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The medieval Catholic Church was one of the most complex and sophisticated institutions of the High Middle Ages. It was organized as a hierarchy of offices and jurisdictions, with the pope at the top, the archbishops and bishops in the middle, and the parish priests at the bottom. The regular clergy — the monks, friars, and nuns — operated alongside the secular clergy, and the Church maintained its own legal system, its own educational institutions, and its own diplomatic corps. By the thirteenth century, the medieval Church was one of the largest and most powerful organizations in Europe, with a presence in every village, town, and city of Christendom.
This cluster explores the structure of the medieval Church. The articles in the related long-tail pages provide deeper examinations of specific aspects of the topic.
Colin Morris, “The Papal Monarchy” (1989), is the standard English-language treatment of the medieval Church as an institution. The older book by R. W. Southern, “The Making of the Middle Ages” (1953), still does the most elegant job of putting the structure in the context of the wider intellectual culture. The page below uses both, and flags the regional variation (the English and Italian Churches, the Spanish and German Churches) that a papal-monarchy frame on its own would flatten.
The Papacy
The pope — the bishop of Rome — was the head of the medieval Church, and he claimed to be the successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, to whom Christ had given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The pope’s authority was understood to be universal in its scope, extending to all Christians, and to be supreme in the spiritual order, with the power to teach, to sanctify, and to govern the Church.
The papal curia was the administrative apparatus of the papacy. The chancery produced the documents — the bulls, the briefs, the letters — by which the pope communicated with the Church and the world. The camera managed the papal finances. The penitentiaria handled the most serious cases of conscience reserved to the pope. The audientia litterarum contradictarum heard the cases that were appealed to the pope. The datary handled the dispensations and benefices that were the subject of papal grants.
The college of cardinals was the body of senior churchmen who advised the pope and who elected his successor. The cardinals were originally the priests of the tituli (parish churches) of Rome, the deacons of the diaconiae (administrative districts) of Rome, and the bishops of the suburbicarian sees (the dioceses around Rome). By the eleventh century, the cardinals had become a more clearly defined body, and the papal bull of 1059, In Nomine Domini, restricted the election of the pope to the cardinals. By the twelfth century, the cardinals had become the princes of the Church, and they played a major role in the politics of the Church and the states of Europe.
The papal legates were the personal representatives of the pope, dispatched to the various kingdoms and regions of Christendom to conduct negotiations, to hear disputes, and to report back to Rome. The legatus a latere — a cardinal or other high official sent directly from the pope — was the most important kind of legate, with the fullest authority. The legatus natus — a prelate with a standing appointment as legate in a particular region — had more limited authority. The legates played a major role in the diplomacy of the medieval Church, and they often served as mediators in the disputes between kings and between kings and popes.
The Bishops and the Secular Clergy
The bishops were the principal officers of the Church in the regions and cities of Christendom. Each bishop governed a diocese — a territorial unit of the Church — and he had authority over the clergy and the laity of his diocese. The bishops were responsible for the ordination of priests and deacons, the confirmation of the faithful, the consecration of churches and altars, the administration of the sacraments, and the discipline of the clergy and the laity of his diocese.
The archbishop (or metropolitan) was the bishop of an archdiocese — a larger territorial unit that included several dioceses. The archbishop presided over the provincial council of the bishops of his province, and he had the right to hear appeals from the diocesan courts of his suffragans. The archbishops of the great sees — Canterbury, York, Reims, Tours, Cologne, Mainz, Milan, Toledo — were among the most powerful figures in the medieval Church, and they often played a major role in the politics of their nations.
The parish priest was the lowest level of the hierarchy of the secular clergy. The parish was the basic unit of local religious life, and the parish priest was responsible for the care of souls of the faithful in his parish. The parish priest celebrated the Mass on Sundays and holy days, administered the sacraments, preached, heard confessions, visited the sick, and buried the dead. The parish priest was often a man of humble origin, and he was typically supported by the tithes and the offerings of his parishioners, with a glebe (a piece of land) and a parsonage (a house) as additional support.
The cathedral chapter was the body of canons (and later, in some places, canonesses) who served the cathedral church of a diocese. The chapter was responsible for the liturgy of the cathedral, and it often had the right to elect the bishop of the diocese. The chapter also had a major role in the administration of the diocese during the vacancy of the see, and the archdeacon — an official of the chapter — had a major role in the discipline of the clergy and the laity of the diocese.
The secular clergy were the priests and deacons who served the parishes, the cathedrals, and the chapels of the medieval Church. They lived in the world — hence the term secular — and they were not bound by a monastic rule. They were subject to the bishop of the diocese, and they were expected to obey the laws of the Church and the canons of the diocesan synod.
The Regular Clergy
The regular clergy — the monks, friars, and nuns — were bound by a monastic rule (hence the term regular). The monastic life involved the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and the monks and nuns lived in communities under the authority of an abbot or abbess. The monastic life was devoted to prayer, study, and manual work, and the monasteries were major centers of religious life, learning, and economic activity.
The Benedictine monasteries — governed by the Rule of St. Benedict — were the oldest and most numerous of the monastic institutions. The Benedictine life was organized around the Divine Office — the recitation of the psalms and prayers at fixed hours of the day and night — and the manual work of the fields, the workshop, and the library. The Benedictine monasteries were major landowners, and they played a major role in the agricultural development of medieval Europe.
The Cistercian monasteries — founded in 1098 at the abbey of Cîteaux in Burgundy — were a reform of the Benedictine tradition, with a stricter observance, a simpler liturgy, and a more austere life. The Cistercians became one of the most influential monastic orders of the High Middle Ages, founding hundreds of monasteries across Europe, and they played a major role in the agricultural, economic, and spiritual life of the period.
The mendicant orders — the Franciscans and Dominicans — emerged in the early thirteenth century, with a new form of religious life based on evangelical poverty, preaching, and pastoral work. The Franciscans, founded by St. Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226), and the Dominicans, founded by St. Dominic (1170–1221), renounced property altogether and lived by begging (hence the term mendicant). They were not tied to monasteries but to friaries in the towns and cities of Christendom, and they played a major role in the preaching, teaching, and pastoral care of the laity.
The nuns lived in monasteries for women, often of aristocratic foundation, governed by an abbess and a rule. The nuns spent their time in prayer, in reading and study, in manual work (often the production of illuminated manuscripts, the weaving of tapestries, or the management of the monastery’s estates), and in the care of the sick and the poor. The nuns of the great houses — Fontevraud, Barking, Quedlinburg, Sainte-Marie de Rieunelle — were often drawn from the highest aristocracy, and they could exercise considerable authority as abbesses of great communities.
Canon Law
The canon law of the medieval Church was the body of law that governed the discipline of the clergy, the administration of the sacraments, the structure of the Church, and the relations of the Church with the state. The canon law was developed over centuries, drawing on the Roman law, the decrees of the popes, the decrees of the councils, and the customs of the various local churches.
The Decretum of Gratian, compiled around 1140, was the foundational text of the scholastic study of canon law. The Decretum organized the canon law of the previous millennium in a systematic way, distinguishing the various sources of law and resolving the apparent contradictions. The Decretum became the standard textbook of canon law in the medieval universities, and it was the basis of the corpus of canon law that was taught in the law schools of the High Middle Ages.
The Decretals of the popes were the most important source of new law. The papal letters and judgments were collected and published, and they had the force of law throughout the Church. The Liber Extra (or Decretales Gregorii IX), compiled by Raymond of Penyafort under the direction of Pope Gregory IX in 1234, was the most important of the papal collections. The Liber Sextus of Pope Boniface VIII (1298) and the Clementinae of Pope Clement V (1317) were later additions.
The Church courts were the tribunals that enforced the canon law. The bishop’s court was the court of first instance for most cases; the archdeacon’s court had jurisdiction over certain matters of clerical discipline; the archbishop’s court heard appeals from the bishop’s courts of the province; and the papal court heard appeals from the archbishop’s courts and had exclusive jurisdiction in certain reserved cases. The Church courts dealt with matrimonial cases, with testamentary cases, with cases of heresy, with cases of clerical discipline, and with various other matters reserved to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
The Church in the World
The medieval Church was not merely a spiritual institution; it was a major economic, political, and cultural actor in the medieval world. The Church owned vast estates across Europe, and it was the largest landowner in most regions. The Church collected the tithes and the offerings of the faithful, and it was a major recipient of bequests and endowments. The Church operated its own courts and legal system, and it had its own diplomatic corps of legates and nuncios.
The Church was a major patron of the arts. The cathedrals and monasteries of the medieval period were among the most impressive buildings of the age, and the art and architecture of the Church set the standard for visual culture across Europe. The illumination of manuscripts, the sculpture of the tympana and the jambs, the stained glass of the Gothic cathedrals, the metalwork of the reliquaries and the altar furnishings — all were major industries, employing thousands of craftsmen and producing works of extraordinary beauty and technical skill.
The Church was a major educational institution. The cathedral schools and the monastic schools were the principal centers of learning in the early Middle Ages, and the universities that emerged in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries were largely under the supervision of the Church. The curriculum of the medieval university — the seven liberal arts followed by the higher faculties of theology, law, and medicine — was developed by the clergy and secular masters who staffed the universities.
The Church was a major diplomatic actor. The pope was the most important arbiter in the international disputes of medieval Christendom, and the legates of the pope were major diplomats in the courts of the kings of Europe. The Peace of God and the Truce of God — the great peace movements of the tenth and eleventh centuries — were promoted by the Church, and they were major steps in the development of international law. The Crusades — the great holy wars of the period — were proclaimed by the pope and were conducted under the authority of the Church.
The articles in this cluster open up these themes in greater depth: the page on the role of bishops in the medieval Church examines the men who actually ran the diocesan church on the ground, and the related pages on monasticism, the papal monarchy, and the friars follow the Church’s other institutional shapes.
Sources
Principal sources used in this article:
- Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy (Oxford, 1989), pt. 1.
Further reading:
- Robert Brentano, Two Churches: England and Italy in the Thirteenth Century (Princeton, 1968).
For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).