THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN

1
THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN

• The only institutional expression of Christian
  feelings during the High Middle Ages was the
  Roman Catholic Church
• All Western European Christians belong to it
• Although fragmented politically and socially, all
  Europeans had a consciousness of belonging to the
  international commonwealth of the Catholic Church
• It was a powerful unifying force

2
PROGRESS

• Complex parish system brought sacraments and
  rudiments of Christian instruction to even the
  most remote village
• New bishop and archbishop districts were
  established and old ones were revitalized
• Papacy had more authority than ever over the
  activity of bishops
• Growing bureaucracy made sure Churchs taxes,
  rules, and rulings were enforced

3
SHIFT IN ATTITUDES

• Strong shift in religious attitudes away from
  earlier awe and mystery towards a new
  emotionalism and dynamism
• Seen in shift from Romanesque to Gothic church
  architecture
• Change in portrayal of Jesus in art
• Virgin Mary becomes compassionate figure who
  intercedes on behalf of lost souls
• Christianity became a doctrine of love, hope, and
  compassion

Romanesque
Gothic
4
JESUS
5
VIRGIN MARY
6
PROBLEMS

• Church often fell short of its ideals
• Lines of communication sometimes became clogged
  with lesser officials trying to escape control of
  their superiors
• Immense gulf separated the religious beliefs of
  popes and theologians from ordinary people
• Ordinary people tended to infuse religion with an
  unorthodox supernatural aspect
• Saw God as a divine magician who could protect
  his favorites from hunger, pain, and sudden death
• Popular practice of religion very different then
  than now
• Much more emphasis on acquiring divine favor
  through charms, pilgrimages, holy images, and the
  relics of saints

7
RELICS

• Most cherished relics were those associated with
  Christ and Virgin Mary
• Pieces of clothing, fragments of the cross, vials
  of Christs blood and Marys milk, Jesus baby
  teeth, his umbilical cord, etc.
• Many other relics too
• Virtually every town and rural parish in Europe
  had a relic of some saint

Relicquary for Crown of Thorns in Notre Dame
8
SAINTS

• Saint for everybody
• Each trade had its own particular saint
• Special saint for every known disease
• Miraculous healing powers of these saints
  satisfied popular longing for supernatural
  protection
• Theologians argued against all this but no one
  listened
• Popular demand wanted saints and relics and there
  was little church leaders could do about it

St. Blaise
St. Roch
9
POPULAR BELIEFS

• Popular beliefs received innocent encouragement
  from ill-educated parish priests who didnt know
  any better
• And also not-so-innocent encouragement from
  certain bishops and abbots who wanted to attract
  pilgrims to their churches and monasteries
• Such practices became embedded in the fabric of
  medieval Christianity
• Thus a residue of lost days of pagan magic
  continued to live in the popular belief in the
  supernatural powers of material objects

Relicquary for the hand of Sr. Gregory
10
CORRUPTION

• High medieval Church also suffered from
  corruption
• Byproduct of the unfortunate necessity of
  staffing the Church with human beings
• Largest fault of the Church was not gross
  corruption but a creeping complacency that often
  resulted in a mechanical attitude towards
  religious life and an obsession with Church
  property
• Ambition and greed got in the way of many
  clergymens real job of ministering to the
  spiritual needs of their flock

11
BENEDICTINES I

• St. Benedict had regarded his Benedictine order
  as a means for a religious individual to withdraw
  from the world and devote himself to God
• But his order also became involved in teaching,
  evangelism, and church reformdeeply immersed in
  worldly affairs
• Benedictine monasteries also controlled huge
  amounts of land, operated schools, supplied
  knights to feudal armies, and worked closely with
  secular rulers
• But new schools of the cities decreased demand
  for Benedictine trained scholars and traditional
  Benedictine contribution to society declined

12
BENDICTINES II

• Benedictine monasteries were scarcely sanctuaries
  from worldly concerns by the 12th century
• Large ones only accepted novices from the
  aristocracy
• In return for large gift of land
• Sons of aristocracy entered monasteries when they
  were 8 or 9
• Had no say in the matter
• Most went through the motions of being a monk,
  caring little and understanding less about what
  they were doing
• Benedictine movement ceased to be a vital force
  in Christianizing Europe

13
NEW RELIGIOUS ORDERS

• New religious orders founded during High Middle
  Ages in response to decline of vitality and
  mission of Benedictines
• Founded by ardent reformers and peopled by men
  and women who joined as adults
• Were not forced into it as children
• Joined out of free choice and after serious
  self-examination
• Gave these new orders a spiritual intensity that
  was absent from Benedictines

14
CISTERCIAN ORDER

• Mother house at Citeaux was set up by a small
  group of Benedictine dissenters in 1098
• In 1115, it had four daughter houses, but by 1200
  it had 500
• All built in remote wilderness areas like Citeaux

15
CISTERCIAN ORDER II

• No children were allowed to join
• Only adults who were certain of their religious
  decision
• Refused all gifts
• Except for undeveloped land which the monks then
  developed by their own labor
• Not by the labor of serfs
• Much labor was done by conversi
• Peasant lay brothers

16
CISTERCIAN ORDER III

• Tried to revive simple, austere life of the early
  Benedictines
• Houses were unheated
• Diet limited to black bread, water, and a few
  vegetables
• Monks were forbidden to speak except when it was
  absolutely essential
• Numerous houses bound together by an annual
  council of all abbots at Citeaux
• Not by a head abbot

17
GROWTH OF WORLDLINESS

• As the 12th century progressed, Cistercians
  became more involved with the outside world
• Their emphasis on austere living and hard work
  resulted in an accumulation of wealth and a
  corrosion of their spiritual simplicity
• Abbeys became more elaborate and the austerity of
  live relaxed
• By end of the Middle Ages, new orders had broken
  off in an attempt to get back to fundamental
  values
• Trappists

Trappist monks
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HERESY

• Criticism of Church was not based on the fact
  that churchmen had gotten worse it was founded
  on the fact that laypeople began to judge them by
  more rigorous standards
• Sometimes dissatisfaction manifested itself in
  the formation of new monastic orders
• But most Christians expressed their
  dissatisfaction in certain new heretical
  doctrines
• Heresies of High Middle Ages flourished in towns
  and cities of southern Europe
• New towns became centers of growing and intense
  religious devotion but the Church seemed unable
  to minister to the needs of the new burgher class
• A minority of discontented townspeople therefore
  turned to new anticlerical sects
• Some were mild reform movements but others
  crossed the line into heresy by preaching without
  Church approval and denying the exclusive right
  of ordained priests to administer the sacraments

19
WALDENSIANS

• Lyon merchant, Peter Waldo, gave away all his
  property to the poor in 1173 and took up life of
  complete poverty
• He and his followers asked permission from Church
  to preach
• But the Church refused because it wanted only
  ordained priests to preach
• Waldo and followers preached anyway and became
  critical of the special spiritual status of the
  priesthood
• Church condemned them and branded them as heretics

20
CATHARI (ALBIGENSIANS)

• Fused two religious traditions into one unique
  doctrine
• Anticlerical protest against ecclesiastical
  wealth and power
• Zoroasterianism from Persia
• Believed that there were two gods
• God of good who ruled over the universe of the
  spirit (Jesus)
• God of evil who ruled over the material world
  (Old Testament God who created the material
  world)
• Also believed in reincarnation and their ultimate
  goal was to escape the cycle of being born over
  and over again and enter a purely spiritual world
• To achieve this they rejected all material things

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A THREAT

• Severe behavior was only practiced by a small
  elite of spiritual men and women called
  perfects
• Rank-and-file led normal lives and only
  vicariously rejected material world by
  criticizing the affluence of the Church
• Heresy spread rapidly and posed threat to unity
  of Christianity and the authority of the Church
• Pope Innocent III therefore tried everything
  within his power to stamp it out

22
CHURCH STRIKES BACK

• Innocent III
• Reformed clergy in southern France by getting rid
  of everyone who was incompetent and/or corrupt
• Sent missionaries to the region to teach the
  heretics the errors of their ways
• Urged nobles to suppress the heresy among their
  dependents
• Finally, in 1208, he ordered a full-fledged
  crusade against the Albigensians
• After they murdered one of his personal
  representatives

23
ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE

• Savage affair
• Succeeded only after 20 years of bloodshed and
  destruction
• Over by 1229 and all that was left was to mop up
  isolated enclaves of hard-core survivors who had
  fled to mountain-top castles
• To ensure that the region remained orthodox, the
  pope established the Inquisition
• Grim symbol of the medieval Church at its worst

24
THE INQUISITION

• Papacy established a central tribunal for the
  purposes of standardizing procedures and
  increasing efficiency in the job of reconverting
  and/or punishing heretics
• Procedures included torture, secret testimony,
  conviction on the testimony of only two
  witnesses, denial of legal counsel to the accused
• Aroused strong opposition in southern France
• Not on humanitarian grounds
• But on the fact that papal officials were
  usurping rights of local bishops
• Most of those convicted received prison sentences
  or lesser punishments
• Only a minority were actually executed

25
FRANCISCANS AND DOMINICANS

• Both devoted to a life of poverty, preaching, and
  performing charitable acts
• Both rejected life inside the monastery and
  devoted themselves to religious work in the real
  world
• Especially the towns
• Both pledged to personal and corporate poverty
• Would not accept any gifts at all
• Drew their members from the lower levels of
  society
• Not from the nobility
• Known as the mendicants
• Through their work of charity and their humble
  lifestyle, they drained urban heresy of its
  former support by demonstrating that orthodox
  Christianity could be both relevant and compelling

26
FRANCIS OF ASSISI

• 1182-1226
• Son of a wealthy merchant from Assisi
• Loved a good time and was leader of a rowdy
  teenage gang
• Underwent religious conversion and devoted rest
  of his life to solitude, prayer, and service to
  the poor
• Now wandered around Assisi in rags and gave
  everything he had to the poor and sick
• Former friends ridiculed him and father
  disinherited him
• Moved to outskirts of Assisi, lived in total
  poverty, and devoted the next three years to
  helping lepers and social outcasts

27
BIRTH OF THE FRANCISCANS

• Began preaching to the poor in 1209
• Began to attract disciples
• Went to Rome to ask Innocent III to officially
  sanction this work
• The pope did
• To act as a counterweight to the heretical groups
  who had been winning converts from the Church by
  the example of their poverty and simplicity
• Also might have been influenced by the powerful
  and sincere spirituality of Francis
• Francis took over run-down chapel outside of
  Assisi as his headquarters
• But Franciscans did not use it as a monastery
• Dressed like peasants or beggars, they wandered
  around in pairs preaching to and serving the poor

28
GROWTH

• Franciscans missions established in Italy,
  France, England, Hungary, Spain, Morocco, Turkey,
  and Holy Land by 1226
• Thousands of friars
• Charisma and sincerity of Francis itself was
  crucial factor in popularity
• But the movement also harmonized well with the
  highest religious aspirations of the age
• Urban heresy actually declined as Franciscans
  spread their message and example

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PRINCIPLES

• Franciscan ideal was based on the imitation of
  Jesus
• Fundamental to this was emphasis on poverty
• Refused all gifts to the order and lived by
  working and serving in return for food and
  necessities
• Humility was also important
• Preaching also important
• Answered need in cities where the Church had
  responded inadequately to the growing religious
  hunger of urban people
• Overwhelmingly cheerful
• Sang and laughed
• Joyfully immersed themselves in the world because
  they saw it as the handiwork of God

30
EVOLUTION

• Movement eventually became too large to retain
  its original disorganized simplicity
• Problems popped up, which centered on how could
  Franciscan ideal be practical on a large scale
• Francis asked Cardinal Hugolino to be protector
  of the order
• He agreed but insisted that a formal rule be
  drawn up for the order
• Done in late 1220
• Established a degree of administrative structure
  to the order
• Gradually, the movement then evolved from the
  ideal to the practical

Cardinal Hugolino
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DEATH OF ST. FRANCIS

• Francis resigned from leadership of the movement
  in 1220 and died in 1226
• After his death, the Franciscans became modified
  by the demands of practicality
• While some pushed for more lax interpretation of
  the Franciscan rule, others insisted on
  preserving the evangelical poverty and idealism
  of Francis
• Became known as spiritual Franciscans and
  became major critics of the organized Church

32
COMPROMISE

• Majority of Franciscans were willing to meet
  reality halfway
• Even though Francis thought formal education was
  a waste of time, they began to devote themselves
  to learning and started to teach at the early
  urban universities
• Franciscan scholar Roger Bacon played a vital
  role in reviving science
• St. Bonaventure was the leading theologian of the
  late 13th century
• Practical compromises diminished the radical
  idealism that Francis had instilled in his order
• Franciscans would continue to serve society but,
  by the end of the 13th century, they had ceased
  to inspire it

Roger Bacon
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SUMMARY

• Pattern of religious reform throughout the Middle
  Ages was one of ebb and flow
• A reform movement such as the Cistercians would
  electrify society for a time and then give way to
  complacency
• And thereby eventually launch a new and different
  wave of reform
• But spiritual vigor of orthodox Catholicism began
  to run out by end of High Middle Ages
• Caused by decline of Constantinople, the closing
  off of the Holy Land, onset of economic
  depression, population decline, plague, peasant
  rebellions, and horribly destructive wars
• Popular devotion remained strong in the north but
  in the south a more secular attitude began to
  emerge
• Church in general experienced a steady decline in
  overall influence