The first of these causes consisted in the vast extension of all the ecclesiastical institutions. Many popes, and other prelates, merited by their virtues and their talents the respect of the people and the esteem of their sovereigns: they obtained that imposing reputation, which, in the midst of public troubles and misfortunes, is the universal prelude to power. Zealous missionaries had spread the light of the gospel through most of the countries of Europe, and prepared, nay, forwarded, by religious instruction, the civilization of some barbarous nations. On all sides churches and monasteries arose and were enriched: the pious liberality of princes and private individuals increased every where, but especially at Rome, the treasures and estates of the clergy: their landed property acquired sufficient extent to be transformed insensibly into principalities; a metamorphosis but too easy under such weak governments and such vacillating legislation.— Let us add to these circumstances the frequency and the solemnity of the councils, the general interest which their decisions excited, and the almost inevitable collision of their discussions with the quiet or disordered state of political affairs. We may observe, in particular, that at the commencement of the eighth century, there did not exist any great empire save the Eastern; and, nevertheless, that the power of the Greek Emperors—limited in Asia by that of the Caliphs, weakened in the very heart of Constantinople by internal revolutions, represented at Ravenna by unfaithful or injudicious Exarchs—with difficulty was upheld in Italy against the arms of the Lombards, and occasionally required to be defended by the influence of the Roman Pontiffs. In the mean while, the thrones which had been newly erected here and there by some barbarous conquerors, already tottered under their successors, whose ignorance, generally equal to that of their subjects, seemed to tempt the enterprises of the clergy. This clergy, though better informed than the common people, was not, however, sufficiently so to perceive the bounds of its proper functions under such circumstances, or to neglect profiting, at all hazards, by the opportunities offered to increase its power. When, in 681, a Council of Toledo loosed the subjects of Vamba from their allegiance to this prince, perhaps the thirty-five bishops who sat in this synod, neither perceived the weakness nor the monstrous disloyalty of such a sentence. Fleury was right to point out to us²⁶ this first example of a king deposed by bishops; but he might also have remarked, that so serious a novelty excited no reprehension—that kings complained not of it, and that no obstacle opposed the execution of this strange decree. We may place in the catalogue of causes which favoured the ambition of the popes, the preposterous taste of the Greek Emperors for dogmatical controversies, and, the unfortunate part they incessantly took in them.