Copy 1, Volume 1

The history of the popes, their church and state, and especially of their conflicts with Protestantism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries / Translated by E. Foster.

  • Leopold von Ranke
Date:
1847-1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the popes, their church and state, and especially of their conflicts with Protestantism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries / Translated by E. Foster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the Germans, was an Anglo-Saxon; this missionary, largely sharing in the veneration professed by his nation for St. Peter and his successors, had from the beginning voluntarily pledged himself to abide faithfully by all the regulations of the Roman see: to this promise he most religiously adhered. On all the German churches founded by him was imposed an extraordi- nary obligation to obedience. -Every bishop was required expressly to promise that his whole life should be passed in unlimited obedience to the Romish church, to St. Peter and his representative. Nor did he confine this rule to the Ger- mans only. The Gallican bishops had hitherto maintained a certain independence of Rome; Boniface, who had more than once presided in their synods, availed himself of these occa- sions to impress his own views on this western portion of the Frankish church; thenceforward the Gallic archbishops re- ceived their pallium from Rome, and thus did the devoted submission of the Anglo-Saxons extend itself over the whole realm of the Franks. This empire had now become the central point for all the German tribes of the West. The fact that the reigning family, the Merovingian race, had brought about its own de- struction by its murderous atrocities, had not affected the strength of the empire. Another family, that of Pepin of Heristal, had risen to supreme power,—men of great energy, exalted force of character and indomitable vigour. While other realms were sinking together into one common ruin, and the world seemed about to become the prey of the Moslem, it was this race, the house of Pepin of Heristal, afterwards called the Carlovingian, by which the first and effectual resistance was offered to the Mahometan conquerors. The religious development then in progress was also equally favoured by the house of Pepin: we find it early maintaining the best understanding with Rome, and it was under the spe- cial protection of Charles Martel and Pepin le Bref that Boniface proceeded in his apostolic labours.* Let us consider * Bonifacii Epistole, ep. 12, ad Danielem episc.—‘‘ Sine patrocinio principis Francorum nec populum regere, nec presbyteros vel diaconos, monachos vel ancillas Dei, defendere possum ; nec ipsos paganorum ritus et sacrilegia idolorum in Germania sine illius mandato et timore prohibere
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