Klishina M.V. Ph.D., professor, Zhubekova A. student gr. MO-12
KEUK, Karaganda, Kazakhstan
The word dad comes from the Greek papas which means "father". In early Christianity, believers called their spiritual leaders this way. At the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries in Eastern Christianity, the title pope was assigned to the patriarch of the Church of Alexandria. In the west, this title was borne by the bishops of Carthage and Rome. In 1073, Pope Gregory VII declared that only the bishop of Rome had the right to bear the title of pope. It should be noted, however, that to this day the official nomenclature used in Catholic Church law does not use the word pope. It is replaced by the expression Roman Pontiff, which reflects the two main functions of the pope: the bishop of Rome and the head of the entire Catholic Church. The official non-use of the word “dad” may be determined by the biblical covenant of Christ “... call no one father, for you have one father, God.” According to Catholic doctrine, the Pope is considered “the vicar of Jesus Christ, the successor of St. Peter (Roman bishops consider themselves the direct heirs of the Apostle Peter), the highest head of the universal church, the Western Patriarch, the primate of Italy, the archbishop and metropolitan of the Roman province, the sovereign of the Vatican City State. The Pope crowns the multi-level hierarchy of the organization of Catholicism. The combination of religious and secular power is a rare case in the history of modern times. Undoubtedly, the influence of the pope as a person on the entire Catholic Church, this is quite understandable and understandable, of particular interest are the most prominent personalities from among the Popes of Rome, and their personal contribution to the history of Catholicism.
Who is the Pope and how do Catholics themselves teach about him? His official title: “Bishop of Rome, Substitute of Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Province of Romagna, Sovereign of the Vatican City State, Servant of the Servants of God.”
The Latin word vicar literally translates as “deputy” or “vicar” - this is the sense in which Catholics understand the role of the Bishop of Rome. The Prince of the Apostles refers to the holy Apostle Peter, who is conceived by Catholics as a kind of absolute, monarchical head of the apostolic community. Primate means “eldest”, “first” of the bishops. The word sovereign means an independent temporal ruler. It is very symptomatic that to this day the pope resolutely insists on remaining the independent head of a secular state, at least such a small one, the territory of which occupies less than a hectare.
What follows from this title in practice? In Roman Catholic law it is written: “The supreme see cannot be judged by anyone.”
From this short phrase it follows that the Roman Pontiff is not subject to the judgment of the Ecumenical Council and that in the Roman Catholic Church itself there is no body that could tell the pope that he is mistaken, that he is doing wrong, and condemn him. The Pope is higher than the Church and higher than the Ecumenical Council. And also the very rules of the Ecumenical Council cannot be recognized as valid if the Council was not convened by the pope and these rules were not approved by him. Not a single bishop in the world can be considered a genuine bishop if he received his consecration without the sanction of the Pope.
From the teaching that the pope is above the Universal Church, that he is not subject to not only human but also ecclesiastical court, Catholics made another conclusion. They have a dogma of papal infallibility.
Catholic teaching states that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks on behalf of the entire Church (there is such a term ex cathedra, that is, “from the pulpit” - not in the sense that he necessarily pronounces his words after ascending to the pulpit, but in the sense that he speaks officially) on issues of doctrine or morality, cannot be mistaken and his definitions are infallible in themselves and there is no need for either confirmation or acceptance of them by the Church Completeness, i.e. the property of infallible teaching, which belongs to the entire Church as a whole, is assigned to one person - the Bishop of Rome.
This is a fairly new dogma. It was adopted only in 1870 at the First Vatican Council, which Catholics call the Twentieth Ecumenical Council. They continued the count of Ecumenical Councils, including among them some of their Councils of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modern times. They now number twenty-one Ecumenical Councils.
In the Middle Ages in Western Europe, the church organization led by the Pope played a huge role.
Initially, most Christians did not recognize the authority of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, over themselves. The bishop of Constantinople, the patriarch, had great influence; the popes also obeyed him. Rome itself, after the conquests of Justinian, was under the rule of Byzantium.
However, at the end of the 6th century. this power has weakened. The emperors, busy repelling the onslaught of the Arabs and Slavs, could not help Rome in its fight against the Lombards. In 590, Gregory I, a skillful and wise ruler, became Pope. He stopped the onslaught of the Lombards and managed to provide Rome with everything it needed. Gregory, nicknamed the Great, gained enormous authority. In most countries of Western Europe, the church began to submit to the Pope. Later, in 754, there arose Papal State. As the popes became stronger, disagreements between Christians of the West and East widened. The Western Church was called Roman Catholic (universal), and the Eastern Church was called Greek Orthodox (true). There were disputes over many issues. For example, the Catholic Church taught that worship can only be conducted in Latin, the Orthodox Church - in the languages of each nation. According to Catholics, only church ministers were allowed to read the Bible, and Orthodox preachers often created writing for different nations so that everyone could read the Holy Scriptures. Catholics crossed themselves with five fingers, and Orthodox Christians with a rattle or two. In Catholicism, priests were eventually banned from having names and families, and in Orthodoxy, celibacy extended only to monks.
An open clash occurred in the second half of the 9th century. under Pope Nicholas and Patriarch Photius. Nicholas announced the deprivation of Photius from the rank of patriarch. In response, Photius cursed the pope. During the dispute, Nikolai used a collection of ancient documents that he allegedly found. It followed from them that Emperor Constantine the Great transferred to the then pope power over the entire church and full power over the western part of his empire. Only in the 15th century. Italian scientists have proven that this entire collection of documents is a fake. The final split between the Orthodox and Catholic churches occurred in 1054.
In its structure, the Catholic Church resembled a “feudal ladder.” The lowest level were priests parishes The parish united residents of a village or part of a city who prayed in one church. They became priests after a special ceremony. He was seen off bishop - head of the priests of the diocese (region).
The parish priests elected the bishop of the diocese. During the initiation ceremony, the bishop was given a ring and a staff as a sign of power over the believers. The bishops of several dioceses were often under the leadership archbishop. Bishops and archbishops were subordinate to the Pope.
In the 10th century The rulers of the East Frankish Kingdom (Germany) led the fight against the Hungarian raids and created a powerful knightly army. Initially, there was no clear "feudal ladder" in Germany. The king's vassals were not only dukes and counts, but also many knights. King Otto I finally defeated the Hungarians in the Battle of the Lech River in 955. Otto strengthened his power and subjugated many dukes. To strengthen his authority, the king established a special relationship with the church. He granted her many benefits, but arrogated to himself the right to approve bishops - he handed them a ring and a staff. The Church in Germany passed from the authority of the Pope to the authority of the King.
The expulsion was favored by the decline in the authority of the pope at that time. The nobility of Rome and the Kingdom of Italy placed their proteges on the papal throne. Otto made several campaigns in Italy, took the title of King of Italy, and defeated the enemies of the pope. In 962, the pope crowned Otgon with the imperial crown. Thus, the empire was recreated again, which later became known as the Holy Roman Empire. The popes became completely dependent on the emperors. Because of this, the papacy lost its authority even more. Some church leaders sought to change the situation. It was they who initiated the Cluny reform. Initially, they were supported by the emperors, Otto’s successors, because they also wanted to increase respect for the church, which was one of the pillars of their power. However, having strengthened the church, the popes began to fight for liberation from the power of the emperors. A law was passed according to which only a few bishop-cardinals could participate in the election of popes. The emperor was excluded from participating in the elections. The pope then declared that bishops should obey only him and not the emperor.
In 1073, an ardent supporter of reforms became pope Gregory VII. An open struggle for power over the bishops developed between him and Emperor Henry IV. It continued under their successors. In the end, the popes achieved an almost complete victory over the emperors. They were helped by the fact that over time, imperial power in Germany weakened, and Italy actually fell away from the empire.
In the 12th century. The power of the popes increased. The word of the clergy was law for the common man, the feudal lord, and the king. Attempts by some rulers to resist the popes ended in failure. In the middle of the 12th century. Frederick Barbarossa became emperor. He was an intelligent and determined man. He managed to somewhat strengthen his power in Germany and wanted to subjugate Italy again, but his knightly army was defeated by the militia of Italian cities that supported the pope. The defeat of the emperor further strengthened the importance of the popes. The most powerful of them was the pope Innocent III(1198-1616). Innocent called himself vicar of Christ on the ground. He overthrew and appointed emperors and kings. By order of Innocent, wars began. The pope tried to curb feudal strife and clashes between Christian countries, and direct all his strength to the fight against heretics and Muslims.
Termination at the beginning of the 11th century. The raids of the Hungarians, Arabs, and Normans contributed to the successful economic development of European countries and rapid population growth. However, by the end of the 11th century. this led to an acute shortage of available land. Wars and their companions - famine and epidemics - have become more frequent. People saw the cause of all misfortunes in punishments for sins. The best way to get rid of sins was considered to be visiting holy places, especially Palestine, where the Holy Sepulcher was located. But after the capture of Palestine by the Seljuk Turks, who were intolerant of non-Muslims, pilgrimage there became almost impossible.
The idea of a campaign against Muslims to liberate the Holy Sepulcher was becoming increasingly widespread in Europe. This was not only a charitable deed, but also a way to provide land for both feudal lords and peasants. Everyone dreamed of rich booty, and merchants hoped for trade benefits. In 1095 the Pope Urban II called for a campaign in Palestine. Participants in the campaign decorated their clothes and armor with crosses - hence its name. Both feudal lords and peasants took part in the First Crusade.
In 1096-1099 The crusaders conquered Syria and Palestine from the Seljuk Turks. There arose the Kingdom of Jerusalem, whose vassal possessions were the counties of Edessa and Tripolitan and the Principality of Antioch. The crusader states waged constant wars with the Muslim rulers of the surrounding countries. Gradually, the crusaders, of whom there were not very many in the East, began to lose their possessions. There were seven more major crusades. Peasants almost no longer took part in them, but emperors and kings often led the knights. However, all these campaigns were almost in vain. During the Fourth Crusade, the crusaders attacked Constantinople and took it in 1204. They created the Latin Empire on the lands of Byzantium. Only in 1261 did the rulers of the Nicene Empire, which had survived from Byzantium, manage to liberate Constantinople. But Byzantium did not restore its former power.
In Palestine, with the support of the popes, spiritual knightly orders were created. Those who joined the order became warrior monks. The first to arise Order of the Knights Templar. Then it was created Order of the Hospitallers. Later arose Warband. The knight-monks lived off the lands that belonged to the orders in Palestine and Europe. Detachments of order knights differed from ordinary feudal troops in their discipline. However, over time, the orders grew richer, and their members ceased to show their former zeal in military affairs. Many of them surrounded themselves with luxury. It was even claimed that the Templars, who became especially rich, secretly renounced Christianity.
Meanwhile, the Muslim onslaught intensified. In 1187 the Sultan Salah al-Din(Saladin), who united Syria and Egypt, recaptured Jerusalem. In 1291, the last crusader fortress in Palestine, Acre, fell.
Despite the failure and great sacrifices, the Crusades also had a positive meaning for Western Europe. They contributed to the acquaintance of Europeans with the higher culture of Byzantium and eastern countries at that time, and the borrowing of many achievements. The position of European merchants strengthened. This subsequently led to the development of commodity-money relations, the growth of cities and handicraft production. The outflow of the most militant part of the feudal lords and their death contributed to the strengthening of royal power in a number of European countries.
Heresies, i.e. deviations from church dogmas arose during the formation of the Christian church. However, from the XII - XIII centuries. they especially intensified. Heretics pointed out that many priests, including the pope himself, do not practice what they preach, live in luxury, lead dissolute lives, and interfere in the affairs of states. Heretics called for a return to the foundations of the early Christian church, when its ministers were poor and persecuted, but showed everyone an example of righteousness.
Some heretics taught that the world is ruled by two equal forces - God and the devil. They called themselves people of God, and all opponents, including the clergy led by the Pope, servants of the devil. Heretics called for the destruction of churches and icons, and for the extermination of all church servants. There were heretics who advocated the equality of all people not only before God, but also in earthly life. They offered to divide all property equally. In communities of such heretics, property was considered common; Sometimes even wives were common.
Heretics refused to pray in “damaged” churches or pay church tithes. In some places, even feudal lords, including rulers of large regions, became heretics, dissatisfied with the claims of the popes to secular power. At the beginning of the 13th century. in some areas of northern Italy and southern France, heretics made up the majority of the population. Here they exterminated the clergy and created their own church organization.
Church ministers condemned heresies in their sermons and placed curses on heretics. However, the main way to combat heresies was persecution and punishment. Those suspected of heresies were subject to arrest, interrogation using torture, and then execution. Not relying on the zeal of secular rulers who pitied their subjects, the popes created an ecclesiastical court - the holy the Inquisition(investigation). A person who fell into the hands of the Inquisition was subjected to the most sophisticated torture. The usual punishment for heretics was their public burning alive at the stake. Sometimes up to 100 or more people were burned at once. In addition to heretics, the Inquisition also persecuted people suspected of having connections with the devil - witches and sorcerers. Many hundreds of thousands of women died at the stake in Western Europe because of these ridiculous accusations. The property of the convicted was divided between the church and local authorities. Therefore, wealthy citizens especially suffered from the Inquisition.
In areas where there were a lot of heretics, crusades were organized. The largest campaigns were in the south of France against the Albigensian heretics under Pope Innocent III. During the war, the inhabitants of entire regions and cities were exterminated.
After Innocent III, the power of the papacy began to decline. Fights between popes and emperors resumed. As a result, both sides were exhausted. The authority of the popes was undermined during the struggle between Pope Boniface VIII and the French king Philip IV and the subsequent "captivity of Avignon" popes, which lasted until 1377. All this time, the popes lived in the city of Avignon in the south of France and obeyed the will of the French kings. After the return of the popes to Rome, Great Schism in the Catholic Church. For 40 years, two and sometimes three popes were elected simultaneously. In England and France, the church actually found itself subordinate to royal authority.
To overcome the crisis of the Catholic Church, an Ecumenical Council was convened. He sat in Constance from 1414 to 1418. In 1417 a new pope was elected. Thus, the Great Schism was overcome.
Bibliographic index:
1. “Popes and papacy”, Y.V. Kovalsky, M. Politizdat, 1991
2. “Maxim Kozlov. Catholic ecclesiology: papal primacy and papal
infallibility" // http://omolenko.com/publicistic/kozlov.htm/
3. “Catholicism”, M. P. Mchedlov, 2nd Ed., M. Politizdat, 1974
4. “History. Section III history of the Middle Ages" Artemov V., Lubchenkov Yu
5. “Catholic Church. Crusades" // http://www.student.ru/
UDC 316.74(574)
VATICAN CRUSADES
Klishina M.V. Ph.D., professor, Elubay B., gr. Yu-14s KEUK, Karaganda, Kazakhstan
In our difficult days, many are racking their brains: “Why is this such a violent attack on the state of Israel?” There is practically not a single large international institution or organization left, starting from the White House administration, ending with the European Parliament, Great Britain, the UN, Russia, the League of Arab States, and Iran.
“Bishops from the Middle East, meeting at a conference in the Vatican, adopted a resolution demanding that Israel “end its occupation of Palestinian lands and stop using the Bible to justify injustices perpetrated against Palestinians.” The conference, which lasted 2 weeks, was convened by Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the situation of Christians in the Middle East. Catholics form a religious minority in the region, which is shrinking every year. Israel blames Muslim extremists for this, but Catholics themselves, as it turns out, have a different opinion.
The bishops called on Israel to comply with relevant UN resolutions and declared that "Holy Scripture cannot serve as a basis for the return of Jews to Israel, the expulsion of Palestinians and the occupation of Palestinian lands." Rights to the “Promised Land” are not the privilege of the Jewish people. Christ abolished this right. »
The situation of Christians in the Middle East is deplorable, and only in the territory of the state of Israel are they not persecuted. Moreover, the Catholic monks who remained in the Arab autonomy would very much like to live on the Israeli side, because they have already figured out where it is good and where it is bad.
He elevates lies to dogma. The real Yeshu lived under Alexander Yanai. He was recognized as a heretic for his wild ideas, and was killed and thrown into the abyss.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, and after the death of the Apostles of Jesus, their works were completed and rewritten. Haggadahs where Yeshu is mentioned were removed from the Talmud. But the Jews who went to the countries of northern Africa and Spain kept their books. And there it all remained. Why was the lie elevated to dogma? For the sole purpose, with a claim to the Jewish Almighty. For this purpose, the first ancient detective story was written, where, as a result of the immaculate conception, according to a warning from above, a baby is born in a manger, in a stable, which the Magi learn about by a star. Since the baby is a “son,” then his “father” and “mother” are one family. The Most High, through Jesus, belongs to Christians. And it was not the Romans, but the Jews, who were to blame for his crucifixion, and eternal revenge on them for this. Otherwise, God forbid, there will be one who will say that Christianity was the first marauder of the ancient world, and Muslims were the second. And, since the Holy Scripture cannot be the basis for the return of Jews to their land, the Vatican, in the person of its bishops, blasphemes, tearing out from the Eternal Testament not pages, but chapters where it is said that the first duty of a Jew is life in the Promised Land. Or even worse: the Vatican cancels the ETERNAL COVENANT, believing that today it can live without it. Just as the Roman Empire fell under the onslaught of the wild hordes, the “new crusaders” will also fall under their onslaught. And all those who are at the head of this “bloody campaign” and evil slander. Our right to the Promised Land is eternal as long as we remain Jews. »
As Timothy Garton Ash put it: “Without the pope there would be no Solidarity (the resistance movement to the government of the then Poland. Author). Without Solidarity there would be no Gorbachev. Without Gorbachev there would have been no fall of communism." The “fall of communism” in this case was expressed not in the collapse of the ideology that now “lives and wins” in the West, but in the collapse of the statehood of the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern European countries, which have long ago, in fact, moved away from communist ideology. All that remains of it are some symbols and names. It was an external facade that hid a completely different structure. It was called Soviet, socialist. But it's not about the name. In essence, it was a system focused on the construction of national statehood, which objectively prevented the creation of everything global, including the Global Khaganate. The confrontation between the national and the global underlies modern political and economic confrontation. During the existence of the Soviet Union, it was he who was the core of everything national, around which the countries of Eastern Europe and the countries of the Third World, which also chose the path of national statehood, united. The USSR formed this coalition of national forces, and this coalition rested on it. Thanks to this, the national could defend itself and repel the attacks of the global.
During the Cold War, attempts were made repeatedly to undermine the bloc of national forces. In the 70s, a strategic decision was made, first, by undermining the union from within, by disintegrating one of the members, to provoke everyone into a rebellion, a revolution. And then deal a fatal blow to the Soviet Union at the core of the alliance. Thus, the question arose in which state to lay that mine, which would subsequently blow up the entire system of national statehood so that small fragments remained from it. »
The implementation of this plan was not an easy one. In order to turn a state into an explosive device capable of blowing up the entire system of national forces and creating the preconditions for the destruction of its core, it was necessary to think through a number of conditions that this state must meet.
First, this state must play a significant role in the coalition of national forces in order for the situation in it to truly affect everyone.
Secondly, since the main blow was directed against the key Russian statehood as the foundation of the national system, it is necessary that this state organically carry an anti-Russian charge in its depths. That is, historically it has been harshly opposed to Russia, politically and spiritually.
Thirdly, it is necessary that this state be organically connected with the West, which forms the core of the coalition of global forces. Organic connection in this case means a historical union with the West in political and spiritual (religious) terms.
Only one country, Poland, met all these three requirements. When the state was decided, it was necessary to develop a strategy of subversive work aimed at destroying the system of national statehood led by the USSR.
This strategy was to form a force within Poland that would be able to act in two directions against its own national statehood and against the USSR as the vanguard of the national statehood system in the world.
John Paul II took an active part in the formation of such a force and acted as its spiritual leader.
The authority of the Pope made it possible to ensure the scale and openness of subversive anti-state activities in Poland. John Paul II, a Pole by nationality, gave the revolutionary movement a special pathos and nationalistic character. Polish Catholicism has historically been the center of the struggle against the Russian Empire.
And under the spiritual leadership of John Paul II, the process of disintegration of the national state system of the USSR and its allies proceeded at a rapid pace.
In June 1979, the Pope took his historic trip to Poland and stayed there for nine days that then turned the world upside down. In his sermons, lectures and addresses he accomplished what was later called
"a revolution in the minds of the Poles." Bronislaw Geremek, a former Polish foreign minister and member of the Solidarity movement, recalls: “In 1979, the pope wanted to convey to us that the regime could not exist without popular support, and he said: “Don't support it.” »
It is no coincidence that a year later the Solidarity movement was formed in Gdansk, which organized a strike at the local shipyard, and almost the first thing the members of the movement did was hang a portrait of John Paul II on the gates of the factory.
After this, the rapid rise of the Solidarity movement begins, to which the pope provides comprehensive spiritual and financial support.
Speaking before the two houses of the Polish Sejm at a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of Solidarity, its former leader and Poland's first democratic president, Lech Walesa, said the movement was "inspired" by Pope John Paul II. “Then the Polish people and many others awoke from their sleep.” Walesa said Poles were "awakened" by John Paul II's first visit to Poland as pontiff in 1979. It was after this that Solidarity was born and protests against the communist regime began.
The “revolution in the minds of the Poles” of 1979 prepared the way for the revolution of 1989, after which the process of the collapse of socialist statehood in the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe proceeded at a particularly rapid pace.
The New York Times put it this way: “Historians and statesmen agree that John Paul II played a huge role in the creation of the Solidarity labor movement in 1980. After a series of largely dramatic events, led by this organization, the communist regime collapsed in Poland in the summer of 1989. And this in turn caused political upheavals in other socialist countries from East Germany to Bulgaria.” .
After 1979, Dad made two more trips to Poland, in 1983 and 1987. He managed to ignite the flame of revolution, which engulfed millions of Poles.
But it all started then with his trip in 1979. As the former head of the Polish state, General Jaruzelski, said: “She served as a detonator.”
It is known that shortly after the election of Karol Wojtylla as head of the Roman Catholic Church on October 16, 1978, the KGB informed the Politburo that the Vatican’s decision was made under pressure from Zbigniew Brzezinski, who then served as security adviser to US President Jimmy Carter. According to sources in the US government, three weeks after this meeting, Reagan signed a secret directive aimed at providing everything necessary for the “crusade” through Poland against the USSR. In secret cooperation with the Vatican and through it, money, faxes, computers, copying and printing machines, printing equipment, communications equipment, etc. were smuggled from the United States to help Solidarity.
"The pope launched an aggressive religious and political offensive" and became a "passionate catalyst for the revolution"...
In 1985, it became clear that the Polish leadership was no longer able to control and restrain the revolutionary movement in the country.
Reagan's ambassador, Vernon Walters, visited the Vatican every six months from 1981 to 1988 to exchange highly sensitive economic, military and political intelligence information.
In 1986, Jaruzelski declared a general amnesty in the country, including the release of more than 200 political prisoners, and dropped charges against Walesa.
John Paul II returned to Poland in 1987 and celebrated a solemn outdoor mass in Gdańsk before an enthusiastic crowd of 750,000 people. Repeating again and again that Polish workers have the right to self-government (well, just a faithful Marxist), the pope declared:
“There is no more effective struggle than Solidarity.”
As a result, multi-party elections were held in Poland in mid-1989, in which Solidarity candidates won. After this, the process of Warsaw’s disintegration began.
The hurricane of change, launched by the pope's trips to Poland, was rapidly approaching the main point of its destructive historical destiny towards the USSR.
The Catholic Church became one of the main forces in the anti-Soviet struggle, and John Paul II was its spiritual leader and inspirer.
The first crusade of Western feudal lords to the East ended with the capture and destruction of Jerusalem. The “Holy Sepulcher” was freed from the danger that had never threatened it from the infidels. The official goal was successfully achieved. However, from the very beginning, for the feudal conquerors from Western Europe, the question of the coffin played a secondary role. Their actions were aggressive and aggressive in nature. Religious banners and slogans served only as a cover for the completely worldly, everyday interests of knights and lords. The First Crusade enriched several tens of thousands of feudal lords from different countries of Western Europe. And he allowed the Catholic Church to somewhat expand its possessions and increase its influence. Trade people received a certain benefit from this. But this result was achieved at a high price for the peoples of the West. Huge sacrifices were suffered mainly by the masses of France, Germany, Italy and other countries. The knighthood suffered considerable losses. The First Crusade was organized by the papacy for the selfish purposes of Western feudal lords.
It was once generally accepted that it was the Crusades that brought Europe to the Renaissance, but now such an assessment seems overestimated to most historians. What they undoubtedly gave the man of the Middle Ages was a broader view of the world and a better understanding of its diversity.
The Crusades were widely reflected in literature. A countless number of poetic works were composed about the exploits of the crusaders in the Middle Ages, mostly in Old French. The Crusades also stimulated the development of historiography. Villehardouin's Conquest of Constantinople remains the most authoritative source for the study of the 4th Crusade. Many consider the best medieval work in the biography genre to be the biography of King Louis IX, created by Jean de Joinville.
One of the most significant medieval chronicles was the book written in Latin by Archbishop William of Tyre, History of Deeds in Overseas Lands (Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum), vividly and reliably recreating the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
At first, the poor peasants also took part in the crusades, suffering cruelly from the oppression of feudal lords, crop failures and famine. Dark, poverty-stricken farmers, mostly serfs, listening to the sermons of churchmen, believed that all the disasters they experienced were sent down on them by God for some unknown sins. Priests and monks assured that if the crusaders managed to win the “Holy Sepulcher” from the Muslims, then Almighty God would take pity on the poor and ease their lot. The Church promised the crusaders forgiveness of sins, and in case of death, a sure place in paradise.
Already during the first crusade, tens of thousands of poor people died, and only a few of them reached Jerusalem along with strong knightly militias. When the crusaders captured this city and other coastal cities of Syria and Palestine in 1099, all the wealth went only to the large feudal lords and knighthood. Having seized the fertile lands and flourishing trading cities of the “Holy Land,” as Europeans then called Palestine, the “warriors of Christ” founded their states. The newcomer peasants received almost nothing, and therefore, in the future, fewer and fewer peasants participated in the crusades.
In the 12th century. the knights had to equip themselves for war many times under the sign of the cross in order to retain the captured territories.
However, all these crusades failed. When at the beginning of the 13th century. French, Italian and German knights girded themselves with swords for the fourth time at the call of Pope Innocent III; they did not go against Muslims, but attacked the Christian state of Byzantium. In April 1204, the knights captured its capital, Constantinople, and plundered it, showing what all the pompous phrases about saving the “Holy Sepulcher” were worth.
Speech of Urban II In 1095: “All who go there, in the event of their death, will henceforth have remission of sins. Let those people who are accustomed to fight against their fellow believers, Christians, come out against the infidels in battle, which should yield trophies in abundance... That land flows with milk and honey. May those who used to be robbers and fight against brothers and fellow tribesmen now become warriors. He who is sorrowful here will become rich there.”
Bibliographic index:
1.I. Lavretsky Vatican Religion, finance and politics. M., Gospolitizdat.
p.14, 1957
2.I.R. Grigulevich Papacy. Century XX.M., Political Publishing House
literature. p. 96, 1978
3. "Science and Religion" No. 6 p. 3, 2000.
4.Encyclopedia for children. The World History. M., Avanta, page 35, 1996.
5. Zaborov M.A. Crusades. M. Ed. AN SSSR. page 127, 1956.
6. Vasiliev A.A. Byzantium and the Crusaders: The Age of Comyns and Angels. M.
page 57, 1923
7. Vasiliev A.A. History of the Byzantine Empire: from the beginning of the Crusades
campaigns until the fall of Constantinople. St. Petersburg Aletheia. page 12, 1998
8. Homeward Crusade. All the Lords of Camelot: Vladimir Sverzhin -
Moscow, AST, p. 752, 2003
9. Homeward Crusade: Vladimir Sverzhin - Moscow, AST, p. 416, 2002
UDC 378
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
The place of modern Russia in the world"
Test in the discipline “OUD.04 History” Option 2.
I. Middle Ages
1. Period from the XIV-XV centuries. in the history of Western Europe received the name:
1) Hellenism 2) the era of warring kingdoms
3) Carolingian Renaissance 4) late Middle Ages
2. Hereditary land ownership associated with compulsory military service in the Middle Ages:
1) feud 2) colonate 3) polis 4) interdict
3. The enormous role of the papacy in the mature Middle Ages was explained:
1) the weakness of secular rulers 2) the unity of the Christian Church
3) the refusal of the church to own property 4) the power of the Byzantine emperors
4. The growth of medieval cities contributed to:
1) The Great Migration of Peoples 2) the development of commodity-money relations
3) increase in agricultural yields
4) the emergence of feudal ownership of land
5. The cause of communal movements in the Middle Ages was:
1) the desire of feudal lords to subjugate cities to their power
2) increase in the cost of utilities
3) the spread of socialist teachings 4) the emergence of universities
6. A creed that differs from the system of religious beliefs recognized by the church:
l) heresy 2) scholasticism 3) schism 4) union
7 . A manifestation of the crisis of the Middle Ages in the XIV-XV centuries. growth became:
1) influence of the church 2) influence of chivalry
3) population size 4) number of military conflicts and popular uprisings
8. The emergence of the Latin, Nicaean empires and other states on the territory of the Byzantine Empire was a consequence of:
1) Hundred Years' War 2) iconoclast uprising
3) the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders 4) the capture of the capital of the state by the Ottoman Turks
9. The successful Islamization of the local population in the territories captured by the Arabs was explained:
1) high standard of living of the population 2) economic policy pursued by the Arabs
3) the conclusion of a union between the Pope and the Caliph
4) the absence of conflicts among the ruling elite of the caliphate
10 . The religion of Islam originated in:
1) V in 2) VI in 3) VII in 4) VIII in
11. In the East, in contrast to Western European feudalism:
1) the peasant community was preserved 2) private property existed
3) the economy was agrarian in nature 4) the state was the supreme owner of the land
12. In India, unlike other states of the East, in the Middle Ages there existed:
1) democracy 2) power-property 3) varna-caste system 4) strong theocratic monarchy
13. During the shogunate period in Japan:
1) the power of the emperor increased 2) internecine wars stopped
3) a policy of isolation from other countries was pursued 4) a republican form of government was established
14. “Closing” Japan from the outside world in the 17th century. Led to:
1) the establishment of the shogunate regime 2) the rapid development of capitalism
3) conservation of feudal orders 4) eviction of all residents from coastal cities
15. Which of the named persons did the Russian princes consider to be the founder of their dynasty?
1) Askold 2) Dir 3) Rurik 4) Oleg
16 .Which of these events is the name of Prince Vladimir Monomakh connected with?
1) with the Lyubech Congress of Princes 2) with the Danube campaigns
3) with the defeat of the Khazars 4) with the defeat of the Pechenegs
17 . Which prince carried out the campaign against Constantinople in 907?
1) Prince Oleg 2) Prince Igor 3) Prince Vladimir 4) Prince Svyatoslav
18 .What was the name of the collection of laws of the Old Russian state?
1) “The Tale of Bygone Years” 2) Russian Truth
3) Cathedral Code 4) Code of Law
19. Indicate the years of the reign of Prince Vladimir the Saint.
1) 862-879 2) 912-945 3) 980-1015 4) 1113-1125
20. Which of the following events dates back to the 10th century?
1) unification of Kyiv and Novgorod under the rule of Prince Oleg
2) signing of the first written agreement between Rus' and Byzantium
3) the beginning of the compilation of Russian Pravda
4) Russian crusade against the Cumans
II. Events of the 9th-18th centuries.
1. Place historical events in chronological order.
1. Smolensk war.
2.Uprising led by W. Tyler in England.
3. Establishment of autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church.
2. Match the event (indicated by letters) and the year in which it occurred (indicated by numbers).
| Event | Year |
| A) Battle on the river. Vozhe B) first Zemsky Sobor C) Battle of the Neva D) Lyubech Congress | 1) 882 2) 1097 3) 1378 4) 1549 5) 1240 6) 1242 |
3. Below is a list of terms. All of them except two, relate to events (phenomena) during the reign of Catherine II (1762-1796).
Find and mark the serial numbers of terms related to another historical period.
1. Laid commission 2. secularization 3. State Council 4. eminent citizen 5. armed neutrality 6. zemstvo
4. Write down the term in question.
Pleasure meetings and balls in the houses of the Russian nobility, introduced and regulated by Peter I________
5. Establish a correspondence between a process, phenomenon or event (indicated by letters) and a fact related to this process, phenomenon or event (indicated by numbers).
6 .Make a correspondence between a fragment of a historical source (indicated by letters) and its brief description (indicated by numbers).
| Fragments of sources |
|
| A) | “In the year 6390. Oleg set out on a campaign, taking with him many warriors: Varangians, Chud, Slavs, Meryu, all, Krivichi, and came to Smolensk with the Krivichi, and took power in the city, and put his husband in it. From there he went down and took Lyubech, and also imprisoned his husbands. And they came to the Kyiv mountains, and Oleg learned that Askold and Dir reigned here. He hid some soldiers in the boats, and left others behind, and he himself began, carrying the baby Igor. And he sailed to the Ugrian Mountain, hiding his soldiers, and sent to Askold and Dir, telling them that “we are merchants, we are going to the Greeks from Oleg and Prince Igor. Come to us, to your relatives.” When Askold and Dir arrived, everyone else jumped out of the boats, and Oleg said to Askold and Dir: “You are not princes and not of a princely family, but I am of a princely family,” and showed Igor: “And this is the son of Rurik.” And they killed Askold and Dir..." |
| B) | “Svyatopolk sat down in Kyiv after the death of his father, and called the people of Kiev, and began to give them gifts. They took it, but their hearts did not lie to him, because their brothers were with Boris. When Boris had already returned with his army, not finding the Pechenegs, the news came to him: “Your father has died.” And he cried bitterly for his father, because he was loved by his father more than anyone else, and stopped when he reached Alta. His father’s squad told him: “Here you have your father’s squad and army. Go and sit in Kyiv on your father’s table.” He answered: “I will not raise my hand against my elder brother: if my father died, then let this one be my father instead.” Hearing this, the soldiers dispersed from him. Boris remained standing with only his youths. Meanwhile, Svyatopolk, filled with lawlessness, accepted Cain’s thought and sent to tell Boris: “I want to have love with you and will give you more to the property received from my father,” but he himself deceived him in order to somehow destroy him.” |
Characteristic:
1) We are talking about the events of the 9th century.
2) We are talking about the events of the 10th century.
3) We are talking about the events of the 11th century.
4) The prince mentioned in the text became one of the first Russian saints.
5) After the events described in the passage, the collapse of the united Old Russian state began.
6) The person mentioned in the text died as a result of a tributary uprising.
7. Which of the following applies to the period of the sole rule of Peter I (1696-1725)? Select 3 options from the list.
1. the appearance of regiments of the new system 2. the introduction of recruitment into the army
3.establishment of the Synod 4.introduction of a unified monetary system
5. founding of the first academic university 6. introduction of the Gregorian calendar
8. Establish a correspondence between the event (indicated by letters) and the participant in this event (indicated by numbers).
9. Fill in the empty cells of the table (indicated by letters) with the necessary elements from the list (indicated by numbers).
Missing elements:
1) battle on the river. Kalka 2) Fourth Crusade 3) XVII century. 4) battle for Moscow 5) XIV century. 6) proclamation of England as a republic
7) Jacquerie in France 8) XX century. 9) battle on the river. Sheloni
10.
Read an excerpt from a historical source:
“That same winter, on the 3rd day of December, a week, the Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of all Russia with his Tsarina and Grand Duchess Marya and with their children... went from Moscow to the village of Kolomenskoye...
His rise was not the same as before he went to monasteries to pray... Which boyars and noblemen, neighbors and clerks he ordered to go with him, and those many he commanded to go with them with their wives and children, and the nobles and children of the boyars' choice from all of the cities that the sovereign had taken with him, he took with him the boyars, nobles, boyars’ children, clerks, whom he had previously chosen to be with him in the oprichnina, and ordered them all to go with him with the people and with whom, with all the official stuff. And he lived in a village in Kolomenskoye for two weeks due to bad weather and confusion, that there were rains and the rivers were high... December 21st day, I celebrated at the Trinity in the Sergius Monastery, and from the Trinity from the Sergius Monastery I went to Sloboda...
And on the 3rd day the tsar sent... a list, and in it were written the treasons of the boyars and governors and all sorts of treasonous people, which they committed treason and losses to his state... And the tsar and the grand duke laid his anger on his pilgrims, on the archbishops and bishops and on archimandrites and abbots, and their boyars, and the butler and the groom, and the guards, and the treasurers, and the clerks, and the boyars’ children, and all the clerks, he put his disgrace on..."
Using the passage, choose from the list provided. three correct judgments.
Select 3 options from the list.
1. The events described in the passage served as the beginning of the Time of Troubles in Russia.
2.During the events described, Russia participated in the war against Sweden.
3.The ruler described in the passage was the last representative of his dynasty in power.
4. Following the events described, the country was legally divided into two parts.
5. The system of government that emerged as a result of the events described lasted until the death of the ruler who founded it.
6. As a result of the events described, representatives of various social groups were subjected to various repressions for several years.
11. Establish a correspondence between a cultural monument (indicated by letters) and its author (indicated by numbers).
12. Which judgments about this picture are correct?
Select 2 options from the list.
1.The painting depicts the Moscow Kremlin.
2.The events in the picture date back to the 15th century.
3. The events shown in the picture were one of the episodes of the Time of Troubles.
4. The event shown in the picture is Khan Tokhtamysh’s raid on Moscow.
5. A contemporary of the events shown in the picture was Sergius of Radonezh.
13. Which two figures were contemporaries of the event depicted in the painting?
Select 2 options from the list.
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
Look at the image and complete the task.
14. What judgments about this architectural monument are correct?
Select 2 options from the list.
1. The cathedral was built in honor of Russia’s victory in the Northern War.
2. The cathedral has a shape atypical for Orthodox churches due to the insistence of the then ruler of Russia.
3. The cathedral is a monument of classicism.
4. The cathedral was the royal tomb.
5. The cathedral was destroyed after the Bolsheviks came to power.
Look at the map and complete the task 
15. Indicate the year in which the event indicated by the number on the diagram occurred 1 .
16. Name the locality in which the peace treaty was signed, ending the war, the course of which is reproduced on the map.
17. Write the name of the commander whose forces' actions are indicated on the map with pink arrows.
18. Which judgments related to the events indicated in the diagram are correct?
Select 3 options from the list.
1. Russia’s enemy fleet had superiority in this war.
2. The commanders of the Russian army in this war were G. A. Potemkin, P. A. Rumyantsev, N. V. Repnin.
3. As a result of the war, the Crimean Peninsula was finally recognized as Russia’s territory.
4.Bulgaria was an independent state during the war, the events of which are indicated in the diagram.
5. Simultaneously with the events indicated in the diagram, Russia was conducting military operations in the north.
6. The war, the events of which are indicated in the diagram, was the third war with this enemy for Russia in the 18th century.
III. Events of the XIX-XX centuries.
1. Place historical events in chronological order. Write down the numbers that represent historical events in the correct sequence
1) abolition of serfdom in Russia 2) November Revolution in Germany
3) Stolypin agrarian reform
2. All the terms given, with the exception of two, refer to events of the 19th century. Find and write down the serial numbers of terms related to another historical period.
3. Below is a list of terms. All of them, with the exception of two, belong to the period 1918–1920. Find and write down the serial numbers of terms (names) relating to another historical period.
1) surplus appropriation 2) Red Army soldier 3) NEPman 4) Makhnovshchina 5) Rasputinism 6) People's Commissariat
4. Establish a correspondence between fragments of historical sources and their brief characteristics: for each fragment indicated by a letter, select two corresponding characteristics indicated by numbers.
Fragments of sources
A)“The Emperor tried in every way to tear out the roots of those abuses that had penetrated into the administrative apparatus, and which became apparent after the discovery of the conspiracy that stained his accession to the throne with blood. Based on the need to organize an effective surveillance, which would converge from all corners of his vast empire to one body, he turned his attention to me in order to form a high police force for the purpose of protecting the oppressed and monitoring conspiracies and ill-wishers. I was not ready to perform this type of service, about which I had the most general idea. But the awareness of the noble and salutary intentions that required its creation, and my desire to be useful to my new sovereign, forced me to agree and accept this new place of service, which his high trust wished to organize with me at its head.”
B)“Everyone present was ready to act, everyone was enthusiastic, everyone hoped for success, and only one of them all struck me with complete selflessness; he asked me privately: can we probably rely on the assistance of the 1st and 2nd battalions of our regiment; and when I presented him with all the obstacles, difficulties, almost impossibilities, he said to me with a special expression in his face and voice: “Yes, there are few prospects for success, but still we must, still we must begin; a beginning and an example will bring fruit". Even now I hear sounds, intonation - “it’s still necessary,” that’s what Kondraty Fedorovich Ryleev told me.”
Characteristics
1) The document refers to Emperor Alexander I.
2) This fragment is an excerpt from the memoirs of A. X. Benckendorff.
3) The passage describes the situation that developed during the interregnum.
4) The passage talks about the creation of the III Department of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery.
6) The passage mentions a famous Russian poet who lived in the mid-19th century.
In the Middle Ages, the church in Europe became directly involved in the process of feudalization. The church and monasteries owned a huge amount of land. According to the calculations of a number of researchers, in the early Middle Ages in Western Europe, a third of the cultivated land was ecclesiastical and monastic. The rapid growth of church land ownership was facilitated by the fact that it had a number of benefits, including tax benefits. A large number of farmers, in order to get rid of tax oppression that was unbearable for them, became land and personal dependence on the church and monasteries. Church and monastic estates were the same feudal estates as those of secular feudal lords.
Bishops and abbots also owned many cities in Western Europe. Therefore, the struggle of townspeople for self-government often resulted in a struggle against lords from among the clergy and monasticism.
The top clergy and abbots were gradually drawn into the feudal hierarchy with its relations of suzerainty and vassalage. Thus, since the time of Charlemagne, bishops and abbots were obliged, by order of the king, to supply their vassal knights to his army. The entry of church leadership into the feudal hierarchy led to such a phenomenon as the appointment of bishops and abbots by secular authorities (kings, dukes, counts). This act was called secular investiture. Thus, during feudalization, the church became dependent on secular authorities. This process, with its accompanying decline in morality and discipline, is often called the “secularization of the church.”
Part of the clergy and monasticism realized the detrimental nature of such a path for the church, and from the 10th century. a movement for church reform began. The main slogans of this movement were demands for the independence of the church from secular authorities and strengthening the power of the pope. These requirements were formulated most clearly by Pope Gregory VII in his “Papal Dictate” (1075). According to the statement of Gregory VII, the power of the pope is higher than any secular power; the pope can even overthrow emperors, kings, and free their subjects from allegiance to worthless emperors. The leaders of church reform saw the main obstacle in fulfilling their demands in secular investiture. The refusal of the German king Henry IV to comply with the pope's demand not to appoint bishops and abbots led to an acute conflict between the king and the pope. During the conflict, the excommunicated king had to beg for a humiliating forgiveness from Pope Gregory VII at the castle of Canossa.
From the end of the 10th century. The church made attempts to at least partially curb anarchy and arbitrariness in fragmented Europe, accompanied by internecine wars of feudal lords, which claimed thousands of civilian lives and caused enormous material damage. Councils of clergy in different countries began to adopt resolutions on “God’s truce” and “God’s peace.” The first of them forbade the feudal lords to fight on church holidays, fasts and certain days of the week (at first only on Sundays, and then this ban extended from Wednesday evening to Monday morning). The regulations on “God’s peace” required the feudal lords not to kill or harm the clergy, peasants, merchants, women and other categories of the civilian population. However, the effect of this was small.
Freed from the strict tutelage of secular power, the Catholic Church was a serious consolidating factor in fragmented Western Europe during the High Middle Ages, for one faith, one church united Western Europeans. And it was precisely this consolidating force - the church led by the papacy - that was able to direct the destructive forces of Western European society beyond its borders to people of other faiths. This was done by organizing crusades.
The pinnacle of the political power of the papacy was the 13th century. Then many monarchs of Europe recognized themselves as vassals of the popes (especially Innocent III). In their fight against rebellious kings, popes used various means, including excommunication of kings from the church, interdict (prohibition of worship and rituals in a certain territory) and even crusades. In the 13th century the will of the popes largely determined political relations in Europe.
The political power of the papacy was undermined by the creation of centralized states in Europe. The clash between Pope Boniface VIII and the strong French monarchy ended with the defeat of the papacy and almost 70 years of Avignon “captivity” by the French kings. The subsequent “great schism” (1378 - 1417), which took place during the Hundred Years' War and almost led to a split in the Catholic Church, once again showed that the papacy was becoming an instrument of political intrigue of powerful centralized states. The decline of the papacy in the late Middle Ages led to the creation in a number of countries, for example in England and France, of virtually national churches, the clergy of which were subordinate not so much to the popes as to their kings.
After the final break with the Eastern Orthodox Church, dogmatic unity was achieved in the Catholic Church; For a long time, popular heresies directed against the church hierarchy were based on various movements that deviated from the official church doctrine. Strengthening the unity of the church is not a religious issue, but a church-administrative problem. The Pope became the guarantor of the unity of the Catholic Church. Referring to the supreme authority of doctrine, determined by dogmas, the pope also wanted to ensure the exclusivity of his supremacy in the church-administrative field. Its goal was the creation of a centralized absolutist church government, which was hampered by the state-church partial fragmentation of European feudal states, which had strengthened by the 11th century, and their separation from the central (Roman) government.
It became obvious that the rulers of individual states were seeking to strengthen their power by relying on their strengthening national churches, therefore, they were not interested in further strengthening the central church power. The disintegration into national churches at the same time concealed the danger that these churches - like the Eastern ones - would become independent in dogmatic matters, which led to the elimination of the universalism of Christianity. Thus, the popes, striving for supremacy, were not guided only by the desire to achieve this limited goal when they demanded for themselves the right to appoint (investiture) the highest clergy, which had previously been the prerogative of secular power, rulers. At the same time, the higher clergy became dependent on their own secular rulers and was thereby forced to serve the church-administrative and church-political goals of the state. This could only be prevented by respect for the universal ecclesiastical interests embodied in papal sovereignty as a result of centralized government. This ensured the unity of the church.
The extension of the ecclesiastical administrative supreme power of the pope inward (within the church) meant that national churches were subordinate to Rome, the church hierarchs depended on the pope, thus realizing the principle of church universalism. The exercise of outward primacy in relation to secular power meant that the unity of the church could be protected only by combating the particularistic interests of secular states; the first means to achieve this goal was to transfer to Rome the right to appoint the highest officials of the church. However, the Gregorian papacy took the idea to its logical conclusion: it tried to extend the primacy of the pope to the area of politics. For many centuries, no one has questioned the primacy of the Holy See in the field of dogma. And in the church hierarchical administration, although not without resistance, the supremacy of the pope was accepted. Gregory VII and his successors, by rethinking the previous dualism in organic unity with church universalism, and also under the leadership of the pope, wanted to implement political universalism. To implement this concept, the head of the Christian community must be the pope, who also takes the place of the emperor.
The internal laws of feudal society opened up wide opportunities for the implementation of theocracy. During the period of early feudalism (IX–XI centuries), the leading role in the Christian community was played by the power of the emperor; Along with the reasons already given, a concomitant factor was the fact that individual feudal states had not yet strengthened their position, Christianity had not yet penetrated into the depths of society, ruling only on its surface. In this situation, the primacy of secular, armed power was realized.
The situation changed during the period of mature feudalism (XII-XIV centuries). Imperial power over the states in which feudalism was strengthened turned out to be unrealizable; political universalism could not be realized with the help of state-power means, relying on one empire (and only within the framework of the German-Roman Empire). Changes also occurred in the internal structure of society; the development of feudal relations led to the strengthening of central royal power. During this period, all spheres of society are permeated with Christianity, religion turns into an organic part of society. The universal imperial power turned out to be weaker than the particular forces, while at the same time the church, and within it, the religious and administrative-ecclesiastical universalism of the papacy strengthened and almost reached the absolute. Since the middle of the Middle Ages, the papacy in its development has become the only universal power, and this made it possible to attempt to achieve political universalism as well. The political supreme power realized by the pope was achieved not through state-powerful means (using weapons), but in the ideological and political sphere, but at the same time relying on the growing sovereign Papal State.
Pontificate of Gregory VII and the struggle for investiture (1073–1122)After the death of Cardinal Humbert, actual power belonged to Hildebrand, who in 1059 became an archdeacon from a subdeacon. Hildebrand, as a young priest, entered the service of Gregory VI. As the pope's secretary, he was with him in exile in Cologne. After the death of Gregory, which followed in 1054, he retired to the Cluny monastery, from where he was summoned to Rome by Pope Leo IX. Despite the fact that Hildebrand did not belong to the cardinal corps of presbyters, he, as the leader of the cardinal deacons, already under Pope Alexander II had the decisive word in the curia. Having gone through the Cluny school, rising from the ranks of the monks and reaching the highest ecclesiastical rank, Hildebrand was an intelligent and calculating politician, but at the same time hard as steel and a fanatical person. He was not picky about his money. Many of the cardinal bishops harbored a grudge against him, seeing in him the evil spirit of the popes. No one in the Curia doubted that Hildebrand had the best chance of becoming the candidate of the reformist party led by Humbert and Peter Damiani.
When in 1073 Cardinal Hildebrand, as a cardinal-hierodeacon, delivered the dead body of Alexander II to the Lateran Cathedral, the people present in the cathedral began to spontaneously exclaim: “Hildebrand for pope,” thereby electing him pope.
Without waiting for the end of the obligatory three-day fast, Hildebrand literally demanded to be elected pope to avoid opposition from the cardinals. In this sense, his election was not canonical, since since 1059 it had been the exclusive right of cardinals. Hildebrand succeeded, by presenting the cardinals with a fait accompli, then forcing them to canonically confirm his election. The second purpose of this seizure of power was the desire to confront the German king with a fait accompli. Hildebrand did not even send him a report about the election, which each of his predecessors considered his duty. However, King Henry IV did not immediately pick up the gauntlet thrown at him from Rome: he was busy fighting his internal enemies, the rebel Saxons, trying to pacify them, and therefore soon announced that he accepted and approved the election of Hildebrand.
When choosing the name - Gregory VII - Hildebrand did not in the least attempt to honor the memory of Gregory VI, who died in exile in Cologne, whose secretary he was, but took his name in honor of Pope Gregory I the Great. The successor to the work of Gregory I - a medieval monk - carried out on the papal throne a program for establishing universal universal power, whose name is the papacy. Gregory VII, following his historical concept, relied on the ideas of St. Augustine, Gregory I and Nicholas I, but went much further than them, captured by the idea of a universal empire ruled by the pope. Gregory's goal was the implementation of "Civitas Dei" ("Country of God"), the creation of such a Christian universal empire, where the rule over princes and peoples is entrusted to the pope, but where the state cooperates with the church, and the pope and the emperor act together under the primacy of the pope.
The primacy of the papacy under Gregory VII was realized in every respect. With his pontificate, a long historical period of development of the Catholic Church ended. At the same time, he laid the foundations for the implementation of the world-power goals of the most prominent popes of the Middle Ages - Innocent III and Boniface VIII. During his reign, Gregory VII extended the principle of the supreme power of the popes to political life. This practically meant that the pope considered himself the head of the Christian universe, to whom secular princes were obliged to obey. In the concept of the Gregorian papacy, the place of the imperial idea of Charlemagne was taken by the universal (ecclesiastical and secular) supreme power of the pope. The program of Gregory VII's pontificate was set out in a document called Dictatus papae, probably drawn up in 1075. In essence, it was the Magna Carta of the Papacy. Previously, the reliability of the collection of decisions on the authority of the pope was questioned; it is now believed that the author of the collection was Gregory VII. The 27 main provisions of the “Dictat of the Pope” set out the following thoughts:
1. Only the Roman Church was founded by the Lord himself.
2. Only the Roman Pope has the right to be called ecumenical.
3. The pope alone has the right to appoint and remove bishops.
4. The papal legate at the council is superior in position to any bishop, even if he has a lower rank; he also has the right to transfer bishops.
5. The Pope can decide on the removal of absent persons.
6. It is forbidden to even be in the same house with persons excommunicated by the pope.
7. One pope can, in accordance with the needs of the time, issue new laws, form new bishoprics, transform chapters into abbeys and vice versa, divide rich bishoprics and unite poor ones.
8. One pope can wear imperial regalia.
9. All princes must kiss the foot only of the Pope.
10. Only the name of the pope is mentioned in churches.
11. In the whole world, only he is honored with the name of Pope.
12. The Pope has the right to depose emperors.
13. The Pope has the right, if necessary, to transfer bishops from one episcopal see to another.
14. At his discretion, the pope can move a clergyman from one church to another.
15. Anyone who has been ordained by the pope can be the head of any church; he cannot be entrusted with a lower position. Someone whom the pope has ordained cannot be ordained to a higher rank by another bishop.
16. Without the order of the pope, an ecumenical council cannot be convened.
18. No one has the right to change the decisions of the pope until he himself makes appropriate changes to it.
19. No one has the right to judge dad.
20. No one has the right to dare to judge a person who has appealed to the Apostolic See.
21. The most important affairs of each church should be submitted to the consideration of the pope.
22. The Roman Church has never made a mistake; it, according to the testimony of Scripture, will forever be infallible.
23. The Pope, if he was elected in accordance with the canons, taking into account the merits of St. Peter, will undoubtedly become a saint, as St. Ennodius, Bishop of Pavia, confirmed, and many holy fathers agreed with him on this, this can be found in the decrees of St. Symmachus.
24. By order and in accordance with the authority of the pope, accusations may also be brought by clergy of lower rank.
25. The pope can remove or return a bishop to his position without convening a council.
27. The Pope may release his subjects from the oath of allegiance to a person who has committed a sin.
The “dictate of the pope” on the basis of the “False Isidore Decretals” not only declares that the pope has universal jurisdiction and infallibility, but also has the right to convene a council, consecrate bishops and depose them. Gregory VII first tried to gain unlimited power in church government. The councils that followed one after another adopted strict decrees directed against simony and against the marriages of priests. The introduction of celibacy, the celibacy of priests, set itself the goal of interrupting the community of interests that existed between the clergy and secular society. Celibacy of priests is not a so-called order of divine manifestation, but a church law. From the gospels we only know advice about maintaining virginity, but it does not say about the prohibition of clergymen from marrying. We meet the first church regulation at the Council of Elvira (about 300): the 33rd canon, under threat of exclusion from the clergy, prohibits bishops, priests and deacons from living together with their wives. Here we are not talking about a ban on marriage, but on a ban on family life. During the period of strengthening of the church hierarchy, for example at the Council of Nicaea, the universal church had not yet been able to make a decision on celibacy. In the East, this situation remained unchanged; in the Latin Church, Popes Leo I and Gregory I gave the decision of the Council of Elvira legal force, extending it to the entire church. However, during the era of migration of peoples, and then during the early Middle Ages, this decision was not implemented, and marriages of the clergy became commonplace. Gregory VII and the reform movement restored the principle of celibacy, seeking to implement it in the practical activities of the feudal church. Most councils held in the 11th–12th centuries already spoke in favor of the abolition of marriages for members of the clergy. The Second Lateran Ecumenical Council in 1139 declared that holders of high rank (bishop, priest) could not marry. This was again stated at the Ecumenical Council of Trent, which declared celibacy a dogma. Despite the fact that throughout the history of the church celibacy has been subject to massive criticism, the decision on celibacy is included in the current church code of laws.
According to the church concept, there is no family between a priest in a state of celibacy and God, so he can completely devote himself to serving God, he is not bound by the interests of the family. Along with this, the adoption of the law on celibacy of clergy in the Middle Ages, of course, was facilitated by the existing church-organizational and economic-power interests. The dogma of compulsory celibacy caused great resistance within the church, because in most places priests entered into marital relations. In 1074, at the Council of Paris, the decisions of the pope were declared invalid. Bishop Otto of Constance directly encouraged his priests to get married. Gregory VII sent authorized papal legates to European countries to implement his decision on celibacy.
Henry, who found himself in straitened circumstances due to the Saxon uprising, did not dare to act for some time, as he needed the moral support of the pope. His behavior changed when the pope decided to challenge the emperor's right to investiture and he managed to overcome internal opposition. The clash between the pope and the emperor was inevitable, because, according to the essence of the concept of Gregory VII, the papacy should be independent of secular power. The primacy of the pope can only be exercised if, when appointing bishops, he exercises his will (investiture) and thereby prevents simony. Thus, as a result of the introduction of celibacy by the church, not only the issue of preserving church property was resolved, but also achieving the independence of the church from secular power.
According to the “Papal Dictate,” God entrusted the pope with maintaining the divine order on earth. Therefore, the pope has the right to pass judgment on everything, but no one can judge him, his judgment is unchangeable and infallible. The Pope must punish those who come into conflict with the Christian world order. You should especially watch out for rulers and princes. If the king does not correspond to his purpose, that is, he does not follow God and the church, but is guided by his own glory, then he loses the right to rule. The Pope, possessing full power to punish and pardon, can depose secular rulers or give them power again. It was this fundamental postulate that Gregory VII referred to in the fight against Henry, and in his hands such methods of struggle as curses, excommunication of kings from the church, and release of their subjects from the oath turned into an effective means. If previously the empire ruled over the papacy (Caesar-papism), then in the Christian republic the leading role passes to the church, to the popes (ecclesiastical statehood) in order to organize the empire in accordance with God's laws (theocracy).
According to the plan of Gregory VII, kings should be dependent on the Holy See. However, the feal oath applied only to the Norman dukes, the Croatian and Aragonese kings, who were indeed vassals of the “apostolic prince”. The Curia wanted to extend the requirements of vassal allegiance also to Sardinia and Corsica, and then to the whole of Tuscany. However, the demands of vassal allegiance to England, France, and Hungary, put forward on various legal grounds, were not realized by the pope. While previous popes stood on the side of the emperor in the struggle between the Hungarian kings and the German emperors, Gregory's speech against the imperial power led to changes in this area. So, for example, when strife arose over the Hungarian royal throne between Solomon and Geza, the pope intervened in this dispute, speaking on the side of Geza, and the emperor on the side of Solomon. However, Gregory VII referred to his suzerain rights not only in relations with Henry IV, but also with all Christian sovereigns. So, when Gregory, referring to the “Dictate of the Pope,” condemned Solomon, who took a vassal oath to the emperor, pointing out that he had no right to do so, because Hungary is the property of St. Peter, then Geza became more restrained towards the pope. (The crown went to Solomon, so in 1075 Geza was crowned with the crown received from the Byzantine emperor Michael Duca.)
The pope was unable to realize his suzerain rights to Hungary. After all, in order to resist the German emperor, the pope needed the support of independent Hungary. Therefore, Gregory, for example, did not limit the right of King Laszlo I, later canonized, to appoint hierarchs and regulate church organizational issues (secular investiture). Moreover, to ensure support from the king, the pope canonized King Stephen, Prince Imre and Bishop Gellert at the Council of Rome in 1083.
There is no doubt that the aspirations of Gregory VII posed a threat to the independence of secular sovereigns. The pope opposed himself not only to the German king, but also to others, for example, to the French king Philip I. But if in France they refused to support the Roman supreme power and took the side of their king, then in Germany the feudal lords, who fought with the central government, entered into an alliance directed against king. Henry no longer had to fight not with the pope for power over the German church, but for his own rights as head of state. Gregory calculated the timing of his reforms well: King Henry IV had not yet been crowned emperor and could only receive the crown from the hands of the pope. On the other hand, the pope also tried to take advantage of the discord that existed between the Normans, Saxons and the emperor.
An open struggle between the papacy and the imperial power broke out as a result of the publication of the decrees of the Lateran Council of 1075. They prescribed that church positions obtained through simony were abolished. Pope Gregory addressed the peoples, calling on them not to obey bishops who tolerate priests who are concubinatus in their positions. Thus, the council incited believers against the clergy using simony and being married. At the same time, the pope at the council of 1075 also banned secular investiture. “If anyone receives a bishopric or abbotship from the hands of any secular person,” the decision says, “he can in no case be counted among the bishops, and he is not supposed to be given any honors as a bishop or as an abbot. In addition, we take away from him the grace of St. Peter and forbid him to enter the church until he, having come to his senses, leaves his position, acquired through the sinful path of vanity, ambition and disobedience, which is nothing more than the sin of idolatry. If any of the emperors, kings, princes or representatives of any secular (worldly) authorities or persons appoints a bishop or dares to grant an ecclesiastical office, he will not escape the appropriate punishment.” In the fact that a priest could not accept an appointment to a church position from a layman (sovereign or feudal overlord), Henry saw a danger to his own power, because in this way the right to dispose of church vassal possessions slipped out of his hands and he lost influence on the church hierarchy, which he had to rely on during the fight against secular feudal lords. That is why the emperor now sharply opposed the pope.
Henry - contrary to his previous promise - was himself involved in appointments to the highest church positions, including in Italy. Because of this, the pope threatened him with excommunication in 1075. However, the ultimatum led to results that were exactly the opposite of those expected: not only did it not intimidate Henry and the bishops loyal to him, who were already dissatisfied because of celibacy, but he even incited them to oppose the pope’s claims. The higher clergy were Henry's faithful support, for they now saw a threat to their independence from the pope rather than the king. The bishop's power required an alliance with the king. At the same time, the pope's number one allies were the secular feudal lords who rebelled against Henry. Henry IV and his bishops convened an imperial council in Worms in January 1076, and here the German bishops - under the leadership of Hildebrand's worthy opponent Hugo Candide - refused to take the oath of allegiance to the pope.
In February 1076, Gregory VII listened to the emperor's ambassadors at a council in the Lateran Basilica. After this, he removed from office the bishops who broke with him, declared Henry excommunicated from the church, deprived him of the Italian and German kingdoms, and freed his subjects from their oath and obedience to him.
“Saint Peter, prince of the apostles, bow your ear to me, I beg you to listen to your servant... - this was the beginning of Gregory’s verdict, containing an anathema to the king, - in the name of the honor of your church and in defense of it, relying on your power and authority, I forbid the king Henry, son of the Emperor Henry, who with unheard-of arrogance attacked your church, to rule Germany and all of Italy, and I forbid anyone, whoever, to serve him as king. And he who wants to damage the honor of the church deserves to lose the throne himself, which he believes belongs to him. And since he, being a Christian, does not want to obey... which threatens with excommunication, and neglects my admonitions, then, wanting to cause a schism in the church, he tore himself away from it; “I, your viceroy, anathematize him and, trusting in you, excommunicate him from the church, so that the nations know and confirm: you are Peter, and the existing God built the church of his son on a stone rock, and the gates of hell have no power over it.” This was followed by Henry’s response: “Come down from the throne of St. Peter.” At Easter 1076, the Bishop of Utrecht excommunicated Pope Gregory from the church.
The excommunication of the king was a completely new phenomenon in history, and this increased the danger that the pope, having freed the monarch’s subjects from the feudal oath, would deprive the royal power and the entire system of ecclesiastical sanctity. In March 1076, Gregory VII addressed the German feudal lords in a special letter, in which he dispelled all possible doubts regarding the legality of the king’s excommunication from the church, and again called on them to oppose Henry. Apparently as a result of this, in the summer of 1076 the feudal lords rallied against Henry and began to fight him in Saxony.
Opposition to Henry IV was formed under the leadership of a relative of the king of the Swabian Duke Rudolf. The Saxon and South German dukes used the crisis to free themselves from Henry, who used absolutist methods of government. However, a significant part of the bishops sided with Henry. The rebellious feudal lords summoned Gregory to the Reichstag, scheduled for early February 1077 in Augsburg, to conduct a trial of the king there. Henry realized that he would be able to save his throne only if he got ahead of events and received absolution from the pope. Therefore, at the end of 1076, he, along with his wife, child and his bishops, crossed the Alps. At this time, Gregory was preparing to travel to Germany to take part in negotiations with the electors at a meeting of the Reichstag. Henry managed to prevent this by performing the play “going to Canossa.”
In January 1077, Gregory was in an impregnable mountain fortress, Canossa, owned by the Tuscan margravine Matilda. The scene of Henry’s three-day standing in front of the fortress gates, mentioned so many times by historiographers, poets and playwrights, in reality meant the victory of the humiliated king over the pope: Henry, without weapons, with his wife and child, accompanied by several bishops, appeared at the walls of the fortress. After a three-day repentance, which, contrary to general opinion, Henry did not perform barefoot and in rags, but in the clothes of a penitent sinner, thrown over the royal robe, the pope, mainly at the insistence of the Abbot of Cluny Hugo and Matilda, was forced to absolve Henry of his sins and introduce the king together with his bishops into the church (January 28, 1077). Gregory really could not help but recognize the repentance in accordance with the canons and refuse the king absolution. Henry's return to the church also meant that he regained his royal dignity. His own weapon, from which Henry forged his happiness, was turned against the pope. Gregory was defeated at Canossa.
However, the German dukes did not wait for the pope; they did not care about what happened in Canossa. In March 1077 they elected a new king in the person of the Swabian Duke Rudolf. Rudolf promised to preserve the elective nature of royal power and not make it hereditary. Separatist forces in Germany rallied around the idea of elective royalty against Henry, who defended absolutism. Returned to the fold of the church, Henry, not too concerned about the oath in Canossa, immediately attracted the Lombard bishops to his side, quickly crossed the Alps, returned home and began to fight Rudolf. Henry at Canossa again had a free hand to deal with internal opposition. Society in Germany and Italy split into two parties: the party of the pope and the party of the emperor. The population of cities in Germany supported Henry, expecting that he would be able to curb the feudal lords. In Italy they supported Gregory against the Germans. The higher German clergy was divided depending on who was more feared: the king or the pope. And the dukes and counts changed their positions depending on where they could get more possessions. The struggle between the two camps took place with varying degrees of success. At first, Pope Gregory did not define his position and did not support either side, because he was interested in weakening royal power. But when in 1080 it became clear that victory was Henry’s, the pope intervened again. At the council, which met during Lent, secular investiture was finally prohibited. After Henry did not approve this decision, he was again excommunicated from the church. The Pope, having learned his lesson from Canossa, recognized Rudolf as the rightful king and sent him a crown with the inscription "Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolfo" ("The Rock gave Peter, Peter the crown to Rudolf"). Henry and the bishops close to him convened a council in Brixen, at which Gregory VII was again deposed and excommunicated. The new Pope Clement III (1080–1110) was elected Archbishop Viber of Ravenna, the leader of the Lombard bishops who opposed Gregory.
The German king found unexpectedly strong support among the bishops of Lombardy, who, like the German bishops, feared, not without reason, that the Gregorian papacy would reduce them to the level of its ordinary servants. At the same time, the largest secular prince of Northern Italy was again on the side of the pope. The main support of Gregory VII and his successors in Italy was the Tuscan margravess Matilda (a relative of Henry), whose independence was threatened by imperial power. Matilda supported the papacy, helping it with money, troops and, finally, ceding Tuscany. Tuscany at that time made up almost ¼ of all Italy (Modena, Reggio, Ferrarra, Mantua, Brescia and Parma). Matilda's father received these possessions as vassals from the emperor. Matilda and Gregory created their own party, and, as many authors argue, their connection was not only political in nature.
During the armed struggle in 1080, anti-king Rudolf was mortally wounded and soon died. Henry turned his gaze again towards Italy. During 1081–1083, the German king launched several campaigns against Rome, but the pope managed to successfully defend himself, relying mainly on the armed forces of Matilda. Eventually, in 1084, Rome fell into the hands of the king. Gregory, with several of his loyal followers, fled to the Castel Sant'Angelo. The enemy of the victorious king was again deposed, and the antipope was solemnly elevated to the papal throne, and from his hands Henry accepted the imperial crown. Finally, at the end of May 1084, Robert Huiscard, a not very agile Norman vassal of Pope Gregory, liberated Castel Sant'Angelo (the Normans wanted to use the papacy to strengthen their positions in Southern Italy). Henry and the antipope were forced to leave Rome. During the merciless battles, the fierce Norman warriors sacked Rome. The anger of the Romans turned against Gregory, who called the Normans, and he, along with his saviors, fled the city. He was no longer able to return there and on May 25, 1085 he died in exile, in Salerno, among the Normans.
The creator of the great power positions of the medieval papacy ended his life as an exile, apparently with the bitter knowledge that his life's work was completely lost. Indeed, the practical implementation of the Gregorian theory of the papacy, formulated in the “Dictate of the Pope,” turned out to be impossible in later times. So, for example, Gregory’s demand to declare the pope’s lifetime sanctity, or more precisely, the veneration of the pope as a saint during his lifetime did not pass into canon law. Papal infallibility (infallibilitas) was almost forgotten in modern times, and only in the 19th century did this position become a dogma. Despite Gregory's tragic fate, he had a fateful influence on Christianity and the church. He formulated and most consistently presented theocratic demands: to create a world modeled on a spiritual power. Not least of all, Christianity owes its preservation and flourishing to this very fact: Christianity has made this demand throughout history, most successfully in the Middle Ages.
It is hardly possible to deny Gregory a great mind - after all, without the usual secular means of power, primarily without an army, he played the role of a conqueror of the world, forced those sitting on the thrones to bow before him, and challenged the emperor, who considered himself the ruler of the Christian world.
Gregory's conduct and policies in church history may be viewed with sympathy or condemnation, but there is no doubt that his fanatical and unbending pontificate not only restored the authority of the papacy, but also laid the foundation for the political power of the popes for the next two centuries. Since 1947, the Gregorian reform has been closely studied by church historians.
Hildebrand was a monk of small stature and homely appearance, but in his unprepossessing body lived a spirit of extraordinary strength. He felt charismatic and, while fulfilling his destiny, was not too picky about his means. Even his contemporaries perceived him with mixed feelings of fear and surprise, or even hatred. Peter Damiani called the fanatical monk who came to the papal throne as Saint Satan, a comparison that is not very suitable, but apt. It resurfaced during the heretical movements and the Reformation to describe the pope, but without the definition of “saint.”
According to some categorical historians, the history of the papacy begins only in the Christian Middle Ages, and we can only talk about the papacy in the modern sense starting with the pontificate of Gregory VII. This concept clearly proceeds from the fact that papal sovereignty, as the result of a long historical development, really became complete in all respects under Gregory VII, although the pope was able to rise above the emperor only during the time of the successors of Gregory VII.
After the death of Gregory VII, Emperor Henry found himself at the height of triumph. Antipope Clement III returned to Rome. The Gregorian bishops, who fled to the Normans, were only able to elect a bishop from Ostia as pope in 1088 under the name of Urban II (1088–1099). Urban was a Frenchman by birth and from the prior of Cluny became Gregory's closest and most trusted employee. However, in contrast to his predecessor, he avoided everything, because of which, thanks to his intransigence, Gregory was defeated. Emperor Henry sought to unite his southern Italian opponents with the northern Italian supporters of the papacy, as exemplified by the fact that he married the barely 17-year-old son of the Bavarian Duke of Welf to the 43-year-old Tuscan margravine Matilda, the main support of the papacy.
In 1090, Henry IV again made a campaign in Italy, but in 1092 he was defeated by the army of Matilda. In 1093, his eldest son Conrad also rebelled against the emperor, whom the Archbishop of Milan crowned King of Italy. As a result of negotiations in Cremona in 1095, the pope won over Lombardy and the Italian king. Henry's position in Northern Italy was completely undermined when the pope again intensified the Patarian movement, directing it against the Germans. As a result, Henry left Italy forever in 1097.
Despite the fact that at that time the majority of cardinals supported the antipope Clement, Urban managed to force him to recognize himself as the head of the universal church. With the support of the Normans, he returned to Rome in 1093. Pope Urban was the first who, in contrast to the threatening power of the German emperor and the Norman dukes, saw and found support in the rising French monarchy. Already in 1094 he went to France. During this journey in 1095, he held a crowded council in Piacenza, at which he anathematized the antipope Clement.
The Council, convened on November 28, 1095 in Clermont (France), was an important event in the history of the papacy. It was here that Pope Urban proclaimed the first crusade. From the idea of the Gregorian papacy it followed that the pope also considered himself the main person in the further spread of Christianity. It is no coincidence that Gregory VII at one time put forward the idea of a crusade against the infidels; this happened after Jerusalem, which was owned by Byzantium, fell into the hands of the Seljuk Turks in 1071 (Gregory was prevented from implementing this plan by the struggle for investiture).
Since in Europe, in connection with the formation of feudalism, all peoples became Christian, the conquests associated with the Christian mission had to turn towards new territories. But this meant fighting the internal and external enemies of Christianity. The internal enemies were heretical movements that were becoming increasingly widespread, against which the popes waged real wars of extermination. External enemies were Arab and Turkish conquerors. Pope Urban, relying on France, implemented Gregory's idea. In Clermont, he called on Christian sovereigns and peoples to reconquer Palestine and liberate the Holy Land from the infidels. The formal reason was to restore the safety of pilgrims striving for the Holy Land. However, the reasons for the return of holy places were in reality much more prosaic. The most interested in this from a material point of view were the trading cities of Italy, which, for a lot of money, undertook to equip the army and transport it by sea. During their conquests, they intended to create new trading bases. Turkish expansion threatened the eastern trade interests of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, which were engaged in intermediary trade.
However, the crusades that were repeated many times during the Middle Ages were also due to another, more general social reason. Ultimately, the campaigns of conquest served as an outlet, a release of internal social tension that existed in feudal society. Tensions in society were highest in France, where feudalism was most developed. That is why it was from here that the movement of the crusaders began, which diverted the dissatisfied peasant masses and landless armed knights to participate in wars of conquest, and led to the calming of the most warlike elements of society. The Pope also granted privileges to participants in the holy war, privileges symbolized by the cross sewn on the left shoulder. Those who wore the cross received complete forgiveness of sins. The remission of sin does not mean its forgiveness, since true forgiveness of sin can only be granted by the Lord God through the church. Thus, remission of sin performs only the function of mitigating or canceling the temporary punishment due for sin. Complete forgiveness frees one from all temporary punishments, that is, completely cancels all temporary punishments.
The person and property of the crusaders going on a campaign were inviolable and were under the protection of God's peace (Treuga Dei). (“Treuga Dei” at the Council of Clermont aimed to ensure the internal peace of society by prohibiting armed struggle between the crusaders from Friday to Sunday evening of the same week.)
At the call of Pope Urban, fanatical French peasants, led by a monk, were the first to go on a campaign. The army of crusaders soon turned into a rabble, expressing their social dissatisfaction in Jewish pogroms. In the Balkans, the army scattered, and after the Byzantines quickly transported these “crusaders” into enemy territory, the Turks inflicted a merciless massacre on them.
The real crusade was led by French knights. As a result of the first crusade, the knights occupied Jerusalem in 1099 and killed the Muslim population, regardless of gender and age. The decisive reason for the early military successes of the crusading knights lies in their method of fighting. At that time, the Turks were still unknown to the rapid attack carried out in close formation by the armored cavalry army of knights, which almost trampled the opposing infantry and light cavalry into the ground. The knights formed the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and then, as a result of further conquests in Palestine and Syria, new counties and principalities. Military conquests were accompanied by the transfer of feudal orders to these lands, including the creation of the Catholic church hierarchy. These territories were under the protectorate of Byzantium before the Turkish conquest. Despite the fact that the Turks also threatened Byzantium, the Greek Empire feared the new conquerors - the Crusaders - no less than non-Christians.
The biggest beneficiaries of these campaigns were the Italian merchants, whose calculations were justified. Trade routes to the East became more reliable, and new settlements were built. The merchants were under the protection of the crusaders, whose paramilitary state created unique organizations, the so-called knightly orders. Military monastic orders were formed to care for sick knights - members of orders, protect pilgrims and carry out church functions. Members of the orders of the Templars, the Johannites and the German (Teutonic) order of chivalry were knights who took monastic vows.
The first knightly order, the Order of the Templars, was formed in Jerusalem in 1118 by eight French knights (the name of their order comes from the word “temple” - “temple”, due to the fact that the King of Jerusalem gave them part of Solomon’s Temple). The rules of the rapidly expanding order were drawn up in 1128 by the Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. In addition to the three monastic vows (abstinence, poverty, obedience), the knights took a fourth vow: to consider the protection of holy places and the armed protection of pilgrims as their life mission. Their uniform was a white cloak with a red cross borrowed from the Cistercians. Pope Innocent II, in a bull beginning with the words “Omne datum optimum,” approved the knightly order of the Templars, removed it from the jurisdiction of bishops and made it directly dependent only on the pope. At the head of the knightly order was a grandmaster elected by the main chapter of the order, who, relying on the chapter, led the order almost absolutistically. There were three types of membership in knightly orders: full knights - nobles (in fact, all the power within the order, as well as property belonged to them), priests and, finally, brother-helpers.
The knightly order was an elite organization, aristocratic in nature (for example, the charter stipulated that members of the order could only hunt lions).
As a result of long and repeated crusades, the knightly order of the Templars became an organization that led the crusades and directed the activities of the crusaders in the Holy Land. Members of the order were granted a papal privilege, which consisted in the fact that the Templars had access to huge sums of money, which through various channels, but mainly in the form of taxes established by the pope on the Christian population, went to wage the wars of the crusades. To carry out financial transactions, the Templars had long used banking houses in Italy, and soon they themselves began to engage in purely banking activities. The interests of the Templars also extended to trade. Thus, the order of chivalry, formed for the armed defense of the Holy Land, became in less than a hundred years the first banker of popes and kings.
The Order of St. John, or the Knightly Order of Hospitallers, arose in 1120 in Jerusalem. Named after St. John's Hospital in Jerusalem, where members of the order cared for the sick. It was created in 1099 as a monastic order and later (in 1120) transformed into a knightly order. In addition to the threefold vow, the Johannites took a fourth one - caring for the sick. Their charter is similar to that of the Templars; it was approved by Popes Eugene III and Lucius II. They wore black or red cloaks with a white cross. Later, the Johannites became de facto armed defenders of the Holy Land and, until the fall of Akka (1291), stubbornly fought the Turks.
These two orders of chivalry were organized and led by the French. The inclusion of the German-Roman Empire in the Crusades led to the creation of the German Order of Knighthood (German knights did not want to lag behind the French). The German Order of Chivalry was formed in 1198 from German knights who fought in the Holy Land; they took advantage of the Templar charter. Members of the order wore a black cross on their white cloaks. The center of gravity of their activities was soon transferred to Europe.
At the beginning of the century, the struggle between the pope and the emperor for investiture flared up with renewed vigor. The Pope in 1102 at the Lateran Council renewed the ban on secular investiture. The pope excommunicated Emperor Henry and his entourage who violated this ban. The defeat of Henry IV was accelerated by the fact that the pope again succeeded in turning his own sons against the emperor. But since Rome was in the hands of the antipope, Pope Paschal II (1099–1118) left for France. The establishment of good relations with the French was facilitated by the fact that King Philip I renounced investiture with his ring and pastoral staff, without losing his decisive influence on the election of the highest ranks of the church. In 1107, in Saint-Denis, the French king and the pope entered into an alliance that ensured the popes favor from France for a century.
In the battles between popes and antipopes, the Hungarian kings also took positions either on the side of one or on the side of the other. King Laszlo I initially supported the legitimate popes, Victor III and Urban II, because he, too, opposed the emperor. However, after the death of Solomon, the emperor and the Hungarian king made peace, and Laszlo took the side of the antipope. Therefore he opposed Urban. The Hungarian king Kalman the scribe - since the emperor supported Duke Almos, who fought against him - sided with Urban. In 1106, at a council in the northern Italian city of Guastalle, Calman, through his ambassadors, renounced investiture. The actual reason for his compliance was that it was only possible to retain Croatia, which he had recently conquered, only with the help of the Catholic Church - after all, the pope until recently had claimed feudal rights to Croatia and Dalmatia. Now he recognized the supremacy of the Hungarian king. King Stephen III finally refused to appoint the highest representatives of the clergy in 1169; he also refused to grant church benefices to secular persons: the king was forced to rely on the highest church dignitaries and the pope in the fight against the power of the Byzantine emperor Manuel - that’s where his compliance came from.
The last act of the struggle for investiture occurred during the reign of the German king Henry V. Henry V, being a practical politician, began to streamline relations with the pope in order to restore peace. The possibility of this arose due to the fact that a new concept temporarily prevailed in Rome. Pope Paschal II belonged to that new monastic movement, which, in contrast to the ideas of the Gregorian Church, which strived for power and political supremacy, again drew attention to the deepening of religious life, the inner life of man, his soul. This was a reaction to the hierarchical extremes allowed by popes such as Gregory; Later this movement found its leader in the person of Bernard of Clairvaux. Under the influence of the ideas of this movement, through further improvement of the Benedictine Rule, new monastic orders arose in the 12th century, such as the silencing Carthusians, the viticultural and horticultural Cistercians, the scientific Augustinian monks and the Premonstratensian monks (or White Canons), following the life ideals of St. Augustine. Cluny reformist ideas continued to be developed by the scholastic Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) and Bernard of Clairvaux (1091–1153), who fell into mysticism. Bernard was the abbot of the Cistercian abbey at Clairvaux. The Abbey began to fight manifestations of rationalism, primarily with Pierre Abelard (1079–1142). Representatives of the ideas of the church reformist movement proclaimed the primacy of the church over the state and implemented the primacy of theology over secular sciences.
Reconciliation with secular power was also facilitated by the fact that, in accordance with canon law, conditions were developed for the division of church offices and church benefits belonging to the king. The clergy called the benefits received from the king regalia. The pope, due to the lack of proper political experience, believed that bishops, in the interests of church investiture, were capable of abandoning their regalia. Henry V, who knew his bishops better, in a secret treaty concluded in February 1111 in Sutri, naturally made a deal and, in exchange for regalia, renounced the right to investiture. The agreement was to be sealed by the resignation of the antipope and the solemn coronation of the emperor. However, the emperor's coronation did not take place. When in the church the pope announced a preliminary agreement on the return of the regalia, such indignation broke out among the bishops that the pope was forced to retreat. Of course, then the king did not want to give up investiture. To impose his will on the clergy, Henry resorted to violence. He ordered to seize the pope and his entire yard. The two-month imprisonment broke the pope's resistance, and he, in accordance with the agreement signed at Ponte Mammolo on April 11, 1111, renounced investiture. The complete rejection of Gregorian aspirations encountered resistance from the Gregorian party. There was also strong opposition in France and Burgundy: at the Council of Vienne, Pope Paschal was branded a heretic because of his apostasy. Under pressure from all sides, the pope could not do otherwise than take back the privilege he had granted to the emperor in 1116.
Henry V's victory over the papacy also proved only temporary; Rome became the final winner in the struggle. Once again, a well-proven tactic brought him success: to fight the German king, who was striving to strengthen his power, the popes incited internal opposition and, relying on the dissatisfied, they themselves opposed the king. The strengthening position of the papacy could no longer be shaken by the fact that Henry managed to get into his hands the possessions of Matilda, who died in 1115, which were claimed by the papacy. At the same time, Henry V, to fight the pope, activated the old ally of the emperors - the Roman aristocracy. In 1117, Pope Paschal was forced to flee Rome, and soon the Archbishop of Braga crowned Henry emperor in the Eternal City.
Pope Paschal II, whom the history of the Catholic Church had ignored until Vatican II, offered Christianity a truly completely new historical alternative than the triumphalism that reached its culmination a century later under Innocent III. Paschal II understood the root causes of public troubles and the internal church problems that reflected them. He considered commitment to power and wealth unworthy, and recognized the selfishness that manifested itself in the circles of church leaders as destructive. However, the concept of the pope, who saw the vocation of the poor church in being in the service of all humanity, was failed by the church oligarchy. The concept he presented was soon realized in the poverty movement and, pacified by the mendicant orders, put into the service of the triumphant Church.
The emperor, in the fight against Gelasius II, the Benedictine monk who became pope (1118–1119), supported the antipope Gregory VIII (1118–1121), a protege of the Roman aristocratic party led by the Frangepans. Once again, only France granted refuge to Gelasius. However, Henry V realized that an agreement must be reached with the pope, who enjoyed French support, before he completely fell into the hands of the new great power. The time for this came during the pontificate of Pope Calixtus II (1119–1124).
Pope Calixtus - unlike his predecessors - was not a monk and ascended the papal throne as Archbishop of Vienne. In 1121, supporters of the pope managed to capture the antipope in Sutri and imprison him in a monastery. Henry V left his protege to his fate, and consequently the obstacles to agreement were removed. After lengthy negotiations, the Concordat of Worms was signed on September 23, 1122, which separated church investiture from secular investiture.
The agreement consisted of two parts, the imperial and papal charters. The imperial charter contained the following provisions: “1. I, Henry, by the Grace of God, Supreme Emperor of the Romans, filled with love for God, the Holy Roman Church and Pope Calixtus, and also for the salvation of the soul, for the sake of God and the holy apostles of God: Peter and Paul, and also for the good of the Holy Catholic Church, I renounce investiture with with the presentation of a ring and a staff, and I authorize canonical election and free consecration in every church of my country and my empire.” According to the second point, the emperor returns to the pope the possessions and sovereign rights he took away during the struggle for investiture, as well as (point 3) in general all church benefits and property; in paragraph 4 he promises to be reconciled with the pope and with the church. Paragraph 5 states about the armed protection of the pope: “5. In all matters in which the Holy Roman Church asks for my help, I will provide faithful assistance..."
The first paragraph of the papal charter proclaims: “I, Bishop Calixtus, servant of the servants of God, to you, our beloved son, Henry ... permit that the election of those bishops and abbots of the Teutonic kingdom who are in the possessions of your kingdom be carried out in your presence, without simony or violence, and if any dispute arises, then on the basis of the advice or judgment of the archbishop and the bishops of the provinces, you give your consent to the more powerful party. And the chosen one receives from you regalia (without any requirements) in the form of a scepter and performs everything related to this in accordance with the law.”
Thus, according to this agreement (concordat), the emperor ceded to the pope the right to present a ring and a staff, that is, the right to elevation to church dignity, while the presentation of a new symbol, a scepter, that is, the approval of a canonically elected bishop (abbot) in the fief use of church (monastic) lands, and subsequently became the prerogative of the emperor. In response to the emperor's concessions, the pope's charter granted the emperor not only the right of secular investiture with the presentation of a scepter, but also allowed the election of a bishop to be carried out in the presence of the emperor (or his representative). Further restrictions meant that the emperor in Italy and Burgundy could not participate in the election of the bishop. At the same time, in Germany, the new bishop received from the emperor possessions corresponding to the rank of bishop after his election, but even before his consecration. In accordance with paragraph 2, however, in the rest of the empire, investiture with the presentation of the scepter was carried out after initiation (within six months); Thus, the emperor could hardly refuse approval to a consecrated bishop. From a formal point of view, the church achieved what it wanted: ensuring canonical election and implementing investiture. From the point of view of maintenance on German territory, the emperor could also exercise his will when appointing senior clergy to positions.
Neither side considered the Worms compromise to be final. On the part of the pope, this was expressed in the fact that, while Henry, in accordance with the imperial charter, made concessions to the prince of the apostles, i.e., the successor of St. Peter (hence, not just to the pope, but to all his successors), Calixtus made a concession only to Emperor Henry V personally, wishing to limit the effect of this concession to the duration of his reign. Thus, at the first Lateran Council in 1123, the text of the concordat was read, but not approved! At the same time, the German Reichstag approved it, giving it the force of law. The Lateran Ecumenical Council of 1123 (the 9th) was the first Western ecumenical council convened and led by the pope. The legal uncertainty that arose in relations with the cathedral and lasted for three centuries since the reign of Charlemagne ended with the pope gaining the upper hand over the imperial power, ensuring his independence from it.
But the Curia celebrated the complete victory over Germany not in Worms, but with the death of Henry V, who died in 1125, when the Salic (Franconian) dynasty ended. At the same time, particularism and with it the principle of free election of the king triumphed. Together with Henry, the old German Empire went to the grave. During the half-century reign of his heirs in Germany, the supreme power of the pope was also ensured. Lothair III (1125–1137) was elected king of the Germans in the presence of papal legates and with papal approval. While central power was strengthening in England and France, the opposite process was taking place in Germany. After the Concordat of Worms, the disintegration of the empire into independent principalities accelerated.
What are the most profound reasons behind the struggle between the pope and the emperor? During the times of feudal fragmentation and especially in the conditions of a subsistence economy, a certain element of integration, a certain initial thought of unity, was present in the minds of people. The Empire could not reliably implement the demand for integration; it turned out to be unable either politically or organizationally to implement this. The initial phase of integration was better suited to the church, which had the appropriate ideology and organization. The basis for the initial phase of integration could be the religion that had long been common to Western Europe - Catholicism. The question of the “division of labor” within this cooperation and cooperation became the cause of the struggle between the pope and the emperor.
After the successful conclusion of the battles over investiture, the popes attempted to create a Respublica Christiana (Christian Republic) under the supremacy of Rome. The Christian world empire - in accordance with the ideas of Gregory VII and his successors - was supposed to include all of humanity. Its core was formed by a union of Christian peoples. And to expand the empire, conquest (crusades) and missionary activities of the church (through monastic orders) served. The basis of unity was a common faith, a common spiritual leader, the pope. The enemies of the empire were considered to be those who stood outside the universal church: pagans and heretics.
The Cluny reform movement and the victory in the struggle for investiture strengthened the power position of the papacy. The external attributes of growth and fullness of power were: the name “pope” and the title of Vicarius Christi (Vicar of Christ), which belonged only to the Roman bishop. The enthronement of the pope was associated with his coronation (at first only with a single-row tiara). Gregorian priests tried to introduce the Roman liturgy throughout the Latin Church. Central orders were carried out with the help of papal legates sent to the provinces, vested with emergency powers. The popes intervened more and more decisively in the administrative affairs of the church. Countless monastic exclusive rights (exemtio) increased the authority of the pope. One after another, the archbishops lost their privileges, and the popes appropriated them to themselves. Upon receiving the archbishop's pallium, the church hierarchs in Rome swore an oath of allegiance to the pope. The defense of St. Peter gradually began to mean the establishment of certain fief relations.
The papal curia continued to improve. In papal bulls starting from 1100, instead of the previous designation Ecclesia Romana (Roman Church), Curia Romana (Roman Curia) began to be used. The Curia consisted of two institutions: the papal office, headed by the chancellor-cardinal, and the fiscal chamber (Camera thesauraria), separated from it, but still operating within its framework, which dealt with the economic affairs of the Holy See, and then governed the Papal State. The administrative center of the Papal State was the Lateran Palace. The territory of the Papal State was divided into administrative units, provinces, headed by a rector appointed by the pope. Starting from the 12th century, the institutions of the curia developed at an accelerated pace.
Since 1059, the popes have already consulted primarily not with local councils, but with cardinals. Thus, the papal church administration, along with the apparatus of the curia, could also rely on the advisory body that united the cardinals (the Senate and then the Consistory). At the beginning of the 12th century, the institution of cardinals-subdeacons (the lowest cardinal rank) ceased to operate. A hierarchy also developed within the cardinal corps, which was divided into three parts. The highest in rank were 7 suburbicary cardinal bishops (suburbicary bishoprics were those located in close proximity to Rome: Velletri, Porto, Albano, Sabina, Frascati, Palestrina, Ostia). They were followed in those days by 25, and then by 28 cardinal presbyters, who stood at the head of the Roman churches with certain names. The lowest category of the cardinal corps included cardinal deacons, also called palatine deacons; they acted in church administration and in the service of mercy; at their head was the archdeacon. However, the development of papal absolutism in the 12th–13th centuries pushed the corps of cardinals into the background.
The struggle of the popes against the Normans and Romans (First half of the 12th century)After the end of the struggle for investiture, the papacy became the first power in Europe. Lothair III of Saxony and Conrad III of Swabia (1138–1152) reported to the pope about their election as kings and thus, as it were, received confirmation and legitimation of their power. This power needed the support of the pope. Despite the fact that the princes elected a member of the Swabian ducal family, Conrad of Hohenstaufen, as king, the most influential duke was not he at all, but Heinrich Welf, who owned Saxony, Bavaria and Central Italy. This is where the struggle between the Hohenstaufens and the Welves for royal power began, which again gave the popes a good reason for intervention. In Italy, members of the imperial party were called Ghibellines, and members of the papal party were called Guelphs.
In the first half of the 12th century, the position of the papacy both within the church and in Europe at that time was strengthened. The authority of the Gregorian Reformed Church, which emerged victorious from the struggle for investiture, was high. The spiritual victory of the church was evidenced by the fact that Bernard of Clairvaux, with his spiritual weapons, dominated the cultural life of almost all of Europe. This was the most clerical era of the Middle Ages. The temporal dominion of the popes, the Ecclesiastical State, also greatly increased. However, the strengthening of domestic power in the first half of the century was hampered by party struggle between large aristocratic families, which in the middle of the century turned into a democratic republican movement.
In Italy in the middle of the 12th century, cities, as a result of their development (mainly in Lombardy), gained increasing independence in the fight against the feudal lords and their bishops; they created self-government and city councils. In Rome, because of the pope and the latifundist aristocracy, this movement was initially unable to develop; here the desire for city self-government, being deformed, manifested itself in the revival of the aristocratic party. The first leaders of this movement came from the noble bureaucracy of the Papal State. At the head of the opposing aristocratic parties were the Frangepans and Pierleons. The contradictions that existed in the power relations of the German emperor, the Norman and French kings were brought into the party struggle, and this led to decades-long battles between popes and antipopes. Conrad III showed neutrality towards the popes, but watched with gloating as the Normans, the Roman aristocracy, and then Arnold of Brescia gained the upper hand over Rome.
In Southern Italy the political situation was unfavorable for the papacy. In order to exercise their suzerain rights, the popes sought to prevent the formation of a large and unified Norman state. However, at the beginning of the 12th century, the Normans, relying on strong positions in Sicily, began to actually seize the papal possessions in Southern Italy and create their own state. Therefore, the Frangepans' protege, Pope Honorius II (1124–1130), began a war against the Norman Duke Roger II, who owned Sicily. During the fighting, the pope was captured by the Normans, and due to the lack of armed force, as well as support from the emperor, he was unable to prevent the creation of a unified Norman state based on Sicily.
The strengthening of the Norman state was greatly facilitated by the fact that in Rome the Gregorian papacy found itself in a temporary crisis. The city became the arena of new party battles. After the death of Honorius II, the Frangepan party elected Innocent II (1130–1143) as pope, and the other, opposing aristocratic Pierreleon party, elected Anacletus II (1130–1138), a native of his family. The Normans realized that they could benefit from this split. In exchange for armed support, Anacletus II, in the Treaty of Benevento, made Duke Roger II king of Sicily, Calabria and Apulia, and the Norman kingdom recognized the suzerain rights of the pope. At the same time, Innocent II received support from the German king Lothair III, for which the pope crowned him emperor in 1133. Then, for ten years, there was a struggle between the emperor and the Norman king, in which the northern Italian trading cities took part on the side of the pope and the emperor (since the southern trading cities were their competitors). In 1137, Emperor Lothair III, who supported the pope, died, and Roger again gained the upper hand. Innocent was captured by the Normans; after the death of the antipope, he was forced to recognize the Norman kingdom and thanks to this he was able to return to Rome.
To overcome the schism, Innocent II convened the Second Lateran (10th Ecumenical) Council in 1139. At the council, the Normans and their protege, the pope, were anathematized, and thus unity was restored and a return to Gregorian ideas was carried out. However, the peace was short-lived; Rome rebelled again and again against the rule of the popes.
During the pontificate of Abelard's student Celestine II (1143–1144), who ascended the papal throne after Innocent II, the so-called “Prediction of the Popes” arose, characterizing future popes in one or two sentences. According to legend, these predictions belong to a certain Maol-Maodhog, according to other sources - O'Morgair, Archbishop of Armaia (1129–1148). The Irish archbishop abandoned his post and, under the influence of his friend Bernard of Clairvaux, joined the monastic order. Under his name he saw light work entitled "Prophetia de Romanis Pontificibus" ("Prediction of the Popes"), containing 111 brief characteristics of the type of maxims about future popes from 1143 until the end of the world. According to this work, after Celestine II, another 110 popes will follow, and with the last one, Peter II, the Last Judgment will come. Celestine II, according to the catalog, was the 166th pope. If we add to this number the predicted number of 110, then there will be a total of 276 popes. Currently, the 265th pope reigns.
Pope Lucius II (1144–1145), who maintained close relations with the Normans, was from the Frangepan party. During his pontificate, the Roman aristocracy and people restored the republic, re-elected the Senate and installed a consul with the rank of patrician at the head of the city. They expelled the papal ruler and declared the city independent. The papacy temporarily found itself again in the conditions in which it found itself in the early Middle Ages. Pope Lucius fled to the Capitol to escape the Pierleons, who attacked the Frangepans, and was killed by a stone thrown at his head. The Cistercian monk who became Pope Eugene III (1145–1153), a student of Bernard of Clairvaux, fled from the Romans to Viterbo and made it his residence. The communes organized in the 12th century, united with the heretical movement, liberated most Italian cities from the direct power of the feudal lords. Democratic movements soon led to the creation of a commune in Rome. At the head of the anti-papal movement of impoverished nobles and townspeople stood Abelard's student, the Augustinian monk Arnold of Brescia, who combined the ideas of urban self-government with ancient heretical teachings that demanded the restoration of the original poverty of the church. Arnold proclaimed that the church must relinquish its possessions and political power.
In the spring of 1147, Eugene III fled to France. The papacy attempted to repair the damage done to its authority by organizing a great crusade, surpassing all previous ones. Organization and agitation was entrusted to the most outstanding speaker of the time - Bernard of Clairvaux. The second crusade (1147–1149) was led by the German king Conrad III, and the French king Louis VII also took part in it. However, the military enterprise carried out by the two largest powers in Europe of that era ended in complete failure. The Crusaders' troops were defeated on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The ungrateful pope used the absence of sovereigns to strengthen his influence both in the empire and in France.
In 1148, Eugene III returned to Italy and now, with the help of the Normans, tried to conquer Rome, where power was already completely in the hands of Arnold of Brescia. The Pope cursed Arnold, but neither the Norman weapons nor the church curse led to success. The Roman Republic also prevented the pope from crowning Conrad, who had returned from the Holy Land, as emperor. This was the first time that a German king did not receive the imperial crown.
The struggle of the popes with Frederick Barbarossa (Second half of the 12th century)To put pressure on the popes expelled by the Roman Republic and in order to push back the Norman kingdom, which was becoming increasingly powerful on the Italian peninsula, the first real Hohenstaufen, Frederick I (Barbarossa, or Redbeard), intervened in the future fate of the papacy. The newly strengthened imperial power saves the pope, who finds himself in a cramped position, but thereby inspires a new “hundred-year war” against itself.
The struggle between popes and emperors from the Hohenstaufen dynasty was already a purely political battle for hegemony in Europe. Behind the pope stood the spiritual power and the Lombard cities, while almost the entire German Empire, including the bishops, rallied around the emperor. Frederick I in Germany was already supported by a new, secular-minded church hierarchy loyal to the emperor, the leading figure of which was the Reich Chancellor, Count Reinold of Dassel, Archbishop of Cologne. The goal of the new emperor was to free his state from the tutelage of the pope and again give it the significance of a world power, and the pope was destined for the role of only the first bishop of the empire.
The Hohenstaufens wanted to lay the foundations for their dominance in Italy. Frederick I turned his attention not only to the rich Italian cities, to Lombardy, Tuscany, he was attracted by Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily, which were flourishing at that time. He based his sovereign claims on Roman law. This era is usually called the Renaissance of Roman law. Based on this legal basis, he defended state sovereignty against papal absolutism. The formal, general separation of church and secular affairs made it possible for monarchs to eliminate the interference of the church and the pope in secular affairs. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, in 1303, the French king Philip the Fair proudly emphasized that he recognized only God as his judge.
The consolidation of feudal anarchy hindered the development of the Italian urban bourgeoisie, as well as its economic activities. Although fragmentation led to the creation of city-states in the 14th century and thus temporarily provided the appropriate framework for economic and political development, in Italy, however, there were also aspirations for greater cohesion and unity. Some of the townspeople, thirsty for peace and tranquility, thought that if the emperor made Italy the center of his empire, this would create favorable conditions for them too. This opinion was opposed by a more realistically thinking, but strengthening particularism direction, which saw in the empire a feudal conqueror. They understood that Frederick wanted to re-conquer Italy, which had become independent after the end of the struggle for investiture, in order to strengthen his position against the Welfs. He needed money from rich Italian cities, but in relation to the bourgeoisie he acted as a defender of the feudal system. Supporters of independence saw city government as a means of resistance. They found unexpected support from the papacy, which was interested in perpetuating fragmentation. Thus, a new stage of the struggle between the pope and the emperor in Italy resulted in a civil war between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
The reason for Frederick's intervention in Italian affairs was the treaty he concluded with Pope Eugene III in 1153 in Constance. In it, Barbarossa pledged not to make peace with the Normans without the participation of the pope, to crush the Roman Republic and again give the city into the hands of the pope. For this, Eugene III not only promised him the imperial crown, but also his support in the fight against the Welfs.
In 1154, the first and to this day only pope of English origin, Adrian IV (1154–1159), ascended the throne. (Nicholas Breakspear, before becoming Cardinal-Bishop of Albano, was abbot of an Augustinian monastery near Avignon.) Rome was still ruled by the Senate and Arnold of Brescia. For an insult to one of his cardinals, Hadrian imposed an interdict on Rome. For the first time in history, worship services ceased in the Eternal City. The depth of the crisis is characterized by the fact that the population, dissatisfied with the new conflict between the republic and the church, expelled Arnold and his supporters from the leadership of Rome. However, this event was explained not so much by the interdict as, perhaps, by the appearance of Frederick in Italy. In 1154, Frederick I crossed the Alps to be crowned with the imperial crown in accordance with the Treaty of Constance. However, the emperor and his army came to Rome as a conqueror. During 1154–1155 he conquered all of Lombardy with the exception of Milan, and in 1155 the Lombard iron crown was placed on his head at Pavia.
In June 1155, a personal meeting took place in Sutri between Adrian IV and the emperor, which already indicated the approach of a new conflict. In Sutri, Frederick refused to perform the so-called equestrian service to the pope, which was required in accordance with the protocol, since he saw this as vassalage. Within two days he was convinced that, since the Carolingian era, this custom was nothing more than an empty formality. The Roman Senate tried to use the unpleasant incident to win over the king: Frederick was offered the imperial crown for 5,000 pounds of gold. However, the German king valued the imperial power consecrated by the church much higher than the crown received from the people of Rome. His army occupied the Eternal City without resistance, and the solemn ceremony of the imperial coronation took place in St. Peter's Cathedral. Thus, Frederick assumed the title of defender of the pope, which Hadrian really needed, against the Normans and Romans.
However, the commonality of interests between the new emperor and the pope manifested itself only in relation to Arnold of Brescia and the popular movement, which they opposed together. Arnold was captured by the emperor's men back in 1155, and by order of the pope he was burned and his ashes thrown into the Tiber. Frederick was not inclined to speak out against the Norman kingdom, despite the pope's insistence. The emperor and his army quickly returned to Germany, but the pope could not remain in Rome, he joined the departing army.
Disillusioned with the emperor, the pope tried to act on his own. In the fall of 1155, the pope's army carried out an armed attack on the possessions of the Norman king William. In the spring of 1156, William destroyed the pope's allies, but Adrian and some of his cardinals were stuck in Benevento (by the way, considered the papal possession). As a result of the negotiations that began, peace was concluded between the pope and the Normans. In the June 1156 Concordat of Benevento, concluded for 30 years, the pope recognized the Norman kingdom of William (which, along with Sicily, also included Apulia, Capua, Naples, Palermo and Amalfi, almost all of Southern Italy). At the same time, the Norman king recognized the pope as his overlord and undertook to pay him a tax of 1,000 gold pieces. He guaranteed papal privileges in ecclesiastical affairs in Sicily and southern Italy and, finally, promised him armed protection against the emperor and the Romans.
The Emperor, naturally, considered the Concordat of Benevento to be a violation of the Treaty of Constance, which gave him a new reason to conquer Italy. In 1156, Adrian IV, with the help of the Normans, returned to Rome. The Pope put the disorganized administration of the Papal State in order and concluded a compromise with the population of Rome. The emperor, who sought to create an essentially absolutist bureaucratic state, increasingly opposed the aspirations of Pope Adrian aimed at centralizing church power. The reason for the war was provided to Frederick by Reinhold von Dassel when he “in a distorted form” presented a papal letter addressed to the Besançon imperial assembly in 1157. He interpreted the word “benefice” used by the pope in the sense of “vassal,” according to which the pope could assert suzerain rights in relation to the emperor and the empire. The clash between church and imperial absolutism became inevitable.
The emperor could hope to subjugate the pope only by breaking the resistance of the Italian cities - after all, on Italian soil, after the struggle for investiture, political power was in the hands of the cities. The cities successfully assimilated the feudal lords. To eliminate the autonomy of the cities, Frederick placed imperial prefects at the head of the Lombard cities and imposed large taxes on the cities, which he intended to collect using weapons. The resistance of the townspeople was broken by Frederick during the campaign of 1157–1162. However, the violent experiment to create a modern bureaucratic state here did not promise much success.
Immediately after Hadrian's death, Frederick took the opportunity to cause confusion in Rome. As a result of his interference in the papal election, he ensured that the cardinals were divided into two parties. Most of the cardinals who opposed the emperor elected cardinal-chancellor Bandinelli as pope under the name of Alexander III, who turned out to be an implacable enemy of the emperor. The minority who formed the party of the emperor elected Cardinal Monticello as pope under the name of Victor IV (1159–1164). The German bishops recognized Victor as the legitimate pope, while the majority of the church sided with Alexander. At first, military fortune favored the emperor: in 1162, he completely destroyed the last center of resistance - Milan; Frederick conquered Northern and Central Italy. The Normans had no intention of protecting the pope. In the end, Alexander III fled to France, where he remained for three years. Frederick, with the help of his chancellor, enthroned three more antipopes (Paschalia III, Calixtus III and Innocent III), who opposed Alexander III.
After the death of Antipope Victor IV, the Romans turned to Alexander III with a request to return to Rome. In November 1165, Alexander returned to his throne city. However, his peace did not last long. Frederick Barbarossa already in the fall of 1166 undertook a new campaign in Italy and in the summer of the following year captured the city of Leo (Leonina). Alexander fled to the Normans in Benevento. The solemn enthronement of the antipope took place in Rome, who then crowned the emperor again. Now it was not the enemy that caused damage to Frederick’s army, but malaria. The Emperor secretly, in someone else's clothes, fled through hostile Northern Italy, through the Alps to Germany.
At that time, the struggle between the pope and the emperor had already spread throughout Italy, the country turned into a battle arena between Italian cities and German conquerors. The imperial bureaucratic state in Lombardy was doomed to failure in advance; it collapsed when faced with urban autonomy. The domination of foreigners, combined with feudal tyranny, raised the whole of Italy to fight the emperor. It was primarily the Lombard cities that rebelled against the tax pressure of the imperial system and the violence of officials. These northern Italian cities, led by Milan, created the Lombard League in 1167. At the time of its creation, 16 cities were members of the league. Since the emperor also threatened the results of the struggle for investiture, in the person of Alexander III he found not only his irreconcilable opponent, but also an ardent supporter of the liberation struggle of the cities. In vain did the emperor put forward an antipope; the cities sided with Alexander.
The Emperor in 1176 organized a new campaign against the Lombard League and the Pope. On May 29, 1176, near Milan, near Legnano, a decisive battle took place between the townspeople and the emperor’s troops. The battle ended in the defeat of the feudal knightly army; This was the first, but far from the last case in the Middle Ages when townspeople defeated feudal lords. The plans of Frederick, who dreamed of world domination, were overturned not thanks to the resistance of the pope, but thanks to the political and military resistance of the cities.
Alexander III concluded a separate peace with the emperor. In accordance with the peace treaty, signed first in 1176 in Anagni, and a year later in Venice, Frederick recognized Alexander III as the legitimate pope, and paid compensation to the antipopes and their supporters. Alexander also ensured that the emperor renounced the appointment of his prefect in Rome, thereby renouncing his rights to the Patrimonium of St. Peter. The Pope - with the exception of Matilda's inheritance - again received his former possessions. The emperor recognized the universal authority of the pope, and the pope recognized the legitimate authority of Frederick and his heirs. Thus, the papacy emerged victorious for the second time from the struggle with the emperor.
The emperor's soldiers brought the pope to Rome, where in 1179 at the Third Lateran Council he solemnly celebrated his victory over the antipopes. The first of the 27 canons adopted at the council stated that in the future, a two-thirds majority of the total number of cardinals present would be necessary to elect a pope. This canon is still in effect today, but sets a majority of two-thirds plus one vote. Among other decrees of the council, an important one was the decree prohibiting simony, concubinage (cohabitation), as well as the accumulation of church benefits (cumulacio beneficiorum). The papal laws regulating the election of popes and the decisions of the council did not apply in practice. This is evidenced by the fact that from the first, most famous decree on the procedure for electing popes, the decree of 1059 “In nomine Domini,” until 1180 there was the largest number of antipopes: 13 antipopes fought against 15 popes who were considered legitimate.
Meanwhile, Frederick I defeated his opponent Henry the Lion at home and concluded a peace agreement with the Lombard cities in 1183. The Emperor after Legnano intended to lay the foundation of his power on the peninsula not in Lombardy, but in Central Italy. The pope's state was surrounded by a ring of imperial possessions (Spoleto, Ancona, Romagna, Tuscany), and southern Italy was in the hands of the Normans, which further isolated the Church state from the outside world. Frederick, during the pontificate of the inactive Pope Lucius III (1181–1185), acquired Sicily for his family through dynastic marriages. Frederick betrothed his son, the future Henry VI, to the heiress of the Sicilian kingdom, Constance; the marriage took place in 1186.
The successors of Pope Alexander III (5 popes in 10 years) were decrepit and weak and could not implement the policies of their predecessors. Among them, perhaps only Clement III (1187–1191) deserves mention; being a native Roman aristocrat, he ensured that the city again recognized the primacy of the pope. A treaty between the Roman Senate and the pope, concluded in 1188, allowed popes to once again occupy the throne in Rome. And in accordance with the treaty signed with Frederick in 1189, the emperor confirmed the sovereignty of the pope over the Church State, with the exception of the hereditary lands of the Margravine Matilda.
While popes and emperors were busy fighting among themselves and for Sicily, the Turks conquered most of the Holy Land. In response to the crushing defeat of the Crusader troops in Palestine in 1187, at the call of Clement III, the French king Philip, the English heir to the throne, Duke Richard, and the already aged emperor Frederick Barbarossa organized the Third Crusade (1189–1190). Having survived many battles, Frederick Barbarossa drowned in Asia Minor while crossing the Saleph River. With the death of the leader, the fate of the campaign was also decided.
After this last great knightly crusade, there were no more serious military campaigns in Palestine. The significance of these wars is not in their duration or conquests, but in the fact that as a result their Christian culture came into contact with the spiritual and material culture of the Arab East, and, as it later turned out, the East again had a beneficial effect on Europe. The crusaders who made campaigns in Palestine began to treat the East with admiration rather than hostility. The culture and luxury of Byzantium evoked a feeling of amazement and envy among the knightly troops passing through it.
After the extraordinary death of the last knight-emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, the German throne was succeeded by his son Henry VI (1190–1197), who was crowned emperor in 1191 by Pope Celestine III (1191–1198). In 1194, Henry also took the Sicilian throne and united Sicily with the empire. Thus, he became sovereign of all Italy, with the exception of the Papal State. Henry moved the center of the empire south to Sicily. For him, Germany became of secondary importance. Death overtook him at a young age, preventing him from realizing his plan to create a world empire centered in the Mediterranean region. However, this did not resolve, but only postponed for almost two decades the question of the final settling of scores between the pope and the imperial power, which had moved to Italy.
Papacy at its pinnacle: Innocent III (1198–1216)The 12th and 13th centuries were the pinnacle of the ecclesiastical, political and spiritual power of the papacy. But papal power reached its highest point during the pontificate of Innocent III. Church history clearly considers Innocent III the most outstanding pope of the Middle Ages. The papacy reached the pinnacle of power as a result of the same historical process of development that, during the period of advanced feudalism, led to the strengthening of centralized royal power.
Innocent III was able to stabilize his position also because the power of the emperor began to decline. In Italy, the power of the emperor was effectively put to an end, but another feudal power had not yet been able to take his place. During the pontificate of Innocent III, at one time it seemed that Gregory VII's dream of world domination by the pope was being realized. The primacy of the papacy was realized in all respects; Innocent's pontificate is a real confirmation of this postulate. He surpassed his predecessors in the practical exercise of the political power of the papacy. As a statesman, he left Gregory VII far behind, but did not at all enjoy the glory of a saint. With his realistic policy, Innocent III brought Gregory VII's idea of a universal theocracy as close as possible to implementation.
Innocent III, who ascended the papal throne in 1198, was the son of the Count of Treismund, a scion of the ancient famous Conti family (from Anagni). He was a learned theologian and lawyer. In Paris he mastered the dialectical method, and in Bologna he received an education in Roman law. In 1189, his uncle Clement III elevated the 29-year-old count to the rank of cardinal. Under Celestine III, the nephew of the former pope had to leave the curia. He was not yet 38 years old when the cardinals unanimously elected him pope on the day of the death of Celestine III.
Innocent understood well that his plans for world domination could be realized only when he became the absolute ruler, first in Rome and in the Church State, and then in the universal Church. He proceeded from the fact that the unlimited freedom of the church - if we understand by this the supremacy of the pope - is based on the strong power of the pope over the independent secular state. Thus, the creation of the Papal State is a precondition for the creation of universal political power, to which Innocent III came closest in the history of the papacy.
First of all, Innocent III reformed the papal court. He created a well-functioning, broad-minded bureaucratic system of office work, thereby setting an example of the organization of contemporary bureaucratic states. Innocent III is rightfully considered the second founder of the Papal State. Under him, the Patrimonium of St. Peter became a real state, an absolute monarchy, where the subjects were nothing more than officials, and were under the authority of a single monarch, under the unlimited power of the pope. At first he secured a firm position in Rome. He forced the then city prefect, the emperor's representative, to resign from his duties as head of the institution, and he only received his position back when, on the day of the pope's coronation, he handed over the feal oath to him. Innocent forced the resignation of the senator elected by the people of Rome. In his place, the pope appointed an obedient senator, who also made a vassal declaration. In a similar way, Innocent III demanded a vassal oath from the aristocratic elite of the Papal State, which he managed to achieve.
With the death of Henry VI in 1197, German rule in Italy collapsed. For Innocent III, this, along with the return of the provinces lost by the Church State, also meant the possibility of territorial expansion of his possessions. Having successfully used the anti-German feelings of the Italians for these purposes, Innocent restored his power over Romagna (returning Ravenna to himself), and again took possession of Ancona (Marca). As a result of the inclusion of the Duchy of Spoleto (Umbria), the territory of the Papal State became much more compact. Innocent finally managed to lay his hand on Matilda’s long-disputed inheritance. The Pope successfully exercised his suzerain rights in relation to Sicily and Southern Italy. His influence especially strengthened under the Dowager Queen Constance. When the queen died in 1198, she left a will, according to which Innocent III became regent of Sicily and guardian of the infant Frederick II. During the pontificate of Innocent III, the papacy firmly secured for itself, along with the Patrimonium of St. Peter, the lands of Ancona, Spoleto and Radicofano (the so-called inheritance of Matilda). However, even he could not retain the territories of Romagna, Bologna and Pentapolis for a long time, although these territories were considered to belong to the Church State.
Innocent considered himself not only the vicar of Christ, but also the head of the Christian world. He intervened in every important event of his era, taking on the role of an all-powerful arbiter for the preservation or restoration of the God-given order. Innocent III argued: at the head of each individual country there are kings, but above each of them sits on the throne St. Peter and his viceroy, the pope, who, being a suzerain, grants the emperorship. Dad was most easily able to realize his aspirations of this nature in Germany, where the civil war was raging. In 1198, the princes even elected two kings: Philip II (of Swabia) and Otto IV (Hohenstaufen). The Pope supported Otgon, for from him he received the broadest promises to respect papal privileges. After the murder of Philip, only Otto remained in the arena, whom the pope crowned emperor in 1209. But after Otto IV violated the agreement concluded with the pope, Innocent excommunicated him from the church in 1210. Under the influence of the ringing golden pope, the princes also deposed Otto, and his place was taken in 1212 by the sixteen-year-old son of Henry VI, who was under the tutelage of Pope Frederick II.
Innocent III interfered in the internal affairs of other countries. His attempts to establish fief relations with England were crowned with success. The English king John the Landless, who got involved in a hopeless war with the French, was waiting for help from the pope in the fight against the French and his own nobles to save his throne. Innocent took on this role, in return for which the English king in 1213 declared his country a papal fief and undertook to pay a tax of 1,000 marks a year.
Innocent worked with greater or lesser success throughout Europe to spread the fief power of the popes, but mainly in Aragon, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Innocent III more than once intervened in the struggle for the throne of the Hungarian kings from the house of Arpad. When the future king Andras II was still a duke, the pope, under threat of excommunication, obliged him to lead a crusade to the Holy Land. When King Imre conquered Serbia, the pope supported Hungarian expansion in the Balkans because he expected Imre to eliminate the heresies there (Bogomils and Patarens).
The Pope justified his supremacy over Christian Europe by the need to concentrate the forces of Christianity to return the Holy Land, which, according to him, was possible only under the leadership of the Church. However, the IV Crusade (1204), inspired by the most powerful pope of the Middle Ages, was directed not against the pagans, but against dissident Christians. The deceptive ideological shell gradually fell away from the wars of conquest. The goal of the IV Crusade was initially, of course, the reconquest of the Holy Land. But during the time of Innocent, the issue of implementing union with the Greek-Eastern Church also came to the fore. In such an atmosphere it was not difficult to turn an army of crusaders seeking plunder against the schismatics. Venice became the behind-the-scenes spring of the new aggressive campaign. The rich trading city-republic was still formally under the rule of Byzantium. For Venice, Byzantium was a trading rival in the Mediterranean. To eliminate such a rival and in order to ensure the hegemony of Venice in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo decided to turn the crusader army marching on Jerusalem to the Hungarian cities in Dalmatia (Zara), and then against Byzantium. After a long siege in 1204, the Crusaders occupied the thousand-year-old stronghold of Greek culture and, in three days of plunder and murder, almost completely destroyed the city. The Byzantine Empire found itself pushed back into a narrow strip of Asia Minor and sandwiched between the Latin Christian knights and the Turks. The Robber Knights created the Latin Empire, which provided the means for the systematic plunder of the Balkans for half a century. The Church and the Pope could be pleased: the new, Latin, Patriarch of Constantinople returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church. And Venice captured huge war booty.
The crusade against Christians showed how distorted over the course of a century an idea motivated by apparently sincere religious feelings had become. Perhaps the most unattractive moment of the pontificate of Innocent III should be considered the organization in 1212, not by robber knights, but by crazed fanatics of the children's crusade. This was nothing more than an extremely cruel means of getting rid of overpopulation. The doomed children already died in the thousands along the way. Some of the children were loaded onto ships, supposedly for transportation to the Holy Land, but the organizers of the campaign handed them over to sea pirates, who sold them into slavery. Dad managed to bring part of the children’s army rushing from Germany to Italy home.
Innocent III provided the papacy with unlimited power in church administration. This was demonstrated by the IV Lageran Ecumenical Council (November 11–30, 1215), which became the pinnacle and result of Innocent’s reign. About 500 bishops, 800 abbots and representatives of sovereigns arrived at the Lateran Palace. Among the participants were also the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople. The meeting was chaired personally by the pope himself. The Ecumenical Council developed 70 canons, mainly on the reform of church life, on issues of faith, church law and church discipline, on the Holy Mass and absolution. A decision was also made prohibiting the creation of new monastic orders. A resolution was adopted to combat heresies that had spread in the Balkans, Northern Italy and Southern France, with the Bogomils, Patarens, Albigensians and Waldensians. In the 3rd canon, along with support for crusades against heretics, papal orders for the creation of the Inquisition were elevated to church law. And finally, the council called for a fight for the return of the Holy Land by creating an alliance (union) between Christians and declaring a new crusade.
The fight against heretics was one of the main tasks of the medieval papacy - after all, they threatened the unity of the church. The Third Lateran Ecumenical Council of 1179 condemned the Waldensian and Albigensian heresies, but extreme measures against them were taken only under Innocent III. The roots of medieval heresies go back to the times of the Gregorian reforms, when radical germs of a reform movement also appeared within the church, which were directed against the church hierarchy. The radicalism that appeared in the 11th century could still be successfully connected to the implementation of the program of the Reformed papacy.
Various heretical movements assumed a mass character only from the second half of the 12th century, when the development of the urban bourgeoisie made it possible to more decisively act against the feudal lords and the church. Now in the heresy, the content of which changed in the course of history, a new element appeared: the development of cities, which also caused the development of secular sciences, forming a new fertile ground for later heresies. The leaders of heretical sects usually came from a semi-educated environment; they were greatly influenced by spiritualism and mysticism. They fanatically believed that if they purified their souls, they could directly know God and receive his mercy. Therefore, they did not see the need for organized mediation between man and God - in the clergy, the church and in the sacraments they monopolized, for a true believer is able to receive mercy on his own. (It should be noted that such ancient Western heresies as Donatism and Pelagianism arose on the issue of mercy, grace, and around the relationship between God and man.)
Thus, heresies opposed themselves to the teachings of the official church. New trends arose within the framework of feudal society and were an ideological reflection of bourgeois development in cities and social tension in the countryside. Since the church was identified with feudalism, the social movements that fought feudalism were also anti-church in nature. Anti-feudal heresies resulted in the Pataren and Bogomil movements in the Balkans, in Lombardy - the Humilians (from the Latin humilis - humiliated, insignificant, humble), and in Southern France - the Cathars and Waldenses. With some differences, they proclaimed and wanted one thing: the realization of a perfect evangelical life. They considered the mediation of the church unnecessary to receive divine grace, and they did not need the church itself. Therefore, they questioned the necessity of the existence of a church organization, a feudal church, and thereby a feudal system. Increasingly, their programs raised the question of changing society.
The most significant mass movement was the Cathar movement, which developed in southern France beginning in the 1140s. The source of this movement was the Bogomil heresy, colored by Manichaeism, which arose in the East. This heresy first spread in the Balkans, from there it penetrated into Southern France, and then into the Rhine Valley, Northern Italy and even into Flanders (adherents of the heresy were usually called Albigensians, after the city of Albi, which was one of their centers). The fact that the Cathar heresy penetrated most deeply into society in Provence confirms its connection with the bourgeois development of society. Indeed, in the 12th century, Provence was the most prosperous and educated part of Europe at that time. Members of this movement since 1163 called themselves Cathars, pure. The Cathars denied the holy sacraments, the Holy Trinity, doomed themselves to asceticism, and obliged members of the sect to renounce marriage and personal property. The movement, which had its origins in the social idea of the early Christian church, the idea of poverty, spread extremely quickly. The Third Lateran Council (1179), with its 27th canon, anathematized the supporters of this heresy. The belief became universal that heretics must be exterminated by fire and sword. Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against them. This campaign, carried out between 1209 and 1229, was led by Count Simon of Montfort, who was distinguished by his inhuman cruelty. Despite the fact that this war of extermination led to the defeat of Provence, the Cathars finally disappeared only in the next century.
Initially, independently of the Cathars, the Waldensian heresy arose in southern France. It was a secular movement led by a wealthy Lyon merchant named Pierre Waldo, who distributed his property to the poor and began preaching. Based on the Gospel, he preached apostolic poverty and called to follow Christ, increasingly opposing the rich clergy. In 1184, Pope Lucius III declared the Waldo movement heretical. From this time on, the Waldenses became increasingly close to the Cathars; they rejected the church hierarchy, holy sacraments, absolution, tithes, denied military service, and lived a strict moral life. After the extermination of the Albigensians, the Waldensian heresy in the 13th century spread throughout almost all of Europe. Instead of the class structure of feudal society, the Waldenses implemented equality in the spirit of the early Christian church. In their communities, they recognized the Bible as the only law. The Waldensian heresy spread from the cities to the villages.
At the end of the 13th century, a movement of the so-called Gumiliags arose in Lombardy, a movement half monastic, half heretical-ascetic in nature. Lucius III declared them heretics too.
The secular authorities willingly offered their armed assistance to the papal church to deal with heretics. During the pontificate of Innocent III, the identification of heretics and their condemnation by the ecclesiastical court, but with the help of secular authorities, became widespread. In principle, the Inquisition has always existed in the church. Initially, it meant nothing more than preserving the purity of the dogmas of faith and excluding from the church those who sinned against them. This practice was consolidated starting from the 13th century. Due to the fact that in the Middle Ages the church and religion became social factors, attacks on them were regarded at the same time as attacks on the state and the social order. The legal and organizational principles of the medieval Inquisition were developed by Pope Alexander III at the councils of 1162 in Montpellier and 1163 in Tours and set out in a document that indicated how heretics should be treated. Until the Middle Ages, the principle was that heretics should not be exterminated, but convinced. From this time on, churchmen had to speak out against heretics, even without bringing charges against them ex officio. Theologians and jurists developed the principle that heresy is identical to an insult to a higher authority (lese majeste) and is therefore subject to punishment by the state. In 1184, at the Council of Verona, Lucius III issued a decree beginning with the words “Ad abolendam”, directed against heretics. The clergy were charged with the duty not only to bring charges of heresy in cases that became known to them, but also to carry out a process of investigation (inquisitio). Emperor Frederick I, who was present at the council, elevated the church curse on heretics into imperial law; Thus, heretics were subject to persecution by the state. Secular power united with the church inquisition against a common enemy. The investigation was conducted by clergy, trials against heretics were also organized by the church, but interrogation and execution of sentences - dirty work - were entrusted to the secular authorities.
For the first time, in accordance with the code of laws of 1197, King Pedro II of Aragon established that heretics should be burned at the stake. And Innocent III, confirming the previously mentioned decree of Pope Lucius in 1199, supplemented it with the words that heresy, in accordance with Roman law, is identical to lese majeste and, as such, is punishable by death at the stake. According to another explanation, the heretic was burned at the stake because heresy was initially compared to a plague. Heresy is a plague of the soul, the mortal enemy of true faith, and it spreads as quickly as a real plague. The only way to stop the plague and prevent further infection was considered to be the burning of the corpses of those who died from the plague and their belongings. Therefore, this was the only method of healing against heresy. In the 3rd canon of the IV Lateran Ecumenical Council, Innocent's decree was canonized, and Emperor Frederick II made it an imperial law in 1224.
The Papal Inquisition took shape in its final form in the 1200s. Under Pope Gregory IX, the laws relating to it underwent further changes, and finally in 1231 a papal constitution was issued, beginning with the words “Excommunicamus”. Now, along with the episcopal inquisitions, papal inquisitors also acted; The Pope entrusted the conduct of the Inquisition to the new mendicant orders. The provisions on the Inquisition were developed in especially detail by the Dominicans. The expansion of the papal Inquisition was accelerated mainly by the constitution of Innocent IV of 1252, which began with the words “Ad extirpande”. In this document, the pope provided for the use of a torture chamber during interrogations. The creation of the first papal court of the Inquisition occurred under Nicholas IV at the end of the 13th century. The Inquisition was merciless. Heretics - up to the second generation - were deprived of civil and political rights, they were forbidden to be buried, they had no right of appeal or defense, their property was subject to confiscation, and those who denounced them were rewarded. In this, church institutions acted together with secular authorities. During the era of the terror of the Inquisition, which grew into mass persecution, with the help of bonfires burning in city squares, they tried to intimidate people and deter them from any protests against the existing system.
The emergence of mass heretical movements also reflected a crisis in the church's worldview. The mendicant orders hastened to the aid of the shaken authority of the church. The Franciscans (minorities - lesser brothers) and Dominicans differed from the previous (monastic) monastic orders in that they did not live outside the walls of the monastery and not at the expense of its possessions, limiting themselves to doing quiet monastic work and communal prayer, but took upon themselves the task of public teaching and preaching outside the monasteries, existing on alms collected in the world (hence the name “mendicant order”). The fact that they took a vow of poverty was also expressed in external attributes. The mendicant orders were created under the influence of heretical movements (and adopted a lot from them), but to a certain extent - to strangle them. That is why the higher clergy initially watched them with distrust (this can explain the fact that at the IV Lateran Council the creation of new orders was prohibited). However, the popes soon realized how great opportunities lay in the mendicant orders. Dressed in “heretical clothing” and appearing in the right places, the brothers could spread and defend among the townspeople and the poor masses the teachings of the official church more successfully than the rich monastic orders and the “white” clergy who adapted to the authorities.
The medieval church was a wealthy and influential institution in which episcopal and abbey titles were awarded to members of the feudal nobility. At the same time, an important feature of spiritual philosophical movements was the idealization of poverty, and the most ardent preacher of poverty was the follower of Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Francis of Assisi. The vital ideal of bourgeois aspirations opposing feudal society was, if not the desire for poverty, then, undoubtedly, the desire for simplicity, for rationalism. This was manifested in movements that preached poverty: on the one hand, in heretical movements that developed outside the church; on the other hand, inside the church - in the mendicant orders.
Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) was an educated, socially conscious man of the world who felt his calling in preaching poverty. Francis, along with eleven of his companions, appeared before the powerful Pope Innocent III with a request to allow them to preach apostolic spirituality. Innocent III only verbally promised support for their charter. (Probably Francis himself did not want to create an order that obeyed strictly defined rules.) The Order of Minorites, or Franciscans, which launched its activities in the middle of the 12th century, was engaged in pastoral activities, theological sciences and preaching in a language understandable to the common people.
The Charter of the Minor Order (Ordo Fratres Minorum), based on centralist principles, was approved in 1223 by Pope Honorius III.
The fight against the Cathar heresy necessitated the creation of the Dominican Order, or the Order of Friars Preachers. The name was later explained as follows: the monks considered themselves Domini canes - dogs of the Lord. The founder of the Order of Friars Preachers (Ordo Fratrum Praedicatorum) was Saint Dominic (c. 1170–1221), who was a canon, but, having renounced his position, took a vow of poverty and devoted his life to the fight against heretics. Innocent III still opposed strengthening the order, but the next pope approved it in 1216. The theological activity of the Dominicans not least served the pragmatic goals of the discussion with heresy. The Order developed not only theological arguments for the Inquisition, but also ingenious legal provisions. The Papal Inquisition was almost exclusively in the hands of the Dominican Order.
However, there is no doubt that the mendicant orders owe their flourishing not only to the Inquisition and the fight against heretics. Mendicant monks were the first educators in Europe: they taught, educated, and treated. Along with the cultural and social activities they carried out among the people, which was characteristic primarily of the Franciscans, we find them at the head of European universities and educational departments (mainly Dominicans).
Under the influence of two major mendicant orders, monasticism experienced a new renaissance. One crusader knight formed the mendicant order of the Carmelites, which was approved by the pope in 1226. The Servite Order was formed in 1233 in Florence as a secular society. In 1255, Pope Alexander IV approved their status, but only in the 15th century did this order become a mendicant order.
The rise of medieval universities also explains the rise of monastic orders in the 13th century and the development of cities. The most famous was the University of Paris, whose charter and autonomy were recognized in 1213 by Innocent III. The second most important was the university in Bologna, which primarily provided legal education. The most famous teacher was the Camaldulian monk Gratian, who is considered as the creator of church legal science. Gratian (d. 1179) was the author of a collection of canon law that had a great influence on the development of church law. This collection, entitled "Concordantia discordantium canonum", was probably published around 1140 and was improved by the works of eminent jurists of the church on the papal throne, such as Alexander III, Innocent III and Gregory IX.
The flourishing of knightly culture is also associated with the “Romanesque” era (X–XIII centuries). The most beautiful chivalric poetry arose in the Loire and Garonne Valley. The most significant figure of Provençal troubadour poetry was Duke William IX of Aquitaine. The most prominent representatives of the so-called Minnesinger poetry (“songs of ecstatic love”) in Germany were Walter von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach (“Parsifal”) and Gottfried of Strasbourg (author of “Tristan and Isolde”).
But if the ideal of the knightly era was a hero with a cross on his cloak, then in the 13th century the pope’s appeals calling for a crusade were met with complete indifference. The broad projects of the Fourth Lateran Council did not bring the expected results in this area. The Hungarian king Andras II, the French king Louis IX, and then Frederick II led the crusades, but without much success. Andrew II took part in the crusade to Palestine, leading an army of 15,000 people. During his absence, he placed the country under the protection of the pope, and entrusted the administration to the Archbishop of Esztergom. The army was transported by the Venetians by sea; András, as payment for this, renounced the city of Zara in their favor. The Hungarian Crusade at the beginning of 1218 ended without results.
The last act of the struggle between the pope and the emperor (First half of the 13th century)The most difficult task of the successors of Innocent III was the implementation of the universal political power of the popes in the fight against the power of Emperor Frederick II, which had reached its rise at that time. Frederick II (1212–1250) grew up under the tutelage of Innocent III (Frederick was the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, heir to the Kingdom of Sicily and the German-Roman Empire). In 1212, Frederick was elected king of Germany. The following year, Innocent III died, and Frederick II again began the war for Italy. Due to the fact that he owned Sicily, which at that time was a well-organized, wealthy secular kingdom, his chances of victory were great. He surrounded the papacy from north and south. However, in Germany, Frederick had no actual power. By the 13th century, a developed economy and trade had developed in Sicily. The center of the southern Italian bureaucratic state was Sicily, based on which Frederick II, the last of the medieval emperors, again tried to realize the dream of world domination. Frederick almost never left Sicily, dear to his heart, and Germany seemed to him a distant and cold province. The last emperor of the Hohenstaufen family arranged his Palermo court in an oriental manner, with oriental comfort.
At first, the papacy showed compliance with the ambitious plans of Frederick II. Honorius III (1216–1227) ascended the papal throne as an old and frail man. He didn't even try to show strength towards the young emperor. Thus, Frederick was able to easily unite his mother's inheritance, the Kingdom of Sicily, with the German Kingdom inherited from his father. Pope Honorius was much more concerned with internal affairs and the efforts to organize a crusade that had already become an obsession. Honorius III legalized the formation of new mendicant orders, and in order to organize a crusade, he sought agreement with Frederick at any cost. The Pope also conditioned Frederick's coronation as emperor on the fact that he would liberate the Holy Land. Having received the crown of the emperor in 1220, Frederick II did not even think about taking up a crusade, but began to strengthen his own positions in Italy.
His nephew, Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241), returned to the politics of Innocent III, who became the same implacable opponent of Frederick II as Alexander III had been in relation to Frederick Barbarossa. Innocent in 1206 made his nephew cardinal bishop of Ostia and Velletri. At the time of his election as Pope, Gregory IX was already 80 years old. However, the elderly pope remained at the head of the church for another 14 years. He died at the age of 94; Since then, he has been the "champion" by age in the dad directory. The increase in the number of elderly hierarchs was associated not only with a gradual increase in average life expectancy, but also with political contradictions within the curia: an elderly pope, in all likelihood, could not count on a long pontificate, so this was seen as an acceptable compromise. However, Gregory IX "played a joke" on the cardinals. Relying on the mendicant orders, he wanted to implement the ideas of Gregory VII. He had a close friendship with Saint Francis of Assisi and the Minorite Order. And in 1227, regardless of the protests of the “white” clergy, the pope granted the Dominicans the privilege of preaching everywhere. He backed up his power demands with legal arguments. The collection of canons associated with his name (Liber Extra) until the Corpus Juris Canonoci of 1918 represented the core of church laws.
The clash between the pope, who returned to the concept of his great predecessors, and the emperor was a natural and inevitable phenomenon. When Frederick II began, according to the pope, to sabotage and postpone the crusade, he was excommunicated in 1227. Frederick II finally carried out the promised crusade in 1228–1229. It was a rather strange campaign: Frederick, rather, with the help of diplomatic tricks, ensured that in 1229 the crusaders were able to enter Jerusalem. A strange grimace of history: the Christian emperor - liberator of the Holy Land was excommunicated from the church. Therefore, the Patriarch of Jerusalem placed the Holy Land itself under interdict (after all, in accordance with the canons, the place where the anathematized monarch is also subject to interdict).
During the campaign, it became clear why the pope so insistently demanded Frederick's departure from Italy: as soon as Frederick left Sicily, the pope gathered an army, invaded the territory of Naples and again entered into an alliance with the Lombard League against the emperor. However, Frederick suddenly appeared in Italy and, with the help of a well-organized army, drove out the papal troops from there, and then defeated the Lombard allies of the pope. The Pope was forced to recognize the authority of Frederick II in Italy, and the Emperor guaranteed the sovereignty of the Papal State. But neither side complied with the terms of the agreement. Frederick sought to restore the supremacy of his predecessors over Rome, and Pope Gregory again and again successfully fanned discontent among the German princes and feudal lords with Frederick, who was either in Palermo or Naples.
Due to a new invasion of the Papal State by the troops of Frederick II, Gregory IX excommunicated the emperor again in 1239. This marked the beginning of the final clash between the popes and the Hohenstaufens. In response to the anathema, Frederick occupied the entire Papal State. Gregory IX decided to bring the emperor who attacked him to the court of the ecumenical council. However, the emperor forcibly detained and imprisoned the hierarchs who were trying to get to the meeting of the ecumenical Lateran Council, which was scheduled for Easter 1241. The pope turned out to be powerless and had to refuse to hold the council.
While the two leaders of Christendom were wasting their energy in mutual struggle, Christian Eastern Europe fell prey to the Tatar hordes. The Hungarian king Bela IV received nothing more than words of encouragement from either the emperor or the pope, although both claimed to intervene in the affairs of Hungary. Gregory IX took every opportunity to promote the independence of the clergy in Hungary in opposition to the power of the king. A royal decree issued in 1231 extending the Golden Bull of 1222 meant a victory for the clergy over the laity. The decree, along with measures providing for the protection of church property, placed in the hands of the church a significant part of justice, which previously belonged to the state. The sources of contradictions between the state (king) and the church were also of an economic nature: Muslim and Jewish merchants, under the protection of the king - primarily due to the receipt of a royal monopoly on the salt trade - played an important role in providing the economic and financial sources of royal power. At the same time, the church, expanding its financial and trading activities throughout Europe, including in Hungary, sought to eliminate its dangerous competitor.
The pope played the main role in resolving the dispute in favor of the church. Gregory IX sent Bishop Jacob of Praeneste as papal legate to Hungary with the goal of converting Muslims and Jews to the Christian faith. Since King Andras II was not inclined to make further concessions, Pope Gregory IX in 1232 imposed a church ban (interdict) on Hungary, which was put into effect on February 25, 1232 by Archbishop Robert of Esztergom. A very dangerous step for royal power forced András to retreat. In the so-called Beregovsky agreement of August 20, 1233, which the king was forced to conclude with the papal legate, the church was freed from state control, moreover, to a certain extent, the state was even subordinate to the church. Thus, along with strengthening their privileges in the field of justice, the clergy was exempt from paying taxes to the state treasury; Jews and Muslims were prohibited from serving in public institutions or carrying out economic activities; they were also required to wear a distinctive sign. The place of competitors, whose activities became impossible, was taken by representatives of the church: the salt trade completely became their monopoly. The "Covenant of the Coast" shows that the influence of the pope and the power of the church in Hungary during the time of András II were such that the country became to a certain extent dependent on the pope.
The Hungarian king Bela IV, while in Zagreb, informed Pope Gregory IX of the destruction caused by the Tatars and the defeat in the Battle of Much. The elderly pope mourned Hungary, compared the fight against the Tatars with the crusades in the Holy Land and, through the Dominicans, called on the German lands for a crusade. However, he did not provide specific assistance to Bela IV, because the papacy was busy fighting Frederick II. After the Tatar invasion, in the dispute between Bela IV and Frederick II about fief relations, the pope took Bela's side. (After the battle of Mukh, Bela nevertheless swore an oath to Frederick that he would become his vassal if Frederick assisted him with an army. But since this assistance was not provided, Bela turned to the pope with a request to cancel the vassal oath.)
When electing a successor to Gregory IX, for the first time in the history of the papacy, the so-called conclave (from the Latin cum clave - locked with a key) was used. In 1241, the College of Cardinals was reduced to a total of 12 people, two of them were captured by the emperor, the 10 cardinals present were divided into two parties, one pro-imperial, and the second anti-imperial, the curia party. As a result, neither side could provide its candidate with the required two-thirds majority. As the elections dragged on, the cardinals were locked in one of the rooms of the Lateran Palace in order to speed up the decision. Only under the influence of crude threats was an agreement reached on the election of the elderly Cardinal-Bishop Sabina, who, under the name of Celestine IV, lasted only two weeks on the throne of St. Peter.
The cardinals, in order to avoid violence from the Romans, gathered for new elections in Anagni. Only two years later, in July 1243, the election of the Genoese cardinal Sinibald Fieschi, a Ghibelline by conviction, took place; He became pope under the name of Innocent IV.
However, Innocent IV (1243–1254) brought disappointment to the imperial party, for, having become pope, he continued the policies of Innocent III and Gregory IX. In 1244, fleeing from the emperor, he unexpectedly fled to France. In 1245 in Lyon he convened a new ecumenical council. The pope lived in the Lyon monastery of Sainte-Just, and held council meetings in the Lyon Cathedral. The main issue that the council dealt with was the trial of the emperor, which ended on July 17, 1245 with the anathema of Frederick II and the deprivation of his throne. The rather poorly attended cathedral made 22 more decisions: for example, on negotiations with the Eastern Church on the issue of reunification, on organizing a crusade against the Tatars. (As an interesting detail, it can be noted that in accordance with the decision of the council, the pope received the right to give the new cardinals a red hat.)
After the closure of the Lyon Cathedral, the pope called on all his allies to fight against the emperor. In 1246, in Germany, two anti-kings were elected one after another in opposition to Frederick. And in Italy new clashes broke out between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Frederick still managed to retain the throne, but in 1250, before the decisive battle, he unexpectedly died. The Archbishop of Palermo performed absolution in Apulia for the excommunicated emperor, who was lying on his deathbed.
After the death of Frederick II, the pope's position was strengthened again. The main goal of the pope who returned to Italy in 1251 was to completely oust German influence from Southern Italy. After the death of Emperor Frederick, Germany and Italy found themselves at the lowest point of feudal anarchy. The significance of the political power of the emperor and within the empire was gradually virtually reduced to nothing; In Italy, German rule collapsed. Italy and the pope became independent from German influence; power passed partly to the pope, partly to the city-states being created, and finally into the hands of the kings of Sicily and Naples.
The last emperor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, Conrad IV, died in 1254 during the Italian campaign. The Germans did not recognize his young son as king. In the period from 1254 to 1273, during the "great interregnum", the empire had no recognized head, kings and anti-kings fought each other. The empire disintegrated into almost completely independent lands, and imperial power was destroyed. Papal policy played an important role in the collapse of the German-Roman Empire. The popes used the authority of the church to strengthen particularistic aspirations in the interests of weakening imperial power. All this was connected with a political concept aimed at preventing the unification of Italy carried out by the emperor, because a politically united Italy would undermine the foundations of the power of the papacy and the independence of the Church state. With the fall of the Hohenstaufens, German influence ended in southern and central Italy, but this last victory of the papacy was a Pyrrhic victory. The place of the one and only emperor who opposed the pope was now taken by a number of feudal states, and among them the most powerful was France. In these states, during the 14th century, estates were formed and the estate monarchy was strengthened.
At the end of the 13th century, the attention of the popes was drawn to countries outside Italy. Rome provided serious support to the eastern conquests of the German Knightly Order, which settled in Prussia. At the same time, partly as a result of strife between the knightly orders of the Templars and the Johannites, and primarily as a result of the liberation struggle of the Balkan peoples, the Byzantine emperor, who entered into an alliance with Genoa against Venice, restored his power in the territory of the Latin Empire in 1261. Within the Church, popes intervened on the side of the mendicant orders in discussions - most notably at the University of Paris - about the concept of "poverty." Behind the difference of views lay the antagonism between the rich high clergy and the mendicant orders.
In Southern Italy, one of the members of the French royal family, the Provençal Count Charles of Anjou, emerged victorious from the struggle for the Hohenstaufen inheritance. In 1266 he became king of Sicily and Naples. He managed to gain the throne with the support of Pope Clement IV (1265-1268), who himself was from Provence. Under the pretext that the pope was the main overlord of Sicily, he gave Sicily and Southern Italy to the Angevin dynasty. Charles was the son of the French king Louis VIII and the brother of Louis IX (the Saint), since 1246 he was the Count of Anjou and Mena, and after he married the Provençal countess Beatrice, he also took possession of the rich county of Provence. Having been elected thanks to the Holy See, Charles of Anjou in 1265 as the “Defender of the Church” became King of Sicily. In 1266, the pope elevated Charles of Anjou to royal dignity at the Lateran Cathedral. Thus, the Kingdom of Angevin of the Two Sicilies was created, which included, in addition to Sicily, also all of Southern Italy. This is where the French period in the history of the papacy began.
The course of history could not be changed by the fact that the grown-up son of Conrad IV, Conradin, entered Italy in 1267 to reconquer the possessions of his ancestors. Charles of Anjou, who organized absolutist rule in Sicily on the French model, defeated Conradin's army in 1268. The last Hohenstaufen was beheaded in Naples. The fall of the Hohenstaufens did not improve the position of the popes: the call of the Angevins and their intervention in the political life of Italy meant for the popes the emergence of an even more dangerous enemy than the Hohenstaufens were. The Angevin dynasty clearly wanted to turn the top leadership of the church towards France. For example, they created their own party in the College of Cardinals.
Despite the fact that the popes seemed to have victoriously completed a century-long struggle with the Hohenstaufens, this victory turned out to be illusory. The authority of the popes was undermined by heretical movements, and in the 13th century science also turned against them. The papacy, unable to rely on the empire, fell under the rule of the new leading European power - France, which became a centralized class monarchy.
The Path of the Popes to Avignon (Second half of the 13th century)With the consolidation of the dominance of the Anjou dynasty in southern Italy, the danger that the German emperors would again attempt to unify Italy disappeared. The goal of Charles of Anjou, who ascended the throne as a vassal of the pope, was to create a Mediterranean empire by conquering the Balkans and the Byzantine Empire and annexing their possessions in Southern France, Sicily and Naples. This, in turn, could lead to the political unification of Italy, which a priori was in conflict with the interests of the popes. Therefore, the second half of the 13th century was filled with the struggle between the Anjou dynasty and the popes.
After the death of Pope Clement IV, there was no pope for more than two years, because the party of supporters of the emperor in the curia and the Angevin party could not reach an agreement. On November 29, 1268, 10 Italian and 7 French cardinals gathered in Viterbo to elect a pope. For a year and a half, they were unable to agree on a new pope; not a single candidate was able to obtain the required two-thirds majority. Then the Spanish king Philip III intervened (who acted as the patron of the papacy in the fight against the emperor): on his orders, the commandant of the city of Viterbo locked the cardinals in the room where the elections were taking place and supplied them with only the most necessary food. The royal intervention had an impact, and on September 1, 1271, they elected a new pope. However, the elected cardinal deacon from Liege, Tebaldo Visconti, was not present at the elections, just at that time he was returning from a pilgrimage to Palestine. The elected pope became Gregory X (1271–1276), whose program included strengthening church discipline, implementing union with the Greeks and liberating the Holy Land.
The papal program received its blessing at the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyon, held in May 1274. About 500 bishops and 1000 prelates took part in the council, in addition, representatives of the Byzantine emperor were also present. At the council, a union was concluded between the Eastern and Western churches: the Greeks accepted the filioque and the primacy of the pope. The union, however, remained only on paper, because behind it were not church, but only purely political interests. The Byzantine emperor, concluding a union, hoped that the papacy and Latin Christianity would provide him with armed assistance in the fight against the Turks. The clergy itself and the believers of the Greek-Eastern Church resolutely rejected even the idea of union, for it was not a compromise of equal parties, but complete submission to Rome. The Ecumenical Council decided for six years to spend church tithes only for the purposes of the new crusade.
On July 7, 1274, Gregory X, with his decree “Ubi periculum,” introduced the provision for the election of a pope at a conclave, which was later approved by the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons. This was to prevent the election of popes from taking too long, and also to exclude publicity. The decree also prescribed that the cardinals, after three days of mourning, should immediately gather for a conclave, where the previous pope had died. It was reaffirmed that a two-thirds majority was required for valid election. However, for a long time, when electing the pope, they did not adhere to the rule of complete isolation of cardinal electors from the outside world.
Ambassadors of the new German king Rudolf of Habsburg (1273–1291) were also present at the Council of Lyons. The anarchy in Germany, in which the pope had been interested until that time, was tired of the Holy See itself. The Pope forced the princes to elect a new king; This is how a Swiss count with modest possessions came to the German royal throne. Behind the pope's actions was hidden the intention to create a counterbalance to the already real threats from Anjou and, to an even greater extent, the great French power. By this time, Charles of Anjou had extended his power to almost the entire Italian peninsula, including Tuscany. Since an Italian was elected pope after the French-born popes (Gregory X came from the Italian Visconti family), the Curia made efforts to restore the German Empire in order to free itself from the influence of Anjou.
The pope confirmed Rudolf's royal rights, but Habsburg did not at all want to play the role that was intended for him by the pope: he did not become the pope's protector from the French, Rudolf Habsburg was not interested in Rome, and was not attracted by the empire (in 1274 he also renounced the imperial rights over Rome ). He allowed the pope to retake Romagna, and in Lombardy and Tuscany he gave the opportunity to the princes - supporters of the pope - to gain the upper hand. The Habsburgs no longer based their power on their possessions in Italy, but on their own family possessions. They understood that the title of emperor and king, to which the princes were subordinate, had become an empty formality; royal power extended only to the limits limited by the king’s own possessions. Therefore, Rudolf wanted to dominate not over the princes, but instead of them: that is, to conquer as many possessions as possible from them or somehow acquire them. Neither the plans of the Habsburgs, nor the plans of the Czech and then Luxembourg royal houses that followed them, included the idea of a universal secular power existing next to the papacy. The papacy, after a century of struggle with the Hohenstaufens, found itself for another century at the mercy of the dynastic aspirations of Anjou and the French crown.
After Gregory X came the popes, whose role was insignificant. In 1276, Innocent V was the first Dominican to hold the papal throne for just six months. Tuscolum Cardinal-Bishop Pedro Giuliani called himself John XXI (1276–1277), although no one appeared under the name John XX in the catalog of popes. The leader of the opposition to him in the College of Cardinals was Cardinal Orsini. John XXI met an unfortunate end: on May 20, 1277, a collapsed ceiling in the papal palace buried him. Under the pope who followed him from the Orsini family, who received the name Nicholas III (1277–1280), the Roman aristocratic party led by him seized power. The Pope issued a decree according to which in the future only Roman citizens (that is, aristocrats enjoying the rights of citizens of Rome) could become senators of Rome. This title could not be granted to kings or foreign princes. Thanks to a treaty concluded with Rudolf of Habsburg, the Papal State expanded to include new cities in Romagna. The Pope intervened in discussions among Franciscans about the interpretation of the concept of poverty. In 1279, in a letter beginning with the words “Exiit qui seminat,” he condemned the excessive demands of the Minorites, preachers of absolute poverty.
Only seven cardinals participated in the election of Pope Martin IV (1281–1285). Under him, the union with the Greek Church, which had been so solemnly discussed earlier, was put to an end. (Martin also erroneously called himself IV, for under this name only one Martin had been pope before him. The two popes named Marin appearing in the catalog were erroneously read as Martin.) Martin IV was a faithful servant of Charles of Anjou; he did not realize the dangers lurking in French hegemony. When the plans of the ambitious Charles were destroyed as a result of the “Sicilian Vespers” (on March 31, 1232, the population of Sicily rebelled against the dominance of the Angevin authorities and killed French officials. This massacre was called the “Sicilian Vespers”), the pope helped save French rule in Naples.
Thus, the papacy missed the right moment to acquire Sicily. Under subsequent popes, the situation in southern Italy continued to be complicated by the renewed struggle between parties representing the Roman aristocracy and wealthy citizens, led at that time by the rival families of Orsini and Colonna. In the person of Nicholas IV (1288–1292), who ascended the throne in 1288, a Franciscan monk (general of the order) became the successor of St. Peter for the first time. Nicholas IV was a pope from the Colonna family and remained a minority monk on the papal throne. As pope, he actively helped the order in its missionary activities, first in the Balkans, and then in Asia, in China. The power of the College of Cardinals continued to strengthen due to the fact that half of the income of the Roman churches was allocated to the College. However, during the pontificate of Nicholas IV, the last fortresses in the hands of Christians in Palestine and Syria fell: in 1289 - Tripoli, and in 1291 - Akka. The Knights of St. John retreated to Rhodes in 1310 under the attacks of the Turks.
The bad news coming from the East prompted the pope to engage in diplomatic activity. However, now the pope’s credit of trust has dried up. Papal revenues (tithes and other taxes collected under the pretext of the Crusades) were spent on the struggle for Sicily, as well as on the political goals of the popes in relation to Byzantium and, not least, for the acquisition of Hungary. In Hungary, popes after the kings of the dying Arpad dynasty supported the claims to the throne of the House of Angevin. The son of the Neapolitan king Charles II of Anjou, Charles Martell, as well as the last king from the Arpad dynasty, Andras III, claimed the Hungarian throne; The popes supported Charles Martell.
Amid the confusion in Italy, the king of Aragon took the initiative and, citing family ties to the Hohenstaufens, conquered Sicily in 1296. Thus, the power of the Anjou was limited only to the Apennine Peninsula, and Naples became the center of their kingdom. In this situation, Italy, Rome, and the church leadership itself split into two parties. The Orsini party supported the pope and, faithful to the Guelph policy, demanded the unification of Sicily and Naples; it supported Anjou, but while respecting the suzerain rights of the pope. The party of the emperor, led by Colonna, pursued the policy of the Ghibellines and supported the Aragonese dynasty against Anjou.
After the death of Nicholas IV, the vacancy of the papal throne (sede vacante) lasted for almost two years. Not a single party of the cardinals gathered in Perugia could obtain the required two-thirds majority. The church, burdened with political contradictions, was increasingly pressured by mystical and apocalyptic expectations that gripped literally all layers of society. Mysticism and the poverty movement, which found expression in heretical movements and later in the mendicant orders, reached the papal throne. After the diplomatic pope and the lawyer pope, society expected the angelic pope to resolve the crisis in the church and in the world.
The head of the cardinals, supporters of the Angevin party, Orsini, in the summer of 1294, raised the idea in the conclave that the holy hermit Pietro del Murrone, being an apolitical person, would be an ideal compromise solution to the issue. At the same time, each of both parties hoped that it would be able to keep the hermit monk in its hands. To persuade the hermit, who lived completely alone among the limestones in the Abruzzese mountains, to this adventurous idea, he was visited by Charles II of Anjou and his son Charles Martell. The matter was finally settled by an agreement reached between the king, the cardinal dean and the hermit. Pietro del Murrone, under the name of Celestine V, was elevated to the papal throne (1294). However, due to his lack of social and political knowledge, he was completely unable to fulfill his role - after all, he had only a minimal theological education. After his election as pope, it turned out that the pope, whose residence was in Neapolitan territory (in L'Aquila and then in Naples), became a weak-willed figure in the hands of Anjou. The most important result of his papacy, even more important than the confusion that arose in the government of the church, was that, on the advice of the King of Anjou, 12 new cardinals were introduced into the College of Cardinals, among whom were seven French, four from Lower Italy, and also a hermit, with with whom Pietro del Murrone was staying with in the Abruzzos. Thus, a French majority party was formed in the College of Cardinals.
The elderly hermit became increasingly horrified by the difficulties that had befallen him and by the enormity of the task he had thoughtlessly taken upon himself. Fearing for his spiritual salvation, he decided to voluntarily renounce his honorary rank. It is very likely that the cunning Cardinal Benedetto Caetani brought this idea to a simple and naive man. When Celestine decided to voluntarily renounce his dignity, it was not difficult for Cardinal Caetani to find the necessary formula of canon law. Thus, the holy pope officially announced his resignation on December 10, 1294, put on his hermit's clothes and, happy, hastened to return to the mountains.
Gathering on Christmas Day 1294, the cardinals overwhelmingly elected as pope the chief adviser to the resigning pope, Cardinal Caetani, who took the name Boniface VIII (1294–1303). The new pope owed his election to the Neapolitan party, the Orsini party, and during his entire pontificate he had to wage a continuous struggle with the Colonna and their supporters. Boniface VIII was a distinct legal pope, the absolute opposite of his predecessor.
At the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th century, the independence of the popes was threatened primarily not by the Neapolitan Anjou, but by France, which had become the leading great power on the continent. The last significant pope to fight against French hegemony, and at the same time the last representative of the Gregorian papacy, was Boniface VIII. Boniface VIII was a hierarch created for power, but he proved himself to be a dry, cold and inhuman high shepherd. He loved two things immensely: money and his relatives. Boniface's pontificate preceded the subsequent era of popes, under which curial financial management and nepotism developed. Upon his accession to the throne, Boniface VIII made his nephew Francesco Caetani a cardinal in 1295. The formation of such a phenomenon as nepotism was primarily facilitated not by family love, but by simple political and economic reasons. After all, the papacy, not being a hereditary monarchy, did not have, like secular ruling dynasties, a community of connections based also on a relatively broad, family basis. At the same time, the pope, as the sole ruler, also needed reliable employees both in the sphere of church administration and in the sphere of administration of the Papal State. Due to the fact that the leadership of administrative bodies increasingly fell into the hands of cardinals, each pope tried to strengthen the college of cardinals with his trusted people. Naturally, the pope who ascended the throne recruited his employees from blood relatives. It happened, and quite early on, that a nephew or nephews (nepos) of the pope became cardinals, with their subsequent inclusion in the governing bodies of the church (cardinal-nepos, personal secretary). Thus, Dad supported his family with his enormous wealth and political influence. This was one of the forms of creating a dynasty, where the primary task was not to ensure continuity, but to increase the family’s property. As a result of the spread of nepotism, the cardinals appointed by the former pope, after his death, created a party in the College of Cardinals under the leadership of nepotus in order to elect a new pope from among them. The side opposing them, having rallied around the earlier nepo, put forward its own candidate. Depending on the balance of power of both parties, a compromise election usually took place. It was rarely possible for supporters of the party of a deceased pope to win a conclave. Therefore, the history of the papacy is generally characterized by the fact that successive popes were opposites to each other in ideological and political, and often in purely human terms. Thus, for a long period of time, contradictions were leveled out.
Another concomitant of nepotism was the formation of the so-called dynasties of papal suppliers, who in Italy, including the Papal State, fought with each other for political power. The new Pope Boniface VIII first put the upset affairs of the Holy See in order. He established a strict and strict order and placed members of the Caetani family in key positions. Thus, he made his mortal enemies another aristocratic family with enormous influence - the Colonna. The discord reached the point that the pope in 1297 excommunicated two cardinals, Pietro Colonna and Giacomo Colonna, from the church with the confiscation of their property.
Both cardinals found refuge from the pope and support in France. The story of the Colonna family was only a pretext for a clash between the pope and the French king Philip IV the Fair (1285–1314). The real reason was the opposition of the French monarchy to papal absolutism. Famed for his beauty, Philip IV was the first truly Gallican ruler. Philip created an absolutist monarchy in which state interests prevailed over everything. Philip IV managed to subjugate not only the regional power of the secular feudal lords, but also the French church: he himself made decisions about taxing the clergy, he himself appointed bishops and laid his hand on the income received from unfilled vacancies. When Philip confiscated church tithes for the war with the English (contrary to the prohibition of the IV Lateran Council on this issue), Pope Boniface VIII, prompted by the clergy, protested against the illegal taxation of the church. In 1296, Boniface, in the bull Clericos laicos, prohibited civil officials, under threat of excommunication, from collecting war taxes from the clergy. However, Philip the Handsome could no longer tolerate interference in the management of the affairs of his country. In response to the pope's actions, he banned the export of precious metals (money) from France, which, in turn, had a significant impact on the pope's income, because it made the activities of papal tax collectors impossible. The Pope was forced to retreat.
Boniface VIII intervened with great success in Hungarian affairs. After the death of the last king of the house of Arpad (1301), the pope continued to support the claims of Neapolitan Anjou to the Hungarian throne. When the Hungarian estates elected the Czech Wenzel (1301–1305) as king rather than Charles Martell's son Charles Robert, Boniface VIII imposed an interdict on Hungary. But in the end, Charles Robert of Anjou (1308–1342) emerged victorious in the struggle for the throne. On May 31, 1303, Boniface VIII, at an open meeting of the council of cardinals (consistory), proclaimed Charles Robert the legal ruler of Hungary. In 1307, the pope sent Cardinal Gentilis as legate to Hungary to strengthen the throne of Charles Robert. The Pope, also in relation to Albrecht of Austria (1293–1308), was able to exercise papal prerogatives over the imperial church and in exchange for this recognized Albrecht as the legitimate German king.
Boniface sought to restore the authority of the papacy in Italy. However, the memories of the angelic dad were difficult to consign to oblivion. Boniface was so afraid of the memory of Pietro del Murrone that he gave the order to find the hermit and bring him to Rome. But Pietro chose to flee and hid in the forests of Apulia, where he lived in conditions full of adventure, then he tried to move by sea to another country. However, in the end he fell into the hands of the pope, who ordered his predecessor, who had renounced the throne, to be imprisoned in the powerful fortress of Fumone. Soon death freed the hermit with such an unfortunate fate from the trials that befell him.
The rise of the pope's authority and the increase in his income received from pilgrims was facilitated by the Holy Year, first proclaimed by the pope in 1300. The holy year, which began with the publication of the bull Antiquorum habet fide (February 22, 1300), attracted a huge number of pilgrims to Rome, who received complete absolution. Another goal of the Holy Year was the desire to bring the flagellant (self-flagellation) movement and other anarchist movements of the pilgrims into the appropriate church framework, to discipline them. Thus, attempts were made to deprive them of social content. Boniface VIII decided to celebrate the Holy Year every hundred years - with the beginning of a new century. Later, he decided to celebrate the anniversary (holy) years at shorter intervals in order to increase the number of anniversaries and so that each generation could participate in church celebrations.
Boniface VIII also raised the splendor of the papal court by summoning to Rome the outstanding painter of the Trecento period - Giotto; in addition, he created the Roman Sapienza University, which, however, was closed during the Avignon period. And finally, Boniface, being a church jurist, created something eternal: in 1298 he supplemented the code of laws of Gregory IX with the so-called collection of laws “Liber sextus”.
At the very beginning of the 14th century, the dispute between the pope and the French king escalated again. Boniface, in contrast to the economic and political power of the French king - like Gregory VII - put forward ideological justifications for the power and authority of the church. At a council convened in the Lateran Palace on November 18, 1302, he promulgated the well-known bull “Unam Sanctam” in the presence of the highest hierarchs. In the bull, the pope, relying on theological and legal arguments, substantiated the theory of unlimited papal power, and put forward unity between the pope and the church as a dogma. “The imperative word of our faith compels us to believe in and to adhere to this faith in one, holy, Catholic and at the same time apostolic Church; and we firmly believe in this and recognize that outside of this there is no Salvation, no repentance…” the bull says. This is followed by a definition of the church as the mystical body of Christ and the formulation of the principle “one sheepfold - one shepherd.” “But the words of the Gospel also teach us that within this church and in its possession there are two swords: the sword of spiritual power and the sword of temporal power. For when the apostles say: “Behold, here are two swords” (Luke 22:38) - that is, in the church - then to these words of the apostles the Lord did not say that there was much, but said to them: it is enough. And surely anyone who denies that Peter also has the secular sword in his power misinterprets the following words of the Lord: “Put the sword in its sheath” (John 18:11). Consequently, both swords - the spiritual and the material - are in the power of the church. But the latter must be used in defense of the church, but the former is owned by the church itself; that is, priests own the spiritual, and kings and, of course, warriors own the material, but only when the priests approve or allow it; for the second sword must be under the first, and the temporal power must be subordinate to the spiritual power. For thus the Apostle proclaims: “There is no authority except from God, but the existing authorities were established by God” (Rom. 13:1)... For the truth testifies that spiritual authority has the right to supervise the order of worldly authority, and if it does not turn out to be good, then the spiritual authority must administer judgment over the worldly. Here Jeremiah’s prophecy about the church and about church authority finds its confirmation: “And behold, I have now made you a fortified city and a pillar of iron...”, etc. (Jer. 1:18). If, therefore, the worldly power takes the wrong path, then the spiritual power will judge it; if a spiritual power standing at a lower level (falls on the wrong path. - Author), then judgment over it is carried out by its higher power; but if the highest spiritual authority sins, then only God, and not man, can pronounce judgment on it, for the Apostle also gives the following proof: “But he who is spiritual judges all things, but no one can judge him” (1 Cor. 2:15)..." The final words of the bull read: "We solemnly declare, affirm and proclaim that submission to the Pope is for every human being an indispensable condition of his Salvation."
The bull “Unam Sanctam” is the quintessence of papal absolutism and was directly directed against the French King Philip. According to Boniface, both the pope and the king have swords, but the king receives his sword thanks to the pope, and he can wield it, blessed by the church and for the sake of the church. The power of the pope is like the sun, while the royal power is like the moon, which receives its light from the sun. The bull became generally known and in the final sentence, taken from Thomas Aquinas, declared that a person can only achieve Salvation if he recognizes the authority of the pope. “Outside the papal church there is no Salvation” - this principle became a new convincing formulation of the primacy of the pope.
The French king, contrary to the point of view of the pope, emphasized that royal power comes directly from God and does not recognize any other authority over itself other than God. Philip went on a counter-offensive and decided to call the pope to an ecumenical council. In response to this, Boniface prepared to anathematize the king. The day before the scheduled announcement of the curse (September 8, 1303), King Philip's chancellor, Guillaume Nogaret, with the help of Roman aristocrats led by Sciarra Colonna, attacked the pope, who at that time was in his hometown of Anagna. There was a short but bloody armed skirmish with the pope's entourage in his palace, during which the vicar of the Archbishop of Esztergom, Gergely, who was at that time part of the Hungarian embassy at the papal court, was killed. Nogare captured the pope and allegedly beat the elderly man. However, the Romans, led by Orsini, freed the pope from French captivity, after which Boniface cursed the assassins and their king. He solemnly entered Rome, where a few weeks later - according to some, as a result of the unrest he had experienced, and according to others, having been poisoned by his enemies - he died. (Historical novels put forward a version according to which Boniface could not bear the insults and went crazy after the assassination attempt. He died with a darkened mind, spewing curses and not taking the sacrament. Because of this, Boniface was posthumously accused of heresy at the trial that began against him in France. )
The king emerged victorious from the battle between the French monarchy and the papacy, as if he had predetermined the path of progress. The most significant, outstanding teacher of the Catholic Church, systematizer of the teachings of papal absolutism, suffered a heavy political defeat. This political failure put an end to the great power aspirations of the Gregorian papacy. The popes of subsequent centuries achieved primacy through other means.
Politically, Boniface VIII was indeed defeated by the French king, but the pope's ideas continued to tempt him. King Philip made attempts to debunk them. So, a few years after the death of Boniface, in 1306, he forced the process of canonization of Pietro del Murrone to begin. Then, in 1313, Pope Celestine V of Avignon was canonized, and a lawsuit was retroactively initiated against Boniface VIII. (According to the indictment, Boniface allegedly ordered the death of Pietro del Murrone in prison.) But even in this way it was not easy to tarnish the memory of the great enemy. Ghibelline Dante, who for political reasons also hated Boniface VIII, in the Divine Comedy depicted this pope in the chapter “Hell”, canto 19, among those punished for simony.
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and his “Divine Comedy” act as a boundary mark between the Middle Ages and modern times. Being a man of a turning point, he strived for synthesis and universalism. The developing Gothic style achieved this with its cathedrals with domes bursting upward into the sky; the external was opposed to the internal, the earthly - the heavenly. Great systematizations were also based on this duality. In poetry - Dante, and in philosophy - St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) with the help of reason they wanted to establish a bridge between Heaven and Earth, between knowledge and faith. (The same synthesizing universalism is also evident in Pope Boniface VIII.)
The most outstanding philosopher of the Christian Middle Ages, the founder of scholasticism, was Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas came from a count family. In Naples, where he began his schooling, he joined the Dominican Order. He continued his further education in Paris and Cologne. His teacher was one of the first founders of scientific and natural education, Albert the Great, a German by birth. The Pope summoned Thomas Aquinas from Paris to Rome, where he remained at the papal court for about ten years, then from 1268 to 1272 he again began teaching at the University of Paris. The most significant works of Thomas Aquinas are commentaries on the works of Aristotle, the Summa against the Pagans, and the three-volume Summa Theologica, in which Thomas Aquinas provides a synthesis of Christian religion and philosophy. In 1274, while on his way to the Second Council of Lyon, he was overtaken by death. (According to historical gossip, he was also poisoned by Charles of Anjou.)
It was then that the Western world - through the mediation of the Arabs, through Avicenna, Averroes - became acquainted with Aristotle. Thanks to this, it was possible to rise above Augustinianism, based on the philosophy of Plato. Thomas' systematizing and logical abilities were polished in the process of reading Aristotle. Ultimately, Thomas Aquinas has the same role in the history of the church that Augustine played in his time. Saint Augustine, being on the border between antiquity and the Middle Ages, in a single comprehensive synthesis substantiated the end of the past ancient period and formulated a new, medieval Christian worldview. Thomas Aquinas, in turn, sums up the Middle Ages and creates the opportunity for the development of ideas of a new era. It is no coincidence that modern Catholicism of the 19th and 20th centuries will be based on his ideas.
Thomas Aquinas viewed the objective laws of nature as an immanent manifestation of divine providence. Divine grace does not destroy natural laws, just as it does not destroy the laws of society and politics. Thus, it becomes possible to consider politics as a phenomenon developing according to its own laws. Political and social community in Thomas Aquinas represents an organic unity, the internal driving force of which is state power. This power puts everything in the service of an immanent goal, in the service of society (bonum commune). In Thomas Aquinas, in every organic social system, each member has its own special, but organic place and its own function. This applies equally to the aristocrat, the city dweller, the king and the peasant. This concept formulates one of the main postulates of class. Those exercising state power come to power on behalf of the people. In this one can already detect the beginnings of democracy. Ultimately, every form of government can be considered good if it corresponds to the bonum commune, but Thomas Aquinas comes to the conclusion that the monarchical system is most consistent with divine laws. Thus, the philosophical system of Thomism is perceived as a theoretical projection of the Respublica Christiana (Christian Republic).
Thomism tried to overcome the undoubted crisis of the church worldview, trying to reconcile new scientific achievements with basic theological truths. Thomism wanted to modernize religion, emphasizing the primacy of reason and experience in relation to the mystical, trying to confirm the existence of God with the help of logical arguments. A large-scale experiment aimed at uniting faith and knowledge actually helped to push back the crisis of the church's worldview, but could not completely eliminate it.
At the beginning of the 14th century, during the Middle Ages and the collapse of feudal society, the popes who moved to Avignon lost their political supremacy, which had become anachronistic, but retained primacy in internal church affairs and in the external affairs of society. To ensure the order, the Inquisition was created, and monastic orders turned into a means of church absolutist rule, and, finally, scholasticism served as the ideological basis for church universalism.
Notes:
This is the name given to official meetings of Catholic bishops and other church representatives periodically convened by popes to resolve important church issues. They began to convene after the division of the Christian Church into Western and Eastern in 1054. To date, 21 Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church have been held. - Note. ed.
In Russian-language historical literature it is more often called the Teutonic Order. - Note. ed.
Bogomils are adherents of Bogomilism, a heresy that arose in Bulgaria in the 10th century and received its name from the name of the priest Bogomil. In the 11th century it spread to Serbia, Croatia and some other countries. The Bogomils rejected church sacraments and rituals, considering them actions devoid of mystical meaning, opposed the veneration of the cross, icons and relics, but retained prayer. Bogomilism reflected the sentiments of serfs and the urban poor; influenced Western European heresies. - Note. ed.
The Camaldoulis are a monastic order with strict ascetic rules, founded c. 1012 in the village of Camaldoiai near Arezzo (Italy) by the visionary abbot Romuald. - Note. ed.
That is, the Catholic dogma about the procession of the Holy Spirit not only from God the Father, but also from God the Son. - Note. ed.
Nepotism comes from the Latin word nepos nephew. The first meaning of nepos is grandson and the second is descendant. Nephew is the meaning adopted in modern Latin. Nepotism refers to the excessive love of the popes for their relatives, the great concessions and benefits that the popes provided them. - Note. ed.
The 14th century was a period of intensive development of humanism in Italian culture. - Note. ed.
Dependence on secular power reduced the moral level of the clergy and church discipline. Monastic rules were not observed, monasticism degenerated, and monks were looked upon as ignoramuses and slackers. This pushed monasticism into a movement for the reform of monasteries, increasing the role of the clergy and freeing the church from secular dependence. This movement originated in the middle of the 10th century. at the Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy and was named Cluniac .
One of the leaders of the Cluny movement was the monk Hildebrant, with whose participation in 1059 it was decided that the pope should be elected cardinals without any interference from secular authorities. Cardinals could only be appointed by the current pope, while emperors lost the opportunity to influence their decisions.
In 1073, Hildebrant became pope and took the name Gregory VII. The new pope began to put the hook and a certain program into practice. He forbade white clergy from marrying and bishops from accepting secular investiture. Gregory VII also put forward the idea that the clergy, led by the pope, stood above kings and secular power.
It was because of this that a conflict arose between Gregory VII and the German Emperor Henry IV. In 1076, the emperor declared Gregory VII unworthy of the papal rank. In response, Gregory VII excommunicated Henry IV, freeing his subjects from the oath. Thus began the struggle for investiture. The emperor was forced to give in, because the excommunicated monarch could not rule the state. In January 1077, Henry IV arrived at the castle of Canossa, where the pope was then staying.
The emperor stood under the walls of the castle for three days, barefoot, in the snow, in rags, and begged the pope to forgive him. On the fourth day, Henry was admitted to the pope, and he fell at his feet with a prayer: “Holy Father, have mercy on me!” Gregory VII granted the emperor absolution.
But the drama of the Canossa events remained without consequences: soon Henry appointed bishops again. In the struggle for investiture of the bishops, the pope was virtually defeated. He had to leave Rome and seek refuge in Salerno, where he died in 1085. But Gregory VII achieved the main strengthening of the authority of the papacy. As a result, the warring parties came to an agreement, and in 1122 they concluded a treaty Worms contract It consolidated the emperor's renunciation of the right to appoint bishops; they were freely chosen. However, the emperor and the pope retained the right to approve them for positions. Investiture was divided into secular and spiritual. In Germany, the emperor first presented the newly elected bishop with a scepter (secular investiture), and the pope presented a ring and a staff (spiritual investiture). In Italy and Burgundy, everything was the other way around - spiritual investiture preceded secular investiture.
| Emperor Henry IV at Canossa Castle. Miniature. XII century |
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| Pope Innocent III. Fresco. XIII-XIV centuries |
The papacy reached its greatest power during the pontificate Innocent III (1198-1216) . This was one of the most influential popes of the Middle Ages. He tried to strengthen the church, regulate relations with the imperial power and establish supremacy over it. Innocent III restored all papal consecrations in Italy. If his predecessors called themselves “vicars of St. Peter,” then Innocent III proclaimed himself “vicar of God on earth.”
In 1274, during the pontificate of Gregory X, a new procedure for electing popes by a conclave of cardinals was adopted. The word "conclave" translated from Latin means "closed room." Now the cardinals had to hold the meeting in complete isolation from the outside world. If within three days the cardinals were unable to choose a pope, then they were given only one dish for lunch and dinner, and after five days only bread and water. Such conditions were supposed to speed up the process of electing a pope. Material from the site
After the death of Clement IV in 1268, cardinals gathered in the town of Viterbo to elect a new pope. But for a year and a half, the cardinals were unable to reach an agreement. The city authorities were so tired of their disputes that the doors of the house where the cardinals met were closed. They were given so much food that they would not die of hunger. This worked, and on September 1, 1271, the cardinals elected Gregory X as Pope to avoid such scandalous delays. Gregory X introduced the conclave system, which, in fact, has survived to this day.
At the end of the 13th century. the papacy seemed to have won a decisive victory. But the conflict between secular and spiritual power influenced the political and moral consciousness of Europeans. Both powers, mercilessly accusing each other, brought confusion into the minds of people, darkening the aura of infallibility of both popes and emperors.
Investiture (from Latin.investio - putting on) - 1) ceremony of introducing a vassal into possession of a land fief (secular investiture); 2) appointment to church positions (spiritual investiture).
Cardinal (from Latin.cardinalis "chief") is the rank next to the Pope in the Catholic Church. The office of cardinals has existed since the 6th century, when popes began to share their responsibilities with bishops. The cardinals became the first advisers and assistants in church affairs. The sign of the cardinal's rank - the red cap - is perceived as a symbol of readiness to shed blood for the church.
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