European History (Volume 1); 1003-1154

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873. Excerpt: ... 153 GREGORY VII. a.D. IO48--1086. (From " Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography" by the Right Hon. S'R J. Stephen, K.C.B.) Except in the annals of Eastern despotisms, no parallel can be found for the disasters of the Papacy during the century and a half which followed the extinction of the Carlovingian dynasty. Of the twenty-four Popes who during that period ascended the Apostolic throne, two were murdered, five were driven into exile, four were deposed, and three resigned their hazardous dignity.... Of these heirs of St. Peter, one entered on his infallibility in his eighteenth year, and one before he had seen his twelfth summer. One, again, took to himself a coadjutor, that he might command in person such legions as Rome then sent into the field. Another, Judas-like, agreed for certain pieces of silver to recognise the Patriarch of Constantinople as universal bishop. All sacred things had become venal. Crime and debauchery held revel in the Vatican; while the afflicted Church, wedded at once to three husbands (such was the language of the times), witnessed the celebration of as many rival masses in the metropolis of Christendom.... How, from this hotbed of corruption, the seeds of a new and prolific life derived their vegetative power, and how, in an age in which the Papacy was surrendered to the scorn and hatred of mankind, the independence of the Holy See on the imperial crown became first a practical truth, and then a hallowed theory, are problems over which we may not now linger. Suffice it to say, that in the middle of the eleventh century Europe once more looked to Rome as the pillar and the ground of the truth; while Rome herself looked forth on a long chain of stately monasteries, rising like distant bulwarks of her power in every land which owned ...