URBAN SOCIETY & RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS 12TH - 13TH
I.
Economic & Social Background Population rise, immigration to cities
Rise of urban commercial economy based on money
l) clerical denunciation of commercial wealth & avaric
2) Gratian's Decretum 12th C. compilation of canon law (church
law)
commercial wealth as unnatural, corrupting, morally dubious
3) anti-Semitism: hostility to Jews as moneylenders
prohibition on Christian usury (lending money at interest)
Religious
Rejection of Urban Wealth
Patarenes -- urban religious movement in Milan 11-12th C.;
riot in 1072 against Emperor's choice of noble Archbishop
Humiliati 1170-1220 ("humbled ones")-- lay religious
movement
social basis: artisans & textile workers;
religious brotherhood serves functions of guild;
symbol = lamb of God (wool = major textile)
II. Rise of Heretical Movements -- Themes: poverty & preaching
CATHARS:
"Medieval Manicheans"; appear in France around 1140
dualists, believe in separate powers of good God vs evil God;
physical world as creation of the evil God; center in
southern French town of Albi (source of term Albigensianism)
Organization: perfecti – “perfect ones,” goodmen; abstain
from sex and meat (products of copulation to be avoided);
"anti-Church" -- separate organizational structure, Bishops
ALBIGENSIAN
CRUSADE 1209-1229 against Cathar heretics
led by French king against southern French Cathar nobility
WALDENSIANS:
less clearly heretical movement than Cathars
Founder Peter Waldo (Valdes) rich merchant from Lyons
famine of 1176: sells everything, gives to poor
Movement based on evangelical poverty & preaching, critique
of clerical wealth leads to anti-clerical attitudes
III. Orthodox Response: MENDICANT ORDERS (mendicare = to beg)
DOMINICANS: founder St. Dominic (1170-1222) works against Cathars in
southern France; goes on foot to show evangelical poverty
1215 sent on mission to preach to Cathars by Bishop of Toulouse
1216 Order of Preachers (O.P.) approved by Pope
members required to study theology at university
INQUISITION (Medieval or Episcopal Inquisition)
1215 Lateran Council urges local heresy investigations
1233 task of suppressing heresy assigned
to mendicant orders
1251 Innocent IV Ad extirpanda authority
of Inquisition extended
FRANCISCANS: Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
personal religious crisis
rejects wealth of cloth merchant father
1210 Order of Friars Minor (O.F.M.) approved by Innocent III
1219-20 Francis travels to Egypt & Holy Land to convert Moslems
1221 Second Rule: forbids brothers even to touch money
1226 Francis' Testament: warns against
compromise on poverty
Split between Spiritual Franciscans (strict view on poverty)
& Conventual Franciscans (willing to live in convents)
St. Bonaventure General of Order 1257-1274 Conventual, writes
"official" biography of Francis, earlier ones suppressed
MEDIEVAL
SCHOLASTICISM:
"rational study of religion" urban universities 12-l3th C
effort to reconcile faith and reason (Aristotle)
Peter Abelard (d. 1142), Sic et Non (Yes and No)
early university teacher; famous affair with Heloise
History of My Calamaties:
story of his castration by Heloise's uncle
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. (1224-1270)
Summa Theologica summary
of all theology
Principles of scholastic argument: quaestio (question)
syllogistic reasoning, structured proofs and argument,
syllogism: Major premise: All men are rational
Minor premis: Socrates is a
man
Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates
is rational.
e.g. Anselm's ontological proof for existence of God
God is that being greater than which nothing
can be imagined; it is better to exist
than not to exist;
therefore the greatest being must exist.
Medieval
scholastic curriculum of seven liberal arts:
trivium: (basic study of language and speaking)
grammar, rhetoric, logic
( includes dialectics, the science of
argument)
quadrivium: arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, music
(= natural philosophy)
University degrees (Doctorates): theology, law, medicine
Purpose of knowledge in
scholasticism:
1) abstract, rational intellectual truth about God,
creation (mankind as part of creation), Redemption
2) encyclopedic approach to knowledge sub specie eternitatis
truth is ahistorical, beyond time ("under the eye of eternity")
eg Aquinas: summa of all knowledge about God, man, creation