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have said to the Lord God, "Depart from us, for we will CHAP. IX. not know Thy ways.'

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The solemnity of this answer seems to have satisfied Otto and the council: a letter was despatched to John, couched in respectful terms, recounting the charges brought against him, and asking him to appear to clear himself by his own oath and that of a sufficient number of compurgators. John's reply was short and pithy.

'John the bishop, the servant of the servants of God, to all the bishops. We have heard tell that you wish to set up another Pope: if you do this, by Almighty God I excommunicate you, so that you may not have power to perform mass or to ordain no one.'a

To this Otto and the synod replied by a letter of humorous expostulation, begging the Pope to reform both his morals and his Latin. But the messenger who bore it could not find John: he had repeated what seems to have been thought his most heinous sin, by going out into the country to shoot: and after a search had been made

in vain, the synod resolved to take a decisive step. Otto, Deposition of who still led their deliberations, demanded the condemna- John XII. tion of the Pope; the assembly deposed him by acclamation, 'because of his reprobate life,' and having obtained the Emperor's consent, proceeded in an equally hasty manner to raise Leo, the chief secretary and a layman, to the chair of the Apostle.

Otto might seem to have now reached a position loftier and firmer than that of any of his predecessors. Within

a 'Iohannes episcopus, servus servorum Dei, omnibus episcopis. Nos audivimus dicere quia vos vultis alium papam facere: si hoc facitis, da Deum omnipotentem excommunico vos, ut non habeatis licentiam missam celebrare aut nullum ordinare.' — Liudprand, Historia Ottonis, c. 13. The 'da' shews the progress of the change from Latin to Italian. The answer sent by Otto and the council takes exception to the double negative.

b'In campestria pharetratus abierat.'

CHAP. IX.

little more than a year from his arrival in Rome, he had exercised powers greater than those of Charles himself, ordering the dethronement of one pontiff and the installation of another, forcing a reluctant people to bend themselves to his will. The submission involved in his oath to protect the Holy See was more than compensated by the oath of allegiance to his crown which the Pope and the Romans had taken, and by their solemn engagement not to elect or ordain any future pontiff without the Emperor's consent.c But he had yet to learn what this obedience and these oaths were worth. The Romans had eagerly joined in the expulsion of John; they soon began to regret him. They were mortified to see their streets filled by a foreign soldiery, the habitual licence of their manners sternly repressed, their most cherished privilege, the right of choosing the universal bishop, grasped by the strong hand of a master who used it for purposes with which they did not sympathize. In a fickle and turbulent people, disaffection quickly turned to rebellion. One night, Otto's Revolt of the troops being most of them dispersed in their quarters at a distance, the Romans rose in arms, blocked up the Tiber bridges, and fell furiously upon the Emperor and his creature the new Pope. Superior valour and constancy triumphed over numbers, and the Romans were overthrown with terrible slaughter; yet this lesson did not prevent them from revolting a second time, after Otto's departure in pursuit of Adalbert. John the Twelfth returned to the city, and when his pontifical career was speedily closed by the sword of an injured husband, the people chose a new

Romans.

'Cives fidelitatem repromittunt hoc addentes et firmiter iurantes nunquam se papam electuros aut ordinaturos praeter consensum atque electionem domini imperatoris Ottonis Caesaris Augusti filiique ipsius regis Ottonis.' Liudprand, Historia Ottonis, c. 8.

d'In timporibus adeo a dyabulo est percussus ut infra dierum octo spacium eodem sit in vulnere mortuus,' says Liudprand, c. 19, crediting with less

Otto CHAP. IX.

Pope in defiance of the Emperor and his nominee.
again subdued and again forgave them, but when they re-
belled for a third time, in A.D. 966, he resolved to shew them
what imperial supremacy meant. Thirteen leaders, among
them the twelve tribunes, were executed, the consuls
were banished, republican forms entirely suppressed,
the government of the city entrusted to the Pope as vice-
roy. He, too, must not presume on the sacredness of
his person to set up any claims to independence. Otto
regarded the pontiff as no more than the first of his sub-
jects, the creature of his own will, the depositary of an
authority which must be exercised according to the discre-
tion of the sovereign. He obtained from his nominee, Leo
VIII, a confirmation of the veto on papal elections which
the citizens had yielded in A.D. 963 (and which it was
afterwards supposed that Hadrian I had granted to Charles)
in a decree which may yet be read among the documents
which constitute canon law. The vigorous exercise of
such a power might be expected to reform as well as to
restrain the apostolic see; and it was for this purpose, and
in noble honesty, that the Teutonic monarchs employed
it. But the fortunes of Otto in the city are a type of those
which his successors were destined to experience. Not-
withstanding their admitted rights and the momentary
enthusiasm with which they were greeted in Rome, not
all the efforts of Emperor after Emperor could gain any
firm hold on the capital they were so proud of. Visiting
it only once or twice in their reigns, they must be sup-
than his wonted craft the supposed author of John's death, who well might
have desired a long life for so useful a servant.

He adds 'Sed eucharistiae viaticum, ipsius instinctu qui eumpercusserat, non percepit.'

e Corpus Iuris Canonici, Dist. lxiii, In synodo. A decree which is probably substantially genuine, although the form in which we have it is evidently of later date.

CHAP. IX.

Otto's rule in Italy.

ported among a fickle populace by a large army of strangers, which melted away with terrible rapidity under the sun of Italy amid the deadly hollows of the Campagna. Rome soon resumed her turbulent independence.

Causes partly the same prevented the Saxon princes from gaining a firm footing throughout Italy. Since Charles the Bald had bartered away for the crown all that made it worth having, no Emperor had exercised effective authority there. The missi dominici had ceased to traverse the country; the local governors had thrown off control, a crowd of petty potentates had established principalities by aggressions on their weaker neighbours. Only in the dominions of great nobles, like the marquis of Tuscany and duke of Spoleto, and in some of the cities where the supremacy of the bishop was paving the way for a republican system, could traces of political order be found, or the arts of peace flourish. Otto, who, though he came as a conqueror, ruled legitimately as Italian king, found his feudal vassals less amenable than in Germany. While actually present he succeeded by progresses and edicts, and stern justice, in doing something to still the turmoil; on his departure Italy relapsed into that disorganization for which her natural features were not less answerable than the mixture of her races. Yet it was at this era, when the confusion was wildest, that there appeared the first rudiments of an Italian nationality, based partly on geographical position, partly on the use of a common language and the slow growth of peculiar customs and modes of thought. But though already jealous of the Tedescan, Lombards and Tuscans were still very far from disputing his sway. s sway. Pope, magnates, and cities bowed to Otto as king and Emperor; nor did he bethink himself of crushing while it was weak a sentiment whose developement threatened the existence of

f As to the fevers see Note X at end.

his empire. Holding Italy equally for his own with Ger- CHAP. IX. many, and ruling both on the same principles, he was content to keep it a separate kingdom, neither changing its institutions nor sending Saxons, as Charles had sent Franks, to represent his government.

The lofty claims which Otto acquired with the Roman Otto's crown urged him to resume the plans of foreign conquest foreign policy. which had lain neglected since the days of Charles: the growing vigour of the Teutonic people, now definitely separating themselves from surrounding races (this is the era when frontier countships such as the Marks of Brandenburg, Meissen, and Schleswig, were established), placed in his hands a force to execute those plans which his predecessors had wanted. In this, as in his other enterprises, the great Emperor was active, wise, successful. Retaining the southern half of Italy, and unwilling to confess the loss of Rome, the Eastern Emperors had not ceased to annoy her German masters by intrigue, and might now, under the vigorous leadership first of Nicephorus and then of the Armenian John Tzimiskes, hope again to menace them in arms. Policy, and the fascina- Towards tion which an ostentatiously legitimate court exercised Byzantium. over the Saxon stranger, made Otto, as Napoleon wooed Maria Louisa, seek for his heir the hand of the princess Theophano, daughter of the Emperor Romanus II. Bishop Liudprand's account of his embassy represents in an amusing manner the rival pretensions of the old and new Empires." The Easterns, who fancied that with the name they preserved the character and rights of Rome, held it almost as absurd as it was wicked that a Frank should insult their prerogative by reigning in Italy as

There was a separate chancellor for Italy, as afterwards for the kingdom of Burgundy.

h Liudprand, Legatio Constantinopolitana.

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