dependence of the ecclesiastical and secular powers. It was the
circumstances of the tenth century which caused the Church to assume a
less complacent attitude and, in her efforts to prevent her absorption
by the State, to attempt the reduction of the State to a mere
department of the Church.

[Sidenote: Lay investiture of ecclesiastics.]

With the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion of the
Empire the organisation of the Church tended to follow the
arrangements for purposes of civil government. And when at a later
period civil society was gradually organising itself on that
hierarchical model which we know as feudalism, the Church, in the
persons of its officers, was tending to become not so much the
counterpart of the State as an integral part of it. For the clergy, as
being the only educated class, were used by the Kings as civil
administrators, and on the great officials of the Church were bestowed
extensive estates which should make them a counterpoise to the secular
nobles. In theory the clergy and people of the diocese still elected
their bishop, but in reality he came to be nominated by the King, at
whose hands he received investiture of his office by the symbolic
gifts of the ring and the pastoral staff, and to whom he did homage
for the lands of the see, since by virtue of them he was a baron of
the realm. Thus for all practical purposes the great ecclesiastic was
a secular noble, a layman. He had often obtained his high
ecclesiastical office as a reward for temporal service, and had not
infrequently paid a large sum of money as an earnest of loyal conduct
and for the privilege of recouping himself tenfold by unscrupulous use
of the local patronage which was his.