obeyed.


THE GROWTH OF THE PAPACY

The power thus concentrating in the Roman papacy made the office one to
attract eager ambition. It has a political history of its own. At first
the Christian populace that continued to dwell in Rome despite the
repeated spoliations, elected, from among themselves, their own pope or
bishop, regarding him not only as their spiritual guide, but as their
earthly leader and protector also. Naturally, in their distress, they
chose the very ablest man they could, their wisest and their noblest. It
was no pleasant task being pope in those dark days; and sometimes the
bravest shrank from the position.

But centuries of war and self-defence developed a Roman populace more
fierce and savage and degenerate, while the growing importance of their
pope beyond the city's walls brought wealth and splendor to his office.
The result was that some very unsaintly popes were elected amid unseemly
squabbles. The conditions surrounding the high office became so bad that
they were felt as a disgrace throughout all Christendom; and in 1046 the
German emperor Henry III took upon himself to depose three fiercely
contending Romans, each claiming to be pope. He appointed in their stead
a candidate of his own, not a dweller in the city at all, but a German.
Henry, therefore, must have considered the duties of the pope as bishop
of the Romans to be far less important than his duties as head of the
Church outside of Rome.[18]

[Footnote 18: See _Henry III Deposes the Popes_.]