European history, the middle ages, or medieval period, lasted from the 5th to the 15th century (Middle Ages). During that period of time, the Catholic Church was the largest, and most important part of people’s lives. It influenced all parts of European society, from the poorest, to most powerful including the King. This influence was cause by the people turning to their priests for religious guidance, giving them agency over nearly every facet of their lives.
The Church was run by a Pope, monks, and nuns, and priests. The Pope was the head of the Catholic Church. The Pope was views as God’s representative, and the populous looked up to them on how to live and pray. It was the Pope’s choice, to decide what the church would teach. Pope Benedict forced all monks and nuns to take three vows, in order to practice in the Church. A vow of poverty, to give up all worldly goods; a vow of chastity to stay single; a vow of obedience to promise to obey the church and the rules of the monastery (Benedictine Rules). Nuns were women who prayed, weaved, practiced teaching, and wrote books, while monks devoted majority of their lives to the discipline of prayer.
In some cases the church was more powerful than the king, since church had the power to excommunicate or to exclude from the communion of believers and from the privileges and public prayers of the church (Dictionary.com). For example, Henry the fourth, Holy Roman Emperor was excommunicated from church by Pope Gregory the seventh. Harold the second, king of England was also excommunicated by Pope Alexander the second (Biography.com). It gave the Pope tremendous influence over the monarchies, and anyone who turned against him, would be excommunicated from church and were believe to go to...
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...taught, and only people of more sound faith still regularly attend church services. According to a poll, only forty percent of the American people attend church, compared to ninety nine percent of people who would back in the Middle Ages (Startling Facts).
On the positive note, people who attend church do so out of their own faith, as opposed to when they were pressured into fearing God from the medieval clergy. Going to the Church is now an expression of the love for God, it builds spiritual strength, and gives people direction in their lives where they would be lost otherwise. What made the biggest difference between religions in the Middle Ages and now is the people's dependence on their clergy. Whereas before people needed priests and Popes to interpret God's word for them, people can now read the Bible themselves, and come to their own conclusions and learning.
The medieval church was very important in the medieval era. It had a big effect on society and it influenced many people’s lives. There were many various reasons why the church was very important. People didn’t just go there to pray, but also for social gatherings and meetings.
Before the Reformation, medieval Christians all worshipped under the same universal idea of Christendom. The catholic faith had existed for centuries (since 325 C.E. Constantinople, Council of Nicaea) without opposition to it legitimacy, but at the turn of 1500s new ideas on Christian belief erupted all over Europe causing a split between the Church. Christianity prior to the reformation was a part of the worshippers’ everyday life. Their home, work, and social lives were oriented around the Church, yet many 16th century Christians before the Reformation did not fully understand why. Most 16th century Christians were not educated enough to understand the mandatory sermons and mass services that were preached in the medieval church because these services were in Latin. Only the upper echelon of society were sophisticated enough to understand sermon. This upper crust included the clergy, nun, monks, monarchs, nobles, and the patricians which made up a small portion of the medieval population. The clergy consisted of the Pope (Top), Cardinals (princes of the church and electors of the pope), Bishop (overseers of the dioceses), and Priest (lowest and served at each parish). The clergy were the intermediaries between the laity and God and their most important job was to ensure proper following of the sacraments .
The religious people were the most gluttonous people of those times. They would take the money that they said they did not have, and spend it for their personal gain. The Catholic church in the Middle Ages is not the one the congregation would have preferred. Geoffrey Chaucer did a great job in pointing out just how corrupt the leaders of the church could
From the Middle ages, the church faced many problems such as the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism that hurt the prestige of the church. Most of the clergy lived in great luxury while most people were poor and they set an immoral example. The clergy had low education and many of them didn’t attend their offices. Martin Luther had witnessed this himself, “In 1510 he visited Rome and was shocked to find corruption on high ecclesiastical places”
The relationship of “ordinary” medieval people and their churches - the local parish churches during the decline of papal prestige is an indication of the prestige as well as loyalty to the church. Unfortunately, due to the decline in prestige by means of the papacy moving from rome as well as the belief the church was under the influence of the french monarch, the public began to lose faith in the church as a whole and question its legitimacy. Not only did this derive from the listed reasons above, but also from the fact that at one point, there were two popes.This lead to confusion among Catholics due to the fact that two popes meant they had to obey one and ignore the other meanwhile the word of the pope is meant to be divine order, so it contradicted the legitimacy of what they were saying.
Roles of the Catholic Church in Western civilization has been scrambled with the times past and development of Western society. Regardless of the fact that the West is no longer entirely Catholic, the Catholic tradition is still strong in Western countries. The church has been a very important foundation of public facilities like schooling, Western art, culture and philosophy; and influential player in religion. In many ways it has wanted to have an impact on Western approaches to pros and cons in numerous areas. It has over many periods of time, spread the teachings of Jesus within the Western World and remains a foundation of continuousness connecting recent Western culture to old Western culture.-
During the Middle Ages the Popes had many roles, this caused there to be a lot of disagreements between the Popes and Kings of the Empire. In the the article Middle Ages Popes vs Kings the Pope and kings fought over power because they each wanted complete control of the empire. That is because the Pope wanted to have control so the people could look to them for protection and help with life choices. The King was there to tell the people what they need to abide by to live correctly. King Henry challenged the Pope by appointing the bishops and trying to have them vote the Pope out of rule (Middle Ages Popes vs
The Christian Church was a dominant force in Europe during the Middle Ages. During this time often referred as the “Dark Ages”, there was no concrete religion or state, however after the fall of the Roman Empire, Christian influence vastly spread throughout Europe making it the most powerful institution to surface the continent. Highly influential political leaders such as kings, queens, and other authoritative leaders turned to the church for guidance and eventually adopted the Christian doctrine making the church the center focus for western civilization. The Christian Church contributed to various beneficial aspects of European life such as the rise of monasteries, pilgrimages which served as a guide for spiritual awakening, and many others.
Between the years 600 CE and 1450 CE in Europe, there was only one thing that stayed constant, and it was the Roman Catholic Church. The church remained a major influence on the people of Europe and the majority of the region continued to believe every single thing that the church preached. The only thing that did not stay constant was who had the power over the church and how the church made sure that everyone was following their rules that they had created. The church had varying teaching over the course of many years. It was also used as a tool for the rulers of that time.
If one thing is for certain, it is that the pope and the Catholic church played a huge role in Medieval Europe. They helped shaped the people’s lives and political authority. While the pope was in control of the Catholic church, he was also in control of politics; he was over the kings, and the kings had to answer to the pope. While having so much political power, it eventually lead to the kings wanting their power back and trying different ways to get it back, which lead to a decline in the pope’s authority. The decrease in the pope’s authority lead to the Great Schism; where Europe was split up due to disagreements in the Papacy.
...he centuries following them, they did not work nearly as hard, or did they suffer the same sacrifice and separation from materialistic possessions and luxuries. The church and congregation itself also underwent a dramatic change. The church progressed with the times to be not only a powerful institution religiously, but also politically, economically and also socially. With this rise in power in many different areas besides religion came the involvement in many different areas in society. These ties in society created involvement in the “City of the World” which took away from aspects of the “City of God.”
As stated before, in acts of simony, priests hired substitutes who lived elsewhere and had neither first-hand knowledge of nor much sympathy with local communities. This is why people opposed the act of simony greatly and finally condemned it. The breaking of celibacy was detrimental to the Church because Catholics had the conviction that the clergy could bestow grace upon whoever he pleases and that it was necessary that they guide the laypeople to heaven. The clergy was also becoming very ignorant because a common occurrence was the illiteracy rate among priests and preachers. During sermons, verses were fabricated to please the congregants By the same token of corruption and ignorance was the secularization of the Church. The Church was becoming secular because they were focusing on worldly matters. For example, the chalice depicted on the left was very ornate. This illustrated the life of the average Catholic priest, decorated. Priests focused on making or taking money for their own personal needs. Together with the sale of indulgences, the priests would thieve money from
The Catholic church had a very heavy impact on society during the middle ages and received a high amount of power. The people during this time really started changing. Once emperors started to show religion, people started buying into what they said and the Catholic church started to catch the attention of many others.
I disagree with Dostoevsky who said that the church itself has become so worldly that it’s no longer Christian. In my opinion, people who are still having those religious practice because they want to show their belief in the public and it is one of the ways to influence or make other people believe what they believe. For example, Christians are having caroling and Christmas parade every year during Christmas. People are born with curiosity character. When the non-believers are exposed to a belief, they will curious about the belief and thus they will want to know about certain belief. As they are learning that particular religion, most of them will agree and start to believe it. Hence, they have higher tendency to become believers than those
Perhaps no other event was as influential to the rise of papacy in Rome as the decline of the Roman empire. With the decline of the empire, the church became the last refuge of stability. Without the protection of the empire, Rome was subject to poverty, disrepair, and attack from enemies.1 The rise of the papacy was a response to this situation. It was further cemented by the leadership of such men as Leo I and Gregory I, the latter sometimes referred to as the father of the medieval papacy.2 Finally, the granting of lands and authority to the bishop of Rome greatly increased the power of the Roman church.3