Ecclesiastical Lordship and the Politics of Submitting Tithes in Medieval Germany: The Thuringian Dispute in Social Context

Abstract

“Ecclesiastical Lordship and the Politics of Submitting Tithes in Medieval Germany: The Thuringian Tithe Dispute in Social Context.” The ecclesiastical tithe in the Middle Ages was an important source of income for the church, but could serve in certain contexts as a profound symbol of episcopal power. In the mid-eleventh century, a number of German bishops began to reassemble their rights to ecclesiastical tithes which had previously been in the possession of monasteries or laymen. While this trend has been cast traditionally as part of the broader church reform movement of the eleventh century—an attempt to bring episcopal administration into line with canonical norms—it can be better understood as a strategy that responded to new political conditions in the Salian period. By examining a famous dispute between Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz (1060–1088) and the monasteries of Hersfeld and Fulda, the author shows how Siegfried’s extended campaign to recoup tithes from the monasteries and laymen in Thuringi...