the prerogatives of their monarchs. Least of all did popes then
dream of subjecting the temporal powers and raising the spiritual
over them, so as to lead to issues with kings. That was a later
development in the history of the papacy. The popes of the eighth
and ninth centuries sought to heal disorder, to punish turbulent
chieftains, to sustain law and order, to establish a tribunal of
justice to which the discontented might appeal. They sought to
conserve the peace of the world. They sought to rule the Church,
rather than the world. They aimed at a theocratic ministry,--to be
the ambassadors of God Almighty,--to allay strife and division.

The clergy were the friends of order and law, and they were the
natural guardians of learning. They were kindness itself to the
slaves,--for slavery still prevailed. That was an evil with which
the clergy did not grapple; they would ameliorate it, but did not
seek to remove it. Yet they shielded the unfortunate and the
persecuted and the poor; they gave the only consolation which an
iron age afforded. The Church was gloomy, ascetic, austere, like
the cathedrals of that time. Monks buried themselves in crypts;
they sang mournful songs; they saw nothing but poverty and misery,
and they came to the relief in a funereal way. But they were not
cold and hard and cruel, like baronial lords. Secular lords were
rapacious, and ground down the people, and mocked and trampled upon
them; but the clergy were hospitable, gentle, and affectionate.
They sympathized with the people, from whom they chiefly sprang.
They had their vices, but those vices were not half so revolting as
those of barons and knights. Intellectually, the clergy were at
all times the superiors of these secular lords. They loved the
peaceful virtues which were generated in the consecrated convent.
The passions of nobles urged them on to perpetual pillage,