The Era of “Papal Theocracy”, or the Peak of Ecclesiasticism
6.4.1 Ecclesiastical Decline During the Feudal Period
The theoretical supremacy of the Church’s authority over civil power was evident after the popes’ crowning of Charlemagne (800), and Otto I (962).
The actual exercise of this power, however, was quite limited during the ninth and tenth centuries, not only because the popes had to deal with powerful monarchs—such as Charlemagne’sgreat-grandson Louis II (850-875), who managed to unify the Italian Peninsula[224]— but also because of the fact that papal authority was hampered by the general process of feudalization, clearly at odds with the Church’s aspiration to comprehensive authority, directly inherited from Roman universalism (Bryce 2012, 104).
6.4.1.1 “Feudalization” and the Appearance of “Proprietary
Churches”
The privatization of political ties and the disintegration of the very notion of public authority caused ecclesiastical apparatuses (ecclesiastical provinces, bishoprics, abbeys) to fall under the dominion of local, secular authorities. This was the era of “proprietary churches” (ecclesia propria or Eigenkirche), so named because they were controlled by secular lords who, as owners of land and buildings, appointed individuals to clerical positions.[225] The feudalization of ecclesiastical offices greatly contributed to the atomization of public power in the Holy Roman Empire.[226]
6.4.1.2 The German Holy Roman Empire and the “Imperial Church”
The submission of the ecclesiastical authorities to the great secular lords, reached its pinnacle in Germany following the imperial coronation of Otto I during the era of the Reichskirche (Imperial Church), characterized by the spreading practice of princes and great feudal lords who were also part of the clergy (bishops or abbots).[227] On the one hand, they were the ecclesiastical heads of their territories (cura animarum) and, on the other, their political heads as well, as they governed and exercised administrative, police, judicial, military and fiscal functions on behalf of the emperor.
As Atwood (2001, 8) points out, certain bishoprics became more important as secular offices rather than religious ones. The system had many advantages, not only because the prince-bishops were chosen from among the educated classes of the population, but because, to the extent that these ecclesiastical princes were members of the clergy, they could not marry, which prevented the formation of hereditary dynasties that could tear the empire apart. Thus, the system endured and within the geographical scope of the German Holy Roman Empire there were small states that continued to be ruled by prince-bishops until the French Revolution. Thus, for example, was the case with the bishops of Liege, Strasbourg and Salzburg, to name but a few of the best known, all featuring prince-archbishops who served as heads of state, for life, for over eight centuries.[228]6.4.2 The Ecclesiastical Resurgence: The Eastern Schism,
Cluny and the Gregorian Reform
In the mid eleventh century the gradual waning of the Roman Church in general,[229] and the papacy, in particular, was exploited by the ambitious patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius,[230] to separate the Eastern (Orthodox) Church from the authority of Rome in 1054 (the Eastern Schism), in spite of the efforts of Pope Leo IX (Chadwick 2003,206-218). The incident was a terrible blow, laying bare the debilitated state of the Western Church and the need for it to be reformed. The first efforts at this ecclesiastical renewal were the Cluniac Reforms, a major monastic movement sprouting in the tenth century at France’s Cluny Abbey from within the Benedictine Order.[231]
The new Cluniac spirituality spread throughout Christendom thanks to Hildebrand, a Germanic member of the new order[232] who would become Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085). As pontiff he concentrated his efforts on making the Catholic Church an independent institution completely separate from any civil powers.
What came to be called the Gregorian Reforms were aimed at eradicating a number of practices which had corrupted ecclesiastical life, including clergy who were marrying, a practice widespread among parish priests, though uncommon among bishops and non-existent among monks. Convinced that married priests became too involved in secular issues, Gregory VII decided to restore the celibacy requirement, which became mandatory during the twelfth century, and by the thirteenth, was being strictly observed. There was also a major backlash against “proprietary churches”, and a campaign to recover a large number of church lands which had been usurped by secular lords. Also prohibited was simony, the commercialization of spiritual elements through which the kings and prelates sold ecclesiastical offices to the highest bidders. Henceforth, ecclesiastical assemblies were to choose the most suitable candidates.
To ensure the independence of the Church from secular powers, Gregory VII issued a historic decree, the Dictatus papae (1075), featuring 27 statements summarizing the new papal ideology (Cowdrey 2004,496-501). One of these expressly recognized the Pope’s status as the head of the Western Christian Empire, which meant that he held the power to exempt his subjects from their obligation to obey iniquitous kings. This was obviously not well received by the princes, let alone the emperors, who resolved to oppose the papal claims with all their might.
6.4.2.1 The Investiture Contest: Henry IV Against Gregory VII
The strongest opponent of Gregory VII’s aspirations was the German Emperor Henry IV (1084-1106), with the two squaring off in what was dubbed the “Investiture Contest”. The dispute revolved around who should have the right to appoint or “invest” the holders of public ecclesiastical offices: civil or ecclesiastical authorities.[233] The question was problematic because many of the bishops were also feudal lords subject to the Empire. Hence, when receiving their offices they had to be appointed not only by the Pope, but also by the emperors.[234]
In 1076, Gregory VII excommunicated Henry IV for ignoring the 1075 Dictatus Papae.
As Henry was still only King of Germany, the excommunication sparked a revolt among the nobles, which forced Henry to plead for a papal pardon at Cannossa Castle in the winter of 1077. After accepting all of Gregory VII’s demands, he was not only pardoned, but crowned emperor. The restoration of his authority, however, did not stop Henry from going on to lead a military expedition against Rome in which he managed to occupy the city (Blumenthal 1995,113-126). Gregory VII died in exile in 1085, though Henry IV was ultimately defeated by Urban II (1088-1099). The papacy emerged triumphant not just because Urban II was able to retake Rome from imperial forces in 1093, but because, by backing the First Crusade (1096-1099), he was also able to strengthen papal prestige and authority.6.4.2.2 Balance Between Empire and Papacy: The Concordat of Worms
The question of investitures was ultimately resolved through negotiations leading to the Concordat of Worms (1122), signed by Emperor Henry V and Pope Calixtus II (Tellenbach 1991, 122-124). Based on the theological principle of the distinction between spiritual and temporal investiture, the Concordat established the German kings’ waiving of their right to bestow upon bishops and abbots the ring and staff denoting their spiritual authority, which only the pope could do. The kings would be limited to granting them the scepter, which symbolized the feudal concession of temporal goods. The removal of investiture rights from royal hands, was offset by the kings’ maintenance of the tribute which new bishops were to render to the king. Yet, as far as the Church was concerned in this crucial period, the popes had fully succeeded in establishing their primacy in relation to councils and bishops (Schatz 1996, 95).[235]
6.4.3 The Papacy's Power Swells
The conflict between emperors and popes, however, would resurface, violently, yet again with Frederick I (1152-1190), and Frederick II (1215-1250) of the House of Hohenstaufen, although neither emperor was able to challenge a papacy that had been considerably strengthened, especially following the era of Innocent III (11981216).
The latter pontiff served with considerable effectiveness as the West’s spiritual leader,[236] imposing his authority on kings such as Peter II of Aragon, who died at Muret fighting against what Strayer (1971b, 123) calls a “political crusade”,[237] and England’s King John I, who was first excommunicated and later became a vassal of Rome.[238] Finally, Innocent IV (143-1254), took a further step to defend the system of absolute papal monarchy (Schatz 1996, 94), identifying the Church with the Pope (papa, qui potest dici ecclesia). For nearly two centuries, the popes stood as the highest authorities in the West (Ullmann 2003,131-147), and the Church enjoyed a golden age in the intellectual sphere, largely thanks to the colossal figure of Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), who managed to reconcileAristotelian philosophy with the Biblical tradition, thereby considerably enriching Catholicism’s theological foundations, allowing for an effective adaptation of traditional dogmas to the reality of his time.[239]
6.4.4 The Legal Consequences of the Papal Victory: The Secularization of Non-ecclesiastical Public Authorities
The conflict between emperors and popes seemed to have culminated with the latter’s supremacy, but in the long run this ecclesiastical separation from civil power ended up backfiring on the papacy, as it favored the emancipation of secular powers from pontifical authority. This is what Strayer (1971a, 251) calls the process of “laici- zation” of society, which started in the thirteenth century. It was not the emperors but rather the kings of the Late Middle Ages who proclaimed their independence from the papacy in the political sphere, basing themselves on the arguments of the Italian jurist and philosopher Marsilius of Padua (1275-1343),[240] who defended the legitimate autonomy of secular power over that of the papacy.[241] This was the very first step in a process which would ultimately culminate in the French Revolution.
6.4.5 Papal Decline and the Fragmentation of Europe
The golden age of the papacy, in general terms, extended until the pontificate of Boniface VIII (1294-1303), the pope who confronted Philip IV of France,[242] the first European monarch to argue that the legitimacy of royal authority did not depend on the papacy, as he held that he was monarch by divine right, duly anointed through the coronation ceremony.[243] After obtaining the authorization of the French Estates General, which he convened for the first time in history in the year 1302, Philip IV (the Fair) sent his troops to seize and imprison the Pope in Anagni (Tierney 2004, 190-191), and managed to relocate the papacy from Rome to Avignon, where it remained under his aegis.
The era of the Avignon Papacy ended with what came to be called the Western Schism, in which Christian Europe beheld with dismay as multiple popes sought to simultaneously assert and exercise their authority, a situation that provoked a process of “constitutional redefinition” (Swanson 1980, 225), intended to reunite the Church.[244] The ensuing 40-year debate resulted in a considerable loss of prestige for the papacy, a profound crisis of papal authority, and an institutional breakdown in the governing structure of the Church (Canning 2011b, 165), that facilitated the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation in the early decades of the sixteenth century.
The religious crisis would, in general terms, have major consequences from the point of view of the history of the European state; by tending to precipitate the fragmentation of Europe, it had the effect of turning kingdoms into essential political units. As Ullmann (1972,189) points out, this happened because: “the tendencies of ecclesiastical thinkers to curtail the pope’s powers ran in a direction diametrically opposed to the tendencies which can be observed in the field of secular government. Whilst ecclesiastical scholars and thinkers were endeavoring to change the ancient constitution of the Church by basing her government upon a broader basis, secular scholars and thinkers were doing their best to strengthen the constitutional and legal position of the monarch, until, in the 16th century, there emerged the stark absolutism of the prince”. The era of independent states succeeded that of Christian universalism.
The decline of papal power would accelerate in the eighteenth century when enlightened despots renounced their divine legitimization, except for in France, where the principle would survive until the fall of the monarchy upon the outbreak of the French Revolution,[245] although the French Church enjoyed considerable autonomy as a result of the adoption of Gallicanism.[246] After 1789, there would be a tremendous backlash against the Church in France, which peaked in 1793 with the introduction of the revolutionary calendar and the celebration of the Festival of the Supreme Being, presided over by Robespierre (Van Kley 2003, 1081-1104). The separation between the Church and state, however, would not be legislatively affirmed until 1905.
The papal states disappeared after the military occupation of Rome by Italian troops on September 20, 1870, although they would reappear in a different form through the establishment of the Vatican State agreed to in the Lateran Accords (February 11, 1929), signed by Pio IX and Benito Mussolini.[247]
6.5