Pope Gregory VII's concept of the Freedom of the Church [Libertas ecclesiae]
Papal Bull Document Title:Libertas Ecclesiae
Author: Pope Gregory VII
Date: 1079
Source: Ephraim Emerton, trans., The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII
(NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1932).
Papal Bull Document Title:Libertas Ecclesiae
Author: Pope Gregory VII
Date: 1079
Source: Ephraim Emerton, trans., The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII
(NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1932).
than to sink into a miserable and devilish servitude. For the wretched fight as limbs of
the devil, and are crushed down into miserable slavery to him. The members of Christ,
on the other hand, fight to bring back those same wretches into Christian freedom.
Church Liberty was the central slogan of the reform of Pope Gregory VII, and a "key concept" of the Investiture Controversy. Liberty of the Church meant freedom of the Church from oppression by temporal authority and meant especially for Gregory VII:
- that the Church was free from interference by lay people to elect [invest] their bishops;
- that the whole Church was de facto and also where necessary under the direct leadership of the Pope;
- and that the Pope in the whole Christendom ("christianitas") had the highest power.
Zachary N. Brooke. The English Church and the Papacy: From the Conquest to the Reign of John. Cambridge University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-521-36687-8.
said
...
Further what I suggested to be the meaning of ecclesia Anglicana as used by Becket. Becket insists that the liberty of the ecclesia Anglicana is at stake, and by liberty he makes it clear that he means freedom from royal control, and at the same time freedom to obey the pope, to be governed by papal authority as was the rest of the Church. He is evidently asserting the right of the Church in England to be treated in the same way that the Church is elsewhere.
...
Canonical authority for Libertas Ecclesiae
Luke 20:25 (King James Version (KJV)
And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's.
In more practical terms the liberty of the church meant, that is included, liberty to
proceed to give elections of bishops when their sees fell vacant, so as to put an end to the exploitation of the Church's wealth by the kings.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gregory (Popes)/Gregory VII - Wikisource,
,,,
The whole life-work of Gregory VII. was based on his conviction that the church has been founded by God and entrusted with the task of embracing all mankind in a single society in which His will is the only law; that, in her capacity as a divine institution, she out tops all human structures; and that the pope, qua head of the church, is the vice-regent of God on earth, so that disobedience to him implies disobedience to God—or, in other words, a defection from Christianity. Elaborating an idea discoverable in St Augustine, he looked on the worldly state—a purely human creation—as an unhallowed edifice whose character is sufficiently manifest from the fact that it abolishes the equality of man, and that it is built up by violence and injustice. He developed these views in a famous series of letters to Bishop Hermann of Metz. But it is clear from the outset that we are only dealing with reflections of strictly theoretical importance; for any attempt to interpret them in terms of action would have bound the church to annihilate not merely a single definite state, but all states. Thus Gregory, as a politician desirous of achieving some result, was driven in practice to adopt a different standpoint. He acknowledged the existence of the state as a dispensation of Providence, described the coexistence of church and state as a divine ordinance, and emphasized the necessity of union between the sacerdolium and the imperium. But at no period would he have dreamed of putting the two powers on an equality; the superiority of church to state was to him a fact which admitted of no discussion and which he had never doubted. Again, this very superiority of the church implied in his eyes a superiority of the papacy, and he did not shrink from drawing the extreme conclusions from these premises. In other words, he claimed the right of excommunicating and deposing incapable monarchs, and of confirming the choice of their successors. This habit of thought needs to be appreciated in order to understand his efforts to bring individual states into feudal subjection to the chair of St Peter. It was no mere question of formality, but the first step to the realization of his ideal theocracy comprising each and every state.
...
References
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gregory (Popes)/Gregory VII - Wikisource,
,,,
The whole life-work of Gregory VII. was based on his conviction that the church has been founded by God and entrusted with the task of embracing all mankind in a single society in which His will is the only law; that, in her capacity as a divine institution, she out tops all human structures; and that the pope, qua head of the church, is the vice-regent of God on earth, so that disobedience to him implies disobedience to God—or, in other words, a defection from Christianity. Elaborating an idea discoverable in St Augustine, he looked on the worldly state—a purely human creation—as an unhallowed edifice whose character is sufficiently manifest from the fact that it abolishes the equality of man, and that it is built up by violence and injustice. He developed these views in a famous series of letters to Bishop Hermann of Metz. But it is clear from the outset that we are only dealing with reflections of strictly theoretical importance; for any attempt to interpret them in terms of action would have bound the church to annihilate not merely a single definite state, but all states. Thus Gregory, as a politician desirous of achieving some result, was driven in practice to adopt a different standpoint. He acknowledged the existence of the state as a dispensation of Providence, described the coexistence of church and state as a divine ordinance, and emphasized the necessity of union between the sacerdolium and the imperium. But at no period would he have dreamed of putting the two powers on an equality; the superiority of church to state was to him a fact which admitted of no discussion and which he had never doubted. Again, this very superiority of the church implied in his eyes a superiority of the papacy, and he did not shrink from drawing the extreme conclusions from these premises. In other words, he claimed the right of excommunicating and deposing incapable monarchs, and of confirming the choice of their successors. This habit of thought needs to be appreciated in order to understand his efforts to bring individual states into feudal subjection to the chair of St Peter. It was no mere question of formality, but the first step to the realization of his ideal theocracy comprising each and every state.
...
References
Encyclopaedia Britannica links
R. H. Helmholz (2010). The Spirit of Classical Canon Law. University of Georgia Press. pp. 61–. ISBN 978-0-8203-3463-9.
Gerd Tellenbach: Libertas: Kirche und Weltordnung im Zeitalter des Investiturstreites. Stuttgart 1936
Klaus Schatz (1996). Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present. Liturgical Press. pp. 80–. ISBN 978-0-8146-5522-1.
Noel B. Reynolds; W. Cole Durham, Jr. (1 June 1996). Religious Liberty in Western Thought. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 36–. ISBN 978-0-8028-4853-6.
Oestereich, Thomas. "Pope St. Gregory VII." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 29 Nov. 2012 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06791c.htm>.
Bryan P. Stone (30 August 2012). A Reader in Ecclesiology. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. pp. 53–. ISBN 978-1-4094-2855-8.
Select historical documents of the Middle Ages (1903)
Translated and edited by Ernest F. Henderson
M Wejwoda - 2000 - content.grin.com
Archived: http://bit.ly/1Q3BYBp
Auto-translated: Google Translate - http://bit.ly/1Q3CAXu
The Liberty of the Church and the Road to Runnymede: John of Salisbury and the Intellectual Foundations of the Magna Carta
Cary J. Nederman
PS: Political Science and Politics
Vol. 43, No. 3 (July 2010), pp. 456-461
Published by: American Political Science Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25699350
Johannes (Sarisberiensis) (26 October 1990). John of Salisbury: Policraticus. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36701-1
A Companion to John of Salisbury. BRILL. 28 November 2014. pp. 87–. ISBN 978-90-04-28294-0.
J. C. Holt (28 May 2015). Magna Carta. Cambridge University Press. pp. 10–. ISBN 978-1-316-24110-3.
https://goo.gl/bVCMHb
Natalie Fryde (2001). Why Magna Carta?: Angevin England Revisited. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3-8258-5657-1.
https://goo.gl/awVBak
‘Episcopal Power in Anglo-Norman England, 1066-1135’ by Samuel O’Rourke
A Companion to John of Salisbury. BRILL. 28 November 2014. pp. 87–. ISBN 978-90-04-28294-0.
J. C. Holt (28 May 2015). Magna Carta. Cambridge University Press. pp. 10–. ISBN 978-1-316-24110-3.
https://goo.gl/bVCMHb
Natalie Fryde (2001). Why Magna Carta?: Angevin England Revisited. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3-8258-5657-1.
https://goo.gl/awVBak
‘Episcopal Power in Anglo-Norman England, 1066-1135’ by Samuel O’Rourke
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