Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church
As Urban II made clear in his Speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095, the Church was meant to be a bulwark against the effects of the devil among men—and when men tried to force their way into and to the head of the Church, by machinations, political intrigue, and corruption, that bulwark was split apart and the faithful Christians of Europe were turned against one another. Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church played a significant role in shaping political relationships, overseeing warfare, and supporting notions of political authority in the High Middle Ages. Indeed, the Church had done so from the time Europe began to climb its way out of the Dark Ages, with the crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day in 800 AD.
In Urbran’s Council address, he stated of the Church that it is “our mother, as it were, at whose bosom we were nourished, by whose doctrine we were instructed and strengthened, by whose counsel we were admonished” (160). By imploring Christian foot soldiers and knights and “men of all ranks” to defend the Christian people and their holy mother Church from the invading Persians—the Turks—Urban was demonstrating the extent of the relationship between the Church and the Christians of Europe and the call to arms: Europe was Christendom in the High Middle Ages, and an attack upon Christendom by a “vile race” bent on destroying the Church and its Christians warranted such a call to...
Works Cited
Gunther of Paris. “Documents on the Sack of Constantinople: Chapter Six: The Age of Innocent III.”
Innocent III. “Documents on the Sack of Constantinople: Chapter Six: The Age of Innocent III.”
Urban II. “Speech at the Council of Clermont.” From Julius Kirshner and Karl F.
Morrison, eds., University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, volume 4: Medieval Europe. University of Chicago Press, 1986.
William of Tyre. History. From Chapter Three: The Crusader States.
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