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Book No. – 48 (History)
Book Name – Western Civilisation: Their History and Their Culture (Edward Mcnall)
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1. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE PAPAL MONARCHY
2. THE CRUSADES
3. THE OUTBURST OF RELIGIOUS VITALITY
4. THE MEDIEVAL INTELLECTUAL REVIVAL
5. THE BLOSSOMING OF LITERATURE, ART, AND MUSIC
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LANGUAGE
The High Middle Ages(1050-1300): Religious and Intellectual Developments
Chapter – 11
Table of Contents
- Between 1050 and 1300, religious, intellectual, economic, social, and political changes were all significant in the West.
- The most important religious development was the triumph of the papal monarchy.
- Before the mid-11th century, most popes struggled to claim primacy within the Church and were unable to rule effectively as bishops of Rome.
- By the late 11th century, popes emerged as the supreme religious leaders of Western Christendom.
- The papacy centralized the Church’s governance, challenged the influence of emperors and kings, and initiated the crusading movement.
- By 1300, the papacy’s temporal success proved to be its nemesis, but it continued to rule the Church internally.
- A new vitality infused Christianity, enabling it to captivate human imagination like never before.
- There was a revival of intellectual and cultural life during this period, particularly in education, thought, and the arts.
- Before 1050, the West was a backwater, but it swiftly emerged as an intellectual and artistic leader globally.
- Westerners boasted that learning and the arts had moved northwest to them from Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
- Europeans began building on ancient intellectual foundations and contributed major intellectual and artistic innovations.
THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE PAPAL MONARCHY
- Religion in Western Europe in the tenth and early eleventh centuries had deteriorated, with widespread corruptionand indifference.
- Charlemagne made efforts around 800 to enhance religious authority, introduce the parish system, and improve the literacy of the clergy.
- After the Carolingian Empire collapsed, religious decentralization and corruption spread across Europe.
- Churches and monasteries became private property of local lords, who often sold Church offices or granted them to relatives.
- Many priests were illiterate and lived with concubines, and bishops often appointed unqualified relatives.
- Popes were mostly incompetent or corrupt, some even notorious for their debauchery (e.g., John XII).
- By the tenth century, the widespread religious corruption called for a reaction, as bishops could not implement reforms due to political constraints.
- Monastic reform began with the foundation of Cluny in 910, which introduced two key innovations: independence from secular authorities and the foundation of daughter monasteries.
- The Cluniac movement grew rapidly, with 67 monasteries by 1049, and became known for their dedicated prayer life.
- By the mid-eleventh century, the monastic reformers sought to reform the clerical hierarchy, focusing on simony(selling Church positions) and demanding celibacy for all clergy.
- The reformers aimed to prevent secular powers from dictating Church appointments and to purify the clergy from secular influence.
- German Emperor Henry III installed reform-minded popes in 1046, initiating decrees against simony, clerical marriage, and immorality.
- In 1059, a decree on papal elections gave the power to name a pope to the cardinals, ensuring the independence of papal elections from the Roman aristocracy and the German emperor.
- The college of cardinals gained more administrative duties after the decree and continues to elect the pope today.
- The reform movement reached a new phase under Gregory VII (1073-1085), who was more zealous in enforcing reforms and introduced a new vision of the Church.
- Gregory VII’s view of Christianity was activist, believing the Church was responsible for creating “right order in the world” and demanding absolute obedience from clergy.
- Gregory VII believed kings and emperors were his inferiors and must accept papal overlordship, unlike his predecessors who advocated for a duality of authority.
- Gregory VII aimed to create a papal monarchy, asserting ultimate papal authority over both secular and ecclesiastical matters.
- Gregory VII’s ideas were revolutionary, and his followers responded that “The Lord said ‘I am truth,'” rejecting traditional customs. He was seen as a great innovator.
- Gregory VII’s papacy was revolutionary, focusing on enforcing the decree against lay investiture, where secular rulers granted clerics symbols of office.
- The German Emperor Henry IV resisted this because it undermined his authority over church appointments, sparking the investiture struggle.
- Gregory took the unprecedented step of excommunicating Henry IV and suspending him from all secular powers, challenging the traditional relationship between popes and emperors.
- Henry IV eventually sought reconciliation in 1077 by submitting to Gregory, but the struggle continued even after Gregory’s death in 1085.
- The Concordat of Worms (1122) ended the struggle, with the emperor forbidden from investing prelates with religious symbols but allowed to invest them with temporal symbols.
- The agreement reduced the prestige of the emperors and increased that of the popes, also drawing greater attention to religious issues among the general population.
- Papal monarchy was further solidified by Gregory VII’s successors, who focused on Church administration and legal reforms.
- Canon law developed under papal guidance, claiming ecclesiastical jurisdiction over marriage, inheritance, and widows/orphans, with the pope and cardinals serving as the final court of appeals.
- The papacy grew more bureaucratic, with more efficient record-keeping and income collection, strengthening its power.
- Popes began to assert control over the election of bishops and called general councils to promulgate laws and demonstrate their authority.
- Innocent III (1198-1216), the most successful of the high-medieval popes, sought to unify all Christendom under papal hegemony and bring “right order” to the world.
- Innocent III believed the pope should discipline kings but never questioned their authority in the secular realm, asserting himself as the ultimate overlord.
- He consolidated papal territories around Rome, founding the Papal States, though he never fully dominated them like French kings over their territories.
- Innocent intervened in German politics, supported Frederick II as emperor, and disciplined secular rulers like Philip Augustus of France and John of England.
- He forced John of England to grant England as a fief to the papacy and also gained feudal overlordship of Aragon, Sicily, and Hungary.
- In response to the Albigensian heresy, Innocent called a crusade to eliminate it.
- He levied the first income tax on the clergy to support a crusade to the Holy Land.
- Innocent’s crowning religious achievement was the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which defined key dogmas of faith and established papal supremacy in Christendom.
- By the end of his papacy, Innocent had asserted his authority over both kings and the Church without challenge.
- Innocent III’s reign marked the zenith of papal monarchy, but it sowed seeds of future issues for the papacy.
- Future popes lacked Innocent’s stature, leading them to appear more like ordinary acquisitive rulers.
- Papal States bordered the Kingdom of Sicily, causing conflict with Frederick II, whom Innocent had raised.
- Popes of the thirteenth century continued to centralize Church power, asserting rights to name candidates for ecclesiastical benefices and control the University of Paris curriculum.
- The popes became embroiled in a political struggle, particularly with Frederick II.
- The popes launched the first crusade for political purposes against Frederick II, excommunicating and deposing him.
- After Frederick’s death in 1250, the popes continued their crusade against Frederick’s heirs, the “viper brood.”
- The popes sought funds for the crusade, turning to Charles of Anjou, a French prince, who ultimately won Sicily in 1268.
- Sicilian Vespers in 1282 led to a revolt against Charles, and the king of Aragon nearly claimed the territory.
- Charles of Anjou and the pope sought help from Philip III of France for a failed crusade against Aragon, leading to Philip III’s death.
- The events weakened papal authority, and Philip IV of France altered the traditional pro-papal policy.
- The popes’ misuse of the crusade and excessive tax levies caused a loss of prestige for the papacy.
- The papacy’s temporal power was dramatically weakened during Boniface VIII’s reign (1294-1303).
- Boniface VIII faced challenges from growing royal power and the erosion of papal prestige, particularly after succeeding an inept and pious pope.
- Boniface’s papacy was marked by disputes with England and France, especially over clerical taxation.
- Kings of England and France started levying their own war taxes on the clergy, which Boniface opposed, losing support from the clergy.
- Boniface’s second major dispute was with Philip IV of France, regarding the trial of a French bishop for treason.
- The real issue was the strength of papal vs. secular power, and this time the papacy was decisively defeated.
- Philip IV accused Boniface of heresy and attempted to arrest him, eventually capturing and mistreating him in 1303 at Anagni.
- Boniface was released by local citizens but died a month later, described as entering the papacy like a fox, reigning like a lion, and dying like a dog.
- After Boniface VIII’s death, the papacy became almost a pawn of French authority for much of the fourteenth century.
- Despite these challenges, the papal monarchy had beneficial effects, such as enhancing international communicationand uniformity in religious practices.
- The development of canon law promoted respect for law and aided the protection of vulnerable groups like widowsand orphans.
- Popes succeeded in eliminating sale of Church offices and raising clergy morality.
- Centralizing appointments made it easier for worthy candidates to gain advancement, even without local influence.
- Although there was corruption in the papal government, the triumph of the international papacy was largely beneficial.
- The growth of the papal monarchy contributed to the vitality of popular religion and supported the revival of learning.