That dream contemplated the foundation of a national, schismatical church, of which he was to be the head and Pietro de Vinea the vicar. The Pope was to be restricted to the exercise of spiritual functions, and finally deposed. In the Emperor were to be centred all the glory, the majesty, the sanctity, of an omnipotent ruler, presumably responsible only to the Almighty; really the sole arbiter of the religious professions and the actions of mankind. How the demands of such a system, which must necessarily be maintained, to a certain extent, by intellectual coercion, could be reconciled with the broad and equitable tolerance which was for the most part the distinguishing characteristic of the policy of Frederick, does not appear. The claim was, as has already been mentioned, that ecclesiastical supremacy was vested in the secular power of the empire, and dated from the time of the Roman emperors. They were the Supreme Pontiffs from whom the Pope derived his title, but not his authority. That office was merged into, and was inferior to, the imperial dignity. Its inheritance by the monarch of Italy rested upon a more secure basis than the ambiguous and disputed commission alleged to have been conferred upon the fisherman of Galilee. Its validity had been strengthened by centuries of prescription. It had been exercised by many generations of sovereigns. The ministrations of the chief priest of a sect embracing millions of worshippers, the revered intermediary between the devotee and Heaven, are only too easily confounded with the attributes of divinity. These advantages were early recognized and diligently improved by Constantine. The Byzantine emperor was the head of the Greek Church. In Mohammed temporal and spiritual functions were united. Such examples, constantly present to the mind of Frederick, exerted no small influence in determining his course. In the eyes of his Sicilian subjects, the claim of the Imperial Crown to religious supremacy was regarded as a royal prerogative, which had been suspended but never relinquished. The usurpation of the Papal power was a favorite project of European monarchs in succeeding ages. It was seriously meditated by Philippe le Bel in France during the fourteenth century. It was effected by Henry VIII. in England during the sixteenth century. The defiance of the Pope by the great German Emperor was, even at the distance of three hundred years, one of the inspiring causes of the Reformation. The spirit of intellectual liberty, oppressed at first, was victorious in the end.