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C h a p te r s ( h tt p s : //co l o r s t a te .g r l co n te n t .co m /we s te r n c i v p re m o d e r n /pa g e /c h a p te r s ) C h a p te r 9 : I s l a m a n d t h e L a t i n We s t I I ( h tt p s : //co l o r s t a te .g r l co n te n t .co m /we s te r n c i v p re m o d e r n /pa g e /c h9 ) C h a p te r 9 : R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m ( h tt p s : //co l o r s t a te .g r l co n te n t .co m /we s te r n c i v p re m o d e r n /pa g e /c h9 p g 2 )

Religious Reform

A White Garment

Churches: Pilgrimages (https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=ZEBKrc8qmGE)

Along with family, regional ties, and feudal relationships, religious institutions played an important role in shaping politics and society in

western Europe. During the period between the tenth and twelfth centuries, two important developments occurred in the Latin West: the

flourishing of popular piety and the strengthening of papal authority through religious reform.

Popular piety—the expression of religious devotion by lay people—showed the importance of religious beliefs, practices, and institutions in the

lives of ordinary people. At all levels of society, people in western Europe often saw religion as a crucial element in the significant events of their

everyday lives: births, marriages, communal celebrations, and deaths. People also looked to clerical leaders for guidance and consolation amid

the crises of warfare, famine, disease, and social disorder. These clerical leaders, however, were more likely to be local priests or bishops than

the popes in Rome who claimed to govern the entire Christian Church and all its members from afar. People wanted their local priest to be in

residence and to perform his duties responsibly, rather than seeking advancement elsewhere. Bishops were typically nominated or selected by

secular leaders and had even greater opportunities to acquire wealth and influence in the region, as well as having more spiritual power. When a

new bishop was appointed, he often received the symbols of his office—a staff and a ring—from a layman with political authority in the region,

such as a duke or count (or his representative). This ceremony of lay investiture highlighted the close connections between religious and

secular power, and between bishops and their lay counterparts. Not surprisingly, men who aspired to become bishops were often willing to pay

for a lay patron’s support, and payments could take the form of money, property, or promises of loyalty and service.

Monasteries also thrived on the connection of religious authority, political influence, and revenue. Laypeople could donate money, jewels, land,

and other gifts to monasteries to be used for prayers for the dead (and for the donors’ families). Some monasteries also gained renown as the

repositories for saints’ relics. Saints were typically men and women who were recognized for especially pious behavior or as the recipients of

divine favor. After death, they were viewed as intercessors for the living, and their bodies, clothes, and personal possessions were treated as

religious objects. Monasteries that housed saints’ relics often became sites of pilgrimage, attracting people who would travel to solicit a saint’s

intercession or protection with prayers, gifts, and offerings. The churches of Saint Denis in France and Santiago de Compostela in Spain were

important destinations for medieval pilgrims, along with other sites in Rome and Jerusalem.

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Stain ed glass win dow depic tin g three Bish ops in th e Cath edral of Tours, Fran ce. Image ©

jorisvo (https: //www.shutterstock .com/galler y- 106159p1.html?cr=00&pl=edit- 00) /

Shutterstock .com (https: //www.shutterstock .com/editorial?

cr=00&pl=edit- 00)

Entran ce to th e Basilica of Saint Denis, Fran ce.

( h t t p : //s 3 . a m a z o n aw s . c o m /e d e l t a . g r e a t r i ve r t e c h . n e t / i m a g e s / 1 7 5 8 2 1 / T h i n k s t o c k P h o t o s -

1 7 6 6 2 5 1 2 6 . j p g )

( h t t p : //s 3 . a m a z o n aw s . c o m /e d e l t a . g r e a t r i ve r t e c h . n e t / i m a g e s / 1 7 5 8 2 1 / T h i n k s t o c k P h o t o s -

4 7 1 7 5 2 2 8 9 . j p g )

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A White Garment

Churches: Monasticism (https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=SpR5BiXgJTo)

View of th e city of Cluny, Fran ce. Image © Shutterstock, Inc.

Pilgrimages themselves were interpreted as acts of religious devotion, since such journeys might involve weeks or months of travel under

difficult conditions in order to fulfill a religious purpose. Even monasteries without saints’ relics might become wealthy and influential through

their ties to lay patrons, and people who endowed monasteries often asserted political, social, and economic power over those religious

institutions across generations.

For some people, however, the laity’s influence over religious institutions was evidence of simony, the buying and selling of spiritual things for

personal gain. Simony, in turn, demonstrated corruption in the Church which had to be eliminated. One of the first examples of an effort to do

this occurred in 910, when Duke William of Aquitaine established a new Benedictine monastery at Cluny in France.

Unlike most monasteries, Cluny was put under the pope’s jurisdiction, rather than

being linked to a secular ruler or even to Duke William and his family. This arrangement

made Cluny the center of a new network of monasteries: by 1049, there were sixty-

seven such religious houses spread across western Europe. All of them looked to Cluny

for leadership, rather than being dependent on local or regional lay authorities. The

Cluniac communities focused on performing the Christian liturgy and prayer as their

most important religious activity, and they emphasized clerical celibacy as another way

to demonstrate the purity of their devotion. In 1098, a group of monks at Citeaux

launched another attempt to reform monasticism by returning to a more strict

interpretation of the Benedictine Rule. Later known as the Cistercians, they

emphasized founding new monastic houses in remote frontier and borderland areas;

like Cluny, their movement spread throughout the Latin West. Their most famous leader was Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), who founded a

Cistercian abbey in the Champagne region of France. Inspired by these initiatives, the papacy also took up the cause of religious reform during

the eleventh century and aimed to pursue it throughout the Western Christian Church.

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Map of Clunia c an d Cistercian Monasteries

Nowhere was the laity’s influence over the clergy more evident than in Rome. During the tenth and eleventh centuries, popes were selected by

Roman aristocratic factions, clerical assemblies, and popular acclamation; bribery, family connections, and political influence often played a role

in these selections. German princes also intervened in papal affairs, appointing a total of thirteen popes between 955 and 1057 and dismissing

five others. Although these rulers sometimes tried to assure that worthy men filled the pope’s office, the intervention itself became a prime

example of secular overlords controlling spiritual leaders, as well as papal weakness. When Pope Leo IX (ruled 1049–1054) took office, he was

determined to address these problems. Instead of remaining in Rome, he traveled through northern Italy, Germany, and France. He convened

assemblies of bishops and other clerics, urging them to join his reform program. To reform the church, he condemned simony, lay investiture,

and clerical marriage. Many priests remained married even after they were ordained, and such marriages were widely tolerated. Yet, Leo IX

condemned those unions as contrary to the Church’s commitment to purity and separation from worldly affairs. Some bishops whose conduct

had been openly corrupt found themselves summoned to Rome for prosecution or dismissed from their offices. Leo IX’s reforms met with

resistance and proved difficult to enforce, just as his assertion of papal authority over the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1054 prompted an

open schism with the . Leo IX’s successors,

however, continued to pursue many elements of his reform program. For example, Pope Nicholas II (ruled 1058–1061) officially prohibited

clerical marriage. He also established a new procedure for papal elections which made the senior bishops and clerics of Rome—known as

cardinals—mainly responsible for choosing the new pope. Emperors, princes, aristocrats, and other laymen were supposed to be excluded from

the new papal election process conducted by a gathering of cardinals, and a version of that process is still used today.

Another of Leo IX’s supporters, Pope Gregory VII (ruled 1073–1085) would resume the effort to strengthen papal power by attacking lay

investiture, a policy which brought him directly into conflict with Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV [

]. Gregory VII was determined to assert the pope’s supremacy over all other authorities, whether

secular or religious. In his Dictatus Papae (The Pope’s Sayings) of 1075, he outlined twenty-seven propositions addressing this topic. Some of

these propositions were not new, such as one claiming papal jurisdiction over clergy and their disputes anywhere in the Church. But Gregory VII

E a s t e r n C h r i s t i a n C h u r c h ( / w e s t e r n c i v p r e m o d e r n /p a g e /c h 8 p g 1 # e a s t e r n c h r i s t i a n )

C h a p t e r 1 1

( / w e s t e r n c i v p r e m o d e r n /p a g e /c h 1 1 )

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Sculpture of St . Peter at th e Vatican, Italy. Image © Shutterstock, Inc.

also asserted that popes could depose secular rulers who were deemed unworthy of

their offices, and also release the ruler’s subjects from their obedience to anyone so

deposed. Gregory’s vision of papal power was more ambitious and wide-ranging than

any before, though it brought him little immediate reward: he died in exile, apparently

defeated by an emperor he had excommunicated. But later medieval popes would

continue to use the papacy’s spiritual power to galvanize the laity to act, whether that

meant reforming their own behavior or fighting against a new opponent: Islam.

Review Questions

What were two developments that improved agriculture during the period between the tenth and the twelfth centuries?

SAVE VIEW CORRECT ANSWER

Which of the following terms refers to the sale of church offices and other spiritual things?

Fealty

Simony

Homage

Celibacy

SAVE & CHECK VIEW CORRECT ANSWER

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