From the eighth to the thirteenth century the greatest threat to Christianity, and thus, Europe was Islam. In 711 the Muslims had conquered Spain and breached the Pyrenees and by 732 they had reached Tours on the Loire, just a couple of days ride from the heart of the Frankish kingdom. Christianity had taken seven centuries to progress as far as Islam had in one. Overall between the eighth and eleventh centuries the Arabs conquered Spain, North Africa, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Sicily and Southern Italy. Jerusalem had been in the hands of the Muslims since the ninth century but was conquered, along with Syria and Asia Minor, by the fanatical Seljuk Turks towards the end of the eleventh century. Since the invasion pilgrimages to Jerusalem had become far more dangerous and so the stream of pilgrims had turned into a slow trickle. On 19 august the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine army at Manzikert near Lake Van. The Eastern Empire was quickly being consumed and the situation in Constantinople became desperate. In 1095 the Byzantine Emperor sent representatives to Rome to ask for military assistance from the West to halt the Turks progress in Asia Minor. The Emperor’s request to the Pope had emphasised the persecution of eastern Christians by the Turks. Both saw this as an opportunity to, in some way, reunite East and West. Pope Urban II responded by appealing for a crusade to ‘liberate the holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’. He presented the crusade as a defensive move, necessary to combat the aggression of Islam against ‘our lands’. The response to his appeal was amazing. When he first announced it publicly to the crowds they roared ‘Dios lo volt’- God wishes it.
Within the year expeditions were being prepared by some of the great lords of northwest Europe. Christians throughout the Latin Church flocked to undertake the ‘War of the Cross’, united under the banner of Christianity in the fight against the infidel in the Holy Land. In 1097 the crusaders gathered in Constantinople and by July 1099 Jerusalem had been captured. There were many crusades to follow throughout the next centuries. Crusading became a familiar feature of life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, not just against Jerusalem or the East but also to the Iberian Peninsula. In the fifteenth century Pope Pius II called for a crusade, not to reclaim Jerusalem, but to defend Europ. However none had the same impact as the first. The crusades were presented as everyone’s responsibility as Christ had suffered for the salvation of all. Counts, kings, commoners and even children took part. The crusades have often been described as ‘cruel pilgrimages’ and indeed did adopt many of the rituals of the pilgrims and one may perhaps even suggest that they felt a similar unity, in addition to the unity created by the external threat, to that felt by the pilgrims. One impact of the Crusades was that the collective identity of the Latin Church was consolidated under Papal leadership.
The Papacy was also a unifying influence on Europe in the dark and middle ages. The Bishops of Rome did not emerge as a leading force in Christianity until between the fifth and seventh century. Until this time there was a long list of Popes however it must be noted that the name Pope did not become a title exclusive to the Bishop of Rome until the middle of the eighth century. Until the pontificate of Gregory the Great (590-604) the pre-eminence of the papacy had been ill defined. The Pope had been seen as only the successor of Peter and the Bishop of Rome. He was seen as merely an equal among the other patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople. However Gregory soon increased the scope of his role. He associated the monks all over Europe with the Papacy, restored the patrimony of St. Peter, enforced measures for collection and centralisation of revenues and initiated the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons which through the proceeding missionary work of the English led to the new Christians of the North being subject to the immediate control and direction of Rome. Nowadays he is “often regarded as the architect of future papal power”. Yet the Papacy as it was to exist in the future was not realised fully until over a century later. Other factors also lead to the increased importance of the Pope including the move out of Rome to Constantinople of the Emperor, the increasing threat of Muslims on the eastern front of the Empire and later the conquest of three of the recognised patriarchs, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. By the thirteenth century the pope exerted a profound influence over intellectual, moral and social life.
The Papacy was an international institution, the first international institution, the first and for many centuries the only international institution. Just one example of this is during the years 654 to 752 there were seventeen popes of whom only five were Roman, three were Greek, five were Syrian, three were from Greek speaking Sicily and one was from somewhere else in Italy and this trend continued with many more European popes in the ninth century. The popes were a unifying centre. The Pope was seen as head of the Church in the West, the leader of all who belonged to the faith, no matter where those faithful lived or what their occupation.
The first major event causing disunity within Christianity was the rapture between the West and the East. It was not a sudden occurrence. The build-up was spread over many centuries beginning in the eighth century and concluding in the fifteenth century. Many see the beings of the rapture in the dispute, which took place over images in 729 however the distance between Rome, and Constantinople was already visible at this stage. Over the centuries Rome had created a foundation for itself on which it was possible to achieve more and more independence from the Emperor. It had created it’s own income and followers and was finding it increasing unsatisfactory to remain within a state of subordination to the Emperor. In 726 the pope refused to pay taxes to the Byzantines owed because the Bishop of Rome was a Byzantine Duke and ruler of part of the imperial territories in Italy. In his defence the theory was developed that the lands controlled by Rome were of special significance and had in fact been donated to the see of St. Peter by Constantine in the fourth century. In the same year Byzantium became gripped by Iconoclasm or image-breaking. It soon became the official policy of Constantinople. Leo III decreed that the crucifix be replaced by a plain cross and that all images of saints and especially the Virgin Mary be white washed. He then tried to impose Iconoclasm on Rome. Pope Gregory II condemned and rejected it. However he did not abandon the Emperor.
Then in 753 the Pope seized political power from the Emperor. The Lombards had been advancing to the walls of Rome for sometime and Byzantium was not giving military support to the Pope. Seeking protection Stephen the II (III) turned to the Franks. At the time Pepin the Short was ruler of the Frankish kingdom in all but name and was looking for an ally capable of legitimately conveying the crown to him. He found that ally in the Pope. In 751 public approval was obtained from Stephen when he corroborated the opinion of Pepin that a king must rule in order to reign, and a few weeks later Pepin was anointed king by Archbishop Boniface. The following year Stephen claimed Pepin’s assistance against the Lombards whom the Frankish king proceeded to conquer. He then gave the former Exarchate of Ravenna to the Pope. The acceptance by Stephen revealed that the Pope’s allegiance to the Emperor had been renounced. Rome had broken with Constantinople and associated herself with the Franks. This was re-emphasised with the coronation of Charlemagne in 800.
However there had been no formal divorce. The final break did not come until 1054 and involved differences over doctrine and the Pope’s claim to papal supremacy. The Greeks were accused of omitting the Filioque from their creed for centuries. They were also criticised for using leavened bread for communion, for fasting on Sundays and for various other practices. The Pope wrote the following to the Patriarch of Constantinople “Rome is mother and her spouse is God. Constantinople is a naughty and corrupt daughter, any church which descents from Rome is a confabulation of heretics, a conventical of schismatics and a synagogue of Satin”. Nevertheless he did offer to give papal support to the Greek Empire if the Greek Church accepted the supremacy of the Pope. The Greeks refused, the Western Church was condemned for Latin heresies in creed and in practice and the papal legates were excommunicated. For their part the legates had already excommunicated the Patriarch for refusing to recognise their powers.
From this point there were two universal Christian Empires and two universal and orthodox Christian Churches, each with their own head, own doctrines and own followers. In the following centuries there were two major attempts to heal the split. At the Council of Lyon in July 1274 the Greeks actually accepted papal supremacy and agreed to insert the filiogue into the Creed. However Emperor Michael was unsuccessful when he attempted to force compliance among his people with the agreement. In addition Gregory X’s successors in the West did not make its assimilation any easier. After the Emperor’s death Greek orthodoxy was restored and Michael’s successor was excommunicated for persistently failing to implement the agreement. A final attempt was made to reunite East and West at the council of Florence in 1439. This attempt was made mostly due to the fact that the threat to Constantinople from Islam was increasing daily and was reaching crisis point. Once again the Greeks gave way on all matters of substance and the Union was formally sealed in the decree Laetantur coeli of 6 July 1439. However the Union was not supported by the Byzantine populace and orthodox clergy. The Eastern Patriarchs condemned it. Some protested that they were ready to turn Turk rather than Papist.
In Moscow the fallout from the Union resulted in the establishment of a Separate Russian Orthodox Church. The council had failed to heal the schism and had in fact only created more disunity. On 29 May 1453 Constantinople was sacked by the Ottoman’s and European Christianity remained divided. One author has even called the episode of the Union of Florence “one of the most pathetic episodes in the scandalous annuals of Christianity”.
The ‘Great Schism’ was also a disunifying influence on Europe. In 1303 pope Clement V became the unlikely successor of Benedict Ix. He had been an outsider acceptable to both Bonifacian and French parties within the College of Cardinals. During his pontificate he was forced to give priority to French affairs and had created enough French cardinals to swing the balance of power within the college in their favour. He was a sick man and never felt able to travel to Rome and so in 1309 he set up residence in Avignon. This was seen as a temporary home for the Papacy and was not intended to become permanent. However after Clement’s death, although the new pope, John XXII, had promised to restore the Holy See to Rome serious troubles in Italy prevented him from keeping his promise. This situation was only profitable for the French and was infuriating to other states and Christians. In 1367 Urban V did return to Rome but was back in Avignon by 1370 as the situation in Italy was diabolical.
Finally Gregory XI, having no choice because of the political situation in Italy and the resolve of St. Catherine of Siena, returned to Rome in 1376. A troubled year followed and his death was the only reason why the Pope did not return, as planned, to Avignon. Urban VI was elected after Gregory’s death. It was the first time in nearly 75 years that a Pope had been elected in Rome and the populace had demanded a Roman pope. Soon after the election the cardinals were quarrelling with the Pope. Not only had the French cardinals protested that they had acted under the influence of terror but now Urban was openly reproving their way of life, cutting off some of their sources of income and threatening to create more Italian cardinals. Their reply to these actions was to leave Rome, declare the election null and void and elect a new pope. Clement VI, a Frenchman, was their choice and after a failed attempted to capture Rome they returned to Avignon and re-established the old papal offices. Nevertheless Urban refused to accept his disposition, instead creating 29 new cardinals and excommunicating those who claimed to have disposed him.
Europe was split. Clement was acknowledged by the King of France and his allies, Aragon, Castile, Navarre, Sardina, Sicily, Scotland and some parts of Germany. Urban was acknowledged by the remaining states of Europe, most of Germany, England, Flanders and the Northern Kingdoms. Two groups were created, one under the influence of France and the other under the influence of England. The people had little choice but to support the choice of the princes, unless they were in revolt.
The split continued with the election of new popes, on both sides, each time a current pope died and the representatives of each line continued to claim to be the legitimate ruler of the Whole church. Then in 1393 the French were offended by the election of a Spanish Pope at Avignon and urged him to resign. Benedict XIII refused and so three years later the support and allegiance of the French Church was withdrawn from the Avignon Pope. The Church then began to organise itself on national lines practically independent from papal rule. Bohemia and Hungary soon followed and it became obvious that the Church was in serios danger of breaking up. A General Council of the Church was convened in Pisa in 1409 to find a solution to the problem. Both Popes were summoned before the Council, failed to appear, were both declared as notorious schismatics and heretics and deposed. The Holy See was declared vacant and Alexander V was elected and established in Rome. Neither Pope accepted the act of disposition and so instead of solving the problem the Church had now created a third pope.
Finally a solution was found at the Council of Constance (1414-1417). It was decided the only means by which unity could once more be achieved was for all three popes to be disposed in order to place a single pope on the throne. In the end John XXIII was deposed, Gregory XII renounced the tiara and Benedict XIII was deposed and condemned as a heretic and schismatic. Martin V was elected in 1417 and once more there was only one pope. However the damage had already been done. National conflicts had been accentuated. The Church had lost much of the respect of the laity. The devotion and affection once felt towards the Pope was diminished. Throughout the schism the morals of the Popes and their courts had fallen deeper and deeper into disrepute. The time at Avignon, before Gregory’s return to Rome, has been called the ‘Babylon Captivity’. Even the churchmen were revolted by the activities of the Popes. Mutual excommunications, war and political intrigue, corruption, self-indulgence, these were all embroiled in the popes reigns. Simony, nepotism and favouritism became absurdly prevalent, with money becoming increasingly the master of the hierarchy. Increasingly the laity was observing a side of the Papacy, which was, in the years and centuries to come, to create even more disunity within Christianity and Europe. The authority of the Church was derived from its unity. During the time of two, or even three popes, this unity had disappeared and so the Papacy’s authority had been greatly eroded. The French, Bohemians and Hungarians had been on the verge of becoming independent national churches. Edward P. Cheynay summed up the consequences of the scandal very well
“The Church was too closely interwoven with the political, economic and religious life of the time, to strong in its privileges and duties as a national body and too important as the only international organisation in existence to show evidence of dismemberment and decay without creating general dismay”
The Church had been humiliated, weakened and it’s blatant abuses paraded for all of Christianity to cringe at.