Wends. These Roman bishops, or "popes," were accepted unquestioned
throughout Western Europe as the leaders of a militant Christianity, a
position never after denied them until the sixteenth century. In the
East, however, the bishops of Constantinople insisted on an equal, if
not higher, authority, and so the two churches broke apart.[17]

[Footnote 17: See _Dissension and Separation of the Greek and Roman
Churches_.]

In the West, Christianity undoubtedly did great good. Its teachings,
though applied by often fallible instruments and in blundering ways, yet
never completely lost sight of their own higher meanings of mercy and
peace. From the Abbey of Cluny originated that quaint mediaeval idea of
the "truce of God," by which nobles were very widely persuaded to
restrict their private wars to the middle of the week, and reserve at
least Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as days of brotherly love and
religious devotion. The Church also, from very early days, founded
monasteries, wherein learning and the knowledge of the past were kept
alive, where pity continued to exist, where the oppressed found refuge.
It is from these monasteries that all the arts and scholarship of the
eleventh century begin dimly to emerge.

Moreover, the fact that the Teutons were all of a common religion
undoubtedly held them much closer together, made them more merciful
among themselves, more nearly a unit against the outside world. Perhaps
in this respect more important even than the religion was the Church;
that is, the hierarchy, the vast army of monks and priests, abbots and
bishops, spread over all kingdoms, yet looking always toward Rome. Here
at least was one common centre for Western civilization, one mighty
influence that all men acknowledged, that all to some faint extent