Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merrett, and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at the background of the Great Schism, and we're focusing in on the Roman Catholic Church.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to describe the reasons for religious reform in the Roman Catholic Church during the 11th century and the impact that it had.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms.

And our key terms for today are church, pope, clergy, and reform.

The Church is the organisation of the Christian religion.

That's church with a capital C.

If it's got a small c, it is generally referring to the buildings themselves.

The pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The clergy are the group of religious officials who are authorised to conduct religious ceremonies.

So people like priests and bishops.

And to reform something means to change something with a view to making it better.

Today's lesson will consist of three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is looking at how was the Roman Catholic Church organised?

So let's get going.

So by the 11th century, the Roman Catholic Church had a strict hierarchy that was similar to that used by the kings of Western Europe in each of their own kingdoms.

At the top was the pope, who was believed to be God's representative on Earth.

And the pope led the Church from his palace in Rome.

So, very similar to a king in that respect.

Surrounding him were the cardinals, and they were leading men of the Church who were responsible for advising the pope and carrying out administrative duties.

So they're the most high-ranked and the most respected of the Church members underneath the Pope, of course, as well.

And in using that analogy of a kingdom, they'd be similar to a king's privy council, that circle of very trusted advisers that the king would have around him to give him advice on running the kingdom.

Across Europe, there were archbishops who were leaders of the Church and the most important religious figures in their country or their region.

And again, using that analogy of the kingdoms, that'd be very similar to the really important earls and barons that a king would have across his kingdom looking after various regions.

And the archbishops had a collection of bishops who were leaders of the clergy in their smaller local area.

And they'd be like minor lords, again, using that analogy of the kingdoms.

And finally, there were the priests who run the local churches in each parish.

And again, you can think of those as like local knights, if you will.

Slightly separate, though, were monks who led lives of relative isolation, generally speaking, monasteries, which is where a lot of them were based, or abbeys.

They were usually removed from urban centres.

Not always, but generally speaking, you'll find that monasteries and abbeys were a little bit removed from urban centres.

And they dedicated their lives to serving God, and they were led by an abbots who would have a rank similar to that of a bishop.

So abbots could be very important indeed as well.

So just to summarise then, so the Pope, his role was head of the Church, believed to be God's representative on Earth.

Cardinals advised the Pope and they organised or helped to organise the Church and how to keep it running smoothly.

Underneath them were archbishops who were leaders of the Church in their country or their region.

Beneath them were bishops who were leaders of the Church in their smaller local area.

Then we have abbots, very similar to bishops in terms of respect, and they were leaders of monasteries.

Then we have priests who run the local Church in their parish.

And down at the bottom there, but by no means unimportant, the monks, and they've dedicated their lives to God.

They also frequently helped the local communities as well.

They'd offer things like fresh food and care to anybody who was particularly sick.

So a lot of monasteries also had small hospitals inside them as well.

So monks did fulfill an important role in the local community.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So what city was the pope's palace in?

Was it in Constantinople, in Paris, or in Rome?

Okay.

If you chose C, Rome, then congratulations, that is correct.

Another quick check for understanding there.

We've got a true or false statement here.

So the cardinals told the pope what to do with the Church.

Is that true or is that false?

All right.

If you chose false, then congratulations, it is false, but it's justify it now.

Why is it a false answer?

Is it false because the cardinals, archbishops, and abbots together told the pope what to do with the Church?

Or is it false because the cardinals advised the pope and gave him advice on how to lead the Church?

Okay, if you chose B, then very well done, that is indeed the correct answer.

Right, let's go for our first task of the day, and I've got a table on the screen in front of you.

All I'd like you to do is to complete the gaps in the table.

So in some places I've given you the position, you tell me what the role of that particular person is.

In other places, I've given you the role, and you tell me what the position was.

So what was the name of that particular person?

So pause the video now whilst you do this, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

Let's go through the correct answers now.

So hopefully you've got this that I've got on the screen in front of you here as well.

So the pope was the head of the Church.

He was believed to be God's representative on Earth.

Cardinals advised the pope, and they helped to organise the Church.

Archbishops were leaders of the Church in their country or region.

And then leaders of the Church in their smaller local area were bishops.

Leaders of monasteries were abbots.

Priests helped to run the local Church in their parish.

And the people who dedicated their lives to God were monks.

So hopefully you understood all of those positions as well.

Right, let's go for our next learning cycle for today, which is who was Pope Leo IX.

Now although the hierarchy of the Church was clearly defined by the 11th century, expectations regarding the behaviour of the clergy were not, and many very high ranking clergy, including previous popes, behaved in ways that were seen as immoral.

And probably the best example of that is the person who's on the screen in front of you now.

This is Pope John the XII, who was pope from 955 to 964 CE, and he was quite regarded as effectively being everything a pope should not be.

He became pope at 18, so he was a very young man at the point in time when the vast majority of popes, certainly in modern ages, are reaching the ends of their careers.

John enjoyed drinking a lot.

He enjoyed the company of women a lot.

He also didn't seem to have a great deal of respect for his position as Pope.

He once made a 10-year-old a bishop.

John met a very unfortunate end when he was thrown out of a window by an angry husband who found the Pope in bed with his wife, and so ended the relatively short reign of Pope John XII.

He by no means was the only one to behave in this sort of way, but he just kind of embodies just everything a pope should not be.

So as a great example of the fact that effectively.

Nowadays we think of the Catholic Church as being very well organised, as having very strict rules regarding their conduct and their morals.

Throughout its history, there have been a lot of examples of some really poor behaviour.

So by the 11th century, there's this idea that perhaps maybe the Church, in order to gain more respect, needed to clean up its act a little bit as well.

So priests and bishops within each kingdom were appointed by the local monarch, and because of that, they were able to buy positions in the Church.

And this is a practice known as simony.

So if you wanted to be a bishop of a local area, because as well as providing guidance and support for the local clergy and the local parishioners, it also gains you a lot of power.

It's a very powerful position that can make you a lot of money as well.

So many people would just quite simply give the king X amount of money and, in return, he would give them this position of power and wealth.

But as a result of this, many clergy were not as dedicated to living a holy life as would've been expected.

And despite it going against the rules of the Church, many priests had families and children of their own, and this also includes previous popes as well.

Similarly, many lived rich, luxurious lives and generally just made a mockery of what the Church proclaimed itself to be.

The Church, at this point in time, owned roughly between a quarter and a third of all the land in Europe.

So they are making ridiculous amounts of money.

And a lot of that money was supposed to go towards helping the poor.

But the reality is, if you're not actually that bothered about being holy, if you're not actually that bothered about helping the poor, then a lot of that money can go to you, which is why people were buying Church positions because they had access to this incredible amount of wealth.

When Leo IX became Pope in 1049, he was determined to bring about reform.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now then.

So which two of the following were problems in the Church in the 11th century that needed reforming?

Was it that clergy were unable to read Latin, priests were selling Church valuables, clergy gained their position through simony, or many Catholic priests had families?

So choose two on the screen now.

Okay, if you chose C and D, then very well done.

These are indeed the correct answers.

Okay, so Pope Leo IX came from a noble German family.

To give you an idea of how noble he was, he was cousin to Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II.

So this is kind of how noble we are talking about here.

After being Bishop of Toul for 20 years, Leo IX was made Pope by the Holy Roman Emperor because at that point in time the Holy Roman Emperor frequently appointed the pope.

Leo though refused to accept the position unless it was agreed by the priests in Rome, which, from the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church, is how it should be, but not necessarily how it was.

But this was an early sign of the reforms that Leo wished to bring about.

Leo was very unhappy with the practice of simony, wanted to make it clear that although a charge could be levelled at him that he was guilty of simony himself, he wanted to make it really, really clear that yes, he's related to the Holy Roman Emperor, but that's not the reason why he got the position.

It's one of the reasons, but it's not the reason why he got the position.

He was elected by the priests in Rome.

He wanted to make that really clear.

Which he was, to be fair, that the people of Rome, the priests of Rome, were very happy with Leo as the choice of pope.

He also did not like that many clergy had families of their own, and this was considered scandalous.

It was seen as them spending less time focusing on God and more time promoting their own family interests instead.

So ending these practices were the focal points of Leo's reforms.

That's what he really wanted to bring about during his time as Pope.

In order to do this and also just to improve the organisation of the Church in general, Pope Leo IX gathered around him some of the brightest minds in medieval Europe.

And generally speaking, if you were somebody who was of above average level of intelligence, you probably would've joined the Church at this point in time.

And the reason being is that the Church was probably the most well-educated institution in Europe at this point in time.

Church members could read and write at a time when literacy rates were very low all across Europe.

So if that's something you're interested in, then most intelligent people would've gravitated towards the Church at this point in time.

Included within these bright young minds was a young monk named Hildebrand of Sovana.

He actually later became pope himself.

He was Pope Gregory VII.

And these men became his cardinals, and they worked with Pope Leo IX to organise more than a dozen synods.

And these were important meetings to discuss the direction of the Church.

And they did these in different countries all around Europe as well, as well as keeping contact with leading clergy across Europe.

The whole idea is that you are trying to make the Church a Europe-wide institution as opposed to effectively separate organisations within each country that had a very loose connection to the Pope in Rome.

Pope Leo IX was one of the hardest working popes of the 11th century.

He spent roughly two thirds of his papacy, the two thirds of his time as Pope was spent travelling around Europe instead of living in what could have been considered absolute lap of luxury in his palace in Rome.

Leo helped to improve the perception of the Church and thought the best way to do this was to centralise the power of the Church away from local monarchs and into the hands of the Pope.

So obviously into the hands of himself.

He thought that he was the best person to run the Church, but he also made it so that any future pope would have the same level of power as well.

That way, it was hoped, Leo and the Church would have the power to control who could be a part of the Church and therefore how they would therefore behave as well.

Having settled that, Leo wasn't necessarily a stereotypical churchman from a modern perspective.

In 1053, Pope Leo IX led an army against the Normans who were invading southern Italy.

So he was very much a man of action as well.

Unfortunately, his army was defeated, he himself was captured, and he spent several months in prison.

From what we understand, it was in pretty good conditions.

The Normans were Christian, and they didn't necessarily want to fight the Pope.

They actually tried to sue for peace beforehand, but the Pope made it clear that they needed to give up the lands they had taken, and they weren't willing to do that.

So battle was joined.

The Pope's inexperienced troops lost and he was captured, although once again the Normans were very gracious towards him at that point in time as well.

It was during this time, though, that trouble with the patriarch in Constantinople just really boiled over.

And the patriarch previously had sent an angry letter to Leo condemning some of the beliefs and practices of the Western Church.

And after quite a lengthy delay, Leo sent off some delegates himself with an equally angry reply.

And by the time that the patriarch had been excommunicated and the Great Schism had fractured the Church, Pope Leo IX was unable, he was not in a position to mend the rift.

And the reason being is that his imprisonment had left him weak and sick, and he dies on the 19th of April 1054.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So which of the following is the best description of Pope Leo the IX's actions?

Was it that he excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor, did he introduce important reforms, or did he murder disloyal cardinals?

Okay, if you chose B, then congratulations, that is the correct answer.

Technically, you could argue that Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor, although in reality, when the bill of excommunication was laid on the altar at the Hagia Sophia, Leo was already dead at that point.

It was quite difficult to blame him for something when he's not actually alive to take the fall for that.

Right, let's go for our next task for today then.

So I'd like you to match the problem in the Church to the reform that Pope Leo IX brought in to try and fix it.

So you've got the issues on one side of the screen and what did Leo do to try and solve the issue on the other side of the screen.

So pause the video now whilst you do that, and I'll see you once you've finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

Alright, let's go through some correct answers now then.

So people could buy their way into the clergy.

Leo hoped to end this by ending the practice of simony.

Some members of the clergy had wives and children of their own, and Leo made it very clear that clergy marriages were to be dissolved.

So if you are married, you are not any more.

Monarchs appointed the clergy, and Leo fixed this by saying that actually now it's the Pope that appoints the clergy, not the monarchs.

And the Church was disorganised and said it was just a loose collection of effectively just national churches that had a very, very loose affiliation with the Pope in Rome.

And he fixed this by appointing intelligent clergy to the position of cardinals.

So hopefully you got those correct as well.

Right, let's go for our third and final learning cycle for today, which is Pope Leo IX's reforms.

Now, although Leo was only Pope for five years, his reforms were continued by later popes, most notably Pope Gregory VII.

So you remember he was Hildebrand.

He was a young monk who'd been brought to become a cardinal and part of the inner circle that Pope Leo IX put together to try and push the Church forward.

Leo's reforms increased the authority of the Church by reducing the scandalous behaviour of clergy and taking control of who could join the Church.

Clergy who had been appointed through simony either had to admit their guilt, they had to admit that yes, I bought this position, and they had to do that to the Pope and accept his authority, in which case, generally speaking, most of those people that did that, they were able to keep their position.

If they didn't do that, then they were removed from their position.

Some women also lost power in society if they were married to the clergy as these marriages were no longer recognised.

So some women had quite well-respected positions because they were the wife of a bishop.

Well, not any more, not after Pope Leo's reforms.

The Church underwent a separation from the rest of society as clergy became more focused on their roles as men of God instead of being simply privileged men who had bought themselves a job and were still very much involved in what was going on in their local area and their kingdoms.

This increased the authority of the Church amongst the people of Europe.

The Church became a more respected institution as less scandalous behaviour was taking place.

Having settled this, though, one reform that Pope Leo IX had not intended, which is the Great Schism, split the Church in two and led to the creation of the Eastern Orthodox Church as a separate organisation from the Roman Catholic Church.

Right, let's go for another check for understanding now.

So what were two impacts of Pope Leo IX's reforms?

Was it that some women lost power because marriages within the clergy were no longer recognised?

Was it that the Church gained new followers as it expanded into new regions on the edges of Europe?

Was it that warfare between Roman Catholic countries ended due to the Pope's laws against fighting?

Or was it that clergy appointed through simony had to admit their guilt and accept the Pope's authority or lose their position?

So choose two of those impacts on the screen now.

Okay, if you chose A and D, then very well done.

These are indeed the correct answers.

Let's have another check for understanding now, though.

So which pope continued Pope Leo IX's reforms after he died in 1054?

Was it Pope Alexander VI, was it Pope Gregory III, or was it Pope Innocent VIII?

Okay, if you chose B, Pope Gregory VII, then well done.

That is indeed the correct answer.

These reforms actually came to be known as the Gregorian Reforms because Gregory pushed them on so well.

So although Leo started it, Gregory took up the mantle and really pushed those reforms through.

Right, let's go for our next task then.

So I'd like you to explain two ways that Pope Leo IX reformed the Roman Catholic Church and the impact that it had.

So please do use the answers that you had from Task B to support yourself with this.

Pause the video whilst you do this, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

Let's go through a model answer that I've got on the screen here, and hopefully your answer follows a similar sort of way to mine.

So I said that one way that Pope Leo IX reformed the Roman Catholic Church was to stop monarchs from appointing bishops in their kingdoms.

Instead, the pope now had this power, which meant that he was able to control who became part of the clergy.

This gave the Church more power.

Another reform was ending marriages amongst the clergy and no longer recognising marriages that were already in place.

This removed the power that some women enjoyed as the wives of important local clergy.

It also meant that clergy were now more focused on their jobs rather than their families.

So if you've got different reforms and different impacts, it's absolutely fine, but hopefully you've stated what the reform is and you've also stated the impact of the reform as well.

Right, let's summarise today's lesson now then.

So the pope was the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and usually spent most of his time in Rome.

In the 11th century, the abuses of the clergy encouraged Pope Leo IX to reform the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Leo IX's reforms increased the power of the Church and improved its reputation and how people saw it.

Leo IX was only Pope for five years before he died, but his reforms were continued by later popes, especially Pope Gregory VII.

So thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself, hopefully you learned something, and hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.