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The power of the papacy significantly increased in the Middle Ages and it became an important political force. Europe was embroiled in wars and struggles between the secular authority (the emperors and kings) and the religious authority (the popes). Among other things, the power of the Church relied on the founding of monastic orders. The fact that educated Jewish converts to Christianity were conversant in rabbinical literature – primarily the Mishnah and Gemara – exposed the Christian world to the negative view Judaism had of Christianity.
