Sacerdotalism

Sacerdotium, ( rarely also Sazerdotium ) in Latin meant originally "priesthood." In medieval times, however, summed up this term along the spiritual power of the Catholic Curia in differentiation of the secular power ( regnum or imperium ) mainly in the Holy Roman Empire. Both, however, were always with each other in an interaction.

In the early Middle Ages it took sacerdotium and regnum as a single entity, even though two different tasks obeyed. These were determined and defined in more detail at the Paris council in the year 829. Although here the spiritual power of priority has been given, you went to the middle of the 11th century from a harmonious interaction of the two spheres. On this basis, the Ottonian emperors were able to exercise their church rule.

In the course of the Gregorian reform movement was later distinguished sharply between the spiritual and the secular sphere and attempts to subordinate the temporal power of the spiritual. The Investiture Controversy was one of the highlights of this conflict, in which clung the followers of the secular power of the Emperor to the earlier ideas of the two- violence doctrine. As a result of the dispute, now formed the community of clerics out to an earthly institution of the Church, the completed independently and legally subordinate to the Pope.

The Popes tried in the following period to bring the state sphere of the regnum under their control. They argued, inter alia, with the feudal law. The representatives of the secular rule replied to with the reference to the old Roman law, which recognized the autonomy of the political community. Emperor Frederick I pointed out that his rule was itself finally god directly. In this context, the term sacrum imperium (Latin for " Sacred Reich" ) was in 1157 and first used in the imperial chancery, with which the god immediate sacral nature of the empire, which had been previously postulated, however, on several occasions, should be set out. Finally, could the papacy claims his rule not prevail, however, they were not on, so it still came to some violent clashes in the early 14th century.