How the Papacy Came to Power Essay

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Rise of the Papacy in the Middle Ages

The Bishop of Rome had always exerted the highest authority in the Church since the time that St. Peter took root there, recognized by the Church as the first Pope.[footnoteRef:1] His successor St. Linus followed in Peter's footsteps, as did each of the successors on down the line throughout the centuries (with the exception of the Avignon Popes during the Great Western Schism). That Rome should serve as the center of the new Church even after the Roman Empire fell is no surprise, as John Farrow notes: "It was inevitable that the new religion should spread to Rome. All roads led to the seat of the Imperial splendor, all things came there, for in truth it was the center of the known world."[footnoteRef:2] Thus it was quite natural for Peter to establish himself there, for as head of Christ's Church, he was spiritual head of the world -- and Rome was the place where authority was recognized and asserted. How and why the papacy in Rome became the center of power as it did, growing in power and prestige from the 6th to the 9th centuries has everything to do with the new alliances formed in Dark Ages (Early Middle Ages) going into the High Medieval Age -- and, like everything else, the power and prestige came with positive and negative consequences. This paper will discuss the ramifications of this reality as well as the nature of how it came to be. [1: John Farrow, Pageant of the Popes (NY: Sheed & Ward, 1942), 5.] [2: John Farrow, Pageant of the Popes (NY: Sheed & Ward, 1942), 3.]

Prior to the rise of Karl der Grosse, better known in the Western world as Charlemagne (Charles the Great), Europe was a disunited rabble of various tribes who were the missionary targets of the early Church missionaries extending their pathways throughout Europe. The Merovingian king Clovis I of the Franks had converted in the latter end of the 5th century, encouraging the spread of Christianity and the scope of the missionaries. As the power of the Roman Empire flagged in the face of the various ailments knocking away the State's supports, other leaders came to the fore -- both among the barbarian tribes and among the Christian sects. For example, in Constantinople, the Byzantium saw the positive effect of aligning itself with the strengthening Christian religion and thus it was that Theodosius II and Valentinian III identified together the "bishop of Rome" as the "rector of the whole Church," neatly situating the power and prestige of Rome within the Seat of a rather unearthly (i.e., spiritual) candidate, whose moral message on Earth was one of saintliness (a stark contrast to the wars, corruption, and degeneracy that had plagued the Roman Empire in its waning days.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Jean Henri Merle d'Aubigne, History of the Reformation (Edinburgh: Blackie & Son, 1921), 27.]

Charlemagne as king of the Franks united Europe and brought his power into parallel with the power of the papacy in Rome when, as a Christian himself, he and his family protected the papacy from the Lombards and fought the Saxons on the other side of the Rhine. Pope Leo, who received substantial gifts from Charlemagne upon his election to the See of Peter at the end of the 8th century, was thus put in a position to give generously to the Church worldwide and support its expansion, its building-up and glorification of the Christian God through various labors and endeavors, and to essentially bestow great patronage upon burgeoning Christendom. In this manner, the papacy and the ruling elite formed a bond that helped solidify and strengthen the papacy in Rome. Leo for his part went on to crown Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas day in 800 AD as a sign of respect for the king who did so much to support the Church and bring stability to Europe. Plus, by uniting the concepts of holiness and Roman authority in the person of Karl, the Pope was creating a new image in which the Church played a central part in conferring and/or recognizing earthly power/authority to earthly kings; the part was essential in the manifestation of the role of the Church in the political governance of Christendom: by working with kings and rulers throughout the realm, the papacy in realm could exert influence (and, of course, vice versa -- as princes could also exert influence in Rome) and thus compel a more consistent and harmonious society across the realm, with a single ideal (that of Christianity) being used to serve to bring the different tribes and characters of the Middle Ages under the umbrella of the guiding mission of the Church.

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[footnoteRef:4] [4: John Laux, Church History (NY: Benziger Brothers, 1943), 245.]

To a large degree, Constantine had already set the stage in the 4th century for this consolidation of power between Church and Empire. Constantine conquered "in the sign of the cross" after receiving a Divine injunction ("in hoc signo vinces") to defeat Maxentius for the Roman seat in 312 AD.[footnoteRef:5] One of Constantine's first acts upon assuming power as Roman emperor was to alleviate the sufferings that had plagued the Christian Church till then, being driven underground as it was by pagan rule, and having suffered persecution. Constantine aligned himself with the papacy in Rome, recognizing the Church's right to practice publicly and thus giving the Church and the See of Peter (the Bishop of Rome) his first real official and imperial seal of approval. While the Empire went on to fall in the intervening years, the Bishop of Rome continued to maintain his special place, made all the more significant in the face of a society crumbling at the seams. The See of Peter served as a rock of stability -- a source of authority that was not dependent upon governments or political alliances/infrastructural works: the Church had its own network of support systems, of saints, brothers, missionaries, and traditions -- and this had survived and indeed strengthened in times of persecution; what reason then for them to fall apart just because the Roman Empire was coming to an end? The fact that the See of Peter continued to exert its influence throughout the Dark Ages only added to its prestige, and when Charlemagne, who, following in the tradition of Clovis (the first Frankish king to convert to Christianity), made public his desire to see the Church and the papacy protected and supported, the papacy in Rome took on a fuller sense of honor. This did not mean that the papacy was not still the target and/or place of intrigue. As a station of power and influence (essentially since the time of Constantine), the See of Peter attracted all manner of men seeking disparate aims. Thus, popes were assaulted, kidnapped, attacked, bribed, manipulated, etc. -- not because they were perceived as weak but because the position of influence that they held not only over the Church but also over the realm that was fast becoming Christendom.[footnoteRef:6] [5: Michael Maas, Readings in Late Antiquity (NY: Routledge, 2010), 111.] [6: John Farrow, Pageant of the Popes (NY: Sheed & Ward, 1942), 15-20.]

The factors that contributed to the papacy's dominance of Western Europe until the Reformation were thus tied up in the fact that the papacy represented Europe's spiritual authority on Earth and a uniting principle among the various princes of the different nations of Europe. To be fair, the popes had no real temporal authority over the kings and queens of Europe, and what authority they enjoyed existed only because the mass of the regional princes throughout this era also shared in the same faith as the popes and thus could be called upon to show the requisite amount of respect for the See of Peter, whose lineage could be followed all the way back to the disciple of Christ. Thus it was that Charlemagne deigned to be crowned by the pope; and thus it was that Napoleon snatched the crown from the pope some thousand years later to place it upon his head himself: the respect had vanished by that time; Napoleon was not an Emperor in Christendom, but an Emperor of the modern era. In between the Renaissance (which had a humanistic and naturalistic effect on the people of the late Middle Ages) and the Reformation (which had a splintering effect and an anti-papacy flare) occurred to break up the relatively unified Christian world that was Europe till then.

This is not to say that the popes throughout this era were all saintly, holy men, free of political intrigues and entanglements, sins of the flesh, and weaknesses of nerve. Far from it -- one of the negative ramifications of the reality of this time was that with the newfound respect of the sort that Charlemagne lavished upon Leo came a corrupting influence, most notably exampled by the Borgias in Italy, and particularly in Pope Alexander VI, who ruled….....

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