Download - Piety & Practice
R E L I G I O N A N D R E L I G I O U S C H A N G E I N E N G L A N D , C . 1 4 7 0 -1 5 5 8
PIETY & PRACTICE
INEVITABILITY: A PROBLEM• Traditional accounts of the
Reformation• A.G. Dickens
• Caricature of late-medieval Church :• Corrupt, only concerned with
enrichment• Poor levels of piety, inept
priesthood.• England’s anti-Catholic heritage.
• Whig History legacy – England meant two things:
• ‘Protestantism’ & ‘Parliamentary sovereignity’
• Reformation beginning of both, HAD to happen!
• Teleology• Beginning with the end and projecting
backwards• Examining late-medieval Catholicism
solely for evidence of ‘what came next’ skewers its reality
• Edward Muir: historians’ obligation to ‘respect the dead, to honour how different they were from us rather than to celebrate their ability to anticipate us or our ability to surpass them’.
• History for whom, and to what end?
REVISIONIST HISTORIOGRAPHY• Late medieval Church characterised
by a religious culture which was:• Vibrant • vital
• Evidence for this:• No evidence of a swelling tide of
discontent• Laity investing in the Church – time,
money, energy – more than ever before at the Reformation.
• See the work of:• Christopher Haigh, Jack Scarisbrick, R.B.
Manning, Ralph Houlbrooke, Robert Whiting,
• Eamon Duffy• Essentially 2 thesis:• 1) How attached people were to
the liturgy• 2) That liturgy was flexible
enough to allow them to adapt the Church’s practices to a variety of activities, needs and spiritual requirements.
• That Church was not ‘top down’, ‘institutionalised’ and ‘rigid’• actually a marriage between
clergy and laity – moulded to local/individual needs.
REVISIONISTS: A CAVEAT• Focus on liturgy, practice and piety • What the laity do, how they do it, and to what extent.
• What is missing?• Clergy?
• Where are they in Duffy?• Surely pivotal to assess the role of them in this society?• And people’s views towards them?
• Structure of the Church• An institution.
• Did it conflict with other areas of this society?• Crown• Nobles• Social organisations?
RELIGION: NOW & THEN
NOW
• Voluntary
• Private
• Individual
THEN• Mandatory
• Public
• Shared
• Peter Marshall: ‘where faith met community’• Corporate souls, members of the body of
Christ which had visible expression in local structures.
THE ‘WORK’ OF TRADITIONAL RELIGION
• Biggest landowner in Europe• Major provider of charity incl. schools, hospitals• Monopolisers of orthodox access to the sacred – via the
(seven) sacraments – in partic. Baptism, Eucharist and Extreme Unction (but also penance, the Orders, matrimony & confirmation)• Providers of afterlife ‘fire insurance’ (also for your kin)• Promoter of social cohesion/peace via ‘mechanisms’ of
confession & communion• Providers of entertainment (e.g. Church Ales & election of Boy
Bishops; May Queens)
HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE PRE-MODERN WORLD?
CHURCH RECORDS• ‘Official’ records
• Courts• Domestic disputes• Crimes against the Church/society
• Wills• Tax records• Bede rolls• Churchwarden’s accounts• Registers of:
• Birth• Marriage• Death
• Visual & material culture• Art• Sculpture• Prints & book illustrations• Investment/wealth• The Church building itself
• Buildings• Bodies• Household goods
WHAT DO CHURCHWARDEN’S ACCOUNTS TELL US?
• Scale of investment in the Church• 2/3 of Church buildings in England re-
furbished C15th/ early C16th
• Pride• Lavish church with the material culture
of religion• Cloths• Vestments • Chalices • Candles • Imagery• Carvings
• How is this paid for?• Tithe• And from additional sources of
revenue. • May include:• Sheep – sell wool pay for candles
to saints• Church ales • Plays• Hock-tide
• Key:• a communal religion, not separate
from the world (like monastery) but shaped by it.
TIME: THE RITUAL YEAR• Cyclical time:
• Liturgical calendar’s re-enactment of life of Christ: • Advent• Christmas • Epiphany• Easter• Ascension • Pentecost.
• Agricultural rhythms of the year:• Carnival preceding Lent:
• licensed sin and disorder.
• Holy Week/Easter: • imaginative engagement with sufferings of
Christ.• performative
• Easter communion: individual and collective rite. • Community as ‘the body of Christ’.• Year end – Easter (not Christmas)
MARKING THE SEASONS• February/March – Carnival vs Lent • March/April – Easter – time of annual confession followed by
communion/eucharist
• May: Ascension/Pentecost/Whitsun – rogation processions (Feast of Corpus Christi)
• June: Feast of St John the Baptist – midsummer’s eve 24/6
• November – All Hallows/All Saints’ day 1/11
• November – Martinmas/St Martin’s day – 11/11
• November – Advent (30/11) – beginning of liturgical year (feast of St Andrew)
SAINTS• Different conception of sanctity:
• Not just exemplar of holy living• Portal to the supernatural• Major part of the practice of religion
• Veneration of images/ prayers/ candles
• Localism:• Each parish a patron saint• Acted as a guardian• Saint’s Day & communal celebration/
definition
• Beyond the parish:• Shrines & aspects of the landscape• Travel to see/touch relics• Pilgrimages
• Receive and indulgence• Specialities
• ‘Problem solving’?• Plague/ disease• Infant mortality• Death in childbirth• Capricious and precarious existence
• Weather• Harvest
• Mary – a special case?• Most intense cult• Why?
• Vengeful God – role of caring, sympathetic protector open.
• Example of meek submission to divine will• In the works of some theologians – notably
Gabriel Biel – she is almost the co-redeemer of mankind.
PICKERING, YORKSHIRE
St. Peter & Paul St. Sebastian
LAY INVOLVEMENT• Fraternities• Voluntary associations of laymen• Usually a devotion to the host, the
Trinity or the Virgin Mary.• 30,000 in LC15th.• Very high – almost improbable• Own patron saint and therefore
own rounds of religious practices• Maintain own
light/candles/chapel for patron• Own altars in church – richest
support own priest to tend to their needs
• Burial of members• Other forms of support –
religious and non-religious.
• Tensions• Complement or supplement
‘official’ religion • In competition with the Church?• Did it withdraw from the body?
• Within and without the parish:• Needs and demands which may not
have been for the village or parish as a whole
• Members may come from other parishes.
• Yearning?• Counter Reformation respond to
Protestantism in Europe by extending confraternities.
SACRAMENTAL RELIGION• Mediation
• Clergy’s pivotal role in society: to assist people en route to salvation.
• Not necessarily about belief in the modern sense• Remember verb vs noun: Sacramental religion:
• God’s grace channelled through particular ritual actions, material objects and sacred places.
• Salvation: a problem.• Adam & Eve and Original Sin
• God, in his mercy, offered the opportunity to be saved – salvation.
• Saving work of Jesus Christ on the Cross – crucified for the sins of humanity – was mediated through the sacrificial and sacramental ministry by the priests of the Catholic Church.
• The rituals and sacraments of Catholic Church was the route through which that opportunity could be realised.
• No salvation outside of it.
• Overly material?• Scholasticism• Role of God and humanity in the
process• Catholics – rites of the Church afforded
some leverage• Protestants – God alone decided
• Sacraments a visible role in life of the average Christian• Punctuated their journey from cradle to
grave:• Baptism• Confirmation• Confession• Marriage• The Mass• Extreme Unction
THE MASS• Temporal centre of the world:• Collapse time• Sacrifice• Ritual re-enactment of the Last
Supper
• Transubstantiation:• Piety & pity
• Efficacious:• See God
• Not a singular practice:• Powerful – variety of uses:• Masses for the dead• Corpus Christi procession• Mysticism• Unofficial – curses• Bossy – ‘social institution’• Marshall – ‘where faith met
community’.
ST GREGORY’S MASS
MATTHIAS GRUNEWALD
CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION
DOES ‘COMMUNAL’ = ‘UNIFORM’• Uniformity:• No space for individual to approach
God?• Christian?• Keith Thomas, Religion & the Decline
of Magic• Division of ‘elite’ and ‘popular’
religion.• Most ‘Christianity’ before the
Reformation not ‘Christian’ in any meaningful sense.
• Overstatement to see as semi-magical or solely ritual based
• Religious books:• Handbooks for priests• Catechisms• Work through the basics before
confession:• 10 Commandments• Seven deadly sins• Works of mercy• Five bodily senses• Asked parishioner how their
behaviour accorded with• A move to education/ instrospection/
piety?• Eamon Duffy• ‘Popular’ & ‘Elite’? Or ‘traditional’?
BOOKS OF HOURS• Primer of religious instruction/
text-book of essentials o faith• Poor Caitiff – didactic and
devotional works• Dives and Pauper – systematic
exposition of the Commandments• Prayers to meditate on – especially
the Passion.• Thousands printed in the later-
fifteenth century• Extensive readership by the
standards of the time (if not our own).
• Division of ‘popular’ and ‘elite’?• Peter Burke• 1500-1800: move to a divide
between solemn ‘high’ and a vibrant ‘low’ culture
• Social stratification determines cultural stratification• Access to culture• Ability to read
• Duffy – ‘traditional’• Shared/common culture• Oral and written not as
demarcated as we would see it.
BOOKS OF HOURS
BOOKS OF HOURS
DIVISIONS?
• Were the gentry withdrawing?• Develop own chapels• Moves to build own pews in
Church• Reading = withdrawl?• Group reading, not private.
• Criticisms of the ‘material’ aspect of late medieval Christianity:• shrines/ pilgrimages criticised• Yearning, or debate?• Individual examples, rather than
the system?
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
• Vibrant and vital• Fulfil needs in many different facets of life
• Clearly not waiting for Reformation• But were there fissures in the bedrock of this Church?
• Was that vibrancy actually a weakness as much of a strength?• Ability to be pulled in lots of different ways – as communal as historians
suggest?• Later lecture – see that early Protestantism had much to do with
Reform movement within the Church• Perhaps ‘Ref’ not a juncture, but a continuation of what was already
present.