DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62267#0392
382
APPENDIX.
the authority of their weak Pontiffs; and the
Roman people itself, though willing to submit to
the councils of a father, frequently rebelled
against the orders of a prince. It will not appear
singular, that these rebellions, or to speak more
fairly, these acts of opposition to the temporal
dominion of the Popes were never more frequent
than during the reigns of those Pontiffs, whose
characters were the most daring, and whose
claims were the most lofty. In fact, from the
tenth century, when the Popes began to dege-
nerate from the piety of their predecessors *,
and to sacrifice their spiritual character to their
temporal interests, Rome became the theatre of
insurrection, warfare, and intrigue; and con-
tinued so with various intervals of tranquillity
occasioned by the intervening reigns of milder
Pastors, till the sixteenth century, when they
resumed the virtues of their early predecessors,
and by them regained the veneration and the
affection of their flocks. Since that period the
Pope has reigned Pastor and Prince, an object
at once of the reverence and of the allegiance of
the Roman people, seldom alarmed by foreign
* This fact will not be contested by the most zealous
partisan of the papal prerogative; if it should be, the au-
thor need only appeal to Baronins, who, speaking of the
tenth century, observes—Pontijices Romanos a veterum
pietate degenerasse, et principes sceculi sanctitate floruisse,
APPENDIX.
the authority of their weak Pontiffs; and the
Roman people itself, though willing to submit to
the councils of a father, frequently rebelled
against the orders of a prince. It will not appear
singular, that these rebellions, or to speak more
fairly, these acts of opposition to the temporal
dominion of the Popes were never more frequent
than during the reigns of those Pontiffs, whose
characters were the most daring, and whose
claims were the most lofty. In fact, from the
tenth century, when the Popes began to dege-
nerate from the piety of their predecessors *,
and to sacrifice their spiritual character to their
temporal interests, Rome became the theatre of
insurrection, warfare, and intrigue; and con-
tinued so with various intervals of tranquillity
occasioned by the intervening reigns of milder
Pastors, till the sixteenth century, when they
resumed the virtues of their early predecessors,
and by them regained the veneration and the
affection of their flocks. Since that period the
Pope has reigned Pastor and Prince, an object
at once of the reverence and of the allegiance of
the Roman people, seldom alarmed by foreign
* This fact will not be contested by the most zealous
partisan of the papal prerogative; if it should be, the au-
thor need only appeal to Baronins, who, speaking of the
tenth century, observes—Pontijices Romanos a veterum
pietate degenerasse, et principes sceculi sanctitate floruisse,