The Minor and the Major Orders in the Early Centuries of the Church.--Establishment of Tithes originally voluntary, and afterwards obligatory.--Influence of the Bishops.--Supremacy of the See of Rome.--Form of Episcopal Oath in the Early Centuries.--Reform of Abuses by the Councils.--Remarkable sayings of Charlemagne and Hincmar.--Public Education created by the Church.--The Establishment of the Communes favoured by the Bishops.--The Beaumont Law.--Struggle with the Bourgeoisie in the Fifteenth Century.--The Council of Trent.--Institution of Seminaries. [Illustration: Fig. 219.--The Chanter or Psalmist, Minor Order.--G. Durand’s “Rationale.”] Near the close of the ninth century, Anastasius the Librarian wrote, at Rome, an Ecclesiastical History, from which we learn that the hierarchical order of the functionaries in the primitive Church was composed as follows: the doorkeeper (Fig. 220), the reader, the exorcist (Fig. 221), the acolyte, the sub-deacon, the keeper of the confessions of the martyrs, the deacon, the priest, the bishop. To these were afterwards added the chanters or psalmists, entitled _confessors_, because their function was to confess the name of God by celebrating His praises. The interpreter-linguists, the copyists, and the notaries, who figure in the Greek as well as in the Roman Church down to the fourth or fifth century, ranked with the order of confessors and that of clerks. In the early days of Christianity the bishop in each diocese consecrated to the service of religion, after the manner of St. Paul, those who were represented to him as being the most worthy, or whom he himself deemed fitting. The aspirant to the major orders sometimes rose very slowly, however meritorious he might be; thus Latinus, Bishop of Brescia, who died towards the close of the third century, had been, as his epitaph recorded, simple exorcist for twelve years, priest for fifteen, and bishop for three years and seven months. There were, however, some rapid and almost immediate promotions, called _per saltum_, because they jumped, as it were, from one grade to another; but these were made under exceptional circumstances. [Illustration: Fig. 220.--The Doorkeeper, Minor Order. Fig. 221.--The Exorcist, Minor Order. Miniature from the “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum” of William Durand (Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century), in the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot.] At first the Christians had not any clergymen, properly so called; priests, however, ministered in each locality, for we read that St. Paul appointed Titus “to ordain elders in every city” (Titus i. 5). But in most cases, during the first centuries, the bishop alone ministered in his episcopal city, particularly in the East (Fig. 222).