The Church had the power of excommunication. Excommunication meant one would be banned from the Church, and would no longer be permitted to receive the sacrament of Communion. Beginning in the Roman period, bishops or groups of bishops would excommunicate people who were doing things the Church was opposed to.

There were serious consequences: First, if one was excommunicated, one could not get his or her soul clean for God and would not go to Heaven after the Last Judgment. Second, no Christian was allowed to talk to anyone who was excommunicated, give them food, rent them an apartment, or in any way have anything to do with them. Even the person’s family was not supposed to associate with him or her. Most people were Christians, and this could be life-threatening for ordinary people.

Some famous examples of men who were excommunicated are the Roman Emperor Theodosius, King Henry II of England, Emperor Henry IV of Germany, and King John of England.

The Power of the Church: Excommunication

The Power of the Church: Interdiction

Interdiction

The word interdict usually refers to an ecclesiastical penalty in the Roman Catholic Church. The most common usage is a penalty which suspends all public worship and withdraws the church's sacraments in a territory or country.

An interdiction on a kingdom would cause all the churches to be closed, and almost all the sacraments not to be allowed (i.e. preventing marriage, confession, Anointing of the Sick, and the Eucharist).

The Pope used the threat of excommunication to wield power over political rulers. For example, a disobedient king’s quarrel with a Pope might result in excommunication. This meant theking would be denied salvation. Excommunication also freed all the king’s vassals from their duties to him. If an excommunicated king continued to disobey the Pope, the Pope could then place an interdiction on the king’s lands.

The Power of the Church: Interdiction

Certain offenses incur an automatic interdiction

• Physical violence against a bishop• Attempting to possess authority or participate in

the celebration of the Eucharist in a religious ceremony in Mass while being a deacon or lay person

• Hearing and/or attempting to justify confessions while being a deacon or lay person

• Falsely accusing a priest of soliciting adultery while in confession

• Attempting to marry while having a lasting eternity vow of chastity

The Power of the Church

After the Fall of Rome the Church replaces the structure of Roman government as the centralized power of Medieval Society. The Church Hierarchy that developed from the Fall of Rome remained in place and church authorities exercised power on the local level. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church remained the single most powerful organization in Western Europe.

The Role of Faith

People were very religious. They believed the Church had the power to send a person to Heaven or Hell. Most Europeans felt united by their common faith.

Power and Wealth

Many nobles left land to the Church when they died, hoping to gain entry into heaven. The Church became Europe’s largest landowner. Church wealth also increased through tithes.

Learning

The Church was the main center of learning. Church officials were usually the only people who could read, since they were the most educated people.

Reasons for the Church’s Power

Church or Government?

A tithe (from Old English teogotha "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a voluntary contribution or as a tax or levy, usually to support a Christian religious organization.

In the Middle Ages, a tithe was a tax paid to the Church that was equivalent to 10% of a person’s income. It could be paid in money, but more often was paid in crops.

Today, tithes (or tithing) are normally voluntary and paid in cash, checks, or stocks, whereas historically tithes could be paid in kind, such as agricultural products. There are still European countries today that allow some churches to assess a mandatory tithe which is enforced by law.

A tithe barn was a type of barn used in England in the Middle Ages for storing the tithes provided to the Church officials.

Church or Government?

The Church created a system of justice to guide people’s conduct in the place of a centralized government. Canon law, or law of the Church, governed the actions of all medieval Christians, from peasants to kings, in matters such as marriage and religious practices. The Church also established courts to try people accused of violating canon law.

In order to consolidate power, Pope Gregory VII banned the practice of lay investiture, a ceremony in which kings and nobles appointed Church officials. When the Holy Roman Emperor of the time protested, he was excommunicated, and eventually asked the Pope for forgiveness.

Church Hierarchy

The Catholic clergy is organized in a strict, sometimes overlapping hierarchy:Pope: Head of the church, he is based at the Vatican. The pope is infallible in defining matters of faith and morals.Cardinal: Appointed by the pope, 178 cardinals worldwide, including 13 in the U.S., make up the College of Cardinals. As a body, it advises the pope and, on his death, elects a new pope.Archbishop: An archbishop is a bishop of a main or metropolitan diocese, also called an archdiocese. A cardinal can concurrently hold the title. The U.S. has 45 archbishops.Bishop: A bishop, like a priest, is ordained to this station. He is a teacher of church doctrine, a priest of sacred worship, and a minister of church government. The U.S. has 290 active bishops, 194 head dioceses.Priest: An ordained minister who can administer most of the sacraments, including the Eucharist, baptism, and marriage. He can be with a particular religious order or committed to serving a congregation.Deacon: A transitional deacon is a seminarian studying for the priesthood. A permanent deacon can be married and assists a priest by performing some of the sacraments.

Church or Government?

The style of architecture during the Middle Ages was called Gothic.

For nearly four hundred years Gothic style dominated the architecture of Western Europe. Gothic architects designed town halls, royal palaces, courthouses and hospitals, they fortified cities and castles to defend lands against invasion, and they created bridges and hostelries to facilitate communication. But it was in the service of the Church that the Gothic style attained its most meaningful expression, for the Church was the major builder of the Middle Ages, providing the widest scope for the development of architectural ideas and calling forth the best talents.

The considerable size of many Gothic monuments meant that they were expensive to construct, and size sometimes also delayed the completion of the work.

Gothic Architecture

Gothic ArchitectureThe size of the Cathedrals required the use of a “Flying Buttress”. A buttress is a support -- usually brick or stone -- built against a wall to support or reinforce it. A flying buttress (shown below) is a free-standing buttress attached to the main structure by an arch or a half-arch. Used in great Gothic, the flying buttress allowed master builders to create taller and visually lighter structures that reached toward the heavens.

Gothic ArchitectureAnother feature of Gothic architecture was stained-glass. Since the walls themselves were no longer the primary supports, Gothic buildings could include large areas of glass. Huge stained glass windows and a profusion of smaller windows created the effect of lightness and space. Because most lay people (people who are not Church officials) were illiterate, the windows would illustrate Bible stories. Also, the mass was said in Latin, not the vernacular or common language of the people, so it was one of the few ways for the people to understand the religion.

In addition to religious figures, many Gothic cathedrals are heavily ornamented with strange, leering creatures. These gargoyles are not merely decorative. Originally, the sculptures were waterspouts to protect the foundation from rain. Sculptures also illustrated lessons from the scriptures.

Because of the statues, windows, and other decoration, Churches have been referred to as “Books of Stone”

Gothic architecture was still used after the Middle Ages. St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan is a local example, built in 1868.

Gargoyle

Monasticism

The term "monasticism" (monachos, a solitary person) describes a way of life chosen by religious men or women who retreat from society for the pursuit of spiritual salvation.

Monasticism spread quickly to western Europe. The Rule of Saint Benedict, compiled in the first half of the sixth century, laid the foundation for the form of monastic life most commonly practiced there. The rule—with its stress on moderation, obedience to the monastery's leader (the abbot), and a prescribed program of prayer, work, and study—synthesized many of the teachings of the desert hermits and early Christian writers.

Around the cloister could generally be found the library, chapter house , dormitory, refectory, kitchen, cellar, infirmary, and other spaces essential to the daily monastic regimen. The Benedictine order enjoyed long periods of wealth and power

Monks A monk is a man who is a member of a brotherhood. He devotes his life to a discipline prescribed by his order. Monks and nuns live in a monastery. A monastery is a kind of half church half hospital. They take care of people there and they pray and meditate. It can also be like a school for kids. They would teach them how to read and write.

Medieval Monastery

They usually wore brown robes with hoods around their heads. They were also well educated and could usually read and write Latin. Many monks devoted themselves to learning. Some of the first encyclopedias and histories were written by monks and then copied over by hand.

Monks were often the only source of Bibles in medieval times. Bibles were also copied by hand because the printing press was not yet developed.

Monasticism

Church Gains Influence: St. Benedict

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Saint Benedict was not the founder of Christian monasticism. He became a monk as a young man and thereafter learned the tradition by associating with monks and reading the monastic literature. He was caught up in the monastic movement but ended by channeling the stream into new and fruitful ways. This is evident in the Rule which he wrote for monasteries and which was and is still used in many monasteries and convents around the world

Benedict of Nursia, was an Italian monk and author of a rule for monks that became the basis of the Benedictine order. He went to Rome to study, then withdrew to Subiaco to live as a hermit; after three years he was renowned for his holiness. He founded a community of monks made up of cells of 13 monks each. This he eventually left, and at Monte Cassino, in an old pagan holy place, he started the first truly Benedictine monastery, although the benedictine order did not come into being until Carolingian times.

The fruits of Benedict’s experience appear in the Rule of St. Benedict (in Latin), which became the chief rule in Western monasticism. The Rule’s 73 chapters are full of a spirit of moderation and common sense. They set forth the central ideas of Benedictine monasticism.

Church Gains Influence

St Augustine

St. Augustine was an influential elite of the early 5 th century who greatly influenced with intellectuals. Early on in life, he was interested in Greek philosophical traditions, but later converted to Christianity and tried to outline the religion in terms that were familiar and acceptable to the upper classes. As a result of his work, Christianity became an intellectually respectable alternative to Hellenistic philosophies and other religions.

Church Councils

Early Christian communities were not highly organized and did not agree on all teachings of the religion due to different interpretations. After establishing the hierarchy, the Church organized councils to discuss issues that were debated among Roman Christians and Nestorians, Arians, and other groups. At the Council of Nicaea was to resolve disagreements in the Church of Alexandria over the nature of the Trinity: in particular whether Jesus was of the same or of similar substance as God the Father. It was decided that God is a single "Being" who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a communion of three persons: Father (the Source, the Eternal Majesty); the Son (incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth); and the Holy Spirit. The Council of Nicaea was historically significant because it was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, or the Christian world

Medieval Art

Medieval art covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, genres, revivals, the artists crafts, and the artists themselves.

Art historians classify Medieval art into major periods and movements. They are Celtic art, Early Christian art, Migration Period art, Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque art, Gothic art, Byzantine art and Islamic art. In addition each "nation" or culture in the Middle Ages had its own distinct artistic style and these are looked at individually, such as Anglo-Saxon art or Viking art. Medieval art was of many crafts, such as mosaics and sculpture; and there were many unique genres of art, such as Crusade art.

Medieval artists in Europe depended, in varying degrees, upon artistic heritage of the Roman Empire and upon the legacy of the early Christian church. These sources were mixed with the vigorous "Barbarian" artistic culture of Northern Europe to produce a remarkable artistic legacy. Indeed the history of medieval art can be seen as the history of the interplay between the elements of classical, early Christian and "Barbarian" art.

Medieval Art

Most religious artists after the fourth century, when Christianity dominated as the chief religion of the Roman world, chose to reject the ideals of perfection in form and technique. Rather, these monastic artists sought to present images which would draw the spectator into the inner eye of their work, pointing to its spiritual significance.

The purpose of Medieval art was to glorify the life and death of Jesus Christ, to provide peasants with a depiction of God’s kingdom and a vision of a glorious afterlife and to assure that the Church remained a dominant force in the lives of its citizens.

This attitude towards art reflected the religious ideals of the monk artist. The monastic values of the day advocated a rejection of the physical body and the material world, certainly the representation of man in art replicated these ideals. Man and Woman were not represented as images of physical perfection. Rather their appearance was nondescript; their function was to represent a historical or biblical character in a symbolic tableau from the Old or New Testament.

The predominating features of these characters conveyed religious ideals. Consequently, certain features, uplifted hands and eyes, for example, became stock elements in medieval art.

Power of the ChurchExplain what it meant to excommunicate an individual.

What does the use of excommunication indicate about the power of the Church?

Why might be a society’s reaction to interdiction? How might it affect the power of a monarch?

Gothic ArchitectureExamine the examples provided of Gothic architecture. Describe the featured characteristics.

How did medieval architects accomplish such monumental structures?

Why are cathedrals referred to as “Books of Stone”?

MonasticismDescribe the function monasticism played in medieval society.

How did the life of a monk differ from other members of medieval society?

Medieval ArtEvaluate the examples of medieval art provided. What are some common themes?

Explain the purpose and goals of medieval art? Do you think it succeeded in achieving these goals?

Church or Government ?Define a “tithe”. How was it usually paid?

In what ways did the Church behave like a government rather than a religious institution?

Label the church hierarchy.

Role of the Medieval ChurchChurch Gains Influence

Evaluate the role the following individuals played in the Medieval Church:St. Benedict

St. Augustine

What two features made the Council of Nicaea significant to the unity of the Christian Church?

On the back of this page, draft a thesis statement on the role of the Church in medieval society