By gradually extending the jurisdiction of spiritual courts, and especially by the promulgation of the canon law in the twelfth century, the papacy encroached far and wide upon the civil rights of society, and placed at its mercy the lives and fortunes of mankind. The powerful body of lawyers who studied this code and practised in these courts, most of whom were ecclesiastics, would not fail with characteristic bigotry to defend every pretension or abuse to which the received standard of authority gave sanction.[8] The wars which the popes fomented with a view to their own aggrandizement; the family feuds which they stirred up, as in the case of the sons of Henry the Fourth of Germany, whom they excited to an almost parricidal revolt: and the shameless extortion which they practised, drawing from England alone, in a few years, by means of their agents, the enormous sum of fifteen millions sterling, are also serious items in the list of charges against Rome, and clearly show the baneful influence which it exerted in a social point of view. But, perhaps, the most striking example of the general fact before us, is to be found in those strange spectacles exhibited in Europe, towards the close of the dark ages, when nations were laid under an interdict. At such a time, all the people were excommunicated. The churches were closed, the eucharist was denied, the marriage service was refused, the sick man in vain applied for the ordinances of the church, and the dead remained unburied according to the rites of Christian sepulture. An invisible arm seemed to smite the land, and to pour on the population a bitter curse.[9] Such were some of the social evils of the system: but it seems to be a law of Divine Providence that nothing in this world can be so bad but that it yields some advantage. The history of the papacy, perhaps, presents as few instances of beneficial effects as can be found in connexion with any system of government that ever existed; yet a gleam or two of light may be seen shining among the clouds of social evil with which it darkened the world. Nicholas the First, in the ninth century, employed his influence, on one occasion, as the defender of an injured queen: and Gregory the Seventh, in pushing his ambitious schemes, probably effected some moral reforms in society. Nor would we deny that the balance of papal favour happened sometimes to be on the side of popular rights and interests. A circumstance of permanent advantage to the interests of civilisation, may also be recognised in that system of intercommunication between the clergy of different parts of Europe, which arose out of the supremacy of the papal power, and which was one great means of circulating whatever knowledge of literature, or taste for the fine arts, might exist in the dark ages. [1] Cod. Just. lib. i. tit. iv. [2] Salvian, quoted in "Ancient Christianity," vol. ii. 52. [3] Guizot, Civilisation of Europe, Lect. 3. [4] Sulp. Sevenis, Dial. ii. 6.