Thus Innocent sat supreme. He had created a papal kingdom where his predecessors had asserted impotent claims; he had confirmed the Two Sicilies in their dependency upon the Holy See; he had put the Papacy at the head of the Guelf party in Italy, and had made that party almost national; he had enforced the power of the Church throughout Europe, had given crowns to the Kings of Aragon and of England, to the Emperors of Germany and of Constantinople. No such spectacle had been seen since the reign of Charlemagne; none such was to be seen again till the coming of Napoleon. The conception of Europe as an ecclesiastical organization had reached its fullest expression. FOOTNOTES: [11] _Select Mediaeval Documents_, Mathews, p. 115, translated. CHAPTER XIII ST. FRANCIS (1182-1226) In spite of the dazzling success achieved by Innocent, matters were not well with the Church in Italy. Corruption threatened it from within, heresy from without. Simony was rampant; livings were almost put up at auction. Innocent asserted that there was no cure but fire and steel. The prelates of the Roman Curia were "tricky as foxes, proud as bulls, greedy and insatiable as the Minotaur." The priests were often shameless; some became usurers to get money for their bastards, others kept taverns and sold wine. Worship had become a vain repetition of formulas. The monks were superstitious, many of them disreputable. The inevitable consequence of this decay in the Church was heresy. Italy was nearly, if not quite, as badly honeycombed with heretics as Languedoc had been. The Patarini, whom we remember in Hildebrand's time, now become a species of heretics, abounded in Milan; other sects sprang up in towns near by. In Ferrara, Verona, Rimini, Faenza, Treviso, Florence, Prato, anti-sacerdotal sentiment was very strong. In Viterbo the heretics were numerous enough to elect their consul. At Piacenza priests had been driven out, and the city left unshepherded for three years. In Orvieto there had been grave disorders. In Assisi a heretic had been elected _podesta_ (governor).