Putting Pen to Papal: An Analysis of the Assertion of Power by the Medieval Papacy

Looks very good to me! I had a couple of minor comments:

(1) I'm not sure you can really say that the papacy's claim of spiritual power was "justified", because spiritual power is not the sort of thing that one can analyse historically. Unless you define it in naturalistic terms (eg, the pope could control the liturgy or other religious practices).

(2) I don't think it's right to talk about national governments or heretical groups "challenging" the papacy's claim to supreme power, as if the papacy initially made such a claim and then it got challenged. Surely the papacy only developed such a claim in response to these alternatives.

(3) I don't think it's right to call Lateran IV an "ecumenical council". The last council commonly called "ecumenical" was Nicaea II in 787, and the last one generally recognised as "ecumenical" in the west was Chalcedon in 451.

(4) Force wasn't initially the papacy's preferred method of dealing with heresy. On the contrary, in the early Middle Ages pastoral methods were preferred, including preaching against the heretics, and then using more "spiritual" force if they proved unrepentant - such as excommunication or the denial of Christian burial. That only really changed in 1199 when Innocent III issued Vergentis in senium, which as you say, identified heresy with the crime of treason in Roman law. That was what began the promotion of force as the appropriate response to heresy.

(5) It would be good to say something about the struggle for power between the papacy and other elements in the church. Gregory IX, for example, spent more time dealing with ecclesiastical opponents than he did with Philip the Fair. Either that or change the title so that it's explicitly about the papacy's dealings with external challenges as opposed to internal ones.

(6) It's a bit of a simplification to talk about Innnocent III using "the Inquisition" against heretics. "The Inquisition" as an institution did not exist at the time. What Innocent did was to prescribe the inquisitorial method as the standard procedure to be used in ecclesiastical courts (as opposed to the alternative methods of accusation and denunciation). That's not necessarily a matter of using force, as you imply.

(7) Ad hominem doesn't mean personal insults - it means a certain kind of logical fallacy (one where you argue that because the other person is an idiot, what they're saying must be false).
 
Looks very good to me! I had a couple of minor comments:
(1) I'm not sure you can really say that the papacy's claim of spiritual power was "justified", because spiritual power is not the sort of thing that one can analyse historically. Unless you define it in naturalistic terms (eg, the pope could control the liturgy or other religious practices).

I probably made an error in my writing - what I meant by that phrase was the perception of spiritual power held by the Church (that was the product of two days of writing :p) but yeah, apologies for the lack of clearness.

(2) I don't think it's right to talk about national governments or heretical groups "challenging" the papacy's claim to supreme power, as if the papacy initially made such a claim and then it got challenged. Surely the papacy only developed such a claim in response to these alternatives.

I would have to disagree with you on that matter and stick to my ideas in this. As I mentioned in the essay, Christianity was pervasive and ubiquitous - medieval Europeans identified themselves more as a part of 'Christendom' as well as part of their region although this began to change through the Middle Ages, when the strong national monarchies began to rise.
Prior to this, there have been many tracts by theologians on the divisions of Papal and Imperial power (Pope vs. HRE if you will) and Innocent III in 1198 summed up his ideas when he first got on the Papal throne, "I am placed between God and man, below God but aobve man; I am less than God but more than man; I am he who will judge all and be judged by none [but God]."
As far as I know, the context of that statement was not necessarily in response to any other particular alternative.
In short, I do feel that the expression of Papal supremacy wasn't necessarily a reactive action - and could very well be a proactive statement of intent, considering the Church had inherited the job of running European administration from the old Empire.

(3) I don't think it's right to call Lateran IV an "ecumenical council". The last council commonly called "ecumenical" was Nicaea II in 787, and the last one generally recognised as "ecumenical" in the west was Chalcedon in 451.

As far as the Roman Catholics were and are concerned, Lateran IV was the 12th ecumenical council. All my sources refer to Lateran IV as such.

EDIT: Did a quick poke at everyone's favourite website and apparently, Anglicans and most Protestants do stop at Nicaea II - being raised a Catholic, I didn't realise this :)

(4) Force wasn't initially the papacy's preferred method of dealing with heresy. On the contrary, in the early Middle Ages pastoral methods were preferred, including preaching against the heretics, and then using more "spiritual" force if they proved unrepentant - such as excommunication or the denial of Christian burial. That only really changed in 1199 when Innocent III issued Vergentis in senium, which as you say, identified heresy with the crime of treason in Roman law. That was what began the promotion of force as the appropriate response to heresy.

Agreed, I had to cut some bits out of my essay because I was over the word limit. The original plan for the section was to show the "velvet and iron gloves" being used simultaneously - Innocent III tried to court the favour of the monk-ish types to prevent them from going heretic and one of the results were the Franciscans. However, I didn't have enough source material nor the time to dig further into that.

(5) It would be good to say something about the struggle for power between the papacy and other elements in the church. Gregory IX, for example, spent more time dealing with ecclesiastical opponents than he did with Philip the Fair. Either that or change the title so that it's explicitly about the papacy's dealings with external challenges as opposed to internal ones.

The question was about external challenges ("other sources of authority"), so I concede this point too.

(6) It's a bit of a simplification to talk about Innnocent III using "the Inquisition" against heretics. "The Inquisition" as an institution did not exist at the time. What Innocent did was to prescribe the inquisitorial method as the standard procedure to be used in ecclesiastical courts (as opposed to the alternative methods of accusation and denunciation). That's not necessarily a matter of using force, as you imply.

As I mentioned in part 4, a mistake in my part due to the necessity of cutting things off.

(7) Ad hominem doesn't mean personal insults - it means a certain kind of logical fallacy (one where you argue that because the other person is an idiot, what they're saying must be false).

My bad. I got pinged in the Haïtian Revolution essay (also here on CFC) about using "begging the question" wrongly too.
 
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