Fear God, Honor the King: Magisterial Power and the Church in the Reformation, circa 1470–1600

By Andrew Allan Chibi

From a medieval perspective, God had provided a church to shepherd believers toward salvation. It had a divine mission, a sacred history, a hierarchy of officers, and the intellectual support of respected thinkers. It provided a means for believers to interact with God. Believers also had to interact with neighbors, strangers, and their rulers. Fear God, Honor the King considers that sometimes surprisingly problematic issue. What is the correct relationship between the church, believers, and the ruling magisterial authority (whether alderman, mayors, or kings)? The thinkers of the Reformation era produced many answers. They explained in a variety of ways how the church related to, or fit in with, or was separate from, or was controlled by the temporal government of the realm, and they set into motion what became the determinant factors--social, political, economic, and philosophical--underpinning modern Western societies' determination to keep the church and the state in well-defined autonomous cubicles. The Reformers' rival ideas ushered in new philosophies (such as conciliarism and localism) as well as directly conflicting doctrines (such as Luther's two kingdoms or Bucer's co-terminus). This book examines, compares, and explains these new theories using the voices of the Reformers' themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: May 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725256651

Andrew Allan Chibi

Andrew Allan Chibi, whose work has appeared in many scholarly journals, is a freelance scholar and former Lecturer in Early Modern Europe at Leicester University. He is the author of The European Reformation (1999), Henry VIII's Bishops (2003), and The English Reformation (2004).

Book preview

Introduction

Historical Survey

How Had the Church Gained Such Vast Temporal Authorities?

The question of how is not all that difficult to answer. In essence, the church was handed temporal power by early imperial rulers who had been inconvenienced by the realities of a far-flung empire of diverse political and social characteristics. The church was a convenient means of control and oversight of the masses. Many reformers of the early modern period saw some level of malice behind the Roman Church’s brandishing of temporal power, but I take the position that this was little more than a natural progression. Over time, as more and more responsibilities became attached to the church’s original mandate to shepherd, defend, and teach the faithful,¹ the greater the authority it had by necessity to assume over the faithful. Eventually it got to the point where maintaining and justifying its secular authorities became almost the central focus of its spiritual authority.

As a result of this, tensions built in two critical arenas. First, between what was an international institution’s trying to impose hegemony on diverse populations and the rulers of those populations seeking to differentiate themselves as spurred on by nascent nationalism (or at least rising particularism). Second, between the church and its seeming obsession with material gain (e.g., it needed vast sums of money) and the people whose souls were in its care becoming increasingly anxious about their own spiritual welfare (spurred on by rising levels of popular piety and increasing anticlericalism) being ignored. The tensions became uncontainable by the sixteenth century.

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The Reformation as a Result of

Tension-Producing Causes

Why that series of events that historians call the Reformation happened towards the end of the late mediaeval and beginning of the early modern period, and why it happened as it did, can be understood as the result of a series of attempted resolutions to tensions produced by three stressful and long-term conflicts common throughout Christian Europe. The one which fully concerns us here was a centuries’ long political and philosophical dispute between an institutionalized church (based in Rome and ruled by a pope) claiming both universal ecclesiastical jurisdiction as well as considerable temporal authority outside of the Italian peninsula with the rapidly developing nation-states of western Europe eager to capture (or in theory recapture) and exploit the political, economic, and social potential of a feudal-like retention of power over ecclesiastical properties, doctrines, and personnel. Churchmen and magistrates faced up to each other over such questions as who held power over the particular clergy, local clerical property and, ultimately, over the membership of the particular (local or regional) church.

Was it the local political authority or the sometimes distant head of the universal church? Put another way, did the king of France rule over French churchmen, control church owned property, and oversee the beliefs of common Frenchmen, or were these in the hands of a distant and almost perpetually non-French pope? On the other side of the issue was the question of how much authority these local powers (whether spiritual or temporal) had over Christians generally.

Of the other sources of tension (with which we need some familiarity but with which we need not deal in depth), one was the result of conflicting intellectual propositions dating back to Plato and Aristotle searching for, but never quite achieving, a means to satisfactorily resolve the contradictions between dogmas thrust upon them by an institutionalized church with control over religious teachings (i.e., revelation) and the conclusions of reason and logic looking into those self-same dogmas and the issues they set out to explain (i.e., rationality). The greatest questions of the period revolved around the issues of predestination and salvation, of course, but explanations of God, Christ, and the church were also very important.

A third source of tension was caused by the conflict between an institutionalized church claiming monopoly over salvation and its associated doctrines (e.g., claiming only its members could be among the elect and only its ceremonies had real influence with God) and the growing attraction for more individualized pursuits of justification-worthy righteousness apart from the institution. While these were expressed in a number of ways, the most significant was the development of an internalized, experiential belief system sometimes called mysticism or sometimes spiritualism. This did not depend upon officially sanctioned external ceremonies, particular dogmas, or even upon membership in any particular church, nor did salvation depend on an accumulation of merits based on material culture (e.g., indulgences, pilgrimages, masses or relics). By the late mediaeval period the tensions caused by such long term conflicts had been exacerbated finally beyond containment by the emotional impact of the Black Death (mid-fourteenth-century) and the exploitation of the printing press (mid-fifteenth-century) to name but two. In other words, the building tensions finally split western Christendom into, as yet, irreconcilable factions. Here, without ignoring the other two tension producing causes we will concern ourselves with the many attempts to resolve the tension around the question of the relationship between the church and the state (or between churchmen and magistrates) exploring such issues as biblical exegesis, spheres of power, morality, discipline and the development of state churches.

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On the face of it, revelation (i.e., Scripture, the Bible, the Word of God) supports magisterial power. For instance, Matt 22:21 says, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s, while Rom 13:1 says, Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Again, 1 Pet 2:13–14 says, Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. Perhaps clearest of all, 1 Pet 2:17 says Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. These are among the most famous and most controversial Bible quotations.

In context, what was addressed here was a simple question of whether the Jews should pay taxes to their Roman overseers. This evolved into a philosophical debate on whether and how much God’s chosen people should be involved with government and secular authorities. Indeed, should the chosen people involve themselves in temporal matters at all and, vice versa, should secular powers have influence in the spiritual lives of the chosen people? The answer, nowadays and with our (theoretical) enforced separation of church and state, seems obvious, but in the late mediaeval/early modern western world, where church and state were intertwined, it was not such an easy question and many competing solutions were put forward. Comparing and evaluating these solutions is the basis on this study.

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Throughout most of the Western world nowadays the words church and state have clear meanings, but the relationship between them can still be vexing. To the modern observer they have clearly defined parameters and define separate entities with specific institutions, hierarchies, and internal logic. Indeed, the constitution of the United States officially separate them in order to avoid any kind of implied social or moral tyranny of one religious group over another. This has become the model of many secularization programs. When these terms are discussed in sociology classes, in popular culture, or on the evening news, we all vaguely know what they mean. And we know mainly because of the answers that evolved throughout the sixteenth century (or the so-called Reformation). But, at the end of the fifteenth century it was almost impossible to disentangle one from the other—churchmen claimed political authorities and temporal leaders tampered with ecclesiastical matters all the time.

The apex of the long struggle on behalf of the temporal power was probably Henry VIII’s achievement by the 1530s of recognition for royal supremacy in England from lay and clerical, external or international authorities (but this was not the only one). That king gained for himself (and his successors) not only doctrinal authority over a rapidly evolving state church (e.g., the authority to determine religious truth), but also disciplinary and administrative controls over its many functions and functionaries.² This famous quote sums it up nicely: By the ordinance and sufferance of God, we are king of England, and kings of England in time past have never had any superior but God only.³ While this is the most famous expression of Henry VIII’s thinking on royal sovereignty, it only really summed up political and social reality. Thomas Mayer noted another statement of twenty years earlier which states the king’s case even better.

During the English occupation of the French city of Tournai (captured in the 1510s) Henry VIII made several claims of exclusive authority over it, going so far as to isolate the urban clergy of the town from the normative French ecclesiastical patronage networks. In the king’s mind was this claim: we having the supreme power as lord and king in the regalie of Tournai without recognition of any superior owe of right to have the homage fealty and oath of fidelity as well of the said pretended bishop by reason of his temporalities which he holdeth of us as of other within the precincts of the same territory.⁴ What this means, simply, is that well before English parliamentary legislation put it into statute form (in the 1530s) the king recognised no superior authority in any of his territories (inherited or captured) including the universal Church hierarchy. We will look at other similar expressions of royal authority made by other Christian kings in due course.

This crown-centric view was not unopposed.

The opposite case, call it supreme papal authority or superior ecclesiastical power, was the result of a theory formulated as early as the ninth century (but which came more fully to fruition in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). This was a doctrine of two estates, or two kingdoms, or two swords which was used as a means of explaining how the spiritual and temporal realms should interact (with the spiritual realm always in a dominant position).⁵ The heart of the theory is based on revelation, specifically Luke 22:38, which outlined how Peter found two swords which Jesus allowed him to carry for a time. These two swords came to represent, in papal exegesis, the power wielded by the church—a spiritual power and a temporal power. The first of the swords was carried by the priest (as Peter was allowed to carry one) while the other was lent out to the magistrate (to be used only at the discretion of the priest for disciplinary purposes). This formed the basis of the infamous papal bull Unam Sanctam, which emphasized both papal leadership of the church and the church’s supremacy over the temporal orders. The bull was not without sound justification. The pioneering work of St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, was a powerful theoretical pillar for the papal position.

Aquinas considered four types of law to which humanity was subject—eternal law (God’s most basic law) and divine law (found in Scripture/revelation) which were both in the purview of the church, while natural laws were the dictates of native human reason and human positive law was that by which society was ordered. By their very nature all four forms are aimed at the well-being of man and, therefore, must be in general agreement. It is easy to see how the theory of two swords could incorporate this division of laws and why, in Aquinas’s mind, just as spiritual things are higher than physical things, the spiritual laws must necessarily be superior to the temporal laws (the purview of political authorities).⁶ As the spiritual sword (or kingdom) was the more powerful it was argued that there was no conflict of interest if the pope or some other religious authority was to become involved in temporal affairs which was, basically, nothing more than shepherding the masses. Higher clerical authorities, in England, sat in parliament and voted on temporal issues while, theoretically, temporal authorities were not to interfere in spiritual matters (e.g., no layman sat in convocation). These expressions are at the extreme ends of the issue; the tension between them was as old as the Christian Church itself.

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A Brief Overview of the Church-State Relationship

Fourth-Century Origins

Up to and including the Reformation period, European history witnessed a series of political conflicts (contested authority) between a centralizing body claiming universal spiritual and temporal power with particular, state-focused bodies trying to expand their own rule over geographically or cultural distinctive regions. Any survey of these contests must start in the fourth century, however, when the Christian Church’s existence passed through no less than five distinct phases. Beginning as a persecuted minority sect of Judaism (subject to vicious suppressions), the Christian Church became a tolerated sect (in which persecution was less severe less often), a favored sect, a mandated state church and, finally, to achieving supreme status as the only legally recognized church in the empire. Each phase also became an important model in the later Reformation era. The fourth century was a golden era to which many reformers looked for inspiration and justification; this was the age they would so often try to recapture the spirit of, thinking of it as that period of Christendom’s greatest vitality and dynamism.

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Emperor Constantine ruled a world of severely disparate regional political institutions and conventions no one of which he could fully exploit to establish a central control, relying instead on military might and local loyal representatives. Throughout its brief existence, however, the persecuted Christian sect had developed (by necessity) a clear hierarchy of spiritual and disciplinary authorities over its far-flung membership. Local priests shepherded the local faithful under bishops with regional administrative and disciplinary powers. And even though it had no single leading authority (i.e., Rome, Constantinople, and Antioch were co-equal) it was a model in which the emperor saw potential. Consequently, Constantine turned to the Christian establishment and weeded out rivals. Whether the emperor had any deep seated religious motivations is another question. How did this work?

Well, in North Africa for example, which was considered the bread-basket of Rome, special favor was often shown to the dominant authority there—the Church—so as not to interrupt the food supply. Part political experiment and part political necessity, freedom of assembly and worship was granted to Christians there in AD313 and rival sects were severely restricted). Underpinning imperial unity with a strong common faith had clear and obvious value, which led to Constantine’s creation of a state church in the 320s. The Catholic (that is to say, empire-wide) church, its institutions, doctrines, and properties were then guaranteed, its clerical officers exempted from public service and normal taxation. Organized religion became part and parcel thereafter of the emperor’s total strategy of rule.

Glen Thompson, based on such primary sources as Eusebius’s Life of Constantine⁷, traced a number of imperial favors granted the church as the basis of the imperial unity strategy. Properties in Rome were handed over for its use and the church was allowed to receive and inherit legacies (building up its wealth and property holding). In recognition of the growing Christian asceticism it was ruled that citizens who remained celibate or had no children would no longer be punished. In legal disputes Christians could choose to be judged in bishops’ courts rather than in temporal courts on particular matters. Sunday became an official day of rest. Indeed, many of the issues that national and regional governments would later take offence at in the mediaeval period clearly stem from this golden century of the Church. For instance, one of Constantine’s successors, Constantius, ruled in the 350s that clergy were to be tried only by their peers (setting them apart and above laymen).⁸

The favors shown to the Christians naturally upset other locally entrenched interests and, when these matters were brought to their attention, emperors began to take special, personal interest, even sitting in judgement (as over the grievances of the Donatists) because the bishops told them that it was their duty as a divine agent to preserve orthodoxy (or establish it as when Constantine decided in favor of the Catholics and against the Donatists). And, as in North Africa, it was easy enough for the emperor to assume control of the church’s occasional gatherings of the local leadership elsewhere too either in person or via subordinates. These local synods, of no fixed geographic boundary or commonly recognized authority, had been meeting with regularity to discuss controversial issues but Constantine’s establishment of a state church made it possible to assemble a general council of the whole church and, having made it possible he used the established organization and local hierarchies to firmly fix his own authority as well as religious orthodoxy (as in AD325). Consequently, as the political and military stability of the empire deteriorated in the late fourth century, increasingly larger councils, responsive to civil authority, were summoned to replace local synods. The central power looked even more carefully towards the unifying spiritual power as a good fallback position in time of political turmoil.

At Nicaea, for instance, a uniform method for determining the date of the Easter festival was established. Now, to a modern reader this may seem of limited importance, but consider the value an agreed date of celebration, common throughout the empire, would have (if only as a means of downplaying local customs).⁹ From the point of view of the emperors’ themselves this was sound political strategy and it was just as often beneficial for the church too. In c.AD378, for instance, Emperor Gratian announced the edict Cunctos populos which made Catholic Christianity—churches in communion with Rome—the sole recognized religion of the empire. Common spiritual beliefs across the empire, endorsed and enforced by the emperor’s authority, turned the church into a firm pillar of imperial power (and vice- versa). Theological debates took on political adherents and significance (and vice-versa), public order and fiscal policies were weighed against religious freedoms and the hierarchy of clerical officers (increasingly imperial nominations and appointments) took on pseudo-temporal power at all levels. Constantine came to consider himself a special kind of bishop in that, where bishops had jurisdiction within the church he claimed a bishop-like authority over all things. He became pontifex maximus—chief priest of the cults—as recognized by the state and which, in the Christian era, came to mean an authority delineated directly from Christ—the king of kings. The emperor became the chief Vicar of Christ even though he did not perform any priestly functions. These claims sometimes necessitated imperial interference in the church’s internal business, like the decision against Arius at Nicaea, but provided church matters did not conflict with the emperor’s financial interests or public order needs they often strove to keep their interference to a minimum and let their bishops do their jobs uninterrupted. The only exceptions were cases of heresy and so-called re-baptism as these issues upset public order, unity and challenged orthodoxy. The secular authority retained powers of persecution and death. It was not a perfect solution; there were conflicts between church and state officers¹⁰ and, when Constantine moved the imperial capital to Constantinople (c.330), the Bishop of Rome became the old capital’s sole pseudo-political power.

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By the end of this most important century an understanding existed between the emperor and the Christian Church. The emperor was God’s agent and imperial government had been established not only for the good of the world but for the good of the church too. The bishops remained subordinate regional stabilizing authorities while the emperor summoned councils, declared official legislation and heresy (thus enforcing orthodoxy). The bishops would occasionally sanction the emperor if he overstepped perceived bounds too overtly, but the church rarely, if ever, overstepped any implied bounds into secular affairs except as the voice of morality. In this way the church was able to withstand the political disintegration of the fourth to the tenth centuries and slowly consolidated its own authority. Consolidation, however, came with a price—increasing tension between the institutionalized church authority centered at Rome (and its roughly established doctrinal and jurisdictional authorities over western Christendom) and local political authorities over spiritual issues, disciplinary matters and, increasingly, temporal issues.

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The Middle Ages

By the late fifth century Pope Leo I (440–61) was claiming supreme and universal authority in the church based on his interpretation of Matt 16:18–9: And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.¹¹ Leo favored a literal interpretation in which Peter was personally the rock upon which the church was built. His name was derived from the Greek petra which means bedrock or a solid foundation. This interpretation was disputed at the time, in Constantinople and in France, and would be by many reformers in the sixteenth century. Metaphorically it refers to Peter’s faith in Christ or in his teachings (which was the general focus of Matthew otherwise) as the foundation stone. The second portion, the power of binding and loosing (granting or withholding absolution), was also disputed (examined later). Subsequent general councils of the church whittled away at Imperial supremacy or tried to. At the third council of Constantinople (680–1), for instance, the Bishop of Rome almost slipped papal infallibility into the record.¹²

The Dark Ages Period

That famous phrase "the Dark Ages" is commonly known, if not precisely understood. It is roughly the period in Western European history between the fall of the Roman Empire and the early twelfth century featuring political fragmentation, the decline in urban life, and the decay of major centers of learning. Consequently there were few renowned intellectuals. Augustine died in AD 430 and no comparable figure arises before Anselm in the eleventh century. The church was able to profit, however; fundamental powers (e.g., Rome’s central and supreme authority, Rome’s teaching authority, Rome’s interpretive power over Scripture) were established. Gregory the Great (590–604) became the virtual civil ruler of the Italian peninsula. The Eastern emperor, far removed, could no longer dependably prevent repeated invasions so Gregory negotiated treaties with the various temporal powers, paid troops, and appointed generals in the service of the church’s temporal holdings. Successes in one area, however, raised problems in another.

For instance, while the Bishop of Rome’s authority spread (secular power in the Italian peninsula and spiritual authority from Scotland to Africa), the increasing mix of spiritual and secular power led to internal dissent and moral corruption (e.g., bribery in the mid-level clerical hierarchy and Roman bureaucracy). There were successes, like St. Jerome’s authoritative version of Scripture (the Vulgate) or the Decretals of Isidore (a collection of letters, appeals and decisions from the previous thirty-three popes which limited the authority of bishops but established clerical freedom from civil authority). Later proved fraudulent, the Donation of Constantine gave the bishops of Rome temporal powers and privileges throughout the Italian peninsula. With Leo III’s support (c.800), Charlemagne (King of the Franks) was able to forge an empire out of the disparate cultures, states and ecclesiastical realms of central-eastern Europe (a Holy Roman Empire). As Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne became protector and temporal head of Christendom and feudal overlord of Rome’s temporal holdings, but subject to the Bishop of Rome’s spiritual authority (exercised through bishops, archbishops, and overseen by cardinals). Despite a schism in Christianity itself (the filioque controversy), faith and salvation had seemingly become subject to the Roman pontiff’s sanctions.¹³ By the eleventh century, however, tensions between the spiritual and temporal powers could no longer be suppressed.

Leo IX (1049–54) planned a tour of the regions, summoning reforming synods against such evils as simony and clerical incontinence in Italy, France and Germany (the bulk of the Empire). His campaigning, however, clashed with the temporal authorities of the emperor, Henry III. It was understood that God had established civil order in reflection of the spiritual order. For instance, the hierarchy of pope, cardinals, bishops and priests was reflected by a similar hierarchy of emperor, kings, dukes and knights. This civil order was to be a means of disciplining both people and a society marred by the effect of original sin, but a question of how much authority magistrates actually exercised over believers came to a head. Leo used the church’s cultural dominance to justify his travels across the continent, his enacting of local reforms, his negotiating arrangements and patronage networks with local magnates, and his trying to enforce a higher standard of clerical and social discipline. Clearly, some of these objectives clashed with the established feudal networks and arrangements. The chains of causality are interesting.

Popular fervor resulting from crusade propaganda, for instance, spread ideals of heightened morality among the laity and clergy alike. This in turned led to the founding of stricter religious orders (e.g., Cistercians, Franciscans and Dominicans) and the standardization of practices made gains only at the expense of local practices (e.g., clerical marriage, local appointment to clerical office). While centralization of power at Rome led to the appointment of more prestigious bishops, abbots and deans, regional political authorities became increasingly nervous as particular conditions were seemingly ignored in the process (e.g., localism—the cultural identification with the region over the state—economic realities, local wealth and class divisions). Just how much real power did the pontiffs have over the rulers of the small, independent cities, states and all those little kingdoms that had been amalgamated into another empire became a nagging and lasting question. So, the tour not only raised immediate questions but it also led to a long-term crisis which, as V H H Green noted, was in the long run to exhaust the Empire and to lead to the moral degeneration of the Papacy.¹⁴ The tensions finally exploded with the election of Gregory VII (1073–85) and his so-called Investiture Contest (1075–77) with the emperor Henry IV.

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Investiture refers to a feudal ceremony during which a vassal (that is, someone who held land from a higher authority) was given tokens symbolic of his relationship with the overlord of the lands. The custom, in relation to the church, was that a new bishop would receive a ring and crosier (a hooked staff) from his king as indication that he was now in possession of the temporalities (i.e., the lands and properties of the diocese). He became a shepherd of bodies and lands just as much as he had become a shepherd of souls. His lordship over the temporalities also gave him the temporary right to appoint officers and spread patronage. A problem arose, however, over the question of whether layman really had the right to empower clergymen in this way. In other words could a lay patron appoint a parish priest and, if so, what did this consequently say about clerical authority?

Pope Gregory VII thought that laymen did not have the power to invest clergy and, in his bull Dictatus papae (of March 1075)—wherein he assumed the title pope and supreme pontiff of the entire west—he claimed a universal power to deprive and reconcile any other bishop and power above any and all temporal authorities.¹⁵ The aim was to free the church of temporal interference and he went so far as to forbid Emperor Henry IV from making appointments (which he continued to do anyway). Although the power struggle between Gregory and Henry was delayed by the first crusade, the pope emerged from that with a heightened reputation as the defender of international Christendom. When the emperor capitulated, Gregory was able to claim authority to take away and grant property, possessions and even titles to laymen, while they, conversely, had no right of interference in the church.¹⁶ Papal progresses, councils and regional synods in support increased respect and veneration for the pope from the teeming masses and knighthood of Christendom at the same time as individual kings and emperors opposed the popes and made war on each other. In many ways the crusades had established the pope more thoroughly as the moral voice of Christian Europe but also as its diplomatic focal point and across the board clergymen began to arbitrate all disputes between kings thereafter—trade alliances, defensive treaties (any number of issues which nowadays would be the work of diplomats).

The church, as a major land-owning power, exercised all the rights of feudal patronage and expected to (and did) collect feudal privileges. The apex of papal authority came with Innocent III (1198–1216), who transformed reverence and feudal due into political and diplomatic power as the vicar of Christ. He was able to force England and France into peace as well as install his candidate, Stephan Langton, as Archbishop of Canterbury over King John’s choice of John de Grey. Famously, John refused to allow Langton into England. To make his point clear, he also dissolved Christ Church monastery, dispersed the members and secularized its properties. In response Innocent placed England under interdict (removing all ecclesiastical benefits) on 24 March 1208.

Tit-for-tat measures followed leading to John’s excommunication in 1209 and deposition in 1212. The pontiff tasked Philip of France with the execution of the order. Tensions rising, the feudal lords and bishops of England forced the king to submit. John acknowledged Langton, re-admitted exiled clergy, made financial compensations and, on 13 May 1213 (of his own accord), surrendered the kingdom into the direct rule of the pope. The assumption was that John would thereafter act as a fief—a feudal client—and pay over an annual tribute). This was a submission too far; the barons rose up to ensure their own privileges and forced the king to endorse Magna Charta (against papal wishes).

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The Later Middle Ages

Without direct political influence, popes turned to marshal their moral and spiritual supremacy into a substitute. The power of binding and loosing held that popes could wipe away the stains of sin, forgive or condemn anyone. What were regional or local political claims compared to this? By the early thirteenth century the point was driven home when the fourth Lateran Council (1215) enshrined clerical immunity from civil law. A clergyman caught stealing, for example—provided he could prove that he was a clergyman—could no longer be brought to trial in a civilian court but would have his case transferred to a church court (to his obvious advantage). In England, the proof of clerical status was not airtight documentation or testimony from reliable witnesses, but was instead the so-called neck verse (Ps 51.1).¹⁷ If the accused could read the verse (in Latin) it was presumed that he was a cleric and could claim benefit. This prompted any number of pithy rhymes, like this one: If a clerk had been taken / for stealing of bacon, for burglary, murder, or rape, / if he could but rehearse (well prompt) his neck-verse, / he never could fail to scape.¹⁸

As such rhymes indicate, this claim of immunity to civil prosecution was pushed to the absolute limits and became a real bone of conflict between lay and clerical authorities and a real source of injustice to the victims of clerical abuse. Building on this, Boniface VIII (d.1303) tried but failed to enforce clerical immunity to taxation with the bull Unam Sanctum. Here was embodied the principle of supreme papal authority over both spiritual and temporal matters: [it was] altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.¹⁹

The claim of absolute power is much less serious than having the principle enshrined in documentation. Putting something on paper takes away ambiguity, making claims more difficult to deny or ignore. As a result, in 1303 Boniface was kidnapped by French forces and held prisoner while King Philip (the Fair) procured the election of a compliant French bishop as Pope Clement V (1305). Clement in turn moved the seat of authority away from corrupt Rome to scrupulous Avignon (a center of trade situated in imperial territory surrounded by France) initiating the so-called seventy-year long "Babylonian captivity of the papacy." It was an audacious act girded by critical examinations of the theological and legal foundation of Roman authority.²⁰ One such was produced by Marsilio (sometimes Marsiglio) of Padua who theorized that, as the papacy had become the single greatest cause of grief and warfare whether it was now time to place limits on papal authority.

The church’s claims to universal dominion over temporal and spiritual matters were addressed by Marsilio in 1324 with Defensor Pacis. Marsilio theorized that clerical authority actually depended upon a superior civil power (which itself depended on the willingness of the people to be ruled through the application of agreed laws). The spiritual power therefore had no intrinsic jurisdiction in and of itself.²¹ The church, he wrote, confused spiritual and temporal authorities and attempted to enforce a kind of hegemony of its own making over temporal society.²² Power (i.e., control) ultimately was invested in the people as a corporate body. It was this body that delegated rule to those able to meet its material and spiritual needs while retaining a right of censure and powers of dismissal. Marsilio equated citizens with believers and heretics with social outcasts (political theory which pre-dated Constantine). He acknowledged the priesthood as a divine institution but individual priests were in fact subordinate state functionaries—spiritual rather than temporal magistrates. Furthermore, while he held the papacy as legitimate the clerical hierarchy was itself no more significant than any other human institution (and as flawed as any other). As such it should be equally subject to local traditions and customs. Marsilio was making a clear argument for what would later be called conciliarism.

In the secular sphere the body politic (expressed perhaps in the form of a parliament or senate) agrees laws and conditionally subjects itself to a single ruler for the good of all while, in the spiritual, the general council takes the place of the senate, determines spiritual matters, and agrees to have these decisions enforced through its representative single ruler (perhaps an archbishop). The council, like the representative political body, creates the laws and designates those who will propagate the agreed articles of faith (e.g., bishops).²³ Critics of the church’s assumptions and claimed authorities also appealed to the vision of a golden age when the spiritual and temporal authorities had worked hand in hand. They appealed to the idea of reforming the church and removing the abuses that had crept in and, thereby, regain the imagined spiritual and moral perfection the church and Christendom must once have had (say, back in the fourth century). This vision was effective; it could be set alongside the sheer opulence of the Avignon popes in their palaces and with their morally suspect lifestyles all paid for out of the pockets of the faithful. Clerical taxation offended the laity and clergy alike as papal fees, fines, and taxes drew funds away from local needs, giving rise to antipapalism, anticlericalism (which we will examine in due course) and charges of materialism.

To put this into context, the seeming materialism of the church as a whole was in reality no more than a reflection of contemporary socio-economic norms. Expansion and operations required effective administration (bureaucracy) all of which had to be funded, resulting in new accounting and business techniques. The rising importance of towns and the creation and development of centralized markets was changing the economic framework of European society while, at the same time, war, famine and plagues were taking away all the other certainties of life. Money was increasingly replacing these other intangibles, so we cannot be too surprised by a changing mentality in the church. We shall return to this point shortly.

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It became increasingly clear to many that the Avignon experience was having a progressively more adverse effect on the papacy’s prestige so plans were initiated to move the heart of the church back to Rome in 1377. This led to the so-called Western Schism.

In the planning stages the Avignon pope died which initiated riots in Rome, demands for the papacy’s immediate re-location, and for the election of an Italian pope. Despite the threats of violence, however, the cardinals elected a capable Neapolitan (more French than Italian) administrator as Urban VI. This was meant as a compromise but under pressure from the mobs the cardinals took the drastic step of reversing their decision and declaring his election null and void, slipping away from Avignon and back to Italian territory where they re-assembled, declared Urban uncanonically elected, elevating Clement VII instead. Neither pope resigned, neither accepted the legitimacy of the other, both were excommunicated. Let’s pause and consider the repercussions.

This is not the case of a pope and an anti-pope vying for power. Both Urban and Clement were canonically elected. A legitimate conclave had acted unethically (and perhaps illegally) by reversing its own earlier decision, exacerbating a problem of its own creation. For the next few decades the rival popes split the church. It cannot be overstated how spiritually damaging this was to the lives of the masses of Christendom. As Lindberg and others have pointed out, if salvation depended on obedience to the papacy—communion with Rome—would following an excommunicated and possibly illegitimate pope damn one’s soul—even if that pope had been lawfully elected and claimed legitimacy? How was anyone to know which was the true Vicar of Christ and which the false? Two popes and two colleges of cardinals led to the absurdity of some parishes having two rival priests baptizing children and marrying couples while claiming the baptisms and marriages performed by the other were illegitimate and rival parishioners as heretics. States were internally and externally divided too; both popes had political supporters among the ruling classes. As the prestige of the church sank, national spiritual movements took root as people were forced to examine why they supported one pope over the other.

The finally settle the matter, the Council of Pisa (March to July 1409) assembled, debated and deposed both popes as both schismatic and heretical, electing Alexander V to heal the divide. Neither pope accepted the new situation. Christendom was left with three canonically elected popes and three warring, mutually hostile factions, a situation not finally ended until the Council of Constance (1414–18) elected one legitimate pope (Martin V). The damage had been done. The Avignon exile/captivity both diminished the spiritual authority of the papacy and contributed to the belief in the pope’s real lack of political objectivity. In recognition of the problem the representatives at Constance turned to the conciliarist solution in which the authority of the general council was recognized as superior to that of the pope. General councils should be accorded the highest spiritual authority as they were lawful assemblies representing the universal church in a more direct way with power direct from Christ through the Holy Spirit in their midst. It had deposed of the three rivals and elected an agreed upon replacement; surely this gave proof to the claim. Pope Martin agreed to the council’s decree (because of course he did), but for obvious reasons subsequent popes viewed conciliarism as a dangerous challenge (rather than aid) to their own authority and few were summoned. With the immediate crisis (multiple popes) averted and widespread heretical movements (e.g., Lollardy and the Hussites—examined below) seen off, the papacy quickly reverted to its worldly, Italy-centric outlook, giving further renewed credence to antipapalism and anticlericalism elsewhere expressed in oral and literary criticisms as well as physical demonstrations with elements of nascent nationalism thrown in. The literate, politically aware classes wanted both the long promised reforms of the church as well as more clearly expressed particular characteristics (e.g., an obviously French church for France).

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The church as a mirror of national characteristics brings up a minor but increasingly important aspect of the larger church v. state conflict. Local or particular temporal authorities had taken on board all those rising complaints against Rome’s universal claims and its spiritual problems and, because of the secular needs of the popes for political allies and funding, had been able to force compromises and win significant powers over their own particular spiritual institutions. If we ignore for the moment the actual practicalities of such claims (on both sides), the greatest climb-down forced upon Rome happened in England.

We noted earlier the height of Roman authority in the reign of John. Since the thirteenth century ecclesiastical benefices (the livings—money—from a church office generated through the attached properties) in England had been made by means of papal provision. Popes collated (i.e., appointed) nominees to vacant positions. By virtue of his supreme spiritual authority, however, a pope might, temporarily, also suspend the (highly contested) rights of the lay patron of any given and soon to be vacant living and provide his own provisor nominee (which negated the projected vacancy). In this way English livings had increasingly fallen into the hands of Italian provisors; money was sent out of the country and violence increasingly ensued as lay patrons were cheated of their rights. In response, the Statute of Provisors (1350–1) sought to prohibit the practice. Underpinning the stature were arguments of economy (e.g., property rights) and the localities particular spiritual nature (i.e., local candidates for local offices). Legislators argued that the role of the