Sicily, England, Aragon, and all the other countries, in
exchange for an adequate pension to the pope, their
d pp. 445-449- present sovereign. d Lombardy itself, it is explained,
although legally subject to the king of Germany, should
offer no insuperable difficulties ; since its nominal ruler is
well aware of the hopelessness of undertaking its reduction
to a state of real vassalage, and therefore everything
might be easily arranged by a secret treaty either with
himself or his electors.[1] This being secured it would
perhaps be necessary to conquer the Lombards; any
expedient would be lawful against them since nothing
could authorise them to refuse obedience to their prince ; and
it is clear that they would in time yield to the force of
arms assisted by the ravaging of their lands and the ruin
of their commerce. The conquest of Lombardy would
create so powerful an impression among other nations
that the king of France could not fail soon to receive
the submission of the rest of Europe ; and thus a lasting
peace would be secured for society.
A visionary scheme like this, the work of a layman and a lawyer, even with all its national vanity and exaggeration, is sufficiently indicative of the new horizon of political ideas that opened upon men in the end of the thirteenth century, to be deserving of comment. It shews us that the conception of the empire had already dwindled in the eyes of foreigners into that of a German kingdom, and that the temporal sway of the popes was seen to be the cause of endless mischief both to society and to the spiritual basis of the papacy itself. Nor can it escape notice that our theorist enunciates, as it were in a parenthesis, as a doctrine to which no one would think of objecting, that principle of necessary obedience to the temporal ruler which papal advocates had always been inclined to throw into the background or even formally to deny. It is in cases like this that the limitations of
- ↑ The former, our author speci- fies, on the supposition that it is true, as is reported, that the king possesses, or ought to possess, the right of transmitting his kingdom to his heirs, p. 445.
