LXIX. A. D. 1144. 1145. A. D. 1181 1185. These examples might suffice; but I cannot forget CHAP. the sufferings of two pontiffs of the same age, the second and third of the name of Lucius. The Lucius II. 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 Lucius III. wounded in the persons 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 to 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 Calistus to prohibit the use of private arms in the metro- A D. polis. 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 11. 1119 II24. Innocent II. A. D 1130 1143 CHAP. of his wit and zeal, has stigmatized the vices of the rebellious people *. "Who is ignorant,' LXIX. of the Romans by St Bernard. 66 says the Character monk of Clairvaux, " of the vanity and arrogance "of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition, "cruel, untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to resist. When they pro"mise to serve, they aspire to reign; if they swear "allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet they vent their discontent in loud clamours, 66 <if if your doors, or your counsels, are shut against "them. Dextrous in mischief, they have never "learned the science of doing good. Odious to "earth and heaven, impious to God, seditious 66 66 among themselves, jealous of their neighbours, "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 appre"hension. They will not submit; they know how "to govern; faithless to their superiors, intolerable "to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, "and alike imprudent 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 coloured by the pencil of Christian charity; yet the features, however harsh and ugly, Quid tam notum seculis quam protervia et cervicositas Romanorum? Gens insueta paci, tumultui assueta, gens immitis et intractabilis usque adhuc, subdi nescia, nisi cum non valet resistere, (de Considerat. 1. iv. c. 2. p. 441.). The saint takes breath, and then begins again: Hi, invisi terræ et cœlo, utrique injecere manus, &c. p. 443.). As a Roman citizen, Petrarch takes leave to observe, that Bernard, though a saint, was a man; that he might be provoked ugly, express a lively resemblance of the Romans CHAP. of the twelfth century *. 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 t. The trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold of Brescia †, whose promotion in the church was confined to the lowest rank, and who wore provoked by resentment, and possibly repent of his hasty passion, &c. (Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. P. 330.). * Baronius, in his index to the 12th volume of his Annals, has found a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of Romani Catholici, and Shismatici; to the former, he applies all the good, to the latter all the evil, that is told of the city. The heresies of the 12th century may be found in Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 419-427.), who entertains a favourable opinion of Arnold of Brescia. In the roth volume, I have described the sect of the Paulicians, and followed their migration from Armenia to Thrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France. The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are drawn by Otho bishop of Frisingen (Chron. 1. vii. c. 31. de Gestis Frederici I. 1. i. c. 27. l. ii. c. 21.), and in 1. iii. of the Ligurinus, a poem of Gunther, who flourished A. D. 12co, in the monastery of Paris, near Basil, (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. med. et infimæ ætatis, tom. iii. p. 174. 175.). The long passage" that relates to Arnold, is produced by Guiliman, (de Rebus Helveticis, l. iii. c. 5. p. 108.). LXIX. Political heresy of Brescia, 1142. LXIX. أ wore the monastic habit rather as a garb of poverty than as an 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 *, 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 hu mility of his repentance. From his 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 entrusted to the civil magistrate; that temporal honours 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 labours. During * The wicked wit of Bayle was amused in composing, with much levity and learning, the articles of ABE'LARD, FOULQUES, HELOISE, in his Dictionnaire Critique. The dispute of Abelard and St Bernard, of scholastic and positive divinity, is well understood by Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 412 LXIX. During a short time, the preacher was revered CHAP. as a patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of Brescia against her bishop, was the first-fruits of his dangerous lessons. But the favour 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 *, 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 †, 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. In an age less ripe for reformation, VOL. XII. Τ Damnatus ab illo Præsule, qui numeros vetitum contingere nostros the We may applaud the dexterity and correctness of Ligurinus, who turns the unpoetical name of Innocent II. into a compliment. A Roman inscription of Statio Turicensis has been found at Zurich, (d'Anvilie, Notice de l'ancienne Gaule, p. 642— 644.); but it is without sufficient warrant, that the city and canton have usurped, and even monopolized the names of Tigurum and Pagus Tigurinus. Guilliman (de Rebus Helveticis, 1. iii. c. 5. p. 106.) recapitulates the donation (A. D. 833.) of the Emperor Lewis the Pious to his daughter the abbess Hildegardis. Curtim nostram Turegum in ducatu Alamanniæ in pago Durgaugensi, with villages, woods, meadows, waters, slaves, churches, &c. a noble gift. Charles the Bold gave the jus monetæ, the city was walled under Otho I. and the line of the bishop of Frisingen, Nobile Turegum multarum copiâ rerum, is repeated with pleasure by the antiquaries of Zurich. |