numerous and very powerful, particularly in local affairs.
For the first five centuries of the Christian era the election of bishops in the Church followed one general pattern. The neighbouring bishops nominated while the local clergy and laity approved the election and gave the requisite testimony of character. But with the evolution in the organisation of the Church, and as a result of the close alliance with the state, a series of important changes occurred. (1) With the rise of the metropolitans there appeared a new factor in the selection of a bishop. The metropolitan usually conducted the election, and confirmed and ordained the candidate. This came to be regulated by Church canons. (2) With the ascendancy of the state over the Church the selection of bishops was practically transferred to the laity. At times Emperors alone nominated. After the sixth century, the right of royal assent was generally acknowledged. It was but a short step to convert that secular assumption into a right of nomination. Thus the ruling power had come to control the election of bishops quite generally throughout the mediæval Church. Among the chief qualifications for the office were, in addition to a good character, an age limit of fifty years, ordination as priest, or at least as deacon, and membership in the local clergy. But these requirements were often broken and waived.
The bishop occupied an office of arduous duties and grave responsibilities. It might be said that he was the powerful ruler of his province. He administered all the Christian sacraments. He enforced discipline. He received all income and offerings, and managed all the ecclesiastical business of his diocese. He exercised the power of ordination and confirmation, and thus
perpetuated the Christian ministry. He did all the formal preaching and by visitation kept an oversight of the whole Church under his care. He was the natural medium of communication to and from his people and clergy. He was also an important factor in the local synod and served as the ecclesiastical judge of his district. All such matters as liturgy, worship, alms, dedication of churches, patronage, and protection of minors, widows, and the unfortunate came under his jurisdiction. Nor did his cares end here. Through the synod he helped to rule the province and through the general council he participated in the government of the Church at large.
The bishops controlled the priests, who were found in every section of Christendom in the sixth century, and who came into vital touch with the masses of the laity. As early as the third century, indeed, all churches began to conform to a single type. The independence of the presbyter of the early Church disappeared with the rise of the episcopal system. The subordination of the priest became, by the sixth century, complete. This result was inevitable because of the rise of the synodal system, the assimilation of the organisation of the Empire, and the development of the parochial system, which subdivided the diocese into smaller sections in the hands of priests.[352:1] The priests administered the sacraments to the people to whom they were the very bread of life and the means of salvation, heard them in their confessions, inflicted penances and gave them counsel, baptised their children, confirmed them, watched over all their deeds on earth, closed their eyes in death,
and prepared them for the world to come, and even through prayers and masses interceded for their forgiveness in purgatory. Working side by side with the priests were the countless monks and nuns fairly swarming over western Europe, who also came into intimate touch with the masses. They were the teachers and preachers of the common people. In the hands of these priests and monks rested almost entirely the humane and charitable institutions of the Middle Ages. The true religion of Jesus was likewise in their hands rather than in the hands of the higher clergy.
At the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid were the laity, who by the twelfth century included all the people of western Europe, except a portion of Spain. Both canon law and imperial law forbade their performing any sacerdotal functions and ordered them "to be obedient to the order handed down by the Lord."
From the standpoint of morality,[353:1] this period was one of pronounced contrasts. Christian virtues and heathen vices, the strictest asceticism and the grossest sensuality, tyranny and crude democracy, all existed side by side with apparently no serious conflicts. It was an age of anarchy, confusion, lawlessness, immorality, and highway robbery on land and sea, accompanied by boldness, chivalry, and heroism. In the East, the Church had to contend with "the vices of an effete civilisation and a corrupt court." In the West, many of the old Roman vices were continued and even invigorated by fresh barbaric blood. It would be difficult to imagine anything more corrupt than the Merovingian court.[353:2] Of the whole period Gibbon
declares that it would be impossible "to find anywhere more vice or less virtue."
The people at this time might be called more religious than moral. A little piety would cover a multitude of sins in the eyes of even the best. A whole life of wickedness and evil-doing was all wiped out and a home in heaven assured by the building of a church, monastery, shrine, or hospital, or by deeding property to the Church, or by doing some pious deed. An exaggerated belief in the supernatural and miraculous was universal. A physical hell, heaven, devil, and angels were just as real to the people as the earth, day and night, the sun and moon, and the seasons. The worship of saints and relics was very common, and particularly in favour with the most wicked. The seventh century had more saints than any preceding, except possibly the fourth. Under these circumstances, it was not uncommon to find good used as a cloak for evil and the greatest apparent sanctity united with the worst licentiousness.[354:1]