attempt to convert the Saxons, after having || Christianity in 785, and to promise an adhersubdued them, was unsuccessful, because it ence to that divine religion for the rest of their was made, without the aid of violence or days.* To prevent, however, the Saxons from threats, by the bishops and monks, whom the renouncing a religion which they had embrac victor had left among that conquered people, ed with reluctance, many bishops were apwhose obstinate attachment to idolatry no ar- pointed to reside among them, schools also guments or exhortations could overcome. More were erected, and monasteries founded, that forcible means were afterwards used to draw the means of instruction might not be wanting. them into the pale of the church, in the wars | The same precautions were employed among which Charlemagne carried on, in the years the Huns in Pannonia, to maintain in the pro775, 776, and 780, against that valiant people, fession of Christianity that fierce people whom whose love of liberty was excessive, and whose Charlemagne had converted to the faith, when, aversion to every species of sacerdotal authori- exhausted and dejected by various defeats, they ty was inexpressible.* During these wars, were no longer able to make head against his their attachment to the superstition of their victorious arms, and chose rather to be Chrisancestors was so warmly combated by the al- tians than slaves.† lurements of reward, by the terror of punishment, and by the imperious language of victory, that they suffered themselves to be bap-magne had performed in the service of Christised, though with inward reluctance, by the missionaries whom the emperor sent among them for that purpose.† Fierce seditions, indeed, were soon after renewed, and fomented by Witekind and Albion, two of the most valiant among the Saxon chiefs, who attempted to abolish the Christian worship by the same violent methods which had contributed to its establishment. But the courage and liberality of Charlemagne, alternately employed to suppress this new rebellion, engaged these chiefs to make a public and solemn profession of

VII. Succeeding generations, filled with a grateful sense of the exploits which Charle

tianity, canonised his memory, and turned this bloody warrior into an eminent saint. In the twelfth century, Frederic I. emperor of the Romans, ordered Paschal II. whom he had raised to the pontificate, to enroll the name of this mighty conqueror among the tutelary saints of the church; and indeed Charlemagne merited this honour, according to the opinions which prevailed in that dark period; for, to have enriched the clergy with large and magnificent donations,§ and to have extended the boundaries of the church, no matter by what methods, were then considered as the highest merits, and as sufficient pretensions to the honour of saintship; but, in the esteem of those who judge of the nature and characters of sanctity by the decisions of the Gospel upon that head, the sainted emperor will appear to have been utterly unworthy of that dignity; for, not to enter into a particular detail of his vices, the number of which counterbalanced that of his virtues, it is undeniably evident, that his ardent and ill-conducted zeal for the conversion of the Huns, Friselanders, and Sax

*It will be proper here to transcribe, from the epistles of the famous Alcuin, once abbot of Canterbury, a remarkable passage, which will show us the reasons that contributed principally to give the Saxons an aversion to Christianity, and at the same time will expose the absurd and preposterous manner of teaching used by the ecclesiastics who were sent to convert them. This passage in the 104th epistle, and the 1647th page of his works, is as follows: "Si tanta instantia leve Christi jugum et onus ejus leve durissimo Saxonum populo prædicarentur, quanta decimarum redditi vel legalis pro parvissimis quibuslibet culpis edictis necessitas exigebatur, forte baptismatis sacramenta non abhorrerent. Sint tandem aliquando doctores fidei apostolicis eruditi exemplis: sint prædicatores, non prædatores." Here the reader may see a live-ons, was more animated by the suggestions of ly picture of the kind of apostles that flourished at this time: apostles who were more zealous in exacting tithes, and extending their authority, than in propagating the sublime truths and precepts of the Gospel; and yet these very apostles are said to have wrought stupendous miracles. Alcuinus apud Gul. Malmesbur. de Gestis Regum Anglorum, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 23, inter Rer. Anglic. Script. edit. Francof. 1601. In this work we find the following passage, which proves what we have said with respect to the unworthy methods that were used in converting the Saxons. "Antiqui Saxones et omnes Fresonum populi, instante rege Carolo, alios præmiis et alios minis solici tante, ad fidem Christi conversi sunt." See also two passages in the Capitularia Regum Francor. tom. i. p. 246 and 252. From the first we learn, that those Saxons who abandoned the pagan superstitions were "restored to the liberty they had forfeited by the fate of arms, and freed from the obligation of paying tribute;" and, in the second, we find the following severe law, that "every Saxonvert the barbarous nations, have lost, in our who contemptuously refused to receive the sacrament of times, the credit they obtained in former ages baptism, and persisted in his adherence to Paganism, was to be punished with death." While such rewards and punishments were employed in the cause of religion, there was no occasion for miracles to advance its progress;

for these motives were sufficient to draw all mankind to an hypocritical and external profession of the Gospel; but it is easy to imagine what sort of Christians the Saxons must have been, who were dragooned into the church in this abominable manner. Compare, with the authors mentioned in this note, Launoius, de veteri More baptizandi Judæos et Infideles, cap. v. vi. p. 703, tom. ii. op. part ii. This author assures us, that Adrian, the first Roman pontiff of that name, honoured with his approbation Charlemagne's method of converting the Saxons.

ambition, than by a principle of true piety; and that his main view, in these religious exploits, was to subdue the converted nations under his dominion, and to tame them to his yoke, which they supported with impatience, and shook off by frequent revolts. It is, moreover, well known, that this boasted saint made no scruple of seeking the alliance of the infidel Saracens, that he might be more effectually enabled to crush the Greeks, notwithstanding their profession of the Christian religion.||

VIII. The many and stupendous miracles which are said to have been wrought by the Christian missionaries, who were sent to con

Eginhartus, de Vita Caroli M.-Adam Bremensis, lib. i. cap. viii. See also the writers of the history and exploits of Charlemagne, enumerated by Jo. Alb. Fabricius, in his Bibliotheca Latina medii Evi, tom. i. p. 950.

Vita S. Rudberti in Henric. Canisii Lectionibus antiquis, tom. iii. part ii. p. 340.-Pauli Debreceni Historia Ecclesiæ Reformat. in Hungar. et Transylvania, a Lampio edita, cap. ii. p. 10.

Henr. Canisii Lect. tom. iii. par. 11. p. 207.-Walchii Dissert. de Caroli Magni Canonizatione. § Vid. Caroli Testamentum in Steph. Baluzii Capitularibus Regum Francor. tom. i. p. 487. I See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, tom. ix. cap. ii. p. 40

casus, overspread Colchis, Iberia, and Albania, rushed into Armenia, and, after having subdued the Saracens, turned their victorious arms against the Greeks, whom, in process of time, they reduced under their dominion.

*

The corrupt discipline that then prevailed, admitted those fallacious stratagems, which are very improperly called pious frauds; nor did the heralds of the Gospel think it at all unlawful to terrify or allure to the profession of Christianity, by fictitious prodigies, those obdu- II. In 714, the Saracens crossed the sea rate hearts, which they could not subdue by which separates Spain from Africa, dispersed reason and argument. It is not, however, to the army of Roderic king of the Spanish be supposed, that all those, who acquired re- Goths, whose defeat was principally occasionnown by their miracles, were chargeable with ed by the treachery of their general Julian, this fanatical species of artifice and fraud; for and made themselves masters of the greatest as, on one hand, those ignorant and supersti- part of the territories of this vanquished prince. tious nations were disposed to look upon, as At that time the empire of the Visigoths, which miraculous, every event which had an unusual || had subsisted in Spain above three hundred aspect, so, on the other, the Christian doctors| years, was totally overturned by these fierce themselves were so uninstructed and superfi- and savage invaders, who also took possession cial, so little acquainted with the powers of nature, and the relations and connexions of things in their ordinary course, that uncommon events, however natural, were considered by them as miraculous interpositions of the Most High. This will appear obvious to such as read, without superstition or partiality, the Acts of the Saints who flourished in this and the following centuries.

CHAPTER II.

Concerning the calamitous Events that happened

to the Church during this Century.

of all the maritime parts of Gaul, from the Pyrenean mountains to the river Rhone, whence they made frequent excursions, and ravaged the neighbouring countries with fire and sword.

The rapid progress of these bold invaders was, indeed, checked by Charles Martel, who gained a signal victory over them in a bloody action near Poictiers, in 732. But the vanquished spoilers soon recovered their strength and their ferocity, and returned with new vioCharlemagne to lead a formidable army into lence to their devastations. This engaged Spain, in the hope of delivering that whole country from the oppressive yoke of the Saracens: but this grand enterprise, though it did not entirely miscarry, was not attended with the signal success that was expected from it.t

1. THE eastern empire had now fallen from its former strength and grandeur through the repeated shocks of dreadful revolutions, and the consuming power of intestine calamities. The throne was now become the seat of terror, in- The inroads of this warlike people were felt quietude, and suspicion; nor was any reign at- by several of the western provinces, beside tended with an uninterrupted tranquillity. In those of France and Spain. Several parts of this century three emperors were dethroned, Italy suffered from their incursions; the island loaded with ignominy, and sent into banish- of Sardinia was reduced under their yoke; and ment. Under Leo the Isaurian, and his son Sicily was ravaged and oppressed by them in Constantine, surnamed Copronymus, arose that the most inhuman manner. Hence the Chrisfatal controversy about the worship of images, tian religion in Spain and Sardinia suffered in which proved a source of innumerable calami-expressibly under these violent usurpers. ties and troubles, and weakened, almost incredibly, the force of the empire. These troubles and dissensions left the Saracens at liberty to ravage the provinces of Asia and Africa, to oppress the Greeks in the most barbarous manner, and to extend their territories and dominion on all sides, as also to oppose every where the progress of Christianity, and, in some places, even to extirpate it. But the troubles of the empire, and the calamities of the church, did not end here: for, about the middle of this century, they were assailed by new enemies, still more fierce and inhuman than those whose usurpations they had hitherto suffered. These were the Turks, a tribe of the Tartars, or at least their descendants, who, breaking forth from the inaccessible wilds about mount Cau

In Germany, and the adjacent countries, the Christians were assailed by another sort of enemies; for all such as adhered to the pagan superstitions beheld them with the most inveterate hatred, and persecuted them with the most unrelenting violence and fury.§ Hence, in several places, castles and various fortifications were erected to restrain the incursions of these barbarian zealots.

* Jo. Mariana, Rerum Hispanicarum Hist. lib. vi. cap. Jo. de Ferreras, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. p. 425. xxi.-Renaudot, Historia Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 253.

+ Paulus Diaconus, de Gestis Longobard. lib. vi. cap. xlvi. liii.—Mariana, lib. vii. cap. iii.—Bayle's Dictionary, at the article Abderamus. Ferreras, tom. ii. p. 463. torie, tom. ii. p. 392.-Ferreras, tom. ii. p. 506. Henr. de Bunau, Teutsche Keyser-und-Reichs-His§ Servati Lupi Vita Wigberti, p. 304.

THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

abandoned the continent, and fixed their resifore, of the Latin writers, who were distindence in Britain and Ireland.* Those, thereguished by their learning and genius, were all (a few French and Italians excepted) either Britons or Hibernians, such as Alcuin, Bede, Egbert, Clemens, Dungallus, Acca, and others. Charlemagne, whose political talents were embellished by a considerable degree of learning, and an ardent zeal for the culture of the sciences, endeavoured to dispel the profound ignorance that reigned in his dominions; in which excellent undertaking he was animated and directed by the counsels of Alcuin. With this view he drew, first from Italy, and after

I. AMONG the Greeks of this age were some men of genius and talents, who might have contributed to prevent the total decline of literature; but their zeal was damped by the tumults and desolations that reigned in the empire; and while both church and state were menaced with approaching ruin, the learned were left destitute of that protection which gives both vigour and success to the culture of the arts and sciences. Hence few or none of the Greeks were famous, either for elegance of diction, true wit, copious erudition, or a zeal-wards from Britain and Ireland, by his liberalious attachment to the study of philosophy, and the investigation of truth. Frigid homilies, insipid narrations of the exploits of pretended saints, vain and subtile disputes about inessential and trivial subjects, vehement and bombastic declamations for or against the erection and worship of images, and histories composed without method or judgment, were the monuments of Grecian learning in this miserable age.

ty, eminent men, who had distinguished themselves in the various branches of literature; and excited the several orders of the clergy and monks, by various encouragements, and the nobility, and others of eminent rank, by his own example, to the pursuit of knowledge in all its branches, human and divine.

IV. In the prosecution of this noble design, the greatest part of the bishops erected, by the express order of the emperor, cathedral schools II. It must, however, be observed, that the|| (so called from their contiguity to the princiAristotelian philosophy was taught every where pal church in each diocese,) in which the in the public schools, and was propagated in youth, set apart for the service of Christ, reall places with considerable success. The doc-ceived a learned and religious education. trine of Plato had lost all its credit in the schools, after the repeated sentences of condemnation that had been passed upon the opinions of Origen, and the troubles which the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies had excited in the church; so that Platonism now was almost confined to the solitary retreats of the monastic orders. Of all the writers in this century, who contributed to the illustration and progress of the Aristotelian philosophy, the most eminent was John Damascenus, who composed a concise, yet comprehensive view of the doctrines of the Stagirite, for the instruction of the more ignorant, and in a manner adapted to common capacities. This little work excited numbers, both in Greece and Syria, to the study of that philosophy, whose proselytes increased daily. The Nestorians and Jacobites were also extremely diligent in the study of Aristotle's writings; and from this repository they armed themselves with sophisms and quibbles, which they employed against the Greeks in the controversy concerning the nature and person of Christ,

III. The literary history of the Latins exhibits innumerable instances of the grossest ignorance, which will not, however, appear surprising to such as consider, with attention, the state of Europe in this century. If we except some poor remains of learning, which were yet to be found at Rome, and in certain cities of Italy, the sciences seemed to have

Those abbots also, who had any zeal for the cause of Christianity, opened schools in their monasteries, in which the more learned of the fraternity instructed such as were designed for the monastic state, or the sacerdotal order, in the Latin language, and other branches of learning, suitable to their future destination. It was formerly believed that the university of Paris was erected by Charlemagne; but this opinion is rejected by such as have studied, with impartiality, the history of this age, though it is undeniably evident, that this great prince had the honour of laying, in some measure, the foundation of that noble institution, and that the beginnings from which it arose may be ascribed to him. However this question be decided, it is certain, that the zeal of this emperor, for the propagation and advancement of letters, was very great, and manifested its ardour by a considerable number of excellent establishments; nor among others must we pass with silence the famous Palatine school, which he erected with a view to banish ignorance from his court, and in which the princes of the blood, and the children of the nobility, were educated by the most learned and illustrious masters of the times.

* Jac. Usserius, Præf. ad Syllogen Epistolarum Hiber nicarum.

The reasons that have been used, to prove Charlemagne the founder of the university of Paris, are accu rately collected by Du Boulay, Historia Academiæ Paris. tom. i. p. 91. But they have been refuted by the follow* See Steph. Baluz. Observat. ad Reginonem Prumien-ing learned men in a victorious manner, víz. Mabillon, sem, p. 540.

Act. Sanct. Ord. Benedict. tom. v. Præf. sect. 181, 182.

† Lud. Ant. Muratori, Antiq. Italicæ medii Evi, tom. Launoy. Claud. Joly, de Scholis.

jii.

P. 811.

Boulay, tom. i. p. 281.-Mabillon, sect 179.

V. These establishments were not, however, attended with the desired success; nor was the improvement of the youth, in learning and virtue, at all proportioned to the pains that were taken, and the bounty that was bestowed to procure them a liberal education. This, indeed, will not appear surprising, when we consider, that the most learned and renowned masters of these times were men of very little genius and abilities, and that their system of erudition and philosophy was nothing more than a lean and ghastly skeleton, equally unfit for ornament and use. The whole circle of science was composed of, what they called, the seven liberal arts, viz. grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy; the three former of which they distinguished by the title of trivium, and the four latter by that of quadrivium. Nothing can be conceived more wretchedly barbarous than the manner in which these sciences were taught, as we may easily perceive from Alcuin's treatise concerning them, and from the dissertations of St. Augustin on the same subject, which were in the highest repute at this time. In the greatest part of the schools, the public teachers ventured no farther than the trivium, and confined their instructions to grammar, rhetoric, and logic: they, however, who, after passing the trivium and also the quadrivium, 'were desirous of rising yet higher in their literary pursuits, were exhorted to apply themselves to the study of Cassiodore and Boethius, as if the progress of human knowledge had been bounded by the discoveries of those two learned writers.

CHAPTER II.

Concerning the Doctors and Ministers of the Church, and its Form of Government during this Century.

their luxury, their gluttony, and their lust; they gave themselves up to dissipations of various kinds, to the pleasures of hunting, and, what seemed still more remote from their sacred character, to military studies* and enterprises. They had also so far extinguished every principle of fear and shame, that they became incorrigible; nor could the various laws enacted against their vices by Carloman, Pepin, and Charlemagne, at all contribute to set bounds to their licentiousness, or to bring about their reformation.

II. It is, indeed, amazing, that, notwithstanding the shocking nature of such vices, especially in a set of men whose profession required them to display to the world the attractive lustre of virtuous example; and notwithstanding the perpetual troubles and complaints which these vices occasioned; the clergy were still thought worthy of the highest veneration, and honoured, as a sort of deities, by the submissive multitude. This veneration for the bishops and clergy, and the influence and authority it gave them over the people, were, indeed, carried much higher in the west than in the eastern provinces; and the reasons of this difference will appear manifest to such as consider the customs and manners that prevailed among the barbarous nations, which were, at this time, masters of Europe, before their conversion to Christianity. All these nations, during their continuance under the darkness of paganism, were absolutely enslaved to their priests, without whose counsel and authority they transacted nothing of the least importance, either in civil or military affairs. On their conversion to Christianity, they, therefore, thought proper to transfer, to the ministers of their new religion, the rights and privileges of their former priests: and the Christian bishops, in their turn, were not only ready to

*

Steph. Baluzius, ad Reginon. Prumiensem, p. 563.I. THAT corruption of manners, which dis-Wilkins' Concilia Magne Britanniæ, tom. i. p. 90. honoured the clergy in the former century, in- Steph. Baluz. Capitular. Regum Francor. tom. i. p. creased, instead of diminishing, in this, and dis-189, 208, 275, 493, &c. Julius Cæsar, de bello Gallico, lib. vi. cap. 13. "Drucovered itself under the most odious charac-ides magno sunt apud eos honore: nam fere de omnibus ters, both in the eastern and western provinces. controversiis, publicis privatisque, constituunt; et, si quod In the east there arose the most violent dissen- est admissum facinus, si cædes facta, si de hæreditate, si de finibus controversia est, iidem decernunt, præmia sions and quarrels among the bishops and doc-poenasque constituunt: si quis aut privatus aut publicus tors of the church, who, forgetting the duties eorum decreto non stetit, sacrificiis interdicunt.-Druides of their stations, and the cause of Christ in a bello abesse consueverunt, neque tributa una cum reliquis pendunt: militiæ vacationem, omniumque rerum hich they were engaged, threw the state into habent immunitatem. Tantis excitati præmiis, et sua combustion by their outrageous clamours and sponte multi in disciplinam conveniunt, et a parentibus their scandalous divisions, and even went so propinquisque mittuntur." Tacitus (de Mor. Germanofar as to stain their hands with the blood of rum, cap. 7.) expresses also the power and authority of the priests or Druids in the following terms: "Neque their brethren, who differed from them in opin- enim animadvertere, neque vincire, neque verberare quiion. In the western world, Christianity was dem, nisi sacerdotibus permissum, non quasi in pœnam, not less disgraced by the lives and actions of nec ducis jussu, sed velut Deo imperante;" and again, those who pretended to be the luminaries of jus est, imperatur." Helmoldus (Chron. Selavorum, lib. ii." Silentium per sacerdotes, quibus et tum coercendi the church, and who ought to have been so ini. cap. xxxvi.) expresses himself to the same purpose. reality, by exhibiting examples of piety and "Major flaminis quam regis, apud ipsos, veneratio est;" virtue to their flock. The clergy abandoned mationis est comparatione flamints; ille enim responsa perand again, lib. ii. cap. xii. "Rex apud eos modicæ æstithemselves to their passions without modera- quirit;--rex et populus ad illius nutum pendent." This tion or restraint: they were distinguished by ancient custom of honouring their priests, and submitting in all things to their decisions, was still preserved by the *Herm. Conringii Antiquitat. Academicæ, Diss. iii. p. Germans, and the other European nations, after their 80.-Jac. Thomasii Programmata, p. 368.-Observat. conversion to Christianity; and this furnishes a satisfacHalens. tom. vi. Obs. xiv. p. 118. tory answer to the question, how it came to pass that the Alcuini Opera, par. ii. p. 1245, edit. Quercetant. It Christian priesthood obtained in the west that enormous is, however, to be observed, that the treatise of Alcuin, degree of authority, which is so contrary to the positive here referred to, is not only imperfect, but is almost en-precepts of Christ, and the nature and genius of his ditirely transcribed from Cassiodore.

cap.

vine religion.

superstitious veneration for the clergy, by investing bishops, churches, and monasteries, with princely possessions. Those who, by their holy profession, were appointed to proclaim to the world the vanity of human grandeur, and to inspire the minds of men, by their instructions and their example, with a noble contempt of sublunary things, became themselves scandalous spectacles of worldly pomp, ambition, and splendour; were created dukes, counts, and marquises, judges, legislators, and sovereigns; and not only gave laws to nations, but also, upon many occasions, gave battle to their ene mies at the head of numerous armies of their own raising. It is here that we are to look for the source of those dreadful tumults and calamities that spread desolation through Europe in after-times, particularly of those bloody wars concerning investitures, and those obstinate contentions and disputes about the regalia.

accept the offer, but used all their diligence and dexterity to secure and assert, to themselves and their successors, the dominion and authority which the ministers of paganism had usurped over an ignorant and brutish people. III. The honours and privileges, which the western nations had voluntarily conferred upon the bishops and other doctors of the church, were now augmented with new and immense accessions of opulence and authority. The endowments of the church and monasteries, and the revenues of the bishops, were hitherto considerable; but in this century a new and ingenious method was found out of acquiring much greater riches to the church, and of increasing its wealth through succeeding ages. An opinion prevailed universally at this time, though its authors are not known, that the punishment which the righteous judge of the world has reserved for the transgressions of the wicked, was to be prevented and annulled by liberal donations to Nod, to the saints, to the churches and clergy. In consequence of this notion, the great and opulent, who were, generally speak-ropean churches (to which those donations and ing, the most remarkable for their flagitious and abominable lives, offered, out of the abundance which they had received by inheritance or acquired by rapine, rich donations to departed saints, their ministers upon earth, and the keepers of the temples that were erected to their honour, in order to avoid the sufferings and penalties annexed by the priests to transgression in this life, and to escape the misery denounced against the wicked in a future state. This new and commodious method of making atonement for iniquity, was the principal source of those immense treasures, which, from this period, began to flow in upon the clergy, the churches, and monasteries, and continued to enrich them through succeeding ages down to the present time.

V. The excessive donations that were made to the clergy, and the extravagant liberality that augmented daily the treasures of the Euthis liberality were totally confined) began in this century; nor do we find any examples of the like munificence in preceding times. Hence we may conclude, that these donations were owing to customs peculiar to the European nations, and to the maxims of policy which were established among those warlike people. The kings of these nations, who were employed either in usurpation or self-defence, endeavour ed, by all means, to attach warmly to their interests those whom they considered as their friends and clients; and, for this purpose, they distributed among them extensive territories, cities, and fortresses, with the various rights and privileges belonging to them, reserving to themselves only the supreme dominion, and the military service of their powerful vassals. IV. But here it is highly worthy of observa- This then being the method of governing custion, that the donations which princes and per- tomary in Europe, it was esteemed by princes sons of the first rank presented, in order to a high instance of political prudence to distrimake expiation for their sins, and to satisfy the bute among the bishops, and other Christian justice of Nod and the demands of the clergy, doctors, the same sort of donations that they did not merely consist of those private posses- had formerly made to their generals and clisions, which every citizen may enjoy, and with ents; for it is not to be believed, that superstiwhich the churches and convents were already tion alone was always the principle that drew abundantly enriched; for these donations were forth their liberality. They expected greater carried to a much more extravagant length, fidelity and loyalty from a set of men who were and the church was endowed with several of || bound by the obligations of religion, and conthose public grants, which are peculiar to secrated to the service of Nod, than from a princes and sovereign states, and which are body of nobility, composed of fierce and impecommonly called regalia, or royal domains. tuous warriors, and accustomed to little else Emperors, kings, and princes, signalised their but bloodshed and rapine; and they hoped also to check the seditious and turbulent spirits of their vassals, and maintain them in their obedience, by the influence and authority of the bishops, whose commands were highly respected, and whose spiritual thunderbolts, rendered formidable by ignorance, struck terror into the boldest and most resolute hearts.*

*The temporal penalties here mentioned were rigorous fasts, bodily pains and mortifications, long and frequent prayers, pilgrimages to the tombs of saints and martyrs, and the like austerities. These were the penalties which the priests imposed upon such as had confessed their crimes; and, as they were singularly grievous to those who had led voluptuous lives, and were desirous of continuing in the same course of licentious pleasure, effeminacy, and ease, the richer sort of transgressors embraced eagerly this new method of expiation, and willingly gave a part of their substance to avoid such severe and rigorous penalties.

Hence, by a known form of speech, they who offered donations to the church or clergy were said to do this for the redemption of their souls; and the gifts themselves were generally called the price of transgression. See Lud. Ant. Muratori Diss. de Redemptione Peccatorum, In his Antiquitates Italicæ medii Ævi, tom. v. p. 712.

VOL. I.-25

*The account here given of the rise of the clergy to such enormous degrees of opulence and authority, is corrobated by the following remarkable passage of William of Malmesbury (lib. v. de Rebus gestis Regum Angliæ.) "Carolus Magnus, pro contundenda gentium illarum ferocia, omnes pene terras ecclesiis contulerat, consiliosissime perpendens, nolle sacri ordinis homines, tam facile quam laicos, fidelitatem Domini rejicere: præterea, si