The successors to ________ had little power over a patchwork of French territories ruled by powerful feudal lords.

In 987, these feudal nobles elected ________ Capet, the count of Paris, to fill the vacant French throne.

Hugh's own lands around Paris were ________ than those of many of his vassals.

Nevertheless, Hugh and his heirs slowly ________ royal power.

The Capetians made the throne ________, passing it from father to son.

The Capetian dynasty lasted for ________ years, making the kingdom more stable.

The Capetians added to their lands by playing rival ________ against each other.

They also won the support of the ________.

The Capetians built an effective ________, where government officials collected taxes and imposed royal law over the king's lands.

By establishing order, the Capetians increased their ________ and gained the backing of the new middle class.

In 1179, ________ II became king of France.

Philip II was called ________ Augustus and was a shrewd and able ruler.

Philip Augustus strengthened royal ________ in many ways.

Instead of appointing nobles to government jobs, Philip used paid ________-class officials who owed their loyalty to him.

Philip Augustus granted ________ to many new towns and introduced a new national tax.

Philip also ________ royal land holdings.

Through trickery, diplomacy, and war, Philip gained control of English-ruled lands in ________, Anjou, and elsewhere.

Philip began to take over ________ France.

At the pope's request, Philip sent knights to suppress a ________ among the Albigensians in the south.

After suppressing the heresy, Philip added this vast area to his ________.

Before his death in 1223, Philip had become the most ________ ruler in Europe.

Perhaps the most admired French ruler of this time was ________ IX.

Louis IX was the ________ of Philip Augustus.

Louis embodied the ideal of the medieval monarch—he was generous, noble, and devoted to ________ and the ideals of chivalry.

A deeply ________ man, Louis pursued religious goals that Christians admired at the time.

Louis persecuted ________ and Jews and led thousands of French knights in two wars against Muslims.

Within 30 years of his death, the ________ declared Louis a saint.

Louis did much to improve ________ government.

Like ________, Louis sent out traveling officials to check on local administrators.

Louis expanded the royal ________, outlawed private wars, and ended serfdom in his personal domain.

To ensure justice, Louis even heard ________ himself.

Louis’s enormous personal ________ helped create a strong national feeling among his subjects.

By the time of his death in 1270, France was emerging as an efficient ________ monarchy.

Louis's grandson, ________ IV, ruthlessly extended royal power.

Philip IV was always pressed for ________ and tried to collect new taxes from the clergy.

These efforts led to a clash with Pope ________ VIII.

Declaring that "God has set popes over kings and kingdoms," the pope forbade Philip to tax the ________ without papal consent.

Philip threatened to ________ any clergy who did not pay.

As their quarrel escalated, Philip sent troops to capture ________.

The pope ________ soon afterward.

Shortly after, in ________, a Frenchman was elected pope.

Four years later, the pope moved the papal court to ________, just outside the southern border of France.

There, French rulers could exercise more ________ over the Church in their kingdom.

The move to Avignon later sparked a ________ in the Church when a rival pope was elected in Rome.

The rival popes each claimed to be the ________ leader of the Church.

During this struggle with the pope, ________ rallied French support by setting up the Estates General in 1302.

The Estates General had representatives from all three ________, or classes of French society.

The three estates in French society were the clergy, ________, and townspeople.

Although later French kings consulted the ________ General, it never gained the power of the purse.

The Estates General never served as a ________ to royal power.

In the early Middle Ages, ________ had brought much of what is today the nation of Germany under his rule.

After Charlemagne's death, these German lands dissolved into a patchwork of separate states ruled by ________ and dukes.

In time, the dukes of ________ began to extend their power over neighboring German lands.

In 936, Duke ________ I of Saxony took the title King of Germany.

Like other feudal monarchs, Otto I and his successors set out to increase ________ power.

In doing so, they came into fierce conflict with the ________.

The longest and most destructive of these power struggles pitted Otto's successors, who ruled over lands called the ________ Roman Empire, against the pope in Rome.

Like Charlemagne, Otto I worked closely with the ________.

Otto I appointed ________ to top government jobs.

Otto I also took an army into ________ to help the pope defeat rebellious Roman nobles.

In 962, a grateful pope crowned Otto ________ of the German states of Central Europe.

Later, Otto's successors took the title ________ Roman emperor—"holy" because they were crowned by the pope, and "Roman" because they saw themselves as heirs to the emperors of ancient Rome.

The Holy Roman Emperor had the potential to be the ________ monarchy in Europe.

German emperors claimed authority over much of central and eastern Europe as well as parts of ________ and Italy.

In fact, the real rulers of these lands were the emperor's ________—hundreds of nobles and Church officials.

For German emperors, the challenge was to control their ________.

It was a challenge they ________ met.

The close ties between Otto and the Church held the seeds of ________.

Holy Roman emperors saw themselves as protectors of ________ and the pope.

They repeatedly intervened in Italian affairs and were tempted by the growing ________ cities of northern Italy.

A key conflict between emperors and popes involved who would control ________ to high Church office.

Like rulers in England and France, the Holy Roman emperor often appointed ________ and abbots.

As popes sought to reform the Church, they tried to end such outside interference by ________ rulers.

Under the reforming pope ________ VII, the conflict between emperors burst into flames.

Gregory was one of the greatest medieval ________.

He was also one of the most ________.

Pope Gregory ruled at the same time as the German emperor ________ IV.

These two strong-willed rulers clashed over competing claims to ________.

Gregory was determined to make the Church independent of ________ rulers.

To achieve this goal, he banned the practice of ________ investiture.

Under this practice, the emperor or another lay person "invested," or presented, ________ with the ring and staff that symbolized their office.

Only the ________, said Gregory, had the right to appoint and install bishops in office.

Pope Gregory's ban brought an angry response from the Holy Roman emperor, ________ IV.

Henry argued that bishops held their lands as royal ________.

Since he was their ________, Henry felt entitled to give them the symbols of office.

The feud heated up as the two men exchanged ________ .

Meanwhile, rebellious German ________ undermined Henry by supporting the pope.

In 1076, Gregory ________ Henry, freeing Henry's subjects from their allegiance to the emperor.

The pope then headed north to crown a new ________.

Faced with revolts, Henry was forced to make ________.

In January 1077, Henry presented himself to the pope as a ________ sinner.

Gregory knew that Henry was just trying to save his ________.

According to tradition and Church law, the pope, as a ________, had to forgive a confessed sinner.

Gregory then lifted the order of ________, and Henry returned to Germany to subdue his rebellious nobles.

In later years, Henry took revenge on Gregory when he led an army to ________ and forced the pope into exile.

The struggle over investiture dragged on for almost ________ years.

Finally, in 1122, both sides accepted a treaty known as the ________ of Worms.

This treaty declared that the Church had the sole power to elect and invest ________ with spiritual authority.

The emperor, however, still invested them with ________.

Although this compromise ended the investiture struggle, new ________ were soon raging between popes and emperors.

The struggle between popes and emperors moved from the battle over ________ to a battle for Italy.

During the 1100s and 1200s, ambitious German emperors sought to control ________.

As they headed south across the ________, they came into conflict not only with the pope but also with the wealthy cities of northern Italy.

The Holy Roman emperor ________ I, called Frederick Barbarossa, or "Red Beard," dreamed of building an empire from the Baltic to the Adriatic.

For years, Frederick fought to bring the wealthy cities of ________ Italy under his control.

With equal energy, the cities resisted. By joining forces with the pope in the ________ League, they finally managed to defeat Barbarossa's armies.

Barbarossa did succeed, however, in arranging a marriage between his son Henry and Constance, the ________ to Sicily and southern Italy.

That move entangled German emperors even more deeply in ________ affairs.

Frederick II, Barbarossa's grandson, was raised in ________, a rich island kingdom in the Mediterranean.

Frederick was bright and well ________.

An able but ________ leader, he was willing to use any means to achieve his ends.

As Holy Roman emperor, Frederick spent little time in ________.

Instead, he pursued his ambitions in ________, clashing repeatedly and unsuccessfully with several popes.

Like his grandfather, Frederick also tried but failed to subdue the cities of ________ Italy.

While Frederick II was occupied in Italy, German ________ grew more independent.

The Holy Roman Empire survived, but remained a patchwork of ________ states.

Unlike France and England, Germany would not become a ________ for another 600 years.

Southern Italy and Sicily also faced centuries of ________.

There, popes turned to the ________ to overthrow Frederick's heirs.

A local uprising against French rule in Sicily led to 200 years of chaos as French and ________ rivals battled for power.

The region that had once been a thriving center of culture was left in ________.

In the 1200s, the Roman Catholic Church reached the height of its ________ power.

Reforming popes like Gregory VII claimed the right to ________ kings and emperors.

Gregory's successors greatly expanded ________ power.

A more powerful Church was able to spread its ________ to new areas, increasing religious unity in Europe.

Pope Innocent III, who took office in ________, embodied the triumph of the Church.

As head of the Church, Innocent III claimed supremacy over all other ________.

The pope, he said, stands "between God and man, lower than God but higher than ________."

Innocent III clashed with all the powerful rulers of his day, and he usually ________.

When King John of England dared to appoint an archbishop of Canterbury without the pope's approval, Innocent ________ the king.

Innocent also placed John's kingdom under ________.

Innocent ordered the same punishment for ________ when Philip II tried unlawfully to annul his marriage.

The Holy Roman emperor Frederick II also felt the ________ of the powerful pope.

In 1209, Innocent, aided by Philip II, launched a brutal crusade against the ________ in southern France.

The Albigensians wanted to ________ the Church and return to the simpler ways of early Christianity.

The Church saw the Albigensians as ________ because they rejected Catholic beliefs and rituals.

Knights from all over ________ Europe took part in the fighting during the Albigensian Crusade.

Tens of thousands of people were ________ in the Albigensian Crusade.

Innocent strengthened papal power within the Church by extending the ________ States.

Innocent also reformed the Church ________ and changed the way Church officials were chosen.

Finally, Innocent called a ________ that issued decrees justifying the pope's new power.

For almost a century after Innocent's death, popes pressed their claim to ________.

During this period, the ________ and English monarchies grew stronger.

In 1296, Philip of ________ successfully challenged Pope Boniface VIII on the issue of taxing the clergy.

After Philip engineered the election of a ________ pope, the papacy entered a period of decline.