A Popular History of Germany Volume 2; From the Earliest Period to the Present Day (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 Excerpt: ...The only exceptions have been princes whose souls had not been sullied by flatterers and courtiers in early life, or who, by terrible strokes of fortune, have been made to learn and know in what the true value of mankind consists, and where men of most value can most readily be found. To keep the clergy loyal to his house, Charles as emperor granted to almost all the bishops and abbots in his empire complete civil jurisdiction over all the laity settled on their estates, with the right of taking for their own account all fines exacted from them by legal process. Every bishop and abbot to whom such prerogative was granted, became almost the princes of all who dwelt in their dioceses. It was disputed whether Charles had given them also full criminal jurisdiction of the inhabitants; at all events, they obtained it from his successors by bribes or by compulsion which the clergy applied in cases when the crown was distressed. From this period dates the temporal territorial dominion of the clergy in the German empire, the Church as a state within the state. Some bishoprics and convents had already received from the favor of the kings "exemption from public dues and service." Charles gave the Church, that is, all bishops and abbots, the right of exerting their civil and inferior criminal jurisdiction over those of the commons who were subjects of the empire, but whose property lay in the scattered possessions oi the Church. All revenues which the state had hitherto derived from such subjects of the empire were granted to the Church. From henceforth, the bishops and abbots exercised temporal as well as spiritual power over those small freeholders who had previously been under the counts and their officers, as protectors of the rights of the crown. The rig...