The most prominent manifestation of pluralism is the division of church and state, religious power and secular power. It has caused the deepest vertical division in western Europe from the social power structure to people's daily life, from the highest power level to the grass-roots parishes, towns and territories. The duality of politics and religion will be detailed later.
In the field of pure secular politics, what we see is also an extremely complex pluralistic pattern.
Horizontally, there are various political entities in western Europe: empires, kingdoms, papal countries, and some independent principalities, earl territories, cities, bishops' territories, monasteries and so on. Every political entity has specific authority and jurisdiction, and its existence has legal or historical basis. However, their rights and status often overlap and conflict with each other. Nominally, these entities belong to different levels, the Empire and the Holy See belong to the highest level, [1] followed by the kingdom, then the principality, earl, city, bishops' territory, monasteries and so on. But in fact, the distinction between these levels is not very clear, and the control of superiors over subordinates is limited, and they are often independent of each other. [2]
In the Middle Ages, Western Europeans were shrouded in the huge shadow of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne Empire and Germanic Holy Roman Empire are both understood as the resurrection of the Roman Empire, which nominally represents the unity of Western Europe. But Charlemagne Empire was just a flash in the pan, and Germanic Roman Empire was just a name. At best, it only achieved limited control over German princes and Italy. The Catholic Church is the main force to maintain the unity of Western Europe. It also has a unified organizational form and enjoys control over churches in various countries. However, its control over churches in various countries is often despised. Secular governments in various countries try to control their own churches, which is the main obstacle to the political unity of churches. There is also a centrifugal force among bishops in various countries, which often swings between church interests and national interests.
The ideal of a unified Christian empire has lost its actual political influence since it entered the14th century, and has been replaced by the coexistence of many equal and sovereign countries. However, the formation of a sovereign state is the product of long-term historical development. Even after the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire, a pattern of multi-country division has been formed. Every country develops an independent personality. Although their power was limited at first, some of them were even extremely dispersed, but they were the focus of power concentration. Through the strengthening of kingship, Britain and France controlled their own churches and transformed feudal vassals into bureaucrats and subjects of the king, thus realizing national unity. In Germany, this tendency of power concentration is manifested in the vassal level, the emperor is overhead, and many political entities are formed within the country.
Although every kingdom has the impulse to expand outward, on the whole, the consciousness of expansion is not very strong, and it is always offset by independent efforts and centrifugal tendency. Moreover, any country that tries to exceed the limit will be resisted and sanctioned by other countries (or political forces). As a result, the balance of power in Europe has been maintained for hundreds of years. This "balance of power" has continued until modern times.
From a vertical perspective, Western Europe is far from a unified power center, let alone a unified political order. There is no rigid relationship between empire and kingdom, between lords and vassals, between kingdoms and cities, and between Roman churches and churches in various countries, and there is no absolute rule from top to bottom. Every kind of power is restricted by the horizontal or subordinate power, and every kind of power is restricted, blocked and dispersed by other powers. There is some tension between the top and bottom, but it will not be completely broken. The whole maintains a certain internal cohesion, but it does not exclude diversity and individual independence. By the end of the Middle Ages, this unstable balance began to tilt. In Britain and France, they moved towards absolute monarchy; In Germany and Italy, the process leading to long-term division and centralization was completed at the intermediate level. As a result, diversification has intensified. Therefore, Western Europe in the Middle Ages was a pile of debris scattered after the collapse of the Roman Empire State Building, which was made up of large and small territories in series and did not form a real country. The three elements of modern nation-state: sovereignty, people and land, did not exist in the Middle Ages. The country has no supreme sovereignty, and every fief and people on it can change with the change of lords. The psychological characteristic of western Europeans in the Middle Ages was that they were not uneasy about this situation of "the country was not a country" and "the world was in chaos".
Almost all relations in medieval society, such as rights, privileges, obligations, status and identity, are the products of individual development, rather than a unified system established by unified laws and decrees. For example, the relationship between each city and its lords or kings is typical. Every system has exceptions, and every law is not expected to be applicable everywhere. Therefore, the political system in the Middle Ages cannot be generalized, and any generalization is prone to omissions and one-sidedness.
Under the pluralistic political structure, every western European has multiple roles. They are related to nobles, kings, churches, cities, etc. And order in a variety of ways. Thomas? 6? 1 Aquinas once said that man is governed by four kinds of laws, namely, eternal law (wisdom of God), natural law, human law and divine law (canon law). [3] H. Boehlmann draws a conclusion through the study of the western legal system in the Middle Ages that the laws in the western Christian world have a unique feature, that is, everyone lives in a compound legal system, in which each law manages individuals. There is no law requiring the entire jurisdiction. These legal systems are royal law, feudal law, manor law, merchant law, church law and so on. In this way, various power systems gathered on him and divided his life. For example, in medieval England, kingship, religious rights and lords rights gathered at the grassroots level, forming a trinity social organization of villages, towns, manors and parishes. "In this * * * institution, the parish is responsible for education, the villages and towns are responsible for administrative security, and the manor court is responsible for justice. The three independently exercise their functions and powers. Correspondingly, every member living in this * * * body is not only a parishioner, but also a subject of the king and a villager of the Lord. " [4] He let everyone's obedience and loyalty not be fixed in a constant power center.
In the political field, the royal family, the nobility and the church form three major political forces, and their mutual cooperation and competition are typical manifestations of diversified political order. Sometimes the church allied itself with the kingship, deified the kingship and resisted the separatist tendency of the nobility; Sometimes he stood in the aristocratic camp and joined hands to curb the autocratic tendency of kingship. In the conflict between kingship and church power, nobles sometimes stand on the side of the church to restrain the expansion of kingship; Sometimes he sided with the kingship to offset the expansion of religious forces. The monarchy controlled both the church and the nobility only occasionally appeared in the Middle Ages.
For western European society, pluralism is a double-edged sword, which brings chaos and even anarchy to society. Bring endless disasters and pains to people's lives. However, it also has positive effects. It makes it impossible for any kind of power to achieve absolute control over individuals. Various powers are separated from each other, competing with each other and restricting each other, leaving a certain gap of autonomy and freedom for individuals.
The pluralistic political structure gives every social and political force the right to exist. Constantly develop and improve themselves in mutual competition or contention. Each country (or nation) has formed its own personality, cultivated the so-called "British spirit", "French spirit" and "Germanic spirit", and influenced and infiltrated each other, forming the source of diversified creative spirit and diversified development path in Western Europe. France is a typical example of feudalism, and Britain provides an example of Magna Carta and parliamentary politics for Western Europe. Italy, as the hometown of Roman culture, took the lead in setting off the upsurge of Roman law revival, while the Swiss Confederation took the lead in establishing a democratic system, which opened the first hole for the monarch Europe. Every country has chosen a unique path and contributed its own creation to the development of western Europe as a whole. The uneven development of countries has not led to a long-term dominant position of one force, let alone stifle the development of other countries. On the contrary, countries have influenced each other, promoted each other, prospered and declined each other, and pushed forward alternately, thus promoting the overall development of Western Europe.
Various social forces, social classes, social organizations, groups and regional units, such as churches, cities, nobles, monk groups, guilds, parliaments, monasteries, etc. , but also developed their complete personality, become the source of different creativity, and make a unique contribution to all-round development. [5] They compete with each other, agitate each other and penetrate each other, making the whole society colorful and full of vitality. Similarly, in the ideological field, medieval political thoughts also came from many sources: Greece, Rome, Christianity (official and heretical), Germanic, urban, Islamic, Jewish and so on. One of the miracles of the development of medieval thought is the mutual integration of these very different cultural factors.
It can be seen that Western Europe in the Middle Ages showed no order, no central unity and harmony in chaos. "In this chaos and turmoil, we have seen the firm belief in the rule of law and the unremitting pursuit of a just social order: this is the true feature of the history of the political system in the Middle Ages." [6] In a sense, the political culture of medieval Western Europe was imperfect, unformed or immature. Because of this, it is in constant change, not solidification and rigidity. No ideal is truly realized, no requirement is completely satisfied, and the impulse to create and pursue never stops. Although, on the whole, the development level of Western Europe in the Middle Ages is relatively low, it belongs to a special type of culture and is destined to be promising. In other words, only this type of political culture can produce modern political civilization. Moreover, it has an amazing development speed. It can be said that every century in western Europe has a new look, and changes are often measured by centuries or even years. The whole social movement in the Middle Ages was very much like a big change in the earth's crust: after turbulence, rupture, combination, spewing, accumulation and precipitation, it was never quiet or stagnant, and new affairs kept emerging, constantly undergoing transformation and rebirth. From the chaotic movement, an orderly new civilization gradually formed. By the end of the Middle Ages, its basic outline had been revealed. Judging from the level of development, the west has been at the forefront of all ethnic groups in the world at this time.