298

THE DECLINE AND FALL

chap, tutions, the Romans were excluded from the

_election of their prince and bishop; and in the

fever of wild and precarious liberty, they seemedinsensible of the loss of this inestimable privi-a.». 1328. lege. The emperor Lewis of Bavaria revivedthe example of the great Otho. After some ne-gotiation with the magistrates, the Roman peo-ple was assembled 11 in the square before St.Peter’s; the pope of Avignon , John the twenty-second, was deposed; the choice of his succes-sor was ratified by their consent and applause.They freely voted for anew law, that their bi-shop should never be absent more than threemonths in the year, and two days journey fromthe city; and that if he neglected to return onthe third summons, the public servant should bedegraded and dismissed.' But Lewis forgot hisown debility and the prejudices of the times:beyond the precincts of a German camp, his use-less phantom was rejected; the Romans de-spised their own workmanship; the antipopeimplored the mercy of his lawful sovereign ; fand the exclusive right of the cardinals w ; as

a Rechiesti per bando (says John Villani) sanatori di Roma, e 62del popolo, et capitani de’ 25 e consoli ( consolit ), et 13 buone huomini,lino per rione. Our knowledge is too imperfect to pronounce howmuch of this constitution was temporary, and how much ordinaryand permanent. Yet it is faintly illustrated by the ancient statutesof Rome .

e Villani (1. x, c. 68*71 in Muratori, Script, tom. xiii, p. G41-645)relates this law, and the whole transaction, with much less abhorrencethan the prudent Muratori. Any one conversant with the darker agesmust have observed bow much the sense (I mean the nonsense) of superstition is fluctuating and inconsistent.

f In the first volume of the Popes of Avignon , see the second origi-nal Life of John XXII, p. 142-145, the confession of the antipope,p. 145-152, and the laborious notes of Baluze, p. 714, 715-