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Medieval Church History – Table of Contents (tentative) Session Topic Scripture Page References 1 The Kingdom of God on Earth Matthew 16:17-19 3 . The Roman Empire Revived . The Two Swords . Carolingian Renaissance 2 The Kingdom of the Franks Acts 17:26-31 18 The Battle of Tours Clovis & Christianity Charlemagne 3 Augustine Diluted II Timothy 1:13-2:7 34 The Spanish Controversy Transubstantiation Predestination vs. Free Will 4 The Rise of the Schoolmen Colossians 2:6-8 46 Scholasticism Defined Anselm & Abelard Bernard of Clairvaux 5 Kings, Emperors, and Popes Romans 13:1-7 61 The Ideal of Christendom The Reality of Western Europe Feudal Society & Christianity 6 Monks & Doctors – A Third Front 76 The Growth of Monasticism The Universities 7 Onward Christian Soldiers – The Crusades II Corinthians 10:3-5 89 Norman Conquests Papal Politics Taking the Cross 8 The Highest of the High Middle Ages John 14:16-21 108 Pinnacle of Papal Power Summit of Scholasticism 9 A Pause at the Peak 128 Thomas Aquinas & Thomism Church History – The Rise & Fall of Christendom 10 The Sacraments & Salvation Colossians 2:16-23 146 Hugo of St. Victor Thomas Aquinas 11 Police State – The Inquisition Acts 5:17-29 164 Christendom and Heresy The Albigenses & Waldenses The Inquisition 12 The Fall of Christendom Ezekiel 34:1-10 183 The Babylonian Captivity The Great Schism The Really Bad Popes 13 Darkness Before the Dawn I Kings 19:9-18 199 Precursors to the Reformation Morning Stars of the Reformation 14 15 16 17 2 Church History – The Rise & Fall of Christendom Session 1: The Kingdom of God on Earth Text Reading: Matthew 16:17 - 19 “This idea of a Holy Roman Empire and a Holy Catholic Church was a grand and impressive one and was probably never lost sight of, even in times of most complete disintegration.” (Albert Henry Newman) By the turn of the seventh ‘Christian’ century, the primary doctrinal battles of the faith had been fought and, generally, won by biblical orthodoxy. Athanasius had staunchly defended the deity of Jesus Christ, and Leo’s Tome firmly established the reality of the two natures in the one Man, Christ Jesus. The great Augustine deepened the Church’s doctrine in much the same manner as the Apostle Paul deepened the theology of the New Testament. These great lights had burned brightly and flickered out, and another five hundred years would pass before another theologian – Anselm of Canterbury – would even approach the brilliance of the ‘Fathers.’ The ascension of Gregory to the papal throne at the end of the sixth century marked the beginning of ‘Christendom’ – a centuries-long effort to build the Kingdom of God on earth, or at least in the former dominion of the late Roman Empire. As far as the West is concerned, Gregory the First is the connecting link between the ancient and the medieval period. In him the patristic age comes to an end.1 Fisher’s caveat, ”as far as the West is concerned,” represents a very important feature of the period that cannot be overlooked here at the beginning of our study. For there was indeed – as early as Gregory’s pontificate if not much earlier – a recognizable rift widening between the two major geographical and linguistic regions of the professing Church. The Greek East and the Latin West had often agreed on doctrinal matters during the heyday of ecumenical councils and mighty patristic defenders of the faith. But from the time 1 Fisher, George Park; History of Christian Doctrine (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; 1896); 199. 3 Church History – The Rise & Fall of Christendom Constantine I legalized Christianity – and later Theodosius legislated Christianity as the only religion of the Empire – the ‘Church’ had grown uncomfortably close to the ‘State,’ and politics mingled its corrupting influence into religion. Thus the affairs and relations of the eastern and western Church paralleled the affairs and relations of the eastern and western branches of the State. With the irretrievable ‘fall’ of the Roman (Western) Empire in AD 476, the West found itself increasingly cut off from the imperial court in Constantinople, often having to rely upon the Roman Bishop as both the spiritual and the temporal leader. While the Eastern Empire continued to flourish (or at least act like it did) for centuries to come, the West was chaos and barbarism. The term ‘Dark Ages’ is often used to describe Western Europe between AD 500 and AD 1000, and while it is not historically correct, it does capture the relative decline in the civilization of these lands after the departure of Roman legions and Roman laws. Rome was a mere shadow of her former imperial glory – the Western Roman Emperors, vassals to the Eastern Emperor, lived in Ravenna and rarely even visited Rome. But Rome was still Rome; having ruled the world for over a thousand years it would continue to awe Europe simply because of that name. The revitalization and extension of the former power, however, would not be through military conquest; those days were forever past. The mantle of political power now passed to the Roman head of the Church, the Pope, and successive occupants of this office would strive mightily to restore Rome as the mistress of nations. The Roman Church and its leaders had been politicized long before Gregory mounted the throne of St. Peter. In addition to being the Bishop of the Roman Church, the Pope had also become essentially a vassal duke to the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople, with civil responsibility and authority over a wide territory in central Italy. And while this arrangement brought some semblance of political stability to the Italian Peninsula, the territories of 4 Church History – The Rise & Fall of Christendom Germania, Gaul, Britannia, Spain, and North Africa continued to seethe with invasion and unrest. The Pope, as Bishop of Rome, ruled what was a duchy of the empire, and paid taxes accordingly. The West as a whole became an area of tribal settlement, in which semi-barbarous kingdoms existed behind fluctuating frontiers. In these circumstances, the western Church found itself the residual legatee of Roman culture and civilization, and the only channel by which it could be transmitted to the new societies and institutions of Europe.2 This was a unique change of events for the Church: once the castaway of culture and spurned by the surrounding society, it was now the carrier of culture, charged with bridging the gap between the classical world of Athens and Rome and the barbarous world of the Goths, Vandals, and Huns. But was it the Church’s responsibility to transmit ancient culture the ‘new age’? That is the underlying ethical and ecclesiological question that must be considered, if not answered, during any study of the history of the Church in the Middle Ages. For it is a fact of history that Christianity attempted to bear the torch of the fallen Roman Empire into a new era in which the Church herself would become that unifying principle of civilized society. Viewed historically, this period is characterized chiefly by the disintegration of the ancient world. New nations and new governments appear upon the scene. Ye the life of antiquity is perpetuated among the barbarians by the church. Theology becomes the bearer, not of doctrine alone, but of philosophy and culture as well.3 Except for tangential involvement, the Eastern Church will not factor significantly into this study of Medieval Church History. Seeburg explains, “The Greek church new no Middle Age, for it never got beyond the range of the 2 Johnson, Paul; A History of Christianity (New York: Atheneum; 1976); 127. 3 Seeburg, Reinhold; The History of Doctrines, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House; 1977); 15. 5 Church History – The Rise & Fall of Christendom ancient problems of Origen, i.e., the Greek church had no Augustine.”4 The Greek Fathers – Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, the Cappadocians - had made their mark on Christian doctrine and had faded into the past. The rift between East and West, as noted above, formed and grew through the centuries in which political power concentrated in Constantinople and invasion and instability plagued Rome. The Eastern portion of the Empire, and hence the Greek wing of the Church, bore the brunt of the assault of Islam during the 7th and 8th Centuries, and this development tended to further estrange Latin Christianity from Greek. But except for the controversies that exacerbated this estrangement, there is little in the history of the Greek Church of this era that bears notice. Hence our focus will be primarily on those events and developments that occurred in the West. Yet even in the West one cannot look to the Medieval Period to find anything like the advancement of doctrinal formulations found in the Patristic Period, or the modifications and reformation of doctrines encountered later. Without so much as a general council to pronounce it so, the general feeling within the Latin Church was that the doctrines of Christianity had been hammered out successfully and exhaustively during the era of the great Church Fathers, culminating in the greatest of them all: Augustine of Hippo. Augustine was the Augustine (354-430) by Botticelli first theologian of the Church to apply his acumen to the widest possible scope of theological, ethical, and political topics. His writings touched upon issues ranging from the deeply speculative (On the Trinity and On the Immortality of the Soul) to the immanently worldly (The City of God), and across this wide spectrum he brought insight and erudition unmatched by any who had gone before or who came after him.

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