ABSTRACT
The old German state was based on the support of the church; the imperial power, the temporal rule in Italy could not exist without the benevolent support and loyalty of the Pope. The German Pope, who actually owed his elevation to the Emperor, was a good guarantee for the submissiveness of the capital. A German Papacy as the keystone of the German imperial power—that meant the final achievement of German hegemony in the west. It was a clear and well thought out system, as simple as it was effective. The reform of the Roman Church had been embarked on under German Popes, but the largest share in it had been taken by French monks. In Germany it would scarcely have been possible to find men of the required calibre in sufficient numbers; they had to be summoned from the home of reform, from Lorraine and Burgundy.
