Early Church-State Conflict

"The Church was a weapon, [Gunnhild] thought, or a tool, for a king to quell an unruly folk; but like the dwarf-forged sword Tyrfing, it could become its owner's bane. Then the next king would be the underling of the bishop's rich kindred.
"Yet without the Church, she thought bitterly, a king must always fear the ill will of the yeomen."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Four, Chapter XXIV, p. 375.

The Church is not a weapon and should not be owned. But, if rulers thought like Gunnhild, then it is no surprise that, when the "unruly folk" demanded a say in government, they challenged not only kings but also bishops. There were Revolutions and a Reformation.

Gunnhild's reflections prefigure the Investiture Contest, the strife between King and Archbishop in England and between Emperor and Pope in Europe. And that returns us the theme of the concluding section of Anderson's The Shield Of Time. (It's "All One Universe.")