BOOK I.

tificate the

centre of Latin Chris

CHAPTER I.

BEGINNING OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY.

LATIN Christianity, from its commencement, in its characRoman Pon- ter and in all the circumstances of its development, had an irresistible tendency to monarchy. Its tianity. capital had for ages been the capital of the world, and it still remained that of Western Europe. This monarchy reached its height under Hildebrand and Innocent III.; the history of the Roman Pontificate thus becomes the centre of Latin Christian History. The controversies of the East, in which Occidental or Roman Christianity mingled with a lofty dictation, sometimes so unimpassioned, that it might seem as though the establishment of its own supremacy was its ultimate aim-the conversion of the different races of Barbarians, who constituted the world of Latin Christendom-Monasticism, with the forms which it assumed in its successive Orders-the rise and conquests of Mohammedanism, with which Latin religion came at length into direct conflict, at first in Spain, and Gaul, in Sicily and Italy; afterwards when the Popes placed themselves at the head of the Crusades, and Islam and Latin Christianity might seem to contest the dominion of the human race-the restoration of the Western empire beyond the Alps-the feudal system of which the Pope aspired to be as it were the spiritual Suzerain-the long and obstinate conflicts with the temporal power-the origin and tenets of the sects which attempted to withdraw from the unity of the church, and to retire into independent communities-the first struggles of the human mind for freedom within Latin Christendom-the gradual growth of Christian literature, Christian art, and Christian philosophy-all these momentous subjects range themselves as episodes in the chronicle of the Roman bishops. Hence our history obtains

that unity which impresses itself upon the attention, and presents the vicissitudes of centuries as a vast, continuous harmonious whole; while at the same time it breaks up and separates itself into distinct periods, each with its marked events, peculiar character, and commanding men. And so the plan of our work may, at least, attempt to fulfil the two great functions of history, to arrest the mind and carry it on with unflagging interest, to infix its whole course of events on the imagination and memory, as well by its broad and definite landmarks, as by the life and reality of its details in each separate period. The writer is unfeignedly conscious how far his own powers fall below the dignity of his subject, below the accomplishment of his own conceptions.

d

His

I. The first of these periods in the history of Latin Christianity closes with Pope Damasus and his A.D. 366-401. two successors. Its age of total obscurity is passed, its indistinct twilight is brightening into open day. The Christian bishop is become so important a personage in Rome, as to be the subject of profane history. election is a cause of civil strife. Christianity more than equally divides the Patriciate, still more the people; it has already ascended the Imperial throne. Noble matrons and virgins are becoming the vestals of Christian Monasticism. The bitterness of the Heathen party betrays a galling sense of inferiority. Paganism is writhing, struggling, languishing in its death pangs, Christianity growing haughty and wanton in its triumph.

II. The second ends with Pope Leo the Great. Paganism has made its last vain effort, not now for equa- A.D. 461. lity, for toleration. It has been buried under the ruins. of the conquered capital. Alaric tramples out its last embers. Rome emerges from its destruction by the Goths a Christian city. The East has wrought out, after the strife of two centuries, the dogmatic system of the church, which Rome receives with haughty condescension, as if she had imposed it on the world. The great Western controthat of Pope Siricius, the successor of Damasus.

There is another advantage in this division; the first authentic decretal is

versy, Pelagianism, has been agitated and has passed away. A.D. 402-417. Pretensions to the successorship of St. Peter are already heard from Innocent I. Claims are made. at least to the authority of a Western Patriarch. In Leo the Great, half a century later, the pope is not merely the greatest personage in Rome, but even in Italy; he takes the lead as a pacific protector against the Barbarians. Leo the Great is likewise the first distinguished writer among the popes.

A. D. 440461.

A.D. 604.

III. To the death of Gregory I. (the Great). Christianity is not only the religion of the Roman or Italian, but in part of the barbarian world. Now takes place the league of Christianity with Barbarism. The old Roman letters and arts die away into almost total extinction. So fallen is Roman literature, that Boethius is a great philosopher, Cassiodorus a great historian, Prudentius, Fortunatus, Juvencus great poets. The East has made its last effort to unite the Christian world under one dominion. Justinian has aspired to legislate for Christendom. Monastic Christianity, having received a strong impulse from St. Benedict, is in the ascendant. Gregory I. as a Pope, and as a writer, offers himself as a model of its excellencies and defects.

IV. To the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor A.D. 800. of the West. Mohammed and Mohammedanism arise. The East and Egypt are severed from Greek, Africa and Spain from Latin Christianity. Anglo-Saxon Britain, Western and Southern Germany are Christian. Iconoclasm in the East finally separates Greek and Latin Christianity. The Pope has become the great power in Italy. The Gothic kingdom, the Greek dominion of Justinian have passed away. The Pope seeks an alliance against the Lombards with the Transalpine kings. Charlemagne is Patrician of Rome and Emperor of the West.

V. The Empire of Charlemagne. The mingled Temporal and Ecclesiastical supremacy of Charlemagne breaks up at his death. Under his successors the spiritual supremacy, in part the temporal, falls to the clergy. Growth

of the Transalpine hierarchy. Pope Nicholas the First accepts the false decretals. Invasion of the Northmen. The dark ages of the Papacy lower and terminate A.D. 996. in the degradation of the Popes into slaves of the lawless Barons of the Romagna.

A.D. 996

1061.

VI. The line of German Pontiffs. The Transalpine powers interpose, rescue the Papacy from its threatened dissolution, from the hatred and contempt of mankind. For great part of a century foreign ecclesiastics are seated on the Papal throne.

VII. The restoration of the Italian Papacy under Gregory VII. (Hildebrand). The Pontificate A.D. 1061of his immediate predecessors and successors. Now 1073. commences the complete organisation of the sacerdotal caste as independent of, and claiming superiority to all temporal powers. The strife of centuries ends in A.D. 1095. the enforced celibacy of the clergy. Berengar disputes Transubstantiation. Urban II. places himself at the head of Christendom on the occasion of the first Crusade.

VIII. Continuation of contest about Investitures. Intellectual movement. Erigena. Gotschalk. Anselm. Abelard. Arnold of Brescia. Strong revival The 12th cenof Monasticism. Stephen Harding. St. Bernard. tury. Strife in England for immunities of the clergy. Thomas à Becket. Rise of the Emperors of the line of Hohenstaufen. Frederick Barbarossa.

IX.-Meridian of the Papal power under Innocent III. Innocent aspires to rule all the kingdoms of the From 1198. West. Latin conquest of Constantinople. Wars of the Albigenses. St. Dominic. St. Francis. Successors of Innocent III. wage an internecine conflict with the Emperors. Fruitless and premature attempt at emancipation Gregory IX. under Frederick II. The Decretals, the Palladium 1228-1238. of the Papal power, are collected, completed, promulgated as the law of Christendom by Gregory IX.

X.-Continued conflict of the Papal and Sacerdotal against the Imperial and Secular power. Innocent IV. Fall of the House of Hohenstaufen.

Innocent IV. dies 1254.