By the late ninth century the Church's role was essentially the one which it was to play in east and west for centuries. In the west the Church's wealth had grown to the extent that it has been estimated that a third of the land in Italy was in ecclesiastical hands. Lay patronage also posed dangers, as aristocrats usurped church lands and established family control over bishoprics and monasteries. Nevertheless, the Church had scored notable successes in establishing a Christian view of kingship, in setting up enduring centres of education and learning, in moving towards standardization of usages and, most important of all, in promoting itself as a distinct élite corporation whose institutional and sacramental structure was intended to lead man to salvation.
In the east the Church greatly increased its prestige by its victory over iconoclasm and its missions to the Balkans, but its influence on political, economic, and cultural life remained limited. Although the average Byzantine was devoutly religious, the division between laity and clergy was weaker and the emperor's God-given role remained unchallenged. Individual redemption was seen as possible through man's direct communication with God, expressed for example in mysticism, and not as the exclusive concern of an ecclesiastical monopoly.
Such differences in outlook contributed to the increased tension which developed between east and west from the ninth century. Among the more immediate factors which sparked off periods of schism were Roman claims to universal primacy, rival claims to jurisdiction over the newly converted areas of eastern Europe, disagreements over ritual practices and the westerners' addition of the filioque clause to the creed, and misunderstandings between individuals. At times the conflicts were patched up, often because of the papacy's need for Byzantine political support, but the bringing under the spotlight of differences in doctrine and discipline created an atmosphere of polemical intolerance which was to lead to the final schism of 1054.
Christianity also played its part in one of the most fundamental changes of the early Middle Ages, the replacement of the classical ideal of rationalist self-sufficiency and self-
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