OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
201
Since the primitive times, the wealth of thepopes was exposed to envy, their power to op-position, and their persons to violence. But thelong hostility of the mitre and the crown in-creased the numbers, and inflamed the passions,of their enemies. The deadly factions of theGuelphs and Ghibelines, so fatal to Italy , couldnever be embraced with truth or constancy bythe Romans, the subjects and adversaries bothof the bishop and emperor; but their supportwas solicited by both parties; and they alter-nately displayed in their banners the keys of St.Peter and the German eagle. Gregory the se-venth, who may be adored or detested as thefounder of the papal monarchy, was driven fromRome , and died in exile at Salerno. Six-and-thirty of his successors, m till their retreat toAvignon , maintained an unequal contest withthe Romans: their age and dignity were oftenviolated; and the churches, in the solemn ritesof religion, were polluted with sedition and mur-der. A repetition” of such capricious brutality,
given us, from Fitz-Stephen, a singular act of cruelty perpetrated onthe clergy by Geoffrey, the father of Henry II . “ When he was mas-“ ter of Normandy , the chapter of Seez presumed, without his consent,“ to proceed to the election of a bishop: upon which lie ordered all of“ them, with the bishop eltct, to be castrated, and made all their testi-“ cles be brought him in a platter.” Of the pain and danger theymight justly complain ; yet, since they had vowed chastity, he deprivedthem of a superfluous treasure.
m from Geo IX. and Gregory VII , an authentic and contemporaryseries of the lives of the popes by the cardinal of Arragon, PandulphnsPisanus, Bernard Guido, &c. is inserted in the Italian Historians ofMuratori (tom iii, p. i, p. 277-685), and has been always beforemy eyes
• The dates of years in the margin may throughout this chapter beunderstood as tacit references to the Annals of Muratori, my ordinary
CHAP.
LXIX.