III. THE ZENITH OF THE CHURCH (TO 1305)

Between the Pontificates of Nicholas I And Leo X there were about 40 Popes who were weak and many of them a disgrace to any ecclesiastical position. The position of “POPE” was even sold and at one time there were three popes, each professing headship of the Church of Rome. With the utter corruption at the top level the depths of it was felt in every strata of church life. To rescue the Papacy from its degradation, OTTO I of Germany made it subject to himself. THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF LAY INVESTITURE.

A Corruption of the Clergy - Drunkenness, and adultery were among the lesser vices of a clergy that had become rotten to the core.

B. Corruption of the Monastery - As with the papacy, there were some exceptions. Generally speaking the monasteries became cesspools of iniquity.

C. The People - The moral condition of he people was appalling; wickedness and misery reigned.

D. Life in the Church - Along with the corruption in the Church, there was also much paganism. Many heathen had accepted Christianity because it was the Empire religion, while others were forced to accept it because of the will of the Emperor or King. The Church accepted them upon Baptism in water and thought to convert them later. Thus Christianity was almost overcome by paganism with its own confines. With the paganism so influential in the Church DEAN MILMAN says “A Christian mythology” grew up and formed the Christianity of perhaps the mass of the people. From this period we find the origin and development of Festivals and CHRISTIAN (?) IDOLATRY still found in the Roman Catholic Church today. We list some of them:

4. Places, churches and individuals had their saintly protection or Patron Saints.

5. Canonization, that is elevation to sainthood, was now given regular procedure. (Requirements for sainthood are miracles, orthodoxy and holiness of life.)

6. Pilgrimages were esteemed holy. A pilgrimage to the Holy Land earned forgiveness of all sins.

After such a decline in the Church as we have seen and when it seemed that Christianity was nearly overwhelmed, revival came. Berno (910) and Odo, his successor made the monastery at CLUNY the most influential of all centers. Benedictine rule was enforced and new monasteries were formed living after the pattern set by the Abbot of Cluny. These new monasteries were called the Cluniac Congregation. Here strong men set themselves for reform in the Church from its headship down. SIMONY must be abolished, as well as Lay Investiture. Under Leo IX and Nicholas II, guided by Hildebrandt, who later became Gregory VII, the College of Cardinals was formed for the selection of popes (this brought the Papacy at odds with the Emperor). This is the period when the Roman Bishop accepted the title officially as Pope.

HILDEBRANDT WAS A BENEDICTINE MONK, OF THE CLUNIAC CONGREGATION TRAINED IN THE ISODORIAN DECRETALS, with one ambition, the exaltation of the papacy. In intellect, he was the greatest of the popes and the greatest statesman of his age. Though his Pontificate lasted only 12 years, it was the most memorable in the history of the Church so far. He claimed for his office no less than world wide authority. He was the chief builder of the Medieval Papacy.

2. He abolished clerical marriage by breaking up existing marriages in the clergy and encouraging monks under his control to abhor priests that were married. He was not entirely successful here, but from this time onwards the general sentiment of the church upheld clerical celibacy.

3. Hildebrandt issued an edict against Lay Investiture, (1075) (the practice of appointment of Bishops by Kings.) This edict worked both ways. It deposed any ecclesiastic who would accept the office from a king, but also excommunicated the king who would presume to appoint a Bishop. This investiture was the symbol of loyalty to the king. The insignia of authority was with:

4. This Edict led to the contest with Henry IV of Germany. It was inevitable that between the two absolute rulers a conflict should arise. Henry IV of Germany refused to carry out the decrees of the Pope, especially in reference to investitures. Gregory summoned him to Rome to answer for his crimes. The King answered this by calling a synod at Worms which deposed Gregory. He retorted by excommunicating Henry and releasing his subjects from allegiance to him. Some of the chief princes of the realm took advantage of this release. A diet was held suspending him from all kingly functions until he should be absolved by the Pope. He was therefore compelled to sue for the Pope’s pardon. He made a journey across the Alps in January, 1077, with his wife and infant child in the dead of winter and found Gregory at CANOSSA in Lombardy where Gregory had fled not knowing if Henry had come in war or peace. In abject humiliation, barefoot and wearing only a coarse woolen shirt, Henry IV implored the mercy of the Pope for three days and was finally granted absolution. Thus at Canossa the Pope triumphed over the Emperor.

This victory, however, proved not so complete as it first seemed, for later on Henry IV, when his hands were not tied by internal strife, ked an army into Italy and within three years he conquered Rome. Hildebrandt fled and died in Salerno on May 25, 1085. A he lay dying he said, “I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity and yet I die in exile”.

5. CONCORDAT OF WORMS (1122 A.D. under Pope Caliztus II) The struggle against Lay Investiture ended in compromise. In this agreement the Emperor gave up the right of investiture by means of the scepter.

6. Hildebrandt’s Dream - Hildebrandt desired to make the church an absolute monarchy under the bishop of Rome. By bold and sweeping assertions of the supremacy of the successor of Peter, backed up by his power of excommunication, he, to a great extent, succeeded in his purpose. But this was only part of his dream. When this had been done his great desire was that the church, ruled by the pope, was to be the sovereign pope of the world. To it, all other powers must be subject. From the Pope all kings and rulers were to take orders. They were to exercise authority under the Pope’s supervision. The Pope was to have the right to depose them and release their subjects from obedience to them if they disobeyed his supreme, divine authority. The world was to be a kind of United States, in which all kingdoms were to be governed according to the sovereign will of the head of the church. Hildebrandt did not see this dream realized in its entirety. It was later realized in the reign of Innocent III.

Hildebrandt was canonized by the church in 1728 but the German Church never admitted it. To the Gallicans of the court of Louis XIV he was anti-Christ. All would agree he was among the greatest of the Popes.

Though the controversy over investitures was settled by the Concordat at Worms in 1112, the conflict between the Church and the State continued. Finally Innocent III was elected to the chair in 1198 and in him the Papacy reached the zenith of its power. He reasserted the claims Hildebrandt had made and brought them to complete fulfillment. The most powerful kings of the times were forced into submission to his will. Innocent III thus spoke, “Ye see what manner of servant is which the Lord has set over His people, no other than the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter. He is the Lord’s anointed. HE stands in the midst between God and man, below God, above man”. Immediately Innocent III put his theory into practice.

1. He put France under an interdict (1199), because Philip Augustus put away his wife. Philip came to terms.

2. He excommunicated Otto IV, and absolved the allegiance of his subjects (1211), because he showed a spirit of independence. This excommunication combined with other causes led to Otto’s retiring to private life.

3. He brought the haughty and dissolute King John of England to his knees - received his kingdom, and conferred it back to him as a fief in 1213.

But in England there came a reaction. The prelates and barons were uneasy between such a pope and such a king, and they forced Magna Carta from John (1215) The pope united with the king in a desperate effort to have it repealed. But the opportune deaths of both John and Innocent left a united people, and Magna Carta remained the fundamental law of the land.

**Note: The weapon which he used to humble these monarchs was the INTERDICT, which caused the suspension of all religious services in the countries concerned. The churches were closed. The sacrament, which the people universally thought the means of salvation were not administered. The dead lay unburied.

4. Innocent established the duty of seeking out and punishing heretics. He thus became a founder of the infamous INQUISITION. This institution began with Innocent’s crusade against the Albigenses in southern France.

This under Innocent III the papacy ruled the world of Western Europe with almost undisputed sway. But the papacy has now reached its apex. Henceforth, it is to experience decline and humiliation.

The 14^th century marks the turning point in the history of temporal power of the papacy. Popes after Innocent III tried to enforce their claims but with decreasing success. A new sense of Nationality was one of the greatest forces attributing to the downfall of the Papacy. Men began to feel they had common interests against all foreigners, even the Pope himself. Frenchmen began to feel they were French and English began to feel they were Englishmen, and it was in these two nations that the claims of the Papacy were resisted. With so much of the country being in control of the church and exempt from taxation, the Kings, who needed more revenue, insisted that they pay taxes.

1. The Pontificate of Boniface VIII (1294 - 1303) Boniface had all the ideas of Hildebrandt and Innocent, and he even thought to surpass them. He aimed at being spiritual and temporal ruler of Europe, Emperor as well as Pope. He met strong opposition from Edward I of England and Philip the Fair of France, who had united nations behind them.

In 1296 Boniface issued a bull forbidding any prince to impose taxes on the clergy without papal consent, and threatened excommunication both to the clergy who paid and the King who levied the tax.

Edward promptly outlawed the clergy till they submitted. Boniface had to yield. Edward was closer to the clergy to mete out punishment than the Pope in Rome was.

But more was in store for Boniface. Philip of France regarded the bull as an encroachment of Civil Authority. The contention grew into a biter quarrel. Philip called two councils representative of every class of people in his realm, and they declared that the Pope had No Authority in France in civil matters; that the French king had No Superior Except God. Boniface reasserted papal supremacy over all kings, excommunicated Philip and threatened to depose him.

Philip’s answer to the papal thunderings was to send men at arms to seize the Pope. At Anagni they captured him and for three days held him captive. Then he was released and returned to Rome, but soon died (1303) heartbroken, or crazed by his sudden and awful fall. Medieval Papacy had received an incurable wound. The power that had ruled the world had been put to an open shame. “The Papacy had first shown its power by a dramatic act; it’s decline was manifested in the same way. The Drama of Anagni is to be set over against the Drama of Canossa”

2. THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY (1309-1377) - The Papacy was now in power of the French King. In 1309 the papal seat was removed to Avignon, on the Rhone in Provence adjoining French territory. Here it stayed for a period of 68 years losing prestige through French control and losing its moral influence through the notorious immorality of the papal court, in which some of the popes set the example.

It was during this period that Edward III of England, acting with the parliament, put an end to their vassalage to Rome by formally refusing to pay the tribute pledged by John and by repudiating wholly the claims of the popes upon England as the fief of the holy see. (1366)

Germany also declared that the German Emperor received his powers from God, not the Pope. (1338)

3. The Great Schism (1378-1417) - Discontent ruled high in Italy over the papal condition and in 1378 the Italians and the French each elected a Pope, one at Rome and the other at Avignon. Thus there were two heads of the Church, and the beginning of the Great Schism. Urban VI was selected by the Italians and Clement VII by France. Each excommunicated the other and devoted all supporters of the other to the devil. France obeyed Clement; Germany, England and Italy obeyed Urban.

a. The Council of Pisa (1409) - A new Pope was elected but the former Popes would not resign. The result was there were now three Popes. The first two popes would not recognize the authority of the council for it would have made the papacy limited in rule and authority subject to the Council’s decisions. No reform work was accomplished.

b. The Council at Constance (1414) - This council was attended by 18,000 ecclesiastics alone. It deposed two of the popes and persuaded one to resign and elected Oddo Colonna who took the name of Martin V. Thus the Schism was practically ended.

With the exception of Spain, held under the authority of the Moors, all Europe was in the hands of the Roman Church. Russia, Greece and most of the Balkan Peninsula were under the Eastern Church, the Greek Orthodox. The Western Church now made an endeavor to win the Holy Land back from the Mohammedan rule.

A. With an urgent call for help from the Eastern Emperor, Alexius I, Urban II called on the western feudal lords to rescue the Holy Land from the Turks. He promised:

Doubtless there was the hope that this effort might bring about he Unity of the Eastern and Western Churches.

With a call for a Crusade issued from a Synod in Clermont, France, Urban II urged the rescuing of all the holy places from the Seljuk Turk who had become so intolerant of any Christian visitations. Peter the Hermit, Walter the Penniless, and a priest, Gottschalk preached fervently in favor of the Crusades. They gained a great following of men, women and children with some knights among them all too impatient to wait for any army, so they went on their way on their own crusade. Walter the Penniless and Gottschalk with their following, because of their own wilful pillaging of the country through which they passed, were themselves subject to severe reprisals in Hungary and the Balkans. Very few got to Constantinople.

Peter the Hermit, did some what better in that he got through to Constantinople in spite of ravaging the countries through which he passed. The emperor at Constantinople gladly shipped the whole company across the Bosporus and sustained them there so they would not ruin his city. What a colossal task to feed approximately 100,000 of them.

Trying to get to Nicaea, they were surrounded by the Turks and massacred. About 5,000 were rescued by an army from the Emperor at Constantinople. The historian Gibon quotes an approx. figure of 300,000 killed in these three non-military ventures in the Crusades. One tragic feature of these three Crusades was the slaughter of the Jews. From the Rhine to Constantinople, wherever the camped they seemed to think they were doing God a favor by so doing.

The real work of the Crusades was done by the armies of the European kings. Three great armies were raised. Godfrey of Bouillon was the greatest leader among them in 1096 this mighty army left western Europe for Constantinople. After victories in Nicaea, and Antioch. Jerusalem was reached in June 1099. Godfrey of Bouillon was chosen Protector of the Holy Sepulcher. When he died a year later his brother was crowned King and a Latin Kingdom was established and organized in Europe.

The Moslems kept up a steady harassment in an effort to regain the Holy Land. Seven more Crusades were enlisted from Europe but after 1187 Jerusalem remained the property of Islam till 1919.

When this Kingdom was overrun again other Crusades were sent, some with a little success, but mostly failure. The Children’s Crusade (1212) was most disastrous and marked the decline of the Crusading spirit.

Stephen, a french lad led 30,000 children to Marseilles where they hoped the Sea would open and allow them passage to the Holy Land. It didn’t happen, to their bitter disappointment. Some merchants offered them passage by boat and between 5,000-6,000 accepted the offer. They were sold into slavery at Alexandria and other Moslem ports.

The German Children under Nicholas of Cologne led 20,000 to 40,000 children across the Alps down the coast of Italy looking for an opening in the sea that would take them to Palestine. Many died on the march and the rest dragged back home.

1. Against the Moors of Spain. Richard the Lion-Heart was instrumental here in winning Spain. (Portugal was a result of the Crusades there)

2. Against the Albigenses. Described by Innocent III as “More wicked than Saracens”.. Simon de Montfort led a force against that completely destroyed them.

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