Introduction to the Medieval World: Class 19
Class 19: The Age of Faith I: Popular Piety and Christian
Belief
Assigned Reading:
I. Introduction
A. Today - Looking at changes in Catholic belief
and practice in the middle ages.
"The Age of Faith"
Already looked at some manifestations of religion
-Crusades, Gregorian Reform, but that was not religion.
-there was major changes in peoples experience of religion.
The middle ages saw an ever-growing importance and
flourishing of popular and intellectual religion.
Worth looking at
-both for Catholics.
-and for anybody who wants to understand the middle ages.
-Effects on the reformation and current catholic practice.
B. Secular, Religious, and Spiritual Worlds
Forms of analysis -
1. Secular - looking at Government,
Political ideas
Military history
Social history
Literature
As a whole, this forms secular society.
2. Religious - Looking at Church History
Church Reform
Monastic History
Papacy
Heresy
3. Spiritual - Looking at Faith
Belief
Prayer
Religious Life
C. No Absolute Separation of Church and State
Compared with Islam a much greater distinction in Latin
Christendom. But the kings, soldiers and peasants all went
to church and had some religious beliefs.
The popes, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, theologians
all lived in villages, towns, cities. They took part in
economic life, Came from secular families
D. The Clerical - Lay Model of society
Was current in the middle ages.
Content changed - e.g. for a long time any one who
could read was a cleric (=clerk.. But there was
considerable interplay and this effected the development
of both popular and intellectual forms of religion.
II. Popular Piety
A. Concept
Difference in understanding between educated and
uneducated people of religion.
-In Hinduism not a problem
-But in Catholicism, which is more monolithic, it
presents a issue.
Especially as the religion was so complicated - remember
Monophysitism? cf. simplicity of Islam.
B. God - remoteness
C. Jesus - concentration on incarnate God over humanity.
D. Mary - theological importance, then devotional.
St. Bernard
Rosary
E. Relics
F. Saints
G. The Bible
Council of Narbonne bans it for lay people 1212!
H. Sacramentalism
Baptism. Most unproblematic sacrament
III. The Eucharist
A. The Mass
-Old rite, great variety, Latin
-Meal, sacrifice (word priest., communal gathering
B. Popular Piety
1. The Real Presence
Body and Blood
Miracle of preserving appearance
2. The Host
Devotion to the Host
Elevation: When -
C. Intellectual Response
Problems with pop. piety - What if worshipping bread?
- How to explain Miracle?
St. Thomas Aquinas - Use of Aristotle.
Distinction between Substance and Accidents
New Theory of Eucharist
Transubstantiation - word actually used in 11th century.
D. Results
1. Bells and smells
2. Frequency of communion - less and less.
Particularly when it got attached to making
confession beforehand.
3. Withdrawal of the cup
4. Silent mass: lack of communal feeling.
5. Great Music
IV. Confession
A. History of Confession
1. Baptism
Christians expected to be good
Ancient practice of Last minute baptism - risky
2. Major sins - Church Penance
3. Penitentials - 8-9-19-11th centuries
Exact canonical penance for each sin. Ranking of sins.
4. Not mandatory:
Although most people were expected to be in sin.
B. Heresy in 12th century
Fourth Lateran Council 1215 - makes confession once
a year obligatory.
Now its only if you have sinned, but then it was to check
against heresy.
C. How did Confession work?
-by the penance
-by the embarrassment involved
-by the real act of sorrow - contrition.
-ref. . Peter Lombard - by embarrassment of recounting?
-ref. Joinville - lay confession on 5th Crusade.
Confession to lay people.
This was seen as worthwhile - even by Aquinas.
D. Popular Practice after Lateran IV.
People went to confession: a problem became evident.
People were sorry for their sins, but not completely.
Sometimes just because they were sacred of hell.
People who really got to know this were Friars -
people went to strange friars rather than their own priest.
[Story of may first confession]
A real problem.
E. Intellectual Response
Friars part of orders with powerful intellects.
Some evidence that these scholars began to really consider
what since and sorrow were.
-e.g. Bishop Grosseteste commented on Aristotle's Ethics.
-Confessors Handbooks issued
[by the way they insist confessors do not tell
penitents about sins they might not have thought of]
-Aquinas - comes up with the answer 1240.
He distinguished between the Confession, the penance, and
the forgiveness. This allowed that contrition might be
imperfect, i.e. attrition, but the words of the priest became
the required part for the sacrament - which ignored
confession in the past.
-Led to insistence on the words Ego te absolvi
-Later on John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan, argued against
lay confession. It died out.
F. Indulgences
The new theory of confession, particularly, the idea of
attrition, gave new force to one of the most
popular developments of the middle ages. Indulgences.
1. Crusades
Urban II, 1095 at Clermont. But it was not clear
what he meant. Most probably thought it was complete
forgiveness of sins. But that was not acceptable to
the theologians. So they developed a theory.
2. Theory
a. Treasury of Merit
b. Keys of the Kingdom
c. Temporal Punishment
Idea comes from canonical penance.
The days and years are or bread an water, while
alive, not years in Heaven. But it got attached
to the idea of time in purgatory.
[Catholics believe in prayer for the dead leads
to a need for a place neither heaven nor hell.
Ref. First Book of Maccabees]
3. How to obtain an indulgence
Do a pious act - Crusades etc. Pay money
Development of indulgence hawkers in late middle ages.
4. Indulgences and the Dead.
In late 14th century - you could apply indulgence
to the dead, as a pious act. People start buying
indulgences for dead relatives.
5. Popes begin to collect money by selling indulgences
-Build St. Peters that way.
-Leads to Luther.
G. Confessional Boxes
Not invented until 16th century by St. Charles Borromeo.
V. Marriage
A. History
-Natural
-Civil
-Germanic
B. Purpose
-children
-inheritance
-property
-survival
C. Christian
-Jesus' teaching
-St. Paul's
-Church Councils
-Clerical Celibacy
D. St. Augustine - sex and sin
E. A Sacrament?
-In Byzantium yes from early on.
-Problem in West - how could sin/sex make a sacrament,
a means of salvation.
F. Church needed to get to grips with popular practice.
-Marriage increasingly important as Europe gets richer.
-Theory of romance - lover not married to you.
G. Two Church Responses
1. Legal - in may respects the prime response.
Consummation required for validity.
Idea of marriage as Legal contract.
No need for a priest (cf. Byzantium..
A binding contract dissolved at death.
2. Divorce - forbidden
But marriage after spouse's death allowed.
3. Theological
Sex not necessary for Marriage - Look at Mary
Church annexes Love to Marriage
H. Consanguinity and Affinity - Explain terms
-Until Lateran IV - went back 7 generations
and three calques of affinity
-Changed at Lateran IV
VI. Conclusion
For most Christians life was not a matter of papal reform
or crusades, It was a matter of repeated prayer, mass,
confession, and marriage. All had a totally different aspect
in 1350 than they had in 1050.
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