Turning now to a consideration of the earliest steps which may be said
to have cleared the way for the political power of the bishops, we are
met by a subject which, though of great interest in itself, is not
sufficiently a part of this investigation for us to do more than
indicate the lines of its progress. This subject is the development of
the practice of giving certain immunities and privileges to churches
and monasteries, adopted by the Frankish kings, faithful sons of the
church, and then followed by all their royal and imperial successors.
In considering the important influence exercised by these immunities
on the development of the espiscopal power and the effects of this on
the growth of the communes, there are two essential facts which we
must always keep prominently in mind. In the first place we must
remember that the granting of immunities was a question of privilege
to particular individuals or ecclesiastical institutions, and not a
universal grant which affected in an equal degree all the dioceses of
the realm. This led to the marked differences in rank and importance
which existed between the various bishoprics, and in the tenth
century, when the temporal power became in many cases an adjunct to
the spiritual, caused some bishops to become powerful temporal
princes, while others, unable to gain this pre-eminence, remained
simply spiritual heads of their respective dioceses.
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