The west encounters & transformations

264 CHAPTER 9 Medieval Empires and Borderlands: The Latin West

was followed by a period of anarchy as Europe faced further incursions of hostile invaders. During the eleventh century, however, the Latin West recov- ered in dramatic fashion. By the end of the century the Latin kingdoms were strong enough to engage in a massive counterassault against Islam, in part in defense of fellow Christians in Byzantium. These campaigns against Islam, known as the Crusades, produced a series of wars in the Middle East and North Africa that continued throughout the Middle Ages. But the ideals of the crusaders lasted well into modern times, long after the active fighting ceased. The transformations in this period raised this ques- tion: How did Latin Christianity help strengthen the new kingdoms of the Latin West so that they were eventually able to deal effectively with both barbarian invaders and Muslim rivals?

THE BIRTH OF LATIN CHRISTENDOM • H o w d i d L a t i n C h r i s t e n d o m — t h e new

k i n g d o m s of western E u r o p e — b u i l d o n Rome’s legal and governmental legacies and h o w d i d C h r i s t i a n i t y spread i n these new kingdoms ?

By the time the Roman Empire collapsed in the West during the f i f t h century, numerous Germanic tribes had settled in the lands of the former empire. These tribes became the nucleus for the new Latin Christian kingdoms that emerged by 750 (see M a p 9.1).

Germanic Kingdoms on Roman Foundations The new Germanic kingdoms of L a t i n Christen- dom created a new kind of society. They bor- rowed f r o m Roman law while establishing government institutions, but they also relied on their o w n traditional methods of rule. Three ele- ments helped unify these kingdoms. First, i n the Germanic kingdoms personal loyalty rather than

legal rights unified society. Kinship obligations to a particular clan of blood relatives rather than citizenship, as in the Roman Empire, defined a person’s place in society and his or her relation- ship to rulers. Second, Christianity became the dominant religion i n the kingdoms. The common faith hnked rulers w i t h their subjects. A n d t h i r d , L a t i n served as the language of worship, learning, and diplomacy in these kingdoms. German kingdoms based on Roman foundations appeared in Anglo-Saxon England, Prankish Gaul, Visigothic Spain, and Lombard Italy.

A N G I O – S A X O M ENGLAisSD Roman civilization collapsed more completely i n Britain during the f i f t h century than it did on the European conti- nent, largely because of Britain’s long distance f r o m Rome and the small number of Romans who had settled there. A b o u t 400, the Roman economic and administrative infrastructure of Britain fell apart, and the last Roman legions left the island to fight on the continent. Raiders f r o m the coast of the N o r t h Sea called Angles and Saxons (historians referred to them as Anglo- Saxons) took advantage of Britain’s weakened defenses and launched invasions. They began to probe the island’s southeast coast, pillaging the small villages they found there and estabhshing permanent settlements of their o w n .

Because the small bands of Anglo-Saxon settlers fought as often among themselves as they did against the Roman Britons, the island remained fragmented politically during the first few centuries of the invaders’ rule. But by 750, three warring kingdoms managed to seize enough land to coalesce and dominate Britain: Mercia, Wessex, and N o r t h u m b r i a .

FRANKSSH G A U L Across the English Channel from Britain lay the Roman province of Gaul. From the t h i r d to the seventh century the kingdom of the Franks, centered in Gaul, p r o – duced the largest and most p o w e r f u l kingdom i n western Europe. One family among the Franks, called the Merovingians, gradually gained pre- eminence. A crafty Merovingian war chief named Childeric ruled a powerful band of

 

 

The Birth of Latin Christendom 265

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MAP 9.1 Europe, ca. 750 By about 750 the kingdom of the Franks had become the dominant power in western Europe. The Umayyad caliphate controlled Spain, and the Lombard kingdom governed most of Italy. The Byzantine Empire held power in Greece, as well as its core lands in Asia Minor.

Franks f r o m about 460 u n t i l his death in 4 8 1 . W i t h the support of his loyal soldiers, Childeric laid the foundation for the Merovingian kingdom. His energetic and ruthless son Clovis •r. 481-511) made the Franks one of the leading powers in the western provinces of the old Roman Empire. Clovis aggressively expanded his father’s power base through the conquest of northern Gaul and neighboring territories. He miurdered many of his relatives and other Frankish chieftains w h o m he considered rivals. In 486 Clovis overcame the last Roman strong- bold in northern Gaul.

A r o u n d 500 the polytheist Clovis converted to L a t i n Christianity. A b o u t 3,000 warriors, the core of his army, joined their king i n this change to the new faith. Clovis had a practical reason to convert. He intended to attack the Visigothic kingdom in southern Gaul. The Visigoths f o l – lowed A r i a n Christianity, but their subjects, the Roman inhabitants of the region, were Latin Christians. By converting to L a t i n Christianity, Clovis w o n the support of many of the Visigoths’ subjects. W i t h their help, he crushed the Visig- othic king Alaric I I in 507. Clovis now controlled almost all of Gaul as far as Spain.

 

 

266 CHAPTER 9 Medieval Empires and Borderlands: The Latin West

I n the eighth century, however, the M e r o v i n – gian kings became so ineffectual that real power passed to the man in charge of the royal house- hold called the ” M a y o r of the Palace.” One of these mayors, Charles M a r t e l “the H a m m e r ”

(r. 719-741), estaU’isWd Vis personal power by regaining control over regions that had slipped away f r o m Merovingian rule and by defeating a n invading M u s l i m army at Poitiers i n 7 3 2 . M a r t e l ‘ s son, Pepin the S h o r t (r. 7 4 1 – 7 6 8 ) , suc- ceeded his father as M a y o r of the Palace, but dethroned the last of the Merovingian monarchs and in 7 5 1 made himself king of the Franks. Pepin relied on the pope to legitimatize his coup, and i n exchange the Franks guaranteed the pope’s safety. Thus, began the vital aUiance between the Frankish monarchy and the popes i n Rome.

VisiGOTHiC SPAIN The Franks were never able to conquer Spain, where a Visigothic kingdom emerged. As in all the Germanic kingdoms, religion unified the kingdom. Originally Arians, Visigoth kings converted to L a t i n Christianity i n the late sixth century, and Visigothic Spain became a L a t i n Christian kingdom. The kings began to imitate the Byzantine emperors w i t h the use of elaborate court ceremonies and frequent church councils as assemblies that enforced their w i l l . Thus, the key to their success was the abihty to employ the spiritual authority of the Church to enhance the secular authority of the ki ng. However, the autocratic instincts of the Visigoth kings alienated many of the substantial landown- ers who were easily lured by the promises of M u s h m invaders to treat them more favorably.

I n 7 1 1 invading armies of Muslims from N o r t h Africa vanquished the last Visigothic ki ng. As a result, most of Spain became part of the Umayyad caliphate. Many Christians from the upper classes converted to Islam to preserve their property and offices. Some survivors of the Visig- oth kingdoms held on in the northwest of Spain, where they managed to keep Christianity alive.

LOMBARD JX^LY Between 5 6 8 and 7 7 4 , a Germanic people k n o w n as the Lombards controlled most of northern and central Italy. They were called

Langobardi, or ” L o n g Beards,” f r o m which the name Lombard derives. The Lombard king, Alboin (r. ca. 5 6 5 – 5 7 2 ) , took advantage of the weakness of the Byzantine Empire and invaded Italy i n 569. Alboin’s army contained soldiers of diiferent ethnic backgrounds. That lack of unity made it impossible for Alboin to build a strong, lasting kingdom.

The Lombard kings also faced t w o formida- ble external enemies—the Byzantine forces w h o remained in the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Franks. I n 7 5 1 the Lombards’ ruler defeated the Exarchate, leading to the Byzantine abandon- ment of Ravenna. Internal political disputes, however, prevented the Lombards f r o m capital- izing on their victory over the Byzantines. Just t w o decades later the Frankish king Charle- magne invaded Italy and crushed the Lombards.

Different Kingdoms, Shared Traditions W i t h the exception of England, where Anglo- Saxon invaders overwhelmed the Roman popu- lation, the leaders of the new Germanic kingdoms faced a common problem: H o w should the Germanic m i n o r i t y govern subject peoples who vastly outnumbered them? These rulers solved this problem by blending Roman and Germanic traditions. For example, kings served as administrators of the civil order in the style of the Roman emperor, issuing laws and managing a bureaucracy. They also served as war leaders i n the Germanic t r a d i t i o n , leading their men into battle i n search of glory and loot. As the Germanic kings defined new roles for themselves, they discovered that Christianity could bind all their subjects together into one community of believers. The merging of Roman and Germanic traditions could also be traced in the law, which eventually erased the distinctions between Romans and Germans, and in the abil- ity of women to o w n property, a right far more common among the Romans than the Germans.

Civ!L AUTHORITY: T H E ROMAN LEGACY I n imita-

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all law and believed that they ruled w i t h God’s approval. Kings controlled all appointments to c i v i l , military, and reUgious office. Accompanied by troops and administrative assistants, they also traveled throughout their lands to dispense jus- tice, collect taxes, and enforce royal authority.

Frankish Gaul provides an apt example of how these monarchs adopted preexisting Roman institutions. When Clovis conquered the Visigoths i n Gaul, he inherited the nearly intact Roman infrastructure and admmistrative system that had survived the collapse of Roman imperial authority. Merovingian kings (as well as Visigoth rulers in Spain and Lombards in Italy) found i t useful to maintain parts of the preexisting system and kept the officials w h o ran them. For instance, Frankish kings relied on the bishops and counts in each region to deal w i t h local problems. Because Roman aristocrats were hter- ate and had experience i n Roman administration on the local level, they often served as counts. Based in cities, these officials presided i n local law courts, collected revenues, and raised troops for the king’s army. M o s t bishops also stemmed f r o m the Roman aristocracy. I n addition to per- forming their religious responsibihties, bishops aided their king by providing for the poor, ran- soming hostages w h o had been captured by enemy warriors f r o m other kingdoms, and bring- ing social and legal injustices to the monarch’s attention. Finally, the kings used dukes, most of w h o m were Franks, to serve as local military commanders, which made them important patrons of the community. Thus, the civil and rehgious administration tended to remain the responsibihty of the Roman counts and bishops, but military command fell to rhe Frankish dukes.

W A R LEADERS AND WERGILD: T H E GERMANIC

LEGACY The kingdoms of L a t i n Christendom developed f r o m war bands led by Germanic chieftains. By rewarding brave warriors w i t h land and loot taken in war, as well as w i t h rev- enues skimmed f r o m subject peoples, chieftains created political communities of loyal men and their families, called clans or k i n groups. Though these followers sometimes came f r o m diverse

The Birth of Latin Christendom 267

backgrounds, they all owed m i l i t a r y service to the clan chiefs. Because leadership in Germanic society was hereditary, networks of loyalty and kinship expanded through the generations. The various political communities gradually evolved mto distinct ethnic groups led by a k i n g . These ethnic groups, such as the Lombards and the Franks, developed a sense of shared history, kinship, and culture.

Kinship-based clans stood as the most basic unit of Germanic society. The clan consisted of all the households and blood relations loyal to the clan chief, a w a r r i o r w h o protected them and spoke on their behalf before the king on matters of justice. Clan chieftains i n t u r n swore oaths of loyalty to their kings and agreed to fight for h i m in wars against other kingdoms. The clan leaders formed an aristocracy among the Germanic peo- ples. Like the Roman elites before them, the royal house and the clan-based aristocracy con- sisted of rich men and women who controlled huge estates. The new Germanic aristocrats intermarried w i t h the preexisting Roman elites of wealthy landholders, thus maintaining control of most of the land. These people stood at the very top of the social order, w i n n i n g the loyalty of their followers by giving gifts and parcels of land. Under the weight of this new upper class, the majority of the population, the ordinary farmers and artisans, slipped into a deepening dependence. M o s t peasants could not enter into legal transactions i n their o w n name, and they had few protections and privileges under the law. Even so, they were better off than the slaves who toiled at society’s very lowest depths. Valued sim- ply as property, these men, women, and children had virtually no rights in the eyes of the law.

T h o u g h this social hierarchy showed some similarities to societies i n earlier Roman times, the new kingdoms’ various social groups were defined by law i n a fundamentally different way. Unlike Roman law, w h i c h defined people by citizenship rights and obligations, the laws of the new kingdoms defined people by their w e r g i l d . A Germanic concept, wergild referred to what an individual was w o r t h in case he or she suffered some grievance at the hands of

 

 

268 CHAPTER 9 Medieval Empires and Borderlands: The Latin West

another. If someone injured or murdered some- one else, wergild was the amount of compensa- t i o n i n gold that the wrongdoer’s family had to pay to the victim’s family.

I n the wergild system, every person had a price that depended on social status and perceived usefulness to the community. For example, among the Lombards service to the king increased a free man’s worth—his wergild was higher than that of a peasant. In the Frankish kingdom, if a freeborn woman of childbearing age was murdered, the killer’s family had to pay 600 pieces of gold. Noble women and men had higher wergild than peasants, while slaves and women past childbearing age were w o r t h very little.

UNITY THROUGH LAV*,? AND CHRSSTIANITY W i t h i n the kingdoms of Latin Christendom, rulers tried to achieve unity by merging Germanic and Roman legal principles and by accepting the influence of the Church. Religious diversity among the peoples in their kingdoms made this unity difficult to establish. As discussed i n Chapter 7, many of the tribes that invaded the Roman Empire during the f i f t h century practiced A r i a n Christianity. They kept themselves apart f r o m the L a t i n Christians by force of law. For example, they declared marriage between A r i a n and Latin Christians illegal.

These barriers began to collapse when Ger- manic kings converted to the Latin Christianity of their Roman subjects. Some converted for rea- sons of personal belief or because their wives were L a t i n Christians. Others decided to become L a t i n Christians to gain wider political support. For instance, when Clovis converted about 500, laws against intermarriage between Arians and L a t i n Christians i n Gaul disappeared. M o r e and more Franks and Romans began to marry one another, blending the t w o formerly separate communities into one and reinforcing the strength of the L a t i n Church. By 750 most of the western European kingdoms had officially become L a t i n Christian, though substantial pockets of polytheist practice survived and communities of Jews were allowed to practice their faith.

Germanic kings adopted Latin Christianity, but they had no intention of abandoning their own Germanic law, w h i c h differed f r o m Roman law on many issues, especially relating to the family and property. Instead, they offered their Roman subjects the opportunity to live under the Germanic law that governed the k i n g . Clovis’s Law Code or Salic Law, published sometime between 508 and 5 1 1 , illustrated this develop- ment. The Law Code applied to Franks and to any other non-Roman peoples in his realm who chose to live according to Frankish law. Because the Romans dwelling i n the Frankish kingdom technically still followed the laws of Byzantium, Clovis did not presume to legislate for them. Romans could f o l l o w their o w n l a w if they wished, or they could f o l l o w his laws and become Franks. By 750, however, most Romans had chosen to abandon their legal identity as Romans and live according to Frankish law, and the distinction between Roman and Frank lost all meaning. A similar process occurred in the orher Germanic kingdoms. This unification of peoples under one law happened w i t h o u t protest, a sign that various groups had blended politically, religiously, and culturally.

W O M E N AND PROPERTS’ Roman law influenced more than just local administration in Latin Christendom. It also p r o m p t e d Germanic rulers t o reconsider the question of a woman’s right to inherit land. I n the Roman Empire, women had inherited land without difficulty. Indeed, perhaps as much as 25 percent of the land in the entire empire had been owned by women. In many Germanic societies, however, men coidd inherit land and prop- erty far more easily than women. Attitudes about female inheritance began to shift when the Ger- manic settlers established their homes in previously Roman provinces—and began to marry Roman women who owned property.

By comparing the law codes of the new kingdoms over time, historians have detected the impact of Roman customs on Germanic inheri- tance laws. By the late eighth century, women in Frankish Gaul, Visigothic Spain, and Lombard

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The Birth of Latin Christendom 269

istianity, ng their Roman

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Italy could inherit land, though often under the restriction that they had to eventually pass i t on to their sons. Despite these hmitations, the new laws transformed women’s hves. A woman who received an inheritance of land could live more independently, support herself if her husband died, and have a say i n the community’s decisions.

The Spread of Latin Christianity in the New Kingdoms of Western Europe As Latin Christianity spread as the official reli- gion through the new kingdoms, churchmen decided that they had a moral responsibility to convert all the people of these kingdoms and beyond. They sent out missionaries to explain the religion to nonbelievers and challenge the worship of polytheist gods.

Meanwhile, bishops based in cities directed people’s spiritual hves, instilling the moral and social conventions of Christianity through sermons delivered in church. Monks such as Boniface, who introduced this chapter, traveled f r o m their home monasteries in Ire- land, England, and Gaul to spread the faith to Germanic tribes east of the Rhine. Monasteries became centers of intellectual life, and monks replaced urban aristocrats as the keepers of books and learning.

T H E G R O H ‘ T H C-I- THE PAPACV I n theory, the Byzantine emperors still had political author- ity over the city of Rome and its surrounding lands during this violent time. However, strapped for cash and troops, these distant rulers proved unequal to the task of defending the city f r o m internal or external threats. I n the resulting power vacuum, the popes stepped in to manage local affairs and became, in effect, princes who ruled over a significant part of Italy.

Gregory the Great (r. 590-604) stands out as the most powerful of these popes. The pragmatic Gregory wrote repeatedly to Constantinople, pleading for military assistance that never came. Without any relief from the

Byzantines, Gregory had to look elsewhere for help. Through clever diplomacy, Gregory success- fully cultivated the good w i l l of the Christian com- munities of western Europe by offering religious sanction to the authority of friendly kings. He negoriated skillfully w i t h his Lombard and Frank- ish neighbors to gain their support and establish the authority of the Roman church. He encouraged Chrisdan missionaries to spread the faith in England and Germany. In addition, he took steps

P O P E G R E G O R Y T H E G R E A T A N D T H R E E S C R I B E S

In this tenth-century ivory depicting the influential sixth- century Pope Gregory, writing symbolizes his power and influence. During early Middle Ages, the church alone kept literacy and writing alive in the West. Source: St. Gregory writing with scribes, Carolingian, Franco-German School, c. 850-875 (ivory). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna,

U Auslria/Bridgeman Art Library

 

 

306 CHAPTER 10 Medieval Civilization: The Rise of Western Europe

security and trading monopolies—necessary because of the weakness of the German imperial government.

Urban civilization, one of the major achieve- ments of the Middle Ages, thrived f r o m the commerce of the economic boom. From urban civilization came other achievements. A l l the cities built large new cathedrals to flaunt their accumulated wealth and to honor God. New educational institutions, especially imiversities, trained the sons of the urban, commercial elite in the professions. However, the merchants who commanded the urban economy were not neces- sarily society’s heroes. The populace at large viewed them w i t h deep ambivalence, despite the immeasurable ways i n which they enriched soci- ety. Churchmen worried about the morality of making profits. Church councils condemned usury—the lending of money for interest—even though papal finances depended on i t . Theolo- gians promulgated the idea of a “just price,” the idea that there should be a fixed price for any particular commodity. The just price was anath- ema to hardheaded merchants who were com- mitted to the laws of supply and demand. Part of the ambivalence t o w a r d trade and merchants came f r o m the inequities created in all market- based economies—the rewards of the market were unevenly distributed, both socially and geo- graphically, as St. Francis’s protest demon- strated. T h e prosperous m e r c h a n t s symbolized disturbing social changes, but they were also the dynamic force that made possible the intellectual and artistic flowering of the H i g h M i d d l e Ages.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM • H o w d i d the Catholic C h u r c h consolidate

its h o l d over the L a t i n West?

The late eleventh t h r o u g h thirteenth centuries witnessed one of the greatest periods of reli- gious v i t a l i t y in the history of Roman Catholi- cism. Manifest by the Crusades (discussed i n

Chapter 9), the rise of new religious orders, remarkable intellectual creativity, and the f i n a l t r i u m p h over the surviving polytheistic tribes of northern and eastern Europe, the religious v i t a l – it)’ of the era was due in no small part to the effective leadership of a series of able popes. They gave the Church the benefits of the most advanced, centralized government i n Europe.

The Task of Church Reform As the bishops of the Church accepted many of the administrative responsibilities that in the ancient w o r l d had been performed by secular authorides, their spiritual mission sometimes suffered. They became overly involved in the business of the w o r l d . I n addidon, over the cen- turies wealthy and pious people had inade large donations of land to the Church, making many monasteries, i n particular, immensely wealthy. Such wealth tempted the less pious to corrup- t i o n , and the Roman popes were unlikely to eliminate the temptations f r o m w h i c h they bene- fited. Even those popes w h o wanted to were slow to assemble the administrative machinery neces- sary to enforce their w i l l across the unruly lands of Roman Catholicism. The impulse for reform derived i n many respects f r o m the material suc- cess of the Church and the monasteries.

The slow but determined progress of the popes from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries to enforce moral reform is the most remarkable achievement of the medieval papacy. The move- ment for reform, however, did not begin w i t h the popes. It came out of the monasteries. Monks thought the best way to clean up corruprion in the Chiu-ch would be to improve the morals of indi- viduals. If men and women conducted themselves w i t h a sense of moral responsibility, the whole institudon of the Church could be purified. Monks and nuns, who set an example for the rest of the Church, provided the model for self-improvement for society at large. The most influential of the reform-minded monasteries was Cluny in Bur- gundy, estabhshed in 910. Cluny itself sustained the reform movement through more than 1,500 Cluniac monasteries throughout Europe.

 

 

Drders, e f i n a l ibes of s v i t a l – to the popes, e most ope.

lany of i n the secular retimes in the

he cen- e large ; many wealthy. ; o r r u p – cely to y bene- re slow

From the very beginning Cluny was excep- tional for several reasons. First, its aristocratic founder offered the monastery as a gift to the pope. As a result, the pope directed the activities of the Cluny monastery f r o m Rome and kept i t independent f r o m local polidcal pressures, which so often caused corruption. The Rome connec- t i o n positioned Cluniacs to assist i n reforming the papacy itself. Second, the various abbots w h o headed Cluny over the years closely coordinated reform activities of the various monasteries in the Cluniac system. Some of these abbots were men of exceptional abihty and learning who had a European-wide reputation for their moral stature. T h i r d , Cluny regulated the life of monks much more closely than did other monasteries, so the monks there were models of devotion. To the Cluniacs moral purity required complete renunciation of the benefits of the material w o r l d and a commitment to spiritual experiences. The elegantly simple liturgy in which the monks themselves sung the text of the mass and other prayers symbolized Cluniac purity. The beauty of the music enhanced the spiritual experience, and its simplicity clarified rather than obscured the meaning of the words. Because of these attractive traits, the Cluniac liturgy spread to the far cor- ners of Europe.

The success of Cluny and other reformed monasteries provided the base f r o m which reform ideas spread beyond the isolated w o r l d of monks to the rest of the Church. The first candi- dates for reform were parish priests and bishops. Called the secular clergy (in L a t i n saeculum, meaning “secular”) because they lived in the secular w o r l d , they differed f r o m the regular clergy (in Latin regula, those who followed a ” r u l e ” ) who lived in monasteries apart from the w o r l d . The hves of many secular clergy differed little f r o m their lay neighbors. [Laypeople or the laity referred to all Christians who had not taken religious vows to become a priest, monk, or nun.) I n contrast to celibate monks, w h o were sexually chaste, many priests kept concubines or were married and tried to bequeath church property to their children. I n contrast to the Orthodox Church, in which priests were allowed to marry.

The Consolidation of Roman Catholicism 307

the Catholic Church had repeatedly forbidden married priests, but the prohibitions had been ineffective u n t i l Cluniac reform stressed the ideal of the sexually pure priest. D u r i n g the eleventh century bishops, church councils, and reformist popes began to insist on a celibate clergy.

The clerical reform movement also tried to eliminate the corrupt practices of simony and lay investiture. Simony was the practice of buying and selling church offices. Lay investiture took place when aristocrats, kings, or emperors installed churchmen and gave them their symbols of office (“invested” them). Through this prac- tice, powerful lords controlled the clergy and usurped the property of the Church. I n exchange for protecting the Church, these laymen con- ceived of church offices as a f o r m of vassalage and expected to name their o w n candidates as priests and bishops. The reformers saw as sinful any form of lay authority over the C h u r c h — whether the authority was that of the local lord or the emperor himself. As a result of this contro- versy, the most troublesome issue of the eleventh century became establishing the boundaries between temporal and spiritual authorities.

T H E POPE BECOMES A MONARCH Religious reform required tmity w i t h i n the Church. The most impor- tant step in building unity was to define what it meant to be a Catholic. In the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism identified itself in two ways. First, the Church insisted on conformity in rites. Rites con- sisted of the forms of public worship called the hturgy, which included certain prescribed prayers and chants, usually in Latin. Uniform rites meant that Catholics could hear the Mass celebrated i n essentially the same way everywhere f r o m Poland to Portugal, Iceland to Croatia. Conformity of worship created a cultural unity that transcended differences i n language and ethnicity. When Catholics from far-flung locales encountered one another, they shared something meaningftil to them all because of the uniformity of rites. The second thing that defined a Catholic was obedience to the pope. Ritual uniformity and obedience to the pope were closely interrelated because both the rit- ual and the pope were Roman. There were many

 

 

3 0 8 C H A P T E R 1 0 Medieval Civilization; The Rise of Western Europe J I.

bishops in Cliristianity, but as one monk put it, “Rome i s . . .the head of the w o r l d . ”

Beginning i n the late eleventh centtiry the task of the popes became to make this theoretical assertion of obedience real—in short, to make the papacy a rehgious monarchy. Among the reform- ers who gathered in Rome was Hildebrand (ca. 1 0 2 0 – 1 0 8 5 ) , one of the most remarkable figures in the history of the Church, a man beloved as saintly by his admirers and considered an ambi- tious, self-serving megalomaniac by many others. From 1055 to 1073 during the pontificates of some four popes, Hildebrand became the power behind rhe throne, helping enact wide-ranging reforms that enforced uniformity of worship and estabhshing the rules for electing new popes by the college of cardinals. I n 1 0 7 3 the cardinals elected Hildebrand himself pope, and he took the name Gregory V I I (r. 1 0 7 3 – 1 0 8 5 ) .

Gregory’s greatness lay in his leadership over the internal reform of the Church. Every year he held a Chujch council i n Rome where he decreed against simony and married priests. Gregory cen- tralized authority over rhe Church itself by send- ing out papal legates, representatives w h o delivered orders to local bishops. He attempted to free the Church f r o m external influence by asserting the superiority of the pope over all other authorities. Gregory’s theory of papal supremacy led him into direct conflict w i t h the German emperor, Henry TV (r. 1 0 5 6 – 1 1 0 6 ) . The issue was lay investiture. D u r i n g the eighth and ninth cen- turies weak popes relied on the Carolingian kings and emperors to name suitable candidates for ecclesiastical offices i n order to keep them out of the hands of local aristocrats. A t stake was not only power and authority, but also the income from the enormous amount of property con- trolled by the Church, which the emperor was in the best position to protect. D u r i n g the eleventh century, Gregory V I I and other reform-minded popes sought to regain control of this property. W i t h o u t the ability to name his o w n candidates as bishops, Gregory recognized that his whole campaign for church reform w o u l d falter. When Pope Gregory tried to negotiate w i t h the emperor over the appointment of the bishop of M i l a n ,

Henry resisted and commanded Gregory to resign the papacy in a letter w i t h the notorious salutation, “Henry, King not by usurpation, but by the pious ordination of God to Hildebrand now not Pope but false m o n k . ”

Gregory struck back i n an escalating con- frontation now k n o w n as the Investiture Contro- versy. He deposed Henry f r o m the imperial tlurone and excommunicated him. Excommunication pro- hibited the sinner f r o m participating in the sacra- ments and forbade any social contact whatsoever w i t h the surrounding community. People caught talking to an excommunicated person or writing a letter or even offering a drink of water could them- selves be excommunicated. Excommunication was a f o r m of social death, a dire punishment indeed, especially if the excommunicated person were a king. Both sides marshaled arguments from Scrip- ture and history, but the excommunication was effective. Henry’s friends started to abandon h i m , rebeUion broke out in Germany, and the most powerful German lords called for a meeting to elect a new emperor. Backed uito a corner, Henry plotted a clever counterstroke.

Early in the winter of 1 0 7 7 Pope Gregory set out to cross the Alps to meet w i t h the German lords. When Gregory reached the Alpine passes, however, he learned that Emperor Henry was on his way to Italy. In fear of what the emperor w o u l d do, Gregory retreated to the castle of Canossa, w h e r e he expected to be a t t a c k e d . H e n r y surprised Gregory, however, by arriving not w i t h an army, but as a supphcant asking the pope to hear his con- fession. As a priest Gregory could hardly refuse to hear the confession of a penitent sinner, but he nevertheless attempted to humiliate Henry by making him wait for three days, kneeling in the snow outside the castie. Henry’s presentation of himself as a penitent sinner posed a dilemma for Gregory. The German lords were waiting for Gre- gory to appear in his capacity as the chief justice of Christendom to judge Henry, but Henry himself was asking the pope to act in his capacity as priest to grant absolution for sin. The priest in Gregory w o n out over die judge, and he absolved Henry.

Even after the deaths of Gregory and Henry, the Investiture Controversy continued to poison

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The Consolidation of Roman Catholicism 309

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relations between the popes and emperors until the Concordat of Worms in 1 1 2 2 resolved the issue in a formal treaty. The emperor retained the right to nominate high churchmen, but i n a concession to the papacy, the emperor lost the ceremonial privi- leges of investiture that conveyed spiritual author- ity. Without the ceremony of investiture, no bishop could exercise his office. By refusing to invest unsuitable nominees, the popes had the last w o r d . Gregory W s vision of papal supremacy over all kings and emperors persevered.

How THE POPES RULED The most lasting accom- plishment of the popes during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries derived less f r o m dramadc confrontations w i t h emperors than from the hum- drum routine of the law. Begiiming w i t h Gregory V I I , the papacy became the supreme court of the Catholic w o r l d by claimmg authority over a vast range of issues. To justify these claims, Gregory and his assistants conducted massive research among old laws and treatises. These were organ- ized into a body of legal texts called canon law.

Canon law came to encompass many kinds of cases, including all those involving the clergy, disputes about church property, and donations to the Church. The law of the Church also touched on many of the most vital concerns of the laity including annulling marriages, legiti- mating bastards, prosecuting bigamy, protecting widows and orphans, and resolving inheritance disputes. M o s t of the cases originated in the courts of the bishops, but the bishops’ decisions could be appealed to the pope and cardinals sit- ting together in the papal consistory. The consis- tory could make exceptions f r o m the letter of the law, called dispensations, giving it considerable power over kings and aristocrats w h o wanted to marry a cousin, divorce a w i f e , legitimate a bas- tard, or annul a w i l l . By the middle of the twelfth century, Rome was awash w i t h legal business. The functions of the canon law courts became so important that those elected popes were no longer monks but trained canon lawyers, men very capable in the ways of the w o r l d .

The pope also presided over the curia, the administrative bureaucracy of the C h u r c h .

The cardinals i n the curia served as ministers i n the papal a d m i n i s t r a t i o n and visited foreign princes and cities as ambassadors or legates. Because large amounts of revenue were f l o w i n g i n t o the coffers of the C h u r c h , the curia func- tioned as a bank. Rome became the financial capital of the West.

I n addition to its legal, administrative, and financial authority, the papacy also made use of t w o powerful spiritual weapons against the dis- obedient. A n y Christian w h o refused to repent of a sin could be excommunicated, as the Emperor Henry TV had been. The second spiritual weapon was the interdict, the suspension of the sacra- ments in a locality or kingdom whose ruler had defied the pope. D u r i n g an interdict the churches closed their doors, creating panic among the faithful who could not bapdze their children or bury their dead. The interdict, which encouraged a public outcry, could be a very effective weapon for undermining the political support of any monarch who r a n afoul of the pope.

T H E PINNACLE OP THE MEDIEWM PAPACY: POPE INNO-

CENT 11! The most capable of the medieval popes was Innocent I I I (r. 1 1 9 8 – 1 2 1 6 ) . To h i m , the pope was the overlord of the endre w o r l d . He recognized the right of kings to rule over the secular sphere, but he considered it his duty to prevent and punish sin, a duty that gave h i m wide ladtude to meddle i n the affaus of kings and princes.

Innocent’s first task was to provide the papacy w i t h a strong territorial base of support so that the popes could act w i t h the same free- dom as kings and princes. Historians consider Innocent the founder of the Papal State in cen- tral Italy, an independent state that lasted until 1 8 7 0 and survives today in a tiny fragment as Vatican City.

Innocent’s second goal was keeping alive the crusading ideal. He called the Fourth Crusade, which went awry when the crusaders attacked Constantinople instead of conquering Jerusalem. He also expanded the definition of crusading by calling for a crusade to eluninate heresy w i t h i n Christian Europe. Innocent was deeply concerned

 

 

3 1 0 CHAPTER 10 Medieval Civilization: The Rise of Vi/estern Europe

about the spread of new heresies, which attracted enormous numbers of converts, especially in the growing cities of southern Europe. By crusading against Christian heretics—the Cathars and Waldensians (see the f o l l o w i n g discussion)— Innocent authorized the use of mihtary methods to enforce uniformity of belief.

The t h i r d objective was to assert the author- ity of the papacy over political affairs. Innocent managed the election of Emperor Frederick I I . He also assumed the right to veto imperial elections. He excommunicated K i n g Philip I I of France to force h i m to take back an imwanted wife. A n d Innocent placed England under the interdict to compel King John to cede his kingdom to the

papacy and receive i t back as a fief, a transaction that made the king of England the vassal of the pope. Using whatever means necessary, he made papal vassals of the rulers of Aragon, Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and Ser- bia. Through the use of the feudal law of vas- salage. Innocent brought the papacy to its closest approximation of a universal Christian monar- chy (see M a p 10.2).

Innocent’s f o u r t h and greatest accomplish- ment was to codify the rites of the liturgy and to define the dogmas of the faith. This monumental task was the achievement of the Fourth Lateran Council, held in Rome in 1215. This council, attended by more than 400 bishops, 800 abbots,

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The Consolidation of Roman Catholicism 311

and the ambassadors of the monarchs of Cathohc Europe, issued decrees that reinforced the cele- bration of the sacraments as the centerpiece of Christian hfe. They included rules to educate the clergy, define their qualificadons, and govern elections of bishops. The council condemned heretical beliefs, and i t called for yet another cru- sade. The council became the guidepost that has since governed many aspects of Catholic practice, especially w i t h regard to the sacraments. It did more than any other council to f u l f i l l the goal of uniformity of rites in Catholicism.

T H E TROUBLED LEGACY OF THE PAPAL MOMARCKY

Innocent was an astute, intelligent man who in single-minded fashion pursued the greater good of the Church as he saw it. N o one succeeded better than he in preserving the unity of the Catholic w o r l d in an era of chaos. His policies, however, were less successful in the hands of his less able successors. Their blunders undermined the pope’s spiritual mission. Innocent’s succes- sors went beyond defending the Papal State and embroiled all Italy in a series of bloody civil wars between the Guelfs, who supported the popes, and the Ghibellines, w h o opposed them. The pope’s position as a monarch superior to all o t h – ers collapsed under the weight of immense folly during the pontificate of Boniface V I I I (r. 1294-1303). His claims to absolute authority combined w i t h breathtaking vanity and inepti- tude corroded the achievements of Innocent I I I .

I n 1302 Boniface promulgated the most extreme theoretical assertion of papal superior- i t y over lay rulers. The papal b u l l , Unam Sanc- tum, decreed that ” i t is absolutely necessary f o r salvation that every human creature be subject

CHRONOLOGY: THE PAPAL MONARCHY 1073-1085 Reign of Pope Gregory VII 1075-1122 The Investiture Controversy 1198-1216 Reign of Pope innocent III 1215 Fourth Lateran Council 1294-1303 Reign of Pope Boniface VIII

to the Roman p o n t i f f . ” Behind the statement was a specific dispute w i t h K i n g Philip I V of France (r. 1285-1314), w h o was attempting to t r y a French bishop for treason. The larger issue behind the dispute was simdar to the Investiture Controversy of the eleventh century, but this time no one paid much attention to the pope. The loss of papal m o r a l a u t h o r i t y had taken its t o l l . I n the heat of the c o n f r o n t a t i o n , K i n g Philip accused Pope Boniface of heresy, one of the few sins of w h i c h he was not guilty, and sent his agents to arrest the pope w h o died shortly after. W i t h Boniface the papal monar- chy died as w e l l .

T H E RELIGIOUS O U T C A S T S : CATKARS AND W A L D E N –

5IAN3 I n its efforts to defend the f a i t h , the Church d u r i n g the first half of the thirteenth century began to authorize bishops and other clerics to conduct inquisitions (formal inquiries) i n t o specific instances of heresy or perceived heresy. The so-called heretics tended to be f a i t h – ful people w h o sought personal p u r i t y i n r e l i – g i o n . D u r i n g the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, inquisitions and systematic persecu- tions targeted the Cathars and Waldensians, w h o at first had lived peacefully w i t h their Catholic neighbors and shared many of the same beliefs w i t h them.

The name Cathar derives f r o m the Greek w o r d for p u r i t y . The Cathars were especially strong in n o r t h e r n I t a l y and southern France. Heavily concentrated around the French t o w n of A l b i , the Cathars were also k n o w n as A l b i – gensians. They departed f r o m Catholic doc- trine, which held that God created the Earth, because they believed that an evil force had cre- ated all matter. To p u r i f y themselves, an elite f e w — k n o w n as “perfects”—rejected their o w n bodies as c o r r u p t matter, refused to m a r r y and procreate, and in extreme cases gradually starved themselves. These p u r i f i e d perfects p r o – vided a dramatic contrast to the more w o r l d l y Catholic clergy. For many, Catharism became a f o r m of protest against the wealth and power of the C h u r c h . By the 1150s the Cathars had