They formed an effectual communication between the mendicant friars and the illiterate populace, and there was not one of them that did not display in its earliest productions a sovereign contempt for her.
The rise of the many-tongued European literature was therefore coincident with the decline of papal Christianity; European literature was impossible under Catholic rule.

A grand, a solemn, an imposing religious unity enforced the literary unity which is implied in the use of a single tongue.
While thus the possession of a universal language so signally secured her power, the real secret of much of the influence of the Church lay in the control she had so skillfully obtained over domestic life.

Her influence diminished as that declined.

Coincident with this was her displacement in the guidance of international relations by diplomacy.
CATHOLICITY AND CIVILIZATION.

In the old times of Roman domination the encampments of the legions in the provinces had always proved to be foci of civilization.