Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
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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.
[Footnote 1: 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.
[Footnote 2: The reader has been so long absent from Rome, that I would
advise him to recollect or review the xlixth chapter of this History.]
[Footnote 3: 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.
-
p. 99, &c.) and Cenni, (Monument. Domin. Pontif. tom. ii. diss. vi.
-
261,) the latter of whom I only know from the copious extract of
Schmidt, (Hist. des Allemands tom. iii. p. 255--266.)]
[Footnote 4: Exercitui Romano et Teutonico! The latter was both seen and
felt; but the former was no more than magni nominis umbra.]
[Footnote 5: 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
-
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.
[Footnote 6: 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.]
[Footnote 7: The appeals from all the churches to the Roman pontiff are
deplored by the zeal of St. Bernard (de Consideratione, l. iii. tom. ii.
-
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.]
[Footnote 8: 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
[Footnote 9: 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.]
[Footnote 10: 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.
-
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.]
[Footnote 11: 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
[Footnote 12: 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.]
[Footnote 13: 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
-
volumes; and as that treasure is in my library, I have thought
it an amusement, if not a duty, to consult the originals.]
[Footnote 14: 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.]
[Footnote 15: Ego coram Deo et Ecclesiâ dico, si unquam possibile esset,
mallem unum imperatorem quam tot dominos, (Vit. Gelas. II. p. 398.)]
[Footnote 16: 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.)]
[Footnote 17: 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.)]
[Footnote 18: 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.
[Footnote 19: 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.]
[Footnote 20: The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are drawn by
Otho, bishop of Frisingen, (Chron. l. vii. c. 31, de Gestis Frederici I.
-
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.
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