What the idea of a protectorate excludes, and the idea of annexation, on the other hand, would include, is that absolute ownership which was signified by the word dominium in Roman law, and which, though not quite satisfactorily, is sometimes described as ` territorial sovereignty.'
Wycliffe was a metaphysician and a theologian, and had to invent a metaphysical theory - the theory of Dominium - to enable him to transfer, in a way satisfactory to himself, the powers and privileges of the church to his company of poor Christians; but his followers were content to allege that a church which held large landed possessions, collected tithes greedily and took money from starving peasants for baptizing, burying and praying, could not be the church of Christ and his apostles.
At Rome, quiritary dominium, that is to say, the absolute right exercised over the soil appears for the first time.
A feudal kingdom of Frankish seigneurs was to be planted on the soil of Palestine, instead of a dominium temporale of the patriarch like that of the pope in central Italy.