268 THE DECLINE AND FALL dued by the champions of the cross ; and that grace is the sole fountain of dominion as well as of mercy. Above four hundred years before the first crusade, the eastern and western provinces of the Roman empire had been acquired about the same time, and in the same manner, by the barbarians of Germany and Arabia. Time and treaties had legitimated the conquests of the Chrisitan Franks : but, in the eyes of their subjects and neigh- bours, the Mahometan princes were still tyrants and usurpers, who, by the arms of war or rebellion, might be lawfully driven from their unlawful possession-^'-^ Spiritual As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their discipline Indulgences of pcnancc "" was enforced ; and, with the multiplication of sins, the remedies were multiplied. In the primitive church, a volun- tary and open confession prepared the work of atonement. In the middle ages, the bishops and priests interrogated the criminal ; compelled him to account for his thoughts, Avords, and actions ; and prescribed the terms of his reconciliation with God. But, as this discretionary power might alternately be abused by indulgence and tyranny, a rule of discipline was framed, to inform and regulate the spiritual judges. This mode of legislation was invented by the Greeks ; their penitential^ ^■^ were translated, or imitated, in the Latin church ; and, in the time of Charlemagne, the clergy of every diocese were provided with a code, which they prudently concealed from the knowledge of the vulgar. In this dangerous estimate of crimes and punish- ments, each case was supposed, each difference was remarked, by the experience or penetration of the monks : some sins are enumerated which innocence could not have suspected, and others which reason cannot believe ; and the more ordinary offences of fornication and adultery, of perjury and sacrilege, of rapine and murder, were expiated by a penance which, accord- ing to the various circumstances, was prolonged from forty days — The Sixth Discourse of Fleury on Ecclesiastical History (p. 223-261) contains an accurate and rational view of the causes and effects of the crusades. ^The penance, indulgences, &c. of the middle ages are amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italias niedii .^vi, torn. v. dissert. Ixviii. p. 709-768) and by M. Chais (Lettres sur las Jubilds et les Indulgences, torn. ii. lettres 21 and 22, p. 478-556), with this difference, that the abuses of superstition are mildly, perhaps faintly, exposed by the learned Italian, and peevishly magnified by the Dutch minister. 2^ Schmidt (Histoire des Alleniands, tom. ii. p. 211-220, 452-462) gives an ab- stract of the Penitential of Rhegino [ed. Wasserschleben, 1840] in the ixth [c. A.D. 906], and of Biu-chard [Mignc, Pair. Lat. 140, p. 537 si^i/._^ in the xth, century. Jn one year, five and thirty niurders were perpetrated -^t Worms.
