the strong reverence for the church and respect for its officers which
characterized the Frankish nation from the beginning led to the
extension of these privileges to much the greater number of the
churches in the realm. Not all churches enjoyed such grants, and not
all those accorded were of the same liberal character, but the number
given and the amount of liberty to the church thereby bestowed was
sufficient to give to the clergy that degree of importance which
ultimately culminated in making them the great lords that we find them
in the tenth century. To give an idea of the tenor of these documents,
I will, however, quote a few lines from the earliest one that has come
under my notice in Carlovingian times, namely a diploma of the year
782, issued to Geminiano II., bishop of Modena, and preserved in the
archives of that city. Here we find that: "Nullus judex publicus ad
causas audiendum, vel freda exigendum, seu mansiones aut paratas
faciendum, nec fidejussiones tollendum neque hominibus ipsius
episcopatus distringendum," etc. This is sufficient to show the
character of exemption from secular jurisdiction.[90]

The next forward step in the advance of the bishops to temporal power
was made probably about the time of Charles the Bald; though under his
two immediate predecessors, Lothaire[91] and Lewis II.,[92] we already
see indications of an extension of the quality of exemption to include
freedom from the payment of all public dues and the bearing of all
public burdens.[93] It was precisely the introduction of this element
of exemption from public burdens which marked the change in the nature
of the immunities granted from the time of Charles the Bald, down to
the period when the element of jurisdiction and real temporal power
was introduced under Guido and Berenger. Up to this time, the grounds
on which similar charters had been sought had been protection from the
oppression of the counts, and had resulted, as we have seen, in the