How was religion tied to politics in the middle ages?

Answer 1

The pope had considerable control over all Europe, even more than kings. However, kings did have control over their country as long as they maintained friendly relations with the pope. Under the king, their were many feudal lords, and each had a lot of power over their own piece of their country. The feudal lords had to pledge to fight for their king if necessary every year, in a ceremony called doing homage, and they also had to pay the king taxes.

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We should remember that when we speak of the Middle Ages, we are talking of a time that lasted a thousand years and a territory somewhat greater than Europe. While it is true that some popes exercised considerable power, others had nearly none. And the same thing is true of kings. In fact, there was no single political system that was in use throughout Europe.

• There were empires, kingdoms within empires, independent kingdoms, independent counties, and independent city-states.
• There were political systems run by hereditary monarchs, elected monarchs, monarchs chosen by clan leaders, guilds, leagues of guilds, dictators, bishops, and representative councils chosen rather democratically by common people.
• There were countries with fixed and respected borders, and there were countries that consisted of marauding hordes, whose territory consisted of wherever they happened to have been recently.
• There were countries whose laws and customs excluded women from politics, and there were others ruled by women.
• There were places with slaves, and places where slavery was illegal. There were places with serfdom, and others without. There were countries with feudal hierarchies, and countries without.

The following are examples:

• England was a hereditary monarchy, in which the monarch was theoretically supreme.
• Scotland was a monarchy, with the king chosen by the clan leaders.
• France was a hereditary monarchy, in which the monarch was theoretically supreme, but some of the vassals were more powerful than the king at times. Importantly, the King of England was often technically a vassal of the King of France, but was never very willing to obey him.
• The Holy Roman Empire was ruled by a monarch elected by an electoral college consisting of kings, princes, counts, and bishops, with a total number of seven members. The electors were usually more powerful in their own lands than the emperor was. The empire had as many as 500 states within it, and many of them were rather independent.
• Spain consisted of a number of petty kingdoms and independent counties, some of which were Muslim.
• Andorra, a tiny country between France and Spain, was a principality governed jointly by two princes, one of whom was the Count of Foix, in France, and the other was the Bishop of Urgell, a diocese in Catalonia. Obviously, neither of these princes was local, and so the country was run by a local parliament. The princes were paid annually the sum of four hams, forty loaves of bread, and a quantity of wine. (Interestingly, the principality passed from the Count of Foix to the ruler of France, and today, when the French People elect the President of France, are also electing a Prince of Andorra.)
• The popes had their own lands, after the Donation of Pepin. They were, however subject to the tides of politics. Some popes were entirely under the control of various kings, and Leo III was even imprisoned by members of the local Roman nobility, until a foreign army freed hum.
• In some places, there were towns and cities called communes. They were republican, with widely varying types of governments. Venice was one such through most of the Middle Ages.
• The Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire, with an unbroken succession of emperors and empresses from ancient times. Byzantine Emperors were nearly always in control of the Church within their lands, and were careful not to allow any indication that they were subject to the popes. After 1054, their Church was entirely independent of Rome. For much of the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful and populous country in Europe.
• There were Muslim rulers in Sicily and southern Italy.
• Vikings ruled in parts of the North.
• Mongol hordes ruled in much of the East, for a while.
• Pagans tribes ruled in Prussia and other nearby areas for a long time.
• In the end, Muslim Turks ruled in the Balkans.
• The Hanseatic League consisted of member cities run by guilds. The league had its own military and waged its own wars. There were doubtless a number of people within it who regarded the allegiances of the league as more important than their being within any given country.

One important point is that through much of the Middle Ages, the Church had a rather independent position under the law. For example, it had its own judicial system, independent of any secular authorities. If a member of the clergy was accused of a crime, he could appeal to the Church and would be tried by the Church in an ecclesiastical court.

Such courts were intended to produce repentance of the crime, rather than punishment, and so were rather lenient. One interesting thing about this is that the word clergy was not applied narrowly to ordained clergymen, but broadly, to anyone who could read.

The benefit of clergy was not absolutely beyond the control of civil authorities, and monarchs often passed laws limiting the types of crimes that could be tried in ecclesiastical courts. Ultimately, after centuries, they were relevant only to Church matters.

Another thing to remember is that for most of the Middle Ages, most people were peasants. Any understanding of the politics of the time requires an understanding of the conditions of these people. A look at the English serfs illustrates this.

English serfs were technically bound to the land owned by lords. But from a practical point of view, the serfs seldom or never interacted with their lords. The person who acted as a go-between for the serf and the lord was the reeve, an officer of the lord. On many manors, the reeve was a person elected rather democratically by the serfs from among themselves. And though the reeve usually had to be approved by the lord, he also had to be a serf. The reeve was the person who allocated fields and organized workers. From the point of view of many serfs, the reeve was the most important member of the day-to-day government.

Answer 2

During the Middle Ages, Europe was governed through the Feudal System. Under the Feudal System, Kings gave lands to nobles in exchange for military support during wartime. Peasants worked the land and paid taxes to the nobility in exchange for protection.

Answer 3

In these times, The church was the most powerful body. If the church believed something then everyone did to. (The reason Christopher Columbus was denied funds to go on his voyages, because the church reinforced the belief that the earth was flat.)

Answer 4

Politics were local and dictator-like during the Middle Ages. People paid taxes to local kings and nobles, who provided rudimentary protection from marauding invaders and neighboring nobles. There was no accountability; kings did what they wanted without recourse. At the same time, the Roman Catholic Church, represented by the Pope on the grand scale, and local priests in each village, exacted tribute from the local farmers and peasants.

Answer 5

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