Chapter 9 Notes A

1
Chapter 9 Notes A

• Late Middle Ages
• 1300-1500 CE

2
1300-1500

• Life Times
• Calamities
• Science provided new cosmology
• Church too involved in wars
• Black Death 1347
• Fleas on rats on ships from India
• 1/3 of Europe bites the dust
• Entire towns are dead

3
Black Death

• Effects on Society
• Infrastructure is greatly damaged
• Public life comes to a grinding halt
• Effects on Church
• Clergy are among the 1st to die
• New untrained men take their place
• The IQ of the clergy decreased
• The respect for the clergy decreased

4
100 Years War 1338 - 1453

• The Papacy is deeply discredited
• Terrible territorial wars between England and
  France
• Lots of political maneuvering
• The rise of superstition
• Scapegoats are persecuted
• Persecution of Jews and Pagan witches

5
Papacy Problems 1300s

• Older Christians could remember the hay-day of
  Pope Innocent III, when the popes did not accept
  deals from kings
• Nation States were rising in power and their
  kings demanded total loyalty and oaths of love
  and devotion to their crown
• The motif of King vs. Pope was won by the kings.

6
Avignon Papacy 1303

• King Philip IV of France sent troops to arrest
  the Pope. The Pope was not willing to pay taxes
  to the French king.
• The Pope also resisted when the King put a French
  Bishop on trial in the civil courts.
• The King of France wanted a National Church, not
  a Roman Catholic Church.
• Two years later the College of Cardinals elected
  a French Pope, Clement V.

7
Avignon, Clement V

• Pope Clement V moved the Papal Headquarters from
  Rome to Avignon, in France.
• There were beautiful grape vineyards there, and
  none of the stink and stench of the dying Rome
  cities.
• Once in France, the Pope appointed French
  Cardinals to ensure the next pope elected would
  be French.
• 7 French Popes followed. 1309-1377

8
1309-1377 French Popes

• The French Popes were SO into their aesthetics
  that they were completely pampered and removed
  from the true problems of the Plague raging
  through the rest of Europe.
• The Common People began to BLAME the French Popes
  for the Plague, calling it a punishment from God
  for the lavish lifestyle of the popes.

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Reactions to French Popes

• There was a long tradition of the Pope being in
  Rome traced back to the deaths of Peter and Paul
  in Rome, so many people rejected the Popes being
  in France
• The 100 years war negatively influenced the popes
  to side with France
• Avignon Popes increased taxes and sold
  indulgences, especially favoring the rich who
  could buy Gods graces.

10
Catherine of Siena 1376 1377

• Gregory XI, the 7th and last Avignon Pope
  received Catherine as a guest. She was a 31 year
  old lay Dominican Order member.
• The French clergy considered her naïve
• She told the Pope that Christ had appeared to her
  and told her to tell the Pope to move back to
  Rome where he belonged as head of the Roman
  Catholic Church.
• If he would move the 100 years war and the Plague
  would come to an end.
• In 1377, Gregory XI did as she said. He moved
  back to Rome and within one year he died.
• Catherine helped to end the Avignon Papacy.

11
Catherines Life

• Teen years contemplative
• Age 21 Active in community service
• Age 21 Active political and religious life
• Mediator between City-states, especially Florence
  and the Pope
• Authored a book based on her mystical experiences
  of Christ she had during contemplative prayer
• In 1377, she started a monastic convent near
  Siena
• Age 33 She died young, having made a MAJOR
  contribution to the life and reform of the Roman
  Catholic Church.