788 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



were concerned; and the execution of his decrees was 

 confided to the care of the local courts.&quot; When, in the 

 tenth century, by the growth of the feudal system, bishops 

 had become &quot; temporal barons themselves, and were liable 

 like the merest laymen, to military service, to the jurisdictio 

 kerilis, and the other obligations of the dignity ; &quot; they 

 became ministers of justice like secular barons, with the 

 exception only that they could not pronounce or execute 

 sentences of death. Similarly in the twelfth century in 

 England. 



&quot; The prelates and abbots . . . were completely feudal nobles. They 

 swore fealty for their lands to the king or other superior, received 

 the homage of their vassals, enjoyed the same immunities, exercised 

 the same jurisdiction, maintained the same authority as the lay lords 

 among whom they dwelt.&quot; 



To all which facts we must join the fact that with this 

 acquisition of local civil authority by local ecclesiastics, 

 there went the acquisition of a central civil authority, by the 

 central ecclesiastic. The public and private actions of kings 

 became in a measure subject to the control of the pope ; 

 so that in the thirteenth century there had taken place 

 a &quot; conversion of kingdoms into spiritual fiefs.&quot; 



635. We pass by a step, in many cases only nominal, 

 from the civil functions of the priest as central or local 

 ruler, to the civil function of the priest as judge only 

 as judge coexisting with, but separate from, the political 

 head. 



That devolution of the judicial function upon the priest 

 hood which often takes place in early stages of social 

 development, results from the idea that subordination to 

 the deceased ruler who has become a god, is a higher 

 obligation than subordination to the living ruler ; and 

 that those who, as priests, are in communication with the 

 ghost of the deceased ruler, are channels for his commands 

 and decisions, and are therefore the proper judges. Hence 

 various facts which uncivilized and semi-civilized peoples 



