While tutiorism in the hands of the medievals had been an instrument for directing the faithful along the paths of approved conduct, Adrian drew a consequence that was certainly logical but not such as to commend itself to the powers that be. This was an age, it will be recalled, when the powers were more than usually powerful. The period of the Renaissance and the Reformation discovered the individual to be worthless in the sight not only of God but also of the state. Western Europe took centuries to recover from the diversion of political development away from medieval constitutionalism to
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