The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages

Walter Ullman examines the period of imperial ascendency and the reign of Gregory VII in Chapters VIII and IX of his score of apostolical government and ideology, and demonstrates that the actual course of events was much to a greater extent complex. Indeed, in Ullman's view, the ideology of the great German Emperors contained within itself the seeds of papal predominance and their own future humbling.

Ullman bases this argument, in large measure, on a close examination and analysis of what we would call ideology, as expressed both in general writings and  oddly  in the usages and ceremonies of state, such as services of coronation. In his enclose to the master copy 1953 edition of the book, Ullman notes the importance of these symbolic acts, and historians' failure to amply consider them:

I had to deal with a great fare of topics which 

for inscrutable reasons  lie outside the historian's

view, such as liturgy, symbolism, and so forth.

... departments which I strongly feel are far alike

little the concern of medieval historians. (p. vi.)

His reliance is very to a great extent on primary sources, which he quotes extensively (and without apology) in the original Latin. Because he is dealing with ideas and ideology, words matter, and perhaps only the experienced Latinist is fully qualified to analyze or criticize the indication he draws from letters, liturgies, and other primary materials.

his reign. Consequently, the criterion he applied to

Organized power is exercised by dint of regular administration, and the end product of regular administration is law.

Thus, Chapter XI, " legal Theology," examines the development, under Papal auspices, of a well real corpse of law, based on Roman law, used "to demonstrate what is, and what is not, the canon, what is and what is not lawful ..." (p. 365).

Ullman's general view is that the Papacy followed a consistant avenue of hierocratic emphasis on its own supreme authority, virtually from its stemma as a clearly defined institution. But because the base of operations of its authority was the word, not the sword, it was vitally dependent on around secular authority.

Ultimately, as Ullman discusses in his Conclusion, occidental civilization flea-bitten this concept of society, and with it the intellectual underpinnings of Papal hierocratic ideology. Yet the intellectual tools developed for the hierocratic ideology have played an important part in shaping our concept of the State, and therefore in giving see to the modern West, and to a world which is organized, politically, along largely Western lines.

entirely focused on the practical exercise of Roman

In the decadence of the Papacy in the decades around AD 900, the Emperors could quick fill the vacuum in the government of the Church itself:

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