The struggle between imperialism and hierarchism, which is present through the whole course of the Middle Ages, rose to a height in the times of Louis the Bavarian, A.D. 1314-1347 (§ 110, 3, 4), and is of special interest here because of the literary war waged against one another by the rival supporters of the emperor and the pope. It concerns itself first of all only with the questions in debate between the imperial and the sacerdotal parties; but soon on the imperialist side there appeared a reforming tendency, which could not be given effect to without carrying the discussion into a multitude of other departments where reformation was also needed. Of quite another kind was the “reformation of head and members” desired by the great councils of the 15th century. The contention here was based, not so much upon any superiority claimed by the emperor over the pope and by the State over the church, but rather upon the subordination of the pope to the supreme authority of the universal church represented by the œcumenical councils. Yet both agreed in this, that with like energy they attacked the corruption of the papacy, in the one case in the interest of the State, in the other in the interest of the church. § 118.1. =The Literary War between Imperialists and Curialists in the 14th Century.=--The literary controversy over the debatable land between church and State was conducted with special vigour in the earlier part of our period, on account of the conflict between Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair of France (§ 110, 1). The ablest vindicators of the independence of the State were the advocate =Peter Dubois= and the Dominican theologian =John of Paris=. Among their scholars were the men who twenty years later sought refuge from the wrath of Pope John XXII. at the court of Louis the Bavarian at Munich. Of these the most important was the Italian =Marsilius of Padua=. As teacher of theology, philosophy, and medicine at Paris, in A.D. 1324, when the dispute between emperor and pope had reached its height, he composed jointly with his colleague =John of Jandun= in Champagne a _Defensor pacis_, a civil and ecclesiastical memoir, which, with an insight and clearness very remarkable for that age, developed the evangelical mean of the superiority of the State over the church, and of the empire over the papacy, historically, exegetically, and dogmatically; and for this end established theories of Scripture and tradition, of the tasks and place of the church in the State, of excommunication and persecution of heretics, of liberty of faith and conscience, etc., which even transcend the principles laid down on these points by the Reformation of the 16th century. Both authors accompanied Louis to Italy in A.D. 1326, and there John of Jandun died in A.D. 1328. Marsilius continued with the emperor as his physician, counsellor, and literary defender, and died at Munich between A.D. 1341-1343. In A.D.