ecree of the
Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked,
abominable, and even diabolical, and curses and anathematizes them to
all eternity.

The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them, had
admitted the use of images; and perhaps that religion, without some of
those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress with these
idolaters; but they had not paid any species of worship or address to
images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians till it received
the sanction of the second council of Nice.

The kingdoms of the heptarchy, though united by so recent a conquest,
seemed to be firmly cemented into one state under Egbert; and the
inhabitants of the several provinces had lost all desire of revolting
from that monarch or of restoring their former independent governments.
Their language was everywhere nearly the same, their customs, laws,
institutions, civil and religious; and as the race of the ancient kings
was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the people readily
transferred their allegiance to a prince who seemed to merit it by the
splendor of his victories, the vigor of his administration, and the
superior nobility of his birth. A union also in government opened to
them the agreeable prospect of future tranquillity; and it appeared more
probable that they would thenceforth become formidable to their
neighbors than be exposed to their inroads and devastations. But these
flattering views were soon overcast by the appearance of the Danes, who,
during some centuries, kept the Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude,
committed the most barbarous ravages upon them, and at last reduced them
to grievous servitude.

FOOTNOTES:

[73] The seven kingdoms founded in England by seven different Saxon
invaders. They were Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumbria, East
Anglia, and Mercia.

[74] These abuses were common to all the European churches; but the
priests in Italy, Spain, and Gaul made some atonement for them by other
advantages which they rendered society. For several ages they were
almost all Romans, or, in other words, the ancient natives; and they
preserved the Roman language and laws, with some remains of the former
civility. But the priests in the heptarchy, after the first
missionaries, were wholly Saxons, and almost as ignorant and barbarous
as the laity. They contributed, therefore, little to the improvement of
society in knowledge or the ar