. The reform of the Catholic church named after Pope Gregory VII, one of its most ardent promoters, is customarily defined in terms of the legal and administrative developments that accompanied the rise of the papacy between the papal election decree of 1059 and the First Lateran Council in 1123: the decree proclaimed that the pope was to be elected by the cardinal bishops without lay interference, and the council confirmed the compromise over the lay investiture of bishops hammered out the year before at the Diet of Worms.
Although the most accessible data of the reform comprise a myriad of canonical collections, papal correspondence, polemical tracts, and conciliar documents, it would be a distortion to conclude that the development of the papal monarchy was an end in itself, rather than a response to the spiritual ferment throughout European society that encouraged and even demanded a church that promoted the spirituality described in the Book of Acts, the vita apostolica, both for the clergy and the laity. The spirit of the Gregorian Reform in fact arose in the decades preceding 1059 as Cluniac abbots like Odilo and Hugues de Cluny extended monastic reform, and bishops like Bruno of Toul (later Pope Leo IX) undertook the reform of the secular clergy. With Gregory VII, the spirit of reform came explicitly to include the responsibility for justice throughout Christian society, particularly the subservience of secular matters and temporal rulers to spiritual matters and ecclesiastical overlords. The implications of these convictions led by the end of the century to the calling of western Christendom to crusade by Urban II and to the expectation that diocesan clergy would live the common life (regular canons) in keeping with the monastic vita apostolica; in the 12th century, at the Diet of Worms and First Lateran Council, they led to a workable solution to the role of the laity in episcopal elections and to the rise of cathedral schools and subsequently universities for the training of the clergy (Bologna, Paris, Oxford); and in the 13th century, they led to Innocent III bestowing kingdoms as fiefs (England, Hungary, Portugal, Aragon), to the provision of adequate support for local parish clergy and pastoral care (Fourth Lateran Council, 1215), and to the new mendicant orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, obedient directly to the Holy See, that gave shape and expression to a vita apostolica suited to the new urban scene.
The importance of the monastic reform at Cluny in the first half of the 11th century lay particularly in the manner by which a network of monasteries, all looking to Cluny as their head, had come to enjoy the libertas ecclesiae, an independence from local lay and even episcopal interference. Over the years, this status was reinforced by papal privileges and protections, forging a natural allegiance between the papacy and the Cluniac movement.
At the same time, there was a serious effort in many places at the local level to introduce something of the monastic ideal into the life of the secular clergy: the buying of church offices, simony, and clerical unchastity (nicolaitism), were effectively condemned in places like Toul under Bruno and Milan under the impact of the Patarenes. But these reforms could only be temporary without a fundamental change in the relationship of the church to the institutions of feudalism, in which ecclesiastical appointments at all levels were considered the prerogatives of emperors, kings, and feudal lords and often distributed to relatives or vassals without due consideration for the worthiness of the candidates. Moreover, the goods and properties of churches and monasteries often became the objects of feudal transactions, alienated from their primary purpose of providing stability and sustenance for monks and clergy. This state of affairs, symbolized by lay investiture of clerical office, became the focus of the contest between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV.
The impulse for reform gave rise to major developments in the institutions of the papacy. In essence, the papacy had to circumvent the vested interests of the higher clergy and find ways to support and promote reforming impulses from below, requiring strong and centralized institutions that could respond quickly and decisively. Under Leo IX, the college of cardinals became an important extension of papal bureaucracy, as many were deputized to serve as legates throughout Europe from time to time to promote the papal cause. With Nicholas II, the election of the pope was to be made by the cardinal bishops, excluding the direct influence of either the Tuscan nobility or the German emperor. Under Gregory VII, legates became permanent and certain archbishops were appointed as primates for each of the regions of Europe to serve as courts of appeals for the legates. Newly appointed arch-bishops were required to journey to Rome to receive the pallium, the symbol of their office. The rights and privileges accorded to Cluniac foundations in France were extended to the monastery of Hirsau and its daughter foundations in Germany. Urban II, a monk of Cluny, extended the liberties and exemptions of Cluny to many more Cluniac establishments; and Paschal II extended papal protection to Cîteaux in 1100.
The ideals and ambitions of the reformers spurred the development of canon law. In the Collection in Seventy-four Titles, compiled under Leo IX, the precedents set down in earlier collections were reorganized to emphasize the primacy of Rome and the reform program. With the passing of time, subsequent collections became the vehicles for the promulgation of new law, such as the collections of Anselm of Lucca (1083) and Deusdedit (1086), which drew on materials beyond the traditional canons. Gregory VII’s own Dictatus papae (1075) seems to stand at a crucial point in this regard: a brief listing of twenty-seven propositions concerning the authority of the pope, they read like chapter headings for the later collections: only the pope has the right to be called universal; only he can depose or absolve bishops; only he can create new laws; the Roman church has never erred and will never err; the pope has the authority to depose emperors; the pope alone may use the imperial insignia; the pope ought to be judged by no one; the pope can absolve subjects from obedience to wicked rulers. Although much of this legal program existed only in embryo at the end of the 11th century, it expanded dramatically in the 12th and 13th centuries with the Decretum of Gratian (1140) and the later compilations of the Decretists and Decretalists.
The implications of the Gregorian vision of a just Christian society incorporated other projects of the late 11th and 12th centuries: the reconquest of Spain, rapproachment with Constantinople and the crusade in the East, the Peace and Truce of God in European territories, the transformation of chivalry according to religious ideals (the Templars and Hospitalers), and the rehabilitation of marriage as a protection for women and families.
Although the reform was not always and everywhere to achieve its goals, it went a long way to establish the libertas ecclesiae against the manipulations of the feudal establishment, and it gave a concrete, institutional expression to the very idea of Christendom.
Gilchrist, John T., trans. Collection in Seventy-four Titles: A Canon Law Manual of the Gregorian Reform. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980.
Blumenthal, Uta-Renate. The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.
Cowdrey, Herbert E.J. The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970.
——. Popes, Monks, and Crusaders. London: Hambledon, 1984.
Fliche, Augustin. La réforme grégorienne et la reconquéte chrétienne (1057–1123). Paris: Bloud and Gay, 1946.
La preparazione della riforma gregoriana e del pontificato di Gregorio VII: atti del IX Convegno del Centro di Studi Avellaniti. Fonte Avellana: II Centro, 1985.
Tierney, Brian. The Crisis of Church and State, 1050–1300. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964.
Ullmann, Walter. The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. London: Methuen, 1970.
Williams, Shafer, ed. The Gregorian Epoch: Reformation, Revolution, Reaction?Boston: Heath, 1964.
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