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such things to happen. It was inevitable that this chaste service to the spirit and the mind should also create its own great world of sen- sory expression in the liturgy, and in all the arts and sciences.
Gerbert, too, had been a pupil of Cluny; and he was followed by others who had breathed in the new spirit either in the monastic city itself or in one of the houses it established. After 1089 there was erected in Cluny, as a symbol of the universal power of religion, a tremendous basilica larger in circumference than St. Peter's in Rome. Through more than 2,000 monasteries, France, Germany, England, Spain and Italy were bound to this centre of inner Catholic reforma- tion according to the Rule of Benedict. Its innermost character was freedom from the world in order that this world might be reconstructed according to the laws of Christ and under the protection of the Pa- pacy. This one can understand if one has grasped Dostoievsky's saying, "He who does not know the monk also does not know the world." The Roman hearth of the Cluniac spirit was the monastery of San Alesso, on the same Aventine where in the castle of the two Ottos German Emperors had drunk in the spirit of Rome. The nationalist movement did not permit the two to join forces; nor did their peaceful proximity mean that there would be peace between the Papacy and the Emperor for much longer.
Benedict VIII, the Tuscan, was a rough warrior and a political cal- culator rather than a spiritually minded man, and ushered in a period of glory for his house, which had based its power on the German kings during the whole of the conflict with the Crescentians. The Pope also owed that king gratitude for having been preferred to a rival from a hostile family, and this he did not forget. He crowned Henry II and Cunigunde. He warred against the Saracens on land and sea. But the resistance of the Greeks in southern Italy, against whom he could not prevail even with the help of the Herculean Normans (these Knights had come from Normandy as pilgrims) compelled him (1020) to obey a summons from the Emperor and go to Germany. In exchange for the service that he was to render there, he kept in his heart during the journey over the Alps a request for a service in return. The eventful visit made Germany jubilant. Benedict, welcomed with pomp, celebrated the feasts of Easter in Bamberg Cathedral
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