The Rise of the Mediaeval Church / And Its Influence on the Civilization of Western Europe from the First to the Thirteenth Century

by Alexander Clarence Flick

immorality, hence comes the sweeping assertion that all the clergy were unfit for their high and noble calling, while as a matter of fact, thousands of the priests obeyed the laws of the Church, led model God-fearing lives, and continually pointed out to their people the high and certain path to salvation. Abuses, corruptions, extortions, did exist in every quarter of Christendom. Bad clergymen did use their high prerogatives for base purposes. Many bishops, abbots, and priests were no more worthy to be given extensive powers in trust than the unscrupulous politicians who often secure high places in our municipal, state, and national governments. The sinecures and benefices of the Church offered the same temptations to money-making and to questionable methods that our civil offices do to-day to the dishonest and unscrupulous office-holders. But all of the officials in the Church in the thirteenth century were no more guilty of these evils than are all public men in the United States to-day addicted to the practices of the base political tricksters. It seems to be a universal fact that one bad man in the Church attracts more attention and creates more comment than a multitude of good men.

The fundamental causes of the numerous evil practices in the Church are found in the wealth and power of the Roman ecclesiastical organisation, on the one hand, and the comparatively low moral standards of civilisation, on the other. Throughout its whole remarkable career of thirteen hundred years, the Catholic Church had denounced the bad and taught the good. Unfortunately in attempting to realise the kingdom of God on earth through that organisation which was assumed to be of divine origin, life and practice did not always harmonise with the doctrines

inculcated. The ideal and the real are seldom brought to coincide in any human institutions and it would be expecting a realisation of the well-nigh impossible to hope to see the consummation of that desirable condition in the mediæval Church when all the contradictory factors and forces are taken into account. But it can be safely asserted, when all debits and credits of baneful and beneficial are given just consideration, that the mighty Church at its height was the most powerful force in Europe for justice, for mercy, for charity, for peace among men, for honesty, for temperance, for human rights, for social service, for culture, for domestic purity, for obedience to law and order, and for a noble, helpful Christian life both for individuals and states.

The sublime foundations on which the Church rested,[602:1] the marvellous history it could point to, its peerless organisation, its vast wealth, its strong grip on the faith of the people, its close alliance with the state, all combined to make its officers, the clergy, the most influential social class in Europe. In their hands were the keys of heaven and without their permission no one could hope to enter; since they were about the only educated class, they wrote the books and directed all advance along intellectual, literary, and artistic lines. In short they moulded the progress of that day. They wrote public documents and proclamations for rulers, sat in royal councils, and acted as governmental ministers.[602:2] They dominated

every human interest, regulated more or less every phase of life in the Middle Ages, and conferred inestimable benefit upon Europe of that day and this.

The Church in this age was the dominant factor in European civilisation. It fashioned laws and dictated the policy of governments; it controlled education and intelligence; it influenced occupations and industries; it moulded social ideas and customs; and it set the standards of morality and determined the life and conduct of both this world and that to come. The Church was divided into two sharply defined classes: the laity and the priesthood. "The great division of mankind, which . . . had become complete and absolute, into the clergy . . . and the rest of mankind, still subsisted in all of its rigorous force. They were two castes, separate and standing apart as by the irrepealable law of God. They were distinct, adverse, even antagonistic, in their theory of life, in their laws, in their corporate property, in their rights, in their immunities. In the aim and object of their existence, in their social duties and position, they were set asunder by a broad, deep, impassable line."[603:1] The priesthood, with an indelible character, married to the Church, stood between God and man and tended to become "The Church."

The Church was essentially an organised state, thoroughly centralised, with one supreme head and a complete gradation of officials; with a comprehensive system of law courts for trying cases, with penalties covering all crimes, and with prisons for punishing offenders. It demanded an allegiance from all its

members somewhat like that existing to-day between subjects and a state. It developed one official language, the Latin, which was used to conduct its business everywhere. Thus all western Europe was one great religious association from which it was treason to revolt. Canon law punished such a crime with death, public opinion sanctioned it, and the secular arm executed the sentence.

The Church Militant was thus an army encamped on the soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere, subject to the most efficient discipline, animated with a common purpose, every soldier panoplied with inviolability and armed with the tremendous weapons which slew the soul. There was little that could not be dared or done by the commander of such a force, whose orders were listened to as oracles of God, from Portugal to Palestine and from Sicily to Iceland.[604:1]

History records no such triumph of intellect over brute force as that which, in an age of turmoil and battle, was wrested from the fierce warriors of the time by priests who had no material force at their command, and whose power was based alone on the souls and consciences of men. Over soul and conscience their empire was complete. No Christian could hope for salvation who was not in all things an obedient son of the Church, and who was not ready to take up arms in its defence; and, in a time when faith was a determining factor of conduct, this belief created a spiritual despotism which placed all things within reach of him who could wield it.[604:2]