Western Civilization II:

Reformation to Present

Fall 2005

Chapter 14 Lecture 1

Medieval reform

  1. Conflicting roles of the Church: temporal and secular.
    1. In some areas, the Church controlled 70% of all arable land; overall, the Church probably controlled 20% of the arable land in Europe.
    2. Social services: the Church controlled hospitals, orphanages, and the universities. Travelers stayed in monasteries as they travelled because there were so few inns.
    3. Temporal roles led the Church to promote people more on the basis of administrative skills than spiritual growth.
  2. Decline of Papal Authority
    1. 1294: Celestine V resigned from the papacy for fear that exercise of its duties imperiled his soul.
    2. Boniface VIII, Celestine’s successor, quarreled with both Edward I of England and Philip IV of France over clerical taxation; led to Philip’s kidnapping Boniface
    3. Babylonian Captivity. 1305: Clement V: Bishop of Bordeaux who was elected pope because of influence of the French cardinals; moved the papacy to Avignon, where it stayed for 73 years.
    4. Great Schism (1378-1417)
      1. 1377: Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome but died within a year.
      2. Urban VI, Gregory’s successor, was elected among a Roman riot. When he tried to reform the papacy, the French cardinals left and elected an antipope, Clement VII.
      3. England, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, and Poland supported Urban; France, Castile, Aragon, Naples, and Scotland supported Clement
      4. 1409: Council of Pisa: elected Alexander V as pope, but the two reigning popes refused to quit. Result: 3 popes now.
      5. 1413: Council of Constance: deposed the Avignon pope, the Roman pope resigned, and the Council elected Martin V as pope. The papacy was restored in unity.
  3. Abuses in Medieval Piety
    1. Purgatory: a place where sins committed after baptism were “worked off.” Mass said for the soul reduced the penalty by a specified number of years: Henry VII left enough money for 10,000 Masses.
    2. Indulgences: remission of temporal” or purgatorial punishment that could be granted by the pope out of the church’s “treasury of merits.” Some indulgences were purchased in advance for sins not yet committed.
    3. No systematic education for parish priests to counteract these abuses.