Transcript Ecclesiastical Breakdown

Ecclesiastical Breakdown
Crisis in the 14th century Church
Background
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By the 14th western Christendom had
experienced 3 centuries of incredible growth
Economically- agriculture, town life, commerce,
population
 Politically- powerful kings brought order and security
 Religiously- the pope’s strength, reformed clergy
 Culturally- solid worldview based on faith and reason
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This began to change in the 14th
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First decade there was food shortage and in the 2nd
was famine
1347-53 the plague kills 20-25 million
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Seen as divine punishment
Attempts to return serfs to their manors caused
peasant revolts
War
In addition to peasant revolts and other rural
debaucheries there was war
 Hundred Years War 1337-1453
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English kings ruled parts of France
It looked as if England (Henry V) would conquer
France
Joan of Arc
When France comes out victorious they have a
large standing army and a sense of solidarity
 The English came out with similar solidarity
 Peasants had been beaten down hard though
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Farmers were killed and farmland was destroyed
Decline of the Papacy
The sign that the middle ages was declining was
the waning authority and prestige of the pope
 The medieval concept of a Christian civilization
with the pope at its helm was shattering
 As the kings increased in power the papacy
declined
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He got mixed up in European politics and people felt
that was acting as a temporal leader as opposed to a
spiritual one
The Church in France
In the early 14th Philip IV was taxing the church without
papal permission to pay for the war
 1296 Pope Boniface VIII issued Clericis Laicos which said
that kings and lords that taxed the church and clergy
that paid would all be excommunicated
 Philip did not back down and asserted his authority
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The pope had to declare that France could tax in the case of
national emergencies
Later Philip tried and imprisoned a French bishop after
the Pope warned him not to because the church tries its
clergy; Boniface threatened to excommunicate Philip
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Angry Philip attacked the papal summer palace at Anagni and
took the pope captive
He released the pope but he died a month later
Placating Philip
Boniface’s 2 successors tried to keep Philip
happy (Benedict XI 1303-1304 and Clement V
1305-1314)
 Clement built a temporary residence in Avignon
 The Babylonian Captivity 1309-1377
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The popes were all French and all lived in Avignon
Here they became dependent on the French king
Antipapalism began to damage the pope’s reputation
Marsiglio of Padua wrote The Defender of the Peace
which said that the state had nothing to do with
religious commands but on reason; it needed no
instruction from a higher realm; the church deserved
no temporal power
Schism
In 1377 Gregory XI returned the papacy to
Rome
 In 1378 Urban VI was elected pope; he abused
and imprisoned some cardinals
 They fled Rome and declared that Urban was
invalidly elected because they were bullied into
electing an Italian
 They elected Clement VII
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Urban, in Rome, excommunicated Clement
Clement, in Avignon, excommunicated Urban
Council of Pisa
As the disgrace worsened churchmen
organized a council to solve the problem
 In 1409 hundred gathered and decided to
depose both Urban and Clement
 They elected Alexander V who died a few
months later; then they elected John XXIII
 Since neither Urban nor Clement had
called the council, neither recognized its
authority
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We Three Popes
A new council was called at Constance in 1414
 All three (John, Gregory XII, and Benedict XIII)
popes were either deposed or abdicated and
Pope Martin V was elected universally
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Gregory agreed to step down
John sought refuge with the Austrians for a while
until he was finally deposed
Benedict fled to Spain and fortified himself on an
island insisting till his death that he was pope
Adding to the Modern Mudslide
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14th century ecclesiastical breakdown is
one more ingredient added to the blender
Modern
worldview
Medieval
worldview
Renaissance:
A period of
transition