[565:2] Gesta, sec. 34-45.
[566:1] Greenwood, v., 666.
[566:2] Raynaldus, an. 1216, sec. 11; Fleury, H. E., xvi., 426.
[566:3] Gesta, sec. 134.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE MEDIÆVAL CHURCH AT ITS HEIGHT
Outline: I.—Characteristics of the thirteenth century. II.—Territorial extent and wealth of the Church. III.—Organisation of the papal hierarchy completed. IV.—The legal system of the Church. V.—The official language and ritual of the Church. VI.—The sacramental system. VII.—The employment of art. VIII.—The Church moulded the civilisation of Europe. IX.—Sources.
The thirteenth century was an age "of lofty aspirations unfulfilled, of brilliant dreams unsubstantial as visions, of hopes ever looking to fruition and ever disappointed. The human intellect awakened, but as yet the human conscience slumbered, save in a few rare souls who mostly paid in disgrace or death the penalty of their precocious sensitiveness."[569:1] The thirteenth century left as a legacy to the fourteenth century vast activity in intellectual progress, but a spiritual desert. Society was harder, coarser, and more worldly than ever.
Everywhere in western Europe the Church seemed to have attained the extreme limits of its claims. The papal theory was triumphant. Temporal rulers were everywhere subservient to the ecclesiastics. Locally the clergy ruled the masses in morals and religion; they controlled education and intelligence; and they practically settled all social and industrial questions.