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CHAP. four halls of audience: in the first they were ready to fall prostrate before a splendid personage in a chair of state, till he informed them that he was only a servant, the constable, or master of the horse, of the emperor. The same mistake, and the same answer, were repeated in the apartments of the count palatine, the steward, and the chamberlain; and their impatience was gradually heightened, till the doors of the presence-chamber were thrown open, and they beheld the genuine monarch, on his throne, enriched with the foreign luxury which he despised, and encircled with the love and reverence of his victorious chiefs. A treaty of peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires, and the limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present possession. But the Greeks soon forgot this humiliating equality, or remembered it only to hate the barbarians by whom it was extorted. During the short union of virtue and power, they respectfully saluted the august Charlemagne with the acclamations of basileus, and emperor of the Romans. As soon as these qualities were separated in the person of his pious son, the Byzantine letters were inscribed, "To the king, or, as he styles himself, the emperor of the Franks and Lombards." When both power and virtue were extinct, they despoiled Lewis the second of his hereditary title, and, with the barbarous appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin princes. His reply is expressive of his weakness: he proves, with some learning, that, both in sacred and profane history, the name of king is synonymous with the Greek word basileus: if, at Constantinople, it were assumed in a

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Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi (tom. iii. A. D. 812, No 7. A. D. 824, No 10, &c.), the contrast of Charlemagne and his son: to the former the ambassadors of Michael (who were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est linguâ Græcâ laudes dixerunt, imperatorem eum et Bariλa appellantes; to the latter, Vocato imperatori Francorum, &c.

* See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous writer of Salerno (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 243–254. c. 93–107), whom Baronius (A. D. 871, N° 51-71) mistook for Erchempert, when he transcribed it in his Annals.

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more exclusive and imperial sense, he claims from his CHAP. ancestors, and from the pope, a just participation of the honours of the Roman purple. The same controversy was revived in the reign of the Othos; and their ambassador describes, in lively colours, the insolence of the Byzantine court." The Greeks affected to despise the poverty and ignorance of the Franks and Saxons; and in their last decline refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the title of Roman

the elections

emperors. These in the election of the popes, con- of the emAuthority emperors, tinued to exercise the powers which had been assumed perors in by the Gothic and Grecian princes; and the import- of the popes, ance of this prerogative increased with the temporal AD. 800 estate and spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman church. In the Christian aristocracy, the principal members of the clergy still formed a senate to assist the administration, and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop. Rome was divided into twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a cardinal-priest, or presbyter, a title, which, however common and modest in its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their number was enlarged by the association of the seven deacons of the most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine judges of the Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclesiastical senate was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the Roman province, who were less occupied in the suburb dioceses of Ostia, Porto, Velitræ, Tusculum, Præneste, Tibur, and the Sabines, than by their weekly service in the Lateran, and their superior share in the honours and authority of the apostolic

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Ipse enim vos, non imperatorem, id est Barλsa suâ linguâ, sed ob indignationem Pnya, id est regem nostrâ vocabat (Liutprand, in Legat. in Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 479). The pope had exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Greeks, to make peace with Otho, the august emperor of the Romans—quæ inscriptio secundum Græcos peccatoria et temeraria imperatorem inquiunt, universalem, Romanorum, Augustum, magnum, solum, Nicephorum (p. 486).

CHAP. see.
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On the death of the pope, these bishops recommended a successor to the suffrage of the college of cardinals, and their choice was ratified or rejected by the applause or clamour of the Roman people. But the election was imperfect; nor could the pontiff be legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the church, had graciously signified his approbation and consent. The royal commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the proceedings; nor was it, till after a previous scrutiny into the qualifications of the candidates, that he accepted an oath of fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had successively enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms, the rival claims were submitted to the sentence of the emperor; and in a synod of bishops he presumed to judge, to condemn, and to punish, the crimes of a guilty pontiff. Otho the first imposed a treaty on the senate and people, who engaged to prefer the candidate most acceptable to his majesty: his successors anticipated or prevented their choice: they bestowed the Roman benefice, like the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on their chancellors or preceptors: and whatever might be the merit of a Frank or Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the interposition of foreign power. These acts of prerogative were most speciously excused by the vices of a popular election. The competitor who had been

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▾ The origin and progress of the title of cardinal may be found in Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1261-1298), Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiæ Medii Ævi, tom. vi. Dissert. Ixi. p. 159—182), and Mosheim (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 345-347), who accurately remarks the forms and changes of the election. The cardinal-bishops, so highly exalted by Peter Damianus, are sunk to a level with the rest of the sacred college.

w Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam electuros aut ordinaturos, præter consensum et electionem Othonis et filii sui (Liutprand, 1. vi. c. 6. p. 472). This important concession may either supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and people of Rome, so fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori (A.D. 964), and so well defended and explained by St. Marc (Abrégé, tom. ii. p. 808–816. tom. iv. p. 1167-1185). Consult that historical critic, and the Annals of Muratori, for the election and confirmation of each pope.

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excluded by the cardinals appealed to the passions CHAP. or avarice of the multitude: the Vatican and the Lateran were stained with blood; and the most powerful senators, the marquisses of Tuscany and the counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic see in a long and disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of the ninth Disorders. and tenth centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and murdered, by their tyrants; and such was their indigence, after the loss and usurpation of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, that they could neither support the state of a prince, nor exercise the charity of a priest.* The influence of two sister prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign' may have suggested to the darker ages the fable of a female pope.

The bas

* The oppression and vices of the Roman church in the xth century are strongly painted in the history and legation of Liutprand (see p. 440. 450. 471 -476. 479, &c.); and it is whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the invectives of Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been chosen, not by the cardinals, but by lay-patrons.

> The time of pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is placed somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two years of her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV. and Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links the death of Leo and the elevation of Benedict (illico, mox, p. 247); and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and Leibnitz, fixes both events to the year 857.

z The advocates for pope Joan produce one hundred and fifty witnesses, or rather echoes, of the xivth, xvth, and xvith centuries. They bear testimony against themselves and the legend, by multiplying the proof that so curious a story must have been repeated by writers of every description to whom it was known. On those of the ixth and xth centuries, the recent event would have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have spared such a reproach? Could Liutprand have missed such scandal? It is scarcely worth while to discuss the various readings of Martinus Polonus, Sigebert of Gemblours, or even Marianus Scotus; but a most palpable forgery is the passage of pope Joan, which has been foisted into some MSS. and editions of the Roman Anastasius.

a As false, it deserves that name; but I would not pronounce it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our own times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church, instead of the army: her merit or fortune might have raised her to St. Peter's chair; her amours would have been natural; her delivery in the streets unlucky, but not improbable.

b Till the reformation, the tale was repeated and believed without offence; and Joan's female statue long occupied her place among the popes in the cathe

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CHAP. tard son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the second of these became the head of the Latin church. 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 not perhaps be dishonoured by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits 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. 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 Reforma virtues. After a long series of scandal, the apostolic see was reformed and exalted by the austerity and the church, zeal of Gregory VII. That ambitious monk devoted

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A.D. 1073,

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dral of Sienna (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 624–626). She has been annihilated by two learned protestants, Blondel and Bayle (Dictionnaire Critique, PAPESSE, POLONUS, BLONDEL); but their brethren were scandalized by this equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and Lenfant attempt to save this poor engine of controversy; and even Mosheim condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion (p. 289).

c 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).

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