The course of events in relation to the monarchical power was for some time different in the East and the West. Constantine had himself assumed more of the pomp and manner of an oriental sovereign than any preceding emperor, and the court of Constantinople was soon characterised by an extravagance of magnificence on the part of the monarch, and of adulation on the part of the subjects, which has probably never been exceeded.(544) The imperial power in the East overshadowed the ecclesiastical, and the priests, notwithstanding their fierce outbreak during the iconoclastic controversy, and a few minor paroxysms of revolt, gradually sank into that contented subservience which has usually characterised the Eastern Church. In the West, however, the Roman bishops were in a great degree independent of the sovereigns, and in some degree opposed to their interests. The transfer of the imperial power to Constantinople, by leaving the Roman bishops the chief personages in a city which long association as well as actual power rendered the foremost in the world, was one of the great causes of the aggrandisement of the Papacy and the Arianism of many sovereigns, the jealousy which others exhibited of ecclesiastical encroachments, and the lukewarmness of a few in persecuting heretics, were all causes of dissension. On the severance of the Empire, the Western Church came in contact with rulers of another type. The barbarian kings were little more than military chiefs, elected for the most part by the people, surrounded by little or no special sanctity, and maintaining their precarious and very restricted authority by their courage or their skill. A few feebly imitated the pomp of the Roman emperors, but their claims had no great weight with the world. The aureole which the genius of Theodoric cast around his throne passed away upon his death, and the Arianism of that great sovereign sufficiently debarred him from the sympathies of the Church. In Gaul, under a few bold and unscrupulous men, the Merovingian dynasty emerged from a host of petty kings, and consolidated the whole country into one kingdom; but after a short period it degenerated, the kings became mere puppets in the hands of the mayors of the palace, and these latter, whose office had become hereditary, who were the chiefs of the great landed proprietors, and who had acquired by their position a personal ascendancy over the sovereigns, became the virtual rulers of the nation. It was out of these somewhat unpromising conditions that the mediæval doctrine of the Divine right of kings, and the general reverence for rank, that formed the essence of chivalry, were slowly evolved. Political and moral causes conspired in producing them. The chief political causes—which are well known—may be summed up in a few words.