The conflict between this Duplicity and the requisite Unity becomes the starting-point for speculative discussions of the relation between Church and State. The Medieval Spirit steadily refuses to accept the Dualism as final. In some higher Unity reconciliation must be found. This was indubitable; but over the nature of the reconciling process the great parties of the Middle Age fell a fighting.1
The king, therefore, did not rule the entire territory of his realm in the same way as the modern state governs within its boundaries. In this sense the modern state is a “territorial state,” whereas the medieval state was not. In this sense one may speak of a state based on personal ties as well as of lordship over land and people.2
IF POLITICS is about rule, the modern state is verily unique, for it claims sovereignty and territoriality. It is sovereign in that it claims final authority and recognizes no higher source of jurisdiction. It is territorial in that rule is defined as exclusive authority over a fixed territorial space. The criterion for determining where claims to sovereign jurisdiction begin or end is thus a purely geographic one. Mutually recognized borders delimit spheres of jurisdiction.
As John Ruggie has pointed out, rule need not have, and historically often has not had, these two characteristics.3 Clans, tribes, and kinship groups, for example, are not bound by territorial rule. Clan leaders and tribal elders exercise authority over individuals as members of that collectivity. The area occupied or controlled by such a group is thus derivative of the prior classification of individual membership of the clan. Some forms of territorial rule, moreover, need not be fixed. One’s claims to authority over a particular space might vary with the seasons or trade routes. For example, in the case of nomadic tribes, one might claim a right over particular grazing areas that fluctuate with the seasons. Finally, rule need not be exclusive. A variety of authorities might claim the right to govern and exercise jurisdiction over the same space. Ruggie notes how medieval Europe was of that nature.
Thus the modern state defines the human collectivity in a completely novel way. It defines individuals by spatial markers, regardless of kin, tribal affiliation, or religious beliefs. Individuals are in a sense amorphous and undifferentiated entities who are given an identity simply by their location in a particular area. Thus one must make Acquitanians, Normans, and Bretons into French people.4
We should also note that the contemporary state is not only territorial but is internally sovereign. That is, it is externally demarcated from others. It makes no claim to rule outside its borders and, conversely, recognizes no authority above it within them. Internally it claims final authority. In Weber’s terms, it claims the monopoly of violence or, put in more general political terms, it is the final locus of jurisdiction.
Systems of rule in the early Middle Ages had vastly different characteristics. They were nonterritorial, and sovereignty was, at best, disputed. Yet it would be wrong to think that these systems of rule did not control a particular geographical space. As Robert Dodgshon argues, all forms of organization— hunter-gatherer tribes, nomadic kinship structures, empires, and states—occupy a certain space.5 The question is whether the system of rule is predicated on and defined by fixed territorial parameters. The medieval period lacked not only exclusivity but also territoriality. Even in the feudal system of rule, where lords might have jurisdiction over manors and lands granted to them, territoriality was not the defining trait of that logic of organization.
I will argue in this chapter that feudalism, the church, and the Holy Roman Empire lacked territorial fixity and exclusivity. Rule was not premised on territorial delimitation. Feudal organization was essentially a system of rule based on mutual ties of dependence without clearly defined hierarchy. So although one might say that feudal rule occupied a given space, inclusion in the feudal structure was not defined by physical location. That is, territory was not determinative of identity and loyalty. One’s specific obligations or rights depended on one’s place in the matrix of personal ties, not on one’s location in a particular area.
The church, with its clear perception of hierarchy, saw itself as a community of believers with no geographic limits to its authority. Inclusion in the membership of the church meant being part of a religious community. There were believers and infidels. Logically, there were no territorial limits to the inclusion of such faithful.6 But as the name indicates, the Holy Roman Empire claimed that very same constituency and legitimated its power by a semireligious status of its own. The emperor claimed superiority over all other rulers. Frederick II thus claimed to rule as dominus mundi, “lord of the world.”
In short, in none of these was authority contingent on, or defined by, control over a specific territory with fixed boundaries. Although there were of course pragmatic limits to the factual exercise of power, their claims to rule were not defined by territory. Church and empire were universalist forms of organization. By their very nature they could not admit any rival authority as legitimately equivalent. There could only be one church, since it was sanctioned by God. There could only be one empire, since it was the secular arm of the church.
To reiterate, the sovereign state, by contrast, is an organization that is territorially defined. Authority is administrative control over a fixed territorial space. It is delimited in an external sense, vis-à-vis other actors, by its formal borders. Unlike the church or empire, it advances no superiority over other rulers.7
In none of the three modes of organization under study can we define or distinguish domestic from international politics. Feudal lords, church, and empire operated in systems of crosscutting jurisdictions. Juridical competence depended on the specific issue at hand. Indeed, the system of rule looked remarkably like the patterns of authority we ascribe to premodern rule in non-European parts of the world. “In different contexts, different subdivisions of the whole take collective action for the purposes for which they are autonomous; so that if such action is the criterion of a political community, there are series of overlapping political communities.”8
At the end of the first millennium it was hardly predictable that the decentralized nature of feudalism and the systems of rule of church and empire would be challenged and in many ways superseded by new logics of organization. Nevertheless, by 1300 all three had started to give way to city-states, city-leagues, and sovereign, territorial states.9
The critical aim of this chapter is to clarify the specific logics of organization of church, empire, and feudalism. This will set the tone for upcoming discussions of the interests of territorial rulers and emergent towns which ran contrary to the systems of rule of the early medieval period.
There are few concepts in historical analysis as ambiguous and contested as the concept of feudalism. It is ambiguous, not in the least because the very term was unknown to its medieval practitioners. The term was first coined in the seventeenth century. It is contested in that debates about feudalism are inherently declarations of theoretical and political dispositions. They involve polemics on the nature of constitutionalism, the origins of capitalism, and the sequence of political evolution. Some historians have even gone so far as to suggest that the term should be scrapped altogether.10 Given that these debates are essentially irresolvable, and given that one’s position on these matters is largely a consequence of one’s chosen analytic and ideological focus, I will not discuss the intricacies of these disagreements.
I argue that feudalism is a highly decentralized system of political organization which is based on personal ties.11 I therefore essentially follow Strayer in defining feudalism as a mode of political organization. “To sum up, the basic characteristics of feudalism in Western Europe are a fragmentation of political authority, public power in private hands, and a military system in which an essential part of the armed forces is secured through private contracts.”12 Most important for our purposes is the contrast between the feudal logic of political organization and the sovereign, territorial state. In order to understand this feudal system of rule, we must start by retracing its historical origins.
Feudalism finds its roots in the decline of the Carolingian Empire in the early ninth century. The breakup of central authority coincided with increasing raids by Maygars, Saracens, and Vikings.13 One common explanation sees the rise of feudalism as a response to these ubiquitous and sudden threats which necessitated the presence of local defense.14 Standing armies, far away, were of no avail. Individuals sought and found protection from local strongmen. These local strongmen were the knights who had constituted the heavy cavalry of Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne in their conquests. Now the knights provided local protection by the presence of their strongholds. Feudalism emerged out of an already existing warrior elite.15
A second explanation of the emergence of feudalism focuses on the nature of military technology. It emphasizes the development of heavy shock cavalry by the Franks.16 This was an expensive mode of warfare. Since only the wealthy could afford horse and armor, this inevitably led to concentration of power by a small military elite.17 It was this stratum of great men that became rivals of central authority.
Others see a strong Germanic influence. Like the old Germanic chieftains who fought the Roman imperial legions, Frankish kings were seen as leaders in war. These leaders had a reciprocal relation with their followers. “As described by Tacitus, at any rate, the comes was a free warrior who voluntarily, by a solemn obligation (sacramentum), agreed to become the devoted follower of a military chief (princeps), sharing his fortunes even to the death in return for sustenance, equipment, and a share of the booty gained in war.”18 The retinue of the king thus expected spoils for military service. The quid pro quo that we find in the lord-vassal relation thus has its origin in an ancient custom.19
Whatever explanation we wish to accept, it should be clear that Frankish kingship evolved around mounted knights who expected some form of return for their services. Indeed, if the chieftain could not deliver his end of the bargain, the vassal could renounce his obligation to the superior, provided this was done explicitly and before witnesses. Superimposed on this military basis developed the later theory of feudalism proper,20 complete with a particular mode of economic production and sources of legitimation.
Feudalism, therefore, placed military force directly in the hands of the vassal. The decentralizing tendency of localized military force, however, was initially mitigated by a variety of policies. The Carolingians managed to control fragmentation of political rule until the end of Charlemagne’s reign. While the empire was still in existence, and trade and coinage were still available, service was rewarded by monetary payment.21 Monetary payment from the center curtailed the decentralizing tendencies of feudalism.22 Moreover, these warlords were forced to rotate their residences. They would only reside at particular areas for several years at a time. The king also traveled throughout his domain exercising on-site control. Although there were established administrative centers, such as Aachen, the king would tour his domains while residing at the castles and churches of his inferiors. In other words, the king tried to maintain direct supervision over his vassals. Where he could not be himself, he sent vassi dominici, paid administrators who acted in his name.23
The theoretical point is that as long as the economic infrastructure was still strong, there was no inherent reason why local military strongholds had to be decentralizing. A focus on only the military logistics of the time is too narrow. Remuneration from the center, effective administration, and other means of controlling agents can counteract the logistics of local force.24
However, with the decline of the empire and the incursions of Viking, Saracen, and Maygar raiders, trade and the availability of coinage declined. Reciprocal military obligations now had to be repaid in-kind—by land. It was this repayment in-kind that had such a decentralizing effect and that led to feudalism proper.25 Vassalage was now not merely a form of military organization; it became the nexus around which economic production was organized.
The resulting system of rule consisted of two sets of obligations, well described by Bloch.26 Feudalism is first the set of reciprocal military obligations where the weaker seeks the protection of the stronger, in return for military service when required by the superior. Sometimes the guarantee of protection would suffice, but usually military service was rewarded by the superior in the form of a benefice, a gift, which later usually became a land grant, a fief.27 When the vassal became a holder of lands under his own jurisdiction, this gave rise to the second set of obligations. These relations were hierarchical, nonreciprocal, and did not involve military relationships. These were the manorial relations.28 At first the tilling of the soil was primarily done by free men, but gradually serfdom became more prevalent. The peasants would till the soil and transfer portion of the crops to the manorial holder.
In short, one can say that feudalism “has analogies with barter economics, its duties, protections and services being exchanged rather than bought or sold.”29 It was an explicit bilateral relation with specific duties and obligations. Because of the emergence of in-kind rewards, this logic of organization led to fragmentation of political rule.
There are three main differences between the logic of feudal organization and organization based on sovereign territoriality. First, feudal rule lacked hierarchy. Second, territorial rule was not exclusive. Third, feudal rule of territory was imperfect. Manorial relations in some ways resembled territorial rule the closest. One would be subject to the jurisdiction of a lord by one’s residence in a given area. However, seen as a system of larger political rule, the territorial holdings of the lords were dependent on the specific personal relations in which they were embedded. Feudal relations superseded the manorial.
The logic of feudal organization lacked a sovereign, a final source of authority and jurisdiction. Service was owed to those with whom one had entered into vassalage. It was not uncommon to have lands from several lords, all of whom were entitled to service from that vassal for the lands held from them. Thus one could simultaneously be the vassal of the German emperor, the French king, and various counts and bishops, none of whom necessarily had precedence over the other. For example, the Count of Luxemburg was a prince of the empire and hence nominally subject to the emperor, but he also held a money fief (a pension) from the French king and was thus also subject to him.30 A vassal might recognize different superiors under different circumstances. Consequently a vassal might be caught in crosscutting obligations which are very difficult to comprehend within our understanding of “international” relations. A mind-boggling example is provided by John Toul who tried to balance rival obligations to four lords—Lord John of Arcis, Lord Enguerran of Coucy, the Count of Champagne, and the Count of Grandpré—with the latter two having equivalent status but precedence over the first two.
If it should happen that the count of Grandpré should be at war with the countess and count of Champagne for his own personal grievances, I will personally go to the assistance of the count of Grandpré and will send to the countess and count of Champagne, if they summon me, the knights I owe for the fief which I hold of them. But if the count of Grandpré shall make war on the countess and count of Champagne on behalf of his friends and not for his own personal grievances, I shall serve in person with the countess and count of Champagne and I will send one knight to the count of Grandpré to give the service owed from the fief which I hold of him. But I will not myself invade the territory of the count of Grandpré.31
Whether John Toul actually had to oppose his own knights we do not know. But we do know from the biography of William Marshal, the trusted aide of several kings, that he in fact was engaged in a similar balancing act. First, Marshal was indebted to the English King Richard, but he also held lands from John, Richard’s brother who was in rebellion against the king. Marshal tried to fulfill his obligations to both. Later, when Normandy fell to the French king, Marshal was indebted to Philip Augustus for his lands there. William Marshal worked out a formula where he would be King John’s man in England and King Philip’s man in France.32 And indeed both monarchs maintained him as lord of his lands.33
Not only was hierarchy diffuse, but one could question whether there was indeed any hierarchy at all. For example, the king of France was enfeoffed to several bishops for land he held from them. It is only later with the principle of ligesse, the superiority of some types of homage over others, that hierarchy started to be established.34
Such relationships did not necessarily reflect factual material power of the superior lord. For example, Henry II was king of England, duke of Acquitaine, Count of Anjou, and duke of Normandy. But although he was king of England, he only held Normandy in the title of duke and was thus, according to feudal theory, obliged to pay homage to the French king. Henry II did indeed pay Louis VII such homage, although in pure material terms the French king was much weaker.
Not only was the feudal logic of organization in many ways nonhierarchical, but rule over territory was also not exclusive. Jurisdiction over a particular territorial area was seldom absolute. Ecclesiastics, for example, were to be tried by religious courts and canon law rather than by territorial lords. Likewise the king was entitled to proceeds of bishoprics that fell outside his royal domain or that of his vassals.
Consequently, one can question whether the feudal logic of organization is even properly conceived as a system of territorial rule. Instead it is better conceptualized as organization based on personal bonds. “The performance of political functions depends on personal agreements,” and “political authority is treated as private possession.”35 Feudalism is thus rule over people rather than land. One speaks, therefore, of the king of the English (Rex Anglorum) in the twelfth century, rather than the king of England (Rex Anglie).36 Similarly, one spoke of the king of the French (Rex Francorum) because the idea of what the kingdom exactly encompassed (the Regnum Francie) only came into existence after the king had established himself over and above the lords. There is considerable debate in German medieval historiography over whether the German duchies of the tenth century should be perceived as administrative areas or rather as tribal aggregations, the so-called stem duchies.37 The difficulty of applying contemporary notions of territorial rule to the feudal situation also shows itself in the indeterminacy of the boundaries of the royal domain of the early Capetians. As Elizabeth Hallam argues, in the early Capetian period, when the kings were little more than princes among equals, the royal domain was best conceived as a package of rights rather than as rule over a specific territory. The king was thus entitled to income from sources, such as bishoprics, outside his domain over which he also might have jurisdiction.38 The acquisition of authority over territory was thus subsidiary to the personal bonds which gave one such authority over a given geographic space.
Because feudal organization was so heavily based on personal ties, markers were developed to distinguish those privileged to engage in reciprocal obligations and rights from those who were not so privileged.39 Hence, rule was reinforced by the special legal status of nobility and by the particular legitimation of their authority. The feudal aristocracy constituted a caste. The bearing of arms differentiated who were servile and who were free. Those who paid homage and bore arms were considered free, regardless of the number of overlords they had. Rituals and symbolism reinforced this differentiation. The act of homage, the kneeling in submission to the superior, was unique to the military relations of feudalism. Fealty, the swearing of an oath, was reserved for members of the clergy and the nobility.40 Nobles married within the aristocracy and were buried with their fellow nobles. Nobility connoted pure “blue” blood.41 “On every occasion, documentary and narrative sources attribute to the nobility a spirit and attitudes of a class, even of caste.”42
Nobility thus constituted a new type of kin group to replace older tribal kin-group affiliation.43 Nobility distinguished itself from others by superior lineage. This did not imply equality among these knights. As in every military organization, there were superiors and inferiors. However, the nobility acknowledged that they were related as a group, which was quite distinct from others. “Despite differences in power and property, as nobles all are of equal birth; as a later term has it, all are dynasts.”44
From the tenth century onward, the nobles’ distinctive character and the legitimacy of their privileged position were further developed by the theory of the three orders. I discuss this in greater detail in Chapter 4. Suffice it to say for now that the theory of the three orders divided society into the clergy, the warriors, and the workers. This division was perceived to be homologous to that of heaven. Hence, the warrior could justify his position as the defender of those who prayed.
This personalistic system of rule had corresponding legal arrangements. First of all the nobility formed a special legal category. It was entitled to free, allodial holdings. On these holdings it had rights of command and justice (banal lordships). Nobles were entitled to sit on courts with their peers (the mallus). And they were entitled to have an armed retinue.40 If a noble was murdered, the money required for compensation of the kin, the wergild, was higher than for nonnobles.46 The scale of compensatory damages to kin clearly reveals the inequality before the law.
Laws were a mixture of prefeudal elements, remnants of Roman law mixed with Germanic customs, and edicts of the Germanic kings who came after the decline of the empire. Most law, however, was customary.47 Contracts would be sealed by gestures or specific formulas. To remember obligations or important events, mnemonic devices were used.48 In such an environment one could hardly expect well-defined property rights. Feudal law only recognized seisin, or Gewere, which was possession over time. Disputes were settled by querying neighbors.49 Written law would only emerge after 1100 because of the demands of merchants and the drafting of urban statutes.
The legal context thus reveals the larger social and conceptual order of the time. Saltman is right when he argues that legal relations go beyond their immediate pragmatic use. “[T]he initial legal principles are grounded in sets of social relationships and attain intelligibility in this particular social order. Thus these principles are ontological rather than mere abstractions.”50
Given that military and economic organization consisted primarily of the network of personal ties, well-defined property rights would hardly be necessary even if they were conceivable. Exchanges occurred largely by in-kind transfer with little ramifications for third parties who were not immediately part of the deal.51 In a highly abstract and monetarized economy, the nature of property rights of course becomes critical to the working of the market. Indeed, it establishes the very principle of a “market.”
In summary, the feudal logic of rule differed from sovereign territoriality in that it lacked territorial delimitation52 and lacked a final locus of jurisdiction. It was a system based on personal ties conferring rights and obligations across territories. These ties were reaffirmed by the construction of nobility as a caste, a special legal class which demarcated itself by cultural markers such as dress, manners, and rituals and which claimed superiority simply as a birthright.53
It has been said that the state is inconceivable without the church.54 The clash between the universalist modes of organization of church and empire preceded, and laid the basis for, the emergence of sovereign, territorial states. Had these two modes of organization reconciled their differences, or had one conceded to the other, then the pattern of European state formation might have looked quite different. Although both empire and church increasingly developed a theory of sovereignty, a view of final authority, they were decidedly translocal. Neither recognized territorial boundaries to its authority. It was the very tension between the idea of a Christian Commonwealth and the legacy of the old Roman Empire that was responsible for the later conflict. I begin, therefore, with a brief description of the historical origins and structure of the church. From the very beginning, the fates of church and empire were intertwined.
From the beginning, Christianity had a paradoxical relation with the Roman Empire. On the one hand, it managed to spread throughout the empire with considerable speed. Michael Mann suggests that this occurred because the Christian doctrine appealed to traders and merchants, who, in their mobile occupations, could spread the faith.55 Should Christianity have taken root, then it might have united the various segmented and heterogeneous groups of the late Roman Empire.56
For a long period, however, Rome persecuted the Christians. It did so because Christians could not accept the claims of divine emperorship. Furthermore, the Roman Empire had acquired its territory without ideological conversion. It did not engage in religious dissemination, despite the cultural extension of citizenship and law. Christianity by its very nature saw conversion as a primary mission. Hence, the tolerance of pluralism under the Pax Romana was contradictory to the aims of Christian conversion.
Moreover, because Christianity had a particular appeal for middle-class artisans and traders, this caused particular concern among Roman rulers. Christians tended to organize in local, usually urban congregations. These congregations were linked by communications and exchanges with fellow believers elsewhere. In so doing, the Christian community established an interstitial organization, outside the Roman imperial structure. Rome persecuted the Christians because it saw in them a contrasting form of potential, translocal mobilization to rival that of imperial rule.
Finally, Christianity seemed to distance itself from secular rule. The kingdom of God was after all not of this world. Powerholders, therefore, could not easily use it as a source of legitimation, despite the fact that Christianity would extend the power basis of the empire. A more inclusive ideology based on universality and cosmopolitism might have mobilized the empire when it was faced with the barbarian invasions.57
Consequently Christianity came to flourish only after the decline of the empire. When imperial authority declined, Christianity as a church, as a formal organization, stepped in. It took over many of the functions that had been previously performed by Roman administration. And like imperial administration, the organization of the church centered around cities. Ecclesiastical territory was divided along the same lines as the empire. Indeed, the boundaries of the bishoprics were based on the perimeters of the old Roman territorial units of dioecesis and civitas, which became the diocese and the city—the latter being the location of the bishop’s church.58 Thus, when secular authority crumbled, the church remained a translocal form of organization, uniting tribes, different ethnic groups, and local administrations.
Moreover, the church performed many functions and acted in many ways like the empire before it. For example, many of the invading barbarians were absorbed in the faith, as previously Germanic tribes had been absorbed in the empire. Furthermore, monasteries became local nexi of economic production. The church also became the repository of translocal knowledge, law, Latin, and of course cosmological interpretation.59 In so doing it performed the capstone functions that were previously fulfilled by Roman administration.
Whereas Christianity was originally confronted by an already existent empire, the situation was reversed by the time of Frankish ascendence.60 From the eighth century on, attempts to reconstitute the empire would have to recognize the considerable powers of the church. The Franks recognized astutely that the church could enhance their material power and could provide for legitimation of their rule.
But the church was only willing to do so if rulers met the interests of the church. The spiritual power of the church needed secular armies to defend it against its enemies, specifically the Muslims and Lombards. Secular power was to be, in the spiritual perception, the sword of God on earth. For that purpose Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome on Christmas Day of the year 800. He was acclaimed by the words: “To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, great and peace giving emperor of the Romans, life and victory.”61
The symbolism is illustrative. Charlemagne’s father had been anointed with holy oil, a practice performed on priests and prophets. He received staff and ring, symbols of bishops.62 And now Charlemagne himself had become emperor by God’s grace in the capital of the Christian Commonwealth on one of its holiest days.
The Frankish Empire itself was justified by intricate religious interpretations. According to the prophesy of Daniel, there were to be four empires before the end of time. Three had passed, the Babylonian, the Persian, and the Macedonian. The Roman Empire, the fourth, had not really ceased to exist but continued in the Frankish Empire.63 Thus, empire was not simply a form of political domination but a marker of the end of time.
It is important to realize that by this doctrine, and by the anointing of kings as bishops, a king gained theocratic powers, which were enhanced by his role as defender of the faith. The emperor became Vicar of Christ, responsible for all souls on Judgment Day. The pope was merely the Vicar of St. Peter.64 The emperor could therefore rightly claim that he was the ruler of the Christian Commonwealth whereas the pope was merely a bishop of a very important see, but a bishop nonetheless. This sowed the seeds for the later struggles between emperor and pope.
By legitimating Frankish kingship in this vein, the church accomplished two goals. First, it made the empire the secular extension of translocal authority; the ecumene of Christianity became a political reality. Second, by extending its support to secular authority in purely religious terms, it sought to make such authority if not subject to, then at least partially dependent on the church. If part of the king’s status derived from his theocratic position, then surely he had to be subject to Rome.
In short, historically the church emerged as a translocal authority. Consequently the church supported those rulers who sought a return of empire, provided this was to be an empire under God, that is, subject to the dictates of the pope. The struggles with the German emperor would not originate from the German imperial claims but from imperial unwillingness to accept papal rule above him.
In this sense the logic of a universalist doctrine and translocal organization differed from sovereign, territorial rule. The church ruled the community of believers. By its very nature it could doctrinally not admit to territorial limits. “Therefore in all centuries of the Middle Age Christendom, which in destiny is identical with Mankind, is set before us as a single, universal Community . . . Therefore that it may attain its one purpose, it needs One Law and One Government.”65
Consequently, territorial rulers, such as the French king, were bound to later come into conflict with the dictates of the church. Sovereign authority can brook no outside interference, even from someone who speaks in the name of all believers of the true faith.
The church commanded considerable material power to back up claims of dominion over the Christian community. It was the largest landholder in Europe and could obtain revenues from those lands, as well as from taxes on clergy and laity. This material basis made it a viable political organization and not merely a preferred but unobtainable social order. As Randall Collins states, the church was a cultural, economic, and political actor.66 The papacy, and the secular and the regular clergy, all had means of levying taxes.
The papacy could get revenue from a variety of sources.67 First, the pope himself, in his capacity of bishop of Rome, commanded considerable property in Italy. According to the Donation of Constantine, the emperor had rescinded control over these lands to the pope.68 Second, the monasteries made direct payments to the papacy in exchange for the pope’s support against members of the secular clergy. The secular clergy were sometimes at odds with the monastic orders, that is, the regular clergy, because of their different religious function and because the monasteries tended to usurp clerical revenue. Third, the pope could obtain direct payment from secular rulers. For example, the Peter’s Pence was a payment by the English king to the pope, allegedly equivalent to one pence for every household in the kingdom.69 Furthermore, the pope could give certain benefices (land grants) to bishops or other members of the clergy, just as any feudal overlord could. The pope would receive servitia (services) or annates, such as one third of the first year’s revenue of the new benefice. As another source of revenue, the pope could ask for subsidies from the clergy for particular events such as a crusade. Finally, the pope could impose direct taxes on laity and clergy for a specified number of years.
The secular clergy had its own revenue sources. This group, which provided service to the laity directly, received their primary revenue from the tithe. This was a tax levied on all Christians.70 It was a tax of one-tenth of gross income. Agricultural producers had to surrender a tenth of their crops. Those who engaged in animal husbandry had to surrender a similar portion of their animal products. Other activities also required payment of one-tenth of the yearly income. In short, few people managed to escape it. Aside from the tithe, members of the secular clergy could draw revenue as feudal lords in service of secular rulers. Churches and bishoprics, prior to the reforms following the Investiture Conflict, had become transferable holdings. In many ways they were no different from the regular feudal holdings. Bishops thus obtained revenue from these lands, maintained armed retainers, and provided administrative services for the secular overlord.
The regular clergy differed from the secular clergy in that they lived according to certain rules (regula). They lived communally and followed the dictates of their abbot, in communities that sought to become as independent as possible from any authority.71 Their revenues derived primarily from the yields of their holdings.72 The Clunaics, a later development within the Benedictine order, were particularly successful. Later orders such as the Augustinians and the Cistercians also did very well.73
I have highlighted these various sources of revenue to demonstrate that the church was more than a religious organization as we understand it. Its translocal economic operations covered Christian Europe and affected every level of society.74 Thus, the economic power of the church, in addition to its ability to legitimate secular authority, made it into a desirable ally, or a formidable foe, for any territorial magnate. Given the small tax basis for the period, it is evident that the revenues of the church made it an attractive ally for aspiring secular rulers. From the opposite view, however, clerical taxes eroded the opportunity for rulers to raise large amounts of revenue themselves.
Before the Gregorian reforms of the late eleventh century, religious administration was subject to considerable secular control. When the church tried to diminish such influence, and tried to extend its translocal control in earnest through strict hierarchical control from Rome, conflict with secular rulers became unavoidable.
The church started its existence as a loose affiliation of urban communities of believers.75 As said, the church adopted the Roman imperial pattern. Bishops were appointed to cities to supervise the Roman community, the civitas. The area of their administration was the diocese, which formerly had been a subunit of the Roman province. Archbishoprics were aggregations of bishoprics and coincided with the Roman province, the provincium. The heart of the organization revolved around the bishopric. Hierarchical control from Rome was weak at best.
Secular support had always been important to the papacy. Indeed, the privileged position of the Bishop of Rome had to be established with imperial support. There was no pragmatic reason why the bishop of Rome should have a privileged position, certainly in view of important Christian communities in Antioch (Syria) and Alexandria. To support Rome’s claims, however, some theological scholars referred to a passage in the New Testament (Matthew 16:1819) wherein Christ said that Peter was the rock upon which he would build his church. This was interpreted to mean that Peter was the superior of the other apostles. Peter, as bishop of Rome, had passed this capacity on to his successors. The bishop of Rome thus claimed to be the hierarchical center of the ecclesia. This view, the Petrine doctrine, was enforced by imperial dictate.76
Such secular support was only the beginning. Bishops were to be chosen by the clergy and the people they would serve. “No one is to be consecrated as a bishop unless the clergy and people of the diocese have been called together and have given their consent.”77 The clause “by the clergy and the people” was of course highly ambiguous. Which members of the clergy were the electors? Who would speak for the people?
The clergy were initially represented by the priests in the diocese where the bishop served. Gradually representation was taken over by members of the church, the cathedral canon, where the bishop actually resided. The cathedral canon differed from the secular clergy in that the members of the canon did not perform religious service and lived according to rules similar to a monastic order. They performed administrative and juridical functions for the bishop.
Consent by the people initially meant nothing more than popular acclamation. This was factually replaced by consent of the secular rulers. Thus kings and emperors had a direct say in who was to become bishop. Gradually, as central authority broke down, even feudal dukes and counts appropriated the capacity to appoint clergy. To what extent lesser secular rulers appointed higher clergy is a matter of debate, although the appointment of bishops apparently was performed mainly by kings, whereas the lesser nobility controlled parish churches and monastic houses.78
The election of the bishop of Rome, the pope, differed slightly because of the special capacity of this bishop. The bishop of Rome was elected by several bishops around Rome and priests who served in the diocese of Rome and around the city The latter were called cardinals and could serve in churches other than their own.79
Secular consent for the election of the bishop in Rome meant de facto that the election was controlled by the local powerholders in Rome. Consequently even the papacy was directly subject to secular domination by two aristocratic factions, the Crescentii and the Tuscalani.80 In the tenth century, the papacy had virtually become inheritable.
The papacy could only manage a semblance of independence of these Roman magnates if it could draw on the support of the emperor against the local Italian factions. Thus Emperor Henry III deposed several rival popes, supported by the Tuscalani and the Crescentii, to finally install his own preferred candidate in 1046. Of the seven German popes in history, five reigned between 1046 and 1058.81 Ironically, therefore, early attempts to forge a stronger papacy were supported by the emperor. A strong pope, dependent on imperial support against local factions, was a useful ally for legitimation of the imperial title.
In addition to the election procedure, secular control was made possible by the ambiguity of the Gelasian doctrine. At several points in the Bible there was mention of two swords: the sacerdotal and the secular. But it was highly unclear which one was superior. Christian doctrine was ambiguous about how church and secular power were to interact. As early as the ninth century some prelates had put forward the claim that the church was superior to secular rulers. The archbishop of Rheims, Hincmar (845-882), argued that “the episcopal dignity is greater than the royal, for bishops consecrate kings, but kings do not consecrate bishops.”82 But given the weak and fragmented nature of the church at that time, the claim had little validity.
If one further takes into account that kings had considerable theocratic status of their own—recall that they were anointed with holy insignia—it is clear that kings were reluctant to see the clergy as their superiors. Indeed, kings and emperors could claim that it was the duty of the clergy to help the ruler carry out his holy task. Certainly in view of the secular machinations in all bishopric elections, their claim cannot be seen as implausible. Bishops and popes were in many ways feudal lords by another name.
One cannot, therefore, simply depict the later conflict between church and empire as one between secular and spiritual rule. The two were indistinguishable before the Investiture Conflict (1075). Rule was per definition spiritual. Victory in war, just as trial by ordeal, was an indication of divine approval. Ecclesiastical offices fulfilled many of the tasks that we today would see as governmental. Moreover, many ecclesiastics were relatives and appointees of feudal lords and kings.
It was quite common, until the Investiture Conflict between pope and German emperor which started in 1075, for secular rulers to endow the clergy, particularly abbots and bishops, as vassals to kings and emperors. The clergy were valuable assets for such rulers. They could serve as literate and educated administrators, they could provide for efficient agricultural production, and (theoretically) their lands resorted back to the lord after they died because they had no heirs.83
Moreover, the German kings had come to rely on their ecclesiastical lords to a greater extent than their French and English counterparts. This was partially due to the strength of the stem duchies. Ever since the revolt of the dukes in the middle of the tenth century, the kings had sought to ally themselves with the German church.84
Consequently, despite the fact that its members controlled properties and revenue, the church lacked hierarchical organization prior to the Gregorian Reform of the eleventh century.85 As we have already seen, the position of the pope, as bishop of Rome, was ill defined and pragmatically under the control of local factions. Aside from this lack of a well-defined center, the local clergy had their own particularized affinities and interests. They were indebted to the ecclesiastical or secular overlords from which they had fiefs and tithes.86 The local clergy therefore, often had quite different interests than the bishop of Rome who sought to establish hierarchical control over the church. In order for any centralization of the church to be successful, the papacy, therefore, inevitably had to tackle the issue of lay investiture of spiritual offices. As long as secular rulers could appoint bishops and priests, any control from Rome would be illusory.
The papacy started to assert this control from the middle of the eleventh century on. First, the church started to interpret the Gelasian doctrine in its favor. As stated, the doctrine originally suggested the existence of two swords: the sacerdotal and the secular. According to theological doctrine, Pope Gelasius (492—496) had written to the emperor Anastasius: “Two there are, august emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, the sacred authority (auctoritas) of the priesthood and the royal power (potestas).”87
However, it was highly unclear from Gelasius’s letter and his other writings which of the two, or if either of the two, he meant to be superior. Now the papacy started to advance the claim that the sacerdotal was the superior, and the secular subject to it. At this point the pope was only claiming spiritual, not absolute temporal, authority. That is, the pope claimed that he, not the emperor, was the Vicar of Christ, the leader of the Christian community and responsible for souls on Judgment Day. But the denial to the emperor of spiritual legitimation had important consequences for the emperor’s political rule.88
The Investiture Conflict revolved around the imperial investiture of bishops in Germany. Given that the pope denied spiritual powers to the emperor, he could not permit the emperor to install men of his choice in a spiritual office. The move to reorganize and centralize the papacy which had started in the middle of the eleventh century now had come full circle. In 1046 the emperor had deposed two rival popes and had elected a third against local factions. The ensuing decades saw a rise in reorganization efforts by the papacy against secular influences on the church. Now the pope asserted his autonomy even from the emperor himself. The result was embodied in a set of theses drawn up by Gregory VII. Among his twenty-seven theses, in the Dictatus Papae (1075), he claimed the following rights:
| 2. | That the Roman Pontiff alone is rightly to be called universal. |
| 3. | That he alone can depose or reinstate bishops. |
| 12. | That he may depose Emperors. |
| 22. | That the Roman Church has never erred, nor ever, by the witness of Scripture, shall err to all eternity. |
| 27. | That the Pope may absolve subjects of unjust men from their fealty.89 |
Naturally the claims were inacceptable to the emperor. First, they denied his supremacy over the church and his role as a spiritual leader of Christianity. But the political implications also created a zero-sum game. The denial of investiture to the emperor meant that the control over ecclesiastical holdings, and revenue, would pass directly to the pope. What the emperor lost, the pope gained. Henry IV’s response was commensurate. Gregory VII was labeled a usurper of the papacy.
Henry, King not by usurpation, but by the pious ordination of God, to Hildebrand, now not Pope, but false monk: . . . Our Lord, Jesus Christ, has called us to kingship, but has not called you to priesthood . . . I, Henry, King by the grace of God, together with all our bishops, say to you, Descend! Descend, to be damned through the ages!90
Gregory VII then excommunicated Henry IV, and many lords supported the pope therein. “The turbulent princes of medieval Germany were never willing to submit to a powerful, centralized monarchy. . . . The announcement of the king’s excommunication and deposition was therefore very welcome to many of the nobles.”91 The emperor thereupon embarked on the famous journey to Canossa to do penance and ask for the pope’s forgiveness, which he obtained.
But the struggle was far from over and was to rage for decades beyond this. Intermittently, emperors would recognize antipopes and ally with groups that opposed the incumbent pope. Conversely, popes would ally with German lords to support antikings. In Italy, the pope would seek support from the Normans who controlled southern Italy and from the communes of the north which feared a dominating empire as well.
The overall outcome of the conflict was, however, more a compromise than an outright victory for either side. In effect the issue was never fully resolved. The emperor would no longer appoint bishops with clerical insignia—the staff and the ring—but imperial approval of bishops was still required.
The revolutionary impact of the Investiture Conflict was therefore twofold.92 First, in separating the two realms, it necessitated secular rule to justify itself by other than spiritual means. Second, in distinguishing and separating these two realms, which both had claims to universality, the two became rivals. Which one was to be subject to the other? As a result, both camps had to seek political allies, search for new sources of legitimation, and rationalize their administrative and legal machineries. The Investiture Conflict in a sense necessitated rulers to invent “secular” rule.
In the long run both positions were eroded by the struggle. Both sides could appeal to local groups who opposed either emperor or theocratic papacy. The papacy consistently sought material allies, first in the Normans, then in territorial rulers such as the French kings, to fight the empire. In the thirteenth century the papacy even went so far as to suggest a political deal with the Byzantine emperor. If the Greek church would consent to papal rule from Rome, the papacy would recognize the Byzantine emperor, not the German, as the legitimate ruler of Christendom.93
During the struggle the papacy continued to improve hierarchical control and administration within the church. One of the instruments for doing so was the development of canon law.94 Canon law was unique in that it referred back to classical Roman sources and used a dialectical method of contrasting different solutions to a given problem. Arguments for and against particular positions were the preferred style of argument, rather than reasoning by authority.
The success of the papacy’s administrative reforms shows, for example, in the vastly increased amount of correspondence that went out from Rome.95 The papal administration became specialized in four different branches: the Penitentiary, the Chancery, the Camera, and the Rota. The Penitentiary dealt with matters of faith; the Chancery was in charge of correspondence; the Camera handled finances; and the Rota performed judicial tasks. In short, there was functional specialization. As a consequence the papacy increased in size. It is estimated that even the papacy in exile in Avignon had an administration of roughly 450 to 650 people.96
Furthermore, in an attempt to minimize secular influences on the papal election, the Lateran Council of 1059 was convened. The election procedure was now formally established in the body of cardinals. This still did not eliminate secular influence since kings and lords continued to sway their preferred cardinals. But it did foreshadow the separation of secular and spiritual authorities.
The medieval church thus did not delimit its authority in any territorial sense but advanced the universalist claim to rule over the Christian community of believers. Economically and administratively the church was organized translocally. It increasingly favored hierarchical control by Rome, despite misgivings of the local clergy. In terms of economic revenue, both local clergy and Rome affected every activity in life. No area of Christian Europe escaped the extractive capability of the church.
In the long run, conflict with territorial rulers would erupt on cultural, economic, and administrative dimensions. Universalist claims to authority could not be conceptually reconciled with the principle of sovereignty. In the economic sphere, the king objected to the transfer of resources to Rome. Furthermore, the holdings of the church were attractive assets in their own right. Administratively, bureaucratic hierarchy from Rome undercut control of secular rulers over their local clergy, who operated as lords and administrators. The logic of universal ecclesiastical rule and the logic of sovereign territoriality were fundamentally at odds.
Traditional empires have usually had a universalist system of rule. They have basically aspired to exercise political control over their relevant sphere of economic interaction. The spatial extension of political control ideally corresponds with the market. In Roberto Unger’s words, empires aspired to be autarkic. “Its most tangible feature is the overall coincidence of economic and political boundaries.”97 Moreover, such empires legitimated their existence by spiritual claims. Universal empires tended to claim some form of cosmological justification.98 Whereas there were of course factual limits to the exercise of their power, theoretically they denied other actors an equivalent status. “Empires in other words have had a universalizing quality within their own territories.”99
The empire that the German kings tried to establish from the tenth century onward was no different. The empire did not define itself by control over a given territory. It had “border regions—we cannot speak of borders yet— around the mid eleventh century.”100 By its very nature it could not have fixed boundaries. “The empire was not a geographical entity, but a military and spiritual authority.”101
Like the church, the Holy Roman Empire made universal claims. Indeed, the empire was premised on the control of several kingdoms, supposedly of ancient stature—the Italian kingdom, Burgundy, and the Germanic kingdom. Its universalist claims find their origin in the legacy of the Carolingian Empire. Given that the ideal form of rule was analogous to that of heaven, there could be only one world ruler. Symbolically this was represented by the imperial orb which supposedly contained soil from all four corners of the world. The legitimate rule of empire first transferred from Rome to Constantinople and then to the Carolingian Empire was now transferred to the German.102
German imperial claims, however, confronted two problems which eventually negated the imperial possibility.103 First, the German emperor was increasingly faced by rival universalist claims of the pope. Second, the heterogeneous nature of German principalities made any pursuit of an imperial strategy abroad always a hazardous undertaking. In order to deal with these issues, the German king—the Holy Roman Emperor—chose a feudal strategy against the towns.104
The later centuries of the Roman Empire witnessed the influx of peoples who previously had lived beyond the frontier of the empire. The Franks were one of the Germanic tribes caught in the great pattern of migration in the fourth and fifth centuries. They finally settled down in what is today northern France and Belgium. Like all barbarian invading and migrating tribes, the Franks were heavily influenced by the Roman legacy. They tailored Roman law to their particular needs and converted to Christianity.
Gradually the Merovingian and later the Carolingian line expanded the Frankish realm. With the capability of their cavalry, they conquered the other kingdoms that had established themselves in France. They defeated the Burgundians and pushed the Visigoths into Spain. They halted the Muslim advance and set up a border province across the Pyrenees.105
The secular expansion of the Franks was matched by their success in creating an alliance with the church. When the pope needed secular allies to defend Italy against the Lombard invaders in the north, and the Byzantine emperor was increasingly unable to provide secular support, the Franks seemed like a logical choice.106 Simultaneously, the chancellor of the household, the major domus Pepin, wished to replace his Merovingian overlords. The Merovingian kings had increasingly become figureheads, and the chancellors had in fact become the main political administrators. In order to legitimate such usurpation, Pepin sought and got the approval of the pope. Pepin was anointed king by the archbishop, the pope’s legate. The pope hereby gained an ally against his secular enemies. The Carolingian king in turn gained the approbation of the church and, after the Carolingian defeat of the Lombards in Italy, the Franks also obtained territorial holdings south of the Alps. They returned to the pope a large amount of these holdings, which then became the heart of the independent papal lands.
Charlemagne, Pepin’s successor, went on to expand Carolingian territory to the east. Carolingian rule encompassed areas from the North Sea to Italy and was bordered to the east by the Hungarian plains. To seal the consolidation of political power and sacerdotal status, Charlemagne was crowned emperor by the pope on Christmas Day of the year 800.107 As previously stated, the religious symbolism was meant to convey the theocratic standing of the empire.
The Frankish unification of western Europe was short lived. One of the main factors contributing to the decline of the Carolingian Empire was the absence of primogeniture—inheritance by the eldest son alone. Instead, the Carolingians divided inheritance among all male heirs. Consequently the empire was divided into four kingdoms in 817, and its divisions were periodically altered. In 843, by the Treaty of Verdun, the kingdoms were redrawn and the empire was partitioned into western, middle, and eastern kingdoms. The treaties of Meersen and Ribemont redrew boundaries again in 870 and 880. The result of continual fratricidal wars was the establishment of a West-Prankish kingdom, an East-Frankish kingdom, Upper and Lower Burgundy (the latter also called Arles after its capital), and the kingdom of Italy. The papal lands (the patrimonium petri) remained independent and were uninfluenced by the alterations in the Frankish Empire.
The weakening of central authority gave rise to five powerful duchies in the East-Frankish kingdom: Franconia, Saxony, Thüringen, Bavaria, and Swabia.108 When the Carolingian lineage died out at the beginning of the tenth century, the Saxons proclaimed Henry I king. He went on to subject the dukes, and his son Otto the Great was crowned king, whereas the dukes became part of the royal entourage. During his second Italian campaign, the pope crowned Otto as emperor in 962. This marked the foundation of the empire, and indeed Otto saw himself as a direct successor to Charlemagne. His son, Otto II (973-987), argued for restoration of the old Roman Empire consisting of Germania, Roma, and Gallia. Otto III (983-1002), his successor, accepted the title “servant of the apostles” to signify the unification of empire and church. The empire was not, therefore, simply a secular political authority that controlled a certain area. It claimed jurisdiction over the Christian community as the secular arm of God. In this sense it was universalist.109
Although the Holy Roman Empire lasted in name until 1806, the empire was from the very beginning subject to internal tensions. As we will see, the political bargains that the king had to make in order to deal with these tensions ended by directing Germany on a course that was the reverse of that pursued by the French king.
The problems that faced the German emperor arose from two sources. The first lay in the strength of the dukes. In the East-Frankish part of the Carolingian Empire, feudalism had not initially progressed as far as it had in France. Fragmentation was initially less severe. Although it had broken into several duchies, it did not proceed beyond that.110
It is debatable to what extent these duchies were tribal in character. The names of the duchies themselves suggest that they were to some extent indeed tribal. The Carolingians had tried to break up these duchies and rule through counts, but after Carolingian decline these powerful duchies returned.111 These duchies acquired a semiregal character. The continued strength of these principalities would constitute the first roadblock to any attempts by the emperor to form a consolidated realm in Germany.
To counter these powerful lords, the German kings had to ally themselves with the German church. But there they encountered a second problem. This obstacle consisted of the rivalry between church and emperor which we have discussed in the context of the Investiture Conflict. The local clergy, bishops and abbots, were often incorporated as vassals in royal administration. The loyalty of such clergy, however, became increasingly doubtful, particularly after Rome established an effective bureaucracy and claimed papal jurisdiction over these members of the clergy.
Although the pope had crowned Otto the Great emperor in 962, papal and imperial objectives were basically antithetical to each other. The life-and-death struggle between papacy and empire resulted from the very fact that both sought to administer the same areas of political life. Both sought to reestablish the old notion of the Roman Empire, to control investiture of the clergy, and to unite the disparate domains, including Italy and Germany. The problem was that neither would submit to the other’s final jurisdiction.112
In the end it proved impossible to reconcile an imperial policy focusing on Italy with a policy focusing on Germany. In Italy the emperor faced political opponents in the pope and the wealthy communes. Moreover, these might ally to other powers such as the Normans in Sicily. In order to combat these, the emperor would have to drain German resources which would tax his ducal support. Moreover, these lords would already have incentives to ally with outside powers, such as the pope, to mitigate any centralizing tendency of the king. A reverse policy, focusing on Germany, would jeopardize imperial claims to northern Italy and Burgundy, which were desirable sources of revenue. Moreover, that would not square with the universalist logic of the empire. The imperial response was a variety of often inconsistent strategies that ultimately crippled territorial development and divided Germany up to the late nineteenth century.113
Imperial strategy failed, first because it could only reach a compromise with the papacy at considerable expense. The compromise, concluded in the Concordat of Worms, conferred to the emperor the right of approval, but he could no longer appoint the bishop with sacerdotal insignia, the staff and ring.114 This was more than mere symbolism and meant that the emperor did not have jurisdiction over bishops in the emperor’s capacity as member of the clergy. This was particularly problematic for the German king because he relied to a far greater extent than his French and English counterparts on ecclesiastical lords.115
The Investiture Conflict is thus an important illustration of the ability of local powerholders, both clerical and temporal, to utilize the strife between emperor and pope as an avenue to further their own interests. It also meant that the pope or any rival to the throne in Germany could tap into this local dissent to keep the emperor at bay. On occasion, popes would recognize antikings supported by coalitions who opposed the incumbent emperor, and the emperor would do the converse. During the Investiture Conflict, Pope Gregory supported the nobility’s election of Rudolf of Swabia as antiking against Henry. The emperor appointed an antipope, Clement III. Likewise they appointed bishops and antibishops, so that bishoprics had two claimants.116
A second major conflict between pope and emperor was the control of lands in Italy outside the papal estates. Attempts by Frederick II (1212-1250) to bring Sicily and northern Italy into the German empire particularly threatened the independence of the papal state. Consequently the Italian cities in the north, which sought independence from the empire, allied with the pope. Despite some initial success in his imperial campaigns, Frederick II ultimately failed to subdue these towns, and all German claims to de facto overlordship in Italy evaporated. A century later (1356), the Italian territories were formally surrendered by Charles, who in exchange retained the imperial title.117
Geoffrey Barraclough argues that Frederick II’s Italian policy sealed the fate of the Holy Roman Empire. Frederick II deliberately opted to focus his attention on Italy rather than Germany. The main reason might have been that Italy provided him with large amounts of revenue, but he also had ideological reasons of his own. He apparently had megalomaniacal tendencies and embellished claims of his messianic status. “[H]e presented himself as the Emperor of the End of Time, the savior who was to lead the world into the golden age.”118 After his death, myths continued to circulate about the second coming of this emperor who would unite Christendom.
Imperial strategy was always built on a shaky foundation. The German lords were reluctant to concede their independence, and any king on campaign across the Alps always had to fear rebellion at home. Frederick II, possibly the last emperor who might have succeeded in maintaining the empire, tried to avert losses in Germany by conceding the princes’ semiregalian rights. In two bulls, particularly in the bull of 1232 (Statutum in favorem principum), he granted extensive claims to the princes. He also recognized the princes’ right to election of the emperor which had previously been practiced but not officially recognized. The princes denounced hereditary monarchy and would from then on consciously put weak candidates on the throne. Papal acclamation became an addition, not a prerequisite to imperial status.
Both the feudal strategy in Germany and the imperial strategy in Italy failed. Germany thereupon evolved into a heterogeneous system of independent lordships and city-leagues. The end of Frederick II’s reign was a turning point in German history and, pragmatically speaking, the end of the empire.
I have suggested in this chapter that the church, the Holy Roman Empire, and feudalism were nonterritorial logics of organization. Feudal organization was a network of personal ties. Church and empire claimed authority over the community of believers and invoked the legacy of the Roman Empire. Moreover, all three systems of rule coexisted. Individuals could be subject to multiple authorities because government was not defined by mutually exclusive criteria. Even though the emperor and pope claimed final jurisdiction vis-à-vis the other, this still was not sovereignty in a territorial sense. For example, the emperor had to concede Roman control over ecclesiastical holdings in the empire, and lords maintained many powers which made them virtually independent.
The modern state, by contrast, is premised on the notion of sovereignty. Sovereignty per definition consists of internal hierarchy and territorial demarcation. The scope of authority thus requires the existence of formal borders.
In feudalism, by contrast, since authority was defined by personal ties—the obligations and rights between individuals—hierarchy was diffuse. Personal obligations were ad hoc and case specific. As a result, the status of the individual, the “quality” of the person, became an important ingredient in maintaining social order. Feudalism, as a system of personal obligations, hinged on distinctions of birth, ability to bear arms, and other markers that demonstrated the individual’s place in society.
Nor did the church define its authority in spatial terms. Its authority was based on its role in guiding the community of believers. The scope of authority extended over the Christian ecumene. It was thus one’s status as a believer that made one subject to this mode of authority.
Within the church, the pope gradually asserted his supremacy over the other bishops and attempted to make secular and regular clergy subject to his dictates from Rome. Externally the pope claimed universalist supremacy; all other powers were subject to him. Emperors and kings only held their power by papal approval.
Consequently the church was economically and administratively set up as a translocal organization. It operated as far as the community of believers stretched. The pope could extract revenue from all corners of Christian Europe. Yet at the same time, the dictates of Rome could permeate to the most local level of society. The scope of the church’s authority was wide, and its effects on society ran deep.
The Holy Roman Empire was a strange mixture of conflicting elements of organization. First, it claimed a legacy to the old Roman Empire. Based on that view, some argued that the empire should encompass Gallia, Italia, Germania, and parts of eastern Europe. Second, the new empire had also adopted the religious logic of a community of believers. The empire was thus to consist of Christian Europe, thereby basing its authority on a nonterritorial criterion. Even though the German kings de facto could not follow through on their claims of supremacy over the French and English king, in principle the latter were considered inferiors. The principle of imperial rule was thus in a theoretical sense universal. Its aim was to unite all individuals in a Christian empire.
This duality of secular and religious legitimation led to the absence of clear hierarchical authority. From one perspective, the emperor had universal authority over all other rulers including the pope. The church, however, claimed the same scope of authority. There were two swords, but the secular was to serve the spiritual.
The confusion regarding scope and hierarchy of imperial authority was further exacerbated by the feudal influence on imperial strategy. In order to further imperial claims to Italy and Burgundy, the German emperor conceded considerable rights to princes—so much so that he could not claim exclusive jurisdiction within the area over which he was nominally the lord.
The struggles of this period can be described as “a three cornered conflict between a secularized episcopate (anxious to preserve its customary prerogatives against papal centralization), the imperial power (which saw papal centralization as a menace to its own monarchical authority) and the Papacy (which saw centralization as the only way to a reformed and purified Church).”119 As John Morrall notes, at the same time this was a struggle between unifying forces and local, particularistic ones which opposed central authority. The result of these struggles and the way in which these struggles were fought influenced the development of sovereign states in several ways.
First, by denying the legitimacy of each other and by allying with local forces, emperor and pope weakened each other. Moreover, there was no secular force that could have played a similar role as the German empire in under-shoring the papacy. “It may thus be said that the fall of the one universal power brought with it that of the other.”120
Second, because the emperor and pope supported the particularistic forces that opposed their rival, Germany and Italy embarked on a course of fragmentation rather than centralization. Lombard communes could find support from Rome and the Normans to oppose the emperor. In Germany, high nobles and ecclesiastics could count on the pope as well. Conversely, Italian aristocratic families who opposed the pope could count on the emperor’s support.
Third, the papacy turned to territorial rulers for support in its fight with the empire. Thus, as we will see in Chapter 5, the French kings could count on papal support and revenue when they set about to unify their kingdoms against the feudal lords.
Moreover, the necessity of domestic German support forced German kings to appease particular domestic groups. The German kings opted for a strategy that curtailed the liberties of towns and surrendered Germany largely to the lords. This strategy differed markedly from that of the English and French territorial rulers.
Finally, the struggle between papacy and emperor led to new modes of organizing and justifying rule. Whereas the papacy turned to canon law, secular rulers would find justification for their sovereignty in Roman law. Henry IV had already recognized this mode of justification in the Investiture Conflict, but it still had some way to go in its development. A century later, however, Frederick Barbarossa made his argument very explicit on the basis of Roman law and encouraged the development of universities.121 That development would also play an important role in the organization of sovereign states and the structuring of property rights.