as diffused by the action of the clergy throughout the asperities of Roman legislation. We took notice, in the preceding section, of the gradual sway acquired by the priestly authorities over the Roman officers, and of the check thus exercised on magisterial corruption or irregularity. What during the Roman age had been a tacit exercise of salutary authority, became now a recognized portion of the state government. If, for example*, on a pauper appearing before a civil tribunal, the magistrate neglected his suit, or wilfully perverted justice, the Bishop of the diocese was empowered to supersede him for the time, and, in case the Count of the district refused to carry into execution the episcopal decision, he was liable to be mulcted in a specified sum. And, in general†, the magistrate who despised the just counsels of the bishop and his assessors was liable to be deposed through the influence of the latter from the exercise of his functions for the time being. These enactments, which at first sight may appear to confer an exorbitant power on the prelates, will be placed in a truer light, if we interpret them into means of securing the equal rights of the Roman population, and of protecting the ancient inhabitants, by the intervention of their kindred churchmen, from the injustice of their Gothic conquerors. Such a province, * Leg. Visig. lib. 11. t. i. c. 29. [ap. Cancian. Leg. Barb. t. iv. pp. 73, 74.7 † Ibid. t. i. c. 30 [ibid. p. 74]. we may rest assured, fell to the lot of the bishops in every continental country to a greater or less degree, and one of their most beneficial modes of action was that by which they afforded security against barbarian violence to the privileges of the municipalities. But we obtain yet further proof of the judicial authority which superior legal knowledge and acuteness bestowed on the Spanish bishops, in a statute associating them with the "judices" in ascertaining the fidelity of slaves, witnesses of a will*. It appears, then, that not only have we considerable evidence to show that the Visigothic code was in great measure compiled by clerical jurists, but that we may believe the aid of Christian prelates to have been frequently invoked in order to secure against barbaric turbulence the equitable administration of the laws they had framed. In Spain, as throughout Europe in general, the clerical and monarchical powers seemed to depend in their relations to each other upon the administrative talents or incapacity of the sovereign; and the excessive despotic sway exercised by the active and unscrupulous among the Visigothic kings gives us to know how more than elsewhere necessary for the well-being of the nation was the imposing bulwark which the Church presented to the autocratic tendencies of the Court. The methods of beneficial clerical action which have fallen under our notice in Spain might for the most part, * Ibid. t. v. c. 13 [ibid. p. 85]. with the exception of the last we have touched upon, which was rendered peculiarly necessary by the servile spirit of the nation in those days, have been discerned, though with far less distinctness, in the other Teutonic tribes; for example, in France under the Merovingian dynasty the political power of the clergy was less steadily exerted in opposition to royal prerogative, though, when the latter attained a threatening pre-eminence in the state, we invariably find the clergy ranged with the asserters of national liberties1. Indeed it is evident that, before the Church was finally consolidated into one unanimous body, pervading all countries, and acting in obedience to a single absolute Head, and before the system of Church supremacy over kings, which to us is associated with the name of Gregory VII., was perfected by the craft of an ambitious priesthood, the most natural position for the clergy was that of antagonism to all despotic tendencies; for, so long as monarchs were free to deliberate on the subject of clerical power in the state, and to check ecclesiastical excesses without fear of the Vatican, they presented a far more serious obstacle to the advancement of the Church than was to be dreaded from the most capricious of popular movements. Accordingly we shall be justified in assigning to priestly influence no small share of the benefits accruing from the 1 See, for instance, St Leodgar's opposition to Childeric's revocation of the national laws which he had been induced to restore (Vita S. Leodgari, c. 4, ap. Guizot, Coll. des Mém ii. 332. Du Chesne, Hist. Fr. Scr. i. 603 a). restrained authority of the sovereigns during the early mediæval period1. But to take a yet more interesting example of the beneficial political action of the clergy, we discover, on turning to our own island, that the political position of the Anglo-Saxon clergy, while as yet the various national Churches had not been united under the See of Rome, differed in more than one respect from that of their 1 The following extracts from Ethelred's Laws illustrate the Anglo-Saxon feeling: “But there are some men who, on account of their pride and also on account of birth, scorn to obey divine superiors as they ought to do if they desired right; and often apply themselves to blame what they ought to praise, and account the worse for their humble birth those whose forefathers were not in the world either wealthy or proud through worldly splendour nor in this transient space of life flourishing or powerful; but these are neither wise nor wholly discreet, who will not obey God, nor better understand how often He has from little raised to great those who obeyed Him and justly spake. We know that through God's grace a thrall has become a thane, and a 'ceorl' has become an 'eorl,' a singer a priest, and a scribe a bishop. And formerly, so as God decreed, a shepherd became a king, and he was very great also, so as God decreed, a fisher became a bishop, and he was very dear and acceptable to Christ. Such are the gifts of God, who can easily from little raise to great all that He Himself will, so as the Psalmist truly said when he thus sang: Quis sicut Dominus Deus noster &c.? suscitans a terra inopem, et de stercore erigens pauperem, ut collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi sui : he understands those that have fear of God and heed wisdom. We have all one heavenly Father, and one spiritual Mother, which is called Ecclesia, that is, God's Church; and therefore are we brothers. And then it is also just that each of us observe justice towards another" (Ethelred's Laws, vii. 21-23, 30, 31. ap. Thorpe, Anc. Laws, pp. 142–144). * * continental brethren, and that the influence they exerted on the state of people was, as might indeed have been expected from the general constitution of the AngloSaxon states, a more healthy and beneficial one. In the first place they appear to have possessed this one great moral advantage over the clergy of every other European power, that the position which they occupied in society was a more moderate and definite, and consequently a more universally influential one. They neither swayed the whole councils of the nation, as did the haughty churchmen of Spain, nor were they, like those of France, merely occasional members of the great popular convocations. The composition of the Champ de Mars assemblies at a subsequent period under Charlemagne supplies us with sufficient proof that the nation of the Franks were never accustomed to look upon the clergy as a governing body in the state, while in England they formed as necessary a part of the Witenagemote as the thanes or the knights1. By this means they were "In the Anglo-Saxon period the priest seems to have attended with the townsmen [and the Gerefa at the judicial assemblies of the Hundred and the Shire], but after the Conquest the clergy withdrew from the courts of purely secular authority" (Palgrave's Engl. Comm. vol. i. p. 83). In the two general Shire Courts to be held throughout England every year, "the Bishop and the Ealdorman were to preside, and respectively to declare the ecclesiastical and municipal law" (p. 117). So in Sweden, "those suits, which could not be decided within the limits of the Hærred, were reserved for the high remedial and inquisitorial court of the Reefsting, which was constituted in the following manner: The 'Laghman,' or Lawman, was Speaker or President; the Bishop, two Priests from the |