A. D. 1181-1185. of Arnold of S endangered; and the vanity of sacerdotal ambition | earth and heaven, impious to God, seditious among is revealed in the involuntary confession, that one themselves, jealous of their neighbours, inhuman emperor was more tolerable than twenty. These to strangers, they love no one, by no one are they examples might suffice; but I cannot forget the beloved; and while they wish to inspire fear, they sufferings of two pontiffs of the same age, the se- live in base and continual apprehension. They Lucius II. cond and third of the name of Lu- will not submit; they know not how to govern; A. D. cius. The former, as he ascended in faithless to their superiors, intolerable to their 1144, 1145. battle array to assault the capitol, was equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, and alike Lucius III. struck on the temple by a stone, and impudent in their demands and their refusals. expired in a few days. The latter was Lofty in promise, poor in execution; adulation and severely wounded in the persons of his servants. calumny, perfidy and treason, are the familiar arts In a civil commotion, several of his priests had of their policy." Surely this dark portrait is not been made prisoners; and the inhuman Romans, coloured by the pencil of christian charity; yet the reserving one as a guide for his brethren, put out features, however harsh and ugly, express a lively their eyes, crowned them with ludicrous mitres, resemblance of the Romans of the twelfth century. mounted them on asses with their faces to the tail, The Jews had rejected the Christ Political heresy and extorted an oath, that, in this wretched condi- when he appeared among them in a tion, they should offer themselves as a lesson to the plebeian character; and the Romans head of the church. Hope or fear, lassitude or re- might plead their ignorance of his vicar when he morse, the characters of the men, and the circum- assumed the pomp and pride of a temporal sovestances of the times, might sometimes obtain an reign. In the busy age of the crusades, some sparks interval of peace and obedience; and the pope was of curiosity and reason were rekindled in the restored with joyful acclamations to the Lateran or western world: the heresy of Bulgaria, the PauliVatican, from whence he had been driven with cian sect, was successfully transplanted into the threats and violence. But the root of mischief was soil of Italy and France; the Gnostic visions were deep and perennial; and a momentary calm was mingled with the simplicity of the gospel; and the preceded and followed by such tempests as had enemies of the clergy reconciled their passions with almost sunk the bark of St. Peter. Rome continu- their conscience, the desire of freedom with the ally presented the aspect of war and discord: the profession of piety. The trumpet of Roman liberty churches and palaces were fortified and assaulted was first sounded by Arnold of Brescia," whose proby the factions and families; and after giving motion in the church was confined to the lowest peace to Europe, Calistus the second rank, and who wore the monastic habit rather as a alone had resolution and power to garb of poverty than as a uniform of obedience. Innocent II. prohibit the use of private arms in the His adversaries could not deny the wit and elometropolis. Among the nations who quence which they severely felt: they confess with revered the apostolic throne, the tu- reluctance the specious purity of his morals; and mults of Rome provoked a general indignation; and his errors were recommended to the public by a in a letter to his disciple Eugenius the third, St. mixture of important and beneficial truths. In his Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit and zeal, has theological studies, he had been the disciple of the stigmatized the vices of the rebellious people. famous and unfortunate Abelard, who was likewise involved in the suspicion of heresy: but the lover of Eloisa was of a soft and flexible nature; and his ecclesiastic judges were edified and disarmed by the humility of his repentance. From this master, Arnold most probably imbibed some metaphysical definitions of the Trinity, repugnant to the taste of the times: his ideas of baptism and the eucharist are loosely censured; but a political heresy was the source of his fame and misfortunes. He presumed to quote the declaration of Christ, that his kingdom is not of this world: he Calistus II. A. D. 1119–1124. A. D. 1130-1143. Character of the Bernard. Who is ignorant," says the monk Romans by St. of Clairvaux, "of the vanity and arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition, cruel, untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if they swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet they vent their discontent in loud clamours if your doors or your counsels are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief, they have never learnt the science of doing good. Odious to P Ego coram Deo et ecclesiâ dico, si unquam possibile esset, mallem unum imperatorem quam tot dominos. (Vit. Gelas. II. p. 398.) 9 Quid tam notum seculis quam protervia et cervicositas Romanorum? Gens insueta paci, tumultui assueta, gens immitis et intractabilis usque adhuc, subdi nescia, nisi cum non valet resistere, (de Considerat. l. iv. c. 2. p. 441.) The saint takes breath, and then begins again: Hi, invisi terræ et cœlo, utrique injecere manus, &c. (p. 443.) As a Roman citizen, Petrarch takes leave to observe, that Bernard, though a saint, was a man; that he might be provoked by resentment, and possibly repent of his hasty passion, &c. (Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 330.) Baronius, in his index to the twelfth volume of his Annals, has found a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of Romani Catholici, and Schismatici; to the former he applies all the good, to the latter all the evil, that is told of the city. The heresies of the twelfth century may be found in Mosheim, (Institut Hist. Eccles. p. 419-427.) who entertains a favourable opinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the fifty-fourth chapter I have described the sect of the Panlicians, and followed their migration from Armenia to Thrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France. u The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are drawn by Otho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. 1. vii. c. 31. de Gestis Frederici I. 1. i. c. 27. 1. ii. c. 21.) and in the third book of the Ligurinus, a poem of Gunther, who flourished A. D. 1200, in the monastery of Paris near Basil. (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin, med. et infimæ Etatis, tom. iii. p. 174, 175.) The long passage that relates to Arnold, is produced by Guelliman, (de Rebus Helveticis, 1. iii. c. 5. p. 108,) x The wicked wit of Bayle was amused in composing, with much levity and learning, the articles of ABELARD, FOULQUES, HELOISE, in his Dictionnaire Critique. The dispute of Abelard and St. Bernard, of scholastic and positive divinity, is well understood by Mosheim. (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 412-415.) peror; but to confine their shepherd to the spiritual government of his flock.c Nor could his spiritual government escape the censure and control of the reformer; and the inferior clergy were taught by his lessons to resist the cardinals, who had usurped a despotic command over the twenty-eight regions or parishes of Rome. The revolution was not ac of blood and the demolition of houses: the victorious faction was enriched with the spoils of the boldly maintained, that the sword and the sceptre | of the republic; to respect the name of the emwere intrusted to the civil magistrate; that temporal honours and possessions were lawfully vested in secular persons; that the abbots, the bishops, and the pope himself, must renounce either their state or their salvation; and that after the loss of their revenues, the voluntary tithes and oblations of the faithful would suffice, not indeed for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal life in the exercise of spi-complished without rapine and violence, the effusion ritual labours. During a short time, the preacher was revered as a patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of Brescia against her bishop, was the first-clergy and the adverse nobles.. Arnold of Brescia fruits of his dangerous lessons. But the favour of the people is less permanent than the resentment of | the priest; and after the heresy of Arnold had been condemned by Innocent the second, in the general council of the Lateran, the magistrates themselves were urged by prejudice and fear to execute the sentence of the church. Italy could no longer afford a refuge; and the disciple of Abelard escaped beyond the Alps, till he found a safe and hospitable shelter in Zurich, now the first of the Swiss cantons. From a Roman station," a royal villa, a chapter of noble virgins, Zurich had gradually increased to a free and flourishing city; where the appeals of the Milanese were sometimes tried by the imperial commissaries. In an age less ripe for reformation, the præcursor of Zuinglius was heard with applause: a brave and simple people imbibed and long retained the colour of his opinions: and his art, or merit, seduced the bishop of Constance, and even the pope's legate, who forgot, for his sake, the interest of their master and their order. Their tardy zeal was quickened by the fierce exhortations of St. Bernard; and the enemy of the church was driven by persecution to the desperate measure of erecting his standard in Rome itself, in the face of the successor of St. Peter. He exhorts the lic, A. D. 1144-1154. a Yet the courage of Arnold was not store the repub- devoid of discretion: he was protected, and had perhaps been invited, by the nobles and people; and in the service of freedom, his eloquence thundered over the seven hills. Blending in the same discourse the texts of Livy and St. Paul, uniting the motives of gospel and of classic enthusiasm, he admonished the Romans, how strangely their patience and the vices of the clergy had degenerated from the primitive times of the church and the city. He exhorted them to assert the inalienable rights of men and christians; to restore the laws and magistrates y Damnatus ab illo Præsule, qui numeros vetitum contingere nostros We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who turns z A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been found at Zurich, (D'Anville, Notice de l'ancienne Gaule, p. 642-644.) but it is without sufficient warrant, that the city and canton have usurped, and even monopolized, the names of Tigurum and Pagns Tigurinus. a Guilliman (de Rebus Helveticis, 1. iii. c. 5. p. 106.) recapitulates the donation (A. D. 833.) of the emperor Lewis the Pious to his daughter the Abbess Hildegardis. Curtim nostram Turegum in ducatu Alamanniæ in Pago Durgaugensi, with villages, woods, meadows, waters, slaves, churches, &c. a noble gift. Charles the Bald gave the jus monetæ, the city was walled under Otho 1. and the line of the bishop of Frisingen, Nobile Turegum multarum copiâ rerum, is repeated with pleasure by the antiquaries of Zurich. enjoyed, or deplored, the effects of his mission: his reign continued above ten years, while two popes, Innocent the second and Anastasius the fourth, either trembled in the Vatican, or wandered as exiles in the adjacent cities. They were succeeded by a more vigorous and fortunate pontiff, Adrian the fourth, the only Englishman who has ascended the throne of St. Peter; and whose merit emerged from the mean condition of a monk, and almost a beggar, in the monastery of St. Albans. On the first provocation, of a cardinal killed or wounded in the streets, he cast an interdict on the guilty people; and, from Christmas to Easter, Rome was deprived of the real or imaginary comforts of religious worship. The Romans had despised their temporal prince; they submitted with grief and terror to the censures of their spiritual father; their guilt was expiated by penance, and the banishment of the seditious preacher was the price of their absolution. But the revenge of Adrian was yet unsatisfied, and the approaching coronation of Frederic Barbarossa was fatal to the bold reformer, who had offended, though not in an equal degree, the heads of the church and state. In their interview at Viterbo, the pope represented to the emperor the furious ungovernable spirit of the Romans; the insults, the injuries, the fears, to which his person and his clergy were continually exposed; and the pernicious tendency of the heresy of Arnold, which must subvert the principles of civil, as well as ecclesiastical, subordination. Frederic was convinced by these arguments, or tempted by the desire of the imperial crown: in the balance of ambition, the innocence or life of an individual is of small account; and their common enemy was sacrificed to a moment of political concord. After his retreat from Rome, Arnold had been protected by the viscounts of Campania, from whom he was extorted by the power of Cæsar: the præfect of the city pronounced b Bernard, epistol. cxcv, excvi. tom i. p. 187-190. Amidst his Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa Nor is the poetry of Gunther different from the prose of Otho. The English reader may consult the Biographia Britannica, ADRIAN IV. but our own writers have added nothing to the fame or merits of their countryman. Restoration of the senate, The love of ancient freedom has encouraged a belief, that as early as the A. D. 1144. tenth century, in their first struggles His execution, his sentence; the martyr of freedom | mations. But the regular distribution of the thirtyA. D. 1155. was burnt alive in the presence of a five tribes, the nice balance of the wealth and careless and ungrateful people; and his ashes were numbers of the centuries, the debates of the adverse cast into the Tiber, lest the heretics should collect orators, and the slow operation of votes and ballots, and worship the relics of their master. The clergy could not easily be adapted by a blind multitude, triumphed in his death: with his ashes, his sect was ignorant of the arts, and insensible of the benefits, dispersed; his memory still lived in the minds of of legal government. It was proposed by Arnold the Romans. From his school they had probably to revive and discriminate the equestrian order; derived a new article of faith, that the metropolis but what could be the motive or measure of such of the catholic church is exempt from the penalties distinction? The pecuniary qualification of the of excommunication and interdict. Their bishops knights must have been reduced to the poverty of might argue, that the supreme jurisdiction, which the times those times no longer required their civil they exercised over kings and nations, more espe- functions of judges and farmers of the revenue; and cially embraced the city and diocese of the prince their primitive duty, their military service on horseof the apostles. But they preached to the winds, back, was more nobly supplied by feudal tenures and the same principle that weakened the effect, and the spirit of chivalry. The jurisprudence of the must temper the abuse, of the thunders of the republic was useless and unknown: the nations and Vatican. families of Italy who lived under the Roman and barbaric laws were insensibly mingled in a common mass; and some faint tradition, some imperfect fragments, preserved the memory of the Code and Pandects of Justinian. With their liberty the Romans might doubtless have restored the appellation and office of consuls; had they not disdained a title so promiscuously adopted in the Italian cities, that it has finally settled on the humble station of the agents of commerce in a foreign land. But the rights of the tribunes, the formidable word that arrested the public counsels, suppose or must produce a legitimate democracy. The old patricians were the subjects, the modern barons the tyrants, of the state; nor would the enemies of peace and order, who insulted the vicar of Christ, have long respected the unarmed sanctity of a plebeian magistrate." In the revolution of the twelfth cenThe Capitol. tury, which gave a new existence and æra to Rome, we may observe the real and important events that marked or confirmed her political independence. I. The Capitoline hill, one of her seven eminences," is about four hundred yards in length, and two hundred in breadth. A flight of a hundred steps led to the summit of the Tarpeian rock; and far steeper was the ascent before the declivities had been smoothed and the precipices filled by the ruins of fallen edifices. From the earliest ages, the Capitol had been used as a temple in against the Saxon Othos, the commonwealth was vindicated and restored by the senate and people of Rome; that two consuls were annually elected among the nobles, and that ten or twelve plebeian magistrates revived the name and office of the tribunes of the commons. But this venerable structure disappears before the light of criticism. In the darkness of the middle ages, the appellations of senators, of consuls, of the sons of consuls, may sometimes be discovered. They were bestowed by the emperors, or assumed by the most powerful citizens, to denote their rank, their honours,' and perhaps the claim of a pure and patrician descent; but they float on the surface, without a series or a substance, the titles of men, not the orders of government; and it is only from the year of Christ one thousand one hundred and forty-four, that the establishment of the senate is dated, as a glorious æra, in the acts of the city. A new constitution was hastily framed by private ambition or popular enthusiasm ; nor could Rome, in the twelfth century, produce an antiquary to explain, or a legislator to restore, the harmony and proportions of the ancient model. The assembly of a free, of an armed people, will ever speak in loud and weighty accla f Besides the historian and poet already quoted, the last adventures of Arnold are related by the Biographer of Adrian IV. (Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. p. i. p. 441, 442.) g Ducange (Gloss. Latinitatis media et infimæ Etatis, Decarchones, tom. ii. p. 726.) gives me a quotation from Blondus: (decad. 1. l. ii.) Duo consules ex nobilitate quotannis fiebant, qui ad vetustum consulum exemplar summæ rerum præessent. And in Sigonius (de Regno Italiæ, 1. vi. Opp, tom. ii. p. 400.) I read of the consuls and tribunes of the tenth century. Both Blondus, and even Sigonius, too freely copied the classic method of supplying from reason or fancy the deficiency of records. In the panegyric of Berengarius (Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. tom. ii. P.1. p. 408.) a Roman is mentioned as consulis natus in the beginning of the tenth century. Muratori (dissert. v.) discovers in the years 952 and 956, Gratianus in Dei nomine consul et dux, Georgius consul et dux; and in 1015, Romanus, brother of Gregory VIII. proudly, but vaguely, styles himself consul et dux et omnium Romanorum senator. As late as the tenth century, the Greek emperors conferred on the dukes of Venice, Naples, Amalphi, &c. the title of raros or consuls; (see Chron. Sagornini, passim;) and the successors of Charlemagne would not abdicate any of their prerogative. But in general, the names of consul and senator, which may be found among the French and Ger. mans, signify no more than count and lord. (Signeur, Ducange, Glossar.) The monkish writers are often ambitious of fine classic words. * The most constitutional form, is a diploma of Otho III. (A. D. 998.) Consulibus senatûs populique Romani; but the act is probably spurious. At the coronation of Henry I. A. D. 1014, the historian Dithmar (apud Muratori, dissert. xxiii.) describes him, a senatoribus duodecim vallatum, quorum sex rasi barbà, alii prolixâ, mystice incedebant cum baculis. The senate is mentioned in the panegyric of Berengarius, (p. 406.) 1 In ancient Rome, the equestrian order was not ranked with the senate and people as a third branch of the republic till the consulship of Cicero, who assumes the merit of the establishment. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 3. Beaufort, Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 344—155.) In The republican plan of Arnold of Brescia is thus stated by Gun ther: Quin etiam titulos urbis renovare vetustos ; n After many disputes among the antiquaries of Rome, it seems de termined, that the summit of the Capitoline hill next the river is strictly the Mons Tarpeius, the Arx; and that on the other summit, the church and convent of Araceli, the barefoot friars of St. Francis occupy the temple of Jupiter. (Nardini, Roma Antica, l. v. c. 11—16.) The coin. peace, a fortress in war; after the loss of the city, it maintained a siege against the victorious Gauls, and the sanctuary of empire was occupied, assaulted, and burnt, in the civil wars of Vitellius and Vespasian." The temples of Jupiter and his kindred deities had crumbled into dust; their place was supplied by monasteries and houses; and the solid walls, the long and shelving porticoes, were decayed or ruined by the lapse of time. It was the first act of the Romans, an act of freedom, to restore the strength, though not the beauty, of the Capitol; to fortify the seat of their arms and counsels; and as often as they ascended the hill, the coldest minds must have glowed with the remembrance of their ancestors. II. The first Cæsars had been invested with the exclusive coinage of the gold and silver; to the senate they abandoned the baser metal of bronze or copper: the emblems and legends were inscribed on a more ample field by the genius of flattery; and the prince was relieved from the care of celebrating his own virtues. The successors of Diocletian despised even the flattery of the senate their royal officers at Rome, and in the provinces, assumed the sole direction of the mint; and the same prerogative was inherited by the Gothic kings of Italy, and the long series of the Greek, the French, and the German dynasties. After an abdication of eight hundred years, the Roman senate asserted this honourable and lucrative privilege; which was tacitly renounced by the popes, from Paschal the second to the establishment of their residence beyond the Alps. Some of these republican coins of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are shown in the cabinets of the curious. On one of these, a gold medal, Christ is depictured holding in his left hand a book with this inscription: "THE VOW OF THE ROMAN SENATE AND PEOPLE: ROME THE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD;" on the reverse, St. Peter delivering a banner to a kneeling senator in his cap and gown, with the name and arms of his family impressed on his The præfect of shield. III. With the empire, the præfect of the city had declined to a municipal officer; yet he still exercised in the last appeal the civil and criminal jurisdiction; and a drawn sword, which he received from the successors of Otho, was the mode of his investiture and the emblem of his the city. o Tacit. Hist. iii. 69, 70. p This partition of the noble and baser metals between the emperor and senate, must however be adopted, not as a positive fact, but as the probable opinion of the best antiquaries. (See the Science des Medailles of the Pere Joubert, tom. ii. p. 208-211. in the improved and scarce edition of the Baron de la Bastie.) q In his twenty-seventh dissertation on the Antiquities of Italy (tom. ii. p. 559-569.) Muratori exhibits a series of the senatorian coins, which bore the obscure names of Affortiati, Infortiati, Provisini, Paparini. During this period all the popes, without excepting Boniface VIII. abstained from the right of coining, which was resumed by his succes. sor Benedict XI. and regularly exercised in the court of Avignon. r A German historian, Gerard of Reicherspeg, (in Baluz. Miscell. tom. v. p. 64. apud Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. iii. p. 265.) thus describes the constitution of Rome in the eleventh century: Grandiora urbis et orbis negotia spectant ad Romanum pontificem itemque ad Romanum imperatorem, sive illius vicarium urbis præfectum, qui de suâ dignitate respicit utrumque, videlicet dominum papam cui facit hominum, et dominum imperatorem a quo accipit suæ potestatis insigue, scilicet gladium exertum. The words of a contemporary writer (Pandulph. Pisan. in Vit. Paschal II. p. 357, 358.) describe the election and oath of the præfect in 1118, inconsultis patribus .. .... loca præfectoria . . . . Laudes præ A. D. 1198-1216. functions. The dignity was confined to the noble families of Rome: the choice of the people was ratified by the pope; but a triple oath of fidelity must have often embarrassed the præfect in the conflict of adverse duties. A servant, in whom they possessed but a third share, was dismissed by the independent Romans in his place they elected a patrician; but this title, which Charlemagne had not disdained, was too lofty for a citizen or a subject; and, after the first fervour of rebellion, they consented without reluctance to the restoration of the præfect. About fifty years after this event, Innocent the third, the most ambitious, or at least the most fortunate, of the pontiffs, delivered the Romans and himself from this badge of foreign dominion: he invested the præfect with a banner instead of sword, and absolved him from all dependence of oaths or service to the German emperors. In his place an ecclesiastic, a present or future cardinal, was named by the pope to the civil government of Rome; but his jurisdiction has been reduced to a narrow compass; and in the days of freedom, the right or exercise was derived from the senate and people. IV. After the revival of the senate," the conscript choice of the fathers (if I may use the expression) were invested with the legislative and executive power; but their views seldom reached beyond the present day; and that day was most frequently disturbed by violence and tumult. In its utmost plenitude, the order or assembly consisted of fifty-six senators, the most eminent of whom were distinguished by the title of counsellors; they were nominated, perhaps annually, by the people; and a previous choice of their electors, ten persons in each region, or parish, might afford a basis for a free and permanent constitution. The popes, who in this tempest submitted rather to bend than to break, confirmed by treaty the establishment and privileges of the senate, and expected from time, peace, and religion, the restoration of their government. The motives of public and private interest might sometimes draw from the Romans an occasional and temporary sacrifice of their claims; and they renewed their oath of allegiance to the successor of St. Peter and Constantine, the lawful head of the church and the republic. Number and senate. fectoriæ.... comitorum applausum . juraturum populo in ambonem sublevant. confirmari eum in urbe præfectum petunt t Urbis præfectum ad ligiam fidelitatem recepit, et per mantum quod illi donavit de præfectura eum publice investivit, qui usque adid tempus juramento fidelitatis imperatori fuit obligatus et ab eo præfer turæ tenuit honorem. (Gesta Innocent III. in Muratori, tom. iii. p. i.p 487.) u See Otho Frising. Chron. vii. 31. de Gest. Frederic I. 1. i. c. 27. x Our countryman, Roger Hoveden, speaks of the single senators, of the Capuzzi family, &c. quorum temporibus melius regebatur Roma quam nunc (A. D. 1194.) est temporibus lvi. senatorum. (Ducange, Gloss, tom. vi. p. 191. SENATORES.) y Muratori (dissert. xlii. tom. iii. p. 785-788.) has published an offginal treaty. Concordia inter D. nostrum papam Clementem III. et senatores populi Romani super regalibus et aliis dignitatibus urbis, & anno 44° senatus. The senate speaks, and speaks with authority: Reddimus ad præsens . . . . habebimus.... dabitis presbyteria jurabimus pacem et fidelitatem, &c. A chartula de Tenementis Tus culani, dated in the 47th year of the same æra, and confirmed decreto amplissimi ordinis senatus, acclamatione P. R. publice Capitolio co sistentis. It is there we find the difference of senatores consiliarii and simple senators. (Muratori, dissert. xlii. tom. iii. p. 787-789.) The office of The union and vigour of a public senator. council was dissolved in a lawless city; and the Romans soon adopted a more strong and simple mode of administration. They condensed the name and authority of the senate in a single magistrate, or two colleagues; and as they were changed at the end of a year, or of six months, the greatness of the trust was compensated by the shortness of the term. But in this transient reign, the senators of Rome indulged their avarice and ambition: their justice was perverted by the interest of their family and faction; and as they punished only their enemies, they were obeyed only by their adherents. Anarchy, no longer tempered by the pastoral care of their bishop, admonished the Romans that they were incapable of governing themselves; and they sought abroad those blessings which they were hopeless of finding at home. In the same age, and from the same motives, most of the Italian republics were prompted to embrace a measure, which, however strange it may seem, was adapted to their situation, and productive of the most salutary effects. They chose, in some foreign but friendly city, an impartial magistrate of noble birth and unblemished character, a soldier and a statesman, recommended by the voice of fame and his country, to whom they delegated for a time the supreme administration of peace and war. The compact between the governor and the governed was sealed with oaths and subscriptions; and the duration of his power, the measure of his stipend, the nature of their mutual obligations, were defined with scrupulous decision. They swore to obey him as their lawful superior; he pledged his faith to unite the indifference of a stranger with the zeal of a patriot. At his choice, four or six knights and civilians, his assessors in arms and justice, attended the Podesta, who maintained at his own expense a decent retinue of servants and horses: his wife, his son, his brother, who might bias the affections of the judge, were left behind; during the exercise of his office he was not permitted to purchase land, to contract an alli-independent power, who could defend them from ance, or even to accept an invitation in the house of a citizen; nor could he honourably depart till he had satisfied the complaints that might be urged against his government. of their choice: the statutes of Rome were suspended, and his office prolonged to the term of three years. By the guilty and licentious he was accused as cruel; by the clergy he was suspected as partial; but the friends of peace and order applauded the firm and upright magistrate by whom those blessings were restored. No criminals were so powerful as to brave, so obscure as to elude, the justice of the senator. By his sentence two nobles of the Annibaldi family were executed on a gibbet; and he inexorably demolished, in the city and neighbourbood, one hundred and forty towers, the strong shelters of rapine and mischief. The bishop, as a simple bishop, was compelled to reside in his diocese; and the standard of Brancaleone was displayed in the field with terror and effect. His services were repaid by the ingratitude of a people unworthy of the happiness which they enjoyed. By the public robbers, whom he had provoked for their sake, the Romans were excited to depose and imprison their benefactor; nor would his life have been spared, if Bologna had not possessed a pledge for his safety. Before his departure, the prudent senator had required the exchange of thirty hostages of the noblest families of Rome: on the news of his danger, and at the prayer of his wife, they were more strictly guarded; and Bologna, in the cause of honour, sustained the thunders of a papal interdict. This generous resistance allowed the Romans to compare the present with the past; and Brancaleone was conducted from the prison to the capitol amidst the acclamations of a repentant people. The remainder of his government was firm and fortunate; and as soon as envy was appeased by death, his head, enclosed in a precious vase, was deposited on a lofty column of marble.c Brancaleone, It was thus, about the middle of the A. D. 1252–1258 thirteenth century, that the Romans called from Bologna the senator Brancaleone, whose fame and merit have been rescued from oblivion by the pen of an English historian. A just anxiety for his reputation, a clear foresight of the difficulties of the task, had engaged him to refuse the honour z Muratori (dissert, xlv. tom. iv. p. 64-92.) has fully explained this mode of government; and the Oculus Pastoralis, which he has given at the end, is a treatise or sermon on the duties of these foreign ma. gistrates. a In the Latin writers, at least of the silver age, the title of Potestas was transferred from the office to the magistrate: Hujus qui trabitur prætextam sumere mavis; An Fidenarum Gabiorumque esse Potestas. (Juvenal. Satir. x. 99.) See the life and death of Brancaleone, in the Historia Major of Matthew Paris, p. 741. 757. 792. 797. 799. 810, 823. 833. 836. 840. The multitude of pilgrims and suitors connected Rome and St. Alban's, and the resentment of the English clergy prompted them to rejoice whenever the popes were humbled and oppressed. The impotence of reason and virtue Charles of Anjou, recommended in Italy a more effectual A. D. 1265–1278. choice: instead of a private citizen, to whom they yielded a voluntary and precarious obedience, the Romans elected for their senator some prince of their enemies and themselves. Charles of Anjou and Provence, the most ambitious and warlike monarch of the age, accepted at the same time the kingdom of Naples from the pope, and the office of senator from the Roman people. As he passed through the city, in his road to victory, he received their oath of allegiance, lodged in the Lateran palace, and smoothed in a short visit the harsh features of his despotic character. Yet even Charles was exposed to the inconstancy of the people, who saluted with the same acclamations the passages of his rival, e Matthew Paris thus ends his account: Caput vero ipsius Brancaleonis in vase pretioso super marmoream columnam collocatum, in signum sui valoris et probitatis, quasi reliquias, superstitiose nimis et pompose sustulerunt. Fuerat enim superborum potentum et malefactorum urbis malleus et exstirpator, et populi protector et defensor, veritatis et justitiæ imitator et amator. (p. 810.) A biographer of Innocent IV. (Muratori, Script. tom. iii. P. i. p. 591, 592.) draws a less favourable portrait of this Ghibelline senator. d The election of Charles of Anjou to the office of perpetual senator of Rome, is mentioned by the historians in the eighth volume of the Collection of Muratori, by Nicholas de Jamsilla, (p. 592.) the monk of Padua, (p. 724.) Sabas Malaspina, (I. ii. c. 9. p. 808.) and Ricordano Malespini, (c. 177. p. 999.) |