tain authority over the Spanish Church _was_ thus
conceded to the pope, yet owing to the independent spirit of the Spanish
kings and clergy, he contented himself with a very sparing use of his
power. In two points, in especial, the claims of the pope were
strenuously resisted.

_(a.)_ The purchase of dispensations from Rome was expressly forbidden.

_(b.)_ Papal infallibility was a dogma by no means admitted. Thus the
prelates of Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth councils of Toledo,
defended the orthodoxy of their fellow-bishop, Julian, against the
strictures of the then pope, Bendict II.; and Benedict's successor, John
V., confessed that they had been in the right.[2]

This spirit of opposition to the supremacy of the pope we find
manifested to the last by the Spanish kings, and there is some reason
for thinking that in the very year of the Saracen invasion the king,
Witiza, held a synod, which emphatically forbade appeals to Rome.[3]
One author even goes so far as to say that the Gothic king and his
clergy being at variance with the pope, the latter encouraged and
favoured the Saracen invasion.[4]

[1] Masdeu, xi. p. 167, ff., quoted by Dr Dunham.

[2] Dunham, i. p. 197.

[3] See Hardwicke's "Church in the Middle Ages," p. 42. He
quotes Gieselar, "Ch. Hist.," iii-132.

[4] J.S. Semler, quoted by Mosheim, ii. 120, note.

However that may have been, and it certainly looks very improbable, the
invasion did not help the pope much directly, though indirectly, and as
events turned out, the Arab domination was undoubtedly the main cause of
the ultimate subjection of Spain to the papal yoke, which happened in
this way:--The Christian Church in the North being, though free, yet in
a position of great danger and weakness, would naturally have sought
help from their nearest Christian neighbours, the Franks. But the
selfish and ambitious policy of the latter, who preferred extending
their temporal dominion to fighting as champions of Christianity in
defence of others, naturally forced the Spanish Christians to look to
the only Christian ruler who could afford them even moral assistance;
and the popes were not slow to avail themselves of the opportunity thus
offered for establishing their authority in a new province. It was by
the intervention of the popes that the war against the Arabs partook of
the nature of a crusade, a form of warfare which carried with it the
advantage of filling the treasury