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" We interrupt our regularly scheduled Stupid to bring you the following message from the great Hendrik van Loon, author, journalist, confidant of presidents, teacher of America&amp;#039;s young people, and renowned eccentric prose stylist. This week&amp;#039;s lesson comes to us from Van Loon&amp;#039;s masterwork, The Story Of Mankind, which he published in 1921, in which we learn that popes used to swing a bigger crozier, as it were. The quarrel between the Popes and the Emperors was never settled, but after a while the two enemies learned to leave each other alone. In the year 1278, Rudolph of Hapsburg was elected Emperor. He did not take the trouble to go to Rome to be crowned. The Popes did not object and in turn they kept away from Germany. This meant peace but two entire centuries which might have been used for the purpose of internal organisation had been wasted in useless warfare. It is an ill wind however that bloweth no good to some one. The little cities of Italy, by a process of careful balancing, had managed to increase their power and their independence at the expense of both Emperors and Popes. When the rush for the Holy Land began, they were able to handle the transportation problem of the thousands of eager pilgrims who were clamoring for passage, and at the end of the Crusades they had built themselves such strong defences of brick and of gold that they could defy Pope and Emperor with equal indifference. Church and State fought each other and a third party\u2014the mediaeval city\u2014ran away with the spoils. And all of the best entertainment, too. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a38414/your-weekly-van-loon-093015/>