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he Catholic Church was the
only church in Europe during the Middle Ages, and it had
its own laws and large coffers. Church leaders such as
bishops and archbishops sat on the king's council and
played leading roles in government. Bishops, who were
often wealthy and came from noble families, ruled over
groups of parishes called "diocese." Parish
priests, on the other hand, came from humbler backgrounds
and often had little education. The village priest tended
to the sick and indigent and, if he was able, taught
Latin and the Bible to the youth of the village. As the population of Europe expanded in
the twelfth century, the churches that had been built in
the Roman style with round-arched roofs became too small.
Some of the grand cathedrals, strained to their
structural limits by their creators' drive to build
higher and larger, collapsed within a century or less of
their construction.
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