It was under Gregory the Great that the Papacy acquired its great supremacy over the Provincial Churches. As the power of the Church grew after the death of Charlemagne, partly from the inclination of weak kings to lean on ecclesiastical support, the Papal claims to authority developed and began to be maintained by the penalties of excommunication and interdict.
A period of extreme laxity in the tenth century was to be brought to a close in the eleventh partly by the pressure brought to bear on the Papacy by the Saxon emperors, but still bore by the ambitious resolution of Gregory VII. This remarkable man was determined to assert the complete supremacy of the Holy See over all secular powers. He refused to recognise the right of secular princes to make ecclesiastical appointments within their own dominions; and he emphasised the distinction between the priesthood, as a cast having divine authority, and the laity, by enforcing with the utmost strictness the ecclesiastical law of celibacy, which completely separates the churchman from the normal interests and ambitions which actuate the layman.
In the contest between Gregory and the emperor, it seemed for the moment as if the secular power had won the victory; but, in fact, throughout the twelfth century; the claims which Gregory had put forward were becoming practically effective partly from the great influence exercised through the Crusades. These Papal pretensions reached their climax in the great Pope Innocent III., who asserted with practical success the right to pronounce absolutely on all disputes between princes or between princes and their subjects, and to depose those who rejected his authority. Throughout the thirteenth century Rome was once more mistress of the world.
The Church derived great influence from the institution of mendicant orders, especially those of St. Dominic and St. Francis which recovered much of the esteem forfeited by the old Monastic orders. Another instrument of Papal influence was the power of granting dispensations both with regard to marriages and as to the keeping of oaths. If the clergy were free for the most part from civil taxation, they were nevertheless severely mulcted by the Papacy. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction encroached upon the secular tribunals; the classes of persons with respect to whom it claimed exclusive authority were persistently extended, in spite of the opposition of such Princes as Henry II. and Edward I.
At last, however, the Papal aggressor met his match in Philip the Fair. When Boniface VIII. died, his successors first submitted to the French monarchy and then became its nominees; while they resided at Avignon, virtually under French control. The restoration of the pontificate to Rome in 1375 was shortly followed by the Great Schism. For some years there were two rival Popes, each of whom was recognised by one or the other half of Western Christendom. This was terminated by the Council of Constance, which incidentally affirmed the supremacy of general councils over the Pope. The following council at Basle was distinctly anti-papal; but the Papacy had the better of the contest.
IV.--England
The Anglo-Saxon polity limited the succession of the Crown to a particular house but allowed a latitude of choice within that house. The community was divided into Thames or gentry, Ceorls or freemen, and serfs. The ceorls tended to sink to the position known later as villeinage. The composition of the king's great council called the Witenagemot is doubtful. The country was divided into shires, the shire into districts called hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings. There appears to be no adequate authority for the idea that trial by jury was practised; the prevailing characteristic of justice was the system of penalty by fine, and the responsibility of the tithing for the misdeeds of any of its members. There is no direct evidence as to the extent to which feudal tenures were beginning to be established before the Norman conquest.
The Norman conquest involved a vast confiscation of property and the exclusion of the native English from political privileges. The feudal system of land tenure was established; but its political aspect here and in France was quite different. There were no barons with territories comparable to those of the great French feudataries. That the government was extremely tyrannical is certain. The Crown derived its revenues from feudal dues, customs duties, tallages--that is, special charges on particular towns,--and the war tax called the Danegelt; all except the first being arbitrary taxes. The violence of King John led to the demand of the barons for the Great Charter, the keystone of English liberty, securing the persons and property of all freemen from arbitrary imprisonment or spoliation. Thenceforth no right of general taxation is claimed. The barons held themselves warranted in refusing supplies.
The King's Court was gradually separated into three branches, King's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas. The advance in the study of law had the definite effect of establishing a fixed rule of succession to the Crown. One point must still be noticed which distinguishes England from other European countries; that the law recognises no distinction of class among freemen who stand between the peers and villeins.
The reign of Edward I. forms an epoch. The Confirmation of the Charters put an end to all arbitrary taxation; and the type of the English Parliament was fixed. In the Great Councils the prelates and greater barons had assembled, and the lesser barons were also summoned; the term baron being equivalent to tenant in chief. A system of representation is definitely formulated in Montfort's Parliament of 1265. Whether the knights were elected by the freemen of the shire or only by the tenants in chief, is not clear. Many towns were self governing--independent, that is, of local magnates--under charters from the Crown. Montfort's Parliament is the first to which towns sent representatives. Edward established the practice in his Model Parliament; probably in order to ensure that his demands for money from the towns might in appearance at least receive their formal assent.