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Church and state in medieval Europe includes the relationship between the Christian church and the various monarchies and other states in Europe, between the end of Roman authority in the West in the fifth century and the beginnings of the Reformation in the early sixteenth century. The relationship between the Church and the feudal states during the medieval period went through a number of developments. The struggles for power between kings and popes shaped the Eastern world. ==Origins== The Church gradually became a defining institution of the Roman Empire.〔The church in the Roman empire before A.D. 170, Part 170 By Sir William Mitchell Ramsay〕 Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 proclaiming toleration for the Christian religion, and convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in "one holy catholic and apostolic Church". Emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380.〔Boyd, William Kenneth (1905). The ecclesiastical edicts of the Theodosian code, Columbia University Press.〕 After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, there emerged no single powerful secular governments in the West, but there was a central ecclesiastical power in Rome, the Catholic Church. In this power vacuum, the Church rose to become the dominant power in the West. As the Church expanded beginning in the 10th century, and as secular kingdoms gained power at the same time, there naturally arose the conditions for a power struggle between Church and Kingdom over ultimate authority. In essence, the earliest vision of Christendom was a vision of a Christian theocracy, a government founded upon and upholding Christian values, whose institutions are spread through and over with Christian doctrine. In this period, members of the Christian clergy wield political authority. The specific relationship between the political leaders and the clergy varied but, in theory, the national and political divisions were at times subsumed under the leadership of the Catholic Church as an institution. This model of church-state relations was accepted by various Church leaders and political leaders in European history. The classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and the Latin West. In the Greek philosopher Plato's ideal state there are three major classes, which was representative of the idea of the “tripartite soul”, which is expressive of three functions or capacities of the human soul: “reason”, “the spirited element”, and “appetites” (or “passions”). Will Durant made a convincing case that certain prominent features of Plato's ideal community were discernible in the organization, dogma and effectiveness of "the" Medieval Church in Europe: ... For a thousand years Europe was ruled by an order of guardians considerably like that which was visioned by our philosopher. During the Middle Ages it was customary to classify the population of Christendom into laboratores (workers), bellatores (soldiers), and oratores (clergy). The last group, though small in number, monopolized the instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost unlimited sway half of the most powerful continent on the globe. The clergy, like Plato's guardians, were placed in authority... by their talent as shown in ecclesiastical studies and administration, by their disposition to a life of meditation and simplicity, and ... by the influence of their relatives with the powers of state and church. In the latter half of the period in which they ruled (AD onwards ), the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire (such guardians )... () Celibacy was part of the psychological structure of the power of the clergy; for on the one hand they were unimpeded by the narrowing egoism of the family, and on the other their apparent superiority to the call of the flesh added to the awe in which lay sinners held them.... In the latter half of the period in which they ruled, the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire.〔 The Catholic Church's peak of authority over all European Christians and their common endeavours of the Christian community — for example, the Crusades, the fight against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula and against the Ottomans in the Balkans — helped to develop a sense of communal identity against the obstacle of Europe's deep political divisions. This authority was also used by local Inquisitions to root out divergent elements and create a religiously uniform community. The conflict between Church and state was in many ways a uniquely Western phenomenon originating in Late Antiquity (see Saint Augustine's masterpiece ''City of God'' (417)). Contrary to Augustinian theology, the Papal States in Italy, today downsized to the State of Vatican, were ruled directly by the Holy See. Moreover, throughout the Middle Ages the Pope claimed the right to depose the Catholic kings of Western Europe, and tried to exercise it, sometimes successfully (see the investiture controversy, below), sometimes not, as with Henry VIII of England and Henry III of Navarre.〔("Delineation of Roman Catholicism: Drawn from the authentic and acknowledged standards of the Church of Rome", by Charles Elliott, 1877 edition, page 165 )〕 However, in the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, Church and state were closely linked and collaborated in a "symphony", with some exceptions (see Iconoclasm). This was unlike the Islamic world, where the two were one and the same. The concept of Church and state at odds would have been very foreign in Islamic society. Before the Age of Absolutism, institutions, such as the Church, legislatures, or social elites,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=French Absolutism )〕 restrained monarchical power. Absolutism was characterized by the ending of feudal partitioning, consolidation of power with the monarch, rise of state, rise of professional standing armies, professional bureaucracies, the codification of state laws, and the rise of ideologies that justify the absolutist monarchy. Hence, Absolutism was made possible by new innovations and characterized as a phenomenon of Early Modern Europe, rather than that of the Middle Ages, where the clergy and nobility counterbalanced as a result of mutual rivalry. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Church and state in medieval Europe」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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