Kościół a państwo w średniowieczu. Istota sporu

Abstract

The inspiration to undertake the subject, which, as it seemed, had been exhausted long before, is the publication of the new volume in the series of Oxford History of the Christian Church: The Papai Monarchy. The Western Church from 1050 to 1250. Its author, Collin Morris, is a medieval history professor at Southampton University. Astonishing freshness is a characteristic of Morris’s approach towards the subject given in our title. The starting point is the statement, that today’s notions and définitions of the state and the Church (as two autonomous and independent institutions) do not altogether correspond to medieval reality. A “state” (in the modern meaning of thè word) did not exist in the Middle Ages, there was no rational social order outside the Church, “state” and “clerical” overlapped. So, what was the reason for the controversy between Gregory VII and Henry IV or between Alexander III and Barbarosa? That was not a conflict between the state and the Church but a controversy within the Church, a “schism” in a special sense of thè word. The conflict concentrated on two subjects: a mutual relationship between the clergy and lay people, and the position of the pope in the Church (in relation to the emperor and bishops). What follows, the essence of the controversy was a question of a proper model of the Church. In fact, the new model, usually called as “the Papal Monarchy”, was created.