634 



POOR POPE. 



names, as Pooh Samo (Little Samos.) Foolo is of- 

 ten used as a diminutive ; for instance, Mariapoola 

 (little Mary). In the Malay languages, poolo signi- 

 fies an island. 



POOR, POORA (city, in Sanscrit) ; the termi- 

 nation of numerous geographical names in India 

 east of the Gnnges, as Rajapoor (royal city.) 



POOR'S RATE is the name given in England to 

 the taxes raised for the aid or support of those who 

 fiinnot support themselves. See Pauperism. 



POOTRA (in Sanscrit, son) ; a word appearing 

 in many geographical names, as Brahmapootra (son 

 of Bramali.) 



POPAYAN ; a city of New Grenada, situated 

 in a large and fertile plain, watered by the Cauca, 

 lying at the foot of the volcanic Purace. It is 

 about eighty leagues south-west of Bogota, and 

 eighty-five north-west of Quito ; lat, 2 26' 

 north ; Ion. 76 39' west. It is prettily built, and 

 its elevation above the sea (5750 feet) renders the 

 climate mild. Population, 25,000. It suffered 

 much during the war of Colombian independence, 

 and, in 1827, was almost entirely overthrown by 

 an earthquake, which was accompanied by an 

 eruption of the Purace and an overflow of the 

 Cauca. 



POPE (from the Greek *;, father; see 

 Papas) was the title of the bishop of Rome, long 

 before he possessed the authority which is now 

 connected with the name. From the end of the 

 fourt/i century, he was the first among the five 

 patriarchs or superior bishops of Christendom; for 

 the circumstance that Rome was the ancient capital 

 of the kingdom, and, according to tradition, the 

 last dwelling-place of the apostle Peter, had long 

 since given to him, as pretended successor of Peter, 

 an extensive authority, but no peculiar jurisdiction 

 over foreign dioceses. This, however, the popes 

 obtained by the wealth of the Roman church, 

 which had property in most other dioceses, by 

 arbitration in ecclesiastical contentions, and by 

 availing themselves of many opportunities favour- 

 able to the extension of their influence. A pro- 

 vincial synod at Sardica, in the year 344, and a 

 decree of the emperor Valentinian III., in 445, 

 had, indeed, acknowledged the bishop of Rome as 

 primate, and as the last tribunal of appeal from the 

 other bishops ; but even in the West, where alone 

 these edicts had the force of law, the measures of 

 the popes, until the eighth century, often met with 

 violent opposition. About this time, several cir- 

 cumstances contributed to open to them the way to 

 supreme control over all churches. (See Hierarchy). 

 Among these were the establishing new churches 

 in Germany, which, like those of Britain at an 

 earlier period, being founded by their missionaries, 

 were at first subject to their power ; the political 

 confusion, and the change of government in Italy 

 and France ; the decretals of the pretended Isidore, 

 forged between 830 and 850, probably by Bene- 

 dict, a deacon of Mentz (which, in those times of 

 ignorance, contributed much to support the claims 

 of the Roman church to exercise supreme power, 

 by supposititious letters and statutes of former 

 bishops of Rome, dated back to the first centuries); 

 the schism between the Eastern and Western 

 churches, which bound the latter still more closely 

 to the popes, as their leaders ; the gradations of 

 ecclesiastical rank, every where introduced by the 

 ambition of the popes, all derived and gradually 

 descending from them, who had usurped the highest 

 place ; and, finally, the personal superiority of some 

 popes over their contemporaries. Thus Leo the 

 Great, in the fifth century ; Gregory I., called the 

 Great, a zealous good, and able man, in the sixth 



century ; and Leo III., who crowned Charlemagne, 

 in the eighth century, had obtained for the papal 

 title an authority which the patriarchs of the East 

 could not attain, and against which the power of 

 princes availed little. The story of the female 

 pope, Johanna or Joan, an English woman, edu- 

 cated at Mentz and Athens, who, concealing her 

 sex, rose by her learning and talent from the office 

 of a notary at Rome to the papal chair, but, after a 

 reign of two years and a half, was detected by 

 becoming a mother, is a fable and satire. There 

 were, indeed, unworthy popes during the middle 

 ages ; but, after the brilliant victory which Nicholas 

 I. (who was first solemnly crowned) obtained over 

 Lothaire, king of Lorraine, in the affair of a divorce 

 in 865, and over the bishops of Treves and Cologne, 

 whom he deposed by his papal authority ; and 

 after the example which John VIII. had given, in 

 875, of a disposal of the imperial crown, which he 

 conferred on Charles the Bald, the power of the 

 popes could receive but little injury from the 

 violence and corruption which prevailed in the 

 papal see above a hundred years, beginning from 

 the influence of the Tuscan counts at Rome, under 

 Sergius III., in 904, and continued by the wicked 

 and licentious favourites and relations of the infa- 

 mous princesses Theodora and Marozia (one of 

 whom, John XII., in 956, while but eighteen 

 years old, and another, Benedict IX., in 1033, a 

 boy of twelve years, obtained the dignity of pope), 

 and even from the scandalous circumstance that, in 

 1045, three popes, chosen by means of bribery, 

 were living together in Rome. The rudeness of 

 the age concealed the scandal of such things. 



In the midst of all this darkness, a ray of light 

 appears in the reign of the excellent Sylvester II., 

 between 999 and 1003, who was one of the most 

 learned men of his time, and whom the world 

 regarded as a magician. The troubles arising 

 during the decline of the Carlovingian dynasty in 

 France and Germany offered an extensive and con- 

 tinually enlarging field of action to the ambition of 

 the popes ; and their dignity and independence of 

 the nobles and people of Rome, which they had 

 often lost during the contentions of factions, were 

 regained by them by the constitution of Nicholas 

 II., in 1059, placing the right of election to the 

 papal chair in the hands of the cardinals (see Con- 

 clave), to the exclusion of the laity. After this, a 

 succession of good rulers, of great talents and 

 excellent character, sat upon what was then the 

 first throne in Christendom ; Gregory VII., who 

 surpassed them all in spirit and in power, and who 

 began to carry through, with wonderful perse- 

 verance, the project of universal dominion ; Urban 

 II., who was several times driven from Rome by 

 the antipope Clement III., but who, from 1088 to 

 1099, ruled with extensive influence and extraordi- 

 nary vigour; Alexander III., who, during his 

 reign, between 1160 and 1181, survived two rivals, 

 and overcame a third, who brought the kings of 

 England and Scotland to unconditional obedience 

 in religious matters, who made the emperor 

 Frederic I. hold his stirrup, and confirmed the 

 system of the election of popes; and Innocent III., 

 whose reign, between 1198 and 1216, raised the 

 papal see to the highest degree of power and 

 dignity. 



What the popes in earlier times had only at- 

 tempted in peculiar circumstances, these great 

 men, so superior to their age. made the settled 

 usage, by a regular series of bold usurpations and 

 persevering efforts. They united the clergy of 

 western and central Europe closely to the papal 

 seri.by the introduction of a new form of oath, by 





