Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/522

 442 Outliiies of European History Attitude of the Church toward its property Attitude of the king Difficult position of the bishops in Germany and else- where the lord transferred to him the lands and rights attached to the office. No careful distinction appears to have been made between the property and the religious powers. The lord often conferred both by bestowing upon a bishop the ring and the crosier (see headpiece to Chapter XX, p. 475), the emblems of religious authority. It seemed shocking enough that the lord, who was often a rough soldier, should dictate the selection of the bishops ; but it was still more shocking that he should assume to confer religious powers with religious emblems. Yet even worse things might happen, since sometimes the lord, for his greater convenience, had himself made bishop. The Church itself naturally looked at the property attached to a church office as a mere incident and considered the religious prerogatives the main thing. And since the clergy alone could rightly confer these, it was natural that they should claim the right to bestow the lands (" temporalities ") attached to them upon whomsoever they pleased without consulting any layman whatever. Against this claim the king might urge that a simple minister of the Gospel, or a holy monk, was by no means necessarily fitted to manage the interests of a feudal state, such as the great archbishoprics and bishoprics, and even the abbeys, had become in Germany and elsewhere in the eleventh century. In short, the situation in which the bishops found themselves was very complicated, (i) As an officer of the Church, the bishop saw to it that parish priests were properly selected and ordained, he tried certain cases in his court, and performed the church ceremonies. (2) He managed the lands which be- longed to the bishopric, which might, or might not, be fiefs. (3) As a vassal of those who had granted lands to the bishopric upon feudal terms, he owed the usual feudal dues, including the duty of furnishing troops, to his lord. (4) Lastly, in Germany, the king had found it convenient, from about the beginning of the eleventh century, to confer upon the bishops in many cases the authority of a count in the districts about them. In this