In default of a native episcopate, effective power in the Church was firmly in the hands of noblemen and the leaders of the major towns and cities. It was an extreme example of a transfer which was quietly happening in large areas of Europe, and which became a major feature of the official ‘magisterial’ Reformations in the following century: a slow decentralization of the Church from below, inexorably working against the late medieval papacy’s attempts to reassert its authority.
