d the doctrine that
the whole Christian Church was subject to the see of Rome. [Sidenote:
Rise of the temporal power of the Popes under Leo III.] His successor,
Leo III. (A.D. 795-A.D. 816), having crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the
West, A.D. 800, received from that monarch the sovereignty of Rome, and
thus became a temporal prince as well as a Bishop, and about the same
time there began to appear certain forged canons (or Church laws),
professing to be ancient decrees collected by St. Isidore of Seville,
in the seventh century, and having for their object to give primitive
sanction to Roman Supremacy. [Sidenote: "Pseudo-Isidore" Decretals]
These "Pseudo-Isidore" Decretals, as they were afterwards called, were
frequently appealed to, apparently in good faith, by subsequent Popes;
and their genuineness was generally believed in, almost without
question, until the time of the Reformation in {104} the sixteenth
century. By about the middle of the ninth century these decretals were
made use of to settle ecclesiastical questions, and Nicholas I. (A.D.
858-A.D. 867) laid great stress upon them when the liberties of the
French Church were again defended by Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, in
a very similar case to that in which St. Hilary had offered opposition
to St. Leo. [Sidenote: Hincmar's opposition to papal claims.]
Hincmar's zeal in opposing the usurpations of the Roman see had some
little success during the episcopate of Hadrian II. (A.D. 867-A.D.
872), but its effects passed away when John VIII. (A.D. 872-A.D. 882)
espoused the cause of Charles the Bald, and thus enlisted the interests
of the crown on his side.

The troubles and disorders consequent on the breaking up of the great
empire of Charlemagne, had had a very injurious effect on morals and
religion; and unworthy persons, to whom the temporal possessions of the
Popes had by this time become an object of ambition, took advantage of
the depressed state of the Church to seize upon the bishopric of Rome
either for themselves or for others in whom they had an interest.
[Sidenote: Unspirituality caused by temporal power.] Hence the history
of the papacy during the next century and a half is full of dreary
records of corruption and wickedness. The elevation of John XII. to
the papal throne at the age of eighteen (A.D. 955), and his evil life,
called forth the interference of the Emperor Otho the Great, who
deposed him and elected Leo VIII. (A.D. 963-A.D. 965) in