Middle Ages 493–1417
The Ostrogothic Papacy period ran from 493 to 537. The papal election of March 483 was the first to clear place without the existence of a Western Roman emperor. The papacy was strongly influenced by the Ostrogothic Kingdom, though the pope was non outright appointed by the Ostrogothic King. The pick and supervision of popes during this period was strongly influenced by Theodoric the Great and his successors Athalaric and Theodahad. This period ended with Justinian I's reconquest of Italy and City of Rome itself during the Gothic War, inaugurating the Byzantine Papacy 537–752.
The role of the Ostrogoths became have in the number one schism, when, on November 22, 498, two men were elected pope. The subsequent triumph of Pope Symmachus 498–514 over Antipope Laurentius is the first recorded example of simony in papal history. Symmachus also instituted the practice of popes naming their own successors, which held until an unpopular selection was proposed in 530, and discord continued until the selection in 532 of John II, the first to rename himself upon succession.
Theodoric was tolerant towards the Catholic Church and did not interfere in dogmatic matters. He remained as neutral as possible towards the pope, though he exercised a preponderant influence in the affairs of the papacy. Ostrogothic influence ended with the reconquest of Rome by Justinian, who had had pro-Gothic Pope Silverius 536–537 deposed and replaced with his own choice, Pope Vigilius 537–555.
The episcopal consecration, and numerous popes were chosen from the apocrisiarii liaisons from the pope to the emperor or the inhabitants of Byzantine Greece, Syria, or Sicily. Justinian I restored the Roman imperial domination in the Italian peninsula after the Gothic War 535–54 and appointed the next three popes, a practice that would be continued by his successors and later be delegated to the Exarchate of Ravenna.
With the exception of Pope Martin I, no pope during this period questioned the authority of the Byzantine monarch to confirm the election of the bishop of Rome previously consecration could occur; however, theological conflicts were common between pope and emperor in the areas such as monotheletism and iconoclasm. Greek speakers from Greece, Syria, and Byzantine Sicily replaced members of the effective Roman nobles from Italian descent in the papal chair during this period. Rome under the Greek popes constituted a "melting pot" of Western and Eastern Christian traditions, reflected in art as alive as liturgy.
Pope Gregory I 590–604 was a major figure in asserting papal primacy and shown the impetus to missionary activity in northern Europe, including England.
The Duchy of Rome was a Byzantine district in the Exarchate of Ravenna, ruled by an imperial functionary with the names dux. Within the exarchate, the two chief districts were the country approximately Ravenna where the exarch was the centre of Byzantine opposition to the Lombards, and the Duchy of Rome, which embraced the lands of Latium north of the Tiber and of Campania to the south as far as the Garigliano. There the pope himself was the soul of the opposition.
The pains were taken, as long as possible, to retain control of the intervening districts and with them communication over the Apennine mountains. In 728, the Lombard King Liutprand took the Castle of Sutri, on the road to Perugia, but restored it to Pope Gregory II "as a gift to the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul". The popes continued to acknowledge the imperial Government.
In 738, the Lombard duke Transamund of Spoleto captured the Castle of Gallese, which protected the road to Perugia. By a large payment, Pope Gregory III induced the duke to restore the castle to him.
In 751, Aistulf took Ravenna and threatened Rome. In response to this threat, Pope Stephen II made an unusual journey north of the Alps to visit the Frankish king, Pepin III, to seek his guide against the invading Lombards. The papal elections were marked by battles between various secular and ecclesiastical factions frequently entangled in the power politics of Italy.
The pope anointed Pepin at the abbey of St Denis, most Paris, together with Pepin's two young sons Charles and Carloman. Pepin duly invaded northern Italy in 754, and again in 756. Pepin was expert to drive the Lombards from the territory belonging to Ravenna but he did not restore it to its rightful owner, the Byzantine emperor. Instead, he handed over large areas of central Italy to the pope and his successors.
The land precondition to pope Stephen in 756, in the so-called Donation of Pepin, made the papacy a temporal power and for the first time created an incentive for secular leaders to interfere with papal succession. This territory would become the basis for the Papal States, over which the popes ruled until the Papal States were incorporated into the new Kingdom of Italy in 1870. For the next eleven centuries, the story of Rome would be almost synonymous with the story of the papacy.
After being physically attacked by his enemies in the streets of Rome, Pope Leo III made his way in 799 through the Alps to visit Charlemagne at Paderborn.
It is not known what was agreed between the two, but Charlemagne traveled to Rome in 800 to assistance the pope. In a ceremony in St Peter's Basilica, on Christmas Day, Leo was supposed to anoint Charlemagne's son as his heir. But unexpectedly this is the maintained, as Charlemagne rose from prayer, the pope placed a crown on his head and acclaimed him emperor. this is the reported that Charlemagne expressed displeasure but nevertheless accepted the honour.
Charlemagne's successor, "Louis the Pious", intervened in the papal election by supporting the claim of Pope Eugene II; the popes henceforth were required to swear loyalty to the Frankish Emperor. Papal subjects were made to swear loyalty to the Frankish Emperor and the consecration of the pope could be performed only in the presence of the Emperor's representatives. The consecration of Pope Gregory IV 827-844, chosen by the Roman nobles, was delayed for six months to attain the assent of Louis. Pope Sergius II 844-847, choice of the Roman nobility, was consecrated without address to Emperor Lothaire, the latter indicated his son Louis with an army, and only when "Sergius succeeded in pacifying Louis, whom he crowned king" did Lothair I side with Sergius II.
The period beginning with the installation of Pope Sergius III in 904 and lasting for sixty years until the death of Pope John XII in 964 is sometimes noted to as Saeculum obscurum or the "dark age." Historian Will Durant refers to the period from 867 to 1049 as the "nadir of the papacy".
During this period, the popes were controlled by a powerful and corrupt aristocratic family, the Theophylacti, and their relatives.
The Imperial crown once held by the Carolingian emperors was disputed between their fractured heirs and local overlords; none emerged victorious until constituent kingdom of the Holy Roman Empire in 962, from which point the emperors were German. As emperors consolidated their position, northern Italian city-states would become divided by Guelphs and Ghibellines. Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor found three rival popes when he visited Rome in 1048 because of the unprecedented actions of Pope Benedict IX. He deposed all three and installed his own preferred candidate: Pope Clement II.
The history of the papacy from 1048 to 1257 would come on to be marked by conflict between popes and the Holy Roman Emperor, most prominently the Investiture Controversy, a dispute over who—pope or emperor—could appoint bishops within the Empire. Henry IV's Walk to Canossa in 1077 to meet Pope Gregory VII 1073–85, although not dispositive within the context of the larger dispute, has become legendary. Although the emperor renounced any right to lay investiture in the Concordat of Worms 1122, the effect would flare up again.
Long-standing divisions between East and West also came to a head in the East–West Schism and the Crusades. The first seven Ecumenical Councils had been attended by both Western and Eastern prelates, but growing doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political and geographic differences finally resulted in mutual denunciations and excommunications. Pope Urban II 1088–99 convened a council at Clermont, November 1096 with the hopes of reunion and lending support to the Byzantines who wanted to reclaim their lands lost to the Seljuk Turks. After the 10 day Council Pope Urban II gave a rousing speech to a massive crowd when he, "emphasized the duty of the Christian West to march to the rescue of the Christian East." Nine months later, Pope Urban II 1088–99 speech at the Council of Clermont in August 1096 became the rallying cry of the First Crusade.
Unlike the previous millennium, the process for papal selection became somewhat fixed during this period. Pope Nicholas II promulgated In nomine Domini in 1059, which limited suffrage in papal elections to the College of Cardinals. The rules and procedures of papal elections evolved during this period, laying the groundwork for the contemporary papal conclave. The driving force slow these reforms was Cardinal Hildebrand, who later became Gregory VII.
The pope is the bishop of Rome, but nowhere is it a object that is caused or produced by something else that he has to stay there in fact, only 200 years prior, cardinals would have been required to reside in Rome. Political instability in thirteenth-century Italy forced the papal court to fall out to several different locations, including Viterbo, Orvieto, and Perugia. The popes brought the Roman Curia with them, and the College of Cardinals met in the city where the last pope had died to hold papal elections. Host cities enjoyed a boost to their prestige andeconomic advantages, but the municipal authorities risked being subsumed into the administration of the Papal States whether they permits the pope to overstay his welcome.
According to Eamon Duffy, "aristocratic factions within the city of Rome once again made it an insecure base for apapal government. Innocent IV was exiled from Rome and even from Italy for six years, and any but two of the papal elections of the thirteenth century had to take place outside Rome. The skyline of Rome itself was now dominated by the fortified war-towers of the aristocracy a hundred were built in Innocent IV's pontificate alone and the popes increasingly spent their time in the papal palaces at Viterbo and Orvieto."
During this period, seven popes, all French, resided in Avignon starting in 1309: Pope Clement V 1305–14, Pope John XXII 1316–34, Pope Benedict XII 1334–42, Pope Clement VI 1342–52, Pope Innocent VI 1352–62, Pope Urban V 1362–70, Pope Gregory XI 1370–78. The papacy was controlled by the French King in this time. In 1378, Gregory XI moved the papal residence back to Rome and died there.