had too much to lose in acknowledging Innocent, for he would be
obliged to surrender the papal lands which he had occupied and,
perhaps, the royal title, the gift of Anacletus. The end, however, was
at hand. Less than two months after Lothair's death Anacletus died
(January 25, 1138). His few remaining followers elected a successor,
but this was more with the desire of making good terms than of
prolonging the schism. Innocent bribed and Bernard persuaded, and the
anti-Pope surrendered of his own accord. Bernard, to whom was rightly
ascribed the merit of ending the scandal of disunion in Christendom,
immediately escaped from his admirers and returned to the solitude of
Clairvaux and his literary labours. These were not all self-imposed.
Among his correspondents were persons in all ranks of life; and his
letters, no less than his formal treatises, prove his influence as one
of the most deeply spiritual teachers of the Middle Ages.

[Sidenote Roger of Sicily.]

Roger of Sicily alone had not accepted Innocent; but a foolish attempt
to coerce him ended in the defeat and capture of the Pope. In return
for the acknowledgment of papal suzerainty, which involved oblivion of
the imperial claims, Innocent not only confirmed to Roger and his
successors both his conquests in Southern Italy and the royal title,
but even, by the grant of the legatine power to the King himself,
exempted his kingdom from the visits of papal legates. Roger was
supreme in Church and State. A cruel yet vigorous and able ruler, he
built up a centralised administrative system from which Henry II of
England did not disdain to take lessons. His possession of Sicily
carried him to Malta and thence to the north coast of Africa; and
before his death in 1154 Tunis was added to his dominions. He was thus
one of the greatest among the early Crusaders, and perhaps the most