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also tyrannized over the bishops and the Pope. The Cluniac monks were aroused by his interference in the business of ecclesiastical admin- istration. The Roman See offered no stiff resistance. The first Pope during Conrad's reign was John XIX, a brother of Benedict VIII and a poor substitute. In 1027 he crowned Conrad Emperor. The fam- ily money had placed him on the Papal throne, and he followed the example set by offering to sell to the Patriarch of Constantinople the Papal authority in the East. It was only the vehement protest of friends of the reform which broke off this unhallowed deal. The next Pope was John's nephew, who as Benedict IX inherited the Roman See just as if it were a piece of furniture in his Tuscan family house! He ascended the Papal throne as a twelve-year-old boy, and for a whole decade draped it in scandals. Conrad, not averse to a weak Papacy, gave him more help than vituperation. The better Romans drove him away; but with his father's money he was able to come back and compel the Pope who had meanwhile been elected under the name of Sylvester III (he too had bought the throne) to retire to the Sabine bishopric from which he had come. But by this time the indignation of the Romans over his vicious life was so strong that he could not remain. The city rejoiced when he resigned in 1045 and sold his office to Gregory VI for a huge sum. This Pope was a virtuous man and a friend of the reform, had been Benedict's confessor and had doubtless himself induced him to resign. He wanted to be the sav- iour of the Church, but that he had used simony to get rid of simony proved his undoing.
During 1046, Henry III crossed the Alps to put an end to the un- settlement. He was preceded by a reputation for strength and kingly earnestness. He was just as serious about the Church as he was about the business of the State, and believed that the well-being of his era depended upon establishing harmony between Pope and Emperor. Being a man of earnest temperament, he was at heart a good deal of a monk. There was about him something of a poet, too. He was the friend of many arts, but deeper than this affection was that which impelled him to be alone with his God. From all profane and vul- gar joys he kept aloof. For days on which he was to wear the royal insignia he prepared himself by going to confession. This beautiful, sombre, lonely man, the most powerful ruler since Charlemagne's
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