THE DECLINE AND FALL
308
CHAP.
LXIX.
the triumph of the priest or the happiness of thepeople/
In the beginning of the eleventh century, Italy was exposed to the feudal tyranny, alike oppres-sive to the sovereign and the people. The rightsof human nature were vindicated by her numer-ous republics, who soon extended their libertyand dominion from the city to the adjacentcountry. The sword of the nobles was broken;their slaves were enfranchised; their castles weredemolished; they assumed the habits of societyand obedience; their ambition was confined tomunicipal honours, and in the proudest aristo-cracy of Venice or Genoa, each patrician wassubject to the laws/ But the feeble and dis-orderly government of Rome was unequal to thetask of curbing her rebellious sons, who scorn-ed the authority of the magistrate within andwithout the walls. It was no longer a civil con-tention between the nobles and plebeians for thegovernment of the state; the barons asserted in'arms their personal independence; their palacesand castles were fortified against a siege; andtheir private quarrels were maintained by thenumbers of their vassals and retainers. In ori-gin and affection, they were aliens to their coun-
1 The subject is exhausted by M. Cbais, a French minister at theHague , in his Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques, sur les Jubiles etlei Indulgences ; la Haye, 1751, 3 vols. in 12mo.; an elaborate andpleasing work, had not the author preferred the character of. a pole-mic to that of a philosopher.
1 Muratori (Dissert, xlvii) alleges the Annals of Florence, Padua,Genoa, &c. the analogy of the rest, the evidence of Otho of Frisingen(de Gest. Fred. 1, 1. ii, c. 13), and the submission of the marquis ofEste.