had brought from home was soon exhausted. His German followers showed a disposition to desert their poor master, of whose wealth as Pope they had doubtless entertained magnificent notions: a timely offering by some wealthy votaries from Benevento, who had heard of the Pope's virtues, relieved his immediate necessities. Public confidence was restored, the Pope went on performing all the great and imposing acts of his Office, the consecration of wealthy abbots, the confirmation of privileges to remote monasteries; and, doubtless, the grateful oblations began again to flow into the papal treasury. Of his measures to resume the usurped possessions of the church the records are silent. But the great object of his saintly care and ambition was the reformation of the corrupted church. He devoted himself to wage implacable war with the two dominant evils of his time, as they were esteemed by all zealous churchmen, simony and concubinage. A council met at Rome again the severer prelates proposed by one sweeping interdict to annul the orders, and to degrade every clerical person who was any way implicated in simony, who had made any gift, payment, or contract to obtain a bishopric, or other office in the church." But again it was found that the times would not endure these summary remedies. It would have deprived almost the whole of the clergy; and as, by annulling their orders, it rendered all their acts invalid, every sacrament, ordination, consecration; it absolutely interrupted, or rendered doubtful the whole spiritual succession of the order. The Pope, either from the gentle

On the notoriety of the simoniac proceedings at Rome:

"Heu sedes Apostolica

Orbis olim gloria,

Nunc, pro dolor! efficeris

Officina Simonis."

Damian, lib. iv. Epist. ix. p. 109.

"Ita ut non solum ab ipsis, sed

ness of his disposition, or from the necessity of the times, was obliged to adopt more lenient measures, to accept certain penances from the delinquents, and on confession, humiliation, and absolution, to restore the offender to his function or dignity.

The general concubinage, or rather marriage of the clergy, no less embarrassed the austere reformers. It was determined that the clergy of Rome should no longer live scattered about in private houses, but in colleges or separate dwellings, and so be submitted to rigid superintendence and discipline. Women convicted of unlawful intercourse with the clergy were to lose their freedom and become slaves attached to the Lateran palace." But these were not the worst vices of the clergy. The stern ascetic Peter Damiani, who now comes forward the absolute unswerving model of monkhood, presented a book to the Pope, the title of which expressed in the coarsest form the unnatural vices widely prevalent among the monks as well as the secular clergy, a book which would shock a more sensitive age, but was received by the Pope as an honest and bold exposition of the morals of the times.

a plerisque diceretur episcopis, omnes pene basilicas sacerdotalibus officiis destitutas, et præcipue missarum solemnia ad subversionem Christianæ religionis, et desperationem omnium circumquaque fidelium funditus oruittenda."-Damiani, Liber Gratissimus,

c. 35.

X

cebant sacerdotes uxores ducere, palamı nuptias faciebant, nefanda matrimonia contrahebant et legibus eas dotabant, cum quibus secundum leges nec in unâ domo simul habitare debebant."-Bruno Sign. ap. Murator. pp. 346, 347.

"Etquæcunque damnabiles fœminæ intra Romana moenia reperirentur Presbyteris prostituta, deinceps Lateranensi palatio adjudicarentur ancillæ." This may have been somewhat later in 1051.-Petri Damiani Epist. ad Cunibert. Taurin. Episc.

"Perrarus inveniretur qui non esset uxoratus vel concubinatus. De simoniâ quid dicam ? omnes pene ecclesiasticos ordines hæc mortifera bellua devoraverat, ut qui ejus morsum evaserat, rarus inveniretur." The title of one chapter is enough Vit. S. Joann. Gualberti. "Non erubes- to show the nature of this odious book,

prohibition of

Damiani's blind monastic fury perceived not that the argument of his repulsive book was against himself. His remedy, the prohibition of marriage, was not likely to correct this frightful state of things. The Bishops at a synod in Rome acquiesced in the marriage, but took no steps to enforce it. evil, perhaps wisely, they were silent. Pope might appear to turn his back disgust from the scenes of such vices. elsewhere for devout and rigid minds, which might console him by their holy sympathy; and some were yet to be found in every part of Europe, either on the episcopal throne, or in the rigorous cloister.

Of the worse The German in horror and He would seek

The saintly ambition therefore of Leo did not confine his views for the reformation of the Church to the city of Rome or to Italy. He aspired to comprehend the whole of Latin Christendom under his personal superintendence. Though now hardly seated firmly in his throne at Rome, he resolved to undertake, as it were, a religious visitation of Western Europe, to show himself in each of the three great kingdoms as the Supreme Pontiff, as the equal or superior of all secular princes; and that in all the genuine characteristics of power, the protection of the oppressed, the redress of grievances, the correction of abuses, the punishment even of the haughtiest and most powerful

offenders against the statutes of the church, the suppression of simony, the restoration of monastic discipline. Some of Leo's predecessors had indeed crossed the Alps, either to obtain by personal supplication the assistance of the Transalpine sovereigns against their enemies; or to take part in the secular or ecclesiastical affairs of those kingdoms. Latterly the Popes had dwelt in their remote seclusion at Rome, and that seclusion alone had permitted the reverential imagination of the world still to invest them in some lingering sanctity. Yet rumours and the reports of the pilgrims could not but disseminate through Europe, even to its remotest parts, the degraded character of the Italian Popes; the rapacity, the licentiousness, the venality had become more and more notorious. How some

Popes had lived, how they had died, could not be altogether disguised. This had been proclaimed in full synods of Transalpine prelates, as at Rheims. The difficulty of reconciling the loftiest spiritual offices, the holiest functions, with the most unholy life, could not but force itself upon the religious mind of Christendom.

Leo came forth to Europe, not only with the power and dignity, but with the austere holiness, the indefatigable religious activity, the majestic virtue which became the head of Christendom. His personal character and habits would bear the closest and most jealous inspection; he was not merely blameless in morals, but exemplary in the depth and intensity of his devotion. Wherever he went he visited the Leo's visitation beyond most severe of the clergy or of the monastic the Alps. orders, men already sainted by the popular devotion; like St. Gualberto of Vallombrosa," and the successor of

z See the Lives of S. Gualberto.

A.D. 1049.

June 29.

The

the holy Odilo at Clugny. All recognised a kindred spirit, and hailed the genuine Pontiff. He passed by Florence; he held a council at Pavia; he crossed the Alps to Germany. Throughout Germany his time was occupied, till he reached Cologne, in conseMarch 14. crating churches, and bestowing privileges on monasteries. On his arrival at Cologne he was received by the Archbishop Herman, the Chancellor of the Empire, with the greatest state. Herman was a prelate of a kindred spirit, pious, and disposed to hierarchical magnificence; both himself and the Pope knowing, no doubt, the influence of the splendid ecclesiastical ceremonial on the popular mind. Pope created a new and high office for the Archbishop of Cologne, the arch-chancellorship of the Apostolic See. The archbishop became a kind of northern Pope; seven cardinal priests were appointed daily to read mass, sandalled, at the altar of St. Peter in the cathedral. At Cologne appeared the pious Emperor, Henry III., in military array; he was engaged in war with Godfrey, Duke of Upper Lorraine, and a powerful confederacy, comprehending Baldwin of Flanders, and Herman of Mons, and Theodoric of Holland, secretly supported by Henry I., King of France. Godfrey had been already under the ban of the Empire for expelling his brother from his inheritance, the dukedom of Lower Lorraine. He had been defeated and pardoned. But when, on the death of his brother, the Emperor granted away the dukedom of Lower Lorraine to Frederick of Luxemburg, he again rushed to arms. With his lawless allies, he had destroyed the imperial palace at Nimeguen, and burned Verdun. But their predatory bands had suffered a defeat by the forces of the Bishops of Liège, Metz, and Utrecht.