2 - The papacy, 1024–1122

Summary

INTRODUCTION

General

The author of a chapter on the history of the papacy from 1024 to1122 confronts the unusual task of giving in a few pages an account of both the Adelspapsttum and of the popes of the Gregorian reform period. No greater contrast could be imagined, one might think. After the clean-sweep of Sutri and Rome in 1046, when ecclesiastical councils under the guidance of Emperor Henry III cleared the way for the first of the northern newcomers, Pope Clement II (1046–7), a fundamentally altered papacy is supposed to have arisen from the ashes of a papacy dominated by the corrupt local Roman nobility. And, indeed, profound changes occurred in the second half of the eleventh century, although with regard less to the papacy itself as an institution than to its relationship with the churches of the empire (Germany, Italy and, at times, Burgundy), the Normans of Italy, the principalities and kingdom of France and the Byzantine patriarchate. Because of the Conquest and the special relationship between the papacy and the English kings from William I to Henry I, England stood somewhat apart in this reordering, as did Spain on account of the Reconquista. It involved the successful realization of the papal primacy. This was not limited to the secular realm, but also deeply affected relationships within the church. The history of these changes can be found in an earlier chapter as well as in many handbooks and will only be sketched very briefly here. The present chapter will emphasize the administrative underpinning that allowed a strengthened papacy to emerge at the end of the twelfth century under Innocent III (1198–1216) as the single most influential political and spiritual institution of Latin Christendom.