The Popes, under the circumstances, were no doubt justified in
the policy they pursued, for the Swabian emperors failed to
respect the acknowledged rights of the church, and to remember
their own incompetency in spirituals; but evidently their
political views and aims were liberal, far-reaching, and worthy
of admiration. Their success, if it could have been effected
without lesion to the church, would have set Europe forward some
two or three hundred years, and probably saved it from the
schisms of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. But it is
easy to be wise after the event. The fact is, that during the
period when feudalism was in full vigor, the king was merely a
shadow; the people found their only consolation in religion, and
their chief protectors in the monks, who mingled with them, saw
their sufferings, and sympathized with them, consoled them,
carried their cause to the castle before the feudal lord and
lady, and did, thank God, do something to keep alive religious
sentiments and convictions in the bosom of the feudal society
itself. Whatever opinions may be formed of the monastic orders
in relation to the present, this much is certain, that they were
the chief civilizers of Europe, and the chief agents in
delivering European society from feudal barbarism.
The aristocracy have been claimed as the natural allies of the
throne, but history proves them to be its natural enemies,
whenever it cannot be used in their service, and kings do not
consent to be their ministers and to do their bidding.
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