Church In The Middle Ages

14 Pages 3487 Words

m. Corruption in the church seemed to be a theme in Western Europe. To counteract this, monasteries were set up all over practicing silence and oral prayer. The most famous was that of Cluny, which included hundreds of daughter houses. It was not long before Cluny had become the single most influential spiritual force in Western Europe.
Meanwhile, in Rome, Pope Leo IX was dealing issues of simony and concubine. Simony refers to the act of trying to buy and sell holy things; essentially, paying one’s was in to religious office. Celibacy was another issue that had some debate at the time. No biblical text could be found to say that it was wrong, while the Eastern Church allowed married men to become priests, the West disagreed. Elections were another popular topic of debate. It was Pope Gregory VII that initiated the topic of lay investiture. Until this time it was held that when in office one held both secular and ecclesiastical power. Gregory felt this added to much interference with the daily acts of the Christian religion.
What Logan refers to as the “most crucial point” in East and West relations happened in 1054 when three Western men walked straight in to an Eastern church and placed a document on the high alter. It was at this point that the feud between the churches grew with both sides excommunicating one another. The author does a good job of describing the important scenes from the middle ages and using them effectively to convey his message. The examples he chooses seem accurate enough to reflect the positions held be the people of the times. When he is not sure of exact facts, he is quick to point out the lack there of accurate information from which he preaches his story.
Martin 3
The Twelfth century marked the expansion and critical development of the Christian Church. International commerce was growing and thus the means of translation and uniformity were born. The church now had a way ...