The document provides an overview of the High Medieval period in Europe from 1000-1400 CE. It describes several major crises that impacted European civilization during this time, including the Crusades, the Black Death plague, and the Hundred Years' War. These disasters sharply reduced the European population and caused an economic decline that lasted over 150 years, challenging the existing feudal system and agriculture-based economy.

1. THE HIGH MEDIEVAL
AGE AND ITS TROUBLES
“Man proposes and God disposes.”
- Thomas A. Kempis

2. INTRODUCTION
 Starting about 1000 C.E., European civilization was revitalized and flourished
during several centuries of expansion and consolidation.
 In the fourteenth century, however, a series of unprecedented disasters sharply
reduced the population and caused a decline in the economy that continued for
about 150 years.
 The feudal governing system and the agriculturally based economy reeled under great
blows: the Crusades, the Black Death, and the Hundred Years’ War.
 The leaders of the Christian church became embroiled in one scandalous affair
after another.
 The shameful degradation of the pope in the Babylonian Captivity in France and then
the Great Schism.

3. INTRODUCTION
 Although the challenge to papal authority embroiled in the Conciliar movement
was crushed, the popes never regained their previous moral authority, and the
way was prepared for the eventual Protestant revolt against Roman clerical
supremacy.

4. THE CRUSADES: BACKGROUND
 By the end of the eleventh century, Western Europe had emerged as a significant
power in its own right, though it still lagged behind the Byzantine Empire in the
Mediterranean and the Islamic Empire of the Middle East and North Africa.
 Meanwhile, Byzantium was losing considerable territory to the invading Seljuk Turks,
who defeated the Byzantine Army at the Battle of Manzikirt in 1071 and went on
to gain control over much of Anatolia.
 After years of chaos and civil war, the general Alexius Comnenus seized the
Byzantine throne in 1801 and consolidated control over the remaining empire as
Emperor Alexius I.

6. ALEXIUS I
INTERESTING FACTS
Due to the troubled times the
empire was enduring, Alexius
faced the greatest number of
rebellions against him of all the
Byzantine emperors – fourteen in
total.
Alexius was able to halt the
Byzantine decline and begin the
military, financial, and territorial
recovery known as the Comnenian
Restoration.

7. THE CRUSADES: BACKGROUND
 In 1095, Alexius sent envoys to Pope Urban II asking for mercenary troops from the
West to help confront the Turkish threat.
 Though relations between the Christians of the East and Christians of the West had long
been fractious, Alexius’ request came at a time when the situation was improving.
 In November 1095, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, the pope called
on Western Christians to take up arms in order to aid the Byzantines and recapture
the Holy Land from Muslim control.
 Pope Urban’s plea met a tremendous response, both among lower levels of the
military elite (who would form a new class of knights) as well as ordinary citizens.
 It was determined that those who joined the armed pilgrimage would wear a cross as a
symbol of the Church.

8. POPE URBAN II
INTERESTING FACTS
Upon Urban’s election to the
papacy, he had to contend with the
presence of the powerful antipope
Clement III, who reigned in
opposition in Rome.
Urban passed on July 29th, fourteen
days after the fall of Jerusalem to the
Crusaders (also his feast day).
Urban was beatified (recognition
accorded to a dead person’s
entrance into heaven) in 1881 by
Pope Leo XIII.

10. THE FIRST CRUSADE
 Four armies of Crusaders were formed from troops of different Western
European regions, led by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Godfrey of Bouillon, Hugh
of Vermandois, and Bohemond of Taranto.
 These men were set to depart for Byzantium in August 1096.
 A less organized band of knights and commoners known as the “People’s
Crusade” set off before the others under the command of a popular preacher
known as Peter the Hermit.
 Peter’s army traipsed through the Byzantine Empire, leaving destruction in their wake.
 Resisting Alexius’ advice to wait for the rest of the Crusaders, they crossed the
Bosporus in early August.

11. PETER THE HERMIT
INTERESTING FACTS
Catholic historians and modern
scholars debate the account that
Jesus appeared to Peter during his
pilgrimage to the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre where he was
ordered to preach the Crusade.
It is written that once the Crusaders
recaptured Jerusalem, Peter
preached an eloquent sermon on
the Mount of Olives just as Jesus
had done.

13. THE FIRST CRUSADE
 In the first major clash between the Crusaders and the Muslims, Turkish forces
crushed the invading Europeans at Cibotus.
 Another group of Crusaders, led by the notorious Count Emicho, carried out a
series of massacres of Jews in various towns in the Rhineland in 1096, drawing
widespread outrage and causing a major crisis in Jewish-Christian relations.
 When the four main armies of Crusaders arrived in Constantinople, Alexius
insisted that their leaders swear an oath of loyalty to him and recognize his
authority over any land regained from the Turks, as well as any other territory
they might conquer.
 All but Bohemond resisted taking the oath.

14. THE FIRST CRUSADE
 In May 1097, the Crusaders and their Byzantine allies attacked Nicaea, the Seljuk
capital in Anatolia.
 The city surrendered in late June.
 Despite deteriorating relations between the Crusaders and Byzantine leaders, the
combined force continued its march through Anatolia, capturing the great Syrian
city of Antioch in June 1098.
 After various internal struggles over control of Antioch, the Crusaders began
their march toward Jerusalem, then occupied by Egyptian Fatimids.
 The Egyptian Fatimids were Shi’ite Muslims, enemies of the Sunni Seljuks.

16. THE FIRST CRUSADE
 Encamping before Jerusalem in June 1099, the Christians forced the besieged
city’s governor to surrender by mid-July.
 Despite Tancred’s promise of protection, the Crusaders slaughtered hundreds of
men, women, and children in their victorious entrance into the city.

17. THE SECOND CRUSADE
 Having achieved their goal in an unexpectedly short period of time, many of the
Crusaders departed for home.
 To govern the conquered territory, those who remained established four large
western settlements, or Crusader states.
 The Crusader states included Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli.
 Guarded by formidable castles, the Crusader states retained the upper hand in the
region until around 1130, when Muslim forces began gaining ground in their own
holy war against the Christians, whom they termed ‘Franks.’
 In 1144, the Seljuk general Zangi, the governor of Mosul, captured Edessa, leading to
the loss of the northernmost Crusader state.

19. THE SECOND CRUSADE
 News of Edessa’s fall stunned Europe, and led Christian authorities in the West
to call for another Crusade.
 Led by two great rulers, King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of
German, the Second Crusade began in 1147.
 That October, the Turks crushed Conrad’s forces at Dorylaeum, the site of a great
victory during the First Crusade.
 After Louis and Conrad managed to assemble their armies at Jerusalem, they
decided to attack the Syrian stronghold of Damascus with an army of some
50,000.
 This would be the largest Crusader force assembled to this point.

20. LOUIS VII
INTERESTING FACTS
Often dubbed Louis the Younger,
the construction of the Notre-
Dame de Paris and the founding of
the University of Paris occurred
during his reign.
Being a member of the House of
Capet, his feudal struggles with the
Angevin family marked the
beginning of the long rivalry
between France and England –
Hundred Years’ War.

21. CONRAD III
INTERESTING FACTS
Although his father secured his
ascension to the throne during the
Investiture Controversy, Conrad
was never officially crowned
emperor.
Upon his deathbed, Conrad
designated his nephew, Frederick
Barbarossa, as his successor over
his own six-year-old son.

22. THE SECOND CRUSADE
 Previously well disposed towards the Franks, Damascus’ ruler was forced to call
on Nur al-Din, Zangi’s successor in Mosul, for aid.
 The combined Muslim forces dealt a humiliating defeat to the Crusaders, decisively
ending the Second Crusade.
 Nur al-Din would add Damascus to his expanding empire in 1154.

23. THE THIRD CRUSADE
 After numerous attempts by the Crusaders of Jerusalem to capture Egypt, Nur
al-Din’s forces seized Cairo in 1169 and forced the Crusader army to evacuate.
 Nur al-Din’s forces were led by the general Shirkuh and his nephew, Saladin.
 Upon Shirkuh’s subsequent death, Saladin assumed control and began a campaign
of conquests that accelerated after Nur al-Din’s death in 1174.
 In 1187, Saladin began a major campaign against the Crusader Kingdom of
Jerusalem.
 His troops virtually destroyed the Christian army at the Battle of Hattin, taking the
city along with a large amount of territory.

24. THE THIRD CRUSADE
 Outrage over these defeats inspired the Third Crusade, led by rulers such as the
aging Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip II of France, and King Richard
I of England (known as Richard the Lionheart).
 Barbarossa was drowned at Anatolia before his army reached Syria.
 In September 1191, Richard's forces defeated those of Saladin in the Battle of
Arsuf.
 This would be the only true battle of the Third Crusade.
 From the recaptured city of Jaffa, Richard re-established Christian control over
some of the region and approached Jerusalem, though he refused to lay siege to
the city.

25. RICHARD I
INTERESTING FACTS
Richard remains one of the few
kings of England remembered bu
his epithet, the Lionheart, rather
than his regnal number, I.
While walking the perimeter of the
castle, Richard was struck by an
arrow in left shoulder near the
neck, which swiftly became
gangrenous – the assassin was a
young boy who claimed he had
killed his father and brothers.

26. THE THIRD CRUSADE
 In September 1192, Richard and Saladin signed a peace treaty that re-established
the Kingdom of Jerusalem, without the city of Jerusalem, and ended the Third
Crusade.

27. THE FINAL CRUSADES
 Though the powerful Pope Innocent III called for a new Crusade in 1198, power
struggles in and between Europe and Byzantium drove the Crusaders to divert
their mission in order to topple the reigning Byzantine emperor, Alexius III, in
favor of his nephew, Alexius IV.
 The new emperor’s attempts to submit the Byzantine church to Rome met with
stiff resistance, and Alexius IV was strangled after a palace coup in early 1204.
 In response, the Crusaders declared war on Constantinople, and the Fourth Crusade
ended with the conquest and looting of the magnificent Byzantine capital later that
year.

28. THE FINAL CRUSADES
 The remainder of the thirteenth century saw a variety of Crusades aimed not so
much at toppling Muslim forces in the Holy Land as at combating any and all of
those seen as enemies of the Christian faith.
 The Albigensian Crusade aimed to root out the heretical Cathari or Albigensian sect
of Christianity in France while the Baltic Crusades sought to subdue pagans in
Transylvania.
 In the Fifth Crusade, put in motion by Pope Innocent III before his death in
1216, the Crusaders attacked Egypt from both land and sea, but were forced to
surrender to Muslim defenders led by Al-Malik al-Kamil in 1221.

29. THE FINAL CRUSADES
 In 1229, in what became known as the Sixth Crusade, Emperor Frederick II
achieved the peaceful transfer of Jerusalem to crusader control through
negotiation with al-Kamil.
 The peace treaty expired a decade later and the Muslims easily regained control of
Jerusalem.

30. END OF THE CRUSADES
 Through the end of the thirteenth century, groups of Crusaders sought to gain
ground in the Holy Land through short-lived raids that proved little more than an
annoyance to Muslim rulers in the region.
 The Seventh Crusade, led by Thibault IV of champagne, briefly recaptured
Jerusalem, though it was lost again in 244 to Kwarazmian forces enlisted by the sultan
of Egypt.
 In 1249, King Louis IX of France led the Eighth Crusade against Egypt, which
ended in defeat at Mansura the following year.
 As the Crusaders struggled, a new dynasty known as the Mamluks – descended
from former slaves of the sultan – gained power in Egypt.

31. END OF THE CRUSADES
 In 1260, Mamluk forces in Palestine managed to halt the advance of the
Mongols, an invading force led by Genghis Khan and his descendants that had
emerged as a potential ally for the Christians in the region.
 Under the ruthless Sultan Baybars, the Mamluks demolished Antioch in 1268,
prompting Louis IX to set out on another Crusade, which ended in his death in
North Africa (he was later canonized).
 A new Mamluk sultan, Qalawan, had defeated the Mongols by the end of 1281
and turned his attention back to the Crusaders, capturing Tripoli in 1289.
 In what was considered the last Crusade, a fleet of warships from Venice and Aragon
arrived to defend what remained of the Crusader states in 1290.

32. END OF THE CRUSADES
 The following year, Qalawan’s son and successor, al-Ashraf Khalil, marched with
a large army against the coastal port of Acre, the effective capital of the
Crusaders in the region since the end of the Third Crusade.
 After only seven weeks under siege, Acre fell, effectively ending the Crusades in the
Holy Land after nearly two centuries.
 Though the church organized minor Crusades with limited goals after 1291,
support for such efforts disappeared in the sixteenth century with the rise of the
Reformation and the corresponding decline of papal authority.

33. DISASTERS OF THE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY
 The problems that became manifest in fourteenth century Europe had their origins in
earlier days.
 By 1300, the population had been steadily growing for two centuries, aided by the new
land that had been put into production, several major technical breakthroughs in
agriculture, and the unusually benevolent climate, which brought warmer
temperatures and appropriate amounts of rain.
 These happy circumstances came to an end in the early fourteenth century.
 Most good land was already being used and the technology to exploit the marginal lands
did not exist.
 The climate reverted to its long-term pattern, and no innovations appeared to improve
yields to feed the larger population.

34. DISASTERS OF THE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY
 As a result, local famines became commonplace in parts of Europe; those who
did not starve were often physically weakened as a consequence of poor nutrition
over many years.
 Europe had too many mouths to feed and the balance was about to be restored
through natural disasters of famine, disease, and the man-made disaster of war.

35. THE BLACK DEATH
 The Black Death arrived in Europe by sea in October 1347 when twelve Genoese
trading ships docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a long journey through
the Black Sea.
 The people who gathered on the docks to greet the ships were met with a
horrifying surprise.
 Most of the sailors aboard the ships were dead and those who were still alive were
gravely ill.
 They were overcome with fever, unable to keep food down, and delirious from pain.
 Strangest of all, they were covered in mysterious black boils that oozed blood and
pus, which gave their illness its name: the “Black Death.”

37. THE BLACK DEATH
 The Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the
harbor; however, it was too late.
 Over the next five years, the mysterious plague would kill more than twenty million
people in Europe – almost one-third of the continent’s population.
 Even before the “death ships” pulled into port at Messina, many Europeans had
heard rumors about a “Great Pestilence” that was carving a deadly path across
the trade routes of the Near and Far East.
 Early in the 1340s, the disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria, and Egypt.
 However, they were scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the “Black
Death.”

39. THE BLACK DEATH
 “In men and women alike,” the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, “at the
beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the
armpits…waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg,
some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils.”
 Blood and pus seeped out of the strange swellings, which were followed by a host of
other unpleasant symptoms – fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains
– and then, in short order, death.
 The “Black Death” was terrifying, indiscriminately contagious.
 “The mere touching of the clothes,” wrote Boccaccio, “appeared to itself to
communicate the malady to the toucher.”

41. THE BLACK DEATH
 The disease was also terrifying efficient: people who were perfectly healthy when
they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.
 Today, scientists understand that the “Black Death,” now known as the plague,
was spread by a bacillus called Yersina pestis.
 The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the
nineteenth century.
 They know that the bacillus travels from person to person pneumonically, or
through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats.
 Both of these pests could be found almost everywhere in medieval Europe, but they
were particularly at home abroad ships of all kinds.

42. THE BLACK DEATH
 Not long after it struck Messina, the “Black Death” spread to the port of
Marseilles in France and the port of Tunis in North Africa.
 Then it reached Rome and Florence, two cities at the center of an elaborate web of
trade routes.
 By the middle of 1348, the “Black Death” had struck Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, and
London.
 Today, this grim sequence of events is terrifying but comprehensible.
 In the middle of the fourteenth century, however, there seemed to be no rational
explanation for it.

43. THE BLACK DEATH
 Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting
and boil-lancing, and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and
bathing in rosewater or vinegar.
 Meanwhile, in a panic, healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick.
 Doctors refused to see patients, priests refused to administer last rites, and
shopkeepers closed stores.
 Many people fled the cities for the countryside, but even there they could not escape
the disease: It affected cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens as well as people.
 In fact, so many sheep died that one of the consequences of the “Black Death”
was a European wool shortage.

45. THE BLACK DEATH
 And many people, desperate to save themselves, even abandoned their sick and
dying loved ones.
 “Thus doing,” Boccaccio wrote, “each thought to secure immunity for himself.”
 Because they did not understand the biology of the disease, many people
believed that the “Black Death” was a kind of divine punishment – retribution
for greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication, and worldliness.
 By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God’s forgiveness.
 Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge their communities of
heretics and other trouble-makers.
 Many thousands of Jews were massacred in 1348 and 1349.

46. THE BLACK DEATH
 Some people coped with the terror and uncertainty of the “Black Death”
epidemic by lashing out at their neighbors; others coped by turning inward and
fretting about the condition of their own souls.
 Some upper-class men joined processions of flagellants that traveled from town
to town and engaged in public displays of penance and punishment.
 They would beat themselves and one another with heavy leather straps studded with
sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople looked on.
 For thirty-three days, the flagellants repeated this ritual three time a day then move on
to the next town and begin again.
 This practice soon began to worry the Pope and in the face of papal resistance,
the movement disintegrated.

47. THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
 Even before the outbreak of the “Black Death,” another European disaster was
under way – the Hundred Years’ War.
 This conflict between England and France, or more accurately, between the kings and
nobles of England and France, started because of a dynastic quarrel between the
English Edward III and his French rival, Philip VI.
 Recent interpretations of the causes of the war have stressed economic factors.
 English prosperity largely depended on the trade with the towns of Flanders across
the Channel, where the large majority of woolen cloth was produced using wool from
English sheep.
 English control of the French duchy of Flanders would assure the continuance of tis
prosperity and would be popular in both Flanders and England.

48. EDWARD III
INTERESTING FACTS
Edward transformed the Kingdom
of England into one of the most
formidable military powers in
Europe.
He is one of only six British
monarchs to have ruled England
for more than fifty years.
Edward died of a stroke in 1377
and was succeeded by his ten-
year-old grandson, who was the
son of the Black Prince.

49. PHILIP VI
INTERESTING FACTS
In addition to numerous economic
reasons, “Philip the Fortunate” stole
the French throne from Edward, who
was the rightful heir as the nearest
male relative to Charles IV; this
succession dispute erupted into the
Hundred Years’ War.
In 1348, as the Black Death swept
across the European continent and
wiped out one-third of France’s
population; Philip’s wife, Queen Joan
the Lame, succumbed to the
disease.

50. THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
 Questions of feudal allegiance also contributed to the conflict.
 The French kings had been trying for generations to increase their powers of
taxation at the expense of their feudal vassals in the provinces.
 Many French nobles saw the English claim as advantageous to themselves, because
they thought an English king’s control over the French provinces would inevitably be
weaker than a French king’s.
 So they fought with the English against their own monarch, saying that the
English claim was better grounded in law than Philip’s.
 The war turned out to be as much a civil war as a foreign invasion of France.

51. THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
 The course of the war was very erratic.
 Several truces were signed, when one or both sides were exhausted.
 The conflict took place entirely on French soil, mostly in the provinces facing the
English Channel or in the region of Paris.
 The major battles included:
 The Battle of Crecy in 1346, where the English archers used their new longbows
effectively against the French.
 The Battle of Poitiers in 1356, where the English captured the French king and held him
for ransom.
 The Battle of Agincourt in 1415, where the English routed the discouraged French a third
time.

52. THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
 By the 1420s, the war had long since lost its dynastic element.
 It had become a matter of national survival to the loyal French nobility, who found
themselves being pushed back to the walls of Paris.
 At this juncture appeared the patron saint of France, Joan of Arc.
 This peasant girl who said she had been told by God to offer her services to the embattled
and ungrateful Charles VII routed the English and the French allies at Orleans in 1429 and
changed the trend of the war, which now began to favor the French.
 In the ensuing twenty years, France recaptured almost all of the lands lost to the
English invaders during the previous hundred.
 In 1453, the costly and sometimes bloody struggle finally ended with the English
withdrawal from all of France except the Port of Calais on the Channel.

53. JOAN OF ARC
INTERESTING FACTS
Joan was said to have seen visions
from the Archangel Michael, Saint
Margaret, and Saint Catherine
instructing her to support Charles and
reclaim French lands.
Joan was executed by burning on
May 30, 1431 – after her death, the
English burned her twice ore to
reduce the body to ashes to prevent
any collection of relics.
Pope Benedict XV canonized Joan in
1920 and she has since become one
of the most popular saints of the
Roman Catholic Church.

55. CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR
 Though originally popular among the English, the war eventually came to be seen as a
bottomless pit swallowing up taxes and manpower.
 The cost of maintaining a large army of mercenaries in France for decades were
enormous and even the rich booty brought home form the captured French towns had not
been enough to pay for the war.
 In addition, the war had disrupted England’s commerce with continental markets.
 The power and prestige of Parliament increased.
 Since its origins in the thirteenth century, Parliament had met only sporadically; however
between the beginning of the war in 1337 and Edward III’s death in 1377, Parliament was
in session.
 Because the king was always requesting financial assistance, Parliament had to be consulted
on all new taxes and as a result, Parliament became the determining voice in matters of
taxation and other policy.

56. CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR
 France did not experience a similar parliamentary development.
 The French kings allowed regional assemblies to meet in the major provinces, but
they avoided holding a national assembly, which might have attempted to negotiate
with the Crown on national issues and policies.
 This difference in parliamentary development between the two countries would
become more significant as time wore own.
 France followed the path of most European monarchies in transferring power
steadily to the royal officials and away from the nobles of the towns, who would have
been representatives to a parliament.
 England strengthen the powers of its parliament, while checking those of the king.

57. CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR
 The Hundred Years’ War effectively ended chivalric ideals and conduct in
Europe.
 Warfare changed dramatically during the course of the war.
 No longer were the heavily armored horsemen the decisive weapon in battle – the
infantry, supported by artillery and soon to be armed with muskets, were now what
counted.
 Cavalry would still play an important role in warfare for 400 years, but as an auxiliary
force, as it had been for the Romans.
 The longbow and cannon at Crecy had initiated a military revolution.

58. CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR
 With the introduction of gunpowder, war ceased to be a personal combat
between equals.
 Now thanks to the cannon, you could kill your foe from a distance, even before you
could see him plainly.
 The new tactics also proved to be great social levelers.
 Commoners armed with longbows could bring down mounted and armored knights.
 The noble horseman, who had been distinguished both physically and economically
was now brought down to the level of the infantryman, who could be equipped for a
fraction of what it cost to equip a horseman.

59. PROBLEMS IN THE CHURCH
 The fourteenth century was also a disaster for the largest, most omnipresent
institution in the Christian world – the Roman Catholic Church.
 Whether a devout Christian or not, everyone’s life was touched more or less
directly by the church.
 The church courts determined whether marriages were legal and proper, who was a
bastard, whether orphans had rights, whether contracts were legitimate, and whether
sexual crimes had been committed.
 In the church, the chief judge was the pope, and the papal court in Rome handled
thousands of cases that were appealed to it each year.

60. PROBLEMS IN THE CHURCH
 Probably the greatest medieval pope, Innocent III, reigned from 1198 to 1216.
 He forced several kings of Europe to bow to his commands, including the
unfortunate John of England, Philip II Augustus of France, and Frederick II, the
German emperor.
 But in behaving much like a king with his armies and his threats of war, Innocent
had sacrificed much of the moral authority he derived from his position as
successor to St. Peter on earth.
 Later thirteenth century popes attempted to emulate Innocent with varying
success, but all depended on their legal expertise or threat of armed force (the
papal treasury assured the supply of mercenaries).

61. INNOCENT III
INTERESTING FACTS
Innocent is believed to have been
in purgatory on the very day he
died – he is said to have appeared
to Lutgarda in her monastery and
explained that he was in purgatory
for three offenses.
“Alas! It is terrible; and will last for
centuries if you do not come to my
assistance. In the name of Mary,
who has obtained for me the favor
of appealing to you, help me!”

62. PROBLEMS IN THE CHURCH
 Finally, Pope Boniface VIII overreached badly when he attempted to assert that
the clergy were exempt from taxes in both France and England.
 In the struggle of wills that followed, the kings of both countries were able to make
Boniface back down and the clergy began to pay royal taxes.
 It was a severe blow to papal prestige.
 A few years later, the French monarch actually arrested the aged Boniface for a
few days, dramatically demonstrating who held the whip hand if it should come
to a showdown.
 Boniface died of humiliation a few days after his release.
 His successor was handpicked by Philip, the French king, who controlled the votes of
the numerous French bishops.

63. BONIFACE VIII
INTERESTING FACTS
Boniface organized the first Roman
Catholic jubilee year to take place in
Rome.
Boniface is said to have died from
gnawing through his own arms to
free himself from his shackles in a
French prison and from bashing his
skull into the wall.
Today, Boniface is best remembered
for his feuds with Dante, who placed
the pope in the Eighth Circle of Hell in
his Divine Comedy.

64. THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY
 The new pope was a French bishop who took the name Clement V.
 Rather than residing in Rome, he was induced to stay in the city of Avignon in
what is now southern France.
 This was the first time since St. Peter that the head of the church had not resided in
the Holy City of Christendom, and to make matters worse, Clement’s successors
stayed in Avignon as well.
 The Babylonian Captivity, as the pope’s stay in Avignon came to be called,
created a great scandal.
 Everyone except the French viewed the popes as captives of the French crown and
unworthy to lead the universal church or decide questions of international justice.

65. CLEMENT V
INTERESTING FACTS
Clement is infamous for
suppressing the order of the
Knights Templar and for allowing
the execution of many of its
members based on the charges of
heresy and sodomy.
Clement’s move from Rome to
Avignon was justified on the
grounds of security, citing Rome as
unstable and dangerous.

66. THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY
 In 1377, one of Clement’s papal successors finally returned to Rome but died
very soon thereafter.
 In the ensuing election, great pressure was put on the attending bishops to elect
an Italian, and one was duly elected, who took the name Urban VI.
 Urban was a well-intentioned reformer, but he went about his business in such an
arrogant fashion that he had alienated all his fellow bishops within weeks of his
election.
 They therefore proceeded to declare his election invalid because of the pressures
out on them and declared another Frenchman, who took the name Clement VII.

67. Urban VI Clement VII

68. THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY
 He immediately returned to Avignon and took up residence once more under the
benevolent eye of the French king.
 The bullheaded Urban refused to step down.
 There were thus two popes and doubt as to which was the legitimate one.

69. THE GREAT SCHISM
 The final episode in the demeaning decline of papal authority now began.
 For forty years, Christians were treated to the spectacle of two popes denouncing
each other as an imposter and the Anti-Christ.
 Europeans divided along national lines:
 The French, Scots, and Iberians supported Clement while the English and Germans
preferred Urban.
 Neither side would give an inch, even after the two original contestants had died.
 The Great Schism hastened the realization of an idea that had long been
discussed among pious and concerned people – the calling of a council to
combat the growing problems within the doctrine and structure of the church.

70. THE GREAT SCHISM
 The Conciliar Movement was a serious challenge to papal authority.
 Its supporters wished to enact some important reforms and thought that the papal
government was far too committed to maintaining the status quo.
 Its adherents, therefore, argued that the entire church community, not the pope,
had supreme powers of doctrinal definition.
 Such definition would be expressed in the meetings of a council, whose members
should include a number of laypersons and not just clerics.
 These ideas fell on fertile ground and were eventually picked up by other
fourteenth century figures such as the English theologian John Wyclif.

71. THE GREAT SCHISM
 Wyclif believed that the had become corrupt and that individual Christians
should be able to read and interpret the word of the Lord for themselves.
 His doctrines were popular with the English poor, and they were emblazoned on
the banners of the greatest popular uprising in English history – the revolt of
1381, which nearly toppled the crown.
 The rebels were called Wyclifites, or Lollards, and their ideas about the ability of
ordinary people to interpret Scripture for themselves were to be spread to the
Continent within a few years.

72. THE GREAT SCHISM
 The scandal of the Schism aroused great resentment among Christians of all
nations, and intense pressure was brought to bear on both papal courts to end
their quarrel.
 Neither would, however, and finally a council was called, at Pisa in Italy in 1409.
 It declared both popes deposed and elected a new one.
 But neither of the deposed popes accepted the verdict, and so instead of two there
wee now three claimants.
 A few years later, from 1414-1417, a larger and more representative council met
in the German city of Constance.

73. THE GREAT SCHISM
 The council had three objectives:
 to end the Schism and return the papacy to Rome; to condemn the Lollards and other
heretics; and to reform the church and clergy from top to bottom.
 The Council of Constance was successful in its first goal – a new pope was
chosen and the other three either stepped down voluntarily or were ignored.
 The council achieved more temporary success with its second goal of eliminating
heresy, but the heresies it condemned simply went underground and emerged
again a century later.
 As for the third objective, nothing was done; reforms were discussed, but the
entrenched leaders made sure no real action was taken.

74. THE GREAT SCHISM
 Additional councils were held over the next thirty years, but they achieved little or
nothing in the vital areas of clerical corruption.
 The popes who had resisted the whole idea of the council had triumphed, but
their victory had come at a very high price.
 The need for basic reform in the church continued to be ignored until the
situation exploded with Martin Luther.