ABSTRACT
It was necessary to determine whether the Carolingian conceprion was to continue in force: that is to say, whether the Church, regarded as the whole body of the faithful, and also as a political society, should continue to have at its head two principals, mutually independent, the first governing men’s souls and the second their bodies: or whether, on the contrary, it was the duty of the Pope to dispose of the Imperial crown-whether, in the language of the time, both the spiritual and the temporal sword were his, the Emperor receiving the latter from him as a vassal receives a fief from his sovereign. Only a new war could furnish the reply to this question, for no compromise was possible between the contradictory affirmations of the two adversaries.
