He then turned his eyes to the States of the Church, the famous patrimony of St. Peter, which at that period of history St. Peter was very far from possessing. Certain German adventurers, to whom the Emperor had granted the fiefs which Innocent claimed as belonging to the Holy See, were first summoned to do homage to the Pope as their suzerain, then threatened with excommunication, then laid under anathema: and finally--Markwald and the rest remaining unconvinced and unsubdued--were driven out of their ill-gotten lands by force of arms, which proved the most effectual way. The existence of these German lords was the strongest argument in favour of the Papal sway, and was efficacious everywhere. The towns little and great, scattered over the March of Ancona, the duchy of Spoleto, and the wealthy district of Umbria, received the Pope and his envoys as their deliverers. The Tedeschi were as fiercely hated in Italy in the twelfth century as they were in recent times; and with greater reason, for their cruelty and exactions were indescribable. And the civic spirit which in the absence of any larger patriotism kept the Italian race in energetic life, and produced in every little centre of existence a longing for at least municipal liberty and independence, hailed with acclamations the advent of the head of the Church, a suzerain at least more honourable and more splendid than the rude Teuton nobles who despised the race over which they ruled. That spirit had already risen very high in the more important cities of Northern Italy. The Lombard league had been already in existence for a number of years, and a similar league was now formed by the Tuscan towns which Innocent also claimed, in right of the legacy made to the Church more than a hundred years before by the great Countess Matilda, the friend of Hildebrand, but which had never yet been secured to the Holy See. The Tuscans had not been very obedient vassals to Matilda herself in her day; and they were not likely perhaps to have afforded much support to the Popes had the Church ever entered into full enjoyment of Matilda's splendid legacy. But in the common spirit of hatred against the Tedeschi, the cruel and fierce German chiefs to whom the Emperor had freely disposed of the great estates and castles and rich towns of that wonderful country, the supremacy of the Church was accepted joyfully for the moment, and all kinds of oaths taken and promises made of fidelity and support to the new Pope. When Innocent appeared, as in the duchy of Spoleto, in Perugia, and other great towns, he was received with joy as the saviour of the people. We are not told whether he visited Assisi, where at this period Francis of that city was drawing crowds of followers to his side, and the idea of a great monastic order was rising out of the little church, the Portiuncula, at the bottom of the hill: but wherever he went he was received with joy. At Perugia, when