum. The buildings of the
+Imperial architects thus melted away as we are told now everything in
+the world does, our own bodies among the rest, into new combinations,
+under a law which if just and universal in nature is not willingly
+adopted in art. The wonder is how they should have supplied so many
+successive generations, and still remain even to the extent they still
+do. Every building in Rome owes something to the Colosseum--its stones
+were sold freely in earlier ages, and carried off to the ends of the
+earth; but it has remained like the widow's cruse, inexhaustible:
+which is almost more wonderful than the fact of its constant use.
+
+There is a picture in the Vatican gallery, which though not one of the
+highest merit is very interesting from a historical point of view. We
+quote the description of it from Bishop Creighton.
+
+      "It represents Sixtus IV. founding the Vatican library. The
+      Pope with a face characterised by mingled strength and
+      coarseness, his hands grasping the arms of his chair, sits
+      looking at Platina, who kneels before him, a man whose face
+      is that of a scholar, with square jaw, thin lips, finely
+      cut mouth, and keen glancing eye. Cardinal Giuliano stands
+      like an official who is about to give a message to the
+      Pope, by whose side is Pietro Riario with aquiline nose and
+      sensual chin, red-cheeked and supercilious. Behind Platina
+      is Count Girolamo with a shock of black hair falling over
+      large black eyes, his look contemptuous and his mien
+      imperious."
+
+These were the three men for whom the Pontiff fought and struggled and
+soiled his hands with blood, and sold his favour to the highest
+bidder. Giuliano della Rovere and Pietro Riario were Cardinals: Count
+Girolamo or Jeronimo was worse--he was of the rudest type of the
+predatory baron, working out a fortune for himself with the sword, the
+last man in the world to be the henchman of a Pope. They were but one
+step from the peasant race, without distinction or merit which had
+given them birth, and all three built upon that rude stock the
+dissolute character and grasping greed for money, acquired by every
+injustice, and expended on every folly, which was so common in their
+time. They were all young, intoxicated with their wonderful success
+and with every kind of extravagance to be provided for. They made Rome
+glitter and glow with pageants, always so congenial to the taste of
+the people, seizing every opportunity of display and magnificence.
+Infessura tells the story of one of these wonderful shows, with a
+mixture of admiration and horror. The Cardinal of San Sisto, he tells
+us, who was Pietro Riario, covered the whole of the Piazza of the
+Santi Apostoli, and hung it with cloth of arras, and above the portico
+of the church erected a fine _loggia_ with panels painted by the
+Florentines for the festa of San ... (the good Infessura forgets the
+name with a certain contempt one cannot but feel for the foreign
+painters and their works), and in front made two fountains which threw
+water very high, as high as the roof of the church. This wonderful
+arrangement was intended for the delectation of the royal guest
+Madonna Leonora, daughter of King Ferrante for whom he and his cousin
+Girolamo made a great feast.
+
+      "After the above banquet was seen one of the finest things
+      that were ever seen in Rome or out of Rome: for between the
+      banquet and the festa, several thousands of ducats were
+      spent. There was erected a buffet with so much silver upon
+      it as you would never have believed the Church of God had
+      so much, in addition to that which was used at table: and
+      even the things to eat were gilt, and the sugar used to
+      make them was without measure, more than could be believed.
+      And the said Madonna Leonora was in the aforesaid house
+      with many demoiselles and baronesses. And every one of
+      these ladies had a washing basin of gold given her by the
+      Cardinal. Oh guarda! in such things as these to spend the
+      treasure of the Church!"
+
+Next year the Cardinal Riario died at twenty-eight, "poisoned,"
+Infessura says: "and this was the end of all our fine festas." Another
+day it was the layman among the nephews who stirred all Rome, and the
+world beyond, with an immeasurable holiday.
+
+      "On St. Mark's Day, 1746, the Count Jeronimo, son, or
+      nephew of Pope Sixtus, held a solemn tournament in Navona,
+      where were many valiant knights of Italy and much people,
+      Catalans and Burgundians and other nations; and it was
+      believed that at this festivity there were more than a
+      hundred thousand people, and it lasted over Friday,
+      Saturday, and Sunday. And there were three prizes, one of
+      which was won by Juliano Matatino, and another by Lucio
+      Poncello, and the third by a man of arms of the Kingdom
+      (Naples, so called until very recent days), and they were
+      of great value."
+
+The Piazza Navona, the scene of this tournament, was made by Pope
+Sixtus the market-place of Rome, where markets were held once a month,
+an institution which still continues. The noble Pantheon occupies the
+end of this great square, as when Count Jeronimo with his black brows,
+marshalled his knights within the long enclosure, so fit for such a
+sight. We have now come to a period of history in which all the
+localities are familiar, and where we can identify every house and
+church and tower.
+
+"Sixtus," says the chronicler, "left nothing undone which he saw to be
+for the ornament or comfort of the city. He defended intrepidly the
+cause of the Romans and the dignity of the Holy See." The first of
+these statements is more true perhaps than the last; and we may
+forgive him his shortcomings and his nephews on that great score. He
+ended his reign in August 1484, having held the Pontificate thirteen
+years.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF TREVI.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+JULIUS II.--LEO X.
+
+
+It is happily possible to pass over the succeeding pontificates of
+Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI. These Popes did little for Rome
+except, especially the last of them, to associate the name of the
+central city of Christendom with every depravity. The charitable
+opinion of later historians who take that pleasure in upsetting all
+previous notions, which is one of the features of our time, has begun
+to whisper that even the Borgias were not so black as they were
+painted. But it will take a great deal of persuasion and of eloquence
+to convince the world that there is anything to be said for that name.
+Pope Innocent VIII. continued the embellishment of the Vatican, which
+was his own palace, and completed the Belvedere, and set Andrea
+Mantegna to paint its chambers; but this was not more than any Roman
+nobleman might have done for his palace if he had had money enough for
+decorations, which were by no means so costly in those days as they
+would be now, and probably indeed were much cheaper than the more
+magnificent kinds of arras or other decorative stuffs fit for a Pope's
+palace. Alexander, too, added a splendid apartment for himself, still
+known by his name; and provided for possible danger (which did not
+occur however in his day) by making and decorating another apartment
+in the castle of St. Angelo, whither he might have retired and still
+managed to enjoy himself, had Rome risen against him. But Rome, which
+often before had hunted its best Popes into the strait confinement of
+that stronghold, left the Borgia at peace. We are glad to pass on to
+the next Pope, whose footsteps, almost more than those of any other of
+her monarchs, are still to be seen and recognised through Rome. He
+gave more to the city than any one who had preceded him, and he
+destroyed more than any Pope before had permitted himself to do.
+
+Julius II., della Rovere, the nephew of Pope Sixtus, for whom and for
+his brother and cousin that Pope occupied so much of his busy life,
+was a violent man of war, whose whole life was occupied in fighting,
+and who neither had nor pretended to have any reputation for sanctity
+or devotion. But passionate and unsparing as he was, and fiercely bent
+on his own way, the aim of his perpetual conflicts was at all events a
+higher one than that of his uncle, in so far that it was to enrich the
+Church and not his own family that he toiled and fought. He was the
+centre of warlike combinations all his life--League of Cambrai, holy
+League, every kind of concerted fighting to crush those who opposed
+him and to divide their goods; but the portion of the goods which fell
+to the share of Pope Julius was for the Church and not for the
+endowment of a sister's son. He was not insensible altogether to the
+claims of sister's sons; but he preferred on the whole the patrimony
+of St. Peter, and fought for that with unfailing energy all round.
+There are many books in which the history of those wars and of the
+Renaissance Popes in general may be read in full, but the Julius II.
+in whom we are here interested is not one who ever led an army or
+signed an offensive league: it is the employer of Bramante and Michael
+Angelo and Raphael, the choleric patron who threatened to throw the
+painter of the Sistine chapel from his scaffolding, the dreadful
+iconoclast who pulled down St. Peter's and destroyed the tombs of the
+Popes, the magnificent prince who bound the greatest artists then
+existing in Italy, which was to say in the world, to his chariot
+wheels, and drove them about at his will. Most of these things were
+good things, and give a favourable conception of him; though not that
+which was the most important of all.
+
+How it was that he came to pull down St. Peter's nobody can say. He
+had of course the contempt which a man, carried on the highest tide of
+a new movement, has by nature for all previous waves of impulse. He
+thought of the ancient building so often restored, the object of so
+much loving care, with all the anxious expedients employed by past
+Popes to glorify and embellish the beloved interior, giving it the
+warmest and most varied historical interest--with much the same
+feeling as the respectable churchwarden in the eighteenth century
+looked upon the piece of old Gothic which had fallen into his hands. A
+church of the fourteenth century built for eternity has always looked
+to the churchwarden as if it would tumble about his ears--and his
+Herculean efforts to pull down an arch that without him would have
+stood till the end of time have always been interpreted as meaning
+that the ancient erection was about to fall. Julius II. in the same
+way announced St. Peter's to be in a bad way and greatly in need of
+repair, so as scarcely to be safe for the faithful; and Bramante was
+there all ready with the most beautiful plans, and the Pope was not a
+patient man who would wait, but one who insisted upon results at once.
+This church had been for many hundreds of years the most famous of
+Christian shrines; from the ends of the world pilgrims had sought its
+altars. The tomb of the Apostles was its central point, and many
+another saint and martyr inhabited its sacred places. It had seen the
+consecration of Emperors, it had held false Popes and true, and had
+witnessed the highest climax of triumph for some, and for some the
+last solemnity of death.[10] But Bramante saw in that venerable temple
+only the foundations for a new cathedral after the fashion of the
+great Duomo which was the pride of Florence; and his master beheld in
+imagination the columns rising, and the vast arches growing, of such
+an edifice as would be the brag of Christendom, and carry the glory of
+his own name to the furthest ends of the earth: a temple all-glorious
+in pagan pride, more classical than the classics, adorned with great
+statues and blank magnificence of pilasters and tombs rising up to the
+roof--one tomb at least, that of the della Roveres, of Sixtus IV. and
+Julius II., which should live as long as history, and which, if that
+proud and petulant fellow Buonarotti would but complete his work,
+would be one of the glories of the Eternal City.
+
+  [Illustration: OLD ST. PETER'S.
+    _To face page 584._]
+
+The ancient St. Peter's would not seem to have had anything of the
+poetic splendour and mystery of a Gothic building as understood in
+northern countries: the rounded arches of its façade did not spring
+upwards with the lofty lightness and soaring grace of the great
+cathedrals of France and Germany. But the irregular front was full of
+interest and life, picturesque if not splendid. It had character and
+meaning in every line, it was a series of erections, carrying the
+method of one century into another, with that art which makes one
+great building into an animated and varied history of the times and
+ages through which it has passed, taking something from each, and
+giving shelter and the sense of continuance to all. There is no such
+charm as this in the most perfect of architectural triumphs executed
+by a single impulse. But this was the last quality in the world likely
+to deter a magnificent Pope of the fifteenth century, to whom unity of
+conception and correctness of form were of much more concern than any
+such imaginative interest. However Julius II. must not have greater
+guilt laid upon him than was his due. His operations concerned only
+the eastern part of the great church: the façade, and the external
+effect of the building remained unchanged for more than a hundred
+years; while the plan as now believed, was that of Pope Nicolas V.,
+only carried out by instalments by his successors, of whom Julius was
+one of the boldest.
+
+It is, however, in the fame of his three servants, sublime slaves,
+whose names are more potent still than those of any Pontiff, that this
+Pope has become chiefly illustrious. His triumphs of fighting are lost
+from memory in the pages of the historians, where we read and forget,
+the struggle he maintained in Italy, and the transformations through
+which that much troubled country passed under his sway--to change
+again the morrow after, as it had changed the day before the beginning
+of his career. To be sure it was he who finally identified and secured
+the Patrimony of St. Peter--so that the States of the Church were not
+henceforward lost and won by a natural succession of events once at
+least in the life of every Pope. But we forget that fact, and all
+that secured it, the tumultuous chaos of European affairs being as yet
+too dark to be penetrated by any certainty of consolidation. The
+course of events was in large what the history of the fortunes of St.
+John Lateran, for example, was in small. From the days of Pope Martin
+V. until those of Sixtus IV. a change of the clergy there was made in
+almost each pontificate. Eugenius IV. restored the canons regular, or
+monks: who were driven forth by Calixtus III., again restored by Paul
+II., and so forth, until at length Sixtus, bringing back the secular
+priests for the third time, satisfied the monks by the gift of his new
+church of Sta. Maria della Pace. The revolution of affairs in Italy
+was almost as regular, and it is only with an effort of the mind that
+the reader can follow the endless shifting of the scenes, the
+combinations that disperse and reassemble, the whirl of events for
+ever coming round again to the point from which they started. But when
+we put aside the Popes and the Princes and the stamping and tumult of
+mail-clad warriors--and the crowd opening on every side gives us to
+see a patient, yet high-tempered artisan mounting day by day his lofty
+platform, swung up close to the roof, where sometimes lying on his
+back, sometimes crouched upon his knees, he made roof and architrave
+eloquent with a vision which centuries cannot fade, nor any
+revolution, either of external affairs or of modes of thought, lessen
+in interest, a very different feeling fills the mind, and the
+thoughts, which were sick and weary with the purposeless and dizzy
+whirl of fact, come back relieved to the consoling permanence of art.
+The Pope who mounted imperious, a master of the world, on to those
+dizzy planks, admired, and blasphemed and threatened in a breath; but
+with no power to move the sturdy painter, who, it was well known, was
+a man impossible to replace. "When will you have done?" said the Pope.
+"When I can," replied the other. The Pontiff might rage and threaten,
+but the Florentine painted on steadily; and Pope Julius, on the
+tremulous scaffolding up against the roof of his uncle's chapel, is
+better known to the world by that scene than by all his victories.
+Uncle and nephew, both men of might, warlike souls and strong, that
+room in the Vatican has more share in their fame than anything else
+which they achieved in the world.
+
+Another and a gentler spirit comes in at the same time to glorify this
+fortunate Pope. His predecessors for some time back had each done
+something for the splendour of the dwelling which was their chief
+residence, even the least interested adding at least a _loggia_, a
+corridor, a villa in the garden, as has been seen, to make the Vatican
+glorious. Alexander VI. had been the last to embellish and extend the
+more than regal lodging of the Pontiffs; but Julius II. had a hatred
+of his predecessor which all honest men have a right to share, and
+would not live in the rooms upon which the Borgias had left the horror
+of their name. He went back to the cleaner if simpler apartments which
+Nicolas V. had built and decorated by the hands of the elder painters.
+Upon one of these he set young Raphael to work, a young man with whom
+there was likely to be no such trouble as that he had with the gnarled
+and crabbed Florentine, who was as wilful as himself. Almost as soon
+as the young painter had begun his gracious work the delighted Pope
+perceived what a treasury of glory he had got in this new servant.
+What matter that the new painter's master, Perugino, had been there
+before him with other men of the highest claims? The only thing to do
+was to break up these old-fashioned masters, to clear them away from
+the walls, to leave it all to Raphael. We shiver and wonder at such a
+proof of enthusiasm. Was the young man willing to get space for his
+smooth ethereal pictures with all their heavenly grace, at such a
+price? But if he made any remonstrance--which probably he did, for we
+see him afterwards in much trouble over St. Peter's, and the
+destruction carried on there--his imperious master took little notice.
+Julius was one of the men who had to be obeyed, and he was always as
+ready to pull down as to build up. The destruction of St. Peter's on
+one hand, and all those pictures on the other, prove the reckless and
+masterful nature of the man, standing at nothing in a matter on which
+he had set his heart. In later days the pictures of Perugino on the
+wall of the Sistine chapel were demolished, as has been said, to make
+place for the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo; but Pope Julius by that
+time had passed into another sphere.
+
+Most people will remember the famous portrait of this Pope by Raphael,
+one of the best known pictures in the world. He sits in his chair, an
+old man, his head slightly bowed, musing, in a pause of the endless
+occupations and energy which made his life so full. The portrait is
+quite simple, but full of dignity and a brooding power. We feel that
+it would not be well to rouse the old lion, though at the moment his
+repose is perfect. Raphael was at his ease in the peacefulness of his
+own soul to observe and to record the powerful master whose fame he
+was to have so great a share in making. It would have been curious to
+have had also the Julius whom Michael Angelo knew.
+
+He died in the midst of all this great work, while yet the dust of the
+downfall of St. Peter's was in the air. Had it been possible that he
+could have lived to see the new and splendid temple risen in its
+place, we could better understand the wonderful hardihood of the act;
+but it would be almost inconceivable how even the most impious of men
+could have executed such an impulse, leaving nothing but a partial
+ruin behind him of the great Shrine of Christendom, did we not know
+that a whole line of able rulers had carried on the plan to gradual
+completion. It was not till a hundred and fifty years later that the
+new St. Peter's in its present form, vast and splendid, but
+apparently framed to look, to the first glance, as little so as
+possible, stood complete, to the admiration of the world. In the
+violence of destruction a great number of the tombs of the Popes
+perished, by means of that cynical carelessness and profanity which is
+more cruel than any hostile impulse. Julius preserved the grave of his
+uncle Sixtus, where he was himself afterwards laid, not in his own
+splendid tomb which had been in the making for many years, and which
+is now to be seen in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli from which he
+took his Cardinal's title. He had therefore little good of that work
+of art as he well deserved, and it was itself sadly diminished, cut
+down, and completed by various secondary hands; but it is kept within
+the ken of the spectator by Michael Angelo's Moses and some other
+portions of his original work, though it neither enshrines the body
+nor marks the resting place of its imperious master. Julius died in
+1513, "more illustrious in military glory than a Pope ought to be."
+Panvinio says: "He was of great soul and constancy, and a powerful
+defender of all ecclesiastical things: he would not suffer any
+offence, and was implacable with rebels and contumacious persons. He
+was such a one as could not but be praised for having with so much
+strength and fidelity preserved and increased the possessions of the
+Church, although there are a few to whom it appears that he was more
+given to arms than was becoming a holy Pope." "On the 21st of February
+1513, died Pope Julius, at nine hours of the night," says another
+chronicler, Sebastiano Branca; "he held the papacy nine years, three
+months, and twenty-five days. He was from Savona: he acquired many
+lands for the Church: no Pope had ever done what Pope Julius did. The
+first was Faenza, the others Forli, Cervia, Ravenna, Rimini, Parma,
+Piacenza, and Arezzo. He gained them all for the Church, nor ever
+thought of giving them to his own family. Pesaro he gave to the Duke
+of Urbino, his nephew, but no other. Thirty-three cardinals died in
+his time. And he caused the death in war of more than a hundred
+thousand people." There could not be a more grim summary.
+
+It is curious to remark that the men who originated the splendour of
+modern Rome, who built its noblest churches and palaces, and
+emblazoned its walls with the noblest works of art, and filled its
+libraries with the highest luxury of books, were men of the humblest
+race, of peasant origin, born to poverty and toil. Thomas of Sarzana,
+Pope Nicolas V., Francesco and Giuliano of Savona, Popes Sixtus IV.
+and Julius II.: these men were born without even the distinction of a
+surname, in the huts where poor men lie, or more humbly still in some
+room hung high against the rocky foundations of a village, perched
+upon a cliff, after the fashion of Italy. It was they who set the
+fashion of a magnificence beyond the dreams of the greatest princes of
+their time.
+
+It was not so, however, with the successor of Julius II., the Pope in
+whose name all the grandeur and magnificence of Rome is concentrated,
+and of whom we think most immediately when the golden age of
+ecclesiastical luxury and the splendour of art is named. Leo X. was as
+true a son of luxury as they were of the soil. The race of Medici has
+always been fortunate in its records. The greatest painters of the
+world have been at its feet, encouraged and cherished and tyrannised
+over. Literature such as was in the highest esteem in those days
+flattered and caressed and fawned upon them. Lorenzo, somewhat
+foolishly styled in history the Magnificent,--in forgetfulness of the
+fact that il Magnifico was the common title of a Florentine
+official,--is by many supposed to be the most conspicuous and splendid
+character in the history of Florence. And Leo X. bears the same renown
+in the records of Papal Rome. We will not say that he was a modern
+Nero fiddling while Rome was burning, for he showed himself in many
+ways an unusually astute politician, and as little disposed to let
+slip any temporal advantage as his fighting predecessors--but the
+spectacle is still a curious one of a man expending his life and his
+wealth (or that of other people) in what was even the most exquisite
+and splendid of decorations, such wonders of ornamentation as
+Raphael's frescoes--while the Papacy itself was being assailed by the
+greatest rebellion ever raised against it. To go on painting the walls
+while the foundations of the building are being ruined under your feet
+and at any moment may fall about your ears, reducing your splendid
+ornaments to powder, is a thing which gives the most curious sensation
+to the looker on. The world did not know in those days that even to an
+institution so corrupt superficially as the Church of Rome the ancient
+promise stood fast, and not only the gates of hell, but those more
+like of heaven, should not prevail against her. Out of Italy it was
+believed that the Church which had but lately been ruled over by a
+Borgia, and which was admittedly full of wickedness in high places,
+must go down altogether under the tremendous blow. A great part of the
+world indeed went on believing so for a century or two. But in the
+midst of that almost universal conviction nothing can be more curious
+than to see the life of Papal Rome going on as if nothing had
+happened, and young Raphael and all his disciples coming and going,
+cheerful as the day, about the great empty chambers which they were
+making into a wonder of the earth. Michael Angelo, it is true, in grim
+discontent hewed at those huge slaves of his in Florence, working
+wonderful thoughts into their great limbs; but all that Roman world
+flowed on in brightness and in glory under skies untouched by any
+threatening of catastrophe.
+
+  [Illustration: MODERN ROME: THE GRAVE OF KEATS.
+    _To face page 592._]
+
+The Italian chroniclers scarcely so much as mention the beginnings of
+the Reformation. "At that time in the furthest part of Germany the
+abominable and infamous name of Martin Luther began to be heard," says
+one. The elephant which Emmanuel of Portugal sent to his Holiness,
+and which was supposed to be a thousand years old, takes up as much
+space. The sun shone on in Rome. The painters sang and whistled at
+their work, and their sublime patron went and came, and capped verses
+with Venetian Bembo, and the unique Aretino. They were not, it would
+seem, in the least afraid of Luther, nor even cognisant of him except
+in a faint and far-off way. He was so absurd as to object to the sale
+of indulgences. Now the sale of indulgences was not to be defended in
+theory, as all these philosophers knew. But to buy off the penances
+which otherwise they would at all events have been obliged to pretend
+to do, was a relief grateful to many persons who were not bad
+Christians, besides being good Catholics. Perhaps, indeed, in the
+gross popular imagination these indulgences might have come to look
+like permissions to sin, as that monster in Germany asserted them to
+be; but this did not really alter their true character, any more than
+other popular mistakes affected doctrine generally. And how to get on
+with that huge building of St. Peter's, at which innumerable workmen
+were labouring year after year, and which was the most terrible burden
+upon the Papal funds, without that method of wringing stone and mortar
+and gilding and mosaic out of the common people? Pope Leo took it very
+easily. Notwithstanding the acquisitions of Pope Julius, and the
+certainty with which the historians assure us that from his time the
+Patrimony of St. Peter was well established in the possession of Rome,
+some portion of it had been lost again, and had again to be recovered
+in the days of his successor. That was doubtless more important than
+the name, _nefando_, _execrabile_ of the German monk. And so the wars
+went on, though not with the spirit and relish which Julius II. had
+brought into them. Leo X. had no desire to kill anybody. When he was
+compelled to do it he did it quite calmly and inexorably as became a
+Medici; but he took no pleasure in the act. If Luther had fallen into
+his hands the Curia would no doubt have found some means of letting
+the pestilent fellow off. A walk round the _loggie_ or the _stanze_
+where the painters were so busy, and where Raphael, a born gentleman,
+would not grumble as that savage Buonarotti did, at being interrupted,
+but would pause and smile and explain, put the thought of all
+troublesome Germans easily out of the genial potentate's head. It was
+the Golden Age; and Rome was the centre of the world as was meet, and
+genius toiled untiringly for the embellishment of everything; and such
+clever remarks had never been made in any court, such witty
+suggestions, such fine language used and subtle arguments held, as
+those of all the scholars and all the wits who vied with each other
+for the ear and the glance of Pope Leo. The calm enjoyment of life
+over a volcano was never exhibited in such perfection before.
+
+We need not pause here to enumerate or describe those works which
+every visitor to Rome hastens to see, in which the benign and lovely
+art of Raphael has lighted up the splendid rooms of the Vatican with
+something of the light that never was on sea or shore. We confess that
+for ourselves one little picture from the same hand, to be met with
+here and there, and often far from the spot where it was painted,
+outvalues all those works of art; but no one can dispute their beauty
+or importance. Pope Leo did not by so much as the touch of a pencil
+contribute to their perfection, yet they are the chief glory of his
+time, and the chief element in his fame. He made them in so far that
+he provided the means, the noble situation as well as the more vulgar
+provision which was quite as necessary, and he has therefore a right
+to his share of the applause--by which he is well rewarded for all he
+did; for doubtless the payment of the moment, the pleasure which he
+sincerely took in them, and the pride of so nobly taking his share in
+the lasting illumination of Rome were a very great recompense in
+themselves, without the harvest he has since reaped in the applause of
+posterity. Nowadays we do not perhaps so honour the patron of art as
+people were apt to do in the last century. And there are, no doubt,
+many now who worship Raphael in the Vatican without a thought of Leo.
+Still he is worthy to be honoured. He gave the young painter a free
+hand, believing in his genius and probably attracted by his more
+genial nature, while holding Michael Angelo, for whom he seems always
+to have felt a certain repugnance, at arm's length.
+
+We will not attempt to point out in Raphael's great mural paintings
+the flattering allusions to Leo's history and triumph which critics
+find there, nor yet the high purpose with which others hold the
+painter to have been moved in those great works. Bishop Creighton
+finds a lesson in them, which is highly edifying, but rather beyond
+what we should be disposed to look for. "The life of Raphael," he
+says, "expresses the best quality of the spirit of the Italian
+Renaissance, its belief in the power of culture to restore unity to
+life and implant serenity in the soul. It is clear that Raphael did
+not live for mere enjoyment, but that his time was spent in ceaseless
+activity animated by high hopes for the future." How this may be we do
+not know: but lean rather to the opinion that Raphael, like other men
+of great and spontaneous genius, did what was in him and did his best,
+with little ulterior purpose and small thought about the power of
+culture. It was his, we think, to show how art might best illustrate
+and with the most perfect effect the space given him to beautify, with
+a meaning not unworthy of the gracious work, but no didactic impulse.
+It was his to make these fine rooms, and the airy lightness of the
+brilliant _loggie_ beautiful, with triumphant exposition of a theme
+full of pictorial possibilities. But what it should have to do with
+Luther, or how the one should counterbalance the other, it is
+difficult to perceive. Goethe on the other hand declares that going
+to Raphael's _loggie_ from the Sistine chapel "we could scarcely bear
+to look at them. The eye was so educated and enlarged by those grand
+forms and the glorious completeness of all the parts that it could
+take no pleasure" in works so much less important. Such are the
+differences of opinion in all ages. It is the glory of this period of
+Roman history that at a time when the Apostolic See had lost so much,
+and when all its great purposes, its noble ideals, its reign of
+holiness and inspired wisdom had perished like the flower of the
+fields--when all that Gregory and Innocent had struggled their lives
+long to attain had dissolved like a bubble: when the Popes were no
+longer holy men, nor distinguished by any great and universal aim, but
+Italian princes like others, worse rather than better in some cases:
+there should have arisen, with a mantle of glory to hide the failure
+and the horror and the scorn, these two great brethren of Art--the one
+rugged, mournful, self-conscious, bowed down by the evil of the time,
+the other all sweetness and gladness, an angel of light, divining in
+his gracious simplicity the secrets of the skies.
+
+Leo the Pope was no such noble soul. He was only an urbane and skilful
+Medici, great to take every advantage of the divine slaves that were
+ready for his service--using them not badly, encouraging them to do
+their best, if not for higher motives yet to please him, the Sommo
+Pontefice, surely the best thing that they could hope for; and to win
+such share of the ducats which came to him from the sale of the
+offices of the Vatican, the cardinals' hats, the papal knighthoods,
+and other trumpery, as might suffice for all their wants. He sold
+these and other things, indulgences for instance, sown broadcast over
+the face of the earth and raising crops of a quite different kind. But
+on the other hand he never sold a benefice. He remitted the tax on
+salt; and he gave liberally to whoever asked him, and enjoyed life
+with all his heart, in itself no bad quality.
+
+  [Illustration: A BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP.]
+
+      "The pontificate of Leo was the most gay and the most happy
+      that Rome ever saw," says the chronicler. "Being much
+      enamoured of building he took up with a great soul the
+      making of San Pietro, which Julius, with marvellous art,
+      had begun. He ennobled the palace of the Vatican with
+      triple porticoes, ample and long, of the most beautiful
+      fabrication, with gilded roofs and ornamented by excellent
+      pictures. He rebuilt almost from the foundations the church
+      of our Lady of the Monte Coelio, from which he had his
+      title as cardinal, and adorned it with mosaics. Finally
+      there was nothing which during all his life he had more at
+      heart or more ardently desired than the excellent name of
+      liberal, although it was the wont ordinarily of all the
+      others to turn their backs upon that virtue of liberality,
+      and to keep far from it. He judged those unworthy of high
+      station who did not with large and benign hand disperse the
+      gifts of fortune, and above all those which were acquired
+      by little or no fatigue. But while he in this guise
+      governed Rome, and all Italy enjoyed a gladsome peace, he
+      was by a too early death taken from this world although
+      still in the flower and height of his years."
+
+He died forty-five years old on December 1, 1521.
+
+The great works which one and another of the Popes thus left half done
+were completed--St. Peter's by Sixtus V. 1590, and Paul V. 1615. The
+Last Judgment completing the Sistine chapel was finished by Michael
+Angelo in 1541 under Clement VII. and Paul III. And thus the Rome of
+our days--the Rome which not as pilgrims, but as persons living
+according to the fashion of our own times, which compels us to go to
+and fro over all the earth and see whatever is to be seen, we visit
+every year in large numbers--was left more or less as it is now, for
+the admiration of the world. Much has been done since, and is doing
+still every day to make more intelligible and more evident the
+memorials of an inexhaustible antiquity--but in the Rome of the Popes,
+the Rome of Christendom, History has had but little and Art not
+another word to say.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[10] See the death of Pope Leo IX., p. 199.
+
+
+
+
+      THE END.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+      Adelaide of Susa, 262, 269.
+
+      Agnes, Empress, 217, 233, 237, 279;
+        Hildebrand becomes adviser to, 202;
+        alienated from Hildebrand, 214;
+        renounces the world, 219.
+
+      Alaric, 108, 119, 121.
+
+      Albigenses, many sects among, 355;
+        Pope Innocent's attitude towards, 357;
+        missionaries sent to, _ib._;
+        crusade against them, 359-361.
+
+      Albina, 17, 18, 89.
+
+      Albornoz, Cardinal, 480, 488.
+
+      Alexander II., 205, 215, 224.
+
+      Alexander VI., 581, 582, 589.
+
+      Allegories, Rienzi's painted, 413-416, 419.
+
+      Ambrose, 48.
+
+      Angelico, Fra, 546, 549.
+
+      Angelo, Michael, 588, 595, 598.
+
+      Apollinaris, the heresy of, 47, 48.
+
+      Aqueducts restored by Sixtus IV., 574.
+
+      Arimbaldo, 500;
+        joins Rienzi in his enterprise, 489.
+
+      Aristocracy, Roman, its position at the end of the 4th century,
+          3, 4, 5;
+        luxuriousness of the nobles, 5, 6, 7;
+        and of the women, 7, 8;
+        its characteristics in the 14th century, 396, 397.
+        _See_ Nobles.
+
+      Art, the Popes as patrons of, 515;
+        that of Rome imported from abroad, 516;
+        art workshops in Rome, 546.
+
+      Artists, Roman, 412, 413, 420;
+        employed upon the Sistine chapel, 575;
+        Julius II. as a patron of, 482, 583, 589.
+
+      Asella, 18, 21, 89;
+        Jerome's letters to, 72, 75, 76.
+
+      Athanasius, his life of St. Antony of the desert, 15;
+        his reception at Rome, 16;
+        and in the household of Albina, 17;
+        Melania's visit to, 33.
+
+      Attila, 120.
+
+      Augsburg, Council of, 261;
+        German nobles impatient to open, 274, 275.
+
+      Augustine, Gregory's instructions to, for the making of converts,
+          156;
+        and for pastoral work, _ib._, 157, 158;
+        sent on his mission to England, 161, 162.
+
+
+      Bäle, Council of, 525, 531.
+
+      Bavaria, Duke of, 260.
+
+      Beatrice of Tuscany, 204, 216, 234, 256.
+
+      Benedict, Pope, and Fra Monozello, 395.
+
+      Benedict, order of, 126, 131.
+
+      Benedict I., 138.
+
+      Benedict X.
+        _See_ Mincio, Bishop.
+
+      Berengarius of Tours, his heresy, 279, 290.
+
+      Bethlehem, convents founded at, by Jerome and Paula, 82.
+
+      Bible, Innocent III., on the interpretation of, by sectaries, 357.
+
+      Blæsilla, 23, 55, 67;
+        her conversion, 58;
+        her death and funeral, 63.
+
+      Bollandists, 131.
+
+      Book collector, Thomas (Nicolas V.) as, 529, 534.
+
+      Borgias, 515, 581.
+
+      Borgo, 538;
+        sanctity of the spot, 539, 540;
+        wall built to enclose, 541;
+        buildings erected afterwards within the enclosure, _ib._
+
+      Botticelli, 575.
+
+      Bowden, Mr., his life of Gregory VII., 515.
+
+      Bramante, 584.
+
+      Browning, Robert, 420, 421.
+
+      Brunhild, Queen, 169.
+
+      Bruno, Bishop, appointed Pope, 190;
+        acts on Hildebrand's advice, 191, 192;
+        his triumphant election at Rome, 193.
+        _See_ Leo IX.
+
+      Buildings, ancient, Gregory accused of destroying, 176, 177;
+        regarded as stone-quarries, 242, 517, 577;
+        restoration of, Book IV., _passim_.
+
+      Buono Stato, secret society formed for the establishment of, 423,
+          424;
+        demonstration by the conspirators, 425, 426;
+        its rules, 426, 427.
+        _See_ Rienzi.
+
+
+      Cadalous, anti-Pope, 216-218.
+
+      Cæsarea, Melania arrested at, 35.
+
+      Calixtus III., 552, 553.
+
+      Cammora (City Council), Rienzi protests against the rapacity of,
+          411.
+
+      Canossa, Pope Gregory sheltered in the castle of, 264.
+
+      Carinthia, Duke of, 260.
+
+      Castracani, 390.
+
+      Celestine, Pope, 316.
+
+      Celibacy, Jerome and the controversy regarding, 59-62;
+        of the clergy, _see_ Marriage of priests.
+
+      Cencius, the Roman bandit, 243, 244;
+        abducts Pope Gregory, 245.
+
+      Cerealis, 19.
+
+      Charities of the Roman ladies, 55, 56.
+
+      Charles IV. and Rienzi, 476.
+
+      Christianity, its conjunction with Paganism in Roman society,
+          7-10;
+        nominally embraced by the common people, 57;
+        again conjoined with Paganism during the Renaissance, 529.
+
+      Church, the, corruption of, 10, 11;
+        Jerome on the daily life of a Roman priest, 11, 12;
+        fierceness of controversy in, 105;
+        her position during the barbarian conquests of Rome, 120, 121;
+        beginning of her sovereignty, 121, 122;
+        best of the Roman youth absorbed by, 123;
+        made no claim to universal authority in the 6th century, 121,
+          132, 168;
+        wealth of, used for public purposes, 147;
+        almsgiving a principle of, 151;
+        Gregory's achievements for, 170;
+        pretensions to supremacy made by John of Constantinople, 170,
+          173;
+        Gregory's tolerant supervision of, 174;
+        state of, in Germany, 188;
+        reforms urgently necessary in, 195;
+        effort of Leo IX. for reform in, 196-199;
+        a new law for the election of the Popes, 208;
+        Hildebrand's ambition of making her a great arbitrating power,
+          211, 212;
+        how she secured independence in the election of the Popes, 214,
+          215;
+        first conflict between the Empire and, 215-219;
+        decrees of the Lateran Council against simony and marriage of
+          priests, 235-239;
+        decree against lay investiture, 239;
+        real opening of her struggle with the Empire, 259;
+        her position in Gregory's time, and that of the Scottish Church
+          before the Disruption, compared, 302;
+        her conflict with the Empire inevitable, 304, 305;
+        period of her greatest power, 308;
+        her relations with the Empire in the time of Innocent III., 311,
+          312.
+        _See_ Gregory the Great, Hildebrand _and_ Innocent III.
+
+      Cities, Italian, hostility between, 311.
+
+      Clement III., appointed by the Emperor, 290;
+        calls a council in Rome, 294;
+        his coronation, 297.
+        _See_ Guibert of Ravenna.
+
+      Clement VI., Rienzi's mission to, 404, 405;
+        confirms Rienzi's authority, 434.
+
+      Cluny, the monastery of, 186, 190.
+
+      Colonna family, patronise Petrarch, 397-400;
+        Petrarch's estimate of, 398, 467;
+        character of, 423;
+        rebels against Rienzi, 453;
+        their expedition against Rome, 453-457, 469.
+
+      Colonna, Agapito, 425, 448.
+
+      Colonna, Giordano, 430.
+
+      Colonna, Giovanni, 397, 466;
+        his dealings with Rienzi, 405, 409, 411.
+
+      Colonna, Giacomo, his friendship with Petrarch, 397.
+
+      Colonna, Janni, 419, 421, 422, 430, 448, 455, 456.
+
+      Colonna, Sciarra, 384, 393;
+        drives out the Papal troops from Rome, 384-389;
+        crowns Louis of Bavaria, 391.
+
+      Colonna, Stefano della, 393, 397, 425, 448, 449;
+        Petrarch's description of, 428;
+        forced to leave Rome, 429;
+        swears loyalty to the Buono Stato, 430;
+        Petrarch's account of his talk with, 467, 468.
+
+      Colonna, Stefanello, 430, 448;
+        and his son, 494, 495.
+
+      Colosseum, as the stone-quarry of the ages, 577.
+
+      Como, Bishop of, 219, 233.
+
+      Constantinople, downfall of, 549.
+
+      Corsignano, buildings erected in, by Pius II., 556.
+
+      Council of Constantinople, 28, 47.
+
+      Council of Rome, Jerome and, 27, 28, 43, 47.
+
+      Creighton, Bishop, quoted, 556, 578;
+        on Raphael's artistic aims, 598.
+
+      Crown, the imperial, 249, 289, 298.
+
+      Crusade, Gregory VII.'s dream of a, 265, 351, 352;
+        encouraged by successive Popes, 352;
+        an expedition organised, _ib._;
+        how it was diverted from its purpose, 353-356;
+        against the Albigenses, 298-301;
+        Innocent rouses the Italian towns to aid in, 373;
+        against the Turks, 553, 557, 558.
+
+      Crusaders, Innocent's instructions to his, 353;
+        their bargain with Venice, _ib._;
+        capture Constantinople, _ib._, 354.
+
+      Curzon, Robert, 310.
+
+
+      Damasus, Bishop, 27, 48, 70;
+        Jerome becomes a counsellor of, 54.
+
+      Damian, Peter, 200, 218, 219, 223.
+
+      Dante, 211, 263.
+
+      Desiderius, 301.
+
+      Dinner-parties, Roman, 6.
+
+      Dominic, 358.
+
+
+      Eberhard, Count, 255.
+
+      Election of the Popes, interference of Tuscany in, 203, 204, 208;
+        the rival authorities in, 206-208;
+        Hildebrand's new law for, 207;
+        first election under the new law, 214, 215;
+        Rome secures complete freedom in, 215.
+
+      Emperors, the rival, Henry IV. and Rudolf, Gregory's letters
+          regarding their claims, 275, 276;
+        treated by the Pope with severe impartiality, 278;
+        attitude of the Roman populace towards their envoys, _ib._;
+        Gregory insists upon holding a council to choose between, 281;
+        this plan abandoned, _ib._, 282;
+        Rudolf's case stated before the Lateran Council, 282;
+        Gregory pronounces his decision, 283-285.
+        _See_ Henry IV. _and_ Rudolf.
+
+      Emperors, the rival, Philip and Otho, nothing to choose between
+          them, 331, 332;
+        Innocent's attitude towards, 332, 333;
+        end of their ten years' struggle, 335.
+        _See_ Philip _and_ Otho.
+
+      Empire and Church, first conflict between, 214-218;
+        real opening of the struggle, 259;
+        inevitableness of the struggle, 304, 305;
+        in the time of Innocent III., 311, 312.
+        _See_ Henry IV., Emperor, _and_ Gregory VII.
+
+      England, the Pope's interdict upon, disregarded, 345.
+
+      Epiphanius, Bishop, 52, 79.
+
+      Eugenius IV., 514, 516; his aspect and character, 523-525;
+        Council of Ferrara called by, 531.
+
+      Eulogius, Gregory's letter to, 173.
+
+      Europe, state of, in the time of Innocent III., 310-312.
+
+      Eustochium, 23, 55, 78, 83, 87;
+        plot against, 24.
+
+      Eutychius, 155.
+
+      Excommunication often ineffectual, 289, 290, 334.
+
+      Ezekiel, Gregory's exposition of, 144, 177, 178.
+
+
+      Fabiola, 22, 37, 55;
+        her matrimonial troubles, 93;
+        her visit to the convent at Bethlehem, _ib._, 94;
+        does public penance in Rome, 95-99;
+        founds the first public hospital in Rome, 99.
+
+      Fabriano, Gentile da, 523.
+
+      Ferdinand of Naples, his advice regarding the streets and
+          balconies of Rome, 570, 571.
+
+      Ferrara, Council of, 531.
+
+      France, interdict pronounced upon, 341, 343;
+        alarmed by the revival of Rome, 436.
+
+      Francis of Assisi, 326.
+
+      Fraticelli, Rienzi takes refuge among, 474, 475.
+
+      Frederic II., Emperor, Innocent acts as guardian of, 326, 327.
+
+      Frederick, Abbot, elected Pope, 201.
+
+      Funeral feast, a Roman, 102-104.
+
+
+      Gebehard, Bishop, chosen as Pope Victor II., 200.
+
+      Genseric, 120.
+
+      German prelates, almost independent of the Pope, 334.
+
+      Germany, state of the Church in, 188;
+        an anti-Pope chosen by the Church in, 216.
+
+      Ghirlandajo, 575.
+
+      Gibbon quoted, 132.
+
+      Goethe quoted on Raphael's _loggie_, 599.
+
+      Gordianus, 125.
+
+      Gottfried the Hunchback, 244, 260.
+
+      Gottfried of Lorraine, 204.
+
+      Gratiano.
+        _See_ Gregory VI.
+
+      Greek Church, 354.
+
+      Gregorio, Count, 203.
+
+      Gregory the Great, his home and early life, 124, 125;
+        enters public life, 125;
+        first result of his religious impulse, 126;
+        becomes a monk, 127;
+        describes his doubts and his intentions, _ib._;
+        legends regarding his monastic life, 128;
+        his musings in his garden, 129, 130;
+        had no ecclesiastical ambitions, 131;
+        receives the first orders of the Church, _ib._;
+        appointed a cardinal deacon, _ib._;
+        Gibbon's description of him as a nuncio, _ib._;
+        his position in the Court at Constantinople, 132;
+        in the society of his monks, 132-138;
+        his commentary on Job, 134, 135;
+        its moral discursiveness, 136, 137;
+        how he was assisted in it by the monks, 137;
+        his liberality, 139, 147;
+        promotion, and popularity as a preacher, 139;
+        his encounter with the English slave-children, _ib._, 140;
+        sets out on his mission to Britain, 141;
+        compelled to return, 142;
+        effect upon him of the story of Trajan and the widow, _ib._,
+          143;
+        organises processions of penitents during the plague, 144, 145;
+        his vision of the angel, 146, 147;
+        elected Bishop of Rome, 148;
+        attempts to escape from this responsibility, _ib._;
+        his repugnance to the cares of office, 149;
+        his conviction that the end of the world was near, _ib._, 150;
+        feeds the starving poor of Rome, 151;
+        preserves Rome from attacks by the barbarians, 152;
+        was not a learned man, _ib._, 153;
+        his instructions to missionaries for the making of converts,
+          156, 157;
+        and for pastoral work, _ib._;
+        his intercessions and negotiations for the safety of Rome, 158,
+          159;
+        amount of his work and responsibility, 159, 160;
+        welcomes the usurping Emperor Phocas, 160;
+        sends forth Augustine on his mission to England, 161-163;
+        no reason for attributing to him a great scheme of papal
+          supremacy, 163, 164, 175, 176;
+        his reformation in music, 165, 166;
+        introduces changes in the ritual, 166;
+        his daily surroundings and occupations, 167, 168;
+        his rules of religious discipline, 168;
+        not a faultless character, 169;
+        his achievements for Rome and for the Church, _ib._;
+        his indignation at the assumption of supremacy by John of
+          Constantinople, 170;
+        his letters on this subject to the Emperor and to the Eastern
+          Bishop, _ib._, 173;
+        his letter to Eulogius, 173;
+        tolerant in the supervision of his bishops, 175;
+        had no desire for political independence, _ib._;
+        accused of causing the destruction of ancient buildings, 176,
+          177;
+        his last illness, 177;
+        his commentaries on Ezekiel and Job, _ib._;
+        his death, _ib._;
+        spots connected with his memory, 179.
+
+      Gregory VI., 186, 188;
+        how he secured his election, 183;
+        deposition of, _ib._, 189.
+
+      Gregory, VII., (_see_ Hildebrand), his dream of elevating the
+          Church, 231;
+        hopelessness of his instruments, _ib._;
+        his reforms, and the enemies they raised up against him, _ib._,
+          232;
+        sufferings of his later years, 232;
+        council for the discussion of questions between Henry IV. and,
+          233;
+        reconciliation between Henry and, 235;
+        his letter summoning the first Lateran Council, _ib._;
+        his decree against lay investiture, 239, 240;
+        unbosoms himself in a letter to Hugo, 240;
+        his care for the cause of justice and public honesty, 240-242;
+        abduction of, by Cencius, 245;
+        rescued by the populace, 249, 250;
+        summons Henry to appear before the papal court, 251;
+        his letter of remonstrance to the Emperor, 252;
+        council convoked by Henry for the overthrow of, 253, 254;
+        acts and addresses against, issued by this council, 254, 255;
+        his reception of the Emperor's letters, 257-259;
+        excommunicates the Emperor, 259;
+        effect of this step, 259-261;
+        agrees to preside over the Council of Augsburg, 261;
+        sets out for Augsburg, _ib._;
+        takes refuge in the Castle of Canossa, 264-266;
+        German bishops make their submission to, 266;
+        accepts Henry's promises of amendment, 270;
+        receives him again into the church, _ib._, 271;
+        his attitude towards Henry, 273;
+        his letter to the German princes, 274;
+        shut up in Canossa Castle, _ib._;
+        anxious to take part in the settlement of the Empire, 275;
+        his letters on the rivalry of the two kings, _ib._, 276;
+        sends legates to both kings demanding a safe-conduct, 276;
+        his authority disregarded by the rival parties, _ib._, 277;
+        treats both impartially, 278;
+        and the heresy of Berengarius, 279;
+        and the Norwegian king's request for missionaries, _ib._, 280;
+        insists upon a council to choose between the rival kings, 281;
+        his reception of the statement of Rudolf's envoys, 283;
+        appeals to St. Peter to judge of his dealings with Henry, 284,
+          285;
+        asserts his claim to universal authority, 286;
+        sends the imperial crown to Rudolf, 289;
+        Henry's council for the deposition of, _ib._;
+        his reconciliation with Guiscard, 291, 292;
+        council convoked by the anti-Pope to reverse his anathemas, 293;
+        Henry submits his cause to a council convoked by, 295;
+        refuses to make peace with Henry, 296;
+        confined to the Castle of St. Angelo, 297;
+        his faith in his mission, 298;
+        brings down the Normans upon Rome, 299;
+        his spirit broken by the sack of Rome, 300;
+        his journey to Salerno, _ib._, 301;
+        revival of his former energy, 302;
+        the abuses he opposed, and those in the Church of Scotland
+         before the Disruption, compared, _ib._, 303;
+        a martyr to his hatred of simony, 303, 304;
+        his death, 305;
+        his life and achievements, 306, 308, 363, 514.
+
+      Guelf and Ghibelline, when these titles were first used, 326.
+
+      Guglielmo, Fra, 447.
+
+      Guibert of Ravenna, 232, 244, 292;
+        elected Pope by the Emperor's supporters, 290.
+        _See_ Clement III.
+
+      Guiscard, Robert, 232, 244;
+        Gregory's reconciliation with, 291;
+        leaves the Pope to his fate, 293;
+        rescues the Pope and sacks Rome, 299;
+        conducts Gregory to Salerno, 300, 301.
+
+
+      Helena, Empress, 40.
+
+      Heliodorus, Jerome's epistle to, 46.
+
+      Helvidius, 60.
+
+      Henry III., Emperor, 183;
+        patronises Hildebrand, 187;
+        appoints three successive Popes, 189.
+
+      Henry IV., Emperor, his vicious character, 223, 224;
+        summoned before the Papal court, 224;
+        council for the discussion of questions between Gregory and,
+          233;
+        reconciliation between Gregory and, 235;
+        rebels against the decrees of the Lateran Council, 251;
+        Gregory's letter of remonstrance to, 252;
+        summons a council for the overthrow of the Pope, 253, 254;
+        acts and addresses issued by the council, 254, 255;
+        excommunication of, 259;
+        abandoned by his friends and supporters, 260, 261;
+        his princes threaten to elect a king in his place, 261;
+        determines to make his submission to Gregory, _ib._;
+        his fortunes begin to revive, 266;
+        his arrival at the Castle of Canossa, _ib._, 269;
+        his penances, 270;
+        his bond of repentance accepted by Gregory, _ib._;
+        received again into the Church, _ib._, 271;
+        his attitude towards Gregory, 272;
+        refuses his consent to the council of arbitration, 281;
+        Gregory appeals to St. Peter to judge of his dealings with,
+          282-285;
+        again excommunicated and dethroned, 285;
+        his council for the deposition of Gregory, 289, 290;
+        chooses an anti-Pope, 290;
+        success of his enterprises, _ib._;
+        crowned Emperor by his anti-Pope, 292;
+        seizes the Leonine city, 293;
+        submits his cause to a council convoked by Gregory, 295;
+        this council proves fruitless, 296;
+        becomes master of Rome, _ib._, 297;
+        evacuates the city, 299-300.
+        _See_ Emperors, the rival.
+
+      Henry VI., Emperor, 327, 328.
+
+      Henry VII., 402.
+
+      Heresy, the, of the Albigenses, 355,356;
+        Innocent's letter on, 356;
+        ordinances against, 370.
+
+      Hermits, Egyptian desert peopled by, 34;
+        Melania supports and protects fugitive, 35;
+        self-chastisements of, 43, 44.
+        _See_ Monks.
+
+      Hildebrand, his wanderings about the world, 184;
+        surroundings of his early life, _ib._, 185;
+        at the monastery of Cluny, 186;
+        patronised by the Emperor, Henry III., _ib._, 187;
+        influence of his experience of the Church in Germany upon, 188;
+        beginning of his public life, _ib._;
+        follows the deposed Gregory VI. into exile, 189;
+        in Germany again, 190;
+        becomes a counsellor of Bruno, 191;
+        his plan for Bruno's conduct successful, 193;
+        offices conferred upon, by Leo IX., _ib._;
+        sets in order the monastery of St. Paul, 195;
+        his work in Rome under Leo, 200;
+        selects a German prelate as Pope, _ib._;
+        becomes adviser to the Empress Agnes, 202;
+        solicits the intervention of Tuscany in the election of the
+          Popes, 204, 207;
+        the actual possessor of the power of two weak Popes, 205, 206;
+        holds a council in Rome, 206;
+        his new law for the election of the Popes, 207, 208;
+        his aims and purposes, 208, 211;
+        his dream of the Church as disinterested arbitrator in all
+          quarrels, 211, 212;
+        did he desire universal authority? 212;
+        begins his reign under Nicolas II., _ib._;
+        his letter to a powerful archbishop, 213;
+        secures for Rome complete independence in the choice of Popes,
+          215;
+        his sanction of the invasion of England by the Normans, 221;
+        supports the Conqueror's spoliation of Saxon abbeys, _ib._;
+        summons Henry IV. to appear before the papal court, 224;
+        development of his ideal of the Church's sovereignty, _ib._,
+          225;
+        chosen and elected Pope, 225-227;
+        his abstemious habits, 297.
+        _See_ Gregory VII.
+
+      Historian of Rienzi, 382, 383.
+
+      Hospital founded by Fabiola, 99.
+
+      Hospital Santo Spirito rebuilt by Innocent, 376;
+        and again by Sixtus IV., 572, 573.
+
+      Hugo of Cluny, 234, 265, 269;
+        Gregory's letter to, 240.
+
+      Humanists, school of, 560, 561.
+
+
+      Ingelburga, 340, 343.
+
+      Innocent III., his wide-spread activity, 308;
+        his family, _ib._, 309;
+        his education, 309;
+        becomes a canon of St. Peter's, 310;
+        appointed Cardinal, 313;
+        his book on the vanity of life, 313-315;
+        elected Pope, 316;
+        his address to the assembly after his consecration, 319-322;
+        endeavours to strengthen his hold upon Rome, 322-324;
+        changes the constitution of the city, 323;
+        regains possession of the Papal States, 325, 326;
+        acts as guardian to Frederic of Sicily, 326;
+        profits by the inactivity of the Empire, _ib._;
+        sides against Philip, 332, 333;
+        supports Otho, 333;
+        unable to enforce his authority over the German prelates, 334;
+        excommunicates Philip, _ib._;
+        his part in the ten years' struggle between Philip and Otho,
+          335;
+        crowns Otho as Emperor, 338;
+        Otho breaks faith with, 339, 340;
+        his dealings with Philip Augustus, 340-343;
+        pronounces interdict upon France, 341, 342;
+        his activity, 344;
+        pronounces interdict upon England, 345;
+        excommunicates King John, _ib._;
+        his acceptance of John's oath, 349;
+        his dealings with John unworthy of his character, _ib._, 350;
+        his instructions to the Crusaders, 353;
+        protests against the use made of the expedition, 354;
+        his letter on heresy, 356;
+        on the interpretation of the Bible by sectarians, _ib._;
+        his attitude towards the Albigenses, 357, 358;
+        sends missionaries to them, 358;
+        proclaims a crusade against them, 359;
+        his career a failure, 361-363;
+        strengthened Papal authority over the Church, 364;
+        his address to the fourth Lateran Council, 365-369;
+        and the appeal of the Provençal nobles, 371;
+        befriends Raymond of Toulouse, 372;
+        rouses the Italian towns to aid in a crusade, 373;
+        his death, 374;
+        small result of his activities, _ib._;
+        Roman populace at enmity with, 375;
+        his gifts to his brother Richard, _ib._;
+        buildings erected by, 376;
+        his character, _ib._;
+        the greatness of his ideals, 514.
+
+      Innocent VI., 484.
+
+      Innocent VIII., 581, 582.
+
+
+      Jerome, 28, 37, 42, 43, 66, 77;
+        quoted, 7, 19, 57, 58, 63, 69, 70, 110, 114;
+        on the daily life of a Roman priest, 11, 12;
+        accused of being concerned in Melania's disappearance, 33;
+        his life in the desert, 44, 45;
+        his Epistle to Heliodorus, 45, 46;
+        enters into religious controversy, 46, 47;
+        his usefulness recognised by the Church in Rome, 48;
+        lodged in Marcella's palace, 49;
+        his friendship with Paula, _ib._, 69;
+        his life among the Roman ladies, 50-54;
+        his position in Roman society, 54;
+        begins his translation of Scripture, _ib._;
+        popular resentment against, 59, 62, 63, 69, 70;
+        engages in the controversy regarding celibacy, 60;
+        his letter on virginity quoted, _ib._, 61;
+        his letter to Paula on her daughter's death, 68, 69;
+        forced to retire from Rome, 72;
+        his letters to Asella, 72-76;
+        joins Paula's caravanserai, 79;
+        founds a convent at Bethlehem, 82;
+        how his translation of the Scriptures was finished, 84-88;
+        entreats Marcella to abandon the world, 91;
+        puzzled by Fabiola's curiosity, 95;
+        his judgment in the case of a divorced woman, 96;
+        his controversy with Rufinus, 100, 101.
+
+      Jeronimo, Count, 580.
+
+      Jerusalem, 40, 41.
+
+      Jews, 370.
+
+      Job, Gregory undertakes a commentary on, at the request of his
+          monks, 134-138.
+
+      John XXII., 384;
+        deposed by the Emperor Louis, 392;
+        his supporters regain possession of Rome, 393.
+
+      John of Constantinople, his pretensions to supremacy over the
+          Church, 170, 174;
+        Gregory's letter to, 173.
+
+      John, King of England, and the Pope's interdict, 344, 345;
+        excommunicated and deposed, 345;
+        swears fealty as a vassal of the Pope, _ib._, 346.
+
+      Jovinian, 60.
+
+      Jubilee, papal, 429, 480, 483, 536.
+
+      Julian, Emperor, 8.
+
+      Julius II., a fighting Pope, 582;
+        a patron of artists, 583, 589;
+        pulls down the ancient St. Peter's, _ib._, 587, 591;
+        secures the States of the Church, 587;
+        employs Raphael, 589, 590;
+        his portrait by Raphael, 590;
+        his death and career, 590-592.
+
+
+      Ladies. _See_ Women.
+
+      Lanciani, Professor, 242, 539, 540.
+
+      Langton, Stephen, 287.
+
+      Lateran Council, the first, Gregory's letter convoking, 235;
+        its decrees against simony and marriage of priests, 236-238;
+        lay investiture prohibited by the second Council, 239;
+        reception of the Emperor's letters by Gregory in, 256-259;
+        demands the excommunication of Henry, 259;
+        decides the case of the rival emperors, 281-285;
+        the fourth, Pope Innocent's address to, 365-369;
+        ordinances passed by, 370, 371;
+        gives judgment for de Montfort against the Provençal nobles,
+          371, 372.
+
+      Lay investiture, decree against, 239.
+
+      Leander, 133;
+        Gregory's letter to, 127, 149.
+
+      Learning, how pursued during the Renaissance, 529;
+        Nicolas V. as a patron of, 537.
+
+      Legacies to priests declared illegal, 12.
+
+      Leo IV., the Leonine city enclosed by, 541-543.
+
+      Leo IX., confers offices upon Hildebrand, 193;
+        his tour of reformation, 195-199;
+        at the Council of Rheims, 198;
+        his use of the power of excommunication, 199;
+        his last enterprise and his death, _ib._, 200.
+        _See_ Bruno, Bishop.
+
+      Leo X., 515, 516;
+        little troubled by the rebellion against the Papacy, 592, 595;
+        his attitude towards Luther, 596, 597;
+        obliged to fight for the Patrimony, _ib._;
+        amuses himself with his painters and his court, _ib._, 598;
+        his patronage of Raphael the chief element in his fame, 598;
+        his career, 599.
+
+      Leo XIII., as Papa Angelico, 212 _n._
+
+      Leonine city. _See_ Borgo.
+
+      Leopold of Mainz, 334.
+
+      Lombard League, 325.
+
+      Lorenzo, Cola's son, his baptism of blood, 461.
+
+      Louis of Bavaria, 384;
+        his reception in Rome, 320, 321;
+        his coronation, 390, 391;
+        declares Pope John deposed, 392;
+        elects a new Pope, _ib._;
+        recrowned by his anti-Pope, _ib._, 393;
+        his departure from Rome, 393.
+
+      Luther, Martin, 595;
+        Pope Leo's attitude towards, 596.
+
+      Lytton, Lord, his novel _Rienzi_, 420.
+
+
+      Maddalena, Rienzi's mother, 402.
+
+      Manno, Giovanni, 386.
+
+      Mantegna, Andrea, 582.
+
+      Marcella, early life and marriage of, 17, 18;
+        becomes a widow, 18;
+        her reputation for eccentricity, _ib._, 19;
+        forms her community of Christian women, 20;
+        her zeal for knowledge, 26;
+        entreated by Paula and Jerome to abandon the world, 89-91;
+        prefers her useful life in Rome, 92, 93;
+        saves Principia from the Goths, 110;
+        tortured by them, _ib._;
+        her death, 113.
+        _See_ Marcella, the Society of.
+
+      Marcella, the Society of, founded, 20;
+        character and position of the members, 21;
+        some associates of, 22-24;
+        a religious and intellectual meeting-place, 25;
+        daily life of the members, 26;
+        Thierry quoted on their occupations, _ib._;
+        Jerome becomes the guest of, 49, 54;
+        wealth and liberality of, 55, 56;
+        unrestricted life of, 57;
+        shares in the popular resentment against Jerome, 77;
+        last days of, 108-110.
+
+      Marcellinus, Ammianus, quoted, 5, 6, 11.
+
+      Marriage of priests, decree of the first Lateran Council against,
+          235, 238;
+        priests rebel against this measure, 237;
+        effects of the decree on the minds of the laity, 238, 239.
+
+      Martin V., 516, 517, 525;
+        begins the reconstruction and adornment of Rome, 523;
+        administers justice _ib._
+
+      Martino, F. di, 544.
+
+      Matilda of Tuscany, 204, 217, 233, 256, 262, 269, 270, 292, 325;
+        her character, etc., 263.
+
+      Maurice, Emperor, 148, 152, 160
+
+      Maximianus, 139.
+
+      Medici, Cosimo dei, 534.
+
+      Melania, her bereavement, 30;
+        abandons her son, _ib._, 31;
+        sensation caused in Rome by her disappearance, 32;
+        in the Egyptian deserts, 33;
+        provides for and protects hunted monks, 35;
+        her encounter with the proconsul in Palestine, _ib._;
+        accompanied by Rufinus, 36, 39;
+        founds a monastery at Jerusalem, 41;
+        the nature of her self-sacrifice, _ib._;
+        her quarrel with Paula, 81.
+
+      Mercenaries. _See_ Soldiers of Fortune.
+
+      Milman, Dean, 363.
+
+      Mincio, Bishop, how he was elected Pope, 203;
+        his abdication, 204.
+
+      Missionaries, Gregory's instructions to, for the making of
+          converts, 156;
+        and for pastoral work, _ib._, 157.
+
+      Monks, wandering, 36, 37, 184;
+        resentment of the Roman populace against, 63;
+        Gregory's following of, 132-138.
+
+      Monozello, Fra, and Pope Benedict, 395.
+
+      Montefiascone, the wine of, 485 _n._
+
+      Montfort, Simon de, 360, 361, 371, 372.
+
+      Monuments, ancient, restored by Paul II., 562.
+
+      Moreale, Fra, 487;
+        agrees to assist in Rienzi's undertaking, 489, 490;
+        arrives in Rome, 496;
+        his arrest and execution, 497-500.
+
+      Muntz, M., quoted, 562.
+
+      Music, Gregory's reformation in, 165, 166;
+        a commentary on his system, as adopted by the Germans and
+          Gauls, 166.
+
+
+      Nicolas II., 205, 213.
+
+      Nicolas V., 392, 516, 562, 567;
+        as a lover of literature, 530;
+        unconscious of the coming revolution, _ib._;
+        his origin, 531;
+        his learning, _ib._;
+        makes his reputation, 532;
+        as a book collector, 534;
+        his character, 535;
+        a lover of peace, _ib._;
+        his dealings with his literary men, 537;
+        churches rebuilt by, 544;
+        his additions to the Vatican and to St. Peter's, 545;
+        founds the Vatican library, 546;
+        his work as a builder-Pope, 549;
+        his death-bed counsel to his cardinals, 550, 551.
+
+      Nobles, Roman, strongholds of, in Rome, 382;
+        use made of, by Rienzi, 447, 448;
+        arrested at Rienzi's banquet, and afterwards discharged, 449;
+        effect of this treatment upon, 450;
+        rebellion of the Orsini, 451;
+        and of the Colonnas, 453-456;
+        their return to the city, 472, 473.
+        _See_ Aristocracy.
+
+      Normans of Southern Italy, 199, 200, 213, 225;
+        Rome sacked by, 299.
+
+      Nuncio, Gregory as a, 132, 138.
+
+
+      Oceanus, 37, 101.
+
+      Odilon of Cluny, 186.
+
+      Olaf, King of Norway, 280.
+
+      Origen, 100.
+
+      Orsini family, 424, 436, 448, 454, 467;
+        rebel against Rienzi, 451.
+
+      Orsini, Bartoldo, 393.
+
+      Orsini, Ranello, 430.
+
+      Orsini, Robert, 425.
+
+      Otho, Philip's rival in the Empire, 331;
+        supported by the Pope, 333;
+        becomes Emperor, 336;
+        his coronation in Rome, 336-338;
+        breaks faith with the Pope, 339, 340.
+        _See_ Emperors, the rival.
+
+
+      Paganism, its conjunction with the Christian religion in Roman
+          society, 8, 9;
+        this conjunction occurs again at the Renaissance, 530.
+
+      Palazzo Venezia, 559.
+
+      Pammachius, 55, 77, 99, 101, 114.
+
+      Papencordt quoted, 450.
+
+      Pastoral work, Gregory's instructions regarding, 156-158.
+
+      Paul II. builds the Palazzo Venezia, 559;
+        Platina's strictures upon, _ib._, 560;
+        dismisses the learned men patronised by Pius, 560, 561;
+        imprisons Platina, 561;
+        his liberality, 562;
+        restores ancient monuments, _ib._;
+        his magnificent tastes, _ib._, 563;
+        Platina on his private life, 563;
+        his humours and vanities, 564;
+        his death, 568.
+
+      Paula, 37, 63;
+        and her family, 22-25, 26;
+        her friendship with Jerome, 49, 69;
+        her character and position, 65, 66;
+        how she was attracted to the Marcellan Society, 66;
+        Jerome's letter to, on Blæsilla's death, 68, 69;
+        her abandonment of her home and children, 77, 78;
+        her journey to Jerusalem, 79, 80;
+        her quarrel with Melania, 81;
+        travels through Syria, _ib._;
+        builds convents and a hospice, 82, 83;
+        assists Jerome in the translation of the Scriptures, 83-88;
+        entreats Marcella to join her in Bethlehem, 90, 91.
+
+      Paulina, 23, 55, 77;
+        her death, 101;
+        the funeral feast, 102-104.
+
+      Paulinian, 101.
+
+      Paulinus, Bishop, quoted, 105.
+
+      Peacemakers, 431.
+
+      Pelagius II., 141, 147;
+        his letter on the defenceless state of Rome, 138.
+
+      Pen, silver, used by Rienzi, 411.
+
+      Pepino, Count, 471.
+
+      Perugino, 575, 590.
+
+      Petrarch, 390, 411, 437;
+        his friendship with the Colonna family, 397;
+        crowned Altissimo Poeta, 398, 399;
+        quoted, 433, 435, 450, 465, 466, 522;
+        his letters to Rienzi, 361, 369, 386;
+        his faith in Rienzi shaken, 387;
+        his letter describing his talk with Stefano, 467, 468;
+        letter on Rienzi's career and downfall, 478, 479;
+        describes how Rienzi's condemnation was reversed, 479, 480.
+
+      Philip Augustus of France and his wives, 340-343;
+        his threatened invasion of England, 345.
+
+      Philip of Swabia elected Emperor, 330;
+        Innocent's denunciation of, 333;
+        his success, 335;
+        his death, 336.
+
+      Phocas, Emperor, 160, 169.
+
+      Pintore, Antonazzo, 576.
+
+      Pius II., 562, 567;
+        his early career, 553, 554;
+        his character, 554;
+        his writings, 555;
+        as a builder, 556;
+        his enthusiasm for the crusade against the Turk, 557, 558.
+
+      Plague in Rome, and the processions of penitents, 144-146.
+
+      Platina, his biased account of Paul II., 559, 560;
+        protests against Paul's dismissal of the learned men, 560;
+        imprisoned, 561;
+        reinstated, 577.
+
+      Poor, the destitute, Gregory feeds and cares for, 151.
+
+      Popes, three rival, in Rome, 183;
+        how their conflict was ended, _ib._;
+        three successive, appointed by the Emperor Henry III., 189,190;
+        become fighting princes, 513, 514;
+        ideals of the greatest, 514;
+        art-patrons among, 515;
+        how treated by English writers, _ib._;
+        success of the builder-Popes, 516, 517;
+        their power and influence in the times of Pius II. and Paul
+          II., 564, 567.
+        _See_ Gregory the Great, Hildebrand, Innocent III., Election
+          of the Popes, _et passim_.
+
+      Populace, Roman, degraded state of, in the 4th century, 4, 5;
+        all nominally Christian, 57;
+        their resentment against the monks, 63;
+        compel Gregory to abandon his mission to Britain, 141, 142;
+        Gregory feeds the destitute poor, 151;
+        fight between Papal troops and, 385-389;
+        their reception of Louis of Bavaria, 389-391;
+        reception of Fra Venturino by, 394, 395;
+        unruliness and recklessness of, 395;
+        enthusiastic over the crowning of Petrarch, 399, 400;
+        Rienzi as an ambassador of, to Clement VI., 404-409;
+        give absolute power to Rienzi, 427;
+        begin to criticise Rienzi, 438;
+        their conflict with the Colonna, 454-457;
+        resent Rienzi's baptism of his son, 461, 462;
+        had no active share in Rienzi's downfall, 472;
+        invite him to reassume the government of the city, 489;
+        their reception of Rienzi, 494;
+        their rising against him, 502-508.
+        _See_ Rome.
+
+      Prætextata, 23, 24.
+
+      Priests, Roman, Jerome quoted on, 11, 12.
+
+      Principia, 100, 110.
+
+      Provence, Innocent's missionaries in, 358, 359;
+        appeal of the forfeited lords of, against de Montfort, 371.
+
+
+      Raphael, 595, 597;
+        employed by Julius II., 589, 590;
+        his portrait of Julius, 590;
+        Pope Leo's patronage of, 598;
+        Bishop Creighton on his artistic aims, _ib._;
+        had no didactic purposes, _ib._
+
+      Raymond, Bishop, the Pope's Vicar, 416, 424, 427, 429;
+        protests against Rienzi's pretensions, 442;
+        reconciled to Rienzi, 471.
+
+      Raymond of Toulouse, 371, 372.
+
+      "Religious adventures," 36, 37.
+
+      Renaissance, 526, 529;
+        conjunction of Christianity and Paganism during, 530.
+
+      Rheims, Council of, the Pope's opening address, 197;
+        speeches of the bishops, 198.
+
+      Riario, Pietro, 578, 579.
+
+      Riccardo Imprennante, 500.
+
+      Richard, brother of Pope Innocent, 575.
+
+      Rienzi, Cola di, his historian, 382, 384;
+        his parentage, 403, 404;
+        his love for the ancient writers, 403;
+        his early life, _ib._, 404;
+        sent on a mission to Clement VI., 404;
+        appointed notary to the City Council of Rome, 405;
+        success of the mission, 406;
+        letter announcing his success, _ib._;
+        disgrace and return to favour, 410, 411;
+        protests against the rapacity of the City Council, 412;
+        his painted allegories, 413, 415, 419;
+        attitude of the patricians towards, 416, 419, 423;
+        his address to the Roman notables, 417, 418;
+        his power and privileges, 418;
+        and the secret society, 423,424;
+        the conspiracy carried out, 425;
+        addresses the people on the Capitol, 426;
+        absolute power given to, by the people, 427;
+        drives all the nobles out of Rome, 429;
+        compels the nobles to swear loyalty to the Buono Stato, _ib._,
+          430;
+        his character, 431;
+        justice and public safety in Rome secured by, 431-434;
+        his braggadocio, 432;
+        secures the safety of travellers on the roads, _ib._, 433;
+        his authority confirmed by the Pope, 434;
+        his procession to St. Peter's, _ib._, 435;
+        his love of magnificence, 435;
+        Petrarch's letters to, 436;
+        success of his warlike expeditions, _ib._, 437;
+        beginning of his indiscretions, 437, 438;
+        makes himself a knight, 438;
+        claims to hold his authority from God and from the people, 440;
+        friendly messages from European monarchs to, 441;
+        ceremonials of his knighthood, _ib._, 442;
+        the Pope's Vicar protests against his pretensions, 443;
+        claims universal dominion in the name of the Roman people,
+          _ib._, 444;
+        sincerity of his claim, 444, 445;
+        crowning of, 445, 446;
+        Fra Guglielmo's grief for, 447;
+        makes use of the nobles, _ib._, 448;
+        gives a banquet to the nobles, 448;
+        arrests and discharges them, 449;
+        his expedition against the Orsini, 451;
+        his meeting with the Pope's legate, 452;
+        a powerful party organised against, 453;
+        apprehensive of danger, _ib._;
+        celebrates his victory over the Colonna, 457;
+        fails to take advantage of his success, 460;
+        his son's baptism of blood, 461;
+        his friends begin to desert him, 462;
+        Petrarch's letter of reproof to, 465;
+        Petrarch's faith in him shaken, 466;
+        moderates his magnificence and his arrogance, 470;
+        sees visions of disaster, 471;
+        his downfall, 471-473;
+        develops the character of a conspirator, 473, 474;
+        takes refuge among the Fraticelli, 474, 475;
+        his correspondence with Charles IV., 476;
+        handed over to the Pope, _ib._;
+        condemned to death, 477;
+        how he was saved, _ib._, 479;
+        his career and downfall, Petrarch's letter on, 478;
+        returns with the Pope's legate to Rome, 484, 485;
+        welcomed in the towns of the Patrimony, 488;
+        his enterprise assisted by Moreale and his mercenaries, 490;
+        obtains the countenance of the Pope's legate, _ib._, 491;
+        his expedition sets out, 491;
+        his hopes and aims, 492;
+        his reception by the Roman populace, 493, 494;
+        change in his outward man, 494;
+        his expedition against Stefanello, _ib._, 495;
+        his motives for executing Moreale, 496;
+        imprisons and executes Moreale, 497-500;
+        this act generally approved, 500;
+        but questioned by his councillors, _ib._;
+        how he raised money to pay the mercenaries, 501;
+        becomes irresolute, 502;
+        his final downfall and death, 502-509;
+        estimate of his career, 508, 509.
+
+      Roads made safe for travellers, 434.
+
+      Robert, King of Naples, 399.
+
+      Roland of Parma presents Henry's letters to Pope Gregory, 257.
+
+      Roman society, state of, at the end of the 4th century, 3 _et
+          seq._;
+        irresponsible wealth of the patrician class, 3, 4;
+        debased state of the populace, 4, 5;
+        luxurious habits of the nobles, 5, 6;
+        and of the women, 7;
+        conjunction of the old and new religions in, 8-10;
+        relations of the Church with, 10-12;
+        Jerome's picture of, quoted, 60, 61;
+        undermined by the ascetic ideals, 106-108.
+        _See_ Aristocracy _and_ Populace.
+
+      Rome, her two conquests of the world, 1, 2;
+        transitional period in her history, 2;
+        her position at the end of the 4th century, 3;
+        believed in the 4th century to be the Scarlet Woman of
+          Revelation, 105;
+        sacked by the Goths, 108, 109;
+        successive sieges of, 119, 120;
+        no patriot aroused to the defence of, 123;
+        defenceless state of, 138;
+        distress and pestilence in, 144-147, 150, 151;
+        preserved by Gregory from barbarian attacks, 151;
+        heartened by Gregory's energy, 159;
+        Gregory's achievements for, 169, 182;
+        Gregory accused of destroying ancient buildings in, 176;
+        state of, in the 11th century, 182, 183;
+        its outward aspect in the time of Gregory VII., 242, 243;
+        a portion of, seized by Emperor Henry IV., 293;
+        Henry withdraws his troops from, 295;
+        and again occupies the city, 296, 297;
+        sacked by Guiscard and the Normans, 299;
+        Innocent III. endeavours to strengthen his hold upon, 322, 323;
+        her constitution changed by Gregory, 323;
+        populace of, at enmity with Innocent III., 375;
+        buildings erected in, by Innocent, 376;
+        disorderly state of, in the 14th century, 381-383;
+        strongholds of the great nobles in, 382;
+        fight between Papal troops and the people of, 384-386;
+        reception of Louis of Bavaria in, 389;
+        as arbiter of the world, 390;
+        how Fra Venturino was received in, 394, 395;
+        public safety and justice unknown in, 401, 424, 425;
+        establishment of the Buono Stato in, 425-427;
+        public safety secured in, by Rienzi, 432, 434;
+        apprehensions aroused in foreign countries by the revival of,
+          435, 436;
+        her claim to universal dominion, 439;
+        assertion of the claim by Rienzi, 442-444;
+        expedition of the Colonna against, 453-457;
+        dream of a double reign of universal dominion in, 475;
+        celebration of the Jubilee in, 480, 481;
+        anarchy in, after Rienzi's fall, 483, 484;
+        possessed no native art, 516;
+        external state of, at Pope Martin's entry, 517-522;
+        restoration and adornment of, begun, 522, 523, 525;
+        restoration and adornment of buildings in, by Nicolas V., 544,
+          549;
+        art workshops in, 545, 546;
+        ancient monuments restored by Paul II., 562;
+        still disorderly, 569;
+        King Ferdinand's advice regarding the balconies and tortuous
+          streets, 570;
+        his suggestion adopted by Sixtus, 571.
+        _See_ Borgo.
+
+      Rudolf, Duke of Suabia, 233, 290;
+        elected king, 275;
+        anxious for the council of arbitration, 281;
+        his case stated before the Lateran Council, 282;
+        declared King of Germany by the Pope, 285;
+        Gregory sends the imperial crown to, 289;
+        his death, 290.
+        _See_ Emperors, the two rival.
+
+      Rufinus travels with Melania, 36, 37;
+        arrives in Rome, 100;
+        his controversy with Jerome, _ib._
+
+
+      St. Benedict. _See_ Benedict, order of.
+
+      St. Jerome. _See_ Jerome.
+
+      St. John Lateran, the church of, 521, 573;
+        internal revolution in, 588.
+
+      St. Mary, the monastery of, 186.
+
+      St. Paul, the monastery of, Hildebrand's reforms in, 194.
+
+      St. Peter, evidence for his presence and execution in Rome, 540.
+
+      St. Peter's, the old and the modern church, 539, 541;
+        additions made to, by Nicolas, 545;
+        pulled down by Julius II., 583, 584;
+        architecture of the ancient church, 584;
+        completion of the present church, 600.
+
+      St. Remy, consecration of the church of, 196.
+
+      St. Stefano Rotondo, church of, rebuilt, 544.
+
+      St. Teodoro, church of, rebuilt, 544.
+
+      Salerno, Gregory's arrival at, 301.
+
+      San Lorenzo, chapel of, 546.
+
+      Savelli, Francesco, 430.
+
+      Savelli, Luca de, 448.
+
+      Saviello, Jacopo di, 384, 385.
+
+      Scotland, Church of, its position before the Disruption, and that
+          of the Church in Gregory's time, compared, 302, 303.
+
+      Secret society, the, and Rienzi's address to, 423, 424;
+        the conspiracy carried out, 425-427.
+
+      Silvia, 124, 128.
+
+      Simony, 188, 224, 230;
+        crusade of Leo IX. against, 196-199;
+        Hildebrand's hatred of, 211, 232;
+        condemned by the first Lateran Council, 236;
+        Gregory VII. a martyr to his hatred of, 303, 304.
+
+      Sismondi quoted, 390.
+
+      Sistine chapel, 575;
+        completion of, 601.
+
+      Sixtus IV., his pedigree, 569;
+        his purposes and achievements, _ib._, 570;
+        rebuilds the narrow and tortuous streets, 570;
+        builds a bridge over the Tiber, 571;
+        reconstructs the hospital Santo Spirito, 572, 573;
+        his violent temper, 573;
+        all Rome pervaded by his work, _ib._, 574;
+        restores the aqueducts, 574;
+        painters employed by, for the Sistine chapel, 575;
+        his varied aims and activities, 575-577;
+        reinstates Platina and his fellow-scholars, 577;
+        enlarges the Vatican library, _ib._;
+        his taste in art, _ib._;
+        his favourites, 578-580.
+
+      Soldiers of Fortune, 487;
+        Rienzi procures the services of, 489;
+        how he raised money to pay them, 501.
+
+      States of the Church, Innocent III. regains possession of, 324,
+          325;
+        secured by Julius II., 587;
+        part of them lost again, 596.
+
+      Stefano, Cardinal, 215.
+
+
+      Tasso, 263.
+
+      Taxes imposed by Rienzi, 501.
+
+      Tedeschi, the, 325, 389.
+
+      Thebaid, the, 15.
+
+      Theodolinda, Queen, 151, 156, 159.
+
+      Thierry, quoted, 21, 26, 84, 93, 96.
+
+      Thomas of Sarzana. _See_ Nicolas V.
+
+      Toulouse, 358.
+
+      Trajan and the widow, effect of the story upon Gregory, 143.
+
+      Tuscan League, 325, 326.
+
+      Tuscany, interference of, in the election of the Popes, 203,
+          204, 216, 217.
+
+
+      Utrecht, Bishop of, 260.
+
+
+      Vatican, its reconstruction begun by Innocent, 376;
+        enlarged and adorned by the Popes, 544;
+        additions built to, by Nicolas, 545;
+        library of, founded by Nicolas, 546;
+        and enlarged by Sixtus, 577.
+
+      Venice, drives a bargain with the Crusaders, 353.
+
+      Venturino, Fra, his reception in Rome, 394, 395.
+
+      Vertolle, Conte di, 448.
+
+      Vespasiano the bookseller, 523, 524.
+
+      Vico, Giovanni di, 436, 437, 453.
+
+
+      William the Conqueror, his invasion of England sanctioned by
+          Hildebrand, 221, 222.
+
+      Women, friendships between religious zealots and, 49, 50;
+        harshly spoken of by Catholic teachers, 49;
+        their success in the art of government, 202;
+        take part in the election of a Pope, 227;
+        form part of a council called by Gregory VII., 233, 234.
+
+      Women, Roman, their artificial life, 7;
+        influence of the conflicting religions upon their actions, 9,
+          10;
+        Jerome's description of different types of, 60-62.
+        _See_ Marcella, the Society of.
+
+      Worms, Council of, 190, 253-255.
+
+
+      Zara, capture of, by the Crusaders, 353.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Makers of Modern Rome, by 
+Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40135 ***