Excerpt from Christian History in Its Three Great Periods, Vol. 2: Second Period, the Middle Age

Seven centuries, dating from the time of Charlemagne, include the Catholic system of the Middle Age. Strictly speaking, the great era of ecclesiastical power covers only two centuries and a half, beginning (about 1050) with the work of Hildebrand, and ending with the Jubilee of the year 1300. In a broader sense, however, the Middle Age extends from the founding of the Empire of the West in 800 to the dawn of the Protestant Reformation.

Again, it will be convenient to take the exact middle point of the period thus defined(1150), as the moment when the spiritual power, properly so called, culminates. The Papacy reached its greatest political splendor and strength a little later; but reasons will appear for taking the above date as marking the time of highest vigor in the system as a whole.

Mr. Bryce, in his "Holy Roman Empire," has made familiar to students of history the theory of Sovereignty on which the Medi?val system was built. It is, shortly, something like this.

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