canon was valid without his sanction; and he assumed the rights of nominating, and of translating from one see to another, the greatest prelates of the Church. But as assemblies of men who possess a monopoly of the learning and worldly wisdom of a nation, conscious of mental superiority and incited by motives of ambition, are never satisfied with acting in a subordinate capacity; the ecclesiastical councils of Spain almost imperceptibly, but none the less surely, began to encroach upon the royal prerogative, and, assisted by the weakness or gratitude of princes whose titles had been assured by their confirmation, aimed at the seizure of absolute power. By the institution of the rite of anointing, which imparted a sacred character to the monarch, and invested in them an implied control over his coronation--a rite first used in Spain and not adopted in France till the reign of Pepin, in the eighth century; by the framing of laws favorable to their order, and whose essential provisions were carefully disguised under the specious name of enactments for the public welfare; by a command of a majority of the votes which elected the sovereign; and lastly, by the conversion of the whole nation to the doctrines of the orthodox faith; the Gothic clergy advanced unswervingly towards the establishment of their claim to political supremacy. The Third Council of Toledo was the first of these important convocations in which questions relating to the settlement of the constitution of the Gothic monarchy were debated and settled. From this time until the meeting of the Eighth Council in 653, the palatines did not participate in the deliberations of these assemblies, which now began to assume the appearance of legislative bodies, in which the aims of exclusive ecclesiastical representation were already clearly disclosed by the partiality and exemptions which characterized the canons treating of the rights and privileges of the priesthood. After the middle of the seventh century, although the nobles were admitted as members of the national councils and took part in their discussions, the influence of the clergy became paramount, and the duties of the nobility were confined to a passive assent to, and registration of, their edicts. A separate tribunal for the final adjudication of all disputed points of doctrine which might incidentally arise in the ordinary administration of justice was granted to ecclesiastics; the latter were prohibited from engaging in commerce, which the poverty of the Church had formerly rendered necessary; it became customary to select bishops for the negotiation of treaties, and for the direction of military embassies which were invested with the all-important powers of peace and war; the councils occasionally claimed jurisdiction over secular causes--an unwarranted assumption of power which the indifference or bigotry of the sovereign usually failed to resent; and the intolerant character of the canons