A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages 2nd edition by Ullmann, Walter (2003) Paperback

by Walter Ullmann

This text outlines the development of the papacy as an institution in the Middle Ages. With profound knowledge, insight and sophistication, Walter Ullmann traces the course of papal history from the late Roman Empire to its eventual decline in the Renaissance. The focus lies on the institution of the papacy rather than on the lives of individual popes.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Medieval, Christianity, European History, Medieval History

Paperback

First published January 13, 1972

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the preface to his book, Walter Ullmann makes the claim that the history of the medieval papacy is the history of an idea. That concept shapes his whole book and accounts for its best and its worst parts.

For Ullmann, the history of the papacy is dominated by two concepts: the relationship between the papacy and Constantinople (which Ullmann casts as the conflict between an ideological and an historical approach, respectively) and the increasing use of canon law to translate papal ideology into reality. This makes for a fascinating sort of intellectual history that offers a pretty clean and compelling portrait of the papal rise from a prominent bishop with lots of hypothetical claims to a hierarchical monarch with sway in the farthest reaches of Christendom. I think Ullmann is definitely right to highlight the importance of law to the papacy, and in highlighting the importance of rather abstract concepts (like the reemergence of Aristotelian definition of the secular state in the 13th century) in the rise or fall of papal power.

But at the same time, I think Ullmann's book suffers from completely separating the intellectual office of the papacy and its ideological underpinnings from the less lofty aspects of its history. Political, social, and economic forces rarely come into play in Ullmann's history (and when they do, such as a brief discussion of heresy, it's traced back to papal ideas or claims). And I think that makes for a very incomplete picture of the medieval papacy, with all the rough edges and weird details sanded off. Everyone acts for Big Ideological Reasons: at one point Ullmann claims that "the whole ideological and political map of Europe had been changed by the methodical, purposeful and vigorous application of an abstract programme to concrete reality." While there's some truth in that, I think there's also some confusing of cause in effect. It ignores the fact that many popes were acting due to very specific political/economic/social situations rather than timelessly applying abstract intellectual concepts. There's the sense that Ullmann thinks that all the popes were all uniformly trying to institute a universal monarchy over all Europe, with individual personalities only altering their ability to do so effectively. In the end, while Ullmann's history is a really interesting application of intellectual history, I think it remains a bit too single-minded to provide a full and multifaceted view of the papacy.

[Ryan Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good institutional and intellectual history of the papacy from the fourth through the fifteenth centuries. You need to supplement it with another text that discusses the popes as individuals if you're unfamiliar with papal history.

[Luke Echo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable introduction to the history of the papal institution. Has helped me understand the role of the papacy in developing a kind of symbolic governmental practice through the Middle Ages.