During the reigns of the last of the Merovingians and the first of the Carlovingians, the jurisconsults and the magistrates were generally bishops or plain priests, whose venerable character, in addition to their knowledge and wisdom, had caused them to be designated to fulfil these high functions. Dagobert, when about to draw up the Capitularies which were to govern the Germans, the Thuringians, the Burgundians, the Neustrians, the Ripuairians, and the Romans, entrusted the work to four ecclesiastical doctors, and consequently the disposition of this new code was remarkably tolerant,--“for,” said these pious legislators, “there is no sin so grave, but that the culprit’s life may be spared, if he will but hold God in fear and the saints in respect, seeing that the Lord hath said, ‘He who pardons shall himself be forgiven, but he who pardoneth not shall obtain no mercy.’” In cases where the crime seemed of a nature to deserve no clemency, the law remitted the culprit to be judged by the bishop or a priest delegated by him, whose tribunal, standing in the midst of a church, was from that very fact inviolable, and placed under the tutelary protection of religion. The royal decree added, “When the culprit shall take refuge in a church, let no one dare to drag him out with violence; if he has already crossed the threshold of the sanctuary, let the bishop or curate of that church be sent for, and if they refuse to deliver him up, it is to them that the pursuers shall look for his punishment.” [Illustration: Fig. 226.--Consecration of St. Remigius, Bishop of Rheims.--Fac-simile of an Engraving of the “Rheims Tapestry,” in the cathedral of that city, published by M. Ach. Jubinal. (Sixteenth Century.)] For more than a century before, the spiritual and temporal constitution of the Church was regularly organized throughout France. The diocese comprised the territorial boundaries which the Roman administration had established in the provinces for the civil government of the vicars and the counts, and most of these dioceses were kept, within about the same limits, down to 1789. The ecclesiastical province, of which the metropolitan or the archbishop was head, was made up of several dioceses or suffragan bishoprics, and when a provincial council took place, it assembled in the metropolis under the presidency of the archbishop. Above the metropolitans there were the patriarchs and the primates, dignitaries occupying the principal apostolic sees, such as Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Cesarea, and Heraclea in the East, and in the West, Milan, Lyons, Rheims, Trèves, and Mayence--which latter city became, under Pope Zacharias (741–752), the metropolis of all Germany. The supremacy of Rome was acknowledged by the universal Church from the days of the Apostles, as is attested by all the Fathers, and especially by St. Irenæus, whose spiritual father was Polycarp, a disciple of St. John.