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1. The presence of decentralized kingdoms
2. The unity of Christianity

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Religion provided an adversary for traditional political systems in the European world, and while religion was often the dominant force, the concepts that impacted the later ideas about the relationship between church and state were being fostered due to events in this time period.

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- Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of Rome
- The conversion of Clovis and the Franks
- Charlemagne's forceful spreading of Christianity

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- After the fall of the Roman Empire, the church claimed authority over all of the former territories.
- Pope Gregory I was especially influential in the Roman Church.
- Papal power continued to grow through the centuries and reached its height with popes being the ultimate authorities in Medieval Europe.

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- St. Thomas Aquinas giving legitimacy to the civil state
- St. Thomas Aquinas asserting the presence of a limited freedom of conscience
- The Conciliar Movement
- The rise of nationalism and later movements decreasing the supremacy of the pope

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- Most people in Medieval Europe were illiterate
- Clergymen exerted significant amounts of power in politics
- The church controlled a lot of legal power
- Political and religious powers fused

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Limestone capital from the cloister of the Benedictine monastery Sainte-Marie de Lombez, France (1140-1150)

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Limestone capital from the cloister of the Benedictine monastery Sainte-Marie de Lombez, France (1140-1150)

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Primary Document - Letter Criticizing the Avignon Papacy

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Primary Document - Letter Criticizing the Avignon Papacy

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"Instead of holy solitude we find a criminal host and crowds of the most infamous satellites; instead of soberness, licentious banquets; instead of pious pilgrimages, preternatural and foul sloth; instead of the bare feet of the apostles, the snowy coursers of brigands fly past us, the horses decked in gold and fed on gold, soon to be shod with gold, if the Lord does not check this slavish luxury. In short, we seem to be among the kings of the Persians or Parthians, before whom we must fall down and worship, and who cannot be approached except presents be offered. O ye unkempt and emaciated old men, is it for this you labored? Is it for this that you have sown the field of the Lord and watered it with your holy blood? But let us leave the subject."
-Petrarch

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Peterborough Cathedral (rebuilt 1118to 1238)

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Peterborough Cathedral (rebuilt 1118to 1238)

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Primary Document - Papal Decree on the Choice of a German King (1201)

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Primary Document - Papal Decree on the Choice of a German King (1201)

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"It is the business of the pope to look after the interests of the Roman empire, since the empire derives its origin and its final authority from the papacy; its origin, because it was originally transferred from Greece by and for the sake of the papacy...its final authority, because the emperor is raised to his position by the pope who blesses him, crowns him, and invests him with the empire....Therefore, since three persons have lately been elected king by different parties, namely, the youth [Frederick, son of Henry VI], Philip [of Hohenstaufen, brother of Henry VI], and Otto [of Brunswick, of the Welf family], so also three things must be taken into account in regard to each one, namely: the legality, the suitability, and the expediency of his election."
-Innocent III

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Primary Document - Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne

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Primary Document - Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne

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"They were sometimes so much weakened and reduced that they promised to renounce the worship of devils, and to adopt Christianity, but they were no less ready to violate these terms than prompt to accept them, so that it is impossible to tell which came easier to them to do; scarcely a year passed from the beginning of the war without such changes on their part. But the King did not suffer his high purpose and steadfastness - firm alike in good and evil fortune - to be wearied by any fickleness on their part, or to be turned from the task that he had undertaken, on the contrary, he never allowed their faithless behavior to go unpunished, but either took the field against them in person, or sent his counts with an army to wreak vengeance and exact righteous satisfaction. At last, after conquering and subduing all who had offered resistance, he took ten thousand of those that lived on the banks of the Elbe, and settled them, with their wives and children, in many different bodies here and there in Gaul and Germany [804]. The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people."

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"Most beloved brethren: Urged by necessity, I, Urban, by the permission of God chief bishop and prelate over the whole world, have come into these parts as an ambassador with a divine admonition to you, the servants of God. I hoped to find you as faithful and as zealous in the service of God as I had supposed you to be. But if there is in you any deformity or crookedness contrary to God's law, with divine help I will do my best to remove it. For God has put you as stewards over his family to minister to it. Happy indeed will you be if he finds you faithful in your stewardship."
- Fulcher of Chartres

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