Power of the Church in the Middle Ages
History
The Roman Catholic Church as the single most powerful organization in Western Europe
During the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was the single most powerful organization in Western Europe. Had both religious power, in other words, they told you what guy I wanted you to do and what he didn't want you to do. And secular and non religious power since people like kings and nobles wanted to go to heaven too. And that gave this church some influence over the most powerful social classes as well. There were many reasons that made the church so powerful in Western Europe. First, people during the Middle Ages were very religious. They believed that the Roman Catholic Church represented God on earth. And not only could it interpret God's will, but it was believed that it actually held the power to send a person to heaven or to help.
In addition, many nobles left land in the church when they died, hoping that this is going to gain them some entry to heaven. Therefore, the church became Western Europe's largest real estate holder. In feudal society, land equaled power. And church wealth also increased through tides or church taxes, which all Christian Catholics were required to pay. Also the church was the main center of learning. Church officials were usually the only people who could read and write. Rulers often relied on church officials since they were the most educated people during the Middle Ages. Finally, while western Europeans were divided into smaller kingdoms, they were often at war with each other, the one institution that united people during the Middle Ages was the Roman Catholic church. During the Middle Ages, the clergy were the leaders and workers of the church. Some of these spiritual workers monks copied books from the past to make more copies.
They did this by hand. Because no one in Europe had invented machine a copy words yet. They decorated these books with bright colors and pictures. Over time, the largest monasteries which were places where monks lived together became centers for learning. And the months kept live learning from the past. Everybody else was illiterate. The Roman Catholic Church had always had a tradition of monastic life or a person devoting his life to the church by forsaking marriage and family. Monks and nuns promised never to marry. Never known property and to never disobey their superiors in the church. They spent their lives praying, studying, and working. So as education outside the church declined due to the dangers of travel, education within the church remained strong as monks and nuns preserved some of the knowledge of the past.
It is important to remember that when the Barbarians invaded Rome, that many of the great Greek and Roman works literature were destroyed in addition in the Byzantine emperor over in Eastern Europe, the preservation of Greek and Roman ideas occurred on a bigger scale. However, this Byzantine Empire lived on and was able to preserve many and keep many of the Greek and Roman works. Now, why was the church so darn powerful? Even though the central government collapsed with the fall of Roman Empire, Roman Catholic Church remained strong. Especially as Barbarians had converted to Catholicism, the Roman Catholic Church was the single largest unifying institution in medieval Western Europe. It touched everyone's life, no matter what rank for social class and what they lived in. With the exception of a small number of Jews, everyone in Western Europe was pretty much Roman Catholic Christian during the Middle Ages from the richest king, all the way down to low surf. And from the moment of its baptism, a few days after birth, a child entered into a life of service to God and God's church, as child grew, it would be taught basic prayers. It will go to church every week barring illness and would learn all of its responsibilities to the church.
Every person was required to live by the church's laws in the pay heavy taxes to support the church. In return for this, they were shown the way to cover lasting life and happiness, AKA heaven. After lives that were short and hard. The head of the church was called the Pope. As God's representative on earth, the Pope had a great amount of power to influence kings and their advisers. If someone went against the rules of the church or canon law, the Pope had the power to excommunicate them. This meant that the person could not attend any church services were received the sacraments that would go straight to hell when they died. And even worse punishment was an interdict. Interdiction demanded that all sacraments, the rituals needed to get to heaven like baptism, for example, it would be suspended in a lord's lanes. At a time when everyone believed in heaven and hell and all belonged to the church, these were awful punishments, and they helped to keep people in line.