But this crowning height to which Ariberto had brought the See of Milan was the brink of a signal downfall. The greatest, he was also the last of the strong ecclesiastical princes of Milan. Silently, steadily during these last centuries of revived vigour and prosperity a new force had been developing in the city, and acquiring conscious existence—the People. The wars of Ariberto’s reign had endowed this force with the knowledge of arms and a sense of its own power. It was the nameless, irresistible will of the masses of the citizens which had carried Ariberto to victory over the Emperor, and this very victory tended to the undoing of the Archbishop and his order, by weakening the feudal system with which the episcopal and aristocratic power of Milan was now inextricably bound up. It had been the part of the Church of St. Ambrose to give the consecrating impulse and inspiration to the revolt of the new world against the decaying order of the Roman Empire, and under its latest representative to lead the city, as we have just seen, to victory over the Head of feudalism. But now in its turn this great force for civilisation and humanity was to be corrupted by temporal power and possession—to renounce its mission as guide and sanctifier, and assume instead the part of opposition to the vital and progressive elements of the community. Ariberto and his clergy were, in fact, the representatives in Milan of feudalism and aristocracy. The hierarchy of St. Ambrose was composed of the great nobles of the city, in whose families the high ecclesiastical offices and benefices had became hereditary possessions. These arch-Priests, arch-Deacons, Cimiliarchs, Decumani—the Cardinals or Ordinaries, as the highest orders of the clergy were called—were great feudal magnates, forming the strongest class of the Milanese nobility. Ranged beneath them in ecclesiastic and feudal rank were the lesser clergy, just as the secular aristocracy was divided into the two degrees of Captains—_Capitani_—and their vassals, called Vavasours—_Valvassori_. Below these came the undistinguished masses of the people, merchants, artisans, and peasants, mostly serfs, and all absolutely subjected to the arbitrary government of the nobles.