generally established, still maintained its ground. However, in the
principal cities, the Emperor frequently exercised the privilege of
giving a sanction to the choice, and sometimes of appointing the bishop;
though, for the most part, the popular election still prevailed. But
when, the Barbarians, after destroying the Empire, had at length
submitted their necks to the Gospel, their kings and great men, full of
zeal and gratitude to their instructors, endowed the Church with large
territories and great privileges. In this case it was but natural that
they should be the patrons of those dignities and nominate to that power
which arose from their own free bounty. Hence the bishoprics in the
greatest part of Europe became in effect, whatever some few might have
been in appearance, merely donative. And as the bishoprics formed so
many seigniories, when the feudal establishment was completed, they
partook of the feudal nature, so far as they were subjects capable of
it; homage and fealty were required on the part of the spiritual vassal;
the king, on his part, gave the bishop the investiture, or livery and
seizin of his temporalities, by the delivery of a ring and staff. This
was the original manner of granting feudal property, and something like
it is still practised in our base-courts. Pope Adrian confirmed this
privilege to Charlemagne by an express grant. The clergy of that time,
ignorant, but inquisitive, were very ready at finding types and
mysteries in every ceremony: they construed the staff into an emblem of
the pastoral care, and the ring into a type of the bishop's allegorical
marriage to his church, and therefore supposed them designed as emblems
of a jurisdiction merely spiritual. The Papal pretensions increased with
the general ignorance and superstition; and the better to support these
pretensions, it was necessary at once to exalt the clergy extremely,
and, by breaking off all ties between them and their natural sovereigns,
to attach them wholly to the Roman see. In pursuance of this project,
the Pope first strictly forbade the clergy to receive investitures from