There were thousands of foreign cases, each bringing in money.

"Whenever," says the Bishop Alvaro Pelayo, "I entered the apartments of the Roman court clergy, I found them occupied in counting up the gold-coin, which lay about the rooms in heaps." Every opportunity of extending the jurisdiction of the Curia was welcome.
Exemptions were so managed that fresh grants were constantly necessary.
Bishops were privileged against cathedral chapters, chapters against their bishops; bishops, convents, and individuals, against the extortions of legates.
The two pillars on which the papal system now rested were the College of Cardinals and the Curia.

The cardinals, in 1059, had become electors of the popes.

Up to that time elections were made by the whole body of the Roman clergy, and the concurrence of the magistrates and citizens was necessary.

But Nicolas II.