In explaining this remarkable and sudden break with the religious and ecclesiastical development of a thousand years, it is well to bear in mind that its causes were at once political, economic, and religious. Politically, it was merely an accentuation of the conflict which had long been increasing in virulence between the spiritual and temporal authorities. It cannot be stated too emphatically that the Catholic Church during many centuries prior to the sixteenth had been not only a religious body, like a present-day church, but also a vast political power which readily found sources of friction with other political institutions. The Catholic Church, as we have seen, had its own elaborate organization in every country of western and central Europe; and its officials--pope, bishops, priests, and monks--denied allegiance to the secular government; the Church owned many valuable lands and estates, which normally were exempt from taxation and virtually outside the jurisdiction of the lay government; the Church had its own independent and compulsory income, and its own courts to try its own officers and certain kinds of cases for every one. Such political jurisdiction of the Church had been quite needful and satisfactory in the period--from the fifth to the twelfth century, let us say--when the secular governments were weak and the Church found itself the chief unifying force in Christendom, the veritable heir to the universal dominion of the ancient Roman Empire. But gradually the temporal rulers themselves repressed feudalism. Political ambition increased in laymen, and local pride was exalted into patriotism. By the year 1200 was begun the growth of that notable idea of national monarchy, the general outline of which we sketched in the opening chapter. We there indicated that at the commencement of the sixteenth century, England, France, Spain, and Portugal had become strong states, with well-organized lay governments under powerful kings, with patriotic populations, and with well-developed, distinctive languages and literatures. The one thing that seemed to be needed to complete this national sovereignty was to bring the Church entirely under royal control. The autocratic sovereigns desired to enlist the wealth and influence of the Church in their behalf; they coveted her lands, her taxes, and her courts. Although Italy, the Netherlands, and the Germanies were not yet developed as strong united monarchies, many of their patriotic leaders longed for such a development, worked for it, and believed that the principal obstacle to it was the great Christian Church with the pope at its head. Viewed from the political standpoint, the Protestant Revolt was caused by the rise of national feeling, which found itself in natural conflict with the older cosmopolitan or catholic idea of the Church. It was nationalism _versus_ Catholicism. [Sidenote: Economic Causes of Protestant Revolt]