Papacy of the Middle Ages
Alexander Henry
His 101
2/20/2014

The history of the papacy, the office held by the pope as leader of the Catholic Church, spans from the time of Saint Peter to present day. The pope is the head of the Catholic Church. During the Early Church, the bishops of Rome enjoyed no temporal power until the time of Constantine. The fall of Rome began the middle ages (around 476 ad). The papacy at the start of the middle ages was influenced by the temporal rulers of the surrounding Italian Peninsula; these periods are known as the Ostrogothic Papacy, Byzantine Papacy, and Frankish Papacy. Over time, the papacy consolidated its territorial claims to a portion of the peninsula known as the Papal States. Thereafter, the role of neighboring sovereigns was replaced by powerful Roman families during the saeculum obscurum, the Crescentii era, and the Tusculan Papacy.
A fateful event for the papacy was the donation of lands made to the pope by the Frankish king Pepin the Short in 756. The papacy had already been given lands, but it was the Donation of Pepin that came to be considered the real as well as the symbolic founding of the Papal States. The pope thus became a powerful lay prince as well as an ecclesiastical ruler. This intermingling of powers was a determining condition in the struggle between church and state that was a main theme in the history of the West in the Middle Ages. Strong lay princes attempted to direct the church just as the pope tried to establish secular as well as spiritual supremacy over the rulers.
From 1048 to 1257, the papacy experienced increasing conflict with the leaders and churches of the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. The latter culminated in the East–West Schism, dividing the Western Church and Eastern Church. From 1257–1377, the pope resided in Viterbo, Orvieto, and Perugia, and then Avignon. The return of the popes to Rome after the Avignon Papacy was followed by the Western Schism: the division of the western church between two and, for a time, three competing papal claimants.
The papacy reached a high point of corruption in the 10th cent., when the Holy See was cynically bought and sold. Under Leo IX reform began, but bitter feeling between East and West brought the break with patriarch of Constantinople; late in the 11th cent. sweeping reforms were carried out by the forceful Gregory VII. From that time forward the relative power of the papacy in quarrels with the emperor and with the kings of England, France, Naples, and Spain depended largely on the successes of individual popes and individual rulers. Pope Alexander III was pitted against Roman Emperor Frederick I and against King Henry II of England, and Pope Innocent III, despite opposition by Emperor Otto IV and Emperor Frederick II, made himself virtual arbiter of the West. Innocent's reign marked the zenith of papal secular power. As a religious leader Innocent worked to reform clerical morals and combat heresy. He ordered a crusade against the heretical Albigenses in S France that ended disastrously and cast a shadow over his pontificate. A century later Boniface VIII, an able canon lawyer, proved himself no match for the ruthless king of France, Philip IV.
A central point at issue in the 11th and 12th century was investiture, but the conflict was far wider and deeper. Although all in the West affirmed that Christendom was under the pope in Rome, that affirmation had little bearing on the question of papal supremacy in secular affairs. By crowning Charlemagne, Leo III at once sponsored the empire and sanctioned the creation of a state which, as the Roman Empire, was to be the chief antagonist of the papacy for centuries.
Pope Clement V in 1309 deserted Rome for Avignon and the domination of France. During the so-called Babylonian captivity all the popes were French, all lived at Avignon, and all were under the control of the French kings. The Avignonese papacy represented the culmination of the administrative structure of the church, which reached into almost all corners of Europe. Pope Gregory XI—acting partly on the advice of St. Catherine of Siena and St. Bridget of Sweden—moved the papacy back to Rome. But the church was immediately plunged into the disorder of the Great Schism.
There were two or even three rival popes at a time called anti-popes. The schism ended in the Council of Constance. Since then, apart from the abortive revolt at the Council of Basel, there has been no schism in the papacy. Subsequently, the pope had little real power outside Italy, and no 15th-century pope was prepared to attempt serious reform, which would have required challenging the vested interests of bishops, cardinals, and princes. Indeed, in the 15th century the papal court made Rome a brilliant Renaissance capital, enriched by some of the finest art of the West. The Renaissance popes, however, were little distinguished from other princes in the extravagance and immorality of their courts.
The Renaissance Papacy is known for its artistic and architectural patronage, forays into European power politics, and theological challenges to papal authority. After the start of the Protestant Reformation, the Reformation Papacy and Baroque Papacy led the Catholic Church through the Counter-Reformation. The popes during the Age of Revolution witnessed the largest expropriation of wealth in the church's history, during the French Revolution and those that followed throughout Europe. The Roman Question, arising from Italian unification, resulted in the loss of the Papal States and the creation of Vatican City, which still stands today.
The popes throughout this time varied greatly but most of them were very wealthy and had a ton of power. In general, the popes tended to misuse their power and wealth for selfish desires or mislead opinions. Many caused wars and killed thousands of people for their religion. Though there were some who were kind and generous, in general most of the popes lived maliciously.
I would not have been able to live in the middle ages. I have been raised in an exponentially more wealthy environment and would not give many of the things we take for granted up. My main focus would be the lack of food the general population received. It would be very difficult for me to live in the middle ages due to this.

Bibliography
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