Power Struggles In The Middle Ages

Most people look back on the medieval era as backwards due to the power struggles between the king and his subjects. In the medieval ages, there were two sets of power struggles with the king. The pope struggled to gain more power to push the churches agenda. Another power struggle was created because feudal lord could gain more power than their respective kings. However, no power struggle would have been possible without the lower classes specifically the knights.

These power struggles were caused by the way power was distributed, the feudal pyramid. In the feudal period Lords and priest had the same level of power. However, they gained it in a different way causing all lords more likely to be loyal to the king while the religious officials loyalties more likely to rest with the pope. There was also no way for peasants to rise from peasant class in the feudal pyramid. This made peasants dependent on their lords but not their king for a future. However, peasants were not the only one’s that could become loyal to lords. Knights were loyal to their lords not necessarily their kings depending on how well they were taken care of. An example of this is the duke of Burgundy in France; there

One way the pope, the highest church official, had power over the king was to threaten excommunication. The pope could threaten the king to block his path to heaven. This method was between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV in 1075 when King Henry retaliated to Pope Gregory’s ban of lay investitures. The pope could also utilize knights as militia as seen with the Spanish inquisition. The Spanish inquisition was the pope’s police who arrested non-Christians and those against the pope. However, there were also times when the pope did not want knights around. The pope used the crusades to send lord and knights away to make religious authority more powerful while their counterparts, the lords, were