1. The Middle Ages Church Wields Enormous Power …and other preposterous statements that you will have to defend

2. From 500-1200, Christianity easily spread throughout Western Europe by means of politics and missionaries

3. Monasteries become Europe’s best educated communities.

4. From about the 590s, starting with Pope Gregory, the Church became a serious political as well as a spiritual power

5. St. Benedict wrote “The Rules” thereby setting the tone for becoming a monk. According to him, life in the monastery was easy going for those who wanted to join.

6. When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor in 800, he unknowingly setting the stage for future conflict.

7. The lay Investiture controversy was a bitter struggle between the church and the state. Otto was in the right for doing what he did.

8. The new religious orders that formed between 900 and 1200 completely revitalized the church.

9. Gothic cathedrals were “Cities of God” and effectively symbolized the Church’s growing power in Europe

10. Monasteries also became Europe’s best educated communities. Monks opened schools, maintained libraries, and copied books. In 731 Venerable Bede, an English monk, wrote a history of England. Scholars still consider it the best historical work of the early Middle Ages. In the 600s and 700s, monks made beautiful copies of religious writings, decorated with ornate letters and brilliant pictures. The monks’ illuminated manuscripts preserved at least part of Rome’s intellectual heritage.