Sabinian, Boniface III. and IV., John IV. and VII., Theodore, Martin, Eugene, and Benedict II., trod firmly in the steps of St. Gregory, and encouraged the clergy everywhere in repairing the evils wrought by the barbarians, and in re-establishing law and order. [Footnote 142] The bishops became the natural chiefs of society, and the administration of justice was often placed in their hands by common consent. Their counsel was taken by untutored kings, and they gradually impressed them with a sense of the distinction between temporal and spiritual power, and of the right of the latter to control the undue exercise of the former. They raised by turns all the great questions that interest mankind, and established the independence of the intellectual world. [Footnote 143] Such is the impartial testimony of writers unhappily prejudiced against the institution they applaud.
[Footnote 142: Gibbon, "Decline and Fall," chap. ixv.]
[Footnote 143: Guizot, "Hist. de la Civilisation en Europe." "Hist. de la Civilisation en France." t. ii.]
In their protracted conflict with Islamism, the Roman pontiffs were the champions of social improvement. It needs only to survey the opposite coasts of the Mediterranean, in order to gain some idea of the paralyzing influence which the creed of Mohammed would have exerted over human progress, if it had not been vigorously resisted. Its prevailing dogma being fatalism, and its main precept sensuality, it has, after a lapse of twelve centuries, failed to ameliorate the condition of the tribes who profess it. If, in any respects, they enjoy advantages unknown to their forefathers, these are due, not to Mohammedanism, but to that [{645}] very anti-Saracenic movement which the popes headed, and which, under different conditions, they carry forward to this day. Permanent degradation was all that Islamism could promise. The Arabs alone kindled for a while the lamp of learning, but even their subtlety and genius did not suffice to keep its flame alive. Everywhere, and with all the forces at their command, the popes repelled its encroachments. More than once they girded on the sword, and led their warriors to the charge against the Moslem host. During a hundred and seventy years--from 1096 to 1270--they roused and united the nations again and again in the common cause. Other statesmen were unable to form extensive combinations, but they were often successful where diplomacy failed. In eight successive crusades, the flower of Europe's chivalry was marshalled on the Syrian plains, and if Catholic arms failed in retaining possession of the city of Jerusalem and the sepulchre of Christ, they at all events saved the cause of European civilization, and ultimately drove back the intruder from the vineyards of Spain and the gates of Vienna, and sank their proud galleys in the waves of Lepanto. When the zeal of crusaders died away, the Roman pontiffs ever tried to rekindle it, constantly rebuked the princes who made terms with the false prophet, and exhorted them to expel the conquered Saracens from their soil. Such was the policy of Clement IV., under whom, in 1268, the last crusade was set on foot. [Footnote 144] Two centuries later, Calixtus III. was animated with the same sentiments. He was appalled, as his predecessor had been, at the progress the Turks made in Europe after the capture of Constantinople, and made a strenuous appeal to the Catholic kingdoms against the Mussulman invasions. At an advanced age he preserved in his soul the fire of youth, sent preachers in every direction to rouse the slumbering zeal of the faithful, and himself equipped an army of 60,000 men, which he sent under the command of Campestran, his legate, to the help of the noble Hunyad in Hungary. Pius II. succeeded him in 1458. He was at once theologian, orator, diplomatist, canonist, historian, geographer, and poet. He struggled hard to organize a crusade against the Ottomans, formed a league to this end with Mathias Corvin, king of Hungary, pressed the king of France, the duke of Burgundy, and the republic of Venice into the cause, and placed himself at the head of the expedition. He was on the point of embarking at Ancona, and in sight of the Venetian galleys, waiting to transport him to the foreign shore, when fever surprised him, and he died. "No doubt," he said, "war is unsuitable to the weakness of old men, and the character of pontiffs, but when religion is ready to succumb, what can detain us? We shall be followed by our cardinals and a large number of bishops. We shall march with our standard unfolded, and with the relics of saints, with Jesus Christ himself in the holy Eucharist." The spectacle would certainly have been grand, if Pius II. had thus appeared before the walls of Constantinople; but Providence had not willed it so.
[Footnote 144: See his letter to the King of Arragon. Fleury, "Hist, Eccles." An. 1266.]
These are but a few of the great names which lent weight to the appeal in behalf of the harassed pilgrims in Palestine, the outraged tomb of the Redeemer, and the Christian lands overran by Saracens and Turkish hordes. To whatever causes the worldly-wise historian may attribute the overthrow of the Ottoman power in Europe, the Catholic will ascribe it without hesitation to the untiring activity of the popes. Divided as the petty kingdoms and principalities of the west were by mutual jealousy and ceaseless warfare, they would never have been able to oppose a compact front to the advances of Islamism, if they had not been persuaded by popes and prelates, by Peter the hermit, St. Bernard, and [{646}] Foulque, to lay aside their miserable disputes, and unite against the common enemy. Thus, by the crusades, immediate benefit accrued to European society, and the character of the church as a ruler and leader was never borne in upon the minds of men with greater force than when Adhémar, the apostolic legate, put himself at the head of the Crusade under Urban II., "wore by turns the prelate's mitre and the knight's casque," and proved the model, the consoler, and the stay of the sacred expedition. [Footnote 145] The presence of bishops and priests among the soldiery impressed on the Crusades a religious stamp favorable to the enthusiasm and piety of the combatants, and corrective of the evils which never fail to follow the camp. [Footnote 146] Nations learned their Christian brotherhood, which former ages had taught them to forget; minds were enlarged by travel, and prejudices were dispelled; civilizing arts were acquired even from the infidel, and brought back to western towns and villages as the most precious spoil. As Rome had, at an earlier period, resisted the superstition and rapacity of Leo the Isaurian, [Footnote 147] and rescued Christian art from the hands of the image-breakers, so now she opened the way to commerce with the east and rewarded the zeal of Catholic populations with the costly bales and rich produce of Arabia and Syria.
[Footnote 145: Michaad et Poujouiat, "Hist. des Croisades.">[
[Footnote 146: See Heeren, "Essai sur l'Influence des Croisades.">[
[Footnote 147: "Parfum de Rome," t. i. p. 124.]
Having turned the feudal system to good account in its conflict with Mohammedanism, the Church, with Rome for its centre, rejoiced to find that system, at the close of the struggle, considerably weakened. It had grown to maturity in a barbarous age, and was but a milder form of that slavery which had so deeply disgraced the institutions of Pagan Rome. [Footnote 148] It perpetuated the distinctions of caste, and the privilege enjoyed by one family of oppressing others. It was selfishness exalted by pride--the right of the strong over the weak. It exacted forced tribute, and held in its own violent hands the moral, mental, and material well-being of its subjects. It required blind and absolute submission, and often refused to dispense justice even at this price. Immobility was its ruling principle, and there was nothing on which it frowned more darkly than amelioration and progress. In all these particulars it was at variance with the religion of Christ, and for this reason Rome never ceased to combat its manifold abuses.