OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

257

man be disgraced by submitting to a priest, chap.whose feet were kissed, and whose stirrup was LXIX -held by the successors of Charlemagne / Even * ""

the temporal interest of the city should haveprotected in peace and honour the residence ofthe popes; from whence a vain and lazy peoplederived the greatest part of their subsistence andriches. The fixed revenue of the popes was pro- benefit*,bably impaired: many of the old patrimonialestates, both in Italy and the provinces, had beeninvaded by sacrilegious hands; nor could theloss be compensated by the claim, rather than thepossession, of the more ample gifts of Pepin andhis descendants. But the Vatican and capitolwere nourished by the incessant and increasingswarms of pilgrims and suppliants; the pale ofChristianity was enlarged, and the pope and car-dinals were overwhelmed by the judgment ofecclesiastical and secular causes. A new juris-prudence had established in the Latin churchthe right and practice of appeals; 8 and, from thenorth and west, the bishops and abbots wereinvited or summoned to solicit, to complain, toaccuse, or to justify, before the threshold of the

r See Ducange, Gloss, mediae et infimaj Latinitat. tom. vi, p. 3G4,

3G5. Staffa . This homage was paid by kings to archbishops, andoy vassals to their lords (Schmidt, tom. iii, p. 202) • and it was thenicest policy of Rome to confound the marks of filial and of feudalsubjection.

8 The appeals from all the churches to the Homan pontiff are de-plored by the zeal of St. Bernard (de Consideratione, ). iii, tom ii, p.

431-442, edit. Mabillon, Yenef. 17o0) ami the judgment of Fleury(Discours sur 1’Hist. Keclesiasiique, iv and vii). But the saint) whobelieved in the false decretals, condemns only the abuse of these ap-peals; the more enlightened historian investigates the origin, and re-jects the principles, of this new juiisprudt nee.

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