s. So in the contest
between the counts and the bishops we find the latter only victorious
in certain cases, and consequently having only certain of the cities
under their jurisdiction; a fact which is illustrated as late as the
Peace of Constance, where in the ninth article the cities are still
divided into episcopal and non-episcopal cities.[88] In the second
place we must keep clearly before us an important fact, the truth of
which any chronological account of the development of the principle of
immunity would easily demonstrate, namely, that with the advance of
time and with the growth of that principle, the changes which took
place in the different sorts of immunities were not simply those of
degree, but essentially and principally those of _kind_.

A descendant of Charlemagne may have granted to some monastery or
bishopric a greater alleviation of some of the fiscal burdens borne by
it under his immediate predecessor, but a successor of Berenger when
he granted a _privilegium_ did not simply perform the negative benefit
of alleviating burdens; he endowed the head of the bishopric--probably
in return for some service he had received at his hands or expected to
receive--with the positive benefit of the political headship and
possession of some city or district of a former count. I mean by this
that the earlier immunities--and in these are included all given
during the period we are discussing--were all of them what are termed
simple or ordinary immunities; that is, those which deal with
exemption--whether from burdens for which the receivers would
otherwise be liable, or from jurisdiction to which they would
otherwise have been subjected--of what may properly be called the
private possessions of the churches concerned. They had nothing to do
with the privileges of a later time, by which a power to exact burdens
was granted and a positive jurisdiction over others allowed: that is,
public functions bestowed rather than private rights conceded.

That a distinction of such a character was a difference of kind and
not of degree is so plainly apparent that it is unnecessary to dwell
longer upon it, and it only remains for us to consider briefly the
chronology of some of the changes that took place. If we adhere
strictly to the proper signification of the terms used, the
development can be somewhat succinctly described by the simple
enumeration of the three characteristic features of its progress, viz.
_protection, exemp