The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford History of the Christian Church) [Hardcover]

Colin Morris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 1989 | Series: Oxford History of the Christian Church

In this book Morris examines the building of Christian society between 1050 and 1250. The two centuries covered were among the most creative in the history of the Church and saw the emergence of much that is considered characteristic of European culture and religion: universities, commmerical cities, hospitals, the crusades, the inquisition, papal government, canon law, and marriage in its "western" form.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Extremely valuable....A very wide audience can use this book: it tends toward a comprehensiveness which makes it a text in medieval history itself, so that the general reader or undergraduate with no detailed knowledge of the Middle Ages can learn all that is necessary to understand church history; regularly the specialist will be delighted to see recent scholarship and the most current approaches to history embodied in a lucid narrative."--Catholic Historical Review

"Reading the book is like taking a serious course in the ecclesiastical history of the period....Every reader must feel that Morris has explained a lot, that without being aridly encyclopedic he has given us and those to whom we must explain things a source as rich as an encyclopedia. It is hard to think of teaching the history of any part of the book's period without its help again."--Speculum

"Has provided the student of medieval history with an important tool....Morris has, in short, created a book that can be a starting point for the student and a source of insight to the scholar."--Journal of Religion

"Morris has witten a masterful survey of the Church in the High Middle Ages....Without a doubt, Professor Morris has provided us with a very important and up-to-date study of the Church in one of its most interesting periods."--Reflections

"The book deserves overall a heartfelt salute for its many excellences....The work goes a long way toward presenting with unusual thoughtfulness and distinction the entire religious history of its crucial period."--Church History

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Colin Morris is at University of Southampton. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 696 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 29, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198269072
• ISBN-13: 978-0198269076
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,381,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars As universal as its subject, December 21, 2008

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This review is from: The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford History of the Christian Church) (Paperback)

The Papal Monarchy treats of the Catholic Church in its era of waxing power and dynamism, the early high Middle Ages. In this exhaustive and detailed treatise, Colin Morris traces the papacy's rise from little more than the bishopric of Rome to the centre of the mightiest institution of its time.

Rebuilding from a damaged position after the collapse of the Carolingian order at the end of the first millennium, the Roman curia rose, in two centuries, to become the ruler of a reformed and both institutionally and geographically expanded church. Gregorian initiatives gave the first impulse, aiming at curtailing the lay corruption of simony and raising standards by combating clerical marriage. The popes' new-found confidence soon gave birth to the crusades, themselves influenced by the need to muster support in a schism caused by conflict with the Holy Roman Empire. The twelfth century saw perhaps the greatest changes, as lay influence was further pushed back by the twin thrusts of the abolition of lay investiture and the codification and advance of canon law. The college of cardinals took over the right to elect the pope. At the same time, new orders, beginning with the austere Cistercians, brought a fresh impulse to a monastic expansion that was to be followed in the next century by a genuine program of preaching and education among the masses, by the friars. The period 1200-1250 built on Rome's increased prestige and authority to establish control over the national churches of Western Christendom, through a system of appeals and through mobilisation by increasingly well-attended synods. This enabled it to endow the bishoprics with fresh responsibilities, leading to the first efforts at improving pastoral care within the parishes while, finally, at a more rarefied level, a new theology and culture emerged from the rediscovery of ancient Greek classics, and the first universities were founded.

The papacy's rise to the status of a `monarchy' was accompanied by a host of darker developments. It was almost constantly involved in violent conflict with the empire. Christianity's expansion in the Iberian peninsula, eastern Europe, and the Levant was the product of brutal enterprise. At the end of the period, the Roman landed estates were already becoming the basis for abuses of power, and Roman justice wasn't always disinterested. Influence over national churches was used to raise taxes in cooperation with lay monarchs. And the moralisation of church personnel was paralleled by a new hunt for heretics and the first edicts, in the 1230s, on the inquisition.

Colin Morris thus draws a contrasted and erudite picture. The book is extremely detailed and contains a great mass of concrete examples. If, at almost 600 pages, it is probably not to be read line-by-line except by dedicated students, its clear and structured plan allows for cherry-picking. Finally, it does help if one knows about the Holy Roman Empire and its historical relationship with the papacy - which I didn't - but this isn't an essential condition for following Morris's argument. Completed in 1989, The Papal Monarchy remains the reference book on its subject.