exercise the charity of a priest.* The influence of two sister prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues; the most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre; and their reignt may have suggested to the darker agest the fables of a female pope.T The bastard son,** the grandson, and the great grandson,

* The oppression and vices of the Roman church in the tenth century are strongly painted in the history and legation of Liutprand (see p. 440. 450. 471–476. 479, &c.); and it is whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the invectives of Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been chosen, not by the cardinals, but by lay-patrons. The time of pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is placed somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two years of her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV. and Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links the death of Leo and the elevation of Benedict (illico, mox, p. 247): and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and Leibnitz, fixes both events in the year 857. The advocates for

pope Joan produce one hundred and fifty witnesses, or rather echoes, of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. They bear testimony against themselves and the legend, by multiplying the proot that so curious a story must have been repeated by writers of every description to whom it was known. On those of the ninth and tenth centuries, the recent event would have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have spared such a reproach? Could Liutprand have missed such scandal? It is scarcely worth while to discuss the various readings of Martinus Polonus, Sigebert of Gemblours, or even Marianus Scots; but a most palpable forgery is the passage of pope Joan, which has been foisted into some MSS. and editions of the Roman Anastasius. § As false, it deserves that name; but I would not pronounce it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our own times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church, instead of the army: her merit or fortune might have raised her to St. Peter's chair; her amours would have been natural; her delivery in the streets unlucky, but not improbable. [Gibbon here alludes to the Chevalier D'Eon, whose sex at that period was so much a matter of doubt as to cause him to be deprived of a public office, which he had held for many years in France. After his death in England, all doubts as to his sex were removed by medical examination.-ED.]

Till the Reformation, the tale was repeated and believed without offence; and Joan's female statue long occupied her place among the popes in the cathedral of Sienna. (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 624-626.) She has been annihilated by two learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayle (Dictionnaire Critique, PAPESSE, POLONUS, BLONDEL); but their brethren were scandalized by this equitable and generous criticisın. Spanheim and Lenfant attempt to save this poor engine of controversy; and even Mosheim condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion (p. 289). ** [Muratori confesses the "vita disonesta" of

of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the second of these became the head of the Latin church. His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otho the great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be dishonoured by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.* The Protestants have dwelt with malicious pleasure on these characters of antichrist; but to a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues. After a long series of scandal, the apostolic see was reformed and exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gregory VII. That ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution of two projects. I. To fix in the college of cardinals the freedom and independence of election, and for ever to abolish the right or usurpation of the emperors and the Roman people. II. To bestow and resume the Western empire as a fief or beneficet of the church, and to extend his temporal dominion Maria or Marozia; but contends that John XI. was her legitimate son by her husband Alberico, marquis of Camerino, and discredits the "slander of Liutprand," who asserted that this pontiff was the offspring of her adultery with pope Sergius III. Cardinal Baronius, however, believed these "calumniators," and called John XI. "pseudopontifex." (Annali d'Italia. xii. 273. 277. 380.)—ED.]

Testis

* Lateranense palatium prostibulum meretricum . . . omnium gentium, præterquam Romanorum, absentia mulierum, quæ sanctorum apostolorum limina orandi gratiâ timent visere, cum non. nullas ante dies paucos, hunc audierint conjugatas, viduas, virgines, vi oppressisse. (Liutprand, Hist. 1. 6, c. 6, p. 471. See the whole affair of John XII. p. 471–476.) A new example of the mischief of equivocation is the beneficium (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.) which the pope conferred on the emperor Frederic I. since the Latin

over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. After a contest of fifty years, the first of these designs was accomplished by the firm support of the ecclesiastical order, whose liberty was connected with that of their chief. But the second attempt, though it was crowned with some partial and apparent success, has been vigorously resisted by the secular power, and finally extinguished by the improvement of human reason.

In the revival of the empire of Rome, neither the bishop nor the people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho the provinces which were lost, as they had been won, by the chance of arms. But the Romans were free to choose a master for themselves; and the powers which had been delegated to the patrician, were irrevocably granted to the French and Saxon emperors of the West. The broken records of the times* preserve some remembrance of their palace, their mint, their tribunal, their edicts, and the sword of justice, which, as late as the thirteenth century, was derived from Cæsar to the prefect of the city.+ Between the arts of the popes and the violence of the people, this supremacy was crushed and annihilated. Content with the titles of emperor and Augustus, the successors of Charlemagne neglected to assert this local jurisdiction. In the hour of prosperity, their ambition was diverted by more alluring objects; and in the decay and division of the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of their hereditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy, the famous Marozia invited one of the usurpers to assume the character of her third husband; and Hugh, king of Burgundy, was introduced by her faction into the mole of Hadrian, or castle of St. Angelo, which commands the principal bridge and entrance of Rome. Her son by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to attend at the nuptial banquet;

word may signify either a legal fief, or a simple favour, an obligation (we want the word bienfait). See Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. iii. p. 393-408. Pfeffel, Abrégé Chronologique, tom. i. p. 229. 296. 317. 324. 420. 430. 500. 505. 509, &c.

For the history of the emperors in Rome and Italy, see Sigonius de Regno Italiæ, Opp. tom. ii, with the notes of Saxius, and the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more distinctly to the authors of his great collection. See the Dissertation of Le Blanc at the end of his Treatise des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some Roman coins of the French emperors.

but his reluctant and ungraceful service was chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive of a revolution. "Romans (exclaimed the youth), once you were the masters of the world, and these Burgundians the most abject of your slaves. They now reign, these voracious and brutal savages, and my injury is the commencement of The alarum-bell rang to your servitude.' arms in every quarter of the city; the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame; Marozia was imprisoned by her victorious son; and his brother, pope John XI., was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual functions. With the title of prince, Alberic possessed above twenty years the government of Rome, and he is said to have gratified. the popular prejudice, by restoring the office, or at least the title, of consuls and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian assumed, with the pontificate, the name of John XII.; like his predecessor, he was provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer for the church and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with the imperial dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans were impatient, the festival of the coronation was disturbed by the secret conflict of prerogative and freedom, and Otho commanded his sword-bearer not to stir from his person, lest he should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of the altar.† Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised the revolt of the people, and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was degraded in a synod; the prefect was mounted on an ass, whipped through the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty were hanged, others were mutilated or banished; and this severe process was justified by the ancient laws of Theodosius and Justinian. The voice of fame has accused the second Otho of a perfidious and bloody act, the massacre of the senators, whom he had invited to his table under the fair semblance of hospitality and friendship. In the minority of his son Otho III.,

* Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones, Romanis imperent? . . . Romanæ urbis dignitas ad tantam est stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat? (Liutprand, 1. 3, c. 12, p. 450.) Sigonius (1. 6, p. 400) positively affirms the renovation of the consul. ship; but in the old writers Albericus is more frequently styled princeps Romanorum.

tom. iii. p. 439.

+ Ditmar, p. 354. apud Schmidt, This bloody feast is described in Leonine

Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From the condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the command of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and formed a conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek emperors. In the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained an obstinate siege, till the unfortunate consul was betrayed by a promise of safety: his body was suspended on a gibbet, and his head was exposed on the battlements of the castle. By a reverse of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops, was besieged three days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful escape saved him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator Ptolemy was the leader of the people, and the widow of Crescentius enjoyed the pleasure or the fame of revenging her husband by a poison which she administered to her imperial lover. It was the design of Otho III. to abandon the ruder coun tries of the north, to erect his throne in Italy, and to revive the institutions of the Roman monarchy. But his successors only once in their lives appeared on the banks of the Tiber, to receive their crown in the Vatican.* absence was contemptible, their presence odious and formidable. They descended from the Alps, at the head of their barbarians, who were strangers and enemies to the country; and their transient visit was a scene of tumult and bloodshed. A faint remembrance of their ancestors

Their

verse in the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 436, 437), who flourished towards the end of the twelfth century (Fabricius, Bibliot. Latin, med. et infimi Ævi, tom. iii. p. 69, edit. Mansi), but his evidence, which imposed on Sigonius, is reasonably suspected by Muratori. (Annali, tom. viii. p. 177.) [Muratori does more than suspect; he says "queste son tutte fandonie" (these are all lies). Yet the story, having once found its way into Chronologies, is repeated by them even to the present time. In that of Blair, republished in 1844, under the respectable sanction of Sir Henry Ellis, we find at A.D. 981, "Otho II. massacres his chief nobility at an entertainment to which he had invited them."-ED.]

* The coronation of the emperor, and some original ceremonies of the tenth century, are preserved in the Panegyric on Berengarius (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars 1. 405-414), illustrated by the notes of Hadrian Valesius, and Leibnitz. Sigonius has related the whole process of the Roman expedition in good Latin, but with some errors of time and fact (1. 7, p. 441-446). In a quarrel at the coronation of Conrad II. Muratori takes leave to observe-doveano