Tilly Goes to Church: The Religious and Medieval Roots of State Formation in Europe

Anna Grzymala-Busse Stanford University

August 31, 2020

Abstract How did the state arise in Europe? Canonical accounts argue that war made the state: inter state conflict led to taxation and state formation. These accounts focus on the early modern period and start with the territorial fragmentation as a given. Yet once we move back the analysis to the Middle Ages, a powerful actor appears: the Roman Catholic Church. The Medieval Church was a powerful rival to monarchs and rulers, challenging their sovereignty and the authority of nascent states, and deliberately fragmenting medieval Europe. It was also a rich source of human capital and administrative solutions, the building blocks of state institutions. Religious rivalry and emulation in the middle ages fundamentally shaped state formation in Europe.

Very drafty version: Cite at your own risk Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Arun Advait and Hans Lueders for their expert research assistance.

1 1 Introduction

How did the modern state arise? Charles Tilly’s answer is as succinct as it is canonical: “war made the state and the state made war” (Tilly 1975, 42). In early modern Europe, violent rivalry among fragmented nascent states for territory and resources led them to tax their populations to extract resources. Rulers who succeeded in building up the administrative and military apparatus of war went on to consolidate their territorial gains and ensure the survival of their states.

Yet pushing back the analysis a few centuries, to the Middle Ages, reveals new perspectives on this powerful and venerated “bellicist” account. The most powerful rival for an ambitious medieval ruler was not another monarch, but the Roman Catholic Church. In turn, the fragmentation that is taken as a starting point in these accounts is not simply an exogenous fact on the groundit was the result of deliberate Church policies. The concepts of sovereignty and the state institutions that are critical to the modern state go back to the middle ages and to the conflict with the papacy and the church, not to the Treaties of Augsburg in 1555 or of Westphalia in 1648.

Below, I argue that the Roman Catholic Church (or “the Church) played a fundamental role in medieval politicsand in the initial rivalries that gave rise to nascent states. 1 I first review the bellicist narrative. I then take Charles Tilly to church, and examine the church’s critical role as a powerful player and adversary in three foundational episodes: the Investiture Struggle, the conflict over sovereignty between Philip IV and Boniface VIII, and the Great Schism. The medieval church helped to develop the state through two distinct mechanisms: on the one hand, constant conflict that led to the fragmentation of authority in Europe, especially in the Holy Roman Empire 2, and early assertions of sovereignty. On the other hand, the material resources and institutional templates of the Church shaped secular taxation, legal frameworks, and administrative division of

1Concepts of medieval political authority, statehood, and sovereignty are debated extensively (Hall and Kra- tochwil 1993, Buzan and Little 2002, Friedrichs 2001, Costa Lopez 2020.) As Davies 2003 argues, even if the concept of “state”usefully captures the structures of power relations and control, it is anachronistic in an age when “lordship”would have been far more legible. Nor was medieval state an organization that was fully hierarchical or differentiated in bureaucratic functions. Yet we can still meaningfully discuss the stated goals of these rulers: a) a more effective set of mechanisms through which they could exercise authority, such as the nomination of officials, a legal apparatus, and taxation and resource extraction (state building) and b) the assertion of that authority over people and territory, free from internal rivals or external influence (sovereignty.) Medieval actors “behaved like mod- ern states strove for exclusive territorial control, protected themselves by military means, subjugated each other, balanced against power, formed alliances and spheres of influence, and resolved their conflicts by the use and threat of force”(Fischer 1992, 428.) 2In Voltaires famous dictum, the Holy Roman Empire was none of those things. The empire became “Holy” under Barbarossa, and “Roman” in 1254 (Sulovsky 2019.) “Of the German Nation” was added in the 15th century.

2 labor.3

2 The Bellicist Accounts

Bellicist explanations share three perspectives: first, they view the peak of violent state building as taking place in the early modern era, from roughly 1500 to 1800. Second, the starting point for these analyses is the fragmentation of territory. Third, bellicists emphasize that nascent secular states were the main actors in the conflicts drove state formation. Kings, princes, and emperors fought to consolidate territory and control people and resources. Those who succeeded developed as states.

The dominant view is that “the state” was invented as a corporate or personalized entity only in early modern Europe. Other practices of rule-making and enforcement existed, but the idea of the state before this time period is anachronistic (Anderson 2018, Skinner 2018). Scholars from Hintze to Tilly date state formation to the early modern era, from the mid-16th to late 18th centuries (Tilly 1975, 170; Ertman 2017, 54; Spruyt 2017, 81). In this conventional periodization, the Treaties of Augsburg (1555) and Westphalia (1648) established the principle of state sovereignty in international relations. 4Others go further and claim that the sovereign state (marked by a formal monopoly of authority over a distinct territory) dates only to the early 19th century (Gorski &

Sharma 2017, 103; see also Teschke 2003).

The starting point for state formation in Europe was a high degree of territorial fragmentation after the collapse of the Carolingian dynasty in 888 (Mitterauer 2010; Wickham 2016; Ertman

2017, 63; Gorski & Sharma 2017, 99). Europe was a raft of principalities, ill-defined kingdoms, and territories controlled by local warlords. Subsequent medieval governance was a disjointed system of local authority and incomplete territorial control. No empire arose in Europe that could compare to the Roman one: it was simply too difficult to sustain (Scheidel 2019). The plausible causes of this fragmentation vary. Scholarship points to the uneven emergence of urban life (Abramson 2017), the

3Another paper examines the institutional transfer of courts, exchequers, chancelleries, and other administrative institutions from the Church to the state. 4See Morgenthau (1985), Watson (1992), Held (1995), and Philpott (2000. Others dispute the idea that West- phalia marked the rise of state sovereignty (see Krasner 1993, Osiander 2001, Teschke 2003). Augsburg established the principle of cuius regio, eius religioa rulers right to choose the religious denomination for his people. As Carvalho et al. (2011) note, this principle was retracted at Westphalia.

3 rise of local warlords and bands of knights (Bisson 1992), and the low levels of religious legitimation that made European rulers weak (Rubin 2017). State development was highly heterogeneous, with city-states and city leagues surviving for centuries (Abramson 2017), and lords and princes continued to resist the centralizing ambitions of kings and emperors.

This fragmentation of both authority and territory was the precondition for the constant warfare that characterized European state making. Modern states arose from the constant fighting between early modern rulers. Following in the footsteps of Otto Hintze (1906), who argued that the threat of war led to the ratcheting consolidation and centralization of European states, scholars such as Tilly (1992), Downing (1992), Mann (1986), and Anderson (2013 (1974)) emphasized the fierce pressures of military competition. Warfare was constant, both because rulers poured enormous amounts of money into conflict and defeat did not depose princes or kings (Hoffman 2015, 2627.)

Repeated invasions and wars winnowed out weaker states and led to vigorous new efforts to tax and extract resources. War thus led rulers to develop taxation (Herbst 1990, 120, Mann 1986, 486).

Such extraction of taxes, tributes, and rents then allowed these states to wage war with greater force and success. The collection of these taxes required surveillance, which in turn prompted the growth of state administrations (Tilly 1992, 87.) The extraction of taxes, accounting for their collection, and distributing and investing these funds expanded and strengthened the state, and this effect persisted even after the violent threats receded. As a result, familiar modern state institutions such as bureaucracy, the treasury, courts, or parliaments are the byproducts of these preparations for war (Tilly 1992, 75 and 117.) Variation in state formation is due to when and how war occurred, as mobilization strategies, military technology, and economic development interacted (Bean 1973.)

War had two main effects. First, it consolidated larger states. The relentless pressures even- tually meant fewer and bigger states, a change from as many as 500 independent states in Europe in the year 1500 to 30 four centuries later (Tilly 1992, 4546; Bean 1973, 204). Winners had to develop more powerful governments to govern the numerous losers, which in turn promoted peace and economic development (Morris 2014, but see Abramson 2017.) Larger states also lowered their per capita defense costs. Second, the threat of war also led to urbanization, as people threatened by war sought refuge behind city walls. This urbanization, in turn, is at the core of wealth accu- mulation and growth (Dincecco and Onorato 2016). In the resulting “warfare to welfare” effect,

4 economic activity increased and human capital acccumulated, leading also to local self-governance and property rights protections (Dincecco & Onorato 2016, 2.) Trade and demand for manufac- tured goods increased. At the same time, however, warfare also spread disease and depleted the labor supply (Voigtlaender & Voth 2013, Saylor & Wheeler 2017).

In short, states grew in Europe as a result of warfare, the competition for land and people that it entailed, and the mobilization of resources and people that war demanded. The violent and vicious wars of the early modern period, with their expensive military technology and the need for larger armies, led to the transformation of Europe from a multitude of small and fragmented jurisdictions to fewer, larger, and more consolidated states, the growth of cities as people fled the countryside to safe urban harbors, and to new state administrations.

What is left unexplained are the roots of the initial fragmentation, the idea of sovereignty, and the origins of state institutions. Pushing back the analysis to the medieval era reveals three aspects of state formation that the bellicist perspective ignores. First, the Church was by far the most powerful geopolitical rival. Second, and as a result, territorial fragmentation was no accident: it was assiduously maintained by the Church. Third, the very existence of secular states, their sovereignty, and familiar state institutions arose both thanks to the conflict with the Churchand to the borrowing of human capital and institutional templates.

3 Timing the Rise of the State

Scholars have already begun to emphasize the deeper roots of state formation. The origins of territorial concepts of rule critical to modern states reach back to the late 11th century (Spruyt

2002, 130). By the 13th century, canon lawyers and rulers both underlined the legitimacy of territorial rule. Jurists recognized the established sovereignty of the French, English, and Spanish kingdoms and the practical sovereignty of many city states, arguing either that they were on par with the empire, or that this sovereignty derived from de facto independence (Canning 1983, 4.)5

Even the notorious advocate of papal supremacy, Pope Innocent III, confirmed in his 1202 decretal

Per Venerabile “that the king of France admitted no superior in temporal matters”(Genet 1992,

5The commentators did not embrace a fully modern notion of sovereignty: they took for granted the exempt status of the clergy in the law and the system of ecclesiastical courts and jurisdiction (Canning 1983, 20.)

5 124). Princes asserted their power within territories: borders emerged, 6 and customs offices attempted to control the flows of people and goods. 13th and 14th century jurists had already developed the concept of the territorial state as an abstract entity, distinct from the ruler, the government, and the people (Canning 1983, 23.)

Similarly, medieval bodies foreshadowed subsequent modern institutions (Genet 1992). In a series of works, M/oller (2014, 2015, 2017a, 2017b, 2018) emphasizes how modern legal institutions and parliamentary practices are rooted in the Middle Ages. He finds the institutional sources of the democratic state in medieval communalism, and the rule of law in the papal reforms of the

12th century. Administrative divisions of labor also arose at this time: by the early 12th-century, chanceries and secretariats developed, with the expansion of judges, revenue officers, royal clerks, and notaries (Ertman 1997, 77.) The rediscovery of Roman law in the late 11th century meant that private property replaced possession, written contracts took the place of oral agreements, and formal courts replaced ordeals (Spruyt 2002, 132). In turn, medieval legal systems set the stage for Europes political and economic development (Cantoni & Yuchtman 2014, 828). The Crusades, which began in 1096, facilitated the rise of the modern state through the institutions of crusade taxes, sales of feudal land to finance the expeditions, the reintegration of Europe into global trade networks, and the elimination of rivals to ruling monarchs (Blaydes & Paik 2016).

Critical to the story of urban development and trade interdependence was the rise of com- munes and urban self-government (Bosker et al 2013.) Here, it was the 12th century “communal revolution” proliferated new rights and privileges for cities: “the real change achieved in the twelfth century was not that towns gained a new unity or new capacity for collective activity. It was that some of them, whether or not they were called communes, gained a new degree of freedom and power in carrying out their collective decisions”(Reynolds 2004, 98.) Emperors granted charters of liberties to cities, recognizing that in so doing they were gaining allies and balancing powerful local lords, whether lay or ecclesiastical. As a result, urban capital accumulation and institutional innovations occurred considerably earlier than previously thought.

Once we shift the analysis to the middle ages, the Church emerges as the most powerful rival

6From the 9-11th centuries, clearly understood boundaries coexisted with more common “marches,”porous areas where adjoining powers broadcast power but did not monopolize it. By the 12th and 13th century, rulers accumulated more resources and borders had consolidated more. (See Fischer 1992, 439-40)

6 for authority and power. The Church deliberately sought to fragment Europe, and preclude the rise of a rival hegemon. Conflict with the Church over power and authority led to the distinction between church and state, and the very idea of state sovereignty. And familiar state institutions have their roots in the ecclesiastical practices of the early middle ages.

4 The Church as a Powerful Rival

One fundamental rivalry of the medieval era was the struggle between popes and rulers over au- thority, territory, and sovereignty. The conflicts between the Church and various monarchs in the early medieval era were recurrent and unrelenting. Both sides were as ambitious as they were relatively weak: neither could fully enforce laws or agreements, nor claim full control of territory.

Moreover, spiritual and secular authorities were intermingled, as were morality and the lawand this meant these conflicts were not the familiar interstate rivalries, but rather personalized struggles over authority. As a result, conflicts were rarely resolved decisively: “no lasting power sharing between popes and emperors could be established in the course of the eleventh and twelfth and the

first half of the thirteenth centuries each claimed to be universalist, enjoying supremacy over the other”(Angelov and Herrin 2012, 168.)

4.1 The Arc of Church Power

The Church was at its most powerful from the mid-11th to the early 14th century (more precisely, from the 1050s to the 1300s). Starting in the 1050s, the papacy consolidated its power within the

Church. Until then, the papacy was mostly a nominal leader who rarely asserted his authority outside of Rome (Brooke 1978, 7, Morris 1989, 33.) The arrival of Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073-1085) heralded a new era of reform, Church autonomy, and assertion of power. The Gregorian reforms he promoted aimed to instill greater discipline and clarity of purpose among the clergy, by eliminating the sale of offices and the distraction of clerical marriageand by ensuring that the church gained autonomy from secular interference.

Papal power grew immensely during the 12th and 13th centuriesemperors and monarchs lost their status as divine, and the papacy assumed a new “power of intervention and direction in both

7 spiritual and secular affairs” (Southern 1970, 34.) A spectacular example is Innocent III (r. 1198-

1216.) A proponent of papal supremacy and an ambitious leader, Innocent III threw himself into temporal politics, crowning and deposing kings, and settling disputes. He invigorated an earlier, 5th century concept of plenitudo potestatis, the “fullness of power,”which now implied universal papal jurisdiction over all Christianity, as opposed to episcopal jurisdiction being limited to a single diocese (Watt 1999, 117.) He argued that the pope was the source of power on earth, as Christs vicar, and “proclaimed and practiced a papal near theocracy” (Ozment 1980, 143, Gottfried 1983.)

His successors went further: Innocent IV (r. 1243-1254) argued that popes were above human law, and Boniface VIII (r. 1295-1303) asserted that papal authority directly extended over all beings.

In short, during the 1050-1300 era, we see a “papal monarchy” that “appropriated to itself the status of sacred kingship” (Oakley 2012, 3.) It was only after 1300 that papal power declined, after over three centuries of constant influence and interference.

Its power derived from its increasingly hierarchical and centralized organization, its wealth, its spiritual authority, and its vast stores of human capital. Pope after pope fragmented Europe, played rulers against each other, adjudicated interstate conflict, and asserted the power of the papacy and the Church. As late as the end of 15th century, secular rulers “may have locked horns disdainfully with the pope and his bishops, but their very legitimacy was always contingent, for it was subject to the churchs approval” (Eire 2016, 14).

4.2 Sources of Church Power

Why was the Church so powerful? First, it was wealthy. The medieval Church was the biggest landowner in Europe (Spruyt 1994, 44.) The extent of medieval Church landholdings ranged from an estimated 25% to 45% (see Mann 1986, 382, Weingast 2016, Mesquita 2000, 99.) Bishops held a third of the land in Europe in the 9th century, declining to 31% in the 11th century to 20% in the

13th (Morris 1989, 393.) 7 In some areas, the share of land held by the Church actually increased in the 15th and 16th centuries.8 The Church was estimated to hold between 17 to 25% of the land in England, over 25% in Spain, around a third in Bohemia, and anywhere from 10% of Italian

7 This decline reflects the consolidation of noble and knightly families: it made more sense to hold wealth within the family than to hand it over to the Church (Morris 1989, 39. 8 Around Florence, church land ownership went from an 13% average in 1427 to 23% in 1498 to 25% in 1508-12. In Ravenna, the church owned over a quarter of land in 1569and well over a third by 1731 (Cipolla 1993, 46-7.)

8 territory (Lombardy) to over 65% (Southern Italy) (Hay 1995, 50.) A large portion of central Italy was a papal domain. By the time of the Reformation, over half the land in Germany held by the

Church (Goody 1983, 131.) Immediately before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1536-41,

English monasteries owned about 15% of the land, the rest of the church 10%—and the crown only

6%. Similarly, in Sweden until the Reformation, the Church owned 21% of the land and the crown

5%. These enormous land holdings were the result of earlier accumulation, in the 7th through 10th centuries, with voluntary offerings, property transfers, and bequests. 9

The church also taxed both clergy and laity alike. Monasteries made direct payments to the pope, and clergy made direct subsidies for specific causes such as the crusades. Secular rulers were to provide taxes: numerous rulers paid the census, a per capita tax, such as the St. Peters

Pence paid by the English king. When the Scandinavian kings wanted closer ties to Rome, they, too, began to pay the census in the 11th-12th centuries (Robinson 2004, 350.) Popes also taxed bishops, through various payments such as tithes, servitia, annates, and the like.10 The pope could also directly tax both laity and clergy for a certain number of years (Spruyt 1994, 45, Gilchrist

1969, 28.) Tithing entitled the Church to collect a 10% tax on all income, generating huge revenues

(even if its obligations were enormous as well: the upkeep of cathedrals, charity, and so on. Morris

1989, 388.) Given this wealth, “one can hardly overestimate the importance of the Church as an economic entity in preindustrial Europe” (Cipolla 1993, 45.)

Taxation required both authority and administrative capacity, and the church exploited its relative administrative strength, especially where secular authority was tenuous. Thus, the “absence of central power in Germany meant that the papacy could impose heavy taxes both on clergy and on laity. German bishoprics provided salaries for Italians at the papal court” (Goody 1983, 167.)

When local bishops proved reluctant to collect the full levy, Innocent III sent emissaries from Rome to ensure that the taxes would be collected (Riley-Smith 2005, 175) His Ad liberandam decree of

9This decline reflects the consolidation of noble and knightly families: it made more sense to hold wealth within the family than to hand it over to the Church (Morris 1989, 39 10The taxes included “caritative subsidies” (voluntary donations), “annates” (taxes on the first years income from a new holder of a benefice) and “intercalary fruits” (income from benefices during vacancies) beyond the regular taxes they waged on the clergy (Riley-Smith 2005, 264) The tithe, introduced in second half of 8th century, made proprietary churches a lucrative source of income for the landlords who were their patrons. (Under the German system of proprietary churches, first developed in the 9th century, lords and kings built churches, named clergy, and profited from church lands and revenues on their territory. The system provided the emperor “with men and accorded him a large part of its income” (Joachimsen 1978, 13.) With the investiture conflict, the lords were deprived of both wealth and administrative authority. The annates were abolished at the Council of Basle in 1435.

9 1215 declared that the pope had the right to tax the clergy without their consent. A subsequent

1274 decree by Gregory X, Pro zelo fidei, divided Christendom into twenty-six districts staffed by collectors and sub-collectors, and kings and princes were asked to impose a per capita tax to build up the papal reserves (Riley-Smith 2005, 212). By the 14th century, an elaborate system of clerical taxation funneled resources to the papal administration.

A second source of power for the church consisted of its human capital: literate clerks, ex- tensive documentation and archives, and administrative experience. Monasteries were a source of theological study, a literate culture, and reformist zeal. Starting in the 11th century, monastic life began to grow, with the blooming of Cluniac monasteries, large scale restitutions to monasteries, and insistence on following written rules (Lawrence 2015, 27.) Literacy, manuscript production, emphasis on reading, and strong ties to popes and emperors all proliferated, especially in the Cluny monasteries.) Monasteries founded urban cathedral schools to study canon law, and kept records and relied on written documents, lowering transaction costs and allowing information to spread

(Blum and Dudley 2003.) Learned masters traveled to monasteries, bringing with them Latin translations of greek and Arabic science and philosophy. 11 Monasteries also sought alliances with popes, especially in exempting themselves from episcopal rule, and their subsequent enrichment (as in the case of the Cistercians) led to conflicts with bishops and local lords, resentful of monastic wealth (Lawrence 2015, 202.) By the 13th century, Franciscan and Dominican friars met the new urban demand for priests, and the two orders recruited heavily from the new universities at Bologna and Paris. Friars became university masters, and professors became monks.

Clergy often substituted for the secular authorities in state administration. The Church pro- vided legal arbitration and judgments for both clerics and lay people: “the Church made laws, had its own courts, and exercised a jurisdiction parallel and often superior to secular author- ity”(Gilchrist 1969, 9) Until well into the 13th century, clergy adjudicated international disputes and pacified trade routes. Closer to home, they enforced some local contracts, collected taxes, and recorded births, deaths, and wills in cathedral records. Bishops and priests coordinated local security campaigns to get rid of bandits and predators. Church campaigns also provided the sta-

11Importantly, however, monasteries were not centers of intellectual influence. Monastic schools were forbidden from teaching non-monks, and monastic theologians hewed close to Biblical exegesis, rather than the ascendant analytic logic and dialectic.

10 bility necessary for wider-ranging trade. Bishops and abbots also served with their expertise, and

“assisted the ruler to control his domains, providing both sacral authority and literate clerics for his chancellery, backing his judicial authority with legitimacy and efficiency” (Mann 1986, 382-3.)

There was no “clear area of separate governmental responsibilities that could be termed secular”

(Morris 1989, 18.) In short, the “great achievement of medieval civilization of the 11th to 13th centuries would not have been possible but for the learning, example, and progressive character of the clergy and monks of the time. The Church created reserves of capital, encouraged changes in land-owning, inaugurated the system of deposits, credit, and banking, proclaimed the wise doctrine of a stable coinage and took part in large commercial enterprises”(Gilchrist 1969, 69).

A critical role was played by the bishops. Bishops were critical to the temporal power of both popes and emperors, since they served as both feudal vassals of the secular monarchs and the spiritual emissaries of the pope.12 They thus held both high secular and ecclesiastical office. In the absence of a well-developed regional administration, bishops played the role of imperial repre- sentatives in their territory: “Charlemagne and later western emperors relied heavily on bishops as chief administrative agents in the royal government. Bishops and abbots were given the right to exercise royal justice, and could be granted the control of counties.” (Angelov and Herrin 2012,

170.) Bishops also served as secular administrators and royal servants, in addition to their pastoral duties (Robinson 1990, 423.) English bishops exercised discretionary justice in 13-14th century En- glish parliaments, councils, and chanceries (Dodd 2014, 216.) High-ranking clergy had considerable autonomy: bishops were important allies in government, wielding judicial authority and benefiting from freedom from taxation (Scheidel 2019.)

Finally, the Churchs power derived from its moral authority. Below the level of high politics, the

Church was deeply present in everyday life as both a religious and secular authority: “the tentacles of this institution reached into the life of every court, every manor, every village, every town of Europe indeed this was the only authoritative interaction network that spread so extensively while also penetrating intensively into everyday life” (Mann 1986, 380.) The Church “governed birth, marriage, and death, sex, and eating, made the rules for law and medicine, gave philosophy and scholarship their subject matter. Membership in the Church was mandatory: expulsion was

12The bishops were not feudal vassals of the Pope: they swore an oath of obedience, rather than feudal fealty, and he owed them no protection. Ullmann 1965, 332-7.

11 tantamount to a social death. Even cooking instructions called for boiling an egg “for the time it takes the say the Miserere” (Tuchman 1978, 32.) Above all, the Church offered salvationa promise of an eternal life and divine mercy that no secular ruler could possibly match. This monopoly power meant that “the church was surely the best claimant to legitimacy and coercive control. It will simply not do to dismiss the power of the Pope as depending on moral authority and influence.

After all, the fear of the hereafter is potentially the most potent form of coercive control” (Davies

2003, 12.) The Churchs “unity and cohesiveness as an institutionfar surpassed any comparable secular institution in the Middle Ages”(Gilchrist 1969, 9.) Ernst Gellner went as far as to argue that “if the role of the state is to provide the model of the good life, the fount of legitimacy, and the moral identity for those who live under it, then in a very important sense the medieval Church was the medieval state.” (Gellner 1988, 102.)

In short, its wealth, administrative capacity, and its spiritual authority made the medieval church into a uniquely powerful rival. Popes anointed emperors, raised funds, governed the very rhythms of daily life. The medieval church, whether a powerful local bishop or the increasingly opulent papacy, could thus advance its claims and wage wars both physical and spiritual.

5 Weapons of the Meek? Spiritual weapons and temporal warfare

Given their wealth, administrative capacities, and spiritual authority, popes and bishops could rely on an arsenal of weapons in their conflicts with secular authorities. They used curses and maledictions. They excommunicated rulers and placed countries under interdict, cutting them off from the community of the faithful. Popes could block politically inconvenient marriages and encourage others to advance his political aims (Whalen 2019, 181) Popes rewarded as much as they punished, with indulgences and papal appointments to favored rulers and their families. To gain allies and punish enemies, Popes (unlike emperors) offered dispensations and absolved Christians from their vows, such as oaths of fealty to the emperor. The Church also deposed rulers, brought them together in alliances, and amassed crusades to reconquer the Holy Landand to find heretics at home. Finally, cardinals and popes themselves also entered the military fray, leading armies and

fighting battles with secular rulers.

12 Figure 1: Papal excommunications for political reasons by century

5.1 Spiritual Weapons

The most serious sanction available to the Church was excommunication (Helmholz 2015, 402.)

Excommunications punish by excluding individuals from the sacraments and the religious com- munion. Vassals and subjects of excommunicated rulers are also released from fealty to the ruler.

Popes excommunicated rulers, monarchs, and emperors for political reasons at least 109 times from the 3rd to the 20th century. Of these, at least 47 such excommunications took place from 1050 to

1303. (The record holder was Emperor Henry IV (r. 1054-1105), who was excommunicated five times by three different popes.)

Excommunication could be a powerful weapon. It meant deposition, or removal from public office, as well as loss of access to sacraments.13 It released lords from their oaths of fealty to the monarch, leading allies to defect: after his excommunication, Henry IV found himself abandoned by his princes, and had to beg forgiveness of the Pope.

Excommunications thus broadcast papal power: they began to rise in the 11th century, peaking in the 13th, a sign of the papacys consolidating and centralizing its power, as Figure 1 shows.

Boniface VIII, the last of the powerful popes, led the papal record with no fewer than seven royal excommunications. They drop off rapidly after the 14th century, as a papacy greatly weakened by the Great Schism stopped sanctioning leaders.

13Both the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and the Council of Lyon in 1245 confirmed that excommunication of a ruler also meant his removal from office.

13 Yet excommunication did not always hobble rulers. Henry IV regained his allies, and did not lose them when he was excommunicated subsequently. Frederick II continued to annex the territory surrounding the papal domain in Italy, and was undeterred after his excommunication. He instead claimed God on his side and continued the territorial grabs that got him excommunicated in the

first place. (Watt 1999, 136.) The duration of West European rulers in office steadily increased over the Middle Ages–and excommunications do not appear to change that pattern (Blaydes and

Chaney 2013.) Using the same Bosworth-Morby data set, I calculated the mean duration for excommunicated rulers and others: there is no difference, as Table 1 shows.

Table 1. Duration of rule for excommunicated and non-excommunicated monarchs. Source:

Bosworth-Morby. Average Rule Standard Deviation N

Excommunicated Rulers 21 years 13.8 years 46

Non-excommunicated Rulers 19 14.5 1,211

Interdicts were excommunications that applied to the entire community, and forbade the cel- ebration of masses or the delivery of the holy sacraments. They could be imposed on kingdoms, provinces, specific churches, or even individuals. They targeted rebellious provinces, towns where clergy were murdered or violated, and even chapels where clergy were disobedient (Clarke 2007,

69.) Hundreds if not thousands of interdicts were imposed across medieval Europe, and the most common causes including supporting a person condemned by the church, the misappropriation of ecclesiastical property, political opposition to papal temporal interests and destroying church property (Clarke 2007, 114-5).

The heyday of the interdict was the early 13th century, and its most fervent wielder, Pope

Innocent III, who put France, Norway, Germany, and England under interdict at various times. By the 14th century, however, interdicts and excommunications were used more sparingly, in recogni- tion of their decreasing effectiveness: this “ultimate papal weapon had ceased to be a sanction on a different level from any other” (Southern 1970, 135.)14

14 By the mid-13th century, the power of the interdict grew more tenuous. “Innocent III won great triumphs using it against France in 1200 and England in 1208. Later, stronger stuff was needed and, at the first Council of Lyons in 1245, Innocent IV both anathematized Frederick II as a heretic and launched a Crusade against him. After this fulmination, one that harked back to Europes civil wars of the Gregorian age, no new weapons were found in the papal arsenal.”(Mundy 2000, 203.)

14 5.2 Military Ventures

Spiritual maledictions were well and good, but the Church also used reliable temporal tactics: mercenary armies, local militias, and military mobilization efforts such as the Crusades, in which military aims and ecclesiastic office intertwined. Most of these military efforts had to do with protecting papal territories: the papal states were among the “most formidably defended zones of Europe” (Chambers 2006, 101), with well-stocked armories to defend against insurrection and looting during papal elections, and to fight against baronial armies. The papacy did not shy away from increasing militarization, waging war, and launching campaigns of slaughter and conquest.

As early as the 9th century, Leo IV and John VIII gave assurances of forgiveness and eternal life to those killed in battle against heathens. More local efforts to provide order and manage violence also arose. The Truce of God movement, organized by local bishops, prohibited violence from

Wednesday evening to dawn the following Monday, as in early 11th century Languedoc (Jordan

2001, 27.) In the broader Peace of God movement, “bishops took responsibility for public order which kings could no longer discharge, and at times they assembled peace militias from their own resources” (Morris 1989, 145.) Both efforts were a response to the failure of central authority to maintain order, and to the violence of local lords and their marauding followers against clergy and churches (Morris 1989, 144, see also Bisson 1992.)15

The 11th century Gregorian reformers lauded holy war, and the early reform popes commanded their own forces as German bishops (Morris 1989, 145.) They saw armed struggle as essential to the reform of the Church: Leo IX (r. 1049-54), the first of the reforming popes, was also the first to justify his wars on the basis of religion. The reformist Gregory VII (r. 1073-85), called the

“most bellicose pope who ever occupied the See of Saint Peter” (Mitteraurer 2010, 206), waged a holy war against external and internal enemies even before he became pope. Urban II, who called the first crusade in 1096, repeatedly used force and violence against heretics and opponents. With the Crusades came the fighting orders: the Knights Templar, the Hospitallers, and the Teutonic

Knights. Subsequent popes led “the praise and celebration of war at the highest level of ecclesiastical authority” (Chambers 2006, 101.) Several Popes led military campaigns, especially in the 11th and

15Many ecclesiastic buildings were fortified as a result, so that churches and monasteries took the form of castles and forts. (Mitterauer 2010, Fischer 1992.)

15 12th centuries. Many of these involved the defense of the broad swathe of Rome and the papal territories against incursions from both the north and the south.Gregory IX and Innocent IV both raised armies to fight Frederick II. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) declared that prelates on their own authority should not declare war against other prelateswhich meant that popes themselves could declare war (Chambers 2006, 37.)16

5.3 The Crusades

The Crusades were the most famous of the religious and military ventures of the Middle Ages. They exemplify the political authority of the Church, and its ability to mobilize alliances (Fischer 2992,

438.) Announcing crusades was not merely a formal papal prerogative: secular rulers generally lacked the capacity to coordinate resources and operations on that scale.17 With Pope Urban IIs rallying cry of “Deus Vult!” (God wills it!) at the Council of Clermont, the first Crusade began in 1096. Half a century later Eugene II convinced the French king and the German emperor to launch the Second. Six other main crusades followed, ending in 1270, although other expeditions took place well into the 17th century.

Popes increasingly used the Crusades as a potent political weapon, whether to eliminate reli- gious heretics or to defeat secular rivals. Expeditions against secular states in Europe were endowed with crusade privileges. The Baltic Crusades, designed to convert Northern Europe to Christian- ity and to gain the pope political influence, began in 1147 and lasted through the 16th century.

Innocent III (1198-1216) launched Crusades against religious dissent in Muslim Spain and the Al- bigensian Crusade against the Cathars in 1209. The papacy subsequently blessed the Stedinger crusade against peasants who refused to pay the tithe (1233-4), and the political crusade against the Colonna, their enemies in Rome, in 1298. In 1241, shortly before his death, Gregory IX (r.

1227-1241) called for a crusade against the Tartars and commissioned a crusade against Frederick

II (Whalen 2019, 121.) Innocent IV (r. 1243-1254) also launched a crusade against Frederick II and then against Fredericks son, Conrad IV, excommunicating and deposing both. He summoned

16The council also included a proposal that church income go to the poor rather than fund armed conflict. It failed. 17Nonetheless, secular rulers could take control. Gregory IX expressly forbade the double crusade of Theobald of Navarre and Richard of Cornwallyet the two went on to deliver Galilee from Damascus. In response to the failures of the Fifth Crusade, Louis IX ran the 1248 crusade: he did not seek papal approval, did not allow Innocent III to enter his kingdom, but did secure control of the finances for the crusade from the papacy (Powell 2007, 259-60.)

16 Germany, Lombardy, and Sicily, and offered indulgences to the crusaders as if they had been going on a crusade to the Holy Land, “creating an equivalency between the two theatres of holy war”

(Whalen 2019, 186.) Subsequently, Pope Alexander VI and then Urban IV called for a crusade against Manfred, the last Hohenstaufen king of Sicily and son of Frederick II, who invaded papal territories in 1258. This crusade was launched in 1255 and lasted until 1266, with boundless priv- ileges granted to Charles of Anjou, an ally of the pope (Jedin 1993, 166.) It became increasingly obvious that the aim of these military ventures, especially after the 13th century, became “less religious than hierarchical; it implied the domination of Church over State, and of clergy over laity, the demonstration of the civil power’s derivation from ecclesiastical” (Smith 1964, 54.)

These expeditions were costly, and strengthened the ability of both popes and kings to extract taxes: “the collecting of these taxes brought into being real financial organization, which became useful not only to the Curia but also the state administrations”(Jedin 1993, 167, see Blaydes and

Paik 2016.). If the first Crusade was a self-funded and ramshackle affair, subsequent ventures relied on more systematic fund raising. Kings began to collect levies for the second, and started to exercise more centralized control with the 2nd Crusade in 1147, levying taxes on both towns and church properties.

The church developed a centralized fiscal administrative machinery as well: by the 5th crusade in 1217, “more or less centralized taxes on dispersed church properties were collected by appointed papal nuncios and bureaucrats rather than by local bishops alone” (Padgett and Powell 2012,

129.) “Normal” crusade taxes were around 1/10th of ecclesiastical revenue. But the Church could pay far more, as in 1212, when the church in Castile pledged half its income to support Alfonso

VIIIs mustering of forces against Muslims (Jordan 2001, 166) By early 13th century, an “elaborate system of clerical taxation”(Riley-Smith 2005, 150) funded the expeditions. The use of mercenaries required even greater financial outlays. These taxes meant financial resources for the popeand enormous political power to decide where and how the forces would be deployed (Riley-Smith 2005,

186.)

17 6 Fragmentation

So what did the popes and bishops do with their power? Above all, the papacy, and especially

Innocent III, strove to limit German imperial ambition, which the popes saw as a threat to the au- tonomy of the church. As we will see below, the papacy first sought to free the Church from imperial influenceand then to preclude an imperial resurgence. The result was a deliberate fragmentation of Europe, the rise of more centralized monarchies in the periphery of Europe, and ironically, the rise of national states: “To defeat the Empire, the popes reinforced Europes other princes, who in any case did not applaud Frederick Barbarossas remark that they were mere kingletsEngland and

Castile asserted freedom from imperial sovereignty, and there the germ of the notion that each king was emperor in his own kingdom made its appearance” (Mundy 2000, 206.)

During the earlier middle ages, from the 9th to the 11th century, the absence of centralized power, feudal banal lords18controlled their military forces and fortifications (including castles) but did not achieve full sovereignty. Local lords and kings alike controlled benefices (clerical office), naming priests and bishops while siphoning off resources from “their” churches. Given the power vacuum, cities and towns began to assert the right to govern themselves. By the 12th century, self- governing cities carved out their own spheres of governance (notably the maritime Italian republics of Venice and Genoa) and affiliated in “communes of communes,”such as Lega Lombarda, which banded against Frederic Barbarossa in the mid-12th century.

This territorial and political fragmentation of Europe is often the starting point for analyses of the rise and consolidation of territorial nation-states. A broad scholarly consensus emphasizes that this “multifarious polycentric fragmentation” is the foundation for subsequent political and economic modernity (Scheidel 2019)19 It is the point of departure for both Hintze and Tilly, who point out that local lords gained power as the Carolingian center frayed and disintegrated.

Yet the fragmentation was no accident. Popes worked assiduously to keep any one ruler from getting too strong and reassembling Charlemagnes empire (Hoffman 2015, 132). The Church

18 Banal lords not only owned land but also had military authority, jurisdiction over violent crimes, and the right to raise taxes within their territory. Both secular and ecclesiastical lords could hold these rights, which were specified by the Carolingians in the ninth century (see Duby 1974). 19Among the many scholars cited on this point by Scheidel 2019: Hall 1985, Landes 1998, Jones 2003, Cosandey 2008, van Zanden 2009a, Rosenthal and Wong 2011, Vries 2013 and 2015, Mokyr 2017, Dincecco and Onorato 2018, Voigtlnder and Voth 2013a, b; Hoffman 2015, esp. 213; Cox 2017, Stasavage 2011, and Mann 2006.

18 deliberately played rulers against each other, and used doctrine, intimidation, and wars by proxy to ensure that no powerful rival could arise that might threaten its political or territorial interests.

Popes made successive efforts to take states out of Emperors sphere and into their own. As a result, territorial consolidation of European states began in earnest only once the Church was too weak to prevent it, in the 14th century. Rubin (2017) claims that Europe was fragmented because rulers were weak, the result of the religious legitimation of monarchs by relatively weak religious

“propagating agents.” But this has the historical consensus backwards: It is not that the Church failed to legitimate monarchsit is that the Church deliberately sought to balance them against each other and precluded any from gaining too much authority. As Scheidel points out, to survive,

“papal might amplified the dispersion of social power in medieval Latin Europe” (Scheidel 2019,

208).

A special concern for the popes were the Hohenstaufens, the dynasty that ruled the Holy

Roman Empire and greatly expanded its territory from 1138 to 1254. These emperors repeatedly sought to reunify the empire by controlling both northern Italy and Sicily. Had they succeeded, they would leave the papal states surrounded by a powerful rival. Popes sought to contain them, all the more so since they were “adamantly opposed to the reestablishment of a monarchy free from papal supervision” (Zacour 1976, 106). The papacy worked assiduously to ensure that Germany would remain fragmented and Italy under papal control. By the mid-13th century, Innocent IV (1243-54) destroyed the imperial authority in Italy that had been already fragmented in Germany. Papal campaigns were so successful that both Italy and Germany remained politically fragmented until the 19th century (Ozment 1980, 144., Oakley 2012, Stollinger-Rilinger 2018.) The Hohenstaufens sought to rebuild the Carolingian empire, and reunify Italy and Germany. Frederick IIs was the most ambitious effortafter his death, imperial ambitions in Italy withered away, and the empire retreated beyond the Alps to central Europe (Canning 1983, 4.) After the collapse of the Hohenstaufens in

1268, and through the centuries that followed, the constant competition with and interference of the Church ensured the decentralization and fragmentation continued.

The Church actively hindered the Holy Roman Emperor (and other rulers) from achieving hegemony through ideological means, promoting the idea that monarchs were not beholden to other secular authoritiessuch as emperors. These arguments culminated in the doctrine of Rex in

19 regno suo imperator, articulated by Innocent III in his 1202 Per Venerabilem decretal. The papacy also revived the idea of royal election in the 11th century, since inherited rule could not guarantee a religiously suitable leader. With little else in common, German lords joined the Church in pressing for royal elections, gaining a powerful weapon against the crown as its electors (Zacour 1976, 105.)

In short, the Church pushed for both religious supremacy and the weakening of the hereditary principle.

Popes also built secular alliances, whether with German princes or Italian cities. The papacy continued to pit monarchs against each other and preclude the consolidation of any larger territorial or authority claims. Popes also recognized the territorial grabs of their allies, but not the conquests of their foes, and urged “powerful vassals to abandon the emperors cause” (Hoffman 2015, 132.)

Innocent III and his successors continually waged war against the emperors and their aims to gain southern Italy and Sicily. The papacy and the Lombard League of city-states were traditionally enemies: but joined together to fight Frederick I under the Pope Alexander III to prevent the emperor from taking over Italy, and again to battle Frederick II with Gregory IX (who also helpfully excommunicated Frederick II.) Many allies were unreliable, and either grew weak or reneged on their commitments to the popes. These vulnerabilities led the popes to continually seek other forces, and to play their enemies off each other. Shifting and unreliable allies meant no stable coalitions arose, much less a new hegemon.

Finally, by continually engaging the emperor in conflict, popes allowed local princes, bishops, and lords to gain considerable territorial and economic power at the expense of the emperor. In spending so much time waging war with the Pope, Frederick II and other emperors had little time or resources to consolidate central power within the empire. Frederick II spent little time in Germany, and his ruler was characterized as “government by remote control” (Angelov and Herrin 2012.)

Both local lords and clergy gained in authority as a result, the number of towns grew tenfold, and the territory of the Holy Roman Empire remained politically riven and decentralized. Both lords and bishops took these opportunities to grab further wealth and power. As a result, from 1000 to 1400, local governments and lords “achieved a degree of freedom from central government that they never again enjoyed.”(Mundy 2000, 13.)

Bishops and abbots used the political and financial authority bestowed upon them by church

20 to strengthen their lordship rights within territories, which meant that “next to the Papal States, the Empire became the only European polity in which ecclesiastical dignitaries like archbishops, bishops, abbots, and abbesses could also be temporal rulers and, as such, sometimes Imperial members as well” (Stollinger-Rilinger 2018, 22.) To legitimate themselves, the emperors gave bishops further secular jurisdiction and ducal powers (Scheidel 2019.) These ecclesiastical lords became powerful secular princes: the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne served as Kurfrsten, prince-electors who chose the king from the 13th century onwards. They legitimated the emperor, and gained enormous autonomy in the process.

The efforts of the papacy to preclude the rise of an imperial hegemon also meant that city- states could arise and flourish. It is no accident that the “city-studded center” (Rokkan 1975) arose precisely where rulers where preoccupied with conflicts with the papacy. Where rulers fought popes, their ambitions to penetrate territory and broadcast power were thwarted by the distraction of armed conflict and shifting alliances. Cities could carve out a sphere of independent activity, of relative autonomy and burgher rights. Conversely, we should expect that if cities themselves entered into conflict with the papacy, their growth, too, would be impaired and even reversed.

Rokkans city-belt arose where imperial attention and coercive capacity were directed elsewhere.

The result was the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire and Italy. Anxious about threats to their power, popes used a variety of instruments, from playing off allies to excommunications and interdicts, to outright warfare, to protect their rule and preclude a truly powerful rival from arising and threatening the papal dominion. When the Hohenstaufens contested these attempts, they only lost power further as local lords and princes gained instead. Subsequently, the fragmentation was sustained through repeated conflicts, and their destabilizing effects. Even as France and England consolidated into centralized monarchies, rulers and territories most closely intertwined with papal claims on political authority and territorial rule remained decentralized, disorganized, and unable to mount a coherent challenge until the 19th century.

As a result, where the Church and rulers had fought the hardest, fragmentation persisted and no central authority arose for centuries. The territories of Germany remained by far the most fragmented in Europeand Italian territories, where the popes sought to gain control but fend off rivals, were more also more segmented than others. Figure 2 shows the number of states

21 Figure 2: The fragmentation of Europe. Data source: Abramson 2017 over time within the 1850 borders of Europe. The fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire is extraordinarily persistent.The one dip is in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, when Sweden temporarily conquered large swathes of German territory. The empire remained a place where “the

Church had a political importance in Germany only equaled in the papal states. Its landholdings were huge and many of its prelates, archbishops, bishops, abbots, abbesses, deans, and the heads of the Teutonic Order and the Order of St. John were political rulers of states as well as senior clergymen. Precisely because the princes grew in strength as a result of the conflict between kings and popes, they could defeat any imperial plans to centralize administration or tax collection (Hays

1995, 317.) In contrast, in countries farther removed from territorial conflicts with the popes, such as England or France, monarchs centralized their rule and consolidated into powerful administrators and tax-collectors in the late 12th and 13th centuries. Papal influence suffered. The pre-Norman conquest English royal state already issued coins, collected taxes, and put forth royal legislation.

After the conquest, the consolidation of power had to contend with papal interferencebut without its fragmenting effects. In 14th century, first England, and then others, required a placet, or approval before a papal document could be published. The English parliament further restricted appeals or payments to Rome. There were still disputes over benefits of clergy, mortmain, fiscal immunities,

22 but the clergy became now a “separate and distinct order or estate”and the Churchs role was much diminished (Hay 1995, 62). In France, the “state was born in 1280-1360” (Genet 1990, 261.) By the 15th century, the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438) asserted “gallican liberties”for French clergy and deprived the popes of their power to appoint, judge, and tax clergy. Similarly, Spanish rulers brooked no appeals to papal courts, and could prevent the publication of papal bulls.

7 The Separation of Church and State

Modern sovereignty and state would not be possible without a differentiation of the state from the church. A major, and defining, episode, was the Investiture Controversy, (1075 to 1122), nominally a series of disputes over the naming of bishops. At the time, a functional distinction between sacerdotum and regnum existed, even if church and state were not differentiated (Blumenthal 1988,

37.) The clearer distinction between temporal and lay authority that the Investiture Struggle drew was critical: the “division between Emperor and Popemade possible the emergence of the European state system” (Hintze, quoted in Ertman, 54.)

The historical consensus is the mutually constituted powers of popes and German emperors were at the core of the controversy. Emperors named popes, and popes sanctified emperors. 20 As a result, the goal of the struggle for the medieval papacy was both an assertion of papal power, and a liberation of the Church from secular interference (Schatz 1996, 81). Earlier, the 5th century

Gelasian doctrine of the two swords distinguished between the earthly power wielded by secular kings, and the sacred authority of the popesthe Church vainly insisted that the sacred held the primacy over the secular.21Beginning with the coronation of Charlemagne, popes delegated their worldly imperial rule to emperors and the Carolingian papacy relied on imperial protection.

In turn, a key imperial and princely prerogative was lay investiture, the principle by which

20Maureen Miller (2009) identifies three main approaches to the study of the Investiture Struggle and the reform movement: viewing the reform as an attempt to rectify the abuses plaguing the church, and the rise of the papal monarchy as the most significant result of the reform movement and the struggle (Fliche). A different strand empha- sizes lay influence in the church as the key occupation of the reformers, and the investiture crisis as a struggle for the right order (Tellenbach.) Howe emphasizes the role of lay reformers, and the role of the nobility in supporting papal reform efforts. Yet others, such as Robinson and Tierney, emphasize how the churchs institutional practices fostered the development of bureaucratic techniques and the rule of law. As Oakley (2012) documents, historians vary. Z. N. Brooke (1939) and Rudolf Schieffer (1981) both question its centrality. (Oakley 2012, 17) 21 The reference to the two swords comes from Luke 22:38. In the 1060s, during the Investiture Controversy, Henry IV and his supporters argued that the two swords identified two distinct spheres of sovereignty. In the mid 12th century the Cistercian Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux radically claimed that the papacy held both.

23 rulers named high clergy. The “investitures” in question were the rights to name bishops–popes endowed bishops with their spiritual powers, while secular rulers endowed the clergy, bishops and abbots as vassals to monarchs. As part of the ceremony, the king would present a bishop with the symbols of religious office: the staff and the ring, and with rights and privileges (regalia). The clergy would then swear fealty to the ruler who named them, and to provide services to the king including counsel, military support, and taxes.

And here, if the popes fragmented Europe, bishops administered it, as we noted earlier. Pre- cisely because the bishops were such important agents for both monarchs and popes, they became the focal point of the conflict. They simultaneously held high spiritual and secular office, kept order and defended territory, collected taxes, issued local judgments and petitions, mediated disputes, and served as papal emissaries. The bishops loyalty thus was of paramount importance to both monarchs and popes: and naming bishops was an exercise in ensuring both fealty and effective administration.

7.1 The Conflict

The conflict itself began when the six year old Henry IV became the emperor in 1056. Until then, the Holy Roman Emperor claimed the right to name the Pope. Henrys father and predecessor,

Henry III (r. 1045-1056) had essentially appointed the four most recent popes, all of whom served him loyally (if briefly.) After his death and the ensuing succession struggles, a power vacuum opened up at Rome, which the papal reformists used to ensure in 1059 that cardinals, not emperors, would now elect the pope in the newly founded College of Cardinals. The era of “papal monarchy,”and the consolidation of papal power within the church, began in earnest. As the popes consolidated their power within the church, they gained new confidence in demanding obedience from secular rulers.

The goal of these reformist popes was to free the church from secular interference, whether naming of clergy or benefiting from their offices. Already, Pope Nicholas II (r. 1059-1061) denounced the laymens ceremonial investiture of clerics with churches, and reformers continued to press to impose their own candidate in the bishopric of Milan.

Matters came to a head when Gregory VII (r. 1073-1085) ascended the papal seat. He quickly launched an ambitious program of freeing the church from secular control and ridding it of simony

24 (the purchase of clerical offices) and nicolaitism (clerical marriage.) He asserted the autonomy of the church from imperial control with the Dictatus Papae, a lengthy list of papal privileges, rights, and prerogatives, including the claim that the pope had authority over the emperor: specifically, only the pope could depose the monarch, and papal authority was the sole universal power. Above all, Gregory VII prohibited lay investiture. He justified the move on the grounds that such offices were often sold to the highest bidder, generating revenue to the emperor but doing precious little to ensure proper spiritual care. The Lateran Council of 1075 formalized these moves, ending the sale of offices and clerical marriage, and declaring that only the Pope could name the bishops.

Henry IV began to establish his power in Empire in the 1060s, and controlling the bishoprics was critical to consolidating his authority. He deposed several bishops that he had no role in naming, as part of reasserting control. Not surprisingly, then, Henry IV protested. Most German bishops (who owed their seats to imperial nominations) joined him. For Henry and other emperors, the stakes were fundamental: “much of the emperors power depended on his investiture right, since it linked high church officials to the crown as a counterweight against German territorial nobles”(Clark 1986, 668.)

When Henry IV asserted his traditional rights a few months later by naming the Bishop of

Milan in September 1075, the Pope excommunicated him and called on his lords to abandon Henry under the pain of excommunication. As they began to do so, Henry found himself increasingly isolated. Nobles and bishops both began to abandon him, already worried by his centralizing ambitions. To regain his position, he had to seek forgiveness from the Pope–which he did by marching through the Alps in the winter of 1076-7. He then famously (if apocryphally) stood barefoot in the snow for three days, as a penitent begging for forgiveness at Canossa, a fortress in what is now Emilia-Romagna. The Pope, by convention and doctrine, had to forgive Henry, and lifted the excommunication, shifting the tides of support. Henry acknowledged the legitimacy of his punishment, and the Popes rightful authority. The wayward princes and bishops rallied around

Henry again.

What followed was a renewed struggle that continued under Henry V (r. 1099-1125). The disagreement continued. After lengthy negotiations, the Concordat of Worms formally settled the controversy in 1122. The biggest bone of contention, lay investiture with ring and staff by the

25 emperor, had been resolved in favor of the pope (Morris 1989, 173.) The emperor could no longer formally invest bishops with their spiritual authority. In return, the monarch could confer regalia with a scepter, and receive homage from the bishops (Robinson 1990, 437.)

7.2 Separation or primacy?

The Investiture Controversy reaffirmed the distinction between church and state, and the secular and sacred bases of power and authority. It established imperial and ecclesiastical rule, and the two roles of the bishops, as separate and distinct. Kings and emperors gave up their formal claim to appointing Gods representatives on earth. It also necessitated finding new basis for secular legitimacy: emperors and monarchs could not rely on divine sanction and papal unction alone. In effect, the controversy had desacralized monarchy and sharply asserted Church autonomy (Oakley

2012, 39), so that “church and state were thereafter seen more clearly as distinct entities. Secular rulers paid less attention to spiritual matters and concentrated on administering justice through royal courts and maintaining order” (Clark 1986, 669.) The investiture agreements of the early

12th century reaffirmed that distinct spheres of authority existed, and made the papacy into an

“equal partner” of European rulers (Scheidel 2019, 207, Mitterauer 2003: 157-60.)

The conflict did not resolve whether church or empire would reign supreme: “at Canossa an emperor had knelt in the snow to demonstrate his submission to a pope, and 150 years later princes and kings were still conceding victory to Rome in a series of struggles over Church appointments.”

(Rabb 2006, 3.) There was no instant resolution at Worms, nor did secular rulers instantly gain the advantage (Bueno de Mesquita 2000).22 In the short-term, the Investiture Controversy strengthened the papacy and weakened the empire. Fifty years of conflict and civil war eroded imperial authority

(Nexon 2009, 80, Ertman 1997: 234). The Concordat of Worms in 1122 handed more power to the papacy, rather than to the monarchs. The central issue was resolved in favor of the Pope: bishops were now to be elected by the Church. The papacy “remained master of the field” (Bryce 1978,

89), since the emperor retained only half of his investiture rights, gained many new adversaries, and was excluded from the Crusades. Just as importantly, the conflict established that elections were

22These forces also made the reform of the Church administration itself impossible, with something like 2,000 marketable posts with a capital values of 2.5 million gold florins and interest of 300,000, the machinery of benefices and posts was too lucrative for the church to dismantle (Jedin 1993, 305.)

26 a legitimate mechanism of leader selection. The emperor lost the divine right to rule, and local lords grew in power, gaining greater control over serfs and taxation at the expense of the emperor

(Mitteraurer 2010, Clark 1986.) In Italy and France the bishops were to be selected without the participation of the monarch or the emperor, strengthening the Pope’s hand. Yet the papacy could not claim decisive victory: the emperor could effectively exercise a veto by refusing homage from a bishop, and secular rulers continued to informally influence the naming of bishops.

Beyond drawing increasingly clear and sharp lines between church and state, the Investiture

Controversy had at least three ancillary effects. First, it reified the fragmentation of the Empire: with each conflict and excommunication, the princes, lords, and bishops gained power relative to the emperor, who had neither time nor resources to stem the leakage of power.

Second, the controversy led to the growth of the law as a political weapon. Gregory VII fought not only with excommunications and appeals but also with legal arguments, using the papal archives to buttress his arguments. Henry IV was unable to do so. When the law faculty at Bologna was founded at 1088, in response to the rediscovery of Roman law, both popes and emperors would invest heavily in furthering legal expertise, and both clerics and laymen sought legal education and its financial benefits (Zacour 1976, 224.) As a result, popes and the Hohenstaufen dynasty of emperors first clashed over investiture but eventually shifted to jurisdiction: which classes of legal cases could be tried by pope, what were the limits to his legislative activity, whether he could hear appeals from courts, and what legal sanctions he could use (Tierney 1964/1988, 97.) Third, and indirectly, the Controversy helped to foster the growth of cities. As both the popes and the emperors focused on their struggle, and retaining alliances with various lords, they neglected the broadcasting of power into the territories they nominally controlled. The twelfth century “communal revolution” saw the rise of increasingly autonomous cities in Italy, rejecting the rule of traditional lords and establishing new forms of civil government. Even in the pope’s own city, Romans in the 1140s rejected the papal prefect that served as their overlord and the Popes primary representative in local affairs (Whalen 2014, 121.) The commune proved resilient, and popes not only had to cope with the machinations of Roman aristocratic families, but negotiate with the demands of the local civil government.

What the Controversy failed to do was to end the conflict between popes and monarchs. Now

27 more distinct than ever, the two sides fought constantly as the Hohenstaufens sought to control Italy and the popes fought back. The result was continued violent hostilities in Italyand the eventual retreat of imperial ambition beyond the Alps, leaving behind a fractured Italy and an atomized

Holy Roman Empire. With the failure of Frederick II (r. 1213-1250) to unite Italy and Germany by force, the empire became an essentially central European monarchy.

8 Sovereignty and state capacity

The persistent conflict between popes and monarchs not only fragmented Europe and led to the differentiation of church and state. They also led secular rulers to assert sovereignty, and to accu- mulate administrative capacities within the state. Sovereignty, or a rulers right alone to control his territory and to defend it from external demands, was thus not simply an invention of Augsburg or Westphalia, nor even of the Protestant Reformation (contra Tilly 1992 and Philpott 2001.)

After the Investiture Controversy, conflicts between popes and rulers were increasingly about sovereignty: the autonomy of cities and their self-governance, rulers monopoly over taxation and jurisdiction within their territories, and control of the territory surrounding the popeand thus his temporal power. These struggles led to the development of new notions of state sovereignty as the absence of a superior. They also led to the development of both royal and papal state administrations. New cities became the engines of economic growth. Advances in both civil and canon law, legal argument, and courts now set out contracts and settled disputes. To pay for it all, new taxes had to be collectedand newly formed councils and parliaments had to consent.

A signal conflict in the struggle over this autonomy or sovereignty, and the state-building it prompted, is the episode between Philip IV the Fair of France (r. 1285-1414) and Pope Boniface

VIII (r. 1295-1303). The critical issue was royal autonomy from the papacy, who would deny Philip both revenue and authority (Spruyt 1994, 98.) The clash, the “first medieval conflict of church and state which can properly be described as a dispute over national sovereignty” (Tierney 1964/1988,

172) began in earnest in 1294, when Philip sought to subdue Aquitaine. To do so, he imposed taxes on the church within the territories he controlled. The pope forbade the clergy from paying, and argued that this was neither a war to defend the faith nor a case of legitimate self-defense. In

1296, Boniface issued a bull, Clericis Laicos, commanding clergy to contravene established practices

28 and disobey the edicts of royal taxation to pay for secular wars. With Clericis Laicos, “the Pope intervened as legislator in important areas of the life of the state, which was becoming ever more keenly conscious of its autonomy.” (Jedin 1993, 158.) A furious Philip responded by forbidding the export of gold, silver, and coins from France, a critical source of papal revenue. Edward I of

England similarly outlawed clergy loyal to the pope (Hay 1995, 83.) Once the funding dried up, the Pope himself relented in 1297 and declared kings could levy taxes on clergy when necessary.

The conflict revived when Philip arrested a bishop suspected of treason: Boniface lashed back that only popes can try bishops, and called a council of French clergy. Philip forbade them from attending: the bishops followed their king, largely because they feared losing their benefices to

Philip (Spruyt 1994, 97.) In response, an incensed Boniface VIII then excommunicated Philip, and issued the famous Unam Sanctam bull in 1302, which insisted that the pontiff was supreme above all men, all temporal power was under the authority of the ecclesiastical, and “it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff” (Hay 1995,

83.) The bull was an “unqualified extreme statement of papal monarchy, fashioned to overawe the disobedient by sheer weight of sacerdotal authority” (Watt 1999, 161.)

The move badly backfired. It incensed the French rather than inducing them to obedience.

Denunciations of Boniface as a heretic, usurper, and simoniac followed. Philip made common cause with the traditional enemies of the papacy, the Roman aristocratic Colonna faction. Philips deputy

Guillame Nogaret marched to Italy with armed troops, and took the pope prisoner. Boniface VII himself died of shock on October 11, 1303. The papacy was moved to Avignon, an area firmly under Philips control. Unam Sanctam thus turned out to be a “magnificent swan song” of papal supremacy (Ullmann 1965, 456.)

Philip claimed his sovereignty: the ability for a ruler to autonomously govern his country, free from outside authority. He asserted that he was the undisputed ruler, who would neither recognize the pope as a lord, nor treat the clergy as a people apart. But he was less cause than culmination of processes that had been unfolding for over a century.The Investiture Controversy had already helped to erode papal claims to political universality by delineating domains of action. By the 13th century, “everywhere, civil and canon lawyers made a case for the rediscovered sovereignty of their own country and made the famous formula, rex in regno suo imperator est (the king is emperor in

29 his kingdom), victorious from Sicily to England” (Rigaudiere 1995, 21.) Even if no word yet existed for states, proto-states themselves did. These young states wanted autonomy from the pope, and the plenitudo potestatis that allowed him to intervene in governance (Rigaudiere 1995, 23.) After

Philips conflict with Boniface, the autonomy of states vis--vis Church grew enormously: on the one hand, political thought emphasized sovereignty over people and property, judicial supremacy, and autonomy in legislation. On the other, popes acted as political authorities, rulers of their own territories with politics as a key preoccupation (Jedin 1993, 304-5.) This also led to wide accep- tance of the principle that rulers do not recognize superior powers (superiorem no recognoscens) in

England, France, Spain, Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples, and some German territories.

9 The Rise of State Institutions

These conflicts also led to the building of state institutions: the rise of cities, law, and taxation.

The twelfth-century “communal revolution” took advantage of the power vacuum created by the popes, and cities grewas did their demands for greater autonomy. The rise of early communes in the Italian regnum is linked to the imperial-papal conflict. Both parties sought popular support by granting new charters with substantial privileges to lay officials and new political rights, which

“only strengthened the sense of agency that the urban population felt,”giving new agency, urgency, and responsibilities to communal self-government (Witt 2012, 206.) These same communes then resisted efforts by Frederick I (1152-90) to reestablish imperial power in Italy, and subsequently banded together not only to resist imperial ambition, but to wrest new privileges and rights of self-governance form the emperor.

The law, especially after the rediscovery of the Justinian codex in the late 11th century and the systematization of canon law by Gratian in the 1140s, became a potent weapon in the hands of both popes and rulers. The Investiture conflict reinforced that the lay ruler was the guarantor and distributor of justice, which required the law. Moreover, both kings and popes relied on legal arguments in their conflict. If Henry IV could marshal few legal arguments against Gregory VII in the 1070s, Frederick I used the newly rediscovered Roman Law to defend the unlimited authority of imperial office (Zacour 1976, 106.) Recognizing its significance, he also issued an imperial charter in 1155 on behalf of the University of Bologna, a center of Roman law since its founding in 1088.

30 His grandson, Frederick II further founded the University of Naples as a center for legal studies and the training of civil servants. (Angelov and Herrin 2012, 153.) As both sides marshalled legal arguments, the written documentation of contracts, letters, laws, and agreements became more widespread. The church provided both the incentives for the rise of these institutionsand the in the case of courts and law, institutional templates as well. Canon law itself developed hand in hand with (and in some cases spurred) new advances in civil jurisprudence. By the mid-12th century, legal cases, requests for exemptions, and appeals poured into Rome, to be adjudicated and resolved by the papal court. Many canon lawyers still maintained that pope remained the only true ruler

(Rigaudiere 1995, 21), even as imperial legal experts asserted the independent power bases of the emperor.

Conflicts with the papacy also required taxation. Here, the Crusades catalyzed more systematic taxation, and resource extraction became part and parcel of the consolidation of power. Centralized state taxation slowly replaced local tributes in England and France. In turn, these demands for taxation led kings to call their councilsnot in an advisory role, but to agree to the increases in taxation, now made for common defense rather than feudal tribute. For example, Philip IV called the first meeting of the French estates general in 1302. Clergy, nobles, and representatives of cities mobilized specifically on the kings behalf. Philip convoked the meeting both to receive counciland subsequently to obtain subsidies from the estates.

10 Missa Finita Est? The Great Schism and the State Triumphant

In the longer run, the episcopal mitre nonetheless grew suborned to the crown. Papal power peaked from 1050 to 1302, yet its victories undercut the churchs spiritual authority. Ironically, just as papal administration had reached the height of its sophistication and wealth, as did papal control of clerical appointments, the papacy (Wickham 2016, 212-3), the constant use of this power undermined its efficacy. The faithful grew weary, and the rulers wary, of the increasingly political nature of the papacy, and its continual involvement in European politics. After 1302, papal power diminished steadily. Bonifaces overreach in 1302 was followed by Philips relocation of the papacy to

Avignon in 1305 with the election of the French pope Clement V. From 1309 to 1378, popes resided in Avignon, France, rather than in Rome. The Great Schism then ensued from 1378 to 1417, forty

31 years that saw competing papacies, highly politicized claims, and the eventual resolution of the crisis by secular rulers, rather than councils or clergy.

The Schism was not motivated by theological disputes or doctrinal interpretations, even as it divided the church and led to two (or sometimes three) rival popes. Instead, it was a politically motivated rupture, and one that was politically resolved. In 1376, Pope Gregory XI decided to move the papal court back to Rome, the traditional center of pilgrimages and devotion, only to die two years later. The newly elected pope, Urban VI, quickly showed himself to be erratic and despotic. Attacking simony and clerical wealth, he went after the very cardinals who just elected him. Without a procedure to oust the pope, cardinals declared his election invalid and then elected a new pope, Clement VI. Urban VI responded by appointing a new college of cardinals. Clement then fled to Avignon in 1379.

For the next fifty years, their successors urgently tried to build coalitions with secular rulers to get the upper hand (Hays 1995, 302.) Urban and the subsequent Roman popes could count on

England, the Empire, Hungary, Poland, Scandinavia and Italy. Clement and the Avignon popes had Spain, Scotland and France on their side. Each pope negotiated their way to further support from secular rulers. The fragmentation of Europe meant that there was no dominant power that could resolve the conflict. Nor was the church itself able to heal the rift. At Pisa in 1409, prelates from both camps convened a council that deposed both popes, and plumped for Alexander V: but his rival refused to step down. It was only when secular rulers became directly involved and agreed that the Schism finally ended at the Council of Constance (1414-1418.)

The Great Schism revealed the moral shortcomings of the church, impoverished it, and led na- tional rulers to reassert control. First, the Churchs moral authority declined. The Schism showed popes to be petty politicians vying for power, rather than men of God. In the end, “the dispute ended in a compromise, but its legacy was lasting damage to the moral authority of the papacy”

(Greengrass 2014, xxviii) Above all, the Schism made the pope into yet another secular ruler,

“thereafter enmeshed in Italian politics”(Hay 1995, 280.) Subsequent popes, such as John XXII (r.

1316-34), were so busy with politics and diplomacy that they had no time left for theology or doc- trine (Jedin 1993, 180.) To pay its ever-growing bills, the church during the Great Schism century turned to selling offices and benefices, and increasing the fees for dispensations and multiplication of

32 marketable posts.23 Centuries earlier, simony was the target of Gregorian reforms: now it became an overt papal practice. The sale of offices proved so profitable that subsequent Renaissance popes carried on the practice, and secular rulers in the 15th century adopted it (Gorski and Sharma.)

This avarice, even if necessary, cost the church moral authoritywhich in turn made the papacy into an increasingly political office, and accelerated the disenchantment with the institutional church.

What followed was a lurching spiral of lower authority leading to lower church revenues, which made the church even needy and grasping, which lowered its authority, and thus its revenues.

Second, both the conflict and its resolution empowered secular princes, whose favor the popes sought, and who could force popes to resign, such as the widely disliked John XII or Gregory

XI (Hays 1995, 302.) Rulers were fully aware of the political benefits: as Lorenzo de Medici subsequently commented in 1477, “the division of power is advantageous, and, if it were possible without scandal, three or four Popes would be better than a single one”(Hays 1995, 304.) Secular rulers sustained the Schism, and they were also indispensable to ending it: the schism “would endure unresolved for three decades and then be ended when the leaders of Europe agreed that the original issue did not matter: the competing papacies could then be terminated without a judgment between them”(Kaminsky 2000, 680.) At the Council of Constance, which settled the dispute, Emperor Sigismund was effectively in charge, backed by national delegations (Whalen

2010, 172.) The attending prelates in effect represented their countries, reifying nascent national identities.24

Third, the Schism weakened the popes position within the church for decades to come. To resolve the conflict, bishops and cardinals circumvented the popes and instead followed the princi- ples of conciliarism: the doctrine that the clergy acting as a collective in a council trumped papal decisions. Constance established the primacy of councils in the church for the time being, and conciliarism became a dominant strand of 14th century thinking (Eire 2016, 55.) Thinkers such as Jean Gerson further advanced the idea that the popes authority was not absolute, and that it was suborned to the councils of the Church. Moreover, in the aftermath of the Schism, the new

23These forces also made the reform of the Church administration itself impossible, with something like 2,000 marketable posts with a capital values of 2.5 million gold florins and interest of 300,000, the machinery of benefices and posts was too lucrative for the church to dismantle (Jedin 1993, 305.) 24At the Council of Basle, the clergy were organized along the estates; the first consisting of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, the second of abbots and regular clergy, and the third of university doctors and dignitaries (Whalen 2010, 179.

33 pope, Martin V, now had to negotiate bilateral concordats with the individual rulers of Europe before they recognized him: crowns of Germany, England, France, as well as Castile, Aragon, and others. These concordats further signaled diminishing authority over the churches in these lands, as both kings and national religious leaders took on a bigger role. They also set a precedent for subsequent bilateral papal negotiations and agreements with individual countries. As a result, pa- pal revenues were only a third of the pre-Schism popes, and papal rights were limited. In short, the

Schism marked the end of the medieval papacy and its claims of unquestioned moral and political authority (Kaminsky 2000, 696.). The pope continued as the spiritual leader of the Church, “but his effective reach into the management of the Church would be limited”(Whalen 2010, 176.)

11 How Medieval State Building Differs from Early Modern

The above account suggests that conflict with the popes, rather than secular conflict, was the important influence on medieval state building: different forces were at work during the heyday of the papacy, 1050-1300, then in the early modern period, 1500-1750. Further, it suggests that the conflict with the church, and its local presence, influenced the growth of state institutions, such as cities, taxation, or parliaments. Figures 3 and 4 summarize the influence of church presence and conflict, using data on the presence of bishops, monasteries, and cathedrals, crusade mobilization, conflict with popes, secular battles and sieges, and several control variables. (Full description of the data, estimated models, and the results are in the Appendix.)

The analyses show two main results. First, religious influence went hand in hand with state development, across all specifications. The presence of bishops in a city is very positively associated with urbanization. Both before the heyday of the papacy in 11-14th centuries and afterward, bishops are one of the strongest correlates of city growth. Monasteries are positively associated with urbanization, as the sources of human capital that drives trade and investment. Conversely, bishops, as powerful rivals to would-be parliaments, are negatively correlated with the presence of parliaments, as are cathedrals, the seats of bishops. Crusades have their expected positive correlation with both the growth of cities and the rise of parliaments.

Second, secular war does not appear to make the state in the 1000-1300 period: the strong association between secular conflict (as measured by conflict sites: battles and sieges taking place

34 Figure 3: The growth of city populations in Europe in a given area) and urbanization of the early modern period (Dincecco and Onorato 2016) is attenuated in the 11 through 14th centuries. For city growth, secular conflict only has a strong positive correlation in the early modern era. Papal conflict, in contrast, is negatively associated with city growth, consistent with the account of fragmentation and rivalry presented above: but this effect dissipates in the early modern era.

Turning to the effects on parliaments, it is religious war that makes the state. Parliaments arise when rulers need council and consent for greater taxation to pay for war. Secular conflict does have this effect, but once we include conflict with popes, the positive association of war and parliaments association is greatly weakened. Conflict with popes is a stronger determinant of parliament growth in the medieval era. Another form of religious conflict necessitating fundraising, crusade mobilization, is also strongly associated with the growth of parliaments.

Taken together, these patterns suggest that religious conflict attenuates the effect of secular war on state making, both in the 1000-1300 period and beyond. These patterns are also consistent with two mechanisms by which church could build the state: a negative one, where city development was undermined by armed conflict with the pope and parliamentary growth by strong local rivals like bishops, and a positive one, where cities grew under strong regional leaders like bishops and

35 Figure 4: Parliaments in European cities, 1000-1800. centers of thought like monasteries, cathedrals and universities, and where parliaments arose in response to funding rulers in their struggle for sovereignty with the church.

12 Conclusion

The roots of modern states reach back to the medieval era, where the dominant player was the

Catholic Church. Conflict with the Church influenced critical features of subsequent state building in Europe: the fragmentation of territorial rule, new claims of sovereignty, and the rise of state institutions. This is not to say there was an inexorable progression: rather, protracted negotiations and conflicts had multiple effects and feedback loops.

The irony is that with these successes, the church ordained its own fall from grace. The very political fragmentation that it fomented meant that subsequently, when the Protestant Reformation took off, individual princes and lords could protect the new rival religion from Catholic counter- reaction. It is no accident that the Reformation took off in Germanyor that Frederick III, the Elector of Saxony, could successfully protect Luther against the vengeance of his ostensible superiors, both

Pope Leo X and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

36 In winning battles, the Church lost the war. Papal excommunications and interdicts, calls for alliances, and attempts to collect funds and taxes increasingly prompted secular, and quasi- nationalist, backlash. The use of crusades and Inquisition led to regional divisions and increased demands for national control of churches (Ozment 1980, 180.) In battling monarchs with both law and arms, the church led these rulers to sharpen their own legal arguments and buttress their own administrative and legal infrastructure. New institutions of electors and parliaments undermined the sanctifying and legitimating role of the Church in royal and imperial politics. Centuries of insistence on papal primacy and internal control turned on the church when these proved unable to prevent the Schism. And within kingdoms, rulers increasingly decided who would serve and who could govern the church. Popes agreed to delay taxation, and conceded patronage to princes.

Secular rulers forced papal nominees to withdraw, insisted on nominating their own bishops, and generally ignored the pleas and requests of the papacy. Popes signed bilateral concordats with individual countries, rather than launch multinational crusades (Whalen 2010, 183.)

As a result, even before the Reformation, secular rulers consolidated their role as protec- tors and deciders of religiona responsibility the church willy-nilly handed over. Yet this eventual supremacy of the state would not be possible without the medieval church, the clashing ambitions of medieval popes and rulers, and the territorial fragmentation, sovereignty, and state capacities they engendered.

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43 Appendix

The main outcome of interest, state development, is proxied by two commonly used indicators: urbanization and parliaments. Urbanization has been used as a proxy for both political and eco- nomic development, given its importance to trade, taxation, and self-government (Bosker et al

2013, Becker and Woessman 2009, Cantoni and Yuchtman 2014, De Long and Shleifer 2018). The data here, from Bairoch et al 1988, measures the logged population of all cities. Parliaments are a critical institution of council and consent to taxation by the monarchs (see Bosker et al 2012,

Stasavage 2010 and 2014.) I measure whether one existed or not in a given year in a given city, using data from from Van Zanden et al 2012.

I compiled data on monasteries, bishoprics, and cathedrals from the Digital Atlas of Medieval and Roman Civilizations (darmc.harvard.edu) and augmented these with new data on monasteries and bishoprics, especially in Eastern Europe. I also use indicators of interstate conflict (Brecke 2012,

Dincecco and Onorato 2016), involvement in armed conflicts (Brecke 2012), the fragmentation of states (Abramson 2017), and the rise of cities and parliaments (Bosker et al 2013, Van Zanden et al 2012, Becker and Woessmann 2009.) I also collected new data on the excommunication of rulers for political reasons, papal involvement in combat, and on conflict prior to 1400. The variables used in the analyses and their sources are summarized in Table A.

The data spans the years from 900 to 1850, and includes all European states for a total of

30,173 city-year observations. I estimated hierarchical linear models (HLM) that take into account the nested nature of the data (cities/ states measured over years) and use both fixed and random effects. HLMs take into account the correlations across observations (or more precisely, between their error terms) and allow us to model both city-year and city-level effects. I estimate the models both for the entire 900-1850 period, which includes the early modern era, and the 1000-1300 heyday of papal power and Church influence. I estimate models using combatant and conflict data as a baseline, and then include both religious and control variables. The full results are in Tables A through F below.

Summary of the variables used in this analysis:

44

Variable Description Source City population Log of city populations of all sizes Bairoch 1988 Parliaments Presence of parliament in a given city Van Zanden et al 2012

Religion: Bishop City is a seat for a bishop or archbishop DARMC, Bosker et al 2013, own coding Monastery Monastery within 5 km of city center DARMC, own coding Cathedral Cathedral within 5 km of city center Bosker et al 2013, own coding Papal combatant Conflict with pope as combatant Brecke et al 2000, own coding Crusade by 1200 Four waves of crusade mobilization by Blaydes and Paik 2015 12000

Conflict: Conflict site Conflict within 50km x 50km area of city Dincecco and Onorato 2016 Combatant Ruler of area waged war anywhere Brecke et al 2000, own coding

Controls: Commune City achieved commune status Bosker et al 2013 University University within 5km of city center Bosker et al 2013 Trade access Proximity to river Dincecco and Onorato 2016 Ag potential Soil Quality Dincecco and Onorato 2016

Table A: European Urbanization, 1000-1300. DV: log city population (1) (2) (3) (4) conflict site 0.021 0.086 0.080 0.073 (0.091) (0.090) (0.103) (0.102) [0.477] [0.819] [0.338] [0.436] university 0.604*** 0.368* 0.210 0.133 (0.169) (0.152) (0.174) (0.174) [0.444] [0.000] [0.016] [0.227] ag potential 0.725*** 0.794*** 0.687** 0.719*** (0.203) (0.200) (0.210) (0.209) [0.001] [0.000] [0.000] [0.001] commune 0.544*** 0.408*** 0.374*** 0.342*** (0.081) (0.077) (0.084) (0.084) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] river access -0.011 0.056 -0.075 -0.118 (0.101) (0.098) (0.113) (0.113) [0.297] [0.912] [0.571] [0.507] papal conflict -0.024 -0.023 -0.025 (0.022) (0.022) (0.022) [0.254] [0.282] [0.290] bishop 0.369*** 0.495*** 0.431*** (0.091) (0.105) (0.108) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] crusade 0.044* 0.038 (0.020) (0.020) [0.057] [0.029] cathedral 0.041 (0.086) [0.629]

monastery 0.021** (0.007) [.003] year -0.001* -0.001 0.000 -0.000 (0.000) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) [0.721] [0.023] [0.278] [0.722] constant 2.261*** 2.108* 0.788 1.475 (0.432) (0.945) (1.012) (1.028) [0.000] [0.026] [0.436] [0.151] SD (year mean) constant -0.327*** -0.293*** -0.342*** -0.359*** (0.060) (0.054) (0.063) (0.063) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] SD (residual) -0.533*** -0.816*** -0.885*** -0.892*** (0.049) (0.071) (0.084) (0.083) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] N 558 461 353 353 * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

Table B. Early modern urbanization, 1500-1750 (1) (2) (3) (4) conflict site 0.108** 0.101** 0.113** 0.116** (0.036) (0.036) (0.042) (0.042) [0.002] [0.005] [0.007] [0.006] university 0.544*** 0.443*** 0.404*** 0.349*** (0.083) (0.081) (0.090) (0.089) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] ag potential 0.595*** 0.419** 0.557*** 0.472** (0.149) (0.140) (0.161) (0.160) [0.000] [0.003] [0.001] [0.003] commune 0.385*** 0.358*** 0.415*** 0.375*** (0.063) (0.060) (0.073) (0.073) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] river access 0.178* 0.144* 0.254** 0.244** (0.073) (0.068) (0.085) (0.083) [0.015] [0.036] [0.003] [0.003] year 0.001*** 0.001*** 0.002*** 0.002*** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] papal conflict 0.007 0.009 0.010 (0.008) (0.009) (0.009) [0.345] [0.324] [0.289] bishop 0.549*** 0.588*** 0.512*** (0.061) (0.072) (0.074) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] crusade 0.022 0.018 (0.015) (0.015) [0.144] [0.227] cathedral 0.120* (0.060) [0.045] monastery 0.016** (0.005) [0.003] constant -0.878** -1.020** -1.575*** -1.649*** (0.303) (0.348) (0.405) (0.414) [0.004] [0.003] [0.000] [0.000]

SD (year mean) -0.274*** -0.361*** -0.350*** -0.381*** (0.035) (0.036) (0.043) (0.044) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

SD (residual) -0.756*** -0.751*** -0.751*** -0.747*** (0.025) (0.025) (0.030) (0.030) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] N 1378 1378 976 976 * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

C. Parliaments, 1000-1300 (1) (2) (3) (4)

conflict site 0.030 0.046 0.048 0.052 (0.019) (0.028) (0.040) (0.040) [0.121] [0.104] [0.229] [0.193]

university -0.120 -0.142 -0.056 -0.060 (0.065) (0.078) (0.096) (0.097) [0.067] [0.068] [0.562] [0.536]

ag potential -0.078 -0.102 0.093 0.129 (0.045) (0.069) (0.086) (0.086) [0.079] [0.139] [0.279] [0.133]

commune 0.096*** 0.075** 0.009 0.006 (0.023) (0.029) (0.036) (0.036) [0.000] [0.010] [0.799] [0.866]

river access -0.043* -0.033 0.015 0.003 (0.021) (0.032) (0.043) (0.043) [0.038] [0.298] [0.727] [0.950]

year 0.002*** 0.004*** 0.003*** 0.003*** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

papal conflict 0.054*** 0.045*** 0.044*** (0.008) (0.010) (0.010) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

bishop -0.034 -0.066 -0.029 (0.033) (0.042) (0.045) [0.304] [0.121] [0.526]

crusade 0.019* 0.019* (0.008) (0.008) [0.019] [0.023]

cathedral -0.115** (0.038) [0.002] monastery 0.002 (0.004) [0.632]

constant -2.052*** -4.468*** -3.451*** -3.558*** (0.085) (0.221) (0.324) (0.332) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] SD (year mean) -1.629*** -1.132*** -1.033*** -1.035*** (0.049) (0.044) (0.049) (0.049) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] SD (residual) -1.134*** -1.148*** -1.164*** -1.172*** (0.016) (0.026) (0.034) (0.034) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] N 2460 1353 858 858 * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

Table D. Parliaments, 1500-1750 (1) (2) (3) (4)

conflict site -0.020* -0.022* -0.016 -0.017 (0.009) (0.010) (0.012) (0.012) [0.032] [0.023] [0.176] [0.163]

university -0.031 -0.021 -0.017 -0.015 (0.031) (0.031) (0.037) (0.037) [0.312] [0.496] [0.650] [0.676]

ag potential -0.085 -0.065 -0.054 -0.042 (0.062) (0.062) (0.076) (0.078) [0.172] [0.299] [0.483] [0.585]

commune 0.035 0.039 0.054 0.054 (0.021) (0.021) (0.028) (0.028) [0.106] [0.070] [0.053] [0.051]

river access -0.103*** -0.097** -0.070 -0.070 (0.030) (0.030) (0.040) (0.040) [0.001] [0.001] [0.079] [0.080]

year 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

papal conflict 0.002 -0.000 -0.000 (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) [0.258] [0.985] [0.965]

bishop -0.075** -0.073* -0.067* (0.025) (0.031) (0.032) [0.002] [0.017] [0.033]

crusade 0.018* 0.018* (0.007) (0.007) [0.012] [0.013]

cathedral -0.018 (0.023) [0.445]

monastery -0.000 (0.002) [0.970]

constant 0.583*** 0.523*** 0.386** 0.374** (0.086) (0.100) (0.125) (0.128) [0.000] [0.000] [0.002] [0.004] SD (year mean) -1.061*** -1.070*** -0.997*** -0.997*** (0.030) (0.031) (0.037) (0.037) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

SD (residual) -1.891*** -1.891*** -1.819*** -1.820*** (0.020) (0.020) (0.024) (0.024) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] N 1845 1845 1287 1287 * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

Table E. Comparison of Cities: All years, medieval, early modern 900-1850 1000-1300 1500-1750

conflict site 0.090* 0.073 0.116** (0.039) (0.102) (0.042) [0.020] [0.477] [0.006]

university 0.217** 0.133 0.349*** (0.069) (0.174) (0.089) [0.002] [0.444] [0.000]

ag potential 0.581*** 0.719*** 0.472** (0.146) (0.209) (0.160) [0.000] [0.001] [0.003]

commune 0.384*** 0.342*** 0.375*** (0.050) (0.084) (0.073) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

river access 0.188* -0.118 0.244** (0.075) (0.113) (0.083) [0.012] [0.297] [0.003]

papal conflict -0.014 -0.025 0.010 (0.008) (0.022) (0.009) [0.065] [0.254] [0.289]

bishop 0.524*** 0.431*** 0.512*** (0.065) (0.108) (0.074) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

crusade 0.018 0.038 0.018 (0.014) (0.020) (0.015) [0.174] [0.057] [0.227]

cathedral 0.096* 0.041 0.120* (0.049) (0.086) (0.060) [0.050] [0.629] [0.045]

monastery 0.012** 0.021** 0.016** (0.005) (0.007) (0.005) [0.007] [0.003] [0.003]

year 0.001*** -0.000 0.002*** (0.000) (0.001) (0.000) [0.000] [0.721] [0.000]

constant -0.129 1.475 -1.649*** (0.211) (1.028) (0.414) [0.541] [0.151] [0.000] SD (year mean) -0.470*** -0.359*** -0.381*** (0.045) (0.063) (0.044) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] -0.579*** -0.892*** -0.747*** SD (residual) (0.022) (0.083) (0.030) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] N 1500 353 976 * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

Table F. Parliaments: all years, medieval, early modern 900-1850 1000-1300 1500-1750

conflict site -0.008 0.052 -0.017 (0.015) (0.040) (0.012) [0.561] [0.193] [0.163]

university -0.062* -0.060 -0.015 (0.031) (0.097) (0.037) [0.044] [0.536] [0.676]

ag potential 0.025 0.129 -0.042 (0.073) (0.086) (0.078) [0.731] [0.133] [0.585]

commune 0.097*** 0.006 0.054 (0.019) (0.036) (0.028) [0.000] [0.866] [0.051]

river access -0.071 0.003 -0.070 (0.037) (0.043) (0.040) [0.057] [0.950] [0.080]

papal conflict 0.007* 0.044*** -0.000 (0.003) (0.010) (0.003) [0.014] [0.000] [0.965]

bishop -0.083** -0.029 -0.067* (0.031) (0.045) (0.032) [0.008] [0.526] [0.033]

crusade 0.018** 0.019* 0.018* (0.007) (0.008) (0.007) [0.008] [0.023] [0.013]

cathedral -0.063** -0.115** -0.018 (0.020) (0.038) (0.023) [0.002] [0.002] [0.445]

monastery 0.006* 0.002 -0.000 (0.002) (0.004) (0.002) [0.011] [0.632] [0.970]

year 0.001*** 0.003*** 0.000*** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

constant -0.337*** -3.558*** 0.374** (0.081) (0.332) (0.128) [0.000] [0.000] [0.004]

SD (year mean) -1.080*** -1.035*** -0.997*** (0.038) (0.049) (0.037) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000]

SD (residual) -1.277*** -1.172*** -1.820*** (0.015) (0.034) (0.024) [0.000] [0.000] [0.000] N 2574 858 1287 * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001