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1040-1043. Their Conquest of Apulia,

Character of the Normans,.

1046. Oppression of Apulia,.

1049-1054. League of the Pope and the two Empires,

1053. Expedition of Pope Leo IX. against the Normans,.
His Defeat and Captivity,.

Origin of the Papal Investitures to the Normans,
1020-1085. Birth and Character of Robert Guiscard,

1054-1080. His Ambition and Success,..

1060. Duke of Apulia,..................

His Italian Conquests,

School of Salerno,...

Trade of Amalphi,

1060-1090. Conquest of Sicily by Count Roger,

1081. Robert invades the Eastern Empire,

Siege of Durazzo,·

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The Army and March of the Emperor Alexius,.
Battle of Durazzo,.

1082. Durazzo taken,.

Return of Robert, and Actions of Bohemond,
1081. The Emperor Henry III. invited by the Greeks,
1081-1084. Besieges Rome,..

Flies before Robert,.

1084. Second Expedition of Robert into Greece,.

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1148, 1149. The Emperor Manuel repulses the Normans,
1155. He reduces Apulia and Calabria,

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1155-1174. His Design of acquiring Italy and the Western Empire.. 49

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THE RKS OF THE HOUSE OF SELJUK.. THEIR REVOLT AGAINST MAHMUD
CONQUEROR OF HINDOSTAN.―TOGRUL SUBDUES PERSIA, AND PROTECTS
THE CALIPHS. -DEFEAT AND CAPTIVITY OF THE EMPEROR ROMANUS
DIOGENES BY ALP ARSLAN. — POWER AND MAGNIFICENCE OF MALEK
SHAH.- CONQUEST OF ASIA MINOR AND SYRIA. STATE AND OPPRES-
SION OF JERUSALEM. -PILGRIMAGES TO THE HOLY SEPUI CHRE.

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1038-1063. Reign and Character of Togrul Beg,

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997-1028. Mahmud the Gaznevide,

His twelve Expeditions into Hindostan,
His Character,...

980-1028. Manners and Emigration of the Turks, or Turkmans,....505

1038. They defeat the Gaznevides, and subdue Persia,.
1038-1152. Dynasty of the Seljukians,

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Division of the Seljukian Empire,

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THE

HISTORY

OF

THE DECLINE AND FALL

OF THE

ROMAN EMPIRE.

CHAPTER XLIX.

INTRODUCTION, WORSHIP, AND PERSECUTION

REVOLT OF ITALY AND ROME.

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OF IMAGES. TEMPORAL DOMINION OF

CONQUEST OF ITALY BY THE FRANKS. ES

THE POPES.
TABLISHMENT OF IMAGES.

OF CHARLEMAGNE.

--

CHARACTER AND CORONATION RESTORATION AND DECAY OF THE

ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. — INDEPENDENCE OF ITALY. CONSTITUTION OF THE GERMANIC BODY.

IN the connection of the church and state, I have considered the former as subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a salutary maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had ever been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the substance of Christ's body, I have purposely abandoned to the curiosity of speculative divines. But I have reviewed, with diligence and pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which

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The learned Selden has given the history of transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence: This opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic," (his Works, vol. iii. p. 2073, in his Table-Talk.) 1

VOL. V.

the decline and fall of the Roman empire were malerially affected, the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation. At the head of this class, we may justly rank the worship of images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries; since a question of popular superstition produced the revolt of Italy, the temporal power of the popes, and the restoration of the Roman empire in the West.

The primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable repugnance to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may be ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely proscribed all representations of the Deity; and that precept was firmly established in the principles and practice of the chosen people. The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist.2 Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the profane honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras; 3 but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple and spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after the Christian æra. der the successors of Constantine, in the peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the benefit of the multitude, and, after the ruin of Paganism, they were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and martyrs, whose inter

Un

'Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quôd si sentire simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent à quo sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. 1. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists. Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form and matter.

See Irenæus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage, Hist. des Eglises Reformées, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic practice has a singular affinity with the private worship of Alexander Severus, (Lam.pridius, 29. Lardrer, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)

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