ria was consecrated
Pope, or rather antipope, Crescenzio took possession of all power, and
certain legates of Pope Gregory having ventured to enter Rome were at
once imprisoned with the Emperor's ambassadors. It was a daring stroke,
and if it had succeeded, the history of Europe would have been different
from that time forward. Crescenzio was bold, unscrupulous, pertinacious
and keen. He had the Roman nobles at his back and he controlled such
scanty revenues as could still be collected. He had violently expelled
three Popes, he had created two antipopes, and his name was terror in
the ears of the Church. Yet it would have taken more than all that to
overset the Catholic Church at a time when the world was ripe for the
first crusade; and though the Empire had fallen low since the days of
Charles the Great, it was fast climbing again to the supremacy of power
in which it culminated under Barbarossa and whence it fell with
Frederick the Second. A handful of high-born murderers and marauders
might work havoc in Rome for a time, but they could neither destroy that
deep-rooted belief nor check the growth of that imperial law by which
Europe emerged from the confusion of the dark age--to lose both law and
belief again amid the intellectual excitements of the Renascence.

Otto the Third was young, brave and determined, and before the treaty
with the Eastern Emperors was concluded, he was well informed of the
outrageous deeds of the Roman patricians. No sooner had he brought the
war on the Saxon frontier to a successful conclusion than he descended
again into Italy 'to purge the Roman bilge,' in the chronicler's strong
words. On his way, he found time to visit Venice secretly, with only six
companions, and we are told how the Doge entertained him in private as
Emperor, with sumptuous suppers, and allowed him to wander about Venice
all day as a simple unknown traveller, with his companions, 'visiting
the churches and the other rare things of the City,' whereby it is clear
that in the year 998, when Rome was a half-deserted, half-ruined city,
ruled by a handful of brigands living in the tomb of the Caesars, Venice,
under the good Doge Orseolo the Second, was already one of the beautiful
cities of the world, as well as mistress of the Adriatic, of all
Dalmatia, and of many lovely islands.

Otto took with him Pope Gregory, and with a very splendid army of
Germans and Italians marched down to Rome. Neither Crescenzio nor his
followe