The Crisis of Church and State, 1050-1300

Brian Tierney's The Crisis of Church and State, 1050 to 1300 is a widely used scholarly sourcebook and study of the medieval investiture controversy and the broader struggle over the proper relationship between papal and secular authority, combining primary document translation with Tierney's own historical framing, published in a respected university press series. Its authority rests on Tierney's recognized standing as a historian of medieval political and canon law thought. As a sourcebook aimed partly at classroom use, it selects and excerpts primary documents to illustrate the period's central debates rather than presenting exhaustive archival documentation of every episode, and its selections and framing reflect Tierney's own scholarly judgment about which texts best represent the era's central conflicts.