The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford History of the Christian Church) 0198269250, 9780198269250

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Oxford History of the Christian Church Edited by Henry and Owen Chadwick

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The Papal Monarchy The Western Church from 1050 to 1250

Colin Morris

CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Colin Morris 1989 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer ISBN 0-19-826925-0

To Brenda with love

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Christ left to Peter, not only the whole church but also the whole world, to govern (Pope Innocent III). Once, kings and emperors, Dukes, counts and officers, Valiant knights of theirs, Governed the land. I see the clergy stand In the lords' places, Traitors and thieves Who have hypocrites' faces. (Peire Cardenal, troubadour)

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Foreword The twelfth-century scholar saw himself as a dwarf sitting on the back of a giant, and this volume rests uneasily on the shoulders of a vast mass of previous scholarship. There is no way of adequately expressing my debt to the writings and conversation of others, except through the inadequate medium of the bibliography, which provides some introduction to the wealth of discussion made available by modern research. I owe debts of gratitude to the Leverhulme Trustees and the British Academy for generous research grants, to Pembroke and Wolfson Colleges at Oxford for their very kind hospitality during periods of research. It is impossible to detail the archivists and librarians from whom I have received help, but I must mention in particular the Bodleian Library, which has provided a pleasant setting for work and access to magnificent collections of material. I am grateful, too, to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge for permission to quote from my previous book, The Discovery of the Individual. From my own University of Southampton I have received much help, including a grant for research which enabled me to have for a time the valuable help of two research assistants, Alison Bideleux and Joan Wardrop. The Library staff have dealt with innumerable obscure bibliographical inquiries with great efficiency and good humour, and Mark Farley, of the Department of Education gave indispensable help in putting the material into machine-readable form suitable for transmission to the Press. My thanks are also due to Jean Colson, and to my pupil Claire Burch, for assistance in preparing the index. I am very specially indebted to two colleagues, Dr Ernest Blake and Dr Brian Golding, who have been an unfailing source of ideas and comments and whose reading of the manuscript has saved me from many errors and misinterpretations. Finally, my thanks are due to the History Department at Southampton for providing such a congenial and stimulating academic setting during the years in which this book was under preparation.

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Contents Abbreviations References to Canon Law Introduction Part I. The Papal Reform Movement and the Conflict With the Empire (c. 1046–1122) 1. Christian Society in the Middle of the Eleventh Century i. Introduction ii. The Pattern of Divine Government iii. The Church and the Lay Powers iv. The Beginnings of a Reform Ideology 2. The Pattern of Social Change i. The Extension of Economic Activity: the Countryside ii. The Extension of Economic Activity: the Cities iii. The Expansion of Education iv. The Aristocracy v. The Dissemination of Ideas 3. Monastic Growth and Change i. The Expansion of the Monasteries ii. The Golden Age of Cluny iii. Hermits iv. Canons 4. The Papal Reform (1046–1073) i. Introduction ii. The Beginnings of Papal Reform (1046–1057) iii. The Reformers Come of Age (1057–1073) iv. The Principles of Papal Reform v. The Reform of the Clergy 5. The Discord of Empire and Papacy (1073–1099) i. Gregory VII

xv xvii 1 11 11 14 21 28 34 34 39 45 50 53 57 57 64 68 74 79 79 82 89 98 101 109 109

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ii. The Breach with the Empire iii. The Revival of the Gregorian Papacy (1085–1099) iv. The War of Ideas (1076–1099) 6. Greeks and Saracens i. The Situation in the Mediterranean World ii. The Conquest of Sicily and Apulia iii. The Rise of Christian Militarism iv. The First Crusade 7. The Conflict Renewed: the Question of Investiture (1099–1122) i. Paschal II (1099–1118) ii. The Concordat of Worms iii. Papal Administration iv. The Achievement of the Papal Reform Movement Part II. The Growth Of Christendom (1122–1198) 8. The Roman Church and the Empire in the Twelfth Century i. After the Concordat of Worms (1122–1153) ii. Frederick I and the Renewal of the Empire iii. The Alexandrine Schism (1159–1177) iv. The Papacy under Pressure (1177–1198) 9. The Government of the Church in the Twelfth Century i. Concepts of Papal Authority ii. The Exercise of Papal Power iii. The Pastorate of the Bishops iv. Churches and Kingdoms 10. The New Monastic Orders i. From Hermitage to Monastery ii. The New Orders iii. Controversy and Criticism iv. The New Orders in Twelfth-century Society 11. The Christian Frontier i. The Theory of Mission ii. Scandinavia iii. Eastern Europe iv. The Defence of the Holy Sepulchre

113 121 126 134 134 139 143 147 154 154 162 164 169 182 182 188 192 197 205 205 210 219 226 237 237 240 250 258 263 263 268 271 277

CONTENTS

12. The Message of the Churches i. Towards a Christian Society ii. The Great Churches iii. The Local Churches iv. Learning through Worship v. Preaching vi. Ceremonial and Society 13. Christianity and Social Ideas i. The Basis of Christian Social Action ii. Provision for the Poor iii. Marriage iv. Commercial Morality: the Question of Interest and Usury v. Chivalry 14. Dissent i. The Beginnings of Heresy (1050–1140) ii. Cathars and Waldensians (1140–1200) iii. Sorcery iv. The Jews 15. The Formulation of the Faith i. The Growth of Theology ii. The Science of Theology iii. The Theology of Humanism iv. Sin and Redemption v. The World to Come 16. Property, Privilege, and Law i. Ownership and Distribution ii. Tithes iii. The Structure of Ecclesiastical Property iv. Clerical Privilege v. The Growth of Canon Law vi. The Critics Part III. The Thirteenth Century 17. The Pontificate of Innocent III (1198–1216) i. The New Pope ii. The Papal State, Sicily, and the Empire iii. Innocent and the Lay Power iv. Reform

xiii 287 287 290 294 297 305 310 316 316 320 327 332 335 339 339 344 350 354 358 358 360 366 371 378 387 388 389 392 397 400 404 417 418 420 426 433

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v. The Christian East vi. The Struggle with Heresy vii. The Fourth Lateran Council 18. Friars, Beguines, and the Action against Heresy i. The Growth of the Friars ii. Religion for Women: the Rise of the Beguines iii. The Repression of Heresy 19. Proclaiming the Faith i. Crusade and Mission ii. The Pastoral Revolution iii. Popular Religion 20. Reason and Hope in a Changing World i. A New Pattern of Learning: the Universities ii. Theology: from Pastoral Care to Speculation iii. Joachim of Fiore: a New Eschatology iv. The Influence of Joachim 21. The Structure of Government i. The Bishops ii. Parishes iii. Monasteries and Cathedrals 22. The Roman Church and the Lay Power in the Thirteenth Century i. Papacy, Kingdoms, and City States ii. Frederick II iii. The Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century Conclusions Bibliography Index

438 442 447 452 452 462 470 478 478 489 496 505 505 511 518 522 527 527 536 541 550 550 559 568 579 583 657

Abbreviations AASS AFH AFP AHC AHP AKg Alberigo Annales Bernard, Opera BMCL C&S CCM CC(CM) CF CISAM CMH CNSS CSSSM DAEM Dic. DC Dic. TC EHR FM Foreville Gall. Christ. Greg. VII. Extrav.

Acta Sanctorum, ed. J. Bollandus (Antwerp, 1643–) Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (Florence) Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum (Rome) Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum (Paderborn) Archivum Historiae Pontificiae (Rome) Archiv für Kulturgeschichte (Cologne) J. Alberigo et al., Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta (Basle, 1962). (There is also a third, enlarged edition at Bologna, 1973.) Annales. Économies, sociétés, civilisations (Paris) J. Leclercq et al. (eds.), S. Bernardi Opera, 8 vols. (Rome, 1957–77) Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law (Berkeley, Calif.) Councils and Synods, with other Documents relating to the English Church, 2 vols (4 parts) (Oxford 1964–81) Cahiers de civilisation médiévale (Poitiers) Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis Cahiers de Fanjeaux (Toulouse) Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo (Spoleto) Cambridge Medieval History Actes du congrès national des Sociétés Savantes (Paris) Centro di studi sulla spiritualità medievale (Todi) Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters (Cologne) Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, ed. R. Naz (Paris, 1935–) Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (Paris, 1899–1972) English Historical Review A. Fliche and V. Martin (eds.), Histoire de l'église, 21 vols. (Paris, 1939–) R. Foreville, Latran I, II, III et Latran IV, Histoire des conciles oecuméniques 6 (Paris, 1965) Gallia Christiana, 16 vols. (Paris, 1715–1865, repr. 1970) H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII (Oxford, 1972)

xvi Greg. VII. Reg. HJb HZ ICMCL JEH JMH LdM Le Bras MA Mansi MCSM MGH LdL Leges Schriften SS SSRG MIC MIOG Misc. Med. MS n.d. Ordericus Vitalis PBA PL QFIAB RHC Occ RHDFE RHE RHEF RR RS RSCI

ABBREVIATIONS

E. Caspar (ed.), Das Register Gregors VII., MGH Ep. 2 Historisches Jahrbuch (Munich) Historische Zeitschrift (Munich) International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (Vatican) Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of Medieval History Lexikon des Mittelalters (Munich) Études d'histoire du droit canonique dédiées à G. Le Bras, 2 vols. (Paris, 1965) Le Moyen-ÂAge (Brussels) J. D. Mansi (ed.), Sanctorum Conciliorum collectio nova (Venice 1748–) Miscellanea del Centro di Studi Medievali (La Mendola) Monumenta Germaniae Historica Libelli de Lite Scriptores Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum Monumenta Iuris Canonici Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichts-forschung Miscellanea Medievalia (Rome) Mediaeval Studies no date Marjorie Chibnall, The Ecclesiastical History of Ordericus Vitalis, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969–80) Proceedings of the British Academy Patrologiae Latinae cursus completus, series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne (1844–) Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken (Tübingen) Recueil des Historiens des Croisades Historiens occidentaux Revue historique de droit français et étranger (Paris) Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique (Louvain) Revue d'histoire de l'église de France (Paris) Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R. L. Benson and G. Constable (Oxford, 1982) Rolls Series Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia (Rome)

ABBREVIATIONS

Sb SC SCH SGrat S Greg SSCISAM TRHS VuF ZKg ZSSRGkA

xvii

Sitzungsberichte Sources chrétiennes Studies in Church History Studia Gratiana (Rome) Studi Gregoriani (Rome) Settimane di Studi del Centro italiano di Studi sull'alto medioevo (Spoleto) Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Vorträge und Forschungen (Sigmaringen) Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte (Stuttgart) Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, kanonistische Abteilung (volume numbers are those of the main series)

References to Canon Law

The standard edition is E. Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, 2nd edn. 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1922). Gratian, Decr.C. XII, q. 2, c. 3 (1223) means Causa XII, questio 2, capitulum 3 of the Decretum in column 1223 of Friedberg vol. i. Greg. IX, Decretals, IV. 2.5 (673) means book IV, questio 2, capitulum 5 of the Gregorian Collection in column 673 of Friedberg vol. ii.

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Introduction The title of this book expresses a paradox, not a fact. A papal monarchy was in principle and in practice inconceivable in medieval Europe. One of the distinctive features of Christianity has been a clear separation between church and state. The awareness of two powers, each with its own area of authority, was founded upon the ministry of Christ and embodied in his command, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's’ (Mark 12: 17). The distinction between sacred and secular, between kingdom (regnum) and priesthood (sacerdotium) is a commonplace of Christian thinking, and it was not forgotten between 1050 and 1250. On the contrary the sense of opposition between clergy and laity grew stronger, as clergy were discouraged from secular employment and debarred from those activities of government which involved the use of force and imposition of death sentences. In the proper sense of the words, papal monarchy was impossible. A pope could no more rule a kingdom than a king could say mass. Yet the language of papal monarchy is inescapable in our sources, and the popes adopted imperial dress and ceremonial. Rhetoric and symbolism expressed a complex reality. In part they described the supremacy of papal authority within the church, a supremacy which was widely recognized although it was rarely defined as absolutism. But papal claims went further. The ineffectiveness of state power at the beginning of our period meant that the clergy supervised activities which in the ancient or the modern world alike have been the business of the state or of voluntary societies. These included the provision of hospitals and schools, jurisdiction over marriage and probate, the defence of Christendom against the infidel, and the preservation of peace within its borders. As the supreme authority within the church popes had final responsibility for all these matters, and it is striking to find how many major initiatives were undertaken directly by the Roman Church: the history of the crusades, of the friars, and of the inquisition, for example, was shaped by papal

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decisions. Moreover since the clergy were answerable for the souls of laity, the sacerdotium appeared superior to the regnum and popes to kings. There was much argument about how such supremacy should be defined in practice, but many writers were prepared to see in the papacy an authority above earthly kings, and such language was not always rejected by the lay powers, however carefully they defended their customary rights. The impression of dominance was strengthened by the fact that bishops and abbots controlled great estates, and even duchies and counties, so that German bishops in the thirteenth century could be described as ‘kings and priests’. Over the centuries the Roman Church accumulated a great mass of claims to secular power, including the Papal State in central Italy and suzerainty over Sicily, England, and other kingdoms. The forged Donation of Constantine included a formal grant of imperial style to the pope. All this put the two-power theory under grave strain, and makes it appropriate to speak of papal monarchy as a special feature of the centuries after 1050. The beginning of the period is easy to define. Although much use was made of earlier precedents the elaboration of the rhetoric of papal monarchy scarcely began before the middle of the eleventh century, and was then rapidly developed in the circle of Gregory VII (1073–85). There is no similarly clear terminal date. The language of sovereignty stamped itself upon the Roman Church, and its echoes remained clear in Boniface VIII, in the popes of Avignon, in Sixtus V, and in Pius IX. In spite of the Second Vatican Council, it is still alive in some recent utterances by authority. The year 1250, however, offers a natural break. By then, all the great initiatives of the medieval papacy had been put into effect. The two centuries covered by this book were the supreme age of papal monarchy. Christendom was ruled by kings and princes under the supervision of the clergy, and especially of the Roman Church, which alone possessed the fullness of power. The ideal of Christendom, whatever its splendour, is an embarrassment to the historian of the church, for it provides no limit to his subject-matter. In an age when every man was a Christian, and when the patronage and responsibility of the church extended throughout society, its history comprises architecture and literature, philosophy and music, estate administration, law, crusades, the empire, national states and their churches. Of the making of such a book, there would be no end. There is fortunately one central theme which provides a

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natural line of investigation: the creation of an international culture which increasingly bound together the diverse, and often hostile, peoples into one Christian people or populus Christianus. The expanding authority of the papacy was only one of the new forces which moulded this international culture. Other influences include the appearance of religious orders which extended into every part of Europe, a common learning stimulated by the universities, a common discipline enjoined by councils, and a common defence provided by the crusades. Such a study offers a number of points of interest. What we are seeing is the making of Christendom in its later form, for there are innumerable institutions and attitudes which did not exist in 1050 but which by 1250 were firmly established, and which remained characteristic of modern history. Among them were the birth of theology as an academic discipline, the inquisition, central direction of the affairs of the regional churches, the growth of the friars, prince-bishops, diocesan records, chivalry, the crusades, regular confession, and the elevation of the host. This is the Europe of tradition, ‘the world we have lost’, whereas to go back before 1050 is to enter a region which is by comparison alien to our own. To historians who worked in a culture where the ideal of Christendom was still vital, these developments came to appear inescapable, and to Catholic scholars they appeared also right. These convictions shaped the approach of many of the ablest scholars of medieval church history, such as Augustin Fliche, and have contributed to the vocabulary of historical study: the ideals of the papal reformers have come to seem the central and creative force in subsequent ecclesiastical history, and the single word ‘Gregorian’ has been applied to almost everything that was new and enlightened in our period. For those who live in post-Christian Europe the aura of inevitability has been removed. The dominant impression is not of evolution determined by earlier traditions, but of an abundance of new energies which were refashioning society in unprophesiable ways: the transformation of the economy and social structure and the rise of the cities and universities brought with them appeals to public opinion, demands for new teaching and devotional patterns, and an agonizing tension between privilege and poverty which is difficult to parallel from the preceding generations. The effect was to leave scope for individual policies which had a long-lasting impact upon the history of the church. It would have been hard to foresee

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Gregory VII's disconcerting sympathy for social revolution, Urban II's decision to rescue the church of Jerusalem, Alexander III's practice of legislating by letter, and Innocent III's remorseless determination to destroy the German hegemony in Italy, let alone the impact of charismatic personalities such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis of Assisi. If these men and their policies were in some sense an expression of existing ideas, they developed them in quite unexpected directions. Jean Leclercq has rightly warned us that ‘Christian experience is never to be reduced to or explained by social, economic, political or ideological pressures.’ The uncertainty principle is fundamental to both history and religion. It is always tempting for the historian to focus on those movements which had the greatest influence on the future, and the immense creativity of our period makes it easy to fall into such a trap. But it is vital to remember that the forces which were shaping a new international culture were destroying older values inherited from the Carolingian past. Karl Leyser has suggested that they actually aborted the growth of a common culture which can be discerned in the first half of the eleventh century. The new international culture had a fragmenting as well as a unifying impact, for it stamped new divisions upon society, between clergy and laity, Latins and Greeks, and papacy and empire. Already within our period we can see those divisions being deepened by a pattern of protest and reaction. Heresy was at least in part a protest against clerical authority, and crusade and inquisition followed in an attempt to preserve doctrinal unity from the corrosion of heresy. The speed of change was so great that I have found it necessary to subdivide the book at 1122 and 1200. This arrangement has inconveniences. The divisions are unsuitable for some topics, in which they disrupt a story of continuous development. What is more, identical processes took place at different times in different regions: the founding of local churches was almost complete in south-eastern England in 1100, and was barely beginning in some parts of eastern Europe in 1250. The use of these chronological divisions also panders to the historian's besetting temptation to be a follower of fashion. The assumption that what is newest is also most significant is difficult to resist. But an original book sometimes was little read whereas traditional writings continued to have a vast influence disseminated through the inclusion of extracts in collections or florilegia. The work of modern editors, invaluable as it is to

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historians, may entangle them more deeply in the embrace of new fashions, for understandably there are far more definitive editions of works surviving in one manuscript than of those which exist in hundreds. Yet it was this latter group, spreading through countries and centuries, which maintained older ideas and values across the boundaries between periods. It will therefore be essential to move fairly easily across our chronological divisions, but it is important to have them. Medieval history is misrepresented if we study it in units of several centuries, for, while Innocent III was obviously in some sense the successor of Gregory VII, he was confronted by different problems and disposed of different resources with which to solve them. At times, too, our period falls into three ages with an accuracy which would have delighted the heart of Abbot Joachim of Fiore, for we have in turn the ages of the Cluniacs, the Cistercians, and the friars; or the times of little heresy, of growing heresy, and of the inquisition. Similarly the Concordat of Worms in 1122 and the death of Henry VI in 1197 mark points of real change in the relations of church and empire. In a dynamic age, more is gained than lost by marking the differences between the generations. One further difference will inevitably shape this book: the extremely rapid increase in record evidence. Even very basic information is denied us in the middle of the eleventh century, whereas 200 years later we know a great deal about the operation of many institutions. As a result there is a good deal more detail included, even in a volume of this general kind, as the period advances. This has the effect of keeping Gregory VII in his proper place. Great man that he was, his ideas were not the only, or even the most decisive, influence in the restructuring of the medieval church. The common features in the new Europe (both of unification and fragmentation) will be the central theme, but they must not lead us to undervalue the continuing regional characteristics of medieval Europe. There are plenty of local features, such as the Gilbertine order in England or the houses of Fiore in southern Italy, and the appearance of a widely diffused phenomenon may conceal vast local divergences: the Franciscans were very different in the Apennines and the Rhineland. The question of continuity and change is at its most teasing in the area about which one would most like to have full information: the religious awareness of the ordinary member of the church. Here the basic problem is the obvious one that little people leave no records. We have virtually no first-hand statement of the

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ideas of peasants or townsmen in this period. There are reports by inquisitors, preachers, and recorders of miracles, and some of them were careful observers. But they are not sufficient to enable us to form a coherent picture of popular opinion and they are subject to caution, because a clerk was always liable to make an unfamiliar belief conform to something he knew from his textbooks. It is almost certainly wrong to suppose that there was a pattern of unchanging superstition at the roots of society. Recent work has made us aware of the concern of the hierarchy, especially in the thirteenth century, for the teaching of the populace as a whole, and it would be perverse to suppose that these endeavours were totally without effect. We are also beginning to recognize, thanks to the work of Jacques le Goff, Jean-Claude Schmitt, and others, that Christianity itself provided a great deal of material to popular fable and ritual, and it has been suggested that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw a profound transformation of the folklore which circulated in the west. Popular culture was being transformed at the same time as the learned world around it. In a general volume of this kind I have had to eschew a full exploration of this fascinating field, where the achievement of broad conclusions is still a distant prospect. The reader will find a good deal about pastoral and teaching techniques and the response of the authorities to dissent and heresy; and I have attempted to give some overview of the ‘religion of the illiterate’. Perhaps the secret history of the people of God cannot be written for any generation. We are not yet ready to do so, in any event, for the Middle Ages. In accordance with the policy of the series the footnotes do not include detailed discussions but are limited to references to quotations in the text. There are separate volumes allocated to the Iberian peninsula and to the eastern churches; the latter volume, by Dr Joan Hussey, has already covered the development of relations between Rome and Constantinople. With these exceptions, this book attempts to give an account of the religious history of the Latin west between 1050 and 1250.

Part 1 The Papal Reform Movement and the Conict With the Empire (c. 1046–1122)

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Introduction The second half of the eleventh century was a particularly decisive time in the history of the church. To mention only three of the more important developments, the popes emerged as the leaders of an international reform movement in western Europe; they became involved in a dispute with the empire whose effects were to be long-lasting; and they directed the military efforts of Christendom against Islam, most notably in the First Crusade. The papal reform movement, the investiture contest, and the crusades went far beyond any previous precedents for papal activity, and were to have a profound impact upon the future history of the church. Behind them lay one of the most remarkable features of this period: the influence of monasticism. In general it has been rare for a monk to become pope, but from 1073 to 1118 the chair of St Peter was continuously occupied by men with monastic training, and monastic advisers were prominent in the formulation of papal policy. Monasticism was itself in turmoil, for while existing abbeys were expanding rapidly many new ones were being founded and challenges to traditional ideals were being vigorously expressed. Yet monasticism was only one (although a very important) element in an international movement for the reform of the church and redefinition of the place of the laity within it. Behind these developments were major changes in society. A new structure of lordship was emerging, along with a money economy and urban communities. Closely related with these social changes was a great expansion of learning, the first stages in the movement which was to produce the distinctive medieval contribution to European scholarship. There were thus five great forces transforming the history of the church: papal revival, monastic renewal, international reform, social change, and the growth of learning. It is not easy to define their mutual influence, or even to determine their chronological priority, since change necessarily took place over a long period, and at very different speeds in different parts of Europe. Nevertheless, the first

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part of this book must be concerned with an attempt to understand the way in which these new forces became dominant within the life of the church.

1Christian Society in the Middle of the Eleventh Century i. Introduction It is hard to give a fair account of the church of the mid-eleventh century. The severe criticisms of the reformers of the next generation came to be accepted by subsequent catholic thinkers, and left their mark on the work of historians until recent times. What is more, men of the earlier eleventh century did not leave an abundant record of their point of view, for they lived in a largely pre-literate age. This does not mean simply that many people were unable to read or write, but that it was not natural to resort to writing as a means of record or communication. The usual mode of formal expression was a symbolic action. A man was known to be king because he had been publicly anointed and crowned; another was known to have been appointed bishop because he had received the gift of ring and staff. Land was transferred through a material token such as a knife or a clod of earth. Some written record might be made of a donation, but even then it would not often define the privileges and duties which were being conferred. While bishops and abbots valued the documents which validated their rights of possession, lay nobles felt a healthy contempt for writing, and were not prepared to give weight to a mere scrap of parchment. The advocate (or lay protector) of the abbey of Prüm in the Rhineland expressed his feeling clearly in a dispute in 1063: ‘he laughed at the record, and said that a pen can write more or less anything. He was not going to lose his rights because of that.’1 This was not simply the attitude of a backwoods nobleman without sense or education; it was a fact that the available documents were unreliable, and that it was almost impossible to detect a competent, or even an incompetent, forgery. The memory of sworn witnesses seemed more worthy of trust than title-deeds of

1

Cited H. Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre für Deutschland und Italien, 2nd edn. (Leipzig, 1912), i.651 n.

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doubtful authenticity, and for a long time after 1050 it continued to be accepted that witnesses were the best evidence in a legal tribunal. This reluctance to use writing was also reflected in the relatively small amount of controversy on contemporary issues. A well-read man in 1050, and that with rare exceptions meant a monk or member of the upper clergy, would be familiar with works from the distant past: the Scriptures, monastic writings such as the Collations of Cassian and the Rule of St Benedict, patristic and Carolingian commentaries and saints' lives, and doctrinal and pastoral works by a small number of the Fathers. To an extent which we would find unimaginable there was a lack of contemporary written work, and not much demand for it: the great letter-collections of the succeeding age, for example, were anticipated in the early eleventh century only by that of Fulbert of Chartres. A limited number of chronicles, such as those of Thietmar of Merseburg in eastern Germany and Adhemar of Chabannes in Aquitaine show that intelligent contemporaries were reflecting on the issues facing their society and that creative thinking did not begin in 1050, but they offer a relatively small amount of material in which we can overhear the anxieties of the age. In governing and educated circles, the Carolingian inheritance was still strong. It is true that the world of Charlemagne and his descendants had been transformed: its political unity had been shattered, kingdoms had passed to other families, and bishoprics and monasteries had been ravaged by barbarian invaders. Nevertheless, readers of the volume in this series by Michael Wallace-Hadrill on The Frankish Church will recognize how attitudes and institutions which went back to the Carolingians still provided the framework for thinking in the eleventh century. From that source had come the idea of a western empire with a special relationship with the Roman Church, and so had the idea of the Godgiven ruler, who like a new David championed the Christian people in war against the unbeliever. The respect of the Frankish church for Rome, reflected in the cult of St Peter and in liturgical borrowing, offered a basis for claims to Roman primacy in a new age. Germany in particular had preserved much from the Carolingians. The title of emperor, the royal direction of great monasteries and bishoprics, and a variety of other practices of government maintained that continuity, as did institutions such as the court chapel, or Hofkapelle, of the German kings. The Rhineland and Lotharingia displayed a particularly strong continuity with the past in architecture and scholarship. The

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immense majority of Carolingian manuscripts had been devoted to the text of the Bible, the liturgy, or the four major Latin Fathers, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory; and this remained the dominant pattern for book production until well into the twelfth century. Ideas and styles created by Carolingian scholars were taken up by their successors. Thus the interpretation of the liturgy by Amalarius of Metz, which his contemporaries had found unduly daring, became the basis for expositions of the mass, while the dispute over the presence of Christ in the eucharist between Ratramnus of Corbie and Paschasius Radbertus was to be revived by Berengar of Tours in the middle of the eleventh century on a much more public platform. Collections of canon law (most notably the pseudo-Isidorian decretals forged about 850) provided the basis for church discipline in the new age. Even the reformers' originalities testify to the pervasive late Carolingian atmosphere. Gregory VII's policy was directed not only against recent corruptions, but also against the Carolingian polity itself, rejecting liturgy and laws which were not truly Roman and the Rule of Aix which permitted canons to own individual property, which Gregory saw as the result of improper imperial interference in church affairs. By 1050 the conversion of Europe was almost complete, at least in terms of formal allegiance. The older Christian lands were now ringed by nations in the process of accepting the faith: Norway, Denmark, Poland, and Hungary. To the north there remained untouched the more remote areas of the Baltic, and the Slavonic tribes on the frontier of Saxony. In southern Europe much less progress had been made, and Sicily and most of Spain were still under Moslem rule. The chronicler Raoul Glaber explained that on the cross Christ had his face to the west and his right hand to the north, to symbolize the fact that conversions would be more abundant there.2 Within these wide boundaries, people were acquainted with unbelief only as represented by the Jews, who were increasingly moving from the countryside to form communities in the cities, or by pagan cults brought from outside by settlers. By 1050, moreover, there were few remains of non-Christian worship in former Viking areas, although the church in eastern England and in parts of Normandy was still suffering from the damage done by the Viking invasions through the seizure of property and suppression

2

Raoul Glaber, Historiae, i. 5 (PL 142. 626C).

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of bishoprics and monasteries. With few exceptions, western Europeans worshipped in Latin liturgies, reverenced Rome as the mother of churches, and drew on a common stock of ceremony and symbolism. Among the learned at least, there was a clear awareness of the Latin world as a cultural unity which had grown apart from Greek tradition embodied in the great Christian empire of Byzantium. Lanfranc of Bec could call ‘almost all the Latin world’ as witness to the truth of his doctrines.3 Yet there was no sense of living in a stable age of secure faith. Contemporaries were aware of the threat posed by the heathen outside and of their duty to proclaim the Gospel ‘in every place and to every people without exception’.4 They were also troubled by the power of demons within their own homeland, for, as Raoul Glaber warned his readers, they were ‘abundant all over the world, and especially in springs and trees’.5 The world was seen not only as the abode of demons, but also as a centre of corruption and depravity. A favourite text was 1 John 5: 19, ‘the whole world is in the power of the evil one’. The learned German monk, Hermann the Lame, gave on his death-bed in 1054 the message tedet quidem me vivere (it is a bore to be alive): ‘This present world, with all that belongs to it, and this mortal life itself is despicable and wearisome to me, and in contrast that future and intransitory world and that eternal and immortal life fill me with such ineffable desire and love . . . that I count all transitory things as vain nothings.’6 This world-rejection, so characteristic of the eleventh century, was to continue as a dark background to spiritual life throughout our whole period, and contributed one of the important elements within the growth of a new monasticism. Yet paradoxically the monks who had abandoned the world were also concerned for the general well-being of the church. While some thinkers were filled with despair about the secular order, another strand of Christian belief was confident in the divine power to govern the affairs of men.

ii. The Pattern of Divine Government. The passion and resurrection of Christ had established him as king:

3

Lanfranc, De Corpore et Sanguine, 2 (PL 150.410A): ‘huius rei testis est tota fere Latinitas.’

4

Glaber, Historiae i. 5 (PL 142.626C).

5

Glaber, Historiae iv. 3 (675A).

6

Berthold, Annales, sub anno 1054 (MGH SS V.268).

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Triumphat ille splendide et dignus amplitudine, soli polique patriam unam fecit rempublicam.7

15

He triumphs gloriously on high, Is over all accounted great. The fatherland of earth and sky He now has made a single state.

In spiritual matters as in political ones the contemporary idea of authority was different from ours. The king was a hero-figure or a bearer of sanctity, and men looked to him not for a uniform administration but for interventions to promote justice and righteousness. Similarly Christ's government of the world consisted in particular manifestations of power. Miracles were specially important in imparting a sense of God's presence. As Lawrence of Amalfi wrote, ‘he waters the dryness of our minds by the joyful manifestation of his miracles’.8 The learned Bishop Gerard of Cambrai told a synod of clergy at Arras in 1025 about the frequent presence of heavenly beings: ‘Often when these holy mysteries are celebrated choirs of angels are seen by many going about the table of the altar . . . like knights in attendance on the service of their king.’9 What Herbert Marcuse has called the one-dimensional character of modern awareness is wholly alien to the experience of medieval man. Even the ordinary affairs of men depended upon the intervention of celestial powers. There was no confidence in an autonomous human capacity to conduct business without intervention from above. The saints in particular inspired the minds of men by their examples, and they performed many valuable social functions. Men turned to them when they needed healing, or victory in judicial combat, or the birth of an heir. Saints acted as intercessors for God's forgiveness, and sinners who were not ready to enter a monastery could hope for mercy by performing a pilgrimage to one of the great shrines. Above all, the saint was the patron of his church, its protector and in a real sense its owner. His (or, much more rarely, her) power resided specially in his relics, contained in a magnificent casket of gold and silver preserved in the crypt or, increasingly, beside the high altar. In southern France it became customary to house the relics in a golden image of the saint, such as the statue of Ste Foy which still survives at Conques. The lives of the saints,

7

F. J. E. Raby (ed.) The Oxford Book of Medieval Latin Verse (Oxford, 1959), no. 128, ascribed to Bishop Fulbert of Chartres.

8

Lawrence of Amalfi, Vita S. Zenobii Episcopi, prol., F. Newton (ed.), Opera (MGH Quellen 7, 51).

9

Mansi, xix.435C.

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which were written in abundance, told of invaders of church lands who had been brought to repentance or punishment by their power; monks might take the relics with them when they went to plead in a law court, as the community of Stavelot did before the Emperor Henry IV at Liège in 1071; and relics were regularly carried into battle to harness the victory-bringing power of the saint. The veneration of the saints was not a primitive practice which survived from the barbarian past and was destined to fade away with higher standards of education. On the contrary, their shrines were increasingly important centres in the eleventh-century world, and pilgrimage to them, which in the Carolingian period had been mainly the prerogative of clergy and nobles, was becoming widespread and popular. This was true of the greatest international centres: pilgrimage to Jerusalem was on a larger scale than ever before, and from about 1050 the shrine of St James at Compostella in northern Spain began to attract visitors from abroad in ever growing numbers. In many parts of Europe the century saw the establishment of major pilgrimage centres. The popularity of the shrine of Ste Foy at Conques increased markedly from about the year 1000; Vézelay under Abbot Geoffrey (1037–52) acquired the body of St Mary Magdalen; Bavaria received its first major centre of pilgrimage in 1049 when Pope Leo IX consecrated the church of Heiligkreuz, Donauwörth, specially built to house a fragment of the cross brought from Constantinople; the body of St Matthew was discovered at Salerno in 1080; and the international fame of the image of Christ, the Santo Volto, at Lucca seems to date from the late eleventh century. Raoul Glaber was justified in entitling one of his chapters ‘the relics of the saints discovered on all sides’.10 The new importance of pilgrimage was such that the word peregrinus, which had previously meant a foreigner or exile, now came to be used to mean a visitor to a shrine, a pilgrim in the later sense. This confidence in the power of the saints will be more comprehensible to us if we remember that it was, as a matter of hard fact, effective. The standing of a church really did depend on the greatness of its patron saint. The authority of Rome was derived from St Peter and St Paul, and Compostella would have been nothing without St James. Lands were restored out of love or fear of the saints, the poor and the sick could hope for relief at their shrines, and the donations of

10

Glaber, Historiae, iii.6 (PL 142.655B).

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pilgrims helped to finance new and splendid buildings. It is understandable that these wonders were ascribed to the mysterious powers which resided in the bodies of holy men. Sin and sorrow could not be overcome by human arrangement, but by sacred power. The shrines of the saints were by no means the only places where men might have recourse to the help of the sacred. The judicial system depended in difficult cases on recourse to divine judgement through the practices which we know as ordeals, but which were at the time described by the simple term judgement, iudicium. When human testimony was lacking, the accused might appeal to divine witness in the ceremonies of hot iron, or hot or cold water, ceremonies for which a liturgy was provided and which frequently took place in the cathedral itself. Once again we encounter the same distrust of human possibilities and the conviction that the innocent can only be vindicated by sacred power. God's care for his people was shown not only in the shrines of the saints and the ritual of the ordeal, but in the provision of authorities to govern Christian society: ‘The greatest gifts of God to mankind, bestowed by the divine clemency, are indeed the priesthood and the empire, the one ministering in divine things, the other presiding and taking care over human affairs: both proceed from the same origin and adorn human life.’11 This declaration of Roman Law embodied what is generally known as the Gelasian principle: the affirmation that God had provided two powers for the government of men, the royal and the priestly, regnum and sacerdotium. Gelasius I (492–6), the pope from whom it received its name, had been clear in his declaration of the duality but had implied the greater dignity of the sacerdotium, which dealt with spiritual and eternal things. To medieval men, this duality was a matter of common sense, and so was the duty of the two powers to co-operate for the well-being of the Christian world. It was also necessary that each power should respect the boundary between them, and its definition was to become one of the most important issues of the succeeding centuries. In practice in the middle of the eleventh century the two powers were not equal, for in most parts of Europe the organization of the church depended heavily upon the rule of the anointed king. A glance at the historical atlas reveals a pattern of kingdoms which

11

Corpus Iuris Civilis, iii, Nov. VI pr. ed. R. Schoell and W. Kroll (Berlin, 1954), 35–6.

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are recognizably the ancestors of the states of modern Europe, even if their frontiers are different in detail, and their names still undefined. Spain was not a political term at all, and Germany and Italy were only slowly being distinguished within the general concept of the empire. Gregory VII was adopting an unusual style in 1076 when he spoke of the ‘kingdom of the Teutons and of Italy’.12 The rulers of these kingdoms had little by way of administrative machinery at their disposal. The classical term for a state, respublica, was relatively rare in eleventh-century writing; patria referred more commonly to the heavenly country than the earthly; and the king was ruler of a people, rex Anglorum rather than rex Anglie. He was their father and protector, whose task it was to save them from oppression and injustice, and he was their leader in war. The nature of the royal office at the beginning of our period is declared in materials which, although highly evocative, are hard to interpret with precision: coronation liturgies, panegyrics, and the symbolism of royal insignia. It is a fact of prime importance that there was not, at the beginning of our period, a clear area of separate governmental responsibilities which could be firmly labelled as secular. Although the lay ruler's military role was peculiar to his office, in other respects (as guardian of peace and justice and protector of the church) his functions interlocked with those of bishops and of patron saints. Carolingian bishops had certainly seen the preservation of the peace as part of the emperor's function, but had themselves co-operated actively with him. Monastic writers of the tenth and eleventh centuries had sometimes stressed the king's standing as a sacred person, and esteemed such rulers as Robert the Pious of France (996–1031) and the Emperor Henry II (1002–24) because of their asceticism, whether real or imagined: the virtues of the king overlapped with those of the monk. The definition of responsibilities, which could be made so confidently in the time of Justinian, was no longer clear. Of the rulers of the west, the greatest was the emperor, whose dominions included Germany, northern and central Italy, and the old middle kingdom of Burgundy. It was accepted by this time that the imperial dignity was vested in one of the leading families of Germany, and in 1050 the emperor was the brilliant Henry III (1039–56),

12

Greg. VII, Reg. iii.6 (253). Gregory also regularly used the word ‘Teutonic’ in his letters. It seems to have expressed a new perception of national relations, and conceivably reflected the pope's awareness of his Roman origins.

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the second of the Salian house. The existence of the imperial title has sometimes misled historians into supposing that it expressed a strong ambition for political unity: ‘as Christendom is subject to the pope, so all peoples must obey the emperor’.13 It is true that language was used which appears to imply this. The emperors regarded themselves as the legitimate heirs of Rome, and already in the tenth century they used the title Imperator Augustus Romanorum. When the style of Roman imperialism was combined with the belief that the emperor was God's anointed, propaganda inevitably took on a universalist ring. Thus Wipo, chaplain of Henry III, wrote Henry the Third, the friend of virtue, reigns. Next after Christ he rules across the earth.14 The practical significance of such phrases was slight. The Salian emperors did not claim fealty or tribute from other monarchs except where they had special grounds for doing so, and the universal empire scarcely existed as an ideal, let alone as a reality. Even in the early eleventh century the assertion was being made in France that ‘each king devoutly exercises Christian empire within the bounds of his realm’.15 The distinctive thing about the empire was not that it was universal, but that it was Roman. The emperor claimed lordship over the city of Rome, where alone he could receive his crown, and he was protector of the see of Rome, the greatest of all the western churches. All kings, the emperor included, were God's agents, set apart for government by the anointing which they had received: ‘Kings and priests . . . are found to be called God and Christ on account of the mystery of the ministry which they have received.’16 In the great prayer Deus inenarrabilis, which was used in coronation orders throughout the whole of our period, the king was seen as the means by which peace and virtue were bestowed upon his people: ‘and so may this people thrive under his government and be blessed with eternal life’.17 The anointing of a king could take place only once, but he could show himself many times at a crown-wearing or coronation. So similar were the functions of a king and of a patron saint

13

For these words of Ludwig Hahn and similar views, see R. Schlierer, Weltherrschafts-gedanke und altdeutsches Kaisertum (Tübingen, 1934), 20–4.

14

Wipo, Tetralogus, vv. 18–19, ed. H. Bresslau, Die Werke Wipos (Hanover, 1915), 76.

15

Abbo of Fleury, Collectio Canonum, 9 (PL 139.482B).

16

Peter Damian, Liber Gratissimus, 10 (MGH LdL. i.31).

17

R. Elze, Die Ordines für die Weihe und Krönung des Kaisers (Hanover, 1960), no. iv. A.2 (p. 10).

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that the ceremonial proper to the one was transferred to the other. The regalia often contained relics or even were relics—the German kings were invested with the lance of St Maurice, into which had been set a nail from the cross of Christ. The king was displayed to his people as the Lord's anointed and as a walking relic-collection. It is not surprising that at one of William the Conqueror's crown-wearings a spectator fell down, crying out, ‘Behold, I see God!’ Marc Bloch has seen this period as the time when the custom of ‘royal healing’ or touching for scrofula arose, although its regular use may belong rather to the thirteenth-century cult of kingship.18 The sacred office of kingship gave its holder a special responsibility for the church. He was acknowledged as vicar of Christ, and even, in a title which belonged to Christ himself, as head of the church.19 The Old Testament provided many texts and examples to support the idea of the godly king ruling over a faithful people. The New Testament is considerably less enthusiastic about the secular power, but contemporaries did the best they could with its few helpful texts, such as Romans 13: 1: ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.’ The responsibility of a conscientious ruler towards the church is expressed in a charter of Edward the Confessor: It will be right and proper for us, who are said to have been appointed by God as ruler over men, prudently to endeavour by the inspiration of divine mercy and after the measure of our judgement . . . especially to take in hand and in kindly measure investigate the affairs of the church.20 While the lay power therefore accepted responsibilities for the welfare of the church, the collapse of royal power, most notably in France, had led the bishops to assume what had primarily been royal functions, and to take the initiative in defending the peace. The beginning of the Peace of God movement is usually identified as the council of Le Puy in 975, where Bishop Guy demanded from an assembly of laymen an oath to preserve the peace and to respect the property of the church and of the ‘poor’, that is the ordinary population. There followed a sequence of councils, mainly in

18

Milo, Vita Lanfranci xiii.33 (PL 150.53CD). On ‘royal healing’ see works cited in the bibliography.

19

Wipo, Vita Chuonradi 3, ed. H. Bresslau, 23; K. Strecker, Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung no. 125 (MGH Epistolae Selectae III p. 142). The title ‘head of the church’ is from Eph. 5: 23, and had already been used of the royal office in a work falsely ascribed to St John Chrysostom.

20

Cited and discussed by F. Barlow, The English Church 1000–66 (London, 1963), 35.

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southern France but spreading into the north and other regions, in which peace was enjoined upon the military classes under the threat of ecclesiastical censures. Associated with this were measures, first evident at the council of Toulouges in 1027, prohibiting violence at certain seasons, initially on Sundays but extending to include Fridays, Lent, and other days of special significance. By the time of the council of Narbonne in 1054 an impressive body of legislation had been assembled, which had reached the point of prohibiting any Christian from killing another. John Cowdrey has suggested that this was the culmination of the movement, which afterwards did not show the same vitality in its original form.21 By this time it had moved far from its Carolingian roots and had developed features which were to be of great significance in the development of medieval society. The bishops were no longer the assistants of the lay power in keeping the peace, but had accepted that responsibility themselves, seeking the support of princes where possible, taking oaths from knights, and even on occasions organizing peace-keeping militias. The calling of special peace councils, where the presence of relics contributed by local monasteries added to the force of the injunctions, similarly went far beyond ninth-century precedents. The theological foundation of this enterprise was also significant, for it was seen as a realization of the peace which the apostles received from their Lord: ‘How fair is the name of peace, and how beautiful is the reputation of unity, which Christ left to the disciples when he ascended into heaven.’22 These themes (the church's duty to defend and provide for the welfare of Christian society, employing militias and oaths when necessary for the purpose; and the restoration of the apostolic age) will be appearing again in this history. The peace movement was a seed-bed in which many of the growths of the following century were germinated.

iii. The Church and the Lay Powers Although the extent to which lay powers intervened in ecclesiastical affairs differed from one part of Europe to another, the general pattern was of heavy involvement. Apart from their moral responsibility, they were compelled to take a close interest because of the large landholdings of monasteries and bishoprics, and the clergy's

21

H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘The Peace of God and the Truce of God in the Eleventh century’, Past and Present 46 (1970) 53.

22

Council of Poitiers (c. 1011–14), prol. (Mansi, xix.267).

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influential position in local society. When William I became king of England in 1066 he found thirty-five monasteries in existence with an aggregate income of £11,000, almost a sixth of the annual revenue of the whole country, while their links with the nobility tended to make them centres of opposition to the Norman conquerors. It was even more vital to control the great churches of Germany and Italy, for from the late tenth century the emperors had endowed them with secular privileges on an even greater scale than elsewhere: counties, immunities, tolls, markets, the minting of money, and other rights were transferred into the hands of favoured bishops, so that, for example, the diocese of Utrecht received no less than eight counties in the course of the eleventh century. It was assumed that the resources of the churches were available for the assistance of the ruler: in particular, bishops were expected to provide hospitality in their cities for the royal court on its incessant journeys, to bring troops to the support of royal expeditions, and to attend the court to give counsel. Royal grants of protection or tuitio were seen as creating a formal relationship between the Crown and the church which received them. The emperors were quite open about the service which the churches were expected to provide, and Henry II granted the abbey of Helmershausen to Bishop Meinwerk of Paderborn ‘because it could be of no use to the kingdom in providing facilities or servants’.23 The government of the German and Italian churches has often been described as the ‘imperial church system’. This was not a clearly structured institution, for personal relations were pre-eminent in the functioning of the emperor's government. Even the most important services, such as participation in the military expeditions to Italy, were performed mainly by bishops closely associated with the king, who visited most frequently a relatively small number of favourite cities. The services thus rendered were in practice repaid by the grant of generous privileges. Especially under Henry III, bishops were appointed from the clerks who had acquired personal links with the court through their membership of the royal chapel and of a small group of chapters such as Bamberg, Magdeburg, and Henry's own beloved foundation of St Simon and St Jude at Goslar. Although most German bishops and abbots were of noble birth, lineage was not the only consideration in episcopal appointments. The choice was influenced by

23

Vita Meinwerci 144 (MGH SS XI. 137).

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bishops at court who appear as sponsors for candidates by officially ‘intervening’ in elections, and the evidence is that they used their position to secure the advancement of pupils whom they had taught, canons of their cathedrals, or other clergy whom they had encountered during their careers. It was a solid structure founded not on constitutional powers but on an old-boy network on an impressive scale. The central position of the Crown was made clear by the king's custom of giving to each new bishop a ring and staff, signs of the episcopal office which had originally been placed on the altar for his consecration, but were now bestowed by the emperor as the sign of nomination. The gift of the pastoral staff was by this time a long-standing tradition, and it is probable that the ring was added by Henry III himself. It is not certain whether Henry supposed that he was giving the spiritual office of bishop on God's behalf, or whether he intended only to bestow the land and rights which emperors had so abundantly given. In the empire, there are no texts from his reign which distinguish between the gift of temporal possessions and of the cure of souls, whereas this distinction was recognized in some parts of France before the middle of the century. The position of the ruler in the German church was an extreme example of a general situation. In England the right of the king to participate in episcopal elections was clear, and although it is not certain whether the Anglo-Saxon kings invested with the pastoral staff, their Norman successors undoubtedly did so after 1066. In France royal authority was only effective in the north, in the area of the Île de France, and elsewhere the appointment of bishops had fallen into local hands. The great princes were not necessarily bad rulers of their regional churches: the dukes of Aquitaine helped to sponsor the Peace of God movement, and during the middle years of the century the monasteries of No