By Oyewole O. Sarumi
In our previous discussion, we examined how the Church and the Early Fathers influenced Europe’s economy and politics during the Reformation and the Early Modern Age, demonstrating how patristic voices continued to guide both Protestant Reformers and Catholic leaders. Yet, the story of the Church’s influence on Europe stretches back much further, and to truly grasp the upheavals of the sixteenth century, we must first explore the deeper roots of its authority.
From the collapse of the Roman Empire to the dawn of the modern state, the Christian Church was not merely a participant in European history—it was its very foundation. Its doctrines provided the bedrock of law, its hierarchy became the governance model, and its moral framework set the rhythms of economic life. The pronouncements of Popes, the debates of theologians, and the labour of monks did more than preserve faith; they built institutions, shaped markets, and defined power itself.
This second part of our study traces that sweeping narrative. We begin with the early Fathers—Augustine, Ambrose, and Benedict—whose ideas on governance, morality, and labour established Europe’s first blueprints of order. We then follow the rise of medieval Christendom, when the Papacy emerged as a supra-national authority, and monasteries became engines of innovation and prosperity. Finally, we turn to the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, moments of rupture and renewal that redefined the relationship between faith, politics, and economy, laying the groundwork for the nation-state and capitalism.
What unfolds is not merely a religious history but a chronicle of how the cross and the crown, working in tandem and in tension, forged the political and economic identity of Europe.
1. Sowing the Seeds: Patristic Thought on Governance and Wealth
When the Western Roman Empire crumbled in the 5th century, it left behind a power vacuum of epic proportions. The intricate systems of Roman law, administration, and infrastructure that had held Europe together for centuries began to dissolve, giving way to an era of fragmentation and instability. Into this void stepped the Christian Church, the only institution with the organizational structure, moral authority, and continent-wide reach to provide a semblance of order. The Early Church Fathers, also known as the Patristics, were the intellectual giants of their era, and their writings became the foundational texts for the next thousand years of European political and economic thought.
Perhaps the most influential of these was Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD). Writing as the Vandals were sacking his own city, Augustine penned his magnum opus, The City of God. In it, he laid out a robust theological framework that would define the relationship between the Church and the state for centuries to come. He proposed the existence of two cities: the earthly City of Man, characterized by self-love, temporal power, and inevitable corruption; and the heavenly City of God, defined by the love of God, eternal justice, and peace.
Augustine argued that while Christians live in the City of Man, their ultimate allegiance is to the City of God. This did not mean a withdrawal from public life. On the contrary, he saw the state as a divinely ordained necessity to maintain peace and order in a fallen world, a “dyke against sin.” The secular ruler, therefore, had a legitimate role, but that role was subordinate to the higher spiritual purpose of the Church, which guided souls toward salvation. This brilliant formulation provided a theological justification for a dualistic power structure, in which both the king and the pope held legitimate authority in their respective spheres of influence. Yet, the spiritual sword was ultimately superior to the temporal one.
This principle of spiritual supremacy was demonstrated with dramatic force even before Augustine by Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan (c. 340-397 AD). In 390, Emperor Theodosius I ordered the massacre of thousands of citizens in Thessalonica in response to a riot. Ambrose, horrified by the act, publicly excommunicated the most powerful man in the world, barring him from the sacraments. He demanded that the emperor perform public penance for his sins. Astonishingly, Theodosius complied, humbling himself before the Bishop. This event was a watershed moment, establishing a powerful precedent that no ruler, however mighty, was above the moral law of God, of which the Church was the ultimate arbiter.
The Fathers also laid the ethical groundwork for Europe’s economic life. In a world grappling with the transition from a slave-based Roman economy to a new feudal order, they championed the dignity of labour, drawing on scripture and monastic practice. Saint Benedict’s famous rule, Ora et Labora (Pray and Work), established a rhythm of life in monasteries that integrated spiritual devotion with manual labour, elevating work from a servile necessity to a form of worship. On the question of wealth, the Fathers were deeply ambivalent.
They frequently quoted Jesus’s warning: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). They preached charity and almsgiving as essential duties and vehemently condemned avarice. A crucial economic doctrine they established was the firm prohibition of usury—the lending of money at interest. Based on passages like Deuteronomy 23:19, they viewed usury as an exploitation of the needy, a means of profiting from time that belonged to God alone. This prohibition, although sometimes circumvented, would have a profound impact on commercial activity throughout the Middle Ages, shaping the development of finance and banking.
The Age of Christendom: The Papacy, Feudalism, and the Monastic Economy
Building upon the Patristic foundations, the medieval Church evolved into an institution of unparalleled power and influence. By the High Middle Ages (c. 1000-1300), the Pope was the most powerful figure in Europe, commanding not just spiritual allegiance but also immense political and economic might. This era, often referred to as Christendom, saw the Church function as a pan-European “super-state,” with the Pope as its head.
The theory underpinning this power was refined over centuries. Pope Gelasius I (r. 492-496) had articulated the “Doctrine of the Two Swords,” arguing that God had entrusted two swords of authority to the world: the spiritual sword to the Pope and the temporal sword to the emperor. However, Gelasius was clear that the spiritual sword was weightier. This idea reached its zenith with influential pontiffs like Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073-1085), who humbled the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV at Canossa during the Investiture Controversy, and Pope Innocent III (r. 1198-1216), who claimed plenitudo potestatis (fullness of power) and acted as an arbiter over the kings of Europe.
The Papacy had its own laws (Canon Law), its own courts, its own tax system (the tithe), and a vast bureaucracy in the Roman Curia. Canon Law was particularly influential, providing a sophisticated and unified legal system across the continent. It shaped secular laws governing contracts, wills, and marriage, creating a predictable legal environment that was essential for the growth of long-distance trade and commerce.
Beyond the papal court, the Church’s economic impact was most profoundly felt through its monastic orders. Far from being isolated communities of prayer, monasteries were the economic engines of medieval Europe. The Benedictines and, later, the Cistercians were master agriculturalists and pioneers of technology. They cleared forests, drained swamps, and reclaimed vast tracts of land for farming.
They perfected techniques like the three-field crop rotation system, which significantly increased food production and supported population growth. Cistercian monasteries, often located in remote areas, became industrial centres known for their advanced water-powered metallurgy and their massive-scale sheep farming, which supplied the booming English and Flemish wool trade. The monastic estates were among the best-managed and most productive landholdings in Europe, functioning as centres of innovation, capital accumulation, and employment. In a world of subsistence agriculture, they were islands of economic rationality and surplus production.
A House Divided: Luther, Calvin, and the Reshaping of Power and Prosperity
For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church had provided the unifying framework for European civilisation. However, by the late 15th century, this edifice was beginning to crack. Widespread corruption, the sale of indulgences, the rise of humanist thought, and the growing power of national monarchies created a fertile ground for dissent. The invention of the printing press enabled new ideas to spread with unprecedented speed. On October 31, 1517, when a German monk named Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, he was not just challenging a church practice; he was lighting the fuse of a revolution that would permanently alter the political and economic landscape of Europe.
Luther’s theological innovations had profound political consequences. He dismantled the medieval hierarchy by advancing the doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers,” which held that every baptised Christian had a direct relationship with God, without the need for a priestly intermediary.
Politically, he replaced the “Two Swords” theory with his “Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms.” Luther argued that God ruled the world through two distinct kingdoms: the spiritual kingdom (the Church), which guided believers through the Gospel, and the temporal kingdom (the state), which ruled all people through law and the sword to maintain order. While both were ordained by God, they were separate and autonomous in their own spheres.
He famously drew on Romans 13:1, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” This was a radical break from the past. It effectively liberated secular rulers from the authority of the Pope. German princes, eager to consolidate their power and seize the Church’s vast wealth and lands, enthusiastically embraced Luther’s ideas.
The result was the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire and the birth of the principle enshrined in the Peace of Augsburg (1555): cuius regio, eius religio (“whose realm, his religion”). The monarch now determined the religion of his territory, making the state, not the Vatican, the ultimate authority.
If Luther reconfigured the political landscape, it was John Calvin in Geneva who forged a new economic mindset. Calvin’s theology, particularly his doctrine of predestination, had unintended but momentous economic consequences. Calvin taught that God, from eternity, had chosen some for salvation (the “elect”) and others for damnation.
This created a deep-seated anxiety among believers: how could one know if one was among the elect? While Calvin insisted there was no certain sign, followers began to look for clues in their earthly lives. Success in one’s worldly calling came to be seen as a possible sign of God’s favour. This led to what the sociologist Max Weber famously termed the “Protestant Work Ethic.” Calvinism fostered a culture that valued hard work, discipline, frugality, and personal responsibility as moral duties. Unlike in the Catholic tradition, where poverty was often romanticized, worldly success was now seen as a sign of divine grace. Profits were not to be squandered on luxury but were to be thriftily saved and reinvested in one’s enterprise, leading to further success and, hopefully, further assurance of salvation.
Furthermore, Calvin radically re-evaluated the long-standing prohibition on usury. He made a crucial distinction between exploitative loans to the poor (which he still condemned) and charging moderate interest on commercial loans for productive investment. By permitting lending at interest, Calvin removed a major obstacle to the formation of capital and provided a theological justification for the burgeoning financial practices of early capitalism.
Calvin’s Geneva became a model for a disciplined, industrious, and self-governing community, and his ideas spread rapidly to the Netherlands, Scotland, and England—nations that would become the vanguards of the new global capitalist economy.
Renewal and Retrenchment: The Council of Trent and the Rise of Absolutism
Faced with the Protestant challenge that had cost it half of Europe, the Catholic Church mounted a vigorous response known as the Counter-Reformation. Its centrepiece was the Council of Trent (1545-1563), a series of meetings that aimed to reform internal abuses and reaffirm core Catholic doctrine. The Council stamped out practices like the sale of indulgences, mandated better education for priests through the establishment of seminaries, and produced a new Catechism to standardize Church teaching.
Politically, the Counter-Reformation had a paradoxical effect. While it reasserted the doctrinal authority of the Pope, its implementation on the ground depended entirely on the cooperation of Catholic monarchs. Kings like Philip II of Spain and the rulers of France and Austria became the militant champions of the revitalized Catholic faith. In doing so, they brought the Church in their lands more firmly under state control, a phenomenon known as Gallicanism in France. The result was a closer alliance between throne and altar, where the Church provided divine legitimacy for the growing power of absolute monarchy, and the state, in turn, protected the Church and enforced its religious uniformity. This alliance helped create the powerful, centralized Catholic states of the Early Modern era.
Economically and culturally, the Counter-Reformation also left a lasting mark. A key instrument of the Catholic renewal was the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1540. The Jesuits were a highly disciplined, educated, and centralized order that saw itself as the “soldiers of Christ.” Their primary mission was education. They established a vast network of elite schools and universities across Catholic Europe and the wider world. By providing a rigorous, humanist-inspired education to the sons of the nobility and the burgeoning middle class, they trained a new generation of state administrators, diplomats, and scientists. This massive investment in human capital was a significant, if indirect, contribution to the economic and administrative development of the Catholic states.
The renewed Church also became a colossal patron of the arts. To counter the austere aesthetic of Protestantism, the Catholic Church embraced the dramatic, emotional, and ornate style of the Baroque. Grandiose churches, lavish altarpieces, and powerful religious paintings by artists like Caravaggio and Bernini were commissioned to awe the faithful and express the majesty of the Catholic faith. This immense patronage fuelled a significant sector of the economy, employing armies of architects, sculptors, painters, and craftsmen, and turning cities like Rome into the artistic capitals of the world.
From Christendom to the Secular State: The Church’s Lingering Imprint
The religious conflicts unleashed by the Reformation culminated in the devastating Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), a conflict that ravaged central Europe and killed millions. The treaty that ended it, the Peace of Westphalia, was a landmark in European political history. It effectively brought the era of religious wars to a close and is widely considered the birth of the modern international system of sovereign states. The treaty affirmed the principle of cuius regio, eius religio and, for the first time, gave it a basis in international law. The Pope’s protest against its terms was ignored, symbolizing the dramatic decline of papal influence in European politics. The universalist dream of Christendom was dead; in its place was a new order of independent, sovereign nation-states that would pursue their own interests.
The economic and political legacies of this long and complex history are profound. In Northern Europe, the values fostered by the Protestant Ethic—hard work, thrift, and reinvestment—helped create the cultural conditions for the Industrial Revolution and the rise of modern capitalism, particularly in nations like Britain, the Netherlands, and later, the United States. In the political realm, Protestantism’s challenge to centralized authority helped nurture traditions of republicanism, constitutionalism, and individualism.
Conversely, the Catholic nations, with their powerful monarchies and a culture that was often less amenable to the spirit of capitalism, followed a different path. The Church continued to play a central role in society, education, and culture, but it was often in partnership with, or subordinate to, a powerful absolute state. The legal traditions shaped by centuries of Canon Law continued to influence civil law codes, and the Church’s emphasis on communal charity laid the groundwork for later concepts of social welfare.
Conclusion
The journey from the fall of Rome to the Peace of Westphalia is the story of Europe’s long and often turbulent creation. At the heart of this narrative lies the Christian Church, an institution that acted as custodian of classical learning, midwife to political structures, and moral arbiter of economic life. The Early Fathers, led by Augustine, provided the intellectual blueprint for a civilization built on the dual pillars of spiritual and temporal authority. For a thousand years, the Catholic Church elaborated on this model, creating a unified Christendom under the guidance of the Papacy, while its monasteries drove economic innovation.
The Reformation was the great turning point. It was far more than a theological dispute; it was a political and economic earthquake that shattered this unity, empowering the secular state and unleashing a new ethic of work and wealth that would fuel the rise of capitalism. The modern European state, with its claims to absolute sovereignty, and the modern global economy, with its relentless drive for accumulation, are both, in their own ways, children of this great schism. The Church did not merely influence the development of European politics and economy; it provided the very categories of thought, the legal frameworks, and the moral tensions through which that development took place. The echoes of this profound legacy—in debates over the role of religion in public life, in differing economic attitudes across the continent, and in the very foundations of Western law—resonate to this day.