The church experiences a low ebb of morality while enduring the external threat of yet other invasions, this time by Magyars from the east and Norsemen from the north. Vikings and Danes plunder the west and establish kingdoms in what would become powerful European states, while the church and the papacy suffer from widespread corruption. The practice of simony plagues the clergy, and feudalism sweeps through the empire.
Show Transcript
Shalom, and welcome to our history podcast. This is a production of Kingdom Preppers.org. I’m your host, Kingdom Prepper, and you’re listening to: Churchianity: Two Thousand Years of Leaven. We continue with our history.
Part 18: Decline of the Papacy
In western Europe, from the late ninth to the early eleventh century, a low ebb was experienced in Christian and secular societies. Compounding the moral depravity and greed of men and women alike was the external threat of further invasions by the Magyars, who swept in from the east, and whom the Latin West called Hungarians, because they were a brutal reminder of the ancient Huns. But worse than the Hungarians were the Germanic Northmen, or Norsemen, a combination of Vikings and Danes from Scandinavia. The Northmen would later be known as the Normans, who would give their name to a region of France: Normandy.
“Viking” to many ears meant seafearing pirate raiders. Generally speaking, they were northern invaders made up of barbarian pagans who threatened to extinguish the light of civilized advancement ignited during the Carolingian period. Ireland was invaded by them in the eighth century, followed by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria in England. In both instances, they raided monasteries, simply for the abundant gold and silver that was found in religious relics, such as chalices, crosses, and certain ecclesiastical art pieces. These monasteries were also undefended, and were therefore easy targets, which were often burned to the ground, while its monks were, at times, tortured or slaughtered.
In the two centuries that followed the death of Charlemagne, the Vikings made their way not only throughout western Europe, but also northern Europe, along the Caspian Sea north to the Volga, within Russian territory. They traveled along the Black and Mediterranean seas as well, and even far west to the northern Atlantic lands of Newfoundland and greater North America.
What made all this possible was Viking technology, summed up in their impressive longships. Of this, author John M. Riddle, in his book, A History of the Middle Ages, writes:
“Several developments permitted the Vikings to descend on Europe and the North Atlantic. First, they learned that the ore found in peat bogs could be smelted in pottery chimneys with shaft furnaces, which provided them with the basis for metalwork. Abundant trees provided charcoal for the furnaces where molten iron was manufactured. And skill in metalwork led to the development of tools for felling the forest, clearing land for pasturage, and providing timber for heating homes and building ships. Second, as experienced fishermen, the Vikings were already familiar with building boats, but with good iron tools the Norse shipbuilders designed the longships, nearly a hundred feet long, that were primarily for battle and carrying cargo, including horses and around a hundred men. Primarily, Viking ships were sailing vessels, but their well-crafted beams could handle rough ocean seas, and their flat bottoms had little draft, thus enabling them to sail up shallow rivers for interior raids.”
In England, King Alfred the Great of Wessex seemed to be the ruler of the only force that could stall the Norsemen, but by the eleventh century, King Canute of the Danes was master of England in its entirety—in addition to Denmark (hence the Danish language), Sweden, and Norway. The Norsemen conquered the Muslims in Sicily and took possession of that territory as well. Attacks by the Norsemen decreased dramatically after they settled lands and established distant kingdoms in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Northern France. What is more, they converted to Christianity after conquering several Christian lands. They simply adopted the religion of the settled peoples, and many Norsemen still remaining in Scandinavia and Iceland were either forced to convert or inspired to by the leadership. Midway through the eleventh century, almost all Scandinavians were baptized Christians, so they were no longer a barbarian horn in opposition to the papal or wider Christian powers.
The terrifying Magyars too, later known as Hungarians, eventually adopted the customs and culture of the surrounding Germans and even the Slavs they had conquered. The efforts of missionaries sent to Hungary from Byzantium and Germany led to the conversion of a tenth-century Hungarian king. And the next king in line, Stephen—later dubbed Saint Stephen of Hungary—spearheaded the forced conversion of his people.
Even though Christianity would eventually sweep through all of those European lands, the brutal incursions by Scandinavians and Hungarians in the tenth century has caused that century to be considered one of the darkest in medieval history. And the version of Christianity that was being adopted was more tainted than the one from early antiquity. Corruption was rampant.
“In this state of affairs, nonetheless, the pace of Christianization quickened.”
Writes Kevin Madigan, in his book Medieval Christianity.
“The Northmen of England and France were baptized. From 950 to ca. 1000, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were all converted. On the eastern border, Christianity was accepted in Hungary and Poland in the late tenth century.
“Still, everywhere canon law was either unknown or ignored. Church offices were bought and sold. Clergy were sexually immoral. Lay rulers appointed bishops and abbots. They also built private chapels without the supervision of bishops and appointed priests. It would have been impossible to see, in these conditions, that Christendom lay trembling just then on the brink of an epochal revival.”
But that revival would not come right away. In fact, this period was one in which the papacy itself fell to its lowest depths as a perfect reflection of the dark times. Accompanying the problem of papal corruption was the Roman citizenry, which was largely unmanageable from of old, when Rome was an imperial stronghold. The papal powers that ruled what was now a small Italian principality were equipped with a militia—small and weak though it be—a powerful creed to which all Christians were bound, and the overbearing influence of their ecclesiastical office. The power of the papal office was such that it was able to control the title of emperor, a right that was granted with the crowning of Charlemagne in the year 800. This kind of power aroused jealousy in the Roman aristocracy, which was drawn from the Roman citizenry.
At this time, Roman citizens were not awed by the papal office. Many of them saw weakness in the popes, as well as greed. These citizens, however, along with the Catholic clergy and Roman nobility, had to consent to the election of popes, so the populace held their own power in a way. But the real power lay with those who could control the pope himself, who was often a puppet in this dark period.
“The rulers of Spoleto, Benevento, Naples, and Tuscany—and the aristocracy of Rome—divided into factions as of old.”
Writes Will Durant in his book The Age of Faith.
“And whichever faction prevailed in the city intrigued to choose and sway the pope. Between them, they dragged the papacy in the tenth century to the lowest level in its history.”
One account of barbarity is left to us from the end of the ninth century, and it involves one of papal political treachery. Of this, Will Durant writes:
“In 897, Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of Pope Formosus exhumed, dressed in purple robes and tried before an ecclesiastical council on the charge of violating certain church laws.”
Pope Formosus, who was the previous pope until his death in 896, had crowned Lambert, duke of Spoleto, emperor. But a change of heart caused him to reject that crowning for that of another candidate, a ruler named Arnulf. These and other acts committed by Formosus were scrutinized during Pope Stephen’s judgment of the corpse of Formosus. And in the end …
“The corpse was condemned, stripped, mutilated, and plunged into the Tiber.”
This after it was dragged through the streets.
“In the same year, a political revolution in Rome overthrew Stephen, who was strangled in jail.”
Will Durant goes on to say.
“For several years thereafter, the papal chair was filled by bribery, murder, or the favor of women of high rank and low morality.”
While the popes had the ostensible power to crown and uncrown emperors, they could not properly govern their own city, let alone rid their office of corruption. Prior to the bizarre trial involving the corpse of Formosus, which is known as the “Cadaveric Council,” a former pope, John VIII, had sought the aid of a Frankish emperor, Charles the Fat, to defend his holdings against Muslim invasion. Pope John also reached out to Byzantium, but when neither showed any interest in aiding the vulnerable pope, someone close to him was ordered to see to his murder, which took place in his palace. Following John VIII, many popes came and went in quick succession, as powerful rivals in Rome and beyond the Alps carried out various intrigues to see their desired man seated as pope. Many popes therefore died a gruesome death, some being strangled, others being thrown into dungeons where they were left to starve in darkness.
As an illustration of how the prevailing aristocracy intrigued and maneuvered to control the papacy, Will Durant writes that:
“For half a century the family of Theophylact, a chief official of the papal palace, made and unmade popes at will. His daughter Marozia secured the election of her lover as Pope Sergius III (904 – 11).”
And in the very year Sergius was made pope, 904, he had his two main rivals, Leo V and Christopher I, imprisoned and killed. Will Durant goes on to say that Theophylact’s wife Theodora …
“… procured the election of Pope John X (914 – 28). John has been accused of being Theodora’s paramour, but on inadequate evidence. Certainly he was an excellent secular leader, for it was he who organized the coalition that in 916 repulsed the Saracens from Rome. Marozia, after having enjoyed a succession of lovers, married Guido, Duke of Tuscany. They conspired to unseat John. They had his brother Peter killed before his face. The pope was thrown into prison and died there a few months later from causes unknown.
“In 931 Marozia raised to the papacy John XI (931 – 5) commonly reputed to be her bastard son by Sergius III. In 932 her son Alberic imprisoned John in the castle of Sant’Angelo, but allowed him to exercise from jail the spiritual functions of the papacy. For 22 years, Alberic ruled Rome as the dictatorial head of a Roman Republic. At his death, he bequeathed his power to his son Octavian, and made the clergy and people promise to choose Octavian pope when Agapetus II should die. It was done as he ordered. In 955, Marozia’s grandson became John XII and distinguished his pontificate by orgies of debauchery in the Lateran palace.”
In the reign of the German king Otto III, who inherited the empire and ruled from 983 – 1002, a spiritual revival was attempted. Otto III, though German, rarely resided in Germany. Instead, he set his sights on Rome, which he planned to reestablish as the center of a new Roman Empire. This was not a thought original to Otto, however. His main influence was that of a religious French scholar named Gerbert of Aurillac who had studied in Muslim Spain and was considered to be the greatest western intellect of his day. Gerbert, along with other Christian authorities who had filled Otto’s court, often discussed a revival of the ancient Roman Empire. This vision impressed upon Otto III the idea of the western world being ruled from Rome, as was seen in the days of the great Caesars and Augusti.
Set on implementing his new plan, Otto III established a residence in Rome and placed Gerbert on the papal throne as Pope Sylvester II. These moves were seen as the elements needed to unify the world and the church, and Otto, in an important document, declared the same, stating emphatically:
“We proclaim Rome capital of the world. We recognize that the Latin church is the mother of all churches.”
We’ll be back with more exciting scriptural history . . . in a moment.
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Otto III died of smallpox in 1002, in the midst of his efforts to suppress a revolt, and his grand imperial vision died with him. With Otto’s passing, a new aristocratic family, that of the Roman consul Crescentius, gained power over the papal throne. They were related to the previous dominant family of Theophylact, Theodora, and Marozia. Following them, the counts of Tusculum seized control of the papacy and named three popes in succession, the last of which, Benedict IX, was a mere young teen. In 1045, thirteen years after he assumed the papal throne, Benedict IX abdicated briefly after accepting a financial settlement of one or two thousand pounds of gold. Following more attempts at reform by the succeeding pope, Gregory VI—who bought his seat from Benedict IX—and intrigues by the Crescentius family—who had regained their hold and appointed Sylvester III—the Italian clergy appealed to Henry III, the German emperor, who intervened at last.
“[H]e came to Sutri, near Rome, and convened an ecclesiastical council.”
Writes Will Durant.
“[I]t imprisoned Sylvester, accepted Benedict’s resignation, and deposed Gregory for admittedly buying the papacy. Henry persuaded the council that only a foreign pope, protected by the emperor, could terminate the debasement of the church. The Bishop of Bamberg was elected as Clement II (1046 – 7); he died a year later; and Damasus II (1047 – 8) also succumbed to the malaria that now regularly came out of the undrained Campagna. At last in Leo IX (1049 – 54) the papacy found a man who could face its problems with courage, learning, integrity, and a piety long rare in Rome.”
The same council moved against broader acts of ecclesiastical corruption in the church, namely simony, wherein bishops and popes routinely bought and sold their position, as was the case with Benedict IX and Gregory VI. The act of simony was named for Simon Magus, who, in Acts 8:18 – 19, attempted to buy the gift of the Set Apart Spirit from the emissaries—not that the papacy, bishoprics, or any priestly Christian office or benefice could ever equate to the gift of the Set Apart Spirit. Another problem the emperor addressed was the issue of marriage within the secular clergy. Marriage led to sons, who, through the corrupt efforts of the Roman nobility, often became heirs to the papal throne. Celibacy was thus favored to allow for the fair election of future popes. But more than that, allowing a hereditary priesthood, which would result from the progeny of such marriages, would sink the church further into feudalism.
The church, by virtue of its vast landholdings, was heavily involved in the social, economic, and political structure of feudalism, a medieval practice that sprang out of France in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but which has its roots in late Roman and early Germanic times. Charlemagne’s habit of land payments, which we touched on in our last podcast, seeded this medieval system, remnants of which exist to this day. While there are various interpretations of what feudalism is, there were mainly three basic elements to its structure. There was the chief social element of lordship and vassalage, which will be explained shortly; there was the secondary economic element, which involved a fief (or land held on condition of feudal service); and there was the final political element of a decentralized government and legal structure that supported the entire feudal system.
The decentralized nature meant that relationships formed between persons of noble rank did not need the oversight of a governmental body. And feudalism, a government operated locally by private individuals, began with the upper class, in that a king allowed a count to hold a fief, and a count a baron to hold one, then the baron a knight, and so the vassalage flowed from the highest rank of nobility. A vassal was a feudal tenant of a stronger nobleman, to whom he swore allegiance. A vassal also provided his lord with financial aid, lodging, and counsel. But most of all, he provided military support. Chris Wickham, in Medieval Europe, writes:
“Here we are in the middle of the world of what is often called military feudalism: a wide élite of great aristocrats and knights did military service, and showed political loyalty, in return for gifts of office or land from kings or lesser lords, which they would lose if they were disloyal. Such men would often be called the lord’s sworn vassi, vassals, and the conditional landholdings would be called feoda, fiefs, hence the words ‘feudal’ and ‘feudo-vassalic’ in modern historical terminology.”
The bond between a lord and a vassal was forged in a ceremony called an act of homage. The vassal traditionally knelt before his lord, pledged that he was his “man,” and professed fealty to him by swearing on a bible or other object thought to be sacred. In turn, the lord swore protection and justice to his vassal. What must be noted is that, by the eleventh century, while the vassal knelt before his lord, he would join his raised hands together, which the lord would clasp with his own hands in ceremony. The joined, raised hands of the vassal before his lord has since become the symbol of prayer to the Creator among Christians, which is a feudal practice. Israelites did not pray in this manner.
Among other examples, the idea of a tenant and landlord who are contracted to each other through a lease agreement can still be seen in cities and suburbs where individuals rent apartments. And many still do not realize that translators of English bibles have long substituted the name of the Creator, Yah, for the feudal title “Lord,” which is the English translation of the Hebrew word “Ba’al,” a Phoenician and Canaanite deity. We covered this topic in part 3 of The Covenant Law of Yah scripture study series.
While a knight had to be born of the nobility, in this medieval period, a common family, on rare occasions, could rise to the level of nobility by sending its sons to war. If a commoner went to war for a king and demonstrated extraordinary military service, that soldier could be knighted, and knights formed the army of a feudal lord. The knight would then be awarded with land for his loyalty.
“[A]rmies had to be constructed on the basis of the public service of landowners, or else by handing out land on which military men could live.”
Writes Chris Wickham.
“In this world, a substantial proportion of military service, and thus army formation, depended on personal relationships, linked to the possession of land.”
The aristocratic families of Rome and beyond the Alps ranked high among the noble families of the empire, a feat they achieved by receiving royal favor, acquiring substantial wealth, restricting themselves to marriages with close family lines, proving their military prowess through knighthood, and other means. But by gaining control of the papal selection, these families among the lay nobility became enemies of the clergy, and they had to be dealt with. With the invasion of Magyars and Vikings, the church turned to French barons and German kings for support, but that meant that many among the upper ranks of the Catholic clergy, and even the abbots within the monastic movement, had to swear allegiance to these elites by becoming their vassals, for which they received fiefs, or lands, that forced them to provide feudal services to their new lords. These bishops and abbots looked to the Roman pontiff as the shepherd of the church, and their true head on earth, so having to become vassals to lesser powers proved to be a problem. But the papacy was in turmoil due to various factions of the diabolical nobility.
These opposing loyalties led to what came to be known as the investiture controversy, wherein a bishop or abbot who assumed office received two investitures. Supposed spiritual authority was bestowed by the church, but feudal or civil authority was bestowed by a king or noble, to whom the bishop or abbot was vassal. In this period, however, feudal lords and kings gained control of selecting and installing bishops, abbots, and other clergy. In Germany, where the king’s power extended to the control of the church, this was most pronounced. The church was in no position to challenge the power of the king, or even lesser feudal lords. Widespread corruption and greed inhibited many from even attempting a change of circumstance.
“Many bishoprics became in the eleventh century the hereditary patrimony of noble families, and were used as provision for bastards or younger sons.”
Writes Will Durant.
“In Germany, one baron possessed and transmitted eight bishoprics. A German cardinal alleged (ca. 1048) that the simoniacal buyers of sees and benefices had sold the marble facings of churches, even the tiles from their roofs, to reimburse themselves for the cost of their appointments. Such appointees were men of the world; many lived in luxury, engaged in war, allowed bribery in episcopal courts, named relatives to ecclesiastical posts, and worshipped Mammon with undivided loyalty. Pope Innocent III would say of an archbishop of Narbonne, that he had a purse where his heart should have been.”
What came next was a broad measure of reform that began with the Benedictine order of monks at Cluny. These monks sought to reform not only the monastic movement, which had also been in decline, but the feudal church itself, extending to the secular clergy. They called for celibacy and the abolition of simony, with their chief aim being that of freeing the church of secular control and bringing it under papal authority. The papacy itself, with the coming of Pope Leo IX and his entourage of reformers, slowly changed course. Before long, in parts of the land, new laws were passed by other powers, and …
“The clergy could not legally marry.”
Writes Norman F. Cantor, in The Civilization of the Middle Ages.
“[T]hough many had children, these children were bastards who could not inherit fiefs under feudal law. Hence no bishop or abbot could pursue a dynastic interest with regard to his fiefs. The fiefs, in any case, were attached to the ecclesiastical office and were not the personal possession of the bishop or abbot.”
The investiture issue was also addressed by the college of cardinals, which, under Leo IX, became somewhat a senate of the Roman church after being institutionalized. In 1059, an important edict transferred papal elections from Roman nobles and German emperors to the college of cardinals. Thenceforth, it became the task of the college of cardinals to elect the pope, as it is to this day.
From this period onward, western Europe would undergo a momentous series of changes, with sophisticated feudal European states emerging from former barbarian-controlled provinces, all of them having Christianity in common. The papacy would survive its darkest era in history and emerge as an integral part of what would come to be known as the “Holy Roman Empire,” a multi-ethnic complex of European territories that was none of the three things its name suggested. This so-called empire, which began with Charlemagne’s crowning as emperor, would pass through many hands and last through various historic upheavals until the Napoleonic Wars would see to its destruction at the turn of the nineteenth century.
That wraps it up for this episode of Churchianity: Two Thousand Years of Leaven. A production of Kingdom Preppers.org, this episode was written, produced, and hosted by yours truly, Kingdom Prepper. All praise, honor, and glory are due to my boss, Yah Elohim, and to his right hand, Yahushua HaMashiach. You can access the transcript for this episode on our website. Yah willing, our history will continue in the next podcast. Shalom.
Keywords: norsemen, northmen, Magyar, Hungarian, Viking, danes, northumbria, Pope Formosus, cadaveric council, Theophylact, Marozia, Sergius III, Crescentius, investiture controversy, churchianity, two thousand years of leaven, history of Christianity, church history, Hebrew history, kp, kingdom preppers
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