them, it has been rather by Protestant than Catholic writers, and in connection with the family of the Borgias the name of Roscoe may serve to put some Catholic writers to shame. For ourselves we are proud to follow in this noble work-humbly and at a distance--in the footsteps of some of the finest geniuses, who, in Germany or in France, have dedicated themselves to the elucidation of these most painfully interesting periods in the history of the Papacy. We will not tamely yield up the characters of some of the ablest pontiffs who ever sat on the Chair of St. Peter to obloquy and infamy, and foul traditions of calumny. And at the era of the establishment of a Catholic university we think it may be well to direct the attention of the great minds to whom its studies of history may be entrusted, to a theme, in our conception, worthy of the noblest efforts of Catholic intellect.

It surely must soon strike any but very superficial students of history, that those pontiffs who have been most assailed by calumny have been those who were engaged in the most violent struggles with secular princes: sometimes in their exercise of the spiritual supremacy of the Holy See; sometimes in defence of those territories which constituted its patrimony. It is chiefly in contests of the latter class that the so-called "bad popes were engaged; and although some of those who are represented as proud were those who had to contend for their supremacy-those who are stigmatized as depraved were involved in struggles for their sovereignty. And it is the root and essence of the whole system to consider that the Popes were from the earliest periods-from the age of Constantine and Valentinian, princes as well as pontiffs, with rights of temporal property and secular sovereignty.

It is necessary to cast our eyes on the origin of that state of society in Italy which existed during the days of the Pontiffs to whom we principally refer. Its origin is to be traced to the fall of the Roman Empire. We will cite no partial authority. Guizot tells us that "everything was cast into barbarism," and that the Church "was forced to defend herself on all sides, for she was continually threatened." He adds, in words to which we call attention-" Each bishop and priest saw his barbarous neighbours incessantly interfering with the affairs of the Church, to usurp her riches, lands, and power. "On the death of Charlemagne," he proceeds, chaos commenced: all unity dis

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appeared, and the desire for independence and the habits of feudal life severed the ties of the ecclesiastical authority. Elsewhere he describes the feudal spirit-" the nobility regarded themselves as not only independent of the Church, but as superior to it-as alone called upon to progress, and really govern the country." He goes on to say, at the commencement of the fourteenth century the Church was upon the defensive." He notices that the boroughs in Italy were more precocious and powerful than anywhere else. With the inconsistency which can always be detected in your "enlightened" writers, i. e. writers so" enlightened" as to hate the Church, he tells his readers in one page that the "theocratic system of the Church failed, and gave place to that attempt at democratical organization of which the Italian republics were the type, and which from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries played so brilliant a part in Europe,' taking care to add that "the emancipation of the European lay society really dates" from that era, and in almost the very next page, describing these republics he says, "in the political system of the greater part of the republics liberty continually diminished." The want of security," he says, was such," that the factions were inevi tably forced to seek refuge in a system less tempestuous, though less popular, than that with which the state had commenced." "Take the history of Florence, Venice, Genoa, Milan, Pisa; you will everywhere see that the general course of events, instead of developing liberty, and enlarging the circle of institutions, tended to contract it, and to concentre the power within the hands of a small body of men. In a word, in these republics, so energetic, brilliant, and wealthy, two things were wanting, security of life, (the first condition of a social state) and the progress of institutions." So that the only result of the destruction of the power of the Church was to destroy security for liberty, and prevent the progress of free institutions; and yet we are gravely told that "from that event dates the real emancipation of Europe." And to crown the inconsistency, the learned writer elsewhere laboriously proves that the system of the Christian Church was the source of real popular liberty! Such are your "enlightened" writers! On such a state of society as he describes the Popes of the twelfth, thirteenth, and

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fourteenth centuries were cast, and also among writers such as he. He remarks, as the reason for the superiority of the Italian towns, (that is, in point of power) that the "fief holders," in other words the nobles, settled in the cities. "Barbarian nobles became burghers." We may add, what indeed follows from what he states, that the noble burghers were barbarians. There were never more barbarous ruffians to be a curse to any country than these Italian bandits, as we shall see in the sequel.

It is at the basis of the whole question whether the Popes or their opponents were strictly in the right as respects those struggles for territorial possessions, which form the chief scandal of the age of Sixtus and Juliusthe age more immediately preceding the Reformation. This is not as the question of mere temporal power, one of difficulty, it is a simple question of property, a dry matterof-fact. The point is, who were the lawful owners of the territories in Italy, which, before or during the schism of the Papacy, had been lost to the Church, and which, after the return of the Popes, were reclaimed by a succession of energetic pontiffs, as belonging to the patrimony of St. Peter? Of course, to a Puritan, who professes to hold that there ought to be no Papacy, and no ecclesiastical endowment at all, this can be no question; or it will be a knot he will soon cut with the sword of confiscation; exactly as it was cut in those very days by rapacious princes, who preferred possessing themselves of the lands of the Papacy rather than permit her purity to be imperilled by the possession. But to a Catholic, or even a Protestant, who defends a Church Establishment, and admits that a Prelate or Pontiff may, as such, have property, the primary question must be, whose were these territories of Italy? Now, we reply, they were the Pope's. So early as the time of Pepin, we find that the Pope was endowed with territories comprising, not only Romagna, but Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Sinagaglia, Forli, and many other places. The origin, moreover," says Dollinger, of the states of the Church sprang from the necessities of the times." The gift of Pepin, therefore, was without doubt in conformity with the wish of those who were included in it, and the real sovereignty of the Popes was already so widely extended through the territories above named that the gift is named by many contem

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porary historians as an act of restitution." The seven cities of the "Pentapolis" pertained to the Papacy, including Bologna, Imola, and Ancona. And Charlemagne confirmed the gift of his father, and added several provinces in the north and centre of Italy, comprising the dukedoms of Spoleto and Benevento, and some portion of Tuscany. There is strong reason to believe that the whole of Tuscany was originally part of St. Peter's patrimony it is mentioned as such by historians; down to the thirteenth centuries we read of vicars of Tuscany. And in 1278, Pope Nicholas III., who received solemn confirmation from the Emperor of the territories above-mentioned, exercised sovereign jurisdiction over Tuscany, the vicariate of which was resigned to him. And the real truth of the matter as regards the contests in which the Popes, during the two succeeding centuries were involved, for the defence or recovery of their territories is this,that the "vicars" who had been appointed to rule those territories on behalf of the Papacy, rebelled against the Holy See-usurped a power which they cruelly abused; and by the dreadful atrocities they perpetrated upon the poor people who were the subjects of the Holy See, made it as much a sacred duty as a right upon its part to seek to put down such usurpations, and recover their lost dominion.

Very early in the history of the Papacy we perceive the existence and the influence, and we will add, the motive malice of calumny. Take the instance of John XII. He, with the concurrence of the bishops and barons of Italy, seeks the aid of Otho, who swore that he would preserve uninjured the possessions and rights of the Roman See, and that he would protect the Pontiff and not intrude upon his sovereignty of Rome. Upon the faith of this oath he received from the Pontiff the imperial crown, which commenced the connection between the German and Italian States. This was the most solemn recognition of the title of the Pontiff, and it was accompanied by as solemn a confirmation of his right to Tuscany, Sicily, Romagna, Spoleto, Benevento, and the rest of the patrimony of St. Peter. Soon after obtaining imperial power, however,

Otho proved faithless to his oath, and instead of protecting the possessions of the Papacy, acted in an opposite spirit, and with a view to self-aggrandizement. The Protestant writers of the "Universal History" tell us that "Otho claimed the sovereign power in Rome," in direct violation of his oath, and with utter neglect of the Pope, whereupon the Pontiff made an alliance with the view of expelling him from Italy. Then it is we find (we quote these writers) "Otho sent some of his faithful attendants to Rome, to enquire into the behaviour of John." One is forcibly reminded here of the commission issued by our Henry VIII. to one of his faithful attendants, "to enquire into the behaviour of the monks and nuns." The enquiries of such "faithful attendants" of princes are never fruitless. Otho's emissaries brought him back word that the Pope led a scandalous life; they were positively scandalized"he really was a bad pope. Of course he was-because he would not let the Emperor Otho do as he pleased with what did not belong to him. And now, all of a sudden (just like our Henry VIII. again in the matter of his marriage with Katherine) the emperor_conceived scruples as to the validity of the election of the Pontiff, precisely as, a century or so after, his successor, Henry IV. chose to conceive, or pretended he conceived, scruples as to the election of Gregory VII. And in the one case, as in the other, the poor pope was accused of simony. And under imperial influence a schismatical council presumed to assemble to depose him; the council being held, under the personal auspices of the Emperor, under terror of his troops, for he marched his army to Rome-drove the Pontiff away-and then impudently interpreted his absence as an evidence of conscious guilt upon a catalogue of monstrous charges coined against him, concluding with one about drinking the devil's health! Of the atrocity of these charges there is sufficient proof, in the simple fact that the moment Otho and his army withdrew, the Romans brought back their Pope, and reinstalled him. And this is the first strong instance of the class of calumniated Pontiffs called "bad popes." What is here narrated of John XII. will be admitted to apply to Gregory VII., and in our opinion it applies equally to Alexander VI.

Now, we grieve to say that Dollinger states the story of John XII., really as if all the calumnies against him were