"It's delicious, it's delicious, brother, I want to eat!" Feeling the energy fluctuations emanating from not far away, Xiao Yingying hugged Wu Ling's hand and hurriedly shouted.

For such a thing, Wu Ling didn't find it strange. Dream eaters originally ate not only dreams but also souls.

The reason why there was no feeling for those people in the church was because once the supernatural awakened, the soul would have a certain abnormality, and such an anomaly would naturally become more powerful for the supernatural. But for those Dream Eaters, the change in the soul of the Adeptus is more difficult to attract their attention.

Dream Eaters don't eat everyone's dreams, just like ordinary people's dreams, this is a dream that Dream Eaters simply don't bother to devour. In their eyes, ordinary people's dreams are like mud on the ground, and it is impossible to actively devour them.

Unless it is in the face of a real great famine, when there is no way back, they may be able to devour the earth. But those dirt are not dirty mud, they are also a kind of Guanyin soil, although after eating them, they will have a high probability of facing the threat of death, but when there is really no way, these death threats seem to be nothing.

And once ordinary people awaken, their souls in the eyes of dream eaters have changed from mud to bricks or stones, and even some souls have become harder metal, such souls will not be willing to devour as long as they are normal dream eaters. Because not only can it not be swallowed, but it will collapse all the teeth. Therefore, the Dream Eater disdains to devour the dreams of ordinary people, and even more attacks ordinary supernatural beings.

However, there is one exception. These are the more mysterious Dream Controllers, a special group of people who have improved their spiritual powers. And what the Dream Eater devours is actually these souls, these spiritual powers. So in the eyes of the Dream Eaters, the Dream Keeper is their real food. And not just food, but also a ladder for them to improve. Devouring the spiritual power of the Dream Controller, not only can you fill your stomach, but also make your strength improve quickly, which is actually why Xiao Yingying chased and killed those Dream Controllers in the first place.

It's just because she is controlled by instinct, and her body not only wants to evolve, but also wants to fill her stomach, so she has been unconsciously devouring those dream controllers. Otherwise. With Xiao Yingying's strength, it may be a lot worse in Wu Ling's eyes, but if she really has her own will, she can definitely easily control the entire Yulan City. After all, once the strength of the Dream Eater is raised to the D rank, because of its special nature, this is definitely a group of superpowers that are even more terrifying than ordinary superpowers.

And this is also one of the reasons why Wu Ling is willing to leave Xiao Yingying behind, because Xiao Yingying's potential is much higher than most of the abilities, so staying by his side is definitely a good helper, so he has the current peaceful life of Xiao Yingying. And in the process. Since Wu Ling wanted Xiao Yingying to be a little more normal, he also sealed some Dream Eater's abilities a little, otherwise, Xiao Yingying would have no way to control these energies.

The birth of a capability. If there is no way to control it, then those abilities will easily turn against their master, and there may not be a direct seizure. But it happens that the Awakened are manipulated by abilities. Especially now Xiao Yingying's dream eater. Dream Eater, the reason why it is powerful is in food. But the weakness is also in the food.

Dream Eater's progress needs to be devoured. However, if you want to keep your ability or even hold your spiritual power, then you must devour other spiritual power infinitely, otherwise, not only will your strength decline rapidly, but it will even endanger your life. So although the Dream Eater is very powerful, this is a superpower who will starve to death.

Whether it is an ability or a dream controller, even after awakening the ability, as long as you don't take the initiative to improve your strength, nothing will happen at all, and the ability will sleep in the body, and it will only resurface when they are summoned.

But Dream Eaters are different, once Dream Eaters awaken, they must be constantly fed, otherwise, they will starve to death directly like ordinary people. Therefore, there is also an absolute balance in the world, because of the strength of the dream controller, so there is the existence of dream eaters. It's also because of the weirdness of the Dream Eater, but it has such a big limitation.

Although the ability was sealed by Wu Zero for a while, Xiao Yingying had the desire to eat. It's a lot smaller, but it won't really lose this desire. Looking, and now that she felt the aroma of the food below, she naturally couldn't stand it a little.

However, Wu Ling didn't directly let Xiao Yingying make a move, not only her current strength couldn't take down the members of these churches at all, even if Xiao Yingying could take down these people, he would directly stop it, although he now has a certain strength, but it is impossible for him to fight the whole world alone. Especially with an organization like the church, Wu Ling didn't believe that the other party would really follow those so-called rules.

In fact, on the contrary, the expansion of the entire church really did not comply with anything, just for its own expansion, and the resulting killings were definitely not a few.

The Holy See was originally a sect of the lower classes of the Roman Empire. Religion, according to legend, was founded by the Jewish Church of Jesus. Under the auspices of the ruling class, the Holy See became the dominant ideology in the territory of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire spanned the Eurasian continent and embraced a large number of peoples. As the ruling area continued to expand, the ruling structure of the entire empire gradually divided into two parts, east and west. Eastern Rome was centered on Constantinople, and Western Rome continued to be centered on Rome. Correspondingly, the Holy See Church was divided into two parts. The Western Church was more influenced by Latin culture, while the Eastern Church was more influenced by Greek culture. Due to differences in cultural backgrounds, the Eastern and Western churches have different views on some of the main issues of papal theology, which has led to deepening contradictions.

In 476 AD, the Western Roman Empire was defeated by barbarian invasions, but the Holy See was not frustrated by this, but gave them an opportunity to expand and develop. Thereafter, the Western Church intensified its missionary activities against the barbarians, and gradually expanded its influence to Britain, the Franks, and Germany. At that time, Western Europe was divided into many feudal states. They were constantly engaged in annexation wars with each other, and feudal lords were fighting each other within the country. Therefore they need the support of the pope as a guarantee of power. A.D. 752. Pepin of the Franks became king, and he invited Pope Stephen II to Paris to celebrate his coronation. This not only meant that Christianity became the spiritual pillar of the Frankish state, but also that the pope gained the power to depose the emperor, sowing the seeds of the struggle between clergy and royal power in Western Europe. However, in the Eastern Roman Empire, the status of the church was relatively low, and it was always dependent on the royal power. The Eastern Roman Emperor could directly intervene in the form of an edict. Disputes over teaching theories, adjudicating the rights and wrongs of theories of different schools. Emperor Zeno of the Eastern Roman Empire's "Henoken Edict" forcibly determined that the church was one god and man, and abolished the theory of "god and man". This led to an irreparable split between the East and West Churches and the independence of the Nestorians. Later, the Eastern Roman Emperor frequently interfered in the activities of the Church, so that the Eastern Church was firmly under the control of the royal power.

In 1054 AD, the Eastern and Western Churches formally split into Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in order to compete for supremacy. Pope Nicholas II passed the papal election law after several battles with the royal power, stipulating that the pope could only be elected by cardinals, eliminating the possibility of the feudal monarch deposing the pope, and finally won a crucial victory. Pope Gregory VII fought repeatedly with the German Emperor Henry IV. Finally made him bow his head and be a vassal. By the 12th century, the Holy See had achieved supremacy in Western Europe, and Innocent III declared that "the Pope is the father of the world." They came forward as God's spokesmen and presided over the sect. Church Inquisition, Inquisition. Teach heresy. Anyone who rebelled against feudal rule and adhered to scientific truth. Or those who disagreed with the Bible were brutally persecuted as heretics. In order to plunder the treasures of the countries of the East. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, the Church launched eight crusades, and the emperors of each country were at the mercy of the pope. The Church developed a huge economic power and became the largest feudal ruling power in Europe. Although the medieval church established a religious system and promoted asceticism, the upper echelons of the church gradually became corrupt and degenerate under the corruption of power. At the end of the 13th century, as France grew stronger, King Philip IV of France began a new round of competition with the Pope. The Holy See was forced to move back to Italy, and there was even a situation of two popes. Although the Holy See was reunited in 1417, the prestige of the Pope was greatly reduced, and the unification of Europe by the Church was broken, and the power of the Holy See began to decline. In the East, the Byzantine Empire was constantly under attack from the newly rising Islam, which kept the Orthodox Church from very strong, and finally its center shifted to Russia. In order to justify the belief in God, the Holy See developed a complex and sophisticated scholasticism. In the early Middle Ages, Augustine's patristic philosophy was the dominant in the church, mainly using ancient Greek Platonism to argue for the papal canon. Later, there was a dispute between nominalism and realism, with the nominalists Rotherling and Abelard and the realist Anselmo arguing fiercely over the question of whether nouns and concepts were true. In the 12th century, with the increase in exchanges between East and West, the Aristotelian philosophy preserved in the Arab region was introduced to Europe. Thomas. Aquinas used Aristotle's philosophical ideas to construct an orthodox theological system that became the unanimous and authoritative explanation of theological controversy by the church. In the 14th century, with the rise of the burgher class, nominalism, which was regarded as heresy within the church, flourished again. Scott and William. Occam's critique of orthodox theology has already spawned the collapse of the church's ruling power and the collapse of the church. Precursor to religious reform.

From the 5th century AD onwards, the slave rule of the Western Roman Empire was already in shaky crisis. The brutal oppression, the endless conquest, the poor and extravagant corrupt life of the aristocratic slave owners, and the misery of the lower classes of the common people plunged the Roman Empire into the abyss of evil from which it could never be recovered. Against this background, popular uprisings in the form of papal heresies are constantly occurring within the territory; Beyond its borders, the weakened empire was powerless to resist the constant invasions of the barbarians. Slaves, serfs, and even small peasants and commoners, who could not bear the rule of the Empire, were not only unwilling to resist foreign enemies, but also welcomed them and hoped to accept their rule in order to change their own predicament. Therefore, when the Vandals entered North Africa from Spain, the local population refused the governor's order to resist and united with them to launch an uprising, eliminating the local Roman rulers and relieving them of all debts. Similar acts have occurred in other provinces invaded by the barbarians. At this time, the Roman legions were completely corrupted and degenerate, and they were powerless to fight back. The emperor of the empire also became a puppet of the barbarian mercenaries, and the demise of the Western Roman Empire was inevitable. A.D. 476. Emperor Romulus was deposed by the mercenary leader Odoac. So, under the blow of the barbarian invasion and the internal and external difficulties of the people's uprising. The Western Roman Empire finally fell. The fall of the Western Roman Empire was a significant event in the political history of Western Europe, marking the end of the Old World and the arrival of the New World, and thus the West entered the medieval feudal era. By contrast, the event of the fall of the Western Roman Empire was of little significance to the development of the Holy See itself.

For although the barbarians reduced the civilization of the Roman Empire to ruins, they were the only ones who inherited the Holy See, making it dominant in the cultural field of the entire Middle Ages. Thus, not only did the development of the Eastern Curia not suffer much, but the development of the Western Curia did not lead to fundamental or significant changes. But. The fall of the Western Roman Empire also provided an opportunity for the development of the Western Church. At first, the Roman Church felt at a loss, and then took advantage of the chaotic situation to expand its power, develop its power, improve the status of the bishop, expand the boundaries of the Holy See, and gradually develop and grow the Roman Church, resulting in the competition between the church and the king for hundreds of years, which did not exist in the history of the Eastern sect of the Holy See, which had always been controlled by the powerful imperial power. Meantime. As a result of the struggle for power in the Roman Church, the organization of the Church was developed and perfected over the course of several centuries, but there was little creative achievement in theological theory. It basically follows the Augustinian theological system formed in the early 5th century AD during the polemic with Pelagianism, and until the rise of Thomism in the 13th century, Augustinianism reigned supreme.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The barbarians established a series of states on the ruins of Rome, at which time the Eastern Roman Empire seized the opportunity to try to control the Western Church. This prompted the Roman Church to begin to face and acknowledge the reality and put aside for a moment the struggle for the supremacy with the Eastern Church. Instead, he began to preach to the barbarians, trying to build the foundation of the church in the middle of the barbarian society by accumulating strength, so as to revive the Western church and then compete with the Eastern faction. Thus, the Roman Church sent missionaries to the barbarian territories, and began the spread of the Holy See in Western Europe and even Northern Europe. In fact, before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the missionary activities of the Roman Church had already been carried out in some areas, and some of the barbarians who invaded the Western Roman Empire had also accepted the Holy See before that, which was undoubtedly beneficial for the further extensive missionary activities of the Roman Church.

Ever since the Latin Church Father Tertullian proposed the doctrine of the "Trinity", the core tenet of the orthodox doctrine of the Holy See, how to explain the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, especially the relationship between divinity and humanity in the incarnate Church of the Son, has been a central issue in theological debate. In this respect, Western theology is far less profound than that of the East, but it is more unified, essentially establishing the concept of the existence of a complete divinity and humanity in the church. Eastern theology, on the other hand, was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, and the long-term theoretical dispute over it led to a split in the Eastern Church, which often clashed with the Western Church.

The Eastern Church has a long history of disagreement over ecclesiology. In the 4th century, there was an Alyus sect that emphasized the humanity of the church, and there was a fierce controversy between the first and second synods and the so-called orthodox; There was the Apollinan sect that emphasized the divinity of the church, which was condemned by the Antiochites and the Second Synod. In the 5th century, the Nestorian sect, who attacked the Arian church monopoly and insisted on the duality of the church, was condemned by the Third Ecumenical Council; There were also anti-Nestorian Homophysists, all of whom were considered heretical. In the mid-to-late 5th century, there was a fierce debate between the Monophytes and the Orthodox. Orthodox doctrine asserts that there is both divinity and humanity in the church, and that humanity and divinity are united in one person. Church monism, on the other hand, argues that asserting the duality of God and man in the church will lead to church dualism. It emphasizes the unity of the church, arguing that after the union of the divinity of the church with the human nature, the human nature dissolves into the divinity, so the church has only one nature, that is, the divinity. The Fourth Council of Charcedon condemned the doctrine of the oneness of the church, and the Charcedonian Creed, revised on the basis of the Nicaea-Constantinople Creed, affirmed that the church had an equally complete divine and human nature, one with the Father, and one with the world. The two natures of God and man are not confused with each other, and are united in one person, one nature. This is considered in the history of the church to be an orthodox solution to the problem of ecclesiastism. In the confusing theological realm a canon of doctrine was established, however. After the meeting, the church controversy did not subside. Church monophysiology continued to oppose the Charlesidon resolution, and the confrontation with the orthodox faction intensified. The "Three Chapters" debate convened by Justinian I and the Fifth General Assembly were still frustrated in their attempts to appease the Unitarians. By the end of the 6th century, the ecclesiastical controversy had divided the Eastern Church, with the four centers of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch in conflict, and the Nestorian and Unitarian sects splitting off to form independent churches.

In the 7th century, the church controversy developed further. At this time, the dispute between the two sexes of the church has been transformed into the dispute between the two wills of the church and the god and the man, that is, whether the church has two wills of God and man, or only one will of God. In 638, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-642) issued the Edict of Heraclius, affirming that the church had only one will. In 641, Pope John IV (r. 640-642) denounced it as a monolithic heresy. In 648, Constans II (r. 642-668) issued the Edict. It is forbidden to discuss the question of one or several wills in the church. Pope Martin I (reigned 649-655) took advantage of this situation and convened a synondral in Rome in 649. The synod, which declared the existence of two wills in the church, the will of man and the will of God, and condemned not only the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gilgius, and other patriarchs, but also the Edict of Hiraclius and the Edict, in an attempt to bring the interpretation of the will of the church into line with the Western interpretation of the oneness and duality of the church, and to assert the authority of the pope in the East. He was later arrested and exiled by the Byzantine Emperor.

In 681, after negotiations between Constantine IV (r. 668-685) and Pope Agator (r. 678-681), the Sixth Council of Ecumenburg was convened in Constantinople. The conference affirmed that there are two kinds of wills in the church, which do not contradict each other, but that the will of man is subordinate to the will of God. This council was the third time that the Western Church had triumphed over the divided Eastern Church in theological terms, following the two councils of Nicaea and Charlesedon. So far. The church controversy was largely over.

The long church controversy had disastrous consequences for the Eastern Church and the Empire, not only as a result of the fragmentation of the Eastern Church by the end of the 6th century, but also due to the heretical persecution of the church controversy. This led to strong anger and centrifugal tendencies in Egypt and Syria against Constantinople rule and the Church, which became an important source of the rapid conquest of Islam, which rose to prominence in the 7th century. As the completion of the 5th and 6th General Meetings. 692 Justinian II (reigned 685-695, 704-711). The "Fifth or Sixth Council" was held in Constantinople, attended by all the bishops of the Eastern Church. The conference affirmed that Constantinople enjoyed the same privileges as the Roman Bishopric and laid down several new statutes that contradicted Western practice, which further deepened the rift between the Eastern and Western Churches. After that, the East and West factions continued to compete with each other, which eventually led to a final split.

Since the establishment of the Merovingian dynasty by Clovis, the Frankish kingdom has become the most powerful state in Western Europe. In 751 AD, Pepin the Short, the minister of the Merovingian dynasty, who held the real power of the Frankish kingdom, staged a palace coup d'état, forced King Ciledelli III into the abbey of St. Medar, and became the king of the Frankish kingdom, thus ending the rule of the Merovingian dynasty and beginning the Carolingian period.

In 751, the Lombards conquered Ravenna from the emperor and were advancing on Rome. The Pope had effectively betrayed the ruler of Constantinople, and the Pope had to find another protector against the Lombards, so he turned to the Franks. After Pepin became king, Pope Stephen II (r. 752-757) personally went to Paris to celebrate his coronation and anointing ceremony, and named him "Administrator of the Romans", which showed that he was God's chosen king, and the royal power was given by God, thus changing the previous tradition of electing Frankish kings by various tribes, and at the same time making the Holy See truly the spiritual pillar of the Frankish kingdom's rule. In order to repay the support of the pope, Pepin sent two expeditions to Italy between 754 and 756, forcing the Lombards to give up the occupation of the Viceroyalty of Ravenna and Rome, and to give the Viceroyalty of Ravenna and Pentapolis to the Pope. At that time, Rome was still formally under the jurisdiction of the Byzantine emperor, but in fact it was already the territory of the pope. The Pope is both a sect. Religious leader, but also a secular monarch. From then on, the power increased greatly, and the coronation of Pepin by the Pope became one of the most important events in medieval history. The impact is far-reaching. This meant that the pope had the power to depose the emperor, laying the groundwork for the future struggle between the church and the king and the rebuilding of the Roman Empire.

In 768 Pepin the Short died. The kingdom was divided between two sons, Charlloman and Charlie, and infighting between the brothers ensued. Charloman died in 771, and Charles began his reign as a unified. He actively used the papacy to expand outward, using fire and sword to expand the territory of the Frankish kingdom to include present-day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, half of Hungary, most of Italy, and Spain, more than doubling the territory of his father's reign, making the kingdom the closest to an empire since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Therefore, it is seen in the minds of the Western population as the revival of the Roman Empire in the West. The word "great" was added to his name, and he was called "Charlemagne", which means great. In terms of the expansion of the Holy See, Charlemagne also conquered the Saxons. It brought permanent benefits to the development of the Holy See in Western Europe as a whole. In order to strengthen his rule, Charlemagne built a large number of monasteries in the vast occupied territories, improved the organization of the diocese, and trained clergy with a certain culture, and these measures also greatly promoted the development of the Western Church, which re-established its ambition to achieve the primacy of the Holy See that it had pursued for many years. As a result, the Roman Church also repeatedly proclaimed the greatness of the Frankish kingdom and the reappearance of the Roman Empire.

In 799 A.D., Pope Leo III (r. 795-816) was attacked by the opposition, fled the city of Rome, and appealed to Charlemagne for help. In 800 Charlemagne led his army into Rome. Re-enthroned Leo III on the papal throne. On Christmas Day 800, Leo III placed the crown of the Roman Emperor on the head of the Frankish king in St. Peter's Basilica, giving him the status of great heir to Augustus, a move that won universal praise from both the Roman and Western populations. Thus, Charlemagne became emperor of the Romans. The Frankish kingdom became Charlemagne's empire. This canonization further confirmed the theocratic status of the papacy and established the idea that the church and the state were two sides of the same shield, leading to a long-running struggle between the church and the emperor throughout the Middle Ages. Meanwhile. The Western Church was backed by a powerful empire, and thus began its period of revival. Began to occupy a dominant position in the struggle against the Eastern Church. And because of Charlemagne's military power, the Western church was also able to avoid being attacked by the Muslim army.

Charlemagne's reign. The emperor controlled the selection of bishops and the appointment and dismissal of bishops. Synod, promulgation of the Church. Shariah, the power to manipulate the affairs of the Church. Charlemagne personally presided over 16 times. The resolutions of the Council were promulgated in the form of the Emperor's "Imperial Decree". He demanded that bishops and abbots should be given the size of their dioceses and monasteries and the amount of property they had for the Frankish kingdom. The army paid for it, and the "tithes" paid by the inhabitants to the church were made into law. He also carried out a series of reconstitutions of the church system, re-establishing the long-abandoned system of provincial bishoprics. These provincial bishops were later called archbishops and had the power to adjudicate and punish the bishops in their jurisdictions. With the active support of Charlemagne, the Western Church grew rapidly.

With the strength of Charlemagne's empire, cultural and academic undertakings were also revitalized. In order to improve the academic standards of the empire, Charlemagne recruited talents from all over Western Europe. He appointed Alqin ca. 735-804) as the main cultural adviser, established a court school, a seminary school and a library, organized manpower to copy a large number of classical documents, hired a group of scholars from the Irish seminary with the most developed culture in Western Europe at that time to teach in the school, and offered seven courses in grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music, also known as the "seven arts". Charlemagne's efforts led to a certain revival of classical European culture that had been destroyed by the barbarian invasion, known as the "Carolingian Revival" (Charlemagne's Latin is Carolinus, so it is called "Carolingian Dynasty" and "Carolingian Culture").

Theological controversies arose as scholarship developed. Two bishops in Spain preached the doctrine of the heirs of the church, arguing that the church is the son of God in terms of divinity and only the heir of God in terms of human nature. Charlemagne led two conferences in Regensburg and Frankfurt in 792 and 794 respectively. The Church condemned it. At the same time, on the issue of the "harmony" sentence, the Western church and the Eastern church engaged in a theological debate. This controversy is actually a theological expression of the struggle between the Eastern and Western factions for the primacy of the Holy See. As early as the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., in the Masses of the Spanish dioceses of the Western sect, the phrase "the Holy Spirit comes from the Father" in the creed was pronounced or written as "The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son". Soon. This creed, known in the history of the church as the "Hezi" sentence, became popular among the Western churches, which caused the indignation of the Eastern churches. It is considered to be a falsification of orthodox beliefs and contradicts the gospel. For this. The Byzantine Emperor Leo III ordered two silver medals engraved with the Nicene Creed to be placed on the tomb of the Roman Apostle Peter. Charlemagne, on the other hand, convened the reign of Achenzong in 809. At the Church Council, it was ordered that the phrase "and son" be added to the Nicene Creed. In 857, Patriarch of Constantinople (810-8.95) listed the phrase "Hezi" as one of the five major fallacies of the Western Church. Later, the two churches continued to argue over the "and" sentence, which was also a cause for the eventual split.

In addition, in the faith of the Holy See, the Eucharist received by administering the "Holy Communion" has always been considered the Eucharistic blood of the Messiah. So, how exactly is the body and blood of the church embodied in matter? This question has been the subject of theological research for centuries. During this period, there was a new controversy in the Western churches on this issue. In 831 the Frankish theologian Bascarsius . Radbertu's essay "The Body and the Blood". The "metamorphosis theory" was proposed. It is believed that when bread and wine are offered to the Lord, they essentially become the flesh and blood of the church. Other theologians cling to Augustine's traditional theories and oppose metamorphosis. In the 11th century, when the doctrine of metamorphosis was established as orthodoxy by the Western Church, the famous theologian Berengar who opposed it was forced to abandon his views and make a confession. At the same time, a new canon on the issue of "confession" appeared in the sacrament of confession. The orthodox theory of the nature of the Eucharist Church was established by the "theory of material change" of John of Damascus (c. 675-749).

After Charlemagne's death, the empire declined rapidly. His son, Louis the Pious (r. 814-840), was unable to succeed him. After Louis's death, his three sons, Lothair (r. 843-855), Louis (r. 843-875), and Charles the Bald (r. 343-877), signed the Treaty of Verdun in 843. Partition of the empire. This treaty is often seen as the starting point for the separation of France and Germany. The fragmentation of the empire led to the inability to defend itself against foreign invasions, the rapid development of feudalism, and the outbreak of civil wars for power in various places. Churches and monasteries were mostly prey for the local aristocracy, and the abbots and bishops of the monasteries were controlled by secular power, as were the parish priests. Theological controversy and academic life also faded.

However, the collapse of Charlemagne's empire in the French Church led a part of the population to seek unity and hope from the pope, trying to curb the secular magnates and archbishops from controlling the church by increasing the authority of the pope. to maintain the unity of the church. As a result, the independent status of the pope began to rise rapidly. Leo IV (r. 847-855) defeated the Saxons with the help of cities in southern Italy. and built a wall around St. Peter's Basilica in the city of Rome, calling it "Leo City" within the wall. Nicholas I (858-867) made various claims to the rights of the pope. Trying to realize the ideals of Augustine's City of God. He advocated that the Church should be above all worldly powers, that the Pope should be the ruler of the entire Church, and that the Bishop should be its agent. He handled two well-known cases, one of which was the 863 Meszon. The decision of King Lothair II's divorce approved by the synod was null and void, and the two archbishops who supported the king were excommunicated, thus defeating the German ruler and the two archbishops. The second was to forcibly reinstate Bishop Soisson, who had been dismissed by the tyrannical Archbishop of Reims Sinkma and to defend the right of the Pope to make the final ruling. The Decree of Isidore, which appeared during this period, is a sign of the decline of imperial power and the increase of papal power. This document contains the decisions of successive popes and councils from Clement in Rome in the first century to Gregory II in the eighth century, both true and false. The Fatwa proclaims that the Bishop of Rome has the supreme position and the supreme jurisdiction, that all other bishops can directly request the Bishop of Rome to adjudicate, that the Bishop of Rome has the authority to control any archbishop, and that the secular government. The authority shall not interfere with the authority of the bishop of Rome and other bishops. One of the decrees stated that Emperor Constantine had ordered all the clergy to obey the bishop of Rome and to give to the Church of Rome "the city of Rome and all the provinces, regions and cities of Italy or the whole of the western region", known as the "Gift of Constantine", which was later given by Nicholas in the 15th century. Cusa and Lorenzo. Vala was confirmed to be a forgery. The Fatwa in the Middle Ages was the Church that strengthened the power of the popes and got rid of secular politics. The control of power, the documentary basis for the preservation of the bishopric and the property of the church, is a powerful weapon in the struggle between the clergy and the imperial power.

However, after the death of Pope Nicholas I, the power of the pope declined again. This was due to the serious intensification of political strife during this period, and the pope became the plaything of the Italian aristocracy. Without any strong political backing, the pope was manipulated by any party that controlled Rome, leading to a rapid change of pope, with no less than 17 popes on the throne between 8.97 and 955.

In 911, Charlemagne's rule in Germany came to an end. With the collapse of the Carolingian dynasty and the growth of feudalism, Germany was divided into vassal states, and power began to fall into the hands of the local aristocracy. Germany needed to be unified against the invasion of the Normans and Huns, and the bishops were in favor of it in order to resist the growing power of the secular aristocracy. In 919, Duke of Saxony, Henri the Birdcatcher (r. 919-936), was elected king, made peace with the princes, drove out the Danes, conquered the Slavic tribes east of the Elbe, and finally defeated the Huns, laying the foundation for a powerful monarchy. His son, Otto I (r. 936-973), succeeded him in developing his business, and with the help of personally appointed bishops and abbots of the Grand Hermitage, he kept the princes at his disposal. From then on, German power was based on control of the clergy, which led to a struggle with the pope for the right to appoint bishops in the following century.

Otto's career was not satisfied with Germany, and he aimed his expansion at Italy. It entered Italy for the first time in 951. In 961, Pope John XII appealed to Otto for help in order to free himself from the control of the Roman ruler Berengar II. Otto marched again into Italy and helped the Pope drive out Berengar. The Pope crowned Otto in Rome and made him Emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire". However, although the Holy Roman Emperor nominally inherited the traditions of the Roman and Charlemagne empires and was the secular head of the papal states, his actual rule was limited to Germany and Italy. Otto eventually freed the pope from the control of the Roman aristocracy for a while at the cost of his obedience. After Otto's death, the German Empire went through several generations of emperors, and until Conrad II (r. 1024-1039), the empire was greatly strengthened, during which the independence and authority of the pope were weakened. (To be continued......)