Summary
The medieval problem of church and state was a version of the perpetual question facing a religion which claimed to be in the world but not of it, which preached about morals and social order yet refused to be identified with any particular such order. The medieval-European church–state relationship was unique, and ‘the West’ had a problem not so acutely felt elsewhere, because of the particular way Christianity had become institutionalised there, and the sort of polities which, partly as a consequence of this, had developed there. On the one hand, the church was in theory and largely in practice coterminous with society as ‘the association of the faithful’ (universitas fidelium), ‘Christian society’ (societas Christiana), ‘the Roman church’ or ‘the Christian republic’. On the other hand, both secular and ecclesiastical authorities were deemed to be of divine institution. The papacy was credited with the moral and spiritual leadership of a community of peoples in which kingdoms, duchies, city-states and other bodies were the actual units of government. Incidentally, this sometimes meant that it was possible for political, and on occasion religious, dissenters to find a haven.
In the form in which we find it in the middle of the thirteenth century, the debate went back to the late eleventh century, and lasted until, with the Reformation, the church ceased to be coterminous with society. The papacy's spiritual authority and actual power had been expanded by the reform movement associated with pope Gregory VII (1073–85).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Political Thought in Europe, 1250–1450 , pp. 42 - 84Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992