XLIX.

and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and CHA P. Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor *. The Protestants have dwelt with malicious pleasure on these characters of antichrist; but to a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far les dangerous than their virtues. After a Reformalong series of scandal, the apostolic see was reform- tion and ed and exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gre- of the gory VII. That ambitious monk devoted his life A. D. to the execution of two projects. I. To fix in the 1073, &c. college of cardinals the freedom and independence of election, and for ever to abolish the right or usurpation of the emperors and the Roman people. II. To bestow and resume the Western empire as a fief or benefice † of the church, and to extend 04 his

*Lateranense palatium. prostibulum meretricum . . Testis omnium gentium, præterquam Romanorum, absentia mulierum, quæ sanctorum apostolorum limina orandi gratiâ timent visere, cum nonnullas ante dies paucos, hunc audierint conjugatas viduas, virgines vi oppressisse, (Liutprand, Hist. 1. vi. c. 6. p. 471. See the whole affair of John XII. p. 471–476.)

A new example of the mischief of equivocation is the bene ficium, (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.) which the pope conferred on the emperor Frederic I. since the Latin word may signify either a legal fief, or a simple favour, an obligation, (we want the word bainfait) See Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. iii. p. 393-408. Pfeffel, Abregé Chronologique, tom. i. p. 229. 296. 317. 324. 420. 430. 500. 505. 509, &c.)

claims

church,

XLIX.

But

CHA P. his temporal dominion over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. After a contest of fifty years, the first of these designs was accomplished by the firm support of the ecclesiastical order, whose liberty was connected with that of their chief. the second attempt, though it was crowned with some partial and apparent success, has been vigorously resisted by the secular power, and finally extinguished by the improvement of human reason.

Authority of the em

perors in Rome.

In the revival of the empire of Rome, neither the bishop nor the people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho, the provinces which were lost, as they had been won, by the chance of arms. But the Romans were free to chuse a master for themselves; and the powers which had been delegated to the patrician, were irrevocably granted to the French and Saxon emperors of the West. The broken records of the times * preserve some remembrance of their palace, their mint, their tribunal, their edicts, and the sword of justice, which, as late as the thirteenth century, was derived from Cæsar to the præfect of the city †. Between the arts of the popes and the violence of the people, this supremacy was crushed and annihilated. Content with the titles of emperor and Augustus, the successors of Charlemagne neglected to assert this local jurisdiction. In the hour of prosperity,

*For the history of the emperors in Rome and Italy, see Sigonius, de Regno Italiæ; Opp. tom. ii. with the Notes of Saxius, and the annals of Muratori, who might refer more dis. to the authors of his great collection.

† See the Dissertation of Le Blanc at the end of his Treatise des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some Roman coins of the French emperors.

prosperity, their ambition was diverted by more c H A P. alluring objects; and in the decay and division of XLIX. the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of their hereditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Revolt of Alberic, Italy, the famous Marozia invited one of the usur- A.D. 932. pers to assume the character of her third husband; and Hugh, king of Burgundy, was introduced by her faction into the mole of Hadrian or castle of St Angelo, which commands the principal bridge and entrance of Rome. Her son by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to attend at the nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungrateful service was chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive of a revolution. "Romans,” exclaimed the youth, "once you were the masters "of the world, and these Burgundians the most

66

abject of your slaves. They now reign, these "voracious and brutal savages, and my injury is "the commencement of your servitude *." The alarum-bell rung to arms in every quarter of the city; the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame; Marozia was imprisoned by her victorious son; and his brother, pope John XI. was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual functions. With the title of prince, Alberic possessed above twenty years the government of Rome, and he is said to have gratified the popular prejudice, by restoring

the

* Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones, Romanis imperent?... Romanæ urbis dignitas ad tantam est stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat? (Lintprand, 1. iii. c. 12. p. 450.) Sigonius (1. vi p. 400.) positively affirms the renovation of the consulship; but in the old writers Albericus is more frequently stiled princeps Romano

rum.

XLIX.

Of pope

John XII.

A. D. 967.

CHA P. the office, or at least the title, of consuls and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian assumed, with the pontificate, the name of John XII.; like his predecessor, he was provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer for the church and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with the Imperial dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans were impatient, the festival of the coronation was disturbed by the secret conflict of prerogative and freedom, and Otho commanded his sword-bearer not to stir from his person, lest he should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of the altar *. Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised the revolt of the people and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was degraded in a synod; the præfect was mounted on an ass, whipped through the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty were hanged, others were mutilated or banished; and this severe process was justified by the ancient laws of Theodosius and Justinian. The voice of fame has accused the second Otho of a perfidious and bloody act, the massacre of the senators, whom he had invited to his table under the fair semblance of hospitality and friendship †. In the minority of his son Otho the third, Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the consul Crescentius

*Ditmar, p. 354. apud Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 439.

This bloody feast is described in Leonine verse, in the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 436, 437.) who flourished towards the end of the twelfth century, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Latin. med. et infimi Ævi, tom. iii. p. 69. edit. Mansi ;) but his evidence, which imposed on Sigonius, is reasonably suspected by Mauratori, (Annáli, tom. viii. p. 177.)

Of the

203

scentius was the Brutus of the republic. From CHA P. the condition of a subject and an exile, he twice XLIX. rose to the command of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and formed a con- consul spiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek Crescentius, emperors. In the fortress of St Angelo, he main- A. D. 998. tained an obstinate siege, till the unfortunate consul was betrayed by a promise of safety: His body was suspended on a gibbet, and his head was exposed on the battlements of the castle. By a reverse of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops, was besieged three days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful escape saved him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator Ptolemy was the leader of the people, and the widow of Crescentius enjoyed the pleasure or the fame of revenging her husband, by a poison which she administered to her Imperial lover. It was the design of Otho the third to abandon the ruder countries of the north, to erect his throne in Italy, and to revive the institutions of the Roman monarchy. But his successors only once in their lives appeared on the banks of the Tiber, to receive their crown in the Vatican *. Their absence was contemptible, their presence odious and formidable. They descended from the Alps, at the head of their Barbarians, who were strangers and enemies to the country; and their transient visit was

a scene

* The coronation of the emperor, and some original ceremonies of the tenth century, are preserved in the Panegyric on Berengarius, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. 405-414.) illustrated by the Notes of Hadrian Valesius, and Leibnitz. Sigonius has related the whole process of the Roman expedition, in good Latin, but with some errors of time and fact, (l. vii. p. 441446.)