In what ways did the Catholic Church attempt to increase its power during the Middle Ages?

Answer 1

During the middle ages, the Church and the government ruled together. They didn't need to attmpt to increase their power, they WERE power. The Catholic Church was the only church in Europe during the Middle Ages, and it had its own laws and large coffers. Church leaders, such as Bishops who often came from wealthy (read noble) families were part of the council of the King and played a major role in shaping laws, and often held powerful seat in the government. The head of the Church, the Pope, was a powerful figure. His power extended to excluding people form heaven. If someone were to disagree with the church, it was within the Popes power to interdict that person. That mean the person couldn't attend church, receive the sacraments, or enter heaven if he/she died while under it. At a time when everyone believed in heaven and hell and all belonged to the Church, this was an awful punishment, and history records that the Popes had no problem threatening Kings with it.
There was also the Inquisition....another means of keeping control.
Check out the link(s) below....

Answer 2

It created the Inquisition in order to stamp out those that opposed them. It was said to be to punish/convert heretics, but we know it was used for political ends as well.

They increased their control over various states. Kings, had to be crowned by representatives of the RCC, so they in essence held power over the heads of states.

They charged exorbitant fees to people for various "services" and built gigantic buildings to instill awe in an uneducated populace.

They used the military of various nations to accomplish their ends. The Crusades is a good example of this, sending thousands of people to go fight for something of no real value.

Answer 3

The Crusades were, in some aspects, Europe's defense against Islamic expansion and aggression. These were armed pilgrimages intended to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control. Jerusalem was part of the Muslim possessions won during a rapid military expansion in the 7th century through the Near East, Northern Africa, and Anatolia (in modern Turkey). The first Crusade was preached by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in response to a request from the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos for aid against further advancement. Urban promised indulgence to any Christian who took the Crusader vow and set off for Jerusalem. The resulting fervour that swept through Europe mobilized tens of thousands of people from all levels of society, and resulted in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 as well as other regions. The movement found its primary support in the Franks; it is by no coincidence that the Arabs referred to Crusaders generically as "Franj".[10] Although they were minorities within this region, the Crusaders tried to consolidate their conquests, as a number of Crusader states – the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli (collectively Outremer). During the 12th century and 13th century there were a series of conflicts between these states and surrounding Islamic ones. Crusades were essentially resupply missions for these embattled kingdoms. Military orders such as the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller were formed to play an integral role in this support.

By the end of the Middle Ages the Christian Crusaders had captured all the Islamic territories in modern Spain, Portugal and Southern Italy. Meanwhile, Islamic counter attacks had retaken all the Crusader possessions on the Asian mainland, leaving a de facto boundary between Islam and western Christianity that continued until modern times.

Substantial areas of northern Europe also remained outside Christian influence until the 12th century or later; these areas also became crusading venues during the expansionist High Middle Ages. Throughout this period the Byzantine Empire was in decline, having peaked in influence during the High Middle Ages. Beginning with the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the empire underwent a cycle of decline and renewal, including the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Despite another short upswing following the recapture of Constantinople in 1261, the empire continued to deteriorate.

Inquisition (capitalised I) is broadly used in reference to the judgment of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church. It can mean an ecclesiastical tribunal or institution of the Roman Catholic Church for combating or suppressing heresy, a number of historical expurgation movements against heresy (orchestrated by the Roman Catholic Church) or the trial of an individual accused of heresy.

The Medieval Inquisition is a term historians use to describe the various inquisitions that started around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition (1184-1230s) and later the Papal Inquisition (1230s). It was in response to large popular movements throughout Europe considered apostate or heretical to Christianity, in particular the Cathars and Waldensians in southern France and northern Italy. These were the first inquisition movements of many that would follow.

The classical period of witch-hunts in Europe falls into the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1700, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in tens of thousands of executions.

Many cultures throughout the world, both ancient and modern, have reacted to allegations of witchcraft either with superstitious fear and awe, and killed any alleged practitioners of witchcraft outright; or, shunned it as quackery, extortion or fraud. Witch-hunts still occur in the modern era in many communities where religious values condemn the practice of witchcraft and the occult.
During the Early Middle Ages, the Church did not conduct witch trials. Canon law, in Canon Episcopi, followed the views of the church father Augustine of Hippo (AD 400) that belief in the existence of witchcraft was heresy, since according to Augustine "a heretic is one who either devises or follows false and new opinions, for the sake of some temporal profit". [citation needed] The Council of Paderborn in 785 explicitly outlawed the very belief in witches, and Charlemagne later confirmed the law. The first[citation needed] medieval trials against witches date to the 13th century with the institution of the Inquisition, but they were a side issue, as the Church was concentrating on the persecution of heresy, and witchcraft, alleged or real, was treated as any other sort of heresy.

There were still secular laws against witchcraft, such as that promulgated by King Athelstan (924-999)

And we have ordained respecting witch-crafts, and lybacs, and morthdaeds: if any one should be thereby killed, and he could not deny it, that he be liable in his life. But if he will deny it, and at threefold ordeal shall be guilty; that he be 120 days in prison: and after that let kindred take him out, and give to the king 120 shillings, and pay the wer to his kindred, and enter into borh for him, that he evermore desist from the like.[3]
It had been proposed that the witch-hunt developed in Europe after the Cathars and the Templar Knights were exterminated and the Inquisition had to turn to persecution of witches to remain active. In the middle of 1970s, this hypothesis was independently disproved by two historians (Cohn 1975; Kieckhefer 1976). It was shown that the pursuit originated amongst common people in Switzerland and in Croatia that pressed on the civil courts to support them. Inquisitorial courts became systematically involved in the witch-hunt only in the 15th century: in the case of the Madonna Oriente, the Inquisition of Milan was not sure what to do with two women who in 1384 and in 1390 confessed to have participated in a type of white magic.