Progression of the Catholic Church from the Dark Ages through the 21st century
The BEGINNING (1100-1350)
❖ 1100-1300: Universities begin
➢ Before, educated the would-be clergy, the priests and monks of the Church
➢ cathedral schools located near the seats of bishops in large towns began to exceed the monastic schools in their numbers and importance
➢ number of students attending cathedral schools increased so much that the bishop would turn the direct control of the school over to a church officer, called the chancellor, who was obliged to instruct the rich or poor without a fee
➢ cathedral schools attracted students from a wide geographic area, gradually evolving into universities.
➢ Classes were taught in Latin, the universal language of the Church and scholarship,
➢ The curriculum consisted of studying the seven liberal arts, the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). Upon completion of the liberal arts curriculum after three or four years, if the student passed rigorous, comprehensive examinations, he would be awarded a baccalaureate degree, which is similar to our Bachelor of Arts.
➢ students were examined orally and in public after a program of study rather than after a specific course. Students also had individual tutors and studied under a master.
➢ After three or four more years of study, further examinations, and the writing of a Master’s thesis (still used), the student would be granted a Master’s Degree. Graduation in the arts, the Master of Arts degree, was the common entrance into the professional studies. Now the student could decide to specialize in law, medicine, or theology. Most doctors of theology studied for fifteen years, obtaining their doctorate after age thirty-five. More popular as a source of job placement and advancement, however, was a doctorate in law, which took seven years. Because kings, merchants, and law courts required trained individuals to interpret and adjudicate, legal studies were the route to upward mobility, much the same as they are now.
➢ Most universities specialized in specific areas of study. For example, the University of Bologna devoted itself to the study of the law; Paris specialized in the study of theology and logical thinking; and Salerno became a center for the teaching of medicine. Interestingly, the medical student at Salerno did not dissect cadavers, as this activity went against the teachings of the Church; they only studied their medical textbooks (Hippocrates, Galen, Averroes, and others) and took lecture notes.
➢ At times many of the students were rambunctious (perhaps too much studying, gambling, or drinking). There were riots and altercations between the townspeople and the students, who frequently were clergy and wore clerical robes. Many students felt abused by excessive price gouging for food and lodging charged by the townspeople. The townspeople thought the students were rowdy, snooty, and above the law. For example, the University of Cambridge evolved out of a “town” and “gown” riot when, in 1209, students left Oxford University over the turmoil. Rather than being informal locations in rented rooms, “colleges” eventually emerged with residence halls endowed by wealthy patrons. For example, Robert de Sorbon endowed the Sorbonne, the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Paris.
➢ From the handful of universities brought into existence in the twelfth century, there were at least eighty known universities at the end of the fifteenth century, including schools at Heidelberg, Prague, Vienna, and Salamanca. It is ironic that many students who wear a cap and gown at their graduation are unaware of the tradition that medieval students wore clerical gowns all the time, not only at graduation, and that their degree of Bachelor, Masters, or Doctorate conferred by the chancellor of the university, which may be written in Latin, dates back to the twelfth century.
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❖ 1122: Concordat of Worms
➢ Ends investiture controversy
➢ The Concordat of Worms, sometimes called the Pactum Calixtinum by papal historians,[1] was an agreement between Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V on September 23, 1122 near the city of Worms. It brought to an end the first phase of the power struggle between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperors and has been interpreted[2] as containing within itself the germ of nation-based sovereignty that would one day be confirmed in the Treaty of Westphalia(1648); in part this was an unforeseen result of strategic maneuvering between the Church and the European sovereigns over political control within their domains. The King was recognized as having the right to invest bishops with secular authority ("by the lance") in the territories they governed, but not with sacred authority ("by ring and staff"); the result was that bishops owed allegiance in worldly matters both to the pope and to the king, for they were obligated to affirm the right of the sovereign to call upon them for military support, under his oath of fealty. Previous Holy Roman Emperors had thought it their right, granted by God, to name the Pope, as well as other Church officials, such as bishops. One long-delayed result was an end to the belief in the divine right of kings. A more immediate result of the Investiture struggle identified a proprietary right that adhered to sovereign territory, recognizing the right of kings to income from the territory of a vacant diocese and a basis for justifiable taxation. These rights lay outside feudalism, which defined authority in a hierarchy of personal relations, with only a loose relation to territory.[3]The Pope emerged as a figure above and out of the direct control of the Holy Roman Emperor.
❖ 1125-1175: Height of Cistercian Monasticism
➢ Fortunately for the church, other religious orders with fresh zeal came forward. One of these was the CISTERCIANS, an order founded in 1098 at Citeaux, in a remote area not far from Dijon, France. By the middle of the next century, there were over 300 monasteries with 11,000 monks and nuns. They led austere lives following the rule of Benedict with greater rigor than Benedict himself probably contemplated. Great emphasis was put on manual labor. Cistercian farming activities in remote areas helped to bring more land under cultivation and contributed to the development of western European commerce. The best known Cistercian of the Middle Ages was SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX (1090-1153) who became a counselor to popes and kings. He led the attack on the rationalist teachings of Peter Abelard.
❖ 1140-1260: Aristotle’s works translated into Latin
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❖ 1189-1192: Third Crusade
➢ When in 1187 Jerusalem fell to Saladin, an exceptionally competent Muslim commander, three of the most powerful rulers in Europe called for the Third Crusade (1189-1192). These monarchs were: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip Augustus of France, and King Richard I (Richard the Lionhearted) of England. Due to lack of coordination, their combined forces could not retake Jerusalem. However, they did manage to capture a port, Acre, on the Mediterranean. Richard the Lionhearted negotiated a pact with Saladin, allowing Christian pilgrims access to their holy shrines once more.
❖ 1198-1216: Pope Innocent III
➢ Pope Innocent III (Latin: Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216) was Pope from 8 January 1198 to his death in 1216. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni.
➢ Pope Innocent was one of the most powerful and influential popes. He exerted a wide influence over the Christian regimes of Europe, claiming supremacy over all of Europe's kings. Pope Innocent was central in supporting theCatholic Church's reforms of ecclesiastical affairs through his decretals and the Fourth Lateran Council. This resulted in a considerable refinement of Western canon law. Pope Innocent is notable for using interdict and other censures to compel princes to obey his decisions, although these measures were not uniformly successful. Innocent called for Christian crusades against Muslim rulers in Spain and the Holy Land and against heretics in southern France (Albigensian Crusade). One of Pope Innocent's most critical decisions was organizing the Fourth Crusade. Originally intended to attack Jerusalem through Egypt, a series of unforeseen circumstances led the crusaders to Constantinople, where they ultimately attacked and sacked the city (1204). Innocent reluctantly accepted this result, seeing it as the will of God to reunite the Greek and Latin churches, but it poisoned relations between the two churches.[1]
❖ 1204: Maimonides
➢ Moses ben Maimon [known to English speaking audiences as Maimonides and Hebrew speaking as Rambam] (1138–1204) is the greatest Jewish philosopher of the medieval period and is still widely read today. The Mishneh Torah, his 14-volume compendium of Jewish law, established him as the leading rabbinic authority of his time and quite possibly of all time. His philosophic masterpiece, the Guide of the Perplexed, is a sustained treatment of Jewish thought and practice that seeks to resolve the conflict between religious knowledge and secular. Although heavily influenced by the Neo-Platonized Aristotelianism that had taken root in Islamic circles, it departs from prevailing modes of Aristotelian thought by emphasizing the limits of human knowledge and the questionable foundations of significant parts of astronomy and metaphysics. Maimonides also achieved fame as a physician and wrote medical treatises on a number of diseases and their cures. Succeeding generations of philosophers wrote extensive commentaries on his works, which influenced thinkers as diverse as Aquinas, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton.
❖ 1210: Founding of Franciscan Order
➢ The thirteenth century saw a new development: the rise of religious orders whose members did not stay in secluded cloisters, but went out into the towns and the countryside to preach to ordinary folks. Members of these orders were often called FRIARS (brothers) or MENDICANTS since they would beg to earn their bread rather than concentrate on farming as the Cistercians. The Franciscans were one of these mendicant orders. Their founder, ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI (c.1182-1226) in Italy, embraced a life of idealized poverty and service to the poor. Initially this order owned nothing in common or individually, but some modifications of this strict poverty were eventually made. The Franciscans were encouraged by the church as an attractive alternative to groups such as the Waldenses, who also embraced poverty but were more critical of abuses within the church and were condemned as heretics. By 1220, Francis had thousands of followers and Franciscan missions were established in many places in Europe and even in the Holy Land.
❖ 1215: Fourth Lateran Council
➢ Lateran Council, any of the five ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic Church held in the Lateran Palace in Rome.
➢ The first Lateran Council, the ninth ecumenical council (1123), was held during the reign of Pope Calixtus II; no acts or contemporary accounts survive. The council promulgated a number of canons (probably 22), many of which merely reiterated decrees of earlier councils. Much of the discussion was occupied with disciplinary or quasi-political decisions relating to the Investiture Controversy settled the previous year by the Concordat of Worms; simony was condemned, laymen were prohibited from disposing ofchurch property, clerics in major orders were forbidden to marry, and uncanonical consecration of bishops was forbidden. There were no specific dogmatic decrees.
➢ The second Lateran Council, the 10th ecumenical council (1139), was convoked by Pope Innocent II to condemn as schismatics the followers of Arnold of Brescia, a vigorous reformer and opponent of the temporal power of the pope, and to end the schism created by the election of Anacletus II, a rival pope. Supported by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and later by Emperor Lothar II, Innocent was eventually acknowledged as the legitimate pope. Besides reaffirming previous conciliar decrees, the second Lateran Council declared invalid all marriages of those in major orders and of professed monks, canons, lay brothers, and nuns. The council repudiated the heresies of the 12th century concerning holy orders, matrimony, infant Baptism, and the Eucharist.
➢ The third Lateran Council, the 11th ecumenical council, was convoked in 1179 by Pope Alexander III and attended by 291 bishops who studied the Peace of Venice (1177), by which the Holy Roman emperor,Frederick I Barbarossa, agreed to withdraw support from his antipope and to restore the church property he had seized. This council also established a two-thirds majority of the College of Cardinals as a requirement for papal election and stipulated that candidates for bishop must be 30 years old and of legitimate birth. The heretical Cathari (or Albigenses) were condemned, and Christians were authorized to take up arms against vagabond robbers. The council marked an important stage in the development of papal legislative authority.
➢ The fourth Lateran Council, the 12th ecumenical council (1215), generally considered the greatest council before Trent, was years in preparation. Pope Innocent III desired the widest possible representation, and more than 400 bishops, 800 abbots and priors, envoys of many European kings, and personal representatives of Frederick II (confirmed by the council as emperor of the West) took part. The purpose of the council was twofold: reform of the church and the recovery of the Holy Land. Many of the conciliar decrees touching on church reform and organization remained in effect for centuries. The council ruled on such vexing problems as the use of church property, tithes, judicial procedures, and patriarchal precedence. It ordered Jews and Saracens to wear distinctive dress and obliged Catholics to make a yearly confession and to receive Communion during the Easter season. The council sanctioned the word transubstantiation as a correct expression of eucharistic doctrine. The teachings of the Cathari and Waldenses were condemned. Innocent also ordered a four-year truce among Christian rulers so that a new crusade could be launched.
❖ 1216: Founding of Dominican Order
➢ A contemporary of Francis was St. Dominic (c.1171-1221), born in Spanish Castile. Dominic became interested in converting the Albigenses of southern France, who were heretical dualists, believing all material things were evil. After working among the Albigenses or Cathari, Dominic was inspired to found a new order, popularly known as the DOMINICANS, who would seek to convert the world to the Catholic version of Christianity. In order to create effective preachers, Dominic placed more emphasis on education than Francis did. He followed the example of Francis in requiring his followers to take vows of poverty and live on donations. By the time of Dominic’s death in 1221, there were some 500 friars and 60 priories throughout western Europe. The Dominicans became famous educators. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, leading medieval intellectuals, were members of the order. As leaders in the campaign against heretics, they also came to staff the offices of the INQUISITION, the church tribunal charged with suppressing heresy.
❖ 1225-1274: Thomas Aquinas
➢ marks height of Scholasticism
➢ While Abelard’s theological work is not widely known today, that of ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1224-1274) is. Aquinas, a Dominican monk, wrote the Summa Theologica(Summary of Theology), a celebrated compendium on God, morality, and just about every theological question of his day. The rigorous scholastic methodology applied in this work is quite challenging for the beginning student, who is better advised to look at the Summa Contra Gentiles (Summary Against the Gentiles) which uses reason to defend Christianity against Islam. Aquinas wrote numerous other works, including commentaries on the works of Aristotle (the Philosopher for Aquinas), whose major writings had been reintroduced to the West at that time.
➢ When Aquinas considers the relationship between faith and reason, he believes both are sources of truth since both are given to humans by God. He was convinced, for example, that we can know the existence of God by faith and can prove God’s existence by reason. He believed, however, that the mysteries of the Christian faith, such as the Trinity, could neither be proven nor disproven by reason. But what if there appeared to be a conflict between reason and faith? Aquinas was persuaded that any conflicts were due to faulty human reasoning rather than errors in faith, which came directly to man by divine revelation. For Aquinas the concepts of faith are more certain than ideas reached by mere human deliberation. Contrast Aquinas’s world view with that of many contemporary scholars who consider the beliefs of faith to be much less certain than scientifically-validated facts.
❖ 1294-1303: Pope Boniface VIII
➢ Boniface, for Dante, is personal and public enemy number one. Benedetto Caetani, a talented and ambitious scholar of canon law, rose quickly through the ranks of the church and was elected pope, as Boniface VIII, soon after theabdication of Pope Celestine V in 1294. (There were rumors that Boniface had intimidated Celestine into abdicating so he could become pope himself.) Boniface's pontificate was marked by a consolidation and expansion of church power, based on the view--expressed in a papal bull (Unam sanctam)--that the pope was not only the spiritual head of Christendom but also superior to the emperor in the secular, temporal realm. Dante, by contrast, firmly held that the pope and emperor should be co-equals with a balance of power between the pope's spiritual authority and the emperor's secular authority. Boniface's political ambitions directly affected Dante when the pope--under the false pretense of peace-making--sent Charles of Valois, a French prince, to Florence; Charles' intervention allowed the black guelphs to overthrow the ruling white guelphs, whose leaders--including Dante, in Rome at the time to argue Florence's case before Boniface--were sentenced to exile. Dante now settles his score with Boniface in the Divine Comedy by damning the pope even before his death in 1303 (the journey takes place in 1300): in the pit of the simonists, Pope Nicholas III, who can see the future (like all the damned), mistakenly assumes that Dante is Boniface come before his time (Inf. 19.49-63).
The MIDDLE (1350-1750)
❖ 1307-1377: Babylonian Captivity:
➢ The 70 year period when the Popes resided in Avignon, France as a result of Philip the Fair of France pressuring the sick Pope Clement V, who was too ill to resist
➢ The Avignon papacy
■ reformed financial administration
■ centralized its government
■ concentrated in bureaucratic matters
■ excluded spiritual objectives
■ obsessed with luxury and extravagance
➢ this damaged church prestige.
➢ people saw the Papacy as hypocritical (selfishness when they preach selflessness)
❖ 1377-1418: Great Schism:
➢ In 1377 Pope Gregory XI brings the papal court back to Rome, but dies soon after.
➢ April 7, 1378 the bishops elected Urban VI as Pope
➢ Urban VI attacked actions that people criticized
■ Simony
■ pluralism
■ absenteeism
■ clerical extravagance
➢ However he attacked in a tactless and brash manner
➢ His attacks led the bishops to leave Rome and meet at Anagni
➢ They elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva, the cousin of King Charles V of France, as pope (Pope Clement VII, the antipope. This began the Great Schism.
➢ France, Aragon, Castile, Portugal, and Italian City-States supported Clement VII and England and the Holy Roman Empire supported Urban VI
➢ Christians did not know who to follow. They became confused and began to lose faith in their religion. This weakened the church’s image in the public eye.
❖ 1330-1384: John Wyclif and his Conciliar Movement:
➢ criticized veneration of saints, pilgrimages, pluralism, and absenteeism
➢ produced the first English Bible
➢ sincere christians should read the bible
➢ suggested for councils in the papacy
➢ papal power had no scriptural claims
➢ a precursor to the Reformation
❖ 1414-1418: Council of Constance:
➢ Before this council a gathering of prelates and theologians at Pisa deposed both popes and selected another. This lead to a three-way schism.
➢ Three objectives
■ end the schism
■ reform the church “in head and members”
■ wipe out heresy
➢ Solutions
■ condemned the Czech reformer Jan Hus and burned him at the stake
■ Deposed both the Roman pope and his successor in Pisa and isolated the Avignon antipope
■ Elected the Roman Cardinal Colonna, who took the name Martin V
➢ He dissolved the council and had no reform
➢ The church celebrated their “victory” over the conciliar movement
➢ This led to two things:
■ the church shows how much power they really have. They are able to defeat an entire movement by themselves
■ However, the constant election and deposition of Popes contradicts the idea that Popes are chosen by the Holy Spirit through the conclave. This hurts church prestige.
❖ 1429-1431: Joan of Arc:
➢ Although the Church is not directly involved with Joan of Arc, her faith in God and the faith she gave to her troops in battle, shows how much influence religion and the Church had on People.
❖ 1438: Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges:
➢ asserts the superiority of a general council over the appointment of bishops
➢ deprives the pope of French ecclesiastical revenues
➢ One of the first accounts of someone successfully challenging the Church. This shows how rulers are slowly breaking away from total dependence on the Church.
❖ 1492: Expulsion of Jews from Spain:
➢ This shows not only a racist attitude towards the Jews, but how influential Catholicism is. Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella the Catholic show how religion as a tool in gaining popularity through piety.
❖ 1512-1517: Lateran Council:
➢ Started by Pope Julius II and attended by mostly Italian bishops. They sincerely tried to reform the church, but were ineffective.
➢ Their failure leads to further criticism of the Church and eventually leads to the Reformation
❖ 1516: Concordat of Bologna
➢ Francis I of France agrees to the supremacy of the papacy over the universal council. The French crown gains the right to appoint all French bishops and abbots
➢ This agreement shows how the Church basically made France Catholic and kept them from becoming Protestant
❖ 1517: Luther 95 Theses
➢ Listed Martin Luther’s problems with the Church
➢ Led and influenced the Reformation and formation of the Protestant faith
➢ Reflects how the Church fails to counteract an opposing movement, which leads to a loss of power and influence as countries become Protestant and leave Catholicism
❖ 1532-1539: Henry of VIII of England breaks with Rome
➢ One of the 1st countries to become Protestant, Henry VIII sets up his own Church of England.
➢ Shows how a king could challenge the Catholic Church and win. The Church soon loses influence and power over England and other countries that become Protestant, too.
❖ 1545-1563: Council of Trent:
➢ a council called by Pope Paul III to counteract the Reformation
➢ Goals
■ reform the Church
■ reconcile with the Protestants
➢ Achievements
■ suppressing clerical wrongs
■ tradition and scripture are equal
■ must educate the clergy
➢ However the council was unable to reconcile with the Protestants
➢ This council increased the popularity of the CHurch with their good reforms and boosted their prestige, but their power and influence is still challenged by the growing Protestants.
❖ 1555: Peace of Augsburg
➢ An agreement of Charles V with the Lutheran German Princes that allowed them to freely practice their religion
➢ Shos are Protestants are successfully challenging Church power and are able to gain political power and influence of their own
❖ 1598: Henry IV and Edict of Nantes
➢ An edict declared by Henry IV of France that gave the Huguenots rights in a Catholic country
➢ This shows how the Church cannot control the whole populations as they slowly lose their total influence, although they still have influence over the entire French country
❖ 1673: Test Act (James I)
➢ Prevented Catholics from holding public offices
➢ reflects the inability of the Church to influence the now Protestant England
❖ 1685: Revocation of Edict of Nantes
➢ Louis XIV makes it illegal to be Protestant in France
➢ Shows how the Catholic Church has a major influence over the French throne. France will remian a Catholic Cuntry until the revolution.
❖ 1690 John Locke and Second Treatise on Civil Government
➢ John Locke writes about the idea of separation of CHurch and State
MODERN ERA (1750-2014)
First Estate: The first estate in the ancien regime was the Clergy which owned 5-10% of French lands and were tax exempt. Despite their privilege, many clergymen attended the Oath of the Tennis Court. French clergyman Abbé Sieyès is the man who wrote What is the Third Estate? Because the Catholic Church opposed the French Revolution all of the Church’s lands were returned to the state and the first estate was made to take an oath of loyalty in order not to get killed during the Reign of Terror.
Concordat of 1804: signed between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII, it stopped the French from calling the revolution ‘godless’ and gave the French government the ability to elect clergy. Napoleon was able to consolidate more power through the Catholic Church when he took most of the Italian Peninsula into his empire including the Papal States.
Pope Pius IX: Pope during Italian unification and last Pope to rule the Papal States. Wrote the Syllabus of Errors which denounced modern thought (socialism, separation of church and state, rationalism, religious liberty) and spoke out against Garibaldi and Cavour’s efforts to unify Italy.
French Separation of Church and State (1905): France’s Third Republic secularized itself
Nietzsche/Logical Empiricism/Existentialism: the Church during the early 1900’s faced many challenges. Since people were dying left and right life was beginning to have very little meaning. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche coined the phrase “God is Dead”and came to the conclusion that we are all just animals that follow instincts to kill and to survive. To take it one step further, Logical Empiricism became popular and rejected not only God but morality and freedom; and from that you get existentialism, the idea that life is essentially absurd and meaningless. These ideas are exhibited in French existentialist Albert Camus’s The Plague.
Christian Revivalism: while some people were turning away from God during times of war, many people looked to religion for answers. Thinkers, poets, and authors like Gabriel Marcel, T.S. Eliot C. S. Lewis, and Karl Stern began to see Catholicism as a symbol of hope in a world of war and turmoil.
Lateran Pact (1929):Signed between the Pope and Mussolini, Mussolini would recognize the Vatican as its own sovereign nation if the Pope would recognize the Fascist Italian state.
Christian Democrats: a political party that was popularized in Europe after Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum which called for believers of Christ to be politically active, the result was a catch-all party that mixed the Catholic faith with politics. The Christian Democratic party dominated politics in European countries such as Germany, Italy, and especially Poland after WWII and was key to the expulsion of communism. Some notable members of this party are Lech Wałęsa (lek valwesa) and Helmut Kohl.
Karol Józef Wojtyła:Polish Bishop and later Pope John Paul II who was instrumental in the movement to abolish communism in Poland, although he was not an official member of the Christian Democrats he did support Solidarity.
Vatican II: made the Church relevant again. Masses were in the vernacular and religious tolerance was embraced.
The BEGINNING (1100-1350)
❖ 1100-1300: Universities begin
➢ Before, educated the would-be clergy, the priests and monks of the Church
➢ cathedral schools located near the seats of bishops in large towns began to exceed the monastic schools in their numbers and importance
➢ number of students attending cathedral schools increased so much that the bishop would turn the direct control of the school over to a church officer, called the chancellor, who was obliged to instruct the rich or poor without a fee
➢ cathedral schools attracted students from a wide geographic area, gradually evolving into universities.
➢ Classes were taught in Latin, the universal language of the Church and scholarship,
➢ The curriculum consisted of studying the seven liberal arts, the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). Upon completion of the liberal arts curriculum after three or four years, if the student passed rigorous, comprehensive examinations, he would be awarded a baccalaureate degree, which is similar to our Bachelor of Arts.
➢ students were examined orally and in public after a program of study rather than after a specific course. Students also had individual tutors and studied under a master.
➢ After three or four more years of study, further examinations, and the writing of a Master’s thesis (still used), the student would be granted a Master’s Degree. Graduation in the arts, the Master of Arts degree, was the common entrance into the professional studies. Now the student could decide to specialize in law, medicine, or theology. Most doctors of theology studied for fifteen years, obtaining their doctorate after age thirty-five. More popular as a source of job placement and advancement, however, was a doctorate in law, which took seven years. Because kings, merchants, and law courts required trained individuals to interpret and adjudicate, legal studies were the route to upward mobility, much the same as they are now.
➢ Most universities specialized in specific areas of study. For example, the University of Bologna devoted itself to the study of the law; Paris specialized in the study of theology and logical thinking; and Salerno became a center for the teaching of medicine. Interestingly, the medical student at Salerno did not dissect cadavers, as this activity went against the teachings of the Church; they only studied their medical textbooks (Hippocrates, Galen, Averroes, and others) and took lecture notes.
➢ At times many of the students were rambunctious (perhaps too much studying, gambling, or drinking). There were riots and altercations between the townspeople and the students, who frequently were clergy and wore clerical robes. Many students felt abused by excessive price gouging for food and lodging charged by the townspeople. The townspeople thought the students were rowdy, snooty, and above the law. For example, the University of Cambridge evolved out of a “town” and “gown” riot when, in 1209, students left Oxford University over the turmoil. Rather than being informal locations in rented rooms, “colleges” eventually emerged with residence halls endowed by wealthy patrons. For example, Robert de Sorbon endowed the Sorbonne, the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Paris.
➢ From the handful of universities brought into existence in the twelfth century, there were at least eighty known universities at the end of the fifteenth century, including schools at Heidelberg, Prague, Vienna, and Salamanca. It is ironic that many students who wear a cap and gown at their graduation are unaware of the tradition that medieval students wore clerical gowns all the time, not only at graduation, and that their degree of Bachelor, Masters, or Doctorate conferred by the chancellor of the university, which may be written in Latin, dates back to the twelfth century.
➢
❖ 1122: Concordat of Worms
➢ Ends investiture controversy
➢ The Concordat of Worms, sometimes called the Pactum Calixtinum by papal historians,[1] was an agreement between Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V on September 23, 1122 near the city of Worms. It brought to an end the first phase of the power struggle between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperors and has been interpreted[2] as containing within itself the germ of nation-based sovereignty that would one day be confirmed in the Treaty of Westphalia(1648); in part this was an unforeseen result of strategic maneuvering between the Church and the European sovereigns over political control within their domains. The King was recognized as having the right to invest bishops with secular authority ("by the lance") in the territories they governed, but not with sacred authority ("by ring and staff"); the result was that bishops owed allegiance in worldly matters both to the pope and to the king, for they were obligated to affirm the right of the sovereign to call upon them for military support, under his oath of fealty. Previous Holy Roman Emperors had thought it their right, granted by God, to name the Pope, as well as other Church officials, such as bishops. One long-delayed result was an end to the belief in the divine right of kings. A more immediate result of the Investiture struggle identified a proprietary right that adhered to sovereign territory, recognizing the right of kings to income from the territory of a vacant diocese and a basis for justifiable taxation. These rights lay outside feudalism, which defined authority in a hierarchy of personal relations, with only a loose relation to territory.[3]The Pope emerged as a figure above and out of the direct control of the Holy Roman Emperor.
❖ 1125-1175: Height of Cistercian Monasticism
➢ Fortunately for the church, other religious orders with fresh zeal came forward. One of these was the CISTERCIANS, an order founded in 1098 at Citeaux, in a remote area not far from Dijon, France. By the middle of the next century, there were over 300 monasteries with 11,000 monks and nuns. They led austere lives following the rule of Benedict with greater rigor than Benedict himself probably contemplated. Great emphasis was put on manual labor. Cistercian farming activities in remote areas helped to bring more land under cultivation and contributed to the development of western European commerce. The best known Cistercian of the Middle Ages was SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX (1090-1153) who became a counselor to popes and kings. He led the attack on the rationalist teachings of Peter Abelard.
❖ 1140-1260: Aristotle’s works translated into Latin
➢
❖ 1189-1192: Third Crusade
➢ When in 1187 Jerusalem fell to Saladin, an exceptionally competent Muslim commander, three of the most powerful rulers in Europe called for the Third Crusade (1189-1192). These monarchs were: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip Augustus of France, and King Richard I (Richard the Lionhearted) of England. Due to lack of coordination, their combined forces could not retake Jerusalem. However, they did manage to capture a port, Acre, on the Mediterranean. Richard the Lionhearted negotiated a pact with Saladin, allowing Christian pilgrims access to their holy shrines once more.
❖ 1198-1216: Pope Innocent III
➢ Pope Innocent III (Latin: Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216) was Pope from 8 January 1198 to his death in 1216. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni.
➢ Pope Innocent was one of the most powerful and influential popes. He exerted a wide influence over the Christian regimes of Europe, claiming supremacy over all of Europe's kings. Pope Innocent was central in supporting theCatholic Church's reforms of ecclesiastical affairs through his decretals and the Fourth Lateran Council. This resulted in a considerable refinement of Western canon law. Pope Innocent is notable for using interdict and other censures to compel princes to obey his decisions, although these measures were not uniformly successful. Innocent called for Christian crusades against Muslim rulers in Spain and the Holy Land and against heretics in southern France (Albigensian Crusade). One of Pope Innocent's most critical decisions was organizing the Fourth Crusade. Originally intended to attack Jerusalem through Egypt, a series of unforeseen circumstances led the crusaders to Constantinople, where they ultimately attacked and sacked the city (1204). Innocent reluctantly accepted this result, seeing it as the will of God to reunite the Greek and Latin churches, but it poisoned relations between the two churches.[1]
❖ 1204: Maimonides
➢ Moses ben Maimon [known to English speaking audiences as Maimonides and Hebrew speaking as Rambam] (1138–1204) is the greatest Jewish philosopher of the medieval period and is still widely read today. The Mishneh Torah, his 14-volume compendium of Jewish law, established him as the leading rabbinic authority of his time and quite possibly of all time. His philosophic masterpiece, the Guide of the Perplexed, is a sustained treatment of Jewish thought and practice that seeks to resolve the conflict between religious knowledge and secular. Although heavily influenced by the Neo-Platonized Aristotelianism that had taken root in Islamic circles, it departs from prevailing modes of Aristotelian thought by emphasizing the limits of human knowledge and the questionable foundations of significant parts of astronomy and metaphysics. Maimonides also achieved fame as a physician and wrote medical treatises on a number of diseases and their cures. Succeeding generations of philosophers wrote extensive commentaries on his works, which influenced thinkers as diverse as Aquinas, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton.
❖ 1210: Founding of Franciscan Order
➢ The thirteenth century saw a new development: the rise of religious orders whose members did not stay in secluded cloisters, but went out into the towns and the countryside to preach to ordinary folks. Members of these orders were often called FRIARS (brothers) or MENDICANTS since they would beg to earn their bread rather than concentrate on farming as the Cistercians. The Franciscans were one of these mendicant orders. Their founder, ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI (c.1182-1226) in Italy, embraced a life of idealized poverty and service to the poor. Initially this order owned nothing in common or individually, but some modifications of this strict poverty were eventually made. The Franciscans were encouraged by the church as an attractive alternative to groups such as the Waldenses, who also embraced poverty but were more critical of abuses within the church and were condemned as heretics. By 1220, Francis had thousands of followers and Franciscan missions were established in many places in Europe and even in the Holy Land.
❖ 1215: Fourth Lateran Council
➢ Lateran Council, any of the five ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic Church held in the Lateran Palace in Rome.
➢ The first Lateran Council, the ninth ecumenical council (1123), was held during the reign of Pope Calixtus II; no acts or contemporary accounts survive. The council promulgated a number of canons (probably 22), many of which merely reiterated decrees of earlier councils. Much of the discussion was occupied with disciplinary or quasi-political decisions relating to the Investiture Controversy settled the previous year by the Concordat of Worms; simony was condemned, laymen were prohibited from disposing ofchurch property, clerics in major orders were forbidden to marry, and uncanonical consecration of bishops was forbidden. There were no specific dogmatic decrees.
➢ The second Lateran Council, the 10th ecumenical council (1139), was convoked by Pope Innocent II to condemn as schismatics the followers of Arnold of Brescia, a vigorous reformer and opponent of the temporal power of the pope, and to end the schism created by the election of Anacletus II, a rival pope. Supported by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and later by Emperor Lothar II, Innocent was eventually acknowledged as the legitimate pope. Besides reaffirming previous conciliar decrees, the second Lateran Council declared invalid all marriages of those in major orders and of professed monks, canons, lay brothers, and nuns. The council repudiated the heresies of the 12th century concerning holy orders, matrimony, infant Baptism, and the Eucharist.
➢ The third Lateran Council, the 11th ecumenical council, was convoked in 1179 by Pope Alexander III and attended by 291 bishops who studied the Peace of Venice (1177), by which the Holy Roman emperor,Frederick I Barbarossa, agreed to withdraw support from his antipope and to restore the church property he had seized. This council also established a two-thirds majority of the College of Cardinals as a requirement for papal election and stipulated that candidates for bishop must be 30 years old and of legitimate birth. The heretical Cathari (or Albigenses) were condemned, and Christians were authorized to take up arms against vagabond robbers. The council marked an important stage in the development of papal legislative authority.
➢ The fourth Lateran Council, the 12th ecumenical council (1215), generally considered the greatest council before Trent, was years in preparation. Pope Innocent III desired the widest possible representation, and more than 400 bishops, 800 abbots and priors, envoys of many European kings, and personal representatives of Frederick II (confirmed by the council as emperor of the West) took part. The purpose of the council was twofold: reform of the church and the recovery of the Holy Land. Many of the conciliar decrees touching on church reform and organization remained in effect for centuries. The council ruled on such vexing problems as the use of church property, tithes, judicial procedures, and patriarchal precedence. It ordered Jews and Saracens to wear distinctive dress and obliged Catholics to make a yearly confession and to receive Communion during the Easter season. The council sanctioned the word transubstantiation as a correct expression of eucharistic doctrine. The teachings of the Cathari and Waldenses were condemned. Innocent also ordered a four-year truce among Christian rulers so that a new crusade could be launched.
❖ 1216: Founding of Dominican Order
➢ A contemporary of Francis was St. Dominic (c.1171-1221), born in Spanish Castile. Dominic became interested in converting the Albigenses of southern France, who were heretical dualists, believing all material things were evil. After working among the Albigenses or Cathari, Dominic was inspired to found a new order, popularly known as the DOMINICANS, who would seek to convert the world to the Catholic version of Christianity. In order to create effective preachers, Dominic placed more emphasis on education than Francis did. He followed the example of Francis in requiring his followers to take vows of poverty and live on donations. By the time of Dominic’s death in 1221, there were some 500 friars and 60 priories throughout western Europe. The Dominicans became famous educators. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, leading medieval intellectuals, were members of the order. As leaders in the campaign against heretics, they also came to staff the offices of the INQUISITION, the church tribunal charged with suppressing heresy.
❖ 1225-1274: Thomas Aquinas
➢ marks height of Scholasticism
➢ While Abelard’s theological work is not widely known today, that of ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1224-1274) is. Aquinas, a Dominican monk, wrote the Summa Theologica(Summary of Theology), a celebrated compendium on God, morality, and just about every theological question of his day. The rigorous scholastic methodology applied in this work is quite challenging for the beginning student, who is better advised to look at the Summa Contra Gentiles (Summary Against the Gentiles) which uses reason to defend Christianity against Islam. Aquinas wrote numerous other works, including commentaries on the works of Aristotle (the Philosopher for Aquinas), whose major writings had been reintroduced to the West at that time.
➢ When Aquinas considers the relationship between faith and reason, he believes both are sources of truth since both are given to humans by God. He was convinced, for example, that we can know the existence of God by faith and can prove God’s existence by reason. He believed, however, that the mysteries of the Christian faith, such as the Trinity, could neither be proven nor disproven by reason. But what if there appeared to be a conflict between reason and faith? Aquinas was persuaded that any conflicts were due to faulty human reasoning rather than errors in faith, which came directly to man by divine revelation. For Aquinas the concepts of faith are more certain than ideas reached by mere human deliberation. Contrast Aquinas’s world view with that of many contemporary scholars who consider the beliefs of faith to be much less certain than scientifically-validated facts.
❖ 1294-1303: Pope Boniface VIII
➢ Boniface, for Dante, is personal and public enemy number one. Benedetto Caetani, a talented and ambitious scholar of canon law, rose quickly through the ranks of the church and was elected pope, as Boniface VIII, soon after theabdication of Pope Celestine V in 1294. (There were rumors that Boniface had intimidated Celestine into abdicating so he could become pope himself.) Boniface's pontificate was marked by a consolidation and expansion of church power, based on the view--expressed in a papal bull (Unam sanctam)--that the pope was not only the spiritual head of Christendom but also superior to the emperor in the secular, temporal realm. Dante, by contrast, firmly held that the pope and emperor should be co-equals with a balance of power between the pope's spiritual authority and the emperor's secular authority. Boniface's political ambitions directly affected Dante when the pope--under the false pretense of peace-making--sent Charles of Valois, a French prince, to Florence; Charles' intervention allowed the black guelphs to overthrow the ruling white guelphs, whose leaders--including Dante, in Rome at the time to argue Florence's case before Boniface--were sentenced to exile. Dante now settles his score with Boniface in the Divine Comedy by damning the pope even before his death in 1303 (the journey takes place in 1300): in the pit of the simonists, Pope Nicholas III, who can see the future (like all the damned), mistakenly assumes that Dante is Boniface come before his time (Inf. 19.49-63).
The MIDDLE (1350-1750)
❖ 1307-1377: Babylonian Captivity:
➢ The 70 year period when the Popes resided in Avignon, France as a result of Philip the Fair of France pressuring the sick Pope Clement V, who was too ill to resist
➢ The Avignon papacy
■ reformed financial administration
■ centralized its government
■ concentrated in bureaucratic matters
■ excluded spiritual objectives
■ obsessed with luxury and extravagance
➢ this damaged church prestige.
➢ people saw the Papacy as hypocritical (selfishness when they preach selflessness)
❖ 1377-1418: Great Schism:
➢ In 1377 Pope Gregory XI brings the papal court back to Rome, but dies soon after.
➢ April 7, 1378 the bishops elected Urban VI as Pope
➢ Urban VI attacked actions that people criticized
■ Simony
■ pluralism
■ absenteeism
■ clerical extravagance
➢ However he attacked in a tactless and brash manner
➢ His attacks led the bishops to leave Rome and meet at Anagni
➢ They elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva, the cousin of King Charles V of France, as pope (Pope Clement VII, the antipope. This began the Great Schism.
➢ France, Aragon, Castile, Portugal, and Italian City-States supported Clement VII and England and the Holy Roman Empire supported Urban VI
➢ Christians did not know who to follow. They became confused and began to lose faith in their religion. This weakened the church’s image in the public eye.
❖ 1330-1384: John Wyclif and his Conciliar Movement:
➢ criticized veneration of saints, pilgrimages, pluralism, and absenteeism
➢ produced the first English Bible
➢ sincere christians should read the bible
➢ suggested for councils in the papacy
➢ papal power had no scriptural claims
➢ a precursor to the Reformation
❖ 1414-1418: Council of Constance:
➢ Before this council a gathering of prelates and theologians at Pisa deposed both popes and selected another. This lead to a three-way schism.
➢ Three objectives
■ end the schism
■ reform the church “in head and members”
■ wipe out heresy
➢ Solutions
■ condemned the Czech reformer Jan Hus and burned him at the stake
■ Deposed both the Roman pope and his successor in Pisa and isolated the Avignon antipope
■ Elected the Roman Cardinal Colonna, who took the name Martin V
➢ He dissolved the council and had no reform
➢ The church celebrated their “victory” over the conciliar movement
➢ This led to two things:
■ the church shows how much power they really have. They are able to defeat an entire movement by themselves
■ However, the constant election and deposition of Popes contradicts the idea that Popes are chosen by the Holy Spirit through the conclave. This hurts church prestige.
❖ 1429-1431: Joan of Arc:
➢ Although the Church is not directly involved with Joan of Arc, her faith in God and the faith she gave to her troops in battle, shows how much influence religion and the Church had on People.
❖ 1438: Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges:
➢ asserts the superiority of a general council over the appointment of bishops
➢ deprives the pope of French ecclesiastical revenues
➢ One of the first accounts of someone successfully challenging the Church. This shows how rulers are slowly breaking away from total dependence on the Church.
❖ 1492: Expulsion of Jews from Spain:
➢ This shows not only a racist attitude towards the Jews, but how influential Catholicism is. Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella the Catholic show how religion as a tool in gaining popularity through piety.
❖ 1512-1517: Lateran Council:
➢ Started by Pope Julius II and attended by mostly Italian bishops. They sincerely tried to reform the church, but were ineffective.
➢ Their failure leads to further criticism of the Church and eventually leads to the Reformation
❖ 1516: Concordat of Bologna
➢ Francis I of France agrees to the supremacy of the papacy over the universal council. The French crown gains the right to appoint all French bishops and abbots
➢ This agreement shows how the Church basically made France Catholic and kept them from becoming Protestant
❖ 1517: Luther 95 Theses
➢ Listed Martin Luther’s problems with the Church
➢ Led and influenced the Reformation and formation of the Protestant faith
➢ Reflects how the Church fails to counteract an opposing movement, which leads to a loss of power and influence as countries become Protestant and leave Catholicism
❖ 1532-1539: Henry of VIII of England breaks with Rome
➢ One of the 1st countries to become Protestant, Henry VIII sets up his own Church of England.
➢ Shows how a king could challenge the Catholic Church and win. The Church soon loses influence and power over England and other countries that become Protestant, too.
❖ 1545-1563: Council of Trent:
➢ a council called by Pope Paul III to counteract the Reformation
➢ Goals
■ reform the Church
■ reconcile with the Protestants
➢ Achievements
■ suppressing clerical wrongs
■ tradition and scripture are equal
■ must educate the clergy
➢ However the council was unable to reconcile with the Protestants
➢ This council increased the popularity of the CHurch with their good reforms and boosted their prestige, but their power and influence is still challenged by the growing Protestants.
❖ 1555: Peace of Augsburg
➢ An agreement of Charles V with the Lutheran German Princes that allowed them to freely practice their religion
➢ Shos are Protestants are successfully challenging Church power and are able to gain political power and influence of their own
❖ 1598: Henry IV and Edict of Nantes
➢ An edict declared by Henry IV of France that gave the Huguenots rights in a Catholic country
➢ This shows how the Church cannot control the whole populations as they slowly lose their total influence, although they still have influence over the entire French country
❖ 1673: Test Act (James I)
➢ Prevented Catholics from holding public offices
➢ reflects the inability of the Church to influence the now Protestant England
❖ 1685: Revocation of Edict of Nantes
➢ Louis XIV makes it illegal to be Protestant in France
➢ Shows how the Catholic Church has a major influence over the French throne. France will remian a Catholic Cuntry until the revolution.
❖ 1690 John Locke and Second Treatise on Civil Government
➢ John Locke writes about the idea of separation of CHurch and State
MODERN ERA (1750-2014)
First Estate: The first estate in the ancien regime was the Clergy which owned 5-10% of French lands and were tax exempt. Despite their privilege, many clergymen attended the Oath of the Tennis Court. French clergyman Abbé Sieyès is the man who wrote What is the Third Estate? Because the Catholic Church opposed the French Revolution all of the Church’s lands were returned to the state and the first estate was made to take an oath of loyalty in order not to get killed during the Reign of Terror.
Concordat of 1804: signed between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII, it stopped the French from calling the revolution ‘godless’ and gave the French government the ability to elect clergy. Napoleon was able to consolidate more power through the Catholic Church when he took most of the Italian Peninsula into his empire including the Papal States.
Pope Pius IX: Pope during Italian unification and last Pope to rule the Papal States. Wrote the Syllabus of Errors which denounced modern thought (socialism, separation of church and state, rationalism, religious liberty) and spoke out against Garibaldi and Cavour’s efforts to unify Italy.
French Separation of Church and State (1905): France’s Third Republic secularized itself
Nietzsche/Logical Empiricism/Existentialism: the Church during the early 1900’s faced many challenges. Since people were dying left and right life was beginning to have very little meaning. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche coined the phrase “God is Dead”and came to the conclusion that we are all just animals that follow instincts to kill and to survive. To take it one step further, Logical Empiricism became popular and rejected not only God but morality and freedom; and from that you get existentialism, the idea that life is essentially absurd and meaningless. These ideas are exhibited in French existentialist Albert Camus’s The Plague.
Christian Revivalism: while some people were turning away from God during times of war, many people looked to religion for answers. Thinkers, poets, and authors like Gabriel Marcel, T.S. Eliot C. S. Lewis, and Karl Stern began to see Catholicism as a symbol of hope in a world of war and turmoil.
Lateran Pact (1929):Signed between the Pope and Mussolini, Mussolini would recognize the Vatican as its own sovereign nation if the Pope would recognize the Fascist Italian state.
Christian Democrats: a political party that was popularized in Europe after Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum which called for believers of Christ to be politically active, the result was a catch-all party that mixed the Catholic faith with politics. The Christian Democratic party dominated politics in European countries such as Germany, Italy, and especially Poland after WWII and was key to the expulsion of communism. Some notable members of this party are Lech Wałęsa (lek valwesa) and Helmut Kohl.
Karol Józef Wojtyła:Polish Bishop and later Pope John Paul II who was instrumental in the movement to abolish communism in Poland, although he was not an official member of the Christian Democrats he did support Solidarity.
Vatican II: made the Church relevant again. Masses were in the vernacular and religious tolerance was embraced.