fteen chords of
the ancient music. He observes (p. 332) that the connoisseurs admire the
preface and many passages of the Gregorian office.]

[Footnote 71: John the deacon (in Vit. Greg. l. ii. c. 7) expresses the
early contempt of the Italians for tramontane singing. Alpina scilicet
corpora vocum suarum tonitruis altisone perstrepentia, susceptae
modulationis dulcedinem proprie non resultant: quia bibuli gutturis
barbara feritas dum inflexionibus et repercussionibus mitem nititur
edere cantilenam, naturali quodam fragore, quasi plaustra per gradus
confuse sonantia, rigidas voces jactat, &c. In the time of Charlemagne,
the Franks, though with some reluctance, admitted the justice of the
reproach. Muratori, Dissert. xxv.]

[Footnote 72: A French critic (Petrus Gussanvillus, Opera, tom. ii. p.
105--112) has vindicated the right of Gregory to the entire nonsense of
the Dialogues. Dupin (tom. v. p. 138) does not think that any one will
vouch for the truth of all these miracles: I should like to know how
many of them he believed himself.]

Their temporal power insensibly arose from the calamities of the times:
and the Roman bishops, who have deluged Europe and Asia with blood, were
compelled to reign as the ministers of charity and peace. I. The church
of Rome, as it has been formerly observed, was endowed with ample
possessions in Italy, Sicily, and the more distant provinces; and her
agents, who were commonly sub-deacons, had acquired a civil, and even
criminal, jurisdiction over their tenants and husbandmen. The successor
of St. Peter administered his patrimony with the temper of a vigilant
and moderate landlord; [73] and the epistles of Gregory are filled with
salutary instructions to abstain from doubtful or vexatious lawsuits;
to preserve the integrity of weights and measures; to grant every
reasonable delay; and to reduce the capitation of the slaves of
the glebe, who purchased the right of marriage by the payment of an
arbitrary fine. [74] The rent or the produce of these estates was
transported to the mouth of the Tyber, at the risk and expense of the
pope: in the use of wealth he acted like a faithful steward of
the church and the poor, and liberally applied to their wants the
inexhaustible resources of abstinence and order. The voluminous account
of his receipts and disbursements was kept above three hundred years
in the Lateran, as the model of Christian economy. On the four great
festivals, he divided their q