The gravest peril, the most pressing and disastrous fate in the eyes of the Romans at that time, and especially of the popes, was to be swallowed up by the Lombards. Gregory shared the general feeling, and he, too, speaks of the "gens nefanda Longobardorum." 1 And this fate, to become the prey of the detested foreigner, was inevitable for Rome and the rest of Byzantine Italy, as soon as the power of Constantinople in the West was broken. That these provinces, if left alone, could not maintain themselves against the overwhelming power of the Lombards, Gregory was well aware. 2 Above all would protection be needed for the Roman See; and at that time the Frankish kingdom alone, under its prince, Charles > Martel, could have given this protection. Charles Martel, however, was fully occupied with perpetual wars against the Saxons, Frisians, Saracens, and people of Aquitaine; and, moreover, was on friendly

1 [Gregory commences his letter to Ursus, doge of Venice, on the subject of united resistance against the Lombards, in these words : "Quia, peccato faciente, Ravennatum civitas, quæ caput extat "omnium, a nec dicenda gente Longobardorum capta est."—Labbe, Concil., vi., 1447. The Lombards, on their side, had a similar style of abuse. If they wished to express the bitterest contempt for a foe, they called him a Roman.]

2 [Yet, as Dr. Döllinger remarks in Essay V., "Gregory II. made "an attempt to form a confederation of states, which was to maintain "itself independently of both Greeks and Lombards, the head of it "to be the Roman See," p. 121.]

terms with the Lombard king. Thus he was both unable and unwilling to take serious part in Italian affairs. Hence it came to pass that lower Italy, in which the richest possessions of the Roman Chair lay, remained then, and for some time longer, faithful to the Roman emperor in the East. Not a single attempt was made there to revolt from him; and if the influence of the pope had been exerted to bring such a result about, it would certainly have failed. Had Gregory then, as Gregorovius represents, placed himself at the head of a rebellion, he would have entered upon a hopeless undertaking, involving the most ruinous losses to the Roman Sce.

X. SYLVESTER II.

A POPE, who was held in great honour by his contemporaries, who was renowned as the most learned scholar and the most enlightened spirit of his time, whose memory remained unsullied for a century after his death, becomes gradually an object of suspicion; the calumnics about him assume larger and larger dimensions, until the papal biographers of the later Middle Ages represent his whole life and pontificate as a series of the most monstrous crimes. According to them, Sylvester II. entered into a league with the devil, and exercised his pontifical office in the devil's service and in obedience to his will.

At first writers were content with the timid criticism that Gerbert had devoted himself with far too much zeal to profane sciences, and on that account stood 30 high in the favour of an emperor with such a thirst for knowledge as Otho III. This is the line taken by the chroniclers Hermann of Reichenau (died A.D. 1054) and Bernold. Hugo of Fleury (A.D. 1109) as yet knows nothing to the discredit of Gerbert; according to him Gerbert attained to such eminence merely by means of his

knowledge. But his contemporary Hugo of Flavigny, whose chronicle ends with the year 1102, goes so far as to state that it was by certain sinister arts (quibusdam præstigiis) that Gerbert contrived to get himself elected archbishop of Ravenna.1 The chronicler does not appear by this to have intended the interposition of demoniacal agencies; in which case he would certainly have used stronger language. He probably meant court intrigues, by means of which the Frenchman won the favour of the empress Adelaide, who at that time held Ravenna, and of the emperor Otho; so that the latter, evading an open election, simply nominated Gerbert.

Some years later we have Siegebert of Gemblours (died A.D. 1113) stating that some did not reckon Gerbert among the popes at all, but put in his place a (fictitious) pope Agapetus, because Gerbert had been addicted to the practice of the black art, and had been 2 struck dead by the devil.

Siegebert may have had before him the work of Cardinal Benno. The main features of the fable appear first in the writings of this calumnious enemy of Gregory VII. Benno, whose work must have been written about the year 1099, asserts that to a certain extent, during the whole of the eleventh century, a 1 Pertz, x., 367. 2 Bouquet, x., 217.

1

school of black magic existed in Rome; with a succession of adepts in this art, and he enumerates them in order. The most important personage among them is archbishop Laurentius of Amalfi, who at times gave utterance to prophecies, and could also interpret the notes of birds. Theophylact (Benedict IX.) and the archpriest John Gratian (Gregory VI.) learnt the unholy art from Laurentius, and Hildebrand from John Gratian. But Laurentius himself was the pupil of Gerbert, who was the first to bring the art to Rome. And then Benno relates the story which has since been so often repeated, and which became so popular, that Satan promised his disciple Gerbert that he should not die until he had said mass in Jerusalem. Gerbert accordingly believed himself to be quite safe; for he thought only of the city of Jerusalem, without remembering the Jerusalem church in Rome. The message of death came to him as he was saying mass in this church, and he thereupon caused his tongue and hand to be cut off, by way of expiation.

Benno certainly did not invent this fable; he found it already existing in Rome. Before him there is no mention of it anywhere, 2 and it evidently sprang up

1 Vita et Gesta Hildebrandi, in Brown, Fascicul., i., 83,

2 Though Dav. Koeler (Gerbertus-injuriis tam veterum quam