Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part I

State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Temporal Dominion Of The
Popes.—Seditions Of The City.—Political Heresy Of Arnold Of
Brescia.—Restoration Of The Republic.—The Senators.—Pride Of The
Romans.—Their Wars.—They Are Deprived Of The Election And Presence
Of The Popes, Who Retire To Avignon.—The Jubilee.—Noble Families
Of Rome.— Feud Of The Colonna And Ursini.

In the first ages of the decline and fall of the Roman empire,
our eye is invariably fixed on the royal city, which had given
laws to the fairest portion of the globe. We contemplate her
fortunes, at first with admiration, at length with pity, always
with attention, and when that attention is diverted from the
capital to the provinces, they are considered as so many branches
which have been successively severed from the Imperial trunk. The
foundation of a second Rome, on the shores of the Bosphorus, has
compelled the historian to follow the successors of Constantine;
and our curiosity has been tempted to visit the most remote
countries of Europe and Asia, to explore the causes and the
authors of the long decay of the Byzantine monarchy. By the
conquest of Justinian, we have been recalled to the banks of the
Tyber, to the deliverance of the ancient metropolis; but that
deliverance was a change, or perhaps an aggravation, of
servitude. Rome had been already stripped of her trophies, her
gods, and her Cæsars; nor was the Gothic dominion more inglorious
and oppressive than the tyranny of the Greeks. In the eighth
century of the Christian æra, a religious quarrel, the worship of
images, provoked the Romans to assert their independence: their
bishop became the temporal, as well as the spiritual, father of a
free people; and of the Western empire, which was restored by
Charlemagne, the title and image still decorate the singular
constitution of modern Germany. The name of Rome must yet command
our involuntary respect: the climate (whatsoever may be its
influence) was no longer the same: 1 the purity of blood had been
contaminated through a thousand channels; but the venerable
aspect of her ruins, and the memory of past greatness, rekindled
a spark of the national character. The darkness of the middle
ages exhibits some scenes not unworthy of our notice. Nor shall I
dismiss the present work till I have reviewed the state and
revolutions of the Roman City, which acquiesced under the
absolute dominion of the popes, about the same time that
Constantinople was enslaved by the Turkish arms.

1 (return) [ The abbé Dubos, who, with less genius than his
successor Montesquieu, has asserted and magnified the influence
of climate, objects to himself the degeneracy of the Romans and
Batavians. To the first of these examples he replies, 1. That the
change is less real than apparent, and that the modern Romans
prudently conceal in themselves the virtues of their ancestors.
2. That the air, the soil, and the climate of Rome have suffered
a great and visible alteration, (Réflexions sur la Poësie et sur
la Peinture, part ii. sect. 16.) * Note: This question is
discussed at considerable length in Dr. Arnold’s History of Rome,
ch. xxiii. See likewise Bunsen’s Dissertation on the Aria Cattiva
Roms Beschreibung, pp. 82, 108.—M.]

In the beginning of the twelfth century, 2 the æra of the first
crusade, Rome was revered by the Latins, as the metropolis of the
world, as the throne of the pope and the emperor, who, from the
eternal city, derived their title, their honors, and the right or
exercise of temporal dominion. After so long an interruption, it
may not be useless to repeat that the successors of Charlemagne
and the Othos were chosen beyond the Rhine in a national diet;
but that these princes were content with the humble names of
kings of Germany and Italy, till they had passed the Alps and the
Apennine, to seek their Imperial crown on the banks of the Tyber.
3 At some distance from the city, their approach was saluted by a
long procession of the clergy and people with palms and crosses;
and the terrific emblems of wolves and lions, of dragons and
eagles, that floated in the military banners, represented the
departed legions and cohorts of the republic. The royal path to
maintain the liberties of Rome was thrice reiterated, at the
bridge, the gate, and on the stairs of the Vatican; and the
distribution of a customary donative feebly imitated the
magnificence of the first Cæsars. In the church of St. Peter, the
coronation was performed by his successor: the voice of God was
confounded with that of the people; and the public consent was
declared in the acclamations of “Long life and victory to our
lord the pope! long life and victory to our lord the emperor!
long life and victory to the Roman and Teutonic armies!” 4 The
names of Cæsar and Augustus, the laws of Constantine and
Justinian, the example of Charlemagne and Otho, established the
supreme dominion of the emperors: their title and image was
engraved on the papal coins; 5 and their jurisdiction was marked
by the sword of justice, which they delivered to the præfect of
the city. But every Roman prejudice was awakened by the name, the
language, and the manners, of a Barbarian lord. The Cæsars of
Saxony or Franconia were the chiefs of a feudal aristocracy; nor
could they exercise the discipline of civil and military power,
which alone secures the obedience of a distant people, impatient
of servitude, though perhaps incapable of freedom. Once, and once
only, in his life, each emperor, with an army of Teutonic
vassals, descended from the Alps. I have described the peaceful
order of his entry and coronation; but that order was commonly
disturbed by the clamor and sedition of the Romans, who
encountered their sovereign as a foreign invader: his departure
was always speedy, and often shameful; and, in the absence of a
long reign, his authority was insulted, and his name was
forgotten. The progress of independence in Germany and Italy
undermined the foundations of the Imperial sovereignty, and the
triumph of the popes was the deliverance of Rome.

2 (return) [ The reader has been so long absent from Rome, that I
would advise him to recollect or review the xlixth chapter of
this History.]

3 (return) [ The coronation of the German emperors at Rome, more
especially in the xith century, is best represented from the
original monuments by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiæ Medii Ævi,
tom. i. dissertat. ii. p. 99, &c.) and Cenni, (Monument. Domin.
Pontif. tom. ii. diss. vi. p. 261,) the latter of whom I only
know from the copious extract of Schmidt, (Hist. des Allemands
tom. iii. p. 255—266.)]

4 (return) [ Exercitui Romano et Teutonico! The latter was both
seen and felt; but the former was no more than magni nominis
umbra.]

5 (return) [ Muratori has given the series of the papal coins,
(Antiquitat. tom. ii. diss. xxvii. p. 548—554.) He finds only two
more early than the year 800: fifty are still extant from Leo
III. to Leo IX., with the addition of the reigning emperor none
remain of Gregory VII. or Urban II.; but in those of Paschal II.
he seems to have renounced this badge of dependence.]

Of her two sovereigns, the emperor had precariously reigned by
the right of conquest; but the authority of the pope was founded
on the soft, though more solid, basis of opinion and habit. The
removal of a foreign influence restored and endeared the shepherd
to his flock. Instead of the arbitrary or venal nomination of a
German court, the vicar of Christ was freely chosen by the
college of cardinals, most of whom were either natives or
inhabitants of the city. The applause of the magistrates and
people confirmed his election, and the ecclesiastical power that
was obeyed in Sweden and Britain had been ultimately derived from
the suffrage of the Romans. The same suffrage gave a prince, as
well as a pontiff, to the capital. It was universally believed,
that Constantine had invested the popes with the temporal
dominion of Rome; and the boldest civilians, the most profane
skeptics, were satisfied with disputing the right of the emperor
and the validity of his gift. The truth of the fact, the
authenticity of his donation, was deeply rooted in the ignorance
and tradition of four centuries; and the fabulous origin was lost
in the real and permanent effects. The name of _Dominus_ or Lord
was inscribed on the coin of the bishops: their title was
acknowledged by acclamations and oaths of allegiance, and with
the free, or reluctant, consent of the German Cæsars, they had
long exercised a supreme or subordinate jurisdiction over the
city and patrimony of St. Peter. The reign of the popes, which
gratified the prejudices, was not incompatible with the
liberties, of Rome; and a more critical inquiry would have
revealed a still nobler source of their power; the gratitude of a
nation, whom they had rescued from the heresy and oppression of
the Greek tyrant. In an age of superstition, it should seem that
the union of the royal and sacerdotal characters would mutually
fortify each other; and that the keys of Paradise would be the
surest pledge of earthly obedience. The sanctity of the office
might indeed be degraded by the personal vices of the man. But
the scandals of the tenth century were obliterated by the austere
and more dangerous virtues of Gregory the Seventh and his
successors; and in the ambitious contests which they maintained
for the rights of the church, their sufferings or their success
must equally tend to increase the popular veneration. They
sometimes wandered in poverty and exile, the victims of
persecution; and the apostolic zeal with which they offered
themselves to martyrdom must engage the favor and sympathy of
every Catholic breast. And sometimes, thundering from the
Vatican, they created, judged, and deposed the kings of the
world; nor could the proudest Roman be disgraced by submitting to
a priest, whose feet were kissed, and whose stirrup was held, by
the successors of Charlemagne. 6 Even the temporal interest of
the city should have protected in peace and honor the residence
of the popes; from whence a vain and lazy people derived the
greatest part of their subsistence and riches. The fixed revenue
of the popes was probably impaired; many of the old patrimonial
estates, both in Italy and the provinces, had been invaded by
sacrilegious hands; nor could the loss be compensated by the
claim, rather than the possession, of the more ample gifts of
Pepin and his descendants. But the Vatican and Capitol were
nourished by the incessant and increasing swarms of pilgrims and
suppliants: the pale of Christianity was enlarged, and the pope
and cardinals were overwhelmed by the judgment of ecclesiastical
and secular causes. A new jurisprudence had established in the
Latin church the right and practice of appeals; 7 and from the
North and West the bishops and abbots were invited or summoned to
solicit, to complain, to accuse, or to justify, before the
threshold of the apostles. A rare prodigy is once recorded, that
two horses, belonging to the archbishops of Mentz and Cologne,
repassed the Alps, yet laden with gold and silver: 8 but it was
soon understood, that the success, both of the pilgrims and
clients, depended much less on the justice of their cause than on
the value of their offering. The wealth and piety of these
strangers were ostentatiously displayed; and their expenses,
sacred or profane, circulated in various channels for the
emolument of the Romans.

6 (return) [ See Ducange, Gloss. mediæ et infimæ Latinitat. tom.
vi. p. 364, 365, Staffa. This homage was paid by kings to
archbishops, and by vassals to their lords, (Schmidt, tom. iii.
p. 262;) and it was the nicest policy of Rome to confound the
marks of filial and of feudal subjection.]

7 (return) [ The appeals from all the churches to the Roman
pontiff are deplored by the zeal of St. Bernard (de
Consideratione, l. iii. tom. ii. p. 431—442, edit. Mabillon,
Venet. 1750) and the judgment of Fleury, (Discours sur l’Hist.
Ecclésiastique, iv. et vii.) But the saint, who believed in the
false decretals condemns only the abuse of these appeals; the
more enlightened historian investigates the origin, and rejects
the principles, of this new jurisprudence.]

8 (return) [ Germanici.... summarii non levatis sarcinis onusti
nihilominus repatriant inviti. Nova res! quando hactenus aurum
Roma refudit? Et nunc Romanorum consilio id usurpatum non
credimus, (Bernard, de Consideratione, l. iii. c. 3, p. 437.) The
first words of the passage are obscure, and probably corrupt.]

Such powerful motives should have firmly attached the voluntary
and pious obedience of the Roman people to their spiritual and
temporal father. But the operation of prejudice and interest is
often disturbed by the sallies of ungovernable passion. The
Indian who fells the tree, that he may gather the fruit, 9 and
the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce, are actuated by
the same impulse of savage nature, which overlooks the future in
the present, and relinquishes for momentary rapine the long and
secure possession of the most important blessings. And it was
thus, that the shrine of St. Peter was profaned by the
thoughtless Romans; who pillaged the offerings, and wounded the
pilgrims, without computing the number and value of similar
visits, which they prevented by their inhospitable sacrilege.
Even the influence of superstition is fluctuating and precarious;
and the slave, whose reason is subdued, will often be delivered
by his avarice or pride. A credulous devotion for the fables and
oracles of the priesthood most powerfully acts on the mind of a
Barbarian; yet such a mind is the least capable of preferring
imagination to sense, of sacrificing to a distant motive, to an
invisible, perhaps an ideal, object, the appetites and interests
of the present world. In the vigor of health and youth, his
practice will perpetually contradict his belief; till the
pressure of age, or sickness, or calamity, awakens his terrors,
and compels him to satisfy the double debt of piety and remorse.
I have already observed, that the modern times of religious
indifference are the most favorable to the peace and security of
the clergy. Under the reign of superstition, they had much to
hope from the ignorance, and much to fear from the violence, of
mankind. The wealth, whose constant increase must have rendered
them the sole proprietors of the earth, was alternately bestowed
by the repentant father and plundered by the rapacious son: their
persons were adored or violated; and the same idol, by the hands
of the same votaries, was placed on the altar, or trampled in the
dust. In the feudal system of Europe, arms were the title of
distinction and the measure of allegiance; and amidst their
tumult, the still voice of law and reason was seldom heard or
obeyed. The turbulent Romans disdained the yoke, and insulted the
impotence, of their bishop: 10 nor would his education or
character allow him to exercise, with decency or effect, the
power of the sword. The motives of his election and the frailties
of his life were exposed to their familiar observation; and
proximity must diminish the reverence which his name and his
decrees impressed on a barbarous world. This difference has not
escaped the notice of our philosophic historian: “Though the name
and authority of the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote
countries of Europe, which were sunk in profound ignorance, and
were entirely unacquainted with its character and conduct, the
pope was so little revered at home, that his inveterate enemies
surrounded the gates of Rome itself, and even controlled his
government in that city; and the ambassadors, who, from a distant
extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or rather abject,
submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found the
utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw
themselves at his feet.” 11

9 (return) [ Quand les sauvages de la Louisiane veulent avoir du
fruit, ils coupent l’arbre au pied et cueillent le fruit. Voila
le gouvernement despotique, (Esprit des Loix, l. v. c. 13;) and
passion and ignorance are always despotic.]

10 (return) [ In a free conversation with his countryman Adrian
IV., John of Salisbury accuses the avarice of the pope and
clergy: Provinciarum diripiunt spolia, ac si thesauros Crsi
studeant reparare. Sed recte cum eis agit Altissimus, quoniam et
ipsi aliis et sæpe vilissimis hominibus dati sunt in direptionem,
(de Nugis Curialium, l. vi. c. 24, p. 387.) In the next page, he
blames the rashness and infidelity of the Romans, whom their
bishops vainly strove to conciliate by gifts, instead of virtues.
It is pity that this miscellaneous writer has not given us less
morality and erudition, and more pictures of himself and the
times.]

11 (return) [ Hume’s History of England, vol. i. p. 419. The same
writer has given us, from Fitz-Stephen, a singular act of cruelty
perpetrated on the clergy by Geoffrey, the father of Henry II.
“When he was master of Normandy, the chapter of Seez presumed,
without his consent, to proceed to the election of a bishop: upon
which he ordered all of them, with the bishop elect, to be
castrated, and made all their testicles be brought him in a
platter.” Of the pain and danger they might justly complain; yet
since they had vowed chastity he deprived them of a superfluous
treasure.]

Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to
envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence.
But the long hostility of the mitre and the crown increased the
numbers, and inflamed the passions, of their enemies. The deadly
factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, so fatal to Italy, could
never be embraced with truth or constancy by the Romans, the
subjects and adversaries both of the bishop and emperor; but
their support was solicited by both parties, and they alternately
displayed in their banners the keys of St. Peter and the German
eagle. Gregory the Seventh, who may be adored or detested as the
founder of the papal monarchy, was driven from Rome, and died in
exile at Salerno. Six-and-thirty of his successors, 12 till their
retreat to Avignon, maintained an unequal contest with the
Romans: their age and dignity were often violated; and the
churches, in the solemn rites of religion, were polluted with
sedition and murder. A repetition 13 of such capricious
brutality, without connection or design, would be tedious and
disgusting; and I shall content myself with some events of the
twelfth century, which represent the state of the popes and the
city. On Holy Thursday, while Paschal officiated before the
altar, he was interrupted by the clamors of the multitude, who
imperiously demanded the confirmation of a favorite magistrate.
His silence exasperated their fury; his pious refusal to mingle
the affairs of earth and heaven was encountered with menaces, and
oaths, that he should be the cause and the witness of the public
ruin. During the festival of Easter, while the bishop and the
clergy, barefooted and in procession, visited the tombs of the
martyrs, they were twice assaulted, at the bridge of St. Angelo,
and before the Capitol, with volleys of stones and darts. The
houses of his adherents were levelled with the ground: Paschal
escaped with difficulty and danger; he levied an army in the
patrimony of St. Peter; and his last days were embittered by
suffering and inflicting the calamities of civil war. The scenes
that followed the election of his successor Gelasius the Second
were still more scandalous to the church and city. Cencio
Frangipani, 14 a potent and factious baron, burst into the
assembly furious and in arms: the cardinals were stripped,
beaten, and trampled under foot; and he seized, without pity or
respect, the vicar of Christ by the throat. Gelasius was dragged
by the hair along the ground, buffeted with blows, wounded with
spurs, and bound with an iron chain in the house of his brutal
tyrant. An insurrection of the people delivered their bishop: the
rival families opposed the violence of the Frangipani; and
Cencio, who sued for pardon, repented of the failure, rather than
of the guilt, of his enterprise. Not many days had elapsed, when
the pope was again assaulted at the altar. While his friends and
enemies were engaged in a bloody contest, he escaped in his
sacerdotal garments. In this unworthy flight, which excited the
compassion of the Roman matrons, his attendants were scattered or
unhorsed; and, in the fields behind the church of St. Peter, his
successor was found alone and half dead with fear and fatigue.
Shaking the dust from his feet, the _apostle_ withdrew from a
city in which his dignity was insulted and his person was
endangered; and the vanity of sacerdotal ambition is revealed in
the involuntary confession, that one emperor was more tolerable
than twenty. 15 These examples might suffice; but I cannot forget
the sufferings of two pontiffs of the same age, the second and
third of the name of Lucius. The former, as he ascended in battle
array to assault the Capitol, was struck on the temple by a
stone, and expired in a few days. The latter was severely wounded
in the person of his servants. In a civil commotion, several of
his priests had been made prisoners; and the inhuman Romans,
reserving one as a guide for his brethren, put out their eyes,
crowned them with ludicrous mitres, mounted them on asses with
their faces towards the tail, and extorted an oath, that, in this
wretched condition, they should offer themselves as a lesson to
the head of the church. Hope or fear, lassitude or remorse, the
characters of the men, and the circumstances of the times, might
sometimes obtain an interval of peace and obedience; and the pope
was restored with joyful acclamations to the Lateran or Vatican,
from whence he had been driven with threats and violence. But the
root of mischief was deep and perennial; and a momentary calm was
preceded and followed by such tempests as had almost sunk the
bark of St. Peter. Rome continually presented the aspect of war
and discord: the churches and palaces were fortified and
assaulted by the factions and families; and, after giving peace
to Europe, Calistus the Second alone had resolution and power to
prohibit the use of private arms in the metropolis. Among the
nations who revered the apostolic throne, the tumults of Rome
provoked a general indignation; and in a letter to his disciple
Eugenius the Third, St. Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit
and zeal, has stigmatized the vices of the rebellious people. 16
“Who is ignorant,” says the monk of Clairvaux, “of the vanity and
arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition,
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 clamors, if your doors, or your
counsels, are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief, they have
never learned the science of doing good. Odious to earth and
heaven, impious to God, seditious among themselves, jealous of
their neighbors, inhuman to strangers, they love no one, by no
one are they beloved; and while they wish to inspire fear, they
live in base and continual apprehension. They will not submit;
they know not how to govern faithless to their superiors,
intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, and
alike impudent in their demands and their refusals. Lofty in
promise, poor in execution; adulation and calumny, perfidy and
treason, are the familiar arts of their policy.” Surely this dark
portrait is not colored by the pencil of Christian charity; 17
yet the features, however harsh or ugly, express a lively
resemblance of the Roman of the twelfth century. 18

12 (return) [ From Leo IX. and Gregory VII. an authentic and
contemporary series of the lives of the popes by the cardinal of
Arragon, Pandulphus Pisanus, Bernard Guido, &c., is inserted in
the Italian Historians of Muratori, (tom. iii. P. i. p. 277—685,)
and has been always before my eyes.]

13 (return) [ The dates of years in the contents may throughout
his this chapter be understood as tacit references to the Annals
of Muratori, my ordinary and excellent guide. He uses, and indeed
quotes, with the freedom of a master, his great collection of the
Italian Historians, in xxviii. volumes; and as that treasure is
in my library, I have thought it an amusement, if not a duty, to
consult the originals.]

14 (return) [ I cannot refrain from transcribing the high-colored
words of Pandulphus Pisanus, (p. 384.) Hoc audiens inimicus pacis
atque turbator jam fatus Centius Frajapane, more draconis
immanissimi sibilans, et ab imis pectoribus trahens longa
suspiria, accinctus retro gladio sine more cucurrit, valvas ac
fores confregit. Ecclesiam furibundus introiit, inde custode
remoto papam per gulam accepit, distraxit pugnis calcibusque
percussit, et tanquam brutum animal intra limen ecclesiæ acriter
calcaribus cruentavit; et latro tantum dominum per capillos et
brachia, Jesû bono interim dormiente, detraxit, ad domum usque
deduxit, inibi catenavit et inclusit.]

15 (return) [ Ego coram Deo et Ecclesiâ dico, si unquam possibile
esset, mallem unum imperatorem quam tot dominos, (Vit. Gelas. II.
p. 398.)]

16 (return) [ 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 clo,
utrique injecere manus, &c., (p. 443.)]

17 (return) [ 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. (Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 330.)]

18 (return) [ Baronius, in his index to the xiith 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 Jews had rejected the Christ when he appeared among them in a
plebeian character; and the Romans might plead their ignorance of
his vicar when he assumed the pomp and pride of a temporal
sovereign. In the busy age of the crusades, some sparks of
curiosity and reason were rekindled in the Western world: the
heresy of Bulgaria, the Paulician sect, was successfully
transplanted into the soil of Italy and France; the Gnostic
visions were mingled with the simplicity of the gospel; and the
enemies of the clergy reconciled their passions with their
conscience, the desire of freedom with the profession of piety.
19 The trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold of
Brescia, 20 whose promotion in the church was confined to the
lowest rank, and who wore the monastic habit rather as a garb of
poverty than as a uniform of obedience. His adversaries could not
deny the wit and eloquence which they severely felt; they confess
with reluctance the specious purity of his morals; and his errors
were recommended to the public by a mixture of important and
beneficial truths. In his theological studies, he had been the
disciple of the famous and unfortunate Abelard, 21 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 boldly maintained, that the
sword and the sceptre were intrusted to the civil magistrate;
that temporal honors 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 spiritual
labors. During a short time, the preacher was revered as a
patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of Brescia against her
bishop, was the first fruits of his dangerous lessons. But the
favor 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, 22 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, 23 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. 24 In an age
less ripe for reformation, the precursor of Zuinglius was heard
with applause: a brave and simple people imbibed, and long
retained, the color 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; 25 and the enemy of the church was driven by
persecution to the desperate measures of erecting his standard in
Rome itself, in the face of the successor of St. Peter.

19 (return) [ The heresies of the xiith century may be found in
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 419—427,) who entertains a
favorable opinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the vth volume I have
described the sect of the Paulicians, and followed their
migration from Armenia to Thrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France.]

20 (return) [ The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are
drawn by Otho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. l. vii. c. 31, de
Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 27, l. ii. c. 21,) and in the iiid
book of the Ligurinus, a poem of Gunthur, who flourished A.D.
1200, in the monastery of Paris near Basil, (Fabric. Bibliot.
Latin. Med. et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. iii. p. 174, 175.) The long
passage that relates to Arnold is produced by Guilliman, (de
Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5, p. 108.) * Note: Compare Franke,
Arnold von Brescia und seine Zeit. Zurich, 1828.—M.]

21 (return) [ The wicked wit of Bayle was amused in composing,
with much levity and learning, the articles of Abelard, Foulkes,
Heloise, in his Dictionnaire Critique. The dispute of Abelard and
St. Bernard, of scholastic and positive divinity, is well
understood by Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 412—415.)]

22 (return) [

——Damnatus ab illo Præsule, qui numeros vetitum
contingere nostros Nomen ad _innocuâ_ ducit laudabile
vitâ.

We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who
turns the unpoetical name of Innocent II. into a compliment.]

23 (return) [ A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been
found at Zurich, (D’Anville, Notice de l’ancienne Gaul, p.
642—644;) but it is without sufficient warrant, that the city and
canton have usurped, and even monopolized, the names of Tigurum
and Pagus Tigurinus.]

24 (return) [ Guilliman (de Rebus Helveticis, l. 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 ducatû 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 I., and the line of the bishop of Frisingen, “Nobile Turegum
multarum copia rerum,” is repeated with pleasure by the
antiquaries of Zurich.]

25 (return) [ Bernard, Epistol. cxcv. tom. i. p. 187—190. Amidst
his invectives he drops a precious acknowledgment, qui, utinam
quam sanæ esset doctrinæ quam districtæ est vitæ. He owns that
Arnold would be a valuable acquisition for the church.]