Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/37

 II.] EARLIER KINGS. 13 (their grandmothers having both been daughters of the Emperor He7iry /.). Pope Gregory V. was induced by Otho to pronounce the marriage invalid, on the plea of kindred, and also because Robert had stood godfather to one of the children of Bertha's first marriage. The evidently political object of this separation emboldened Robert to resist it. He even endured excommunication for some time before he yielded and parted with Bertha. 4. The Year 1000. — To this he was probably led by the general'belief that the 1000 years for which Satan is said in the Book of Revelation to be bound would end with the world itself in A.D. 1000. Everywhere people were preparing, breaking off with their vices, setting free their captives, making up quarrels, undoing wrongs, thronging the churches, confessing, doing penance, many in an agony of fear which hindered them from transacting business, and even from sowing their crops. Their dis- may was .increased by the news that the Khalif Hakein had ruined the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. When the new year dawned, it was like a renewal of life ; but the alarm had not been wholly without fruit, for a certain sense of religion began from this time to show itself in the violent penances of the fierce barons, and the greatly increased zeal and strictness of the monastic orders. The king, by the Pope's direction, married Constance, daugliter of the Count of Toulouse^ a proud, passionate, woman, whose southern gaiety and frivolity were a great scandal to his rude and severe court. Robert had a certain pleasure in tricking her. He sang a hymn beginning '' O Constantia inartyrmn" and she thought it a poem in her praise When she caught a beggar stripping the gold fringe from his robes, he answered, "He wants it more than I do;" and when she had given him a lance decked with silver, he bade the next man who asked alms of him to fetch a knife, and going into a corner, picked off all the silver and gave it away. But he seems to have been cowed by her, for he allowed the murders which she caused to go unpunished. 5. The First Execution for Heresy, 1022. — The religious ferment awoke discussion, and two priests of Orleans, one of whom had been the queen's confessor, were tried before a synod, and found guilty of denying the Manhood of our Blessed Lord. The king condemned them to be burned, and this was the first execution for heresy on