“Another corollary of this universal Christian Society was that right found a protector in the common Father of the faithful; in the grand idea of a supreme chief who without employing material force judged in last resort.... What great misfortunes would France and all Europe have been spared if, in the reign of Louis XVI, an Innocent III had been Pope. His rôle would have been to save the lives of the people” (Hurter’s _Innocent III_, II, 200-23). To German Protestant writers like Hurter, Voigt, Neander, etc., is due the honour of vindicating the true rôle of the Papacy in the Middle Ages. The rights of suzerainty exercised by the Papacy also formed part of the public law of Europe. In those wild, lawless days, when robber barons enjoyed the privilege of being highwaymen on their own estates, and often extended their depredations to those of their neighbours, property rights had no sanction, and the weaker succumbed to the stronger in virtue of the “fist right,” which we now translate variously by “the right of the strongest,” political “majorities,” and the “survival of the fittest.” The practice then arose among weak owners of dedicating their lands to the Church, in order to obtain spiritual or moral protection against the brute force of stronger neighbours. What private owners did in a small way was done by princes on a larger scale. Referring to the peculiar incidents when roving Norman pirates, in possession of Sicily and Naples, seized the person of the Pope and insisted on becoming his vassal, Voltaire writes as follows:--“Robert Guiscard, wishing to be independent of the German Emperor, resorted to a precaution which private owners took in those days of trouble and rapine. The latter gave their property to the Church under the name of Oblata, and, paying a slight tax, continued to enjoy the use of it. The Normans resorted to this custom, placing under the protection of the Church in the hands of Nicholas II (1059) not only what they held, but also their future conquests (on the Saracens). This homage was an act of political piety like Peter’s Pence; the two pence of gold paid by the Kings of Portugal; like the voluntary submission of so many kingdoms” (_Essai sur les mœurs_, II, 44). It was thus that England became a fief of the Holy See, a most unfortunate circumstance, as the temporal pecuniary obligations arising therefrom were exploited to estrange the English from the See of Peter, in the following centuries. “In 1329,” continues Voltaire, “the King of Sweden, who wished to conquer Denmark, addressed the Pope as follows: ‘Your Holiness knows that Denmark depends on the Roman See and not on the German Emperor.’ ... I only wish to show,” Voltaire adds, “how every prince who wished to recover or usurp a domain appealed to the Pope.... In this case the Pope defended Denmark, and said he could only decide on the justice of the case when the parties had appeared before his tribunal, according to the ancient usage.”