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The Papacy The Papacy reached the height of its power during the period from 1059 when the College of Cardinals is established through 1309 when the Avignon Papacy begins. This time frame is outlined briefly below. The First Four Hundred Years. The Roman Catholic Church has undergone many changes during its long history. We have previously discussed the Doctrine of Petrine Succession, which holds that the Popes derive their authority directly from Peter, who was commissioned by Jesus. Nonetheless, during the first four centuries of the development of Christianity, there were other powerful centers of the Christian Churches besides Rome. Not until the division of the Roman Empire into East and West after 395 did Rome become dominant in the West. Great Popes through 600. The following four Popes helped to develop the idea of
Papal Supremacy in the West.
The Carolingian Period. During the Carolingian Period of the Frankish Kingdom, we saw that the Popes forged an alliance with the Pepin the Short and Charlemagne. Pepin defended the papacy against the Lombards and issued the Donation of Pepin, which granted the land around Rome to the pope as a fief. The popes argued that the Donation of Pepin merely confirmed the earlier Donation of Constantine. (During the Renaissance, the Donation of Constantine was proven to be a medieval forgery). Charlemagne was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day 800. The Feudal Period. The Ninth Century Invasions and the development of the Feudal System caused a general decline within the Church. Under the Saxon monarchy of the so-called Holy Roman Empire, the Popes and the Church became part of feudalism. Popes and bishops were appointed frequently by Feudal lords, such as the Holy Roman Emperor. But, the effort to reform the Church by freeing it from domination by feudal lords began almost as soon as the Feudal System. The monastery of Cluny, founded in 910 by Duke William of Aquitaine, led this reform, which is usually called the Cluniac Reform Movement. Efforts were made to eliminate simony, the buying of church offices, concubinage, and lay investiture. CLUNIAC
REFORMS OF THE CHURCH "Beginning in the late eleventh century the papacy attempted to
assert the church's independence from secular control.
The first of these popes, Leo IX (1049 - 1054), deposed corrupt bishops
and reasserted papal supremacy over all the clergy.
COLLEGE OF
CARDINALS 1059 "In 1059 a church council took a major step in freeing the papacy
itself from imperial control by establishing the right of the College of
Cardinals to elect future popes, a practice still in effect. GREGORY
VII, 1073 - 1085 "In 1075 Gregory VII (1073 - 1085) attempted to restore the election of bishops and abbots to the church by terminating the practice of lay investiture--a bestowal of the insignia of an ecclesiastical office by a layperson. Practically speaking, lay investiture entailed the right of the laity, such as emperors or kings, to select bishops and abbots, though this was in violation of church law and tradition. A vigorous reformed church could hardly be established if its key officials were selected with a view to political, monetary, and family considerations rather than spiritual qualifications and if the loyalty of such persons was ultimately to the sovereign who appointed them rather than to the pope." INVESTITURE
STRUGGLE "The immediate target of Gregory's decree was the emperor Henry IV
(1056 - 1106), who enjoyed the support of his bishops but not the German
territorial princes. The latter
stood to gain by any reduction of imperial power.
Recognizing the implications of the decree, Henry had his prelates
declare Gregory deposed, to which the pope responded by excommunicating Henry,
absolving his subjects from their duty to obey him, and depriving the imperial
bishops of their offices. "Delighted at this turn of events, the renegade princes in Germany
called for a council, over which Gregory would preside, at Augsburg in February
1077; its task would be to ascertain the validity of Henry's claim to the
imperial crown. Unprepared to cope
with a rebellion, the emperor intercepted Gregory at Canossa in Italy to seek
absolution. "As a priest, Gregory had to forgive the penitent Henry, thereby
giving the emperor the upper hand in the civil war that ensured in Germany.
"Henry was in a much stronger position when Gregory again excommunicated
him in 1080. Four years later
Henry's troops occupied Rome, driving Gregory into exile and installing a rival
or "antipope," Clement VII, on the papal throne. URBAN II, 1088 - 1099 The Byzantine Emperor Alexius I asked Pope Urban II for military help against the Seljuk Turks. At the Church Council of Clermont in 1095, Urban II issued a call to arms to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Land. This set off the Crusades. The
First Crusade took Jerusalem in July 1099. For the next 150 years,
Western Crusaders sought to preserve what first Crusade had gained.
CONCORDAT
OF WORMS 1122 "The investiture struggle dragged on until 1122, when Henry V (1106
- 1125) and Pope Calixtus II (1119 - 1124) agreed in the Concordat of Worms
that the church would henceforth give prelates their offices and spiritual
authority but that the emperor could be present when German bishops were elected
and invest them with fiefs. "In theory, at least, the clergy were now more independent of
secular control, though in practice their selection and work were still very
political. "The real winners in the investiture struggle were the powerful
territorial princes, who consolidated their hold over their own lands while
imperial attention focused on Rome, and the emerging urban communes of northern
Italy, which seized this opportunity to achieve a semi-independent status.
In the end the biggest losers were not only the emperors but the German
people, who were increasingly subjected to feudal conflict at a time when the
French and English were laying the foundations of unified states." (pp. 226
- 228, Greaves) POPE
INNOCENT III 1198 - 1216 "Innocent III (1198 - 1216), arguable the most powerful of the
medieval popes, took advantage of the chaos that followed Henry's untimely death
to undermine the link between Germany and Sicily.
Germany was thrust into civil war when the leading Hohenstaufen candidate
for the imperial throne, Philip of Swabia, Henry VI's brother, was challenged by
Otto of Brunswick. Although Innocent crowned Otto in 1198, the latter's attempt
to control Sicily prompted the pope to excommunicate him.
"At the urging of the French king, Philip Augustus, Innocent
recognized the hereditary claim of Henry's son, Frederick II, as king of the
Romans (and hence emperor-elect) in 1212. Philip's
victory over Otto at Bouvines (1214) decided the struggle in Frederick's favor,
though Frederick continued to fight with the popes over Sicily for the rest of
his reign. "Innocent enhanced papal authority by issuing numerous decrees that
spelled out the pope's powers in clear legal terms. The "plenitude of power" that he asserted (as had
Pope Leo the Great) did not entail a claim to temporal world power but to
supreme spiritual sovereignty, including the right to intervene in secular
affairs when the faith or morals of the church were affected. Monarchs rightly reigned, in his view, only if they devoutly
served the pope as Christ's vicar. "As we have seen, he acted on these principles when he humbled
England's King John over a disputed election for the archbishop of Canterbury.
In a quarrel that lasted two decades, he finally forced King Philip
Augustus of France to take back his Danish wife after Philip had rejected her
the day following their wedding. Innocent
strengthened the church in numerous other ways, including approval for the
establishment of new religious orders and attention to the restoration and
decoration of various churches." (pp. 228 - 230, Greaves) GREAT
INTERREGNUM, 1254 - 1273 "After Frederick's death in 1250, the papacy encouraged civil strife in Germany so successfully that between 1254 and 1273 there was no generally recognized emperor. Moreover, the Hohenstaufen line itself died out in 1268. The Great Interregnum, as the period without a recognized emperor was called, marked the triumph of the papacy over the empire--a victory achieved with French support. Yet half a century after the interregnum began, the French monarchy delivered a crippling blow to papal power and prestige." POPE
BONIFACE VIII AND THE END OF PAPAL HEGEMONY THE
AVIGNON PAPACY AND THE GREAT SCHISM |