e proves to have been covered with forests, here
and there dotted with a convent or a town. From those countries, once
full of the splendid evidences of Roman civilization, mankind was fast
disappearing. There was no political cause, until at a later time, when
the feudal system was developed, for calling men into existence.
Whenever there was a partial peace, there was no occasion for the
multiplication of men beyond the intention of extracting from them the
largest possible revenue, a condition implying their destruction. Soon
even the necessity for legislation ceased; events were left to take
their own course. Through the influence of the monks the military spirit
declined; a vile fetichism of factitious relics, which were working
miracles in all directions, constituted the individual piety. Whoever
died without bequeathing a part of his property to the Church, died
without confession and the sacraments, and forfeited Christian burial.
Trial by battle, and the ordeals of fire and boiling water, determined
innocence or guilt in those accused of crimes. Between places at no
great distance apart intercommunication ceased, or, at most, was carried
on as in the times of the Trojan War, by the pedlar travelling with his
packs.

[Sidenote: Expected end of the world, A.D. 1000.]

[Sidenote: Effects of the union of Church and state.]

In these deplorable days there was abundant reason to adopt the popular
expectation that the end of all things was at hand, and that the year
1000 would witness the destruction of the world. Society was dissolving,
the human race was disappearing, and with difficulty the melancholy
ruins of ancient civilization could be traced. Such was the issue of the
second attempt at the union of political and ecclesiastical power. In a
former chapter we saw what it had been in the East, now we have found
what it was in the West. Inaugurated in selfishness, it strengthens
itself by violence, is perpetuated by ignorance, and yields as its
inevitable result, social ruin.

And while things were thus going to wreck in the state, it was no better
in the Church. The ill-omened union between them was bearing its only
possible fruit, disgrace to both--a solemn warning to all future ages.

[Sidenote: Value of the new system estimated from the lives of the
popes.]

3d. This brings me to the third and remaining topic I proposed to
consider in this chapter, to determine the actual religious value of the
system in