The Decline of the Medieval Church

The Decline Of The Medieval Church

Religion, Politics, And Culture, 1300-1500

Introduction

In Europe, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were marked by the gradual passing of the culture that is thought of as typically "medieval."

In the years of the High Middle Ages, European civilization had reached a pinnacle of development.

But after 1300, the nature of civilization during the High Middle Ages began to change.

In thought and art, a rigid formalism replaced the creative forces that had given the Middle Ages such unique methods of expression as scholasticism and the Gothic style.

Economic and social progress yielded to depression and social strife, with peasant revolts a characteristic symptom of instability.

Church government in Rome experienced a loss of prestige, and a series of challenges weakened its effectiveness after 1300.

The church was gravely weakened from within by would-be reformers and dissidents as well as by external factors, chiefly political and economic.

By the sixteenth century these forces would be strong enough to bring about the Protestant and Catholic reformations.

Despite the desolation and death brought about by the Hundred Years' War between France and England, the process of nation-making continued during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

In western Europe the contrasting political trends clearly evident at the end of the thirteenth century - unification in England, France, and Spain, and fragmentation in Germany and Italy - reached their culmination.

In much of Europe by the end of the fifteenth century, the conflicting aims of what are sometimes called the "new monarchies" were superseding the quarrels of feudal barons.

The Decline Of The Medieval Church

The history of the medieval church divides roughly into three periods - dissemination, domination, and disintegration.

In the initial period, which lasted from about the fifth through the eleventh centuries, Roman Catholic Christianity spread throughout the West.

The advent of feudalism in the tenth century hindered the development of the church's administrative structure dominated by the papacy;

but late in the eleventh century, the curch, directed by strong popes, became the most powerful institution in the West.

The period of the papacy's greatest power - the twelfth and thirteenth centuries - reached its height with the pontificate of Innocent III, who exerted his influence over kings and princes without challenge.

The church then seemed unassailable in its prestige, dignity, and power.

Yet that strength soon came under new attack, and during the next two centuries the processes of disintegration were to gain in influence.

Papal power was threatened by the growth of nation-states, which challenged the church's temporal power and authority.

Joined by some of the local clergy, rulers opposed papal interference in state matters and favored the establishment of general church councils to limit papal power.

In addition, the papacy was criticized by reformers, who had seen earlier reform movements

and the crusades transformed from their original high-minded purposes to suit the ambitions of the popes,

and by the bourgeoisie, whose realistic outlook was fostering growing skepticism, national patriotism, and religious self-reliance.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries these challenges to papal authority were effective, and papal influence rapidly declined.

Boniface VIII

A century after the papacy's apex under Innocent III, Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) was forced to withdraw his fierce opposition to taxes levied on the great wealth of the church by Edward I in Britain and Philip IV in France.

Modeling his actions after Innocent, Boniface threatened to depose the "impious king," as he termed Philip,

but he gave way when Philip with the support of the Estates-General prohibited the export of money to Rome.

A final and more humiliating clash with the French king had long-term implications for the papacy.

When Boniface boldly declared, in the papal bull, Unam Sanctam (1302), that "subjection to the Roman pontiff is absolutely necessary to salvation for every human creature," Philip demanded that the pope be tried for his "sins" by a general church council.

In 1303 Philip's henchmen broke into Boniface's summer home at Anagni to arrest him and take him to France to stand trial.

Their kidnapping plot was foiled when the pope was rescued by his friends.

Humiliated, Boniface died a month later, perhaps from the shock and physical abuse he suffered during the attack.

The Avignon Papacy

The success of the French monarchy was as complete as if Boniface actually had been dragged before Philip to stand trial.

Two years after Boniface's death, a French archbishop was chosen pope.

Taking the title of Clement V, he not only excused Philip but praised his Christian zeal in bringing charges against Boniface.

Clement never went to Rome, where feuding noble families created turmoil in the city,

but moved the papal headquarters to Avignon in southern France, where the papacy remained under French influence from 1305 to 1377.

During this period, the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the church, papal prestige suffered enormously.

All Christendom believed that Rome was the only suitable capital for the church.

Moreover, the English, Germans, and Italians accused the popes and the cardinals, who were also French, of being instruments of the French king.

The Avignon papacy added fuel to the