. By the time there was any Western Civilization to influence, the line between Church and State was virtually unrecognizable. They may have been nominally separate entities, but for close to a thousand years the church remained the dominant political, social, and cultural influence in Europe. Not coincidentally, we remember that period as the dark ages.
I presume you are talking about the Medieval Period. I can only guess that, because what you have just said about it, bears no resemblance to any history beyond what is commonly taught in grade school. Historians do not call 500 - 1500 the "Dark Ages"; they call 600 - 800 the Dark Ages, and consider that it was ended by Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance.
In Western Europe for most of the Medieval Period there was not one "State", but two: Pope and Emperor, plus all the other kingdoms and duchies, in which the rulers were working at centralizing and consolidating their power. And for most of the time, Pope and Emperor did not get on very well, as was only to be expected. Have you ever heard of the Diet of Worms? What was that about, if the the Church and State were one?
The eventual deterioration of religious influence was driven not by the retreat of the church from political life, but by the deterioration of the church into complete politicization and corruption under the Renaissance popes
No, it was brought about by the fracturing of religious influence in the Wars of Religion in the 16th and 17th century, and cemented by Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant Revolution was brought on by the corruption of the Church, the increasing power of the Emperor, who saw a chance to increase his power by protecting a heretic instead of handing him over to the Church, and ironically, by the developments of the medieval church itself, which in the formulations of St Thomas Aquinas, had empowered the position of individual thought.
The Medieval period, particularly the high middle ages and period of tumult following the calamatous 14th century, made huge strides in literature, philosophy and science (for instance, when were clocks invented?), which are still the basis of Western civilization. The Middle Ages get a bum rap in beginning history books. |
