In the unstable fragmentation of secular rule in the ninth century, the Isidorean _Decretals_ presented the truth of the situation as it was to be, although not as it had been in the times of the Church dignitaries whose names were forged for that collection. And thereafter, as the Church recovered from its tenth-century disintegration, it advanced to the pragmatic demonstration of the validity of those false _Decretals_, on through the tempests of the age of Hildebrand to the final triumph of Innocent III. at the opening of the thirteenth century. Evidently the canon law, whatever might be its immediate or remote source, drew its authority from the sanction of the Roman Catholic Church, which enunciated it and made it into a body corresponding to the Church’s functions. It was what the Church promulgated as the law of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the kingdom of God on earth. It should be the temporal and legal counterpart of the Church’s spiritual purposes. Its general tendency and purpose was the promotion of the Church’s saving aim, which regarded all things in the light of their relationship to life eternal. Therefore the Church’s law could not but define and consider all worldly interests, all personal and property rights and secular authority, with constant regard to men’s need of salvation. The advancement of that must be the final appellate standard of legal right. Such was the event. The entire canon law might be lodged within those propositions which Hildebrand enunciated and Innocent III. realized. For the salvation of souls, all authority on earth had been entrusted by Christ to Peter and his successors. Theirs was the spiritual sword; secular power, the sword material, was to be exercised under the pope’s mandate and permission. No king or emperor, no layman whatsoever, was exempt from the supreme authority of the pope, who also was the absolute head of the Church, which had become a monarchy. “The Lord entrusted to Peter not only the universal Church, but the government of the whole world,” writes Innocent III., whose pontificate almost made this principle a fact. In private matters no member of the clergy could be brought before a secular court; and the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts over the laity threatened to reduce the secular jurisdiction to narrow functions.[407] The property of the Church might not be taxed or levied on by any temporal ruler or government; nor could the Church’s functions and authority be controlled or limited by any secular decree. Universally throughout every kingdom the Church was a sovereignty, not only in matters spiritual, but with respect to all the personal and material relationships that might be connected in any way with the welfare of souls.[408] V