The Importance of the Church.
The problem of simplifying and of unifying the material for study so as to give the student a clear conception of the course of European development is one that confronts the teacher at every turn and calls constantly for solution. In this connection Professor Emerton, in his address on the “Teaching of Medieval History in the Schools,” points out the importance of the study of the Church as the great unifying element in European progress, especially throughout the Middle Ages. “All the peoples of Europe, divided as they are by nationalities and by social classes, are all united in this one common possession of religion and a culture derived from Rome and holding them still after generations of separation in an ideal attachment to something they feel to be higher and better than anything in their present world.” The aims of the papacy in particular, says Professor Emerton, make this task of the teacher easier of solution, because the successors of St. Peter, even harking back to the times of Gregory I, strove one and all for the same end—“to enforce anew this ideal of a vast Christian State, governed in the last resort by an appeal to its own divinely-constituted tribunal.” The greatest efforts put forth to this end fall within the period under consideration, namely from the times of Hildebrand to the death of Frederick II, or, more exactly, from about 1050, when Hildebrand was fast becoming the power behind the papal throne, to 1268, when Conradin’s untimely death in the market place of Naples terminated the rule of the Hohenstaufen.
The presentation of the relations between the popes and the emperors of this period involves a fourfold task, namely an appreciation (1) of the time covered and the areas concerned, (2) the personalities involved, (3) the issues at stake, and (4) the effects of the struggle on Europe.