Principles of western civilisation

vit ZHE GREAT ANTINOMY: FIRST STAGE 279

Measures, practices, and interpretations of this kind tended to extend the jurisdiction of the Church on all sides. From the twelfth century onward, says Hallam, the boundary between temporal and spiritual offences grew continually less distinct,’ so that towards the fourteenth century ecclesiastical jurisdiction “rapidly encroached upon the secular tribunals, and seemed to threaten the usurpation of an exclusive supremacy over all persons and causes.”

In the conflict following the resistance by Philip of France to the claims enunciated in the Bull “Clericis Laicos,” we reach at last the complete definition of the capital position towards which the process at work in Western history had moved for more than a thousand years; and have disclosed, beneath the position in history in our civilisation, the full outlines of the remarkable problem which we saw foreshadowed at the beginning. In the Bull “ Unam Sanctam,”® issued at the opening of the fourteenth century, and towards the close of the struggle with Philip, the claims of the spiritual authority are enunciated with an uncompromising clearness which leaves nothing to be desired. The

however, be found of an earlier date, and especially that which accompanied the excommunication of Robert, king of France. They were afterwards issued not unfrequently against kingdoms; but in particular districts they continually occurred. This was the mainspring of the machinery that the clergy set in motion, the lever by which they moved the world. From the moment that these interdicts and excommunications had been tried, the powers of the earth might be said to have existed only by sufferance. Nor was the validity of such denunciations supposed to depend upon their justice. The imposer, indeed, of an unjust excommunication was guilty of a sin; but the party subjected to it had no remedy but submission” (View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, chap. vii.) 1 fbid. 2 Tbid. 3 Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages (Henderson), iv. vii.