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 THE THRONE OF THE WORLD

'I have placed thee above the peoples of the kingdom in order that thou mightest attack and tear down, destroy and scatter, plant and build up anew!'. . . For you see who the servant is who has been placed above the household the viceroy of Jesus Christ, the follower of Peter, the anointed of the Lord God of Pharaoh, placed as a mediator between God and men, under God and yet above men, lesser than God, but greater than man. . . Thus is Peter lifted up unto the full- ness of power."

The man of slight build who spoke these words was to develop to the full the heritage of Gregory VII. With all his energy he lived according to the principle that nothing which happens in the world must escape the regard and the power of the Roman Pontiff. He, a scholastic thinker and a dialectician, a jurist and a theologian, looked upon his culture, acquired in Paris and Bologna, as a great good. He wrote to the King of France that he owed everything he had of science, after the grace of God, to the University of Paris. As long as he lived he protected this young foundation and defended its teachers and students against the tyranny of the Bishop of Notre-Dame.

Innocent gained the upper hand in Rome with great effort and after many setbacks. The resistance of the city to him who was really its Papal national politician lasted a long while. The nobles chose the psychological moment in which to make a pact with the people, who had not forgotten their Arnold of Brescia. The battle-towers of re- bellious barons arose in the Colosseum, in the Theatre of Marcellus, and in the Baths of Caracalla. What the mob thought of Popes was demonstrated anew on the day when the body of Alexander III was brought home from exile for burial. Stones and mud were hurled at the coffin. During many a day and many a night, Innocent sat in the Lateran Palace listening to the bells on the Capitol summon men to civil war. Long after the city prefect and the Senate had sworn him an oath of allegiance, "the ill-tempered mare" as Dante called Rome rebelled again. During the spring of 1203, the Pope fled from the burning city. After ten months he returned, silenced the demagogues and bribed the leaders of the people with money. This rime he secured everything he wanted, including the right to name and remove the fodesta, who was the administrator of Roman executive power. Innocent, who termed himself fatherly protector

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