With the restoration of the imperial power the Church came to the front more prominently. So long as Justinian reigned the popes were kept in subjection; but ecclesiastics generally were admitted to a large share in judicial and political power. The emperors looked for their strongest political support in the Catholic party. Suppression of Arianism became a political necessity at Ravenna. Justinian gave to Agnellus the churches of the Arians. [Sidenote: The Pragmatic Sanction.] In 554 the emperor issued his solemn Pragmatic Sanction for the government of Italy. Of this, Section XII. gives a power to the bishops which shows the intimate connection between State and Church. "Moreover we order that fit and proper persons, able to administer the local government, be chosen as _iudices_ of the provinces by the bishops and chief persons of each province from the inhabitants of the province itself." This is important, of course, as allowing popular elections, but far more important in its recognition of the position of the clerical estate. Justinian's new administration of Italy was to be military; but hardly less was it to be ecclesiastical. Here we have, says Mr. Hodgkin,[5]--whose words I quote because I can find none better to express what seems to me to be the significance of this act--"a pathetic confession of the emperor's own inability to cope with the corruption and servility of his civil servants. He seems to have perceived that in the great quaking bog of servility and dishonesty by which he felt himself to be surrounded, his only sure standing-ground was to be found in the spiritual estate, the order of men who wielded a power {34} not of this world, and who, if true to their sacred mission, had nothing to fear and little to hope from the corrupt minions of the court." This is significant in regard to the rise of the power of the popes in the Western capital of the Empire and in the whole of Italy. It was by the good deeds of the clergy, and by the need of them, that they came forward before long as the masters of the country. This rule of the Pragmatic Sanction was not an isolated instance; at every point the bishop was placed _en rapport_ with the State, with the provincials, and with the exarch himself.[6] In jurisdiction, in advice, from the moment when he assisted at a new governor's installation, the bishop was at the side of the lay officer, to complain and even, if need be, to control.