Reference
- CATHOLIC ChurchIt is difficult for us to grasp in modern times with the ecclesiastical chaos of rival creeds, but for more than a millennium following the alleged death of jesus christ, there was only one Christian church on Earth. Purportedly organized by the 11 loyal apostles, with Peter generally identified as the first pope, the new sect expanded from its Middle Eastern roots by word of mouth. Church leaders spent their first 500 years debating and revising doctrines, ratifying some “holy” texts while discarding others, translating pagan festivals into Christian “holy days” for the sake of acceptance by Rome's emperors. That empire's collapse provided church leaders with their first great opportunity for seizing power, as frightened and disoriented people sought solace from their faith. Before the church could rule, however, it had to destroy its opponents–and that task would consume the next 1,300 years.
First came a purge of all “ungodly” knowledge that conflicted with the church's narrow and selfserving tenets. In 391 Christians burned the great library at Alexandria, destroying an estimated 700,000 scrolls. “Dark Ages” descended on Europe as similar actions followed wherever the pope held sway. Even Greek and Roman medical texts were declared “heretical,” leaving humanity vulnerable to a plague that killed an estimated 100 million persons in the sixth century. (The 12th-century Black Death, by contrast, killed about 27 million.) Under church leadership from the sixth to the 16th centuries, “medicine” was largely restricted to prayer and bleeding, a combination that virtually guaranteed death from any significant illness. Still, the plague was good news for church leaders as terrified peasants flocked to find relief from “God's judgment.” As its influence expanded, so the church accumulated ever-growing wealth–by sale of ecclesiastical offices or priestly “indulgences” (free passes for sin), sometimes by brute seizure of coveted lands and property from “heretics.” As papal power increased, so the occupation of pope became increasingly hazardous. Indeed, the rapid turnover in popes–10 between 891 and 903 alone–sparked rumors of assassination within the Vatican itself...
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Credo Reference is an easy-to-use tool for starting research. Gather background information on your topic from hundreds of full-text encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, and subject-specific titles, as well as 500,000+ images and audio files and over 1,000 videos.
Primary Sources
- Digital ScriptoriumA growing image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.
Roman Catholic Church: City of God
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View the entire series on Films on Demand!
As the Roman Empire begins to disintegrate, Bishop Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) develops the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God. His book of the same name becomes the foundation of medieval thought.
Catholicism, The Unpredictable Rise of Rome
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Diarmaid MacCulloch discusses the beginnings of Catholicism, the rise of the Catholic Church in Rome and the Papacy.
Orthodoxy, From Empire to Empire
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowDiarmaid MacCulloch discusses the rise of the Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople and the rise of the , Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow
Perspectives
The Western Church in the Middle Ages
From its origins in the ancient world as a rival to traditional paganism, Christianity has become one of the great world religions. How the Church took over spiritual control of Western Europe to become the foundation of medieval life, setting the moral agenda of society and dominating itsintellectual world, is the guiding enquiry at the heart of this book. Covering the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Reformation, the account is structured in three chronological blocks, starting with the gradual development of unity within the Western Church up to the eleventhcentury, followed by the period of centralisation between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries, and concluding with the break-up of this centralisation in the later Middle Ages. Organisational developments and changes in spirituality and doctrine are examined, and the history of the papacy issituated in the wider context of changes in both ecclesiastical and lay society. Intellectual developments and the rise of h
The Medieval Church
Why does one's concept of the medieval church have a direct bearing on one's attitude toward ecumenism? How was Europe evangelized? Why is it essential to understand the different relationships of church-to-state between the West and Byzantium in order to understand the church's role in Eastern culture today? What common practices of public worship and personal piety have their roots in the medieval church? The Medieval Church: From the Dawn of the Middle Ages to the Eve of the Reformation addresses these questions and many more to demonstrate the pervasive influence of the past on modern piety, practice, and beliefs. For many years the Medieval period of church history has been ignored or denigrated as being the "dark ages," an attitude fostered by Enlightenment assumptions. Yet not only does this millennium provide a bridge to the early church, it created modern Europe and its nations, institutions, and the concept of Christendom as well. The Medieval Church, written in an easily accessible style, introduces the reader to the fascinating interplay of authority and dissent, the birth and development of doctrinal beliefs, the spirituality of the common person, and the enduring allure of Christian mysticism. The Medieval Church is a companion to The Early Church: Origins to the Dawn of the Middle Ages by E. Glenn Hinson and The Modern Church: From the Dawn of the Reformation to the Eve of the Third Millennium by Glenn Miller.
Miracles and Pilgrims
The records of 'miracles' in the Middle Ages are among the most valuable and unexploited documents of medieval popular Christianity. Now available for the first time in paperback, Ronald Finucane's highly praised historical detective-work, based on over 3000 posthumous miracles (the wonders attributed to saints after their deaths), pieces together a fascinating account of the extent to which the world of pilgrims, miracles and faith-healing exerted its hold over the medieval imagination. Miracle-working at saints' shrines usually concerned curative healing. The book is rich in stories of crippled limbs crackling as they straightened during a miracle, 'possessed' people on the rampage, the screams and groans preceding the moment when blind people could see again. Above all, Ronald Finucane makes important new connections between the medical knowledge of the Middle Ages and the incidence of miracles; for the conditions of medieval life unquestionably reinforced the popular beliefs in wonder-working saints. The events at the curative shrines provide a rare glimpse of the behavior of medieval people at centres of popular religion and an indication of what sorts of people were involved, and why and how they made their journeys.
Holy Men and Women: Monasticism and Saints
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowGain new insights into the key church fathers of Christianity's first centuries: whose actions, ideas, and writings irrevocably shaped the faith: as well as the influential religious movements that emerged at this time, including monasticism and the cult of sainthood.
Online Resources
- Baptismal Theology and Practices and the Spiritual Nurture of Children Part I: Early and Medieval ChurchBaptismal theology and practices have always had a major influence on the educational efforts of the church, either setting expectations for those who are to be baptized or establishing requirements of instruction for children following their baptism. This article addresses the changes in baptismal theology and practice during the early and medieval church eras and their influence on the educational ministries of the church, particularly with children. A second article reviews changes from the Reformation to the present and provides a case study of how Horace Bushnell's views of the spiritual nurture of children are grounded in his theology of baptism.
- Charnel practices in medieval England: new perspectivesStudies of English medieval funerary practice have paid limited attention to the curation of human remains in charnel houses. Yet analysis of architectural, archaeological and documentary evidence, including antiquarian accounts, suggests that charnelling was more widespread in medieval England than has hitherto been appreciated, with many charnel houses dismantled at the sixteenth-century Reformation. The survival of a charnel house and its human remains at Rothwell, Northamptonshire permits a unique opportunity to analyse charnel practice at a medieval parish church. Employing architectural, geophysical and osteological analysis, we present a new contextualisation of medieval charnelling. We argue that the charnel house at Rothwell, a subterranean room constructed during the thirteenth century, may have been a particularly sophisticated example of an experiment born out of beliefs surrounding Purgatory. Our approach enables re-evaluation of the surviving evidence for charnel practice in England and enhances wider narratives of medieval charnelling across Europe.
- Medical Magic and the Church in Thirteenth- Century England: Medieval Medicine: Theory and PracticeThis paper examines the discussions of ‘magical’ cures found in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century English pastoral manuals (texts designed to teach the clergy how to preach and hear confessions). It discusses these writers' attitudes to spoken and written charms and non-verbal amulets, and compares them with a selection of charms and amulets found in contemporary medical texts. The paper discusses the reasons why authors of pastoral manuals condemned certain kinds of cure as ‘magical’, and argues that they were more concerned about cures that involved words than about non-verbal amulets. It also argues that a significant number, although not all, of the charms described in thirteenth-century medical texts would have been acceptable to many authors of pastoral manuals.