Alternate Author Name(s)

John Frank Stephens, Jr.

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

1977

Keywords

History of Castile (Spain), Church history, Middle Ages (600-1500), Catholic Church, Spain, Influence

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

History

First Advisor

Norman F. Cantor

Second Advisor

Norman A. Stillman

Third Advisor

Immanuel Wallerstein

Abstract

The Gregorian Reform movement was the first attack on the politico-economic system that developed between 500-1000 A.D. in Europe out of the collision and fusion of Germanic and Roman modes of production and social organization: it tried to end lay exploitation of the church's economy, ecclesiastical participation in feudal obligations, and secular interference in church offices and sacraments. It was the first ideological revolution in western civilization, attempting to create a transnational monopoly over written language and religion—the main components of any ideological system at the time—to challenge theocratic and ecclesiastical sanctions of kingship, and to assert supreme papal authority over the monarchies and territorial churches in Europe. Like other revolutions, the radicals lost their leadership to practical statesmen, who called a halt to ideological polarization, utilized the Crusade movement to restore peace and link the military ruling classes and papacy in battle against a common enemy, and worked in tandem with monarchy towards the legal and administrative centralization of the church hierarchy, leaving church-state relations to be governed according to the custom of individual kingdoms.

This dissertation examines the interior evolution of the church-state system of Castile-Leon within the general European context but with especial emphasis on the unique matrix of Hispanic social formations. The specific historical struggle of the Reconquest was the fundamental determinant of the Castilian-Leonese politico-economic system, producing an array of traits which are not homologous with the main types of European feudalism. This basic fact set Castile-Leon apart from other European countries early on, with a profound impact on church-state relations. The first chapter concentrates on the geographic and socio-economic structure of the Reconquest movement, and the second chapter on the unique organization of the Castilian-Leonese societal system.

One single institution spanned the passage from Visigothic to Castilian-Leonese society: the Church. It preserved Gothic religious culture and transmitted and adapted it to the pre-Gregorian world of the Reconquest. It was the official mentor of the first systematic effort to renovate the Visigothic regime, the Leonese imperial-kingdom. With the Neo-Gothic State, the history of the Christian Reconquest proper begins. But this massive ideological and administrative effort to recreate the Visigothic church-state system contained and dissembled, by a typical inversion, the involuntary foundation of the new. The third chapter examines the Church’s role in the Neo-Gothic reconstruction, the use of supreme royal leadership over the permanent crusade to the south in the interests of the Church, its selective reception of exogenous religious influences, and the failure of Gregory VII’s program to assert supreme papal authority over the Neo-Gothic reconstruction and Reconquest efforts. The fourth chapter examines the progressive administrative and ideological integration of the Neo-Gothic church-state hierarchy, the papacy’s abandonment of ideological confrontation, and its efforts to formally affix the new clerical bureaucracy to the papal super-state. Under Paschal II, the Gregorian movement became more radical, while Castile-Leon experienced a devastating succession crisis. The fifth chapter examines the papacy’s interventionist role in the ensuing civil war and its efforts to take control over the reconstruction of dioceses and ecclesiastical provinces. The sixth chapter analyzes the papacy’s role in the monarchical restoration, episcopal power struggles, and the final dissolution of the Neo-Gothic imperial program. In order to maintain his effective control over the Leonese Church, the emperor had not only to come to an understanding with the papacy which would give minor concessions to Rome, while leaving church-state relations fundamentally unchanged, but abandon the traditional program to forcibly unify Christian Spain. He agreed because the imperial-kingdom was an infeasible political entity. It was torn by seigneurial and ethno-political conflict. The seventh chapter provides for a theoretical reprise: it compares the social origins and goals of the Gregorian and Neo-Gothic movements. The final portion is a historiographical essay on the Gregorian Reform in Spain.

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