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 296 THE DECLINE AND FALL controversy was revived in the reign oi' the Othos ; and their ambassador describes, in lively colours^ the insolence of the Byzantine court. i^-* The Greeks affected to despise the poverty and ignorance of the Fi'anks and Saxons ; and, in their last decline, refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the title of Roman emperors. uthorityof Thcse cmperors, in the election of the popes, continued to intheeiec- cxercise the powers which had been assumed by the Gothic popes. A.D. and Grecian princes ; and the importance of this prerogative uicreased with the temporal estate and spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman church. In the Christian aristocracy, the principal members of the clergy still formed a senate to assist the ad- ministration, and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop. Rome was divided into twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a cardinal-priest, or presbyter, a title which, how- ever common and modest in its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their number was enlarged by the associa- tion of the seven deacons of the most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine judges of the Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclesiastical senate was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the Roman province, who were less occupied in the suburb dioceses of Ostia, Porto, Velitrae, Tus- culum, Prseneste, Tibur, and the Sabines, than by their weekly service in the Lateran, and their superior share in the honours and authority of the apostolic see. On the death of the pope, these bishops recommended a successor to the suffrage of the college of cardinals, ^"^* and their choice was ratified or rejected by the applause or clamour of the Roman people. But the election was imperfect ; nor could the pontiff be legally conse- crated till the emperor, the advocate of the church, had graciously signified his approbation and consent. The royal commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the proceedings ; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny into 1^^ Ipse enim vos, non imperatoi-em, id est Bao-iAc'a su; lingua, sed ob indigna- tionem 'l'i7ya, id est regetn nostra vocabat (Liutprand, in Legal, in Script. Ital. torn. ii. pars i. p. 479 [c. 2]). The pope had exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Ihreks, to make peace with Otho, the august emperor of the Ro?/nuis — quce in- scriplio secundtim Gnecos peccatrix et temeraria . . . imperatorcm inquiunt, uiiiversalem, Romanorum^Augustitm, wnj^riiiDi, solum, Nicephorum (p. 486 [c. 47]). I'-^The origin and progress of the title of cardinal may be found in Thoniassin (Discipline de I'Eglise, torn. i. p. 1261-1298), Muratori (Antiquitat. Italije Medii yEvi, tom. vi. dissert. Ixi. p. 159-182), and Alosheim (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 345- 347), who accurately remarks the forms and changes of the election. The cardinal- bishops, so highly exalted by Peter Damianus, are sunk to a level with the rest of the sacred college.