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 ID: 387751
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Slide1
Religious Life in 1500
The European WorldSlide2
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’.Slide3
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.Slide4
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.Slide5
LECTURE STRUCTURE:
The Shape of the Church in 1500
Belief & Salvation
Beyond
the Sacraments
A
n
uminous world
An inevitable Reformation?Slide6
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.Slide7
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.Slide8
THE PROBLEM:
T
he
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
leverageProtestants – God alone decidedSlide9
SALVATION & THE EVERYDAY:
Seven sacraments
:
Punctuated the journey from cradle to grave:
Baptism
Confirmation
Confession
Marriage
The Mass
Extreme Unction
Orders (clerics only).Slide10
DOOOOOOOOM!Slide11
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 deadSlide12
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.Slide13
Rood screenSlide14
Matthias Grunewald Slide15
Corpus Christi Procession:Slide16
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.Slide17
BEYOND THE SACRAMENTS:
Saints
Shrines
Relics
Pilgrimages
‘Semi-magical’? Or understandable? Slide18
Pickering, Yorkshire
St. Peter & Paul
St. SebastianSlide19
FOR THE REFORMERS THIS WAS
IDOLATRY
!Slide20
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.Slide21
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.Slide22
Papal AssSlide23
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”.Slide24
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.Slide25
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?