In the
Middle Ages, the term
universal powers referred to the
Holy Roman Emperor and the
Pope. Both were struggling for the so-called
Dominium mundi, or world dominium, in terms of political and spiritual supremacy. The emperor and the pope maintained their respective authorities through diverse factors such as territorial dispersion, low level of technic and productive development in feudal
mode of production, and social and political tendency of
feudalism to
decentralization of
power.