Gregorian reform week

AS we have already seen when we looked at Charlemagne church and secular administration were closely linked, the church rep often acted on behalf of there secular counterparts. The clergy of course were often more highly educated, with some of the clerks not even knowing how to write. The majority of people led a kind of desperate life, as a result of plague, destruction etc. whole of the west was thinly populated, towns had no more than a few thousand people. This was the early 10th century, everything after changed, trade opening, agriculture expanded, prosperity came to europe.
There was one stable element - the benedictine monasteries. Best lifestyle was to be a monk or to contribute to these communities.
Patronage and self interest of layman
Very early on it became in western europe and england as well, it became very popular to found monastery and to keep putting money into them. Often founded by families. The founding families remained closely linked to monasteries there families had founded, often interfering with monastic affairs. Although strictly owned by the church, the families continued to have an interest. Quite often families could redirect funds away from the monastery into there own secular homes. Monasteries eventually tried to get away from this interference.
Monasteries were also very useful to put surplus children into these communities, marriage dowries were more expensive than monastic dowries, if there were particularly minging it may be difficult to marry them off anyway. plus they would be able to act on behalf of the family within the monastic network, working in the interests of the family, by gaining extra land etc. These cannoness’ defending the interests of there families were also found in Europe.
Piety was also a driving force, monasteries had to pray for there benefactors, those afraid of the last judgement, the world at large etc. founding a monastery was very good in the eyes of God etc.
These people were well aware of there questionable behavior however, when it came to pleasing God. Pilgrimage again shows about the idea about pleasing God.
After 909, movements of reform started within monasteries. For example, Cluny and Gorze. Both abbeys accepted that the liturgy and the lifestyle had changed since the time of benedictine and modified the rule, more time was alloted to worship and prayer, and did not try to revive the manual labour of the early days, they were only prepared to teach oblates. But Cluny and Gorze differed in other ways as well. Despite the big libraries in Cluny because of the long hours of prayer, they did not have much time to read, no good theologians emerged from there. Gorze on the other side, had a shorted liturgy and were extremely important to the intellectual emergence.
William of Aquiten the founded of Cluny made his abbey free from any outside influence, in his founding charter he said they would be free from his family or any earthly power. He clearly saw the problem between having lay patrons and he monasteries they founded, so he made his free from even his own interference. This brought about many ideas about the independence of the church which we later see in gregorian reform. He appealed to the papacy and the secular authorities to protect the abbey. The pope also freed it from local jurisdiction of the bishop, making it directly answerable to Rome.
Cluny was absolutely huge, but it got bombed.
Great abbots of Cluny : Odilo 994-1048 and Hugh 1049-1109
Different names for the times reform:
the cluniac reform, gregorian reform, but the pope leo was better - Leonian reform. The best way to put it is called papal reform - a bit colorless but it avoids these wrong labeling. in any case the reforms of the following centuries are inspired from monastic ideas and had sprung up form the monasteries, popes were generally once monks.
The Papacy before reform...
papacy was dominated by local factions in Rome, trying to gain authority of the city and of the pope.
Benedictine the IX was rubbish, he wanted to marry and retire. he sold the papacy to someone who took papacy to gregory VI who was interested in reform but he had a competitor Sebastian III, so Benedict decided to not retire, so there was three popes, so the emperor stepped in deposed them all and appointed his friend and cousin, Leo IX in 1049. This marks the beginning of papal reform.
Up to this time papacy had always been a venerable institution despite some bizarre occupants, however the pope was still the vicar of st. peter, guarding his body and was the visible representation of peter on earth. this was the basis of the pope’s authority on earth, rome was the place of peter on earth, materially and spiritually. Hence it was a pilgrimage site. So comes the donation of constantine, which was actually a fake, saying that Rome had authority over all the other seats and all the other churches. Leo got rid of it (I THINK!)
Leo introduced the ideas of papal reform into the church.
Simony meant the purchase of ecclesiastical offices - a very widespread practice contrary to canon law, so some authorities had already condemned this practice. Because offices mean people would be administrating the sacrament, simony was seen as the sale of the holy spirit.
The people of cluny tried to get rid of the local bishops, and managed to eventually get exemption. Managing to be directly answerable to the pope. This was not a new thing but they were the first to use it extensively. This created an idea that there could be a problem, in this close link between church and state. So the reform started with Leo, it was also called Cluniac reform. Not only because of there action but many people involved in papal reform were originally monks. So many monastic ideas came into the church.
The issue of simony - which had always been forbidden but unofficially happened all the time - from Simon in Acts 8.
Another thing people fought against was Nicholaism (clerical celibacy). Monks had always been celibate, a mark of monasticism. Now it was spread church wide. In practice celibacy among clergy had never been enforced, clerical marriage was respected. But now with growing emphasis on the sacraments, things were coming into focus, importance to make clergy celibate.
Another problem, these priests who were married were so often proprietary churches, belonging to lords. Having clergy who had families, were much easier to control. A single man was not so easy to control.
Creation of papacy has a kind of monarchy was beginning to be shaped.
Papal reformers demanded:
libertas - freedom from secular control, so all clergy are free for spiritual issues.
Problem: leading figures of the church were very often administrators for there king, if you demand disengagement, they could no longer be involved in secular issues. This would rob the kings of there administrative elite, which they were not happy about and would rob the bishops of there high up secular posts, which they were unhappy about. Quite often these bishops were not holy.
The reforms were after an ideal, that did not exist.
Even though simony may not have been exactly happening, secular and church had become intertwined, the secular interfered with the church. To the reformers this was just as bad and in there writing, the meaning of simony was often inter changeable.
Gregory VII
Gregory VII came after Leo IV, perhaps more famous than Leo than he should be but other big reformer pope. Once called my holy satan because of the fervor he went about things. Very much a roman, a child of St Peter, he saw himself as his vicar in his papacy. His role models were the OT prophets who rebuked kings etc. loved Elijah. Very sure of God’s support so went around things head first. His will was Gods irrespective of other suffering. Though not academically inclined, he was educated. His letters, are full of biblical quotations from the OT, contemporaries likened him to Elijah, a military prophet. His favorite bit, Jeremiah 48v10, something about power of the sword!
The clash of Gregory and Henry IV, popes letter had often criticized the emperor but finally this antagonism finally erupted. At the route of the controversy lay the problem of separation of lay and spiritual power, state and church. The controversy was not to be solved in the middle ages - who has the upper hand.
The pope is not just his representative but Peter’s alter ego, therefore appointed by Christ, so had Christ’s authority. Before now all ministers were assumed to somehow be Christ’s vicars, now it’s quite clear that it’s not anyone who wields authority - princes had often claimed to be vicars of Christ. Now it was the popes claim alone.
We have all sorts of evidence that says that the emperors regulated the church so that there was peace, good will and order. The anti-papists were conservatives, there’s been order so far, why change it?
Anonymous of York: wrote in the interest of the anglo norman kings. He developed a vision of the the sacred nature of kingship, stressing the divine nature of kingly power symbolized by the anointing of kings. For him the king is more the vicar of christ than king. Both the clergy and the kings had been seen as vicars, anon sees the vicar, although he never actually mentioned the popes claims in his writing.
Third way is to see both powers as equal. Luther wrote something on this later.
The practice of lay intervention in the election of bishops, although this had come under criticism in several councils, finally in 1075 Gregory actually condemned the practice. King Henry on the other hand was not prepared to give up his legislative rights and got involved in the elections again, Gregory was furious and excommunicated the king.
The story: Henry, unlike his father did not have the sense to know what would excite the church, his father would never have invested a bishop there by simony. However, Henry had his followers, some bishops got together to depose the pope! Henry wrote saying he saw himself equal, Henry excommunicated the king, so he could no longer be king, so he was deposed.
The pope also now set about getting revenge on the bishops, so the bishops and german princes started to think again. They were afraid to loose there power, so they thought it was not good to support deposed king, but thought they could strengthen there own power so said that they would depose the king unless he asked for absolution. The princes thought they were on top because they thought this wouldn’t happen. However, Henry could go to meet the pope and ask for mercy. Various noble types tried to block the passes through the alps, however Henry slipped through. The pope however was trying to go north to meet with the german princes, fearing physical retaliation from the King. He went to a cathedral in Canossa, a monk describes how the king humiliated himself outside the castle for 2 days before being let in to see the pope. The pope relented and forgave him. The king’s humiliation made a great impression on his peers, papal supremacy had been seen. The pope won. However in the long run, the king won out. The pope lost the support of the nobles who had wanted the king deposed. The German princes did not welcome the lift, nor did they like the popes claim of supremacy. Civil war broke out. But in 1080, Henry solved the civil war and things claimed down. But Henry, still angry about Canossa, declare the pope deposed and kept electing his own popes. Eventually he lay siege to Rome, Gregory fled and Henry put his own pope in. Gregory called on the support of southern Italy, who did help. But Gregory died soon after.
Gregory’s claim gave up the claim of papal supremacy. The kings also gave up investiture. However the problem of lay investiture still remained, like in England. Compromise reached. Henry V gave up investiture by handing over ring and staff but was allowed to be present at election and was allowed to grant land, which he symbolized with a scepter - a symbol of worldly things, not spiritual.
The controversy was on ended and went on until the reformation came the conflict was totally out dated. One of the best known victims was St Thomas, he came from a wealthy merchant background, educated at the archbishop of Canterbury's school when Henry II came to throne, Thomas was made chancellor. He became a friend of Henry. So Henry made him arch bishop when the position became free. But the arch bishopric changed him, so the person who had loved good living, starting living an ascetic life. os when the king wanted a tighter grip on the english church, Henry did not want to stand up to his friend but in the time of papal reform, he rued his action and appealed to the pope that these things were not right, but appeals had been forbidden in some edict. Thomas was called to the kings presence but slipped out in the night, sensing danger and went to France for 6 years, eventually agreements were reached and Thomas returned, but the King was angry. One day, the king muttered, will no one rid me of this low born priest. four of his knights took this as a hint to go kill Thomas, who was then murdered in his own church. Although the king admitted in private that his words may have been taken as an order, the king was actually saddened by the death of his friend. Although the nobles did not like Thomas, the people really did and saw him as a good representative of the church. He soon became a saint.
The papal reform had brought with in a new interest in learning, in intellectual activities. The reform monasteries had assembled big libraries but since they only educated there own, they were not as important as the cathedral school, who educated young clerics who worked closer to the world than the monks. The most important thing, like in paris for example, where a number of schools were founded. These were centered around a teacher, and pupils came to a teacher to hear about theology etc. e.g. Avigala. Soon we get universities, bigger institutions of teachers and students who formed a legal body of it’s own e.g. Paris - theology, Bologna - law. Universities were based around the 7 Liberal arts - the quadrivium - geometry, astronomy, arithmetic and music and trivium - grammar, rhetoric and logic. But problems emerging, authorities were very often saying different things, disputations arising. Avigla, wrote book yes and no. He collected discordant authorities and his followers had to discuss which should be precedent, thus the scholastic method is started,