modern principles of state-policy.[6] According to the feeling of right, and the prevailing maxims of public law in that age, a mutual controul and responsibility subsisted between church and state, and between the heads of either. In the most esteemed constitutions of modern states, there is also a mutual dependence and possible controul. Thus the prince may dissolve the parliament, or resist its enactments by his veto;
and, on the other hand, the parliament, by withholding its sanction to the imposition of taxes, or refusing the grant of subsidies, may weaken the sinews of government, and summon, not indeed the king, who seems to be regarded as a mere cipher, but the ministry to a most severe reckoning. The government loses all stay and support, when the Opposition obtains a permanent
and decided majority. Whether this mutual dependence and controul in the modern theory of government be less dangerous than in the ancient system, is a question which it is not so easy to decide. As all the institutions of the middle age had a religious spirit and character, it cannot excite our surprise that this opposition between the spiritual and temporal power, and
this mutual dependence of the heads of church and state should have been founded in religion, and in the religious character and purpose of the Imperial, as well as of the Papal, dignity. It was only by the excesses of passion and violence, by the exaggerated proceedings of both the spiritual and temporal powers, as well as by unfortunate accidents and a human imperfection, by no means inherent in the nature of the thing itself, that the dispute between church and state grew to such a fearful magnitude, was so prolonged, and often became almost incurable. But how easily, even then, peace might be restored between the spiritual and temporal powers by the wisdom, the prudence, the good-will, and conciliatory temper of both, is proved by the peaceable termination of the quarrel respecting investiture under the successor of Henry IV. In the sequel, indeed, the harsh, stern, inflexible character of the Ghibelline Emperors, especially Barbarossa, again perplexed this question; when from the contest growing more and more violent betwixt the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the political schism became wider and wider, and discord seemed to be again the mistress of the world.
[6] In confirmation of what Schlegel asserts in the text, I shall cite a few passages from some distinguished Protestant Historians of Germany. To shew my readers the enlarged, liberal and enlightened views taken by the Protestant writers of that country on the political influence of the Papacy in the middle age, and on the services which at that momentous period the hierarchy rendered to the cause of social order, liberty and civilization, it were easy to transcribe matter more than sufficient to fill a volume. Let a few examples suffice.—“The Northern nations,” says the celebrated historian of Switzerland, John Muller, “rushing in upon the most beautiful countries of Europe, trampling under foot, or disturbing and convulsing all social institutions, menaced the whole Western world with a barbarism similar to that which, under the Ottoman sceptre, has obliterated every thing good, great and beautiful that ancient Greece and Asia had produced. Yet the Bishops and other Dignitaries (Versteher) of the church, strong in their authority, contrived to impose a restraint on those giants of the North who, as regards intelligence, were but children. They would not have been more successful than the Greek prelates, had they been subject to four different Patriarchs. The Popes of Rome, (whose primitive history is as obscure and defective as that of the ancient Roman Republic, since we know little of the first Popes, except that they devoted their lives for the faith, as Decius had done for his country,) the Popes, we say, employed their authority with the same address which we admire in the ancient Senate, to render their see independent, subject to its immediate action the whole Western hierarchy, and establish its sway, far beyond the boundaries of the ancient empire, on the ruins of the Northern religions. Thus whoever refused to honour the Christ, trembled before the Pope; and one faith and one church were preserved in Europe, amid the breaking up and subdivision of the newly-founded kingdoms into a thousand petty principalities. We know what Pope made Charlemagne the first Emperor; but who made the first Pope? The Pope, they say, was only a Bishop; yes, but at the same time, the Holy Father, the Sovereign Pontiff, the great Caliph, (as he was called by Ho-Albufreda, Prince of Hamath) of all the kingdoms and principalities, of all the lordships and cities of the West. It is he who controuled by the fear of God the stormy youth of our modern states. At present even, when his authority is no longer formidable, he is still very puissant by the benedictions which he showers; he is still an object of veneration to innumerable hearts, honoured by the kings who honour the nations, invested with a power, before which in the long succession of ages, from the Cæsars to the House of Hapsburg, a host of nations and all their great names have vanished.
“We declaim against the Pope! as if it were such a misfortune that there should exist an authority to superintend the practice of Christian morality, and to say to ambition and to despotism, Halt!—so far, and no further! Bisher, und nicht weiter!” So speaks the illustrious John Muller. The celebrated Herder allows “that without the hierarchy, Europe in all probability had become the prey of tyrants, the theatre of eternal wars, or even a desert.”
“The hierarchy,” says Beck, “opposed the progress of despotism in Europe, preserved the elements of civilization, and upheld in the recollection of men what is so easily effaced—the ties which bind earth to Heaven. Those ignorant men, as we affect to call them, have settled almost all the countries of Europe. The fruits of that time are the formation of the third estate, whence dates the true existence of nations—and the establishment of cities, wherein social life and true liberty were developed.”—Beck on the Middle Age, page 13. Leipzick, 1824.
“The weak,” says Ruhs, in his Manual of the History of the Middle Age, “then found in spiritual authority a better protection against the encroachments of the powerful than afterwards in the balance of power—a system which, as it was a thing purely abstract, devoid of all external guarantee, must soon have lost all influence. The Pope was always present to terminate the wars which had broken out among Christian princes, and to protect the people against the injustice and tyranny of their rulers. The Clergy therefore every where showed themselves opposed to the power of kings, when the latter wished to become perfectly absolute—they wished not to domineer over them, but confine them within the legitimate bounds of their authority. The Priesthood was consequently always for princes, when powerful vassals attacked the rights of the Sovereign—they were the natural and constant guardians of the rights and liberty of all classes.”—Manual of the History of the Middle Age. 1816.—Trans.