forgery, that subverted their rights and freedom; and the only
opposition proceeded from a Sabine monastery, which, in the
beginning of the twelfth century, disputed the truth and validity
of the donation of Constantine. ^71 In the revival of letters and
liberty, this fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of
Laurentius Valla, the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman
patriot. ^72 His contemporaries of the fifteenth century were
astonished at his sacrilegious boldness; yet such is the silent
and irresistible progress of reason, that, before the end of the
next age, the fable was rejected by the contempt of historians
^73 and poets, ^74 and the tacit or modest censure of the
advocates of the Roman church. ^75 The popes themselves have
indulged a smile at the credulity of the vulgar; ^76 but a false
and obsolete title still sanctifies their reign; and, by the same
fortune which has attended the decretals and the Sibylline
oracles, the edifice has subsisted after the foundations have
been undermined.

[Footnote 68: Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus largitatem S.
R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his
Hesperiae partibus largiri olignatus est .... Quia ecce novus
Constantinus his temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in
tom. iii. part ii. p. 195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No. 16)
ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who borrowed
the name of St. Isidore: his humble title of Peccator was
ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his merchandise was
indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold for much
wealth and power.]

[Footnote 69: Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7) has