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 to the crusades, and we're focusing in on the medieval Western Church.

And by the end of the day's lesson, we'll be able to describe how the pope's power had increased by the 11th century.

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

And our key terms for today are Church, pope, bishop, and excommunication.

Now, Church with a capital C is the organization of the Christian religion.

Church with a small C refers to the buildings of churches, but Church with a capital C refers the organization as a whole.

The pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

A bishop is a senior member of the Christian Church.

And excommunication is the action of officially excluding someone from participation in the sacraments and services of the Christian Church.

Today's lesson will be comprised of three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is, why was medieval Europe Christian?

So let's get started.

So in 313 CE, the Roman Emperor Constantine declared that Christianity was to be granted the status of an acceptable religion in the Roman Empire.

Up to his death in 337 CE, the emperor worked hard to raise the status of Christianity throughout the empire.

And prior to his decree in 313 CE, Christians had suffered waves of persecution at various times over the preceding 300 years.

Just for example, the preceding emperor to Constantine, a man called Diocletian, he persecuted Christians throughout the Roman Empire.

We also have stories of, for instance, the Emperor Nero.

He blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome at the time.

And there are other examples as well of Roman emperors generally using Christians as a convenience scapegoats for whatever particular problems are affecting the Roman Empire at that point in time.

So many Romans saw the emperor as some sort of divine figure.

He was a god-like emperor.

Christians didn't believe that.

It went against their religious views that there is only one god, and that is God.

Now, because they refused to do that, it often resulted in torture and public execution as well.

After 313 CE, however, Christianity gained acceptance, and because of that, it gained new converts.

And it's estimated that in about about 350 CE, the Roman Empire contained about 60 million people, and about 33 million of those were Christians.

So roughly 55% of the Roman Empire was Christian by 350 CE.

Now, quick check for understanding.

True or false statement here.

Before the Emperor Constantine, Christians in the Roman Empire would persecute people of other religions.

Is that true or is that false?

All right, if you chose false, then congratulations.

That is indeed false.

But let's justify that statement now.

Why is it false?

Is it false because before the Emperor Constantine, Christians were often persecuted for their religious beliefs?

Or is it false because before the Emperor Constantine, Christians and people of other religions just didn't bother each other.

So choose your justification now.

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

That is indeed correct.

Now, after the fall of the Western Rowan Empire in 476 CE, much of the imperial infrastructure, it, quite simply, it fell apart.

Having said that though, a shared religion was a way for the different nations that emerged to find common ground with each other.

Local rulers in the lands of the former Western Roman Empire and the Church, they sometimes worked together, and it was mutually beneficial, generally speaking.

Local rulers gain supports from the Church, and they secured their power as well.

If the Church agrees that you are the correct ruler, then you are far less likely to have discontent and potentially rebellions in your lands.

And likewise, the Church also gains power, so they won't be persecuted by the local rulers and they gain new followers as well.

If all of the new people living in this empire come back to Christianity, then there's a whole load of new followers that the Church has now received.

Now, in 751 CE, the Frankish kings, so the Franks were the tribe that gave their name to modern day France.

At this point in time, they controlled a great deal of France, but they also controlled a great deal of low countries and modern-day Germany as well.

So the Frankish kingdom was huge at this point in time.

In any case, the Frankish kings known as the Carolingians, they worked closely with the Church to increase their own power.

And in 754 CE, the Carolingian King Pippin III carved out a kingdom for the pope in Central Italy known as the Papal States.

And on the screen in front of you there, that bit that's highlighted in green, that's where the Papal States were.

In return, the most famous of the Carolingian kings, Charlemagne, which it started Charles the Great, Charlemagne, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 CE, and that granted him additional powers over the Christian people of Europe.

It also means that he is seen as, he's got a lot more respect because of this title that he's received.

Let's have a quick check for understanding now then.

So who led the Church in medieval western Europe?

Was it the Patriarch of Constantinople?

Was it the pope in Rome?

Or was it the Sultan or the Seljuk Empire?

Make a choice now.

All right, if you chose be the pope in Rome, then very well done.

Another check for understanding now.

Who controlled the Papal States kingdom in Central Italy?

Was it the Carolingian kings, the Holy Roman emperor, or the pope?

Okay, if you chose C, the pope, then well done.

That is correct.

All right, let's go for our first task of the day.

So what I'd like you to do is to complete the table showing what the Church and local kings, for instance, like the Carolingian kings, could gain from working with each other.

And I've got some statements just on one side of the screen there.

All you need to do is place the statements in the correct column.

If you think that some of those statements can go into more than one column, it's absolutely fine.

You can put them in both columns if that's what you wish as well.

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

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

So let's see what you should have written here then.

So the Carolingian kings, or any kings, but the Carolingian kings as an example, gained support by working with the Church.

They gained the title of Holy Roman Emperor, which comes with a great deal of prestige and honor as well.

The Church, they gained new followers.

And they also gained the Papal States specifically from the Carolingian kings.

So three kingdoms were taken over by the Carolingian, and those three kingdoms were given to the pope and they comprised the Papal States.

And this is why the pope's hat had three crowns on it.

It's 'cause there's three kingdoms there.

But both the Carolingian kings and the Church also gained power.

So it was mutually beneficial.

Both sides, they benefited from this arrangement.

All right, let's look at our second learning cycle for today then, which is how was the medieval Church organized?

So after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Church in each of the new kingdoms came under the control of the local rulers.

Local priests were likely to be under the control of their local Lord.

Whilst the more important bishops were usually promoted to their positions by the local king.

This was a way for kings to control the Church in their kingdoms.

And the reason being is that only bishops loyal to the would be promoted.

So if you're likely to have a bishop that will act against what the king wants, then, realistically, he's not gonna be made a bishop in the first place.

Or if he has made a bishop and then changes his mind and acts against the king, he won't be a bishop for much longer.

Now, bishops controlled areas of land and the people who lived there, which gave them a huge amount of power.

They could raise troops with their army.

In some cases, they actually led troops into battle.

In many ways, bishops weren't too dissimilar from local lords at this point in time.

Now in the 11th century, things changed.

Under Popes Leo IX and Gregory VII in particular, the power of the Church increased significantly.

Leo IX was pope from 1049 to 1054, and Gregory VII was pope from 1073 to 1085.

Gregory VII worked under Pope Leo IX.

So when Leo died, and there was another pope that was pope in between times, but Gregory just kind of picked up where Leo left off in that respect.

Now, local monarchs saw their power over their Church diminish.

And in response, the power of the pope increased.

Local priests and bishops who were loyal to their monarchs were replaced with churchmen.

They're replaced with a group known as the clergy.

So anybody kind of works for the Church and has been invested in the Church, they're known as the clergy.

And these clergymen had to be loyal to the pope.

Now, if you were a bishop who had been appointed by a local king, but you could agree to be loyal to the pope from this point on, then you were allowed to keep your position.

But if you were only loyal or king at the expense of being loyal to the pope, then you were going to be replaced.

Now, these reforms became known as the Gregorian reforms, after Pope Gregory.

They saw the clergy effectively become a separate group in society.

So bishops were no longer just like local laws/ They had separate duties and responsibilities.

In 1077, Pope Gregory VII was able to demonstrate the power that he had acquired in quite dramatic way.

The Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV was excommunicated after disagreeing with the pope about who should appoint the next bishop of Milan.

And in response to this, Henry's barons began plotting to remove him as excommunication of a king, or or in this case, an emperor, meant that his subjects no longer had to obey his commands.

And fearing for his life, Henry IV traveled to see Pope Gregory VII, spending three days outside in the snow, barefoot, dressed in rags, whilst begging to have his excommunication lifted.

A really, really dramatic episode and really demonstrated just how much the power of the pope had increased in comparison to the power of kings and monarchs in Europe.

It was a very, very clear sign to all of Europe that the Church was a growing power.

Let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So by the 11th century, kings had more control over the Church in their kingdoms than the pope.

Is that true or is that false?

Make your choice now.

Okay.

If you chose false, then congratulations.

But let's justify that answer now.

Then why is it a false statement?

Is it false because popes use their power of excommunication to control what kings did?

Or is it false because the Gregorian reforms replace kings who are not loyal to the pope?

Make a choice now.

All right, if you chose A, then very well done.

That is indeed correct.

Let's have another check for understanding now though.

So what might other kings of Europe think about the humiliation of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV at the hands of Pope Gregory VII?

So I want you to think about how it might affect other kings.

Think about the relationship that kings might have with Henry IV, but also just think about how they might feel just in general about this humiliation of the Holy Roman Empire.

Pause the video now if you need to while you're discussing this, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully got on fine with that task.

So you could have said something on the lines of that if they did not like Henry IV, then they might have been pleased to see him humiliated.

They might also though have been worried that the pope might do the same to them.

And they might have also been worried that they would lose control of the Church in their own country to the pope.

So a lot of mixed feelings, I think, at this point in time.

All right, let's go onto our next task for today then.

So what I'd like to do is place the groups into the correct position in the order of hierarchy in the Catholic Church.

And the different groups are on the side there.

All you need to do is just put them in their correct placement.

So pause the video now once you do this, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

So here's the order as you, hopefully, you've got it as well.

So right at the top there, there is the pope, the most important person there in the Catholic Church.

You've got archbishops underneath him, bishops, priests, and then ordinary people.

I should point out that this is a simplified hierarchy.

There are other groups as well that fit in in various different places, but we've gone for a simplified version for the purpose of this lesson.

All right, and next task then.

What I'd like to do now is describe how the pope's power increased by the 11th century.

And within this answer, what I'd like to do is try and say why the pope was not very powerful after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which was in 476 CE.

And then describe what had changed by the 11th century.

And ideally as well, I'd like to use the example of the Holy Roman Empire Emperor Henry IV in 1077 in your answer as well.

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

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully got on fine with that task.

So here's what you could have said.

You could have said that after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, the Church was controlled by local kings as they had the power to appoint bishops in their kingdoms.

That meant the pope did not have much power.

However, by the 11th century, things had changed.

Now the pope had the power to appoint bishops himself and challenge the power of kings.

For example, in 1077, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV had to stand in the snow for three days, begging Pope Gregory VII to remove his excommunication so his baron's wouldn't revolt.

So hopefully you've got something similar to what I've got on the screen there as well.

All right, let's move on now then into our third and final learning cycle for today, which is how did ordinary people interact with the Church?

So the Church had a great deal of control over the lives of ordinary people throughout the medieval period.

People firmly believed that heaven and hell existed and the only way to enter heaven and avoid hell was to follow the guidance of the Church.

The Bible was written in Latin, which by 750 CE was not widely used, meaning that bishops and priests were usually the only people who could read the Bible and transmit the teachings from it to the people in their communities.

What you tended to have instead in local churches is what I've got on the screen in front of you now.

So many churches were painted, all the walls were painted with beautiful and sometimes quite frightening images as well.

And some of these images, the more frightening ones, are referred to as doom paintings.

And effectively, they tell the story for illiterate people who are unable to read Latin, more realistically, were also unable to read their native language.

They give an understanding of what the Bible is teaching them without having to rely on the pope and the priest themselves telling him.

So the doom painters are shown you this is what happens.

The example on the screen here, you can see that there's a ladder.

In the upper section, we can see that there are some angels who are ascending of that ladder, and that, therefore, is heaven.

And then down below we've got some devils and some terrible things are happening to people that are falling down that ladder.

So this is a really clear way for local illiterate people to have an understanding of what the Church is trying to help them achieve and also try and prevent them from falling into.

Now the local church was often at the center of the community and it was the focal point for local life.

Christenings, marriages, funerals, festivals, and weekly sermons were all conducted by the local church, meaning that everybody spent a great deal of time there.

As a result, there'd be well-known to the local priests.

The threats of excommunication prevented people from disobeying church rules.

Excommunication prevented people from entering heaven.

And it also meant that you were being shunned or ignored by the local community.

The whole idea with excommunication is that it wouldn't be a lifelong thing.

It was supposed to be like a short sharp shock that somebody be excommunicated.

That fear of what if I die now, I'm going straight to hell.

But also, how can I interact with other people in my community?

How can I buy eggs from the local chicken farmer, for instance.

How can I sell my wares to the other members of the community?

That can't happen because I been excommunicated.

So this threat to excommunication, it was generally speaking quite an effective way to bring people back into line and make sure that they're following the Church rules.

The Church was also very wealthy, and by the end of the medieval period owned roughly 1/3 of all the land in Europe.

1/3 of all the land in Europe was owned by the Church.

And the reason being is that many wealthy people, for instance, as a way to hopefully guarantee their way into heaven, in their wills, they will relieve a lump sum of money or land to their local church.

And hopefully that means that they gain God's good graces and they're more likely to enter heaven as well.

So that was one really key way that the Church managed to become incredibly wealthy.

Many people would also have to obey their local bishop regardless of what religion they followed.

Although they almost certainly were Christian, they have to obey him because he was also their landlords, and therefore he could take away their land and their livelihood if they disobeyed him.

So just moving away from the religious threats even that by itself is enough to make many people fall in line with what the Church is telling 'em to do.

All right, let's do a quick check for understanding now then.

So, true or false?

The Church was at the center of people's lives during the medieval periods.

Decide whether you think that's true or false.

Okay, if you chose true, then very well done.

It was indeed.

But let's justify that statement now then.

Is it true because the local church voted baptisms, weddings, funerals, festivals, and weekly services which everyone attended?

Or is it true because the local church had to keep records of what everyone was doing each week to prevent them from sinning?

So choose your justification now.

All right, if you chose A, then very well done.

That is indeed correct.

So another quick check for understanding now then.

It's a discussion question.

So why would it be important for people to obey the Church during the medieval period?

So pause the video now if you need to while you're discussing, and I'll speak to you again once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully I'm fine with that discussion there.

So some of the things you could have said could be, so they did what was needed to enter heaven.

So they did what was needed to avoid hell.

So that they wouldn't be excommunicated.

And so they were not removed from their land by their landlord if he was also their local bishop.

There's other things that you could have said as well, but those are some key issues right there.

All right, let's move on to our next task then.

So how important was the Church to the people of Western Europe during the medieval period?

I'd like to write two paragraphs to this question and I'd like to use evidence from this lesson to support your answer.

And you could use, for instance, the idea of heaven and hell.

You could try and incorporate some aspect of Latin in there as well.

The fact that people didn't necessarily speak or even understand Latin.

You could use the term of one third.

So think about what I'm referring to there.

And you could use the term excommunicate as well.

So pause the video while you're doing this task, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task there.

So let's think about what you could have written then.

So I've got an answer on the screen here, which reads, "The Church was very important to the people of Western Europe during the medieval period.

People were very religious at this time and firmly believed in heaven and hell.

People needed their local priest or bishop to read the Bible for them, which was written in Latin, which no one spoke anymore, in order for them to find out how to enter heaven and avoid hell.

The Church was also important because as well as controlling what people believed, it also controlled people's lives on Earth.

The Church controlled roughly 1/3 of all the land in Europe during the medieval period, which meant that for many people, the local bishop was their landlord.

They had to obey him if they wanted to keep their land.

Local priests could also excommunicate people for poor behavior, meaning they would be shunned by their community and miss out on all the positive things the Church did, like weddings and festivals.

" So hopefully your answer includes some of those key terms as well, and it follows a similar sort of line of argument to mine.

All right, let's summarize today's lesson.

So the Western Church was led by the pope.

The Church and the pope slowly grew in power after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE.

Local kings competed with the pope over control of religion in their kingdoms.

And by the 11th century, the Church had gained a great deal of control over people's lives in Western Europe.

And religion was a major part of everyday life in medieval Europe.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hopefully you've learned something.

And hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.