Lesson video

Hello.

I'm Mr. Olivey.

And this is the final lesson of our inquiry into how powerful the Pope was in Mediaeval Europe.

To actually prepare for this lesson, I've been reading my small book about Saints, which has been interesting.

Before we start the lesson though, as always, I need you to do two things.

So the first one is to make sure you've got pen, and some paper.

If you haven't got those, pause the video now and go and get them.

Good.

You've gone and got pen and paper now.

Excellent.

Second thing, make sure you're in a reasonably quiet space, so you can just do some really good focused work and make a really good finish to our inquiry.

Right.

Let's get started.

Now, this is lesson four of an inquiry of four lessons.

And the title for today's lesson is "The Schism of 1054" because this is the final event that will help us answer our big inquiry question, which is how powerful was the Pope? But before we get to The Schism of 1054 we need to look up the story so far.

The first story we learned in lesson one, was the story of Pope Leo III and Charlemagne.

And we decided that Pope Leo III was not a particularly powerful Pope.

Not only was he attacked in Rome in 799 and had to be rescued by Charlemagne's men.

He actually chose to give away some of his power, when he crowned Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor in the year 800.

But in lesson two, the story was quite different, because we saw all of the gifts that were given to the Pope in Rome, by European Kings.

Like Offa he gave this Dinar and we learned about the tax, known as Peter's Pence.

That Edgar the Peaceful, made every household in England, pay to the Pope every year.

And we thought about how all this money and gold and treasure, would have made the Pope very powerful.

But then in lesson three, the story got even more complicated because we saw this growing set of differences between the Western church based in Rome and led by the Pope and the Eastern church based in Constantinople, led by the Patriot of Constantinople.

We saw all these differences like differences about unleavened bread, the Filioque, dendrites, stylites and Holy Fools.

And we saw these two sides of the church, really struggled to talk to each other, could not understand each other.

So that's how far we've got with our inquiry of how powerful was the Pope.

But the final thing we need to know about, also involves the Eastern and the Western side to the Church.

Because by the year 1054,the Pope was worried.

And he was worried, because a new fearsome band of warriors, were tearing through Europe, stealing, tearing down churches and building a new kingdom.

And these warriors were called the Normans.

And the Normans were starting to threaten bits of Italy by the year 1054.

They were coming down from Normandy, and nibbling at the Pope's lands nibbling at the edges of it.

And the Pope was terrified.

And he needed a solution to keep his land safe from these Norman invaders.

The solution he came up with, was that he should try and form something called an alliance with the Patriarch of Constantinople, cause the Pope said, that if Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity team up and agree to protect and defend each other, there's no way they could be beaten.

And so in 1054, the Pope sent a man called Cardinal Humbert to go and negotiate this alliance.

But there was just one problem.

And that problem was that Cardinal Humbert hated Eastern Christianity.

He hated the city of Byzantines.

He hated the Holy fools.

He hated the Patriarch of Constantinople.

He hated everything about it.

And so Cardinal Humbert just stayed in Constantinople for months on end.

Still not speaking to the Patriarch, not negotiating this alliance and not doing a very good job at the task he'd been asked to do.

And eventually, all these tensions that had been bubbling up boiled over, and one morning, Cardinal Humbert stormed into the Hagia Sophia in the middle of a service.

And he said nothing.

But in his hand, he was carrying a piece of paper, a papal bull of excommunication kicking the Patriarch out of the church.

And he stormed up to the altar, and he slammed the bull of excommunication down on the desk.

He turned, and without saying a word stormed out of the Hagia Sophia, and when he got to the door, he ceremonially shook the solid dust of Eastern Christianity from his boots.

And with that, a schism, a split between the Eastern Church and the Western Church was official.

And in response, the Patriarch of Constantinople also excommunicated the Pope and Cardinal Humbert.

He kicked them out of their church.

So what I'd like you to do now is pause the video, and put the story of The Schism into the correct order.

Right.

Let's see how you've got on with that story of The Schism.

The first is B, cause in 1054, the Pope wanted an alliance with the Eastern church, but he also wanted to stop their innovations.

And to do this, he sent Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople.

But the problem, was that the Patriarch of Constantinople and Humbert hated each other.

Months past, and they could not agree when or where to meet.

Now eventually, Humbert stormed into the Hagia Sophia and slammed a papal bull of excommunication onto the altar.

And in response, the Patriarch of Constantinople also excommunicated Humbert and the Pope.

So both sides, have tried to kick the leader of the other out of the church.

And if we come back to our inquiry question of how powerful was the Pope, you can pause the video now and just write down a few thoughts about what The Great Schism says about the power of the Pope.

Okay.

It's quite clear then that the Pope is struggling to control his own Church cause he's being kicked out of it by one of the other patriarchs, he.

What I'd like you to do now is to pause the video and read the slides on the next page and then answer the comprehension question.

And then can you resume the video once you've finished those and we'll go through the answers.

About time for the answers.

To question one, why were there tensions between the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054? And the correct answer would be that they spoke different languages but a better answer would be, there were tensions between the Eastern and Western Churches because the West spoke Latin and the East spoke Greek and they disagreed about different Christian rituals.

Question two, why did the Pope want an alliance with Constantinople in 1054? The correct answer is to protect himself from the Normans, but a better answer would be in 1054, the Normans were threatening the Pope's land in Italy.

The Pope wanted an alliance with Constantinople to protect his lands.

Question three, who did the Pope send to Constantinople to negotiate this alliance? And the correct answer is Cardinal Humbert.

But a better answer would be the pope sent Cardinal Humbert to negotiate an alliance with the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Question four.

What did Humbert do when he marched into the Hagia Sophia in 1054? And the correct answer is he excommunicated the Patriach of Constantinople.

Means he kicked them out of the church.

But a better answer would be Humbert, slammed the papal bull of excommunication down onto the altar.

And this kicked the Patriarch of Constantinople out of the church.

Question five.

What does The Schism of 1054 suggest about the power of mediaeval popes? The correct answer would be that it suggests they were not all powerful, but a better answer would be The Schism of 1054, shows that the Pope struggled to understand or control the Eastern Church.

Constantinople could challenge the power of the Pope and Rome.

Well done for doing those comprehension questions.

We are now ready to finish our inquiry and to use all the knowledge that we've built over these four lessons, to produce a really good answer to this question.

The first thing I'd like you to do, is to think about the four or five stories that we've encountered about the power of the Pope.

And could you sort these stories into whether they show the Pope as all powerful or someone whose power was challenged? So pause the video now, read through the five and sort them into where the Pope was all powerful, or that his power was challenged.

Okay, let's go through those answers.

So at the start of lesson one, our first idea is about the power of the Pope was that he was probably all powerful because we saw that he was head of the Christian Church.

We saw that he lived in Rome and that he had lots of money given to him.

And the people relied on the Pope, many people to try and get them into heaven.

They believed that he had responsibility for their souls.

But then in lesson one, we found that the story of Charlemagne and Leo III actually showed quite a weak Pope who needed a strong European King like Charlemagne to prop him up and to give him support.

But in lesson two the story of Peter's Pence does show a Pope who is very powerful, because he had the capacity to draw in money from all across Europe.

But lesson three, the story of Constantinople as a rival power to Rome, showed that the Pope had challenges to people who wanted to do Chris.

from people who wanted to do Christianity in a different way.

Who wanted to have different rituals who didn't agree with things like the unleavened bread used in the communion, in the Western Church.

And then in lesson four, the story we've just learned of The Schism of 1054, we've seen that the Pope really struggled to control this Eastern church.

And actually in his effort to try and make an alliance with them, he just made the relationship and the disagreement and the misunderstandings even worse.

So in writing an answer to our inquiry, I've just made a sort of a little recipe here that I think will be, you'll find useful.

So your answer structure should look something like this.

It should have an introduction that explains who the Pope was.

Should have a paragraph then in the middle, explaining things that made mediaeval popes powerful.

And this could discuss Peter's Pence and pilgrimages.

Should then have another paragraph explaining things that challenge the power of mediaeval popes.

This could discuss Charlemagne and Leo III, the differences between the East and Western Churches and The Schism of 1054.

And finally, you should have a conclusion that reaches a judgement about how powerful the Pope was in mediaeval Europe.

Now if you feel ready and like you raring to write an answer to this inquiry question, and you've got all your notes there, you can pause the video now, and make a start on that and then use the next slides and the model answer, as a way of checking what you've written.

If you'd like a bit more help and you'd think actually Mr. Olivey I just want to see an example of what this looks like On the next slides I've written one, and we're going to go through it together and just use it as an example of what we could say in answer to this question.

So if you're ready to write, pause the video now, if not keep watching.

So let's have a look at my answer to this question.

So in theory, the pope should have been the most powerful man in mediaeval Europe.

He was the head of the Church in Rome.

He was given gifts from all across Europe.

Yet, in reality, mediaeval popes were less powerful than we might expect.

It is true that the countless gold coins like the Offa Dinar given to mediaeval popes made them and the Church rich and powerful.

Anglo-Saxon Kings like Alfred the Great gave money to the Pope to prove that they were good Christians.

Edgar the Peaceful forced everyone in England to pay a penny called Peter's Pence to the Pope once every year.

Coins sent to Rome by Kings and ordinary people made the Pope powerful.

Yet, despite this money, mediaeval popes were not all powerful.

Pope Leo III was so weak that he was attacked in Rome and had to be rescued by Charlemagne's men.

Leo III actually gave away some of his power when he crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor in 800.

Furthermore, the Eastern church also challenged the Pope's power.

The Pope saw Constantinople's Holy Fools, stylites and dendrites as wrong, yet he did not have the power to ban these innovations.

In conclusion, medivial popes were not very powerful because they needed strong Kings, like Charlemagne to support them.

The Schism of 1054, when the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated Pope Leo IX is revealing.

Despite all the money that poured into Rome, mediaeval popes struggled to control their own Church.

Therefore from 800 to 1054, the Pope was not as powerful as many people might believe.

So ,well done if you've already had a go at the inquiry, I hope that your answer was somewhat like that but if it was different and you used different examples brilliant because I've only selected a tiny portion of all the material that you've learned and done so well to master.

If you haven't had a go at writing the inquiry question yet, pause the video and do that now.

Otherwise well done, you've finished our inquiry.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Well done on finishing this inquiry.

I'm sure you've done a brilliant job.

I've really enjoyed teaching it to you.