made a last attempt to recover their lost influence on the appointment to the papal throne--a proceeding which was charged with peril to the Church as it implied a renewal of the disastrous patrician regime. That the crisis was surmounted was essentially the work of Hildebrand. To Benedict X., the aristocratic nominee, he opposed a rival pope in the person of Bishop Gerhard of Florence, with whom the victory rested. The reign of Nicholas II. (1059-1061) was distinguished by events which exercised a potent influence on the policy of the Curia during the next two decades--the _rapprochement_ with the Normans in the south of Italy, and the alliance with the democratic and, subsequently, anti-German movement of the Patarenes in the north. It was also under his pontificate (1059) that the law was enacted which transferred the papal election to the College of Cardinals, thus withdrawing it from the nobility and populace of Rome and thrusting the German influence on one side. It would be too much to maintain that these measures were due to Hildebrand alone, but it is obvious that he was already a dominant personality on the Curia, through he still held no more exalted office than that of archdeacon, which was indeed only conferred on him in 1059. Again, when Nicholas II. died and a new schism broke out, the discomfiture of Honorius II. (Bishop Cadalus of Parma) and the success of his rival (Anselm of Lucca) must be ascribed principally, if not entirely, to Hildebrand's opposition to the former. Under the sway of Alexander II. (1061-1073) this man loomed larger and larger in the eye of his contemporaries as the soul of the Curial policy. It must be confessed the general political conditions, especially in Germany, were at that period exceptionally favourable to the Curia, but to utilize them with the sagacity actually shown was nevertheless no slight achievement, and the position of Alexander at the end of his pontificate was a brilliant justification of the Hildebrandine statecraft.