The relationship between the King and the Church in the Medieval Period varied somewhat according to the country involved. Differences can be perceived in the era of the Franks as depicted in the book by Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks and in the world of Charlemagne as depicted by Einhard in his The Life of Charlemagne.
During the era described by Gregory of Tours, the church was in the process of establishing itself in Europe and was working on guiding the people and their leaders slowly away from the pagan ideologies that had prevailed to that time. Religion is a major theme in the book by Gregory, which is not surprising since he himself was a cleric and would become a bishop. He notes how the Christians were persecuted by the Vandals and others: "At this period the churches of God were assailed with a long series of heresies, and quite a few were visited with divine vengeance" (Gregory 113). The teachings of the church did not sway the early rulers of the Franks, such as Childeric, "whose private life was one long debauch" (Gregory 128). Over time, while many of the people may still have viewed members of the church as social inferiors or even as larcenous or immoral because of the behavior of some churchmen, the kings stopped seeing the church as the enemy in the way many of the Frankish leaders and people did.
Relations between the king and the church changed somewhat when Clovis's wife insisted on having her child baptized and on raising the child in the church: "The first child which Clotild bore for Clovis was a son. She wanted to have her baby baptized, and she kept on urging her husband to agree to this" (Gregory 141). The death of the first child imperilled relations with the church, but the second child was also baptized by its mother and survived. The story of Queen Clotild and the church shows how politics and religion were joined by the fact that whether or not the people followed a give...