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Explore how Canterbury Tales challenged Church authority & delve into conflicts with papacy through the printing press era in Medieval England.
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Discuss Canterbury Tales • How did the Tales undermine the authority of the Church? • Why would Chaucer risk undertaking such a dangerous activity? • What were • Friars • Summoners • Pardoners • Did you see any pattern in the problems that they mentioned in their tales?
Discuss Canterbury Tales • What is a • Summoner? • Pardoner • Friar • Do the Tales tell us anything accurate about their activities? • What was their relationship as pilgrims telling stories?
Discuss the printing press • What impact did the printing press have on Christian devotion? • How do you think humanism influenced Christian devotion? • Why would humanists be interested in printing? • What were the main features of Christian devotion prior to the invention of the press?
Late Medieval Mardis Gras
Luther Emphasized the Bible as the Source of Religious Authority
1215-1550 The Decline of Papal Prestige
During the 1350s and 1360s Edward III passed statutes limiting papal authority in England
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster • Dominant figure in English politics of the 1370s • Embroiled in struggle with the Church and merchant elite over prosecution of the war with France • Progenitor of the house of Lancaster
Overview • The Peak of Papal Prestige c. 1215 • Conflicts with the Papacy & Rise of Secular Powers • The Avignon Papacy • The Great Schism • Indulgences, Simony, and the trade in relics • Theological Opposition • The Council of Constance
The Peak of Papal Prestige c. 1215 • After the Fourth Crusade, the popes ruled over both Latin and Byzantine Christendom. During the early 1200s, a particularly vigorous and effective pope, Innocent III, led the Church • In 1215 Innocent convened the Fourth Lateran Council, which passed legislation regulation all aspects of life including marriage, legitimacy, treatment of Jews, performance of sacraments, canon law, and outlawing of clerical participation in the ordeal • The ordeal included several ancient Germanic practices; it was used to establish guilt or innocence • Bilateral – a fight to settle a dispute – often involved champions by 1100s • Unilateral – trial by fire, water or compurgation • The elimination of clerical participation in the ordeal capped a century of judicial reorganization by the Church; a big part of the Church’s increased prestige rested on its reputation as a reliable source of justice
Conflicts with the Papacy • During the 13th century several monarchs became involved in serious disputes with the papacy • In the years leading up to 1215 the King of England, John, became isolated by a combination of forces including the Londoners, the nobles, and the papacy. After losing a significant battle just west pf London, John signed Magna Carta, which ceded numerous rights to his enemies. To gain the upper hand, the pope had placed all of England under interdict, a cessation of Church services • Throughout most of the 1200s the Holy Roman Emperors fought battles against the papacy for control of N. Italy; to muster forces against the Emperor, the popes proclaimed crusades, which undermined faith in papal authority
The Rise of Secular Powers • By the late 1200s, France and England took the lead in centralizing several organs of government • Finances • Representative institutions • Rudimentary tax collection • Opposition to the papal taxes that removed money from their kingdoms grew • Phillip IV of France became the most outspoken critic of the successful papal taxation policy that had developed in the wake of the crusades
Conflict with the Papacy • To finance their wars both England and France adopted a policy of clerical taxation during the late 1200s • In 1296 the Pope (Boniface VIII) issued a papal bull, Clericis Laicos, which forbade the taxation of clergy • Boniface's presumption is legendary; he is quoted as claiming that he was “the Emperor sent from heaven” and that he “can do whatever God can do.” • Phillip IV assembled the Estates Generale (representative institution) and accuses the Pope of • Murder • Black magic • Homosexuality • Keeping a demon as a pet
Conflict with the Papacy • By 1302 Phillip called for the trial of the pope in France and sends a small military force to capture the pope • In 1303 the pope was captured at his palace in Anagni, is roughed up by the French soldiers, and after being freed by the local townspeople, takes sanctuary at the papal residence in Avignon in Provence (part of HRE but in modern France) • The incident sparked outrage against the French but also signals the weakness of the papacy from secular interference • Surrounded by hostile forces on all sides, the papacy officially sets up court in Avignon c. 1305 where it will be dominated by the French crown for the next 70 years
The Avignon Papacy, 1305-1377 • By 1320, the College of Cardinals becomes predominately French and the policies of the Papacy are pro-French • The papacy improves its fiscal organization dramatically during pontificate of John XXII (1316-34) but this development also fuels resentment at the increasingly materialist nature of the papacy • During second half of 1300s, the power of the papacy recedes due to three big trends • Increasing power of the College of Cardinals • Increasing influence of secular rulers on papal policies • Increase of political unrest in the Northern Italian peninsula and southern France
The Great Schism, 1378-1417 • The schism began in 1378 when the French sent an ambassador to deprecate the election of Urban VI • The French Cardinals elected a new Pope, Clement VII, who moved back to Avignon; both popes excommunicated the followers of the other; all of Europe was excommunicated and broke into two camps • Gradually, the bishops and secular rulers of Europe viewed the deterioration of papal authority in terms of a general deterioration of respect for all forms of authority; after much wrangling, they supported calls for a general council to nominate a new Pope • Martin V became Pope in late 1417
Indulgences, Simony, and the trade in relics • Corrosive influence of ongoing practices: • Indulgences • Began in the thirteenth century as a method of supporting papal crusading against political rivals • Church found it an increasingly attractive concept • Simony • The buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices increased after the investiture controversy • Gradually the practice became more pronounced • Monasteries and hucksters throughout Europe sold what they claimed with the bones of saints, pieces of the true cross, the breast milk of the Virgin Mary to ward off sickness and bring spiritual improvement
Theological Opposition to the Papacy • Theological opposition to the papacy had developed at least since the Investitutre conflict brought Gregory VII and Henry IV into open warfare • However, by the early 1300s, the Pope's rivals in the secular domains, such as Louis of Bavaria, began to assemble learned theologians and philosophers to develop tracts against the legitimacy of papal power • Marsilius of Padua argued in the early 1300s that the Church should be an organ of the royal domain • Although these ideas were embraced by some of the rulers of Europe, in general they had little popular appeal during the 1300s
John Wyclif • English theologian who taught at Oxford in 1360s and 1370s • The primary focus of his early works was on how wealth had corrupted the clergy • This argument was welcomed by the Duke of Lancaster, who sought to discredit his political rivals who were mostly in the clergy • Wyclif argued that the monarchy should dispossess the ecclesiastical benefices of corrupt clergy, which it temporarily did under the Duke's control in 1376
John Wyclif • Emboldened by the power of his political patron, Wyclif went on to advance more radical ideas • Secular authority is superior to ecclesiastical authority • The Bible should be translated into the vernacular • Transubstantiation, a miraculous transformation of bread into the body of Christ, does not occur • Wyclif's stand on transubstantiation jeopardized his protection by the Duke and he lived out his final years in the early 1380s under virtual house arrest
Jan Hus • Became familiar with many of Wyclif's ideas through the Bohemian courtiers who had been in England when Anne of Bohemia was married to Richard II (1380s and 1390s) • In the early 1400s Hus embraced many of Wyclif's ideas • Translation of the bible into the vernacular • Sermons in the vernacular • Supremacy of the secular authority • In addition Hus argued that members of the laity should be allowed to received the eucharist in both forms • Bread, the body of Christ • Wine, the blood of Christ
Jan Hus • These ideas were welcomed not only by the King of Bohemia but also by the Bohemian people, who were asserting their cultural independence from Germans • Hus' relations with the King of Bohemia turned frosty when Hus advocated resistance to papal taxation and the practice of selling indulgences. Because the King participated in the proceeds of these taxes, he welcomed them • Hus refused to retract his positions in order to gain freedom and he was burned at the stake in 1415 at the Council of Constance • However, Hus' followers continued to demand his reforms and a general revolt broke out in Bohemia in 1418
The Legacy of Jan Hus • Hus' followers were of two sorts • Utraquists, who primarily demanded the eucharist in both forms; these were the moderate Hussites • Taborites, who called for a return to primitive Christianity; they established a community modelled after the Gardon of Eden at the foot of Mt. Tabor • The rebellion lasted into the early 1430s, when the Church finally agreed to the demands of the utrquists, who then joined forces with the Bohemian King and slaughtered the Taborites • In the early 1500s, Martin Luther re-discovered Hus' arguments against indulgences and initiated the Reformation
Council of Constance, 1415 -1418 • Its primary concern was to eliminate the Great Schism, which had undermined respect not only for the papacy but also for the Church in general • Eventually it convinced the rival popes to abdicate and elected a single Roman pontiff, Martin V in 1418 • The Council is generally considered to reflect the height of the conciliar movement, in which the Church would be ruled by councils rather than popes • However, the conciliar movement faded away after approximately two decades, and the papacy re-emerged reinvigorated
Summary • Between 1250 and 1550, respect for the papacy declined substantially throughout Europe • Although periodic measures, such as the Council of Constance, temporarily halted this decline of prestige, the papacy never fully recovered the influence it enjoyed at the height of its power in the early 13th century • It was not until the Council of Trent (1545-1563) that the Papacy and the Catholic Church in general resuscitated its moral and theological leadership in Europe. But by this time Europe was divided into Catholic and Protestant territories
Summary • The decline of papal prestige did not mean a decline in piety throughout Europe. In fact, popular piety increased throughout the 14th and 15th centuries as Christians sought to understand God and their religion in more personal and less institutionally organized terms • The decline of papal authority had coincided with increased learning and theological speculation; as new theories about the nature of God and salvation proliferated throughout Europe, many people in Europe became more attached to their religion • In general the spectrum of religious beliefs appears to have broadened during the 1300s and 1400s
What impact did the printing press have on Christian devotion? • Books and especially Bibles became a lot cheaper • More people could afford Bibles • More people wanted to read Bibles • Demand for translated, vernacular Bibles increased • Believers started to notice differences between the actions of the clergy and the biblical teachings of Jesus
What is the sin of the Summoner in the Friar’s Tale? • Rage: he brawls regularly • Adultery: sleeping with wives • Gluttony in the form of drinking to excess • Greed in the form of Extortion
What is the sin of the Friar in the Summoner’s Tale? • Pride – he constantly boasts • Greed – he performs confessions for a fee • Blasphemy – he swears oaths • Envy – he wishes he was a bishop • Sloth – he never wakes before noon
Why is the Pardoner’s moral, Radix malorum est cupiditas, somewhat ironic? • Because he drinks heavily • Because he admits that he commits fraud • Because he has taken a vow of celibacy • Because he is involved in the administration of justice
