Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/219

Rh Herman of Metz,—was the invention of worldly men, ignorant of God and prompted by the devil ; it needed not only the assistance but the authorisation of the church.

Viewing the new policy in its first rudiments, we cannot fail to detect an inevitable source of weakness, so far as its essential aims were concerned. It made demands on the clergy (and a fortiori on the pope, for whom was claimed a virtual omnipotence on earth) which could hardly be satisfied in a far higher stage of civilisation. In a word it was theoretical, ideal, visionary. As soon as it was brought into the sphere of practice, so soon as the church entered into conflict with the state, it became evident that the unworldliness assumed in the church only existed in so far that she had no material forces to rely upon; although the weapon of excommunication which she wielded was in fact more powerful than any forces that the secular state possessed. If the clergy were free from civil control, society on the other hand had little or no protection against their license. To make the high ecclesiastical officers proudly independent of the sovereign was to introduce the influence of the Roman see into every court, and to put canonical obedience in danger of becoming a matter of common politics. If ecclesiastical property was released from civil obligation, the church was as much as before subject to the cares and the temptations of wealth. The spiritual basis of the hierarchical pretensions in fact at once broke down on trial. The pope by aspiring to universal dominion, fell to the position of a sovereign among sovereigns; he became a disturbing influence in the political system of Europe, and the most religious of men were constantly troubled to reconcile their duty towards their