The bishops controlled the priests, who were found in every section of Christendom in the sixth century, and who came into vital touch with the masses of the laity. As early as the third century, indeed, all churches began to conform to a single type. The independence of the presbyter of the early Church disappeared with the rise of the episcopal system. The subordination of the priest became, by the sixth century, complete. This result was inevitable because of the rise of the synodal system, the assimilation of the organisation of the Empire, and the development of the parochial system, which subdivided the diocese into smaller sections in the hands of priests.[352:1] The priests administered the sacraments to the people to whom they were the very bread of life and the means of salvation, heard them in their confessions, inflicted penances and gave them counsel, baptised their children, confirmed them, watched over all their deeds on earth, closed their eyes in death, and prepared them for the world to come, and even through prayers and masses interceded for their forgiveness in purgatory. Working side by side with the priests were the countless monks and nuns fairly swarming over western Europe, who also came into intimate touch with the masses. They were the teachers and preachers of the common people. In the hands of these priests and monks rested almost entirely the humane and charitable institutions of the Middle Ages. The true religion of Jesus was likewise in their hands rather than in the hands of the higher clergy. At the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid were the laity, who by the twelfth century included all the people of western Europe, except a portion of Spain. Both canon law and imperial law forbade their performing any sacerdotal functions and ordered them "to be obedient to the order handed down by the Lord." From the standpoint of morality,[353:1] this period was one of pronounced contrasts. Christian virtues and heathen vices, the strictest asceticism and the grossest sensuality, tyranny and crude democracy, all existed side by side with apparently no serious conflicts. It was an age of anarchy, confusion, lawlessness, immorality, and highway robbery on land and sea, accompanied by boldness, chivalry, and heroism. In the East, the Church had to contend with "the vices of an effete civilisation and a corrupt court." In the West, many of the old Roman vices were continued and even invigorated by fresh barbaric blood. It would be difficult to imagine anything more corrupt than the Merovingian court.[353:2] Of the whole period Gibbon declares that it would be impossible "to find anywhere more vice or less virtue."