upon to adopt. By this code, the conscience of man, with its simple teachings and unerring warnings was superseded. It was no longer permitted to act its part, by accusing the sinner of his crimes; no longer to be the approving witness of righteous dealing. The gospel, also, with its morality and divine spirituality was set aside; while some of the obsolete canons of judaism, with the false and arbitrary glossings of ill-informed men, were substituted in its stead.

Such were the means employed by the Romish church during this epoch-the reigns of Robert and Henry-to raise its authority; but the ends they had in view were an intermixture of good and evil: good, inasmuch as they made use of their power to relieve the people from the oppression of the nobles, and evil, because they substituted mental for bodily slavery.

The first use the popes made of this power was, to command that all men should lay down their arms; and in 1035 was proclaimed what was called, "The Peace of God," threatening with excommunication all who should violate so sacred a law. But the passions of men were too violent, and their ambition too great, to be thus uprooted. This law multiplied perjuries, without diminishing cruelties. Five years later, therefore, another law, known as "The Truce of God," was substituted, by which some check was put to the unceasing warfare of the nobles, and some respite and security procured for the unfortunate peasant. The councils by which this law was proclaimed, did not attempt to check the career of human passion, but rather to direct its course, by subjecting war to the laws of honour and

N

humanity. From Wednesday at sunset till sunrise on Monday, it was ordained, that all strife should cease. Feast days were included amongst those devoted to peace, and so, also, were the long intervals of fast and penitence which occur in the Romish church. The persons of all professing a religious life were rendered sacred; and all implements of husbandry were placed under the protection of the truce. These laws were enforced under pain of excommunication; and for a time they proved effective, in restraining the violence of the nobles. The law failed, however, in perpetuating peace: but it seems to have left behind it some principles of national or military law. The soldier, in after ages, was taught by it, to blend humanity with courage, and generosity with daring; and it accustomed men to observe some rules of justice, even in hours and acts of outrage; it was, indeed, from this law that chivalry derived its maxims.

These were the principal occurrences of Henry's reign. At length, about A.D. 1059, his infirmities warning him of his mortality, he associated his son Philip, by Anne, a princess of Russia, with him on the throne, thereby securing his succession. He died, A.D. 1060, after a reign of twentynine years.

PHILIP I.

Philip 1. was eight years of age when he began to reign. During his minority he was placed. under the guardianship of Baldwin, count of Flanders, who honourably and successfully fulfilled his charge. The minority of Philip was marked by an important event; namely, the con

quest of England by William, duke of Normandy, A.D. 1066. With this exception, there is scarcely an event in the thirty-five years of the reign of Philip that demands attention.

It may be mentioned, however, that whilst the Normans were laying the foundation of their sway in England, the famous Hildebrand, who had been raised to the popedom under the title of Gregory VIII., was active in establishing the papal supremacy. By his haughty genius and indomitable spirit, he triumphed alike over emperors, monarchs, and nobles. He withdrew the nomination of the popes from the imperial influence, by the establishment of a college of cardinals, especially charged with the election of pontiffs. He renewed the bull, also, which condemned the marriage of priests, and that which forbade them to receive fiefs from temporal princes. These decrees were communicated to the sovereigns of Europe by Gregory himself, in letters that denote consummate abilities. His monstrous claims for the universal supremacy of the Church, and of the Romish See, are proposed in a tone of humility and candour well calculated to win the unthinking and unwary, his dictations assume the form of affectionate suggestions, and his remonstrances resemble those of a tender and affectionate father to his children. Nor were words the only weapons which Hildebrand used. He obliged the Normans to quit their conquests in Campania; proposed a crusade against the Saracens, who were menacing Constantinople; and offered a province in Italy to Sweno, king of Denmark, under pretence that the inhabitants were heretics.

The king of France knew how to temporise

with, and yield to, Hildebrand; but his contemporary, Henry IV., emperor of Germany, by his contumacy, drew down his vengeance upon his head. In the course of the struggle between the emperor and the pontiff, the pontiff issued a series of papal constitutions, in which the claims of the Roman pontiff to supremacy over all the sovereigns of the earth were asserted in the plainest terms. The most important of these were :— 1. That the Roman pontiff alone can be called Universal.

2. That he only can depose bishops.

3. That his legates have a right to preside over all bishops assembled in general council.

4. That he can depose absent prelates.

5. That he only has a right to use imperial

ornaments.

6. That princes are bound to kiss his feet, and his alone.

7. That he has a right to depose emperors. 8. That no synod summoned without his commission can be called general.

9. That no book can be called canonical without his authority.

10. That his sentence cannot be annulled, but that he may annul the decrees of all.

11. That the Romish Church has been, is, and will continue infallible.

12. That whoever dissents from it ceases to be a Catholic Christian.

13. That subjects may be absolved from their allegiance to wicked princes.

Such is the genius of popery; and the success which attended these impious and extravagant pretensions is not less astonishing than the ambi

tion which devised them. Every state in Europe freely acknowledged, or was eventually compelled to acknowledge, his sway. His cruelty to the emperor of Germany, however, disgusted the crowned heads of Europe, and excited the indignation of the partisans of the empire, by whose means Gregory was exiled. But the edifice which he had reared survived him, and was consolidated by his The crusades which he had contemplated, and the first of which took place under the pontificate of Urban 11., contributed powerfully to this end.

successors.

Pilgrimages had been long sanctioned by the Church of Rome. They were, indeed, the natural consequences of the worship of saints and relics, and of the notion that bodily privations and voluntary perils would propitiate the Almighty on behalf of the sinner. Hence they formed the favourite and universal medicine of the guilty conscience, the Church of Rome not having yet broached the doctrine that the payment of money to it was sufficient to purchase a plenary indulgence. These pilgrimages were generally made to celebrated shrines near at hand; but the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem eclipsed all others in honour and fancied efficacy. Thither at this epoch it was customary to resort in great numbers. Thus in 1054 Lithbert, bishop of Cambray, led 3,000 Flemish pilgrims to the Holy Land; and some years after double that number performed the same voyage from the Palatinate and the banks of the Rhine. These were unarmed, and the sufferings they endured were unheard of and unequalled in the annals of feudal violence. The recital of them by the pilgrims who escaped provoked the