UNIT 7 RELIGION AND CULTURE IN

MEDIEVAL EUROPE*
Structure
7.0 Objectives
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Christianity and the Christianization of Europe
7.3 Christians’ Relations with Non-Christians
7.4 The Clergy, Moral Instruction and Formal Education
7.5 Criticism of the Clergy and Social Teachings of the Medieval Church
7.6 Summary
7.7 Keywords
7.8 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
7.9 Suggested Readings
7.10 Instructional Video Recommendations

7.0 OBJECTIVES
A previous Unit (Unit 3, BHIC-104) on religion in the Roman empire showed how
Christianity at the close of antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages, was part of
the state power structure. Christian churches, monasteries and church-administered
establishments amassed land and controlled large numbers of labourers on the church
estates across the former Roman realm. In addition to grants of land, churchmen received
donations of wealth from royal coffers, from the nobility and from other members of
society. This was only one aspect of the complex process of Christianization of European
societies. As we shall see, the general social and cultural pattern of medieval Europe
became Christian, even for the minority populations of Europe that were not Christian.
Culture means a society’s values, shared beliefs and traditions, as well as specific arts,
languages, and so forth. An account of medieval European culture should therefore
examine the whole pattern of medieval life and the ways that Christianity aided social
integration and made possible the distinctive feudal structure of social control. Although
Europe was never a single political unit during the medieval period and was an assemblage
of societies, it is possible to make useful generalizations about religion in relation to
‘European society’ and ‘European culture’. After going through this Unit, you should
be able to:
z understand Christianization as a socio-cultural process in medieval Europe,
z comprehend relations between ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ religious identity groups
in parts of Europe,
z perceive the role of the clergy in Christian Europe before c. 1500, especially in
knowledge formation, education and social care functions, and

* Prof. Denys P. Leighton, School of Liberal Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi 141
Religion,
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Economy and z list some of the reasons for cooperation and conflict between clergy and common
Alternative State Formations people over medieval social life and institutions.

7.1 INTRODUCTION
By the eleventh century CE ‘Europe’ was synonymous with ‘Christendom’, the
realm of Christianity, despite the rootedness of Christian worship practices in several
parts of Asia and Africa. At that point in time Christendom was a conception more
familiar to most people of medieval Europe than the concept of Europe itself (Where,
after all did the borders of ‘Europe’ begin and end?).The identification of Europe
with Christendom became even closer over the 12th and 13th centuries, when
successive popes authorized Crusades.

Crusades were military expeditions under ‘the sign of Christ’s cross’ that were carried
against infidels and heretics in the ‘Holy Lands’ (Jerusalem and surrounding places)
as well as within Europe. Crusades were aggressive attempts of European nobles to
increase their power and wealth under the guise of religious duty, but it was with the
Pope’s authorization that these ferocious campaigns were launched (For more
information on Crusades, refer to Instructional Video Recommendations).

The domain of the Pope, the Papacy, expanded outward from Rome during the
Middle Ages as a vast empire of properties and territorial-legal jurisdictions. Civil
rule in Europe depended for its legitimacy on the Christian churches and Papal
consent. At the same time, popes and their subordinates were dependent on royal
support and favour. The Christian New Testament stated (in Luke 22:38) that
temporal authority (in social and political relations) and spiritual authority are
represented by two swords and both swords are held by the prince or emperor.
Breaches between civil leaders and the sanctioning Christian authorities were serious
political crises wherever they occurred in medieval Europe. Christian theologians
and lawyers developed theories of holy war and debated circumstances justifying
violence, whether against non-Christians or fellow Christians.

Christianization of society was more than a process of people coming to worship

the Christian deity (in the three-fold form of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit) in similar ways. Christianity determined social values and norms of a diversity
of peoples distributed over many hundreds of separate states and territories in
Europe. When we observe today magnificent medieval church architecture and
appreciate the murals, paintings and statues of religious subjects that adorned
European palaces as well as churches, it is tempting to conclude that European
culture exemplified the devotion to Christ and the saints that the Church taught as
the duty of every Christian. Much of the art of medieval Europe was in the churches,
and the churches were open to the common people.

Historian Henry Adams (1838-1918) in The Education of Henry Adams (Chapter

25: ‘The Dynamo and the Virgin’) compared medieval Europeans’ veneration of
the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, to modern peoples’ obsession with
technology (for example, the dynamo, used to generate electricity), scientific progress
and economic production. Adams wanted to show that medieval European men
and women were convinced of the power of the Virgin Mary and did not dispute
the importance of the rituals, cathedrals and other trappings of the Church – just as
modern people are convinced of the importance and ultimate meaning of technology
and economic accomplishment. However, many other scholars have challenged
the impression that medieval Europeans were more religious and more Christian
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than their Roman predecessors or than their successors after 1600 CE. The next Religion and Culture
sections of this Unit shall show how Christianity influenced medieval European in Medieval Europe
social interactions, and how Christian ideas and values as well as anxieties about
Christian practices were expressed in European culture and society. The Unit will
also show how relations between Christians and other religious communities played
out in the sphere of culture.

7.2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHRISTIANIZATION

OF EUROPE
Christianity, whether Roman Catholicism or the Orthodox Christianity upheld by
the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire (and represented by a Patriarch),was by
the eighth century CE the official religion of most territories of southern, western
and central Europe. Soon after that it spread into parts of Russia and Ukraine, and
much of south-eastern Europe that was inhabited by Greek-speaking and Slavic
people and was by then already home to Orthodox Christianity. Relations between
Catholic and Orthodox branches of Christianity had deteriorated for several centuries
before ending in a ‘Great Schism’ (split) in the late eleventh century CE. Christian
missionaries of the early medieval period worked to spread their faith among the
people as emissaries of the Pope (or the Orthodox Patriarch), or of the bishops
theoretically subordinate to the Pope (or the Patriarch).

Conversion would not have progressed across medieval Europe without the support
of the civil rulers. It was usually a political leader’s acceptance of Christianity that
led to the conversion of the whole population. Legends around missionaries such
as Patrick in Ireland (St. Patrick, ‘the Apostle of the Irish’) and Beuno in Wales
and Bri ttany, as w el l as hi stori cal records l i ke the Ecclesiastical History of the
English People by the monk Venerable Bede (c. 672-735 CE), are filled with
stories about missionaries’ intense conviction, their patience in adversity and the
miraculous events surrounding their lives. Many of the early Christian saints were
missionaries who experienced martyrdom at the hands of infidels. These kinds of
legends and documents reveal something about persuasion and perceptions of
advantage in adopting Christianity. In the mid-ninth century CE, Boris, khan of the
Bulgars, received Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic missionaries but ultimately
chose to align his state with Orthodox Christianity. Vladimir ‘the Great’, Slavic
prince of Novgorod and eventually grand prince of Kiev in the late tenth century
CE, allied with the Byzantine empire by marrying a daughter of the Byzantine
emperor, and he accepted Orthodox Christianity in the bargain. Vladimir’s political
alliance with the Byzantines thus began the Christianization of Russia, after several
less successful missionary drives.

Christianization was a gradual process of transformation of society and culture and

it continued long after the nominal conversion of a population to the Christian faith.
When Christian proselytizers had the support of a ruler, Christianization carried
with it the spoken or unspoken threat of violence to those who resisted conversion
or who continued their pagan ways. Christian authorities were not content with the
mere co-existence of their faith with non-Christian practice; they sought to establish
the societas fidei (Latin: society of one faith). This meant complete dominance of
Christianity over the people and condemnation of other faiths. The legal-political
systems of the European lands upheld the Christian teachings and values, sometimes
very harshly and deliberately against pagan or ‘infidel’ practices. Marriages among
143
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Economy and rich as well as among poor Europeans were solemnized by priests. A marriage not
Alternative State Formations recognized by the Church would cause problems in matters of control of property
and inheritance of social and political status.

Christianization cannot be understood simply as a result of the already existing

power of the Church. It happened because it fulfilled or at least promised to serve
social needs of the various populations of Europe. The Church provided not only
sacraments by which infants, children and adults were blessed or ‘absolved’ of sin
but rituals to protect crops and herds from harm, and to thank God for the recovery
of people from illness. That so many written prayers of thanks for the recovery or
rescue of kings survive from medieval Europe indicates something about the inter-
dependence of Church and royalty. People not only attended masses (ceremonies)
in church and received sacraments from the clergy; they also worshipped at the
shrines of saints and called upon saints for protection and assistance.

The most important saint for all Christians was Mary, mother of Christ, but people
in all of Europe’s Christian regions came to recognize several dozen saints. Saints
were associated with protection from specific illnesses and misfortunes, or they
were recognized as sponsors or patrons of certain professions (or of towns or
countries). For example, St. Hubert was the patron of hunters, St. Christopher
was the protector of travellers, and St. Nicholas became Russia’s (national) patron
saint1. Pilgrimages to graves of saints or other holy sites became an established
practice of Christians at all levels of society. Tales (‘lives’) of the saints became
the most widely known form of literature in early medieval Europe, probably more
familiar to most people before the 15th and 16th centuries than the Bible itself. The
general level of European literacy was low, and the Bible was more often read out
by clergy in church services than read by people as a book, while saints’ tales
circulated not only in written form but as oral legends.

Figure 7.1: Jan Hus and the Council of Constance

Credit: Karl Friedrich Lessing (1808-1880); Stadel Museum
Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Hus_%28Lessing_1842%29.jpg

1
Nicholas also became the patron saint of children, and in the late Middle Ages he was associated
144 with secret gifts to children on St. Nicholas Day, in December.
 Religion
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Figure 7.2: Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont

Credit: Jean Colombe, Bibliotheque nationale de France
Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Clermont#/media/
File:Passages_d’outremer_Fr5594,_fol._19r,_Concile_de_Clermont.jpg

To discipline those people who fell into ‘error’, the medieval Church had several means
at its disposal, including religious courts, tribunals, commissions and acts of prohibition
(for instance, preventing scholars from teaching or writing). Councils of principal clergy
occurred from time to time since the earliest Christian centuries to handle widespread
disagreement among the Christian authorities themselves. A great council at Constance2
occurred in the early fifteenth century following decades of disruption when there were
competing popes at Rome and Avignon. Religious dissenters or deviants and indeed
anyone who opposed the Church’s teachings or pronouncements could be punished or
executed, with the ultimate penalty being excommunication. By being placed outside
(‘ex’) the community of true Christians, and denied the sacraments, excommunicated
persons faced the threat of eternal damnation (their souls would not go to heaven). St.
Peter, the first bishop of Rome, was represented in Christian iconography – religious
art and symbolism – as holding the keys to the gate of heaven. The threat of
excommunication persuaded the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV to defer to Pope
Gregory VII during the 11th century ‘Investiture Controversy’ over the question of
whether kings or instead the Pope should appoint bishops.
Through heresy trials – inquiries about renunciation or contradiction of approved Church
teachings – the Church’s place in the social order was reaffirmed, whether or not the
accused were condemned as heretics. The aforementioned Crusades complicated
2
The Council of Constance was held between1414 and 1418 in the Bishopric of Constance. The
main purpose of the Council was to end the Papal schism. It was attended by 29 cardinals, 100
‘learned doctors of law and divinity’, 134 abbots, and 183 bishops and archbishops. It facilitated
the execution of Jan Hus (a Czech theologian, philosopher, master, dean and rector of the
Charles University of Prague who became a Church reformer). 145
Religion,
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Economy and relations between Christians and Muslims for many
Alternative State Formations centuries after the first of these violent campaigns was
launched in 1095 CE by Pope Urban II. Yet Crusades
were not narrowly anti-Islamic activities; they were
directed too against pagans within Europe (such as
the ‘Northern Crusade’ in the region around the Baltic
Sea) and to eliminate Christian sects, such as the
Cathars and the Waldensians in southwestern Europe,
that the Papacy had deemed heretical. Jan Hus (1369-
1415), a theologian and university professor and rector
in Prague, was tried and executed for heresy, and
several crusades were then launched in Bohemia
(central Europe) until 1436 to subdue the Hussites.
Medieval Europeans dreaded censure of the clergy.
The reason was that they actually believed that the
Pope could bind or loose the gates of heaven. Another
reason could be because they feared loss of recognition
in society that occurred with the religious authorities’
disapproval. It is difficult to conclude which of these
Figure 7.3: Saint Walpurga
created more fear. What is more certain is that the Credit: Master of Messkirch
Church held power to influence individuals’ reputations (1500-1543); Philadelphia
among their fellow men and women — as people Museum of Art
worthy of respect or, in contrast, people to be avoided Source:https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
or ignored.
File:Heilige_Walburga.jpg
While the region recognized today as Europe became Christian, Christian culture mixed
with and often built upon pagan and non-Christian practices. Unit 3 has shown how
Jewish, Greek and Eastern ideas and practices helped form Roman and Orthodox
Christianity. Pagan, ‘barbarian’ influences on the formation of ‘Christian’ Europe are
much evident. One of the use of fir trees and branches in the celebration of Christmas
in Germanic and northern Europe, is an adoption of a pagan tradition of decorating
their homes with the branches of this tree. It was a medieval practice that has spread to
Christian communities world-wide in modern times. Some pagan holy men and women,
or even deities, were still recognized in popular faith practice across Europe and were
occasionally re-named as Christian saints. Some Christian saints became associated
with particular qualities or ‘powers’ of banned pagan deities or holy people. For example,
Walburga or Walpurga, who was born in England in the eighth century CE and went
missionizing in what is now Germany, may be have been recognized as a Christian saint
as a surrogate for the Grain Mother (a Germanic goddess, analogous to the Roman
goddess Ceres). The earliest illustrations and statues of St. Walpurga show her holding
stalks of grain, and this among other evidence indicates that German peasants came to
regard her as the special saint for flourishing and ripening of grain.
By creating saints in ways that gave them connections to local values (and pagan
practices), the Church was able to acquire tighter grip over the population it was
Christianizing. Another strategy was to revise pagan festivals and incorporate them into
the calendar of Christian holidays and ritual observances. When Christian authorities
created a holiday – for example, a saint’s day – to coincide with a pagan festival, they
imagined that the counter-attraction would result in the pagan practices being ignored
and eventually forgotten, and this is in fact what often happened. In the medieval
popular imagination, the cults of saints filled in for the holy men and women who had
146
been important in pagan Europe. Moreover, while it was the Church that created saints Religion
Roman
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Culture
through formal processes (called beatification and canonization), this was done to some in Medieval
Political System
Europe
extent in response to popular habits of piety and veneration. Lay people as much as
clergy had power in establishing and preserving the cults of saints. It is significant that,
as late as the 16th century, Frederick III (‘The Wise’), Duke and Elector of Saxony (in
Germany), had a reliquary – a private museum – containing about 19,000 relics (holy
objects) associated with Christian saints. Canterbury in England hosted several shrines
of saints and Santiago de Compostela in Iberia was a centre of veneration of St. James,
the first of Christ’s apostles to be martyred. These were among the popular pilgrimage
sites of medieval Europe and even relatively poor people visited them to acquire holiness.

Figure 7.4: Canterbury Cathedral Figure 7.5: Santiago de Compostela

Credit: Hans Musil Cathedral
Source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Credit: stephenD
File:Canterbury_Cathedral_- Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
_Portal_Nave_Cross-spire.jpeg Santiago_de_Compostela_Cathedral#/
media/
File:Catedral_de_Santiago_de_Compostela_
agosto_2018_(cropped).jpg

Christianity was consolidated throughout Europe between c. 600 and 1000 CE as

tribal societies in several regions coalesced in wider kingdoms. Pagan masculine ideals,
including the pre-Christian Roman gender models, glorified the politically active men.
In contrast, early Christian teachings promoted the contemplative (thoughtful) and ascetic
(frugal and unsensual) life. Withdrawal from the affairs of a sinful world was a powerful
ideal in the world of late antiquity, as can be seen from the historical evidence of religious
hermits and mendicants (women as well as men). Masculinity in European pagan
societies was highly sociable and martial. Men were expected to participate in assemblies
and contests called by their chieftains or kings; they had to be skilled in weaponry and
to demonstrate their courage in battle. We find evidence of conflict between Christian
and pagan values in several parts of early Christian Europe. For example, feudal lords
in 7th-8th century France criticized bishops, priest and monks as effeminate, weak and
devious. Clerical celibacy and the belief that people could remain spiritually pure by
being unmarried and unhampered by familial obligations were contrary to ideals of
masculinity and femininity in most pre-Christian European societies.
This clash of values aside, Christianity did a great deal to shape feudal relationships
across Europe. Loyalty of the feudal vassal (who held land) to his lord (who granted
the land) was the keystone value of feudal relations, and Christianity helped make this
an iron-clad and reciprocal duty. The code of chivalry3 that regulated life in the noble

3
The Code of Chivalry or Chivalric Code is an informal code of conduct that was developed
between 1170 and 1220 but was never expressed in a single document. It arose in medieval
Europe with its roots in the idealization of cavalryman of the Roman Empire. 147
Religion,
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Economy and courts throughout much of Europe from the eleventh century CE demanded fidelity to
Alternative State Formations the ‘true faith’, mercy and charity towards the less powerful members of society, a
strict sense of honour in personal relations and generally upholding ‘good’ as defined
by Christian authorities. Churchmen in medieval Europe congratulated themselves for
taming Europe’s barbarian chieftains and their farmer-warrior followers, bringing, they
said, Godly order and Christian peace as well as a stable system of agrarian relations.
It must also be recognized that the Christian establishment provided care for the poor
and the sick through hospitals, alms-houses (living places for the physically disabled
poor and aged people without relatives) and through other forms of charity — charity
being one of the core Christian duties exercised by clergy and common people alike.

7.3 CHRISTIANS’ RELATIONS WITH NON-

CHRISTIANS
Exceptions to the pattern of dominance by the Church before the late Middle Ages
were north-eastern Europe (parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic region) and Iberia
(Spain and Portugal). Until about 1100 CE Christianity had only a very weak hold
in Scandinavia and Baltic Europe, where German and Polish Christian knights waged
the ‘Northern Crusade’4 for about a century. The more significant example of resistance
to Christianization – perhaps better described as a different pattern of Christianization
– was Iberia until 1492, where several states were ruled for many centuries by
Muslim kings and emirs subordinate to the Umayyad, Abbasid, Almoravid and
Almohad caliphates based in Damascus, Baghdad and Morocco (Africa). ‘Moors’
(Spanish: moros) moved into Iberia from North Africa in the seventh century and
mixed with the local populations that were partly Christianized during the late Roman
period. In the region called al-Andalus, which included the Emirate (and later Caliphate)
of Córdoba, Christianity legally co-existed with Islam and Judaism. In Islamic law,
Jews and Christians are ‘people of the book’. Muslims regard the Jewish Old
Testament and the Christian New Testament as true but incomplete revelations leading
up to the Prophet Mohammed; and Jews and Christians should therefore be permitted
to follow their own community laws to the extent that there is no disrespect for the
sharia (system of Islamic law) or Islamic religious authorities such as the caliph.
Non-Muslims in Islamic states of Iberia paid a Jizya (special tax). The city of
Córdoba was the jewel of Moorish Spain, having several impressive libraries and
witnessing regular interaction among Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars. When
Córdoba was re-conquered by Christians in the thirteenth century, the grand mosque
was re-consecrated and re-modelled as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption.
The Córdoba mosque-cathedral contains architectural features and symbols found
throughout north Africa and the Middle East as well as Christian symbols and motifs.
Sicily and other Mediterranean islands as well were ruled for periods by Arabs and
other Muslims, though the majority populations remained Christian and continued to
practice their faith. When Norman (Scandinavian-French) adventurers conquered
Sicily in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, just as they conquered England in 1066
CE, they tolerated Islam to a greater extent than was the case in other parts of
Christian Europe.

4
The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were religious wars undertaken by Catholic Christian
military orders and kingdoms, primarily against the pagan Baltic, Finnic and West Slavic people
148 around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea.
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Figure 7.6: Mosque of Cordoba Figure 7.7: Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba

Credit: James (Jim) Gordon Credit: kerberosmansour
Source: Wikimedia Commons Source: Wikimedia Commons

Judaism was tolerated in some European states beyond Iberia with restrictions and
monitoring by Christian authorities. According to Christian theology, Jews as a gens
(‘nation’) were the murderers of Christ, and Christian teachings identified the complete
conversion of the Jews as a major spiritual goal. Yet, with exception of the Italian lands,
where Roman law was more deeply rooted than other parts of Europe, legal practices
of medieval Europe did not clearly recognize collective or community rights of Jews to
govern themselves within the officially Christian society. Instead, the Jews were usually
recognized under law as special individual subjects of the king or queen, who could
withdraw protection and favour. As already mentioned, Jews in Iberia had enjoyed
toleration until the Reconquista (re-conquest of the Moorish states by Catholic princes).
When the re-conquest was completed in 1492, Jews as well as Muslims had to convert
to Christianity or suffer expulsion from the territory.
In spite of what could be called institutional anti-Semitism, Jewish-Christian relations in
medieval Europe were not always bad, particularly in parts of Italy and the Netherlands.
While Jews in Europe during this period were usually banned from positions of higher
civil administration, and were not allowed to own land, their religious leaders entered
into dialogues with authorities, including Christian clergy, about matters of religion, law
and administration. While living in ghettos (walled colonies in towns separating Jews
from Christians), Jews were yet not culturally or intellectually isolated from Christian
society. Jews spoke languages that were mixtures of Hebrew and vernacular languages
of Europe. Ladino, or Judaeo-Spanish, is one of these mixed languages that was used
for centuries throughout most of the Mediterranean region. Many Jews, whether in
Spain, Greece or German states, were multi-lingual. Learned Jews were proficient not
only in Hebrew but in Latin and there were Jewish scholars of Roman law. Europe’s
Jews were well aware of Christian rituals and social norms, even if they were stigmatized
by the majority community.
Check Your Progress-1
1) How did the institution of Christian sainthood aid the transition from pagan to
Christian Europe?
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2) Briefly describe the ways in which the medieval Church tried to ensure the
population’s obedience to Christian rules and values.
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3) Give a brief account of the relations between Christians and non-Christians in
parts of medieval Europe.
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7.4 THE CLERGY, MORAL INSTRUCTION AND

FORMAL EDUCATION
Before the ‘Protestant Reformation’ (For further details see Unit 3; BHIC-108) –
upheavals against the Papal establishment in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries –
all the people who belonged to the religious vocation (the clergy or clerics) were
appointed indirectly by the Pope, and clerics were organized into official church
organizations. In Orthodox Christian lands, religious functionaries were similarly part
of a chain of command headed by the Patriarch in Constantinople. The Englishman
John of Salisbury (?1115-1180), who could be called a political theorist, divided society
into three ‘orders’ of men and women: those who prayed, those who fought and those
who worked. The vast majority of the workers were cultivators of the land who made
up 70 - 90% of the populations of different European territories during the Middle
Ages. The nobility, whose role was to fight the king’s battles and protect the rest of
society, was numerically the smallest order of society, never constituting more than one
percent of the population of most medieval European states. The first of the three
orders of society mentioned by John of Salisbury, those who prayed, was of course
the clergy. In some European states as many as ten to fifteen per cent of the population
were clergy or served as lay members of church organizations (were recognized as
assistants to the clergy). In royal councils and in other bodies where formal political
deliberations or negotiations occurred, the interests of the kingdom were usually
represented in terms of the three orders. The three orders of society collectively held
different sets of privileges and liberties in relation to the ruler and to each other; this was
about balance of interests, not about equality of rights, since the orders of society were
imagined as complementary to rather than as equal to each other. At any rate, the
clergy’s responsibility for the ‘care of souls’ extended to care of bodies. While Christian
theology emphasized that pain, suffering and poverty were the inescapable conditions
of human life and were reminders of the human race’s fall from grace (when Adam and
150 Eve in the Garden of Eden rebelled against the protective love that God showed them),
the Church also championed charity and compassion. Therefore, throughout medieval Religion
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and Empire:
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Europe the Church was the main corporate agency for delivery of social care services. in Medieval
Political System
Europe

The clerical order or clergy was collectively charged above all with the spiritual salvation
of the society’s members. The priests and bishops taught and preached the Holy
Scriptures to the population at large, whether peasants and artisans, merchants or dukes
and kings, and they performed sacraments, masses and other rituals. Monks and nuns
were the clergy who vowed to live under a particular regula (‘rule’, code of discipline),
such as that of Saint Gregory, St. Francis, St. Dominic or St. Benedict. Though better
fed, clothed and housed than many peasants and labourers, the monks and nuns were
nevertheless pledged to asceticism and simplicity (‘poverty, chastity and obedience’),
so that they would devote their attention to God. Devotion to God meant spreading or
preserving Christian teachings, so in addition to orders of friars who spread the Gospel
(the Christian message) among the people, communities of monks and nuns kept libraries
(or scriptoria) of cherished scripts. Monastic scribes made copies of manuscripts, some
of them dating to Greco-Roman times, so that correct knowledge of the world and
human society was preserved. The clergy was by definition Europe’s literate class – the
word ‘clerk’ is an alternate form of ‘cleric’– during a period when literacy was uncommon
even among members of the lesser nobility. The extent of the clergy’s learning varied
widely, from the minimally literate parish priests who could read the Bible and say
prayers in Latin, to highly learned teachers and researchers who had thorough knowledge
of Latin and Greek. Some clerics and church-educated scholars, such as Roger Bacon,
Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, also read Hebrew, Arabic or both.
Most institutions of formal learning in medieval Europe were run by the clergy, from
simple parish schools (for children), to cathedral schools, to the universities of Bologna,
Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Valladoid and other places that emerged beginning in the
late eleventh century CE. A university was initially a self-constituting association
(universitas) of ‘masters and scholars’. Many universities grew into corporations that
received charters or licenses from the Papacy or civil rulers. Universities taught philosophy
(at the core of which was the trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric), mathematics,
astronomy and music, as well as some natural science and also the professional subjects
such as theology and law (and, in some places, medicine). Latin and to a certain extent
Greek were the official media of instruction in these institutions; and for a long time
most instructional texts were circulated only in Latin. To be without Latin – or, in
Orthodox Christian lands, Greek– was to be uneducated. The highest university degrees,
doctorates, were awarded in theology and law, but law included canon (or church) law
as well as civil law. Even doctors of medicine were respectful of Church teachings
about the human body and about the relationship of body to soul. Many approved
texts studied in medieval universities were authored by the Church Fathers, men who
helped codify Christian theology and church practice between the first and eighth
centuries.
Church knowledge, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, was heavily influenced by
thinkers and writers of Greco-Roman antiquity such as Aristotle and Plato. Among
ancient Roman writers, Virgil and Cicero especially were studied and appreciated in
the Middle Ages for their fine Latin style in writing. Few medieval scholars dared
contradict or outright reject the claims and ideas of these approved ancient writers
(whether Christian or pagan). The medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274),
who was canonized (proclaimed) as a saint by the Catholic church, wrote commentaries
on both Aristotle’s and Plato’s works and he drew heavily from their philosophical
ideas in forming a Christian philosophical tradition called Scholasticism. Some
philosophers of the immediate post-medieval era went so far as to argue that the reliance 151
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Economy and of Aquinas and other medieval philosophers on Aristotle amounted to mental slavery.
Alternative State Formations According to Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and some others associated with the
‘Scientific Revolution’ in Europe, medieval reverence for Classical thought had prevented
Europeans from moving forward and innovating, particularly in science.
Almost all members of the cathedral schools and universities, including those who stayed
on in the university to become masters (who tutored and lectured students), professors,
deans and rectors, were either ordained (appointed) clerics or laymen who sought
employment in the growing bureaucracies of Church and state. Princes and kings
staffed their chanceries, archives and offices of state with clerics or with men trained by
the clerics; clergy were essential to civil as well as ecclesiastical administration. Boys of
different social classes (even the peasantry) entered the universities as young as fourteen
or fifteen but typically at age eighteen or nineteen. Those who completed the degree
Magister Artium (M.A.) had a license to teach others in any other university. In terms
of recognition of educational credentials, medieval European universities were
international and cosmopolitan. It was common for ‘lovers of knowledge’ to migrate
from one university to another, even across territories.
A second point is that girls and women were largely excluded from European formal
higher education. There are no records of female university scholars in Europe until the
seventeenth century. The ‘educated’ women of medieval Europe were therefore usually
members of the nobility who benefited from private tutoring and who were sometimes
very accomplished, entering into oral or written debates with male scholars. Christine
de Pizan (1364- c. 1430), daughter of an Italian astrologer to the King of France, was
one such woman, as was Anna Komnene (1083-1153, daughter of Byzantine Emperor
Alexios I Komnenos), renowned in her time as a physician and historian. Other learned
European women were nuns and abbesses (heads of nunneries/monasteries for females).
For example, the abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was proclaimed magistra
by the nuns under her charge. She contributed to theology and medical science. Her
Ordo Virtutum, a cycle of sixty-nine musical poems, is an important surviving example
of medieval European music. Herrad of Landsberg (c. 1130-1195) too was an abbess
and she authored an illustrated encyclopaedia (compendium of useful knowledge) titled
Hortus deliciarum (‘Garden of Earthly Delights’). Significantly, both Hildegard and
Herrad were born into the nobility. Had they not become nuns, ‘brides of Christ’
instead of noble wives and mothers, it is doubtful that these women would have been
allowed to be scholars and contribute to knowledge production.

7.5 CRITICISM OF CLERGY AND SOCIAL

TEACHINGS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
This Unit has emphasized the social and cultural power of the Church in medieval
Europe, but it is important to recognize that the authority of the Christian clergy was
negotiated and contested. A society’s culture is not a perfect mirror image of what
dominant people and institutions want that culture to look like. Rather, the culture is
like a cracked or distorting mirror of values of the dominant and the subordinate social
groups alike. Criticism of the clergy by both elite and common Europeans was a visible
part of medieval European culture. This can be seen in satirical stories (especially The
Decameron) penned by the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio and the Canterbury Tales of
Englishman Geoffrey Chaucer, in songs of university students and in poetry of wandering
scholars and minstrels. An important cycle of songs and poems surviving from medieval
times, the Carmina Burana (songs from Benediktbeuern, a German monastery), reveals
the complex relationship between European clergy and laity and the tensions around
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Roman
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greedy or lazy clergy. in Medieval
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The phenomenon of the Goliard poets (12th-14th centuries CE)

Goliards were students at cathedral schools and universities who expected (or were
expected by their families) to become priests or to obtain even higher clerical office, but
who often lacked motivation or lost respect for actual clergy. Goliards mocked the
clergy and tried to be as un-holy as possible; their songs focused on eating, drinking
and gambling.
Those who became clerical assistants and trainees performed pseudo-Christian
ceremonies and conducted ‘Feasts of Fools’. Rectors of the University of Paris in the
thirteenth century were among the authorities who found Goliard behaviour threatening
and subversive.
The scandalous behaviour of Goliards and the mocking sayings of peasant lore were
mostly in fun and probably never posed a serious threat to the power of the Church.
Jan Hus, John Wycliffe and others cast doubt on the sacramental power of the priesthood
and the authority of the Pope during the 14th and 15th centuries, and some of these
critics organized rebellions against the Church, but for every proclaimed Hussite or
Wycliffite there were thousands of Christians whose respect for the clergy and its roles
was not undermined by their recognition of some ‘bad’ priests.
Historians continue to disagree about the relation of medieval anti-clericalism to the
upheaval of the Protestant Reformation, beginning with Martin Luther’s initial criticism
(1517-1521) of ‘abuses’ by the Church establishment, that flared into civil war in several
parts of Europe. Historians ask whether anti-clericalism actually increased during the
late medieval centuries (c. 1300-1600) and whether protests against clergy reveal
structural changes within the ‘society of orders’ related to the emergence of new kinds
of ‘people with money’ in the towns, the bourgeoisie.
Clearly, ‘intellectual’ activity in medieval Europe was not actually a monopoly of the
Church. The cultural phenomenon known as the Renaissance (Italian: Renascimento,
‘rebirth’) between 1300 and 1600 has been interpreted by many historians as a
movement of mental liberation from Church teachings and values. There was supposedly
a new human-centred outlook, although many Renaissance humanists took pains to
show their piety and respect for the Church. Some humanists were Churchmen
themselves, or they were patronized by the Church. One book from the Renaissance
period, Giovanni Villani’s Florentine Chronicle (written in the fourteenth century),
indicates that in Florence (Italy) in the 1330’s, as many as 35-40 % of male children
were being educated in primary schools and that much of this schooling was outside the
direct administration of the clergy. The students were mostly boys and young men who
went to work in the accounting sections of companies and banks, who wrote or made
copies of business letters and who did the ‘clerical’ work in municipal government as
well as in the Church administration.
Another notable change in European society and culture in the later medieval centuries
was connected to laicization, meaning the process by which functions performed by
religious authorities are transferred to non-religious (lay) persons. From the very first
centuries of Christianity, the Church allowed lay people certain roles (such as property
management) in its own administration and upkeep; it encouraged the faith of lay
Christians by engaging them in activities that the Church guided. The Church increasingly
shared some social welfare functions with laity in the later medieval centuries. Köln 153
Religion,
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Economy and (Cologne) in Germany, with about 30,000 inhabitants in the year 1500, was a religious
Alternative State Formations centre, having 19 churches, 100 chapels, 22 monasteries and 12 religious hostels. Three
to four thousand people in Kölnat this time were clerics, but even ‘religious’ institutions
such as hostels, hospitals and shrines were being run by associations (‘brotherhoods’
and ‘sisterhoods’) staffed by lay people. Some historians have argued that greater
participation by laity in various social welfare institutions across Europe does not
necessarily prove that social welfare was being secularized or taken over by non-Church
elements. Rather, it is argued, laicization of institutions shows that a sense of Christian
social responsibility (charity, care of the sick, etc.) was increasingly being seen as
everyone’s business in a Christian society. In the end, it is impossible to understand
medieval European culture without examining the ways that Christianity formed the
whole outlook of medieval people and how the people (whether clergy or laity)
negotiated their relation to the Church.
Check Your Progress-2
1) Briefly describe functions of the Christian clergy in medieval society.
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2) In what ways were women excluded from and in what ways did they participate
in the production of formal knowledge (‘high learning’) in medieval Europe?
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3) Describe examples of anti-clericalism in medieval Europe before the Protestant
reformation.
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4) Laicization of medieval European Christianity meant some adjustment in relations
between clergy and laity and the social roles played by them. Explain this changing
relationship in the context of medieval Europe.
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7.6 SUMMARY
The institutional power of the Church at the end of Roman antiquity spread throughout
European lands with the process of Christianization, but this does not mean that the
‘civil power’ was in practice subordinate to ‘spiritual authority’. Neither did the Church
simply impose Christian values on pagan societies. Worship styles and habits of pagan
Europe were carried over into Christian practice, if not so much into Christian theology
(the formal theory of the religion). Heresy trials and crusades were among the punitive
measures taken by the Church to influence European social practice, while the
observance of holidays and festivals, the maintenance of holy shrines, the institutions of
‘pastoral care’ and the formal education system were among the more constructive
means of Christianization. The policy of a ‘society of one faith’ could not completely
marginalize non-Christian elements in Europe, though the Spanish Catholic Reconquista
illustrates how non-Christians who refused to convert could be expelled and almost
eliminated. The Church along with monarchy was a pillar of the European ‘feudal’
order for several centuries after the Middle Ages. Christianity was omnipresent in the
sphere of European culture, whether of the elite or of the common people.

7.7 KEYWORDS
Clergy/clerics/Church : Clergy are people formally accepted by a
religious organization or sect for religious duties.
In Roman Catholicism and some other Christian
sects, the clergy or clerics are ordained; those
selected as priests go through a ritual of
ordination by higher clergy (for instance, a bishop
or metropolitan) and are then authorized to
perform sacraments (rituals). Church (with capital
‘C’) refers not to a religious building but rather
to a whole institutional form or set up of
Christianity – its personnel, laws, rules,
administration, theology, property, etc.
Chivalry : deriving from a medieval French word for
mounted warrior and referring to the status,
obligation or fee owed by a knight, and by
extension to the conduct expected of such a
person by those connected to him. Knightly
virtues of honour, obedience, reverence and love
were the key values of chivalry.
Christianization : refers to how people adopt Christian teachings
and the officially sanctioned forms of worship and
also means the larger processes by which the
religion impacts social practices and cultural
forms.
Feudal/feudalism : ‘feudal’ derives from the medieval Latin word
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Religion,
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Economy and feodum, meaning simply an estate in land, and
Alternative State Formations feudalism refers to a common customary form
of property and land control in Europe. The three
key elements of the feudal system were the lord,
the vassal, and the fief (a plot of land). A lord
was a noble who held land; a vassal was a person
who was granted possession of the land by the
lord. In exchange for the use of the fief and the
protection of the lord, the vassal would provide
some sort of service to the lord, such as labour.
The obligations and corresponding rights between
lord and vassal in relation to the fief form the
basis of the feudal relationship.
Goliard : originally referring to a member of the clergy
writing satirical Latin poetry during the 12th and
13th centuries; it later meant a wandering poet-
singer, not necessarily a clergyman. The name
Goliard may refer to the giant Goliath in the Bible,
slain by the hero-king David, or it may be a
corruption of the French word gailliard (‘gay
or jolly fellow’). In a letter to Pope Innocent II,
the French abbot Bernard of Clairvaux referred
to the controversial Paris scholar Pierre Abelard,
who had been condemned as a heretic, as
Goliath. All of these references suggest that, to
the Church, Goliard meant someone monstrous,
undisciplined and heretical.
Laity : those who recognize the Church as worshippers
and adherents but who are not members of the
Church by vocation. They are not ordained and
have no sacramental authority.
Orders of society/ : a model of social organization in which each
society of orders member of society is identified with a group that
composes the society, and the group (‘order’) is
recognized in the law and/or the system of
political representation. The ‘order’ (sometimes
also called the ‘estate’) is generally identified by
its social or occupational function. The three-
part society of orders discussed by John of
Salisbury can be found in the French political
system until 1789. Until 1789 a political body
called the États généraux (‘States-General’)
contained delegates from the First, Second and
Third Estates: Catholic clergy, nobility,
commoners.

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7.8 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS in Medieval
Political System
Europe
EXERCISES
Check Your Progress-1
1) See Section 7.2
2) See Section 7.2
3) See Section 7.3
Check Your Progress-2
1) See Section 7.4
2) See Section 7.4
3) See Section 7.5
4) See Section 7.5

7.9 SUGGESTED READINGS

Blockmans, Wim and Peter Hoppenbrouwers, (2018) Introduction to Medieval
Europe, 300-1550, 3rd edition (Abingdon and New York: Routledge).
Brown, Peter, (1996) The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity,
A.D. 200-1000 (Oxford: Blackwell).
Cipolla, Carlo, (1993) Before the Industrial Revolution. European Society and
Economy, 1000-1700, 3rd edition (London: Routledge).
Lansing, Carol and Edward D. English, eds., (2013) A Wiley-Blackwell Companion
to the Medieval World (Chichester: Wiley and Sons).
Smith, Julia M. H., (2005) Europe After Rome: A New Cultural History, 500-1000
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).

7.10 INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO

RECOMMENDATIONS
Episode 1: Holy Land | Crusades | BBC Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOyswuA8wEs
First Crusade Part 1 of 2 | Epic History TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydVFqpbIIwA

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