papacy 553authority of the medieval popes rarely extended beyond
the limits of western and central Europe and was often
contested there.
PAPAL POLITICSUntil the mid-11th century, the ambitions and actions of
the popes were primarily confined to ITA LY, where they
had to maneuver among the LOMBARDS, the Muslims, the
Byzantines, and the noble families of ROME. They had the
prestige of the apostolic see, but effective legal and politi-
cal interventions were difficult and not always successful.
They supported MISSIONSto ENGLANDunder GREGORYI
THEGREAT, to GERMANYin the eighth century, and to cen-
tral Europe in the ninth. In the eighth century, they
formed an alliance with the FRANKS, which accentuated a
split with a rival imperial government and the Byzantine
Church but permitted a temporal papal state in central
Italy, creatively legitimized by the false DONATION OFCON-
STANTINE. The papal coronation of CHARLEMAGNE as
emperor by LEOIII in 800 drew the pope even closer to
the secular powers. The spiritual and temporal powers of
both were accepted as legitimate but were never easy to
keep separate or even complementary.
PAPAL REFORMSFrom the mid-11th century, in the papacy of GREGORY
VII, the GREGORIAN REFORMbegan the gradual establish-
ment of a true papal monarchy. As part of the papal plan
to control more closely the institutions of the church, this
reform attacked what it perceived to be abuses: the pur-
chase of clerical office, the appointment to ecclesiastical
office by the LAITY, and the CELIBACYof the priesthood.
Over time the papacy accomplished a great deal in all of
these matters, but at the cost of sometimes open warfare
with secular rulers. To accomplish these aims, the papacy
recognized the need for and completed the establishment
of a papal state in central Italy. It devised a system of elec-
tion to the see of Saint Peter through the College of CAR-
DINALS, promoted the growth of a legal system that had
the pope as its authority (canon law), and embarked on a
large increase in all taxation paid to the Holy See. These
were in effect the organs of government that any secular
ruler would need to carry out his aims. In the 13th and
14th centuries, the pope developed the Apostolic Camera
to collect and account for its growing tax or fiscal system
and a chancery and system of legates to facilitate commu-
nication and convey papal intentions to the rest of the
church and to the secular powers. It established the Peni-
tentiary and the INQUISITIONto control the ecclesiastical
legal system and promoted new orders, such as the MEN-
DICANTS, who were responsible only to the Holy See, not
to the local bishops.
ASPIRATIONS AND SCHISMSThe popes raised armies and made and funded crusading
alliances with princes to carry out their objectives. In the
13th century between the reigns of Pope INNOCENTIII
and BONIFACEVIII, the popes tried to exercise a full pleni-
tude of powers, acting as monarch in spiritual and tempo-
ral affairs. Papal iconography associated the popes with
imperial themes to demonstrate and assert apostolic and
imperial traditions, power, origins, and glory. Papal tombs
became much more pretentious. Various popes did suc-
ceed in destroying the German emperors but were unable
to cow the kings of FRANCE. When they were forced to
leave Rome and move to AVIGNONin the early 14th cen-
tury, they fell much more under the influence of the
French monarchy. During the Great SCHISM(1378–1417),
when there were two, and then three, popes with compet-
ing claims and allegiances, the prestige of the popes fell,
too disgraced to compete with the growing power of the
developing state systems of Western Europe. This did not
slow an ambitious building program in Avignon or the
development of papal institutions and bureaucracies,
especially those to gather taxes and keep the pope at the
center of the pastoral activities of the church.
In the 15th century after much squabbling, the
schism ended. In 1417 the papacy was reunified, and
in 1420 it returned to Rome under Pope Martin V
(r. 1417–31), who sought to restore papal power. The
papacy then, had to face CONCILIARISMand the conciliar
movement, which sought to center authority in the
church in a conciliar system of government. Councils met
at PISA,CONSTANCE,BASEL, and Florence. But in the end
the papacy managed to avoid conceding much authority,
and the councils were unable to carry out the reform
deemed necessary by many of the clergy and laity alike.CONCORDATS; FUND-RAISING
The 15th century also saw the appearance of concordats
between the Holy See and secular governments. These
recognized considerably more influence by kings and
princes in their regional or national churches. The popes
sought the least unfavorable terms for the Holy See in
these agreements. The popes of the 15th century were as
incapable of effecting church reform as the councils and
they became even more involved in affairs in Italy in their
attempt to protect their temporal power in the PAPAL
STATES. To finance their ambitions of maintaining control
of this region in Italy, the popes had to resort to more and
more taxation, even to sanctioning more jubilees to draw
more pilgrims to Rome to be taxed and to granting
INDULGENCESfor payments of money.
See alsoALEXANDERIII, POPE;ALEXANDERVI, POPE;
CELESTINEV, POPE AND THECELESTINES;CHARLESI OF
ANJOU; CHURCH, EASTERN ORTHODOX; EUGENUIS IV,
POPE;FREDERICK I BARBAROSSA HOHENSTAUFEN,HOLY
ROMANEMPEROR;FREDERICKII, EMPEROR AND KING OF
SICILY; GREGORYIX, POPE; HOLY YEAR; INNOCENT IV,
POPE; LAWCANON AND ECCLESIASTICAL; LEOI, THEGREAT,
POPE;LEOIII, POPE;MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES, CHRIS-
TIAN; NICOLAITISM; PAPAL STATES; PASCHAL II, POPE;