volume one

HISTOEY OF THE CETJSADES. 39
separated the Greek from the Eoman Chiireh, if the Latins
"would take up arms against the infidels. G-regory YII. then
filled the chair of St. Peter, and his talents, his knowledo-e,
his activity, his boldness, together with the inflexibility of
his character, rendered him capable of the greatest undertakings.
The hope of extending the religion and the empire
of the Holy See into the East, made him receive kindly the
humble supplications of Michael Ducas. He exhorted the
faitliful to take up arms against the Mussulmans, and
engaged to lead them himself into Asia. The misfortunes
of the Christians of the East, said he, in his letters, had
moved him even to feel a contempt for death ; he would
rather expose his life to deliver the holy places, than live to
command the entire imiverse. Excited by his discoui'ses,
fi^fty thousand pilgrims agreed to follow Gregory to Constantinople,
and thence to Syria; but he kept not the
promise he had made, and the aflairs of Europe, in which
the ambition of the pontiff was more interested than in
those of Asia, suspended the execution of his projects.
Every day the power of the popes was augmented by the
progress of Christianity, and by the ever-increasing influence
of the Latin clergy. Eome was become a second time the
capital of the world, and appeared to have resumed, under
the monk Hildebrand, the empire it had enjoyed under the
Caesars. Armed with the two-edged sword of Peter, Grregor}^
loudly proclaimed that all the kingdoms of the earth were
under the dominion of the Holy See, and that his authority
ought to be as universal as the chiu-ch of which he was the
head. These dangerous pretensions, fostered by the opinions
of his age, engaged him immediately in violent disputes with
the emperor of Grermany. He desired also to dictate laws to
Prance, Spain, Sweden, Poland, and England ; and thinking
of nothing but making himself acknowledged as the great
arbiter of states, he launched his anathemas even against
the throne of Constantinople, which he had imdertaken to
defend, and gave no more attention to the deliverance of
Jerusalem.
After the death of G-regory, Victor III., although he
pursued the policy of his predecessor, and had at the same
time to contend against the emperor of Grermany and the
party of the anti-pope Guibert, did not neglect the oppor-