[Gutenberg 34172] • Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1890. Excerpt: ... Charlemagne himself was behind his commissioners; and when they departed it was with the full assurance that their visit had not been in vain. It will be right to take this instance as representing the government of Charles everywhere, and at all times. For the first time since the origin of Frank society a power existed, each of whose acts indicated a resolution to maintain the geneu.l pood and to impregnate the whole nation with the spirit of the sovereign. In all this government the model of the Christian hierarchy was before the mind of Charles, and in the strength of union with it he worked. What is so singularly civilising in his power is the extinction in his personal character as ruler of anything local, bounded, and particular, together with the maintenance of every right in every place. The Pope was the head of the Church, and he looked upon himself as the head of the State; the Pope was surrounded in every province by bishops, his colleagues and coadjutors; they worked together in one mass. So Charles willed that his dukes and counts should work with him in one mass for one end, the pacific unity of his great empire. The act of the Pope1 in making him Roman emperor helped him greatly to conceive of himself as the secular head of a Christian brotherhood of peoples, as the Pope was its spiritual head. But the act which made him emperor did not give him secular dominion over any people not already subject to him. For instance, it did not subject to him the Saxon kingdoms in Britain. He was not territorial, but 1 Hergenriither, Kirchengeschichte, i. 507-8. moral leader and president in the council of kings; their chief in the defence of the Church. He did not take from the Greek empress or her successors any temporal lordship; though the Greek pride long refused to acknowled...