in that most wonderful rise. The two
centuries, then, which succeeded St. Gregory, were even more favourable to
this growth than those which went before. While the confusion and violence
of secular governments by the breaking in and settlement of the various
northern tribes were greater than ever,--while the ecclesiastical
constitution was all that yet held together the scattered portions of the
shattered Western empire--the single Apostolical See of the West, whose
Bishop was in constant correspondence with the spiritual rulers of these
various countries, whose voice was ever and anon heard striving to win and
soften into mercy and justice those temporal rulers, would be, as it were,
"a light shining in a dark place." The Bishops, everywhere miserably
afflicted by their own sovereigns, found a stay and support in one beyond
the reach of the feudal lord's violence. The benefit they thus derived from
the Roman Patriarch was so great, that they would be disposed to overlook
the gradual change which was ensuing in the relation between themselves and
him, the deference which was deepening into subjection. Or, if here and
there, what Leo would have called "a presumptuous spirit," such as Hincmar
of Rheims, or our own Grossetete, in after times, set himself against the
stream, it would all be in vain. However good his cause might be, if he did
not yield, he would be beaten down like St. Hilary of Arles. Moreover, as
the great heresy of Mahomet invaded and hemmed in three of the Patriarchal
Sees of the East, their counterpoise to the originally great influence of
the Roman See was removed. Political separation from the East, and the
difficulty of communication, would of themselves greatly tend to this
result. To this must be added the great increase of power which the house
of Charlemagne, for their own political purposes, bestowed on the Roman
See; it was worth while building up a popedom for an imperial crown. De
Maistre says, "The Popes reign since the ninth century at least."[165] But
it is a somewhat naive confession, "The French had the singular honour, one
of which they have not been at all sufficiently proud, of having set up,
humanly, the Catholic Church in the world, by raising its august head to
the rank indispensably due to his divine functions; and without which he
would only have been a Patriarch of Constantinople, miserable puppet of
Christian sultans, and Musulman autocrats." Just, too, when it was most
difficult