Transcript Religious Life in 1500 - University of Warwick

Religious Life
in 1500
The European World
Religion: why Bother?
‘Listen, my son, to the instructions of your mother.
Today I go the path of the prophets, apostles and
martyrs; I drink the cup that all of them drank before
me; I go the path of Jesus Christ who had to drink this
cup as well. I urge you, my son, submit to the yoke of
Christ; endure it willingly, for it is a great honour and
joy. Do not follow the majority of people; but when
you hear about a poor, simple, repudiated handful of
men and women cast out of the world, join them. Do
not be ashamed to confess your faith. Do not fear
the majority of people. It is better to let go of your life
than to deviate from the truth’.
1500-1600: A FUNDAMENTAL
RUPTURE

1500: Church so universal, few people
would consciously have thought of
themselves as Western, Latin, and Catholic.

1600: In complete contrast to this nearuniformity, by 1600 most Europeans
conscious of being Catholics, Lutherans
and reformed.
ALL AREAS OF LIFE IMPACTED
BY THAT CHANGE
Macro level – adherence to one of another
of the confessions defined not only
conscience, but political allegiance
Micro level – nature of individual beliefs
which made up part of the average person’s
assumptions about the world.
LECTURE STRUCTURE:
 The
Shape of the Church in 1500
 Belief & Salvation
 Beyond the Sacraments
 A numinous world
 An inevitable Reformation?
THE SHAPE OF THE CHURCH:

Hierarchy:





Pope
Cardinal
Bishops
Priests.



100,000 parishes in Europe

Landscape
determine nature of
the parish.
Supported by the tithe:

1/10 of income.
‘Secular’ clergy:
Key point: special
status of the clergy

In the world – priest/Bishops.

Apart from the world
Monasteries



Regional variation:
‘Regular’ clergy:


Point of ordination,
qualitatively different
from other men
Ability to confer Christ’s
grace.
SALVATION







God created Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden – state
of eternal bliss
They disobeyed His will, first sin.
All subsequent humans were consequently born in a
state of Original Sin
God, in his mercy, offered the opportunity to be saved –
salvation.
Saving work of Christ on the Cross – crucified for the sins
of humanity – was mediated through the sacrificial and
sacramental ministry by the priests of the Catholic
Church.
The rituals and sacraments of Catholic Church was the
route through which that opportunity could be realised.
No salvation outside of it.
THE PROBLEM:
 The
respective roles of God and humans
in the process of salvation.
 How much agency could humans could
have in procuring their own salvation?


Catholics – rites of the Church afforded
some leverage
Protestants – God alone decided
SALVATION & THE EVERYDAY:
 Seven
sacraments:
 Punctuated the journey from cradle to grave:







Baptism
Confirmation
Confession
Marriage
The Mass
Extreme Unction
Orders (clerics only).
DOOOOOOOOM!
SALVATION & THE EVERYDAY:
BEHAVIOUR
Seven Deadly Sins:







Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride
Seven Works of
Mercy:







Feeding the hungry
Giving drink to the
thirsty
Clothing the naked
Receiving the
stranger
Tending the sick
Visiting prisoners
Burying the dead
RELIGION: VERB, NOT NOUN



Latin form – religio – a
verb, rather than
Englished ‘religion’ –
definitive article.
Sermon a postReformation
phenomenon.
What people did
was worship:

Pray, partake in rites,
venerate saints.



2 sacraments particularly
important:
Confession – to a priest in
exchange for forgiveness
of sin.
The Mass:



Linchpin of late medieval
religion
Ritual re-enactment of
Christ’s sacrifice on the
cross; and Jesus’s action at
the Last Supper – ‘this is my
body, this is my blood’.
Transubstantiation the root of
the clergy’s authority.
Rood screen
Matthias Grunewald
Corpus Christi Procession:
MASSES FOR THE DEAD &
PURGATORY:
 Permeable
boundaries between Natural
& Supernatural / Sacred & Profane.
 Because death was not the end, but an
intermediary stage until the Last
Judgement.
 Until that time, housed in Purgatory.
 An action of God’s mercy.
BEYOND THE SACRAMENTS:
 Saints
 Shrines
 Relics
 Pilgrimages
 ‘Semi-magical’?
Or understandable?
Pickering, Yorkshire
St. Peter & Paul
St. Sebastian
 FOR
THE REFORMERS THIS WAS
IDOLATRY
!
A NUMINOUS WORLD:
 Spaces
in the landscape which were
qualitatively different.
 Permeable boundaries of the Natural &
Supernatural not limited to the Church.
 ‘Unofficial’ religion or ‘popular’ belief
worked on the same logic.
A NUMINOUS WORLD:

Whenever the order of nature seemed
violently disrupted, hand of God was seen to
be at work:


‘Cunning’ men & women:



Misbirths, marvels, eclipses and comets were
‘signs’ of God, marks of divine anger.
Divination, healing, astrology.
Witchcraft.
Conflict of ‘official’ & ‘unofficial’ roots to the
supernatural.
Papal Ass
THOMAS HEYWOOD, THE WISE-WOMEN OF HOGSDON (1638)
 “You
have heard of Mother Nottingham, who
for her time was prettily well skilled in casting
of waters, and after her, Mother Bomby; and
then there is one Hatfield in Pepper Alley, he
doth pretty well for a thing that’s lost. There’s
another in Coleharbour that’s skilled in the
planets. Mother Sturton in Golden Lane is for
fore-speaking; Mother Phillips, of the Bankside,
for the weakness of the back; and then
there’s a very reverend matron on
Clerkenwell Green good at many things”.
PROTESTANTISM: THE
‘DISENCHANTMENT OF THE
WORLD’?

Max Weber – ‘disenchantment of the
world’
A
form of religion which was more
introspective and cerebral and therefore less
concerned with pseudo-magic rituals
 Made that boundary of between this world
and the next more rigid.
 Process of acculturation – Protestant
theologians root out these popular elements
of culture, more austere, less festive.
WHY DID THE REFORMATION
HAPPEN?
 Traditional
view – HAD to.
 Post 1970: Late medieval Catholicism
increasingly popular & effective.
 An embarrassment of riches?


Reformation a development, not a rupture?
People yearning for guidance, how to
worship God?