Against the feudal bishops and the local kings or princes, opposition came from three sides: 1) from the lower clergy. 2) from the popes, especially Gregory VII, 3) from the proletarian masses; which were anti-feudal, especially in northern Italy. The pope used them and let them alone again. The pope used the lower bishops who were very much nearer to the lower clergy than the pope, so in the name of the pope they could resist the feudal clergy of their own countries. This was the situation which finally led to the great fight between Gregory VII and Henry IV, the struggle which is usually called the struggle between Church and State, but this is very misleading, you shouldn’t call it thus. It was a quite different thing. First of all, “state” in our sense is a concept of the 18th century and didn’t exist before, and when we speak of “the state” in Greece, in Rome, in the Middle Ages, we should always put it in quotation marks, using the word from the18th century situation, which didn’t exist in former centuries. What did exist were the legal authorities, with military and political power, But what was the point of conf lict? It was not, as it was often later, that the states encroached upon the rights of the Church – this of course was their right – but it was a much more fundamental thing. Since the Church was the representative of the spiritual substance of the daily lif of everyone, of every function, craft, business, professi6n – it was all ecclesiastical in some way – there was no separation of realms as we had it after the Reformation, but there was one reality, with different sides.

But now the question arose: Who shall head this one reality? There must be a head, and it is dangerous if there are two heads. So from both sides, the clergy and the princes, the feudal lords, each claimed to be the head of this one reality. The state represented by the feudal order was conscious of also representing the Christian body as a whole, and the Church represented by the pope was also conscious of representing the Christian body as a whole, This was the fight. The same position was claimed by both sides, a position which embraces the secular as well as the religious.