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By Root 3175 0

in 915. But it was not strong enough to govern Rome, as it had done after Justinian's conquest, and the papacy became, for about a hundred years, a perquisite of the Roman aristocracy or of the counts of Tusculum. The most powerful Romans, at the beginning of the tenth century, were the 'Senator' Theophylact and his daughter Marozia, in whose family the papacy nearly became hereditary. Marozia had several husbands in succession, and an unknown number of lovers. One of the latter she elevated to the papacy, under the title of Sergius II (904–11). His and her son was Pope John XI (931–36); her grandson was John XII (955–64), who became Pope at the age of sixteen and 'completed the debasement of the papacy by his debauched life and the orgies of which the Lateran palace soon became the scene'.3 Marozia is presumably the basis for the legend of a female 'Pope Joan'.

The popes of this period naturally lost whatever influence their predecessors had retained in the East. They lost also the power, which Nicholas I had successfully exercised, over bishops north of the Alps. Provincial councils asserted their complete independence of the Pope, but they failed to maintain independence of sovereigns and feudal lords. Bishops, more and more, became assimilated to lay feudal magnates. 'The Church itself thus appears as the victim of the same anarchy in which lay society is weltering; all evil appetites range unchecked, and, more than ever, such of the clergy as still retain some concern for religion and for the salvation of the souls committed to their charge mourn over the universal decadence and direct the eyes of the faithful towards the spectre of the end of the world and of the Last Judgment.'4

It is a mistake, however, to suppose that a special dread of the end of the world in the year 1000 prevailed at this time, as used to be thought.

Christians, from St Paul onward, believed the end of the world to be at hand, but they went on with their ordinary business none the less.

The year 1000 may be conveniently taken as marking the end of the lowest depth to which the civilization of Western Europe sank. From this point the upward movement began which continued till 1914. In the beginning, progress was mainly due to monastic reform. Outside the monastic orders, the clergy had become, for the most part, violent, immoral, and worldly; they were corrupted by the wealth and power that they owed to the benefactions of the pious. The same thing happened, over and over again, even to the monastic orders; but reformers, with new zeal, revived their moral force as often as it had decayed.

Another reason which makes the year 1000 a turning-point is the cessation, at about this time, of conquest by both Mohammedans and northern barbarians, so far at least as Western Europe is concerned. Goths, Lombards, Hungarians, and Normans came in successive waves; each horde in turn was christianized, but each in turn weakened the civilized tradition. The Western Empire broke up into many barbarian kingdoms; the kings lost authority over their vassals; there was universal anarchy, with perpetual violence both on a large and on a small scale. At last all the races of vigorous northern conquerors had been converted to Christianity, and had acquired settled habitations. The Normans, who were the last comers, proved peculiarly capable of civilization. They reconquered Sicily from the Saracens, and made Italy safe from the Mohammedans. They brought England back into the Roman world, from which the Danes had largely excluded it. Once settled in Normandy, they allowed France to revive, and helped materially in the process.

Our use of the phrase 'the Dark Ages' to cover the period from 600 to 1000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe. In China, this period includes the time of the Tang dynasty, the greatest age of Chinese poetry, and in many other ways a most remarkable epoch. From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary. No one could