Why did the Roman Catholic Church became influential during the Middle Ages?

Answer 1

the church grew in importance because ev eryone wanted salvation, and they followed the church to get salvation. If you were ex - communicated, you wouldn't get salvation, and the church had the power to ex - communicate you. The church collected taxes from everyone and was the richest in the communtiy.

Answer 2

The Church was never intended to be a "Worldly Power" but an influence on individuals.

Still, events done by Christian representatives performed acts that many Christians do not believe doctrinally today.

Still, when you have nations of a majority "Christian", and you have a "Pope" as their spiritual leader, then this spiritual influence could be used to manipulate worldly leaders into submitting to the will of the Pope.

More often than not, a Pope would threaten "excommunication" against a nation because of a "king" or person in leadership.

The people of that nation would equate excommunication as a sentence to eternal hell when they die, so they would PASSIONATELY revolt and overthrow the "leader" for forgiveness from the spiritual leader.

The downfall of this importance and power is not any age of reason, not whatsoever, but the works of Martin Luther causing the reformation and schism of the church, teaching that people are saved by "faith" not by their standing with the Pope. Once the Pope lost power to threaten the majority with "hellish consequences", then the Popes ability to influence nations was lost, except on a spiritual level.

Answer 3

Just before the early Middle Ages, Christianity was taken to Ireland from England by Patrick.

In Europe, the Franks accepted Christianity when their leader, Clovis I was convinced to become a Christian by his wife, effectively making his realms (modern France) at least nominally Christian.

In the sixth century, from those who had become Christians in Ireland under Patrick, Columba and Columbanus took their form of Christianity to Scotland and Europe.

Around the same time, Pope Gregory I sent Augustine from Rome to bring the gospel message to the Anglo-Saxons who had settled there. The Anglo-Saxons were invaders, who had displaced the previous Christian Celtic population (pushing them west towards Wales).

In the seventh and eighth centuries, Anglo-Saxon English missionaries took the message of Jesus to Frisia (modern Netherlands), but they met strong resistance from the Frisian kings.

At the end of the eighth century, Charlemagne waged a fierce war against the Saxons to his north. He defeated them, and forced the Saxons to become Christians.

The so-called Dark Age followed in the ninth and tenth centuries - "dark" because we know little about it. At least we know that Christianity was taken to Sweden by the French Christian missionary, Ansgar, in the ninth century.

After the Dark Ages, the rest of the Middle Ages could be said to have been spent exploring what Christianity really meant.

• On the political front we have the adventurism of the Christian Normans and the age of chivalry - where the Normans thought they could seize other peoples land and property with impunity. We also have the ongoing struggles between others who had, or who wanted, political power. Also on the political front, we have the struggle for supremacy between the Papacy and the kings of Europe.
• On the religious front, we have the high piety of the Benedictine monks, such as at Cluny, and the formation of new orders of monks such as the Cistercians; we also have the reforms of Francis of Assisi; on the other hand, we have the rise of the Inquisition.
• On the intellectual front, we have first the rise in popularity of a kind of Christian Platonism, followed by the challenge of the discovery of Aristotle's teachings, and then Aristotle's teachings being given in a Christian guise. Through this period, we see the beginnings of universities, in a form that led to the modern university.

Also the end of the Middle Ages saw the development of a particularly Italian form of art, where art moved from the two-dimensional forms (of the Byzantine Empire) to the realism, perception and depth of the new painters of the Renaissance. This art was often used to present Christian themes, but not exclusively.

The Middle Ages ended with pressure being exerted on Christian Europe by the invasions from the east undertaken by the Muslim Turks, which saw a number of Christian countries in Europe coming under Muslim rule. This was a significant set-back for Christianity in those countries.

Answer 4

It's just Catholic, not Roman Catholic. Roman is an epithet first commonly used in England after the protestant revolt to describe the Catholic Church. It is never used by the official Catholic Church.

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The Middle Ages lasted roughly from the 5th to the 15th century. These were known as the Ages of Faith. During this time, Europe was largely converted to the Christian Church, and they took their faith very seriously realizing that this life was but a short prelude in which they would choose by their way of life, where they were going to spend eternity - in heaven or hell.

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Blessedly missing from this period where modern things we take for granted like printed books, newspapers, television, radio, internet, etc. People were more concerned with their own lives, their own families, their own salvation. Many took up religious vocations to pray and convert in far off lands. Many took up arms to liberate Christians in oppressed lands, etc., But they did not spend their time in frivolous "entertainment" or waste time in a hundred other ways that we do today. People prayed several times a day, they stopped work at noon to pray the Angelus when the Church bells rang, and again at 6 in the evening. Often they attended daily Mass, they went to confession regularly, and the Church was the very hub of their lives. You can still see a faint echo of this life in the current Amish, or if you go to a Carthusian or Trappist monastery for a visit, etc.