1. How did the Church play a vital role in medieval life?

3. The Church Dominates Medieval Life
Priest in each village was often the only contact people had with the Church
Celebrated the mass and sacraments
Explained Church teachings and the Bible (was in Latin)
Some ran schools in the later Middle Ages
Life was marked by important events: birth, illness, marriage, death  Church involvement
Church was social center, Church calendar very important (Gregorian calendar, 1582)
Men and women were equal in Church doctrine, but
Church set minimum age of marriage for women
Men were fined for hurting their wife
Women often punished more harshly for similar offenses

4. Monasteries and Convents
What are they?
Benedictine Rule
Created around 530
A system of rules that regulated monastic life
3 vows: obedience, poverty, chastity
Day was divided for worship, work, and study (did much to help advance farming methods and the economy
Provided basic health and educational services
Helped keep learning alive—libraries, copying texts
Many women entered convents because of opportunities for learning

6. Church Power Grows
Pope = leader of Western Christian Church, head of the entire Church hierarchy
Papal supremacy- authority over all secular rulers (this would included kings and emperors)
Church leaders were usually highly educated, & were appointed to gov’t positions by feudal rulers
Doing good deeds, believing in Christ, and participating in the sacraments were all required to avoid hell.
Only the Church could administer the sacraments
Consequences?
Canon law = Church law
Disobeying could result in excommunication or worse, interdict (excluded an entire town or kingdom from the sacraments and Christian burial).
Tried to stop warfare among nobles, called the Truce of God

7. Corruption and Reform Success = problems Calls for reform:
Some monks and nuns had possessions of their own
Some priests lived luxuriously
Calls for reform:
Cluny, France, 900s, Abbot Berno revived the Benedictine Rule and many other monasteries followed
Rome, 1073, Pope Gregory VII pushed to limit secular influence on the Church and outlawed marriage for priests and selling of Church offices (simony)
Friars traveled and taught to the poor (groups like the Franciscans and Dominicans)

8. Jews in Medieval Europe
Spain was center of Jewish culture—Muslim controlled, but all religions tolerated
1000s- Jews began to be persecuted in W. Eur.
Blamed for disasters
Not part of parish structure, Christians suspicious
Excluded from land ownership and some occupations
Jews migrate to E. Eur.
Welcomed
Formed long-lasting communities

9. Pilgrimage A religious journey
European Christians journeyed to the Holy Land
Why the Holy Land?
Holy Land occupied by Seljuk Turks (fanatical Muslims) in the 11th century
Unfriendly to the Christians
Raided north and defeated a Byzantine army
Will be the cause of the 1st Crusade in 1095

10. To summarize: