Section 1.4

The High Middle Ages: The Church

In times of stress, insecurity, where do people turn?

Church is Omnipresent• Act of Homage

• Monarchial Crowning

• Guilds had patron saint

• Cathedrals

• Referee at battles

• Served as the KYW of its time

– News, time, when to plant/harvest

How does this work by Sassetta

capture the medieval

Weltanschauung?Vat’s a

Weltanschauung, anyvay (oops)?

Anyway…

What was the Church like before 1000?

• Fragmented and localized

• Clergy uneducated, illiterate, semi-pagan

• Corrupt clergy

How did Gregory VII extend Papal power?

• Called for more discipline in Church– Celibacy

• Declared that Pope is supreme over Kings

• Called for end of lay investiture

• Henry IV of HRE– excommunicated

How did Innocent III extend Church Power?

• Forbade priests from officiating ordeals/battles

• Relics controlled

• Sacraments declared path to salvation

• Transubstantiation declared legit

How did the Church’s intellectual activity grow and contribute to Europe’s

modernization?• Universities formed after

1200• Thomas Aquinas

–Saved works of the Ancients

–Scholasticism

• Note: It also held back modernization later

The Crusades• Religious Wars

• Pope Urban II (1095)

• Reasons for calling them?

• Jerusalem

• Christian Unity (East and West)

• Riffraff

• Other?

What impact did the Crusades have on Europe?

• Power of pope and of Europe– Ultimately weakened

Church (Children’s Crusade)

• Exposed Europeans to a more advanced culture

• Opened up trade with the East

Europe (of 1300) is on the Threshold of the Modern Age

• Competitive and innovative

• Church and State are separate institutions

• Urban centers growing

• Parliamentary and judicial institutions promote codified law

• Intellectuals willing to challenge old traditions