history of conversion in the West, we are led to a remarkable fact, viz. that the power of the Roman see was, generally speaking, most substantially founded by the efforts and energy of Teutonic prelates; while a much more steady opposition to its triumph was offered by the provincials who usually filled the episcopal office in the cities of Gaul. The apparent strangeness of this however soon vanishes, when we consider the many grounds upon which the Gallic churches contested the immediate supremacy of Rome. The archbishop of Vienne long claimed the patriarchal authority in Gaul, upon the same grounds as the bishops of Rome and Constantinople claimed it in those cities[833]. Many of the provincial churches boasted an antiquity hardly inferior to the Roman, and a foundation not less illustrious; many had shown in persecution and suffering a spirit of Christian perseverance and a steadfastness of faith, which the City itself had not exceeded in her own hour of trial. Above all, there continued to exist a vigorous nationality in Gaul, however oppressed and bridled by the energy of the Frankish conquerors, especially in Neustria or the northern portion of modern France. To this spirit of nationality, based upon ancient descent and long familiarity with the civilization of the Roman empire, and fed in turn by a great amount of material prosperity, we must refer the complete dissolution of the Carolingian empire itself, and the establishment of the counts of Paris as kings in the western districts of that unwieldy body. ----- Footnote 833: Hüllmann, ‘Origine de l’organisation de l’Eglise au Moyen Age,’ p. 30. ----- It is true that the Western Church did not lay definite claim to any such total independence as Cyprian vindicated for his African communities: the good offices and arbitration of St. Peter’s successor were sought in disputed and doubtful cases, even if we cannot admit of positive appeals to the Roman curia: the bishops of Burgundy, Provence and Spain, early found that union with the oldest and most respected church of the West offered an important defence of orthodoxy threatened by the Arian and semi-Arian dogma of the barbarians who had wrested those fine provinces from the empire: and the popes were not unwilling to encourage a tendency which helped to realize the idea of a pre-eminence in their church over all the Christian communities.[834] The institution of Missi, or special commissioners, was familiar: they adopted it, and at a very early period we find papal vicars exercising some sort of authority in Gaul, and perhaps even in Britain. ----- Footnote 834: