for a long period been gradually swollen, so as to spread themselves in every direction over the surface of Europe. The law in question was well calculated to check their further increase, and it seems to have been the first that was enacted for that purpose. Its obvious tendency did not escape the directors of the Church; but the opposition which it had peculiarly to expect from the Holy See was suspended by the death of Adrian and the confusion which followed it.

Alexander III.

Alexander III. was immediately elected by a very large majority of the cardinals; but as some of the other party still persisted in supporting a rival named Octavian*, Frederic, on his own authority, summoned a General Council at Pavia to decide on their claims. Alexander disputed the Emperor's right to arbitrate or at all to interfere in the schisms of the Church † ; and, as he refused to present himself at the Council, his rival was declared to be duly elected, and the decision received the approbation of the Emperor. But Alexander was still sustained by the more faithful and powerful party within the Church, and acknowledged by most of the sovereigns of Europe; and from these supports he derived confidence sufficient to excommunicate his adversary, and to absolve his subjects from their oath of fidelity. But Frederic did not feel the blow; he proceeded to place his creature in possession of the pontifical city, while Alexander adopted the resolution, so commonly followed by his successors in after ages, to seek security in the territories of France. He withdrew to Montpelier with his whole court, and resided in that neighbourhood for the space of three years, till circumstances enabled him to return to Rome in 1165. Here he was soon afterwards assailed by Frederic in person, and though defended for some little time by the ambiguous and venal fidelity of the Romans, he was finally obliged to escape in the disguise of a pilgrim. He retired to Benevento, but not till he had thundered another anathema against Frederic; and on this occasion he not only deprived him of the throne, but also forbade, by the authority of God, that he should thereafter have any force in battle, or triumph over any Christian; or that he should enjoy anywhere peace or repose, until he had given sufficient proofs of his penitence. §' The denunciations contained in this frightful sentence were not, indeed, wholly accomplished; yet did it so come to pass, that Frederic was obliged to retire almost immediately from Rome by the sickness of his army; and that, in the long and destructive war which followed, he suffered such reverses as to find it expedient (in the year 1177) to sign a disadvantageous treaty with the Pope. The war

*After the death of Octavian, Alexander had still to struggle successively with three other Antipopes. The second, called by his adherents Calixtus III., was appointed in 1168, and abdicated in about ten years; but his party replaced him by another puppet, whom they called Innocent III.

Frederic had two precedents for his claim, though he might not perhaps much regard, or even know, that circumstance. In 408 Honorius held a Council at Ravenna to decide the disputed election between Boniface and Eulalius, and his decision was followed by the Church. Afterwards the schism between Symmachus and Laurentius was terminated by Theodoric, though an Arian. The imperial power does not appear to have been disputed in either instance.

It appears that he could secure little influence over the Roman people, 'who, pretending to wish well to both parties, were faithful to neither,' until he received a large sum of money from William, his Sicilian vassal. Fleury, H. E., liv. lxxi., sec. 34, &c. &c. § See Pagi, Vit.Alexandri III., sect. 66, who reasonably assigns this event to the year 1167. Alexander is accused, and with some justice, of having too exclusively consulted his own interests in this affair, and of having negociated a truce only for his faithful allies,

was for the most part carried on in the North of Italy; and as it was fomented by the address and policy, rather than by the sword, of Alexander, the calm expression of his exultation was in some manner justified— it hath pleased God (he said) to permit an old man and a priest to triumph without the use of arms over a powerful and formidable emperor*.'

From that time Alexander possessed in security the chair which he had merited by his persevering exertions, as well as by his various virtues. He immediately turned his attention to the internal condition of the Church, and his first object was to remove from his successors an evil which had so long and so dangerously afflicted himself. Accordingly he summoned (in 1179) a Council, commonly called the third of Lateran, and there enacted those final regulations † respecting papal election which have already been mentioned.

Among the very few characters which throw an honourable lustre upon the dark procession of pontifical names, we may confidently record that of Alexander III., not only from the splendour of his talents, his constancy, and his success, but from a still nobler claim which he possesses on our admiration. He was the zealous champion of intellectual advancement, and the determined foe of ignorance. The system of his internal administration was regulated by this principle, and he carried it to the most generous extent. He made inquiries in foreign countries, and especially in France, for persons eminent for learning, that he might promote them, without regard to birth or influence, to the highest ecclesiastical dignities. He caused large numbers of the Italian Clergy, to whom their own country did not supply sufficient means of instruction, to proceed to Paris for their more liberal education; and having learnt that in some places the chapters of cathedrals exacted fees from young proficients before they licensed them to lecture publicly, Alexander removed the abuse, and abolished every restriction which had been arbitrarily imposed on the free advance of learning. At the same time he was not so blinded by this zeal as to consider the mere exercise of the understanding as a sufficient guarantee for moral improvement. But observing, on the contrary, with great apprehension the progress of the scholastic system of theology, and the numberless vain disputations to which it gave rise, he assembled a very large Council of Men of Letters for the purpose of condemning that system, and discouraging its prevalence at Paris.

He died in 1181: in the course of the ten following years four pontiffs ruled and passed away, and in 1191 the chair was occupied by Celestine III., the fifth from Alexander. This prelate has deserved a place in the history of mankind by the protection which he afforded to Richard I. of England, when imprisoned on his return from the Holy Land. He died in 1198, and was succeeded by Lotharius, Count of Segni, a Cardinal Deacon, who assumed the name of Innocent III.

while he secured an honourable and profitable peace for himself. Denina (Rivol. d' Ital. L. xi. C. iv.) calls it a Pace particolare fra Alessandro III. è Federico.'

*Muratori, in his forty-eighth dissertation, describes Frederic as 'Vir alti animi, acris ingenii, multarumque virtutum consensu ornatus.'

These regulations were so effectual, that during the 600 following years, a double choice (as Gibbon observes) only once disturbed the unity of the College. Chap. 69.

Three thousand gens de lettres are said to have been assembled on that occasion. Hist. Litt. de la France, xii. siècle.

We shall conclude this account with a few of the observations which most naturally offer themselves. From the moment that the Roman See put for ward its claims to temporal authority, its history presents a spectacle of contentions, varying indeed in character and in bitterness, but in their succession almost uninterrupted. The retrospect of the period of one hundred and fifteen years, of which the most memorable circumstances have now been related, presents to us a mass of angry dissensions, which may generally be distinguished into three classes: (1) The first and most prominent of these contains such quarrels as arose in continuation of the grand debate between the popedom and the empire. It was not sufficient that the original matter of dispute was removed by the concordat of Calixtus; the roots of animosity lay deeper than the form of an investiture, and they had branched out more widely and more vigorously during the contest which ucceeded that concordat. The coronation of every new emperor was now attended by a new dispute, which usually caused immediate bloodshed, and was sometimes prolonged into obstinate warfare. Rome had never a more formidable German adversary than Frederic Barbarossa ; yet so far was he from obtaining any lasting advantage over her, that the papal pretensions appear to have gained considerably both in consistency and general credit during his reign, or, to speak more properly, during the pontificate of Alexander III. Frederic was not justified in contesting the legitimacy of that pontiff. Whatsoever general rights he might possess over the Roman church (and they were very vague and could only be temporal); whatsoever precedents he might plead for interference (and those were very remote, and not wholly applicable to the present case); the election of Alexander was unquestionably valid, according to the canons which had been enacted a century before and never repealed or contested, and according to the practice of the See since the days of Gregory VII. Assuredly, the desire to recover an obsolete privilege, virtually ceded by the silence of intervening treaties, was excuse insufficient for that violent opposition, which did properly terminate in defeat and humiliation, as it was commenced and continued in injustice. (2.) The contentions among the rival candidates for the pontifical chair, so scandalous and so usual in former periods, had abated nothing of their rage in the present; for though they changed their character, they lost not any part of their virulence, from the intermixture of political animosity. The short reigns of the greater number of the pontiffs, and the most trifling divisions in the college, gave frequent occasion, and some pretext, for popular interference; and this could never be exercised without excess. The regulation of Nicholas II. was not in fact of much real advantage, except as a preparatory measure to that of Alexander III.,-for it was vain to exclude from positive election an unprincipled and venal mob, as long as they retained a negative influence, it was of no avail, as a final arrangement, to forbid their suffrage, and to require their consent,-for the turbulent expression of their disapprobation was instantly seized by the defeated candidate, as furnishing some hope for success, or, at least, some plea for perseverance. And perhaps it was not the least evil of those tumults, that they encouraged and almost invited the interference of the emperor, so seldom offered with any friendly intention. There was no other possible method of securing at once the justice and decency of papal election, than by the entire exclusion of the people-this measure was at length effected by Alexander. (3.) Of another description again were those dissensions which distracted the several kingdoms of Europe

by the internal division of the church and the state,—that is, by the opposition of the ecclesiastical to the civil authorities. But since in these matters the affairs of every nation constitute histories, essentially distinct from each other, and mainly influenced, in every instance, by civil concerns; and since the detached incidents which we might produce would form independent narratives, standing for the most part on separate foundations, it would be difficult, in these limited pages, to give them consistency, or even coherence. We must, therefore, content ourselves with referring to the annals of the different nations for the details of such disputes; to those of France, for instance, for the quarrel between Louis le Gros and the Bishop of Paris, who had the boldness to excommunicate his sovereign; and to those of our own country for the particulars of the aggression of William Rufus on the property of the church, made during the pontificate of Urban II., and of the protection perseveringly vouchsafed to Thomas à Becket by the piety or policy of Alexander III.

To those abovementioned we might reasonably add another form of discord which was beginning obscurely to present itself, with omens and menaces of tribulation. The voice of heresy had been already raised in the valleys of France, and the ministers of spiritual despotism had already bestirred themselves for its suppression. But this subject is so peculiarly connected with the celebrity of Innocent III., that we shall not disconnect it from his name.

Education and theological learning.

II. The gradual establishment of the peculiar doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome, though occasionally influenced by the vicissitudes of literature, is not inseparably connected with its history, but was promoted in different ages by very different causes. It is indeed remarked, that in the tenth century the disputes respecting predestination and other subtile questions became less common, and gave place to the final establishment of the doctrine of Purgatory,-a change well suited to the transition from an age (the ninth), distinguished by some efforts of intellectual inquisitiveness, into one remarkable for the general prostration of the human understanding. But, on the other hand, we find that, in the eleventh and twelfth ages, the necessity of secret confession was more strictly and assiduously inculcated; yet the firmer rivetting of that spiritual chain cannot certainly be attributed to any further access of darkness. In fact, the contrary was the case, since the partial revival of letters is very justly ascribed to that period. But the innovation which we have last mentioned, and to which others might be added, was probably occasioned by the disputes then prevailing between the church and the empire, which made it necessary to extend by every exertion the influence of the clergy over their lay fellow-subjects. Again, the use of indulgences in the place of canonical penance, which grew up in the twelfth age, was one of the earliest and most pernicious creations of the crusades, and wholly independent of the growth and movements of literature. But notwithstanding these and many other points of disconnection, there has ever existed a sort of general correspondence between religion and learning, most especially remarkable in those ages when the ministers of the one could alone give access to the mysteries of the other, and when the only incentive to studious application was religious zeal or ecclesiastical ambition; so that it would be as improper entirely to separate those subjects as it would be impossible, in these pages, to enter very deeply into discussion concerning the ecclesiastical literature of so many ages. We shall

therefore content ourselves by striving from time to time to illustrate this work by such subsidiary lights as shall most obviously present themselves, so far at least as regards the different forms of theological learning, and the methods of theological education. At present, after a very brief review of earlier times, we shall conclude our imperfect inquiries at the end of the eleventh century.

Early Schools.

The earliest schools established in the provinces of the Western Empire were of civil foundation, and intended entirely for the purposes of civil education; and so they continued until the social system was subverted by the barbarian conquest. This revolution affected the literary in common with all other institutions in the course of the sixth century profane learning entirely disappeared, together with the means of acquiring it; and before its conclusion, the office of instruction had passed entirely into the hands of the clergy. The municipal schools of the empire gave place to cathedral or episcopal establishments, which were attached, in every diocese, to the residence of the bishop; and throughout the country elementary schools were formed in many of the monasteries, and even in the manses of the parochial priesthood.

The system of education which prevailed in those of Italy, and which was probably very general, is described by the canon* which enjoins it :Let all presbyters who are appointed to parishes, according to the custom so wholesomely established throughout all Italy, receive the younger readers into their houses with them, and feeding them, like good fathers, with spiritual nourishment, labour to instruct them in preparing the Psalms, in industry of holy reading, and in the law of the Lord.' Such regulations prove, no doubt (if they were really enforced), that the education of the clergy was not entirely neglected: but they prove also, that such education, even in that early age, was confined to the clergy, and that it embraced no subjects of secular erudition. It is true, indeed, that the names of rhetoric, dialectics, and the former subjects of civil instruction, were perpetuated in the ecclesiastical seminaries; but those sciences were only taught, as they were connected, or might be brought into connexion, with theology, and made instrumental in the service of the church t.

But even this partial glimmering of knowledge was extinguished by the invasion of the Lombards, and the very genius of Italy seems to have been chilled and contracted by the iron grasp of the seventh century. Rome alone retained any warmth or pulsation of learning; if learning that can be called, which scarcely extended beyond a superficial acquaintance with the canons of the church. And though there exist some monuments, which appear to prove the existence of presbyteral or archipresbyteral schools in the eighth century, we need scarcely hesitate to prolong to the middle of that age the stupefaction of the preceding, and to attribute the first movement of reanimation to the touch of Charlemagne, or his immediate predecessor.

Concilium Vasense Secundum (529 A.D.) The materials for the following pages are principally taken from the Dissertations (43 and 44) of Muratori, the Hist. Litt. de la France, two Discourses of Fleury, and the 16th Leçon of Guizot.

✦ The reproach addressed by Gregory the Great to St. Dizier, Bishop of Vienne, is commonly known. That prelate had ventured to deliver lessons on Grammar' in his cathedral schools: It is not meet (said the pope) that lips consecrated to the praises of God should open to those of Jupiter.' The extensive meaning then attached to the word grammar will be mentioned presently.

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