# The Renewal of Christendom, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries

History II · Medieval History · https://tryals.app/learn/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries

## Who Appoints the Bishop?

The eleventh-century reform began over church wealth. Kings and lords routinely sold appointments to rich bishoprics.

Two practices drew intense criticism:
- **Simony**: the buying and selling of church office for money.
- Clerical marriage: passing church lands down to personal heirs.

**Cluny**, founded in 909, offered an early model. It answered directly to Rome, free from local lords.

At Rome, change came quickly. The decree of **1059** gave papal elections exclusively to cardinals. This took the choice away from the Roman nobility and the emperor. Later, Pope **Gregory VII** (1073–85) asserted supreme papal authority. His 1075 decrees claimed a pope could depose emperors.

The **Investiture Contest** followed. Henry IV and Gregory deposed each other. Henry stood as a barefoot penitent at **Canossa** in 1077. Gregory was forced to grant absolution, allowing Henry to regain political control.

The compromise came with the **Concordat of Worms** in **1122**. A Bishop received spiritual symbols from the church and temporal lands from the king.

| Movement | From | The innovation |
|---|---|---|
| Cistercians | 1098 (Cîteaux) | Austerity, manual labour, remote sites |
| Franciscans | c. 1209 | Urban preaching and strict poverty |
| Dominicans | 1216 | Theological study and combating heresy |
| Universities | Paris, Bologna (c. 1100) | Self-governing scholar corporations |

The new **friars** lived in expanding towns rather than secluded monasteries.

The **Fourth Lateran** Council met in **1215**. It required every Christian to confess sins annually, tightening pastoral supervision.

The **crusades** reflected this outward expansion. Urban II launched the First Crusade in **1095**. Expeditions soon targeted Iberia, the Baltic, and southern France alongside the Levant.

> **Common pitfall:** Viewing Canossa as an outright papal victory. Henry forced Gregory to absolve him, and secular rulers kept enormous influence over episcopal elections.

## Practice questions

12 of this lesson's 15 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Arrange these episodes in the reform and expansion of the Latin church, earliest first.

**Answer:**

1. The cardinals are given the right to elect the pope
2. Gregory VII issues the Dictatus papae
3. Henry IV does penance at Canossa
4. Urban II preaches the crusade at Clermont
5. The Concordat of Worms settles the investiture dispute
6. Fourth Lateran requires annual confession of every Christian

**Why:** The density between 1059 and 1122 is the point: a papacy that had been a local Roman office at the start of the century is legislating for Latin Christendom by its end. Lateran IV, ninety years later, is what that transformed institution can do once it is unchallenged, reach into every parish in Europe.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/arrange-these-episodes-in-the-reform-and-expansion-of-the-latin

### 2. Henry IV stood as a penitent at Canossa in 1077 and Gregory VII absolved him. Why do historians hesitate to call this a papal victory?

A. Priests cannot refuse penitents absolution, so Henry forced Gregory's hand and could fight rebels
B. German nobles immediately rejected absolution and deposed Henry, rendering papal action irrelevant
C. Gregory dropped claims to depose monarchs once Henry accepted papal decrees against simony in full
D. The Concordat of Worms followed at once, legally dividing secular and spiritual investiture power

**Answer:** A. Priests cannot refuse penitents absolution, so Henry forced Gregory's hand and could fight rebels

**Why:** Refusing a penitent would have contradicted the sacramental claims Gregory’s whole position rested on. Absolution therefore lifted the excommunication that was licensing the German revolt, and Henry went home and won. The conflict continued for another forty-five years, and Gregory died in exile at Salerno.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/henry-iv-stood-as-a-penitent-at-canossa-in-1077-and-gregory-vii

### 3. Eleventh-century reformers attacked clerical marriage not merely as a moral failing, but as an institutional threat. What made hereditary succession in the priesthood so dangerous to the medieval church?

A. It diverted ecclesiastical estates into family inheritances
B. It allowed secular monarchs to purchase bishoprics directly
C. It encouraged rural priests to migrate into expanding towns
D. It compromised sacramental validity during lay confessions

**Answer:** A. It diverted ecclesiastical estates into family inheritances

**Why:** Reformers targeted clerical marriage alongside simony because alienating church land to personal heirs eroded the material independence of the clergy. The threat was structural impoverishment rather than sacramental invalidity, which was not tied to marital status.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/eleventh-century-reformers-attacked-clerical-marriage-not-merely-as-a

### 4. The Concordat of Worms in 1122 removed rulers from the appointment of bishops entirely.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** **False.** Worms divided the act: the church invests with the spiritual symbols, the ruler with the temporal regalia. Since bishops held enormous lands and offices from rulers, and elections often took place in the ruler’s presence, kings and emperors went on determining most appointments in practice for centuries.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/the-concordat-of-worms-in-1122-removed-rulers-from-the-appointment-of

### 5. Match each religious movement to the innovation that distinguishes it.

**Answer:**

- Cluny → A monastery exempt from local lay and episcopal control
- Cîteaux → Austerity and manual labour on remote sites
- The Franciscans → Preaching and begging inside the growing towns
- The Dominicans → Theological training aimed at combating heresy

**Why:** The sequence tracks where the people were. Cluny and Cîteaux are answers to a rural Europe of lordships; the friars are an answer to a Europe with towns of tens of thousands whose parishes were medieval villages that had swollen. Begging in a town is only a viable rule if the town has a surplus to give.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/match-each-religious-movement-to-the-innovation-that-distinguishes-it

### 6. Complete the account of the abuses the reformers attacked.

**Answer:** Trading church office for money was called **simony**, and clerical marriage was opposed partly because it turned a benefice into a **family** asset. Behind both lay the question of who controlled the church’s enormous landed **wealth**. The monastery founded in 909 that answered directly to Rome was **Cluny**.

**Why:** Reading clerical marriage as a moral question alone misses what the reformers were most afraid of: a married clergy produces heirs, heirs inherit benefices, and within two generations a bishopric is a family estate. Celibacy is, among other things, a property rule.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/complete-the-account-of-the-abuses-the-reformers-attacked

### 7. Why do historians describe the numbering of the crusades as a modern convenience?

A. Contemporaries did not label expeditions with numbers
B. Crusading traffic to the East was more or less continuous rather than falling into discrete expeditions
C. Crusades were also preached against targets in Iberia, the Baltic and southern France
D. No expedition after 1099 ever reached the Holy Land

**Answer:** A. Contemporaries did not label expeditions with numbers; B. Crusading traffic to the East was more or less continuous rather than falling into discrete expeditions; C. Crusades were also preached against targets in Iberia, the Baltic and southern France

**Why:** The numbered scheme was imposed later and it distorts twice over: it makes a continuous flow of pilgrims, settlers and armies look like five or eight discrete events, and it hides the crusades preached against Iberian Muslims, Baltic pagans and Latin Christian heretics, which absorbed a great deal of the movement’s energy.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/why-do-historians-describe-the-numbering-of-the-crusades-as-a-modern

### 8. Arrange the stages of the Investiture Contest in order.

**Answer:**

1. The cardinals take control of papal elections from the Roman nobility and the emperor
2. Gregory VII claims in writing that a pope may depose an emperor
3. Henry IV and Gregory declare each other deposed
4. Henry appears as a penitent at Canossa and is absolved
5. Decades of intermittent war follow and Gregory dies in exile
6. A compromise divides spiritual from temporal investiture

**Why:** The shape is worth holding: an escalation, a dramatic scene that settled nothing, a long war, and a technical compromise that both sides could live with. The drama is at step four and the substance is at step six, which is the reverse of how the story is usually told.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/arrange-the-stages-of-the-investiture-contest-in-order

### 9. In which year did the Concordat of Worms settle the investiture dispute by dividing spiritual from temporal investiture?

**Answer:** 1122

**Why:** **1122.** The gap between the dramatic scene and the settlement is the useful fact. Canossa is what gets remembered because it is a story with a picture in it; Worms is where the actual constitutional arrangement between rulers and the church was fixed, and it lasted.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/in-which-year-did-the-concordat-of-worms-settle-the-investiture

### 10. Sort each development by whether it extended the church’s reach into ordinary LAY life or reorganised the church’s own INTERNAL government.

**Answer:**

- Reached into lay life: Compulsory annual confession to one’s own priest, Friars preaching in the streets of growing towns, Crusade preached to laymen as a penitential act
- Reorganised internal government: Election of the pope by the cardinals alone, Exemption of monasteries from the local bishop, The division of investiture between church and ruler

**Why:** The two columns are connected by a single logic: an institution that has just won control of its own appointments and revenues is in a position to make demands of everyone else. The internal reforms come first, and the reach into lay life follows within a century.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/sort-each-development-by-whether-it-extended-the-churchs-reach-into

### 11. The mendicant orders differed from earlier monasticism chiefly in going into towns rather than withdrawing from the world.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True**, and it is a response to a changed Europe. Parish structures were built for villages, and the towns of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had outgrown them. The friars went where the unattended population was, which is also why they were resented by parish clergy whose offerings they diverted.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/the-mendicant-orders-differed-from-earlier-monasticism-chiefly-in

### 12. Universities appeared at Bologna and Paris as corporations of masters and students holding legal privileges. How does that legal form explain their durability?

A. It placed masters and scholars under monastic rule, shielding them from secular taxes
B. It gave students canon law immunity, letting guilds create sovereign municipal courts
C. It turned schools into hereditary fiefs of the ruler, ensuring perpetual royal grants
D. A corporation outlives its members, holds property, and bargains with town and bishop

**Answer:** D. A corporation outlives its members, holds property, and bargains with town and bishop

**Why:** The privilege that mattered most was the threat of leaving: a corporation could withdraw en masse to another town, taking its rents and custom with it, and several did. That leverage, plus perpetual existence and the capacity to hold endowments, turned a temporary gathering around a famous teacher into an institution that has now lasted nine centuries.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/the-renewal-of-christendom-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/universities-appeared-at-bologna-and-paris-as-corporations-of-masters