Sponsored by the Vincentian Community (Congregation of the Mission) and the Missouri Knights of Columbus.  We offer free correspondence courses on the Catholic Faith, courses that are faithful to the magisterium. Reprinted with permission.

THE DARK AGES were not of the Church's making; she had to make the best of conditions following a breakdown of secular society. But she did not merely endure these conditions; she launched a program of reform that eventually brought light and order back to Europe.

The "Peace of God" movement has been traced to a meeting of bishops in Aquitaine in 989 to condemn private warfare. Out of this protest grew with lay support the sworn "Truce of God," a pledge for vigilantes who promised either to renounce private warfare altogether, or to restrict it to certain days of the week, and to recognize at least some non-combatants. In the absence of a state police force prior to restoration of strong monarchy during the thirteenth century, this peace pact was a considerable improvement; later it was endorsed by the general Church councils of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Another objective attempted by the Church was to provide the gangsters with a code of honor: to remake them into chivalrous knights; still armed horsemen, but men with a mission. Before becoming a knight a candidate was supposed to fast and keep vigil in a church. Then his sword was blessed with some such invocation: "Hear, O Savior, our prayers and bless by the hand of Thy Majesty this sword with which your servant desires to be girded in order to defend and protect the churches, widows, orphans, and all servants of God against the cruelty of pagans." Out of this institution arose the Crusades for recovery of the Holy Land and liberation of the Christian prisoners in the Mediterranean area. Pope Urban II, preaching to those enlisted for the First Crusade in 1095, put the aim bluntly: "Soldiers of hell, become soldiers of Christ." The resulting crusades were wars, but they were just wars that were primarily defensive, wars that probably saved Europe and western civilization.

THE ORDER OF CLUNY

Monastic reform had started even earlier. St. Benedict's original plan had been to make each abbey a self-governing "school of divine service." But when public order broke down during the Feudal era, many monasteries fell into the grasp of local tyrants and there was no redress. St. Berno of Cluny (d. 927) and a courageous line of succeeding abbots conceived of a great monastic federation, the "Order of Cluny," for the purpose of binding monasteries together under a unified administration in order to preserve their spirtual ideals and to provide an alliance against local oppression. With papal approval and physical support from the reviving Empire of Otto the Great, the Cluniac organization spread over Europe until by the twelfth century it possessed 1184 houses. This pattern for cooperation and federation became instructive for other reformers outside the monastic pale who also wished to improve conditions. An ideal of mutual Christian brotherhood was recaptured, and in practice other ecclesiastics began to repeat the Cluniac axiom: "Away with anyone who thinks that God is merely local."

Clerical reform was even more urgently needed. It is true that during these troubled times there were those parish priests who took advantage of the collapse of discipline to disregard their ideals and duties, the Gospel standards of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Yet even so it was always the delinquents who received the publicity. What hampered the activity of even good parish priests was their subjection to feudal lords. Although with ordination to the priesthood a man ceased to be a serf and became a freeman, nevertheless his church was scarcely free. At a time when most of the people lived in village farm communities subject to the lord of the manor, the majority of churches were furnished and endowed by these same lords-who were thus often at once the local governors, judges, landlords, and employers. Even well-intentioned feudal lords spoke of "my church," "my priest," while kings referred to "my bishops." Churches were sometimes left by will to heirs, to one of whom might be assigned this altar or chapel, while another obtained this or that statue or shrine. Priests might be installed by bestowal of the key to the church by the lord, and the latter might always remove the key if satisfaction were not given. Bishops and abbots even before their consecration or blessing might be handed crozier or ring by the king or lord, thereby easily suggesting to an illiterate audience the notion that religious offices and sacraments were derived ultimately from the secular power.

REFORMING PONTIFFS

In Lorraine and Lombardy parochial revivals arose and won support. Bishop Rathier of Verona now insisted: "In the priest it is Christ whom one honors." Bishop Wazo of Liege did not hesitate to tell Emperor Henry III: "We owe obedience to the bishop, fidelity to you, O King. To you we render account for secular administration, to him all that concerns the divine office." This was a much needed distinction of Church and State, but unworthy rulers at least were not prepared to surrender what they had usurped. But out of these monastic and clerical reform movements came men of the new ideals who attained the papacy. St. Bruno of Toul, previously a reformer in the Lorraine area, became Pope Leo IX (1049-1054). Three times he made the journey across the Alps to restore observance of ecclesiastical laws through direct personal confrontation of the local authorities. Anselm of Baggio had launched at Milan the "Ragpickers" clerical reform movement before he was chosen Pope Alexander II (1061-73). Finally the Cluniac monk St. Hildebrand became the most famous of these reforming pontiffs as Gregory VII (1073-85). He enforced all of the existing regulations and sent legates throughout Europe to supervise their observance.

He also struck at what he deemed the source of much of the disorder: that practice of lay investiture whereby a bishop, abbot, or pastor was inducted into ecclesiastical office by the secular ruler using religious emblems. Emperor Henry IV (1056-1106) defied the pope, but Gregory XII declared him suspended from office with the support of the German Reichstag. Henry then startled Christendom by walking as a penitent in the snow at Canossa before receiving papal absolution. The issue was not settled so easily, in fact, it dragged on for fifty years and several popes were driven out of Rome.

At length, however, a reasonable compromise was reached: the emperor renounced lay investiture, while he was given the right to exact an oath of allegiance without clerical trappings from such prelates as performed public secular office-for neither he nor other medieval rulers could yet afford to dispense with the assistance of the clergy in the management even of secular governmental affairs.

In this and similar contests between the Holy See and temporal rulers, however, the principle was clearly established that the Church was independent of the State in the fulfillment of her God-given religious mission. Little people took heart at an emperor doing penance; they felt that now there was some chance for justice for all. For the secret of papal victory in these contests lay ultimately in popular support. Such powers as the popes exercised during the Middle Ages over temporal rulers-such as rebuking, suspending or even deposing them-were derived from popular delegation of them as judges of an international supreme court. Unlike the purely spiritual authority bestowed by Christ, such temporal prerogatives were revocable at popular will, and were tacitly withdrawn during the Renaissance-Reformation Era.