THE RISE OF THE PAPACY IN THE 6TH -9TH CENTURIES

THE RISE OF THE PAPACY IN THE 6TH-9TH CENTURIES


The Roman Catholic Church rose to great power in the 6th century, that with a careful stewardship lasted throughout the 9th century. The barbarian invasions that tore the Roman Empire apart and ripped through Europe were the circumstances that propelled the Church to reach its great altitude. Interestingly enough, all of Western Europe and the preservation of Western Civilization owe its existence to the ascent of the Church. If it were not for the churches alliance with barbarian royalty, which led to careful, methodic preservation of literature, and agriculture as well as being the conduit of learning, nothing would have survived the middle ages.

How and Why Rome Became the Center of Power As It Did

Several circumstantial as well as purely coincidental factors contributed to the high regard of the church by the 6th century. First, the church’s unsolicited popularity could be attributed to its relationship to the early apostles. The papal office was understood to be directly descendent from the apostle Peter whom Christ appointed the head and steward of the church. Pope Damasus used the Matt 16:18-19 as a foundation for this doctrine. Roman church was regarded as first in the empire to be established by the Apostles.

The church’s self proclaimed indicators stemmed from Damasus I, who lived 366-384, referred to the church in Rome as the apostolic see and to himself as the pontifex maximus, a name once held by the emperor of Rome. This is the origin of the present day title of the pope -pontiff. This elevated the authority of the church in the minds of Christians. The synod held in Rome was the first to title the pope “Vicar of Christ,” further elevating the churches perceived authority, by placing the pope as the surrogate of Christ on earth. These proclamations had their roots in caesaropapism which is literally treating the emperor as pope. Earlier in the century, the church found itself in an unprecedented position; Constantine usurped his authority over doctrines and church affairs. His actions blurred the lines between the head of the state and the head of the church. It also had the reciprocal effect of raising the political power of the church.

Therefore, Roman society was primed since the 4th century to receive the church as the highest power in its land.

As purely circumstantial reasons, Christianity and the Church had risen to great popularity in the empire partly due to the fact that Christianity became the official religion of the empire in AD395. Also, The Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, among other things, determined the 5 dioceses. This declared the bishop of Constantinople to be second in authority in ecclesiastical matter only to the bishop see of Rome because it was the New Rome. The Roman bishop stood alone in the West while the East had four bishops to satisfy when major issues occurred.

The culmination of the Barbarian invasions, the inadequacy of the emperors to defend their front, the success of the Christianity, and the immense popularity of the church set the stage for the rise of power that the Bishop of Rome achieved. The Roman generals of the fifth century fought over who would rule and ignored and did not properly guard their frontiers. This created defensive gaps which ultimately led to the collapse of Rome. With Rome under the barbarian thumb the authority of the Empire was left to the Church. Having a great leader like Pope Gregory immensely enhanced the organization’s influence. He was responsible for the improved standing of the papacy. He took charge of Rome’s finances, food water supply and policing. He was able to achieved peace with the Lombards and was able to ransom prisoners from the Lombards who invaded the Empire in the 6th century. He was credited for establishing a new Liturgy of the church as well as being a great theologian. Gregory believed the purpose of the papacy is to aid the poor and he established the papal title “Servant of the servants of Christ.” Gregory put a face of benevolence and integrity on the once considered self seeking papacy.

What Factors Contributed to Its Dominance of Western Europe Until the Reformation?

All of Western Europe was under the attack of invading barbarians. Gaul, Italy and Byzantine Empire was plagued by raids and vandalism while the church remained independent. The empire was subject to division amongst the predecessors of emperors. The power of the empire was divided whilst the church’s power remained undivided and stable. Because of a lack of strong leadership in Rome the Pope Leo II was the only defense against the Huns.

As the barbarians invaded the Church converted. Their motto was, ”to convert the monarch and the people would eventually follow (Wood 2005) .” Because of successful missions sent by the early church, some barbarians were already Christians. Most of the Christianity in Western Europe was Roman Catholic Christianity. The church could not look to the Eastern Empire for help, so the church created alliances with the Barbarians themselves that proved fruitful. In AD 481, Clovis became the king of the Franks who settled in Gaul. According to Thomas E. Wood,

“Historians have speculated that Clovis’ marriage to the beautiful pious and Catholic Clotilda was inspired and arranged by the bishops, with an eye to convert her royal husband to the faith… it would be another four hundred years before all the barbarian peoples of Western Europe had been converted, But the project was off to an auspicious start (Wood 2005).”





Ulfilas, who was born in Cappadocia but Goth raised, had a large impact on the Goths in the 5th century. He was sent to Constantinople to be ambassador to the Goths, instead Ulfilas was crowned bishop early 5th century. He translated the bible into the Goth language furthering the spread of Christianity so that many Goths were already Christian and allowed to settle in the empire.

The Merovingian’s were the ruling line of kings from 6th to the 7th centuries. As they fought among themselves they traded power and land which eventually weakened them.

Because of the church’s alliance with the Merovingians, their degeneration affected the church.

The Carolingians, being the more sophisticated barbarian, benefited from the Merovingians decline as they seized power to the throne. They once served as mayors and other positions in the empire. Recognizing the their superiority Caroling, the mayor in 765, wrote a letter to the pope asking if it were right to get credit for being the king if one were not responsible for the decisions being made. The church jumped on the opportunity to approve the transfer of power from the Merovingians to the Carolingians by crowning Charles Martel, the great grandfather of Charles the great as king. The church looked to them for protection from invasion instead of aid from the eastern empire that was deep in conflicts with the Arabs and Persians themselves.

Charles the Great, also known as Charlemagne, became the Franks sole ruler in 771 and established a new post imperial Europe on the basis of Catholicism. Unable himself to read, Charlemagne encouraged education, the arts and called upon the bishops to organize schools around the cathedrals. His mandates for education caused what is referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance. This was a time in Western European history when the intellectual regression in terms of education that was caused by the impact of the barbarian invasions on cities, was beginning to be weakened by the ideals and directives of Charlemagne.

After the death of Charlemagne, the church continued the spread of learning in Europe.

Local councils, Synod of Bavaria (798), Council of Chalons (813), and Council of Aix (816),

were called by the church bishops for the opening of schools.

What Were the Positive and Negative Ramifications of This Reality?

During these centuries the barbarians’ government was to be influence by the Church and Christian conversion. “The Church had to continue to guide them, both to guarantee that the conversion had truly taken hold and to ensure that the faith would begin to transform their government and way of life,” says Wood. Specifically, the conversion of the Franks led directly to the Carolingian Renaissance through Charlemagne until the reign of his son Louis the Pious (814-840). Charlemagne encouraged education under the influence of the church and transformed the barbarians into civilization builders. Simply put, Western Europe owes its survival to the Roman Catholic Church.

Carolingian Renaissance.

Charlemagne appointed Alcuin, a great intellect and head master of the cathedral school at York, and other scholars to his court to educate his family. Alcuin an Anglo-Saxon, was responsible for teaching the Germanic people grammatically correct Latin. By learning Latin, the study of the Church fathers and the classical world of ancient Rome could be studied.



Scholars looked to ancient Roman model for the basis of Carolingian education.

That is where they found the seven liberal arts. “They were the quadrivium of astronomy, music arithmetic, and geometry, and the trivium of logic, grammar and rhetoric,” records Woods. This was the foundation on which future intellectual progress would develop. Also under the rule of Charlemagne began a legal system that was absent within the courts of the barbarians. Another accomplishment for the Carolingian Renaissance was the Carolingian miniscule that was developed by Fredegise, the predecessor of Alcuin. Miniscule introduced lower case letters, spaces between words and other standards in script that made writing and reading much easier than before. The Carolingian miniscule and was essential to building the literacy in Western Civilization.

Monastic Ideal

The second ramification of the rise of papacy was the impact of the Monastic Ideal. The monastery and its lifestyle had become popular before the 6th century where we begin to see nuns for the first time. Nuns were virgins that consecrated themselves to lives of prayer and sacrifice. Monasticism had become so popular that even royalty retired to the monastery. Western civilization owes its existence also to the monks. They were the catalysts of education. No literature would have survived had the monks, under the command of Charlemagne, tirelessly copied all the literature that had survived up until that time.

Monks also were responsible for the growth and development of practical arts including Agriculture, breeding cattle, deforestation and they even drained swamps. Monks loved hard unattractive labor. They felt that the more unpleasant the task the more Christ-like they became. The monasteries were allowed to keep one fifth of the land that they deforested for the kingdom. This land would stay in the ownership of the Church forever.

In conclusion, the survival of western civilization hangs upon the culmination of events that fastened the Church to the barbarian. The papal fathers rise to popularity was due to the culmination of many factors including the empires inability to defend itself against the barbarian invasions and the success of the spread of Catholic Christianity. As the barbarian remodeled the Western Europe, the Church remodeled the barbarian, his government, and his heart. This union between the two preserved, revitalized and reeducated western Civilization. 
Thomas E. Wood, How the Church Built Western Civilization,Washington D.C., Regenery Publishing, Inc., 2005, 13.


Thomas E. Wood, How the Church Built Western Civilization,Washington D.C., Regenery Publishing, Inc., 2005, 13.



Thomas E. Wood, How the Church Built Western Civilization,Washington D.C., Regenery Publishing, Inc., 2005, 17-18.




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cross, Barrie Ruth. The Catholic Church. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1987.

Hill, Jonathan. Zondervan Handbook to the History of Christianity. Oxford, England: Lion Publishing Plc, 2006.

Foote, G. W. & J.M. Wheeler, The Rise of the Papacy: Excerpts from the Crimes of Christianity, The Nazarene Way of Essenic Studies



Wood, Thomas E. How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005.