XLIX.

the darker ages the fable' of a female pope. CHAP. The bastard son, the grandson and the great grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the second of these became the head of the Latin church. His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otho the great. As John XII had renounced the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be dishonoured by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his basphemous invocation of Jupiter and Vedescription to whom it was known. On those of the ixth and xth centu ries, the recent event would have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have spared such a reproach? Could Liutprand have missed such scandal? It is scarcely worth while to discuss the various reading of Martinus Polonus, Sigebert of Gemblours, or even Marianus Scotus; but a most palpable forgery is the passage of Pope Joan, which has been foisted into some MSS. and editions of the Roman Anastasius.

As false, it deserves that name; but I would not pronounce it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our own times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church, instead of the army; her merit or fortune might have raised her to St. Peter's chair; her amours would have been natural; her delivery in the streets unJucky, but not improbable.

Till the reformation, the tale was repeated and believed without offence; and Joan's female statue long occupied her place among the popes in the cathedral of Sienna, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii, p. 624-626). She has been annihilated by two learned protestants, Blondel and Bayle, (Dictionaire Critique, PAPESSE, POLONUS, BLONDEL); but their brethren were scandalized by this equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and Lenfant attempt to save this poor engine of controversy; and even Mosheim condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion, (p. 289).

XLIX.

CHAP. nus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor. The protestants have dwelt with malicious pleasure on these characters of anti-christ; but to a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less danReforma- gerous than their virtues. After a long series of scandal, the apostolic see was reformed and the church exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gregory VII. That ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution of two projects. I. To fix in the college of cardinals the freedom and independence of election, and for ever to abolish the right or usurpation of the emperors and the Roman people. II. To bestow and resume the western empire as a fief or benefice' of the church, and to extend his temporal dominion over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. After a contest of fifty years, the first of these designs was accom

tion and

claims of

A. D.

1073, &c.

s Lateranense palatium

prostibulum meretricum . . Testis omnium gentium, præterquam Romanorum, absentia mulierum, quæ sanctorum apostolorum limina orandi gratiâ timent visere, cum nonnullas ante dies paucos, hunc audierint conjugatas viduas, virgines vi oppressisse, (Liutprand, Hist. 1. vi, c. 6, p. 471. See the whole affair of John XII, p. 471-476).

* A new example of the mischief of equivocation is the the beneficium (Ducange, tom. i, p. 617, &c.) which the pope conferred on the emperor Frederic I, since the Latin word may signify either a legal fief, or a simple favour, an obligation, (we want the word bienfaits. See Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. iii, p. 393 408; Pfeffel, Abregé Chronologique, tom. i, p. 229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500, 505, 509, &c.).

XLIX.

plished by the firm support of the ecclesiastical CHAP. order, whose liberty was connected with that of their chief. But the second attempt, though it was crowned with some partial and apparent success, has been vigorously resisted by the secular power, and finally extinguished by the improvement of human reason.

of the em

perors in

Rome.

In the revival of the empire of Rome, neither Authority the bishop nor the people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho, the provinces which were lost, as they had been won, by the chance of arms. But the Romans were free to choose a master for themselves: and the powers which had been delegated to the patrician, were irrevocably granted to the French and Saxon emperors of the West. The broken records of the times" preserve some remembrance of their palace, their mint, their tribunal, their edicts, and the sword of justice, which, as late as the thirteenth century, was derived from Cæsar to the prefect of the city. Between the arts of the popes and the violence of the people, this supremacy was crushed and annihilated. Content with the titles of emperor and Augustus, the successors of Charlemagne neglected to assert this local jurisdiction. In the hour of prosperity, their ambition was diverted by more alluring objects; and in the decay and division of the empire,

"For the history of the emperors, in Rome and Italy, see Sigonius, de Regno Italiæ, Opp. tom. ii, with the Notes of Saxius, and the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more distinctly to the authors of his great collection.

* See the Dissertation of Le Blanc at the end of his Treatise des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some Roman coins of the French emperors

CHAP. they were oppressed by the defence of their heXLIX. reditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy,

Alberic,

Revolt of the famous Marozia invited one of the usurpers A. D. 932. to assume the character of her third husband, and Hugh, king of Burgundy, was introduced by her faction into the mole of Hadrian or castle of St. Angelo, which commands the principal bridge and entrance of Rome. Her son by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to attend at the nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful service was chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive of a revolution. "Romans," exclaimed the youth, once you were the mas"ters of the world, and these Burgundians the "most abject of your slaves. They now reign, "these voracious and brutal savages, and my

66

injury is the commencement of your servi"tude." The alarum-bell was rung to arms in every quarter of the city; the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame; Marozia was imprisoned by her victorious son; and his brother, Pope John XI, was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual functions. With the title of prince, Alberic possessed above twenty years the government of Rome, and he is said to have gratified the popular prejudice, by restoring the office, or at least the title, of consuls and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian as

y Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones, Romanis imperent? . . . Romanæ urbis dignitas ad tantam est stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat? (Liutprand, 1. ÿïì, c. 12, p. 450). Sigonius (1. vi, p. 400) positively affirms the renovation of the consulship; but in the old writers Albrecius is more frequently styled princeps Romanorum.

XLIX.

John XII,

A. D. 967.

sumed with the pontificate, the name of John CHAP. XII: like his predecessor he was provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a delivery for the church and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with the imperial dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans were impatient, the festival of the coronation was disturbed by the secret conflict of prerogative and freedom, and Otho commanded his swordbearer not to stir from his person, lest he should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of the altar. Before he repassed the Alps, of Pope the emperor chastised the revolt of the people and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was degraded in a synod; the prefect was mounted on an ass, whipped through the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty were hanged, others were mutilated or banished; and this severe process was justified by the ancient laws of Theodosius and Justinian. The voice of fame has accused the second Otho of a perfidious and bloody act, the massacre of the senators, whom he had invited to his table under the fair semblance of hospitality and friendship. In the minority of his son Otho III, Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic.

2 Ditmar, p. 354, apud Schmidt, tom iii, p. 439.

This bloody feast is described in Leonine verse in the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom. vii, p. 436, 437), who flourished towards the end of the xiith century, (Fabricius. Bibliot. Latin, med, et infimi Evi, tom. iii, p. 69, edit. Mansi); but his evidence, which im posed n Sigonius, is reasonably suspected by Muratori, (Annalii, tom. viii, p. 177)