The history of Western Europe in the eighth century is overshadowed by the rise of the Carolingians; at the end of the eight century the only part of Christian Western Europe that was not part of the Carolingian Empire was the British Isles.
Greek East and Latin West; The Church AD 681-1071, Andrew Louth
The story of the Church in the West at this time cannot be told without some background regarding the story of the West more broadly (and this really brings me back to my studies on medieval Western Europe at my other blog).
Much of this expansion took place during the reign of Charles the Great, Charlemagne, reigning from 768 until his death in 814. His legacy can still be seen in the tensions of Europe today.
Charlemagne’s tribe, the Franks, embraced Christianity in its Catholic – that is, not Arian – form, unlike many of the barbarian tribes in the West. Yet, like many of these barbarian tribes, the Franks inherited something of Roman civil and governance structures.
The Merovingians ruled prior to this, but by the end of the sixth century their rule was increasingly theoretical. The power behind the throne was in the person known as the “mayor of the palace.” Charles Martel (“the Hammer”) was this mayor from 714 until his death in 741. During this time, he consolidated the Frankish realms under his rule. He is also well-known for turning back the Muslims in 732 or 733 at Poitiers, in modern day France.........
....Conclusion
Iconoclasm in the West. In the East, this was introduced by emperor Leo III in 726, but his decree was never accepted in Rome. It wasn’t the first time that Rome refused the emperor: Rome refused to pay taxes a few years earlier to fund the wars against the Muslims.
The issue of iconoclasm was not as meaningful in the West as it was in the East during the eighth century. After emperor Leo’s initial decree in 726 and the pope’s response, there is little written evidence of any such struggles until the time of pope Hadrian at the end of the century. The West understood icons in a different way than did the East.
The West, it might seem, did not invest religious images with anything like the theological significance found in them in the East…
The classic defense of icons in the West comes from St. Gregory the Great: pictures are placed in churches for the benefit of the illiterate, so they can learn by picture that which they cannot read in a book. In the East, this was seen as only a small reason for the defense of icons.
Yet the Carolingian court did not see eye-to-eye with the pope on the matter, seeing icons as idolatrous. The issue being that the distinction of “worship” and “veneration” in Greek had no corresponding difference when translated to Latin.
This put Pope Hadrian in a difficult spot. He would find a reason to reject Nicaea II on a basis other than the issue of icons, such that he could present his rejection to Charlemagne in order to demonstrate that he was not reverting in some way to Byzantine authority.