The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
By Edward Gibbon
CHAPTER LXIX
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 Caesars;
nor was the Gothic dominion more inglorious and oppressive
than the tyranny of the Greeks. In the eighth century of
the Christian aera, 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.
In the beginning of the twelfth century, (2) the aera 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 Caesars. 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 Caesar 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 praefect of
the city. But every Roman prejudice was awakened by the
name, the language, and the manners, of a Barbarian lord.
The Caesars 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.
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 Caesars,
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.
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)
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)
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.
Yet the courage of Arnold was not devoid of discretion: he
was protected, and had perhaps been invited, by the nobles
and people; and in the service of freedom, his eloquence
thundered over the seven hills. Blending in the same
discourse the texts of Livy and St. Paul, uniting the
motives of gospel, and of classic, enthusiasm, he admonished
the Romans, how strangely their patience and the vices of
the clergy had degenerated from the primitive times of the
church and the city. He exhorted them to assert the
inalienable rights of men and Christians; to restore the
laws and magistrates of the republic; to respect the name of
the emperor; but to confine their shepherd to the spiritual
government of his flock. (26) Nor could his spiritual
government escape the censure and control of the reformer;
and the inferior clergy were taught by his lessons to resist
the cardinals, who had usurped a despotic command over the
twenty-eight regions or parishes of Rome. (27) The revolution
was not accomplished without rapine and violence, the
diffusion of blood and the demolition of houses: the
victorious faction was enriched with the spoils of the
clergy and the adverse nobles. Arnold of Brescia enjoyed, or
deplored, the effects of his mission: his reign continued
above ten years, while two popes, Innocent the Second and
Anastasius the Fourth, either trembled in the Vatican, or
wandered as exiles in the adjacent cities. They were
succeeded by a more vigorous and fortunate pontiff. Adrian
the Fourth, (28) the only Englishman who has ascended the
throne of St. Peter; and whose merit emerged from the mean
condition of a monk, and almost a beggar, in the monastery
of St. Albans. On the first provocation, of a cardinal
killed or wounded in the streets, he cast an interdict on
the guilty people; and from Christmas to Easter, Rome was
deprived of the real or imaginary comforts of religious
worship. The Romans had despised their temporal prince:
they submitted with grief and terror to the censures of
their spiritual father: their guilt was expiated by penance,
and the banishment of the seditious preacher was the price
of their absolution. But the revenge of Adrian was yet
unsatisfied, and the approaching coronation of Frederic
Barbarossa was fatal to the bold reformer, who had offended,
though not in an equal degree, the heads of the church and
state. In their interview at Viterbo, the pope represented
to the emperor the furious, ungovernable spirit of the
Romans; the insults, the injuries, the fears, to which his
person and his clergy were continually exposed; and the
pernicious tendency of the heresy of Arnold, which must
subvert the principles of civil, as well as ecclesiastical,
subordination. Frederic was convinced by these arguments, or
tempted by the desire of the Imperial crown: in the balance
of ambition, the innocence or life of an individual is of
small account; and their common enemy was sacrificed to a
moment of political concord. After his retreat from Rome,
Arnold had been protected by the viscounts of Campania, from
whom he was extorted by the power of Caesar: the praefect of
the city pronounced his sentence: the martyr of freedom was
burned alive in the presence of a careless and ungrateful
people; and his ashes were cast into the Tyber, lest the
heretics should collect and worship the relics of their
master. (29) The clergy triumphed in his death: with his
ashes, his sect was dispersed; his memory still lived in the
minds of the Romans. From his school they had probably
derived a new article of faith, that the metropolis of the
Catholic church is exempt from the penalties of
excommunication and interdict. Their bishops might argue,
that the supreme jurisdiction, which they exercised over
kings and nations, more especially embraced the city and
diocese of the prince of the apostles. But they preached to
the winds, and the same principle that weakened the effect,
must temper the abuse, of the thunders of the Vatican.
The love of ancient freedom has encouraged a belief that as
early as the tenth century, in their first struggles against
the Saxon Othos, the commonwealth was vindicated and
restored by the senate and people of Rome; that two consuls
were annually elected among the nobles, and that ten or
twelve plebeian magistrates revived the name and office of
the tribunes of the commons. (30) But this venerable
structure disappears before the light of criticism. In the
darkness of the middle ages, the appellations of senators,
of consuls, of the sons of consuls, may sometimes be
discovered. (31) They were bestowed by the emperors, or
assumed by the most powerful citizens, to denote their rank,
their honors, (32) and perhaps the claim of a pure and
patrician descent: but they float on the surface, without a
series or a substance, the titles of men, not the orders of
government; (33) and it is only from the year of Christ one
thousand one hundred and forty-four that the establishment
of the senate is dated, as a glorious aera, in the acts of
the city. A new constitution was hastily framed by private
ambition or popular enthusiasm; nor could Rome, in the
twelfth century, produce an antiquary to explain, or a
legislator to restore, the harmony and proportions of the
ancient model. The assembly of a free, of an armed, people,
will ever speak in loud and weighty acclamations. But the
regular distribution of the thirty-five tribes, the nice
balance of the wealth and numbers of the centuries, the
debates of the adverse orators, and the slow operations of
votes and ballots, could not easily be adapted by a blind
multitude, ignorant of the arts, and insensible of the
benefits, of legal government. It was proposed by Arnold to
revive and discriminate the equestrian order; but what could
be the motive or measure of such distinction? (34) The
pecuniary qualification of the knights must have been
reduced to the poverty of the times: those times no longer
required their civil functions of judges and farmers of the
revenue; and their primitive duty, their military service on
horseback, was more nobly supplied by feudal tenures and the
spirit of chivalry. The jurisprudence of the republic was
useless and unknown: the nations and families of Italy who
lived under the Roman and Barbaric laws were insensibly
mingled in a common mass; and some faint tradition, some
imperfect fragments, preserved the memory of the Code and
Pandects of Justinian. With their liberty the Romans might
doubtless have restored the appellation and office of
consuls; had they not disdained a title so promiscuously
adopted in the Italian cities, that it has finally settled
on the humble station of the agents of commerce in a foreign
land. But the rights of the tribunes, the formidable word
that arrested the public counsels, suppose or must produce a
legitimate democracy. The old patricians were the subjects,
the modern barons the tyrants, of the state; nor would the
enemies of peace and order, who insulted the vicar of
Christ, have long respected the unarmed sanctity of a
plebeian magistrate. (35)
In the revolution of the twelfth century, which gave a new
existence and aera to Rome, we may observe the real and
important events that marked or confirmed her political
independence. I. The Capitoline hill, one of her seven
eminences, (36) is about four hundred yards in length, and
two hundred in breadth. A flight of a hundred steps led to
the summit of the Tarpeian rock; and far steeper was the
ascent before the declivities had been smoothed and the
precipices filled by the ruins of fallen edifices. From the
earliest ages, the Capitol had been used as a temple in
peace, a fortress in war: after the loss of the city, it
maintained a siege against the victorious Gauls, and the
sanctuary of the empire was occupied, assaulted, and burnt,
in the civil wars of Vitellius and Vespasian. (37) The
temples of Jupiter and his kindred deities had crumbled into
dust; their place was supplied by monasteries and houses;
and the solid walls, the long and shelving porticos, were
decayed or ruined by the lapse of time. It was the first act
of the Romans, an act of freedom, to restore the strength,
though not the beauty, of the Capitol; to fortify the seat
of their arms and counsels; and as often as they ascended
the hill, the coldest minds must have glowed with the
remembrance of their ancestors. II. The first Caesars had
been invested with the exclusive coinage of the gold and
silver; to the senate they abandoned the baser metal of
bronze or copper: (38) the emblems and legends were inscribed
on a more ample field by the genius of flattery; and the
prince was relieved from the care of celebrating his own
virtues. The successors of Diocletian despised even the
flattery of the senate: their royal officers at Rome, and in
the provinces, assumed the sole direction of the mint; and
the same prerogative was inherited by the Gothic kings of
Italy, and the long series of the Greek, the French, and the
German dynasties. After an abdication of eight hundred
years, the Roman senate asserted this honorable and
lucrative privilege; which was tacitly renounced by the
popes, from Paschal the Second to the establishment of their
residence beyond the Alps. Some of these republican coins of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are shown in the
cabinets of the curious. On one of these, a gold medal,
Christ is depictured holding in his left hand a book with
this inscription: "The vow of the Roman senate and people:
Rome the capital of the world;" on the reverse, St. Peter
delivering a banner to a kneeling senator in his cap and
gown, with the name and arms of his family impressed on a
shield. (39) III. With the empire, the praefect of the city had declined to a municipal officer; yet he still exercised
in the last appeal the civil and criminal jurisdiction; and
a drawn sword, which he received from the successors of
Otho, was the mode of his investiture and the emblem of his
functions. (40) The dignity was confined to the noble
families of Rome: the choice of the people was ratified by
the pope; but a triple oath of fidelity must have often
embarrassed the praefect in the conflict of adverse duties.
(41) A servant, in whom they possessed but a third share, was
dismissed by the independent Romans: in his place they
elected a patrician; but this title, which Charlemagne had
not disdained, was too lofty for a citizen or a subject;
and, after the first fervor of rebellion, they consented
without reluctance to the restoration of the praefect.
About fifty years after this event, Innocent the Third, the
most ambitious, or at least the most fortunate, of the
Pontiffs, delivered the Romans and himself from this badge
of foreign dominion: he invested the praefect with a banner
instead of a sword, and absolved him from all dependence of
oaths or service to the German emperors. (42) In his place an
ecclesiastic, a present or future cardinal, was named by the
pope to the civil government of Rome; but his jurisdiction
has been reduced to a narrow compass; and in the days of
freedom, the right or exercise was derived from the senate
and people. IV. After the revival of the senate, (43) the
conscript fathers (if I may use the expression) were
invested with the legislative and executive power; but their
views seldom reached beyond the present day; and that day
was most frequently disturbed by violence and tumult. In
its utmost plenitude, the order or assembly consisted of
fifty-six senators, (44) the most eminent of whom were
distinguished by the title of counsellors: they were
nominated, perhaps annually, by the people; and a previous
choice of their electors, ten persons in each region, or
parish, might afford a basis for a free and permanent
constitution. The popes, who in this tempest submitted
rather to bend than to break, confirmed by treaty the
establishment and privileges of the senate, and expected
from time, peace, and religion, the restoration of their
government. The motives of public and private interest
might sometimes draw from the Romans an occasional and
temporary sacrifice of their claims; and they renewed their
oath of allegiance to the successor of St. Peter and
Constantine, the lawful head of the church and the republic.
(45)
The union and vigor of a public council was dissolved in a
lawless city; and the Romans soon adopted a more strong and
simple mode of administration. They condensed the name and
authority of the senate in a single magistrate, or two
colleagues; and as they were changed at the end of a year,
or of six months, the greatness of the trust was compensated
by the shortness of the term. But in this transient reign,
the senators of Rome indulged their avarice and ambition:
their justice was perverted by the interest of their family
and faction; and as they punished only their enemies, they
were obeyed only by their adherents. Anarchy, no longer
tempered by the pastoral care of their bishop, admonished
the Romans that they were incapable of governing themselves;
and they sought abroad those blessings which they were
hopeless of finding at home. In the same age, and from the
same motives, most of the Italian republics were prompted to
embrace a measure, which, however strange it may seem, was
adapted to their situation, and productive of the most
salutary effects. (46) They chose, in some foreign but
friendly city, an impartial magistrate of noble birth and
unblemished character, a soldier and a statesman,
recommended by the voice of fame and his country, to whom
they delegated for a time the supreme administration of
peace and war. The compact between the governor and the
governed was sealed with oaths and subscriptions; and the
duration of his power, the measure of his stipend, the
nature of their mutual obligations, were defined with
scrupulous precision. They swore to obey him as their lawful
superior: he pledged his faith to unite the indifference of
a stranger with the zeal of a patriot. At his choice, four
or six knights and civilians, his assessors in arms and
justice, attended the Podesta, (47) who maintained at his own
expense a decent retinue of servants and horses: his wife,
his son, his brother, who might bias the affections of the
judge, were left behind: during the exercise of his office
he was not permitted to purchase land, to contract an
alliance, or even to accept an invitation in the house of a
citizen; nor could he honorably depart till he had satisfied
the complaints that might be urged against his government.
Part III.
It was thus, about the middle of the thirteenth century,
that the Romans called from Bologna the senator Brancaleone,
(48) whose fame and merit have been rescued from oblivion by
the pen of an English historian. A just anxiety for his
reputation, a clear foresight of the difficulties of the
task, had engaged him to refuse the honor of their choice:
the statutes of Rome were suspended, and his office
prolonged to the term of three years. By the guilty and
licentious he was accused as cruel; by the clergy he was
suspected as partial; but the friends of peace and order
applauded the firm and upright magistrate by whom those
blessings were restored. No criminals were so powerful as
to brave, so obscure as to elude, the justice of the
senator. By his sentence two nobles of the Annibaldi family
were executed on a gibbet; and he inexorably demolished, in
the city and neighborhood, one hundred and forty towers, the
strong shelters of rapine and mischief. The bishop, as a
simple bishop, was compelled to reside in his diocese; and
the standard of Brancaleone was displayed in the field with
terror and effect. His services were repaid by the
ingratitude of a people unworthy of the happiness which they
enjoyed. By the public robbers, whom he had provoked for
their sake, the Romans were excited to depose and imprison
their benefactor; nor would his life have been spared, if
Bologna had not possessed a pledge for his safety. Before
his departure, the prudent senator had required the exchange
of thirty hostages of the noblest families of Rome: on the
news of his danger, and at the prayer of his wife, they were
more strictly guarded; and Bologna, in the cause of honor,
sustained the thunders of a papal interdict. This generous
resistance allowed the Romans to compare the present with
the past; and Brancaleone was conducted from the prison to
the Capitol amidst the acclamations of a repentant people.
The remainder of his government was firm and fortunate; and
as soon as envy was appeased by death, his head, enclosed in
a precious vase, was deposited on a lofty column of marble.
(49)
The impotence of reason and virtue recommended in Italy a
more effectual choice: instead of a private citizen, to whom
they yielded a voluntary and precarious obedience, the
Romans elected for their senator some prince of independent
power, who could defend them from their enemies and
themselves. Charles of Anjou and Provence, the most
ambitious and warlike monarch of the age, accepted at the
same time the kingdom of Naples from the pope, and the
office of senator from the Roman people. (50) As he passed
through the city, in his road to victory, he received their
oath of allegiance, lodged in the Lateran palace, and
smoothed in a short visit the harsh features of his despotic
character. Yet even Charles was exposed to the inconstancy
of the people, who saluted with the same acclamations the
passage of his rival, the unfortunate Conradin; and a
powerful avenger, who reigned in the Capitol, alarmed the
fears and jealousy of the popes. The absolute term of his
life was superseded by a renewal every third year; and the
enmity of Nicholas the Third obliged the Sicilian king to
abdicate the government of Rome. In his bull, a perpetual
law, the imperious pontiff asserts the truth, validity, and
use of the donation of Constantine, not less essential to
the peace of the city than to the independence of the
church; establishes the annual election of the senator; and
formally disqualifies all emperors, kings, princes, and
persons of an eminent and conspicuous rank. (51) This
prohibitory clause was repealed in his own behalf by Martin
the Fourth, who humbly solicited the suffrage of the Romans.
In the presence, and by the authority, of the people, two
electors conferred, not on the pope, but on the noble and
faithful Martin, the dignity of senator, and the supreme
administration of the republic, (52) to hold during his
natural life, and to exercise at pleasure by himself or his
deputies. About fifty years afterwards, the same title was
granted to the emperor Lewis of Bavaria; and the liberty of
Rome was acknowledged by her two sovereigns, who accepted a
municipal office in the government of their own metropolis.
In the first moments of rebellion, when Arnold of Brescia
had inflamed their minds against the church, the Romans
artfully labored to conciliate the favor of the empire, and
to recommend their merit and services in the cause of
Caesar. The style of their ambassadors to Conrad the Third
and Frederic the First is a mixture of flattery and pride,
the tradition and the ignorance of their own history. (53)
After some complaint of his silence and neglect, they exhort
the former of these princes to pass the Alps, and assume
from their hands the Imperial crown. "We beseech your
majesty not to disdain the humility of your sons and
vassals, not to listen to the accusations of our common
enemies; who calumniate the senate as hostile to your
throne, who sow the seeds of discord, that they may reap the
harvest of destruction. The pope and the Sicilian are
united in an impious league to oppose our liberty and your
coronation. With the blessing of God, our zeal and courage
has hitherto defeated their attempts. Of their powerful and
factious adherents, more especially the Frangipani, we have
taken by assault the houses and turrets: some of these are
occupied by our troops, and some are levelled with the
ground. The Milvian bridge, which they had broken, is
restored and fortified for your safe passage; and your army
may enter the city without being annoyed from the castle of
St. Angelo. All that we have done, and all that we design,
is for your honor and service, in the loyal hope, that you
will speedily appear in person, to vindicate those rights
which have been invaded by the clergy, to revive the dignity
of the empire, and to surpass the fame and glory of your
predecessors. May you fix your residence in Rome, the
capital of the world; give laws to Italy, and the Teutonic
kingdom; and imitate the example of Constantine and
Justinian, (54) who, by the vigor of the senate and people,
obtained the sceptre of the earth." (55) But these splendid
and fallacious wishes were not cherished by Conrad the
Franconian, whose eyes were fixed on the Holy Land, and who
died without visiting Rome soon after his return from the
Holy Land.
His nephew and successor, Frederic Barbarossa, was more
ambitious of the Imperial crown; nor had any of the
successors of Otho acquired such absolute sway over the
kingdom of Italy. Surrounded by his ecclesiastical and
secular princes, he gave audience in his camp at Sutri to
the ambassadors of Rome, who thus addressed him in a free
and florid oration: "Incline your ear to the queen of
cities; approach with a peaceful and friendly mind the
precincts of Rome, which has cast away the yoke of the
clergy, and is impatient to crown her legitimate emperor.
Under your auspicious influence, may the primitive times be
restored. Assert the prerogatives of the eternal city, and
reduce under her monarchy the insolence of the world. You
are not ignorant, that, in former ages, by the wisdom of the
senate, by the valor and discipline of the equestrian order,
she extended her victorious arms to the East and West,
beyond the Alps, and over the islands of the ocean. By our
sins, in the absence of our princes, the noble institution
of the senate has sunk in oblivion; and with our prudence,
our strength has likewise decreased. We have revived the
senate, and the equestrian order: the counsels of the one,
the arms of the other, will be devoted to your person and
the service of the empire. Do you not hear the language of
the Roman matron? You were a guest, I have adopted you as a
citizen; a Transalpine stranger, I have elected you for my
sovereign; (56) and given you myself, and all that is mine.
Your first and most sacred duty is to swear and subscribe,
that you will shed your blood for the republic; that you
will maintain in peace and justice the laws of the city and
the charters of your predecessors; and that you will reward
with five thousand pounds of silver the faithful senators
who shall proclaim your titles in the Capitol. With the
name, assume the character, of Augustus." The flowers of
Latin rhetoric were not yet exhausted; but Frederic,
impatient of their vanity, interrupted the orators in the
high tone of royalty and conquest. "Famous indeed have been
the fortitude and wisdom of the ancient Romans; but your
speech is not seasoned with wisdom, and I could wish that
fortitude were conspicuous in your actions. Like all
sublunary things, Rome has felt the vicissitudes of time and
fortune. Your noblest families were translated to the East,
to the royal city of Constantine; and the remains of your
strength and freedom have long since been exhausted by the
Greeks and Franks. Are you desirous of beholding the
ancient glory of Rome, the gravity of the senate, the spirit
of the knights, the discipline of the camp, the valor of the
legions? you will find them in the German republic. It is
not empire, naked and alone, the ornaments and virtues of
empire have likewise migrated beyond the Alps to a more
deserving people: (57) they will be employed in your defence,
but they claim your obedience. You pretend that myself or
my predecessors have been invited by the Romans: you mistake
the word; they were not invited, they were implored. From
its foreign and domestic tyrants, the city was rescued by
Charlemagne and Otho, whose ashes repose in our country; and
their dominion was the price of your deliverance. Under that
dominion your ancestors lived and died. I claim by the
right of inheritance and possession, and who shall dare to
extort you from my hands? Is the hand of the Franks (58) and
Germans enfeebled by age? Am I vanquished? Am I a captive?
Am I not encompassed with the banners of a potent and
invincible army? You impose conditions on your master; you
require oaths: if the conditions are just, an oath is
superfluous; if unjust, it is criminal. Can you doubt my
equity? It is extended to the meanest of my subjects. Will
not my sword be unsheathed in the defence of the Capitol? By
that sword the northern kingdom of Denmark has been restored
to the Roman empire. You prescribe the measure and the
objects of my bounty, which flows in a copious but a
voluntary stream. All will be given to patient merit; all
will be denied to rude importunity." (59) Neither the emperor
nor the senate could maintain these lofty pretensions of
dominion and liberty. United with the pope, and suspicious
of the Romans, Frederic continued his march to the Vatican;
his coronation was disturbed by a sally from the Capitol;
and if the numbers and valor of the Germans prevailed in the
bloody conflict, he could not safely encamp in the presence
of a city of which he styled himself the sovereign. About
twelve years afterwards, he besieged Rome, to seat an
antipope in the chair of St. Peter; and twelve Pisan galleys
were introduced into the Tyber: but the senate and people
were saved by the arts of negotiation and the progress of
disease; nor did Frederic or his successors reiterate the
hostile attempt. Their laborious reigns were exercised by
the popes, the crusades, and the independence of Lombardy
and Germany: they courted the alliance of the Romans; and
Frederic the Second offered in the Capitol the great
standard, the Caroccio of Milan. (60) After the extinction of
the house of Swabia, they were banished beyond the Alps: and
their last coronations betrayed the impotence and poverty of
the Teutonic Caesars. (61)
Under the reign of Adrian, when the empire extended from the
Euphrates to the ocean, from Mount Atlas to the Grampian
hills, a fanciful historian (62) amused the Romans with the
picture of their ancient wars. "There was a time," says
Florus, "when Tibur and Praeneste, our summer retreats, were
the objects of hostile vows in the Capitol, when we dreaded
the shades of the Arician groves, when we could triumph
without a blush over the nameless villages of the Sabines
and Latins, and even Corioli could afford a title not
unworthy of a victorious general." The pride of his
contemporaries was gratified by the contrast of the past and
the present: they would have been humbled by the prospect of
futurity; by the prediction, that after a thousand years,
Rome, despoiled of empire, and contracted to her primaeval
limits, would renew the same hostilities, on the same ground
which was then decorated with her villas and gardens. The
adjacent territory on either side of the Tyber was always
claimed, and sometimes possessed, as the patrimony of St.
Peter; but the barons assumed a lawless independence, and
the cities too faithfully copied the revolt and discord of
the metropolis. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the
Romans incessantly labored to reduce or destroy the
contumacious vassals of the church and senate; and if their
headstrong and selfish ambition was moderated by the pope,
he often encouraged their zeal by the alliance of his
spiritual arms. Their warfare was that of the first consuls
and dictators, who were taken from the plough. The
assembled in arms at the foot of the Capitol; sallied from
the gates, plundered or burnt the harvests of their
neighbors, engaged in tumultuary conflict, and returned home
after an expedition of fifteen or twenty days. Their sieges
were tedious and unskilful: in the use of victory, they
indulged the meaner passions of jealousy and revenge; and
instead of adopting the valor, they trampled on the
misfortunes, of their adversaries. The captives, in their
shirts, with a rope round their necks, solicited their
pardon: the fortifications, and even the buildings, of the
rival cities, were demolished, and the inhabitants were
scattered in the adjacent villages. It was thus that the
seats of the cardinal bishops, Porto, Ostia, Albanum,
Tusculum, Praeneste, and Tibur or Tivoli, were successively
overthrown by the ferocious hostility of the Romans. (63) Of
these, (64) Porto and Ostia, the two keys of the Tyber, are
still vacant and desolate: the marshy and unwholesome banks
are peopled with herds of buffaloes, and the river is lost
to every purpose of navigation and trade. The hills, which
afford a shady retirement from the autumnal heats, have
again smiled with the blessings of peace; Frescati has
arisen near the ruins of Tusculum; Tibur or Tivoli has
resumed the honors of a city, (65) and the meaner towns of
Albano and Palestrina are decorated with the villas of the
cardinals and princes of Rome. In the work of destruction,
the ambition of the Romans was often checked and repulsed by
the neighboring cities and their allies: in the first siege
of Tibur, they were driven from their camp; and the battles
of Tusculum (66) and Viterbo (67) might be compared in their
relative state to the memorable fields of Thrasymene and
Cannae. In the first of these petty wars, thirty thousand
Romans were overthrown by a thousand German horse, whom
Frederic Barbarossa had detached to the relief of Tusculum:
and if we number the slain at three, the prisoners at two,
thousand, we shall embrace the most authentic and moderate
account. Sixty- eight years afterwards they marched against
Viterbo in the ecclesiastical state with the whole force of
the city; by a rare coalition the Teutonic eagle was
blended, in the adverse banners, with the keys of St. Peter;
and the pope's auxiliaries were commanded by a count of
Thoulouse and a bishop of Winchester. The Romans were
discomfited with shame and slaughter: but the English
prelate must have indulged the vanity of a pilgrim, if he
multiplied their numbers to one hundred, and their loss in
the field to thirty, thousand men. Had the policy of the
senate and the discipline of the legions been restored with
the Capitol, the divided condition of Italy would have
offered the fairest opportunity of a second conquest. But
in arms, the modern Romans were not above, and in arts, they
were far below, the common level of the neighboring
republics. Nor was their warlike spirit of any long
continuance; after some irregular sallies, they subsided in
the national apathy, in the neglect of military
institutions, and in the disgraceful and dangerous use of
foreign mercenaries.
Ambition is a weed of quick and early vegetation in the
vineyard of Christ. Under the first Christian princes, the
chair of St. Peter was disputed by the votes, the venality,
the violence, of a popular election: the sanctuaries of Rome
were polluted with blood; and, from the third to the twelfth
century, the church was distracted by the mischief of
frequent schisms. As long as the final appeal was determined
by the civil magistrate, these mischiefs were transient and
local: the merits were tried by equity or favor; nor could
the unsuccessful competitor long disturb the triumph of his
rival. But after the emperors had been divested of their
prerogatives, after a maxim had been established that the
vicar of Christ is amenable to no earthly tribunal, each
vacancy of the holy see might involve Christendom in
controversy and war. The claims of the cardinals and
inferior clergy, of the nobles and people, were vague and
litigious: the freedom of choice was overruled by the
tumults of a city that no longer owned or obeyed a superior.
On the decease of a pope, two factions proceeded in
different churches to a double election: the number and
weight of votes, the priority of time, the merit of the
candidates, might balance each other: the most respectable
of the clergy were divided; and the distant princes, who
bowed before the spiritual throne, could not distinguish the
spurious, from the legitimate, idol. The emperors were
often the authors of the schism, from the political motive
of opposing a friendly to a hostile pontiff; and each of the
competitors was reduced to suffer the insults of his
enemies, who were not awed by conscience, and to purchase
the support of his adherents, who were instigated by avarice
or ambition a peaceful and perpetual succession was
ascertained by Alexander the Third, (68) who finally
abolished the tumultuary votes of the clergy and people, and
defined the right of election in the sole college of
cardinals. (69) The three orders of bishops, priests, and
deacons, were assimilated to each other by this important
privilege; the parochial clergy of Rome obtained the first
rank in the hierarchy: they were indifferently chosen among
the nations of Christendom; and the possession of the
richest benefices, of the most important bishoprics, was not
incompatible with their title and office. The senators of
the Catholic church, the coadjutors and legates of the
supreme pontiff, were robed in purple, the symbol of
martyrdom or royalty; they claimed a proud equality with
kings; and their dignity was enhanced by the smallness of
their number, which, till the reign of Leo the Tenth, seldom
exceeded twenty or twenty-five persons. By this wise
regulation, all doubt and scandal were removed, and the root
of schism was so effectually destroyed, that in a period of
six hundred years a double choice has only once divided the
unity of the sacred college. But as the concurrence of two
thirds of the votes had been made necessary, the election
was often delayed by the private interest and passions of
the cardinals; and while they prolonged their independent
reign, the Christian world was left destitute of a head. A
vacancy of almost three years had preceded the elevation of
George the Tenth, who resolved to prevent the future abuse;
and his bull, after some opposition, has been consecrated in
the code of the canon law. (70) Nine days are allowed for the
obsequies of the deceased pope, and the arrival of the
absent cardinals; on the tenth, they are imprisoned, each
with one domestic, in a common apartment or conclave,
without any separation of walls or curtains: a small window
is reserved for the introduction of necessaries; but the
door is locked on both sides and guarded by the magistrates
of the city, to seclude them from all correspondence with
the world. If the election be not consummated in three
days, the luxury of their table is contracted to a single
dish at dinner and supper; and after the eighth day, they
are reduced to a scanty allowance of bread, water, and wine.
During the vacancy of the holy see, the cardinals are
prohibited from touching the revenues, or assuming, unless
in some rare emergency, the government of the church: all
agreements and promises among the electors are formally
annulled; and their integrity is fortified by their solemn
oath and the prayers of the Catholics. Some articles of
inconvenient or superfluous rigor have been gradually
relaxed, but the principle of confinement is vigorous and
entire: they are still urged, by the personal motives of
health and freedom, to accelerate the moment of their
deliverance; and the improvement of ballot or secret votes
has wrapped the struggles of the conclave (71) in the silky
veil of charity and politeness. (72) By these institutions
the Romans were excluded from the election of their prince
and bishop; and in the fever of wild and precarious liberty,
they seemed insensible of the loss of this inestimable
privilege. The emperor Lewis of Bavaria revived the example
of the great Otho. After some negotiation with the
magistrates, the Roman people were assembled (73) in the
square before St. Peter's: the pope of Avignon, John the
Twenty-second, was deposed: the choice of his successor was
ratified by their consent and applause. They freely voted
for a new law, that their bishop should never be absent more
than three months in the year, and two days' journey from
the city; and that if he neglected to return on the third
summons, the public servant should be degraded and
dismissed. (74) But Lewis forgot his own debility and the
prejudices of the times: beyond the precincts of a German
camp, his useless phantom was rejected; the Romans despised
their own workmanship; the antipope implored the mercy of
his lawful sovereign; (75) and the exclusive right of the
cardinals was more firmly established by this unseasonable
attack.
Had the election been always held in the Vatican, the rights
of the senate and people would not have been violated with
impunity. But the Romans forgot, and were forgotten. in the
absence of the successors of Gregory the Seventh, who did
not keep as a divine precept their ordinary residence in the
city and diocese. The care of that diocese was less
important than the government of the universal church; nor
could the popes delight in a city in which their authority
was always opposed, and their person was often endangered.
From the persecution of the emperors, and the wars of Italy,
they escaped beyond the Alps into the hospitable bosom of
France; from the tumults of Rome they prudently withdrew to
live and die in the more tranquil stations of Anagni,
Perugia, Viterbo, and the adjacent cities. When the flock
was offended or impoverished by the absence of the shepherd,
they were recalled by a stern admonition, that St. Peter had
fixed his chair, not in an obscure village, but in the
capital of the world; by a ferocious menace, that the Romans
would march in arms to destroy the place and people that
should dare to afford them a retreat. They returned with
timorous obedience; and were saluted with the account of a
heavy debt, of all the losses which their desertion had
occasioned, the hire of lodgings, the sale of provisions,
and the various expenses of servants and strangers who
attended the court. (76) After a short interval of peace, and
perhaps of authority, they were again banished by new
tumults, and again summoned by the imperious or respectful
invitation of the senate. In these occasional retreats, the
exiles and fugitives of the Vatican were seldom long, or
far, distant from the metropolis; but in the beginning of
the fourteenth century, the apostolic throne was
transported, as it might seem forever, from the Tyber to the
Rhone; and the cause of the transmigration may be deduced
from the furious contest between Boniface the Eighth and the
king of France. (77) The spiritual arms of excommunication
and interdict were repulsed by the union of the three
estates, and the privileges of the Gallican church; but the
pope was not prepared against the carnal weapons which
Philip the Fair had courage to employ. As the pope resided
at Anagni, without the suspicion of danger, his palace and
person were assaulted by three hundred horse, who had been
secretly levied by William of Nogaret, a French minister,
and Sciarra Colonna, of a noble but hostile family of Rome.
The cardinals fled; the inhabitants of Anagni were seduced
from their allegiance and gratitude; but the dauntless
Boniface, unarmed and alone, seated himself in his chair,
and awaited, like the conscript fathers of old, the swords
of the Gauls. Nogaret, a foreign adversary, was content to
execute the orders of his master: by the domestic enmity of
Colonna, he was insulted with words and blows; and during a
confinement of three days his life was threatened by the
hardships which they inflicted on the obstinacy which they
provoked. Their strange delay gave time and courage to the
adherents of the church, who rescued him from sacrilegious
violence; but his imperious soul was wounded in the vital
part; and Boniface expired at Rome in a frenzy of rage and
revenge. His memory is stained with the glaring vices of
avarice and pride; nor has the courage of a martyr promoted
this ecclesiastical champion to the honors of a saint; a
magnanimous sinner, (say the chronicles of the times,) who
entered like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a
dog. He was succeeded by Benedict the Eleventh, the mildest
of mankind. Yet he excommunicated the impious emissaries of
Philip, and devoted the city and people of Anagni by a
tremendous curse, whose effects are still visible to the
eyes of superstition. (78)
After his decease, the tedious and equal suspense of the
conclave was fixed by the dexterity of the French faction.
A specious offer was made and accepted, that, in the term of
forty days, they would elect one of the three candidates who
should be named by their opponents. The archbishop of
Bourdeaux, a furious enemy of his king and country, was the
first on the list; but his ambition was known; and his
conscience obeyed the calls of fortune and the commands of a
benefactor, who had been informed by a swift messenger that
the choice of a pope was now in his hands. The terms were
regulated in a private interview; and with such speed and
secrecy was the business transacted, that the unanimous
conclave applauded the elevation of Clement the Fifth. (79)
The cardinals of both parties were soon astonished by a
summons to attend him beyond the Alps; from whence, as they
soon discovered, they must never hope to return. He was
engaged, by promise and affection, to prefer the residence
of France; and, after dragging his court through Poitou and
Gascony, and devouring, by his expense, the cities and
convents on the road, he finally reposed at Avignon, (80)
which flourished above seventy years (81) the seat of the
Roman pontiff and the metropolis of Christendom. By land,
by sea, by the Rhone, the position of Avignon was on all
sides accessible; the southern provinces of France do not
yield to Italy itself; new palaces arose for the
accommodation of the pope and cardinals; and the arts of
luxury were soon attracted by the treasures of the church.
They were already possessed of the adjacent territory, the
Venaissin county, (82) a populous and fertile spot; and the
sovereignty of Avignon was afterwards purchased from the
youth and distress of Jane, the first queen of Naples and
countess of Provence, for the inadequate price of fourscore
thousand florins. (83) Under the shadow of a French monarchy,
amidst an obedient people, the popes enjoyed an honorable
and tranquil state, to which they long had been strangers:
but Italy deplored their absence; and Rome, in solitude and
poverty, might repent of the ungovernable freedom which had
driven from the Vatican the successor of St. Peter. Her
repentance was tardy and fruitless: after the death of the
old members, the sacred college was filled with French
cardinals, (84) who beheld Rome and Italy with abhorrence and
contempt, and perpetuated a series of national, and even
provincial, popes, attached by the most indissoluble ties to
their native country.
The progress of industry had produced and enriched the
Italian republics: the aera of their liberty is the most
flourishing period of population and agriculture, of
manufactures and commerce; and their mechanic labors were
gradually refined into the arts of elegance and genius. But
the position of Rome was less favorable, the territory less
fruitful: the character of the inhabitants was debased by
indolence and elated by pride; and they fondly conceived
that the tribute of subjects must forever nourish the
metropolis of the church and empire. This prejudice was
encouraged in some degree by the resort of pilgrims to the
shrines of the apostles; and the last legacy of the popes,
the institution of the holy year, (85) was not less
beneficial to the people than to the clergy. Since the loss
of Palestine, the gift of plenary indulgences, which had
been applied to the crusades, remained without an object;
and the most valuable treasure of the church was sequestered
above eight years from public circulation. A new channel
was opened by the diligence of Boniface the Eighth, who
reconciled the vices of ambition and avarice; and the pope
had sufficient learning to recollect and revive the secular
games which were celebrated in Rome at the conclusion of
every century. To sound without danger the depth of popular
credulity, a sermon was seasonably pronounced, a report was
artfully scattered, some aged witnesses were produced; and
on the first of January of the year thirteen hundred, the
church of St. Peter was crowded with the faithful, who
demanded the customary indulgence of the holy time. The
pontiff, who watched and irritated their devout impatience,
was soon persuaded by ancient testimony of the justice of
their claim; and he proclaimed a plenary absolution to all
Catholics who, in the course of that year, and at every
similar period, should respectfully visit the apostolic
churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. The welcome sound was
propagated through Christendom; and at first from the
nearest provinces of Italy, and at length from the remote
kingdoms of Hungary and Britain, the highways were thronged
with a swarm of pilgrims who sought to expiate their sins in
a journey, however costly or laborious, which was exempt
from the perils of military service. All exceptions of rank
or sex, of age or infirmity, were forgotten in the common
transport; and in the streets and churches many persons were
trampled to death by the eagerness of devotion. The
calculation of their numbers could not be easy nor accurate;
and they have probably been magnified by a dexterous clergy,
well apprised of the contagion of example: yet we are
assured by a judicious historian, who assisted at the
ceremony, that Rome was never replenished with less than two
hundred thousand strangers; and another spectator has fixed
at two millions the total concourse of the year. A trifling
oblation from each individual would accumulate a royal
treasure; and two priests stood night and day, with rakes in
their hands, to collect, without counting, the heaps of gold
and silver that were poured on the altar of St. Paul. (86) It
was fortunately a season of peace and plenty; and if forage
was scarce, if inns and lodgings were extravagantly dear, an
inexhaustible supply of bread and wine, of meat and fish,
was provided by the policy of Boniface and the venal
hospitality of the Romans. From a city without trade or
industry, all casual riches will speedily evaporate: but the
avarice and envy of the next generation solicited Clement
the Sixth (87) to anticipate the distant period of the
century. The gracious pontiff complied with their wishes;
afforded Rome this poor consolation for his loss; and
justified the change by the name and practice of the Mosaic
Jubilee. (88) His summons was obeyed; and the number, zeal,
and liberality of the pilgrims did not yield to the
primitive festival. But they encountered the triple scourge
of war, pestilence, and famine: many wives and virgins were
violated in the castles of Italy; and many strangers were
pillaged or murdered by the savage Romans, no longer
moderated by the presence of their bishops. (89) To the
impatience of the popes we may ascribe the successive
reduction to fifty, thirty-three, and twenty-five years;
although the second of these terms is commensurate with the
life of Christ. The profusion of indulgences, the revolt of
the Protestants, and the decline of superstition, have much
diminished the value of the jubilee; yet even the nineteenth
and last festival was a year of pleasure and profit to the
Romans; and a philosophic smile will not disturb the triumph
of the priest or the happiness of the people. (90)
In the beginning of the eleventh century, Italy was exposed
to the feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and
the people. The rights of human nature were vindicated by
her numerous republics, who soon extended their liberty and
dominion from the city to the adjacent country. The sword
of the nobles was broken; their slaves were enfranchised;
their castles were demolished; they assumed the habits of
society and obedience; their ambition was confined to
municipal honors, and in the proudest aristocracy of Venice
on Genoa, each patrician was subject to the laws. (91) But
the feeble and disorderly government of Rome was unequal to
the task of curbing her rebellious sons, who scorned the
authority of the magistrate within and without the walls.
It was no longer a civil contention between the nobles and
plebeians for the government of the state: the barons
asserted in arms their personal independence; their palaces
and castles were fortified against a siege; and their
private quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their
vassals and retainers. In origin and affection, they were
aliens to their country: (92) and a genuine Roman, could such
have been produced, might have renounced these haughty
strangers, who disdained the appellation of citizens, and
proudly styled themselves the princes, of Rome. (93) After a
dark series of revolutions, all records of pedigree were
lost; the distinction of surnames was abolished; the blood
of the nations was mingled in a thousand channels; and the
Goths and Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the Germans and
Normans, had obtained the fairest possessions by royal
bounty, or the prerogative of valor. These examples might
be readily presumed; but the elevation of a Hebrew race to
the rank of senators and consuls is an event without a
parallel in the long captivity of these miserable exiles.
(94) In the time of Leo the Ninth, a wealthy and learned Jew
was converted to Christianity, and honored at his baptism
with the name of his godfather, the reigning Pope. The zeal
and courage of Peter the son of Leo were signalized in the
cause of Gregory the Seventh, who intrusted his faithful
adherent with the government of Adrian's mole, the tower of
Crescentius, or, as it is now called, the castle of St.
Angelo. Both the father and the son were the parents of a
numerous progeny: their riches, the fruits of usury, were
shared with the noblest families of the city; and so
extensive was their alliance, that the grandson of the
proselyte was exalted by the weight of his kindred to the
throne of St. Peter. A majority of the clergy and people
supported his cause: he reigned several years in the
Vatican; and it is only the eloquence of St. Bernard, and
the final triumph of Innocence the Second, that has branded
Anacletus with the epithet of antipope. After his defeat
and death, the posterity of Leo is no longer conspicuous;
and none will be found of the modern nobles ambitious of
descending from a Jewish stock. It is not my design to
enumerate the Roman families which have failed at different
periods, or those which are continued in different degrees
of splendor to the present time. (95) The old consular line
of the Frangipani discover their name in the generous act of
breaking or dividing bread in a time of famine; and such
benevolence is more truly glorious than to have enclosed,
with their allies the Corsi, a spacious quarter of the city
in the chains of their fortifications; the Savelli, as it
should seem a Sabine race, have maintained their original
dignity; the obsolete surname of the Capizucchi is inscribed
on the coins of the first senators; the Conti preserve the
honor, without the estate, of the counts of Signia; and the
Annibaldi must have been very ignorant, or very modest, if
they had not descended from the Carthaginian hero. (96)
But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city,
I distinguish the rival houses of Colonna and Ursini, whose
private story is an essential part of the annals of modern
Rome. I. The name and arms of Colonna (97) have been the
theme of much doubtful etymology; nor have the orators and
antiquarians overlooked either Trajan's pillar, or the
columns of Hercules, or the pillar of Christ's flagellation,
or the luminous column that guided the Israelites in the
desert. Their first historical appearance in the year
eleven hundred and four attests the power and antiquity,
while it explains the simple meaning, of the name. By the
usurpation of Cavae, the Colonna provoked the arms of
Paschal the Second; but they lawfully held in the Campagna
of Rome the hereditary fiefs of Zagarola and Colonna; and
the latter of these towns was probably adorned with some
lofty pillar, the relic of a villa or temple. (98) They
likewise possessed one moiety of the neighboring city of
Tusculum, a strong presumption of their descent from the
counts of Tusculum, who in the tenth century were the
tyrants of the apostolic see. According to their own and
the public opinion, the primitive and remote source was
derived from the banks of the Rhine; (99) and the sovereigns
of Germany were not ashamed of a real or fabulous affinity
with a noble race, which in the revolutions of seven hundred
years has been often illustrated by merit and always by
fortune. (100) About the end of the thirteenth century, the
most powerful branch was composed of an uncle and six
bothers, all conspicuous in arms, or in the honors of the
church. Of these, Peter was elected senator of Rome,
introduced to the Capitol in a triumphal car, and hailed in
some vain acclamations with the title of Caesar; while John
and Stephen were declared marquis of Ancona and count of
Romagna, by Nicholas the Fourth, a patron so partial to
their family, that he has been delineated in satirical
portraits, imprisoned as it were in a hollow pillar. (101)
After his decease their haughty behavior provoked the
displeasure of the most implacable of mankind. The two
cardinals, the uncle and the nephew, denied the election of
Boniface the Eighth; and the Colonna were oppressed for a
moment by his temporal and spiritual arms. (102) He
proclaimed a crusade against his personal enemies; their
estates were confiscated; their fortresses on either side of
the Tyber were besieged by the troops of St. Peter and those
of the rival nobles; and after the ruin of Palestrina or
Praeneste, their principal seat, the ground was marked with
a ploughshare, the emblem of perpetual desolation.
Degraded, banished, proscribed, the six brothers, in
disguise and danger, wandered over Europe without renouncing
the hope of deliverance and revenge. In this double hope,
the French court was their surest asylum; they prompted and
directed the enterprise of Philip; and I should praise their
magnanimity, had they respected the misfortune and courage
of the captive tyrant. His civil acts were annulled by the
Roman people, who restored the honors and possessions of the
Colonna; and some estimate may be formed of their wealth by
their losses, of their losses by the damages of one hundred
thousand gold florins which were granted them against the
accomplices and heirs of the deceased pope. All the
spiritual censures and disqualifications were abolished (103)
by his prudent successors; and the fortune of the house was
more firmly established by this transient hurricane. The
boldness of Sciarra Colonna was signalized in the captivity
of Boniface, and long afterwards in the coronation of Lewis
of Bavaria; and by the gratitude of the emperor, the pillar
in their arms was encircled with a royal crown. But the
first of the family in fame and merit was the elder Stephen,
whom Petrarch loved and esteemed as a hero superior to his
own times, and not unworthy of ancient Rome. Persecution
and exile displayed to the nations his abilities in peace
and war; in his distress he was an object, not of pity, but
of reverence; the aspect of danger provoked him to avow his
name and country; and when he was asked, "Where is now your
fortress?" he laid his hand on his heart, and answered,
"Here." He supported with the same virtue the return of
prosperity; and, till the ruin of his declining age, the
ancestors, the character, and the children of Stephen
Colonna, exalted his dignity in the Roman republic, and at
the court of Avignon. II. The Ursini migrated from Spoleto;
(104) the sons of Ursus, as they are styled in the twelfth
century, from some eminent person, who is only known as the
father of their race. But they were soon distinguished
among the nobles of Rome, by the number and bravery of their
kinsmen, the strength of their towers, the honors of the
senate and sacred college, and the elevation of two popes,
Celestin the Third and Nicholas the Third, of their name and
lineage. (105) Their riches may be accused as an early abuse
of nepotism: the estates of St. Peter were alienated in
their favor by the liberal Celestin; (106) and Nicholas was
ambitious for their sake to solicit the alliance of
monarchs; to found new kingdoms in Lombardy and Tuscany; and
to invest them with the perpetual office of senators of
Rome. All that has been observed of the greatness of the
Colonna will likewise redeemed to the glory of the Ursini,
their constant and equal antagonists in the long hereditary
feud, which distracted above two hundred and fifty years the
ecclesiastical state. The jealously of preeminence and power
was the true ground of their quarrel; but as a specious
badge of distinction, the Colonna embraced the name of
Ghibelines and the party of the empire; the Ursini espoused
the title of Guelphs and the cause of the church. The eagle
and the keys were displayed in their adverse banners; and
the two factions of Italy most furiously raged when the
origin and nature of the dispute were long since forgotten.
(107) After the retreat of the popes to Avignon they disputed
in arms the vacant republic; and the mischiefs of discord
were perpetuated by the wretched compromise of electing each
year two rival senators. By their private hostilities the
city and country were desolated, and the fluctuating balance
inclined with their alternate success. But none of either
family had fallen by the sword, till the most renowned
champion of the Ursini was surprised and slain by the
younger Stephen Colonna. (108) His triumph is stained with
the reproach of violating the truce; their defeat was basely
avenged by the assassination, before the church door, of an
innocent boy and his two servants. Yet the victorious
Colonna, with an annual colleague, was declared senator of
Rome during the term of five years. And the muse of
Petrarch inspired a wish, a hope, a prediction, that the
generous youth, the son of his venerable hero, would restore
Rome and Italy to their pristine glory; that his justice
would extirpate the wolves and lions, the serpents and
bears, who labored to subvert the eternal basis of the
marble column. (109)
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