QUESTIONS
1. What religious activity transpired during the high middle ages?
a. What was the conflict between the lay rulers and the pope? Did any religious orders emerge?
B.How did the church deal with the dissident heretics?
2. Give a concise recapitulation of the crusades.
A. Include important people, places, negotiations, and victories.
3.What is the difference between Romanesque and Gothic Architecture?
A. How was this a testament of the dynamic culture changes?
4. What effects did the Black Death have on Europe?
A. Include economical implications. Include speculations about the cause of the plague.
5. What event caused the decline of the church?
a. Include the effects that this event had on Christianity.
a. What was the conflict between the lay rulers and the pope? Did any religious orders emerge?
B.How did the church deal with the dissident heretics?
2. Give a concise recapitulation of the crusades.
A. Include important people, places, negotiations, and victories.
3.What is the difference between Romanesque and Gothic Architecture?
A. How was this a testament of the dynamic culture changes?
4. What effects did the Black Death have on Europe?
A. Include economical implications. Include speculations about the cause of the plague.
5. What event caused the decline of the church?
a. Include the effects that this event had on Christianity.
Medieval Christianity
Papal MonarchySince the fifth century, the popes of the Catholic Church had asserted nonnegotiable supremacy over the affairs of the church. However, they also had political ascendency as they gained control of the central territories in Italy. Church’s, additionally, joined in on the feudal system, and chief officials in the church, such as abbots and bishops, were appointed by nobles. However, these tactical lords and nobles tactically chose their vassals for political reasons, so the bishops and abbots came to be worldly figures who were apathetically indifferent to their spiritual duties. By the eleventh century, the perspicacious church leaders recognized the need to be free from the lord’s interference in the appointment church officials in a practices called lay investiture are a secular or lay ruler chose nominees and gave them a symbol of office. Pope Gregory had a compelling conviction that he had been specifically chosen to reform the Church. He thought that by eliminating lady investiture the church could regains its freedom, appointing clergy and running its own affairs. When the pope issued a stringent decree forbidding high-rankings cleric from receiving their investiture from lay leaders, Henry had no intention of obsequiously bowing down to an edict that challenged the heart of his administration. Though the rancorous tension prevented any compromise between these two headstrong and obstinate leaders, eventually in 1122, a new German king and new pope reached in agreement known as the Concordat of worms.This resolved dissension meant that the bishop was first elected by the church officials, and then the bishop deferentially payed obeisance to the king. And, while the church invested the bishop with his spiritual office symbols, the King also was given the prerogative to offer his symbols of temporal office.
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Religious OrdersIn the late 1000s, an adrenalized surge of religious zeal swept through Europe. This wave of religious enthusiasm led to a rise in the number of monasteries and the emergence of monastic orders. The cisterns were part of this inception of new orders, and it was founded by a group of austere monks were were discontented, border-lining on disgruntled, with the overt lack of discipline at their own Benedictine monastery. They were strict, uncompromising, and rigorous in their disciplined. They ate simple diets, and they each owned a single robe. All decorations were eliminated from their churches, and more time for prayer and manual labor was allotted to their schedules by cutting down on hours at religious services. By the 1200s, two new religious orders emerged. The Franciscans and the Dominicans both operated on the efficacious and selfless philosophy of leading their lives in poverty. The Franciscans were founded by Francis Assisi who, unlike the affluent Spanish priest named Dominic de Guzman who funded the Dominican order, lead a life of squalor from the beginning. In fact, because he was imprisoned in a local war as a captive, he had a stirringly phenomenal experience that led him to abstemiously abandon all worldly goods and to live in absolute impecuniosity. The Franciscans called the world to revert to the life of austere simplicity that was characteristic of the early church, and their humble supplications for renovation were reinforced by example. The Dominican order, however, wanted primarily to defend the honorable truths of the church from the fallacious claims of heresy accused by duplicitous heretics. In the Dominican order, they lived also in poverty as they believed this humble face of the church would be the best to effectively attack heresy.
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INquisitionThe church erected a court named in the inquisition, or holy office , to appropriately handle heretics. the heretics were people who blatantly challenged and repudiated the basic doctrines of the church. The court established developed a regular procedure to find and adjucate heretics. The dominicans, the order founded by Dominic de Guzmán, became recognized or acknowledged for their roles as examiners of the suspects. People who divulged their heresy, a practice called confession, would perform public penance, a christian sacrament where after a member of the church confesses sin to the priest is is given absolution and he is exonerated, cleaved from blame or faults. However, this vindication was always accompanied by punishment , such as flogging. The inquisition additionally added element of torture to evoke or elicit confessions. Those who recalcitrantly and dissolutely refused to confuse but were considered guilty were subject to execution by the state. The same punishment was awarded to those who had done peace and then relapsed. However, when reflecting upon this barbarous practice, I do not think that God would have endorsed such executions and torture. For example, if you execute someone, you are essentially condemning them to hell, deeming them incorrigible scoundrels. This seems callous and inhumane, certainly not a attribute that God would want his church to be exhibiting.
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The CRUSADES EXPLAINED
Did You Know?
Monastic leader Bernard of CLairvaux Said:
"Now, on account of our sins, the sacrilegious enemies of the cross have begun to show their faces...What are you doing, you servants of the cross?...Will you cast pearls before swine?
Architecture
Romanesque Churches
Romanesque builders replaced the conventional flat, wooden roofs with long and routed arched vaults. These arched vaults were made of stone or with cross vaults where two barrel vaults intersected. Because these stone roofs were so heavy the churches required tremendously monstrous pillars and walls to hold them up. This colossal support system left little space for other architectural innovations additions. Because of this, the Romanesque churches, while elegant and sophisticated were dark inside. While some people may have viewed this ‘impediment’ as a hindrance or nuisance, many thought that this dark environment provided the quintessential ambiance for serene and tranquil worship.
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Gothic ChurchesIn the High Middle ages, a new style emerged. This contemporary, cutting-edge phenomena was called Gothic style. Gothic style was a testament to the artistic ideal of the High middle ages. The new gothic style was brought to an immaculately refined perfection in the thirteenth century. The gothic cathedral, in fact, remains one of the most significant artistic feats of the High Middle ages. However, there were two basic inventions that were required to make these staggeringly remarkable churches possible. One innovation was the replacement of the round barrel vault with a conglomerate of ribbed vaults and pointed arches.The ribbed vault of the intersection of three barrel vaults. This allowed the architects to make the churches more elevated. This newfound height helped simulate how the church was meant to be reaching to God, assiduously devoting themselves to keeping his commandments. Another innovation was the flying buttress, an arched support that was built onto the outside of the walls. These made it possible to distribute the weight of the churches faulted ceilings, eliminating the heavy walls needed in churches to hold th weight of the barrel vaults.
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Black Death and Decline of Church Power
The Black DeathThe Black death was a pestilent contagion that ravaged through Europe in the 1300s. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, there were anomalous weather patterns as Europe entire in a period called the “little ice age.” A drop in temperatures precipitated shorter growing seasons and horrible weather conditions.This resulted in ubiquitous hunger and starvation. Additionally, this malnourishment lead to susceptibility to disease and compromised immunity so people were less capable of resisting infection. This explains the skyrocketing mortality rate of their time and why the Black death, also called he bubonic plague, was the most devastating natural disaster in European history. This pernicious disease was spread by black rats that carried fleas with deadly bacterium. The plague started spreading when Italian merchant brought the plague with them from Kaffa in October 1347. By 1351, Eastern Europe and Russia were affected. More than just death, the black death cause a potpourri of political and economical problems. Because people did not know was cause the plague, as humans have a propensity to do in a time of uncertainty, they speculated. Many projected the epidemic on jews, an epitome of anti-semitism, claiming that they have cause the plague by poisoning town wells. The people who maintained these ideas were extreme anti-jew radicals, and they always used the jews as a scapegoat, acrimoniously and vitriolically blaming them for everything they couldn't explain. The economic consequences were equally as severe.A shortage in workers lead to a pronounce rice in the price of labor, but the dwindling population size lower the demand of food, resulting in falling prices. With business have to pay steep amounts for employees and selling their products for less, their profits were nonexistent and indigence and poverty was widespread.
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Decline of Church PowerThe power of the church had a catastrophic decline during the great Schism. Allow me to provide some context. King Philip IV of France claimed the unbridled power to tax the clergy. Pope Boniface argued that such taxing required the pope’s consent, because the popes were in the position of ascendancy. Philip acerbically rejected the pope’s position and sent french forces to coercively bring Boniface back to France for a trial. The pope escaped, but he soon died afterward so his miraculous circumvented hardly payed off. At this point many people believed that the pope should reside in rome, not Avignon, where clement took up residence from 1305 to 1377. The sumptuousness and opulence that the pope and cardinals were living in Avignon, reveling in their lavish luxuries, led to criticism. Finally, Pope Gregory XI had enough perspicaciousness and acumen to see the disastrous decline of the papal reputation. Because of this, he returned to Rome. When Gregory died, the cardinals elected a new pope by the command of the the citizens. They inaugurated Pope Urban VI. Five months later, French cardinals bitterly announced that the election was invalid, and they proceeded to chose a frenchman as pope. This pope returned to Avignon. With Urban in Rome, and this pope in Avignon, there were not two popes. This began the Great Schism of the Church. This decided Europe and. The vituperative invective that each pope spewed at the other was so severe and scathing that each line of popes denounced the other as he Anti-christ. In an attempt to resolve the problem, three popes simultaneously reigned. This was a disaster that had to be resolved. A church council congregated at Constance Switzerland and ended the schism in 1417.A new pope, approved and acceptable to all, was elected. By the early 1400s, the church had lost much of its political power and prestige. Many people lost their faith in the papacy, and this ordeal ultimately laid the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
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VIDEO
CITATIONS:
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/cistercian-monastery.html
http://noisyroom.net/blog/2013/02/04/proposal-for-international-criminal-court-based-on-sharia/
http://microscopicblog.blogspot.com/2014_11_01_archive.html
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/398639004487581477/
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/latin-western-europe/gothic1/a/gothic-architecture-an-introduction
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/mar/12/rick-steves-paris/
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/gothic-architecture
http://www.romanesqueheritage.com/articles-on-romanesque-churches-in-france
https://www.pinterest.com/myehiari/arhi/
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/cistercian-monastery.html
http://noisyroom.net/blog/2013/02/04/proposal-for-international-criminal-court-based-on-sharia/
http://microscopicblog.blogspot.com/2014_11_01_archive.html
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/398639004487581477/
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/latin-western-europe/gothic1/a/gothic-architecture-an-introduction
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/mar/12/rick-steves-paris/
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/gothic-architecture
http://www.romanesqueheritage.com/articles-on-romanesque-churches-in-france
https://www.pinterest.com/myehiari/arhi/