History of the Papacy
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- For the history of the Catholic Church in general, see timeline and history. See also, Catholic Ecumenical Councils.
The History of the Papacy is the history of both the spiritual role and the temporal role over a timespan of almost 2,000 years from the arrival of Peter in Rome to the present day. The office of the Pope is called the Papacy. In addition to his spiritual role as head of the Catholic Church, the Pope also has a temporal role as Head of State of the independent sovereign State of the Vatican City, a city-state and nation entirely enclaved by the city of Rome.
The history of the Papacy's temporal role can be divided into three major time periods. Early Christianity, the Pope had no temporal power and served only as the spiritual head of the Christian church in Rome. Even in that spiritual role, it was contested whether the patriarchs of the other churches were subordinate to the bishop of Rome.
The second major time period runs roughly from the 4th Century until Rome and Latium were annexed by the Kingdom of Italy in 1870. During this time period, the Pope exerted varying amounts of temporal and spiritual power until the Papal states were slowly taken away from the Papacy in the 19th century. During this same period, the role of the Pope as spiritual leader of the Christian church was successfully challenged by the East-West Schism and the Protestant Reformation.
The third major time period runs from the end of the Pope's temporal power in the 19th century until the present day. During this period, the Papacy has asserted its spiritual role as leader of the Catholic Church.
[edit] Early Christianity
[edit] Peter and the origins of the papacy
Since the Reformation, the question of the origins of the papacy was vital to all Christian churches. Some Protestant theologians stated that Peter was never in Rome, a view taken most prominently by Ferdinand Christian Baur and the Tübingen School. According to Baur, the Roman life and death of Peter was a politically motivated invention. Others, like Dressel in 1872, stated that Peter was in fact buried in Alexandria, Egypt or in Antioch. [2] Today, those views are not expressed anymore.[citation needed] The traditional Catholic view is now generally accepted, that Peter actually lived and died in Rome. As Lutheran Adolf Harnack stated, Tendentious-Protestant and tendentious-critical prejudice questioned the martyrdom of Peter in Rome. Both errors led to the truth. [3] His remains continue to be subject of investigation, but his tomb is located under Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, which was announced by Pope Pius XII on Christmas Day in 1950 after years of painstaking research. [4] The circumstances of his life and death, and the exact location of his remains, continue to be largely a mystery. In light of continued persecution, early Christians did not leave much of a paper trail. Tacitus mentioned an ingens multitude of Christians, a very huge number, who were, like Peter, killed under Nero. [5] Thus, despite the special status of the church of Rome, there are only a few 1st century references to the life and circumstances of the Roman community and the activities of Peter. [6]
Clement of Rome's letter to the Corinthians, written c. 96[7] described the awesome persecution of Christians in Rome as the “struggles in our time” and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, “first, the greatest and most just columns, the “good apostles” Peter and Paul. [8] St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly afterwards his letters from the city of Smyrna to the Romans. He was condemned to die because of his Christian beliefs and wrote a last time to the Romans, that he would not like Peter and Paul, give them orders 105)[9] These are seen by the Catholic Church as a clear indication of the existence of a certain early Papal primacy. [8] [10] Most Protestants argue that these documents refer only to a primacy of honour. Between the years 166 and 176, the Bishop of Corinth, Dionysius, stated with clear words, that both Paul and Peter were in Corinth and Rome, where they preached the Gospel. [11] Around the year 190-200, the Roman priest Gaius writes in defense of his faith: [12] [13] Irenaeus (died 202) confirms as well the foundation of the Catholic Church through Peter and Paul. [14] The insinuation of a Roman Catholic falsification continued into the 20th century. [15]
[edit] Biblical foundations
While the historical origins of the papacy and circumstances of Peter’s life in Rome are not fully documented, the biblical basis in the New Testament provides a clearer picture. In all New Testament gospels, Peter is the leader or spokesman of the Apostles. When the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke mention the apostles, they mention Peter first. “In each Gospel, he is the first disciple, to be called by Jesus. [16]
The dogma and tradition of the Catholic Church teach that the institution of the papacy was mandated by Jesus in the Biblical passages in the Gospel of Matthew:
- You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." [17]
In Matthew, the centrality of Peter is not only manifested in this quote. After the resurrection, Jesus Christ repeats his mandate to Peter (John, 21, 15) Luke cites a mandate from Jesus to Peter to “strengthen his brothers” (Luke, 22, 31). Historical opposition to the Catholic interpretation of these biblical quotes saw them as “cheap falsification” and late additions to the original scriptures. [18] Another source of disagreement was the Catholic interpretation of "ecclesia" (church) in the scriptures. Some non-Catholic scholars maintained that Christ did not intend to create a formal Church at all. [19]
[edit] Leadership of the early church
The Catholic Church maintains that Peter presided the Church of Rome for about 25 years until 67 A.D. when he was martyred by Nero[20] [21] The Church believes, that Jesus appointed Peter as the first of the apostles and head of his Church [22] Peter himself acted accordingly: He spoke in the name of the others (Math16,16); he talked to the large gathering of people on the first Pentecost, he defended the case of the Apostles before the High Council , he chastised Simon Magnus, he accepted the first Gentiles into the Church Peter presided the first Apostolic Council. [23] Yet there were also conflicts with Saint Paul (Gal 2,9 2,11), who disagreed at times with Peter. These conflicts indicate, that "the primacy as guarantor for unitity and truth was not as necessary", in the much smaller Early Church, as it was later the case. [24] The Catholic Church celebrates both saints together on the Feast Day of June 29.
Protestant scholars view the role of Peter differently. According to James L. Barker, a scholar and missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the position of the bishop of Rome was not regarded as significantly different from the bishops of Antioch or Jerusalem [25]. He contends that, insofar as the bishop of Rome was accorded any special status, it was more as a mediator than as a ruler; and that people appealed to the bishop of Rome to help mediate disputes arising over issues like Gnosticism, not to deliver a definitive statement of Christian orthodoxy. In the Catholic view, it is this settling of disputes, which Peter and his successors engaged in, which established Christian orthodoxy. [23]
The ongoing persecutions against Christians required flexibility, hiding and decentralization. The early Church developed not only views on the bishop of Rome but also on bishops and priests in general. Some evidence points to committees of priests (presbyteroi / πρεσβυτεροι) or Bishops (episkopoi / επίσκoποι). This was standard in Christian communities all over the Roman empire. [26] In the second century "The letters of Ignatius of, Antioch, generally dated to about 115, are the first Christian documents that witness to the presence of an episkopoi who is clearly distinct from the presbyterate and is pastor of the whole church of a city." [27] Letters from Ignatius of Antioch describe churches led by a single bishop, who was merely assisted by the presbyters and deacons.
[edit] Primacy of Rome
In the early history of Christianity, five cities emerged as important centers of Christianity: Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Although the Roman church was always highly respected, the churches in the East generally had more numbers and more authority than those of the West.
[edit] Irenaeus
Irenaeus compiled a list of apostolic succession, including the immediate successors of Peter and Paul: Linus, Anacleutus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, and Sixtus. [28] The Catholic Church currently considers these the successors of Peter, whom they consider the first pope, and through whom following popes would claim authority.[29]
In the second century (AD 189), the assertion of the primacy of the Church of Rome may be indicated in St. Irenaeus of Lyon's Against Heresies (3:3:2): "With [the Church of Rome], because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree... and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition." Although this may be the first clear instance of the church in Rome asserting its primacy (depending on how one reads this passage), there is no historical evidence to show that such a claim was ever accepted by the eastern churches, particularly since the seat of government of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople soon after the First Council of Nicaea.
[edit] Stephen I
The first bishop to claim primacy in writing was Pope Stephen I (254-257). The timing of the claim is significant, for it was made during the worst of the tumults of the third century. Several persecutions during this century attacked the Church of Rome vigorously.
[edit] Damasus I
Pope Damasus I (366-384) was first to claim that Rome's primacy rested solely on Peter, and was the first pope to refer to the Roman church as "the Apostolic See". The prestige of the city itself was no longer sufficient; but in the doctrine of apostolic succession the popes had an unassailable position.
[edit] First Council of Constantinople
The First Council of Constantinople (AD 381) suggested strongly that Roman primacy was already asserted. However, it should be noted that, because of the controversy of this claim, the Pope did not personally attend this ecumencial council that was held in the capital of the eastern empire, rather than at Rome. It was not until 440 that Leo the Great more clearly articulated the extension of papal authority as doctrine, promulgating in edicts and in councils his right to exert "the full range of apostolic powers that Jesus had first bestowed on the apostle Peter". It was at the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 that Leo I (through his emissaries) stated that he was "speaking with the voice of Peter". At this same Council, an attempt at compromise was made when the bishop of Constantinople was given a primacy of honour only second to that of the Bishop of Rome, because "Constantinople is the New Rome." Ironically, Roman papal authorities rejected this language since it did not clearly recognize Rome's claim to juridical authority over the other churches.[30]
[edit] Bishop of Rome becomes Rector of the whole Church
The power of the Bishop of Rome increased as the imperial power of the Emperor declined. Edicts of the Emperor Theodosius II and of Valentinian III proclaimed the Roman bishop "as Rector of the whole Church." The Emperor Justinian, who was living in the East in Constantinople, in the sixth century published a similar decree. These proclamations did not create the office of the Pope but from the sixth century onward the Bishop of Rome's power and prestige increased so dramatically that the title of "Pope" began to fit the Bishop of Rome best.[31]
[edit] Imperial era: 42-395
[edit] Early popes
Many popes in the first three centuries of the Christian era are obscure figures. Several suffered martyrdom along with members of their flock in periods of persecution. Most of them engaged in intense theological arguments with other bishops.
[edit] Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire
Christianity managed not only to survive Diocletian's attempts to crush it by persecution but to continue to grow in spite of his efforts. Christianity was legalized by Galerius, who was the first emperor to issue an edict of toleration for all religious creeds including Christianity in April of 311.[32]
Constantine the Great was the first Roman Emperor to embrace Christianity, although he may have continued in his pre-Christian beliefs. He and the co-Emperor Licinius in the East were the first to bestow imperial favor on Christianity through the Edict of Milan promulgated in 313.
[edit] Changes in the structure of the church
After the Edict of Milan, the church adopted the same governmental structure as the Empire: geographical provinces ruled by bishops. These bishops of important cities therefore rose in power over the bishops of lesser cities.
Rome was not the only city that could claim a special role in the Church. Jerusalem had the prestige of being the city of Christ's death and resurrection, and an important church council was held there in the first century, the Council of Jerusalem. Antioch was the place where Jesus' followers were first called "Christians" and, with Alexandria, was an important early center of Christian thought. Constantinople became highly important after Constantine moved his capital there in 330 AD.
[edit] Pope Miltiades and his successors
The brief pontificate of Pope Miltiades (311-314) marked a transition to a very different role for the papacy. The Lateran Basilica (Basilica of Our Savior) became the episcopal seat of the Bishop of Rome. In 313, Miltiades held the Lateran synod openly in Rome, at the behest of the emperor. This event inaugurated a link between the papacy and temporal power which would last for over a millennium. In Africa the Donatist developed the theory, - for about one hundred years - that the Church must be a Church of saints and not sinners.
Pope Silvester I (313-335) benefited from Constantine’s generosity, who built major Cathedrals in Rome such as the Lateran and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. The first Ecumenical Council took place during his pontificate in Nicaea, (325) which formulated the teaching authority of the papacy. Arianism, a heresy from his persepctive, became a major problem during his pontificate, as the emperor Constantine himself converted to it. [33]
Under Pope Liberius (352-366) the Arian conflict between the emperor and the Pope culminated in the Synod of Arles (353) , convened by Constantius II. The legates of the Pope signed a declaration, condemning the Council of Nicaea. Liberius refused to recognize the Council and its signatures and was exiled. [34] However, from then on, no Roman bishop participated in a Synod, which he had not convened himself, and which did not take place under his leadership in Rome. [35] No Pope personally participated in a ecumenical council, convened by an Emperor from then on. [35] Under Pope Damasus, (366-384) the conflict with Arianism was decided in favour of the papal position, with the help of Emperor Theodosius, Gregory of Nazianzus Gregory of Nyssa and Ambrose of Milan The Pope opened the catacombs in Rome, which had been shut by emperor Diocletian. Pope Siricius (384-399) is credited with the first written papal decree regarding Church discipline. Under Celestine I, the Church disputes in Africa with the Donatists were put on the front burner, a fight largely undertaken by Augustine of Hippo. [36] By the fifth century, the bishop of Rome began to claim his supremacy over all other bishops, and all church doctors and most church fathers also made this claim for him.
[edit] Medieval Church
[edit] Key dates
- 496: Clovis I pagan King of the Franks, converts to the Catholic faith.
- 502: Pope Symmachus ruled that laymen should no longer vote for the popes and that only higher clergy should be considered eligible.
- 590: Pope Gregory the Great. Reforms church structure and administration. Establishes Gregorian Chant.
- 596: Saint Augustine of Canterbury sent by Pope Gregory to evangelise the pagan English.
- 638: Christian Jerusalem and Syria conquered by Muslim armies.
- 642: Egypt falls to the Muslims, followed by the rest of North Africa.
[edit] Symmachus
In 502, Pope Symmachus ruled that laymen should no longer vote for the popes and that only higher clergy should be considered eligible.
[edit] Gregory the Great
Pope Gregory I, called the great, was a monk who became pope in 590, ruling until his death in 604. His was a major reforming papacy. He asserted the primacy of Rome and laid down regulations for clerical celibacy. He introduced liturgical reforms and is traditionally credited with the popularization of Gregorian chant. He is more widely famed for the impetus he gave to missionary activity among the pagan peoples of northern Europe, especially the initiation of the mission of Saint Augustine of Canterbury to England.
[edit] Lombards
The Lombard kingdom reached its height in the 7th and 8th century. Paganism and Arianism were at first prevalent among the Lombards but were gradually supplanted by Catholicism. Roman culture and Latin speech were gradually adopted and the Catholic bishops emerged as chief magistrates in the cities. Lombard law combined Germanic and Roman traditions.
[edit] Donation of Constantine
In the middle of the eighth century, a fraudulent attempt was made to legitimize the transfer of power and authority from the Emperor Constantine to the Bishop of Rome. The Donation of Constantine was purported to be the legal document in which the Emperor Constantine donated to Sylvester, the Bishop of Rome (314-335), much of his property and invested him with great spiritual power and authority.
The vastness and splendor of the inheritance allegedly given by Constantine to Sylvester in this document is seen in the following quotation from the manuscript,
- "We attribute to the See of Peter all the dignity, all the glory, all the authority of the imperial power. Furthermore, we give to Sylvester and to his successors our palace of the Lateran, which is incontestably the finest palace on the earth; we give him our crown, our miter, our diadem, and all our imperial vestments; we transfer to him the imperial dignity. We bestow on the holy Pontiff in free gift the city of Rome, and all the western cities of Italy. To cede precedence to him, we divest ourselves of our authority over all those provinces, and we withdraw from Rome, transferring the seat of our empire to Byzantium; inasmuch as it is not proper that an earthly emperor should preserve the least authority, where God hath established the head of his religion."[37]
This document was used by medieval popes to bolster their claims for territorial and secular power in Italy. It was widely accepted, though the Emperor Otto III denounced the document as a forgery. By the mid 15th-century, however, the Church had begun to realize that the document could not possibly be genuine. The Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla proved in 1440 that the Donation must be a fake by analyzing its language, and showing that while certain imperial-era formulas are used in the text, some of the Latin in the document could not have been written in the 4th century.
[edit] Donation of Pepin
In 751, Aistulf, took Ravenna and threatened Rome. To respond to this threat, Pope Stephen II made an unusual journey north of the Alps to visit the Frankish king, Pepin III, to seek his help against the Lombards who have recently taken the city of Ravenna and who now pose a similar threat to Rome.
The pope anointed Pepin at the abbey of St Denis, near Paris, together with Pepin's two young sons Charles and Carloman. Pepin duly invaded northern Italy in 754, and again in 756. Pepin was able to drive the Lombards from the territory belonging to Ravenna but he does not restore it to its rightful owner, the Byzantine emperor. Instead, perhaps believing the fiction revealed in the forged Donation of Constantine, he handed over large areas of central Italy to the pope and his successors.
The land given to pope Stephen in 756, in the so-called Donation of Pepin, made the papacy a temporal power. This territory would become the basis for the Papal States, over which the popes ruled until the Papal States were incorporated into the new Kingdom of Italy in 1870. For the next eleven centuries, the story of Rome will be almost synonymous with the story of the papacy.
[edit] Final defeat of the Lombards
After Aistulf's death King Desiderius renewed the attack on Rome. In 772, Pope Adrian I enlisted the support of Charlemagne, Pepin's successor, who intervened, and, after defeating the Lombards, added their kingdom to his own.
[edit] Ninth century
After being physically attacked by his enemies in the streets of Rome, Pope Leo III made his way in 799 through the Alps to visit Charlemagne at Paderborn.
It is not known what was agreed between the two, but Charlemagne traveled to Rome in 800 to support the pope. In a ceremony in St Peter's Basilica, on Christmas Day, Leo was supposed to anoint Charlemagne's son as his heir. But unexpectedly (it is maintained), as Charlemagne rose from prayer, the pope placed a crown on his head and acclaimed him emperor. It is reported that Charlemagne expressed displeasure but nevertheless accepted the honour. The displeasure was probably diplomatic, for the legal emperor was supposed to be seated in Constantinople. Nevertheless this public alliance between the pope and the ruler of a confederation of Germanic tribes was a reflection of the reality of political power in the west. This coronation launched the concept of the new Holy Roman Empire which would play an important role throughout the Middle Ages. The Holy Roman Empire only became formally established in the next century. But the concept is implicit in the title adopted by Charlemagne in 800: 'Charles, most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor, governing the Roman empire.'
Leo's action in crowning Charlemagne would serve as precedent for later popes who claimed the right and power to make (and unmake) emperors.
[edit] Tenth century
During the tenth century, the papacy came under the control of local Roman noble families, and is often considered to represent the apogee of papal corruption. Becoming Bishop of Rome was a matter of winning out in the feuds that raged among the various factions. Occasionally, German kings would come down and appoint good popes, but most of the time the Romans forced the election of extremely bad popes who were either incompetent or scandalously immoral and sacrilegious. Nevertheless, the Church currently accepts the legitimacy of these popes.
[edit] Eleventh century
The eleventh century is often called the century of Saxon Popes: Pope Gregory VI (1045 - 1046), Pope Clement II (1046 - 1047), Pope Damasus II (1048), Pope Leo IX (1049 - 1054), Pope Victor II (1055 - 1057) and Pope Stephen IX (1057 - 1058).
Three popes Benedict IX, Sylvester III and Gregory VI all claimed to be the rightful pope. Henry III deposed all three and held a synod where he declared no Roman priest fit for the title of pope. He subsequently appointed Suidger of Bamberg who, after being duly acclaimed by the people and clergy, took the name Clement II.
Days later, Clement II then crowned Henry emperor. Over the next ten years, Henry personally selected four of the next five pontiffs. The ascendancy of these to the Papacy reflected the strength and power of the Holy Roman Emperor. However, Henry was the last emperor to dominate the papacy in this way because, after his death, the Pope quickly moved to change the system to prevent such secular involvement in the election of future popes.
A central feature of this period was the mortal struggle between the popes (notably Pope Gregory VII) and the emperors (notably Henry IV) for control of the church. The struggle between the temporal power of the emperors and the spiritual influence of the popes came to a head in the reigns of Pope Nicholas II (1059 - 1061) and Pope Gregory VII (1073 - 1085) in their opposition to Henry IV. Henry was ultimately driven by a revolt among the German nobles to make peace with the Pope and appeared before Gregory in January 1077 at Canossa. Dressed as a penitent, the emperor is said to have stood barefoot in the snow for three days and begged forgiveness until, in Gregory's words: "We loosed the chain of the anathema and at length received him into the favor of communion and into the lap of the Holy Mother Church".[38]
These tensions between emperors and pontiffs were to continue into the twelfth century and ultimately gave rise to the "distinctive separation of Church and State when the emperor signed the Concordat of Worms (1122) forfeiting any right to invest bishops with the ring and the staff symbolic of spiritual authority".[39] This separation of the secular from the ecclesiastical nevertheless did not end aspirations on the part of the emperors to influence the papacy, nor the aspirations of the popes to exercise the power of emperors.
These power struggles had already led to a clericalization of the Western Church under Gregory VII (1073-1085). The authority of Gregory VII and those that followed him demonstrated the secular and imperial nature of the pontifical office. With Gregory VII, we find the creation of a Christian commonwealth under papal control. In the Dictatus Papae, Gregory claimed:
- That the Roman pontiff alone is rightly called universal.
- That he alone has the power to depose and reinstate bishops.
- That he alone may use the imperial insignia.
- That all princes shall kiss the foot of the pope alone.
- That he has the power to depose emperors.
- That he can be judged by no one.
- That no one can be regarded as Catholic who does not agree with the Roman church.
- That he has the power to absolve subjects from their oath of fealty to wicked rulers[40]
[edit] Gregory VII
During the reign of Pope Gregory VII, the title “pope” was officially restricted to the bishop of Rome. Gregory VII was also responsible for greatly expanding the power of the papacy in worldly matters. One of the great reforming popes, Gregory is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, which pitted him against Emperor Henry IV.
[edit] Investiture Controversy
The Investiture Controversy also known as the Lay investiture controversy, was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe. It began as a dispute in the 11th century between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, and the Gregorian Papacy concerning who would control appointments of church officials (investiture). The controversy, undercutting the Imperial power established by the Salian Emperors, would eventually lead to nearly fifty years of civil war in Germany, the triumph of the great dukes and abbots, and the disintegration of the German empire, a condition from which it would not recover until the unification of Germany in the 19th century.
In 1046, Henry III deposed three rival popes. Over the next ten years he personally selected four of the next five pontiffs. But after the death of Henry III, the Pope quickly moved to change the system to prevent such secular involvement in the election of future popes.
Pope Nicholas II, elected in 1058, initiated a process of reform which exposed the underlying tension between empire and papacy. In 1059, at a synod in Rome, Nicholas condemned various abuses within the church. These included simony (the selling of clerical posts), the marriage of clergy and, more controversially, corrupt practices in papal elections. Nicholas then restricted the choice of a new pope to a conclave of cardinals, thus ruling out any direct influence by secular powers. The primary objective of these actions was to restrict the influence of the Holy Roman Emperor on papal elections. In 1061, the assembled bishops of Germany, the emperor's own faction, declared all the decrees of this pope null and void.
In 1059, Nicholas II took two steps of a kind which, while unusual at this period, would later become commonplace for the medieval papacy. He granted land, which was already occupied, to recipients of his own choice, engaging those recipients in a feudal relationship with the papacy, or the Holy See, as the feudal lord. The beneficiaries of Nicholas' land grants were the Normans, who were granted territorial rights in southern Italy and Sicily in return for feudal obligations to Rome.
[edit] East-West Schism
The East-West Schism was the event that divided Chalcedonian Christianity into Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Though normally dated to 1054, the East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between the two Churches. The primary causes of the Schism were disputes over papal authority—the Pope claimed he held authority over the four Eastern Greek-speaking patriarchs, and over the insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed by the Western Church. Eastern Orthodox today claim that the primacy of the Patriarch of Rome was only honorary, and that he has authority only over his own diocese and does not have the authority to change the decisions of Ecumenical Councils. There were other, less significant catalysts for the Schism, including variance over liturgical practices and conflicting claims of jurisdiction.
The Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographic lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed. Attempts were made to reunite the two churches in 1274 (by the Second Council of Lyon) and in 1439 (by the Council of Basel), but in each case the councils were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole, charging that the hierarchs had overstepped their authority in consenting to these so-called "unions". Further attempts to reconcile the two bodies have failed.
[edit] Urban II
The origins of the Crusades lie in Western developments earlier in the Middle Ages, as well as the deteriorating situation of the Byzantine Empire. The breakdown of the Carolingian empire in the later 9th century, combined with the relative stabilization of local European borders after the Christianization of the Vikings, Slavs and Magyars, meant that there was an entire class of warriors who now had very little to do but fight among themselves and terrorize the peasant population. The Church tried to stem this violence with the Peace and Truce of God movements, forbidding violence against certain people at certain times of the year. This was somewhat successful, but trained warriors always needed an outlet for their violence.
For these reasons, a plea for help from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I in opposing Muslim attacks thus fell on ready ears. Although the eastern Mediterranean area had been conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century, Christians had been permitted to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land until 1071 when the Seljuk Turks swept in from Asia and defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert. Seizing all of Asia Minor as well as the Holy Land the Seljuk Turks soon impeded Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem, forcing the Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenus, to ask Pope Urban II (1088-1099) for help against the Turks in the early 1090s.
Urban II viewed this request as a great opportunity. Not only could it restore Christian control over the Holy Land, but it also provided a means of domestic pacification that focused the aggression of the European nobility towards the Moslems instead of each other. In addition, coming to the aid of Byzantium held the possibility of a reunion between the eastern and western Churches after almost four decades of schism, thereby strengthening the western Church in general and the papacy in particular.
On November 27, 1095, Urban II made one of the most influential speeches in the Middle Ages at the Council of Clermont combining the ideas of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of waging a holy war against infidels. The pope called for a “War of the Cross,” or Crusade, to retake the holy lands from the unbelievers. France, the Pope said, was already overcrowded and the Holy Lands of Canaan were overflowing with milk and honey. Pope Urban II asked the Frenchmen to turn their swords in favour of God's service, and the assembly replied "Dieu le veult!" -- "God wills it!"
[edit] Twelfth century
[edit] Innocent III
On January 8, 1198, Lotario de' Conti di Segni was elected Pope Innocent III. The pontificate of Innocent III is considered the height of temporal power of the papacy.
[edit] Episcopal inquisition
The first medieval inquisition, the episcopal inquisition, was established in the year 1184 by a papal bull entitled Ad abolendam, "For the purpose of doing away with." The inquisition was in response to the growing Catharist heresy in southern France. It is called "episcopal" because it was administered by local bishops, which in Latin is episcopus. The episcopal inquisition was not very effective for many reasons. The bishops often did not reside in their dioceses, living in far-off cities such as Rome and rarely, if ever, visiting. When they did visit, bishops were busy and had many other responsibilities. Also, the procedures used in this inquisition were not effective. For example, according to the Ad abolendam, it was required to reveal the name of the accuser to the accused, and this would often lead to the revenge killing of the accuser before the trial.
[edit] Thirteenth century
[edit] Papal inquisition
In the 1230s the Church responded to the failures of the episcopal inquisition with a series of papal bulls which became the papal inquisition. The papal inquisition was staffed by professionals, trained specifically for the job. Individuals were chosen from different orders and secular clergy, but primarily they came from the Dominican Order. The Dominicans were favored for their history of anti-heresy, education, and skill in debate. As mendicants, they were accustomed to travel and not interested in personal gain. Unlike the haphazard episcopal methods, the papal inquisition was thorough and systematic, keeping detailed records.
[edit] Council of Lyons
At the second ecumenical Council of Lyons in 1274, the bishops declared that the Roman church possessed “the supreme and full primacy and authority over the universal Catholic Church,” which of course gave the bishop of Rome quite a lot of power.
[edit] Avignon era ("Babylonian Captivity"): 1309-1377
The Catholic Church endured a prolonged period of crisis that lasted from 1305 until 1416. During these years, the Church found its authority undermined, openly challenged, and divided among rivals. Although it emerged at the end of the period with its authority seemingly intact, the struggle brought significant changes to the structure of the Church and sowed seeds that would later sprout in the Protestant Reformation.
This century of crisis can be divided into two periods of unequal length.
[edit] Avignon Papacy
In the first phase, the popes were resident not in Rome but in Avignon, in southern France. Because a bishop is supposed to reside in his see, this circumstance, which lasted from 1305 to 1378, undermined the authority and prestige of the papacy. During this period, seven popes, all French, resided in Avignon:
- Pope Clement V: 1305–1314 (moved Papal residency in 1309, his 4th year of office, having consented to, if not colluded with, King Phillip IV in the mass imprisonments & property seizures in 1307 in southern France of the Knights Templar, a wealthy organization Papally-ordained in 1128 as subject to no Kingly authority, only to the Pope)
- Pope John XXII: 1316–1334
- Pope Benedict XII: 1334–1342
- Pope Clement VI: 1342–1352
- Pope Innocent VI: 1352–1362
- Pope Urban V: 1362–1370
- Pope Gregory XI: 1370–1378
In 1378, Gregory XI moved the papal residence back to Rome and died there.
[edit] Western Schism and the Antipopes
After seventy years in France the papal curia was naturally French in its ways and, to a large extent, in its staff. Back in Rome some degree of tension between French and Italian factions was inevitable. This tension was brought to a head by the death of the French pope Gregory XI within a year of his return to Rome. The Roman crowd, said to be in threatening mood, demanded a Roman pope or at least an Italian one. In 1378 the conclave elected an Italian from Naples, Pope Urban VI. His intransigence in office soon alienated the French cardinals. And the behaviour of the Roman crowd enabled them to declare, in retrospect, that his election was invalid, voted under duress.
The French cardinals withdrew to a conclave of their own, where they elected one of their number, Robert of Geneva. He took the name Clement VII. By 1379 he was back in the palace of popes in Avignon, while Urban VI remained in Rome.
This was the beginning of the period of difficulty from 1378 to 1417 which Catholic scholars refer to as the "Western schism" or, "the great controversy of the antipopes" (also called "the second great schism" by some secular and Protestant historians), when parties within the Catholic church were divided in their allegiances among the various claimants to the office of pope. The Council of Constance in 1417 finally resolved the controversy.
[edit] Resolution of the Western Schism
For nearly forty years the Church had two papal curias and two sets of cardinals, each electing a new pope for Rome or Avignon when death created a vacancy. Each pope lobbied for support among kings and princes who played them off against each other, changing allegiance when according to political advantage.
In 1409 a council was convened at Pisa to resolve the issue. The council declared both existing popes to be schismatic (Gregory XII from Rome, Benedict XIII from Avignon) and appointed a new one, Alexander V. But the existing popes had not been persuaded to resign so the church had three popes.
Another council was convened in 1414 at Constance. In March 1415 the Pisan pope, John XXIII, fled from Constance in disguise; he was brought back a prisoner and deposed in May. The Roman pope, Gregory XII, resigned voluntarily in July.
The Avignon pope, Benedict XIII, refused to come to Constance. In spite of a personal visit from the emperor Sigismund, he would not consider resignation. The council finally deposed him in July 1417. Denying their right to do so, he withdrew to an impregnable castle on the coast of Spain. Here he continued to act as pope, creating new cardinals and issuing decrees, until his death in 1423.
The council in Constance, having finally cleared the field of popes and antipopes, elected Pope Martin V as pope in November.
[edit] Impact of the Western Schism on the papacy
Political theorists in the mid 14th century began to express the view that the papacy was not even the supreme power source in the church, but that a duly-convened council of the higher clergy could override popes in circumstances that warranted intervention. The Schism was the supreme example of such circumstances, and the actions of the Council of Constance, which deposed three rival popes and elected a single pope to take up residence in Rome, represented the high point of conciliarist influence. Soon after, however, Pope Martin V, the very pope whom the council had put in place began the work at setting aside conciliarist attempts to make regular meetings of councils a permanent feature of church governance.
[edit] Early Modern Europe
[edit] Renaissance
The Renaissance, also known as the Age of Humanism, was a period of secularization of Western civilization. The Renaissance Church became a secular institution in this period, shedding its spiritual roots, with insatiable greed for material wealth and temporal power. The Italian Renaissance produced little of what could be considered great ideas or institutions by which men living in society could be held together in harmony. Indeed, the greatest of all European institutions, the Roman Church, fell into neglect under the Renaissance popes, whose fall from spiritual grace sparked the Reformation.
The papacy that emerged from the Western Schism no longer put its energy into playing a dominant role in a united Christendom, but instead focused on building and expanding its political base in Italy. During the Renaissance, the popes expanded the papal territories dramatically, most notably under Pope Alexander VI and Pope Julius II. In addition to being the head of the Church, the Pope became one of Italy's most important secular rulers , signing treaties with other sovereigns and fighting wars. In practice, though, most of the territory of the Papal States was still only nominally controlled by the Pope with much of the territory being ruled by minor princes. Control was often contested; indeed it took until the 16th century for the Pope to have any genuine control over all his territories.
[edit] Reconstruction of Rome
At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Rome had experienced a long decline from the glory of the Roman Empire. The skyline of the city was littered with the ruins of once spectacular structures. Wild animals ran free through the overgrowth dominating the center of the city. The city that had dominated the entire world centuries earlier was just a shadow of its former self. In the first century, Rome had a population of about one million. At the start of the fifteenth century the population of the city numbered about 25,000. Rome was no longer a great center of commerce, and the papacy, which had long sustained the city through its riches and international influence, had moved from Rome to Avignon during the fourteenth century.
In 1420, the papacy returned to Rome under Pope Martin V. During the subsequent centuries the papacy would rebuild the city, and the Papal States, centered in Rome, would assume a position of great importance in Italian affairs. The papacy closely supervised the Renaissance revival of Rome, maintaining its economic power, and thus control of the city, through the sale of church offices and taxation of the Papal States. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were periodic spurts of support for political independence from church control. However, the Papacy kept a tight grip on its territorial holdings and the destinies of city and church remained inextricably intertwined.
After the return of the papacy, the first step in resurrecting Rome was the ascension of Pope Nicholas V in 1447. When he was a monk in Tuscany, Nicholas V had been helped financially by the Florentine banker Cosimo de Medici, who had lent him money without demanding any collateral. In repayment for this favor, Nicholas later appointed Cosimo the Papal banker. Financed by the Medici family, Nicholas founded the Vatican Library. In his eight short years as pope, Nicholas V initiated changes that would transform Rome into a Renaissance city.
After the death of Nicholas V, the Papacy continued to be a force for change in Rome. However, as Rome became wealthier and more powerful, corruption in the Papacy grew. The pattern continued throughout the fifteenth century. With the election of Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, the Papacy began a plunge toward moral degradation while Rome itself ascended to the greatest splendor it had achieved since Roman times. Under Sixtus IV, nepotism reached new and corrupt heights. Sixtus' 'nephews' (the papal nephew was a long-standing way of referring to the pope's illegitimate children) were granted influential posts and huge salaries. Pope Sixtus IV even entered into a conspiracy to have the powerful Medici family assassinated when he thought they were getting in the way of one of his nephews. This pattern of behavior became the model for papal rule throughout the Renaissance, undermining papal moral authority, but allowing the Papacy to grow strong politically and economically.
At the same time, Pope Sixtus IV initiated a major drive to redesign and rebuild Rome, widening the streets and destroying the crumbling ruins. He commissioned the construction of the famed Sistine Chapel and summoned many great Renaissance artists from other Italian states to work on rebuilding and redecorating Rome.
The already corrupt Papacy reached its nadir during the reign of Rodrigo Borgia, who was elected to the papacy in 1492 after the death of the generally unnoteworthy Pope Innocent VIII, and who assumed the name Pope Alexander VI. Borgia, a Spaniard, had been at the center of Vatican affairs for 30 years as a Cardinal. When he became pope, myth and legend quickly rose up around his family. Alexander VI had four acknowledged children, three males and one female. Alexander VI was himself known as a corrupt pope bent on his family's political and material success, to an even greater extent than Sixtus IV had been. It was no secret that Alexander VI's oldest son Cesare, was a murderer, and had killed many of his political opponents. Lucrezia Borgia, Alexander VI's daughter, was married three times to aid the pope's efforts to create advantageous alliances with other families. Under Alexander VI, the Papacy continued to grow strong politically and economically, but the means by which it grew were much vilified throughout Italy.
Alexander VI died in 1503, and was succeeded by Pope Julius II. Under Julius II, both the city of Rome and the Papacy entered a Golden Age. Julius II continued the consolidation of power in the Papal States, encouraged the devotion to learning and writing in Rome begun by Pope Nicholas V, and, foremost, continued the process of rebuilding Rome physically. The most prominent project among many was the rebuilding of the Basilica of St. Peter, one of the most sacred buildings in Christianity. The creation of a new St. Peter's, and indeed a new Rome, taxed the city. Ancient structures were demolished to make room and building materials for the new buildings of the city.
Rome received its final push to Renaissance glory from Pope Leo X, second son of Lorenzo de Medici who ascended to the papal throne in 1513, following Julius II. Leo X was at ease in social situations, a skilled diplomat, demonstrated great skill as an administrator, and was an intelligent and beneficent patron of the arts. He encouraged scholarly learning, and supported the theatre, an art form considered to be of ambiguous morality until that time. Most prominently, he supported the visual arts of painting and sculpture. He is well known for his patronage of Raphael, whose paintings played a large role in the redecoration of the Vatican. The death of Leo X in 1521 signalled the effective end of Rome's Golden Age, and the Renaissance as a whole began to lose its energy.
[edit] Inter caetera
Columbus' discovery in 1492 of supposedly Asiatic lands in the western seas threatened the unstable relations between the kingdoms of Portugal and Castile, which had been jockeying for position and possession of colonial territories along the African coast for many years. The king of Portugal asserted that the discovery was within the bounds set forth in Papal bulls of 1455, 1456, and 1479. The king and queen of Castile disputed this and sought a new Papal Bull on the subject. Pope Alexander VI, a native of Valencia and a friend of the Castilian king, responded with three bulls, dated May 3 and 4, which were highly favorable to Castile. The third of these bulls was titled "Inter caetera", awarded Spain the sole right to colonize most of the New World.
[edit] Reformation
Beginning with Martin Luther, Protestants attacked the Pope as representing the power of the Anti-Christ and the Roman Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon prophesied in the Book of Revelation.[41] The identification of the Papacy as the Anti-Christ was an article of faith for many Protestant denominations:
- Westminster Confession of Faith:
- 25.6. There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalts himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.
- The London Baptist Confession of 1689:
- 26.4. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, in whom, by the appointment of the Father, all power for the calling, institution, order or government of the church, is invested in a supreme and sovereign manner; neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ.
The four most important traditions to emerge directly from the reformation were the Lutheran tradition, the Reformed/Calvinist/Presbyterian tradition, the Anabaptist tradition, and the Anglican tradition. Subsequent Protestant traditions generally trace their roots back to these initial four schools of the Reformation. It also led to the Catholic or Counter Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church.
[edit] Counter-Reformation
The Catholic Church did not mount an organized and deliberate response to the Protestant Reformation until the election (1534) of Pope Paul III, who placed the papacy itself at the head of a movement for churchwide reform. Pope Paul III established a reform commission, appointed several leading reformers to the College of Cardinals, initiated reform of the central administrative apparatus at Rome, authorized the founding of the Jesuits, the order that was later to prove so loyal to the papacy, and convoked the Council of Trent, which met intermittently from 1545 to 1563. The council succeeded in initiating a number of far-ranging moral and administrative reforms, including reform of the papacy itself, that was destined to define the shape and set the tone of Roman Catholicism into the mid-20th century.
The Catholic Reformation was comprehensive and comprised five major elements:
-
- Doctrine
- Ecclesiastical or Structural Reconfiguration
- Religious Orders
- Spiritual Movements
- Political Dimensions
Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life to returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focus on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality.
[edit] Council of Trent
Pope Paul III (1534-1549) initiated the Council of Trent (1545-1563), a commission of cardinals tasked with institutional reform, to address contentious issues such as corrupt bishops and priests, indulgences, and other financial abuses. The Council clearly rejected specific Protestant positions and upheld the basic structure of the Medieval Church, its sacramental system, religious orders, and doctrine. It rejected all compromise with the Protestants, restating basic tenets of the Catholic faith. The Council clearly upheld the dogma of salvation appropriated by Christ lived out by faith and works. Transubstantiation, during which the consecrated bread and wine were held to become (substantially) the body and blood of Christ, was upheld, along with the Seven Sacraments. Other practices that drew the ire of Protestant reformers, such as indulgences, pilgrimages, the veneration of saints and relics, and the veneration of the Virgin Mary were strongly reaffirmed as spiritually vital as well.
But while the basic structure of the Church was reaffirmed, there were noticeable changes to answer complaints that the Counter Reformers tacitly were willing to admit were legitimate. Among the conditions to be corrected by Catholic reformers was the growing divide between the priests and the flock; many members of the clergy in the rural parishes, after all, had been poorly educated. Often, these rural priests did not know Latin and lacked opportunities for proper theological training. (Addressing the education of priests had been a fundamental focus of the humanist reformers in the past.) Parish priests now became better educated, while Papal authorities sought to eliminate the distractions of the monastic churches. Notebooks and handbooks thus became common, describing how to be good priests and confessors.
Thus, the Council of Trent was dedicated to improving the discipline and administration of the Church. The worldly excesses of the secular Renaissance church, epitomized by the era of Alexander VI (1492-1503), exploded in the Reformation under Pope Leo X (1513-1522), whose campaign to raise funds in the German states to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica by supporting sale of indulgences was a key impetus for Martin Luther's 95 Theses. But the Catholic Church would respond to these problems by a vigorous campaign of reform, inspired by earlier Catholic reform movements that predated the Council of Constance (1414-1417): humanism, devotionalism, legalist and the observatine tradition.
The Council, by virtue of its actions, repudiated the pluralism of the Secular Renaissance Church: the organization of religious institutions was tightened, discipline was improved, and the parish was emphasized. The appointment of Bishops for political reasons was no longer tolerated. In the past, the large landholdings forced many bishops to be "absent bishops" who at times were property managers trained in administration. Thus, the Council