The differentiation of authority: the medieval turn toward existence

7. The Medieval Papacy and the Overreach of Authority

204 7 The Medieval Papacy and the Overreach of Authority After considering the development of political authority in the crisis of meaning in medieval society, the church—as the institutional carrier of transcendental substance and the eminent spiritual authority of the medieval West—must now be considered. The spiritual authority of the church will be discussed in the context of the differentiation of authority . Consequently, much of the church’s doctrine and life that properly belong to other fields of enquiry, such as theology, will be placed in parentheses as much as this is possible. Relevant contexts for this narrative include claims of the medieval church to potestas over the mundus, its relation to the political authorities of the time, and the question of authority within its own ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The fragmentation of the medieval world after the twelfth century was a rapid process of unraveling that had seismic effects on the primary medieval institutions. The actions of the emperors Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI had expanded and consolidated the imperial zone against the Normans without and the disloyal lords within. The rise of the political fringe restricted the significance of the empire as a power unit and was symptomatic of the dying aspiration for a temporal-spiritual Chris- The Medieval Papacy 205 tian order, the civil theology that had sustained the meaning of medieval society for centuries and had formed a civilization in the West. The differentiation of authority was proceeding relentlessly, and while Pope Gelasius could develop a formula for universal governance in the coordination of the two ordines of rex et sacerdotes, the assertion of existential authority had no obvious place within the Gelasian pattern. The problem of individual existence and authority had not yet begun to appear in Gelasius’s time, but by the end of the twelfth century, the church was increasingly faced with problems about authority in the world—both political and existential—which it had not had to deal with practically before. The new and potent factor at work in the civil theology was the existential, which was affecting attitudes and expectations among Christians with regard to both spiritual and political authorities. The Gelasian emphasis therefore was placed on the authorities arising from the transcendental-spiritual sphere and the temporal-political sphere— and their coordination—rather than on the individual Christian who participates in both spheres. The inadequacy of the Two Swords as the final, comprehensive arrangement for Christendom was borne out by the rise of existential authority and the crisis of restlessness and anxiety it inaugurated. In addition to the problem of an unseen, but acutely present, third authority in the individual existence of Christian persons, the jurisdictional boundaries of the transcendental and temporal institutions had never been finally worked out and were never clear. The claims of jurisdiction made by both church and empire were for areas of human life that are not definitively just temporal or spiritual, but rather overlapping, such as the nature of Christian kingship, or even the institution of marriage and the morality of the Christian subjects. We have seen how, for example, Charlemagne legislated morality for his subjects regarding orphans and widows. Overlapping aspects of existence that extend into spiritual and temporal concerns largely involve the assertion of existential authority. Before the end of the twelfth century, existence-as-authority was not recognized and the overlapping zones became the subjects of intense rivalries between the Two Swords. The meaning of kingship, the meaning of social institutions, and the ground of ethical action all derive within civil theology which itself is not exclusively a spiritual or political preserve, 206 The Medieval Papacy but a living body of truth that emerges spontaneously from the social existence of concrete persons who participate at once in the transcendental and temporal dimensions of reality. The fragmentation of the medieval world occurred due to the shifts in civil theology, particularly those concerning the understanding of what constitutes the dignity of the Christian person and the consequent authority carried by individual Christian persons. This newly assertive understanding was to reconfigure the sets of relations among ecclesial, political, and personal authorities with profound civilizational consequences. The pragmatic events of the late twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries involved the papacy in working out its degree of influence on temporal reality, within the context of its responsibility to the revealed truths of supernatural theology. The Latin civilization of the Christian West had been spiritually...