The Struggle Between the Church and Secular Rulers Over the Reform Program

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In the 11th century, Rome is not what it is today. It's much more fragmented than we would think of today. Many bishops are opposed to this reform program. They have all kinds of very profitable side deals going on and they serve as local administrators and local judges.

When it comes to the development of Western Europe there was religion and then there was science. That is how the story is generally told but Anna Gryzmala Busse believes that modern Europe owes more to the religious part of that than is generally appreciated. She has written Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State (Princeton UP, 2023) and talks to Owen Bennett Jones about religion and the European state.

Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press.

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