LESSON 8 - 3RD AGE [CONVERSION OF • This gave rise to the feudal system.

The
THE BARBARIANS] Empire fell apart into pieces of land,
which were divided among "lords", who
1. Growth made all kinds of alliances and kept
declaring war among themselves.
• The coalition of apostolic forces, • Bishops became feudal lords and
monasticism, and the papacy, created a participated in the constant and
new Christian culture in the Western complicated intrigues and warfare.
world after the fall of the Roman Empire. • Roman families contested the papacy,
• Benedict expected from his monks a vow with the emperor as the final arbitrator.
to observe "stability of location." This was • One pope after another was murdered by
radically rethought by Pope Gregory I the a contending family. The emperor
Great (590-604). He sent Augustine of intervened and added more violence. It
Canterbury to England. ended up with a twelve-year-old boy
• The Benedictines continued to be in orbit occupying the papal throne.
and extended their missionary work to • Western Christianity experienced its
the European continent. darkest age.
• The Benedictine monk, St. Boniface, was • Nevertheless, there was some light
called the "Apostle of Germany. “ because of the continuing missionary
• Gregory had also become the actual ruler activity to the Scandinavian peoples and
of Rome. He initiated contact with the Poland.
tribe of the Franks, who gradually • The Byzantine Empire founded the
conquered Western Europe and took Russian Church.
pride in protecting the papacy.
LESSON 9 - 4TH AGE [UNITED
2. Achievements
CHRISTIAN EUROPE]
• Benedict received the title of the "Father
of the West. “ With the invasion of the 1. Growth
barbarians, Western culture lost its center
in the cities. The new center of Christian • The Church recovered, thanks to a
culture became the monasteries, which monastic reform. She began with the
brought the cross (the Christian foundation of the monastery of Cluny
message), the book (the Western (903) in France.
culture), and the plow (promotion of • Cluny had been given, by its lay founder
civilization and new settlements) to the (a duke), the right to select its own abbot.
barbarian tribes. This meant that Cluny was independent
• The Germanic tribes were won over to from the system of secular control. A
Christianity rather quickly. large number of monasteries joined ranks
• The successors of Pope Gregory with Cluny. This created a powerful
strengthened their contacts with the spiritual force against lay investiture,
Franks, leading to the alliance of the which was the right of the king or nobility
Frankish monarchy, the papacy, and the to appoint and to install bishops and
Benedictines. other prelates.
• Pepin (d 768) became the protector of the
Pope's rule over a large portion of Italy. • Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
This is at the origin of the papal state  One of the most powerful spiritual leaders
which lasted until 1870. of Christianity.
• His son, Charles, who continued this  Became the counselor of popes and
policy, became the unifier of Western kings.
Europe and was finally crowned "Emperor • Monastics had taken hold of the papacy
of the Romans" by Pope Leo III (800). and started to lead the reform movement.
• Charlemagne and his immediate • Pope Gregory VII (1073- 1085) (initially
successors brought a certain measure of monk Hildebrand)
order and welfare. There was an  Famous for the conflict about the lay
awakening of studies, a strengthening of investiture with the German Emperor
monastic life, and a renewal of liturgical Henry IV.
and theological activity. The Latin  The emperor was forced to submit to the
ecclesiastical culture survived because of pope's authority at the castle of Canossa
the Carolingian Empire.  Pope Gregory finally lost the battle and
narrowly escaped from Henry's troops.
3. Decline  A settlement was finally reached in the
Concordat of Worms (1122), making the
• Partly due to the advance of Islam, trade popes and bishops independent of
declined. Money practically disappeared. imperial control.
The only source and expression of wealth  Prepared the way for the powerful papacy
was now land. of the next century, by establishing the
judicial structure of the Church.
 The Church came to be seen as a visible, • The Gospel did not, and will not, offer a
hierarchically structured organization with justification for such a shameful
supreme power vested in the pope. It is persecution and Church-sponsored
this judicial vision, which became terrorism.
normative at the Council of Trent (1545-
63). 3. Retreat

2. Achievements • Nationalism supported by the growing

bourgeoisie, while spelling the end of
• The thirteenth century is often described feudalism, also marked the end of the
as the golden age of the Church. medieval dream of a single people under
• The papacy reached the height of its one emperor or one pope.
prestige and power in the person of • The decline of the papacy was clear and
Innocent III (1198-1216). rapid.
• Monasticism continued to develop, with • Pope Boniface VIII, who declared "that for
the birth of two mendicant orders: the every human creature to be submissive
Franciscans (Saint Francis of Assisi) and to the Roman pontiff is absolutely
the Dominicans (Saint Dominic of necessary for salvation" (The Bull Unam
Guzmán). These new orders penetrated Sanctam, 1302), was imprisoned by the
the universities and produced some of the French king. His successors moved to
greatest theologians of the Church. Avignon in France, where they stayed in
Among them were Thomas Aquinas (a "Babylonian captivity" (1309-77).
Dominican) and Bonaventure (a • This was followed by the "Great Western
Franciscan). Schism", in which there were at the same
time two popes (Avignon and Rome) and
• Cities became centers of economic even a third one (Pisa).
wealth, culture, and learning. They • Conciliarism put an end to the schism by
developed Gothic architecture, with its making the Church, which is gathered in a
cathedrals, city halls, and houses of a council, the highest authority in the
new class of people, the bourgeoisie, who Church (Council of Constance 1414-18).
lived by trade. • The papacy, somehow, recovered its
• The style of the Sagrada Família is authority after Constance.
variously likened to Spanish Late Gothic, • But, again, it was carried away by the
Catalan Modernism or Art Nouveau. spirit of the Renaissance.
• Popes became preoccupied with the
• The bourgeoisie is a class of business embellishment of Rome, enjoying life in
owners and merchants that emerged in beautiful palaces, and joining in the
the Late Middle Ages, originally as a intrigues and wars of the Italian nobility.
"middle class" between peasantry and • Monasteries and bishopries shared in the
aristocracy. power and riches of the papacy, and also
in its corruption.
• The middle Ages had some dark pages. • By the end of the middle Ages, theology
• It is difficult to appreciate the Crusades, and learning at the universities were in
which were said to be motivated by a crisis. Theology degenerated into
religious reason: the recovery of the Holy intellectual gymnastics, totally detached
Land from the "infidel" Muslims. from the life of people.
• However, they were used as violent • Medieval learning, based on the Christian
outlets for the war-loving feudal nobles, tradition, was challenged by the
who fought their battles in a distant land, Renaissance intellectuals, who derived
trying to grab land and power. their inspiration from ancient pagan
• The Fourth Crusade, among others, did tradition.
not attack the Muslims. • Several reform movements tried to turn
• Rather, it occupied and ransacked the the tide. The great mystics of the late
Christian city of Constantinople (1204). middle Ages (Meister Eckhart and others)
offered an alternative to the lifeless
• Another dark page is the Inquisition, theology. Leaders such as John Huss and
which was started by Innocent III against the Dominican friar Savonarola made an
a group of heretics. attempt to reconnect with Scripture. Both
• The Catholic Church, which was later ended up being burned as heretics.
joined by the Reformation, hunted,
tortured, and burned thousands of • We still have to mention the end of the
heretics, Jews, and witches. Byzantine Empire.
• Some offer, as an excuse, the context • After many quarrels, Rome broke from its
that cruelty was normal within medieval relationship with Constantinople and
justice. declared the Patriarch a heretic in 1054.
• A theological verdict is very different,
however.
• In the subsequent centuries, the power of
Byzantine continued to decline (cf the
Fourth Crusade).
• The Turks finally overran the Empire in
1453.

• The Middle Ages was a time of the

greatest contrasts and contradictions.
• It was a time of great sanctity and a time
of much nonsense.
• It was a time when many Christians made
incredible sacrifices on behalf of the
Gospel and a time when others grew rich
from careers in the Church.
• It was a time for great saints and a time
for glaring sinners.
• Francis of Assisi called the age in which
he lived 'times of malice and iniquity.
• “Never before has the Gospel been so
exalted and so defamed all in one era and
culture. Little wonder that as the High
Middle Ages came crashing to an end,
many people wanted to do away with the
Catholic Church altogether, and replace it
with something else." (Anthony Gilles)