HIS109Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Pope Boniface Viii, Guelphs And Ghibellines, Moral Authority
Ibraheem Aziz Sep 30/2015
HIS109Y – L0101 Lec 06
The Church
• After 1517, Protestantism came into being due to Martin Luther
• Successors to Holy Roman Emperors saw themselves as having imperial sovereign power –
Church claimed it had this right, because Constantine gave them this right in earlier times
• Two ideologies – Guelf (sovereignty of pope) and Ghibelline (sovereignty of emperor)
o Guelf – popes claimed universal dominion, exercised through bureaucratic organization
▪ Controlled monarchies, life in general, reached height in 1200
▪ Plenitudo potestasis (fullness of power) – ability to do anything
▪ Show power by claiming your decision making process is better than those of
others
▪ Canon law – covered a huge breadth and was used in lives of everyone through
oaths, marriages, laws, property
▪ By 1260, Rota was established in Rome (high court)
• Able to appeal and make cases
▪ Many people took legal questions to Rome
• Implied recognition of absolute authority of church courts
• Generated huge incomes for papacy
▪ Ability to collect money from all areas of Christendom – allowed church to claim
universal authority
• Papal finance ministry acquired significant income as part of Crusades
• People who did not go into Crusades sent large donations to Pope
• This money had to be accounted for by bureaucracy
• Popes needed money to fight against emperors – began taxing the
clergy in 1199
• Every cleric had to give 1/40th of annual income to the Pope
• Once taxation was established, it could be raised at will by Pope
• Popes increased taxes – by 1228, tax was 1/10th of income given to the
church (tithes)
o Practice of provisions and reservations
▪ Provisions – began in 13th etury, Pope’s court (Curia) grew in size
▪ In 1265, Popes had the right to replace any cleric in his service
▪ Principle was established that Pope had unilateral right to place people in
positions anywhere in Christendom
• By 1335, this became part of canon law
• Increased power of Pope and levelled feudal lords
▪ Reservations – smaller provisions, used for smaller parishes and priests
• Enormous political implications for Pope
o Popes were exercising the plenitudo potestatis left and right!
o Popes began to interfere in daily affairs
▪ Had machinery to run bureaucratic, practical and religious affairs
o Pope’s Curia eae the first orporatio i the orld – run centrally
▪ Became a financial/legal institutions
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