PETER IN CHAINS
all things. He was a lover of learning for learning's sake and a pow- erful magnet that drew the studious youth of France, Germany and Italy to his feet at Rheims, then the most universalistic institute of culture. His contemporaries were often astounded at the worldly nature of his studies; and after his death it was rumoured that he had made a pact with the Devil. Gerbert had cultivated his genius for mathematics and natural sciences in Arabian Spain. In the Palatinate, his association with both Ottos had fostered his native political bent. It could not be expected thaiKthis French Pontiff would encourage his German disciple to adopt a strong German policy. The Emperor, who wore on his belt buckle a rune in praise of Rome, and allegorical representations of the three divisions of the world as symbols of his claim to universal power, seemed to the Pope himself more a Byzan- tine and a Roman than a German.
Having now become the successor of Peter, Sylvester uncompromis- ingly adopted the outlook of Papal authority and strove to elevate his See above all states. He now thought as a Roman, no longer as a Gallican; and he was anxious to carry out a Christian world policy having supernatural objectives. It was not to the advantage of the German mission in the East chat he aided the Poles and the Hungarians by erecting metropolitan sees at Gnesen and Gran and by conferring on Stephen the Holy Crown, implying civic and racial independence. He was also the first to draw up a great and far-sighted plan for a crusade against the Turks. Nothing came of it.
Otto, who had forgotten his Germans while dreaming of world Empire, had now to face the fact that the German princes were con- spiring against him and that the German bishops were revolting against the Papal authority. He was now also to learn what national- ist passions slumbered in the hearts of his beloved Romans. They hated the foreign Emperor and the foreign Pope. Once more the nobles of the city raised the Roman flag, though their enemy was an Emperor who had created the city's new glory in the world. It did not help the German-Greek monarch greatly that he calmed the populace once more in beautiful Latin from his castle on the Aventine, and that a few leaders of the uprising were brought to his feet in chains. He was compelled to leave Rome and never again beheld the Aventine. He died (1001) at the age of twenty-two in the arms
BENEDICT
