406 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



god was often a military or naval commander.&quot; And the 

 naturalness of the connexion thus common in rude and in 

 ancient societies, is shown by its revival in later societies, 

 notwithstanding an adverse creed. After Christianity had 

 passed out of its early non-political stage into the stage in 

 which it became a State-religion, its priests, during actively 

 militant periods, re-acquired the primitive militant character. 

 &quot; By the middle of the eighth century [in France], regular 

 military service on the part of the clergy was already fully 

 developed.&quot; In the early feudal period, bishops, abbots, and 

 priors, became feudal lords, with all the powers and responsi 

 bilities attaching to their positions. They had bodies of troops 

 in their pay, took towns and fortresses, sustained sieges, led 

 or sent troops in aid of kings. And Orderic, in 1094, 

 describes the priests as leading their parishioners to battle, 

 and the abbots their vassals. Though in recent times Church 

 dignitaries do not actively participate in war, yet their 

 advisatory function respecting it often prompting rather 

 than restraining has not even now ceased ; as among our 

 selves was lately shown in the vote of the bishops, who, with 

 one exception, approved the invasion of Afghanistan. 



That the consultative body habitually includes ecclesiastics, 

 does not, therefore, conflict with the statement that, beginning 

 as a war-council, it grows into a permanent assembly of minor 

 military heads. 



403. Under a different form, there is here partially 

 repeated what was set forth when treating of oligarchies : the 

 difference arising from inclusion of the king as a co-operative 

 factor. Moreover, much that was before said respecting the 

 influence of war in narrowing oligarchies, applies to that 

 narrowing of the primitive consultative assembly by which 

 there is produced from it a body of land-owning military 

 nobles. But the consolidation of small societies into lame 



O 



ones effected by war, brings other influences which join in 

 working this result. 



