Church And State In The Middle Ages

A collection of medieval European documents of the Church and state, including theological positions on the Jews; papal decrees and local and national charters granting rights to Jews; documents relating to protection of Jews; ecclesiastic limitations on Jews, relating particularly to usury and attacks on the Talmud; missionizing (e.g. forced sermons and disputations); and persecution by the state (e.g. confiscation of properties, bodily attacks, and expulsions).

First Published in 1964. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"For the past several decades, French historians have emphasized the writing of history in terms of structures, cultures, and mentalities, an approach exemplified by proponents of the Annales school. With this volume, Bernard Guenée, himself associated with the Annalistes, marks a decisive break with this dominant mode of French historiography. Still recognizing the Annalistes' indispensable contribution, Guenée turns to the genre of biography as a way to attend more closely to chance, to individual events and personalities, and to a sense of time as people actually experienced it, without sacrificing the conceptual rigor made possible by crisply stated problématiques. His engaging and detailed study links in sequence the lives of four French bishops who, because of their office, were intellectuals and politicians as well. These men rose in the hierarchy that was medieval society by dint of talent and ambition, not birth. What Guenée reveals is the career patterns and politics of an era that privileged youth yet granted certain advantages to those, such as Guenée's subjects, who survived to old age. He illustrates not only how these and other medieval men of the church were schooled but also how they learned from life, illuminating medieval and early modern history through their writings."--Jacket.

The history of Church and government in England and on the continent of Europe between the eleventh and the early fourteenth centuries is the subject of this volume of essays by twelve historians including scholars as well known as C. N. L. Brooke, R. C. van Caenegem, R. Foreville, S. Kuttner and W. Ullmann. Each essay is concerned with a major historical text (such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain) or an important type of historical document (such as the writings of a famous civilian, Master Vacarius). The general theme of Church and government in the Middle Ages is illustrated through the eves of different types of officials - among them English royal justices, Norman bishops, and monastic archdeacons - as well of scholars and thinkers who also served the needs of government both lay and ecclesiastical - such as Gratian of Bologna and the hitherto neglected canon lawyer John Baconthorpe.

From the Introduction: We need not be surprised, then, that in the Middle Ages also there were rulers who aspired to supreme political and temporal power. The truly exceptional thing is that in medieval times there were always at least two claimants to the role, each commanding a formidable apparatus of government, and that for century after century neither was able to dominate the other completely, so that the duality persisted, was eventually rationalized in works of political theory and ultimately built into the structure of European society. This situation profoundly influenced the development of Western constitutionalism.

Brings to the contemporary reader the major documents of the prolonged debate, revealing the ideas behind the conflict and relating them to the practical politics of the medieval world. Among the items recorded here are Henry IV's defiance of the papacy over the issue of lay investiture, the rise of the papacy to political power under "lawyer-pope" Innocent III, and Philip IV's humiliation of Boniface VIII. The author interprets these disputes and provides a clear narrative of church-state relations in the Middle Ages, explaining the issues that loomed so large before the men of the time.