About the Work
This is an editorial introduction to a body of medieval documents gathered under the heading “Church and State,” forming Book IV of a larger collection of historical sources. The documents themselves—letters, decrees, conciliar acts, bulls, and formal agreements—span roughly the period from the mid-eleventh century to the early fourteenth, and they trace one of the central conflicts of the European Middle Ages: the long struggle between the papacy and secular rulers over who held ultimate authority in Christendom. The editorial matter that frames them provides historical context, explains the circumstances behind each document, and sketches the course of the disputes they record.
“The whole life of Pope Gregory VII. (1073-1085) was one long effort to raise the papacy and the priesthood into a higher sphere.”
The collection is presented in a modern English translation, and the editorial voice is that of a nineteenth-century scholar writing for an educated general readership. The introduction is not a work of original research so much as a guide: it tells the reader what each document is, when and why it was produced, and what was at stake. Its tone is measured and analytical, though not without occasional flashes of dry wit—as when the editor compares a papal manoeuvre to a trick in Spanish bullfighting, successful once but fatal if repeated. The overall impression is of a careful historian walking a reader through a complex and often dramatic sequence of events, pausing to explain the institutional background that makes the documents intelligible.
The documents themselves are the heart of the matter. They include the so-called Dictate of the Pope, the decrees of Roman synods, the exchange of haughty letters between Henry IV and Gregory VII, the record of the confrontation at Canossa, the Concordat of Worms, the correspondence between Frederick Barbarossa and Adrian IV, the acts of the Pavia synod and the peace of Venice, King John’s surrender of England as a papal fief, and the great bulls of Boniface VIII. Together they constitute a documentary history of the papacy’s claim to supremacy over temporal powers, and of the resistance that claim provoked.
Context
The documents belong to a period in which the relationship between spiritual and secular authority was being contested with unusual intensity. The eleventh century had seen a movement of reform within the church, associated above all with the monastery of Cluny and with a series of popes who sought to free the church from lay control. Central to this programme was the attack on simony—the purchase of ecclesiastical office—and on lay investiture, the practice by which kings and emperors appointed bishops and abbots and invested them with the symbols of their office. The reformers argued that such practices corrupted the church and subordinated spiritual authority to worldly power. Their opponents saw in the reform programme an assault on the legitimate prerogatives of Christian rulers, whose cooperation was essential to the good order of society.
The editor’s introduction situates the documents within this larger conflict. It opens by characterizing the whole life of Pope Gregory VII as one long effort to raise the papacy and the priesthood into a higher sphere. Gregory, who reigned from 1073 to 1085, was the great architect of the papal monarchy, and the documents gathered here show both the boldness of his claims and the resistance they encountered. The introduction notes that even before Gregory became pope, he was the power behind the throne, and that through his influence a document was drawn up in 1059 placing the initiative in electing the pope exclusively in the hands of the cardinal-bishops. This document was tampered with at an early date, so that two versions survive, one giving the king of the Romans a much larger share in the election than the other—a detail that illustrates how contested the question of papal election had already become.
The investiture controversy, as the struggle is known, was not merely a quarrel about ritual. As the editor explains, a bishop in this period was not only a church dignitary but a prince of the realm, bound to send contingents to the king’s army and to act as councillor at court. Bishoprics held fiefs and jurisdictions, and these were given to faithful followers as reward for past and in consideration of future services. A royal renunciation of the right to choose men for the rich bishoprics and abbeys of Germany and Italy would therefore have meant practical abdication. This is why the forbiddal of lay investiture was so explosive, and why Henry IV resisted it so fiercely.
The introduction also notes that the papacy’s claims rested in part on documents that were later shown to be forgeries. Many quotations in Gregory’s letter of justification to Bishop Herrmann of Metz come from the forged Isidorian decretals, which claim for the popes the sanction of antiquity for a jurisdiction far beyond what they had actually enjoyed. This is a point the editor makes without heavy emphasis, but it is an important one: the papal monarchy was built not only on political power and religious authority but also on a body of legal texts whose authenticity was not yet in question.
Structure of the Book
The book is organized as a sequence of numbered documents, each introduced by editorial commentary that explains its background and significance. The documents are grouped according to the episodes they illustrate, and the sequence follows a broadly chronological order, beginning with the investiture controversy of the eleventh century and extending through the conflicts of the twelfth, thirteenth, and early fourteenth centuries. The editorial matter is interspersed with the documents, so that the reader encounters each text with the necessary context already in hand.
The first group of documents, numbered II, concerns the struggle between Gregory VII and Henry IV. It includes the Dictate of the Pope, the decrees of the Roman synod of 1075, the letters exchanged between king and pope, the record of Canossa, and the agreements that followed. The second group, numbered III, concerns the correspondence between Adrian IV and Frederick Barbarossa in 1157–8. The third, numbered IV, covers the contest between Frederick Barbarossa and Alexander III, from 1160 to 1177. The fourth, numbered V, is the act by which King John laid England at the feet of a papal legate in 1213. The fifth, numbered VI, is the bull “clericis laicos” of 1296. The sixth, numbered VII, is the bull “unam sanctam” of 1302. A final document, numbered VIII, is mentioned in passing as a comparison for Frederick’s manifesto—the electors’ utterances of 1338—though the notes do not describe it in detail.
The structure is thus thematic as well as chronological. Each group of documents illustrates a particular phase or aspect of the conflict between church and state, and the editorial commentary draws connections between them. The reader is invited to see the investiture controversy not as an isolated episode but as one instance of a recurring pattern: the papacy asserting its superiority over temporal rulers, and those rulers resisting with arguments drawn from history, law, and the nature of their own office.
Inside the Book
The introduction begins with Gregory VII and the investiture controversy. It characterizes Gregory’s whole life as one long effort to raise the papacy and the priesthood into a higher sphere, and notes that even before his election he was the power behind the throne. Through his influence a document was drawn up in 1059 placing the initiative in electing the pope exclusively in the hands of the cardinal-bishops. This document was tampered with at an early date, so that two versions survive, one giving the king of the Romans a much larger share in the election than the other. At Gregory’s own election in 1073 the forms of the 1059 decree were not regarded; Henry IV did not stress this until years later, when open enmity had been declared between himself and the pope.
The Dictate of the Pope shows most clearly Gregory’s prepared attitude. What the Dictate was intended to be remains a mystery: it may have been headings for future elaboration or a summary of utterances already delivered. It is found in the register of Gregory’s letters made in his own day, and its authenticity is undeniable. A Roman synod in 1075 proclaimed sacerdotal celibacy, made war on simony—excommunicating five of Henry IV’s councillors for attaining ecclesiastical office by that means—and declared lay investiture uncanonical. The wording of the last decree has not come down, but was probably similar to the decrees issued respectively in 1078 and 1080. The forbiddal of lay investiture was especially directed against Henry IV, who had recently, disregarding the papal candidate, taken the election of an archbishop of Milan into his own hands. This was one of Gregory’s boldest moves: a royal renunciation of choosing men for the rich bishoprics and abbeys of Germany and Italy meant practical abdication, since a bishop was then not only a church dignitary but a prince of the realm, bound to send contingents to the king’s army and act as councillor at court. Bishoprics’ fiefs and jurisdictions were given to faithful followers as reward for past and in consideration of future services; now the king was to desist from influencing episcopal elections.
Henry continued consorting with the five councillors under the bann for simony, though in a moment of discouragement he had promised unqualified submission to the pope. He also disdained to treat concerning lay investiture, though Gregory seems to have invited and courted discussion. The pope’s letter reached him when flushed with pride over his victory over the obdurate Saxons, and Gregory’s envoys used even stronger terms than their writing contained. In a fury of rage the king summoned a council at Worms. Two archbishops and two-thirds of all the bishops of Germany attended. After a long series of accusations against the pope, the council decreed that Gregory, having wrongfully ascended the throne of Peter, must straightway descend from it. Two letters were despatched to Rome the same day, one from the king, one from the bishops. When the German envoys presented them to the pope sitting in council in the Lateran, wild excitement ensued, and the bearers of such haughty messages were with difficulty saved from instant death. The pope and his synod retaliated by banning all the dissentient bishops as well as the king, declaring the latter’s royal power forfeit and all his subjects loosed from their allegiance. Both parties then publicized their grievances: Henry issued a summons to the princes for a new council at Worms, defining his position, while Gregory sent a long letter of justification, couched in the most tolerant terms, to the German bishops.
It was most disastrous for Henry that a strong opposition party existed among the princes of his own land, to whom even an ally like Gregory was not unwelcome, the accomplishment of whose aims would have been the greatest possible national misfortune. Nor were the princes long alone in enmity to the king: Gregory won over a number even of the very bishops who had signed the document of his deposition. Henry’s proposed council at Worms was so scantily attended that it was removed to Mainz. Here too the German princes were conspicuous by their absence. Of their own accord they held a diet at Tribur and forced Henry to agree to the convention of Oppenheim. Among themselves they agreed that, should Henry fail to obtain absolution from the bann within a year from the date of the assembly, he should be deposed from the throne. They furthermore invited Gregory to be present at an Augsburg diet, where he was to sit in judgment on their king.
Henry was relegated to a kind of banishment in Spires, ordered to abstain from all interference in public affairs until the pope’s decision should be rendered. He found this state unbearable and resolved on the step that would make him the most famous suppliant in history. It was necessary to break the strong league between the pope and the German princes. The princes demanded that the king gain absolution from the bann, and he determined to do so at any price. The church’s prime teaching was that no repentant sinner who sought God’s mercy in the proper way could fail to obtain it. Had Gregory, as spiritual head of Christendom, refused to pardon one ready to undergo any depth of penance, his influence would have been irrevocably shaken. What happened at Canossa is described by Gregory himself in his letter to the German princes. Henry rode away from the Tuscan castle bound by promises for the future but in reality a free man, free to labour and consult for his own interests. At the price of deep personal humiliation he had gained an undoubted diplomatic victory.
For a time this was not apparent. Little more than a month after Canossa, an assembly of princes at Forscheim elected Rudolf of Swabia as anti-king. But Henry’s following proved far more considerable than his rival’s. It was greatly advantageous that Gregory remained neutral for a time, taking the role of mediator. But in 1080, under pretence that Henry had hindered the calling of a council that would have ended the civil war, the pope renewed the bann against him and acknowledged Rudolf as rightful king. The editor compares this to a famous manoeuvre in Spanish bull-fights, successful once but fatal to the torreador if repeated. A storm of indignation rose against the pope; the Lombard and German bishops rallied to Henry. First in Bamberg, then in Mainz, and finally in Brixen, Gregory was declared deposed. Wibert of Ravenna was made pope in his stead. Gregory’s letter of justification to Bishop Herrmann of Metz shows a power of reasoning worthy of the Jesuits. Gregory’s pontificate marks an era in papal history; he was first to formulate many dogmas later forming the bases of the most extravagant claims. Boniface VIII’s “God has constituted us over kings and kingdoms” is another form of a doctrine of Gregory’s. Many quotations in the present letter come from the forged Isidorian decretals, which claim for the popes the sanction of antiquity for a jurisdiction far beyond what they had actually enjoyed.
On Easter day 1084 the anti-pope Wibert crowned Henry in St. Peter’s as emperor of the Romans; the following year Pope Gregory died in exile in Salerno. Henry followed him to the grave in 1106, still under the bann Gregory and his successors had hurled against him. The war of the investitures was not yet fought out. Henry V was as unwilling and unable to give up the royal prerogative as his father. Various attempts at settlement were made. In 1111 Henry compelled Pope Paschal II to draw up an agreement by which the crown would receive back all temporal grants made by it over centuries to the clergy. On these terms only was the king ready to renounce the right of investiture. When read in St. Peter’s before the clergy assembled for the imperial coronation, the document aroused violent opposition. The ceremony could not be performed, the day ended in uproar, and the pope and cardinals were taken prisoner by the king. After weeks of captivity Paschal was ready to concede, finally consenting to an unqualified resignation of the right of investiture. The following year a Lateran council repudiated this compact, and a synod at Vienne declared lay investiture heresy, placing Henry under the bann. In 1118 the question led to election of a new anti-pope and a new schism. Four years later, under Calixtus II, the struggle ended. The Concordat of Worms, issued September 23, 1122, was a compromise of almost equal concessions. The emperor renounced investiture with ring and staff, giving the church the right of nominating and electing her servants. But elections were to be held in the emperor’s presence, and he alone, by special investiture with the sceptre, might bestow temporal fiefs and privileges. By refusing, he could nullify an election, avoiding hostile men in bishoprics.
The next group of documents concerns an episode showing how ready the papacy was to put forth every claim to superiority over the empire, and how ably the latter maintained its dignity. The correspondence dates 1157–8. The case was that of Eskil, bishop of Lund, captured by German highwaymen en route to Rome; the pope demanded the emperor’s intervention, but Frederick did nothing because Eskil was then in his disfavour. The pope sent two cardinals to Vesançon to press the matter. In their letters, Adrian described the imperial crown as a benefice he had conferred on Frederick; the editor asserts the pope likely knew the full force of these words. Since Gregory VII, the first to receive princes as vassals of the Roman see, the feudal relation had been entered into with the papacy more than once, so its terminology could not have been unfamiliar to Adrian. One legate worsened matters by declaring: “from whom then has the emperor the empire except from the pope?” Frederick’s manifesto is called a spirited defence of imperial independence, to be compared with the electors’ utterances of 1338. Almost the entire clergy approved of the emperor’s attitude, and the pope, facing too strong opposition, was fain to explain away the objectionable clauses.
The documents under the next heading concern the contest between Frederick Barbarossa and Alexander III, lasting from 1160 to 1177—the longest war ever waged between one emperor and one pope. Alexander was the chancellor Roland who, as Adrian’s envoy, had angered the emperor at Vesançon, and was known to favour Frederick’s enemy, William of Sicily. Alexander was chosen by a majority of cardinals, but his rival Victor had a strong minority and the people of Rome, whose vote they claimed was still necessary; Victor also enjoyed priority of consecration. The synod of Pavia declared for Victor, and Frederick openly sided with him. England and France, after much vacillation, took Alexander’s part, who for years fought an uphill fight. On Victor’s death in 1164 his party elected Paschal, and as his successor, Calixtus. In 1165 Frederick and nobles and bishops swore at Wurzburg never to acknowledge Roland or a pope elected by his party. Alexander found allies in the Lombard cities and the king of Sicily. After years of fighting with the Lombard League, fortune turned against the emperor, who fled Italy to save his life; six years passed before he could raise an army and return. Preparing a final blow, he was deserted by his vassal Henry the Lion. The battle of Legnano in 1176 proved a great defeat, paving the way for the peace of Venice. A truce was arranged with the Lombards and the King of Sicily, with a term fixed for lasting peace. The oath of Wurzburg was broken, and reconciliation was solemnized at Venice with great pomp; three red marble slabs in St. Mark’s still show where the emperor knelt before the pope. The terms were not so unfavourable as expected—bishops consecrated by anti-popes were allowed to remain in their sees or otherwise provided for—but the papacy emerged victorious.
The next document is the act by which King John, in 1213, laid England at the feet of a papal legate, receiving it back by tribute as a fief of Rome. The papal candidate, Stephen Langton, was received as archbishop of Canterbury, and after removing the interdict the pope accepted John’s submission. Innocent was then at the height of his power: England, Aragon, and Hungary were fiefs of Rome, and Latin rulers in the East were completely subject to him—never had the papacy so nearly approached its ideal of world rule.
The next document is the bull “clericis laicos,” issued 1296 in answer to complaints of French and English clergy over royal taxes. Edward I of England obeyed Boniface’s menaces, declaring in 1297 that no taxes should be imposed on his clergy without papal consent. Philip of France retaliated, beginning the conflict that would end in the capture at Anagni and lead indirectly to the Babylonian captivity.
The final document is the bull “unam sanctam,” issued near the close of the Boniface–Philip struggle. Its last sentence declares every human power must be subject to the pope of Rome for salvation. Attempts to explain this away are unlikely to succeed, since the bull “ausculta filii” of the same year contained similar expressions, and Boniface had then been forced to claim a milder interpretation. In answer to “unam sanctam,” Philip, supported by all classes, the university, and the monasteries, appealed from the pope to a future general council.
Main Arguments
The editorial introduction advances several interconnected arguments about the nature and course of the conflict between church and state in the Middle Ages. The first is that the investiture controversy was not a quarrel about ritual or precedence but a struggle over the fundamental structure of authority in Christian society. Because bishops were also princes of the realm, holding fiefs and jurisdictions and owing military service to the king, the question of who appointed them was inseparable from the question of who ruled. Gregory VII’s prohibition of lay investiture was therefore an attack on the very foundations of royal power, and Henry IV’s resistance was not merely stubbornness but a defence of his own office.
The second argument is that the papacy’s claims to supremacy were built on a combination of political opportunism, legal forgery, and genuine religious conviction. The editor notes that many of Gregory’s quotations come from the forged Isidorian decretals, and that the feudal terminology used by Adrian IV in his letters to Frederick Barbarossa was not accidental but reflected a deliberate policy of treating secular rulers as vassals of the Roman see. At the same time, the editor acknowledges the religious dimension of the conflict: had Gregory refused to pardon a penitent Henry at Canossa, his influence as spiritual head of Christendom would have been irrevocably shaken. The papacy’s power rested on its moral authority as well as on its legal claims, and the two could not be separated.
The third argument is that the outcome of these conflicts was rarely a clear victory for either side. The Concordat of Worms was a compromise of almost equal concessions, and the peace of Venice, though it left the papacy victorious, was not so unfavourable to the emperor as might have been expected. The editor’s account suggests that the relationship between church and state was characterized by a series of negotiated settlements rather than by decisive defeats, and that the papacy’s greatest triumphs—the submission of King John, the height of Innocent III’s power—were exceptional moments rather than the norm.
A fourth argument, implicit throughout, is that the papacy’s claims to world rule were ultimately unsustainable. The bull “unam sanctam,” with its declaration that every human power must be subject to the pope of Rome for salvation, provoked not submission but a general council appeal from Philip of France, supported by all classes, the university, and the monasteries. The editor notes that attempts to explain away the bull’s meaning are unlikely to succeed, since Boniface had already been forced to claim a milder interpretation of a similar document. The trajectory of the documents is thus one of escalating claims followed by resistance and, ultimately, by the humiliation of the papacy at Anagni and the Babylonian captivity.
Key Concepts
Several concepts recur throughout the documents and the editorial commentary, and they form the intellectual framework within which the conflict was conducted.
Lay investiture is the practice by which secular rulers appointed bishops and abbots and invested them with the symbols of their office—the ring and the staff. The reformers regarded this as a usurpation of spiritual authority by worldly power, and its prohibition was the central demand of the Gregorian reform. The editor explains that the forbiddal was especially directed against Henry IV, who had taken the election of an archbishop of Milan into his own hands, and that a royal renunciation of the right to choose men for the rich bishoprics and abbeys of Germany and Italy meant practical abdication.
Simony is the purchase of ecclesiastical office, and it was the other great target of the reform movement. The Roman synod of 1075 excommunicated five of Henry IV’s councillors for attaining ecclesiastical office by that means, and Henry’s continued consorting with them was one of the grievances that led to the breach with Gregory.
Excommunication and the bann were the papacy’s most powerful weapons. To be under the bann was to be excluded from the sacraments and from the community of the faithful, and in the case of a ruler it could release his subjects from their allegiance. Gregory’s retaliation against Henry and the dissentient bishops declared the king’s royal power forfeit and all his subjects loosed from their allegiance. The editor notes that Henry died in 1106 still under the bann Gregory and his successors had hurled against him.
The feudal relation between the papacy and secular rulers is a recurring theme. Since Gregory VII, the first to receive princes as vassals of the Roman see, the feudal relation had been entered into with the papacy more than once, and its terminology was familiar to Adrian IV. The description of the imperial crown as a benefice conferred by the pope was not a slip of the pen but a deliberate assertion of feudal superiority.
The forged Isidorian decretals are mentioned as the source of many of Gregory’s quotations. These documents claimed for the popes the sanction of antiquity for a jurisdiction far beyond what they had actually enjoyed, and they were a crucial foundation of the papal monarchy’s legal claims.
The anti-pope was a rival claimant to the papal throne, elected by a dissenting faction. Wibert of Ravenna was made pope in Gregory’s stead, and later anti-popes were elected during the contests between Frederick Barbarossa and Alexander III and during the investiture controversy under Henry V. The existence of anti-popes illustrates the depth of division within the church and the extent to which the conflict between church and state was also a conflict within the church itself.
The general council appears as the ultimate court of appeal. Philip of France, in answer to “unam sanctam,” appealed from the pope to a future general council, and this appeal was supported by all classes, the university, and the monasteries. The conciliar movement, which would later challenge papal authority, has its roots in this appeal.
Themes
The dominant theme of the book is the conflict between spiritual and temporal authority—the question of who holds ultimate power in Christian society. The documents trace this conflict through several phases, from the investiture controversy of the eleventh century to the confrontation between Boniface VIII and Philip of France at the beginning of the fourteenth. The editor’s commentary makes clear that the conflict was not merely political but also theological and legal: it concerned the nature of the church, the source of royal authority, and the relationship between the two.
A second theme is the role of personal character and individual decision in shaping historical events. The editor’s account of Gregory VII emphasizes his determination and his willingness to take bold risks, as when he prohibited lay investiture in the face of almost certain opposition. Henry IV’s decision to go to Canossa, described as the step that would make him the most famous suppliant in history, is presented as a calculated gamble that succeeded in the short term but failed in the long run. The editor’s comparison of Gregory’s renewal of the bann in 1080 to a bullfighting manoeuvre suggests a view of history in which individual choices, made under pressure and with incomplete information, can have decisive consequences.
A third theme is the tension between the ideal of a unified Christian society and the reality of competing jurisdictions. The papacy’s ideal of world rule, which the editor says was never more nearly approached than under Innocent III, was always contested by secular rulers who had their own claims to authority and their own sources of legitimacy. The documents show how this tension was managed through negotiation, compromise, and occasional resort to force, and how the balance of power shifted over time.
A fourth theme is the role of law and legal argument in the conflict. The documents are full of legal language: decrees, canons, investitures, fiefs, benefices, appeals. The editor notes that the papacy’s claims rested in part on forged documents, and that the feudal terminology used by Adrian IV was a deliberate legal strategy. The conflict between church and state was fought as much in the courts and the chancelleries as on the battlefield, and the documents reflect this.
A fifth theme, perhaps the most poignant, is the human cost of the conflict. The editor notes that Henry IV died in 1106, still under the bann, and that Gregory VII died in exile in Salerno. The struggle between the papacy and the empire was not an abstract debate but a series of events that shaped and sometimes destroyed the lives of those caught up in it. The documents record the excommunications, the depositions, the wars, and the humiliations, and the editor’s commentary does not shy away from the human dimension of these events.
The Author’s Conclusions
The editor’s conclusions are implicit in the way the material is presented rather than stated in a formal summary. The overall trajectory of the documents suggests that the papacy’s claim to supremacy over temporal rulers was asserted with increasing boldness from the time of Gregory VII onward, reached its height under Innocent III, and then encountered resistance that ultimately proved insurmountable. The bull “unam sanctam,” with its declaration that every human power must be subject to the pope of Rome for salvation, is presented as the logical culmination of the papalist position, and the appeal to a general council that followed it is presented as the beginning of its undoing.
The editor also suggests that the conflict between church and state was never definitively resolved. The Concordat of Worms was a compromise, and the peace of Venice, though it left the papacy victorious, was not a total defeat for the emperor. The editor’s account of these settlements emphasizes their negotiated character and the extent to which both sides made concessions. The implication is that the relationship between spiritual and temporal authority in medieval Europe was characterized by a continuous process of adjustment and renegotiation rather than by a single decisive victory for either side.
A further conclusion, though not stated explicitly, is that the papacy’s power depended on a combination of moral authority, legal argument, and political circumstance. The editor notes that Gregory’s influence would have been irrevocably shaken had he refused to pardon Henry at Canossa, and that the papacy’s greatest triumphs occurred when its moral authority was at its height. The documents show that the papacy’s claims were most effective when they were backed by a genuine religious authority, and least effective when they were seen as mere political manoeuvres.
Significance
The documents gathered in this book are among the most important sources for the history of the medieval conflict between church and state. They record the words and actions of the principal actors in that conflict—popes, emperors, kings, bishops, and princes—and they provide a window into the political, legal, and religious culture of the period. The editor’s introduction situates them within a larger narrative and explains their significance for the reader who is encountering them for the first time.
The book’s significance lies partly in the intrinsic importance of the events it documents. The investiture controversy, the conflict between Frederick Barbarossa and Alexander III, the submission of King John, and the confrontation between Boniface VIII and Philip of France are all episodes of major historical importance, and the documents provide direct access to the ways in which they were understood by those who lived through them. The letters of Gregory VII and Henry IV, the record of Canossa, the Concordat of Worms, and the bulls of Boniface VIII are all texts that have shaped the way historians understand the medieval papacy and its relationship to secular power.
The book’s significance also lies in what it reveals about the nature of historical evidence. The editor’s notes draw attention to the forged Isidorian decretals, to the tampering with the 1059 decree on papal elections, and to the ways in which documents were used and interpreted by the parties to the conflict. The reader is invited to see the documents not as transparent records of events but as instruments of policy, produced by interested parties for specific purposes. This is a lesson in historical method as well as a contribution to historical knowledge.
Finally, the book is significant as a document of nineteenth-century scholarship. The editor’s approach—careful, contextual, attentive to the legal and institutional background, and not without a certain dry humour—reflects the historical methods of the period in which it was written. The introduction is a work of synthesis and interpretation as well as a guide to the sources, and it offers a model of how to present complex historical material to a general readership. For the modern reader, it is both a source of information about the Middle Ages and a window into the ways in which the Middle Ages were understood by later generations.
