As in city matters these conditions remained unaltered after the
coming of the Lombards, what was more natural than that the bishops
should retain their moral position of defenders of the people, even if
we admit that the form of the office fell with the old administration?
To these considerations we may add two important facts: that the
office of bishop was for a long time the only one in the election to
which the people--and by this term I mean the people as a whole, not
the _populus_ of the old laws and charters--had any voice whatever;
and that the bishop, from his spiritual position as pastor of the
flock, and from his civil position as having great legal influence in
the town and being probably the only man of superior intellect
interested in the internal affairs of the community, was the proper
and most effectual mediator between the people and their temporal
rulers. Hence arose that important influence of the bishops which was
to have so perceptible an effect on the subsequent development of the
principles of liberty in the communes.

To appreciate properly, and to give the true value to this power in
its later progress, we must remember one thing: that it did not have
its origin by any seeking of power by either the Roman or the
Ambrosian church as a body, in any concerted effort to extend the
ecclesiastical power at the expense of the civil. It came from the
spontaneous effort of the pastor, the natural and at that time the
only protector of the people, trying to save his flock from the
extortion and the injustice of their temporal rulers. In addition to
this it must be remembered that at that time the office of the bishop
was the only one where even the shadow of the democratic idea was
preserved, the only one where the lowest of the people, theoretically
at least, had a voice in the election. In later times, when the feudal