Transcript zenith paris

History of the
Church I:
Week 15
Christianity in Middle Ages
 Cathedral of Notre Dame, laying on an island in the Seine
River in Paris, reflects the spirit of the Middle Ages
 In France only, 500 cathedrals were built in the 12th and 13th
centuries
 This reflected the belief that Church tried to build the perfect
society on earth
Christianity in Middle Ages
 The power of the Papacy could be seen in this increased power.
The immediate result was the Crusades
 The zenith of Papal power came during Pope Innocent III’s
reign
 The Pope exerted his power in two ways:
 Fear of excommunication – a person could not buy and sell
if he was not a part of the church
 Fear of interdict which was excommunication for a nation
The Crusades
 After Islam spread through out the Middle East by the end of
7th century, Christians were still able to visit the Holy Land on
pilgrimages
 When the Seljuks Turks took Jerusalem from their fellow
Muslims in the 11th century they moved north to invade the
Byzantine Empire
 In 1095, Emperor Alexis I asked the western part of the church
for help
 This is all Pope Urban II needed to bring the perfect Christian
society to earth
The Crusades
 The First Crusade (1096-1099) was the most successful. It
captured Jerusalem and created a Christian kingdom in the
Holy Land
The Crusades
 The seven crusades lasted
from 1095-1289
 The crusades resulted in
horrible attacks against
Muslims and Jews
The Results
 The goals of the crusades were to win the Holy Land, stop the
advance of Islam and help the western and eastern parts of
the Church unite. All of these failed
 What we should learn from the Crusades is this:
 Christian satisfaction can’t come from possession of some
special place
 The sword should not be used to extend Christ’s church