The popes, for their part, Gregory VII.
and Innocent III.

amongst others, had raised the papacy to a region of intellectual and moral supremacy whence it looked down upon all the terrestrial powers.

Gregory VII., the most disinterested of all ambitious men in high places, had dedicated his stormy life to establishing the dominion of the Church over the world, kings as well as people, and also to reforming internally the Church herself, her morals and her discipline.

"I have loved justice and hated iniquity; and that is why I am dying in exile," he had said on his death-bed: but his works survived him, and a hundred years after him, in spite of the troubles which had disturbed the Church under eighteen mediocre and transitory popes, Innocent III., whilst maintaining, only with more moderation and prudence, the same principles as Gregory VII.

had maintained, exercised peacefully, for a space of eighteen years, the powers of the right divine, whilst Philip Augustus was extending and confirming the kingly power in France.