WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 351

The industry and perseverance are surprising, chap.with which the popes had been treasuring up pow- iv.ers and pretensions during so many ages of igno- i°7<s.ranee ; while each pontiff employed every fraud bouTinvef-for advancing purposes of imaginary piety , and titures.cherished all claims which might turn to theadvantage of his successors, though he himselfcould not expect ever to reap any benefit fromthem. All this immense store of spiritual andcivil authority was now devolved on Gregory Vis.of the name of Hildebrand, the most enterprisingpontiff that had ever filled that chair, and theleast restrained bv fear , decency, or moderation.

Not content with shaking off the yoke of theemperors , who had hitherto exercised the powerof appointing the pope on every vacancy, atleast of ratifying his election ; he undertook thearduous talk of entirely disjoining the ecclesiasticalfrom the civil power, and of excluding profanelaymen from the right which they had assumed,of filling the vacancies of bishoprics, abbies,and other spiritual dignities 7I . The sovereigns, whohad long exercised this power, and who had ac-quired it, not by encroachments on the church, buton the people, to whom it originally belonged 7 *,made great opposition to this claim of the courtof Rome; and Henry IV. the reigning emperordefended this prerogative of his crown witha vigor and resolution suitable to its importance.

7! L’Abbe Lone. torn. 10. p. 371, 372. com. 2.

Padre Paolo sopra i benef, eccles. p. 30.

T*