Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism, Christian church that has been the decisive spiritual force in the history of Western civilization. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity.

The Roman Catholic Church traces its history to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Over the course of centuries it developed a highly sophisticated theology and an elaborate organizational structure headed by the papacy, the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the world.

The number of Roman Catholics in the world (nearly 1.1 billion) is greater than that of nearly all other religious traditions. There are more Roman Catholics than all other Christians combined and more Roman Catholics than all Buddhists or Hindus. Although there are more Muslims than Roman Catholics, the number of Roman Catholics is greater than that of the individual traditions of Shīʿite and Sunni Islam.

These incontestable statistical and historical facts suggest that some understanding of Roman Catholicism its history, its institutional structure, its beliefs and practices, and its place in the world is an indispensable component of cultural literacy, regardless of how one may individually answer the ultimate questions of life and death and faith. Without a grasp of what Roman Catholicism is, it is difficult to make historical sense of the Middle Ages, intellectualsense of the works of Thomas Aquinas, literary sense of The Divine Comedy of Dante, artistic sense of the Gothic cathedrals, or musical sense of many of the compositions of Haydn and Mozart.

At one level, of course, the interpretation of Roman Catholicism is closely related to the interpretation of Christianity as such. By its own reading of history, Roman Catholicism originated with the very beginnings of Christianity. An essential component of the definition of any one of the other branches of Christendom, moreover, is its relation to Roman Catholicism: How did Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism come into schism? Was the break between the Church of England and Rome inevitable? Conversely, such questions are essential to the definition of Roman Catholicism itself, even to a definition that adheres strictly to the official Roman Catholic view, according to which the Roman Catholic Church has maintained an unbroken continuity since the days of the Apostles, while all other denominations, from the ancient Copts to the latest storefront church, are deviations from it.

Like any intricate and ancient phenomenon, Roman Catholicism can be described and interpreted from a variety of perspectives and by several methodologies. Thus the Roman Catholic Church itself is a complex institution, for which the usual diagram of a pyramid, extending from the pope at the apex to the believers in the pew, is vastly oversimplified. Within that institution, moreover, sacred congregations, archdioceses and dioceses, provinces, religious orders and societies, seminaries and colleges, parishes and confraternities, and countless other organizations all invite the social scientist to the consideration of power relations, leadership roles, social dynamics, and other sociological phenomena that they uniquely represent. As a world religion among world religions, Roman Catholicism encompasses, within the range of its multicoloured life, features of many other world faiths; thus only the methodology of comparative religion can address them all. Furthermore, because of the influence of Plato and Aristotle on those who developed it, Roman Catholic doctrine must be studied philosophically even to understand its theological vocabulary. Nevertheless, a historical approach is especially appropriate to this task, not only because two millennia of history are represented in the Roman Catholic Church but also because the hypothesis of its continuity with the past, and the divine truth embodied in that continuity, are central to the church’s understanding of itself and essential to the justification of its authority.

For a more detailed treatment of the early church, see Christianity. The present article concentrates on the historical forces that transformed the primitive Christian movement into a church that was recognizably “catholic” that is, possessing identifiable norms of doctrine and life, fixed structures of authority, and a universality (the original meaning of the term catholic) by which the church’s membership could extend, at least in principle, to all of humanity

History Of Roman Catholicism

The emergence of Catholic Christianity

At least in an inchoate form, all the elements of catholicity doctrine, authority, universality are evident in the New Testament. The Acts of the Apostles begins with a depiction of the demoralized band of the disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem, but by the end of its account of the first decades, the Christian community has developed some nascent criteria for determining the difference between authentic (“apostolic”) and inauthentic teaching and behaviour. It has also moved beyond the geographic borders of Judaism, as the dramatic sentence of the closing chapter announces: “And thus we came to Rome” (Acts 28:14). The later epistles of the New Testament admonish their readers to “guard what has been entrusted to you” (1 Timothy 6:20) and to “contend for the faith that was once for all handed down to the holy ones” (Jude 3), and they speak about the Christian community itself in exalted and even cosmic terms as the church, “which is [Christ’s] body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way” (Ephesians 1:23). It is clear even from the New Testament that these catholic features were proclaimed in response to internal challenges as well as external ones; indeed, scholars have concluded that the early church was far more pluralistic from the very beginning than the somewhat idealized portrayal in the New Testament might suggest.

As such challenges continued in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, further development of catholic teaching became necessary. The schema of apostolic authority formulated by the bishop of Lyon, Irenaeus (c. 130–c. 200), sets forth systematically the three main sources of authority for catholic Christianity: the Scriptures of the New Testament (alongside the Hebrew Scriptures, or “Old Testament,” which Christians interpret as prophesying the coming of Jesus); the episcopal centres established by the Apostles as the seats of their identifiable successors in the governance of the church (traditionally at Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome); and the apostolic tradition of normative doctrine as the “rule of faith” and the standard of Christian conduct. Each of the three sources depended on the other two for validation; thus, one could determine which purportedly scriptural writings were genuinely apostolic by appealing to their conformity with acknowledged apostolic tradition and to the usage of the apostolic churches, and so on. This was not a circular argument but an appeal to a single catholic authority of apostolicity, in which the three elements were inseparable. Inevitably, however, there arose conflicts of doctrine and jurisdiction, of worship and pastoral practice, and of social and political strategy among the three sources, as well as between equally “apostolic” bishops. When bilateral means of resolving such conflicts proved insufficient, there could be recourse to either the precedent of convoking an apostolic council (Acts 15) or to what Irenaeus had already called “the preeminent authority of this church [of Rome], with which, as a matter of necessity, every church should agree.” Catholicism was on the way to becoming Roman Catholic.

The emergence of Roman Catholicism

Internal factors

Several historical factors, which vary in importance depending on the time, help to account for the emergence of Roman Catholicism. The two factors that are often regarded as most decisive—at any rate by the champions of the primacy of Rome in the church—are the primacy of Peter among the Twelve Apostles of Christ and the identification of Peter with the church of Rome. Although there are considerable variations in the enumerations of the Apostles in the New Testament (Matthew 10:2–5; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16; Acts 1:13) and further variations in the manuscripts, what they all have in common is that they list (in Matthew’s words) “first, Simon called Peter.” “But I have prayed,” Jesus said to Peter, “that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32) and “Feed my lambs.…Tend my sheep.…Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). In perhaps the most important passage, at least as it was later understood, Jesus said to Peter,

According to Roman Catholic teaching, this is the charter of the church—i.e., of the Roman Catholic Church.

The identification of this obvious primacy of Peter in the New Testament with the primacy of the church of Rome is not self-evident. For one thing, the New Testament is almost silent about a connection between Peter and Rome. The reference at the close of the Acts of the Apostles to the arrival of the Apostle Paul in Rome gives no indication that Peter was there as the leader of the Christian community or even as a resident, and the epistle that Paul had addressed somewhat earlier to the church at Rome devotes its entire closing chapter to greetings addressed to many believers in the city but fails to mention Peter’s name. On the other hand, in what is presumably a reference to a Christian congregation, the first of the two epistles ascribed to Peter uses the phrase “the chosen one at Babylon” (1 Peter 5:13), Babylon being a code name for Rome. It is, moreover, the unanimous testimony of early Christian tradition that Peter, having been at Jerusalem and then at Antioch, finally came to Rome, where he was crucified (with his head down, according to Christian tradition, in deference to the Crucifixion of Christ); there was and still is, however, disagreement about the exact location of his grave. Writing at about the end of the 2nd century, the North African theologian Tertullian (c. 160–c. 225) spoke ofRome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority of the apostles themselves. How happy is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! where Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s! where Paul wins his crown in a death like that of John [the Baptist]!

Indeed, Rome could claim affiliation with two apostles, Peter and Paul, as well as numerous other martyrs for the faith.

In addition to this apostolic argument for Roman primacy—and often interwoven with it—was the argument that Rome should be honoured because of its position as the capital of the Roman Empire: the church in the prime city ought to be prime among the churches. Rome drew tourists, pilgrims, and other visitors from throughout the empire and beyond and eventually became, for church no less than for state, what Jerusalem had originally been called, “the church from which every church took its start, the mother city [metropolis] of the citizens of the new covenant.” Curiously, after the newly converted emperor Constantine (died 337) transferred the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330, Rome’s civil authority was weakened, but its spiritual authority was strengthened: the title “supreme priest” (pontifex maximus), which had been the prerogative of the emperor, now devolved upon the pope. The transfer of the capital also occasioned a dispute between Rome (“Old Rome”) and Constantinople (“New Rome”) over whether the new capital should be entitled to a commensurate ecclesiastical preeminence alongside the see (seat of a bishop’s office) of Peter. The second and fourth ecumenical councils of the church (at Constantinople in 381 and at Chalcedon in 451) both legislated such a position for the see of Constantinople, but Rome refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of that prerogative.

It was also at the Council of Chalcedon which was convoked to resolve the doctrinal controversy between Antioch and Alexandria over the person of Jesus Christ that the council fathers accepted the formula proposed by Pope Leo I (reigned 440–461), which offered the orthodox teaching of Christ’s Incarnation and of the union of both his natures. Recognizing the authority with which Leo spoke, the council fathers declared, “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo!” The council was only one in a long series of occasions when the authority of Rome, sometimes by invitation and sometimes by its own intervention, served as a court of appeal in jurisdictional and dogmatic disputes that had erupted in various parts of Christendom. During the first six centuries of the church, the bishop of every major Christian centre was, at one time or another, charged with and convicted of heresy except the bishop of Rome (though his turn would come). The titles that the see of Rome gradually assumed and the claims of primacy that it made within the life and governance of the church were, in many ways, little more than the formalization of what had become widely accepted practice.

External factors

In addition to various internal developments, at least two external factors contributed decisively at the beginning of the Middle Ages to the development of Roman Catholicism as a distinct form of Christianity. One was the rise of Islam in the 7th century. During the decade following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, his followers captured three of the five “patriarchates” of the early church Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem leaving only Rome and Constantinople, located at opposite ends of the Mediterranean and, eventually, also at opposite ends of the Schism of 1054.

The other external force that encouraged the emergence of Roman Catholicism as a distinct entity was the collapse of governmental and administrative structures in the Western Roman Empire in 476 and the migration into Europe of Germanic and other tribes that eventually established themselves as ruling elites. (The Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, survived as the Byzantine Empire until 1453.) Some of these peoples, particularly the Goths, had already become Christian before their arrival in western Europe. The form of Christianity they had adopted in the 4th century, generally known as Arianism, was, according to the ecumenical Council of Nicaea, heretical in its doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore, the future of medieval Europe belonged not to the tribes that had converted to an unorthodox Christianity but to the tribes, particularly the Franks, that had adhered to traditional Germanic religion and later became Christian. The Franks, after their arrival in Gaul, accepted Catholic teaching on the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the authority of the Catholic bishops of Gaul. The coronation by the pope of the Frankish king Charlemagne (c.742–814) as emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day 800 was the culmination of the long-standing alliance of the Franks and the church.

The early medieval papacy

During the centuries that marked the transition from the early to the medieval church, Roman Catholicism benefited from the leadership of several outstanding popes. Two of these popes—who are called “Saint” by the Roman Catholic Church and who are the only two popes called “the Great” by historians merit special consideration, even in a brief article. Pope Leo I was, even for his pagan contemporaries, the embodiment of the ideal of “Romanness” in his resistance to the barbarian conquerors. In 452, with the help of the Apostles Peter and Paul and a host of angels (according to papal tradition), he persuaded Attila and the Huns to withdraw to the banks of the Danube, thus saving Rome from destruction. He repeated this triumph in 455, when his intercession with the Vandals mitigated their depredations in the city. His aforementioned intervention in the doctrinal controversy among Eastern theologians over the person of Christ and the role played by his Tome of 449 in the formula of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 were part of a concerted campaign by Leo to consolidate and extend the jurisdiction of the see of Rome to remote areas such as Gaul, Spain, and North Africa. This extended jurisdiction was officially acknowledged by the Roman emperor.

Meeting of Attila and Pope Leo, colossal marble relief by Alessandro Algardi, 1646–53; in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.

Pope Gregory I (reigned 590–604), more than any pope before or after him, laid the foundations for the Roman Catholicism of the Middle Ages. He sent Augustine of Canterbury(died 604/605) to bring about the conversion of England to the Christian faith, and he corresponded with the rulers of the Merovingian Franks and with the bishops of Gothic Spain. He built up papal administration in central Italy and negotiated with the Lombard rulers who occupied the peninsula. Rejecting the universalist claims of the patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory asserted papal primacy over moral issues and emphasized the humility of his office by styling himself the “servant of the servants of God.” His commitment to a life of service is demonstrated in his Pastoral Rule, a guidebook for bishops that outlines their obligations to teach and to serve as moral exemplars to their flocks. Gregory the Great was also one of the most important patrons of the Benedictine monastic movement, to which he owed a considerable part of his spiritual upbringing; he wrote a life of St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–c.547).

Notwithstanding the contributions of these popes, medieval Roman Catholicism would not have taken the form it did without the conversion of the emperor Constantine in 312. Constantine legalized Christianity, promoted its interests, and took an active role in its institutional and doctrinal development. Even though some supported a heretical version of Christianity, all subsequent emperors except Julian the Apostate favoured the faith. Theodosius I (347–395), however, made Catholic Christianity the official religion of the empire in 381 and prohibited the worship of pagan gods in 392. After Constantine every branch of Christendom had to work with rulers who claimed to profess its faith, and the manner in which the two main branches of the church (in Rome and Constantinople; before the Reformation) dealt with the state had a considerable impact on their development. As the church approached the conclusion of the first millennium of its history, it had become the legatee of the spiritual, administrative, and intellectual resources of the early centuries.

Most of the preceding analysis pertains to the whole of Christendom. The Eastern Orthodox Church has almost as large a share in the developments of the early centuries of Christianity as does the Roman Catholic Church, and even Protestantism looks to these centuries for its authentication. However, the Middle Ages may be defined as the era in which the distinctively Roman Catholic forms and institutions of the church were established. The following chronological account of medieval developments shows how these forms and institutions emerged from the context of the shared history of the early Christian centuries.

The church of the early Middle Ages

During the thousand years of the Middle Ages, from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, the papacy matured and established itself as the preeminent authority over the church. Religious life assumed new forms or reformed established ones, and missionaries expanded the geographic boundaries of the faith. The most dramatic example of this missionary activity was the effort to retake the Holy Land by force during the Crusades, but less-violent missions were undertaken in pagan Europe and in the Islamic world. Evangelical missions were most frequently led by monks, who also preserved the traditions of Classical and Christian learning throughout the so-called Dark Ages. After the year 1000, cathedral schools replaced monasteries as cultural centres, and new forms of learning emerged. The cathedral schools were in turn supplanted by the universities, which promoted a “Catholic” learning that was inspired, oddly enough, by the transmission of the work of Aristotle through Arab scholars. Scholasticism, the highly formalized philosophical and theological systems developed by the medieval masters, dominated Roman Catholic thought into the 20th century and contributed to the formation of the European intellectual tradition. With the rise of the universities, the threefold structure of the ruling classes of Christendom was established: imperium (political authority), sacerdotium (ecclesiastical authority), and studium (intellectual authority). The principle that each of these classes was independent of the other two within its sphere of authority had enduring consequences in Europe.

The concept of Christendom

By the 10th century the religious and cultural community known as Christendom had come into being and was poised to enter a prolonged period of growth and expansion. Important progress had taken place well before this period, however. Beginning in the last years of the Roman Empire, the central institutions of medieval Catholic Christianity had gradually evolved, laying the foundation for the great advances of the later Middle Ages and beyond.

One of the most significant developments of the late ancient and early medieval periods—for Roman Catholicism and all forms of Christianity was the emergence of Christian theology. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christian apologists attempted to explain their faith to their pagan contemporaries in the philosophical vocabulary of the age; among the most outstanding of such scholars was Origen (c. 185–c. 254), who developed a thoroughgoing Christian Neoplatonism. It was not until the 4th and 5th centuries, however, that the basic Christian doctrines were established. The Council of Nicaea and subsequent councils formulated the doctrines concerning the nature of the Godhead and the person of Christ. Subsequently, a number of Christian thinkers the Latin Church Fathers—provided commentary on a wide range of issues, including the meaning of the sacraments, the Trinity, soteriology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. The most prominent and influential of these early theologians was St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430). His teachings on the sacraments, salvation, and the Trinity remained the starting point of discussion for Christian thinkers throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, and his monumental City of God (413–426/427) provided a Christian philosophy of history and a new way to understand human society and its relationship to God. Augustine’s works were a model of learned and elegant Latin style, as were the sermons of St. Ambrose(339–397), whose reputation for sanctity and celibacy—as well as his excommunication of Theodosius in 390—set important precedents. Another Church Father, St. Jerome (c. 347–419/420), produced a Latin translation of the Bible the Vulgate—that would serve as the standard text for centuries to come. Later ecclesiastics, including Caesarius of Arles (c. 470–542) and Isidore of Sevilla (c. 560–636), produced a formidable body of Christian commentary and other scholarship that built upon the foundation of the Latin Church Fathers.

During the late ancient and early medieval periods there was also a significant growth in monasticism, the origins of which are traditionally associated with the Apostles in Jerusalem. Although the Apostles were thought to be the precursors of Christian monastics, they were not the founders of the movement, which began in Egypt with St. Anthony (c. 290–356). In imitation of Jesus’ wandering in the desert and to combat the temptations of the Devil, Anthony undertook a life of isolation, asceticism, contemplation, and piety that inspired numerous imitators. These first monks often went to great extremes in their acts of self-abasement before God, and their eremitic lifestyle remained the ideal for religious persons until the introduction of cenobitic, or communal, monasticism by St. Pachomius (c. 290–346) in the early 4th century. Among the many advocates of monasticism were St. Basil the Great(329–379), the father of Eastern monasticism, and St. John Cassian (360–435), whose writings were influential in the development of Western monasticism. The true father of Western monasticism, however, was St. Benedict of Nursia, whose rule was noted for its humanity and flexibility. The Rule of St. Benedict was the standard monastic rule in the Western church by the 9th century, and it served as the basis for the later Cluniac and Cistercian reform movements.

During the early Middle Ages, tensions between Rome and Constantinople increased, leading ultimately to the Schism of 1054. Separated by language (Latin and Greek, respectively) and liturgy, the Western and Eastern churches were divided further in the early 8th century by the imperial program of iconoclasm (the prohibition of the veneration of images of Christ and the saints), increased taxation of Rome by Constantinople, and the Byzantine emperor’s failure to protect the papacy and its territories from the depredations of the Lombard invaders. Angered by these developments, Pope Gregory III (reigned 731–741) sought an alliance with the Carolingian mayor of the palace, Charles Martel (c. 688–741). Although no agreement was reached, the initiative set the stage for a revolution in papal diplomacy and in the institutional orientation of the church at Rome. By the end of the 8th century, the church had become a fully Western entity, severing its alliance with the emperors in Constantinople and establishing a new alliance with the Carolingian dynasty (established in 751). The alliance played a critical role in the growth of the papal states. The establishment of the Carolingian-papal bond and the coronation of the first Carolingian king also provided the occasion for the composition of one of the great forgeries of the Middle Ages, the Donation of Constantine (generally thought to have been written in the mid-750s), which was based on pious legends that had been known since the 5th century and was subsequently used to justify papal claims of primacy. Although the formal break between the two churches did not come until three centuries later, differences over the insertion of the Filioque (Latin: “and from the Son”) clause in the creed, which confirmed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and the failure to invite a Carolingian representative to the Second Council of Nicaea further heightened tensions between East and West.

The Carolingian period is widely recognized as the high point in the development of the early medieval church. Beyond their alliance with the papacy, Carolingian rulers instituted a number of church reforms and began a cultural revival that directly influenced religious life. Many of the most important reforms were implemented by the greatest of the Carolingians, Charlemagne, and were intended to reestablish the proper organization of the episcopal hierarchy and to abolish the drunkenness, sexual immorality, and ignorance of the clergy. His royal and imperial decrees mandated the establishment of monastic and cathedral schools to teach both the laity and the clergy so that the fundamentals of the faith would be known to all. He attracted religious scholars to his court and rewarded them with important ecclesiastical posts. Charlemagne also presided over church councils that combated heresy, reformed the behaviour of the clergy, and defined church teaching. His efforts bore fruit in the 9th century, when theologians discussed the question of predestination and began the debate—which would reach its culmination in the 13th century—over the exact nature of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Well before Charlemagne’s coronation, the papacy had made overtures to Carolingian rulers. Although Charles Martel rejected papal pleas for help, he did support the missionary activity of the Anglo-Saxon monk Boniface (c. 675–754), whose preaching to the Saxons and reform of the Frankish church was sanctioned by Rome. Boniface’s ties to Rome contributed to the growing interest in that city and to the devotion to St. Peter that characterized religious belief in the kingdom and especially in the Carolingian house. The relationship with Rome was formalized by Charlemagne’s father, Pippin III (died 768), who usurped the Frankish throne with papal approval and was later crowned king by the pope. But the event of greatest significance for relations between the papacy and Carolingian rulers was Charlemagne’s coronation as emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III (reigned 795–816). With few exceptions, during the rest of the Middle Ages emperors were created by papal coronation. The destinies of the two institutions were thus inextricably linked. This development contributed to contemporary understandings of the proper relationship between church and state and even to understandings of the church itself; it also led to controversy between later emperors and popes over the matter of universal authority in Christendom.

A period of decadence

The advances made in church organization and in reformation of religious life could not be sustained in the post-Carolingian world. Indeed, the 10th century has traditionally been regarded as a period of decay and corruption within the church. As a result of the breakup of the Carolingian empire and a new wave of invasions, the church suffered materially and spiritually as both Christian and non-Christian warriors exploited it and its wealth. The monasteries suffered most during this period, but the general turmoil of the time contributed to the failure of the church to maintain the discipline and integrity of religious life. The laity suffered from the ignorance of rural priests, and clerics of all ranks were guilty of concubinage and other abuses.

The papacy itself offers the best example of the abysmal situation of the church in the 10th and 11th centuries. The decline of Carolingian power left it without a protector and once again subject to the whims of the local aristocracy, who struggled among themselves for control of the office and its extensive territories in central Italy. The popes appointed by Italian nobles were sometimes violent and debauched and did little more than promote their family interests. Ill-suited for any pastoral role, they were sometimes not even priests when appointed; according to tradition, one new pope, Benedict IX, was an adolescent boy. Some of these popes had mistresses and children, and many came to power through bribery or other illicit means. Even imperial intervention beginning in the late 10th century failed to bring an end to papal corruption, because local families reasserted their control over Rome during imperial absences.

Despite the decadence of this period, a number of developments offered promise for the future. Even the papacy enjoyed periods of renewed vigour during these dark times. Popes Leo VII (reigned 936–939) and Agapetus II (reigned 946–955) were active reformers, and Benedict VIII (reigned 1012–24) issued legislation against simony. During the papacy of Sylvester II (reigned 999–1003), who was recognized as the most learned man of his time, the dignity of the office was briefly restored. Moreover, no matter how depraved the reigning pope may have been, Rome remained the spiritual capital of the Western church. Since at least the Carolingian period, devotion to St. Peter had been growing throughout Europe, and it remained an important characteristic of religiosity in the 10th and 11th centuries. Peter’s growing prestige attracted numerous pilgrims to Rome, even during times when his successor was devoid of any virtue.

The evolution of the church was also influenced by events outside Rome. One of the most important of these was the resurrection of imperial authority and the Carolingian ideal of government by the German king Otto I (912–973). Under him the bishops and greater abbots were drawn into royal service and enriched with estates and counties, for which they paid homage. Otto conquered northern Italy and was crowned emperor in 962 by Pope John XII(reigned 955–964). In the following year, Otto deposed the pope for immoral behaviour (tradition holds that John died of a stroke while in bed with a woman). Both Otto and his grandson Otto III (980–1002) appointed and removed popes, presided at synods, and extended their authority over the church. Otto III, an enlightened ruler, appointed as pope his former tutor—Gerbert of Aurillac, who took the name Sylvester II—with the intention of reviving a Christian Roman empire. Otto’s death at an early age ended that dream, and the papacy became mired in local politics for the next half century until another German ruler intervened in its affairs.

The revival of imperial power in Germany would have lasting influence on the development of the church, as would the foundation of the reformed monastery of Cluny in Burgundy in 909. Indeed, the first stirrings of the great reform movement that transformed the church in the 11th century are thought to have taken place at Cluny. Established by Duke William I, the Pious, of Aquitaine, Cluny rose to prominence under the direction of abbots Odo, Odilo, and Hugh, who were the spiritual leaders of their age. From its beginning, Cluny enjoyed close ties with Rome because William placed the monastery under the protection of St. Peter and St. Paul and the pope. William also ensured Cluny’s independence by forbidding any secular or religious authority from interfering in its affairs. Cluny developed a reputation as the highest form of religious life—indeed, as a paradise on earth—and its abbots spread Cluniac practices by reforming other monasteries. Cluniac monks lived strictly canonical lives, opposing simony and clerical unchastity. They also participated in an elaborate liturgical routine, singing the monastic hours (liturgical or devotional services for use at certain hours of the day, according to the monastic daily schedule) and offering prayers for the dead and the monastery’s numerous benefactors. Cluny was not the only reformed house—Gorze was the most notable of several others but it was the greatest, and the ideals it embodied set an important precedent.

Popular Christianity c. 1000

By the 11th century the greater part of central Christendom had been divided into bishops’ dioceses and individual parishes. But in the northern and western regions the proliferation of small private churches had not yet been wholly absorbed, and the existence of proprietary and exempt enclaves continued until the Reformation and beyond. The priest, in rural districts usually a villein of the lord (subject to the lord but not to others), cultivated his acres of glebe (revenue lands of the parish church), celebrated mass on Sundays and feast days, recited some of the hours, and saw that his flock was baptized, anointed, and buried. Lay people normally received Holy Communion four times a year—at Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the Feast of the Assumption (August 15). Auricular (privately heard) confession was widespread but not universal.

Despite the organizational confusion of the time, the early 11th century was a period of intense religious activity at all levels of society. This activity is illustrated by the number of newly built churches, which one contemporary described as a “white mantle.” (Some scholars have argued that the increase in religious activity about the years 1000 and 1033 was related to expectations of the apocalypse.) The first popular religious movements of the Middle Ages also began during this time. The most important of these was the Peace of God movement, a series of church councils clustered primarily in the years preceding the millennium of the birth of Jesus and the millennium of the Passion and later incorporated into the broader institutional fabric of medieval society. Originally intended to protect the church and the clergy, as well as the poor, from the demands of the growing number of castellans (members of the lower nobility who possessed castles), the peace movement later promoted religious reform and denounced simony and clerical marriage.

Central to the success of the peace movement and a key element of spirituality about the year 1000 was the cult of the saints and relics. Contemporary sources describe the peace councils as great displays of the relics of saints, which attracted large crowds of laity whose presence and enthusiasm supported the church’s reform efforts. The saints were believed to punish those who harmed the church and to cure their devotees of various maladies. In 994 the display of a saint’s relics was thought to have cured the population of Aquitaine of an outbreak of St. Anthony’s fire (probably ergotism). These beliefs may explain the popularity of pilgrimages to shrines such as those of the Apostles at Rome, St. James at Santiago de Compostela (Spain), the Magi at Cologne (Germany), and many others. Jerusalem, too, became an increasingly important destination for pilgrims, among whom was Fulk Nerra (c. 970–1040), the count of Anjou, who made three such journeys after pillaging and burning monasteries in the territories of his enemies. Countless other men and women traveled to Jerusalem in the early 1030s, probably to witness the return of Christ.

Lay religious enthusiasm associated with the peace movement and the cult of the saints also contributed to the first expressions of heresy since late antiquity. Although there were far fewer such incidents in the 11th century than in the 12th and 13th centuries, there were more in the 11th century than in the previous five centuries combined. In Italy, northern and southern France, and all of western Europe, according to contemporary chroniclers, heretics denied the church’s teachings on baptism, the Eucharist, marriage, and related matters; they also attacked the growing claims of ecclesiastical authority and on one occasion even destroyed the crucifix in the local church. The heretics lived simple and chaste lives and sought to follow the Gospels, rather than an increasingly hierarchical and worldly church, as best they could. Despite their efforts to imitate the Apostles, the official church treated them harshly: in 1022 a group of heretics was burned at the stake, the first execution for heresy since antiquity. In one of history’s many ironies, the ideals of sexual purity and apostolic poverty represented by the heretics and by the orthodox popular enthusiasts were eventually embraced by the church, becoming part of the papal reform movement of the later 11th century.

The church of the High Middle Ages

The developments in the church around the year 1000 foreshadowed the dramatic events of the later 11th century, which in turn stimulated the profound growth of the church in the High Middle Ages. The reforms of Gregory VII and the movement associated with him, sometimes recognized as the most important reformation in church history, radically restructured the church and its teachings. The foundation of the papal monarchy was laid during the 11th century, and the medieval papacy reached its greatest heights in the 12th and 13th centuries, especially under Innocent III (reigned 1198–1216). Moreover, both the Gregorian Reform movement and the broader social and cultural developments of the 11th century contributed to the spiritual and intellectual blossoming of the 12th century. Scholars and churchmen rediscovered the works of Aristotle, interpreted them in new institutional settings, and forged the medieval synthesis of faith and reason in the 13th century. The new forms of religious life that emerged, both orthodox and heterodox, were foreshadowed by Gregory VII’s devotion to St. Peter or were inspired by Gregorian reform efforts. They reflected the transition from a faith that emphasized the divine majesty of God to one that focused on the suffering and humanity of Jesus.

Gregorian Reform

Although it was part of a broader reformation of the church that originated in the 10th century, the papal reform, or Gregorian Reform, movement, which began with the appointment of Pope Leo IX in 1049, is arguably the most important event in the church’s history. Intended to return the church to its original purity and to abolish simony and clerical marriage, the movement revolutionized the church’s organization, establishing the hierarchical structure headed by the pope that has come to characterize the institution. The movement also emphasized the central role of the priesthood and the sacraments in Christian life and asserted the importance of morally incorrupt clergy. The movement’s efforts to remove lay interference in church affairs laid the foundation for later ideas concerning the separation of church and state. And, although it was late to join, the papacy made reform a truly universal movement that transformed both church and society.

The first phase of the Gregorian Reform movement resulted from chaos in Rome. In the mid-1040s three claimants to the throne of St. Peter held sway in central Italy. Two popes were candidates of rival aristocratic families, and the third, though widely respected for his piety, allegedly committed simony to receive his office. To resolve the crisis and to ensure that he would receive the imperial crown from a legitimate pope, the pious Henry III (1017–56) held a council at Sutri in 1046 at which the three popes were deposed and Clement II (reigned 1046–47) was appointed the new pope. Clement and his immediate successors were short-lived popes, however, and ultimately Henry appointed his cousin, Bruno of Toul, who became Pope Leo IX (reigned 1049–54). Leo introduced the spirit of reform as well as a broader conception of papal authority, both of which were dramatically displayed at the Synod of Reims in 1049. Leo, in the presence of the relics of St. Remigius, demanded that the bishops confirm their innocence of simony; those who did not he deposed. Leo established a papal presence north of the Alps in other church councils at which he promoted reform and denounced both simony and clerical marriage.

Leo’s reign was not without setbacks, however. His war with the Normans was a disaster, and his appointment of Humbert of Silva Candida as ambassador to Constantinople led to the Schism of 1054. Despite these setbacks, Leo’s reign was a pivotal one in the history of the church, and his reform legislation set important precedents. He also surrounded himself with like-minded clerics and reformers who transformed the culture of Rome; from Germany he brought Humbert and Frederick of Lorraine (the future pope Stephen IX; reigned 1057–58), and from Italy he recruited Peter Damian (1007–72). Humbert and Damian wrote influential treatises attacking simony and clerical marriage and served the pope as cardinals. Leo’s program was continued by his successors, one of whom, Nicholas II (reigned 1059–61), reformed the process by which the pope was chosen. In the papal election decree of 1059, which was issued during the minority of the German king Henry IV (1050–1106), the right and duty of papal election was assigned to the cardinals, tacitly eliminating the role of the king of Germany even though vague reference to his notification was made. The decree, which was intended to eliminate lay interference in church affairs, reveals the belief held by some at the time that lay appointment, or investiture, of clergy was an act of simony and the cause of the church’s ills.

The reign of Gregory VII

Hildebrand, who succeeded in 1073 as Gregory VII (reigned 1073–85), is perhaps best known for his struggle with Henry IV, but he had long served the church, and some scholars regard him as the main force behind papal reform. Indeed, the movement derives its name from his zealous defense of its ideals and his staunch advocacy of papal primacy. Gregory’s actions were shaped more than anything by his devotion to St. Peter and his belief that the pope was Peter’s successor. His legislation mandating clerical celibacy was issued partly because his immediate predecessors had advocated it; he was further motivated by his desire to restore what he perceived as the right order of the world. His efforts to abolish simony and to limit lay interference in the church were motivated by similar concerns. To promote reform, Gregory held councils, issued legislation, called on the bishops and princes of the world to remove simoniac clergy, and even allowed simoniac or unchaste clergy to be rejected by the laity.

Even more directly influential was Gregory’s centralization of the church. This initiative, clearly outlined in the Dictatus papae (“Dictates of the Pope”), a list of 27 short statements (included in his official letter collection), reflected his belief that the pope, as the successor of St. Peter, inherits a commission from Christ to rule over the church. Gregory also believed that the pope is sanctified by the merit of St. Peter and that Rome alone defines the true faith. Through canonical elections, Roman and local synods, the publication of canonical collections and polemical manifestos, his appointment of plenipotentiary legates (representatives with full power to negotiate), and his immediate control of diocesan bishops, Gregory spun a web in which every thread led to Rome. The scattered priests and distant bishops gradually became a distinct class, the clergy, with a law and a loyalty of their own. Although Gregory died a lonely exile, his principles of reform found reception all over Europe, and the new generation of bishops was Gregorian in sympathy and obedient in practice to papal commands in a way unknown to their predecessors.

The Investiture Controversy: Gregory VII to Calixtus II

Gregory’s reform activities have been overshadowed by his controversy with Henry IV over the investiture of the clergy. A right and duty of kings and emperors since the time of Charlemagne, lay investiture had become increasingly important to secular rulers who depended on ecclesiastical support for their authority. In ancient canon law, bishops were elected by the clergy and the people, and entrance upon office followed lawful consecration. After royal claims gradually transformed election into royal appointment, admission to office was effected by the bestowal, or investiture, by the lord of ring and staff (symbols of the episcopal office), preceded by an act of homage. This ceremony was highly evocative of simony, both because a layman bestowed a spiritual benefice and because money was often offered or demanded. During the 11th century, lay investiture came under increasing criticismas an act of simony and a violation of the independence of the church. Supporters of the traditional role of the emperor in ecclesiastical elections defended lay investiture by appealing to immemorial practice, which had been accepted and even enjoined by the papacy.

Although the relationship between Gregory and Henry IV started promisingly, it quickly deteriorated because of a disagreement over events in Milan, where a reform group (the Patarines) struggled with traditional elements in the local church over succession to the bishop’s throne. The pope sided with the reformers, and Henry and his advisers supported the rival candidate for the bishop’s office in this important city. The involvement of Henry and his advisers in the affairs of the church of Milan brought papal condemnation and excommunication to the advisers. Henry’s association with the excommunicated advisers and his continued intervention increased tensions with Rome. His disobedience as much as his insistence on the right of lay investiture, which was not formally condemned until 1078, brought about a break with Gregory by the end of 1075.

Beyond the matter of lay investiture and the civil war brewing in Germany, Gregory and Henry were at odds over the nature of authority in the church—Henry claimed power over the activities of the church as the divinely appointed vice-regent of Christ, and Gregory presented himself as heir to the commission over all souls given by Christ to St. Peter (Matthew 16:18–19). On a more practical level, the controversy raised questions concerning the king’s authority over the church in his realm, the limits of church law, and the papal coronation of emperors.

In a letter of late 1075, after the impasse over Milan, Gregory chastised Henry for appointing bishops in Italy and for other failures, and the papal legate bearing the letter may have threatened Henry with excommunication. In response, Henry denounced Gregory as a false monk and demanded that he abdicate, and the imperial bishops renounced their obedience to the pope. At the Lenten synod in 1076, Gregory declared Henry excommunicated and deposed, and he released Henry’s subjects from their vows of loyalty. Gregory’s actions emboldened the opposition to Henry among the nobility, which agreed to meet, with Gregory in attendance, to decide Henry’s fate. In one of the most dramatic events of the Middle Ages, Henry journeyed to meet Gregory at Canossa in the winter of 1077 and, barefoot in the snow, sought forgiveness as a penitent sinner from the pope. Gregory had no choice but to lift the ban of excommunication and restore his rival to the church. Once absolved, Henry was able to reestablish himself in Germany and defeat the rebellion. Yet he continued to oppose Gregory, who excommunicated the king again in 1080 to little avail. Now secure in Germany, Henry invaded Italy, drove Gregory from Rome, and replaced him with Guibert of Ravenna, the antipope Clement III. Apparently defeated by Henry, Gregory died in exile because, as Gregory said, he “loved justice and hated iniquity” but the ideals he espoused, as well as the controversy he engendered, continued into the next century.

Gregory VII, though defending the independence of the church, was in fact tolerant of royal appointments that were free from simony. Pope Urban II (reigned 1088–99) was equally inconsistent, though in other ways he was a reformer. Upon his accession as pope, Paschal II (reigned 1099–1118) immediately condemned lay investiture, thus precipitating the crisis in England between Anselm (1033/34–1109), archbishop of Canterbury, and King Henry I (1069–1135). This and a similar crisis in France were settled by a compromise. Election (by the cathedral chapter) was to be free and lay investiture was waived, but homage before the bestowal of the fief was allowed. Meanwhile, Paschal at odds with the German king Henry V(1086–1125), who demanded imperial coronation—suddenly offered to renounce all church property granted by the king if lay investiture were also abandoned. Henry accepted, but the bishops refused the terms; thereupon the king seized the pope, who agreed to lay investiture under duress. By this time, however, a large majority of bishops were Gregorians, and the pope was persuaded to retract.

Eleven years later Pope Calixtus II (reigned 1119–24) accepted the Concordat of Worms (1122), according to which free election by ecclesiastics was to be followed by investiture (without staff and ring, which were granted by the church) and homage to the king. This agreement ended a strife of 50 years, during which pamphleteers on both sides had revived every kind of claim to supremacy and God-given authority. Although formally a compromise, the settlement was in effect a victory for the monarch, for he could usually control the election. Nevertheless, the war of ideologies had exposed the weakness of the emperor, who in the last resort had to admit the spiritual authority of the pope over all Christians.

The Crusades

The increased authority of the papacy and the relative decline in the power of the emperor became clear in the unforeseen emergence of the Crusades as a major preoccupation of Europe. Gregory VII hoped to lead an army to defend Eastern Christians after their disastrous defeat by the Seljuq Turks at Manzikert (present Malazgirt, Turkey) in 1071. Faced with the loss of Asia Minor and the continued expansion of the Turks, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1057–1118) appealed for help to Pope Urban II in 1095. Urban’s celebrated call to the Crusade at Clermont (France) in 1095 was unexpectedly effective, placing him at the head of a large army of volunteers motivated by religious zeal and other more-mundane concerns. Although the capture of Jerusalem (1099) and the establishment of a Latin kingdom in Palestine were offset by disasters and quarrels, the papacy gained greatly in prestige and strengthened its position in relation to the emperor and Germany, which avoided participation in this first of many Crusades because of the ongoing Investiture Controversy. For more than two centuries, the Crusades remained a powerful movement headed by the pope. Numerous Crusades were waged in the Holy Land, and the Crusading ideal was applied to military and religious campaigns in Spain and eastern Europe. Later popes launched Crusades against heretics and opponents of papal authority and sanctioned the emergence of military orders. The Crusades thus reflected the widespread devotion to the church and to its leader, the pope.

The papacy at its height: the 12th and 13th centuries

Gregory VII has often been portrayed as an innovator who lacked both authentic predecessors and authentic successors. It must be affirmed nonetheless that the later history of the papacy, modern as well as medieval, was shaped by what he and his followers did, and the continuing disabilities of the medieval papacy were largely the result of what they left undone. The hierarchical and sacerdotal structure of the late medieval and modern church owes much to the 11th-century reformers, though there had been earlier steps in its development. Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, the papacy assumed a greater role in the direction of both church and society. The popes continued to exert their traditional authority over matters of doctrine and faith and presided over councils that ordered religious life and practice. The papal court became the court of last appeal, and the assertion of papal jurisdiction even into secular matters “by reason of sin” (ratio peccati) greatly expanded papal authority and sometimes led to conflicts with secular powers. The dispute over authority in the church, first evident in the Investiture Controversy, emerged repeatedly throughout the 12th and 13th centuries. The failure to resolve the matter of succession to the papal throne led to schisms that sometimes worsened imperial and papal relations. Impatience with the pace and the nature of reform also caused problems and contributed to the spread of heresy.

Much of the drama of papal history in this period derived from conflicts between popes and secular rulers in the empire, as well as in France and England. As noted above, contested papal elections led to schism and to church-state controversy in the 12th century and afterward. The election of 1159, for example, brought about a prolonged schism during which the emperor Frederick Barbarossa (c. 1123–90) promoted a series of antipopes who he hoped would be supportive of his policies. Frederick had previously run afoul of Pope Adrian IV (reigned 1154–59), who seemingly asserted that the emperor received his title as a beneficium (benefice), which would have entailed that the emperor was the pope’s vassal. Although not as serious as the Investiture Controversy, Frederick and Adrian’s dispute over beneficia in the incident at Besançon raised the question of who was the ultimate authority in Western Christendom and increased tensions between the emperor and the pope; the strong reaction of the emperor and lack of support for the pope in the German church forced Adrian to deny that he meant to imply the emperor was his vassal. Later popes also intervened in the affairs of kings and emperors. Innocent III became involved in the controversy in England between the nobles and King John (1167–1216), prohibited the divorce of the king of France, and played an active role in the politics of the empire. The popes of the 13th century pursued a vendetta against the Hohenstaufen dynasty that contributed to the breakdown of imperial authority in Germany and Italy.

Despite abuses of power, the need for papal leadership was widely recognized during much of the 12th and 13th centuries. The great religious reformers, including St. Bernard of Clairvaux, sought the support of Rome, and legal scholars, such as Gratian, emphasized papal primacy. Further demand for papal leadership came from the local churches. The result was the acceleration of a process that led by the late 13th century to the extension of papal judicial authority far beyond the mere acceptance of appeals from lower courts; to the arrogation of the wide-ranging legislative powers manifest in the Decretals (1234) of Gregory IX (reigned 1227–41), the first officially promulgated collection of papal laws; and to the system of “papal provisions” (direct papal intervention in the disposal of benefices) that was finally completed in 1335 by Benedict XII (reigned 1334–42).

The papacy also asserted its leadership in matters of faith, especially in a series of ecumenical councils held at the Lateran Palace in Rome in 1123, 1139, 1177, and 1215. These meetings, the first of their kind since the 9th century, were deemed ecumenical because they were called by the pope, thus demonstrating the growing importance and authority of the papacy. The councils confirmed the legislation of the Gregorians against simony and clerical marriage, denounced heresy, reformed the papal electoral process, and approved the use of the term transubstantiation.

Papal authority eventually extended into many aspects of life in Western Christendom and contributed to the reform and regularization of many institutions. Notably, in taking control of canonization, the papacy standardized and institutionalized the process of identifying a saint. However, the centralization of authority and the extension of papal legal jurisdiction also caused a number of problems for the church. The papal court and its army of clerical bureaucrats developed a reputation for corruption and venality, and the popes themselves were not above criticism. A late 12th-century satire maintained that the only saints venerated in Rome were Albinus (silver) and Albus (gold). Regarding this point in particular, one of the things left undone by the Gregorian reformers proved to be crucial. Their failure to uproot the notion of the “proprietary church” explains the willingness of later canonists to classify laws governing the disposition of ecclesiastical benefices as private law (law pertaining to the protection of proprietary right) rather than public law; it also accounts for the general tendency of people in the Middle Ages to regard ecclesiastical office less as a duty than as a source of income or an object of proprietary right. When the 13th-century popes found that direct papal taxation did not yield funds sufficient to support their bureaucrats, they adopted the practice of “providing” bureaucrats to benefices all over Europe, for the law itself encouraged them to think of such benefices as sources of much-needed revenue. Thus arose the characteristic abuses of pluralism (holding more than one benefice) and nonresidence, against which church reformers railed in vain from the mid-13th century; they soon laid the blame for these ills at the door of the papacy, which came to be regarded finally as an obstacle to reform rather than an agent of it.

The renaissance of the 12th century

Since the early 20th century it has been commonplace to refer to the 12th century as a time of renaissance though some have challenged this notion because of the important cultural developments of the 11th century. However it may be called, the 12th century was a period in which there arose new institutions of higher education, innovative techniques of thought and speech, and fresh approaches to ancient problems of philosophy and theology, all of which profoundly influenced the development of Christian belief and practice. All these activities were carried out by clerics and controlled by churchmen. The locus of educational activity was the cathedral school, and the new agent of instruction was the semiprofessional, unattached teacher, such as the French philosophers and theologians Berengar of Tours, Roscelin, and Peter Abelard, though monks such as Lanfranc, Anselm of Canterbury, and Hugh and Richardof the monastery of St. Victor, Paris, also contributed.

Philosophy was revived through the development of logic and dialectic and their application to doctrines of the faith in formal exercises, in Augustinian speculation, and in critical reformulation. Theology in the modern sense (the term was first used by Abelard) emerged beginning about 1100. Even before then Anselm presaged the subsequent development of theology in work that reflected the growing intellectual sophistication of the age. His “ontological argument” for the existence of God employed a more rational approach to higher theology, despite his claim that he believed so that he could understand. His great treatise Cur Deus homo? (1099; “Why Did God Become Man?”) would later be influential for its emphasis on the human Christ.

The Gero Crucifix, carved oak corpus, before 986; in the cathedral of Cologne. Height 187 cm.Bildarchiv foto Marburg/Art Resource, New York

The first handbook of theology was composed by Abelard, a provocative and brilliant thinker who used Aristotle’s logic in his explorations of the faith. In his Sic et non (“Yes and No”), he compiled 158 questions, together with contradictory answers found in the works of earlier theologians. He refused to provide resolutions to the opposing points of view, forcing readers to think for themselves but also emphasizing the ultimate authority of the Bible over human thought. Although this challenge to human authority led to his condemnation, his dialectical method became the preferred approach of the next several generations of theologians. Notably, Peter Lombard adopted Abelard’s dialectic—and resolved the apparent contradictions in his Four Books of Sentences. His classic manual may be said, in modern terms, to have created the syllabus of theological study for the age that followed. Together with the enrichment of logic brought about by the discovery of the works of Aristotle (through Muslim sources) and the emergence of the university, the Sentences ended the era of literary, humanistic, and monastic culture and opened the formal and impersonal Scholastic age.

The apostolic life

Like intellectual culture, religious life in the 11th and 12th centuries underwent a dramatic transformation, which has been described as the transition from a “transcendental” Christianity that emphasized the Old Testament to an “incarnational” Christianity rooted in the Gospels. Although this distinction is much too neat and fails to recognize the importance of all the books of the Bible to medieval Christianity, it does reflect the growing emphasis on the human Christ and the apostolic life after the turn of the millennium. Often associated with 12th-century movements, interest in imitating the apostolic life was already evident in the early 11th century. The various heretical groups that appeared shortly after 1000 adopted the Apostles as a model. The Gregorian reformers were also inspired by the apostolic ideal, and ascetics, including Romuald and Peter Damian, promoted lives of apostolic poverty. By the late 11th and the early 12th century, itinerant preachers, including Robert d’Abrissel, founder of the abbey of Fontevrault, combined evangelical zeal with a life of poverty in direct imitation of the Apostles. The new form of devotion to Jesus was expressed in writings by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and was subsequently epitomized in the life and works of St. Francis of Assisi. At the same time, a new form of spirituality emphasized the humanity of Christ and the idea of Jesus as a suffering servant. Images of Jesus on the cross depicted him in death after enduring the torments of crucifixion. This emphasis on Christ’s humanity contributed to the increasing devotion to his mother, Mary, whose veneration is most dramatically displayed in the churches dedicated to Notre Dame (“Our Lady”) in Amiens, Chartres, Paris, Reims, and elsewhere throughout Europe.

Religious orders: canons and monks

Interest in the humanity of Christ and the desire to live the apostolic life in imitation of him influenced religious orders in the 12th century. The reformed orders of canons represent one aspect of this trend. The founder of the Premonstratensian order, Norbert of Xanten, was recognized for inspiring many to imitate the life of Christ. The order spread throughout Europe after its founding in 1120 and cultivated both the active and the contemplative religious life. Norbert’s order was part of a broader movement to regularize the life of all canons by enforcing monastic rules.

Traditional monastic life also underwent an apostolic-inspired reform in the late 11th and 12th centuries. Beginning with a few relatively small quasi-eremitic orders in Italy, such as the Camaldolese and the Vallombrosans, the movement spread to France with the founding of the extreme eremitic Grandmontines in 1077 and the eremitic Carthusians in 1084; it became as wide as Christendom with the multiplication of the daughter monasteries of Cîteaux (founded in 1098). The guiding principle of the Cistercians (based at Cîteaux) was exact observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, with emphasis on simplicity, poverty, and manual work. The addition of lay brothers tapped a large reservoir in an age of increased religious devotion and economic and population growth, and the organization of the order—which featured annual visitations and a general chapter—ensured good discipline and enabled the Cistercians to accommodate a vast family of houses scattered throughout the Latin church.

The success of Cîteaux owed much to the genius of St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux from 1115 to 1153, who was for 30 years the untitled religious leader of Europe. Owing to his influence, other new orders such as the Premonstratensians, the English Gilbertines, and the military Knights Templars accepted or imitated Cistercian practices. By the end of the 12th century, however, changing social conditions and growing urbanization necessitated a new kind of religious order that would assume the prominence in society once held by the monks.

The mendicant orders

In the early 13th century a new manifestation of the apostolic life appeared in the form of orders of mendicant preachers. The rise of the mendicants was in part a response to the revival of urban centres and the expansion of trade. The Waldenses, one of the first groups to adopt a life of evangelical poverty, were declared heretical for refusing to submit to ecclesiastical authority and for criticizing the church and its wealth. But the idea of adopting the apostolic life, prefigured by Robert d’Abrissel in the 12th century, was a powerful one that recalled the original purity and simplicity of the church at a time when both church and society were becoming increasingly wealthy and complex. Showing considerable foresight and discernment, Innocent III embraced the movement and made it part of the church when he approved the Franciscan and Dominican orders.

Francis of Assisi, a man of magnetic personality who believed that he was called by Christ to preach poverty, had no thought of founding an order, but his message and his genius exactly suited the age, and the vast concourse of his followers gradually transformed itself from a homeless, penniless band of preachers and missionaries in Italy into an international body governed by a single general and devoted to the service of the papacy. In contrast, Dominic de Guzmán (c. 1170–1221), whose vocation was preaching against heretics and whose followers kept a canonical rule, changed his existing institute into one of friars. Gradually the two groups became similar: international, articulated groups of men bound to an order but not to a community. They took the customary monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience but dropped the vow of stabilitas (“stability”) in favour of mobility, and they were governed by elected superiors under a supreme chapter and a general. Remarkably, first the Dominicans and then the Franciscans entered and soon dominated the theological schools of Paris and Oxford. Two similar bodies joined them, the Carmelites and the Austin Friars, and for almost a century the members of the various mendicant orders were the theologians, the preachers, and the confessors of the Christian people.

The rise of heresy

The same religious enthusiasm that contributed to the rise of Gregorian Reform and the orthodox movements of the late 11th and 12th centuries also inspired movements of religious dissent or heresy. The earliest episodes of heresy in the West predate the Gregorian Reform, and their ideals may have been absorbed by the Gregorians. In the early 12th century Gregorian Reform movement may have given rise to a wave of radical reformers whose religious zeal led them to excessive criticism of the church. The early dissenters, such as Tanchelm and Peter of Bruys, attracted large but ephemeral followings of clergy and laity. In the 1150s the Italian canon Arnold of Brescia (died 1155), an outspoken critic of clerical wealth and corruption, assumed the leadership of a revolt against the pope in Rome. Despite their popular appeal, these dissident leaders failed to inspire the kind of broad movement that would emerge later in the century.

By the 1140s and possibly earlier, Bogomil missionaries from the eastern Mediterranean or the Balkans appeared in parts of western Europe. Their preaching and ascetic lifestyle gave rise to the Cathari (from Greek katharos, meaning “pure,” from the ascetic lives of their leaders), a sect that became prominent in northern Italy and southern France. Although the Cathari maintained that they alone were true Christians, their leaders, the “perfects,” overtly denied many traditional Christian doctrines, such as the Incarnation of Christ (they taught a Docetist Christology, which maintained that Christ only appeared to assume the flesh). Cathari teachings were dualistic, regarding matter and the human body as evil and spirit as good. Consequently, the perfects ate no meat and practiced celibacy. The sect’s emphasis on poverty and its practice of mutual assistance appealed to many who were repelled by the luxury and wealth in which the Catholic hierarchy then lived. In the 1170s the Waldenses (named after their founder, the French merchant Valdes [often incorrectly known as Peter Waldo]) initiated another type of dissent in the Rhône valley and Piedmont. Anticipating St. Francis of Assisi, Valdes adopted a life of poverty and evangelism, and the movement grew in the newly emerging towns of Europe.

These groups, basically and professedly orthodox, together with the reform-minded Humiliatiof Lombardy (Italy), practiced poverty, Scripture reading, and preaching. The Cathari were proscribed as heretics by the papacy and were attacked by a Crusade and later by the Inquisition, and they gradually disappeared. The Humiliati remained orthodox as a quasi-religious order. The Waldenses, largely through mismanagement by the bishops and papal refusal to allow them to preach, drifted away from the church. Officially condemned as heretical by Pope Lucius III (reigned 1181–85), they remained a non-Catholic body through the Middle Ages and afterward.

These heretical movements suggest that the great sense of purpose and energy that had opened the 12th century had been lost by the century’s last decades, which were notably barren of saints and other leaders. They also reflected the church’s inadequate response to changing social and economic conditions, such as the growth of towns and trade, and to the spiritual needs of the growing urban population of Europe. Moreover, the church was deemed too materialistic, and the pope himself seemed either part of the problem or unable to resolve the church’s difficulties.

Religious life in the 13th century

The 13th century was an age of fresh endeavour and splendid maturity in the realms of philosophy, theology, and art, and it has traditionally been regarded as the high point of medieval civilization. The revival of religious life and culture in the period was heralded by the vigorous papacy of Innocent III, one of the youngest and most energetic popes to hold the throne of St. Peter. As pope, Innocent intervened in the political affairs of various European rulers and expanded the jurisdictional claims of his predecessors, preparing the way for the great lawyer-popes of the 13th century. He was an advocate of Crusades in the Holy Land and against heretics. Concerned as well with the religious life of the church, he co-opted the mendicant movement of the Waldenses by recognizing the order of St. Francis and some groups of Humiliati. He also held the fourth Lateran Council (1215), one of the most important church councils of the Middle Ages.

The coming of the friars and the legislation of the fourth Lateran Council—including requirements of annual confession and Communion and a reduction in the number of impediments to marriage—saved the lower classes for the church and silenced many critics of the establishment. Well-trained and extremely mobile, the friars were able to reach and hold regions and peoples that the static monks and clergy had failed to persuade. The friars were also closely associated with the Beguines, a laywomen’s religious movement with roots in the late 12th century.

The 13th century in Europe as a whole was a time of pastoral activity in which bishops and university-trained clergy perfected the diocesan and parish organization and reformed many abuses. Nevertheless, the period was not without its share of controversies. The Beguines faced skepticism and prejudice despite their promotion of chastity, contemplation, and labour. The mendicants also encountered opposition. The early friars served and were welcomed by the bishops and parish clergy, but clashes soon occurred; the papacy gave the friars exemptions and privileges so wide that the basic rights of the secular clergy were threatened. An academic “war of pamphlets” led to an attack on the vocation and work of the friars. Finally, Boniface VIII (reigned 1294–1303) arranged a compromise that was just and workable; under a revised form it lasted for two centuries. A bishop could refuse friars entry into his diocese, but, once they had been admitted, the friars were free of his control.

The golden age of Scholasticism

Philosophy, hitherto concerned almost exclusively with logic and dialectic, had stagnated in the late 12th century. It was revived by the gradual arrival from Spain and Sicily of translations of the entire corpus of Aristotle, often accompanied by Arabic and Hebrew commentaries and treatises. Through these works, especially the Metaphysics and the Ethics, the whole field of philosophy was opened to the schools. After a short period of hesitation, they were used by theologians, at first eclectically and then systematically. The great Dominican thinkers St. Albertus Magnus and his more-famous pupil St. Thomas Aquinas rethought Aristotle’s system in a Christian idiom, adding to it a fair amount of Neoplatonism from Augustine. Aquinas, in some 25 years of work, set theology firmly on a philosophical foundation, especially in his Summa contra gentiles (1258–64) and Summa theologiae (1265/66–1273). The Italian theologian and Franciscan minister-general St. Bonaventure, in an even shorter career, renewed the traditional approach of Augustine and the theologians of the monastery of St. Victor regarding theology as the guide of the soul to the vision of God. At the same time, masters in the arts school of Paris used Aristotelian philosophy to construct a naturalistic system that clashed with orthodox teaching. The condemnations that ensued in 1272 and 1277, coinciding with the deaths of Bonaventure and Aquinas, included some Thomist theses. This apparent victory of conservatism ended the long era in which Greek thought was regarded as right reason and foreshadowed the age of individual systems and the divorce of philosophy from theology.

The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, fresco by Andrea da Firenze, c. 1365; in the Spanish Chapel of the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

The persecuting society

The centralization and expansion that led to the achievements of the Roman Catholic Church in the High Middle Ages were not without their negative consequences, some of which were part of a broader societal development known as the formation of a “persecuting society.” The church defined who was a Christian and who was not and then took steps to convert or eliminate those not numbered among the faithful. Innocent III sanctioned the Albigensian Crusade (see Albigenses) against the Cathari of southern France after repeated efforts to convert them to Roman Catholicism failed. The Crusade, led by northern barons, devastated the culture and country of southern France and is notorious for the alleged comment of the papal legate prior to the sack of Béziers in 1209: “Kill them all. God will know his own.”

The church also approved of new judicial practices against heretics, which ran counter to the developing legal traditions of both church and state. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX ordered that heretics be turned over to civil authorities for punishment and approved of the use of inquisitorial practices in the pursuit of heretics. The most notorious institution of the Middle Ages, the Inquisition never attained the universal authority and centralization ascribed to it in the popular imagination, but the inquisitors, usually Franciscans or Dominicans, zealously pursued heretics, who suffered torture and, on occasion, death.

Another instance of hardening sentiment can be seen in the treatment of Jews. Between 800 and 1200 the Jewish population increased significantly in Lombardy, Provence, and the towns in the river valleys of the Rhône, the Rhine, and the Danube. They entered England only after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Apart from heretics such as the Cathari, they were the only “foreign body” in Western Christendom and, as such, attracted special notice. Accounts of violence against the Jews are recorded as early as 992 and increased in number over the coming centuries. There were shocking massacres of Jews when the Crusades were preached, especially in the Rhineland in 1096; and, after various occasions of panic among Christians, Jews were accused of a variety of antisocial crimes. They were also accused of sacrilege, and, beginning in the 12th century, Jews were accused of the alleged ritual murder of children for use of the blood in Passover celebrations. Later, Jews suffered from suspicions aroused by the Cathari, and theologians and church leaders wrote treatises condemning the Jews’ refusal to accept the faith or identified them as witnesses to the truth in their rejection of Christianity. Concern with the Jews’ rejection of Christianity led to violence against Jewish holy books, including the burning of thousands of copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1242. The fourth Lateran Council required Jews to wear a distinguishing badge and forbade their employment by governments. This established once and for all the ghetto system in large towns, though it did not at first impair Jewish prosperity. Eventually, however, the growing class of Christian merchants became jealous and hostile, and in 1290 and 1306 the Jews were expelled from England and France, respectively. Their numbers consequently increased in Germany, which thereafter was called “the classic land of Jewish martyrdom.” Small groups of Jews remained in Italy, and the Roman colony was never disturbed, in part because it enjoyed papal protection. In Spain toleration gave way to widespread persecution and conversion under duress, leaving a heritage of sorrow for the future.

From the late Middle Ages to the Reformation

The last quarter of the 13th century was a time of growing bitterness and harshness. The golden age of Scholastic theology had come to an abrupt end, its theoretical foundation challenged by a number of theologians. The troubles of the Franciscans—who were divided between those who stood for the absolute poverty prescribed by the rule and testament of St. Francis (the Spirituals) and those who accepted papal relaxation and exemptions (the Conventuals)—were an open sore for 60 years, vexing the papacy and infecting the whole church. New expressions of lay piety and heresy challenged the authority of the church and its teachings, leaving the papacy itself vulnerable to disintegration.

The “Babylonian Captivity”

The severest difficulties faced by the medieval church involved the papacy. The most extreme and inflexible advocate of papal authority, Boniface VIII, initiated a struggle with the French king, Philip IV, over Philip’s attempts to tax and judge the clergy. After Boniface issued the bull Unam sanctam (“One Holy”), which asserted the unity of the church and the authority of the pope over kings, Philip rallied the people of France and accused Boniface of blasphemy, murder, sodomy, and other crimes. In 1303, mercenaries in French pay and under French leadership harassed and humiliated the pope with impunity, arresting Boniface at his family palace in Anagni. Although freed by the people of the town, Boniface never recovered from the shock and died shortly afterward. The aftermath of this “outrage of Anagni” was the desertion of Rome by the popes and their long residence (1309–77) at Avignon (now in France), a chapter in church history called the “Babylonian Captivity” after the 70 years of Jewish exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC.

Palais des Papes (papal palace), Avignon, France.

The disputes among the Franciscans, which had crystallized finally upon the teaching of the Spirituals that their absolute poverty was that of Christ, were harshly settled (1322) by the irascible octogenarian Pope John XXII (reigned 1316–34), who persecuted the Spirituals and declared belief in the absolute poverty of Jesus and the Apostles heretical. Afterward a group of Franciscans led by Michael of Cesena, minister-general of the order, and William of Ockhambecame bitter and formidable critics of the papacy. With them for a time was the Italian political philosopher Marsilius of Padua, a Paris master who in his Defensor pacis (1324; “Defender of the Peace”) outlined a secular state in which the church was a government department, the papacy and episcopate were human institutions, and the spiritual sanctions of religion were relegated to a position of honourable nonentity. Between them, Ockham and Marsilius used almost all the arguments against the papacy that have ever been devised. Condemned more than once, Marsilius had little immediate effect or influence, but during the Great Schism (1378–1417) and later, in the 16th century, he and Ockham had their turn.

With the papacy “in captivity,” Europe and the church entered an epoch of disasters. As the 14th century proceeded, the so-called medieval synthesis of the Scholastic theologians was undone by the works of Ockham and John Duns Scotus, and nominalism captured the universities. In England, John Wycliffe challenged the papacy and the teachings of the church, prefiguring the attacks of the Protestant Reformers of the 16th century. Although condemned by the church, Wycliffe influenced the thought of Jan Hus and, especially, the Lollards of England. The church also suffered from the destruction of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) between England and France and the devastation of the Black Death (1348–49), which decimated the population of Europe and inspired both orthodox and heterodox religious movements.

Despite this upheaval, the basic structures of Christian belief and practice changed little during the first half of the 1th century. Many of the largest parish churches of Europe date from this time, as do many popular devotions, prayers, hymns, pilgrimages, and carols; also, many hospitals and almshouses were founded. Although relations between the friars and the secular clergy had been canonically settled, friction between the two groups continued. The friars came under wider criticism for worldliness and immorality, but they remained popular. Although heresy and antisacerdotal (anticlerical) sentiment became almost endemic in the cities of Belgium and the Netherlands in the 14th century, the same period produced some of the greatest mystical writers of the church’s history: in the north, Johann Tauler and Jan van Ruysbroeck; in Italy, Catherine of Siena; and in England, Walter Hilton and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. The Beguine Marguerite Porete, another influential mystic, was burned as a heretic in 1310.

Late medieval reform: the Great Schism and conciliarism

Reformation of the church and the papacy was what the advocates of a return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome had in mind. In the pope’s absence both the ecclesiastical power and the territorial integrity of the papacy had deteriorated within Italy, and the moral and spiritual authority of the office was in jeopardy throughout Christian Europe. This condition, so many believed, would continue and even worsen so long as the papacy remained in Avignon. Pope Urban V (reigned 1362–70) attempted to reestablish the papacy in Rome in 1367, but after a stay of only three years he returned to Avignon and soon died. It was finally Gregory XI(reigned 1370–78) who, in 1377, permanently moved the papal headquarters back to Rome, but he died only a few months later. The immediate result of the return to Rome was not the restoration of confidence and credibility that some had predicted but the very opposite. During the papacy’s residence in Avignon, not only had the church come under the political and religious domination of France but the College of Cardinals in Rome had filled the administrative vacuum by developing a form of government that can only be described as oligarchic. The powers that the cardinals had succeeded in appropriating were difficult for the centralized authority of the papacy, whether in Avignon or in Rome, to reclaim for itself.

Meeting in Rome for the first time in nearly a century, the College of Cardinals elected Pope Urban VI (reigned 1378–89). But Urban’s desire to reassert the monarchical powers of the papacy, as well as his evident mental illness, prompted the cardinals to renege on their choice later in the same year. In his place they elected Clement VII (reigned 1378–94), who soon took up residence back in Avignon. (This Clement VII is officially listed as an antipope, and the name was later taken by another pope, Clement VII, who reigned 1523–34.) The years from 1378 to 1417 were the time of the Great Schism, which divided the loyalties of Western Christendom between two popes, each of whom excommunicated the other and all the other’s followers. In the conflict between them, kingdoms, dioceses, religious orders, parishes, and even families were split, and the pretensions of the church to being, as the Nicene Creed said, “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic” became a mockery. No one could be absolutely certain about the validity of the sacraments if the integrity and the very unity of the church, and therefore of the episcopate and priesthood as well, were in doubt. Speaking for a broad consensus, the University of Paris proposed three alternatives for resolving the crisis, which had now become, for laity and clergy alike, a crisis of faith: resignation by both popes, with the election of a single unchallenged successor; adjudication of the dispute between the two popes by some independent tribunal; or appeal to an ecumenical council, which would function as a supreme court with jurisdiction over both claimants.

The third of these of these options, the summoning of a general church council, seemed to the theologians at Paris and to many others to be preferable. The first of several reform councils was held at Pisa in 1409 to deal with the schism and with many other problems of discipline and doctrine. Pisa elected Alexander V (reigned 1409–10) pope—he was not accepted as pope, however, and is listed with the antipopes—in place of both incumbents. But, because neither of the other two would acknowledge the authority of the council and resign, the immediate result was that for a few years, as one cardinal said, the church was treated to “a simulacrum of the Holy Trinity”—the spectacle of three reigning popes. Although not well attended, the Council of Pisa nonetheless had widespread support throughout Western Christendom and established an important precedent for future councils.

The trinity of popes, and the Great Schism itself, came to an end through the work of the Council of Constance (1414–18), which was called by Alexander V’s successor, John XXIII(reigned 1410–15), under pressure from the Holy Roman emperor Sigismund. John, who was subsequently considered an antipope, failed in his attempt to undermine the council, and all three popes either resigned or were deposed, whereupon the council elected Oddone Colonna, who took the name Martin V (reigned 1417–31). In addition to settling the question of papal legitimacy, the council enacted a variety of reform legislation, among which was a stipulation that thenceforth, as a matter of church law, the church council would not be merely an expedient to be resorted to in an emergency but a standing legislative body, a kind of ecclesiastical senate that would meet at brief and regular intervals. The decree of the Council of Constance justified this provision on the principle that the authority of the ecumenical council as the true representative of the entire church was superior to that of the pope, who could not make a similar claim for himself apart from the council. This elevation of conciliar over papal authority was the central tenet of the late medieval movement called conciliarism.

This action also helps to account for the ambiguous position of the Council of Constance in the history of later Roman Catholic canon law, as the opinions of canonists and historians differ to this day about which sessions of the council are entitled to the status of a true ecumenical council. An ambiguity even more complex attended the next reform council, which used to be known as the Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence but is now sometimes divided into two councils, that of Basel and that of Ferrara-Florence, though the legitimacy of the Council of Basel is contested at least in part. The council opened in 1431 at Basel, was transferred by the pope in 1438 to Ferrara (where discussions for reunion with the Eastern Orthodox church at Constantinople began), moved in 1439 to Florence, and held its closing sessions in 1443–45 at Rome. While still at Basel, the council reaffirmed the conciliarist teaching of the Council of Constance about the superiority of the council to the pope. The council’s opposition to the pope, however, undermined its authority. Many of the delegates, hoping to achieve reunion with Constantinople, left Basel when the pope moved the council to Ferrara and then Florence. Those remaining in Basel took extreme conciliarist positions and even formally deposed the reigning pope and elected another. However, the deposition found little support and ultimately damaged the credibility of the council in Basel, as well as the credibility of conciliarism itself, as did the success of the council in Ferrara-Florence.

Both the Council of Constance and the Council of Ferrara-Florence have additional importance in the history of late medieval reform in Roman Catholicism Constance for dealing with the problem of heresy within the Western church, and Ferrara-Florence for addressing itself to the relation of Western Roman Catholicism to Eastern Christendom.

Jan Hus

A major item on the agenda of the Council of Constance was the challenge posed to the authority of both contending parties, council as well as pope, by the teachings of the Czech preacher Jan Hus. Although influenced by John Wycliffe, Hus was not as radical as the English theologian, especially regarding transubstantiation in the Eucharist (Wycliffe, though not Hus, held that the bread and wine in the Eucharist retain their material substance). Hus was highly critical of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and argued that its authority was only spiritual. He also advanced an Augustinian definition of the church, according to which the earthly church is made up of only the saved and the damned.

Despite the accusations of his critics, it seems clear that Hus did not draw from this premisethe radical conclusion that sacraments administered by a hypocritical priest or bishop or pope were invalid in themselves; the priestly office and the sacraments retained their objective validity. A prominent element of the Hussite demands, however, was a call for the administration of Holy Communion to the laity “under both kinds” (sub utraque specie), bread and wine; that is, they demanded the restoration of the chalice. Accordingly, the followers of Hus emblazoned a chalice on their banners. The Hussite movement of reform coalesced with the rising nationalism of the Czech people, many of whom resented German domination of Bohemia.

In 1411 Hus was excommunicated by John XXIII. In keeping with the widespread spirit of conciliarism, Hus appealed his case to an ecumenical council of the church. Summoned to appear before the Council of Constance, he was promised safe-conduct by Sigismund, the Holy Roman emperor. Once at the council, however, Hus was arrested and imprisoned. He was tried for heresy (particularly because of his doctrine of the church) and condemned, and on July 6, 1415, he was burned at the stake. His main prosecutors, notably including Jean de Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris, were also the leaders of the reform movement at the Council of Constance.

The death of Hus was not the end of his movement. A civil war in Bohemia soon led to the formation of an independent Bohemian Catholic church, which was later absorbed by Rome. Remnants of the Hussite movement evolved first into the Unitas Fratrum (a religious group that rejected transubstantiation and advocated nonviolence and a strict biblical faith) and then into the Moravian Church. In the emergence of churches independent of Rome, as well as in various specific doctrinal and moral teachings, Hus anticipated the Protestant Reformation a century later. In the 16th century his disciples joined with the Lutherans in their struggle against the church and the emperor.

Efforts to heal the East-West Schism

At Basel and then especially at Ferrara-Florence, there were extensive negotiations and discussions over the newly revived proposals for effecting a reunion of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Western Roman Catholicism. Earlier attempts at such a reunion for example, at the Council of Lyon in 1274 had failed. But now the time seemed ripe on both sides for a new effort at reconciliation. Christian Constantinople was under increasing threat from the Turks and desired Western support, moral as well as military. Leaders of the West, regardless of party, regarded the long-sought rapprochement with the East as a means of restoring the prestige of both the papacy and the ecumenical council, which could then be seen as having resolved both the major schisms of Christian history—the Great Schism and the East-West Schism in the space of one generation. The patriarch of Constantinople, Joseph II, and the Byzantine emperor, John VIII Palaeologus, both came in person to the Council of Ferrara-Florence for the theological negotiations toward reunion of the two churches.

In the doctrinal discussions between the Greeks and the Latins, all the major points of difference that had historically separated the two churches received detailed attention. The Greeks acknowledged the primacy of the pope, and the Latins acknowledged the right of the Greeks to ordain married men into the priesthood. The chief sticking point, as always, was the doctrine of the Filioque: Did the Holy Spirit in the Trinity proceed from the Father only, as the East taught, or “from the Father and the Son” (ex Patre Filioque), as the Western addition to the text of the Nicene Creed affirmed? Almost all those present at Ferrara-Florence came to an agreement that the dispute over the Filioque was chiefly one of words, not of content, since it could be amply documented that both versions of the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit had substantial attestation from the teachings of the Church Fathers in both churches. Agreement on the Filioque and on all other points at issue led to the adoption of a document of union, Laetentur coeli (“Rejoicing of heaven”), promulgated on July 6, 1439 (and still commemorated in a plaque on the wall of the Duomo in Florence). But the reunion came too late for both sides. It was repudiated in the East in Constantinople, where the memory of Crusader violence persisted, as well as in other Orthodox churches, notably the Church of Russia. Once again, as on so many occasions throughout Christian history, the reunion of the Eastern and the Western churches proved to be a dead letter and an unattainable goal.

Roman Catholicism on the eve of the Reformation

The decline of Scholastic theology

The transition from the Middle Ages to the Reformation was gradual. One development that was both a cause and an effect of that transition was the decline of Scholastic theology. As practiced by its leading expositors, Aquinas and Bonaventure (who differed greatly on many issues), Scholasticism was the systematization of the Roman Catholic understanding of the relation between the claims of human reason and the authority of divine revelation. To that end it had made use of philosophy, and particularly the newly available works of Aristotle, to describe the powers and limits of human ways to truth in order to enthrone Christian theology as “the queen of the sciences.”

With good reason have historians seen in this schema of reason and revelation the counterpart in the life of the mind to the schema of church and society set forth earlier in the 13th century by Pope Innocent III. These historians draw a similar correlation between the waning prestige of the papacy in the late Middle Ages and the shattering of the Scholastic synthesis by philosophical theologians such as William of Ockham. Some of the theological descendants of Bonaventure, less confident of the powers of human reason than he, elevated the primacy of faith and the authority of Scripture to an almost exclusive position as a way to truth, while some of the philosophical descendants of Aquinas appeared, at least to their critics, to be expanding the realm of what was knowable by natural means to the point that the primacy of faith was threatened by an all-engulfing rationalism. All the varieties of Scholastic teaching, moreover, were under attack from those leaders of late medieval Roman Catholic piety who contended that the crisis of faith and of the church called for a return to the authentic religious experience of the primitive church as set forth in the New Testament.

Expressions of spirituality and folk piety

Late medieval spirituality cannot be dismissed as merely a symptom of the general malaise in Roman Catholic Christendom; it must be recognized as a dynamic force. One of its noblest monuments, the devotional manual titled The Imitation of Christ (1441), became the second most widely circulated book in Christian history, second only to the Bible itself. The Imitation, though impeccably orthodox in its doctrinal emphases, takes the reader beyond (or behind) the authoritative structures of both church and dogma to the inner meaning of the Gospels and the inner life of the believing heart: the Christ of the creeds is above all the Christ of the Gospels, who summons his followers not only to orthodoxy in their theology but to discipleship in their lives. The Imitation is traditionally attributed to Thomas à Kempis. The author was a member of the Brethren of the Common Life, one of many lay communities, both female and male, that sprang up during the 15th century as centres of the devotio moderna, a religious movement that stressed the inner spiritual life over ritual and works.

Other expressions of folk piety, too, were flourishing on the eve of the Reformation. Partly as a continuing effect of the establishment of the orders of friars in the 12th and 13th centuries, there was a revival of interest in preaching throughout Roman Catholic Europe. Along with it developed a growing attention to the Bible, which for the first time began to circulate widely, also in vernacular translations, as a consequence of the invention of printing. The 15th century is also in many ways the high point in the history of Roman Catholic devotion to the Virgin Mary. At the same time, there is evidence of a tide of anti clericalism among the common people much of it in reaction to the corruption of the church and the clergy and of a growing skepticism among intellectuals and secular rulers, even about fundamental Roman Catholic teachings.

Roman Catholicism and Renaissance humanism

At least some of this skepticism arose within the intellectual and literary milieu of Renaissance humanism, whose relation to Roman Catholicism was far more complex than has often been supposed. The efforts of 19th-century historians of the Renaissance—many of whom were themselves under the influence of both anticlericalism and skepticism—to interpret humanism as a neopagan revolt against traditional Christian beliefs have been fundamentally recast by modern scholarship. Not only were many of the popes of the 15th and 16th centuries themselves devotees and patrons of Renaissance thought and art, but there were also Renaissance figures such as Nicholas of Cusa, arguably the greatest mind in Christendom East or West during the 15th century, who was at the same time a metaphysician of astonishing boldness and creativity, an ecumenical theologian looking for points of contact not only with other Christians but even with Islam, and a reform cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

Thus the humanists emerge as Christians who were working simultaneously for the reform of the church and of literary culture. To achieve those ends, they urged a return to the basics of Christian civilization that is, to the Greek and Latin classics and to the monuments of biblical and patristic literature. Lorenzo Valla in Italy and Desiderius Erasmus in the north are by no means isolated cases of humanists arguing for this blending of Christianity and Classical culture. Erasmus ridiculed the Scholastics for their philosophical abstractions and for their bad Latin, and in his anonymous satire Julius exclusus e coelis (“Julius Excluded from Heaven”) he lampooned the efforts of Pope Julius II (reigned 1503–13) to get into heaven. Erasmus also edited the writings of most of the major Church Fathers in both Latin and Greek. His edition of the Greek New Testament, the Novum Instrumentum (1516), was intended to stimulate a renewal of Christian faith and life, which he himself called “the philosophy of Christ.” Significantly, this merciless critic of the current state of Roman Catholicism nevertheless found it impossible to affiliate himself with the Protestant Reformation when it arose, and he died a faithful, if unappreciated, member of the Roman Catholic Church.

Roman Catholicism and the emergence of national consciousness

On the eve of the Reformation the relation of church and state shaped much of the history of Roman Catholicism, as it had done since the time of the emperor Constantine. In most of the states of Western Christendom, the 15th century was a time of awakening national consciousness, whose particularity and regionalism often set it in opposition to the universalism of a world church. In the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, such opposition between nation and church led to a break with Roman Catholicism as such, but it is evident from the examples of 15th-century France and Spain that it could also lead to a national Catholicism that remained in communion with Rome. As the seat of the Avignon papacy and the stronghold of the conciliarism represented by Jean de Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris, and Pierre Cardinal d’Ailly, 15th-century France represented just such a definition of Catholicism; and in the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges of July 7, 1438, the French clergy came out in support of what were taken to be the historical rights of the Gallican church to administer its own affairs independently of Rome while maintaining its ties of filial loyalty and doctrinal obedience to the Holy See.

A few decades later, in 1469, the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile effected the union of Catholic Spain. In 1482 Ferdinand and Isabella concluded a concordatwith the Holy See, under whose terms the Spanish crown retained the right to nominate candidates for the episcopate. Queen Isabella’s confessor, the humanist educator, Roman Catholic primate of Spain, and grand inquisitor Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, blended Spanish patriotism, Renaissance scholarship, and a strictly orthodox Roman Catholicism in a form that was to characterize the church in the Hispanic lands of both the Old and the New World for centuries to come.

Spain was not the only nation-state with which the papacy had to contend. In 1516, after the French king Francis I defeated the allies of Pope Leo X (reigned 1513–21), the pope signed a concordat granting the king the right to nominate French bishops and higher church dignitaries, thus ending the election of bishops by cathedral chapters and abbots by monastic chapters.

Christianity