His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otho the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may no. perhaps be dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pur suits of gaming and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and 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.133 The Protestants have dwelt with malicious pleasure on these characters of Antichrist; but to a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues. Afte a long series of scandal, the apostolic see was reformed and exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gregory VII. That ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution of two projects. I. To fix in the college of cardinals the freedom and inde pendence of election, and forever 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 134 of the church, and to extend his temporal dominion over the kings

...

133 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.)

134 A new example of the mischief of equivocation is the beneficium, (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.,) which the pope conferred on the emperor Frederic I., since the Latin word may signify either a legal Gief, or a simple favor, an obligation, (we want the word bienfait.) (See Selimidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. iii. p. 393–408. Pfeffel, Abrégé Chronologique, tom. i. p. 229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500, 505. 609, &c.)

p. 268. Her grandson Octavian, otherwise called John XII.. was pope; but a great-grandson cannot be discovered in ny of the succeeding popes; aor does our historian himself, in his subsequent narration, (p. 202,) seem to know of one. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe Harold, p. 309. —N

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. But the second attempt, though it was crowned with some partial and apparent success, has been vigorously resisted by the secular power, and finally extin guished by the improvement of human reason.

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 choose a master for themselves; and the powers which had been dele. gated to the patrician, were irrevocably granted to the French and Saxon emperors of the West. The broken records of the times 135 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.136 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 tc assert this local jurisdiction. In the hour of prosperity, their ambition was diverted by more alluring objects; and in the decay and division of the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of their hereditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy, the famous Marozia invited one of the usurpers 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 princinal bridge and entrance of Rome. Her son by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to attend at the nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful service was chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive of a revo lution. 66 Romans," exclaimed the youth, once you were the masters of the world, and these Burgundians the most abject of your slaves. They now reign, these voracious and

66

186 For the history of the emperors in Rome and Italy, see S gonius, de Regno Italiæ, Opp. tom. ii., with the Notes of Saxius, and the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more distinctly to the authors of his great collection.

136 See the Dissertation of Le Blanc at the end of his treatise les Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some Rom an coins of the French emperors.

brutal savages, and my injury is the commencement of your servitude." 137 The alarum bell rang 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 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.138 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.139 In the minority of his son Otho the Third, Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From the condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the command of the

137 Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones, Romanis imperent?... Romanæ urbis dignitas ad tantam est stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat? (Liutprand, 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 styled princeps Romanorum.

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

139 This bloody feast is described in Leonine verse in the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 436, 437,) who flour. ished towards the end of the xiith century, (Fabricius Bibliot. Latin Med. et Infimi Evi, tom. iii. p. 69, edit. Mansi ;) but his evidence, which imposed on Sigonius, is reasonably suspected by Muratori, 'Annali, tom. viii. p. 177.)

city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and formed a conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek emperors. In the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained 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 be sieged 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 ad. ministered 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 Tyber, to receive their crown in the Vatican.140 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 of tumult and bloodshed, 141 A faint remembrance of their ancestors still tormented the Romans; and they beheld with pious indignation the succession of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and Bohemians, who usurped the purple and prerogatives of the Cæsars.

There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest. A torrent of Barbarians may pass over the earth, but an extensive

140 The coronation of the emperor, and some original ceremonies of the xth century are preserved in the Panegyric on Berengarius, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 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, (1. vii. p. 441-446.)

141 In a quarrel at the coronation of Conrad II. Muratori takes leave to observe doveano ben essere allora, indisciplinati, Barbari, e bestiah 1 Tedeschi. Annal. tom. viii. p. 368.

The Marquis Maffei's gallery contained a medal with Imp. Cæs. Au gust. P. P. Crescentius. Hence Hobhouse infers that he affected the em pire. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe Harold, p. 252. — M.

empire must be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in resources; a swift and easy communica tion with the extreme parts; fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear, withou! provoking discontent and despair. Far different was the situation of the German Cæsars, who were ambitious to enslave the kingdom of Italy. Their patrimonial estates were stretched along the Rhine, or scattered in the provinces; but this ample domain was alienated by the imprudence or distress of successive princes; and their revenue, from minute and vexatious prerogative, was scarcely sufficient for the maintenance of their household. Their troops were formed by the legal or voluntary service of their feudal vassals, who passed the Alps with reluctance assumed the license of rapine and disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of the campaign. Whole armies were swept away by the pestilential influence of the climate: the survivors brought back the bones of their princes and nobles,142 and the effects of their own intemperance were often imputed to the treachery and malice of the Italians, who rejoiced at least in the calamities of the Barbarians. This irregular tyranny might contend on equal terms with the petty tyrants of Italy; nor can the people, or the reader, be much interested in the event of the quarrel. But in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Lombards rekindled the flame of industry and freedom; and the generous example was at length imitated by the republics of Tuscany. In the Italian cities a municipal government had never been totally abolished; and their first privileges were granted by the favor and policy of the em perors, who were desirous of erecting a plebeian barrier

142 After boiling away the flesh. The caldrons for that purpose were a necessary piece of travelling furniture; and a German who was using it for his brother, promised it to a friend, after it should have been employed for himself, (Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 423, 424.) The same author observes that the whole Saxon line was extinguished in Italy, (tom. ii. p. 440.)

Compare Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes. Hallam Mialle Ages Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstauffen. Savigny, Ge schichte des Römischen Rechts, vol. iii. p. 19, with the authors quoted

-M.