Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/247

 THE rRErARATlONS FOR A CRUSADE. 229 and of unceasing and untiring energy. His restless activity forced him to take interest in every question of the day. To be interested in a question meant for liim to be actively engaged in its solution. There was not a country in p]urope in whose affairs he did not take a prominent part. Quarrels between kings, between barons ; disputes, as in the case of our own John, between kings and their subjects; differences between abbeys and monasteries in the most remote countries, were examined personally and decided upon finally by him. The decision once taken, he took care to have it obeyed. Nothing escaped his vigilance. No question was too large or too small to engage his attention. His vast correspondence is one of the marvels of the Middle Ages. His negotiations, not only with European sovereigns and their subjects, but with Leo the Great, King of Armenia, with the Bulgarians, and with the Wallachs, were unceasing. His legates and car- dinals were in every country, laying down the law of the sovereign pontiff, scattering interdicts, issuing anathemas.* He, perhaps, more than any other pope, secured that the oc- cupant of the pontifical chair should be listened to through- out Europe as one speaking with authority, that the pope should be an independent sovereign, that the Church should owe obedience to the pope alone among earthly sovereigns, and that the ruler of Rome should own no superior but God. It is probably right to call the determination to carry out these designs ambition ; but to understand the energy with which they were executed, one is forced to give Innocent credit for having believed that they were objects which it was desirable in the interests of mankind to attain. In his opinion he was called upon by divine right to govern Europe, to repress disorder, to put down civil war, to divert the fierce energy of Northern warriors away from anarchy into useful channels. The world was turned upside down. The Holy Roman Empire was divided against itself. What is now Ger- many was the scene of constant and bloody wars. Italy was divided. Everywhere there was anarchy and confusion. Our ^ " Hist, de Philippe Auguste II.," by M. Capefigue.