We can speak of the rights of the temporal power without difficulty; but at the epoch under review, the power in question was a mere brute force, an intractable ruffianism. The church, however imperfect its notions of morals and of justice might still be, was infinitely superior to such a government, and the cry of the people was continually raised, beseeching it to take its place. When a pope or a few bishops proclaimed a sovereign denuded of his rights, and his subjects freed from the oath of fidelity, such an intervention, although doubtless open to serious abuses, was often in particular cases legitimate and salutary. In general, whenever liberty has been wanting to mankind, its restoration has been the work of religion. In the tenth century, the people were not in a state to defend themselves, or to make their rights available against civil violence, and religion came to the rescue in the name of Heaven. This is one of the reasons which have mainly contributed to the victories of the theocratic principle. There is a third cause for the arrogation of the spiritual order, which has been too little noticed, arising out of the complexity in the situation of the chiefs of the church, and the variety of aspects under which they appeared in society. On the one hand they were prelates, members of the ecclesiastical order, part and parcel of the spiritual power, and by right thereof independent; on the other they were vassals, and, as such, engaged in the bonds of civil feudalism. And, furthermore, they were not only vassals, but also subjects: some portion of the old relations of the Roman emperors with the bishops and clergy had passed into those formed between the priesthood and the barbarian kings. By a series of causes which it would be too tedious to develop, the bishops had been led to regard, to a certain extent, the barbarian sovereigns as successors of the Roman emperors, and to attribute to them all their prerogatives. The chiefs of the clergy had therefore a triple character--an ecclesiastical character, and, as such, independent; a feudal character, and, as such, bound to certain duties, and holding by certain services; and the character of a simple subject, and, as such, held to obey an absolute sovereign. Now, the temporal sovereigns, who were not less greedy or ambitious than the bishops, frequently availed themselves of their rights as lords or sovereigns to encroach upon the spiritual independence, and to possess themselves of the presentation to benefices, the nomination to bishoprics, &c. {103} On their side, the bishops often intrenched themselves behind their spiritual independence, to get rid of their obligations as vassals or subjects. In this manner there was an almost inevitable tendency leading the sovereigns, on the one hand, to destroy the spiritual independence; and the chiefs of the church, on the other, to make that independence an instrument to work out universal dominion.