Political Crossfire Forums

[sherborne]

bob.appleyard wrote: sherborne wrote: I agree and disagree! I agree with your argument, but i think it took a long time for medieval persons to realise your logic. In the mean time, they were confounded by the dogmatism of the catholic church. Who happened to have a massive sway over their policies. Lets not forget that the policy of excommunication was a huge infringement on ones own life: No marriage, No funeral, no baptism, but most importantly, no real contact with every cristian, which was a powerful motive indeed. In the reformation the pope deemed it "holy" and "gods work" if one was to kill Elizabeth. The Spanish launched a campaign to bring the English back to the true faith. I personally thank god that they didnt succeed!

Well, I think some people got it: there are rumours, for instance, of King John considering turning England Muslim, just to spite the Pope! Excommunication's effects depended on your position: if a king, or a prince, or a senescal was excommunicated, it just meant the enemies he already had had another pretext for whatever they were going to do anyway. It very rarely had any effect on relations with his subjects (they would have been excommunicated too, remember).

You are correct in that the Church exerted enormous influence. They couldn't verbally attack the Pope, or raise an army against him (well, not very often, anyway). In fact, they were often obliged to praise him publicly. However, the power of the Church could be used to administer regional policies (hence the battle over simony). Even within the hierarchy, at the height of papal power, the networks of influence were fairly loose and easily accessible to secular rulers with a bit of nouse. This could be compared to the UN today in this respect, in that all the member states officially praise the institution, while many of them are attempting to subvert its operation, very often to their own ends.

Yes, but in a way your presupposing that barons were under the complete control of their monarch. They werent! Its all relative dont forget. Feudal bonds, although very strong, were not absaloute. There were countless of wars amongst feudal barons. There were hardly any against the papacy. It took untill the reformation untill a soverign ruler had the guts to stand up to the catholic church. Even then, it was a pretty close run thing because of the moral force that they exerted in europe.

[sherborne]

Saracen wrote: sherborne wrote: But Saladin was a Kurd. He has only had a renaissance in the Muslim world recently. Before him i think you will find that Nur al Din recieved more praise. I think the reason for Saladins renaissance has been largely down to the wests glorification of him - hence- he is a hero! Zenghi is another interesting charcter: The Genghis Kahn of the Muslims!

I know of Nur al Din. He was quite a leader, but didn't receive as much acclaim as did Saladin, or as we name him in Arabic "Salah el Din".

I read this piece by an arab historian who said that Saladin had a rennaissance in the late 19th century. Before that he noted that Nur al Din was considered more heroic because he laid the framework for a concerted resistance effort against the west. He woke the Muslim world up to fact that they were being religiously persecuted effectivley. Zenghi was also afforded certain acclaim because he delivered the first major victory against the west.

Arab historians dont really aknowledge what was happening in the west untill quite late. In that respect their a bit like the Byzantines, but a bit slower. Arab historians for instance didnt realise for quite a while that what was being used against them was Holy war prosecuted by the Latin church. Then Nur al Din formed his counter movement for the Islamic world. What prompted this was Zenghi. Then it was finished off by Saladin. But im sure im right in saying that Nur al Din was the hero of the story up until about the turn of the last century (i.e. about 1900).

[bob.appleyard]

sherborne wrote: bob.appleyard wrote: sherborne wrote: I agree and disagree! I agree with your argument, but i think it took a long time for medieval persons to realise your logic. In the mean time, they were confounded by the dogmatism of the catholic church. Who happened to have a massive sway over their policies. Lets not forget that the policy of excommunication was a huge infringement on ones own life: No marriage, No funeral, no baptism, but most importantly, no real contact with every cristian, which was a powerful motive indeed. In the reformation the pope deemed it "holy" and "gods work" if one was to kill Elizabeth. The Spanish launched a campaign to bring the English back to the true faith. I personally thank god that they didnt succeed!

Well, I think some people got it: there are rumours, for instance, of King John considering turning England Muslim, just to spite the Pope! Excommunication's effects depended on your position: if a king, or a prince, or a senescal was excommunicated, it just meant the enemies he already had had another pretext for whatever they were going to do anyway. It very rarely had any effect on relations with his subjects (they would have been excommunicated too, remember).

You are correct in that the Church exerted enormous influence. They couldn't verbally attack the Pope, or raise an army against him (well, not very often, anyway). In fact, they were often obliged to praise him publicly. However, the power of the Church could be used to administer regional policies (hence the battle over simony). Even within the hierarchy, at the height of papal power, the networks of influence were fairly loose and easily accessible to secular rulers with a bit of nouse. This could be compared to the UN today in this respect, in that all the member states officially praise the institution, while many of them are attempting to subvert its operation, very often to their own ends.

Yes, but in a way your presupposing that barons were under the complete control of their monarch. They werent! Its all relative dont forget. Feudal bonds, although very strong, were not absaloute. There were countless of wars amongst feudal barons. There were hardly any against the papacy. It took untill the reformation untill a soverign ruler had the guts to stand up to the catholic church. Even then, it was a pretty close run thing because of the moral force that they exerted in europe.

Where did you read that assumption? I certainly did not intend it. When I use terms like "secular rulers" I am not referring to kings, but barons up, as someone of the time would understand it.

[sherborne]

bob.appleyard wrote: sherborne wrote: bob.appleyard wrote: sherborne wrote: I agree and disagree! I agree with your argument, but i think it took a long time for medieval persons to realise your logic. In the mean time, they were confounded by the dogmatism of the catholic church. Who happened to have a massive sway over their policies. Lets not forget that the policy of excommunication was a huge infringement on ones own life: No marriage, No funeral, no baptism, but most importantly, no real contact with every cristian, which was a powerful motive indeed. In the reformation the pope deemed it "holy" and "gods work" if one was to kill Elizabeth. The Spanish launched a campaign to bring the English back to the true faith. I personally thank god that they didnt succeed!

Well, I think some people got it: there are rumours, for instance, of King John considering turning England Muslim, just to spite the Pope! Excommunication's effects depended on your position: if a king, or a prince, or a senescal was excommunicated, it just meant the enemies he already had had another pretext for whatever they were going to do anyway. It very rarely had any effect on relations with his subjects (they would have been excommunicated too, remember).

You are correct in that the Church exerted enormous influence. They couldn't verbally attack the Pope, or raise an army against him (well, not very often, anyway). In fact, they were often obliged to praise him publicly. However, the power of the Church could be used to administer regional policies (hence the battle over simony). Even within the hierarchy, at the height of papal power, the networks of influence were fairly loose and easily accessible to secular rulers with a bit of nouse. This could be compared to the UN today in this respect, in that all the member states officially praise the institution, while many of them are attempting to subvert its operation, very often to their own ends.

Yes, but in a way your presupposing that barons were under the complete control of their monarch. They werent! Its all relative dont forget. Feudal bonds, although very strong, were not absaloute. There were countless of wars amongst feudal barons. There were hardly any against the papacy. It took untill the reformation untill a soverign ruler had the guts to stand up to the catholic church. Even then, it was a pretty close run thing because of the moral force that they exerted in europe.

Where did you read that assumption? I certainly did not intend it. When I use terms like "secular rulers" I am not referring to kings, but barons up, as someone of the time would understand it.

Ok let me rephrase. The catholic church was about as powerful, if not more powerful, than the soverigns of England and France. Not until about 1350 were the soverigns of those 2 countries powerful enough to take on the papacy. Because the problem comes in that the papacy could invoke potentially all of europe to fight its wars. Thats the issue im trying to put forward.

[bob.appleyard]

sherborne wrote: Ok let me rephrase. The catholic church was about as powerful, if not more powerful, than the soverigns of England and France. Not until about 1350 were the soverigns of those 2 countries powerful enough to take on the papacy. Because the problem comes in that the papacy could invoke potentially all of europe to fight its wars. Thats the issue im trying to put forward.

I think it's much more debateable (probably why we've been debating it). Your comparisons to the kings of England and France may hold, I will outline my thoughts on each below. However, those two were on-off enemies of the Pope, and they had little interest in attacking him. There were other monarchs which did take an interest in attacking him, though.

Way more powerful than the kings of France for a very long time. From Charlemagne to the 11th Century it was all decay in Francia. Up until Louis VI/VII the French monarchy's power in anything but the most superficial sense was limited to the area around Paris (the Isle de France). Until maybe 1230 you could quite comforatbly state that the counts of Burgundy were more powerful than the Kings of France. No problems there.

England's a different issue. The Church was a powerful and organised part of English life since perhaps Edgar's time, but it was a tool of the monarchy. Bishoprics, even after the simony laws, were handed out as rewards for good service of royal administration officials by English kings. The Pope had quite limited say as to what the kings did, despite their efforts to the contrary.

I can see why, compared to the Kings of England and France, you could draw those conclusions. However, the pope was more of a help than a hindrance to these rulers anyway. Furthermore, these were not the most powerful states in Europe before about 1250.

Onto the groups that had more reasons to fight the pope: his neighbours. The Pope would have had a time of it when you consider northern Italy, had not most of the cities been bitterly opposed to imperial rule, and so were prepared to make alliances with the Pope (which, incidentally, never lasted). But that was a divided region. Southern Italy from the middle of the 11th Century onwards was coalescing, until in 1130 it fell into the hands of one man. He was, officially, the vassal of the papacy. However, every time the pope tried to get him to do something, he would have a fit and they'd have to back down. Here's an illustration of an incident between King Roger and Lucius II, from the Catholic Encyclopaedia:

Quote: shortly after his accession he had a conference with King Roger of Sicily at Ceperano early in June, 1144, for the purpose of reaching an understanding with the king regarding his duties as a vassal of the Apostolic See. Roger's demands, however, were so extravagant that Lucius on the advice of his cardinals rejected them. The king now had recourse to arms and Lucius was forced to conclude a truce on terms that were dictated by Roger.

They had the popes wrapped around their little fingers.

You see, the real powers of medieval Europe were not kings or churchmen, but strongmen who didn't give a s**t (in this case, enough to decide one day: "I think I'll be king" and then sticking two fingers up at the Pope when he said "err, no").

These popes and kings were both trying to wrest (and maintain) power from their underlings (including the princes). They were most successful when they supported each other. However, while the spiritual power of the Pope (although it was mostly the Church in general) complemented the temporal powers of the kings quite well, on an almost daily basis, the pope could only get the converse in a crusading context, which as I said in an earlier post, was hardly binding.