THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN AND ROMAN CHURCH
DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.[198]
§ 74. CHARACTER AND DIVISIONS OF THIS PERIOD
OF THE DEVELOPMENT.
With the historically significant appearance of the Germanic peoples,
from whose blending with the old Celtic and Latin races of the conquered
countries the _Romance_ group of nationalities has its origin, there
begins a new phase in the historical development of the world and the
church. The so-called migration of the nations produced an upheaval
and revolution among the very foundations and springs of history such
as have never since been seen. For a similar significance cannot be
ascribed to the appearance at a somewhat later period of a motley crowd
of Slavic tribes and a detached contingent of the Turanian-Altaic race
(Finns, Magyars, etc.), because the stream of their development ran in
the same channel. Thus the appearance of the Germans forms the watershed
between the old world and the new. This dividing boundary, however,
is not a straight line; for the shoots of the old world run on for
centuries alongside of and among the young growths of the new world.
In so far as those remnants of the old have no relation to the new
and work out uninfluenced by their surroundings their own material
in their own way, the history of their developments has no place here;
but even these demand consideration at this point in so far as they
affect the development of the new world as a means of educating and
moulding, arresting and perverting. Just as the history of the church
and the world as a whole is distributed into ancient and modern,
so the special history of the Germano-Roman world can and must be
distributed into ancient and modern, the dividing boundary of which
is the Reformation of the 16th century. The earlier of these two phases
of history presents itself to us with a Janus-head, whose two faces are
directed the one to the ancient, the other to the modern world. This
follows from the fact that the groups of peoples referred to did not
require any longer to pursue the weary way of their development on
their own charges, but rather entered upon the spiritual heritage of
the defunct ancient world, and were able by means thereof more quickly
and surely to grow to the maturity of their own proper and independent
rank and culture. The Roman and, for some branches of the Slavic races,
also the Byzantine, church was the bearer and medium of this spiritual
heritage, and as such became teacher and disciplinarian of the young
world. The Reformation is the emancipation from the administrator of
discipline, whose leading strings were cast off by the youth when he
reached the maturity of man’s estate. It is the assertion of the German
nation that it had reached its intellectual majority.
§ 74.1. =The Character of Mediæval History.=--As its name implies
the mediæval period of church history is one of transition from
the old to the new. The old is the now completed development
of Christianity under the moulding influences of the ancient
Greek and Roman world; the new is the complete incorporation of
the special forms of life and culture that characterize the new
peoples, who are placed by means of the migration of the nations
in the foreground of history. But since the peculiar culture
of these nations was first present only potentially and as a
capacity, and was to realize itself first through the influence
of the early Christian culture, between the old and the new a
middle and intermediate age intervened, the extent of which was
just that influence of the old completed culture upon the new
developing culture. This conflict during the whole course of the
Middle Ages was carried on by those powerful waves of action and
reaction (formation, deformation, reformation), which, however,
amid the ferment of the times displayed an ever varying mixing
of the one with the other. The Middle Ages have brought forth
the most magnificent phenomena, the papacy, the monastic system,
scholasticism, etc., but characteristic of them all is that
crude blending of the three kinds of movement named above, which
hindered its effectiveness and led to its own deterioration.
First in the beginning of the 16th century did the reformatory
endeavours become so mature and strong that it could assume a
purer form and carry out its efforts with success. With this too
we reach the end of the Middle Ages and witness the birth of the
modern world.
§ 74.2. =Periods in the Church History of the German-Roman
Middle Ages.=--The first regular period is marked by the end of
the Carolingian age, which may be regarded as completed by the
dying out of the German Carolingians in A.D. 911. The movement
in all the chief departments of the church was hitherto regular
and unbroken: before Charlemagne an ascending one, during his
reign reaching the summit, and after his death declining. It is
the =universal German= period of history. The fundamental idea
of the Carolingian dynasty, which survived even its weakest
representatives, was no other than the combination of all
German, Roman and Slavic nationalities under the sceptre of
one German empire. The last German Carolingian carried this
idea with him to the grave. The powerful impulse present even in
the 9th century toward national separation and the dismemberment
of the Carolingian empire into independent Germanic, Romanic and
Slavic nations has since asserted its irresistible power. But
with the Carolingian empire the Carolingian epoch of civilization
also came to an end. And even the glory of the papacy, whose
intrigues had undermined the empire, because it had thus snapped
the branch on which it sat, now sank into the lowest depths of
weakness and corruption. When we take a general survey of the
beginning of the 10th century, we find on all sides, in church
and state, in secular and spiritual governments, in science,
culture and art, the creations of Charlemagne overthrown, and
a _seculum obscurum_ introduced from which amid great oppression
and savagery, emerge the conditions, earnests and germs of a new
golden age.--A second period is marked out, in quite a different
fashion, by the age of Pope Boniface VIII. or the beginning of
the 14th century. Up to this time =Germany= stood distinctly in
the foreground both of the history of the world and of the church;
but the unhappy conflict of Boniface with Philip the Fair of
France placed the papacy at the mercy of French policy, and so
henceforth in all the movements of Church history =France= stands
in the front. The pontificate of Boniface forms a turning point
also for the historical development within the church itself. The
most vast and influential products of mediæval ecclesiasticism
are the papacy, monasticism and scholasticism. The period before
Boniface is characterized by the growth and flourishing of these;
the period after Boniface by their decay and deterioration.
The reformatory current, too, which permeated the whole of
the Middle Ages, has in each of these two periods its own
distinctive character. Before Boniface those representatives of
the dominant ecclesiastical system were themselves inspired by a
powerful reformatory spirit working its way up from the great and
widespread depravation of the 10th century, accompanied, however,
by a hierarchical lust of power far beyond the limits justifiable
on evangelical principles. The evangelical reformatory endeavours
again directed against those representatives of ecclesiasticism
are still relatively few and isolated and find but a slight echo,
while as their caricature we see alongside of them heretical
extravagances which have scarcely ever had their like in history.
Toward the end of the first period, however, this relation
begins to be reversed. The papacy, monasticism and scholasticism
becoming more and more deteriorated are the patrons of every sort
of deterioration within the church. The revolutionary heretical
movement is indeed overcome, but all the more powerfully,
generally and variedly does the evangelical reformatory movement,
though still always burdened with much that was confused and
immature, assert itself independently of and over against those
ecclesiastical principalities, without being able, however,
to exert upon them any abiding influence.--Thus our phase of
development is divided into three periods: the period from the
4th to the 9th cent. (till A.D. 911); the period from the 10th
to the 13th cent. (A.D. 911-1294); and the period of the 14th
and 15th cent. (A.D. 1294-1517).