Pope Gregory I

was a powerful tool for not only expanding Christianity, but also for expanding imperial authority. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I, or Gregory the Great, cemented his legacy for conversion by creating the first papal mission of any pagan people in Anglo-Saxon Britain. While Christianity had visited the island briefly, during the Roman occupation, the Anglo-Saxon’s and their paganism dominated the religious sphere on the island in the sixth century. Gregory, before becoming Pope, had long been interested in the island of Britain and desired for it to become part of the Christian world. Through his missionary, Augustine of Canterbury, Gregory was able to set precedents on how to effectively convert pagan people in order to save their souls. Through the writings of Bede, Gregory…

Pope Gregory I, was the first monk to become pope of the catholic church between 590 and 604 AD. He was also the first pope who had the name of Gregory and the fourth doctor in the Latin Church. One of the many achievement he has made was to break the terror made by the Lombards who invaded Italy in 568. Even though Pope Gregory I accomplished many great things during his time, he was also “likely to be the first pope to send a mission to take the gospel to ends of the world” (Hollas). Pope…

equality of men and women, and on the opposite side of the same coin, when a scholar tries to judge Chaucer base on feminist ideas, even if this ideas are correct, they are practically trying to take Chaucer out of his time period and judge him base on our standards. The proper way to study Chaucer is to understand what period he comes from. Chaucer was born around the early 1340’s which was just after the beginning of the Hundred Years War. Chaucer would go on and serve with the army in…

Pauline-Augustine doctrine of grace, would greatly shape young Wycliffe's views, as did the Black Death which reached England in the summer of 1348. From his frequent references to it in later life, it appears to have made a deep and abiding impression upon him. According to Robert Vaughn, the effect was to give Wycliffe "Very gloomy views in regard to the condition and prospects of the human race." Wycliffe would have been at Oxford during the St Scholastica Day riot in which sixty-three…

In 736, Boniface was made the Archbishop of Mainz, a city in the southern part of modern-day Germany. He continued to work among the German peoples, and founded several more monasteries, while bringing the German clergy he was building up closer to Rome and the Pope. Boniface also worked to reform the crumbling Church in the Frankish kingdom. Boniface weeded out corrupt religious leaders and convened a synod in 742 to lay out plans for even greater…

This movement was fueled by two theologians and cardinals, Peter Damian and Humbert under the papacy of Pope Leo IX. The two cardinals bitterly argued with each other over the nature and effects of simony, which is the buying and selling of ecclesiastical privileges. Simony was being practiced throughout Europe by kings, for clergymen who pay a king and in return the king would grant them a position as bishop or abbot in their land. This reforming agenda was a threat to kings, especially the…

known as Pope Gregory I and he had decided early that he would forego the expectations of a politically-driven family that assumed he would become an important public figure. He chose a life of service to the people. The man who would become Pope was as surprised as anyone else when he learned he’d been elected. It’s what happened years into the papacy that would eventually become his legacy. As a young man, Gregory reflected on the famine, desperation, and tragedy that are byproducts of war. In…

To understand why the conflict between the church and state aroused, we need to go back to the origins of this union. Otto I, son of the Henry I, Duke of Saxony was able to seize a large amount of land from the east of Elbe River, comprising Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, all the way to North Italy and parts of southern France. Thus due to his aid to the Church, Pope John XII crowned Otto I as an emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (406 Bentley, Ziegler). This alliance helped to gain control…

kings and bloodlines were often feuding, most of Europe was bound together by Christianity. This shared religion raised the head of the Church, the bishop of Rome, also called the pope, to a position of great power. Throughout the Middle Age, these popes used their power to wield heavy influence over the running of Europe, whether for better or for worse. Four of the most influential Medieval popes of the Roman Catholic Church were Gregory I, Urban II, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII. Pope…

to reflect on the issues that troubled him. While alone, it is believed that Allah shared messages with Muhammad through Angel Gabriel. Muhammad was instructed to share with others as inspirations and spiritual guidance. Eventually the messages were recorded and titled the Qur’an, “The Holy Book of Islam.” By the eleventh century, the leaders of churches changed the way in which church officials were appointed which came to be known as “lay investiture”. Pope Gregory VII did not agree with…