Within the next few years men learned that a new type of Pontiff ruled the Church, or the world. Nicholas I. conceived himself, in deepest sincerity, to be the representative of God on earth: fancied himself sitting on a throne so elevated that from its level all men--kings and beggars, patriarchs and monks--were of the same size. He believed that he was responsible to God for every immoral or irreligious movement in "every part of the world," as he often said. He was convinced that his words were "divinely inspired,"[140] and that disobedience to him was disobedience to God. He was, by divine appointment, "prince over all the earth."[141] Kings received their swords from him,[142] and were as humbly subject as their serfs were to his moral and religious authority. The most powerful prelates must obey his orders at once or be deposed.[143] Not a council must be held in Europe without his approval[144]: not a church must be built "without the commands of the Pope"[145]: not a book of any importance must be published without his authorization.[146] Nicholas was conscientious in small duties: he kept lists of the blind and ailing poor to whom food had to be sent. But his great feature was his treatment of the mighty. He lived on a cloud-wrapt height, sending out the thunders of excommunication, on gentle and simple, as no Pope had ever dared to do before. He left to Louis the petty position of "emperor of men's bodies": _he_ occupied the position of Jupiter. Europe was cowed by the impersonal arrogance of his language. He was the greatest maker of the mediæval Papacy.[147]