can give a Head to the Church. What may have been before the peculiar prerogatives of the dignitaries bearing this title is a point difficult to define with certainty; but what does not admit of doubt is that from the Bull of Nicolas II. dates first the organic consummation of a revolution that had long been working its way underground, by which the highest constitutional functions in the government of the Roman See came to be taken away definitively from the ecclesiastical body at large, and vested exclusively in this corporation. The preamble of the Bull rehearses succinctly the political causes that moved the Pope to issue the same—the troubles, namely, which supervened on the demise of his predecessor, and the great grief which the Pope felt at the sad consequences that had befallen the Church through a disturbed election. To obviate similar occurrences for the future, Nicolas II. solemnly decreed, therefore, that the election of Pope appertains first to the Cardinal Bishops who officiate for the Metropolitan, then to the Cardinal Clerks, and that the remainder of the Clergy and the People tender but their acquiescence in the election, so that the Cardinals have the lead in making choice
