The High and Late Middle Ages

1054–150037 eventsShow on the timeline

Papal reform, crusades, universities and friars; then schism, calls for reform, and the fall of Constantinople. Printing puts the Bible into new hands.

The Western church reaches the height of its institutional power and then its deepest crisis, with rival popes and councils. Francis, Dominic and Aquinas, Palamas and Sergius of Radonezh belong to these centuries, as do Wycliffe and Hus. At the end of the era the faith crosses to the Americas and into central Africa.

Events of this era

1075 to 1077, firm date
The Investiture Controversy and Canossa
Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV of Germany break over the appointment of bishops. Deposed and excommunicated in 1076, Henry comes as a barefoot penitent to the castle of Canossa in January 1077 and is absolved. The conflict goes on.
about 1078 to 1098, estimated date
Anselm: Faith Seeking Understanding
Anselm, monk of Bec and later archbishop of Canterbury, sets out to understand by reason what he already believes. The Proslogion argues that God cannot be thought not to exist; Cur Deus Homo argues that only a God-man could make satisfaction for sin.
1095 to 1099, firm date
The First Crusade
In 1095 Pope Urban II calls the knights of the West to go east in arms for the remission of their sins. Four years later the armies storm Jerusalem and massacre its defenders and inhabitants, as their own writers report.
1098 to 1115, estimated date
The Cistercians and Bernard of Clairvaux
In 1098 monks from Molesme found a “New Monastery” at Cîteaux to keep the Rule of Benedict to the letter, in poverty and by their own labour. Bernard joins with some thirty companions and becomes abbot of Clairvaux, and daughter houses multiply.
23 September 1122, firm date
The Concordat of Worms
Pope Callixtus II and Emperor Henry V end the dispute over investiture. The emperor gives up investing bishops with ring and staff and allows free election; the pope lets him be present at elections in Germany and confer the bishop’s worldly holdings by the sceptre.
about 1150 to 1215, estimated date
The Schools Become Universities
The schools of twelfth-century Paris grow into a self-governing body of masters and students, and an emperor’s law protects travelling scholars. Abelard, Gratian and Peter Lombard supply a method and books; kings and popes grant privileges.
29 December 1170, firm date
The Murder of Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, back from six years of exile for resisting Henry II’s claims over the church, is cut down by four knights in his own cathedral. He is venerated as a martyr, and the king does public penance at his tomb.
about 1173, estimated date
Waldo and the Poor of Lyon
A rich citizen of Lyon gives away his wealth and begins to preach with his followers in voluntary poverty. The pope approves the poverty and restricts the preaching; when they preach on, they are condemned. The early accounts used here all come from critics of the movement.
March 1179, firm date
The Third Lateran Council
Alexander III holds a general council at the Lateran at the end of a papal schism. It requires two thirds of the cardinals to elect a pope, orders a schoolmaster for every cathedral, and calls the faithful to arms against heretics and mercenary bands.
about 1200, traditional date
The Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela
In the highlands of Ethiopia a group of churches is cut whole out of the living rock. Ethiopian tradition ascribes them to the saint-king Lalibela, about 1200; the written sources are late, and archaeologists still debate how long the work took.
April 1204, firm date
The Fourth Crusade Sacks Constantinople
A crusading army, carried by a Venetian fleet it cannot pay for, turns on Constantinople, storms it and plunders its churches. Pope Innocent III condemns the sack, but a Latin emperor is installed and the conquest stands.
about 1209, estimated date
Francis of Assisi and the Friars Minor
Francis of Assisi gives up his property to live by the Gospel in poverty, gathers brothers and wins the approval of Pope Innocent III. Clare founds a sister community, and in 1223 Honorius III confirms the Rule of the Friars Minor.
1209 to 1229, firm date
The Albigensian Crusade
After a papal legate is murdered, Innocent III calls for arms against the count of Toulouse and the heretics of his lands. Crusaders sack Béziers in 1209, and twenty years of war end with the count’s heir submitting to the church and the French crown.
November 1215, firm date
The Fourth Lateran Council
Innocent III gathers more than four hundred bishops in Rome. The council issues a creed that speaks of bread and wine “transubstantiated”, orders measures against heresy and yearly confession, and requires Jews and Muslims to wear distinguishing dress.
22 December 1216, firm date
Dominic Founds the Order of Preachers
Dominic, a Spanish canon who had spent nearly ten years preaching against heresy in southern France, gathers a community at Toulouse. Pope Honorius III confirms it in December 1216, and within five years its friars are in Paris, Bologna and Spain.
1231, firm date
The Papal Inquisition Is Established
Gregory IX issues statutes against heretics and commissions Dominican friars to seek them out, try them and hand the unrepentant to the secular power. Papal inquisitors begin work at Toulouse; in 1252 Innocent IV orders the cities of northern Italy to force confessions.
1245 to 1307, firm date
Franciscan Envoys to the Mongols and the Church of Khanbaliq
Innocent IV sends Franciscans to the Mongol khan in 1245 and is told in reply to come and submit. William of Rubruck debates before the khan’s umpires at the Mongol court in 1254. By 1305 John of Montecorvino has a church and a choir in Khanbaliq.
about 1265 to 1273, estimated date
Thomas Aquinas Writes the Summa Theologiae
The Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas, pupil of Albert the Great and master at Paris, sets out theology in three parts, in questions and articles, drawing on Scripture, church doctors and philosophers. He stops writing at Naples in December 1273 and dies three months later.
May 1274, firm date
The Second Council of Lyon
Gregory X holds a general council at Lyon, where envoys of the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII accept the Roman faith and primacy. The council also fixes the rules of the papal conclave. After the emperor’s death the Greek church repudiates the union.
1287 to 1288, firm date
Rabban Sauma, a Monk from Beijing, Visits Rome and Paris
Rabban Sauma, a monk of the Church of the East born in Khanbaliq, comes west as envoy of the Mongol king Arghun. He recites his creed to the cardinals in Rome, meets the kings of France and England, and in 1288 receives communion from Pope Nicholas IV.
18 November 1302, firm date
Boniface VIII Issues Unam Sanctam
In his conflict with Philip IV of France, Pope Boniface VIII declares that the church has one head, that the temporal sword is subject to the spiritual, and that it is necessary for salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.
1309 to 1377, estimated date
The Popes at Avignon
After the election of a Gascon pope in 1305 the papal court settles at Avignon on the Rhône and stays for some seventy years. Petrarch calls it Babylon; Catherine of Siena urges Gregory XI to come home, and he returns to Rome in 1377.
c. 1337–1345, estimated date
Sergius of Radonezh and the Trinity Monastery
A young man from a ruined Rostov family settles in the forest near Radonezh and builds a small church of the Trinity. The community that gathers round him adopts the common life and grows into the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.
1341 to 1351, firm date
Gregory Palamas and the Hesychast Councils
Councils at Constantinople in 1341 and 1351 uphold the monk Gregory Palamas against Barlaam. God’s essence is beyond reach, they teach, but his uncreated energies, seen as the light of Tabor, are shared by the saints. The Orthodox Church holds this teaching as its own.
1347 to 1351, estimated date
The Black Death
Plague spreads through Europe, reaching Florence, Avignon and Paris in 1348. Priests and friars die with the rest or flee. Jews are accused of poisoning the wells and burned, though Pope Clement VI calls the charge false. In 1349 he bans the flagellants.
1378 to 1417, firm date
The Great Western Schism
The cardinals who elect Urban VI at Rome in 1378 declare the election forced and set up Clement VII. For nearly forty years two and then three lines of popes divide Latin Christendom, until at Constance two are deposed, one resigns and Martin V is elected.
about 1382, estimated date
Wycliffe and the First English Bible
The teaching of the Oxford theologian John Wycliffe is condemned at London in 1382. A hostile chronicler says that he put the Gospel into English; the whole Bible is translated in those decades, and a constitution of 1409 forbids such versions without a bishop’s approval.
1384 to 1441, firm date
The Devotio Moderna and the Imitation of Christ
Geert Groote of Deventer gives up his benefices and preaches repentance. After his death in 1384 his followers form houses that live in common by copying books, and a monastery at Windesheim. In 1441 Thomas à Kempis, one of them, writes out the Imitation of Christ.
1414 to 1418, firm date
The Council of Constance and the Burning of Jan Hus
A general council ends the papal schism, declares that even a pope must obey it, and orders councils to meet at fixed intervals. It also tries the Czech preacher Jan Hus, who had come under the king’s safe-conduct, and hands him over to be burned on 6 July 1415.
1419 to 1436, firm date
The Hussites and the Compacts of Basel
After the burning of Jan Hus, Praguers and Taborites defend the lay chalice in arms. A crusade proclaimed by Martin V fails before Prague in 1420, the city states its demands in Four Articles, and in 1436 legates of the Council of Basel concede the chalice at Jihlava.
30 May 1431, firm date
The Trial of Joan of Arc
A church court at Rouen under Bishop Pierre Cauchon tries Joan of Arc for heresy, and on 30 May 1431 she is burned as relapsed. In 1456 judges appointed by Pope Callixtus III declare that trial and its sentences null. Both verdicts are known from the courts’ own records.
6 July 1439, firm date
The Council of Florence Proclaims Reunion
Pope Eugene IV and the Byzantine emperor John VIII proclaim the reunion of the Latin and Greek churches at Florence on 6 July 1439, in a decree affirming the Filioque and papal primacy. Mark of Ephesus refuses to sign, and the union finds little acceptance in Constantinople.
29 May 1453, firm date
The Fall of Constantinople
After a siege of some eight weeks the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II takes Constantinople on 29 May 1453. The last emperor, Constantine XI, dies in the fighting, Hagia Sophia becomes a mosque, and the sultan makes the anti-unionist monk Gennadius patriarch.
c. 1454–1455, estimated date
Gutenberg Prints the Bible
At Mainz in the mid-1450s the Latin Bible is printed from movable metal type in an edition of well over a hundred copies, the first large book so made in Europe. A visitor who saw sheets of it in 1454 reported that every copy was sold before the work was finished.
1478 to 1492, firm date
The Spanish Inquisition and the Expulsion of the Jews
In 1478 Sixtus IV lets Ferdinand and Isabella appoint inquisitors against baptised Jews said to keep Jewish rites. Burnings begin at Seville in 1481; in 1482 the pope writes of complaints against the inquisitors. In 1492 the monarchs order all Jews to leave their kingdoms.
3 May 1491, firm date
The King of Kongo Is Baptised
On 3 May 1491 the king of Kongo is baptised at his court by Portuguese friars and takes the name João. The account is Portuguese. A generation later his son Afonso I writes as a Christian king, asking Lisbon for priests and protesting against the trade in his people.
1493, firm date
Christianity Crosses the Atlantic
In 1493 Pope Alexander VI grants the lands Columbus has found to the crown of Castile and charges it to convert their peoples. A second fleet carries priests to Hispaniola, where mass is said in January 1494 and a friar, Ramón Pané, records the first baptisms.