Fic Updates Agent 47

[Mamorien]

CW: Explicit single use of antisemitic slur

According to the Catholic doctrine of Papal Supremacy, the Pope has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, by virtue of his office as Vicar of Christ and as the pastor of the entire Catholic Church.

The scriptural roots of this doctrine are found in the Christian Bible, specifically the section known as the Confession of Peter, recorded in Matthew 16, where Peter acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, and Jesus instills in him the authority over the Church as Jesus’ successor, a mantle to which the subsequent popes of Rome are successors in turn.

Historically, during the first few centuries of the Christian Church, there was no central authority; doctrine was decided by consensus at councils convened by Byzantine Emperors, although some of those councils did acknowledge that the Roman Church was “head of all Churches” in a manner that made them first among equals as opposed to a legal head. It was only in the late 6th to early 8th centuries that the Byzantine hold on the Roman bishops was reduced and weakened, allowing the Roman popes to fully assert their authority over the western half of the Church as its head, even as they broke with the imperial Byzantine remnants of the Roman Empire. The Popes first gained support from the Frankish rulers, especially the Frankish king Pepin the Short, who ceded to the Roman Popes the Italian territories that would later become the Papal States. Later, Pope Leo III’s coronation of Charlemagne—done partially in response to and in protest against the ascension of Irene of Athens to the Byzantine imperial throne—further bolstered the Roman Church’s separation from the Byzantine Emperors by giving them a supportive secular authority.

From here, the trend towards increased centralization around the Pope of Rome continued, accelerating with the coming of the Dragon Mail of Berk in the mid-1000s, when the Roman Church began to assert its authority over investiture—the ability to choose and install bishops, abbots, and even the Pope himself into their high Church offices. Due to the decentralized nature of the Church in the preceding centuries, this had been the prerogative and privilege of secular nobility and royalty…

That's right, it's new A Thing of Vikings. We start in a prison cell on Berk, where Taskill (Mac Bethad's former spymaster) gets to be a viewpoint character for the first time, reflecting on how he got there and what to do next. In the ducal palace in Rouen, William clan Haddock of Normandy makes this week's content warning necessary and runs into the events described in the epigraph. In Vedrarfjord, Hákon and Gunvor encounter the same problem. Back on Berk, in the training hall, Jonna continues the combat training Hiccup wishes he didn't need. Over in the Hooligans' sacred grove, Gothi and her Bog-Burglar and Meathead counterparts are discussing how to share custody of the gods' wood when they have guests, courtesy of Tuffnut, who also wish to talk about matters of faith. (In the Norman town of Caen, Rivkah bat Hadassah (sister of Esther's late husband) receives the latest installment of another such matter.) Returning to Berk, Gothi adjourns the meeting to her hut on Raven's Point, where she explains her position on divine mystery over cups of tisane. And we close back in Vedrafjord, with Fintan taking the family out for dinner...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/104089...s/99854973