The early Christian faith in medieval Europe, rooted in Christian antiquity, was characterized by central liturgical structures such as Initiation and Eucharist, daily prayer, and the development of a liturgical year. The long medieval period saw a broadening elaboration of Christian myth and legend, as the faith expanded beyond its original cultural milieu of the Mediterranean into northern Europe.
Christian rituals, such as baptism, were the most important rituals of the early Middle Ages, as they determined Christian status for the majority of people in Europe. The rites of initiation, including catechesis, baptism, and confirmation, determined Christian status for the majority of people in Europe. Christianity in the Middle Ages covers the history of Christianity from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (c. 476).
Christians in the Middle Ages expressed and strengthened their faith through public rituals, such as celebration of the Eucharist, and personal devotions. Communion, following the example of Christ at the last supper, was the ritual by which medieval Christians connected spiritually with God.
The first Christian missionaries to the southern Anglo-Saxons were sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 597. Augustine quickly converted King Augustus, and other prominent festivals include Candlemas, Michaelmas, and the New Testament.
Christian myth and legend were adapted to new traditions as the faith expanded beyond its original cultural milieu of the Mediterranean into northern Europe. Church attendance on Sundays and during religious festivals was socially required for all those in the Middle Ages.
In conclusion, the early Christian faith in medieval Europe was characterized by a blend of rituals, ideas, practices, and institutions, with the Catholic Church dominating and influencing the practice.
📹 The Middle Ages Explained in 10 minutes
One of the least understood periods of European history occurred between the 6th century and the 14th or 15th century …
What were the central rituals of the early church?
The early church’s basic acts of worship included the reading and exposition of Scripture, prayer, singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and observance of sacraments. These practices were derived from the Synagogue worship of the Jews, which accepted the Old Testament as the Word of God. Early Christians continued celebrating in the Synagogue alongside the Jews on the Sabbath for several years in some places. However, they distinguished themselves from their Jewish counterparts by believing that Jesus was the promised Messiah and that salvation was found only in Him.
The “Synagogue” likely dates back to the 6th century BC during the Babylonian Exile, when the Jews gathered in local “meeting houses” (synagogues) for public worship. The longer their exile from the national altar of sacrifice, the greater their need for “houses of prayer” became, leading to the building of an ever-increasing number of synagogues throughout the land of exile. Upon returning from captivity in Babylon, this national system of synagogue worship was brought back to Jerusalem.
The primary purpose of the synagogue is as a “house of prayer”, replacing Jewish “Temple ritual sacrifice” with Torah readings, prayer, and teaching. It also functions as a “house of study”, where Jewish children receive their religious education and adults study the sacred Hebrew texts housed in the synagogue. Additionally, the synagogue functions as a “social gathering place”, serving as a town hall for community events and a headquarters for social and charity work.
From the outset of Christianity, the synagogue was in full power of its various functions. The New Testament refers to it fifty-five times, with the Lord teaching in the synagogues of Nazareth and Capernaum, Paul preaching in the synagogues of Damascas, Salamis of Cyprus, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus. Both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud mention numerous Galilean synagogues, which were centers of rabbinical literary, religious, and political influence.
The city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, was the largest city in the Mediterranean basin, the greatest center of both Hellenistic and Jewish culture, and the greatest Roman provincial capital. It was home to a world-renowned museum, university, and two royal Greek libraries that contained over 700, 000 scrolls, attracting scholars from all over the world. Ultimately, Alexandria became a center of Christian learning that rivaled Rome and Constantinople, and was the seat of a patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the region of Galilee, there are also ancient ruins dating back to the first century, including a synagogue at Capernaum, likely the one in which Jesus taught.
What are some Christianity rituals?
The Catholic Church is a religious community that practices various sacraments, including baptism, confirmation, reconciliation, anointing of the sick, matrimony, and ordination. These sacraments are considered channels of receiving God’s grace and are categorized into the Sacraments of Initiation (baptism, the Eucharist, and confirmation), Healing (reconciliation and anointing of the sick), and Vocational Consecration (marriage and ordination).
Baptism is the first sacrament of initiation, typically performed when an infant is baptized. The priest sprinkles holy water on the person’s head, invoking the Holy Trinity. The ritual is believed to bring about a new self, mirroring the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The ritual is usually performed once in a Catholic’s lifetime, and a baptism performed by another Christian denomination is usually recognized by the Catholic Church.
The Eucharist, also known as the Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper, is the second sacrament of initiation in the Catholic Church. During the ritual, bread and red wine are sanctified by the clergy, which is believed to transform the substances into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The congregation shares the sacred meal to commemorate Christ’s Last Supper and his crucifixion.
While the Eucharist can be received as often as one wishes, an individual’s first communion and participation during Easter are considered particularly important.
What were the practices of the medieval Church?
The Middle Ages saw the Church as a central part of daily life, with people attending three to five times daily for prayer and services, and at least once a week for confession and repentance acts. The Church paid no taxes and was supported by the people of a town or city through a ten percent tithe. This tithe paid for baptism ceremonies, confirmations, funerals, saint’s day festivals, and holy day celebrations like Easter.
The teachings of the Church were a certainty to the people of the Middle Ages, and questions were not tolerated. The baptismal font, a free-standing stone receptacle used for infant or adult baptism, was the center of a congregation’s life. It also served as a test for guilt or innocence in criminal cases. If the accused floated, it indicated guilt, while if they sank, it meant innocence.
What were the major religious practices in medieval Europe?
Christianity was the dominant religion in Europe during the Middle Ages, originating from the teachings of monk Augustine in 597 A. D. It was embraced by the royal houses, nobility, and the general working population. Islam, established in 622 A. D., was the dominant religion in the Middle East and had a sophisticated culture of religion, art, science, and urbanization. However, it was not well represented in Europe, except in the south and southwest (Spain and Portugal) where they controlled lands until driven out by battle. Jews, a minority, were primarily working-class tradespeople, merchants, and farmers.
What are some characteristics of medieval Christianity?
Medieval Christianity was characterized by a belief that the Church was the only path to spiritual salvation, with participation in Christian worship and receiving sacraments administered by the clergy being crucial. The majority of the population was illiterate, making it impossible for most Christians to access the rudiments of Christian belief. The path to salvation was based on the sacraments and the relevant saints to pray to.
The sacraments were essential spiritual rituals conducted by ordained priests, making access to the Church a prerequisite for any chance of spiritual salvation in the minds of medieval Christians. These sacraments included baptism, which purges original sin from a newborn child, and communion, which connects spiritually with God following the example of Christ at the last supper.
Confession was necessary to receive forgiveness for sins, while confirmation was the pledge to be a faithful member of the Church taken in young adulthood. Marriage was believed to be sanctified by God, and Holy orders were the vows taken by new members of the clergy. Last Rites were a final ritual carried out at the moment of death to send the soul on to purgatory, the spiritual realm between earth and heaven, where the soul’s sins would be burned away over years of atonement and purification.
What did medieval Christians think of Muslims?
During the Middle Ages, Christian views of Muhammad remained highly negative, with many viewing Islam as a Christian heresy and Muhammad as a false prophet. Western and Byzantine Christian thinkers considered Muhammad as a perverted, deplorable man, a false prophet, and even the Antichrist, as he was often seen in Christendom as a heretic or possessed by demons. Some, like Thomas Aquinas, criticized Muhammad’s promises of carnal pleasure in the afterlife.
With the Crusades of the High Middle Ages and the wars against the Ottoman Empire during the Late Middle Ages, the Christian reception of Muhammad became more polemical, moving from a classification as a heretic to depiction of him as a servant of Satan or the Antichrist, who would be eternally suffering in Hell among the damned. By the Late Middle Ages, Islam was more typically grouped with Paganism, and Muhammad was viewed as an idolater inspired by the Devil.
A more relaxed or benign view of Islam developed in the modern period, after the Islamic empires ceased to be an acute military threat to Europe.
What were the beliefs of the early Christians?
The early Christians thought of themselves as a redeemed community, promised eternal life in Christ and pledged to live a holy life in expectation of the end of this world, which might come at any moment with the return of Christ as judge. They were simultaneously charged to preach the gospel to the world, and this created a tension not easy to resolve. On the one hand it seemed necessary to separate themselves from a society that was not only, by Christian standards, immoral but also riddled with pagan practices. This conviction is fully displayed in Tertullian’s De idololatria, in a rigorist sect like Montanism, and eventually in monasticism. Public life and much social intercourse were precluded. On the other hand, Jesus had mixed with publicans and sinners, and evangelization was a plain duty. Before Constantine, however, this meant bringing individuals out of the world into the church rather than making society Christian. A high moral standard, refusal to compromise, and steadfastness before persecution proved to be powerful missionary weapons. Evidence of direct missionary campaigns such as Gregory the Illuminator ‘s in Armenia (3rd century) is scanty.
Since Christians were not automatically made perfect by baptism, and periods of peace removed the selective test of persecution, the moral life of the church was protected by a disciplinary system. Grave offenders publicly acknowledged their sin before the bishop and the congregation and were excommunicated for a greater or lesser period. During this time they performed works of penance, and finally (in parts of the church penitents passed first through several grades) were granted absolution and publicly restored to communion by the bishop. Private penance was a later development. Public penance for grave sin was only available once, and, although practice was not everywhere uniform, it was widely held that apostasy, adultery, and murder involved final excommunication. Relaxation of this early severity caused much unrest among the rigorists and sometimes led to schism. Montanism, Novatianism, and Donatism were all, in part, movements of protest against what was felt to be an abandonment of the standard of individual behaviour required if the church was itself to remain holy.
This disciplinary system carried with it a threat to the central doctrine of justification by faith, since the conditions of forgiveness tended to be assessed quantitatively. In addition, works similar to those performed by penitents, such as almsgiving, were believed to merit heavenly rewards. Ascetic practices were also encouraged, partly as a means toward the purification of the soul for the contemplation of God, but in part as works to be rewarded. Thus a double standard of morality was countenanced: one level of life sufficient to ensure salvation, another aspiring after perfection and proportionately higher rewards. A distinction was made between the precepts ( commandments ) of the Lord and the counsels.
What are the rituals of early Christianity?
Early Christian rituals included communal meals, such as the Eucharist, which became separate from the Lovefeast between the 1st century AD and 250 AD. Today, the Lovefeast is a distinct Christian ritual meal from the Lord’s Supper. The liturgical rituals during the first three centuries of Christianity were rooted in Jewish Passover, Siddur, Seder, and synagogue services, including hymn singing and scripture reading. Most early Christians did not own copies of the works that later became the Christian Bible or other church works, such as the Apostolic Fathers’ writings or New Testament apocrypha.
Much of the original church liturgical services functioned as a means of learning these scriptures, initially centered around the Septuagint and the Targums. Initially, Christians worshipped alongside Jewish believers, but within twenty years of Jesus’ death, Sunday became the primary day of worship.
What are the rituals of worship in Christianity?
Christian worship encompasses a multitude of forms, including the praise of God through musical expression, oratory, the recitation of scripture, the offering of prayers, the delivery of sermons, and the performance of sacred rituals such as the Eucharist. Its roots lie in Judaism, and it may be conducted either privately or in any location. Although worship is frequently perceived as a collective endeavor, individual Christians are also capable of engaging in worship practices independently.
What were the medieval religious treatments?
In ancient times, common religious treatments included prayer, fasting, the payment for a special Mass, and pilgrimages. These practices were believed to remove sin and demonstrate faith in God, which could potentially result in the removal of illness.
What were the rituals of medieval Christianity?
Baptism was a crucial ritual in the early Middle Ages, determining Christian status for most people in Europe. It cleansed sins, promised salvation, and created new social relationships through Christian institutions like godparentage. Most conversion narratives and liturgical sources between c. 600 and c. 1100 describe baptism as a static ritual, but the physical settings and material objects of baptism reveal its diversity and flexibility.
In the fourth through sixth century, baptism was the dramatic seal of adult conversion to Christianity, performed at Easter inside a glittering urban baptistery alongside the Eucharist and confirmation. By the eleventh and twelfth centuries, baptism marked the entry of an infant into Christian life at a parish ceremony. Baptisms were performed in ritual wells, springs, portable buckets, spoons, and inside side chapels. Some early English baptismal places and things were adapted into Christian practice from pre-Christian pagan ritual and others from contemporary Christian liturgical objects.
The material and ritual approach to baptism reveals the diverse early medieval Christian practice and how baptism participated in defining the many local Christianities of the early Middle Ages rather than a single Christendom. By understanding the role of things from the past to materialize human agency over time and the role of ritual to make and unmake community through its ideal and real practices, we can no longer maintain a static interpretation of this essential and overlooked ritual.
📹 How Much Power Did the Catholic Church Have in the Middle Ages?
One of the most unifying elements of the Medieval Period was the Roman Catholic Church. All classes and ranks of people, …
n the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad’s successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome’s direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. Secular law was advanced greatly by the Code of Justinian. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated extant Roman institutions, while new bishoprics and monasteries were founded as Christianity expanded in Europe.
You got the part about eastern Roman Empire (came to be known as Byzantine by recent historians) wrong. They didn’t claim to be romans they were romans before the split of the empire to east and west. Also the eastern Roman Empire (fully hellenized by then) did not collapse after the death of Constantine, but survived until 1453 when ottomans concurred Constantinople thous making the Roman Empire the longer standing empire in the history
The only correction I’d make is one concerning the Roman Empire. It didn’t receive its “final blow” in 410 with Alaric’s sack, nor did it fall in 476. The Eastern Empire was only named “Byzantine” centuries later – for hundreds of years after 476, they still considered themselves the Roman Empire. In fact, they succeeded in recapturing much of the Western Empire, including Rome itself.
The war of French succession and the 100 years war are totally separate. The war of French succession lasted 8 years and happened in the 1700s. Plus the 100 years war was started Because of a dispute over Gascony between king Edward the 3rd and Philip the 4th not Charles the 4th. He was the king of bohemia and the holy roman emperor during the 1300s.
This is mainly about Europe right ? Because within those years, the Othman / Islamic Golden Empire thrived and Innovations were achieved during Europe’s “Dark Ages”. Ironically, it thrived because of the spread of the ‘proper practise’ of Islam which encourages research & reading unlike what we have today
It’s inaccurate to say the Byzantines “thought of themselves as Romans.” They called themselves Romans because they WERE Romans. Their capital city of Constantinople was founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great on the site of the original Greek city Byzantium. Historians invented the name “Byzantine” 100 years after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 as a way to distinguish the Greek speaking Christian empire centered on Constantinople from the Latin speaking empire founded in Rome. That said, the Roman Empire lived on for 1000 years after Odoacer deposed Romulus Agustulus and took over. By that point, the Germanic magister militum had been the power behind the throne for a century under Stilicho, Aetius, and Ricimer in that order. Odoacer simply dispensed with the formality. The Roman Empire (the eastern half) midwifed the Renaissance by preserving Greek and Roman texts and through diplomatic contacts with Baghdad. When the Mongols sacked Baghdad, its knowledge was preserved in Constantinople. When Constantinople fell, its scholars fled to Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Milan, beginning the Italian Renaissance. We owe a tremendous debt to the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, a fact that is largely forgotten today.
“Middle ages 500-1500ad often known as *the dark ages or medieval times”. Wrong wrong wrong, The dark ages is between 500 – 800ad in western Europe. Even shorter for eastern Europe. Its known as *Dark ages” simply because during the Roman empire news travelled around it within days, After the Roman empire collapsed in western and central Europe, it only survived in east Europe . During the post Roman era, all news stopped, Germanic tribes were conquering the rest of Europe, Italy, Spain, Frankia, Britain, mostly illiterate peoples who took individual kingdoms, Only when the church became established across Europe did writing spread across Europe as it did in the Roman empire days did the dark ages end! It’s as simple as that.
First off the Middle ages started in the 4th century not the 5th century and it ended in the 15th 14th century and also so people know everybody is always being told there was no Middle ages in America but yes there was cuz there were people living here there were the natives living here in America and there were the Vikings living here in America who arrived in America in 1021 which was in the 10th century and they left in the 15th century people aren’t taught us in school for some reason I was homeschooled and I was talked this from real history books.
The Roman Empire didn’t fall in 476, it fell in 1453 The Byzantines weren’t their own thing It was the Eastern Roman Empire It was literally Rome itself Also “After Constantine died, the Byzantine Empire splintered” No… no it didn’t Constantine was the Roman Emperor for the entirety of the realm, not just the Eastern Roman Empire After the fall of the West, the East still thrived and survived 1000 more years
The middle ages ended with the end of the great plague. Now Europe could leave the worst behind and with Europe radically restructured because of the effects of the plague Europe could start rising. The nation state was consolidating(aragon-castile union), concerted effort to travel farther(Portugal rounding southern africa), typing press, beginning of Renaissance. All this existed during the middle ages but it really exploded after the end of the great plague
They portray this in a way, that is not very balanced. Tenpole Tudor the british punk band of the late 1970’s became known with their album: “Swords Of A Thousand Men”. The lead singer Mr. Tudor had found out that his ancestry is the Tudors. What he withheld was that he was a chosenite and of course the Tudors were people of the nose tribe too. The magic noses were not known only to poison the wells but poison Christians with their concoctions & potions camouflaged as doctors. On the Synod of Salamanca in middle age Europe was mentioned that the J’s become physicians only to poison Christians. Oxford Languages: Synod: an assembly of the clergy and sometimes also the laity in a diocese or other division of a particular Church. Laity: 1. lay people, as distinct from the clergy. 2. ordinary people, as distinct from professionals or experts. The Arab Muslimi empire made laws in 333 A.D. (After Christ) against the Jays to become physicians, as they also killed with their concoctions the muslims camouflaged as doctors. An interesting point of reference in this scenario of manipulation, is the case of the company “Merck”. Merck, a multinational pharmaceutical corporation, is providing worldwide via distribution their drugs in a continental spectrum. It was Merck, who had it’s first Apothecary – meaning drug store in the world, opened up in Darmstadt Germany in the 1660’s – late medieval Europe. Of today their drug stores are spread all over the world. Its not a coincidence that the Greek word Pharmaceutical-Pharmakia by definition is translated as=Sorcery & Magic.
I’d argue the cause of the first crusade wasn’t a simple pious desire to retake the Holy Land, as Jerusalem had been Muslim for centuries. At that time, Pope Urban II (who called for the first crusade) was one of two people claiming the papacy. It was an appeal to the masses in order to gain their favor: if you unite under my cause, you will achieve salvation. This public support did end up making him the sole pontiff.
Hello! PSA 😅🗣 there are prophecies in the Bible saying that Satan would disrupt Jesus’ ministry (bc Jesus is GOD who died for our sins). It is natural for the 2 to be opposed of each other (Daniel 7:25). Satan changed everything about Jesus’ teachings thru the Roman Catholic Church (due to Rome’s authority politically & religiously). That is why ☝️ Gospel was changed into 800+ denominations #Respectfully 😉
Repent The Lord is Coming soon! Revive salvation or your portion which is death and hell as well as the rest of us. But because God is Good and not is we don’t have to go. Know Jesus not Just of Him❤️ He is coming real soon; even Russia and the Ukraine situation is Biblical prophecy. Repent The Lord is coming soon! Be born again❤️ Baptized in The Holy Spirit 🙂
This article is so inaccurate. The fall of Rome led to what we know as the dark ages, and the byzantines weren’t the byzantines til after they had collapsed. That was a term later historians had given them, to distinguish them because the byzantines actually considered themselves simply the eastern Romans. The term Byzantine wasn’t widely used until after 1450s when they collapsed. And that’s just 2 things I could be bothered to correct…
I recently read St. Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History of England” 731 AD. He says extremely little about the priests. It is almost entirely devoted to the Bishops and Archbishops and the conversion of Britain to Catholicism. He does talk a fair amount of the various abbeys that were set up. A lot of miracles are mentioned, too.
0:06: 🏰 Life in medieval Europe was diverse and heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. 4:24: 🏰 St Michael’s at the north gate is the earliest church in Oxford and one of the most unique churches in England. 7:44: 📚 The article discusses the basic Christian doctrines, the hierarchy of the church, and the role of Cardinals in electing the Pope. 11:37: 📚 The article discusses the rise of mendicant orders in the medieval period and their role in preaching and practicing apostolic poverty. 15:21: 🏰 The article discusses the Gothic architecture and floor tiles in medieval Abbeys, as well as the rowdiness of university students who were also members of the clergy. 23:03: 🏰 Nobility can establish a community of monks and nuns on their land, creating new opportunities for resentment between peasants and clergy. Recap by Tammy AI
From a business perspective, the Catholic Church was one of the most successful enterprises the world has ever known. They created in effect the first multi-layer marketing (MLM) scheme and innovated periodically to add new products such as pardons & indulgences which increased overall revenue without adding too much additional overhead, thus improving overall profit margins. The Catholic Church today is a shadow of its former self and relies mainly on its franchises in South America for residual income. Perhaps in the years ahead a new CEO (pope) will re-invigorate The Catholic Church LLC and broaden its revenue opportunities so as to restore some portion of its former market share and thus improve its implicit share price.
And let’s not forget that because the Church had such wealth, it was also dangerous especially in the Early Middle Ages. Due to the wealth it accumulated, the Churches and monasteries were prime targets for raiders…and not just any old raider. The biggest threat clergy in the Early Middle Ages faced were the Vikings. The Vikings were infamously hostile towards Christianity, often sacking monasteries and killing priests all the time. However, these were usually done for financial reasons. Monasteries were full of riches and the monks had no weapons. In essence, they were just banks guarded by unarmed men in robes. And it’s not like this was restricted only to the Norsemen, Anglo-Saxon kings also were known to raid monasteries when the royal treasury was tight.
Such an important part of history is the “church” and how it “was” in/during and still to this day, is a part of life. Even if you don’t partake in it directly…it’s persuasion on it’s population of those involved with it one way or another. This makes me understand the change in the changing of the “church” during King Henry’s time plus….
During the middle ages at some times one third of the Europe wealth belonged to the church. No other criminal syndicate has ever accumulated so much wealth. The church became more powerful than the kings and emperors. Only in the high middle ages some very powerful kings like Phillip The Fair curbed some of the churches’ power. Those kings understood that the church sacrificed progress to a religious dogma. Even today the church occupies the most expensive real estate in any country.
Another good article. Does anybody know what these terms are such as Living Rights or Living Benefits, coming from an early 18th century Will. Assuming that it’s something that would be a net positive and could “Living Rights” be somehow obtained by someone owning land which included a Parish Church within it’s boundaries. Would be interesting if anyone had insights on this sort of earlier legal terminology found in a will. I’ve tried doing research and have for the most part come up empty. Anyways, just throwing this out there in case someone had some knowledge on the subject and since there is a possible connections with a parish church.
9:14 Was just checking lifespans of cardinals of San Giorgio in Velabro – one of them was archdeacon (not archbishop) in Canterbury. “(Prospero) Colonna was also the Archdeacon of Canterbury from June 1424 to December 1434, appointed by Martin V, his uncle. Colonna claimed several ecclesiastical revenue streams in England, including the prebend of Laughton, York, worth an estimated £33 per annum, a matter of dispute between Colonna and Thomas Chapman, as well as Chapman’s successor John Lax. Colonna acquired other English benefices at a time when the right of the pope to appoint English bishops was a matter of controversy.” Imagine an Italian archdeacon in an English cathedral after 17 November 1558!
I really appreciated this article and found it fascinating, but I also felt that it didn’t quite get into the nitty-gritty the way the previous two did. If I wanted to know what a Parish Priest did on a daily basis, what he ate, what he wore, etc., I don’t know that from this article. Maybe it’s a function of the fact that the previous two articles contained themselves to very distinct social classes while this one ran the gamut from mendicant monks all the way to Cardinals and the Pope. It would have been nice to see a bit more of the day-to-day in addition to the politics.
Strange interpretation of Wycliffe, and what became Lollardism in that it fails to mention it being a proto Lutheran Idea of Making the word of God accessible to the masses, and railing against the essentially corporate power of the established church ? It remains the fact that Wycliffe is remembered primarily for translating the bible into the English language, something that in those pre printing press days was fairly easily suppressed by what was essentially a supranational church that conducted the business of salvation largely in a language inaccessible to the bulk of the population. As for Henry’s dissolution of that supranational power, whilst he did it entirely for dynastic reasons, the result was an enrichment of what Schama referred to as ‘Those middling folk’ ? It would not be too much of a stretch to suggest that the dissolution of church power was, or proved in its unintended consequence way, to be a first step upon the road to what eventually became capitalism as we know it today ? Whilst Eleanor is a powerful presentor that is capable of holding rapt attention, there’s a distinct feeling that it cant be long before the famous poster of friend Lenin sweeping a globe comes into play. 🙂
It’s crazy how medias always try to say only bad things about the Catholic Church, but never ever mention all the good they have done. Why doesn’t this woman mention that all orphanages and hospitals were creations of the Church? That it was the clergy who served the poor, the ill and abandoned? Also, the benedictine monks didn’t just copy Bibles, they are the reason we have the knowledge of ancient greek and roman litterature and science.
23:40 So, basically, Judas Iscariot theology “Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said: Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things that were put therein.” John 12, 4-6
I think the Catholic Church has just as much power today, but in a more opaque and subtle way. For example: Pope Francis with his encyclical Laudato si has a profound effect whether for good or bad on the climate policies of the world. Secondly the church had a big hand in the formation of the European Union and the club of Rome as well as the UN. The church is expert at working behind the scene in politics and cultural influence.
Could you have an episode about how the Jews of the medieval period lived, obviously before the expulsion. I t seems the Jews lived a sort of parallel existence. They handled the money, but were forbidden from owning land and from other occupations. But they clearly had other occupations to handle religious obligations. For example, butchers to prepare kosher meats. Also, they traveled around England. How did they do this, what were the accommodations, etc.
To judge from the evidence of ecclesiastical visitations, most parish priests of the C13th were semi-literate drunks who lived in a hovel with their mistress and several illegitimate children. They could barely read English, let alone Latin, and had only a rudimentary understanding of their duties. And then, of course, there was pluralism…. It is commonly assumed that medieval folk were all devout Christians. Actually quite a few of them hadn’t the slightest idea what Christianity was.
13:37 “services entirely in Latin” Technically true, but technically also the sermon is not part of the actual Mass liturgy. Meaning it could very easily not be in Latin. Latin sermons would probably be prevailing in Masses held for university students, who were anyway required to already master Latin. “and the priest would be facing the altar most of the time” Not when blessing the people, not when reading the Gospel, not when preaching the sermon, and also not when distributing Holy Communion. But they certainly did – and do – face the altar during the canon of the Mass. The Latin mass is not dead.
I think you have it wrong at 10:45. Regular clergy are the monks and friars because they followed a rule, a regula, like the Benedictine rule. Parish priests, canons and bishops are secular clergy (mostly, exceptions abound), because they live in the world, secula. Good job on the whole, a very complex topic.
Yesterday or today Catholics don’t pray to relics as stated here. To quote St. Jerome, “We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the Creator, but we VENERATE the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore Him whose martyrs they are.” Great lecture and it’s enjoyable to view the many locations.
The Catholic church reigned with almost impunity after it was given full recognition by Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 392 C.E. that made orthodox Catholicism with its Trinity doctrine the state religion. And so, for over the next 1,100 years, Catholicism would be the so-called “Christian” religion without any competitors. That is until a German monk named Martin Luther (1483-1546 C.E.), nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg church in Germany, to contest the Catholic church’s teaching of the sale of indulgences, which started the Protestant Reformation on October 31,1517.(Note: Luther never entertained the thought of breaking with the Church of Rome, but was protesting against the selling of papal indulgences, a church sanctioned way of making money, telling the “buyers” that their dead loved ones could be spared punishment for ANY SIN by means of their money given to the Catholic church) What started out as an academic debate on the sale of indulgences soon became a controversy over matters of faith and papal authority. The split of “the church” was starting, whereby the Vatican ordered him to recant, but which Luther refused, so that in 1521, he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X, who died on December 1, 1521. So, by the time of Catholic James II (in which King James I was Protestant, and authorized the King James Bible that was published in 1611 C.E.), who ascended to the throne of England in 1685, he had failed to see clearly the deadliness of the Catholic church, the corruption that existed from the top, the Vatican down to local priests, for John Foxe (c.
20:32 Wyclif felt … yeah, right, check Jeremias 17:9! The orders were obliged to individual poverty, not to collective destitutions. A Franciscan obliges himself with an “I” to be poor and live by begging and the resources the convent he is in has, no vow obliged any convent to be poor as in “we” … Probably he hated Franciscans owning books about as much as certain bourgeois intellectuals hate me accessing the internet and using wikipedia …
26:00 “Nobility are able to counter the Church …” In many places, they got that ambition from reading Cicero. How Cicero saw or treated poor men was a question of Cicero’s position, and he had no concerns about salvation getting in between that … Luther and Calvin catered to people who dreamed of the good old days, when lords were just lords and slaves were just slaves. A bit like some guys in Virginia in the 1880’s or early 2000 might dream of the days before Ghettysburgh.
23:35 Bridgettines in Vadstena were even more like this (St Bridget who founded the order was the widow of a Lagman – a lawspeaker – and the order got their first monastery from a king who donated one of the royal court buildings). But for some reason, this didn’t get under the skin of any people in Sweden. Guess we had (back then) less of Judas Ischariot than England had ….
Are you certain about the offices and structures as you present them? There are only two orders – Priest and Bishop. Archbishops are in charge of particularly significant or historic diocese. In the same way, Monsignors are priests, but have the distinction for honorific purposes rather than power. Priest run parishes; bishops run dioceses; the next administrative unit up from diocese is the metropolitanate whose leader is know as a Metropolitan Bishop. Cardinals are the subset of bishops that have the right to elect a new Pope.
i am catholic . i was an alter boy as a kid . but when i started to study history, i changed my beliefs . all religions through history have used power over the people . even kings . if the royals disagreed with the priests they where executed . especially Catholicism. how many people have been executed for not believing ?. south America north America Africa Asia if this was ever studied properly, the numbers would be hundreds of millions .
19:39 In Sweden the communal tax typically is c. 30 %. The tithe, precisely as the name suggests, is 10 %. AND, please note, lots of things now done by the local secular governments, in Sweden met by communal tax, would back then have been financed by the tithe, like schools, hospitals for the poor, and almsgiving outside hospitals too … Wyclif was complaining about the Church being involved in the social life. He was catering to rich burghers who thought they could make almsgiving in much more rational ways, i e more oppressive to the one’s receiving them.
22:30 “often the laity feel the clergy … not be accumulating so much wealth on earth” But they weren’t doin so for their personal “train de vie”, they were doing so to effectively serve the things of God. The sentiment you speak of would (same reservation as previous about Bohemia) would be very absent from the laity over much of the Catholic world. If you go to 1400 in Sweden or Austria (outside Bohemia) or France or Spain, would you find laymen complaining about clerical “riches”? I don’t think so.
20:09 Wyclif was complaining that: * as mendicants were honoured while begging (by the way, not just technically, but actually asking for money, note, Franciscans couldn’t, Dominicans and Carmelites could, and not just necessities, in the streets), * they encouraged involuntarily poor people to also beg without being too shamefaced. That’s the kind of crime Wyclif was complaining about, and possibly also marrying couples against their parents’ wills. Wyclif’s best disciple in the 19th C, if fictional examples are allowed, would have been Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge.
12:49 “parish priests tend to see this as” the following is very true for England and partly explains the Reformation “intercepting what would rightly go to the local church” but it is not necessarily true for all other countries. I don’t know the situation in Bohemia all that well, but I don’t think you find this kind of tension in for instance Vienna or Paris.
The Vatican is actualy considered a Monarchy and its Monarch is the Pope; The Vatican is also an Autonomous and Sovereign Nation and its Ambassadors throughout the world are the Arch Bishops. The official language is Latin even today. The word Catholic actually means “Universal”, for this reason, the Apostol Creed’s first statement of fact is ” We believe in the Catholic Church. And Vatican City is its Capital. *If you hold the Creed predicated by the Roman Catholic Church you are officially recognized as a Roman Catholic Christian.
I wondering what kind of accommodations did Dr. Janega have when she went to England. She doesn’t look like they gave her rooms in wish she could wash and dry her hair. England not that long ago what terrible places to stay and no way to dry your hair. Shame on the producers for putting her in that position.
”In the Middle Ages of Europe, the peasants ate dirt and only lived for 23 years. That’s right…. 99% of people were peasants and they ate dirt. Every thing they ever made went to the nobles and the church. The Clergy were rich and they were rich and they had EVERYTHING! They had sex with every peasant’s eldest daughter and all the others and his wife, too, and then they said that they were ”clergy” so they couldn’t be punished or anything. Anyone who could say their name with words who WASN’T a noble or a priest was instantly murdered and then made to work for 123 years in the sewer and then they died and went immediately to Hell – cos the Clergy said so. The Clergy and the Nobles ate ALL the nice food and they did that ALL day and at night they slept on silk pillows and had sex with all the pretty girls.” From the Book of Marxism.
“those who pray”? If there were any such thing as a Christian society ( and if the Bible is TRUE – radical notion i know!! – there is no such thing) then those who prayed would NOT be a separate class but EVERY believer which in a Christian society would be EVERYONE in biblical context the temple veil had a specific meaning, so the rending of it on the death of Christ ALSO has a specific meaning, namely that EVERY believer has direct access to God now: no priests mediators or anyone other than Christ himself and every believer is REQUIRED to make use of this free access, After all when St :Paul said pray constantly he said it to ALL believers not just a separate class of clergy, which class was totally unknown to him he who relies on the prayers of others but does not pray himself is presuming on the prayers and faith of others and is as damned as the pagan or heretic. But then as Jesus did say strait is the gate narrow the way and FEW there are who find it the notion of a Christian society is heretical because the number who actually find Him, other than man made constructs with His name on it, is too few to make a Christian society so those who “pray” are no more spiritual than those who don’t. after all Jesus also denounced pagan prayer – futile repetition done out of legalistic motive. and the English word CANT shows what the prayers of monks and religious, or even guilt ridden protetants for that matter, usually is I’m sorry, Ms Janega, but if you seek to comment on medieval religion which was nominally Christian you will get some comment on what Christianity actually is from those who actually take it to be a true religion
The one and only representative of god on Earth is Jesus himself and nobody else. The one and only legit church on earth is your spirit and nothing else at all. I am an alien saint whose mission is to spread wisdom and love throughout the universe. We aim for a united new world in love, peace, and harmony, Jesus’ teachings are harmless, peaceful, and in accordance with leftist ideologies and doctrines, I don’t see anything contrary to the leftist ideas in his teachings including god Because god or perhaps goddess energy is love and positivism and love is not a form of authority. Love does not dictate anything to you or expect anything from you other than love. I consider Jesus as a mentor and a pacifist anarchist. and I’m an arch-enemy of all kinds of dictatorial churches and similar establishments.