The 900 years of Medieval European history since the 8th century had been a power game between two distinct autonomous realms — the secular realm and the religious realm. Kings and emperors, rulers of the secular realm, employed their political influence and military forces to suppress the religious realm, while the Pope, leader of the religious realm, utilized his holy competence to bring the kings to their knees. Throughout the brawling for authority over one another, the Pope constantly appealed to his orthodoxy of power to gain authority through the Gregorian Reform, the Crusades, and the excommunications of secular authorities; however, the kings and emperors had radicalized their techniques to establish power along the course of history: from cooperating with, controlling, to replacing the Pope.

 

The Gregorian Reform initiated by Pope Gregory VII in the late 11th century not only provided a basis for the independence of the church from the state but also centralized the papal power. Before the Reform, the papacy had little power but respect outside the Papal States: it had no authority over the local bishops, who were invested by lay officials. The Reform was, therefore, a great leap forward for the papacy by banning lay investiture and simony, founding the College of Cardinals, and trumping church authority over lay authority. It justified the supremacy of the pope, regent of God, over secular states and placed the pope in the lead of the Christian world. At the time when Christianity was the state religion of most Western European countries and when lives were devoted to earning salvation and securing a place in Heaven, the pope being the closest entity to God made his words powerful. It was also the Gregorian Reform that Pope Innocent III continued which made him the most prestigious pope in Medieval Europe.

 

In addition to the substantial Gregorian Reform that bought Innocent III power and independence, Innocent III and his successors launched several Crusades against the Islamic rule and heretic groups. In particular, the Albigensian Crusade since 1209 against the Cathars in southern France signified the consolidation of papal power by defending the orthodoxy of Christianity: Cathar dualist beliefs conflicted with Catholic sacraments and the idea of Transubstantiation. It was also a purge of the enemies from the inside when compared to the usual Crusades that fought outside rivals. The Crusades allowed the Pope not only to lure and prompt lay authorities to follow his instructions, for anyone who aided the Crusades would be promised salvation, but also to justify his expansion of power by setting up a communal adversary of the Christian world.

 

Moreover, one common technique medieval popes used to bring lay rulers to obedience was excommunication. The church and the pope usually excommunicated persons who broke the Christian dogma, such as King Philip I of France for repudiating the marriage and remarrying; however, it could be exercised to eliminate the Pope’s political enemy. Despite its low success rate in bringing kings to compliance, one victorious attempt was the excommunication of Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, for refusing to recognize the legitimacy of Pope Gregory VII. The excommunication of Henry also meant the deposition of him as the emperor. This gave the German princes and the aristocracy a legitimate reason to continue their rebellion against Henry. Henry had no choice but to surrender his opposition and apologize to Gregory in person in Canossa. Excommunicating a lay authority didn’t always bring the Pope power. Oftentimes, it worsened the situation; however, it was a powerful tool of the Pope that was worth a shot.

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The emperors and kings brought about different strategies to establish their power. In the first 400 years since the 8th century, the secular authority either cooperated with the Pope or superficially resisted the church, despite Henry IV’s siege of Rome. They still honored Rome as the capital of the religious realm. On the other hand, in the 500 years that followed, lay rulers either hijacked the papacy or abuse the clerical authority. They treated the church and the pope as merely a political apparatus. The watershed occurred in the 14th century, when Renaissance shifted the center of people’s attention in life from Heaven and God to this world and human beings.

 

The Coronation of Charlemagne in 800 was a rare case where the secular and religious authorities cooperated for a mutual consolidation of power. Upon the attack on Pope Leo III, Charlemagne “traveled to Rome to restore the state of the church, which was extremely disrupted.” (Einhard, 243) The power of the church was reinstated when Charlemagne escorted the pope back to Rome, and in return, Leo III crowned Charlemagne the title of emperor, the first emperor since Medieval Europe, to approve his regime. The story of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162, told quite the opposite. After attempting to regain the jurisdiction over clergy that had been taken by King Henry II of England by excommunicating officials who sided with the king, he was murdered by four knights of the king despite being an old friend of the king. This was a plain example where the king ventured to rule over the English church to establish his power.

 

To King Philip IV of France, Henry II’s measures were rather peaceful. He taxed the clergy to sponsor his war against King Edward I of England, but this lay taxation was soon banned by Pope Boniface VIII, for the war wasn’t holy. Soon after Boniface revoked all privileges of Philip, he sent soldiers to capture Boniface in Anagni in 1303. Boniface died during the incarceration and was accused of heresy. This was not all. Philip forced Pope Clement V to relocate the papacy to Avignon, where he can closely supervise. With the papal power in his hands, Philip was able to religiously justify his savaging, including the suppression of the Templars for their wealth. Such disorder was unseen — it exemplified how easily the leader of the Christian world had fallen to secular powers. Boniface’s death marked the downfall of the papacy, leading to the chaotic Western Schism decades later.

 

The church had been degraded to a mere political instrument ever since. Kings and emperors appointed the bishops who sided with them and rationalized their ambition with clerical power. They employed this strategy everywhere, including the trial of Joan of Arc. Joan’s military victories in the 1430s and her religious beliefs posed a great threat to the legitimacy of the English-Burgundian regime during the Hundred Years’ War. She even explicitly expressed that French victories were in accordance with God’s will. (Scott, 714) As this wasn’t tolerable by English authority, Joan was later burnt in the name of heresy to restore the orthodoxy of the English invasion.

 

The power struggle between popes and kings defined much of Medieval European history. While the popes repeatedly utilized similar reforms and crusades to develop this religious entity, secular rulers continued to probe the limit of papal power over centuries. In the dawn of the Renaissance and the dusk of papal authority, the kings established their absolute power over the church with military forces that the pope lacked. They reduced their opponents of this power game into gadgets that satisfied their purpose.

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Bibliography

 

Einhard. “The Carolingians: The Life of Charlemagne.” Readings in Medieval History, edited by Patrick Geary, 5th Revised ed., University of Toronto Press, Higher Education Division, 2015, pp. 233–46.

 

Scott, W. S. “The Trial of Joan of Arc.” Readings in Medieval History, edited by Patrick Geary, 4th ed., University of Toronto Press, Higher Education Division, 2010, pp. 701–15.