The Makers of Modern Rome, in Four BooksOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
History
The Makers of Modern Rome, in Four Books
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Rome (Italy) -- History -- 476-1420
He was buried in St. Peter's with his predecessors, but his tomb, like
so many others, was destroyed at the rebuilding of the great church,
and no memorial remains.
[Illustration: PONTE MOLLE.]
[Illustration: THE PALATINE.]
CHAPTER II.
THE MONK HILDEBRAND.
It is a melancholy thing looking back through the long depths of
history to find how slow the progress is, even if it can be traced at
all, from one age to another, and how, though the dangers and the
evils to which they are liable change in their character from time to
time, their gravity, their hurtfulness, and their rebellion against
all that is best in morals, and most advantageous to humanity,
scarcely diminish, however completely altered the conditions may be.
We might almost doubt whether the vast and as yet undetermined
possibilities of the struggle which has begun in our days between what
is called Capital and Labour, the theories held against all experience
and reason of a rising Socialism, and the mad folly of Anarchism,
which is their immediate climax--are not quite as dangerous to the
peace of nations as were the tumults of an age when every man acted
by the infallible rule that
He should take who had the power
And he should keep who can--
the principle being entirely the same, though the methods may be
different. This strange duration of trouble, equal in intensity though
different in form, is specially manifest in a history such as that
which we take up from one age to another in so remarkable a
development of life and government as Mediæval Rome. We leave the city
relieved of some woes, soothed from some troubles, fed by much
charity, and weeping apparently honest tears over Gregory the first of
the name--although that great man was scarcely dead before the crowd
was taught to believe that he had impoverished the city by feeding
them, and were scarcely prevented from burning his library as a wise
and fit revenge. Still it might have been expected that Rome and her
people would have advanced a step upon the pedestal of such a life as
that of Gregory: and in fact he left many evils redressed, the
commonwealth safer, and the Church more pure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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