Podcast Episode 49
Walk to Canossa
with Dr. Conrad Leyser & host Nick Walters
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A winter trek across the Alps set the terms of a showdown between conscience, authority, and the power of excommunication.
This episode of This Week in Christian History focuses on the Walk to Canossa in 1077, one of the most memorable turning points in medieval Christian history. The story centers on a political crisis that became a public religious drama: a ruler under the ban of the church seeking reconciliation, and a pope weighing mercy, discipline, and the wider consequences for Christendom. The Walk to Canossa has endured for centuries as a symbol of what happens when spiritual authority and political power collide, and when public repentance becomes inseparable from public legitimacy.
As always, This Week in Christian History features three core elements.
First, the episode includes an interview with Nick Walters, founder of the Center for Christian History. Nick discusses the work of the Center and why Christian history matters for the church and the public square today. The Center for Christian History exists to help a broad audience engage the Christian past with seriousness, accuracy, and curiosity, and to show how the people, institutions, and debates of earlier centuries still shape the world we live in.
Second, the episode includes a Deep Dive with a Subject Matter Expert (SME). This week’s Deep Dive features Dr. Conrad Leyser of the University of Oxford, whose scholarship examines Christianity in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, with particular attention to church authority, reform, institutional life, and the ways religious ideals and political realities influenced one another. In a topic like Canossa, those questions are not abstract. They are the heart of the story: Who has the right to discipline a ruler? What does reconciliation mean when the stakes are political as well as spiritual? How did medieval Christians understand the relationship between the church’s moral claims and a ruler’s obligation to govern?
Third, the episode offers a couple of historical highlights from the same calendar week, connecting the medieval world to other eras and forms of Christian witness.
Historical highlight: Peter Marshall. Peter Marshall was a widely known pastor and preacher in the United States and served as Chaplain of the United States Senate. His public ministry and national role illustrate how Christian leadership has sometimes operated in close proximity to government institutions, raising enduring questions about faith in public life, pastoral responsibility, and the moral voice of religious leaders within civic settings.
Historical highlight: Menno Simons. Menno Simons was a former Catholic priest who became a leading figure among the Anabaptists during the Reformation era. His leadership helped shape what became the Mennonite tradition, emphasizing discipleship, a disciplined Christian community, and a commitment to living out faith in tangible, often countercultural ways. His life also reflects the costs and convictions that accompanied religious reform movements in early modern Europe.
The Walk to Canossa remains compelling not because it is merely dramatic, but because it forces big questions into the open. What happens when a spiritual penalty has political consequences? What does repentance look like when an entire realm is watching? How did medieval Christians imagine the church’s authority, and how did rulers attempt to protect their legitimacy when challenged by ecclesiastical power? And in a tradition that teaches both submission to God and moral accountability for leaders, what does faithful authority look like in practice?
This Week in Christian History is produced by the Center for Christian History from Blue Gold Media at Mississippi College. Subscribe for weekly episodes featuring an interview with Nick Walters, a Deep Dive with an SME, and historical highlights from the same week.
