THE THIRD.

A.D. 1198-1216.

PART I.

The popes were continually increasing their power in many ways, although
they were often unable to hold their ground in their own city, but were
driven out by the Romans, so that they were obliged to seek a refuge in
France, or to fix their court for a time in some little Italian town.
They claimed the right of setting up and plucking down emperors and
kings. Instead of asking the emperor to confirm their own election to
the papacy, as in former times, they declared that no one could be
emperor without their consent. They said that they were the chief lords
over kingdoms; they required the emperors to hold their stirrup as they
mounted on horseback, and the rein of their bridle as they rode. And
while such was their treatment of earthly princes, they also steadily
tried to get into their own hands the powers which properly belonged to
bishops, so that the bishops should seem to have no rights of their own,
but to hold their office and to do whatever they did only through the
pope's leave and as his servants. They contrived that, whenever any
difference arose in the Church of any country, instead of being settled
on the spot, it should be carried by an appeal to Rome, that the pope
might judge it. They declared themselves to be above any councils of
bishops, and claimed the power of assembling general councils, although
in earlier times this power had belonged to the emperors, as was seen in
the case of the first great council of Nicaea. They interfered with the
election of bishops, and with the appointment of clergy to offices, in
every country; and they sent into every country their ambassadors, or
_legates_ (as they were called), whom they charged people to respect and
obey as they would respect and obey the pope himself. These legates
usually made themselves hated by their pride and greediness; for they
set themselves up far above the archbishops and bishops of any country
that they might be sent into, and they squeezed out from the clergy of
each country which they visited the means of keeping up their pomp and
splendour.

The popes who followed Gregory VII. all endeavoured to act in his
spirit, and to push the claims of their see further and further. And of
these popes, by far the strongest and most successful was Innocent III.,
who was only thirty-seven years old when he was elected in 1198. I have
told you how Gregory said that the papacy was as much greater than any