HIST 126: The Age of Reformation

 

Late Medieval Background, III: Movements of Reform

 

A.       Ideas of reformatio and renovatio, recap.

B.        Challenges from within

1.         Reform from above: a lost cause?

a.          The Great Schism (1378-1417)

b.          Self-interest vs. a common goal

c.          Piecemeal (and mostly ineffectual) papal reforms

 

This is where we left off…

 

2.         The conciliar movement: “Reform in head and members”

 

Conciliarism is the theory that argues that the supreme judicial organ of the Church of Jesus Christ (i.e. both Orthodox and Latin-Roman) is the General Council.  That is, ecumenical councils came to claim that final authority in spiritual matters resided with a general Church council, not the pope. This is a very old ecclesiological theory in Christendom, advocated by as many notable figures as the other great Western theory, papalism (the theory that the supreme judicial power is the pope).  Based upon conciliarism proper, the Conciliar Movement per se was a fifteenth century series of General Councils (of the West) designed to secure the reform of the Church "in head and members" (in capitis et membris).

 

The Conciliar  Movement developed in reaction to the Avignon Papacy and the ensuing Great Schism, when it became apparent that the Pope – none of the three – was not going to “fix” immediate matters, much less reform the Church.  The most important council of the 15th century was perhaps the Council of Constance (1414-1418), which was called to resolve the Great Schism.

 

Some of the key principles of the conciliar movement would later animate the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, and would also significantly influence the rise of constitutional government in its various oppositions to the absolute monarchies of Europe throughout the seventeenth century.  In political terms, therefore, conciliarism came to be seen as a viable model for representative secular government.

 

As I mentioned in class, the consiliar movement was an alternative source of possible reform of the Church.  Particularly, councils embraced two reform agendas: first, to limit the power of the pope; second, to remove all clerical abuses.  However, councils encountered the same problems which willing popes had faced before when attempting reform: individual interest overcame collective desires to truly reform the Church.

 

3.         The monastic orders and “Strict Observance”

 

While the secular clergy was preoccupied with the possibility of and possible methods to reform the Church in general, the monastic orders decided that reform would be most effective if approached individually.  That is, the orders decided to reform themselves, in the hopes that their actions would set the stage for Chirstiandom-wide reforms to come.  In  many ways, monastic reform was much more successful than larger attempts were, particularly for two reasons: first, it was easier to reform in the “backwater” (as many thought of the rural monasteries) than in the urban centers – where clerical luxury and abuses were perhaps the most entrenched; second, monastic reform was implemented within the contained environment of individual monasteries.  Only after reform was successful in the first instance would the orders “export” it to other monasteries.

 

Most monastic order initiated reform by implementing what is known as “Strict Observance.”  This, simply put, means following to the “t” the rules of the order.  Strict observance was seen as the way to overtake a run-down monastery and revive its religious spirit. 

 

There are three successful examples of monastic reform prior to the 16th century: the Cluniac reforms of the Benedictine order in the 10th century, the reform of the Cistercians in the 12th, and the rise of the Franciscans in the 13th.

 

—    The Cluniac Reforms:       

Cluny was perhaps the most celebrated abbey in Benedictine annals. This famous monastery was founded in 910 by William the Pious, Duke of Aquitaine, and under a succession of abbots of extraordinary eminence and sanctity of life, soon attained a position of splendor and influence not surpassed by any religious institution in the whole history of Christendom.  Possessed of enormous wealth, Cluny covered all Europe with its dependent Priories, whose rulers were directly subject to the abbot of the Mother House. Being thus the immediate Superior of all the Cluniac monks throughout the world, the Abbot of Cluny was a person of vast power and importance, whose opinion was sought for on every question by rulers and subjects, alike in Church and State. Cluny in fact became, next to Rome, the center of the Christian world; and after the Pope himself, the Abbot of Cluny was undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Church. But the great convent was famous for other reasons besides those already mentioned. Its influence for good was exerted not only in regard to the reform of Benedictine Monasticism, but also with reference to the urgent need of reformation then existing throughout the Universal Church.

 

Here is a short list of their central reform tenets:

1.      return to the Rule of St. Benedict

2.      separate Church and State.  That is, there should be no secular interference in Church matters.  Moreover, the pope is supreme.

3.      no marriage for priests (which had become more common than people liked to think of)

 

—    The Cistercians (a.k.a. the white monks)

The Cistercians stressed silence, austerity and manual work rather than scholarship. Intent on resisting the lure of the world, they sought a desolate place to build their community and refused to accept tithes, gifts, or lay patrons. Their churches would be plain with no treasures or personal possessions.

 

The ideal of these new monks was to farm, cook, do carpentry and weave. They kept no servants to do their work, believing that work itself was a form of prayer. Their day was devoted to manual work, meditation, reading, and divine service. They allowed themselves seven hours of sleep in winter and six in summer. In summer they ate once a day; in winter, twice.

 

The most famous of the Cistercians, Bernard of Clairvaux, established a Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux, the first of over sixty-five monasteries he would found, whose influence grew throughout Europe.

 

Their salient tenets:

1.      embrace poverty and renunciation of material goods

2.      embrace labor as a means to purify their soul

3.      imitate the simplicity of Christ’s life

 

—    The Franciscans

Founded by St. Francis of Assisi (perhaps the coolest Medieval town in Italy – you must visit!) in 1209, the Franciscans embraced unconditional poverty and the service of the common people.  Interestingly enough, there are Protestant versions of the Franciscans!

 

Note: the Franciscans were not a monastic order but rather a mendicant one.  This means that they were not bound to a monastery but rather lived out in the world, where they preached and helped the common folk.

 

What is important to remember here – generally – is that several monastic orders either reformed themselves or rose in reaction to the weaknesses some saw within the Church.  In general, monastic reform had in common several attributes: the rejection of luxury and the embrace of simplicity (or its extreme, poverty), the embrace of a rule of conduct delimiting accepted social interactions and behavior, and an ultimate influence that went beyond their monastery walls.

 

a.          Strengths and weaknesses of monastic reform

—    Strengths

1.      the search for holiness through the embrace of discipline and abstinence was alluring to many.  Even those who did not see themselves as capable of following such strict guidelines respected those who did.  In anway, monastic reform help ameliorate the sentiment of anticlericalism (literally, against the clergy) which pervaded late medieval Christendom;

2.      reform was widespread within the congregations, reforming the lives of thousands of monks and priests

—    Weaknesses

1.      observant houses were still a minority (both within the number of monasteries and – even more so – Christianity at large)

2.      the impact of monastic reform on the wider community was limited, as the guarding of behavior was viable only within “confined” communities (whether directed or self-policed)

 

4.         Alternative sources of spirituality

 

Common people also sought to “reform” their everyday experience of religion.  In the face of often-found neglect, many Christians turned to more inward forms of religiosity.  Not quite a rejection of Church rituals, much less the authority of the Church as mediator, these “alternative” religiosities nevertheless downplayed ritual, and sought to create a closer, more immediate relationship between the individual and God.  A perfect example of this is the devotion moderna, or modern devotion, movement which developed in the 14th century.

 

a.         Devotio moderna: The Brethren of the Common Life

 

—    The devotion was a religious movement within Roman Latin Christianity which developed between the end of the 14th to the 16th century.  It stressed meditation and the inner life, attaching little importance to ritual and external works, and downgrading the highly speculative spirituality of the 13th and 14th centuries.   That is, their approach was much less metaphysical, more worried with how to live a spiritually rewarding Christian life.

—    The movement originated in the Netherlands and spread to Germany, northern France, Spain, and possibly Italy. Gerhard Groote was the father of the movement, and he ultimately argued for the denial of the self and the renewal of one’s spiritual life through the imitation of Christ.

—    Groote founded the Brethren of the Common Life, a community of like-minded Christians.  The Brethren were self-supporting and lived a simple Christian life in common, with an absence of ritual. Among their chief aims were the education of a Christian elite and the promotion of the reading of devout literature. They produced finely written manuscripts and, later, printed books. They kept large schools in which the scholarship – but not the Humanistic spirit – of the Italian Renaissance was found. That is, they did not support the secular nature of humanism, while recognizing the value of the humanists’ educational reforms.  As a boy Erasmus, the famous Northern humanist about whom you will learn shortly, was deeply influenced by them. 

—    Perhaps the most famous of the Brethren was Thomas a Kempis, author of the Imitatio Christi (1441).  Literally, the title means Imitation of Christ, and the book’s aim is to teach how to live a simple Christian life modeled after that of Christ.  The Imitation of Christ gives “exhortations useful for spiritual living,” and admonishes man to be concerned with the spiritual side of life rather than with the materialistic.  Moreover, it affirms the comfort that results from being centered in Christ. Finally, it shows how an individual's faith has to be strengthened through the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. The simplicity of the book's language and the direct appeal to the religious sensitivity of the individual in an uncomplicated way are perhaps the primary reasons why this little book has been so widely received and so deeply influential.

The devotio moderna, and other alternative religiosities like it (for example, mysticism and the participation in confraternities), are important because the offered Christians a more individual experience of religion without challenging directly the authority, or supremacy, of the Church.  As such, their spirituality became the basis for later Reformation and Counter-Reformation approaches to the question of how to make religion closer to man.

     

C.       Heresy: An alternative Church?

 

To really understand the state of affairs in terms of pre-Reformation attempts at reform, we must also take into consideration alternative churches which splintered from the Church prior to the 16th century.  The issue here is that the Protestant Reformers were not the first ones to argue that if the Church did not change, it left Christians no recourse but to break from it in order to ensure their salvation.  In fact, there were several such groups, most notably of which were the Hussites. 

 

1.      The Hussites

 

—    The Hussites were a heretical group who saw themselves as devoutly orthodox (that is, in keeping with prescribed dogma, not against it) Christians.

—    They were followers of John Hus (also spelled Jan Hus), a Czech preacher who was declared a heretic and executed in 1418 C.E. by order of the Council of Constance.

—    His most important tenets are:

a.      the reading of the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible by lay people in the common language because he felt that lay people had the ability to interpret the scriptures for themselves;

b.      the condemnation of the immorality and excesses of the clergy. He wanted to raise clerical ethical standards in order to address the financial abuses and sexual immorality which continued to plague the church;

c.      giving all Christians full communion. At this time, only the priests were allowed to receive wine during communion;

d.      the opposition to the papal selling of indulgences;

e.      the view that the Bible and the scriptures took precedence over Church leaders and councils. This questioned the Church's authority. Essentially Hus felt that the heads of the Church needed a higher sense of morality and that the Bible itself was where the people should find their religion.

—    At his trial Hus insisted that he would obey the Church completely, on the condition that the leaders could prove his statements erroneous. This statement condemned him in itself because he trusted his own ability to reason rather than the authority of the Church.

—    Ultimately, of course, Hus was not successful, and the few surviving members of the Hussites either had to leave their homeland or reconcile with the Church.

 

The crucial lesson here is that groups which sought or pushed for reform (or separation from the Church if no reform was forthcoming) were criminalized!!!  Also, as we will discuss when speaking about Luther, Hus’s ideas were actually repeated by the sixteenth-century reformers (even if they did not quite know they were echoing Hussite “heresy”).

 

The question remains, what was different in the 16th century that “allowed” for the Protestant schism to happen?  Why were Hussites not really influential but rather marginalized while the Reformation “turned” about 40% of the European population?

 

 

* This lecture was compiled in part from De Lamar Jensen’s Reformation Europe, Euan Cameron’s The European Reformation, The Catholic Encyclopedia, The Order of Saint Benedict’s webpage (available at http://www.osb.org/), and the Encyclopedia Britannica.