1.1 Prelude to the Renaissance Flashcards
What are the 7 sections of this Chapter on the Renaissance and Century of Reforms?
- Prelude to the Rennaissance (Black Death, Ockham)
- The Church and the Renaissance
- Luther and Lutheranism
- The Schism of England
- Renewal: the Council of Trent
- The Renewal of the Church after the Council
- Catholic Reform and Protestantism from the Diet of Augsburg (1555) to the Peace of Westphalia (1648)
What are the three topics of the Prelude to the Renaissance?
a) Negative Effect of Black Death on Society
b) Sad Situation of the Church in the 14th Century.
c) Decline of Scholastic Theology and Philosophy and the Rise of Heresy
What were the 5 negative effects of the Black Death on society?
- the disappearance of 1/3 of Europe’s population
- destroy the traditional relationship between lord and peasant
- extraordinary mobility. Peasants could leave their manor, seeking better land and better opportunities, and laborers could demand higher wages
- In 1351, the English aristocracy attempted to freeze wages and limit peasant mobility by passing the Statute of Laborers. In 1381 to recover their loss of revenue, the English nobility passed a head tax which resulted in the Wan Tyler rebellion
- In France during the Hundred Years War, French peasants rebelled against a tax they had to pay their lords. This rebellion, called the Jacquerie (Jacques being a common name for a French peasant), ravaged the countryside with war as peasants attacked castles and towns out of desperation
Describe 5 examples of the sad Situation of the Church in the 14th Century.
- Buying and selling of benefices & indulgences
- Public immorality in matter of illegitimate children legitimized by princes and popes
- Social cruelty (torture, burning at the stake)
- Insufficiency of religious instruction (eg., many left Mass after elevation
- Boniface VIII, Clement V and the Crisis of multiple Popes
What was the lead up to the crisis of multiple popes?
- In 1294, after a deadlocked, two-year conclave, the cardinals received a letter of rebuke from a saintly hermit, Peter di Morone as St. Celestine V.
- he abdicated after a few months (last normal abdication until BXVI)
- succeeded by Bonifave VIII, who had arranged Celestine’s election, then sent the latter to prison where he soon died.
- Boniface had most exalted notion of any pope. Issued “Unam Sanctam”asserting supreme authority in both religious and secular affairs, a novel assertion. ended up with “triple crown”: heaven, earth, purgatory
- Philip IV devout, grandson of St. Louis, pretended Celestine was still alive and pope, called for council to depose boniface and arrested papal legate.
- Boniface issued bull, Clericis Laicos, claiming laity had always been enemies of the clergy, excommunicated Philip and descendants to the 4th generation.
- Philip’s troops went, Boniface receieved the “slap of Anagni”
- Philip grew in popularity.
How did the popes end up in Avignon after the slap of Anagni and how did the Avignon popes do?
- Boniface VIII’s successor, Bl Benedict XI (1303-4) denounced Philip’s actions but didn’t punish him.
- to placate Philip, cardinals elected his friend, Frenchman Clement V (1305-14) who made his headquarters in Avignon, which the pope now purchased
- Popes remained there for most of the rest of the century. Some were good administrators and centralized the administration of the Church.
Pope John XXII (1316-34) inadvertently raised the question of infallibility by preaching “soul sleep” after death till Resurrection. He retracted and had expounded it only in a sermon.
What effect did the Avignon papacy have on the prestige of the popes?
the prestige of the papacy fell to its lowest point in over three hundred years, since, even if the Avignon popes were not dominated by the kings of France, they often appeared to be. By their abandonment of Rome, they seemed to have abandoned the claim to rule the universal Church and to have become merely competitors in international politics, unable to offer spiritual leadership but seeking only temporal security.
How did the Papacy return to Rome?
St. Bridget of Sweden (d. 1373) () persuaded the reform-minded Urban V (1362—1370) to return to Rome, but he found conditions intolerable and did not remain. Pope Gregory XI (1370—1378), partly because of rebellion in the Papal States, returned to Rome in 1377 at the request of St. Catherine of Siena (d. 1380) (), who exhorted him to do his duty.
How did the Great Western Schism happen?
At the end of the Avignon papacy, after Gregory’s death, the cardinals elected Urban VI.
Urban strongly denounced misconduct on the part of some of the cardinals, perhaps to justify his plan to appoint mainly Italians to the Sacred College. He had some cardinals tortured. The majority of the older cardinals were French, and they declared that Urban’s election had been coerced.
They elected another pope, a Swiss, who was named Clement VII, thereby beginning the Great Western Schism that would last for forty years.
Clement returned to Avignon, and the rival popes spent most of their efforts bidding for princely recognition.
In 1408, the supporters of the Avignon pope, including the king of France, abandoned him.
The Avignon cardinals then met at the Italian city of Pisa, declared both popes deposed, and elected yet another—John XXIII
that the Avignon and Pisan popes after 1378 were considered invalid by the Church is indicated by the fact that some of their names and numbers were later used by other popes, notably by John XXIII (1958—1963).
The result, however, was that there were now three Popes instead of two.
Where did Conciliarism come from and what was its lasting impact?
The conciliar movement had its origins earlier in the Middle Ages, among canonists and theologians who argued that ultimate authority in the Church lay with the general council, of which the pope was merely the agent. An evil pope, therefore, could be deposed by the cardinals who had elected him, and papal decrees could be appealed to a council. The theory gained a great deal of support during the Great Western Schism, when no pope was able to govern the Church, and it retained vitality for over a century. The issue had practical implications—some conciliarists wanted to curtail papal revenues and the right of the pope to appoint bishops—and it had implications for later democratic theory, in presuming that authority resided in the entire community and must be accepted by that community in order to be binding.
What happened at the Councils of Constance and Florence Ferrara?
SHORT: Emperor Sigismund forced John XXIII to call the Council of Constance (1414-18), where the schism ended. John resigned, Avignon pope was deposed and Gregory XII approved and abdicated and Martin V was elected. But at Basel (unauthorized, 1431, called by consiliarists, not attended by Pope Eugene so they deposed him), a new antipope was named. He had little support. So the real pope Eugene called for the Council of Florence Ferrara (1431-49) and ended schism again.
In 1413, Emperor Sigismund (1410—1437) forced the Pisan pope, John XXIII, to summon a council (Council of Constance) to resolve the crisis. John soon resigned; the Roman pope, Gregory XII (1406—1415), approved the council and abdicated; and the Avignon pope was deposed. The Council of Constance (1414–18) (***), meeting in Switzerland, which was part of the Empire, elected Pope Martin V (1417—1431), who within a few years was able to reenter Rome and regain control of the Papal States.
At his election, Martin was required to agree that a general council was to be summoned at least every five years and, if the pope failed to do so, could meet on its own authority. After his election, Martin repudiated those decrees as illegitimate interference with papal authority, but he reluctantly summoned a council to meet at Basel (Switzerland) right before he passed away. Pope Eugene IV (1431—1447) was also required to agree to conciliar demands at his election When an unauthorized council met at Basel (1431), it summoned Eugene to answer charges of misuse of office, declared him deposed for heresy when he failed to appear, and elected an antipope, the last in the long history of that phenomenon. Eugene himself then summoned a council that met at both Florence and at Ferrara (1431–1449), where he scored a triumph in seeming to obtain the submission to Rome of the representatives of Eastern Orthodoxy. The Council of Florence-Ferrara (***) also declared that papal authority was directly from God. The Basel anti-pope had little support, and the conciliar movement began a slow decline, remaining alive mainly on paper. (One of the original adherents of the Basel anti-pope, Cardinal Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, himself later became pope as Pius II [1458—1464] and condemned Conciliarism.) Conciliarism was an impractical theory, since it was difficult for anyone other than the pope to summon a council. It was not even certain who had voting rights—doctors of theology and canon law did so at Constance—and bishops were reluctant to travel to meetings that might last several years.
What effect did William of Ockham have on Christendom?
Sum: I can’t get to metaphysics from facts. The Church deals with revelation the state deals with facts, so the church should be subject to the state in this world. Wycliffe and Hus picked that up as to the Layter reformers. The enlightenment and Descartes follow.
Ockham attempted to “simplify” the excessive formalism of the Scholastic method by separating what he claimed could truly be known by reason from what must be accepted only on faith.
He concluded that God, if he is almighty, must be the only and direct reason why things are true or false.
Ockham’s “nominalism” taught that the human mind can only know individual, sensible objects such as “this textbook right here”. Universal concepts (e.g., “what it means to be a textbook in general”) are not concepts but merely general names- in Latin, nomins. Only God guarantees that knowledge of particular things consistently correspond to the nominee, which people have falsely assumed to be self-generated concepts.
From this way of thinking, it follows that moral and religious truths are inaccessible through mere human reason and can only be known through revelation. Actions can no longer be said to be good or bad by nature. Instead. it is only because God determines an action to be good or bad that it is morally right or wrong.
Religion, Ockham argued, is a mystery of faith with no room for philosophical discourse.
Ockham’s philosophy is one of the roots of the skeptical crisis in metaphysics that finally erupted in the seventeenth century with Rene Descartes.
Ockham was an early critic of Church authority and advocated the supreme authority of the state. Since the Church deals with mysteries of Faith and the state works with empirical and therefore sure facts, according to Ockham, the Church should be subordinate to the authority of the state.
As the unity of Christendom faded similar heretical ideas began to appear throughout Europe. Writers such as the Englishman John Wycliffe and the Bohemian Jan Hus began to attack the authority of the Holy See and traditional beliefs of the Catholic Church.
Tell me about John Wycliffe
England
Edward III
Church poor
Transubstantiation, Predestination, Holy Orders, confession, extreme unction, hierarchy, indulgences, sola Scriptura not tradition,
Commoners rebelled, lost support, condemned by Council of London
Wycliffe was born in Yorkshire about 1324, studied at Oxford, and entered the priesthood. He openly espoused the cause of King Edward III when the latter refused the contributions collected in England by the Holy See. His lectures and sermons against the temporal power and the temporal possessions of the Church were loudly applauded. The Church must become poor once more, he said, as she was in the time of the Apostles. He next attacked the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation and the divine institution of the hierarchy, as well as Indulgences, Auricular Confession, Extreme Unction and Holy Orders. The Bible alone, without Tradition, was the sole rule of faith. The Church was composed only of the predestined; prayer and sacraments benefited only the predestined, and sins could not harm them. No temporal or ecclesiastical superior had authority when he was in a state of mortal sin.
Here we have Calvinism a century and a half before Calvin. At first Wycliffe enjoyed the favor and protection of the English court and the parliament; but when the common people carrying the teachings of the Oxford professor to their practical conclusions, raised the standard of revolt against the wealthy landowners and refused obedience to the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, his protectors turned against him. His heretical teachings were condemned by the Council of London (1382), and he was deprived of his professorship at Oxford by royal order. He died two years later.
Tell me about Jan Hus
Bohemia-England-Wycliffe.
Translated W into Czech
University of Prague
all W’s teaching except Transubstantiation. Both species.
Summoned to Council of Constance w promise of safety but was burned at stake.
The alliance between the royal houses of England and Bohemia—Richard II of England had married Anne, the daughter of the King of Bohemia—led to an increase of intercourse between these countries. In this way Wycliffe’s ideas found entrance into Bohemia. John, surnamed Hus (from the place of his birth, Husinec) professor at the University of Prague, espoused them enthusiastically.
He translated Wycliffe’s chief work, the Trialogus, into Czech, and helped to circulate it even after the ecclesiastical authorities had condemned forty-five of Wycliffe’s propositions in 1403. He made all the errors of Wycliffe his own, except his rejection of the doctrine of Transubstantiation; he preached, however, that the Holy Eucharist must be received under both species by the faithful.
Summoned to appear before John XXIII, he sent representatives in his stead, and sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him (1411). When he continued to propagate his errors—one of his favorite sayings was that a Czech can teach nothing false—and to incite his countrymen to revolt, more vigorous action was taken by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities.
He went to the Council of Constance with a promise of safety by Emperor Sigismund, but the Council condemned him nonetheless; he was burned at the stake in 1415, his close lay associate Jerome of Prague following shortly thereafter.
Overall, what’s the main takeways from the 14th century Church?
The tragedies of the fourteenth century make a powerful case for the need of an authentic papacy as an indispensable means of unity and spiritual and moral health in the Church. Without the supernatural leadership of the Pope, the people of God become like sheep without a shepherd. A firmly established papacy devoid of temporal concerns would likely have affected a different outcome of this sad chapter in the Church’s history.
The ultimate consequence to this papal crisis was the defection of millions to the Protestant cause in the sixteenth century. Still, as the fourteenth century-along with the Middle Ages-ended, the fifteenth century ushered a new era into the Western world. The Church and Europe were in the midst of great transition with the emergence of new ideas, the growth of powerful new nation-states and the discovery of a new world. It was an explosive time of great intellectual, scientific. and artistic achievement. The new learning and intellectual framework confronted the Church with new challenges, but it also opened the door for wonderful, much needed growth. It was the time of the Renaissance.
