62 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book I.

Ostia against the African buccanneers who tried toprofit by Charlemagne’s death. It is an assured factthat the Popes became temporal powers immediatelyon the fall of the Roman Empire, and during theperiod of many ages took every opportunity ofbeing useful to Italy.

Nor in a Pope’s lifetime—he being dependent onthe Emperor only—was Rome in a bad state ; butwhen conclaves occurred, then indeed were theRomans delivered over to the most unsparingslavery—that of their own oligarchs, which bitterirony chose to denominate freedom. Which cir-cumstance contributed, with a variety of others, torender the Papacy popular. Whenever Popes andEmperors agreed (which was rarely), it was not atall against liberty, but against the lowest servitude,to Avhich the barons reduced their townsmen aslong as they could spin out the sede vacante , or someviolent sedition. The Romans used thus to passfrom fawning on some blaspheming patricians, hardor impossible to be pleased, to bend somewhat lessto the priesthood; for religious feelings might softenthe Wolsey, but nothing the domineering outlaw.

Dante in his ‘‘Monarchia” endeavoured to distin-guish the temporal from spiritual; but if it wasfeasible in his time, it was not so in the threepi’eceding centuries ; for then it was a universal