The evolution of the church was also influenced by events outside Rome. One of the most important of these was the resurrection of imperial authority and the Carolingian ideal of government by the German king Otto I (912–973). Under him the bishops and greater abbots were drawn into royal service and enriched with estates and counties, for which they paid homage. Otto conquered northern Italy and was crowned emperor in 962 by Pope John XII (reigned 955–964). In the following year, Otto deposed the pope for immoral behaviour (tradition holds that John died of a stroke while in bed with a woman). Both Otto and his grandson Otto III (980–1002) appointed and removed popes, presided at synods, and extended their authority over the church. Otto III, an enlightened ruler, appointed as pope his former tutor—Gerbert of Aurillac, who took the name Sylvester II—with the intention of reviving a Christian Roman empire. Otto’s death at an early age ended that dream, and the papacy became mired in local politics for the next half century until another German ruler intervened in its affairs.
The revival of imperial power in Germany would have lasting influence on the development of the church, as would the foundation of the reformed monastery of Cluny in Burgundy in 909. Indeed, the first stirrings of the great reform movement that transformed the church in the 11th century are thought to have taken place at Cluny. Established by Duke William I, the Pious, of Aquitaine, Cluny rose to prominence under the direction of abbots Odo, Odilo, and Hugh, who were the spiritual leaders of their age. From its beginning, Cluny enjoyed close ties with Rome because William placed the monastery under the protection of St. Peter and St. Paul and the pope. William also ensured Cluny’s independence by forbidding any secular or religious authority from interfering in its affairs. Cluny developed a reputation as the highest form of religious life—indeed, as a paradise on earth—and its abbots spread Cluniac practices by reforming other monasteries. Cluniac monks lived strictly canonical lives, opposing simony and clerical unchastity. They also participated in an elaborate liturgical routine, singing the monastic hours (liturgical or devotional services for use at certain hours of the day, according to the monastic daily schedule) and offering prayers for the dead and the monastery’s numerous benefactors. Cluny was not the only reformed house—Gorze was the most notable of several others—but it was the greatest, and the ideals it embodied set an important precedent.
Cluny: belfry towerOctagonal belfry tower and smaller belfry tower of the surviving south transept of the abbey church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Cluny, France, constructed 1088–1130.© Alexander/Fotolia
Popular Christianity c. 1000
By the 11th century the greater part of central Christendom had been divided into bishops’ dioceses and individual parishes. But in the northern and western regions the proliferation of small private churches had not yet been wholly absorbed, and the existence of proprietary and exempt enclaves continued until the Reformation and beyond. The priest, in rural districts usually a villein of the lord (subject to the lord but not to others), cultivated his acres of glebe (revenue lands of the parish church), celebrated mass on Sundays and feast days, recited some of the hours, and saw that his flock was baptized, anointed, and buried. Lay people normally received Holy Communion four times a year—at Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the Feast of the Assumption (August 15). Auricular (privately heard) confession was widespread but not universal.
Despite the organizational confusion of the time, the early 11th century was a period of intense religious activity at all levels of society. This activity is illustrated by the number of newly built churches, which one contemporary described as a “white mantle.” (Some scholars have argued that the increase in religious activity about the years 1000 and 1033 was related to expectations of the apocalypse.) The first popular religious movements of the Middle Ages also began during this time. The most important of these was the Peace of God movement, a series of church councils clustered primarily in the years preceding the millennium of the birth of Jesus and the millennium of the Passion and later incorporated into the broader institutional fabric of medieval society. Originally intended to protect the church and the clergy, as well as the poor, from the demands of the growing number of castellans (members of the lower nobility who possessed castles), the peace movement later promoted religious reform and denounced simony and clerical marriage.
Central to the success of the peace movement and a key element of spirituality about the year 1000 was the cult of the saints and relics. Contemporary sources describe the peace councils as great displays of the relics of saints, which attracted large crowds of laity whose presence and enthusiasm supported the church’s reform efforts. The saints were believed to punish those who harmed the church and to cure their devotees of various maladies. In 994 the display of a saint’s relics was thought to have cured the population of Aquitaine of an outbreak of St. Anthony’s fire (probably ergotism). These beliefs may explain the popularity of pilgrimages to shrines such as those of the Apostles at Rome, St. James at Santiago de Compostela (Spain), the Magi at Cologne (Germany), and many others. Jerusalem, too, became an increasingly important destination for pilgrims, among whom was Fulk Nerra (c. 970–1040), the count of Anjou, who made three such journeys after pillaging and burning monasteries in the territories of his enemies. Countless other men and women traveled to Jerusalem in the early 1030s, probably to witness the return of Christ.
Lay religious enthusiasm associated with the peace movement and the cult of the saints also contributed to the first expressions of heresy since late antiquity. Although there were far fewer such incidents in the 11th century than in the 12th and 13th centuries, there were more in the 11th century than in the previous five centuries combined. In Italy, northern and southern France, and all of western Europe, according to contemporary chroniclers, heretics denied the church’s teachings on baptism, the Eucharist, marriage, and related matters; they also attacked the growing claims of ecclesiastical authority and on one occasion even destroyed the crucifix in the local church. The heretics lived simple and chaste lives and sought to follow the Gospels, rather than an increasingly hierarchical and worldly church, as best they could. Despite their efforts to imitate the Apostles, the official church treated them harshly: in 1022 a group of heretics was burned at the stake, the first execution for heresy since antiquity. In one of history’s many ironies, the ideals of sexual purity and apostolic poverty represented by the heretics and by the orthodox popular enthusiasts were eventually embraced by the church, becoming part of the papal reform movement of the later 11th century. The church of the High Middle Ages
The developments in the church around the year 1000 foreshadowed the dramatic events of the later 11th century, which in turn stimulated the profound growth of the church in the High Middle Ages. The reforms of Gregory VII and the movement associated with him, sometimes recognized as the most important reformation in church history, radically restructured the church and its teachings. The foundation of the papal monarchy was laid during the 11th century, and the medieval papacy reached its greatest heights in the 12th and 13th centuries, especially under Innocent III (reigned 1198–1216). Moreover, both the Gregorian Reform movement and the broader social and cultural developments of the 11th century contributed to the spiritual and intellectual blossoming of the 12th century. Scholars and churchmen rediscovered the works of Aristotle, interpreted them in new institutional settings, and forged the medieval synthesis of faith and reason in the 13th century. The new forms of religious life that emerged, both orthodox and heterodox, were foreshadowed by Gregory VII’s devotion to St. Peter or were inspired by Gregorian reform efforts. They reflected the transition from a faith that emphasized the divine majesty of God to one that focused on the suffering and humanity of Jesus. Gregorian Reform