What criteria allowed bishops to become so powerful? What were their areas of authority and related duties?
What will be an ideal response?
In a very real sense, the bishop became a local ruler as much as a secular authority, and oftentimes even more so, if an area was in a state of political turmoil because the bishop could then provide a sense of stability. The most powerful bishops were those who held the largest amounts of land and wealth, attained through donations from secular lords and kings, as well as assignment by the church, which was the largest single landowner at this time. While technically the position of bishop was relegated to being a spiritual administrator of a given district, or diocese, he could span the range from being a missionary in remote areas, to acting as caretaker of not only a spiritual but secular region, as in Spain, Gaul, and some Italian cities. Some bishops maintained courts of justice. Others acted as advisers to kings. They oversaw parishes, collected tithes, and oversaw teaching of dogma to the laity.
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