An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

The barbarians were taught that their fate in the next world depended largely upon the Church. Its ministers never wearied of presenting the momentous alternative which faced every man so soon as this fleeting earthly existence should be over,—the alternative between eternal bliss and perpetual, unspeakable physical torment. Only those who had been duly baptized could hope to reach heaven; but baptism washed away only past sins and did not prevent constant relapse into new ones. These, unless their guilt was removed through the instrumentality of the Church, would surely drag the soul down to perdition.

Miracles a source of the Church's power.

The divine power of the Church was, furthermore, established in the eyes of the people by the miraculous works which her saints were constantly performing. They healed the sick and succored those in distress. They struck down with speedy and signal disaster those who opposed the Church or treated her holy rites with contempt. To the reader of to-day the frequency of the miracles recorded in mediæval writings seems astonishing. The chronicles and biographies are filled with accounts of them, and no one appears to have doubted their common occurrence.[26]

The Church and the Roman government.

18. The chief importance of the Church for the student of mediæval history does not lie, however, in its religious functions, vital as they were, but rather in its remarkable relations to the civil government. At first the Church and the imperial government were on a friendly footing of mutual respect and support. So long as the Roman Empire remained strong and active there was no chance for the clergy to free themselves from the control of the emperor, even if they had been disposed to do so. He made such laws for the Church as he saw fit and the clergy did not complain. The government was, indeed, indispensable to them. It undertook to root out paganism by destroying the heathen shrines and preventing heathen sacrifices, and it harshly punished those who refused to accept the teachings sanctioned by the Church.

The Church begins to seek independence.

But as the barbarians came in and the great Empire began to fall apart, there was a growing tendency among the churchmen in the West to resent the interference of rulers whom they no longer respected. They managed gradually to free themselves in large part from the control of the civil government. They then proceeded themselves to assume many of the duties of government, which the weak and disorderly states into which the Roman Empire fell were unable to perform properly. In 502, a church council at Rome declared a decree of Odoacer's null and void, on the ground that no layman had a right to interfere in the affairs of the Church. One of the bishops of Rome (Pope Gelasius I, d. 496) briefly stated the principle upon which the Church rested its claims, as follows: "Two powers govern the world, the priestly and the kingly. The first is indisputably the superior, for the priest is responsible to God for the conduct of even the emperors themselves." Since no one denied that the eternal interests of mankind, which devolved upon the Church, were infinitely more important than those matters of mere worldly expediency which the state regulated, it was natural for the clergy to hold that, in case of conflict, the Church and its officers, rather than the king, should have the last word.

The Church begins to perform the functions of government.

It was one thing, however, for the Church to claim the right to regulate its own affairs; it was quite another for it to assume the functions which the Roman government had previously performed and which our governments perform to-day, such as the maintenance of order, the management of public education, the trial of lawsuits, etc. It did not, however, exactly usurp the prerogatives of the civil power, but rather offered itself as a substitute for it when no efficient civil government any longer existed. For there were no states, in the modern sense of the word, in western Europe for many centuries after the final destruction of the Roman Empire. The authority of the various kings was seldom sufficient to keep their realms in order. There were always many powerful landholders scattered throughout the kingdom who did pretty much what they pleased and settled their grudges against their fellows by neighborhood wars. Fighting was the main business as well as the chief amusement of the noble class. The king was unable to maintain peace and protect the oppressed, however anxious he may have been to do so.

Under these circumstances, it naturally fell to the admirably organized Church to keep order, when it could, by threats or persuasion; to see that sworn contracts were kept, that the wills of the dead were administered, and marriage obligations observed. It took the defenseless widow and orphan under its protection and dispensed charity; it promoted education at a time when few laymen, however rich and noble, pretended even to read. These conditions serve to explain why the Church was finally able greatly to extend the powers which it had enjoyed under the Roman Empire, and why it undertook functions which seem to us to belong to the state rather than to a religious organization.