Medieval France. An Encyclopedia

(Darren Dugan) #1

primates for each of the regions of Europe to serve as courts of appeals for the legates.
Newly appointed arch-bishops were required to journey to Rome to receive the pallium,
the symbol of their office. The rights and privileges accorded to Cluniac foundations in
France were extended to the monastery of Hirsau and its daughter foundations in
Germany. Urban II, a monk of Cluny, extended the liberties and exemptions of Cluny to
many more Cluniac establishments; and Paschal II extended papal protection to Cîteaux
in 1100.
The ideals and ambitions of the reformers spurred the development of canon law. In
the Collection in Seventy-four Titles, compiled under Leo IX, the precedents set down in
earlier collections were reorganized to emphasize the primacy of Rome and the reform
program. With the passing of time, subsequent collections became the vehicles for the
promulgation of new law, such as the collections of Anselm of Lucca (1083) and
Deusdedit (1086), which drew on materials beyond the traditional canons. Gregory VII’s
own Dictatus papae (1075) seems to stand at a crucial point in this regard: a brief listing
of twenty-seven propositions concerning the authority of the pope, they read like chapter
headings for the later collections: only the pope has the right to be called universal; only
he can depose or absolve bishops; only he can create new laws; the Roman church has
never erred and will never err; the pope has the authority to depose emperors; the pope
alone may use the imperial insignia; the pope ought to be judged by no one; the pope can
absolve subjects from obedience to wicked rulers. Although much of this legal program
existed only in embryo at the end of the 11th century, it expanded dramatically in the
12th and 13th centuries with the Decretum of Gratian (1140) and the later compilations of
the Decretists and Decretalists.
The implications of the Gregorian vision of a just Christian society incorporated other
projects of the late 11th and 12th centuries: the reconquest of Spain, rapproachment with
Constantinople and the crusade in the East, the Peace and Truce of God in European
territories, the transformation of chivalry according to religious ideals (the Templars and
Hospitalers), and the rehabilitation of marriage as a protection for women and families.
Although the reform was not always and everywhere to achieve its goals, it went a
long way to establish the libertas ecclesiae against the manipulations of the feudal
establishment, and it gave a concrete, institutional expression to the very idea of
Christendom.
Mark Zier
[See also: CANON LAW; CISTERCIAN ORDER; CLUNIAC ORDER;
CRUSADES; DOMINICAN ORDER; FRANCISCAN ORDER; GRATIAN;
GREGORY VII; HUGUES DE CLUNY; INNOCENT III; LEO IX; ODILO; PEACE OF
GOD; REGULAR CANONS; SCHOOLS, CATHEDRAL; TEMPLARS; TRUCE OF
GOD; UNIVERSITIES]
Gilchrist, John T., trans. Collection in Seventy-four Titles: A Canon Law Manual of the Gregorian
Reform. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980.
——, ed. Diversorum patrum sententiae: sive, Collectio in LXXIV titulos digesta. Vatican City:
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1973.
Blumenthal, Uta-Renate. The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the
Twelfth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.
Cowdrey, Herbert E.J. The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970.
——. Popes, Monks, and Crusaders. London: Hambledon, 1984.


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