A similar process took place in Asia. Arianism, chiefly in its later development of Nestorianism, with Eutychianism and other errors, ate out the heart of the Church, faith grew weak, and love grew cold, and {121} Mahometanism once more triumphed almost unchecked. Although the Churches of Asia are not all utterly extinct, yet they share more or less in the state of ignorance, superstition, and depression which is a natural consequence of the serious errors with which their profession of Christianity is intermixed, as well as of the way in which the few despised Christians are mingled with their richer and more numerous Mahometan neighbours. Section 1. _The Church of Italy._ [Sidenote: Lombard kingdom in Italy.] The kingdom of the Goths in Italy was not of long duration, and their successors and fellow-Arians, the Lombards, only obtained possession of the northern portion of the Peninsula, whilst Rome and Southern Italy became once more subject to the emperors of the East. Gregory the Great (A.D. 390-A.D. 604) began the work of converting the Lombards to the Catholic Faith, and in the middle of the seventh century Arianism had disappeared from Italy. [Sidenote: Renewal of the tie between East and West.] The renewal of the connexion between the Eastern and Western Empires, and the attempt of the Emperor Justinian to subject the see of Rome to that of Constantinople, placed Gregory under the necessity of vindicating the independence of the Church of Italy, and of denying the right of any one Patriarch to assume authority over another. St. Gregory's holiness and learning, and the wisdom of his endeavours to reform corruptions, were most beneficial to the Church over which he ruled. [Sidenote: Its rupture.] The Image-breaking Controversy put an end to the nominal tie between the Eastern emperors and the Church of Italy (about A.D. 730), and almost the whole {122} of the peninsula soon after became part of the dominions of Charlemagne. This great Emperor's influence was used in Italy, as elsewhere, to foster the work of the Church, which however suffered severely from the state of lawlessness and confusion incident on the breaking up of Charlemagne's empire after his death, A.D. 814. [Sidenote: Depression of the Church in Italy.] The Church of Italy in the ninth century had also to undergo the inroads of the Mahometans in the South, and of the heathen Magyars (or Hungarians) on the North, as well as of the Northmen, who ravaged and pillaged the churches and monasteries on the coasts. Other depressing influences were to be found in the secularization of the Bishops of Rome through the increase of their temporal power, and the usurpation by the German emperors of the right of election to the popedom, which properly belonged to the Clergy of Rome. [Sidenote: Gregory VII.'s reforms.] The corruptions which from these and other causes had crept into the Church of Italy, drew towards them the