Pope Innocent II

Over twelve centuries ago, the Dark Ages marked the years in between the fall of the Roman Empire and the birth of the Renaissance period. Little technological improvement, no major civilizations, as well as diseases like the bubonic plague were part of the reasons why this time period was known as has been named the Dark Ages. Nobles were heads of their manors and one of the most popular jobs was serfdoms, working lands in exchange for protection if their was war. Manors were secluded by hills,

during the papacy of Pope Gregory VII. He saw the Church as an active organization that had to create “right order in the world”. Gregory VII thought that the papacy was superior to Kings and Emperors and he was very confrontational with them. His ideas drove the papacy to strive toward a “papal monarchy”. The Canon Laws were created as a basis for the Church to preside over matters pertaining to clergy as well as many civil areas such as marriage, adoption, and inheritance. The pope and bishops had the

centralize and regiment the prosecutorial process, derived from the reformist popes fighting to establish papal supremacy. To be clear, the papal reform movement did not start the process of persecuting heresy; some of Christianity’s first leaders, such as the second-century bishop Irenaeus of Lyons, wrote about heresy and how to combat it. Furthermore, prosecutorial episodes occurred before the election of the first reformist pope, Leo IX, in 1049. One of the most famous examples occurred in the French

Pope Innocent III began a sequence of changes that influenced the face of secular and ecclesiastical Europe through careful use of law and political manipulation. It has been remarked that the papacy acquired and retained the most power under the leadership of Pope Innocent III during the late 12th and early 13th centuries. I plan to examine sources primarily pertaining to the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and secondly to a collection of Innocent III’s papal letters. In my analysis, I hope to draw

In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II began a striking expedition to Jerusalem in order to release the city from Muslim control. His moving campaign and the promise of an immense reward was inspirational to the many willing participants. One must essentially understand that the leaders of these crusades connected almost every accomplishment to the works of God, and felt a huge moral obligation to take back what once belonged to Him. The extent of the crusades shows the deep devotion

Textual Analysis After crossing the Phlegethon, Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil cross into a dark forest where there are “no green leaves, but rather black in color, no smooth branches, but twisted and entangled, no fruit, but thorns of poison bloomed instead” (Dante, Inferno 186). The forest is depicted this way to give a picture of the barren nature of suicide. Dante sees the Harpies nesting and tearing at the trees surrounding them, “....in Greek mythology the Harpies are storm-winds which act as

torment can be seen in his work. One such piece of work was Bacons rendition of the Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650 Velazquez). The resemblances of the versions included the Pope sitting in a chair looking directly at the viewer. However, that is where the similarities end. In the 1953 painting, Bacon tore away the flesh from the Pope leaving a screaming skeleton in the place of the stern-faced pope in the original painting. Being up to interpretation, I view this painting in as if Bacons goal

life and works of the Catholic priest and mystic, Miguel de Molinos, referred to as the “founder” of Quietism by the Catholic Encyclopedia, who was initially praised for his work in mysticism before being imprisoned and condemned as a heretic by Pope Innocent

Medieval religious literature served to teach and instruct followers of the ways of religion, specifically Christianity, through vivid imagery. Three texts that support this idea are Hildegard of Bingen's “Know the Ways of the Lord”, Pope Innocent III’s “On the Misery of the Human Condition,” and “Everyman.” Although these texts represent the same idea, there are two surprising differences between them. The first being between “Know the Ways of the Lord” and “Everyman”, which shows the different

The Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1487 and authored by Dominican Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, was used by Catholics and Protestants as a bank of knowledge on how to locate and prosecute witches. Though the text was published in 1487, it was still used as the premier text on witches well into the 18th century. The text is incredibly thorough, covering the topics of witch identification, explanations of how witches make their pacts with the devil, and how to effectively conduct