Moslem institutions, with the powerful influences resulting from their universal adoption, thus maintained an overwhelming preponderance throughout the provinces of the Norman kingdom. Even in Apulia and Calabria, the original seat of the new dynasty, the same conditions prevailed. The centre of the Papal power and of the various states subject to its immediate jurisdiction--a jurisdiction already important, but not as yet exercised with undisputed authority--could not fail to be profoundly impressed by the proximity of this anomalous empire; where Christian symbols and Koranic legends were blended in the embellishment of cathedrals; where the crucifixion and the mottoes of Mohammedan rulers were impressed together upon the coinage of the realm; where eminent prelates owed investiture, rendered homage, and paid tribute to the secular power; where Moslem dignitaries not infrequently took precedence of Papal envoys; and the hereditary enemies of Christendom fought valiantly under the standard of the Cross. Nor was the effect of this ominous example confined to localities where daily familiarity had caused it to lose its novelty. The traders who visited the remote and semi-barbarous courts of Europe, the Crusaders who from time to time enjoyed the hospitality of the Sicilian cities, the returned adventurers who had served in the armies of the princely House of De Hauteville, all spread, far and wide, exaggerated and romantic accounts of the strange and sacrilegious customs of the Norman monarchy. Ecclesiastics crossed themselves with dismay when they heard of the honors lavished upon infidels, whose co-religionists had profaned the Holy Sepulchre, evoking gigantic expeditions which had depopulated entire provinces and drained the wealth of credulous and fanatic Europe. Others, whom study and reflection had made wise beyond the age in which they lived, saw, with open indifference and concealed delight, in this defiance and contempt of Popish tyranny, the dawn of a brighter era, the prospect of the ultimate emancipation of the human mind. The progress of the mental and moral changes which affected European society, acting through the intervention of Norman influence in the political and religious life of the continent, was gradual, indeterminate, and long imperceptible, but incessant and powerful. The universal deficiency of the means of information, the dearth of educational facilities, which promoted the dependence of the masses upon the only class capable of instructing and improving them, the terrible penalties visited upon heresy, deferred for nearly three hundred years the inevitable outbreak of an intellectual revolution. The principles on which that revolution was based, although at first discussed furtively and in secret, in time became so popular as to endanger the empire of the Church and to seriously impair its prestige.