| Satisfy The Aspirations Of Its Members? Essay, Research Paper
The Church had been absorbed into European culture as part of
a large corpus of local beliefs.? Ranging from the powers of
seventh born sons, to the role of bleeding horses on St. John the
Baptist’s day, local beliefs permeated the everyday lives
of the peasantry as an integral part of their spiritual lives.?
The power of shrines was held not to be in their devotion to an
interceding saint, but their location and magical power.? The
copying, parodying or adaptation of Church ceremonies was an
oft-cited ritualism and clergymen often complained about the
sacrilege of such activities, but the original successes of
Christianity had been due to their absorption of rural beliefs.
?These beliefs “bond people to the rituals, and implicitly
to the institutions, of the old Church.”? The elites of Europe viewed religion in a wholly different
way.? Whilst the poor were concerned with their next harvest, or
some other material need, the rich could afford to invest in
their souls. Being a “good Christian” was of vital
importance to them, and the posthumous sanctions were known to be
very severe for failure in this respect.? As a result, the elites
were keen to appear to be good Christians, in that they made a
show of learning the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s
Creed, stopped work on Sundays, went to hear Mass, confessed at
least once annually, upheld the fasts, venerated the saints,
sought the sacraments and left money for masses for their own
souls.? The sacrament of confession was an important part of religious
life, especially within the ruling classes.? Whilst Cameron sees
some ruling class supervision of the lower rungs of society via
confession, he accepts that reconciliation was not a cynical
means of domination, and that there was a great need for
confessors, reflected in the ruling classes’ maintenance of
house-hold priests. Just as late medieval Catholicism offered a
rule for life and the means required to police that rule, it also
allowed the rich pious to pay someone to take over their piety
for them.?? Prayer and masses could occur on behalf of patrons by
priests paid accordingly in order to ensure the spiritual health
of a founder. The growth of the cult of relics was a vital part in the
dissatisfaction that led to the Reformation.? At a shrine of
relics, the work imposed upon a pious man after their last
confession could be paid off, but soon these indulgences spread
elsewhere, away from the shrines.? The aim of the indulgence was
to add the holiness of the Church to the believer’s efforts
to help one’s soul.? This was, for the most part, an elite
custom, using the Church to get reassurance in the face of divine
judgement rather than invoking divine aid against nature or
demons. The religion of the elites and the religions of the poor were
very different, but both sectors benefited from certain aspects
of the ecclesiastical service.? The sacraments were given
regardless of the status of the individual, and
“sacramentals” which included blessed palms from Palm
Sunday, holy water and consecrated candles were also given out
freely. The whole of European society used the church as an important
forum and structure for their lives and the central position of
the Church reinforced communities.? The church-going process was
not the modern sombre affair.? The mass could be heard whilst the
congregation talked on the other side of the screens.? Contact
between different social branches of the church, the rich and the
poor, allowed the support of the poor. This idea did not
necessarily mean communities of local people meeting at mass.?
Guilds, brotherhoods and fraternities often heard mass together.
The role of the Church in community spread beyond the walls of
the churches themselves.? Plays, processions and other
entertainments were church events.? In 1533 in Augsburg, rival
protestant and Catholic families argued over the processing of a
cross through the town centre.? n Cameron’s words, “the Christianity of the late
Middle Ages was a supple flexible, varied entity, adapted to the
needs, concerns and tastes of the people who created it”
and “if it were only a question of piety and worship, we
should be hard put to find signs of real mass dissatisfaction
with the Church.”? The problem comes with the tangle of
duties within the Church and the corruption of the hierarchy
within the Church. A modern observer would see the Church has having a religious
function that had several basic components.? At a parochial
level, the Church served its adherents by ministering to them,
both in life and in death and in addition, by offering to them
the chance to attain a higher level of holiness unreachable
outside holy orders. However, by the sixteenth century, these had
been disrupted.? In the Middle Ages, the church was the custodian
of the skill of literacy – a role retained well into the
Early Modern period because of the failure of bureaucracy to move
into the hands of the laity.? Indeed, after the reunification of
the Papacy, Martin V pushed for an increase of papal prestige by?
taking on the organisation of Europe’s bureaucracies. This
laid unsustainable pressure on the church as it cold neither
abandon its role nor find sufficient viable capital to sustain
itself.? As a result, the low-level clergy were forced to live on
very meagre means, an effect that led to priests needing to raise
their own capital, often by abuse of their status and
privileges.? The predicable problems caused by this inflamed the
sensitivities of the lay public. An example of ecclesiastical control over what we see as
secular domains include the universities.? Universities were
notably ecclesiastical in nature, the majority being founded by
papal bulls and most of the rest by senior clerics.? Wittenberg,
an exception in that it was founded by a secular patron, had
three higher faculties; theology, law and medicine. Theology was
run, controlled and monitored by churchmen and much of the law
course was based on Canon Law.? The rush for resources within the
church disrupted the structure of the church to a notable
extent. In the twelfth and thirteenth century, clerics were
financially self-supporting bureaucrats useful to government for
their cheapness.? The church was in theory a hierarchy from the Pope, through
the College of Cardinals to the archbishops and bishops and then
to the parishes. However, the system was never so simple. From
the very top, right through to the simplest parish priest, there
were issues that needed resolving. The Church’s most obvious target was the Pope.? It must
also be remembered that the Papacy was a post dominated by
Italians, run by Italians, and with two exceptions in the era
1494 to 1660, held by an Italian.? In 1500, 21 of the 35
cardinals were Italian.? Moreover, the system of elections of
Popes opened an opportunity for Cardinals to sell votes or set up
vote-rigging schemes, so diminishing the respect of the Papacy
further.? That eight Carafa family members took the papacy, seven
Gonzagas, four Colonnas, four Farnese, seven Medici and eight
Della Rovere would only serve to diminish the Papal reputation
further.? These supposed advisers, when not seen as corrupt, were
seen as coerced lackeys.?? Corruption, embezzlement and treason
against the Pope were all charges brought against Cardinals by
the head of state of the “Lands of St. Peter.”
Attempts to reform the College of Cardinals came to nothing as
plans laid in the fourteenth century for a proportional
transcontinental College were abandoned.? The aristocratic nature
of the College is clear not only from the number of famed houses
represented in the College (reflected in the number of Popes of
those houses elected by the College) but maintained by the
Cardinals’ need of substantial private incomes to support
themselves. As the head of western Christendom and the ruler of the Papal
States, the Pope had a great many conflicts of interest, and
owing the Cardinals nothing after election, the Pope’s
family’s dynastic objectives often became a primary
consideration after his coronation, as the relative security of
the Papal seat allowed them to exploit their position without
fear of repercussions.? Indeed, at least four Popes recognised
children of their own.? Alexander VI promoted the cause in the
Romagna of his son, Cesare Borgia, whilst Leo X reinstated his
house, the Medicis, in Florence and made his nephew Duke of
Urbino.? The Medici expulsion of 1527 had much to do with the
failures of Clement VII, a family member, just as his subsequent
successes would bring them back to power.? The short average term
length and lack of continuous dynasty led to a confusing and
inconsistent set of policies as the elected autocrats each used
their positions to promote their own interests. Having exhausted self-interest as a motive, Popes concerned
themselves with the need to increase the Church’s revenues,
to maintain the Papal absolutism and to regain control of the
Papal states, where supposed “Papal vicars” had set
up dynasties: the affairs of the average Early-Modern Pope were
certainly more worldly than spiritual.? The papacy’s
embroilment in war with other states did not help its pristine
image, nor did forgeries claiming that Constantine left the popes
great wealth “found” in the 1440s.??? The bolstering of the Papal seat, the reconstitution of the
Papal States, the building schemes and the Papal bureaucracy were
all expenses that needed meeting.? The rebuilding of St. Peters
necessitated a massive sale of indulgences, a source of revenue
exploited in addition to such sources as tithes and other
temporal revenues.? Land, mines, fisheries, tolls, ports and the
church taxed all other sources of wealth.? In theory, lay gifts
to the church were always feasible, but states disliked the
amount of land held by the Church, as it ate away at the land
available for supporting the aristocracy.? New money from the
aristocracy was almost always for fashionable purposes in any
case.? Land and money were never endowed to help the church in
general, but always to fund a new type of order, or to maintain a
chancery priest and so on. The reconstruction of Papal power, both in Italy and outside,
was another major issue.? The papacy’s relationship with
other nations, thanks possibly to its abilities to switch sides
with different houses holding the throne in successive
years.? The council at Basel of 1433-7 was a good example of the
conclilliar movement’s attempts to strip the Popes of their
power and their financial resources although the council was
condemned and the bull “Execrabilis” denounced
such “rebellion” and fictional claims of
“rights of appeal” to the Pope, in 1511-2, Louis XII
attempted to impeach Julius II resulted in a council at Pisa.?
This use of council was a mark of the influence of the
Concilliary movement, which saw the Pope not as a divinely
appointed successor to St. Peter, but as merely as the Bishop of
Rome.? The movement for concilliar Christianity failed, as its
challenge upon the supremacy of the Papacy faltered. The Pisa
Council resulted in the reactionary Fifth Lateran Council
(1512-7).? The Council is important in that it showed the
Church’s true focus and its lack of drive.? Strongly
Italian, the council was almost entirely political in its
discussions and the lack of perceived urgency is clear as regards
the future of the church’s unity, as it was not until 1521
that the council’s findings were published. The Papal councils’ discussions were, however, often
symptomatic of problems lower down in the church.? The Papacy was
often blamed for things that it could not influence, even in
countries where the power of appointment had slipped from its
grasp, such as in Spain. Having said that, although its power
remained strong in Germany and in Italy, it was not used
effectively and reforms were not implemented even in these
areas.? Clerical absenteeism was a major problem that needed
addressing for example.? The Council of Trent reasserted the
doctrine that bishops should reside in their dioceses and travel
around the diocese in order to check on the progress of the local
clergy.? However, despite this reassertion, as late as 1560, 70
of the 250 Italian bishops resided in Rome.? Absenteeism was
encouraged by another banned activity, pluralism, which occurred
above all in the Holy Roman Empire, where eight or so archbishops
and around forty bishops were also local territorial princes.? In
France, Henri de Guise held seven benefices (with an annual
income of 300,000 livres) and de Richilieu’s benefices
achieved much the same level of earning.? However, even these men
pale in comparison to de Mazarin, whose 21 abbeys generated one
third of his two million livres annual income.? Whilst royal
appointments could evidently be dubious and political in their
aims, it is perhaps surprising to see the set-up of Venal Offices
– offices specifically designed to allow wealthy young men
to buy some way into the heights of the hierarchy.? In 1525, the
Datary took over 2.5 million gold florins in payment for these
offices. It must be remembered that such high level corruption
across the Church was not a cause of great unpopularity.?
Although the Italian dominance of the College of Cardinals would
later spur the German nationalist aspect of the Reformation, the
Church kept a very strong popular following.? Naturally, the pattern of abuses lower down in the church
varies from area to area, but in general, the conservative
countryside showed worse discipline than the urban areas.? In the
diocese of Strasbourg, the number of clerical offences, from
breaching vows of celibacy to acts of violence, decreased before
the Reformation.? Pluralism was a necessity for most priests as
the distribution of wealth to the parishes was so uneven, and in
some places training was also absurdly poor.? The imposition of
tithes to support a priest never seen in the parish was an
important cause of discontentment.? In Venice it is known that
there were priests who did not say the offices and Mass
regularly, and records of canonical proceedings for gambling,
sexual and other offences show a general ignorance about what was
expected of the clergy.? 3 percent of the population of Venice
took holy orders, so a low standard of discipline is perhaps to
be expected, but the proportion of the population was even higher
elsewhere. The problem of tithes payable to absentee or untrained priests
was very big.? The power to excommunicate or interdict people or
areas should they fail to pay was a great incentive for payment.?
In 1529 it was written that “priests look so narrowly on
their profits that the poor wives must be countable to them of
every tenth egg, or else she… shall be taken as a
heretic.”? Most vicarages had a small “glebe”
where the clergy could grow some crops, and even make a surplus
to sell on at market.? The result of this was that occasionally,
production tithes were payable to a priest who was a competitor
at market. ? The resevoir of problems with the church were not so much
causes of bitterness or anger so much as hostages to fortune to
be used as a casus belli if the church became unpopular. Ultimately, the best way of measuring satisfaction with the
church is in contemporary literature and activity.? The rise of
Waldo, Wyclif, Hus and the Lollards suggests some dissatisfaction
with the church, although the failure of these movements to
spread suggests a local interest group at work rather than an
international one. ?The Hussites drew their strength from the
martyrdom of Jan Hus, and the failure of the movement to spread
far out of the Czech-speaking regions is not only a reflection of
the lack of translated Hussite material (which was available in
Germany, and of which Luther was given a copy) but also of the
entrenched interests in the church elsewhere and in Hussitism
within Bohemia.? Equally Waldenism remained an alpine movement
and the Wycliffites and Lollards were ineffective, small
groups. Erasmus wrote in Moriae Encomium a biting satire on
monasticism and contemporary corruption, in his Novum
instrumentum omne on contemporary ecclesiastical practises
and in Julius Exclusus about the “warrior
pope” Julius II.? Despite having written these, Erasmus was
no reformer and was merely counting the hostages to fortune left
by the church as opposed to actually acting on them.? His attack
on Luther in Diatribo de libero arbitrio ?never left his
adherence to the old church in doubt.? Although Erasmus believed
in the philosophia Christi, and famously said that
“monkery is not piety”, attacks on him soon gave way
to attacks on Luther by the theologians of the Carmelites,
Dominicans and Fransiscans who were notably offended by his
attacks on the monastic movement. Ultimately, the church left itself in a vulnerable position
and open to attacks, but it was usually satisfying to its
members.
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