Religious Life in 1500 The European World Week

Religious Life in 1500 The European World Week 7 Anastasia Stylianou (A. Stylianou@warwick. ac. uk)

Structure of Lecture: • Introduction • Christendom in 1500 • Historiography • Structure of the Church • Reforming the Church • Religious life of the Individual • Challenges to the Church • Conclusion

Structure of Lecture: • Introduction • Christendom in 1500 • Historiography • Structure of the Church • Reforming the Church • Religious life of the Individual • Challenges to the Church • Conclusion

Europe in 1050 (Christendom)

Europe in 1600

Structure of Lecture: • Introduction • Christendom in 1500 • Historiography • Structure of the Church • Reforming the Church • Religious life of the Individual • Challenges to the Church • Conclusion

• 'The threat to the authority of the Church around 1500 came from too much lay piety, rather than too little'. Discuss. • Why did Luther's ideas find such a receptive audience in Germany in the early years of his protest against Rome? • What was 'new' about Martin Luther? • To what extent did the religion practised by the Catholic laity change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

Historiography A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (1964) C. Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (1975) E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (1992)

Structure of Lecture: • Introduction • Christendom in 1500 • Historiography • Structure of the Church • Reforming the Church • Religious life of the Individual • Challenges to the Church • Conclusion

CLERGY • Pope • Cardinals • Archbishops • Bishops • Priests • Deacons • Monastics (often) LAITY • King/Queen/Prince/Ruler • Nobility • Gentry • Middling sort • Ordinary people

Ordination GLOSSARY: -Apostolic succession

Seven Sacraments

Secular priests Regular clergy (=monastics)

GLOSSARY: -Pluralism St Mary’s church, Halford (Warwickshire), built in the 12 th century.

GLOSSARY: -’Regula’ = Latin for a rule Secular priests Regular clergy (=monastics)

Benedictine Cistercian Franciscan Dominican

Furness Abbey (Lake District) GLOSSARY: - ‘Rule’: a set of detailed instructions and principles that laid out how a monastic Order should live. - ‘Order’: a monastic group (comprising of multiple monasteries, usually spread over different territories and countries) who all followed the same ‘Rule’

Furness Abbey today Something to think about: what was the effect of the dissolution of the monasteries?

Structure of Lecture: • Introduction • Christendom in 1500 • Historiography • Structure of the Church • Reforming the Church • Religious life of the Individual • Challenges to the Church • Conclusion

Desiderius Erasmus • Extract from In Praise of Folly (1509): ‘MONKS Monks that Call Themselves Religious And next these come those that commonly call themselves the religious and monks, most false in both titles, when both a great part of them are farthest from religion, and no men swarm thicker in all places than themselves. . . For whereas all men detest them to the height, that they take it for ill luck to meet one of

Saint Francis of Assisi – founder of the Franciscan Order Saint Dominic – Founder of the Dominican Order

Speculum Sacerdotale th (15 century hagiography) = ‘Mirror of holiness’

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 -1153) • Papal schism • Innocent II versus Anacletus II • Bernard travelled around Europe meeting with influential figures such as the kings of England Sicily, trying to end the schism.

Pope Julius II (pope from 1503 to 1513) • Desiderius Erasmus? , Iulius Exclusus, 1514.

Could issue statements called Papal Bulls, which concerned doctrine and practice and which were binding upon the whole of Christendom.

Papal Bulls Piis Fidelium (1493) • gave Spain vicarial power to appoint missionaries to the Indies Apostolici Regiminus (1513) • condemned current heresies concerning the human soul • laid out the traditional Catholic teaching that each person has a soul and it is immortal.

Could issue statements called Papal Bulls, which concerned doctrine and practice and which were binding upon the whole of Christendom. Could come together in a Church Council, to make decisions and reforms concerning doctrine and practice which were binding upon the whole of Christendom.

Church Councils Fourth Lateran Council (1215), sometimes called ‘The Great Council’. Dealt with a wide range of issues, including: • lay attendance at church and participation in the Eucharist • clerical immorality and misconduct • heresy.

Could issue statements called Papal Bulls, which concerned doctrine and practice and which were binding upon the whole of Christendom. Could come together in a Church Council, to make decisions and reforms concerning doctrine and practice which were binding upon the whole of Christendom. Could come together in local Councils, to make decisions and reforms concerning doctrine and practice which related to specific areas or countries.

Structure of Lecture: • Introduction • Christendom in 1500 • Historiography • Structure of the Church • Reforming the Church • Religious life of the Individual • Challenges to the Church • Conclusion

A cadaver tomb

Some of the Main Epidemic Diseases: - Black death (from 14 th century) - Sweating sickness from 1485 - Typhus (from 1489) - Syphilis (from 1494) - Typhoid - Malaria - Smallpox - Influenza (the flu)

Some of the Main Epidemic Diseases: - Black death (from 14 th century) - Sweating sickness from 1485 - Typhus (from 1489) - Syphilis (from 1494) - Typhoid - Malaria - Smallpox - Influenza (the flu) Some Other Times of High Mortality - Infancy and childhood - Pregnancy and childbirth - Famine - War - Travel - Natural disasters and bad weather - Social unrest and violence - Crime

Generally…. Unbaptised baby Limbo Infantum Saintly life Baptised adult Not a saint, but a life of good works, and no unconfessed mortal sins Not a saint, and not a good life, but all confessed and repented of before death Unconfessed mortal sins Heaven For a shorter time DEATH Purgatory For a longer time Hell

12 th century Doom Painting at Chaldon church, Surrey

Popular Pilgrimage Sites

Pilgrim’s medallions from Santiago de Compostella

Chantry chapel of St Mary the Virgin, Wakefield

‘I Jone Brytten of the parrische off Saynt Michaels in Wodstrete, syke in my body, be quethe my sole unto Allmyghty God and unto Owre Blessid Lady and unto all the holli company in hevon …. [Out of the proceeds of my goods, I desire: ] … a prist shall syng for mi sole … and all Cristin soles … for one halffe ere …’ (Sheils, Reformation, document 13)

The painter Giotto’s depiction of the healing of a sick woman who had prayed to St Francis of Assisi for help.

Medieval prayer on rosary beads

Relic of Saint Ivo of Kermartin (1253 -1303)

“[If all the relics were brought together in one place]…it would be made manifest that every Apostle has more than four bodies, and every Saint two or three. ” – John Calvin

Structure of Lecture: • Introduction • Christendom in 1500 • Historiography • Structure of the Church • Reforming the Church • Religious life of the Individual • Challenges to the Church • Conclusion

Challenges to the Church of its own making: Johann Tetzel: “as soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs” Exaggeration of the power of indulgences condemned by Catholic theologians like Cardinal Cajetan. • Papal schism (two rival popes) • Often corrupt & worldly papacy • Financial abuses – fake relics, sale of indulgences, heavy taxation • Abuse of clerical privileges like ‘benefit of clergy’ (= their own law courts) • Immorality & negligence present among the clergy

External Challenge of Heresy Including • Waldensians • Cathars • Heretical Franciscans (a break-away sect from the [Catholic] Franciscan Order) • Heretical Beguins. • Hussites • Lollards See Wakefield, Walter L. and Evans, Austin P. , Heresies of the High Middle Ages, Number LXXXI of the Records of Civilization Sources and Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969) for some great extracts from medieval primary sources concerning heresy if you’re interested.

CATHARS

• Heresy present in southern Europe between the 12 th and 14 th century. • Dualist (the material world was evil and the nonmaterial world was good). • Believed in equally powerful good and bad divine powers.

THE LOLLARDS

English heresy begun by a theologian called John Wycliff in the fourteenth century. Like Protestants: • believed that Scripture should be in English • questioned the Catholic belief that the Eucharist was the real body and blood of Christ • questioned the need for chantry chapels and priests praying for the dead • tended towards iconoclasm • disagreed with Catholic understand of priesthood • believed the sacrament of confession was pointless • rejected clerical celibacy.

External Challenge of Heresy Including • Waldensians • Cathars • Heretical Franciscans (a break-away sect from the [Catholic] Franciscan Order) • Heretical Beguins. • Hussites • Lollards See Wakefield, Walter L. and Evans, Austin P. , Heresies of the High Middle Ages, Number LXXXI of the Records of Civilization Sources and Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969) for some great extracts from medieval primary sources concerning heresy if you’re interested.

Structure of Lecture: • Introduction • Christendom in 1500 • Historiography • Structure of the Church • Reforming the Church • Religious life of the Individual • Challenges to the Church • Conclusion Any questions? Ask me now, or feel free to email me at A. Stylianou@warwick. ac. uk