ness of the times *; and of many it was the principal purpose to launch excommunication and anathema against the spoliators of ecclesiastical property, and to protect the persons of clerks and monks and nuns from the violence of the laity.

It is not easy either to specify any particular changes introduced into the discipline of the Church during these ages, or precisely to determine the rigour of that discipline; for such innovations are for the most part of slow and almost insensible growth; and, though the canonical regulations are in themselves sufficiently explicit, their enforcement depended in each diocese on the authority or character of the Bishop. If, indeed, it had been possible at once to force into full operation the principles of the • False Decretals,' the sudden revolution thus occasioned would have been perceptible to the eye of the most careless historian; but the pretensions which they contained were utterly disproportioned to the power which the See then possessed of asserting them. Their tacit acknowledg ment led to their gradual adoption; and in the patient progress of this usurpation every step that was gained gave fresh vigour, as well as loftier ground, to the usurper; but in the ninth century the French were too independent entirely to submit to the servitude intended for them, and in the tenth the Popes were too weak and contemptible effectually to impose it. Nevertheless, time and ignorance were steadily engaged in sanctifying the imposture, and preparing it for more mischievous service in the hand of Hildebrand.

Though we propose to defer a little longer any general account of the Monastic Order, it is proper here to notice that very powerful renovation of the system which was accomplished about this time by Benedict of Aniane-a venerable name, which yields to none save Benedict of Nursia, in the reverence of monkish annalists. He was contemporary with Charlemagne and his successor, and was called in 817 to preside at the Council assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle for the reform of monastic abuses. The regulations which were then enacted, though they offended the simplicity of the primitive rule by many frivolous injunctions, were still useful in recalling to some form of discipline the broken ranks of the regular clergy. We should also mention, that the institution of Canons Regular, by Chrodegand, Bishop of Metz, was undertaken during the same period, and was completed under Lewis the Meek in a Council, also held at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 826.

The original form of Episcopal election had been habitually violated by the barbarian kings; and if it was nominally restored by Charlemagne, it still appears that he continued in practice to profit by the usurpation of

6

The disorders of the age are vividly depicted in the prefatory Exposition of the Council of Mayence in 888. Behold the magnificent edifices, which the servants of God were wont to inhabit, destroyed and burnt to ashes; the altars overthrown and trampled under foot, the most precious ornaments of the Churches dispersed or con'sumed; the Bishops, Priests, and other Clerks, together with Laymen of every age and " sex, overtaken by sword or fire, or some other manner of massacre, &c.' Similar calamities are even more particularly detailed by the Council of Troslé in 909, attended with some charges of spiritual negligence in the Bishops themselves. (See Fleury, 1. liv., s. 2 and 44.) In 865, Pope Nicholas addressed some strong pacific exhortations to the princes of France:-Parcite gladio: humanum fundere sanguinem formidolosius exhorrescite ; cesset ira, sedentur odia, sopiantur jurgia, et omnis ex vobis simultas 'radicitùs evellatur. ... Non in vobis vanæ gloriæ typus, non alterius usurpandi ter'minos ambitio, sed justitia, charitas, et concordia regnet et summum pax inter vos teneat omnino fastigium.' But such general addresses had probably little effect; and the first authoritative interference of the Church for the partial restoration of peace, and the institution of the Trêve de Dieu, took place in the first half of the eleventh century.

Translation of
Bishops.

his predecessors, and to fill up vacant sees by his own direct appointment. Lewis, however, had not been long on the throne, when he published (seemingly at the Parliament of Attigni in 822) a capitulary to reinstate the Church in her pristine rights. Nor was this concession merely formal; on the contrary, it was brought into immediate force, and for some time actually directed the form of election. For instance, we observe that, in the year 845, Hincmar was raised to the See of Rheims by the Clergy and people of Rheims, by the Bishops of the province, with the consent ' of the Archbishop of Sens, the Bishop of Paris, and the Abbot of St. 'Denis his superior, and with the approbation of the King;' and from several monuments of that age, and especially the letters of Hincmar* himself, we learn, that, at least during the reign of Charles, the Church continued in the recovered possession of her original liberty. The translation of Bishops continued to be prohibited during the ninth century, according to the ancient canons; and though the rule might be occasionally violated by the interference of the Prince, and though the Pope did occasionally, thongh rarely, exercise that pernicious power which the Decretals, false as they were, and fatal to ecclesiastical discipline, nevertheless gave him, the clergy and the people laboured to maintain the ancient and salutary practice. It appears, however, from a very strange occurrence, which is related to have passed in this age, that the Bishops of Rome, however willing to exert their groundless authority elsewhere, were extremely jealous of any translation to their own See. In the year 892, Formosus was raised from the See of Porto to that of Rome; he was a prelate of great piety and considerable attainments, but he offered the first instance of the elevation of a foreign Bishop to the throne of St. Peter. He held it for about four years, and died in possession of it. But scarcely were his ashes cold, when his successor, Stephen VI.,—a name which has earned peculiar distinction even among the pontifical barbarians of those days,-summoned a Council to sit in judgment on the deceased. Formosus was dragged from his grave and introduced into the midst of the assembly. He was then solemnly reinvested with the ornaments of office, and placed in the Apostolical chair, and the mockery of an advocate to plead in his defence was added. Then Stephen inquired of his senseless predecessor Wherefore, Bishop of Porto, hast thou urged thy ambition so far, as to usurp the See of Rome?' The Council immediately passed the sentence of deposition; and the condemned carcase, after being stripped of the sacred vestments and brutally mutilated, was cast contemptuously into the Tiber. But the day of retribution was near at hand, for, in the order of Providence, the most revolting offences are sometimes

It appears that, as soon as the vacancy was declared, the King appointed from among the Bishops a visitor to the vacant see, who presided at the election. The only persons eligible (or very nearly so) were the Clergy of the diocese; but they were not the only electors; the monasteries and the Curates, or parochial Clergy, sent their deputies. Nor were the noble laymen or the citizens of the city excluded-on the principle that all should 'assist in the election of one whom all were bound to obey.' (See Fleury, 1. xlvi., s. 47 ; 1. xlviii., s. 38; 1. liii., s. 33.) Still it would appear, even from the expression of Hincmar, in an epistle to Charles on this subject, as well as from a Canon of the Council of Va lence held in 855, that the Church exercised the privilege rather as an indulgence from the Sovereign, than by its own original and lawful right. The Prince shall be peti 'tioned to leave to the Clergy and People the liberty of election. The Bishop shall be 'chosen from the Clergy of the Cathedral or of the Diocese, or at least of its immediate neighbourhood. If a Clerk attached to the service of the Prince is proposed, his capa. 'city and his morals shall be rigorously examined, &c.'-Council of Valence.

overtaken by the swiftest calamities. Only a few weeks elapsed, and Stephen himself was seized, and driven from the See and thrown into an obscure dungeon, loaded with chains, where he was presently strangled.

It had been hitherto the practice of the Bishop of Rome to retain on his election the name by which he had been previously known: the first exception to this rule took place in the tenth century. In 956, Octavianus,

a noble Roman, was raised to the See at the age of eighteen, and expressed his determination to assume the name of John XII.* It does not appear that his boyish inclination was opposed; and it is certain that the precedent was very soon and very generally followed. Neither was the example of Formosus forgotten in succeeding elections, though it was not so commonly imitated; but before the end of this age we find that Gerbert, Archbishop of Ravenna, became, by a double change, Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, without any offence or reproach.

Among the inferior clergy, the canonical discipline was extremely rigid: it was strictly forbidden to undertake the charge of two churches, to hold a prebend † in a monastery with a parochial cure, or even to exchange one church for another. That these regulations were sometimes, perhaps generally, enforced, appears from the earnestness with which they are pressed by Hincmar; and it is from his Synodal Statutest, even more than from the Canons of Councils, that we learn the practice of the Gallican Church during the ninth century: that of the Churches of Italy was probably less severe.

The practice of Auricular Confession, which, though generally prevalent, was not universally received in the time of Charlemagne, may be said to have completed its establishment during the two following ages. We observe, too, in the annals of those times, that the transfer § of relics

Claudius, Bishop

of Turin.

* See Pagi. Breviar. Gest. Rom. Pont. Vit. Johan. XII. † A Prebend then signified the dividend afforded to a Canon for his subsistence. The prohibition was repeated in 889 by the Council of Metz; which seems to prove that it was either not generally received, or imperfectly obeyed.

We have very little space for quotations, but the following are curious :-'I have ' often notified to you respecting the poor who are inscribed in the Books of the Church, how you ought to treat them and distribute to them a part of the tithe. I have forbid'den you to receive, in return for their portion (called matricula), either present or service, in the house or elsewhere. I persist in forbidding it; since such conduct is to sell cha'rity. I declare to you, that the priest who does so, shall be deposed, and even the portion of the tithe which is given to other paupers shall be refused to him.' Again'I learn that some among you neglect their churches and buy private property which 'they cultivate, and build houses there in which women reside; and that they do not be'queath their property to the Church, according to the Canons, but to their relatives or others. Be informed that I shall punish with the utmost rigour of the Rules those whom 'I shall find guilty of this abuse. It was another of Hincmar's meritorious endeavours to restrict the abuse of private patronage, by refusing ordination to every unworthy candidate. See Fleury, 1. lii., s. 28.

The travels of St. Vitus from Leucadia to Rome, from Rome to Saxony, may not perhaps deserve to be traced by us; but we may be excused for pursuing the history of a pious prelate, whose living virtues we found occasion to mention-St. Martin of Tours. About the middle of the ninth century, the approach of the Normans made it expedient to remove the venerable relics of that Saint from Tours to Auxerre, where he was confided, as a temporary deposit, to the care of the Bishop. During one-and-thirty years of exile. St. Martin continued to perform the most stupendous miracles; and thus he became so valuable to the Bishop of Auxerre, that when restitution was demanded, that prelate at once refused it. Hereupon the Archbishop of Tours prevailed upon a powerful Baron, whose domains were adjacent, to avenge the perfidy and to recover the treasure by force. Thus St. Martin returned triumphantly to his native city, escorted by a band of six thousand soldiers. The story is told in the last chapter of Fleury, Book hiii. Again, in the year 826, two holy Abbots set out from France to Rome, in order to bring away

from place to place was carried on with extraordinary ardour, proportioned to the sanctity attached to them, and to the wonders which they are recorded to have wrought. This superstition was, indeed, boldly assailed by one real Christian,-Claudius, Bishop of Turin*, the Protestant of the ninth century. Wherefore (he indignantly exclaimed) do not the worshippers of the wood of the Cross, in conformity with their new principles, adore chaplets of thorns, because Christ was crowned with thorns,-or cradles, linen, or boats, because he made use of them,-or spears, because he was pierced with that weapon? Or why do they not fall down before the image of an ass, because he rode on that animal? Christ Jesus did not command us to worship the Cross, but the Cross, but to bear it-to renounce the world and ourselves.' The inconsistency which the pious Bishop objected to his Church was indeed, to a great extent, removed by the multiplied corruptions of after agest; but the remonstrances of the Reformer roused the indignation of his contemporaries; his endeavour to distinguish the corruptions from the substance of the system brought down upon him the usual reproaches of hostility and schism from the more rigid Churchmen of the day; and had he lived in an age in which the secular power was subservient to their principles, he would have been variously known to posterity, as a chastised heretic or as a blessed martyr.

During this same period the penitential system of the Church underwent a more regular organization; ecclesiastical punishments were adjusted with more discrimination to the offence of the penitent, and greater uniformity of practice was established in the different dioceses. The Liturgy received several improvements; indeed it assumed at this time the form in which it was transmitted, with very slight, if any, variation to the more splendid ages of the Roman Church. The celebration of the religious offices, their rules, and their history employed the diligence of the learned |},

the bodies of St. Sebastian, and even of St. Gregory himself. They returned triumphant —the former had been solemnly granted to the Emperor by the Pope; the latter they had stolen away by a pious artifice. Their success is recorded by Eginhard, or Einhard, the contemporary biographer of Charlemagne. But the loss has never been acknowledged by the Romans, nor is it probable that they ever sustained it.

He was a native of Spain, and died in his diocese of Turin, about the year 840. His vigorous opposition to the worship of images could not be so generally unpopular on the other side of the Alps as in Italy; yet we observe that one of his principal opponents was Jonas, a Bishop of Orleans. It was another of his errors that he denied that the power of the priesthood, to bind and loose, extended beyond this world; and the last, and probably the greatest, that he asserted the term Apostolical Father to be properly applied, not to him who filled the chair of the Apostle, but to him who discharged the duties attached to it. The works for which Claudius was particularly celebrated, were his Commentaries on Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament.

+ See Gilly's Introduction to the History of the Waldenses.

The following passage (from Hincmar's Instructions to his Clergy, published about 857) shows the extent to which the arm of the Clergy then reached, as well as the manner in which it acted. As soon as a homicide, or any other public crime, shall have been 'committed, the curate (the resident clergyman) shall signify to the culprit to present him'self before the Doyen and the other curates, and to submit to penance; and they shall 'send information to their superiors, who reside in the city, so that, in the course of a fortnight, the offender may appear before us and receive public penance with imposition of hands. The day on which the crime was committed shall be carefully noted down, as 'well as that on which the penance was imposed. When the curates shall assemble at the 'calends they shall confer together respecting their penitents, to inform us in what man'ner each performs his penance, that we may judge when he ought to be reconciled to the Church. If the criminal does not submit to the penance within the days specified,

' he shall be excommunicated until he does submit.'

|| Amalarius, a disciple of Alcuin, clerk of the church of Metz, was, among these, the

External progress of Christianity.

and received elaborate and useful illustrations. The credit of these exertions belongs indeed entirely to the theologians of the ninth century; but the works which they raised, after resisting the tempests which followed, continued to constitute an important portion of the ecclesiastical edifice. IV. During the period which we have now described, while the centre and heart of Christendom was for the most part cold and corrupted, the vital stream was ceaselessly flowing towards the northern extremities of Europe. It would be an attractive, and it might be a profitable employment to trace the feeble and sometimes ineffectual missions, which introduced our holy religion among the Pagans of Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Norway, and to observe the other circumstances which, in conjunction with their pious perseverance, finally established it there. mighty success we may consider to have been obtained before the middle of the eleventh century: not, perhaps, that the faith of Christ was universally embraced by the lowest classes, still less was it thoroughly comprehended or practised; but it had gained such deep and general footing, as to secure its final and perfect triumph.

This

We shall concisely mention some of the leading circumstances by which this great event was accomplished. Heriold, King of

Denmark, an exile and a suppliant at the court of Lewis Denmark and the Meek, was there prevailed upon to adopt the Christian Sweden. religion. But as this conversion did not seem calculated to facilitate his restoration to his throne, Lewis presented him with an estate in Friesland, for which he departed. He was accompanied to that retreat by a monk of Corbie, named Anscaire or Ansgarius, a young and fearless enthusiast, ardent for the toils of a missionary and the glory of a martyr. His first exertions were made in Denmark; presently afterwards (in 830) he advanced into Sweden; and such promise of success attended him, that Lewis determined to establish an Archiepiscopal See at Hamburgh, as the centre of future operations. Gregory IV. gave his consent, and bestowed the pallium, together with the dignity of Pontifical Legate, upon Ansgarius. Thus exalted and strengthened, he persevered in his enterprise, encouraging the exertions of others, and not sparing his own. And whatsoever degree of credit* we may find it possible to attach to the stories of supernatural assistance, continually vouchsafed both to him and his ministers, we may be assured that the character, with which he was occasionally invested, of Ambassador from the Emperor of the West, together with the fame of his private sanctity, gave additional efficacy to his religious labours. The account of Anscaire's successful expedition into Sweden (in the year 854), as it is transmitted to us from early days, contains much that is curious, and nothing that is improbable. When the Bishop arrived at the capital, he communicated to the King, Olef or most celebrated. His corrected Treatise on the Ecclesiastical Offices' was published, under the auspices of Lewis, in the year 831; and it is highly valued by Roman Catholic writers as proving the very high antiquity of the greater part of the services of their Church. Fleury gives a short account of this work in l. xlvii., s. 36.

*After relating some extraordinary prodigies (1. xlix., s. 19), Fleury observes-' These 'miracles deserve belief, if ever there were any which did so, since they are related in the Life of St. Anscaire by Rembert, his disciple and successor; and if we are permitted to assert, that there is any occasion on which God might be expected to perform miracles it is doubtless in support of his infant Churches,'-a religious and pious observation, to which we give our full assent. But the work of Rembert is lost, and our only accounts of Ansgarius are derived from the ancient chronicles.-See Baronius, Ann, 858, s. 14, 15, &c.; and Fleury, 1. xlix., s. 21, and 1. lv., s. 19.