hid themselves in noisome and sepulchral crypts. The inspiring chants of
Ambrose gave place to gloomy and monotonous antiphonal singing,--that
is, when the monks confined themselves to their dismal vocation. What
was especially needed was a reform among the clergy themselves. They
indeed owned their allegiance to the Pope, as the supreme head of the
Church, but their fealty was becoming a mockery. They could not support
the throne of absolutism if they were not respected by the laity.
Baronial and feudal power was rapidly gaining over spiritual, and this
was a poor exchange for the power of the clergy, if it led to violence
and rapine. It is to maintain law and order, justice and safety, that
all governments are established.

Hildebrand saw and lamented the countless evils of the day, especially
those which were loosening the bands of clerical obedience, and
undermining the absolutism which had become the great necessity of his
age. He made up his mind to reform these evils. No pope before him had
seriously undertaken this gigantic task. The popes who for two hundred
years had preceded him were a scandal and a reproach to their exalted
position. These heirs of Saint Peter wasted their patrimony in pleasures
and pomps. At no period of the papal history was the papal chair filled
with such bad or incompetent men. Of these popes two were murdered, five
were driven into exile, and four were deposed. Some were raised to
prominence by arms, and others by money. John X. commanded an army in
person; John XI. died in a fit of debauchery; and John XII. was
murdered by one of the infamous women whom he patronized. Benedict IX.
was driven from the throne by robbery and murder, while Gregory VI.
purchased the papal dignity. For two hundred years no commanding
character had worn the tiara.

Hildebrand, however, set a new example, and became a watchful shepherd