Western Civ. IH. England to Page 9

Western Civ. IH France to the 1200s England to 1300 Rise of the Papacy Page 5 Page 9 Page 13 GERMANY TO THE 1200S But by 1000, kings in various European countries had begun to try to reduce anarchy and gain greater control again. In coming weeks, I will discuss the efforts that kings in different places made. In each country, I will start back at about 1000 and carry the story up to around 1200. You have to pay attention to dates. Today, I want to discuss the country where the first progress was achieved. That country was Germany, the part of Charlemagne s empire east of the Rhine River. The government of medieval Germany was based on feudalism, but it had some unusual features that I need to mention at the outset. Germany was divided into several large feudal states, each led by a great lord with many loyal followers who would support him in war. Some lords were descended from administrators of Charlemagne, but the major leaders could trace their positions back further than that. They were descended from early Germanic chiefs who led the older independent Germanic tribes that Charlemagne had conquered. These men were called Stem Dukes, tribal leaders. Each Stem Duke ruled a territory whose people had their own customs, their own laws, and sometimes their own Germanic dialect. Their subjects felt a strong loyalty to them dating back to the time when they had been leaders of independent tribes. As feudalism spread, this loyalty strengthened; the principal subjects became vassals of the dukes. Germany also had a king who theoretically ruled the whole country, but there was no tradition of loyalty to him and, at first, no institutions through which he could really govern. He had no authority unless he could get the Stem Dukes and other great lords to go along, which usually wasn t easy.. The king had some advantages. Under feudalism, he became the suzerain of the other lords, who had certain duties to him as vassals. Moreover, the king was usually a Stem Duke himself. He had loyal vassals in his tribal lands who would fight for him if he had to go to war to force the great lords to obey him. But the lords had a major advantage too. Following German custom, they elected the king. They could use this power to force candidates for king to grant them political concessions. One long-range goal of the German kings was to make their position hereditary and to end the procedure of election. This would end their dependence on the great lords and gradually create a feeling of loyalty among the different tribal peoples of Germany for one particular ruling family. P a g e 1 o f 16

Because of the strong respect for family in the Middle Ages, a king could usually arrange to have his son elected to succeed him. So, the throne usually passed from father to son. But that only worked as long as a king had an adult son to replace him. If the family died out, a real election was needed again. Unfortunately, the early royal families never held the throne long enough to crate a strong loyalty to any particular ruling family and to end elections. Otto I (936-973) Thus, the king s power depended on personal ability. The first strong, able king was Otto I. He was called Otto the Great due to his skill as a general. Otto s first concern was to find a way to exercise some authority in the lands ruled by the great lords. The device he used for this purpose was church. In Medieval Europe, some of the most important leaders were bishops and archbishops. They were just like other feudal lords. Each bishop was given a benefice or lands as pay for his office. The lands had vassals on them for whom the bishop was suzerain. With lands and vassals to rule, bishops and archbishops differed from regular lords in only two ways, but they were very important ways. They were usually better educated than other nobles. That made them better administrators. Since they did not marry, their offices did not become hereditary and independent like those of other vassals. Church offices were a potential source of power for anyone who could control them. That is what Otto I set out to do. Under church law, bishops were supposed to be elected by the clergy and lay leaders in the church districts that they led. But Otto insisted that, as king, he had the right to nominate and approve candidates for election. He came to control the choice of bishops and archbishops throughout Germany. They were his men. This gave him loyal vassals in the lands of the great lords, and he used them to represent him in the many areas of his kingdom. In foreign policy, Otto s most important act was to extend his power down into the region of northern Italy. Charlemagne s successors lost control of north Italy. The region became divided into several independent states, one of which was the Papal States ruled by the pope from Rome. In 961, one of the other Italian states attacked Rome. To protect the city, Otto crossed the Alps and conquered all of northern Italy down as far as Rome. He brought the whole region under his control. As a reward for his help, Pope John XII (955-963), proclaimed Otto the new Roman Emperor in the West in 962. This had lasting results. For the next 900 years, the German kings also held the title of Roman Emperor. They called their lands the Holy Roman Empire. P a g e 2 o f 16

Holy Roman Emperors and the Papacy But the most important immediate result of Otto s action was to create an uncertain relationship between German rulers and the popes. Since Rome and the Papal States were part of their Empire, Otto took the right to approve the papal elections. For a time, the emperors controlled the choice of popes. At first, the German rulers generally supported strong, able popes who could rule the Papal States effectively for them. The danger in this policy was that the popes would become too strong. They might ally with the German king s other vassals to keep government weak and make the Papal States independent. I do not have time to discuss all of the later German kings. I can only sketch what some of the major political difficulties were. Otto I s power rested largely on his rights as supreme suzerain enforced by his personal abilities as a general. Later rulers tried to create new powers that the king could exercise simply because he was king. Among other things, they included the right to coin money, to collect various fees and taxes, and to give legal decisions. Had German kings been successful, they might have gained great power, but they weren t very successful. A number of problems made it difficult for German kings, Holy Roman Emperors, to gain greater authority. The main problem was the tendency of the royal families to die out. When that happened, the lords of Germany had to elect a king from a new family. The elections caused fierce competition and sometimes civil war between the rival candidates. There were a couple of really nasty civil wars between Otto s death and 1152. To get support in the wars, candidates for the throne often had to make concession to the lesser lords. Instead of increasing the king s power, the lesser lords got greater control over their own fiefs. In the end, the German rulers always had to rely on their military strength to enforce their wishes in the Empire. Frederick I Barbarossa (1152-1190) The medieval Empire reached its height under the most powerful later German ruler Frederick I Barbarossa (1152-1190). If Frederick had focused his energy on Germany, he might have been able to form the basis of a true government there. But early in his reign, he went to war in the other part of his empire northern Italy. Frederick wanted to tighten his hold over the region, but he met with serious opposition from two sources. First, by the 1100s, many new cities had begun to develop in northern Italy due to the gradual revival of trade. Frederick hoped to impose control over these towns, especially to tax them. But the Italian towns eventually formed an alliance called the Lombard League to resist his plans. The other opposition came from the papacy. It was led by an able pope, Alexander III (1159-1181). Alexander wanted to keep Frederick from increasing his control over the Church and the Papal States. Frederick s attempts to gain greater control over Italy failed He suffered a series of defeats that greatly weakened his power in the region. The Lombard League and the Papal States remained in the Empire in theory, but in practice, Frederick had to give them virtual independence in running their own affairs. Frederick had much more success in trying to dominate Germany. He defeated his major German opponents and came to dominate Germany. But his control still depended almost completely on the strength of his army and his personal skill as a general. Frederick Barbarossa from a manuscript dated 1188 in the Vatican Library. P a g e 3 o f 16

After Frederick Barbarossa After Frederick died, events occurred that overturned all of his accomplishments. His son Henry VI (1190-1197) largely ignored Germany and devoted his attention to trying to restore the control over Italy that Frederick had lost. But he died after only a short reign at the age of 32. That was disastrous. Henry s only son was too young to succeed him. A new king had to be elected. And, as before, the election led to a civil war. The war was made worse because Henry s policies had inspired the opposition of the papacy. Shortly after Henry s death, a new pope named Innocent III (1198-1216) came to power. Innocent was the most powerful and able of the medieval popes. He skillfully manipulated the conflict in the Empire to achieve his own goals. He supported first one candidate for king and then another in return for concession to strengthen his control over the Church and to make the Papal States more independent. In the process, he delayed the final choice of a new emperor for fourteen years while the civil war continued to rage. By the time the war ended, the power of the German ruler had been weakened so much that no later Emperor was ever able to recreate the dominance that Frederick I had enjoyed. The fact that the title of Roman Emperor in the West passed from France to Germany after the death of Charlemagne points up that the German rulers were the true successors of the Carolingian kings. Germany was the first area to have any strong rulers in the period after the collapse of Charlemagne s Empire. Various capable German kings fought hard to overcome the power of their feudal subordinates. They were nearly successful enough to justify their claims to be Roman emperors at least in the sense that Charlemagne had been. But two factors arising from the claiming of this title eventually helped to undermine their efforts to increase the power of their government. One was the costly involvement in Italy, which drained energies and resources that should have been spent on Germany itself. The other was their involvement with the papacy, which, in the end, weakened rather than strengthened their positions. As a result of their failure, both Germany and Italy failed to achieve any kind of unified government until later in the nineteenth century. P a g e 4 o f 16

France to the 1200s Central government was very weak in France after 850. By 1000, France was divided into several large feudal states each headed by a great lord. Most of the states were ruled by counts descended from the local officials appointed by Charlemagne. A few of the lords had seized lands during the confusion between 850 and 1000. There was also a king. Technically, he was feudal suzerain of the great lords, but it was hard for him to assert his power over them. The great lords possessed extensive lands with lots of vassals who were loyal to them, not really much to the king. To make matters worse, the great lords had the right to elect the king of France. They liked to elect kings who were pretty weak, who had limited lands and few vassals to assist him in any struggle against the great lords. In 987, the great lords elected a man named Hugh Capet (987-996). Hugh was count of Paris. He controlled a very small territory around the city of Paris. Hugh Capet was an extremely weak king, but his descendants were gradually able to create a stronger government. They are known as the Capetian family of kings. They ruled France from 987-1328. They had certain advantages over the feudal lords that the kings of Germany, whom we have already seen, did not have. Unlike the German rulers, every Capetian king had a son to succeed him from 987-1328. This was a long period of time. Moreover, until fairly late, every son was an adult when his father died, so the Capetians could have their sons elected as their successors before they died. Now, remember that Medieval Europeans were really big on tradition. Having a very long period of uninterrupted succession within the same family gradually established that the king s oldest son would succeed him. The lords eventually lost the power to elect the king. Another reason for Capetian success was because, the king s lands were located in the center of France. As Capetian lands expanded, and they did, they were still in the middle of the country. Central location made it possible for French kings to rule the nation from the center. Additionally, Paris became a great commercial center, which gave Capetian kings potentially great wealth. The process of building up royal power was gradual. The first six Capetian kings (987-1180) were not strong enough to assert power over the great lords who ruled most of France, so they concentrated on strengthening their rule over their lands around Paris. The kings suppressed bandits and forced their vassals in the county to live up to their obligations of the feudal contract. They increased their control over administration by appointing minor clergymen and nobles to administrative office. These men followed orders better than great feudal lords did. They also pursued a careful policy of marrying their sons to women who were in line to inherit estates. When the women inherited, their land came to the Capetians and was added to royal territory. P a g e 5 o f 16

Capetians and Plantagenets The first Capetian king to extend direct royal power outside of Paris was Philip II Augustus (1180-1223). He was a shrewd and determined monarch. His policy was to force all his vassals, great and small, to live up to their obligations to him. To this end, he engaged in a long series of struggles with the Plantagenet family, who were his strongest vassals. The Plantagenets were Dukes of Normandy. Normandy was a feudal state that had been set up on the northern coast of France by Vikings in the 800s. It was a large state, and later dukes had added a lot to it. By Philip s time, the Plantagenets ruled many feudal states in France besides Normandy. In fact, they were his feudal vassals in about two-thirds of the country. In addition, they were also kings of England, where they ruled in their own right. I ll come back to this. During the early part of Philip s reign, the Plantagenet rulers were too capable for him to gain any lasting power over them. This changed when King John of England (1199-1216) became Duke of Normandy in 1199. John was not a very able ruler, and he was unpopular with his subjects, as we shall see next time. Philip gained political advantage over John by insisting on his rights as John s suzerain. John made the mistake of marrying a woman who was engaged to another of Philip s French vassals. The vassal asked Philip to help him get John to repay him for the loss of his fiancee. Because Philip was the suzerain of both men, he had the right to settle the dispute between them. He summoned John to come to the French court to hear his decision. John refused. By refusing, John violated the feudal contract. This gave Philip the right to take back the fief that is all of John s lands in France. Philip waged a series of wars to seize John s French lands. The Church and most French nobles supported him because he had feudal law on his side. Philip won the major battle at Bouvines in 1214. Philip was not able to capture John s lands in southern France, but he did conquer Normandy and other areas in the north. Philip s victories over John of England gave him direct control over a much larger area in France, but that was not all. The Normans were good organizers, and they had a highly developed administration in Normandy. Philip took it over and extended it to all of his territories. The lands of the king were divided into districts. Each district had a traveling official assigned to represent the king s interest. The official was called a bailli. The baillis collected taxes, made judicial decisions, and insured that the king s feudal rights were enforced. King Philip II Augustus of France is shown on the left. Below is a fanciful portrait of King John of England, the Duke of Normandy as well as the ruler of England. P a g e 6 o f 16

Philip usually appointed townsmen as baillis, and he paid them in money, not in land. They could be appointed and dismissed at his discretion. They gave him greater power in the local areas. By his death, Philip had greater control over France than any previous king. Louis IX (1226-1270) The next great Capetian king was Philip s grandson, Louis IX (1226-1270). Under him the monarchy became stronger. This was because a new conception of the royal power began to develop. This new idea was that God had given the king a religious responsibility to care for the wellbeing of his subjects, even if he had to violate the feudal contract to do that. No king in the Middle Ages was better suited to have such a responsibility than Louis IX. He was considered the perfect Christian king. Personally, he was very pious and deeply committed to Christian principles. He never swore, avoided luxury, and lived a life of self-denial almost like a monk. In foreign affairs, he always supported the interests of the papacy in Italy, and he tried to promote peace among other Christian states. He always avoided wars with other Christians. But he did support wars in a Christian cause. He led a number of crusades against unbelievers. In fact, he died during a crusade against the Moslems in North Africa. He was such a good Christian that in 1297, he was made a saint by the Church. Louis IX was Saint Louis. When Louis felt that it was his Christian duty, he often did things that he had no right to do under the feudal contract. When feudal courts acted unjustly, for instance, Louis would step in and reverse those decisions. Louis often issued laws without consulting his vassals, if he thought it was right, even though he was supposed to consult his vassals. One law created a national system of money for France. Another banned personal combat between knights as a way of settling legal disputes. Few Frenchmen objected to these actions because they were wise and just and because Louis s reputation for holiness greatly increased the prestige of the French monarchy. So, by the end of Louis s reign, the king of France was regarded less and less as a feudal overlord and more and more as a true sovereign king. Philip IV, The Fair The last great Capetian king went far beyond the traditions of feudalism in his exercise of power. He was Philip IV, the Fair (1285-1314). His nickname refers to his appearance, not his conduct of government. Saint Louis created new powers to make government more just, but Philip IV increased the most unpopular power of government the power to tax. By this time, French government was bigger and was doing more than it ever had done before. As a result, it needed more money. The right of a medieval king to tax was based on the right of the suzerain to collect hospitality and other feudal taxes. Under the feudal contract, the suzerain could not impose new kinds of taxes unless his vassals agreed. But feudal law was vague about how often the traditional taxes could be collected. These taxes were paid on certain vaguely specified occasions. Hospitality, for example, was paid whenever the lord visited, and he visited when he wanted. Philip gathered around him a group of shrewd, ruthless administrators drawn mainly from the towns. They found ways to collect the traditional taxes as often as possible. But Philip s government still needed money. He tried to find ways to get completely new taxes established. As we shall see later, they especially wanted to tax the lands of the Church in France, which had been largely immune. Eventually the king and his administrators came up with a dandy idea to get new taxes. Under feudalism, the suzerain could call together his vassals to agree to changes in the feudal contract. They decided to ask the vassals to agree to new taxes. In 1302, representatives of the vassals were called to Paris for this purpose. This meeting was known as the Estates General. The Estates General was composed of three groups of representatives one from the nobility, one from the clergy, and one from the towns. In 1302, it approved all of the new taxes Philip requested. Later, it generally continued to endorse royal decisions. Philip IV, the Fair. Fair of complexion, but not of behavior. P a g e 7 o f 16

Now why on earth would the Estates meet and approve new taxes. There were many reasons for the weakness of the Estates General, but most important was that the king s power was too great to be challenged. By 1302, royal power in France had been steadily increasing for over a century. Custom and tradition had created a French monarchy and a French government that was far stronger than it could ever become under feudalism. In fact, what came about in France was a true monarchy working within a feudal framework. Feudal government was stretched so thin under Capetian rule that further expansion of royal power was necessary. Louis IX ruptured the feudal contract repeatedly, but he was so pious, that his vassals let him get away with it. Philip used the Estates General to increase taxes and other royal prerogatives, and he was so wily and so powerful that he got away with it. So, as a result, a new system of government emerged that gave French kings much more control over their kingdom. P a g e 8 o f 16

England to 1300 In the last lecture, I talked about the efforts of the Capetian kings in France to build a strong central government. The struggle against feudalism in France ended differently from the struggle in Germany. In Germany centralization failed; in France it won. Efforts to build a strong central government in England ended in a kind of compromise. That s what we are going to look at now. I haven t really said anything about England yet, so let s begin with a quick tour of English history after the fall of the Roman Empire. This period is known as Anglo-Saxon England (403-1066). What is now England had been a part of the Roman Empire, but in 403 the last Roman troops were withdrawn to fight elsewhere. With this, the region was rapidly overrun by two western Germanic peoples, the Angles and the Saxons. They give their name to the period. At first, conditions were very primitive, but intellectual life recovered very quickly under the influence of Christian missionaries. Politically, however, England remained divided into several separate Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the 800s and 900s, parts of the island were overrun by invasions of Viking Danes. To resist these attacks, the Anglo-Saxons were combined into a single state by the king Alfred the Great (871-900). Because it was separate from the continent, the organization of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom developed along Germanic lines that weren t really feudal. The kingdom was divided into thirty-four semi-independent districts called shires. Each shire was under a local chief known as an earl. In addition, each shire had an administrator, called the sheriff, who represented the king. He administered local justice and collected taxes for the king. All able-bodied landowners were required to provide military service according to the old Germanic principle. There were no feudal armies in England. The English army included not only great lords but also small farmers (yeomen). There were more small independent farms in England than elsewhere in medieval Europe. By 1050, English society and law were quite different from the feudal systems in place on the Continent. But in 1066, that changed dramatically. That year, the last Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) died, and his throne was claimed by a distant relative, William the Bastard. William was the Duke of Normandy, the Viking state in northern France. The Anglo-Saxons raised a king of their own, but he was defeated by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. William became the new king of England and was thereafter referred to as William the Conqueror (1066-1087). I m sure you ll agree that s quite an improvement. P a g e 9 o f 16

William s Rule Since William had conquered England, he owned the entire kingdom outright and could do anything he wanted with it. So, he reorganized it. In fact he made it the most advanced state in Western Europe. He created a form of feudalism that placed him firmly in charge of the nation. He returned some land to Anglo-Saxon owners in return for taxes, then he divided the rest into fiefs for Norman knights who had supported the conquest. But he kept all castles and forts in his own hands and forbade his vassals from fighting private wars with each other. He retained many of the older Anglo-Saxon institutions which strengthened royal government. He kept the sheriffs as his local representatives. He retained the draft on all landowners, so that he had some military forces who were not feudal knights or vassals. This arrangement gave the kings of England powers and resources that other kings did not have a regular income from taxes, some non-feudal military forces, and a centralized government. He and his successors used the resources of England to maintain and extend their control over Normandy and other lands that they ruled in France. Common Law and Royal Authority Through the Middle Ages, the kings of England, like kings elsewhere, were trying to extend their powers further. But this effort was resisted, and there were some setbacks. We must now look at their efforts. From these efforts, many of the most enduring and characteristically English institutions emerged. One of the ways that the kings tried to extend their power was by creating a new system of law. In William the Conqueror s time, most local courts used the primitive Germanic law of the Anglo-Saxons which varied from region to region. The great lords used feudal law to decide cases having to do with fiefs and landholding. In the 1100s, the Church began to introduce Canon Law for trying clergymen and others who committed religious offenses. The kings tried to introduce uniformity by gradually creating a new law system that they could control. This new law should be the same for everybody everywhere in the kingdom common law. This scene from the Bayeux Tapestry shows Norman cavalry defeating Harold to give the throne of England to William of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings, October 14 th 1066. P a g e 10 o f 16

A law system that they could control would strengthen the king s position in several ways. Everyone who wanted to obtain justice would have to go to the king. This would strengthen his power over his subjects. It would enable the king to exercise greater control over the land revenues of the kingdom. It would also enable the king to obtain more money in the form of fines and legal fees. William s son, Henry I (1100-1135) began efforts to establish the judicial rights of the king. Henry II s Reforms The king who had the greatest influence on the growth of common law was Henry II (1154-1189). It was an established principle that the king had the duty to maintain the peace in the kingdom. Henry II took this custom to heart. He aggressively investigated crimes everywhere in his kingdom. In 1166, he decreed that the leading citizens of each shire should meet regularly with the sheriff and give information about crimes committed in the shire. This is the origin of the grand jury system. He introduced a new method of securing proof in various kinds of cases. In earlier times, evidence was provided by compurgation, in which the parties to a case got many friends and relatives to swear oaths in support of their contentions. He provided that in certain cases, evidence would be provided by twelve disinterested persons from the shire who had investigated the case at issue. This is the origin of trial by jury. Henry suffered only one setback. At the end of his reign he was forced to concede the right of churchmen to be tried under cannon law by Church courts. In spite of this, he made the common law the most widely used and most popular legal system in England. Richard and John Many Englishmen liked and supported the common law. But others resented the king s efforts to extend his power in other areas, particularly attempts to increase taxation. After Henry II, the nobles of England started a reaction against royal power. Henry II s sons, Richard I (1189-1199) and John (1199-1216), greatly increased taxes to finance foreign adventures and wars in areas outside of England itself. Richard was well liked and extended taxes to support Crusades. But when he left to go on the 2nd Crusade himself, he left the throne to his brother, John. John was not very likeable, and to make matters worse, he got into trouble with both Philip Augustus of France, and with Pope Innocent III. His conflicts with these two cost him a great deal of money, and in the end he lost. Leaders of the English Church and the nobles resented having to pay to support John s European adventures. In 1213, just after John was defeated at Bouvines and lost many of his lands in France. The Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton and the great nobles cornered John and forced him to issue the Magna Charta. Magna Charta The Magna Charta was really an effort to put on paper certain traditional feudal rights that English rulers had ignored: 1. The king could not impose new taxes without first consulting with the lords of the realm. 2. He could not avoid granting justice and could not condemn anyone without following proper legal procedures 3. The charter, above all, placed the king within the limitations of the law just like everyone else. King John contemplates the terms of the Magna Charta with undoubted distaste. P a g e 11 o f 16

Beginnings of Parliament By forcing John to issue the Magna Charta, the nobles raised a question that had not really faced England before: Who would rule the land, the king or his nobles? The answer that was finally reached was that they would cooperate. Cooperation was not fully worked out until the Middle Ages were over, but the first steps toward cooperation were taken in the century after the Magna Charta. Parliament There had always been a tradition in England that the king would consult with the leading men of the kingdom before making decisions. Under feudalism, the suzerain had to preserve the interests of his vassals by asking them for advice. Vassals could come to the king s court to assist him in his decisions. To provide a mechanism for consulting with his vassals, William the Conqueror had established the curia regis or the king s council. At first, it was made up exclusively of the great vassals of England. Later, administrative and financial officials also sat on the council. In the 1200s, meetings of the curia regis were called conferences in French Parliaments. The council helped the king in various ways. It kept him informed about the ideas of the leading Englishmen, advised him on needed new laws, and helped him to make judicial decisions. In 1215, the nobles forced John to agree in the Magna Charta that he would consult with this body before imposing any new taxes. This requirement hampered the king s activities, and John s son, Henry III (1216-1272) often ignored it and bypassed the council. This caused considerable unrest. The next king, Edward I (1272-1307), tried different tactic. Instead of ignoring the council, he expanded it. The problem with the curia was that it was made up of great lords, who were likely to oppose the exercise of royal power and to restrict new taxes. Edward diluted their influence by inviting representatives of the lesser nobility, the lesser clergy, and the towns to meet with the curia. These groups benefitted from strong government. The most famous parliament of Edward s reign was called the Model Parliament of 1295. It was called the Model Parliament because it included not only the great lords temporal and spiritual [explain], but also included two knights from each shire and two representatives from each important town. This Parliament wasn t really a legislative body. It only advised the king. But this more representative body increasingly gave a stamp of legitimacy to royal laws. Gradually, over the next 300 or so years, it became a legislative body. That is, Parliament passed laws that only needed the royal assent but the evolution of Parliament is for next semester. Conclusion If we compare the medieval development of England with that in France and Germany, we see that its outcome was quite different from that elsewhere. In France, the central government triumphed. In Germany, it failed. In England, there was a kind of compromise between the king and his subjects. The decisive factor in the English development was the Norman Conquest, which gave the king an overwhelming power, relatively, at an early stage of growth. The successors of William tried to build his success to expand their power further. A major stumbling block was that the English kings had lands and interests in other areas besides England that occupied their time and energies. Involvement elsewhere might weaken them temporarily in England itself. Royal power grew by taking two steps forward and then one step backward. Thus, the final result in compromise between royal power and the rights of the subjects. P a g e 12 o f 16

Rise of the Papacy As Medieval secular rulers between the 900s and the end of the 14 th century worked to expand their powers and authority over other competitors, a series of popes tried to expand their control over the Church in the West and over the secular rulers of the states of Europe as well. The popes became increasingly more formidable opponents to European kings because they came to have greater and greater control over the Church in Western Europe after 1000. First, let s look at the position of the popes within the Church during the early Middle Ages (ca. 400-1000). Now, remember that the popes had claimed to be the leaders of the Church ever since the late Roman Empire. They based this claim on what they called the Petrine Theory. According to this theory, St. Peter was the leader of the Apostles and the Bishops of Rome were the successors of Peter. Thus the pope should lead the other bishops and head the Church. Most Western Christians sort of believed it by the 500s. But this did not mean that the popes actually ruled the Church. They were simply revered as the main spiritual leaders of the West. Their religious opinions were respected but not considered absolute. Most bishops, and even some secular leaders, believed that they too had the right to make religious decisions for their territories. The popes had no way of directly controlling other bishops of Western Europe. As long as the popes didn t select bishops they had no real authority over them. As we saw last time, bishops were elected, and often political leaders had most of the say in the elections. From 850 to 1000, when political power was broken up among large numbers of local lords, the Church also became increasingly divided. Even the office of the pope was affected. The pope was also elected, and before the time of Otto I, the local nobles of the Papal States around Rome usually dominated the election. Then, after Otto brought Rome into the Holy Roman Empire, the election of popes was controlled for a while by the emperors. So, if the popes were really to rule the Church, they had to do two things. First they had to eliminate political influence over Church officials and especially over their own position. Then, the popes had to bring the Church leaders under their own administrative control. By 1000, some members and officials of the Church worked toward Church reform. The reform movement had several religious objectives, but the major goal to remove secular political influence from the Church. It was called the Cluniac Reform Movement because it was led by monks from the monastery of Cluny in southern France. In medieval Europe, monks often took the lead in addressing religious problems in society. Because the monks had given up everything P a g e 13 o f 16

for Christian life, they were usually more influenced by religious principle than other people. They were the natural leaders of this reform. Some political leaders supported the reform too, up to a point. The most important were the kings of Germany. Remember that they were also Roman emperors. As emperors, they thought that they had a special duty to oversee Church affairs. The emperors supported Church reform by helping to elect strong popes who promoted reform. The first such goal was to gain greater independence for the papacy itself. Reformers won a major victory in 1059, when Pope Nicholas II (1059-1061) changed the way popes were elected. Under the new method, the cardinal clergy, the senior clergy of Rome would elect the pope. The Holy Roman Emperor did not object to the change because at first he had the right to approve the cardinals decision. But this right had to be renewed for each new emperor. Later, when friction grew between the emperors and the popes, the papacy simply stopped renewing the right. The Investiture Struggle This reform gave the papacy greater freedom. It allowed a very ambitious and strong-willed pope to press for an even more radical change. He was Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085). Unlike earlier reforms, Gregory s reform provoked a long dispute between the papacy and most political leaders in Western Europe. The dispute is called the Investiture Struggle because it dealt in part with the ceremony that placed bishops and archbishops into their offices. Usually, the bishops were invested by the kings or other lords who chose them. But, Gregory wanted to have them invested by other Church officials. Gregory really wanted to keep political leaders out of the election of bishops and archbishops. Political leaders resisted this because they wanted to be able to choose bishops who could help them in run their government. Gregory VII and his successors quarreled over these issues with almost all of the major kings of Western Europe, but the most serious disputes were with the Holy Roman Emperors. Remember that the emperors relied very heavily on Church officials to help them run the Empire. Also, the emperors still believed that they, not the popes, had the ultimate duty to supervise the Church, just as all other Roman emperors had done. The struggle over investiture began when, in 1065, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV gave the office of Archbishop of Milan to a supporter. This was in direct opposition to Gregory s rule that secular rulers had no right to give church offices away. Gregory excommunicated Henry. Excommunication might very well have ended Henry s precarious reign and the German king knew it. Henry decided that he would need to win his way back into the pope s good graces. In the winter of 1076/77, Gregory was staying at a castle in northern Italy near the town of Canossa. Henry traveled to Canossa as a penitent, seeking forgiveness from the pope. The conception of the Papacy as the center of society was established in the Middle Ages after the victory of St. Gregory VII over the pretensions of the Emperor. In the picture, the latter is at the right of and one step lower than the Pope. P a g e 14 o f 16

When Henry reached Canossa, the Pope ordered that he be refused entry. According to the first-hand accounts of the scene (letters written by both Gregory and Henry in the following years), Henry waited by the gate for three full days. During this time, he allegedly wore only his penitent hair-shirt and fasted. Although no contemporary sources report this, it has since been speculated that Henry spent much of his time during these three days in the village at the foot of the hill. On 28 January (the feast of Saint Paul's conversion) the gates were opened for Henry and he was allowed to enter the fortress. Contemporary accounts report that he knelt before Pope Gregory and begged his forgiveness. Gregory absolved Henry and invited him back into the Church. That evening, Gregory and Henry shared communion in the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas inside the fortress, signaling the official end of Henry's excommunication. This incident was the first act in a series of dramas over investiture that would be played out between several popes and several rulers. But, it was definitely a solid win for the papacy. Papal Powers to Enforce Policy The popes had powerful religious weapons to use against those who opposed them. They claimed the right to prevent people from participating in the rites of the Church. They could expel an individual from the Church (excommunication), and they could close all churches in a whole country (interdiction). Many people believed that they were damned if they were barred from the sacraments. In this period, salvation was so important that most people would not risk that. A ruler s subjects might not support their king in a dispute with the pope if it imperiled their souls. This insured that the papacy would eventually win the Investiture Struggle. It was finally ended in Germany by an agreement called the Concordat of Worms (1122). This only applied to Germany and Italy, but similar agreements were worked out in other countries of Europe as well. Under it, bishops were elected solely by the clergy in their areas. The emperor had no direct role in the election unless there was a tie. Then he cast the deciding vote. The emperor could still campaign for his candidate behind the scenes of course. But it was a major step toward making Church leaders independent of government. At this point the papacy began to try to bring Church officials more fully under the direction of Rome. Another important way that popes gained more authority was by means of the canon law. Canon law is a religious law governing the Church and its representatives. In the 1100s, many new provisions were added to the canon law to give the popes greater authority over the Church. Here are a few of the more notable additions. The papacy acquired the power to interpreted canon law. Any dispute over the law could be appealed to Rome, where a final decision was made. The pope gained the authority to override the decisions of earlier Church councils, such as the Council of Nicea. He also had to approve any actions taken by new councils in the future. This meant that each pope could reinterpret Church doctrine. The popes gradually gained the power to appoint more and more lower clergy. Of course, this gave them growing influence over the elections of bishops since they appointed the men who voted in the elections. Popes even began to insist that the canon law was the only law that could be applied to Churchmen. Regardless of what they did, clergy could only be tried in Church courts controlled by Rome. Most governments disputed this claim, but it did come to be accepted in some countries, at least briefly. The Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV waits at the castle door, barefoot in the snow, at Canossa for forgiveness from Pope Gregory VII. P a g e 15 o f 16

Innocent III (1198-1116) These developments led to the high-point in the history of the medieval papacy under the able and influential Pope Innocent III (1198-1216). Innocent believed that the pope should exercise a plenitude of power, that is, complete authority, over the Church AND over secular rulers! He came closer to doing that than any of his predecessors. Innocent argued that God had given the papacy the special duty to oversee the carrying out of His will in the world. The pope, he said, is below God but above man. Innocent was the first pope to take the title Vicar of Christ, which means the pope is the representative or lieutenant of Christ on Earth. This view conflicted directly with the ideas of secular leaders who claimed to have authority over the Church. Innocent III finally destroyed any claim that the Holy Roman Emperors had over Church affairs in Germany and northern Italy or in Western Europe. In fact Innocent turned the tables on the Holy Roman Emperors by insisting that no one could be elected emperor of Germany without papal approval. Earlier popes had sometimes raised this claim, but Innocent was able to pressure all the German leaders to accept it for the first time, at least in theory. Innocent even revoked the emperor s right to vote in the elections of bishops. Innocent also made the Church more important in the life of the average person. He achieved this through the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). The Council made several important decisions. The Council formally set the number of sacraments at seven; the sacraments were religious rites. It also stressed the importance of participating in the sacraments for all Christians. The Council decreed that every Christian had to perform the sacrament of confessing his sins once a year. This gave the Church greater opportunity to supervise the moral lives of Europeans. A picture of Innocent III, possible doodled from life in 1203. Beyond that, the council officially endorsed for the first time the doctrine of transubstantiation of the Eucharist. This is the belief that, in communion, the bread and wine are miraculously changed into the body and blood of Christ. This greatly increased the awesomeness of the sacrament, and it also enhanced the prestige of priests who performed it. Conclusion To sum up, between about 1000 and the 1200s, the popes gradually progressed from being purely nominal leaders of a church that was actually disunited and controlled by political leaders to exercising an effective, direct jurisdiction over all Church affairs. Even under Innocent III, the pope was still not as dominant in the Church as he came to be in the later Middle Ages or even in modern times. But Innocent did bring the papacy to new heights in the church at a time when the church probably had its greatest influence in European life. Much of this was accomplished at the expense of political leaders, especially the Holy Roman emperors, and it is often conventional to present the whole process as an intense power struggle between church and state. This can be exaggerated. For a long time, Church leaders and political leaders cooperated in trying to strengthen the Church because of religious convictions that they all shared. It was only very gradually that conflict developed as the goals of the papacy came to threaten more closely not only the political power of kings, but also what they considered their religious duties. The papacy was successful chiefly because of the great moral prestige that the popes possessed in the eyes of Western Europeans. We shall see later that such prestige would not endure when conditions began to change. Later the popes would still run the Church, but the Church would not be as influential as before. P a g e 16 o f 16