Читать книгу A Source Book for Mediæval History - Oliver J. Thatcher - Страница 51

The chief purpose of the documents offered in this section is to illustrate the growth of the papal power and the development of the conflicting claims of the empire and the papacy. The organization of the church was a matter of slow growth, and at first the bishop of Rome actually exercised ecclesiastical authority in a decisive way only in his own diocese. But by 1073 the organization of the church was so developed that the supremacy of the pope over the church and ecclesiastical affairs in the west was in a fair way of becoming an accomplished fact. He had secured the sole right to be called pope, universal, and apostolic.

The growth of his temporal power is even more clearly marked. At the time of Constantine the bishop of Rome had no temporal authority. But gradually he acquired power over temporal matters and exercised various secular and even imperial prerogatives, until Gregory VII found it easy to formulate and put forth the claim that the pope was master of the emperor and the real ruler of the world even in temporal things. Before 1073 there was occasional friction between the empire and the papacy, but this did not develop into a real and definite struggle for world supremacy until Gregory VII became pope.

Selections are here given to illustrate (1) the election of bishops, and especially the early election of the bishop of Rome, nos. 33, 34, 37, 38; (2) the chief means by which the pope acquired recognition of his ecclesiastical headship in the west, that is, his missionary work, nos. 35, 39, 40; (3) the rebellion of the pope against the rule of the Greek emperors, nos. 41, 42; (4) the acquisition of land and of temporal authority by the pope, nos. 36, 43–46, 54; (5) the development of specific conflicting claims of pope and emperor regarding the election and consecration of the pope, the creation and coronation of the emperor, and the exercise of functions which had been regarded as imperial, nos. 47–53, 55–59.