acquired for them the acknowledged supremacy over their adversaries--a supremacy which soon became coextensive with the Peninsula and laid the foundations of an extensive kingdom. Early in the fifth century the extermination, expulsion, or absorption by intermarriage, of the various tribes, and the emigration of the Vandals, in a body, to Africa, gave the control of the entire country, with the exception of a few seaports still tributary to Constantinople, to the Visigoths. In political organization, in nomenclature, in the construction and in the application of the maxims of jurisprudence, in the election of their rulers, in the punishment of criminals, in the regulation of their amusements, they observed the traditions and honored the observances of their old homes on the Vistula and the Baltic. The accident of conversion, a matter of indifference to the majority of the nation, and one, in this instance, partially dependent upon policy, had made them Arians, and consequently heretics. The Gothic Church, in its independence of the See of Rome, while it honored the Supreme Pontiff, and recognized, to a certain extent, the religious supremacy of the Papacy, presented an anomaly in the Christian world. The monarch chosen for his wisdom or his bravery had not as yet assumed the exterior insignia of royalty, and the laws held him to a strict accountability for the lives and property of his subjects, but in ecclesiastical affairs his authority was undisputed and supreme. He convoked at his pleasure and presided over the national councils--assemblies originally composed entirely of the clergy, and in which, at all times, the theocratical element largely preponderated; he published encyclical letters; he possessed the power of revising the decrees of councils before their adoption and promulgation; and his wishes and suggestions were received with a respect surpassing that usually accorded by his haughty vassals to the majesty of the throne. The clergy were in fact absolutely dependent upon the sovereign; their immunities were subject to his will or his caprice; and, far from enjoying the exemption they obtained in after times by reason of their sacred office and superior sanctity, they were liable to taxation, and amenable to punishment for the violation of the laws as strictly as were the laity. Not only were these restrictions imposed upon them, but the interests of the secular portion of the community were carefully guarded against the possible encroachments of ecclesiastical tyranny; the judges were particularly enjoined to scrutinize the conduct of the priesthood; and instances were by no means rare where heavy fines were imposed upon them for acts of injustice and for the oppression of their parishioners. From the decision of every bishop and metropolitan an appeal lay to the throne, a privilege conceded. to the meanest peasant; the king could suspend or abrogate the rules of ecclesiastical discipline; no