Usage of the title “Vicar of Christ” and the extent of powers implied in it supposedly peaked with Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) and Boniface VIII (r. 1294–1303); the image of popes as monarchic hegemons suited the attempts of legal, political, and constitutional historians to portray the growth of royal power, bureaucracy, and “nations” in competition with other forms of identity. More recently, the medieval papacy has been characterized as responsive and dialogic. Popes’ multiple roles as leader of the universal Church, Bishop of Rome, and ruler of the Papal States meant continual dialogue between center (Rome) and periphery in terms of appeals and petitions presented to the papal curia. Papal opinion and legal rulings mattered precisely because they were sought by regional churches and by secular rulers, and popes relied heavily on the College of Cardinals, judges delegate, and papal legates to represent papal decision-making. While the papal claim to the vicariate of Christ was often challenged by secular powers, this typically occurred in instances where earthly powers sensed that the vicariate of Christ was being wielded to intervene in matters critical to a definition of overlapping and occasionally competing spheres of government.

When and how did the Schism between the Western Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches take place? The West commonly associates it with an incident in 1054 CE. Of the many points of difference and dispute between East and West in 1054, only two remain current: the ultimate theological authority of either ecumenical councils or the papacy, and the West’s insertion of the filioque (“and the Son”) into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 CE. This chapter discusses both the origin of the filioque and the subsequent rise of monarchic papal authority in the West. The insertion of the filioque is sometimes incorrectly attributed to the Third Council of Toledo (589 CE), but it was definitively added to the creed by the Carolingians at a council in Aachen in 809 CE in close association with Charlemagne’s claim to be the only legitimate Roman emperor, and that change in the creed prevailed despite opposition at the time by Pope Leo III.

We associate “crusaders” with the medieval world and those who took part in military campaigns during the period 1095–1291, the “golden age of crusading.” This chapter examines why groups of men and women throughout history have been described as “crusaders.” For many historians, “crusaders” are not just those who fought against Muslims, but those who took part in papally inspired campaigns in various theatres-of-war against diverse enemies, for which they took vows and enjoyed special privileges. We further use the word “crusader” to describe those whom popes encouraged to take part in military ventures, for example against the Ottomans, over a much wider chronological period – from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. In modern times, crusade rhetoric has also been a key feature of both Western and Eastern religious and political discourse. Hence the chapter explores how our idea of “crusaders” has developed since the original use of the word.

The chapter takes stock of the major trends in recent scholarship of medieval heresy and ecclesiastical repression, identifies promising research avenues, and provides an overview of the way in which the papacy confronted the perceived menace of heresy in the central Middle Ages, considering the representations of and responses to religious dissent displayed by the official Church alongside its own motifs and transformations. The implementation of anti-heresy measures are thus observed in light of the main historical developments of the papacy in the central centuries of the Middle Ages: the eleventh-century reform and its institutional legacy; the zenith of papal monarchy; and the Avignon papacy and its political and intellectual developments. In all these different contexts, variously permeated by the ideal of papal theocracy, the Holy See fashioned apt legal and theological responses intended to contain what was featured as an enduring peril threatening the Church and Christendom.

Though addressed to members of the clergy, the Constituciones del arçobispado y prouincia dela muy ynsigne y muy leal ciudad de Tenuxtitlan Mexico (1556) set aside specific instructions for medical practitioners. Making concessions for surgeons and apothecaries, such as excluding them from fines or allowing them to work on holy days, they were asked to police their patients’ behavior, going as far as to deny follow up care to those who refused confession. Practitioners were also cautioned against prescribing cures for the “good health of the body” that compromised the “good health of the soul.” The religious manuals and vernacular medical texts of sixteenth-century Mexico shared a common language, setting and investment in their emerging community. They followed a prescriptive approach and saw themselves as exercising a corrective social function, capturing in detail the very behaviors they purportedly sought to curtail. This essay examines how physical health and self-discipline were viewed in relation to the colonial body in these sources, considering the ways in which this template was refracted to include the African, indigenous, and female bodies in their pages.