The Church From 800 to 1073

The Holy Roman Empire

In the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as "Emperor of the Romans". This marked the beginning of what soon became known as the Holy Roman Empire. In reality, however, the empire was neither holy nor Roman - and within a few generations it wasn't much of an empire either.

The intention was for a firm alliance between the Church and the State but after the death of Charlemagne it degenerated into a power struggle with the Pope and the Emperor each trying to dominate the other. The Holy Roman Empire, however, did have a lasting effect European history. In theory the empire lasted just over 1000 years until Napolean finally abolished it in 1806.

Under Charlemagne, the empire took in the larger part of Europe and Charlemagne had considerable influence upon the Pope and the Clergy. He insisted upon the Church setting up schools and made laws concerning priests.

By the end of the reign of Charlemagne's son, Louis, the strength of the emperor was already weakening and was further weakened by the empire being split between Louis' three sons, Charles, Louis and Lothair. By 887 the Carolingian dynasty was falling apart. In 936 Otto I was declared king of the Eastern Franks, introducing the Saxon line and the last of the Carolingian kingdoms passed to other hands in 987.

Problems for Church and State

In the meantime, Muslim Pirates terrorised the mediterranean, Vikings brought terror to the North Western parts of the empire, Slavs, Bulgars and Magyars attacked in the East. During the Papal reign of John VIII, (872 - 882), The pope was forced to raise a naval force to keep the Muslims at bay - eventually having to pay annual tribute to them. (The pope paying protection money to the Muslims!)

The papacy itself grew very weak. Rich families were able to buy their way into papal power, in one 20 year period there were twelve popes. One pope, Benedict IX, was only 12 years old when he ascended the papal throne. As he grew older he was renowned for his disorderly conduct and was actually driven out of Rome several times by the citizens.

Despite all this, the Church continued to grow. Moravia, Bohemia, Poland and Hungary became Christian countries during this period. Norway turned to Christianity and, in turn, evangelised Iceland, Greenland and Sweden. In the meantime, the Eastern Church brought the Christian faith to Bulgaria and Russia.

As the political empire grew weaker, so the Pope's hold on kings and princes grew stronger. If a ruler did not obey the Pope, then excommunication could be brought to bear. If that did not work then interdiction could be used - this meant that a whole population would be without the services of the Church. This was usually enough to persuade the people to bring pressure on the ruler. The Pope usually won.

The Great Schism

Two major conflicts arose between the Eastern and Western Churches. The first is known as the Iconoclastic Controversy. This had first arisen in 726 when the Eastern Emperor had attempted to ban the use of statues and pictures in worship, reacting to the Muslim claim that such things were idols and that the Church was polytheistic. Eventually, the west rejected the iconoclastic movement while the east compromised by allowing only pictures. This, however, had caused a major rift between east and west.

The other conflict is known as the Filioque Controversy. The old creeds said that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father". The Roman Church had changed this to to say that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son." While this may not seem too heretical to us today, it was a major alteration to the creed which had not been agreed by the whole Church.

Other, less major, disagreements pushed the two parts of the Church further apart during this time and finally, in 1054, the Western - Roman - Church and the Eastern - Byzantine - Church finally separated, each excommunicating the other. The Western Church took the name of Catholic and the Eastern Church called itself Orthodox.