BOOK IX.

PART I.

INNOCENT III.

CHAPTER I.

ROME AND ITALY.

UNDER Innocent III., the Papal power rose to its utmost height. Later Pontiffs, more especially Boniface The Papal VIII., were more exorbitant in their pretensions, autocracy. more violent in their measures; but the full sovereignty of the Popedom had already taken possession of the minds of the Popes themselves, and had been submitted to by great part of Christendom. The thirteenth century is nearly commensurate with this supremacy of the Pope. Innocent III. at its commencement calmly exercised as his right, and handed down strengthened and almost irresistible to his successors, that which, at its close, Boniface asserted with repulsive and ill-timed arrogance, endangered, undermined, and shook to its base. At least from the days of Hildebrand, the mind of Europe had become familiarised with the assertion of those claims, which in their latent significance amounted to an absolute irresponsible autocracy. The essential inherent supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power, as of the soul over the body, as of eternity over time, as of Christ over Cæsar, as of God over man, was now an integral part of Christianity. There was a shuddering sense of impiety in all resistance to this ever-present rule; it required either the utmost strength of mind, desperate courage, or desperate recklessness, to confront the fatal and undefined consequences of such resistance. The assertion of these powers by the Church had been, however intermittingly, yet constantly growing,

and had now fully grown into determinate acts. The Popes had not merely claimed, they had established many precedents of their right to excommunicate sovereigns, and so of virtually releasing subjects from their allegiance to a king under sentence of outlawry; to call sovereigns to account not merely for flagrant outrages on the Church, but for moral delinquencies," especially those connected with marriage and concubinage; to receive kingdoms by the cession of their sovereigns as feudal fiefs; to grant kingdoms which had no legitimate lord, or of which the lordship was doubtful and contested, or such as were conquered from infidels, barbarians, or heretics: as to the Empire to interfere in the election as judge both in the first and last resort. Ideas obtain authority and dominion, not altogether from their intrinsic truth, but rather from their constant asseveration, especially when they fall in with the natural hopes and fears, the wants and necessities of human nature. The mass of mankind have neither leisure nor ability to examine them; they fatigue, and so compel the world into their acceptance; more particularly if it is the duty, the passion, and the interest of one great associated body to perpetuate them, while it is neither the peculiar function, nor the manifest advantage of any large class or order to refute them. The Pope had, throughout the strife, an organized body of allies in the camp of the enemy; the King or Emperor none, at least none below the nobles, who would not have preferred the triumph of the spiritual power. If these ideas are favoured by ambiguity of language, their progress is more sure, their extirpation from the mind of man infinitely more difficult. The Latin clergy had been busy for many centuries in asserting, under the specious name of their liberty, the supremacy of the Church which was

Innocent III. lays this down broadly and distinctly: "Cum enim non humanæ constitutioni sed divinæ potius innitamur: quia potestas nostra non ex homine sed ex Deo; nullus qui sit sanæ mentis ignorat, quin ad officium nostrum spectet de quocunque mortali peccato corrigere quemlibet Christianum, et si correctionem contempserit, ipsum per districtionem

ecclesiasticam coercere."- Decret. Innocent III., sub ann. 1200, cap. 13, de Judiciis. Eichhorn observes on this: "Womit denn natürlich der Grundsatz selbst, das die Kirche wegen Sündlichkeit der Handlung über jede Civilsache erkennen möge, anerkannt wurde.”— Rechts Geschichte, ii. 517.