Simony

Abstract: Abbreviations Introduction, Esther Cohen PART ONE. TRANSFORMATIONS: TEXT, SCRIPTURE, AND AUTHORITY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES 1. Reflections on Canonization and the Authority of the Written Word in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: By Way of Comment, Marco Mostert 2. Holy Scripture and the Transmission of Knowledge in Early Islam: The Inception of Arabic Linguistic Studies, Monique Bernards 3. Martin of Braga's De correctione rusticorum and its Uses in Frankish Gaul, Yitzhak Hen 4. Religious Instruction in the Frankish Kingdoms, Rob Meens 5. Exegesis for an Empress, Mayke de Jong 6. The Varying Roles of Biblical Testimonies in the Carolingian Image Controversies, Thomas F.X. Noble PART TWO. TRANSFORMATIONS: GIFTS, VIOLENCE, AND BRIBES, HIGH AND LATE MIDDLE AGES 7. The Medieval Gift as Agent of Social Bonding and Political Power: A Comparative Approach, Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld 8. Gifts And Simony, Timothy Reuter 9. The Politics of Exchange: Gifts, Fiefs, and Feudalism, Stephen D. White 10. Presenting Respect in the Eleventh Century: Odo of Blaison and the Canons of St.-Lezin, Hendrik Teunis 11. From Peace to Power: The Study of Disputes in Medieval France, Stephen D. White 12. Accountancies and Arcana: Registering the Gift in Late Medieval Cities, Valentin Groebner 13. Pruning Peasants: Private War and Maintaining the Lords' Peace in Late Medieval Germany, Gadi Algazi Index

Abstract: Few men have ever shown a more sublime faith in the divine origin of their mission than the papal reformers of the eleventh century. They set to work with a ‘modest proposal’ to destroy two of the most intimate and powerful foundations of clerical society: they aimed to abolish simony and with it the lay control of patronage; they tried to destroy the family life of the clergy. From one point of view they were doing only what every policeman does—they were trying to enforce the established law. From another point of view their platform was a devastating social revolution. If we may admire the high idealism of Leo IX, Humbert, Hildebrand and Peter Damian, we must also concede that their work had many victims; the legislation of the eleventh-century Popes on clerical marriage must have produced as many broken homes and personal tragedies as the morals of Hollywood. Both Damian the ascetic and Heloise the deserted wife have a claim on our sympathy as historians; and both found their supporters in their own day. Between the unbending demand for the enforcement of celibacy and the view of the Anonymous of York that it was entirely proper for the clergy to be married there were many possible positions. The Anonymous (writing at the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries) was propounding opinions already obsolescent; and clerical marriage found few defenders in the middle and late twelfth century. But if the field narrowed, the subtleties of the problem were more fully appreciated. The twelfth century was an age of growing sophistication in lay circles as well as clerical. Nowhere was this more true than in the world of love and of marriage; in that century (whatever the lot of womankind as a whole) the romantic ideal was born, under whose spell we still live. It is the variety and the subtlety of the view-points which give my subject its interest, and also its intractability. Clerical marriage is an exceedingly delicate topic, though it has not always been delicately treated.

Abstract: The Salian century can been seen as falling into two parts: whereas Conrad II and Henry III reigned according to established customs, Henry IV was faced with problems that left him and most of his contemporaries without orientation. To medieval historians, Henry III was a pious ruler because he fought simony and his father Conrad II was rather less so because he did not. Some twenty years after Henry III's death, Pope Gregory VII formally abjured the dual allegiance of the bishops towards king and pope when he declared all investitures performed by laymen, including the kings, to be illegal. As far as the contest over investitures was concerned, Henry V opened negotiations almost immediately after his father's death. As king of Italy and emperor-to-be and as the son and successor of the pope's personal enemy, Henry V had to come to terms with Pope Paschal II himself.