the spread of religious heresies. Much of this was provoked by direct
antagonism to a powerful and corrupt Church; but the actual form
assumed by the positive beliefs of those who organised themselves
apart from the Catholic Church were largely Oriental in character.

Everything combined to encourage Innocent's interference, and it may
be pointed out at once that his success was largely due to the selfish
ambitions and desires of the lay princes, which enabled him to pose as
the undoubted representative of moral force organised in the Church.
In all his most important acts he was the mouthpiece of popular
opinion. Thus his contest with Philip of France in favour of the
repudiated Ingebiorg commanded the sympathy of every right-thinking
person in Europe; his desire for the separation of Italy and Germany
under different rulers was popular in Italy; while to attempt an union
of the Churches of East and West, to crush out heresy in the south of
France and elsewhere, to promote a new crusade in the East, were all
regarded as duties falling strictly within the papal sphere.

[His claim for the Papacy.]

The importance of this great activity lies in the fact that it was
based upon the most advanced theories of papal power. It was the
controversy over lay investiture which first caused the defenders of
the Church to formulate their views of the sphere of ecclesiastical
influence as against the influence of the secular authority. But the
extreme claims put forward for the Papacy as the head of the Church,
by Gregory VII and his followers, had provoked the counter definitions
of the jurists of Bologna on behalf of the imperial power. But the
claim of universal dominion by the Emperor was contradicted by facts,
and never rose above the dignity of an academic thesis; whereas in the