ECCLESIASTICAL AND GENERAL HISTORY 633 



sheer robbery. The church entered on the Middle Ages as a great 

 and wealthy and therefore aristocratic power; and the immense 

 struggles between Emperor and Pope, Princes and Bishops, were all 

 in the last resort struggles for wealth and dominion. 



The whole history of the church in the Middle Ages may there- 

 fore, nay must, be studied from the economic point of view. This is 

 very evident even in the history of monasticism. Up to the time when 

 the orders of mendicant friars arose, the development of Western 

 monasticism has a place in the history of the large landed estate. 

 An abbey would sometimes form the centre of such an estate, and 

 the abbot nolens volens had to provide for his monastery before he 

 provided for the spiritual welfare of his monks. But even the move- 

 ment which produced the mendicant friars very quickly became 

 in its turn part and parcel of an economic movement, although of 

 a different kind. Light may also be shed on the development of the 

 Papacy from the same source, for one of the conditions of its becoming 

 a sovereign power was the possession of landed property. In the 

 struggle about the investiture of the bishops the questions at issue 

 were concerned just as much with property as with dominion; and 

 as a European power whose possessions were not on a par with its 

 position, the Papacy was especially affected by the economic upheaval 

 which took place in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. If it was 

 to survive, ready money had to be collected from all sides. To get 

 money it had to raise its spiritual pretensions in every direction, and 

 make them into fresh rights; nay, more, it had to multiply the means 

 of grace which the church offered, and exploit them as financial 

 resources. Just because it was a financial power, however, the Papacy 

 now began to excite distrust and dislike, and this it was that paved 

 the way for the reforming movements. We can thus see how greatly 

 religious theories and ecclesiastical arrangements were dependent 

 on this development. Of the new sacramental observances, of the 

 multitudinous rites and ceremonies, and of the fresh dogmas framed 

 upon them, a large number had their origin in economic and financial 

 necessities. 



In this respect the upheaval which the Reformation denoted did 

 not involve any radical change. Here, too, economic and social con- 

 ditions played a great part. That the Reformation got the upper 

 hand among a portion of the German people was due, first and fore- 

 most, to the princes, who aimed at creating territorial churches for 

 themselves and being masters in their own house. In this connection, 

 however, we must not forget that in the larger towns and in the 

 country districts the Reformation assisted the class consciousness of 

 certain aspiring orders in the community, and that, on the other hand, 

 the knights of the Empire, who were in a bad way economically, 

 attempted by its means to regain their previous position. But it is in 



