ject for us to enter upon here, and is, moreover, too remote for our purpose. The author next passes, in volume third, to Denmark, England, and Normandy, as forming a middle link between the northern and southern nations of western Europe. These nations all sprang, more or less directly, from the bold rovers of the northern seas, and were closely connected with the Roman church. It is a well-known fact that Gregory VII. was the chief adviser and support of William the Norman in his conquest of England. He was warmly, almost passionately, attached to the conqueror. He pronounced him the only king in Europe who was a true son of the church. He contemplated making him protector of the church and the first monarch of Europe, instead of the emperor, who was so unfaithful to his trust. But the king, after having fully established his power in England, did not in all respects answer the expectations of his spiritual father. One thing, however, is certain, that England is much indebted to Gregory for what she now is by virtue of the Norman conquest. Indeed, it must be confessed that a better order of things was introduced into the north-west of Europe, in part at least, by means of his influence.

In the fourth volume is contained an account of France under the reign of the first four Capetans, Hugh, Robert, Henry, and Philip. All of Neustria became hereditary fiefs much earlier than did the territories on the other side of the Rhine. The history of these Neustrian fiefs is given, in which it is shown that many of them were originally more powerful than that of the Capetan family. The author undertakes to show, furthermore, how it was that this house, of such moderate possessions, made great acquisitions of territory, and finally gained a supremacy over all its rivals. In this respect he claims some originality. He admits that the success of the Capetans was owing, in part, to several fortunate accidents; but maintains, at the same time, that while they dared not resort to force, they practised secret designs and cunning, not unmixed with injustice and treachery, which in the end divided and entangled their enemies. Having reached this point under Henry I., they united with the high ecclesiastics, who were also jealous of the other ruling families, and thus, by the union of their own force with the clerical influence, finally raised themselves to sovereign power. Gregory, who, for good reasons, desired to see both the Norman power and the Capetan firmly established, that being the only way of curbing the factious spirit of the nobles, skilfully employed all his influence to prevent collisions between them. When we consider what characters Gregory had to deal with, we feel somewhat reconciled to their having fallen into his hands. The aid of the church was not given to the French monarchs without an equivalent. They were obliged to accept certain conditions, which justified the clergy and the nobility in renouncing their allegiance, if the rights of the church were infringed. Thus the apostolical see had, in the clergy and nobility, a check upon the French king; and in him, kept under its guidance and aided by its support, a check upon the nobles. It had a difficult part to act in preventing the ecclesiastics from being unduly under the influence of the king. Nothing but the determined

spirit and vigor of Gregory carried him successfully through the struggle against the independence of the Gallican church. While he commanded the bishops of Bourges, Rheims, Sens, and Tours, who were subjects of the Capetan dynasty, to set before the king the danger of disregarding his counsels, he threatened them with excommunication if, out of regard to the king, they faltered in their duty to him. It fills the mind with almost painful apprehensions to follow the rise of the French monarchy, and see how often it escaped destruction, when the chances seemed to be against it.

The last half of volume fourth treats of the see of Rome in its relations to the Christian and Saracen kingdoms of Spain. We abstain from touching at all upon this extensive and complicated subject.

The fifth volume, whose dimensions are swollen to nearly a thousand pages, gives a complete account of the rise and growth of the States of the Church, and their history to the beginning of the eleventh century. Such a history is of itself a stupendous undertaking. It is executed with a decidedly apologetic tendency. The author aims not only to show how the temporal possessions of the church of Rome originated, but how necessary such an independent means of support was to the efficiency of the Papal power in curbing and controlling the spirit of secular princes. No doubt, the history of the Roman States under the previous popes, and an insight into their policy, will contribute much to unravel the history and solve the enigmas of Gregory's administration. The power of the papacy was owing, in no small degree, to the steadiness of the policy which was pursued for centuries, and to the prestige of usage and of antiquity. This circumstance, if it does not fully justify the author's method, offers a plausible excuse for yielding to his propensities, and pouring out a flood of documentary information upon his readers. We know not how to present an outline of this volume. Its table of contents alone occupies sixteen pages.

It would appear from the documents published by Baronius, that as early as 324, houses, lands, and rents were presented to the three principal basilicas, or churches, at Rome by Constantine. From the letters of Gregory I. (590–604), we learn that the church of Rome had possessions in Gaul, in different parts of Italy, in Sicily, in Illyricum, in Dalmatia, and in Africa. The fact that the emperors, in the fourth century, found it necessary to make laws against legacies to the church, leaves no room to doubt whence its wealth caine. Under Gregory II. (715-731), we learn from fragments of a book of rents, that the church of Rome possessed seven patrimonies in Italy; that the patrimonia were divided into massae, or groups, and these again into fundi, or estates. Even before the time of Gregory I., there was a class of officers called defensores, whose duty it was to take charge of this ecclesiastical property. He added to the system, by raising seven of them to the rank of defensores regionarü, an honorary title indeed, but the office conferred was that of general agents for as many provinces. Although the landed estates belonging to the church of Rome were found in all the territory now constituting the States of the Church, we must not suppose that they occupied all that territory. They were everywhere separated from each other by lands not belonging to the church.

crown.

The popes at this time were chosen by the people, clergy, and nobility of Rome, but confirmed by the emperor at Constantinople. The government of the towns belonging to the church was still in the hands of officers of the All the property of the church was taxed by the emperor. The armies of Italy were under the command of imperial generals. But in the time of Gregory I. and his immediate successors, the rule of the emperor was so weak in Italy, that the pope employed soldiers at his own expense, which served under imperial generals, if there were any present; if there were none, then they obeyed their own officers. With a nominal subjection to the court of Constantinople, the bishops of Rome, in the absence of defenders from thence, took more and more upon themselves, and, from necessity, formed a treaty of peace with the Lombards, who had laid waste their lands without hindrance. They kept agents, or ministers, at Constantinople, and at other courts, to look after the interests of the church. The emperors seemed to be pleased, for a time at least, with having such distinguished subjects. When the emperors became powerless in Italy, it was natural that the popes should look elsewhere for a protector. It is difficult to say whether the bishop of Rome most needed the military support of Pepin, or the latter for himself and his family, the spiritual sanction of the former. When the alliance was formed, the lands which had been plundered from the church by the Lombards were restored, and others given in place of those seized, by the emperor. Here we find the germ of the papal state. The design of the Bishop of Rome was to establish a German Christian Empire to take the place of the Eastern Empire, the shadow of the old Roman Empire. He promised the same allegiance to the King of the Franks which he had shown to the Eastern Emperors. For this submission of the pope to his supremacy, and for the stipulated right to reject or confirm any papal election, as seemed to him good, the head of the new empire engaged to protect the church, and gave him certain territorial possessions. The arrangement was a very advantageous one on both sides. The Frank was hereby made the legitimate possessor of his usurped throne. He was made the superior of all the kings of the West. The pope secured a powerful military arm to defend him against the Lombards and other freebooters. The arrangement originated with the Roman bishops. Gregory II. made the proposal to Charles Martel, but without effect. Afterwards Gregory III. in 739 sent an embassy to that monarch with the keys of the tomb of St. Peter, which was a sign of fealty, urging him to hasten with an army for the protection of Rome. Nothing, however, was done till Stephen III. in 754 went in person to Pepin's court and crowned him, and made him and his two sons, Charles and Carloman, patricians of Rome. Pepin, in turn, promised to compel the Lombards to surrender certain territories to the Roman see; and in 755 succeeded in humbling the Lombards, and in making them give over Ravenna and the Pentapolis to the church. Eighteen years later Charlemagne annihilated the power of the Lombards, assumed the title of king of Lombardy, and greatly increased the donation of his father Pepin to the church of Rome.

The testimony in regard to the supremacy of the emperor over the Roman bishop is explicit. The language of the original statement as given in the Monumenta of Pertz, is: Adrianus domino Carolo-patriciatus dignitatem ac ordinationem apostolicae sedis concessit. When Leo III., in 795, was elected bishop of Rome, he immediately sent to Charlemagne the keys of St. Peter's tomb, and a communication, to which the king replied in these words: "The perusal of your letter has given me great joy, partly on account of the unanimity with which you were elected, and partly on account of your humble obedience, and the assurance of your loyalty." Charlemagne was careful to connect such conditions and limitations with his donations of territory to the Holy See, as to retain the supreme power in his own hands. Often the donation was but little more than nominal, formally giving to the church what it already possessed, adding certain empty honors.

Passing over between six and seven hundred pages of the continuation of the early history of the States of the Church, we come to the description of the city of Rome as it was in the time of the emperor Otto III., about the year 1000. If the emperor Constantine had revisited the world at that time, he would, notwithstanding the sacking and plundering of the city so many times by the barbarians, have found it substantially as it was in his day. Of the walls of the city, twenty-two Roman miles in circumference; of its 362 towers; its 6900 breastworks, from which archers and slingers could assail beseigers; of its fourteen gates; of the eight bridges across the Tiber; of the fourteen brick aqueducts, so large that a man could ride through them on horseback; of its sixteen palaces, ten baths, thirty-one triumphal arches; its circuses, theatres, forums, pillars, and statues, the author gives a most interesting account from contemporary authorities.

The subject of the sixth and seventh volumes corresponds to the title of the work, "Pope Gregory VII. and his times." It is not, however, limited to his pontificate, nor to his public life, but goes back to the beginning of the reign of Henry II., emperor of Germany, about the time Gregory was born. The sixth volume gives the history of the papacy, in its stricter sense, from Gregory's birth in the year 1002 to his elevation to the papal throne in 1073; and the seventh continues the narrative with special reference to the protracted contest with Henry IV. till Gregory's death in 1085. Although the period is the same as that gone over in the work more than once before, the subject is changed.

We may omit this history without exposing ourselves to the charge of being subject to a centrifugal force as strong as that of the author; for while his subject was Gregory VII. and his times, ours is the author's ponderous work. We therefore leap over the whole of the sixth volume, and a part of the seventh, till we come to another interesting digression, occupying two hundred pages, on the origin of the cities, the industrial arts, and the trade of Germany. We have compared this part of the work with Barthold's valuable book on the History of the German Cities, and find them equally exact, and generally in agreement with each other. The ancient Germans, as is well known, were averse to living in cities. As late as 356, when they

crossed the Rhine and captured Strasburg, Worms, Spire, and Mayence, they took up their residence, not in the cities, but in the country round about them. The first cities were built, or rebuilt, mostly by bishops for their residences, along the borders of the Roman Empire, especially on the west bank of the Rhine and on the south bank of the Danube, and in the adjoining districts. So it was with Salzburg, Freising, Eichstadt, Wurceburg, Passau, Brixen, and Bamberg, in the south; and with the cities above named, together with Chur, Constance, Basle, Cologne, Triers, Mastricht, Liege, and Utrecht, in the west. Other cities were built on the numerous royal estates under the Franks, called palaces or courts; and in later times, palatinates. Duisburg was the first city that was so built, about 430, under Clodio. Coblence was resuscitated and made a royal city about the middle of the sixth century. Bingen was a castle and royal town under the Merovingians. The episcopal towns, Worms and Spire, were raised from their ruins by the aid of Dogobert I. Strasburg, one of the oldest free cities of Germany, was the residence of Childebert II., in 540. Thus far had the building of cities, as residences of bishops and kings, often on the spot and from the materials of old Roman cities in ruins, proceeded under the Merovingians before the year 700. But they were confined to the frontiers of the Roman Empire. The interior of Germany was still as destitute of them as it was in earlier times. Though most of the lands from the middle Rhine to the tributaries of the Neckar belonged to the crown, there were neither palaces nor churches, to say nothing of cities, in this whole region, which was still pagan. Frankfort, the first royal residence, was built in the eighth century. Before the time of Charlemagne there were a little more than twenty cities built in the manner above described. About fifty were built, or raised from the rank of villages to cities, during his reign; among which were Zurich, Ulm, Ingoldstadt, Linz, Frankfort-onthe-Maine, Bonn, Deventer, Antwerp, Ghent, Erfurt, Munster, Isnabruck, Halberstadt, Bremen, Hamburg, Magdeburg, and Halle. All the cities which were built in this period, originated in episcopal sees, royal demesnes, or monasteries, except about a half a dozen commercial towns in the Netherlands.

It is a wide-spread error that Henry I. (919-936) was preeminently "a builder of cities." It can hardly be said that he built any. The mistake has arisen from a misunderstanding of the terms used by the monk Widukind of Corvey. The word urbs, used by him, uniformly means burg, or castle. Henry caused several such castles to be built along the Slavonic borders, as a military protection of the country against the incursions of the Slavonic cavalry. It was under his son and successor, Otto I. (936–973) that the policy of Charlemagne in building cities was resumed. Under him rose to the rank of cities Brunswick (which celebrated its millennial anniversary in 1860), Quendlenburg, Dortmund, Brandenburg, Merseburg, Misnia, Prague, Oldenburg, Posen, Schleswic, Zeitz, Havelburg, and six or seven other towns of less note. Under Henry II. (1002-1024), were added Breslau, Naumburg, Nüremberg, Lubeck, and four or five others, which were either founded or raised to importance by him.