The Papacy and the Region, Church Structure, and Clergy

Abstract

This chapter evaluates the political aspects of the presence of the Roman Curia in medieval Central Europe. It reflects upon diverse forms of the Church’s power relations in Central Europe, and more liberty given in Poland or the Baltic region as opposed to more constraint put on Bohemia and its direct attachment to the papacy. Popes were not necessarily involved in the Christianization of the region from the beginning; lay and ecclesiastical powers already established in the neighboring provinces influenced the process. Missionary activity and the conversions of rulers were the first stages of the Christianization of Moravia, Bohemia, and Poland, which resulted in the creation of the first ecclesiastical structures in the second half of the tenth century. In Pomerania, Prussia, and further up the Baltic Coast, missionizing and conquest continued up to the thirteenth century and beyond, enabling the papacy to take an active role in the oversight of missionary work and, importantly, crusading. The minimal papal involvement in the initial Christianization of East Central Europe was followed by increasingly strong ties, illustrating how strongly the region desired papal involvement. Once episcopal structures had been introduced, clerics and rulers quickly sought papal backing.