So in the contest
between the counts and the bishops we find the latter only victorious
in certain cases, and consequently having only certain of the cities
under their jurisdiction; a fact which is illustrated as late as the
Peace of Constance, where in the ninth article the cities are still
divided into episcopal and non-episcopal cities.[88] In the second
place we must keep clearly before us an important fact, the truth of
which any chronological account of the development of the principle of
immunity would easily demonstrate, namely, that with the advance of
time and with the growth of that principle, the changes which took
place in the different sorts of immunities were not simply those of
degree, but essentially and principally those of _kind_.
A descendant of Charlemagne may have granted to some monastery or
bishopric a greater alleviation of some of the fiscal burdens borne by
it under his immediate predecessor, but a successor of Berenger when
he granted a _privilegium_ did not simply perform the negative benefit
of alleviating burdens; he endowed the head of the bishopric--probably
in return for some service he had received at his hands or expected to
receive--with the positive benefit of the political headship and
possession of some city or district of a former count.
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