Page:A Short History of the World.djvu/282

262 A Short History of The World The first trouble was certainly the accumulation of wealth by the church. The church never died, and there was a frequent dis- position on the part of dying childless people to leave lands to the church. Penitent sinners were exhorted to do so. Accordingly in many European countries as much as a fourth of the land became church property. The appetite for property grows with what it feeds upon. Already in the thirteenth century it was being said everywhere that the priests were not good men, that they were always hunting for money and legacies. The kings and princes disliked this alienation of property very greatly. In the place of feudal lords capable of military support, they found their land supporting abbeys and monks and nuns. And these lands were really under foreign dominion. Even before the time of Pope Gregory VII there had been a struggle between the princes and the papacy over the question of " investitures," the ques- tion that is of who should appoint the bishops. If that power rested with the pope and not the king, then the latter lost control not only of the consciences of his subjects but of a considerable part of his dominions. For also, the clergy claimed exemption from taxation. They paid their taxes to Rome. And not only that, but the church also claimed the right to levy a tax of one-tenth upon the property of the layman in addition to the tax€S he paid his prince. The history of nearly every country in Latin Christendom tells of the same phase in the eleventh century, a phase of struggle between monarch and pope on the issue of investitures and generally it tells of a victory for the pope. He claimed to be able to excommunicate the prince, to absolve his subjects from their allegiance to him, to recognize a successor. He claimed to be able to put a nation under an interdict, and then nearly all priestly functions ceased except the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and penance ; the priests could neither hold the ordinary services, marry people, nor bury the dead. With these two weapons it was possible for the twelfth century popes to curb the most recalcitrant princes and overawe the most restive peoples. These were enormous powers, and enormous powers are only to be used on extraordinary occasions. The popes used them at last with a frequency that staled their effect. Within thirty years at the end of the twelfth century we find Scotland, France and Eng- land in turn under an interdict. And also the popes could not resist the temptation to preach crusades against offending princes — until the crusading spirit was extinct.