Introduction for Chapter 9

9 State and Church in the High Middle Ages

1000–1300

The concept of the state had been one of Rome’s great legacies to Western civilization, but for almost five hundred years after the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the West, the state did not exist. Political authority was decentralized, with power spread among many lords, bishops, abbots, and other types of local rulers. The deeply fragmented political units that covered the early medieval European continent did not have the characteristics or provide the services of a modern state.

Beginning in the last half of the tenth century, the invasions and migrations that had contributed to European fragmentation gradually ended, and domestic disorder slowly subsided. Rulers began to develop new institutions of law and government that enabled them to assert their power over lesser lords and the general population. Although nobles remained the dominant class, centralized states slowly crystallized, first in western Europe, and then in eastern and northern Europe. At the same time, energetic popes built their power within the Western Christian Church and tried to assert their superiority over kings and emperors. Monks, nuns, and friars played significant roles in medieval society, both as individuals and as members of institutions. A papal call to retake the holy city of Jerusalem led to nearly two centuries of warfare between Christians and Muslims. Christian warriors, clergy, and settlers moved out from western and central Europe in all directions, so that through conquest and colonization border regions were gradually incorporated into a more uniform Christian realm.

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Life and Death in the High Middle Ages. In this thirteenth-century manuscript, knights of King Henry II stab Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, a dramatic example of church-state conflict. Becket was soon made a saint, and the spot where the murder occurred became a pilgrimage site. (© British Library Board, Harl 5102 fol. 32. All rights reserved/The Bridgeman Art Library)

CHAPTER PREVIEW

Political Revival and the Origins of the Modern State

How did monarchs try to centralize political power?

Law and Justice

How did the administration of law evolve in this period?

Nobles

What were the roles of nobles, and how did they train for these?

The Papacy

How did the papacy reform the church, and what were the reactions to these efforts?

Monks, Nuns, and Friars

What roles did monks, nuns, and friars play in medieval society?

The Crusades and the Expansion of Christianity

What were the causes, course, and consequences of both the Crusades and the broader expansion of Christianity?

Chronology

936–973 Reign of Otto I in Germany; facilitates spread of Christianity in the Baltics and eastern Europe
1059 Lateran Council restricts election of the pope to the college of cardinals
1061–1091 Normans defeat Muslims and Byzantines in Sicily
1066 Norman conquest of England
1073–1085 Pontificate of Pope Gregory VII, proponent of Gregorian reforms
1095–1291 Crusades
1098 Cistercian order established
1100–1135 Reign of Henry I of England; establishment of the Exchequer, England’s bureau of finance
1100–1200 Establishment of canon law
1154–1189 Reign of Henry II of England; revision of legal procedure; beginnings of common law
1170 Thomas Becket assassinated in England
1180–1223 Reign of Philip II (Philip Augustus) in France; territory of France greatly expanded
1198–1216 Innocent III; height of the medieval papacy
1215 Magna Carta
1216 Papal recognition of Dominican order
1221 Papal recognition of Franciscan order
1290 Jews expelled from England
1298 Pope Boniface VIII orders all nuns to be cloistered
1302 Pope Boniface VIII declares all Christians subject to the pope in Unam Sanctam
1306 Jews expelled from France
1397 Queen Margrete establishes Union of Kalmar