ecclesiastical organisation in Europe with the pope as its undisputed head. The monastic movement, especially the Benedictines who had founded monasteries and nunneries across Europe had now become the strongest integrating force of the Western Church.21 The growth of feudal society counterbalanced the monastic integration of the Church. By many bishops were imperial or royal fief-holders and vassals that enmeshed them in mundane matters. Through the feudal system kings and emperors were able to dominate the Church and reduce the pope to an almost subordinate figure.22 By a reform movement had grown strong enough within the Church to challenge secular power, including that of emperors and local fief-holding bishops. This movement, usually known as the Gregorian reform, was monastic in character and aimed at organising the Church under the leadership of the Roman pontiff. The following decades up to the s witnessed a remarkable advance of the ecclesiastical reform party. The Church established itself as an independent body that cut across the national borders of Western Europe.23 The new ecclesiastical organisation was in urgent need of efficient lawyers, which started what legal historians today have called “The Legal Revolution”. The law of the Church including its system of institutionalised procedure took precedence over secular law to such an extent that the years - became the formative period of modern Western law with canon law, the law of the Church, as its 124 21 G. Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century, (Cambridge 1993: Cambridge Univ. Press.) - N. Brox (hrsg.) Die Geschichte des Christentums: Religion, Politik, Kultur, 4: Bischöfe, Mönche und Kaiser (642-1054), (Freiburg 1994: Herder.) 22 M. Bloch, Feudal Society, 1-2. (London 1989: Routledge.) - J. S. Critchley, Feudalism. (London 1978: Allen & Unwin.) - F. L. Ganshof, Feudalism, (New York 1964: Harper & Row.) - L. Kuchenbuch, Feudalismus: Materialien zur Theorie und Geschichte. (Frankfurt am Main 1977: Ullstein.) 23 W. Ullman, The Growth of the Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideological Relation of Clerical to Lay Power. (London 1955: Methuen.)
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