1. Ch. 14 Sec. 6 Challenges to Church Power

2. Church Power Weakens After Pope Innocent III, the worldly power of the church weakened The kings of England, France, & Spain formed strong gov’ts Townspeople supported the kings & many felt that church laws limited trade & industry

3. Also, people found fault w/ the church’s great wealth & the worldly lives of some of its clergy King Philip IV of France ordered the clergy to pay taxes & this angered Pope Boniface VIII, who decreed that popes had power over worldly rulers Philip called together the Estates General

4. He charged the pope w/ heresy & w/ selling jobs in the church He wanted a church council to put Boniface on trial Philip’s envoys took the pope prisoner, but Boniface was quickly released & died soon after

5. The Babylonian Captivity & the Great Schism After Boniface died, Philip had a French bishop elected pope The new pope, Clement V, moved the center of the church from Rome (1,000 yrs.) to Avignon, France Six more popes, all French, lived in Avignon & this period is known as the Babylonian Captivity

6. People lost respect for the church, believing that the popes were controlled by French kings In 1377 Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome but died soon after The cardinal in Rome elected an Italian pope to please local mobs Later they elected a French pope, who went to Avignon

7. This period of church history is called the Great Schism the church was divided into two or three opposing groups, each w/ its own pope Finally a church council met in 1414 & ended the Great Schism It removed all the popes & elected a new Italian pope

8. More Problems for the Church The Babylonian Captivity & Great Schism weakened the pope’s authority & increased criticism, often from w/in the church In 1324, two teachers at the University of Paris wrote that the pope was elected to have power only over the church, not over worldly rulers

9. They argued that the church’s power belonged w/ a council of clergy & lay people In the late 1300s, John Wycliffe, attacked the church’s wealth & the immorality of some of its clergy Wycliffe wanted to replace the authority of the church w/ that of the Bible

10. Wycliffe promoted the 1 st translation of the Bible into English, so that English people could read the Bible & decide for themselves what it meant The church accused Wycliffe of being a heretic, but the English royal court defended him

11. Wycliffe wasn’t executed but was banned from teaching Jan Hus also criticized abuses in the church He was excommunicated & called before a council He was declared a heretic & burned at the stake in 1412

12. Wycliffe & Hus, however, had a profound impact on many people The questioning of church authority set the stage for later reformers