Chapter 2 - Popular piety and the Church's spiritual role Flashcards
What did the Church provide?
A link between God and humans who can only reach Heaven through the membership of the Church.
How were churchwardens chosen and who were they?
From members of the congregation – they were usually respected men who were able to read and write.
Describe Advent
Church year begins, preparations begin for Christmas, time to slaughter pigs for a year’s worth of meat.
Describe Christmastide
Begins with Christmas Eve, darkest day = 21st December marks start of longer days, Christmas Day = celebrates Jesus’ birth, followed by a number of feast days, 6th Jan = end of Christmas celebration; arrival of wise men.
Describe Candlemass
3 week preparation of cleansing before Lent. Community would process, carrying candles = symbol of light. Lambs were born around this time.
Describe Shrove Tuesday
Last day before Lent, last good meal for a while, marked by a celebration of misrule or disorder (e.g. ‘Abbeys of Misrule’ featured the election of a ‘boy bishop’ who would hand out fake money and dispense false justice, appeared in many towns).
Describe Lent
Began on Ash Wednesday, 40 days before Easter, smear The Ashes (made from burning palms from the previous year) on people’s foreheads as a reminder of death, season of fasting, no meat to be eaten, no different than usual for the average poor peasant, time that coincided with declining food supplies.
Describe Holy Week
Lent culminated in this week, Christ’s final days on earth, Palm Sunday & Christ’s entry into Jerusalem (celebrated with the blessing and distribution of palms).
Maundy Thursday celebrates the Last Supper.
Good Friday, most solemn day of the year, crucifixion, people march in processions, flogging themselves or carrying the cross in commemoration of Christ’s suffering and death.
The vigil on Holy Saturday was a rich celebration, with the blessing of the huge Paschal candle (which burned continuously for 40 days).
Describe Eastertide
Most joyous of Christian holidays, starts with Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. Some of the lambs born in February were eaten in the traditional Easter feast. In a number of towns (e.g. Coventry and York), there were Mystery Plays performed in the streets. In March, farmers ploughed and sowed crops, like oats.
Describe Rogation Sunday
Major event when the whole community ‘beat the bounds’. Procession walked around the parish boundaries carrying banners and parish cross, bells were rung and prayers said to ward off evil spirits and to establish the physical property of the parish.
Describe Pentecost (Whitsunday)
Occurred 7 weeks after Easter, celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit on his followers and the beginning of the Christian Church.
Describe Ordinary Time
Following Pentecost, coincided with the ordinary business of rural life: sheep shearing, haymaking and the harvest.
Also the prime campaign season for making war.
A number of holidays of interest that occurred around this time: Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ). This was a major event in communities; in the towns all the officials would take part in the procession throughout the town.
Describe other holy days
During the summer a number occurred when people did not work and celebrations were held.
The summer activities on the land were haymaking and sheep shearing in June, the harvest in July and threshing the grain in August. After the June shearing, sheep that were no longer productive might be slaughtered for mutton. Food was often in short supply until the harvest was brought to market in July and August.
Describe All Saints’ Day and All Souls Day
Last Sunday in October = feast of Christ the King. This was followed by All Saints’ Day (All Hallows’ Day) on 1 November and All Souls Day on 2 November, when the dead were remembered. October was the time to sow the winter wheat and barley.
Who financed the building of personal chantry chapels (where a priest would be employed to say masses for the individual of family in perpetuity)?
The wealthy, though for most people this wasn’t possible.
What were guilds?
People who could afford to, joined guilds which provided a chapel and a priest for all those who contributed to the common fund; the guild would ensure that prayers were regularly said for a dead person’s soul and it also provided a funeral with a requiem mass.
Guilds and fraternities
Many of these guilds were based on crafts, but there were also fraternities which were open to both men and women.
New guilds and fraternities were regularly formed and individuals often belonged to more than one. The guilds played an active part in religious festivals; the importance of individual guilds could determine their place in the Corpus Christi procession.
What did membership of a guild mean?
Membership of a guild not only meant that prayers would be said for the dead (an insurance for the afterlife); guilds were also concerned in caring for the living. They would provide benefits to members who were in difficult financial circumstances.
Guilds also imposed a strict moral code on their members and required attendance at Guild masses and the funerals of other members.
Concept of sin in the sixteenth century
People believed they were sinners – born with original sin, and they would acquire more every time they disobeyed God’s laws
Purgatory
Catholics believed people would spend time in purgatory to be judged before going to Heaven when they died, except if they had been saintly and not committed any sins.
Indulgences
Believed time in purgatory could be reduced through earning indulgences (may involve going on a pilgrimage or praying to a saint or touching the relic of a saint).
Wealthier people would sometimes pay people to go on pilgrimages for them.
Saints
Believed that the saint would ask God to help a person on their behalf.
Prayers were made to saints by people when they were alive and by relatives on their behalf when they were dead.
What did masses of the souls of the dead do?
Masses for the souls of the dead were believed to reduce the time a person spent in purgatory.
What was the central aspiration
Reaching Heaven
What was preparation for eternal life
Time spent on earth
What did a soul going to Heaven mean
Eternity spent in paradise in the company of Christ and the souls of those who had departed earlier and reached heaven.
What is Hell
Spending eternity tormented by the devil in an inferno from which there was no escape.
What could effect the soul after death
Participation in the rituals of the Church, receiving the sacraments, doing good works and prayer would all affect the soul after death
