Church And State

The medieval church-state conflict that we saw in Part Six of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol novel, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), continues in 1307 in his last Time Patrol short story, "Death and the Knight":

"'That's a critical point in a critical timespan. Philip [of France] isn't simply wrecking the Templars, he's undermining his feudal lords, drawing more and more power to himself. The Church, too. I said he has Pope Clement in his pocket. The Babylonian Captivity of the Popes in Avignon begins in Philip's reign. They'll return to Rome eventually, but they'll never be the same. In other words, what's in embryo there is the modern, almighty state, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Stalin, IRS.' Everard considered. 'I don't say that aborting it might not be a nice idea in principle, but it's part of our history, the one the Patrol is here to preserve.'"
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 751.

But there is a difference between Frederick's and Philip's church-state conflicts. In the twelfth century, the feudal Emperor and the Pope contested for power whereas Philip is subordinating the feudal lords as well as the Church. As Everard indicates, he is building the modern nation-state whose power overrides feudal loyalties and especially any reverence towards land-holding bishops, abbots or religious orders. In the feudal system, the King of England ruled parts of France because the Duke of Normandy had conquered England while remaining Duke of Normandy. His French subordinates now had their King in England, not in France - although William centralized power in England by making all landholders swear fealty directly to him, not to greater lords as in the rest of the feudal system.

In timeline beta, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II's decisive defeat of the Church produced only an autocratic peasantry-exploiting empire that finally collapsed like the Roman and ancient Empires before it whereas Philip's more modern state allowed some measure of social and scientific progress.