Originally posted by Demogorgon+February 09, 2007 09:29 am--> (Demogorgon @ February 09, 2007 09:29 am)
[email protected] 09, 2007 01:43 am
It was probably generally more rampant than today. Today, most states cooperate with religion either by paying the ministers, having the government a direct role in its functioning ect. The USa's concept of "separation of church and state" is rare in the world.
The middle ages by contrast was a period of total chaos. Kings battled Popes, Popes battled the bishops, bishops battled the lower ministry, the nobility battles the kings, peasants battled the nobility, towns battled the feudal estates.
The notion that life in the Middle ages meant slavishly devoted to the whims of the Pope is absurd.
The pope and king would often come into conflict with each oother because booth had secular power and boith had religious power, it was not a simplecase of religious and secular power clashing. European states at the time were officially Catholic states, and what that meant was that the pope had a great deal of secular power and also the monarchs had religious power: "we by the grace of God", they bellieved they held office due to being elected by God and that therefore meant that they spoke with the voice of God.
The upshot of this meant that in purely religious terms the pope did not have absolute xcontrol over the church, nt only did he have powerful Cardinals wanting their way, he also had the kings playing a very real and very important part in the running of the church. They could even change doctrine if they wanted to. But until the reformation the fact they were Catholic was never questioned.
What this means is that while the power of the pope as a man was far from absolute, the power of the church as an institution was almost unlimited. The Spanish Inquisition was an entirely religious phenomenon involving both spirtiual and temporal authorities. However the temperoal authorites were also in effect part of the arm of the Church. The Spaniush state had power within the Catholic hierarchy. Calling it secular only shows an ignorance of history. [/b]
We are talking here about the catholic church, here, correct? Not post reformation, and subsequent Protestantism.
We are also talking about late middle ages, early modern as well, correct?
It is NOT true that the catholic kings ran the churches. There were certainly attempts to do so, and certainly there were times when they were fairly successful (such as the Avignon papacy). But it wasn't willingly done and the church broke from it when they could. And there were efforts by the church to control all the kings. but that to, failed. And it is true that cardinals play a very powerful role within the catholic Church (the Catholic Church remains a very decentralised institution, popular belief notwithstanding). And the power of the church was in spiritual, not temporal manners (hence the outrage of "papal infallibility" which only came about in the 19th century).
What I am responding to is the claim that the catholic church and the state worked together like some sort of well oiled machine. It wasn't. there was constant conflict and struggle. After the middle ages, the concept of "divine right of kings" was developed, along with the nation state which tended to end these types of conflicts, and where the Inquisition, as a state sponsored action which used the church to further its aims.