# The Medieval Papacy



## sknox (Nov 7, 2018)

My article on the medieval papacy is now up on my European Middle Ages website.This is part one of three, covering the early Middle Ages.
http://europeanmiddleages.info/papacy/
The index to all the articles is here: 
History by Ellis L. Knox


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## Joshua Jones (Nov 8, 2018)

You did a really good job with your information here. Very well researched and fairly presented. The only thing I wish is that you had gotten into Gregory VII, who was responsible for massive changes and reforms in the Catholic Church, rivaled only by Trent and Vatican II, in my opinion. But, I do understand why you stopped where you did, so I don't consider it so much a flaw as my interested in seeing your take on him.

I did see a couple of typos, though. The mission to England page has an instance of "childred", so you may want to take a look over and see if there are others as well. 

Great job!


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## sknox (Nov 8, 2018)

Gregory is next up. The whole Investiture Struggle stuff, then on through Innocent and ending with poor, sad Celestive V, the hermit pope. Part Three will cover the Babylonian Captivity up through the Council of Trent.

Thanks for the typo tippo.  Spellcheckers are hopeless with pages like these, so I have to rely on my own proofreading, which is only slightly less hopeless. (I was going to try to pass off "childred" as an Anglo-Saxon name, but decided against it)

FWIW, I'd put Innocent III in front of Gregory VII; less for changes than for codification and elaboration, as befits a lawyer.

Thank you for the response. It's good to know people are seeing this. There was a time, back in the late 1990s, when a number of my essays came up on the first page on search engines (yay Altavista!). Simpler times. 

Only slightly off topic, do you know the Internet Sourcebook? ORB? There was some great work done back in those days.


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## Joshua Jones (Nov 8, 2018)

sknox said:


> Gregory is next up. The whole Investiture Struggle stuff, then on through Innocent and ending with poor, sad Celestive V, the hermit pope. Part Three will cover the Babylonian Captivity up through the Council of Trent.
> 
> Thanks for the typo tippo.  Spellcheckers are hopeless with pages like these, so I have to rely on my own proofreading, which is only slightly less hopeless. (I was going to try to pass off "childred" as an Anglo-Saxon name, but decided against it)
> 
> ...


I look forward to reading the next few parts, then! 

I think Innocent III may have been a bit more significant regarding external affairs, but Gregory VII was more significant internally. Yes, Investiture was a big part of his legacy, but he also is responsible for Holy Orders as they currently stand, including the mandatory calibacy of the clergy as part of his combating the corruption of the church. This was a big change in the status quo of the church, and is a point of discussion at the present day with the abuse issue. And, to be fair, I may skew toward that in importance because I am a student of theology, so it may not be as important to all of your readers...

Another massive change on the monastic side was the rise of the Franciscan order, who brought a shift from cloistered devotion to public preaching and good works. This provided the conceptual basis for the Jusuits, while the more academic traditions provided the intellectual basis and the Reformation provided the impetus. 

All that to say, I think the question of importance really depends on if you are talking externally or internally. 

I have heard of the Internet Sourcebook, but I can't say I am overly familiar with it, and I have never heard of ORB. I'll have to look them up!


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## The Judge (Nov 8, 2018)

Very interesting.  I imagine the historian in you bridled at the Gregory quote as being too unlikely, but the storyteller in you should really have used the "Non Angli, sed Angeli" line -- even if only in the "Not Angles, but angels" translation -- as being a lot more punchy!


I also noticed some typos (eg "capitol" instead of "capital" in the Early Papacy).  And you really confused me
in the Primacy of Rome section with "Feed my lambs &hellips; Feed my lambs &hellips; Feed my sheep." as I wondered what on earth a hellip was!  (I know now, having spent some time checking John 21 15-17 in various translations without success, and then googling to find it isn't a synonym for hogget or something else ovine but simply means "horizontal ellipsis" ie ... !)   

By the way, perhaps when talking of Charlemagne, refer to him as Charlemagne throughout or translate the name as Charles the Great at the beginning, then call him Charles for the rest of it -- chopping and changing is a bit confusing.


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## sknox (Nov 8, 2018)

Thanks, Judge; all good points. I have to run off on family errands but I'll keep this tab open as a reminder to make those changes. I agree with them all. 

I'm sorry you could not find the line about feeding lambs and hellips. It's in the Apocrypha. ;-)


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## Parson (Nov 8, 2018)

Very well done. It is concise. It is readable. And would work well as a primer to that era of church history. I could easily see using it in a lay church history overview. I do  have a slight bone to pick. The date of Peter's martyrdom is established by a tradition which is somewhat close to the event (100-150 years) but Paul has no such that I am aware of. It could easily have been in the early 60's, or it might even have occurred 10 years or more later than that. I would like to have seen the dates for Peter and Paul's martyrdom prefaced by something like "church tradition dates the martyrdom of Peter and Paul ....


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## sknox (Nov 9, 2018)

Thanks for the feedback. That's not picking nits (or bones), that's verifying. Can you give me a source for your dating, though? Eusebius says they were both killed in the reign of Nero. I can't figure any way at all to place Peter's death forty years later, but this early modern urban historian freely admits this is rather far from his happy place.


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## Parson (Nov 9, 2018)

Here is what I understand regarding the deaths of Peter and Paul: "Eusebius cites Caius of Rome, who was active while Zephyrinus was bishop  (199-217) and Dionysius of bishop of Corinth (late 2nd  cent.)."* --- What I was trying to point out was that we don't know the dates with certainty and the reports we have are not so contemporary as so that the information could reasonably be stated as a fact. But I don't think it's logical and probably not even possible that Paul was martyred 40 years later than Peter and certainly not vice versa. It would be far from unthinkable if Peter was martyred during the reign of Nero and Paul during the reign of Vespasian. Given Eusebius' testimony the most likely answer is that each was martyred during the reign of Nero, but I think that "most likely" truth should be stated in a way that indicates some doubt. Especially since the Acts account of Paul's two year imprisonment makes no mention of Peter and seems to point to Paul's release. This is an especially likely scenario if you accept a Pauline authorship for 2 Timothy and believe that Paul's hoped for journey to Spain occurred.

* https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/corpus-paul/20000912/002089.html

And a site which I found and looks interesting, but as with all such sites you must make allowances for their prejudice. The following article is pretty recent about some archeology surrounding the burial of Paul.

New Discoveries Relating to the Apostle Paul


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