Transcript church_reform

Church Reform
A Need for Change
By the 10th the Church was Western
Europe’s leading landowner
 The Position of pope was becoming
dominated by aristocratic families who
fought to put their own in office
 Also local lords dominated churches by
appointing the bishops and abbots and
collecting income from churches
 These ill-gotten spiritual leaders cared
little about conduct of the clergy
 Reform movements helped restore the
power of the papacy as a spiritual leader
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The Peace of God
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Bishops took action to put a stop to the
rampant attacks against the church
– Church councils formed peace associations
 Groups
of men in particular districts who assessed
themselves and used the money to provide armed
protection against thuggish lords
– Some churchmen tried to reduce the amount
of warfare by initiating the Truce of God
 They
limited the number of days on which fighting
was permitted
– Sundays, Special feast days, and the seasons of Lent
and Advent were to be free of fighting
– If all forbidden days had been observed fighting would
have been permissible on only 80 days of the year
Reform of the Papacy
In the 10th the papacy provided little
leadership to the Christian peoples of
western Europe
 Popes were appointed to advance the
political ambitions of their families
 Pope John XII was appointed pope by his
powerful father when he was only 18
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– He concentrated on expanding papal territories
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At the local parish level, in the 10th and
11th centuries, many priests were married
– These priests were called Nicolaites
The Controversy over Lay
Investiture
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In 1075 Pope Gregory held a council at
Rome
– Published decrees against nicolaitism, simony,
and lay investiture
 Clerics
who accepted investiture from laymen were to
be deposed
 Laymen who invested clerics were to be
excommunicated
– The church’s penalty of excommunication relied for its
effectiveness on public opinion
– Henry IV in the Empire, William the Conqueror in
England, and Philip I in France protested
Why did the issue of lay investiture
provoke the wrath of the Kings?
 Kings
appointed monks and clerics as
their administrators
– Rulers used church offices, bishoprics,
and abbacies as the financial means
with which to support royal
governments
 The
revenues of a diocese or monastery
supplied the incomes for royal officials and
their staffs
Reaction from Germany
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Gregory accused Henry IV of lack of respect
for the papacy and insisted that disobedience
to the pope was disobedience to God
– In 1076 many of the German bishops who had been
invested by Henry withdrew their allegiance from the
pope
 Gregory replied by excommunicating them and
suspending Henry from the kingship
 The Christmas season of 1076 witnessed an ironic
situation in Germany; the Clergy supported the
emperor and the nobility supported the pope
– Henry outwitted Gregory
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According to legend, Henry stood for 3 days in the
snow seeking forgiveness
As a priest, Gregory was obliged to grant absolution
and to readmit the emperor to the Christian community
The Saga Continues

In 1080 Gregory VII again
excommunicated and deposed the
emperor; in return, Henry invaded Italy,
captured Rome, and controlled the city
when Gregory died in 1085
– Gregory’s successors encouraged Henry’s sons
to revolt against their father
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In 1122, at a conference held at Worms,
the issue was settled by a compromise
– Bishops were to be chosen according to canon
law in the presence of the emperor or his
delegate
 This
allowed emperors an effective veto over
ecclesiastical appointments
Red Beard
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Frederick I (Barbarossa) of Germany attempted
to assert control over the pope and northern
Italian cities in 1176
The Italian infantry under the pope defeated
Barbarossa’s mounted knights in combat
Frederick had to recognize the independence of
the Italian cities
This weakened him and allowed German princes
to gain power which set back German unification
even further
Frederick did arrange for his son Henry VI to
marry heiress to the kingdom of Sicily
– The pope resisted as much as possible the joining of the
kingdom of Sicily with the Holy Roman Empire which
caused further problems between Fred and his princes
The Papacy in the High
Middle Ages
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Pope Urban II laid the foundations for the
papal monarchy by reorganizing the central
government of the Roman church, the
chancery, and papal finances
– He recognized the college of cardinals as a definite
consultative body
– These agencies combined with the papal chapel
constituted the curia Romana

Curia Romana – the papal court, the papacy’s
administrative bureaucracy and its court of law
– The Roman curia had its greatest impact as a court
of law
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As the highest ecclesiastical tribunal, it formulated
canon law for all of Christendom
Monastic Revival
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The Viking, Magyar, and Muslim invaders attacked and
ransacked many monasteries across Europe
Powerful laymen appointed themselves or their relatives as
abbots, took the lands and goods of monasteries, and spent
monastic revenues
Abbots, bishops, and archbishops thus had military
responsibilities that required them to fight or send
contingents of soldiers when called on to do so
The first two abbots of Cluny, Berno and Odo, set very high
standards of religious behavior
Cluny gradually came to stand for clerical celibacy and the
suppression of simony
– Simony- the sale of church offices
– there was also concern about worldly goods and the
taking of mistresses
Revival and Reform in the
Christian Church
In the 11th Century monasteries
remodeled themselves under the
leadership of the Burgundian abbey of
Cluny
 Pope Gregory VII’s strong assertion of
papal power led to profound changes in
serious conflict with secular authorities
 Cathedrals showed the revival in the
church in the 12th and 13th Centuries
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What comes around…
Deeply impressed laypeople showered
gifts on monasteries with good reputations
 As the monasteries became richer, the
lifestyle of the monks grew increasingly
luxurious
 Soon fresh demands for reform were
heard, and the result was the founding of
new religious orders in the late 11th and
early 12th Centuries
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The Cistercians
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In 1098 a group of monks left the rich abbey of
Molesmes in Burgundy and founded a new house
in the swampy forest of Citeaux
Planned to avoid all involvement with secular
feudal society
Accepted only uncultivated lands far from regular
habitation
Refused all gifts of mills, serfs, tithes, and ovens
Early Cistercians avoided elaborate liturgy and
ceremony and kept chants simple
Refused to allow the presence of powerful
laypeople in their monasteries
Bernard of Clairvaux
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In 1112 a 23 yr old nobleman named Bernard
joined the community at Citeaux
– 3 yrs later he was appointed founding abbot of Clairvaux
in Champagne
– He attacked the theological views of Peter Abelard
– He intervened in the disputed papal election of 1130
– Drafted a constitution for the Knights Templar
– Preached the 2nd Crusade
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Unavoidably, Cistercian success brought wealth
and wealth brought power
– By the later 12th century economic prosperity and
political power had begun to compromise the original
Cistercian ideals
Medieval Heresies
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The Waldesians- attacked ecclesiastical authority
– Followers of Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant from
Lyons
– Moved by Matt’s passage to sell all your goods and give
to the poor so he did
– Preached the gospel in the vernacular
– Laymen are not allowed to preach
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Cathars- mixture of Manichaeism and Gnosticism
– Gained followers in southern France and northern Italy
– God of good and God of evil- O.T. God is the evil one
– The world he created is also evil so they practiced
abstinence to avoid bringing more wicked humans
– Because the Flesh was evil, Christ would not have taken
human form not could God have come from the evil
flesh of a woman.
– Jesus was not God but an angel
– The Church is a creation by the evil god to enslave
people
– These heretics were harshly exterminated
Mendicant Friars
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Pope Innocent III 1198-1216
– 13th century pope who presided over the
papacy at its highest level of influence
– Sanctioned the establishment of two new
orders intended to help curb heresy
 The
Dominicans and the Franciscans
– The members of both were called friars
– Worked among needy people, especially those living in
towns, rather than isolating themselves
 It was said that “their world was their cloister”
– To finance their good deeds they went about begging
for alms
 People called them mendicants, or beggars
– Preached and defended the teachings of the Church
and fought heresy wherever they encountered it
Dominicans
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Founded in 1216 by Saint Dominic- a
Spanish nobleman who preached against
the Cathars
– Felt the way to fight heresy was to return to
the simple ways of the apostles
– Also insisted that the friars were educated
– They became some of the leading theologians
in European universities
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Order of the Friar Preachers became the
official name of the Dominicans
Thomas Aquinas
 Dominican
theologian
 Studied Aristotelian Philosophy and unified it
with Christian teachings
 His teachings are still considered the
definitive statement of Roman Catholicism
 He upheld the value of Human reason and
natural knowledge
– But reason could never undermine faith
– Reason and revelation do not contradict each
other
– Both reason and faith come from God
Franciscans
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Francis
– Son of a wealthy merchant from Assisi
– Dreamed of becoming a knight but was captured
during his first military venture
– Had a dream in which he was directed to repair
several ruined churches near the city
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Without permission used fathers money to do repairs
and was flogged and imprisoned
– Then pledged himself to a life of poverty and to
helping the poor and the sick
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To demonstrate the teachings of Jesus
– Soon a small group of like-minded people joined him
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The Order of Friars Minor was sanctioned by Pope
Innocent III
– Impressed Clare, a young noble woman
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She renounces her inheritance
She founded an order of nuns called the Poor Clares
The Middle Ages
According to Perry seeing the Middle Ages
as a period of cultural stagnation is a thing
of the past.
 Its religious orientation sets it apart from
the Greco-Roman world and from the
modern secular world but:
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– “The Summa Theologica of Aquinas, The Divine
Comedy of Dante, and the gothic cathedrals all
attest to the creativeness and genius of the
medieval religious spirit” (Perry 2004, 277).