process of being forced upon Europe, using, for the purpose,
that which must be admitted as the best test--the private lives of the
popes.

[Sidenote: Apology for referring to the biography of the popes.]

To some it might seem, considering the interests of religion alone,
desirable to omit all biographical reference to the popes; but this
cannot be done with justice to the subject. The essential principle of
the papacy, that the Roman pontiff is the vicar of Christ upon earth,
necessarily obtrudes his personal relations upon us. How shall we
understand his faith unless we see it illustrated in his life? Indeed,
the unhappy character of those relations was the inciting cause of the
movements in Germany, France, and England, ending in the extinction of
the papacy as an actual political power, movements to be understood only
through a sufficient knowledge of the private lives and opinions of the
popes. It is well, as far as possible, to abstain from burdening systems
with the imperfections of individuals. In this case they are inseparably
interwoven. The signal peculiarity of the papacy is that, though its
history may be imposing, its biography is infamous. I shall, however,
forbear to speak of it in this latter respect more than the occasion
seems necessarily to require; shall pass in silence some of those cases
which would profoundly shock my religious reader, and therefore restrict
myself to the ages between the middle of the eighth and the middle of
the eleventh centuries, excusing myself to the impartial critic by the
apology that these were the ages with which I have been chiefly
concerned in this chapter.

[Sidenote: The popes from A.D. 757.]

On the death of Pope Paul I., who had attained the pontificate A.D. 757,
the Duke of Nepi compelled some bishops to consecrate Constantine, one
of his brothers, as pope; but more legitimate electors subsequently,
A.D. 768, choosing Stephen IV., the usurper and his adherents were
severely punished; the eyes of Constantine were put out; the tongue of
the Bishop Theodorus was amputated, and he was left in a dungeon to
expire in the agonies of thirst. The nephews of Pope Adrian seized his
successor, Pope Leo III., A.D. 795, in the street, and, forcing him into
a neighbouring church, attempted to put out his eyes and cut out his
tongue; at a later period, this pontiff trying to suppress a conspiracy
to depose him, Rome became the scene of rebellion, murder, and
conflagration.