Christianity
...Church plays a critical part of the History of Christianity as a whole. Over time, schisms disrupted the unity of Christianity. The major division occurred in 1054 CE the Great Schism of the Roman Catholic Church with the Eastern Orthodox Church and in 1517 with the Protestant Reformation. The Great Schism divided medieval Christianity into Western and Eastern branches. These branches later became known as the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The Roman Catholic Church encountered several challenges to the religious authority throughout 1000 and 1650 CE. Beginning in the high middle ages from 1000 to 1300 CE we confront the start of religious developments. For several centuries, church reformers had focused on improving the religious lives of the laity by strengthening the control bishops exercised over the local clergy. This strategy eventually failed by the middle of the tenth century. Many churches were abandoned or destroyed and those who remained were considered personal property of powerful local families. In the absence of an effective kingship bishops became helpless, as well against the local power. Most of the tenth century popes were incompetent or corrupt.
The first steps of reform emerged in the monasteries in the tenth century Europe. The reform began with the Cluny of Burgundy, who was placed under the protection of the papacy in order to prevent domination by local nobel families or bishops. Cluny established a network of dependent Cluniac house across Europe by 1049 CE. The Cluniac influence was growing the strongest in France and Italy, “ where the virtual absence of effective kingship made royally sponsored monastic reform impossible”
(Coffin, 262). In the tenth and eleventh centuries monastic reform became an essential responsibility of a Christian King. In the monasteries, the reform movement began to affect the...
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