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to rebuild a roof. Even if during this shameless collapse of Rome, the last New Testament and the last Missal had been destroyed, monks in the cloisters of France, England and Germany would not have ceased to adorn with pictures of the most reverent art and piety the Psalms which they had copied into books.
The Papacy is not the Church, and its decline could not be deeper than the resolve of such men to do their duty and raise it up again. Beyond the Alps there was also much reason to lament the evil ways upon which the Church had fallen; but in no decade of this notorious century was there an absence of blossom and fruit. As soon as one mentions St. Gall, Reichenau, Fulda, Hildesheim, Corby, Malmsbuty, Alfred the Great, Dunstan, Gerbert, Bruno, one senses the vigorous air of the northern spring. And when one has referred to the single Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, one has pointed out the place where Europe would be reborn in the old disciplined spirit of die Church. While this all renewing stream moved toward the West, it met a second tide of reform which had its source in Germany.
Otto the Great was an heir to Charlemagne's theocratic idea. As he conceived of the Empire, Christendom was one with a politically unified Europe. In order to be master and head of a domain which was divided politically but unified ecclesiastically, he turned his gaze southward. In the north, however, his German Church was most in- timately bound up with the Imperial authority. Otto made the prelates of the Church organs of the government. Bishops and abbots joined the ranks of the counts; archbishops became dukes. When they took over the possessions and administrative rights which went with their rank, they also bound themselves to do the Emperor's bid- ding. Therewith a dam was built against the dangerously growing power of the nobles; the clergy was freed from the long established pressure of temporal dignitaries, and the throne was given dependable support. The education which flourished in the spiritual estate a culture represented by the brilliant figure of Otto's brother, Bruno of Cologne, Archbishop and Chancellor helped to enrich civic life, and the celibacy of priest-officials was also a source of strength. When they died the king could dispose anew of their fiefs and offices.
But the sum-total of liberties in the world has never been larger than the highest conceivable quantity of liberty. In the new order of
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