Separation of Church and State

(Jody Gray): This Blog Post focuses on the development of power alliances between Church and State (rulers), beginning in the Middle Ages after the conversion of the pagans to Christianity.

*Investiture Controversy,

*1024–1125. Investiture Controversy, the most significant conflict between Church and state in medieval Europe. At issue was who, the pope or monarchs, had the authority to appoint (invest) local church officials such as bishops of cities and abbots of monasteries. It was essential for a ruler or nobleman to appoint (or sell the office to) someone who would remain loyal. Since a substantial amount of wealth and land was usually associated with the office of a bishop or abbot, the sale of church offices (a practice known as simony) was an important source of income for leaders among the nobility, who themselves owned the land and by charity allowed the building of churches. The crisis began when a group within the church, members of the Gregorian Reform, decided to rebel against the rule of simony by forcefully taking the power of investiture from the ruling secular power, i.e. the Holy Roman Emperor and placing that power wholly within control of the church.  In 1056, Henry IV became German king at age six; the Gregorian Reformers seized the opportunity to take the papacy by force.  In 1059, a church council in Rome declared, with In Nomine Domini, that leaders of the nobility would have no part in the selection of popes and created the College of Cardinals as a body of electors made up entirely of church officials.  In 1075, Pope Gregory VII composed the Dictatus Papae. Once clause asserted that the deposal of an emperor was under the sole power of the pope. It declared that the Roman church was founded by God alone - that the papal power was the sole universal power; in particular, a council held in the Lateran Palace from Feb 24 to 28 the same year decreed that the pope alone could appoint or depose churchmen or move them from see to see. Henry IV sent Gregory VII a letter in which he withdrew his imperial support of Gregory as pope and called for the election of a new pope. His letter ends, “I, Henry, king by the grace of God”... In 1076 Gregory excommunicated Henry, and deposed him as German king, releasing all Christians from their oath of allegiance. German princes and the aristocracy were happy to hear of the king's deposition. They used religious reasons to continue the rebellion started at the First Battle of Langensalza in 1075, and for seizure of royal holdings. Aristocrats claimed local lordships over peasants and property, built forts, which had previously been outlawed, and built up localized fiefdoms to secure their autonomy from the empire… Henry IV had no choice but to back down. In 1077, he traveled to Canossa in northern Italy. As penance for his sins, he wore a hair shirt and stood in the snow barefoot in the middle of winter. Gregory lifted the excommunication, but the German aristocrats, whose rebellion became known as the Great Saxon Revolt, were not so willing to give up their opportunity. They elected a rival king, Rudolf von Rheinfeld. Three years later, Gregory declared his support for von Rheinfeld, and excommunicated Henry IV again. Henry IV then proclaimed Antipope Clement III to be pope. In 1080, Rudolf died, ending the internal revolt against Henry. In 1081, Henry invaded Rome, with the intent of forcibly removing Gregory VII and installing a more friendly pope. Gregory called on his allies, the Normans of southern Italy, and they rescued him from the Germans in 1085; but they sacked Rome in the process and when the citizens rose up against Gregory he was forced to flee south with the Normans (he died soon after).  The Investiture Controversy continued for several decades as each succeeding pope tried to diminish imperial power by stirring up revolt in Germany... https://en.wikipedia.org * *1122, 9/23. Concordat of Worms, (between Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Calixtus II) differentiated between the royal and spiritual powers and gave the emperors a limited role in selecting bishops. Mostly a victory for the Pope and his claim that he was God’s chief representative in the world; however, the Emperor retained considerable power over the Church. *Simony is the act of selling church offices and roles. The practice is named after Simon Magus (see, Bible references), who is described in the Acts of the Apostles 8:9–24 as having offered two disciples of Jesus, Peter and John, payment in exchange for their empowering him to impart the power of the Holy Spirit to anyone on whom he would place his hands. The term also extends to other forms of trafficking for money in "spiritual things"... Catholic church. Although an offense against canon law, Simony became widespread in the Catholic Church in the 9th and 10th centuries. In the canon law, the word bears a more extended meaning than in English law. Simony according to the canonists, says John Ayliffe in his Parergon “...is defined to be a deliberate act or a premeditated will and desire of selling such things as are spiritual, or of anything annexed unto spirituals, by giving something of a temporal nature for the purchase thereof..." *https://en.wikipedia. Bible references, people. http://indextoblogposts.blogspot.* *Concordat of Worms. The Concordat of Worms was a part of the larger reforms put forth by many popes, most notably Pope Gregory VII. These included celibacy of the clergy, end of simony [the act of selling church offices and roles] and autonomy of the Church from secular leaders (lack of autonomy was known as lay investiture). Inheritance and alienation: The most prized and contested rights that attached to benefices were inheritance and security against confiscation. Benefices were lands granted by the Church to faithful lords. In exchange, the Church expected rent or other services, such as military protection. These lands would then be further divided between lesser lords and commoners. This was the nature of European feudalism. Inheritance was an important issue, since land could fall into the hands of those who did not have loyalty to the Church or the great lords. The usual grant was in precaria, the granting of a life tenure, whereby the tenant stayed on the land only at the pleasure of the lord. The tenant could be expelled from the land at any time. His tenancy was precarious. Counts’ benefices came to be inherited as counties were broken up and as counts assimilated their offices and ex-officio lands to their family property. In central Europe, kings and counts probably were willing to allow the inheritance of small parcels of land to the heirs of those who had offered military or other services in exchange for tenancy. This was contingent on the heirs being reasonably loyal and capable. Churches in Germany, as elsewhere, were willing to allow peasants to inherit their land. This was a source of profit to both churches and lords when the inheritors were charged a fee to inherit the land. Most bishops had a different attitude toward freemen and nobles. To these peasants, grants were made in precario or in beneficio, usually for a specified and limited number of life tenures. It was not impossible to recover land left to noble families for generations. But the longer the family held church land, the more difficult it was to oust them from the land. Some church officials came to view granting land to noble families amounted to outright alienation. By the twelfth century great churches in Germany, like those elsewhere were finding it difficult to hold out against the accumulation of lay custom and lay objections to temporary inheritance. The Bishop of Worms issued a statement in 1120 indicating the poor and unfree should be allowed to inherit tenancy without payment of fees. It appears to have been something novel. The growing masses of unfree and the marginal were needed for labour, and to bolster the military of both nobility and the church. By the time of Henry IV, bargaining by the peasants for the benefit of the group was the norm. https://en.wikipedia. *1102-1107. Investiture Controversy in England. Henry I of England and the Gregorian papacy were also embroiled in a controversy over investiture... William the Conqueror had accepted a papal banner and the distant blessing of Pope Alexander II upon his (1066) invasion, but had successfully rebuffed the pope's assertion after the successful outcome, that he should come to Rome and pay homage for his fief, under the general provisions of the "Donation of Constantine".    The ban on lay investiture in Dictatus Papae did not shake the loyalty of William's bishops and abbots. In the reign of Henry I, the heat of exchanges between Westminster and Rome induced Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, to give up mediating and retire to an abbey. Robert of Meulan, one of Henry's chief advisors, was excommunicated, but the threat of excommunicating the king remained unplayed. The papacy needed the support of English Henry while German Henry was still unbroken. A projected crusade also required English support.    Henry I commissioned the Archbishop of York to collect and present all the relevant traditions of anointed kingship. "The resulting 'Anonymous of York' treaties are a delight to students of early-medieval political theory, but they in no way typify the outlook of the Anglo-Norman monarchy, which had substituted the secure foundation of administrative and legal bureaucracy for outmoded religious ideology". Concordat of London, 1107    -a concordat is a convention concluded between the Holy See and the civil power of a country to define the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters in which both are concerned. The concordat is one type of an international convention. Concordats began during the First Crusade's end in 1098.    The Concordat of London (1107) suggested a compromise that was later taken up in the Concordat of Worms. In England, as in Germany, the king's chancery started to distinguish between the secular and ecclesiastical powers of the prelates. Employing this distinction, Henry gave up his right to invest his bishops and abbots while reserving the custom of requiring them to swear homage for the "temporalities" (the landed properties tied to the episcopate) directly from his hand, after the bishop had sworn homage and feudal vassalage in the commendation ceremony, like any secular vassal. The system of vassalage was not divided among great local lords in England as it was in France, since the king was in control by right of the conquest. Concordat of Worms and its significance    On the European mainland, after 50 years of fighting, the Concordat of Worms provided a similar, but longer lasting, compromise when signed on September 23, 1122. It eliminated lay investiture, while leaving secular leaders some room for unofficial but significant influence in the appointment process.    While the monarchy was embroiled in the dispute with the Church, it declined in power and broke apart. Localized rights of lordship over peasants grew. This resulted in multiple effects: 1) increased serfdom that reduced human rights for the majority, 2) increased taxes and levies that royal coffers declined, and 3) localized rights of Justice where courts did not have to answer to royal authority. In the long term, the decline of imperial power would divide Germany until the 19th century. Similarly, in Italy, the investiture controversy weakened the emperor's authority and strengthened local separatist forces.    The papacy grew stronger from the controversy. Marshalling for public opinion engaged lay people in religious affairs increasing lay piety, setting the stage for the Crusades and the great religious vitality of the 12th century.

*Secularism -Separation of Church and State.

*Secularism [https://en.wikipedia.] is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries. One manifestation of secularism is asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, or, in a state declared to be neutral on matters of belief, from the imposition by government of religion or religious practices upon its people. Another manifestation of secularism is the view that public activities and decisions, especially political ones, should be uninfluenced by religious beliefs or practices.  Secularism draws its intellectual roots from Greek and Roman philosophers such as Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius; from Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Baruch Spinoza, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine; and from more recent freethinkers and atheists such as Robert Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, and Christopher Hitchens.

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Related:

*BP: Religion, Cross Reference. http://indextoblogposts.*

*BP: Religion, description. http://historicalandmisc. *

(Jody Gray) The importance and value of religion to individuals, is undeniable. The danger lies in the doctrines that were created that claim their “religion” - their God - to be the only righteous one and make enemies of any who won’t convert -directing their followers to convert or destroy people and sacred objects of any religion that is different. Origins and development. (Anthropologists John Monaghan and Peter Just) Many of the great world religions appear to have begun (by) the vision of a charismatic prophet (who) fires the imaginations of people seeking (answers) to their problems… (Religion or belief) helps us do is deal with problems of human life that are significant, persistent, and intolerable. One important way in which religious beliefs accomplish this is by providing a set of ideas about how and why the world is put together that allows people to accommodate anxieties and deal with misfortune.

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