ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION: APPEALS TO ROME.--Charlemagne had recognized the principle, held from early times by the Church, that ecclesiastics should be amenable only to the ecclesiastical tribunals, by freeing the whole body of the clergy from the jurisdiction of the temporal courts, in criminal as well as civil cases. Gradually the bishops acquired the right to try all cases relating to marriage, trusts, perjury, simony, or concerning widows, orphans, or crusaders, on the ground that such cases had to do with religion. Even the right to try all criminal cases was claimed on the ground that all crime is sin, and hence can properly be dealt with only by the Church. Persons convicted by the ecclesiastical tribunals were subjected to penance, imprisoned in the monasteries, or handed over to the civil authorities for punishment. Thus by the end of the twelfth century the Church had absorbed, not only the whole criminal administration of the clergy, but in part that of the laity also. [Footnote: Hallam, _Middle Ages_, ch. vii.] Now the particular feature of this enormous extension of the jurisdiction of the Church tribunals which at present it especially concerns us to notice, is the establishment of the principle that all cases might be appealed or cited from the courts of the bishops and archbishops of the different European countries to the Papal See, which thus became the court of last resort in all cases affecting ecclesiastics or concerning religion. The Pope thus came to be regarded as the fountain of justice, and, in theory at least, the supreme judge of Christendom, while emperors and kings and all civil magistrates bore the sword simply as his ministers to carry into effect his sentences and decrees. THE PAPACY AND THE EMPIRE.--We must now speak of the relation of the Popes to the Emperors. About the middle of the tenth century Otto the Great of Germany, like a second Charlemagne, restored once more the fallen Imperial power, which now became known as the Holy Roman Empire, the heads of which from this on were the German kings (see p. 502). Here now were two world- powers, the Empire and the Papacy, whose claims and ambitions were practically antagonistic and irreconcilable. There were three different theories of the divinely constituted relation of the "World-King" and the "World-Priest." The first was that Pope and Emperor were each independently commissioned by God, the first to rule the spirits of men, the second to rule their bodies. Each reigning thus by original divine right, neither is set above the other, but both are to cooperate and to help each other. The special duty of the temporal power is to maintain order in the world and to be the protector of the Church.