The pontifical authority was the only one that had its bases and roots in opinions and beliefs. This power gave the world, or, rather, the world asked of it, laws, knowledge, and a support. The popes were right in the famous comparison of the two great luminaries. The authority of the heads of the Church was much more in advance towards civilization than the authority of princes. In order that the world might be civilized, it was important for the popes to have great power; and the need that was felt for their power favoured the progress of it.
As long as the world was governed by opinions and beliefs, rather than by civil laws and political authorities, the popes exercised the greatest influence; when the interests and rights of princes and nations became better regulated; when the world passed from the empire of opinions to that of laws; when, in a word, temporal power was well established in Europe, and prevailed over the spiritual of society, the pontiffs necessarily lost their ascendancy. Such is the history of the origin, of the progress, and of the decay of the pontifical power in the ages which have preceded us.
That which we have said of the popes clearly shows what influence the Church exercised over the society of Europe in the middle ages; but gross minds were not yet prepared to receive all the benefits of Christianity. The alliance of barbarism with superstition retarded the progress of true knowledge. The passions and customs of barbarians were still mingled with some salutary institutions.
The Franks, the Germans, and Goths, when obtaining possession of the richest countries of Europe, had employed all the rights of conquest, and these rights had become the laws of European society. We may form an idea of the government of the middle ages by representing to ourselves a victorious army, which disperses itself throughout the conquered country, shares the territory and those who inhabit it, and is always ready to march at the signal of its officers and its supreme general, to combat the common enemy, and defend its possessions.
As long as discipline and subordination subsisted in this military colony, public order was not entirely disturbed; and this kind of government might supply the place of wiser institutions. But as soon as the relations of assistance and fidelity, obedience and protection, became weakened, society—or rather the feudal government—no longer presented anything but the aspect of an army given up to license,—of an army whose officers and soldiers no longer acknowledged a head, were no longer subject to direction, and fought at hazard under a thousand different standards.