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CHAP. XIII.: Of the Election of Bishops and Abbots. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. XIII.

Of the Election of Bishops and Abbots.

AS the church was grown poor, the kings resigned the right of nominating to bishopricks and other ecclesiastic benefices. The princes gave themselves less trouble about the ecclesiastic ministers; and the candidates were less solicitous in applying to their authorities. Thus the church received a kind of compensation for the possessions she had lost.

Hence if Lewis the Debonnaire* left the people of Rome in possession of the right of chusing their popes, it was owing to the general spirit that prevailed in his time: he behaved in the same manner to the see of Rome as to other bishopricks.

[]See the capitulary of Charlemaign in the year 803. art. 2. Baluzius’s edition, page 379. and the edict of Lewis the Pious, in the year 834, in Goldast. Constit. Imperial. tom. 1.

[* ]This is mentioned in the famous canon, ego Ludovicus, which is a palpable forgery; it is in Baluzius’s edition, page 591. in the year 817.