How to understand the "break" and continuity in the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages in Western Europe

In the feudal society of Western Europe in the twelfth century, the strength of ecclesiastical power and the power of the king was not static, but showed a saddle shape of mutual growth and decline in the struggle; at first, the ecclesiastical power was subordinate to the king's power, then the ecclesiastical power was above the king's power, and then the ecclesiastical power went into a decline and the rise of the authoritarian king's power.

When the power of the pope was extended to the Catholic dioceses, the secular power headed by the king also demanded to exercise power over the churches in their regions, which gave rise to the problem of how to adjust the relationship between ecclesiastical power and royal power. The theory of this problem, the first Pope Gelasius I in 5 A.D. actually put forward the "two swords", that is, one sword symbolizes the highest religious power, handed over to the pope by God; the other sword symbolizes the highest secular power, handed over to the emperor by God; the theory of the two swords came out at the time when it was the Byzantine Kingdom to hold the Church When the theory of two swords was introduced, it was the time when the Byzantine kingdom held the power of the church, and the pope was only a subject under the emperor's rule in terms of political status, and it was difficult for him to compete with the emperor in church affairs. The theory of the two swords, which was put forward under such historical conditions, not only implied the rejection of the imperial emperor's rule over church affairs, but also brought to light the concept of "divine right of kings".

After 751 A.D., the political situation changed, and the Byzantine emperor lost control of central Italy. Pope Stephen II took the opportunity to put forward his demand to take over the rule of Italy from the Byzantines. In order to justify the Pope's territorial claims, the Roman Church forged a document, the "Gift of Constantine". In the light of the political situation at the time, it is feared that the Church of Rome forged this document not only to gain territory in central Italy, but to gain secular dominion over the entire western part of the empire.

Before the second half of the 11th century, the king's power occupied an absolutely favorable position in the interrelationship with ecclesiastical power, and the king held ecclesiastical power, and the king, in order to strengthen and consolidate the centralized rule of feudalism, gained the support of the church and strengthened the alliance with the church, which achieved the purpose of centralized rule, but at the same time, it also made the church's power expand with the support of the king's power

and became the more powerful political power in the feudal ruling group. the more powerful political force in the group. Take the Franks and Germany as an example:

In the middle of the 8th century, Pippin the Short, in order to usurp the throne and replace the Merovingian dynasty with the Carolingian dynasty, needed the political support of the Church of Rome, which provided the theoretical basis for his usurpation of the throne. The Church of Rome, on the other hand, which had a similar economic base and the same political interests as the great feudal class represented by Pepin the Short, needed military help from a new secular monarch in order to free itself from the control of the Byzantine emperors and to eliminate the threat of invasion by the Lombards. The respective needs created an initial alliance between royal and ecclesiastical power in Western Europe. Through this alliance, Catholicism emerged and established the Papal States through the Pepin Offering. The Pope became a secular monarch as well as the spiritual leader of the purely Catholic world, and eliminated the threat of the Lombards, freed himself from the control of the Byzantine emperors, and suppressed the rebellions of the Roman aristocracy. Pepin the Short and his successors also relied on this alliance not only to become king of the Franks, but also to extend their power in Italy, to become emperor of the Romans, and to become the rightful heir to the traditions of the Western Roman Empire, on a par with the Byzantine emperor, but while the alliance benefited both sides, it was still dominated by royal power rather than ecclesiastical power. By the reign of Charles the Great, the appointment of bishops and abbots was entirely up to him alone. After Charlemagne, the appointment of bishops became the sole prerogative of the king, and the right to elect the pope, which had been in the hands of the clergy and laity of the city of Rome, became under the control of the secular regime in Charlemagne's reign.

Early in the 10th century, the Kaiser used the Church to strengthen and consolidate centralized rule and to implement the "Ottoman right", thus strengthening the alliance with the Church of Rome and supporting the reform of the Roman Church. The reform of the Church of Rome was the starting point for the growth of ecclesiastical power in medieval Christianity. The growth of ecclesiastical power came at the cost of weakening the centralized power of the king, which inevitably led to friction between the king's power and ecclesiastical power, and exacerbated the conflict between the local feudal powers and the king's power. The German throne was established and recognized because of the need to oppose the external enemy of this *** same interests, once this external threat is weakened or eliminated, this *** same interests no longer exist, there will be the situation of the major dukes attempt to expand the power and the king against the situation, Otto I, after the throne, had experienced many times the repeated rebellion of the clan dukes, which prompted it to inherit Charles the Great's ecclesiastical reforms, and to cultivate ecclesiastical power to weaken the power of the secular dukes, Otto completely monopolized the power of the Church, important diocesan archbishops by Otto's immediate family as not only the religious affairs of the diocese, but also appointed to implement the powers of the state, extensive participation in the country's major affairs, the important task of holding the judicial power, that is, "Otto Turner's power". Otto included the bishop in the hierarchy of official positions, because the episcopate did not pose the danger of forming a hereditary family, reducing the threat to the king's power and strengthening the core of the king's power. Because of the need for centralization of royal power, Otto II established a state ecclesiastical system, which was still under the control of royal power.

As mentioned earlier, the reason why the feudal rulers interfered and controlled the Catholic Church so much was that the Catholic Church and its clergy could play an irreplaceable role in the process of feudalization and the perfection of the feudal system. For example, the Carolingian dynasty practiced an administrative system of counts' precincts, while the counts, the local administrators who represented the king's power, were mostly local big feudal lords who had a strong sense of autonomy. In order to keep them under close control, Charlemagne, with the help of the Church, set up bishoprics while practicing the count's precinct system, and gave the bishops judicial power within their precincts in order to limit and weaken the authority of the counts. In addition, he also sent court clergy and officials to act as "inspectors" to supervise and stop the greed of local officials for land on behalf of the king. This important function of the church and the clergy in the process of feudalization gave them a corresponding social status and a large number of grants and rights from the king. As Charlemagne said, "By that grant and by that estate, by that abbey and by that church, I can make a certain vassal pay allegiance." And these same bishops and abbots were expected to provide the king with military service, corvée, and goods for the court. The secular large landowning class and the church were the two pillars of the Frankish state. This pattern of rule had an extremely important influence on the development of feudal dominance in Western Europe.

The function of the state institutions of the church inevitably strengthened the control of the royal power over the church. First, Charlemagne replaced the right of election of the Church under the religious statutes with the appointment and removal of the Church's priesthood by the crown, dismissing at any time any bishop whom he considered incompetent and not in the interests of the crown. The ordination of the priesthood in the German region had been an attribute of royal power. The Church was one of the pillars on which the royal power exercised its rule. Secondly, the royal power also controlled the Church's legislation both internally and externally. Again, in order to prevent the bishops from jeopardizing the kingship by the growth of their estates and power, Charles bound the lives of the clergy with ecclesiastical regulations, and it is clear that the Frankish monarchs regarded Roman Catholicism as a force that could strengthen the kingship and maintain its rule.