Shoals of contesting claimants died in Rome; and, when death took place in that city, the Pope claimed the right of giving away the benefices.

At length it was affirmed that he had the right of disposing of all church-offices without distinction, and that the oath of obedience of a bishop to him implied political as well as ecclesiastical subjection.

In countries having a dual government this increased the power of the spiritual element prodigiously.
Rights of every kind were remorselessly overthrown to complete this centralization.

In this the mendicant orders were most efficient aids.
It was the pope and those orders on one side, the bishops and the parochial clergy on the other.

The Roman court had seized the rights of synods, metropolitans, bishops, national churches.