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 of the Bishops of Rome.  By means of indulgences, granting exemption from purgatory at 200 maravedis a head, the pope collected in four years the sum of four million maravedis.[1]

The first important instance of the Pope’s intervention being asked and obtained was in 808, when, the body of St James being miraculously discovered, Alfonso wrote to the pope asking leave to move the see of Ira Flavia (Padron) to the new church of St lago,[2] built on the spot where the relics were found.  The birth of the new Spanish Church dates from this event, which was of ominous import for the future independence of the Church in that country.  What the claims of Rome had come to be within a quarter of a century of this epoch, we may see from the controversy which arose between Claudius, Bishop of Turin, and the papal party.  Claudius was himself a Spaniard, and a pupil of the celebrated Felix, Bishop of Urgel, one of the authors of the Adoptionist heresy.  Among other doctrines obnoxious to the so-called Catholic party, Claudius stoutly resisted the papal claim to be the head of Christendom, resting his opposition, so far as we can gather from what remains to us of his writings,[3] on the grounds, first, that Christ did not say to Peter, “What thou loosest in heaven, shall be loosed upon earth;” meaning by this that the authority vested in Peter was only to be exercised during his life; secondly, in answer to the supposed efficacy of a pilgrimage to Rome, Claudius retorts on his accuser, Theodomir, abbot of a monastery near Nimes:—­“If a doing of penance to be effectual involves a journey to Rome, why do you keep so many monks in your monastery and prevent them from going—­as you say is necessary—­to Rome itself?” As to the journey itself, Claudius said that he neither approved nor disapproved of it, knowing that it was not prejudicial to all, nor useful to all:  but this he was assured of, that eternal life could not be gained by a mere journey to Rome; thirdly, as to the pope being the Dominicus Apostolicus, as his supporters called him, apostolic, says Claudius, is a title that does not belong to one “who fills the see of an apostle, but who fulfils the duties thereof.”