The first great challenge to Gregory’s view on papal authority came when Henry IV succeeded his father on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. There was a quarrel that arose over the matter of “investiture.” Now, “investiture” is a word which means “the bestowal of honor or position.” At this time, “bishops,” church officials, exercised a certain amount of secular authority. And so, Henry IV considered that, since they exercised a certain amount of secular authority, then he should have the right to choose them and install them in their church offices. Well, Gregory VII, who was the pope at that time, strongly disagreed, insisting that “bishops,” that church leaders, are first spiritual, then secular. Well, the upshot of the controversy was that Gregory deposed Henry, releasing all of his subjects from allegiance to him. How does something like that happen? Well, the pope has said that I don’t have to obey you; I don’t have to be subject to you anymore. And so Henry’s subjects weren’t.

Now, we might sort of look at that, again, in a strange way and have difficulty understanding it. But it worked, because Henry IV actually made a trip, where he had to cross the Alps into northern Italy, where the pope was—a place called Canosa—and he attempted to get an audience with the pope in order to reconcile this, in order to get his subjects back, so to speak. Well, the pope humbled the emperor. The record says that the pope left Henry standing three days in a row in the snow in his bare feet before he would grand him an audience. So, that tells us of, that gives us an indication of, first of all, the struggle that existed, but moreover, the power that was exerted, by the pope in that day.

Now, history also tells us that Henry would have his revenge. Later, he deposed the pope, and Pope Gregory died in exile in 1085 AD.

Then, one comes along named Innocent III (pope 1198 – 1216). Yes, that was his name, Innocent. And by all odds, he was the greatest of the medieval popes. He came closer than any other pope to putting into practice this sweeping view of papal authority that Gregory VII had advanced. Just before Innocent became pope, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire had died, leaving his infant son as a nominal ruler. Well, the pope, then, faced no challenge from the Empire. What challenge could there be from a nominal ruler, who was an infant? So, Innocent had, pretty much, free reign over the Holy Roman Empire at that time with no one to oppose him. But it didn’t stop there. His influence, his power, reached beyond the borders of the Holy Roman Empire into other regions, as well. Philip Augustus, King of France, had divorced his wife and had remarried. Innocent forced him to take back his first wife. And then, there was King John of England, who refused to accept the pope’s nominee for the archbishopric of Canterbury. Innocent brought him to heel by excommunicating him and placing England—the entire country—under “interdict.” To save his throne, King John surrendered his kingdom to the pope and received it back as a fief, thus becoming, really, nothing more than a vassal of the pope.

During Innocent’s pontificate (“pontificate” meaning his time as the pope), the fourth crusade was launched, which resulted in the capture of Constantinople. There was another very important event, which took place during Innocent’s reign, and that was the Fourth Lateran Council. This was, by church historians, deemed to be one of the most important church councils for the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. It was convened in 1215 by Innocent and influenced strongly by him. This Council defined a number of very important Roman Catholic doctrines and dogmas.

Well, this was the rise, so to speak, of papal authority. But then, we see almost as quickly that there is a decline which takes place once again. In this period that we’re talking about, the 12^th and13^th Centuries, several strong popes had come along, but none of them ever reached the level of Innocent, and the decline of the papacy began to be pronounced and began to be able to be seen during the reign of Boniface VIII. He was pope from 1294 – 1303 AD. Boniface made an even more exaggerated claim for the papacy than had any of his predecessors. In his “bull”—and that is the word, “bull,” which is an official papal pronouncement; also known in Latin as Unam Sanctam—he affirmed that “it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” Well, he neither had the power or the ability to make such a sweeping claim stick.

And the decline of the papacy, then, became even more obvious when another event occurred—this referred to as “the Babylonian Captivity.” No, not the Babylonian captivity of the children of Israel in the long ago, but rather, a schism, which occurred in the Roman Catholic Church that was specifically involving the papacy—the pope himself. It had to do with the location of where the pope resided. It had been for a long period of time that, of course, Rome had been the center of the Roman Catholic Church, the center of their authority, as well as the center of the Roman Empire—the secular Roman Empire. But, there was a time in the late 13^th and into the 14^th Centuries when the popes began to live in Southern France. This led, then, to a schism which occurred, because in 1378 a new pope was elected in Rome, and he chose to remain in Rome, thus “bucking the tradition,” so to speak, which had been established for a long time. But, many of the cardinals, many of the other officials of the church, had become accustomed to the luxuries that they enjoyed while living in Southern France, and they returned to Southern France. And they selected their own pope. So, they end up with a pope in Rome and a pope in France. This is referred to as “the Babylonian Captivity.”

And then, this led to divisions and schisms among various secular powers for whatever reason—for political, or for economic, or for maybe religious reasons. Various rulers and monarchs would state their allegiance to the pope who was in Rome and others to the pope who was in France. And then, this assisted along the decline of the papacy.

And so it was that the latter Middle Ages saw the papacy emerge from its corruption and rise to a level of prestige until the pope had really become the most powerful figure, the most powerful man, in the West. But by the end of the Middle Ages, the papacy had been so reduced in power and influence that the pope was really regarded as little more than a petty Italian ruler.

That leads us, then, into the Crusades. What were the Crusades about? You probably remember this from your world history or your European history. Of course, the Crusades had their roots in the matter of religion. Pilgrimages had become a big business in the latter part of the Middle Ages. Many countries had various so-called “holy places” that attracted pilgrims by the thousands, Rome being high on that list because of all of the landmarks and churches [buildings] and other things of that nature, which people wanted to go visit and felt compelled to do that.

But Palestine, the Holy Land, was the most cherished of all destinations for pilgrims. Now, many years before this, you recall, Palestine had fallen into the hands of the Moslems. At first, the Arabs (and these, of course, were Arabs who had swept in and taken Palestine—Damascus and a number of other cities and regions in the Middle East) had originally banned pilgrimages and had even persecuted those who would come in violation of the bans. But in time, the Arabs found it profitable to permit pilgrimages. So, the pilgrimages grew in popularity, and more and more people traveled to the Middle East, specifically to the Holy Lands.

Well, in the 11^th Century, the Seljuk Turks swept out of Asia and took over the crumbling Arab empire. The Turks, who had only recently been converted to Mohammedanism, were very rigid in their practice of their religion, and they began, once again, persecuting pilgrims who would come into their area. And thus, the stage was set for the Crusades.

It was in AD 1095 that Pope Urban II, in a council of church leaders and nobles, issued a stirring call to arms against the infidels. Many inducements were held out to those who would participate: remission of sins, indulgences, and, O yes…the hope of plunder. And the people responded after this stirring message, “God wills it.”

Now, no doubt, Urban hoped to enhance his office and, perhaps, also to try to unite, once again, the “church” in the East and the West. You remember, we had talked about that at the end of our previous lesson—about the great schism that had taken place between the Roman Catholic Church and what would become the Greek Orthodox, or the Eastern Orthodox, Church, which occurred in AD 1054. But Urban had an eye on that, as well—perhaps the “church” could once again be reunited.

Interestingly enough, the enthusiasm for the Crusades was not confined to a warrior class or to the higher class of knights and folks of that ilk. Thousands of peasants and artisans, aroused by the preaching of a couple of monks, began a foot trek across the continent to go to the Middle East. By the way, these monks—one was named “Peter the Hermit” and the other was “Walter the Penniless”—were French monks. They were working independently, and each one of them was a leader of one of these “peasant bands” as they marched across the continent in quest of the Holy Land.

Well, many died along the way—no surprise there—and others who managed to reach the Turkish soil were massacred or sold into slavery. But then, later, the organized Crusaders, those who did make up the warrior class—knights, and so on—arrived, and after many months of hard fighting they were able to capture much of Palestine. Finally, in 1099, their goal was reached, and Jerusalem was taken.

Now, the First Crusade was the most successful, but several would follow. In all, the Crusading fervor lasted nearly two hundred years.

The Second Crusade was necessitated when Edessa, a key to the defense of the Crusaders’ kingdom, fell in 1144. Bernard of Clairvaux, a great leader in monastic reform, preached this Crusade. In spite of the success of Bernard in arousing enthusiasm for the venture, the Crusade itself failed.

The Third Crusade, launched in 1189, after the Turks had retaken Jerusalem, called forth the most illustrious leadership of any of the Crusades. At its head was the eminent Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip Augustus of France, and King Richard the Lionhearted of England. The emperor drowned on his way to Palestine and the two kings spent more time quarreling between themselves than they did fighting the Turks, who at this time were led by the brilliant and generous Saladin. As a result, this Crusade failed in its purpose of retaking Jerusalem.

The Fourth Crusade, launched in 1202, was directed against Constantinople rather than against the Turks. The Crusaders succeeded in capturing the Byzantine capital and installing one of their own number as ruler.

The most tragic of all was the Children’s Crusade. This one was quite alarming. It was argued that the earlier Crusades had failed because the Crusaders—those who were fighting, those who were doing the “crusading”, so to speak—did not have clean hands or pure hearts. As a result of this reasoning, thousands of children left their homes in AD 1212 to wander across Europe toward the Holy Land. Untold thousands died along the way, and the few who did manage to reach Turkish territory were immediately seized and sold into slavery. That’s a very sad account, is it not? But, nevertheless, it is historically accurate.

The Crusades did, at least for a brief period, open the Holy Land for pilgrimages. But other results of the Crusades were far more reaching. Feudalism was weakened, for many of the nobles never returned, thus allowing the kings, the monarchs, to centralize their authority in the West. During the Crusades, the papacy was enhanced. Although the ultimate result of the Crusades was to have been by many to undermine the papacy by strengthening the kings in the West, just the opposite was true.