101 Lecture 13-14 March 19-21 Flashcards
Today we’ll be discussing developments in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Papal Monarchy
Representative Institutions
Urbanization
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The conflict between
Gregory VII and Henry IV did not end the struggles between reformed Church and the new states of the medieval west.
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Concordat of Worms 1122 resolved the major issues of the Investiture Controversy
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Aftermath: general lull in Church-State tensions.
Crusades provided a venue for joint action and putting differences aside.
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The prosperity and energy of the 12th century Renaissance made people less willing to drag out old conflicts.
Conflict could not be ignored forever.
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Concordat of Worms had confirmed the Two Swords theory of ecclesiastical-governmental relations
God had created the ecclesiastical power (sacerdotium) and the secular royal authority (imperium). Meant for them to be in harmony.
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Simple in theory
Messy in practice
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Europe was governed by territorial law instead of personal law.
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Could a French citizen convicted of a crime appeal to the papcy?
If an English priest committed a crime against the kin’gs law (murder), was he to be tried by king’s court or by the local bishop’s? English common law or canon law?
Are German abbots subject to German taxes?
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This debate was renewed in many places throughout Europe in the second half of the 12th and in the 13th centuries.
Here is one example: England’s King Henry II. r. 1154-1189
Slide
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Master of nearly half of France as well as king of England
Had come to power after a civil war and the decline of government under the previous king, Stephen.
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Henry took nearly 20 years to bring local barons and sheriffs back under control.
He conducted a kingdom-wide inquest into popular grievances against local officials.
Developed a single law code for the realm, applicable to all non-noble citizens. Common Law.
Trial by jury
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During 1130s and 1140s, England’s ecclesiastical courts had greatly enlarged their jurisdiction. Impinged on royal jurisdiction.
Important issues at stake in this.
Restoration of royal rights: royal court could not afford to let the Church take over the function of providing justice
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Perceived fairness in sentencing. Church did not execute, even for felony crimes.
Having two standards of justice violated the idea of a rational order.
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Issue of criminal clergy: priests violating royal law.
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If Church controlled royal courts, what prevented convicts from appealing to Rome? To allow this was to threaten the sovereignty of the Angevin dynasty.
Think about US vs UN and the International Criminal Court
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Henry II saw his opportunity in 1162 when the archbishop of Canterbury died.
Appoints Thomas Becket, the royal chancellor.
But Becket, to everyone’s surprise, has a spiritual epiphany and becomes a foe of royal designs
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Angry words.
Reconciliation attempt in 1170 falls apart as Becket excommunicated several of Henry’s supporters.
Henry flies into rage.
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Story of Becket’s murder
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The murder shocked Europe.
Popular cult focused on Becket’s martyrdom soon arose
Canonized in 3 years.
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Henry genuinely sorry
But he refused to relinquish his jurisdictional claims
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Slide
In general, the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries was a time of working out the final kinks of the church reform movement
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The Reform Movement had begun with the identification of the Church as the outraged innocent, the spiritual house of God being trammeled by a self-serving and greedy secular world
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Toward the end of 11th c., the radical reform popes changed the rules of the game by proclaiming the Church’s superiority to and sovereignty over the secular world.
Papacy had become a massive bureaucracy whose hallways teemed with lawyers
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Slide
But to fulfill the idea that the Church had supremacy, there had to be a way of weilding that power
Financial machinery Judicial system Bureaucratic structure Police network Standing army
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Not everyone thrilled with this new Church
Short-live revolt in Rome by Arnold of Brescia
Wanted to re-establish Roman republic: do away with pope and emperor
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True Christian society could only be reached by restoring true republicanism.
Pope and Emperor (Hadrian IV and Frederick Barbarossa) join forces and defeat the rebellion
Arnold hanged
His ideas long survived him.
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At the heart of Arnold’s revolt was the question of whether the Church, esp the papacy, could dominate and administer the world without being corrupted by it.
Papal curia believed it could.
More importantly, they believed it had to.
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This was the beginning of the idea of Papal Monarchy.
The conviction that the stability of Christian society required the oversight of an impartial arbiter.
Church’s disinterestedness in worldly affairs made it the perfect and necessary judge over those affairs.
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Slide
The high point of the medieval papacy, and the culmination of this idea of Papal Monarchy, was under the pontificate of Innocent III (r. 1198-1216)
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Papacy, to Innocent, possessed a “fullness of power” (plenitudo potestatis) that entitled it, and in fact required it, to involve itself in every aspect of human life in which moral or spiritual matters were at stake.
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Slide
1215 Fourth Lateran Council
Greatest achievement of Innocent’s pontificate
General council held in Rome to complete, finalize, and codify the reform of the Church.
Largest church council since Nicaea in 325.
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The Latin Church reached its full maturity with this council.
Organized the papal bureaucracy into the offices that it would retain for centuries.
Formally established the 7 Sacraments
Confession and Communion
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Slide
13th century generally was a time of bureaucracy
Development of institutions to run a society growing more complex.
This is the time of the emergence of monarchies and kings the way we see them depicted in movies
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Constant tension at this time between a centralizing royal ambition and a centrifugal aristocratic localism. Each kingdom responded in its own way.
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France emerged as the largest and strongest of the centralized monarchies, mostly at England’s expense.
England developed the most effective and modern parliamentary form of government
Germany’s Diet was a conservative guarantor of baronial privilege
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In the Mediterranean, communes went through a series of refinement and changes: some strengthening their republican and mercantile character; others lessening it in favor of despotism
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Fundamental goal in every case, according to the theorists:
find a right ordering of the world, to create a polity that was in accord with local circumstances and traditions and with an understanding of God’s design of and for the world
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By the end of the 13th c., most of the states of Europe had the fundamental institutions and political traditions that they would retain for the next 500 years
Details changed, structures remain.
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Slide
In terms of understanding the impact that this period had, we’re going to approach it from the perspective of representative institutions and towns (if there’s time today)
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By end of 13th c., just about every state in Europe had some sort of representative assembly, possessing something more than an advisory power.
Ability to check the power of the ruler the fundamental component of a representative government.
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Most often, this ability to check power comes first through the power of the purse
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