Religious Life in 1500The 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 near-uniformity, 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

‘Secular’ clergy: In the world – priest/Bishops.

‘Regular’ clergy: Apart from the world Monasteries

Regional variation: Landscape determine

nature of the parish. Supported by the tithe:

1/10 of income. Key point: special status

of the 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 post-Reformation 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: Misbirths, marvels, eclipses and comets were

‘signs’ of God, marks of divine anger. ‘Cunning’ men & women:

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?