10651 The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages: Ideology and Politics

Credits: 6 intermediate credits in Medieval History

Prerequisites: none

Author: Sophia Menache

The course discusses the position, structure, and political authority of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. It focuses on processes and movements that made their mark on western culture beginning with the evolution of gentile belief in Jesus until the collapse of the Church as a decisive political factor at the end of the Middle Ages, emphasizing the gap between ideology and politics, and the relations between ideas and historical development.

Topics: The fundaments of Christian belief; The institutions of the Church; Monasticism – ideology and historical development; The political legacy of early Christianity; The conversion of the Germanic tribes; Church and state in the Carolingian period; The Gregorian reform and the conflict over investiture; The Crusades; Heresy and its repression; Church and state in the 13th century; The end of an era – the Avignon papacy and the Conciliar movement.