Note 275 — Chapter II

According to the social and political arrangements from the fourth to the tenth century, the clergy were so eminently a class apart, that they were freed from ‘burdens of the state,’ and were not obliged to engage in military services unless they thought proper to do so. See Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. iii. p. 195, vol. v. pp. 133, 140; and Petrie's Ecclesiast. Archit. p. 382. But under the feudal system this immunity was lost; and in regard to performing services no separation of classes was admitted. ‘After the feudal polity became established, we do not find that there was any dispensation for ecclesiastical fiefs.’ Hallam's Supplemental Notes, p. 120; and for further proof of the loss of the old privileges, compare Grose's Military Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 5, 64; Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. i. p. 257; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 462; and Mably's Observations, vol. i. pp. 434, 435: so that, as this writer says, p. 215, ‘Chaque seigneur laïc avait gagné personnellement à la révolution qui forma le gouvernement féodal; mais les évêques et les abbés, en devenant souverains dans leurs terres, perdirent au contraire beaucoup de leur pouvoir et de leur dignité.’