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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

XVI. THE PAPACY AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, 962-1273 A.D.

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

Characteristics of the Medieval Church   * Church Doctrine and Worship   * Church Jurisdiction   * The Secular Clergy   * The Regular Clergy   * The Friars   * Power of the Papacy   * Popes and Emperors, 962-1122 A.D.   * Popes and Emperors, 1122-1273 A.D.   * Significance of the Medieval Church

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POPES AND EMPERORS, 962-1122 A.D.

RELATIONS BETWEEN POPE AND EMPEROR IN THEORY

One might suppose that there could be no interference between pope and emperor, since they seemed to have separate spheres of action. It was said that God had made the pope, as the successor of St. Peter, supreme in spiritual matters and the emperor, as heir of the Roman Caesars, supreme in temporal matters. The former ruled men's souls, the latter, men's bodies. The two sovereigns thus divided on equal terms the government of the world.

THEIR RELATIONS IN PRACTICE

The difficulty with this theory was that it did not work. No one could decide in advance where the authority the pope ended and where that of the emperor began. When the pope claimed certain powers which were also claimed by the emperor, a conflict between the two rulers became inevitable.

 

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy