rch developed along a different line. It became more organized, more bureaucratic, more legal, more centralized and basically more powerful on a European scale. This process was taken over by the papacy and reached its pinnacle under Pope Innocent III in the early 13th Century. He embodied what became known as the 'papal monarchy' - a situation where the popes literally were kings in their own world. The relative importance of spiritual and non-clerical power in the world was a constant question in the middle ages with both temporal emperors and kings, and the popes asserting their claims to rule by divine authority with God's commands for God's people proceeding out of their mouths. The power of the church is hard to exaggerate: its economic and political influence was huge, as its wealth, movements like the crusades, and even the number of churches that exist from this period truly show its greatness. By the turn of the eighth century, Christianity was generally the accepted religion with a continually expanding network of churches(Making 22). By the early 10th century, a strange malaise seems to have entered the English church. There are comments from this time of a decline in learning among churchmen and an increase in a love for things of this earthly world. Even more of these loose standards had begun a decline in the power structure of the church which included a decrease in acceptable behavior amongst churchmen and a growing use of church institutions by lay people as a means of evading taxes. Christianity affected all men in Europe at every level and in every way. Such distances however, led to much diversity and the shaping of Medieval religion into a land of contrasts. One can also see how man's feelings of extreme sinfulness and desire for God are quite evident in these tales. Still, we are told that history repeats itself because nobody listens to it, but more realistically history repeats itself because man is essentially ...
