Medieval Church is a way of referring to the Catholic Church during the period of the Middle Ages. During this period, the Catholic Church was one of the most important institutions, accumulating great power spiritual, political and economic, in addition to playing a great role in morals, education, health and assistance Social.
One of the most striking aspects of the Medieval Church is the role of the Court of the Holy Office (or Court of the Holy Inquisition), which judged and punished people who practiced heresy. From the 14th century onwards, the authority of the Catholic Church began to be questioned, and, in the 16th century, Catholic hegemony ended in Europe, when new Churches emerged.
Read too: Vatican — the country that currently houses the headquarters of the Catholic Church and which has the pope as its highest authority
Summary about Medieval Church
Medieval Church is a way of referring to the Catholic Church during the period of the Middle Ages.
The Catholic Church was the only one authorized to interpret the
Bible in the Middle Ages, in this way it had great control over the society of the period.During the Middle Ages great wealth was accumulated by the Medieval Church, being richer than many kingdoms.
The Medieval Church played an important role in morals, education, health and social assistance.
In addition to the roles it had in society, the Medieval Church exercised great spiritual, economic and political power. An example of this is the Crusades.
In the 11th century, the Pope called on European Christians to wage war against Muslims for control of the Holy Land. Several kingdoms participated in the Crusades.
One of the main aspects related to the Medieval Church is the Court of the Holy Office, known also as the Court of the Inquisition, an institution that judged and punished people who committed heresies.
During the Middle Ages, burning at the stake was the most common way to carry out the death penalty.
There were several consequences of the Medieval Church, such as the strengthening of the Catholic Church, which is one of the most powerful in the world today, and the large number of deaths in the Crusades and executions carried out by the Court of the Holy Inquisition.
Historical context of the Medieval Church
The fall of the Western Roman Empire occurred on September 4, 476 AD. W. and this marks the end of the Ancient Age and the beginning of the Middle Ages. There was, in fact, a long process, marked by the migration of several Germanic peoples to regions of the Empire Roman, modifying the economic, social and cultural structures of Western Europe and initiating the Age Average.
It is in the period of transition from Antiquity to the medieval period that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was organized and began to play an important political role.. In the Kingdom of the Franks, after the conversion of Clovis, the Church began to have a strong relationship with the State, and part of the high clergy was chosen by the monarch.
The medieval period is marked by feudalism, mode of economic production in which serfs owed a series of taxes, fees and obligations to their masters. Another class of the medieval period was the nobility, made up of the royal family and other nobles, such as barons, marquises, counts, among others. The clergy, made up of members of the Catholic Church, was another class of medieval society, having great spiritual, political and economic power in the period.
What was the Medieval Church?
Medieval Church This is how the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church became known in the medieval period. Christianity, which had the Catholic Church as its face at this time, was the only religion allowed in Western Europe during this period.
The Church considers that Peter, an apostle of Christ, would have been the first pope of the institution. But the hierarchy of the Catholic Church began to be defined in the 4th century, after Constantine converted to Christianity and after the promulgation of the Edict of Thessalonica, through which the Catholic Church became the official Church of the Roman Empire, an edict signed by Emperor Theodosius, in the year 380.
During the Middle Ages, members of the Catholic Church could be classified into members of the high clergy and the lower clergy.. Members of the high clergy came from noble families and held positions such as pope, cardinal and bishop. These generally lived in palaces, castles or the Vatican, far from the people. The members of the lower clergy came from poor families and were priests or deacons, who lived in parishes, close to the people.
There were also members of the regular clergy and members of the secular clergy.. Members of the regular clergy were part of some religious order, such as the Carmelites, Dominicans, Benedictines, Franciscans, among others, and lived in monasteries, where in addition to religious activity they generally developed one or more economic activities. Members of the secular clergy lived among the population and were called secular because they lived in common society. Members of the secular clergy responded directly to the Vatican, not responding to any religious order.
Important:Although the Vatican State was only created in 1929, with the Lateran Treaty, since the 4th century there was a basilica dedicated to Saint Peter on the Vatican Hill. The ancient St. Peter's Basilica was built in the 4th century by order of the Roman Emperor Constantine on the site where it stood. believes that the martyrdom and burial of Saint Peter, the apostle of Christ considered the first pope of the Church, occurred Catholic. In the 5th century, the first palace was built on site to house the pope and other members of the high hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The current St. Peter's Basilica was built by order of Pope Julius II during the Renaissance.
→ Architecture of medieval cathedrals
In the Middle Ages, two main styles were used in the construction of Catholic cathedrals in Europe, the Romanesque style and the Gothic style. Learn a little about these styles below:
Romanesque architecture: It received its name due to the strong presence of architectural elements from the ancient Roman era, such as the rounded arch and low ceiling height (distance from the floor to the ceiling). This architectural style generally had a rectangle-shaped floor plan, thick walls and low internal light.
Gothic architecture: It received its name due to the influence of the Goths, a barbarian people who migrated to Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. The main characteristics of this style are the ogee-shaped arches, one or more rose windows on the facade, high ceilings, presence of stained glass windows that illuminate the interior and floor plan generally shaped of cross.
What was the role of the Medieval Church?
Religiosity was very strong in the Middle Ages, and Christianity, through the Catholic Church, was the only religion existing in Western Europe. This meant that the Medieval Church played important roles. In that regard, the main role that the Medieval Church had was a moral role, being the mediator between the divine and human beings. All daily life in the medieval world revolved around the Church, from a person's birth, when they were baptized, until their birth. his death, when he received extreme unction, and, depending on his means, masses could be held in memory of the deceased.
The Medieval Church also had an important role in education. It maintained several educational institutions during the Middle Ages, and many of the teachers of the period were members of the clergy. Its universities and monasteries possessed most of the books from the Greco-Roman period.
Furthermore, the Medieval Church had a large role in health and social assistance, having several orphanages, asylums, leprosariums and several other institutions that carried out charity, in addition to maintaining most of the period's hospitals and universities, where research was carried out.
Power of the Medieval Church
The greatest power of the Medieval Church was the spiritual, most of the people of the period feared the torments of hell more than the torments of life or even death itself. The Catholic Church was considered the only one that could interpret the Bible, being considered, in this way, the representative of God on Earth. Even kings submitted to the authority of the pope and the Church.
Another great power of the Medieval Church was economic. The Catholic Church was responsible for collecting and administering the tithe, a tax that corresponded to 10% of the income of people and institutions. In several places in Europe, the kingdom itself paid tithe to the church. The Catholic Church also owned many lands and properties, such as castles and citadels. These were donated to the Church, left as an inheritance in a will or acquired through purchase.
The Medieval Church also had great political power, many times larger than that of the kings of the period. On November 27, 1095, for example, Pope Urban II called on Christians to begin a crusade against Muslims with the aim of taking the Holy Land. The call of the Catholic Church initiated a period of two centuries of wars against Muslims known as the Crusades. Several kingdoms in Europe participated in the Crusades, as did thousands of people who sought forgiveness for their sins by fighting for Jerusalem. This fact shows the power and influence of the pope and the Catholic Church in the period.
Heresies and the Inquisition in the Medieval Church
The word inquisition derives from the ancient Latin word “inquisitio”, which was the name given to trials at the time of the Roman Empire. Before the 13th century, the Catholic Church punished heretics with penances, fines, loss of possessions and very rarely with executions.. Any practice that questioned or went against the doctrine of the Catholic Church was considered heresy.
In turn, O Court of the Holy Office (or Court of the Holy Inquisition) was formally created by the Catholic Church in 1233, by Pope Gregory IX, and its objective was to judge and punish people who practiced heresy. During the period of existence of the Court of the Holy Office, several groups were persecuted because they were considered heretics, such as Jews, Muslims, Cathars, Waldensians, among others.
Inquisition trials in the Middle Ages were marked by violence, with the defendant suffering various tortures for approximately 15 minutes. In ecclesiastical courts, bloodshed during the trial was not permitted. When the heretic was sentenced to death, burning was the most common way of carrying out the sentence.
Behind the trials there were also economic interests. Often the penalty imposed on the defendant was loss of their possessions, which automatically passed to the Church Catholic. At other times he acted politically, such as the persecution of the Waldensians who were considered a threat to the authority of the Church for not recognizing the pope.
Also access: What practices were considered heresy by the Medieval Church?
Consequences of the Medieval Church
The first great consequence of the Medieval Church was its great strengthening. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church became the most powerful institution in the world, having great political and economic power. Even though it lost its monopoly after the Protestant Reformation, during the modern period, the Catholic Church continued to be one of the largest and richest institutions in the world, maintaining this status to this day.
Encouraged by the Medieval Church, the Crusades left major consequences for Europe. As in almost all conflicts, the death toll in the Crusades varies, but is in the millions. Another consequence of the Crusades was the weakening of feudal lords and the strengthening of the bourgeoisie and royal power. Trade between East and West flourished after the Crusades, as did cultural exchange between Arabs and Europeans.
The executions carried out by the Court of the Holy Inquisition are also one of the consequences of the Medieval Church. The number of those executed by the Court of the Holy Inquisition also varies greatly, but most historians point to between 30,000 and 300,000, with some of them speaking of millions. It is worth remembering that during the period of the Inquisition there were other non-ecclesiastical courts that also tried people considered heretics. In 2000, Pope John Paul II recognized the crimes committed by the Catholic Church during the period of the Court of the Holy Inquisition, asking for forgiveness in the name of the Church.
End of the hegemony of the Medieval Church
The authority of the Medieval Church began to be questioned in the 14th century, still in the Middle Ages.. This is because the 14th century was a century marked by a serious economic and political crisis and by the Black Death, which killed a third of Europeans. But it was at the beginning of the 16th century, already in the Modern Age, when Martin Luther published his 95 theses, that the hegemony of the Catholic Church began to collapse. Luther began theProtestant Reformation, a phenomenon that has spread to several countries, such as Germany, Holland, England, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and several others.
In response to the reform, the Catholic Church made its own reform, the Counter-Reformation, modifying their cults, strengthening the Court of the Holy Office and creating the Society of Jesus. The latter's main objective was to bring Catholicism to newly discovered regions, such as America, Africa and Asia.
Important:Despite the Protestant Reformation and numerous criticisms, the Catholic Church remains one of the main Churches in the world. Currently around 1 billion people are Catholic across the planet. Even today, the Catholic Church is one of the richest institutions in the world, being one of the largest land owners.
Sources
GOFF, Jaques Le. The God of the Middle Ages. Editora Record, São Paulo, 2006.
GOFF, Jaques Le. In search of the Middle Ages. Editora Civilização Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro, 2016.
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/igreja-medieval.htm