diligently invoked to prove the Pope superior to all precedents.

With Gregory VII the primacy of Western Christendom assumed a new
character. But the primacy, in one form or another, had for centuries
belonged to the Roman See. So much his remote predecessors had achieved,
and their success is all the more remarkable when we remember how few of
them had been distinguished statesmen. It is no matter for surprise
that, in the course of nine troubled centuries, some Bishops of Borne
had proved incompetent and others had betrayed the interests committed
to their charge. It is, however, surprising that the Roman See was able
to assume and hold the leading position among Western bishops without
rendering much service to the extension or the organisation of the
Church.

Of all the early Popes, save Leo I and Gregory I, it is true that we may
be tolerably at home in the history of their times without knowing much
about them. No Pope is ranked among the leading Western Fathers. The
only considerable theologian who occupied the Holy See, before the year
1000, is Gregory I; and the highest praise which we can give his
writings is that they imparted new life to some ideas of St. Augustine.
It is as statesmen, not as thinkers, that the early Popes appeal to our
attention. Yet their practical achievements scarcely account for the
reverence which they inspired. The one great mission which Rome set on
foot was that of Augustine to England. The other evangelists of the Dark
Ages found their inspiration elsewhere, in the monasteries of Ireland or
of Gaul and Germany. If we consider the progress of theological science,
and of ecclesiastical organisation, we find that the great controversies
were resolved, and the great legislative assemblies convened, in the
Eastern Empire. It was but rarely that Rome asserted her right to speak
in the name even of the Western Church; the record of the early Popes