Father de Smedt further points out that Nicholas made no use of Isidorean Decretals which would, especially in his conflict with Photius, have been useful to him, and that, when he does use documents which are in the Isidorean collection, he gives their genuine words or assigns them to their real authors. These are generally valid claims, but they do not conflict with my conclusion. Nicholas plainly endeavoured to use the _Forged Decretals_, but he had a learned and acute antagonist in Hincmar and he dare not quote them individually or in their crude Isidorean form. One is almost reminded of the smiles of Roman augurs when one considers these two great ecclesiastical statesmen, using a forged document or watching with complacency the use of it, yet checking each other when it affects their own interests. There is no answer to Milman's sober charge that Nicholas saw the spread of the work and did not protest. He knew well the contents of the Roman archives--he had a number of scribes studying them--and he must have known as well as we do that there were no genuine Decretals before the time of Gelasius. The analysis made by M. Roy must be supplemented by that of J. Richterich,[173] from which it appears beyond question that Nicholas made a very extensive use of spurious documents; as we have found Roman officials doing from the fourth century. Father de Smedt[174] "does not altogether deny" that, as Hinschius says, Nicholas sometimes, in quoting genuine Decretals, alters their meaning in accordance with the Isidorean. Roy himself has to admit that Nicholas goes far beyond the words and meaning of Gelasius in saying that no church may be built without the Pope's permission.[175] He goes equally beyond genuine precedent in claiming that no bishop can be deposed without his authority; hitherto there had been only the vague understanding that "grave cases" were reserved to the Pope. He advances equally beyond precedent in claiming that no council can be held without his sanction. Roy[176] calls this "a pseudo-Isidorean principle," and says that Nicholas nowhere asserted it. But Nicholas plainly asserts it in _Ep._, xii., and is just as plainly straining a vague early claim of Pope Gelasius.[177]