Papal Primacy in the Early Middle Ages

Brian Shields

HST 545 Medieval Europe

Dr. Elliott

November 17, 2023

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Between the years 500 and 1000, the Pope in Rome ascended from one of many spiritual

authorities to a powerful ruler who rivaled the influence of contemporary empires. At times, the

Pope was considered to rule over kings and emperors, and even had the power to depose them.

How did the Papacy maneuver into this position of power? This essay will answer said question

by outlining events of significance in the early Middle Ages. It will consider relations between

the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor and trace conceptions of the division between secular

and spiritual authority. By presenting the Papal-Frankish alliance, the schism of 1054, and the

investiture controversy through the lens of power relations between the Pope and Emperor, I

intend to demonstrate how a combination of political maneuvering and myth-making elevated

the Holy See to a position of contested supremacy over western Europe.

In order to better understand the ethos and mythos possessed by the Papal See at the

beginning of the Middle Ages, it is important to first contextualize the office in late antiquity.

Under the Roman Empire, the bishop of Rome was counted as one among five patriarchs, the

bishops of the most important cities in Christendom. The other four patriarchs were located in

Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople.1 These cities were influential in their own

right and also housed large Christian populations. What differentiated Rome from other centers

of Christianity was a combination of political opportunity and scriptural authority.

The slow division and collapse of the Roman state throughout the 3rd to 5th centuries

created an environment which allowed the bishop of Rome to attain a vast amount of power and

authority. As the center of the Roman world shifted east to Constantinople, the west was left with

a power vacuum. Rome still held a significant cultural importance in the empire, but it was no

longer the epicenter of power and wealth that it once was. The bishop of Rome was able to fill

1 Judith M. Bennett and Sandy Bardsley, Medieval Europe: A Short History (Oxford University
Press, 2021), 14.
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this vacuum to some degree, and began to assume authority that extended beyond its own

diocese. Pope Gregory I sent missionaries from Rome to establish new churches in Gaul and

Britannia. Priests and bishops of these newly established churches were still bound by internal

church hierarchy, which left them subservient to archbishops and to the Pope.2 Rome had the

additional advantage of being the only patriarchal see in the western empire, meaning its

authority on doctrine would be less contested.3 Bishops in Rome would cite scripture in their

claims to primacy, namely the gospel of Matthew. In this text, Jesus is recorded to have named

the apostle Peter as the rock on which His church will be built.4 Peter would go on to die in

Rome as a martyr. Roman bishops would make the claim that Peter was the first bishop of Rome,

and that Jesus had entrusted the leadership of His church to Peter and his successors. This

allowed bishops in Rome to claim primacy over other patriarchs.5

For much of the Roman church’s history, it ultimately resided under the authority of the

emperor in Constantinople. The bishop of Rome often addressed the emperor with reverence and

deference, while simultaneously addressing German kings simply as “sons”.6 Noble writes this

off as a simple expression of bureaucratic etiquette, but these terms of address still provide

insight into the political position of the church. Despite believing that the bishop of Rome ruled

over God's kingdom on Earth, necessity demanded that the bishop of Rome maintained amicable

relations with the emperor. Meanwhile, Germanic kings who were far nearer to Rome and could

2 Stephen M Feldman, “The Christian Middle Ages,” essay, in Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry
Christmas (New York, NY: NYU Press, n.d.), 28–49, 30.

3 Ibid, 14-18.

4 Mathew 16:17 (New International Version)

5 Thomas F. Noble, “Morbidity and Vitality in the History of the Early Medieval Papacy,” The
Catholic Historical Review 81, no. 4 (1995): 505–40, 510.

6 Ibid, 515 - 516.

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muster mighty armies were seemingly unbothered being addressed as subservient to Rome. This

indicates that the authority of Rome was at least partially accepted in the west, even if this

authority was purely ecclesiastical.

This dynamic would change when the Papal-Frankish alliance is established between the

bishop of Rome and the Carolingian family. This alliance served as a model for Medieval

kingship, as it emphasized both the establishment of a distinctly Christian kingdom, as well as

the overlap of secular and spiritual authority. The papacy had been trying to distance itself from

Constantinople in the 8th century due to the rise of Iconoclasm, a movement which demanded

the destruction of all holy objects and depictions of Christ. Iconoclasts deemed these objects and

images as idols which distracted people from God, but Rome felt these idols helped to focus

souls towards heaven.7 Italy was also being invaded by the Lombards at this time, causing the

bishops of Rome to worry for the city's safety. Rome found a new ally in the Carolingian Franks,

who had been slowly siphoning power from the Merovingians. In 751, Pepin III wrote to Pope

Zacharias to ask who should be King in Francia. The Merovingians had been the historic rulers,

but the Carolingians had transferred much of the King's power to their hereditary office of Mayor

of the Palace. Zacharias responded that he who holds the power of a king should be called king,

effectively permitting Pepin to overthrow his King.8 Zacharias’ successor, Pope Stephan II,

would cross the alps to anoint Pepin and his children.

By allying himself with the Pope, Pepin had effectively acquired a divine mandate to

rule. This simultaneously increased the authority of the Frankish Kingdom and the Pope in

Europe. The Carolingians were able to leverage their Papal authority to create a thoroughly

7 Bennett, Bardsley, Medieval Europe, 114.

8 Einhard, “The Life of Charlemagne,” in Readings in Medieval History, ed. Patrick J Geary, 5th
ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 232–46.
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christianized and therefore more united empire. The Pope was able to claim a certain secular

authority, having played kingmaker in the largest empire in the west. Pepin also defeated the

Lombards and granted a portion of their Italian holdings to Stephan, creating the Papal State as a

kingdom ruled directly by the Pope.9 Stephan’s role in extending the secular authority of the

Papacy is massive, and it is capstoned by a myth called the donation of Constantine. The

donation is a supposedly uncovered document from the reign of Constantine, the first Christian

emperor of Rome, who ruled from the city of Constantinople. Allegedly, Constantine offered the

Bishop of Rome the Imperial Crown, and the authority to rule the entire western empire. The

Bishop of Rome is said to have returned the crown, but accepted the authority.10 This story is

widely accepted as untrue, but at the time it was a major boon to the authority of the Papacy as it

provided a claim to primacy over all Christian kingdoms in the west..

Rosamond McKitterick has cautioned against presenting the rise of papal power as a

linear ascension, but rather as a series of gains and losses over a centuries long struggle for

power.11 This is indeed true and can be exemplified in the Papal-Frankish alliance. While the

Pope did gain secular authority, the office also gave up a measure of control to the Frankish

kings. Charlemagne himself would pass edicts concerning church corruption and proper

ecclesiastical practices. A gain in secular authority for the Papacy had resulted in a

counterbalancing rise in spiritual authority for the Emperor of Francia.

Another instance of the Pope gaining power in one area while losing it in another comes

in the form of the 1054 church schism. This is the event which led to the formation of the

9 Bennett, Bardsley, Medieval Europe, 114.

10 Ibid.

11 R McKitterick, “The Illusion of Royal Power in the Carolingian Annals,” The English
Historical Review 115, no. 460 (2000): 1–20.
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separate Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The crisis began with Pope Leo IX

amending cannon law to allow for a separate type of bread to be eaten during communion. This

upset the Eastern Patriarchs, who were less accepting of Papal primacy. From their point of view,

a singular bishop was forcing a change to a law which had been deliberated by the leading

spiritual thinkers of the time. The culmination of this event was the Pope excommunicating the

Greek clergy, and the Greek Patriarchs excommunicating the Roman clergy.12 With this event,

the Pope lost almost all real power in the east, but greatly solidified it in the west. There was now

no position in church hierarchy that could be argued as having authority comparable to the Pope.

While the 1054 schism solidified papal primacy, this did not mean that the Papacy held

firm control of the church. The practice of lay investiture within the Holy Roman Empire proved

especially problematic as it allowed for noble families to pay for control of church positions. The

result of this practice was a class of clergymen who also held land and titles, and were more

often loyal to their local lords than the Pope in Rome.13 Pope Gregory VII sought to solve this

problem and by doing so strengthen the position of the Papacy. At the beginning of his term as

Pope, Gregory listed his principles for his term. Included is the declaration that the Pope holds

supreme authority over all men, even emperors. It also states that the Pope can depose emperors,

is the only person who can appoint or dismiss bishops, and has final say on all matters of

doctrine and canon law.14 In 1075, Gregory wrote to Emperor Henry IV demanding an end to the

practice of lay investiture. Henry ignores the Papal decree, prompting another letter from

Gregory later in the year. In this letter, Gregory states that it is becoming of a Christian king to

12 Brett Whalen, “Rethinking the Schism of 1054: Authority, Heresy, and the Latin Rite,”
Traditio 62, no. 1 (2007): 1–24, 1-2.

13 Bennett, Bardsley, Medieval Europe, 218.

14 Feldman, “The Christian Middle Ages,” 33.

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obey his bishop, He invokes the name of Saint Peter, the first Pope, and equates disobeying him

to disobeying Peter himself.15 Henry’s response is to demand that Gregory step down as pope,

which Gregory rebuts with a formal excommunication of Henry.16 The implications of this

excommunication were massive, as Henry, successor to the office of Pepin and Charlemagne,

was supposed to be God’s chosen ruler in all secular and temporal matters. It severely

diminished his claim to the throne, dissolved alliances with families who would no longer risk

association with him, and loosened his otherwise tight hold on the German clergy.17

Henry eventually decided to take penance in an attempt to have his excommunication

lifted. He stood barefoot in the snow outside a castle that housed Pope Gregory. He stood like

this for three days before Gregory decided to lift his excommunication.18 It seems most likely

that Henry’s act of penance forced Gregory’s hand. Stripped of political context, any Christian

witnessing this would view it as divine, as only God’s involvement could force a King to humble

himself so. Gregory granted forgiveness to Henry, which he would retract a few years later at the

onset of a civil war in Henry’s empire. It is here where Gregory appears to lose the feud, as his

support for Henry’s defeated rival culminates in Gregory dying in exile. I would however argue

that when viewed as a struggle not between men but between ideas, Gregory actually emerged

victorious. Lay investiture had been eliminated in the empire, and as a result the Papacy’s control

over clergy and the church was greatly bolstered. Gregory’s authoritative principles were not

15 Gregory VII, “To King Henry IV, Admonishing Him to Show More Deference to the Holy
See and its Decrees,” in Readings in Medieval History, ed. Patrick J Geary, 5th ed. (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2016), 232–46.

16 Gregory VII, “Excommunication of Henry IV,” in Readings in Medieval History, ed. Patrick
J Geary, 5th ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 232–46.

17 Feldman, “The Christian Middle Ages,” 34.

18 Ibid.
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widely accepted, but the Papacy had shown that it could exert influence on even the most

powerful of secular rulers.19

Papal ascendancy was not a linear progression, nor does its story end with the death of

Gregory VII. This essay has shown the turbulent process by which the Pope established the

authority of the Holy See. Church doctrine for the rest of the middle ages will be built on the

foundation of Papal Primacy that has been established here. The mythos of St. Peter and

Constantine allowed the Papacy to theologically and legally base its claims to primacy. Further,

the political maneuvering of Popes Zacharias, Stephan, and Gregory created an entanglement of

religious and secular power that spiritual and temporal leaders could manipulate to their own

ends. The ebb and flow of power relations in the early middle ages is exceedingly difficult to

trace, but it should now be clear how the Popes of Rome were able to maneuver within this

environment to a position of high authority.

19 Ibid.
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Bibliography

Primary Sources

Einhard. “The Life of Charlemagne.” Essay. In Readings in Medieval History, edited by Patrick J

Geary, 5th ed., 232–46. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.

Gregory VII. “To King Henry IV, Admonishing Him to Show More Deference to the Holy See

and its Decrees.” Essay. In Readings in Medieval History, edited by Patrick J Geary, 5th

ed., 232–46. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.

Gregory VII. “Excommunication of Henry IV.” Essay. In Readings in Medieval History, edited

by Patrick J Geary, 5th ed., 232–46. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.

Secondary Sources

Bennett, Judith M., and Sandy Bardsley. Medieval Europe: A short history. Oxford University

Press, 2021.

Feldman, Stephen M. “The Christian Middle Ages.” Essay. In Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry

Christmas, 28–49. New York, NY: NYU Press, n.d.

McKitterick, R. “The Illusion of Royal Power in the Carolingian Annals.” The English

Historical Review 115, no. 460 (2000): 1–20.

Noble, Thomas F. “Morbidity and Vitality in the History of the Early Medieval Papacy.” The

Catholic Historical Review 81, no. 4 (1995): 505–40.

Whalen, Brett. “Rethinking the Schism of 1054: Authority, Heresy, and the Latin Rite.” Traditio

62, no. 1 (2007): 1–24.