ABSTRACT
The Lateran synod of April 1059, presided over by Pope Nicholas II, passed a decree of central importance to the medieval Church: it laid down new rules for the election of the pope. Under its terms the cardinal-bishops, of whom there were seven at this time, should deliberate about the matter, then they should call in the other cardinal-clerics, the priests and deacons, and finally the rest of the Roman clergy and the people should give their assent to the chosen candidate. The significance of this decree was that the Bishop of Rome should be chosen by what contemporary clerical reformers saw as ‘canonical election’ and not, as had so often happened in the tenth and early eleventh centuries, either by imperial or royal designation or by pressure exerted by one or other of the factions of Rome. For these reformers the decree on papal elections was a major step in the implementation of a wider programme of reform within the Church and indeed within Christian society as a whole. Their intention was to free the clergy from lay control by wresting the appointment of bishops from the hands of lay rulers, by preventing the purchase of ecclesiastical offices and thus eliminating simony from the Church (see Plate 2), and by ending the system of proprietary churches by which laymen established both churches and clergy on their own lands, thus ensuring overwhelming secular influence at local level. A concomitant of such changes would be the transformation of the lives of the clergy themselves, for an inevitable consequence of such powerful lay influence was that many clerics undertook important roles in administration, government and military affairs, and their lifestyle reflected this.
