The conduct of St. Canute in regard to the church was no less unpopular. He exempted ecclesiastics from all dependence on the secular tribunals; he placed bishops on the same level with dukes and princes; he brought the clergy into his council, and endeavoured to give them a voice in the assembly of the states. In this policy we see little to condemn. It may be true, in the abstract, that churchmen should be restricted to their peculiar province, the care of souls; but practically they have never been so; and in giving them influence in public affairs,—in converting the bishops into temporal barons, and the higher clergy into local judges,—Canute acted merely in conformity with the spirit of the times. And indeed he seems to have had good reason for that policy. Churchmen were better informed, more regular in their lives, than laymen: he therefore believed that they would make better administrators of the law; and in that belief he increased their powers at the expense of the feudal nobles. He could not foresee that by thus rendering them independent of the crown and of the people, he was preparing a scourge for his successors. [Sidenote: 1080 to 1086.] Though these measures raised him many enemies, his prodigality to several churches, and still more, his attempt to make tithes an obligatory impost, rendered three fourths of his people disaffected to his sway. Yet here, too, he is not to be censured by impartial posterity. He, doubtless, saw that if the church must subsist at all, it must not depend solely on so precarious a source as voluntary contributions. He saw that tithes were sanctioned by God’s word, and obligatory in the rest of Christendom; and he thought the impost less oppressive than any other that could be devised. But he did not proceed to his object with sufficient caution; he was too precipitate: he exasperated where he should have conciliated; and he was impatient of the least contradiction to his will. In fact, he was a despot; in most instances a well-meaning one; but his acts were more evident than his motives; and while he had no credit for these, he was hated for those. In another respect he was impolitic. Zealand he conferred, as a fief, on his brother Eric, with the title of Jarl; Sleswic, on his brother Olaf, with the title of Duke; and by so doing set a precedent for the dismemberment of his kingdom. [Sidenote: 1086.]