Topic 9: Reform of the Catholic Church and the Crusades
Overview and Reading Assignment
In this topic, the growth of the medieval papacy and the reestablishment of the German empire (an empire more in name than fact) are examined. As Europeans resisted invaders and as the tentacles of feudalism were spreading over the continent in the High Middle Ages, promoting some stability and order, two new powers came to the fore. A new line of German rulers halted decentralization in the heartland of Europe. Meanwhile, monastic leaders instituted reform movements intended to bring an end to lay investiture. Eventually, the most powerful secular ruler in Europe, the German emperor, clashed with the highest priest in Europe, the pope. A reformed papacy assumed sweeping powers to judge the conduct of not only clergy, but of men wearing crowns with scepters and swords at their sides. A grave conflict arose between church and state, as to who should invest bishops with the symbols of power for their offices (lay investiture). In the aftermath of this struggle, popes would continue to gain in prestige and power, while the imperial crown of Germany was juggled among competing dukes. About this same time, nobles joined the papacy's call for a crusade against the Muslims.
In conjunction with Topic 9, one should read in Hunt, et al., The Making of the West, Vol. I: To 1740, 2nd ed. pp. 359-79, 384-86, 416-19, 427-28.
IX. Reform of the Catholic Church and the Crusades
A. Restoration of the German Empire. After the demise of Charlemagne's empire, a struggle ensued between the remnants of imperial power in eastern German lands, the counts, and local major landowners. By the late ninth century, the indigenous leaders were the more powerful figures; they are referred to as stem or tribal dukes. They ruled their domains independent of each other. They faced a serious threat: the Magyars. The German dukes realized that they could not defeat the Magyars unless they joined forces and appointed one of their own as king and commander-in-chief. The first duke to gain an advantage from this policy was from Saxony, one of the northern German principalities. Note: these leaders were not from the Carolingian line; rather, the new emperors came first from Saxony, a German duchy in the north [see textbook map]. The first Saxon duke to claim the title 'emperor' was Otto I (936-973). Later these emperors were referred to as the Holy Roman emperors; yet, they were neither 'Roman' nor particularly holy.
Like the Carolingians, Otto appointed bishops and abbots in his realm and invested them with the appropriate spiritual regalia, the practice known as lay investiture. With these bishops and abbots supporting him, Otto subdued all his rivals. The bishops and abbots were loyal suppliers of knights and resources, and they provided a network of support for the king. Later, Otto became the ally of Pope John XII (956-63). John was a notoriously bad pope; he became pope at age sixteen. After defeating the Roman forces opposing the pope, Pope John crowned Otto the "Roman Emperor" on 2 February 962. Otto promised protection over the papal states.
Soon Pope John resented imperial interference. He joined Italian opposition against Otto. The emperor responded by convening a church council that deposed John and appointed a new pope. Otto intended to select future popes just as he appointed bishops in his realm. For the next one hundred and fifty years, German emperors interfered in papal elections, sometimes handpicking popes.
B. A Monastery in Cluny. To say that the leadership of the Catholic church had fallen on hard times in the ninth and tenth centuries would be understating its decline. The papacy in particular descended into the depths of mismanagement and scandal. The papal office was fought over by Roman noble families and factions. The rest of the ecclesiastical hierarchy did not fare much better. Kings and emperors treated bishops as civil servants, while bishops often behaved as worldly as their secular counterparts. There were a significant number of clergy with wives, referred to as concubines. Church offices were sold and bought as if they were mere property, a vice called 'simony.' The practice of lay investiture and the widespread laxness of many clergy provoked a major renewal movement in the medieval church.
The reform movement began in a Benedictine monastery in Cluny (east central France); it was founded in 910. The local secular lord was persuaded to give up all his rights to the monastery and surrounding lands. Instead of local supervision, Cluny enjoyed a special papal guarantee of protection. Cluny rejected lay investiture; the monks from Cluny taught papal submission—all monks and clergy should be subject to the pope. The Cluniac program forbade clerical marriage and denounced concubinage; no clergy should have "hearth-mates." The abbot of Cluny gained control over a network of priors, heads of 1,500 monasteries throughout France and Germany. "The Cluny reformers resolved to free the clergy from both kings and 'wives,' to create an independent and chaste clergy. Thus, the distinctive western separation of Church and state and the celibacy of the Catholic clergy, both of which continue today, had their distinctive origins in the Cluny reform movement" (Steven Ozment).
Effect on papacy. In conjunction with the Cluniac movement, several popes in the eleventh century instituted reforms to curb abuses and establish independence from emperors. Synods were convened condemning concubinage and simony. Pope Nicholas II (1059-61) established the College of Cardinals (1059). This body of high church officials was formed to elect all future popes, without imperial interference.
C. Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) and the Investiture Conflict. The Cluniac reform had reached the papacy and a new group of reformed popes would no longer permit lay investiture. The clash in policies occurred in the pontificate of Gregory VII, when Emperor Henry IV (1056-1106) predominated over the German princes. Henry intended to rule his German subjects with his bishops at his beck and call. The new pope, Gregory VII, had other plans for the bishops. Pope Gregory envisioned a united Christendom, ruled not by emperors, but by the successors of Peter—popes. Gregory unabashedly proclaimed his exalted view of papal authority. He believed that priests of Christ were masters and fathers over kings and princes, who he claimed, seized their power through plunder, treachery and murder. Instead of following Christ as the clergy did, he accused secular rulers of falling prey to the ploys of the Devil.
In 1075 Gregory decreed that no secular authority might appoint churchmen to office upon punishment of excommunication (damnation based upon the 'keys' of heaven and hell granted to Peter and his successors, popes). Bishops and all other church officials were to receive their offices through the proper channels authorized solely by the pope. The ban of excommunication upon a secular lord freed all their feudal vassals from loyalty to the excommunicate.
Emperor Henry IV viewed this papal bull (named for the seal—Latin bulla—on papal pronouncements) as a threat to a long established tradition. The employment of church officials for the benefit of the state had been going on for centuries. Henry needed 'his' bishops to govern his empire. The dukes of Germany, seizing the opportunity to weaken Henry, supported Pope Gregory. In 1076, the German bishops, however, remained loyal to Henry and publicly stated so; they refused to acknowledge Gregory as pope.
Pope Gregory responded by excommunicating Henry and releasing all his subjects from any obligation to serve the emperor. The German princes revolted. Henry was caught unprepared. He approached Gregory at his residence in Canossa as a repentant sinner. For three days the emperor stood barefoot in the snow before the castle door pleading for forgiveness. Gregory relented and lifted the ban of excommunication.
Evidently Henry was not sincere for he immediately regrouped his forces, defeated his German rival, and marched against the pope. Again Gregory excommunicated Henry (1080), but the pope was forced to flee Rome as an imperial army invaded. Pope Gregory died at Salerno in 1085 and the conflict between emperor and pope continued through their successors.
Not till the Concordat of Worms in 1122 was the conflict settled by way of compromise. It was agreed that emperors would no longer invest the high clergy with the symbols of their spiritual office, but they could invest them with their secular lands, their fiefs. Also emperors were granted the right to be present at the elections of bishops and abbots.
The two great powers of Europe had fought it out. The papacy had indeed become a commanding force in the European political arena, yet the secular imperial power retained considerable influence in local church affairs. The Cluniac reform breathed new life into the church at all its levels, from monks to bishops, and even reached the headquarters of the church, the papacy. New found moral superiority bred boldness. Gregory claimed to be the 'soul' inspector of men's conduct, including men wearing crowns.
The reform movement also exposed the tension, perhaps better, the paradox, at the top of the Catholic church administration. Many clergy had forsaken the ideals of Christianity—self sacrifice, discipline, purity, concern for the poor and powerless. The Cluniac reform cleaned up abuses, but to ensure widespread reform the church began to operate on the same playing field as secular powers, using similar tactics of intimidation and propaganda. The most bitter clashes between popes and secular rulers were still to come.
D. The Call for the Crusades. Before the Concordat of Worms, in 1095, Pope Urban II received an embassy from the Byzantine empire. The desperate eastern emperor sent word through his representatives, requesting aid from the pope and western powers to help him against the Seljuk Turks, the new Muslim rulers in the Middle East. Pope Urban II seized the opportunity to bolster the image of the papacy as the rescuer of the Byzantine empire and of Christians tormented by Muslims. Moreover, he may have entertained the hope that European knights might gain control of the Holy Land and Jerusalem.
The Holy Land was revered by western Christians. The pilgrimage, a personal visit to a place made holy because of its connection with Christ or some saint, had long been a popular religious adventure. Flocks of pilgrims, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, set forth to visit a shrine. The holiest shrines were in Palestine, specifically Jerusalem. The journey to Palestine was severely hampered; the Muslim world was in disarray as a radical group had temporarily gained control of Palestine and Egypt. Moreover, the entire region had become a crisis area, for it seemed that the Christian Byzantine Empire might soon fall to the infidel (Muslim) Seljuk Turks. Pope Urban appealed to western princes and knights to help their fellow Christians in the east. The fervency fanned by the Cluniac reform movement ensured that Urban would receive ample volunteers.
The first Crusade was not led by great dukes as was the Knights' Crusade of 1095-99. Rather, the first crusade is referred to as the Popular Crusade, or sometimes the Peasant Crusade. It was comprised of some lesser nobles, but mainly zealous peasants. Thousands of peasants responded to the appeals of itinerant preachers such as Peter the Hermit of Amiens, to go to Jerusalem. Gathering in northern France and the Rhineland, bands of peasants, poor, ill-equipped and ill-advised, marched down the Rhine Valley through Hungary and Bulgaria to the Byzantine empire. The rag tag groups that arrived in the city were quickly transported by Emperor Alexius across the Bosporus. Soon after landing in Asia Minor, the Turks forced them to apostatize or be slain.
1. Crusades: One-Four. The First Crusade of the Barons was much better equipped and organized. Four noble armies arrived in the east in 1096 and 1097. Pope Urban had promised all participants the full forgiveness for their sins if they joined the crusade and wore the cross upon their armor and tunics. The knights barely made it to the Holy Land. Supplies ran dangerously low. There were reports of cannibalism; the poorer soldiers and camp followers were forced to glean seeds from horse manure for food. Finally the knights on 15 July 1099 stormed Jerusalem and slaughtered the entire Muslim population. They established a kingdom over the area, but the location was indefensible, and the Muslims regained the Holy City in the 1180's.
A second crusade (1147-49) was organized to win more territory in the region. It was comprised of two armies, one led by King Louis VII of France, the other by the German Emperor, Conrad III. This crusade failed miserably and achieved none of its objectives. The third crusade (1189-92) was also led by Europe's most powerful men: King Richard I the Lion-hearted of England, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and King Philip II of France. Frederick drowned while attempting to cross a river in Asia Minor whereupon most of his forces withdrew. The crusaders captured one city, Acre (lost in 1291), but failed to regain Jerusalem.
The fourth crusade, especially ignoble, never reached the Holy Land. Instead, the Doge, the political leader of the Italian city, Venice, persuaded the crusaders to attack the Christian city Zara in Dalmatia, a threat to Venetian expansion in the Adriatic. Later, the crusaders were hired by another Alexius (IV), a pretender to the Byzantine throne. He recruited the crusaders in order to take the Byzantine throne. He promised them money and military aid for a campaign in Egypt. When he was unable to make good his promises, the crusaders stormed and looted Constantinople, a Christian capital.
2. The Effects of the Crusades. Concerning their military objectives, Jerusalem was liberated for almost a century enabling many Christian pilgrims to visit Palestine in relative safety. Also, those involved in the fourth crusade obtained much plunder and relics from Christian Constantinople. In regards to military tactics, the European knights honed their skills and learned to build formidable castles.
The cost and logistics involved in carrying out the crusades provided European institutions with a powerful stimulus for growth and development. The knights paid their own way in the first crusade. In the later crusades, popes and princes had to find the means to finance these campaigns which led to direct taxes and much larger budgets and, consequently, larger bureaucracies to handle funds. The papacy offered to all the spiritual benefits of fighting in a crusade (the forgiveness of sins) by giving a monetary contribution in lieu of personal service; one could purchase an indulgence. This practice became a very profitable business for the late medieval church as monetary payments could be substituted for other forms of restitution—pilgrimages, etc.
Knights became businessmen, securing goods for occupied territories and castles in the Middle East; also, they served as escorts for western pilgrims. The Knights Templar performed these functions, accruing great wealth as they turned to money lending and banking.
The flow of money stimulated commercial exchange and business ventures and helped revive the European economy. The crusades fostered more trade with the east in which the Italian towns especially benefitted. The Italian cities outfitted the knights. The fourth crusade was a major coup for Venice. The knights returned with luxury goods produced in the east that further wet the appetite of their neighbors at home and increased the demands for these goods. The pace of the European economy was much quickened.
Topic 10: The Urban Revival: Europe 1000 to 1200
Overview and Reading Assignment
Europe’s population grew substantially beginning in the eleventh century. The population upsurge was made possible by improvements in agricultural organization and technology, and other factors. It was closely connected to the urban revival. Besides a significant increase in the rural population, towns in Europe, especially in around the Mediterranean, grew tremendously. The civic growth was paralleled by the growth of trade, both internal (in and around towns) and external (between towns, including overseas and overland long-distance trade). Along with the ascendancy of towns came the features of urbanization that permitted political developments and activities that medieval agrarian economy could not support such as republican governments and education.
In conjunction with Topic 10, one should read in Hunt, et al., The Making of the West, Vol. I: To 1740, 2nd. ed. pp.
X. The Urban Revival: Europe 1000 to 1200
A. Population Growth and Expansion. Europe's population after the fall of Rome grew slightly until ca. 1000. About that time the population increased significantly and maintained its level of growth until the mid-thirteenth century. The population upturn may be explained by a number of factors. The invasions by the Vikings, Magyars, and Muslims had passed and so life for many people returned to normal. More forested areas were cleared and marshes drained which placed more land under cultivation. Lords offered tempting rents to peasants in new frontier lands. By the mid-thirteenth century, Germans had pushed so far east that they had tripled the area of settlement since the ninth century. Striking improvements were made in technology which benefitted agricultural production and transportation. A new harness was devised for horses which distributed the force of the load on their shoulders, rather than their necks. Plus, horses were shoed. By the thirteenth century, four-wheeled wagons were common. On top of these improvements, more manors were organized according to the three-field crop rotation system, which significantly raised agricultural productivity.
New crops provided more variety in diet with protein-packed peas and beans. Europeans were living longer and healthier lives as a result, and especially women benefitted. For the first time in the history of western civilization, women began to outnumber men. Simply put, more women resulted in more babies, and ultimately more people.
B. Local and International Commerce. Alongside the growth in population, the economy expanded considerably. The economic escalation brought on by the crusades was one of several conditions which led to the revival of many European towns and the resurgence of urban civilization. The European economy remained primarily agricultural, but trade, notably local trade, significantly picked up during and after the recovery from the invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries. Three major trade zones formed: 1) in the north around the Baltic Sea, 2) in the south around the Mediterranean, and 3) overland trade routes between the north and south.
Italian towns led the way in international commerce. Venice was already trading with the Byzantine empire in the ninth century. Other towns negotiated trade exchanges with Muslim rulers in the east in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. From the east, merchants obtained condiments, medicines, perfumes, dyes, paper, porcelain, jewels, fine linens, silks, and cottons. The westerners shipped wood, iron, grain, wine, and other agricultural commodities. From the Baltic region came grain, lumber, hemp, and furs, while western ports used these raw materials for ship and home building; in exchange, these ports shipped woolen goods and cloth pieces. The trading zones were linked by overland routes which supported large trading fairs along these avenues of trade. The growth of trade, along with the economic benefits of the crusades revitalized towns particularly in southern France and northern Italy. All these developments — increased population, better forms of overland transportation, the re-emergence of trade, local and long-distance — led to the growth of towns.
C. Towns and Merchants. In the early Middle Ages, towns were primarily administrative centers, not markets for exchange of goods. After the fall of the Roman empire in the west, bishops often inherited the position of chief political authority. If a town was not governed by a bishop, it was dominated by local nobility. As trade increased, permanent colonies of merchants formed within or nearby the town walls. The towns became headquarters for the merchants where they built their warehouses and homes, but also where domestic industry and proto-factories were built. From the countryside, a ready labor pool was available.
Eventually the richer merchants challenged local landlords. The latter, enmeshed in the feudal and manorial systems, did not understand the mercantile mentality and the growth of commerce. The merchants formed a new socio-economic estate. They wanted to abolish feudal exactions. Moreover, they were determined to establish their own law courts, for they would never receive impartial justice in the lords’ feudal courts. The merchants banned together and during the eleventh and twelfth centuries freed themselves from immediate outside supervision. They achieved independence by obtaining a town charter usually from the emperor or king. He recognized their right to self-rule in exchange for a gift of money.
D. Formation of the Commune. These merchants formed councils and swore oaths to each other to protect their city and trade and to live their lives honorably before God; this development is referred to as the formation of communes. The towns of northern Italy led the way in the formation of communes; Milan formed a commune in 1081, Florence in 1131. Besides the swearing of oaths, the merchants involved in establishing the communes, created town councils, two of them— a small council that handled the day-to-day administration of the town and a larger council that advised the smaller council and functioned as a judicial body. The men who sat on the small councils were called consuls.
The office of consul was highly sought after by both the most powerful merchants and by the nobility, especially in Italy. Strictly speaking, these were not nobles from the highest ranks of the feudal system, but they were nobles nonetheless. They came from the service ranks of the high nobility in both ecclesiastical and secular circles. They served as stewards or ministers of the very bishops or nobles, who no longer were masters over townships.
Until the end of the twelfth century, nobles often overshadowed communal politics. They had the best connections through family lines; they had the best training as soldiers. They received substantial revenues from old feudal dues, tolls on roads and bridges, etc. What led to their decline by the late twelfth century was internal conflict rather than external pressures. Still tied too closely to land and clan, the nobility tended to refrain from big business enterprises and to succumb to blood feuds and fatal quarrels.
E. Merchant Classes and Guilds. While the nobles were feuding, the merchant estate became more specialized and richer. Urban populations increased in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, providing more consumers, as well as serfs escaping manors and moving into cities. Merchants began specializing their services. This stage represents the diversification of guilds. The guilds were formed to protect business interests, to corner the market for a particular service or commodity, but they were also formed or at least closely connected to defensive arrangements on the part of the popolo. The popolo refers to the loosely-defined middle class, that is, shopowners and master craftsman. Small businessmen had to defend themselves against the nobles and sometimes richer merchants. Nobles in some instances inter-married with the wealthier merchants. These two groups amalgamated into a neo-patrician class. They tended to dominate both the small and large councils. Rule by the neo-patricians was contested by the lesser guildsmen and shopowners, and by quasi- professionals, notaries, for example, whose foremost demand was political recognition. The conflict between these social groups over control of neighborhoods or seats on a council was fierce. In the mid-twelfth century, intense competition, indeed, near civil war afflicted most Italian towns.
The landed nobility despised merchants; the violent lifestyles of the nobles did not agree with the burgher (based on Latin and German, indicating the town as a fortress from which derivation comes the word 'bourgeoisie') mentality. Eventually laws were passed prohibiting nobles from taking public office in some towns. Nobles in towns were ordered to pay bail (security) money.
Towns in the medieval, feudal world were an anomaly. They did not fit in either the feudal network nor the manorial system. They required complex administrations to govern them and rational judicial institutions to handle conflicts about contracts and deeds, all kinds of novel business arrangements. Moreover, citizens needed a rational and standardized system of law, not based on ordeal by combat, but on evidence provided by documents and witnesses. A sophisticated level of literacy was necessary. The growth of towns influenced as well the growth of education.
F. Medieval Education and Universities. After the dissolution of the Roman empire, education through most of Europe lapsed. Some instruction continued in monasteries, in a few schools in the towns which survived, and by private tutors, particularly in towns bordering the Mediterranean Sea and in some nobles' courts.
1. Monastic Education. Upon the monks and nuns, nonetheless, the burden of education was laid. But the brothers and sisters of monasteries viewed their roles as educators ambiguously. The religious were asked to do so much more for society than their calling required of them. Monks were obliged to dedicate themselves to God, while society called upon them to maintain hospitals, to attend to the poor and orphans, and perform other services and rites for the laity, as well as provide education. The monasteries were overburdened; they were never intended to handle all these roles.
Humanitarian duties, except for holding schools, were also performed by the secular clergy in the parishes. The parish system, likewise was under-staffed and unable to meet pressing new demands, especially those caused by urbanization. As towns revived, the administrative system of parishes was incapable of handling densely populated areas. Many new churches had to be built within the towns, plus more cathedral churches were constructed or expanded which employed chapters of canons. This expansion called for an extensive recruitment of secular clergy who also had to be better trained to minister to an urban population; merchants and their families were much more prone to be literate. Therefore, the secular clergy began to compete with the monks for the operation of schools. The new schools were associated with cathedrals or large churches; this development occurred from ca. 1000 to 1100.
2. The Next Generation of Scholars. Early education devised by the bishops was fluid and transitory. Master scholars were invited to cathedrals where a group of students congregated around these traveling pedagogues. The career of Peter Abelard (d. 1142) fits this model. His school was a band of students who listened to his lectures as he sojourned in France, restlessly fleeing academic enemies and a vengeful uncle-in-law. These scholars lived more like merchants, than stationary monks, parading and selling their intellectual wares.
Scholars were drawn to cities in search of larger audiences. The rise of the urban merchant class and their intellectual needs meant sure employment. The merchants and businessmen provided a most important impetus for education. Successful operation of commerce required the ability to read, write, and compute. Furthermore, because of the early start of Italian commerce, the profession of notary — transcribed documents, kept records, contracts, wills—required further training. Hence, in Italy, training in law was particularly developed and most notably at Bologna.
3. Universities at Bologna and Paris. The appearance of universities reflected the need to: a) establish marks of competencies in knowledge among students and professors; b) achieve legal autonomy and political recognition; and c) satisfy demands for specific fields of knowledge, such as expertise in law, medicine and theology. Universities were formed similar to medieval guilds or businesses. Universitas is the Latin word for 'guild.' Firstly, just like any prominent medieval guild, the masters established the standards of the product; in the university scenario, the equivalents were degree requirements for students and credentials to teach for professors. Secondly, universities had to fight, often physically fight for legal autonomy, whereby they could determine their standards, to ensure that promotion was based on academic competence, verified by experts. They also had to obtain legal autonomy because all masters and students, who were often foreigners, wanted to be judged according to canon law, not civil law, regardless if a student intended to enter a monastic or clerical position after graduation. Furthermore, they were set up as guilds so that they could obtain political recognition if not actual authority on town councils.
Early universities did not consist of a set of buildings. Classes were held in a master's home or, if one had enough students, in a rented hall or church. There were no campuses with libraries, student centers, cafeterias, gymnasiums, or stadiums.
Courses were not based on topics but on the recognized authoritative books such as Aristotle’s Categories for beginning logic, or Gratian’s Decretum, a textbook on canon law, or the Corpus of Civil Law, the basic textbook on Roman law. There were no electives. Students had some options by selecting which professor to take for one of the classic books. All instruction and relevant discussion was in Latin. The undergraduate was analogous to apprentice in a medieval guild. He studied the seven subjects of the liberal arts and upon successful demonstration of this core of knowledge, he received a bachelor of arts degree. If he, and since one was technically in clerical orders as a student there would be no ‘she’s’, wished to pursue post graduate studies, he enrolled in one of the faculties of law, medicine, or theology. Typically, a bachelor of arts at this point was required to teach basic courses to undergraduates, while pursuing his own advance degree. Somewhat like a journeyman in a guild, the master-level student, after acquiring the requisite knowledge, created and presented a ‘masterpiece,’ i.e., the defense of a doctoral thesis and a final exam. With a doctorate, one was entitled to hold a university position in any university across Europe. There were no stipulations about credit hours or residency. One obtained a degree by indicating a level of competency through examination. Thus two women were able to receive their doctorates and teach at the University of Bologna, even though they were not allowed to attend university. They were home-schooled by their fathers, both professors of law, passed with flying colors their doctoral exams, and were admitted to the law faculty.
Universities followed two courses of administration, one modeled after Bologna’s program, the other after the university of Paris. The university at Bologna was well known for its study of law. The rediscovery of the Corpus of Civil Law, a compendium of Roman law, in the late eleventh century, provided a major boost for the study of law at Bologna. Matilda of Tuscany founded this study because she hoped to see principles of Roman law applied to the papacy’s legal and political battles with the German emperors. Likewise other benefactors patronized scholars to defend the imperial cause on the basis of Roman law. The guild of students at Bologna determined the by-laws of the organization—the salaries paid to teachers, standards required of professors, and representation before the city council. By 1250 or so there may have been 10,000 students at Bologna, renowned for its training in both Roman and canon law.
Besides a resource used by papal and imperial debaters, the profound interest in Roman law arose from the medieval desire for order. Clearly, medieval lives were filled with disorder —violence, war, famine, disease. Feudal law was a conflicting mass of individualistic law ; each feudal lord could rule his or her land as one saw fit. Disputes were handled by ordeal of battle, fire, water, or by lining up character witnesses (compurgation). "Roman law reintroduced into Western thought the idea of the state, of government as a public authority endowed with powers of legislation" (B. Tierney). Roman law was structured around the concept of legislative sovereignty, a source, a fountainhead of law that could promulgate new law as circumstances required it. Clearly new law, or at least the recovery of Roman law, was absolutely necessary for the growth and development of urban centers. There was very little, practically nothing, of use in feudal law that could be applied to urban circumstances. Imagine the excitement of reading ancient passages that dealt with issues suddenly and immediately relevant to a medieval notary's or consul's problems.
Other cities were known for the specialty of their universities which were organized by the masters and not by the students. Paris became the outstanding center for theology. Around the year 1200 the university in Paris received a royal charter, confirming the guild's autonomy and right to license teachers. The University of Paris did not offer a program in law, since Roman law had not made its way into France. Salerno (kingdom of Naples and Sicily), with its contacts to the Muslim world was one of the preeminent centers for the study of medicine as was Toledo in Spain, where scholars had access to translations of Greek and Arabic scientific works.