This paper will briefly examine the roles of the papacy and the Latin Church as a whole during the early Middle Ages, i.e., from barbarian invasions through the age of Charlemagne (5th-9th centuries AD).
Despite the decline of the Roman Empire by the fifth century, the whole of civil infrastructure in what had been the western part of the Empire did not collapse. One reason for this was that some groups the Romans had considered barbarians had coherent forms of social organization that they imposed when making incursions in places formerly controlled by Rome, and landowning Roman aristocrats who could back up their assertion of power with military force functioned as rulers in local areas. However, the most persistently meaningful "macro" entity of social organization in Western Europe was the Church, especially the papacy.
The enemy of Rome until the fourth century, the Church by the fifth century was in many ways the spiritual alter ego of secular governance. And even as Rome's civil apparatus collapsed before the barbarian hordes, the administrative and institutional apparatus of the Church began to harden into increasing uniformity. Disposition of various heresies in favor of unitary, or "catholic," doctrine was one aspect of this. Equally important was the emergence of an effective ecclesiastical structure meant to enforce doctrinal and ritual practice in terms of the Church's spiritual authority. As well, the force of personality of individual popes and other churchmen lent prestige to the office of the papacy. Relevant in that regard were Pope Leo I's public confrontation with Atilla the Hun and Gregory the Great's rationalization of papal administrative priorities despite the a context of civil unrest.
Ineffectual civil administration fostered increasing assertions of Church relevance to matters both spiritual and civil. Increasingly, the popes began to view their spiritu
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