Medieval Europe †Papal Reformation Essay

Since the Council of Nicaea c all(prenominal)ed in the fourth century by Constantine to the early eleventh century, the church building service was n constantly established as a free stand up institution. For all over eight hundred years the church had been under the delegacy of blase powers. Charlemagne and the Carolingians emperors saw themselves as the ones to maintain the Church materially, organizationally, and spiritually, while the pope was only an example of i passel Christian living. amic adapted deterioration guide to the corruption of the Church and its big businessmans simony creation the biggest problem. The pontificate itself was corrupted by simony and roman letters politics. While reform had been taking place in the local levels for some cartridge holder, the pontificate was the last bust of the Church to be reformed. The pontificate renewal came about through leash major popes Leo IX (1049-1054), Nicholas II (1059-1061), and Gregory seven (1073-10 85). The actions by these popes in the eleventh century would root out the corruption within the church and cause conflict amidst the secular authorities and the pontificate resulting in the separation and establishing of the Church as a power on its deliver.after numerous corrupt popes, Leo IX is considered to be the pope that started the papacy reclamation. Ironically, he was appointed pope by his cousin Emperor heat content III. After being coroneted, Leo spent less than six months in Rome traveling through Italy, Germ whatsoever, France, and as far as Hungary ( Blum, 485). agree to Backman, Leo recognized two things from the very start first, the papacy could non be properly reformed so recollective as it remained mired in Roman factional politics and second, the papacy needed to be seen by the trustworthy in order to secure the gains of the reform (Backman, 268). Leo was literally the first pope to be seen by most Christians (Backman, 268), and he precious to project a n image of the papacy in action (Blum, 485). For a long time the title of pope was just a name without any meaning or power however, Leo would change that with his travels. Leos great accomplishments were abolishing simony, help checking the practice of clerical marriage, and improving the clergies nurture and education.Pope Leo IX, through his travels had plans of establishing his asc lastancy while also root out corruption still in local churches. Leo stage large-scale Masses, pronounced Peace and Truce decrees, and offered all the faithful the opportunity to air grievances about their local church and ecclesiastical leaders (Backman, 269). Clergy that had obtained their survey by way of simony were given the chance to retain their space only if the confessed their faults and swore human beingsly to dedicate themselves to the reformed Church.According to Backman these acts were performed in public for two reasons First, the people themselves got to hear the confession of t heir clergy, and second, the pope got the pleasure of having the faithful see the priest, bishops, and archbishops kneeling before Leo, in new(prenominal) words, used the reform-celebration itself as a means for establishing pontifical authority over the episcopacy. Henceforth, everyone understood that the bishops served as the allow leaders of the Church because the Holy Father himself had publically bestowed their office upon them. The papacy directly stood at the head of a new pecking order and determined its legitimacy. 269The last major contributing act Leo had towards the reformation was the creation of the College of Cardinals. Leo saw that the Church was non intellectually able to deal with issue it was faced with. He created a body of advisors for the papacy that included theologians, lawyers, philosophers, historians, scientists, and diplomats. These handpicked advisors would lend expert council to the pope on settling and answer doctrinal issues never really solved by the Church. One of the issues they dealt with was chastity for the clergy this would not be settled until Pope Nicholas II. The papacy was straight off the finale making center on doctrinal issues for the Church.Leo IX was a major turning point for the Church, but unfortunately he would not finish what he started. The next pope to further the papal reformation was Nicholas II. Pope Nicholas II built upon what Leo IX had already done. Nicholas and a council produced the Lateran synod of April 1059. The synod ended clerical marriage and established clergy celibacy. It also added to the strict taproom of simony. Also with the synod, Nicholas and the council do two major decisions that would shape the papacy up until today. The first of these decisions was to condemn the practice of lay investiture. The ritual by which a lay prince invested a priest or bishop with the insignia of his office suggested that the ecclesiastical authority was subordinate to the secular (Backman, 270 ).The papacy now condemned this seeing as the reforming popes were essay to establish the Church as an entity on its own. The Church wanted to pick up everything about itself and completely cut off any secular ties difficult to control it. The second major decision Nicholas and the council made was mad in the Papal Election Decree of 1059. This was to ensure no pope could ever be placed in power by a secular ruler but only pick out by the College of Cardinals. Backman describes it as this for all eternity the only way for any individual to become the legitimate pontiff of the Holy Catholic Church was to be freely elected to the position by the College of Cardinals. This decree re carryd the Holy See from the clutched of the Roman magnates, but it also declared the papacys independence from the purple power. 270These actions changed the states authority over the church that had been present since Constantine. When henry IV came to power in 1056, he did not like the actions ta ken by the Church and trying to separate from his authority. The tension between the papacy and secular powers came to a high during the pontificate of Pope Gregory VII. Now Gregory VII had begun his career in Rome during the pontificate of Leo IX as Leos secretary of state and author of his important text file (Blum, 485). So Gregory had been around since the beginning of the papal reformation. His actions and policies would lead to the biggest conflict between the Church and State during this reformation.After dealing with carious rebellions, heat content IVs resent meant lead him to prepare to attack Rome and deal with the papacys action. Henry wanted to show that he had supremacy and was the ruler of twain Church and State. Before Henry could attack, Gregory responded with a contract bridge called the Dictatus Papae. This was a list of twenty-seven single sentence decrees about papal power. Gaudemet defines them as, lapidary and unrestrained terms the universal power of th e pope his authority over bishops, clerics and councils, and his right to depose the emperor, to certify every canonical text, to coiffure law and to deliver judgment from which there is no appeal (Gaudemet, 470). Gregory was trying to establish that he alone, as the pope, had complete supremacy over both Church and the emperor. Henry took these Dictates as a direct attack on his royal rights and power. This led to both Gregory and Henry writing letters jeopardize and forth to each other with increasing tensions with each letter. These letters led to both of them excommunicating and deposing the other from office at the end of 1076.The excommunicating of each other would lead to a major event in establishing supremacy to the pope. Gregory, being the pope, was still head of the Church, and Henry found himself still excommunicated. Henry and his advisor devised a plan to get him forgiven and restored into the Church. Being the pope meant that Gregory was a priest, and he would have to forgive a penitent sinner. Gregory was caught off guard at his castle in Canossa, Italy by Henrys arrival and communicate of benevolence.This had made Gregory furious, but he had to forgive him. Gregory used this to his advantage, showing that he had supremacy over the emperor. Gregory made Henry stand outside his windowpane barefoot wearing penitential rags for three days begging for forgiveness and pleading for restoration. While this move by Henry helped him with his enemies and restored him back into the Church, this move also hurt him. This move now shifted the supremacy towards the pope. The emperor was now seen as submissive to the pope and had to do what the pope said.While more than conflicts happened between Gregory VII and Henry IV, the investiture struggle would not end with them. It was officially ended in 1122 with Henry IVs son, Henry the V, and Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124) with the Concordat of Worms. This allowed ecclesiastical appointment to be made by the Ch urch alone but also allowed secular rulers to participate with the lands and appurtenances supplementary to the positions. The issue of papal supremacy over imperial supremacy was circumvented, only to erupt again in centuries later.While Urban II (1088-1099) was able to finalize the reform of the Church during his pontificate, it wasnt really until the end of the twelfth century that the Church reform came to a conclusion. Gregory VII and the popes spare-time activity openly proclaimed the Churchs supremacy and sovereignty over the secular world. They had not only made the Church a standing institution on its own, but they had reversed the historical roles of the Church and State. Since the time of Gregory VII, the papacy had become a massive bureaucracy. The Church now had an flamboyant financial machinery, judicial system, bureaucratic structure, police network, and standing army. The Church was now its own free standing institution and would eventually become its own sovereign city-state.