Middle Ages

C

3

Gregorian Reform

The most important of these popes was Gregory VII, who ruled from 1073 to 1085. Gregory gave his name to the church reform movement: the Gregorian Reform. Even before Gregory’s time, however, the papacy had succeeded in depriving the emperor of his traditional power to name the pope. In 1059, a few years after the death of Henry III, the papacy took advantage of the weakness and youth of Henry’s successor, Henry IV, to decree that henceforth popes would be elected by the cardinals—the chief clerics that surrounded the pope in Rome. However, Pope Gregory VII was not content with just free papal elections; he was determined to make the church completely independent from the emperors. He believed that independence could be achieved only if regional rulers, princes, and emperors stopped appointing all churchmen.

The chief point of Gregory's reform program was to end lay investiture. Investiture was the ritual by which a priest or bishop became a churchman and received his office. Lay investiture meant that a layman—a man who was not a churchman—controlled the ritual. Gregory wanted to end the power of emperors to invest churchmen, a power that they had exercised since the time of Charlemagne.

C

4

Investiture Controversy

Gregory's goal struck at the very heart of the imperial office and royal power as it had developed up until his time. The emperor was anointed just as churchmen were, and he had always played a key religious role, but Gregory denied him any place in church leadership. Both emperor and pope gathered their supporters and went to war over the issue. Their struggle, known as the Investiture Controversy, was not a movement for the separation of church and state, but it was the beginning of such an idea. In both the Byzantine and Islamic worlds, the ruler remained (and in the Middle East remains even today) a religious figure. In the West the idea that the church and the state were separate entities developed gradually. The Gregorian Reform and the Investiture Controversy were important steps in this process.

The conflict broke out over the appointment of the bishop of Milan. Emperor Henry IV defied Gregory's decree against lay investiture and appointed his own man to be bishop. The two sides denounced each another. Henry called a council that asked Gregory to resign. In response, Gregory excommunicated Henry, expelling him from the church and its promise of eternal salvation. This was a rarely used penalty and was shocking at the time. Gregory also forbade anyone to serve Henry as king, cutting him off from his supporters. Henry had no choice but to find the pope, do penance, and be received back into the church. Gregory and Henry met at Canossa, high in the Italian Alps. The emperor stood in the snow for three days, begging for forgiveness. Now it was the pope who had no choice—as a priest, he had to pardon a penitent sinner. He lifted the excommunication.

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In the end, however, Canossa did not resolve the question. War raged in Germany and Italy as the two sides fought for supremacy. In 1122 the struggle ended in a compromise with the Concordat of Worms. The emperor was permitted a small role in investiture: He was allowed to give the worldly trappings—the lands and physical churches—that belonged to the church office. The pope got the right to give the spiritual symbols of the office, the ring and staff, which were the most important. As a result of the Investiture Controversy, the papacy gained recognition as the head of the Christian church.

C

5

The First Crusade

The reforms of Gregory VII greatly increased the power and prestige of the papacy. In 1095 Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus appealed to Gregory’s successor, Pope Urban II, for help against the Seljuk Turks, an Islamic group that was attacking the Byzantine Empire. Urban was able to use the new power of the papacy to unite people behind his cause, which in addition to aiding the Byzantines had a far greater goal: to reclaim the important cities of the Holy Land—especially Jerusalem—from the Muslims. Urban crossed the Alps to France and called upon the Franks to stop fighting one another and to use their weapons against the Muslims instead. The audience, gathered in a field to hear the pope's words, cried out, 'God wills it.' The First Crusade was launched.

The First Crusade was an armed pilgrimage—a journey to a sacred place that had both religious and worldly purposes. For knights, it was a chance to express their piety and gain booty. For princes, equally pious, it was also an opportunity to carve out new territories. For churchmen, it was a chance to utilize warfare for Christian ideals. Other folk also went on the Crusade. Some were foot soldiers. Others were servants. Some kept the war machines in good repair. Women went along as well, some to accompany their husbands, some to participate in a holy cause, and some to earn money as prostitutes.

The First Crusade was made up of many different armies, each under a different leader. Some of these armies were badly armed and not authorized by the pope. These consisted largely of peasants and poor people from the towns. On their way across Europe, some of these peasant armies made a detour to massacre Jews in the Rhineland, in what is now western Germany. This was the first, but not the last, attack on the Jews of Europe. Other armies, better armed, arrived at Constantinople and began their march south toward Jerusalem.

The First Crusade won its objective, due largely to the disunity of the Muslim defenders. The Crusaders conquered a thin wedge of territory down the coast of the Mediterranean leading to Jerusalem. They set up states there and named their leaders as rulers. These states were very weak, however, and had to be continually defended by new crusades. The states were gradually reconquered by the Muslims during the 13th century, with the last one falling in 1291. The First Crusade was important not because of the land that it conquered but because it was the first example of European expansionism. It set the stage for the discovery of the Americas, the establishment of European colonies in Asia and Africa, and the political domination of the world by Europeans.

One result of the Crusades was the development of military religious orders. Members of the order known as the Knights Templar, for example, were both monks and knights. They lived together in communities according to a rule, but their main job was to defend the roads that pilgrims used to come to Jerusalem once the First Crusade had captured that city. Soon they became Crusaders themselves, maintaining castles and troops in the Holy Land. The Templars, as they were called, became extremely popular and very wealthy.

Similarly, the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who were known as the Hospitalers, grew out of the needs of the new states established by the Crusaders. At first, the Hospitalers spent their time serving the sick, especially the poor and pilgrims. Their hospital at Jerusalem was huge, with separate wards for men and women and even tiny cots for babies. It became the model for numerous hospitals in Europe. However, the Hospitalers themselves gradually grew less interested in caring for the sick than in defending the Crusader states.

D

New-Style Monarchies

In the 12th and 13th centuries many European kings became more powerful by refining and centralizing existing institutions and by regularizing their role as lords over their vassals. This centralization made it easier to control the lands of the kingdom and to raise armies. European kings also tapped new sources of wealth by establishing more efficient means of taxation. However, not all monarchies grew during this time. German kings lost power, and Germany fragmented into regional principalities.

D

1

A Strong Monarchy: England

In the 9th and 10th centuries King Alfred and his successors had united the various principalities of England under one king. In 1066, however, English king Edward the Confessor died without an heir. Three men competed for the throne: Harold, an English nobleman; Harald III, the king of Norway; and William, duke of Normandy. When Harald III invaded England in 1066, Harold defeated him. Harold in turn was killed by William about a week later at the Battle of Hastings. William quickly took the crown of England and ruled as William I.

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