The West European feudal system that followed the collapse of the Carolingian empire - itself a short-lived attempt to impose order on the disorder resulting from the barbarian invasion that had destroyed Rome - was decentralized even by the standards of similar regimes elsewhere.

Under feudalism, government was neither ‘‘public’’ nor concentrated in the hands of a single monarch or emperor; instead it was divided among a large number of unequal rulers who were related to each other by ties of fealty and who treated it as their private possession.

Whereas, in most empires, the emperor’s position was strengthened by the fact that he was descended either from god or from his prophet, in Christendom he was neither one nor the other. This was also true in Byzantium; but here at least there was the saving grace that there were no politically independent Greek Orthodox communities outside the em­pire’s borders. However, in the West from about AD 1000 there were always important countries and regions such as Ireland, England, nor­thern Spain, Scandinavia, and Poland which, though Christian and there­fore subject to the authority of the pope, did not pay homage to the emperor.

To make things worse, the secular and religious capitals did not coin­cide. Byzantium and the Ottomans had Constantinople, the Inca Cuzco with its palaces and temples; but European emperors kept moving from one place to another. Most of the time they were found either in greater Germany, which at that time included what are today the Low Countries, Lorraine, Alsace, Switzerland, and Bohemia, or else in northern or south­ern Italy. This meant that, during most of the Middle Ages, the pope in Rome was beyond the reach not only of the emperor but of any other secular ruler. Unlike his opposite numbers in other empires he had his own territorial domain, albeit one which was never secure and where his power had to be shared with the great noble families such as the Colonnas and the Orsinis. In the form of the military orders whose supreme overlord he was, he also had his own armed force, albeit one that was small and scattered in small groups over much of Christendom, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.^[72]

Finally, the Carolingian empire was unique in that the established religion was older than it and, technically speaking, well ahead of it.

These factors explain why, after Charlemagne’s death, his position as head of religion was lost. As his successors quarreled with one another they often called on the church to mediate. In return, either they gave it, or it was able to obtain, privileges much greater than in any other civilization. From about AD 1100 on it possessed, apart from the power to lay down and interpret divine law, the right to nominate and promote its own officials; immunity from secular justice, also known as benefit of clergy; the right to judge and punish both its own personnel and, in cases involving the care of souls, laymen; the right to offer asylum to fugitives from secular justice; the right to absolve subjects from their oaths to their rulers; and, to support the lot, immense landed estates, a separate system of taxation, and, here and there, the right to strike money as well. Not only were higher prelates almost always noblemen but, like other lords, the church could both give benefices and receive them from others.

The church's power peaked between the time of Gregory VII (1073­85) and Clement IV (1265-8). The former clashed with Emperor Henry IV over the right to appoint bishops, excommunicated him, absolved his vassals from their oath, fomented rebellion against him, and finally forced him to go to Canossa where, on his knees, he publicly repented of his sins.^[73] The latter mobilized much of Europe, engaged in a whole series of wars, and did not rest until he saw the last one of Henry's descendants - the sixteen-year-old Emperor Conrad - executed. Legally, too, ecclesias­tical claims to supremacy grew bolder and bolder. Already Innocent III (1198-1216), building on earlier foundations, declared that the pope could judge everybody but be judged by none. Taking another tack, James of Viterbo (d. 1308) argued that secular government was tainted with original sin and could become perfect only provided it was super­vised by the church, while Giles of Rome (1246-1316) told princes that ‘‘your domains belong to the church more than to you.'' The climax was reached in 1302 when Pope Boniface VIII issued his famous Unam Sanctam Ecclesiam. Quoting Jeremiah - ''I have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms'' - the Bull proclaimed that secular power should be exercised ad nutum et patientiam sacerdotis, ‘‘at the command and sufferance of the priest.''^[74]

As noted above, the centrifugal tendencies that were present in most empires caused some of them to collapse: this was particularly true when external pressures joined internal ones and made the whole ungover­nable, as in late imperial Rome. Other empires, notably the ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Japanese, were able to overcome feudal par­ticularism - sometimes repeatedly so - and reestablish central power after a shorter or longer period. Only in Europe was the position of the church so strong that, instead of finding itself resubjected to the imperial power, it fought the latter to a standstill. Thus feudalism, instead of coming to a comparatively rapid end, lasted for the best part of a millennium and was able to give its name to an entire historical age. More important from our point of view, the empire never recovered. In the chinks between the two great universal organizations there grew the great monarchies, which, much later, were destined to turn into states.