My English Comparision Essay

Kevin Dang Period 1 Mr. Wong Almost Like A King

To what extent is this statement valid?

"By 1500s, the popes were little more than kings. Their needs, interests, challenges, and resources were much the same." The above statement is very true to some varying degree, Popes and Kings by far shared many same needs such as money, they shared similar interests to expand and conquer new lands, and their resources were always such a big issue. But to say popes were greater than Kings is a factual statement because people regard the Pope as a more prominent figure of the Middle Ages than the kings. Pope Innocent the III was one of THE powerful and influential popes of the Middle Ages in my opinion, he led the Holy Roman Empire to its glory day. People view the kings as war starting, tax imposing Kings. , By 1500, almost every pope that reigned needed the same exact thing that the King needed these items, power, wealth, and land. Almost every pope needed wealth, one method they decided to use was salvation, for a certain amount of fee, and one would be forgiven for his sins to be allowed to go to “heaven” which would be one method a pope would use when they were in a financial crisis. King John of England signed the Magna Carta giving certain rights to nobility in exchange for tax collection, in which money was a big issue for popes. Like every pope that reigned, he was faced with challenges, for example, Pope Innocent the III faced increasing menace of heresy, so the Roman Catholic Church initiated the Albigensian Crusade to eliminate Cathar heresy. Soon thereafter Pope Gregory IX believed heresy was much bigger and serious than first assumed, so what he did was he decided to establish the Papal Inquisition, which was to seek and identify heretics, though they were not allowed to kill heretics or torture them, or anything that involved bloodshed. As you can see, popes faced similar challenges to what kings faced; popes had to deal with financial crisis and uprisings

of heresy, kings had to deal with wars, such as the Hundred Years War, a conflict between England and France. Popes in many ways are comparable to kings. But Popes are not necessarily more powerful than kings all the time as they have clashed before, one example of this would be the conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and Phillip IV of France, Phillip claimed the right to tax the French clergy, Pope Boniface VIII responded that, the clergy were not allowed to pay taxes without the Pope’s consent. Eventually Pope Boniface VIII excommunicated Phillip IV, which resulted in Phillip sending French forces to capture Boniface and put him on trial, he was beaten and sooner or later died. After a while this led to the Avignon Exile to which Clement V took up residence in Avignon, and for the next 72 years remained there, this led to a decline of papal power. This shows that Popes were sometimes not more powerful than King. Popes and Kings shared an interest for expansion of lands, the papacy tried to expand its land when the States of Italy (Venice, Florence and Milan) were changing from small governments to bigger ones. England also sought to expand its land during the Hundred Year War. Both King’s and Popes had a council which would be their resource of help; the popes had a general council to support the pope, while the King had a Parliament. So in reality, Popes and King’s share such similar key items, power, wealth, and land, that the only difference is they cause different results. Popes were occasionally humiliated by a king though, as stated when Pope Boniface VIII was put to trial. But overall, popes and kings share very similar needs and interests.