ABSTRACT
Writing several years after the conclusion of World War I, the American medievalist A. C. Krey responded to recent conjecture and debate over the League of Nations and the extent of its sovereignty by identifying what he saw as a more or less similar example of international order in the past: that of medieval Christendom. By the era of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), Krey observed,
the Church with the papacy at its head had become an international state. It had everything that a state has – and more. It could raise funds by direct taxation and raise armies equally directly. It could bring offenders to the courts of justice, and it had the means of executing its judgments. It applied its laws equally to peasant and king and it executed judgments against both. It controlled education, controlled the agencies of publicity, and controlled the courts. The social cares of charity and public health were in its hands. And on top of all this, it wielded the awful power of eternal life or death. Never in history have the moral forces of so vast a society been so thoroughly concentrated and so effective. As an experiment in practical idealism, it is still without equal.1
