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** The Medieval Church **

Religious journeys were far from being the sole method used by medieval Christians to show their steadfastness to their beliefs. In medieval times, the Church's teachings were a focus of everyday life. For centuries, Christian missionaries spread the Word across Europe, and eventually, the region was dominated by the Roman church. The everyday lives of Christian Europeans were influenced by their religion, and the hierarchy of the Church soon wielded formidable economic and political authority.

The Church's most notable accomplishment in the early Middle Ages was the conversion of the various Western European peoples to Christianity. St. Augustine was sent by Pope Gregory I in 597 as a missionary to the Anglo-Saxons of England. British preachers returned to convert the Germanic peoples. Western Europe had been converted into a Christian society by the late Middle Ages, bringing suspicion on those who were not part of the church.
 * The Church Dominates Medieval Life **

**The Role of the Parish Priest** A major part of daily life was the Christian faith. In small villages, the local priest was often the only connection the parish had with the Church. This priest conducted the sacred ceremonies of the Church, mass and Holy Sacraments. Everlasting life with God was believed by Christians to be attained by partaking in the sacraments. Priests educated the parish about Church ideas and interpreted the Latin Bible. In addition, these priests offered help to impoverished people and advised many on moral issues. Some parish priests oversaw schools in the later Middle Ages.

**The Importance of the Village Church** Because the church was often the village's largest public structure, it was not only used a place of worship, but also as a social center. Daily life focused around the Christian calendar, which encompassed several holidays, some of which were Easter and a few localized holy days honoring saints. The most memorable events of a person's life occurred at the church; community-wide acceptance was recognized at baptism, the church steps held wedding ceremonies, and the church's cemetery was where the village's dead were buried.

The church building was the pride of the village. Eventually, well-off communities were able to construct stone churches instead of wooden ones. Saints' remains or personal effects could be displayed here, enticing many people to make religious journeys to pray near them. The church required a tithe equaling one tenth of each member's income to support that specific congregation. In time, Rome received more and more of this money.

**The Rise of Cathedrals** Cathedrals were larger churches headed by bishops, who were a hierarchical step above parish priests. Through the application of new technology by communities pre-1100s, larger cathedrals were constructed in an elaborate, buttressed design recognized as the Gothic style. These spectacular buildings gave the communities a sense of pride of achievement, and soon, a competition to build the most impressive cathedral arose across Europe. These churches were built from the labor, money, and skills of Church members in honor of God.

**Church Attitudes Toward Women** Church ideology teaches that everybody is on equal footing before God. But, women were thought to be weak and very temptable to sin. For that reason, men felt their guidance a necessity. Concurrently, Mary, mother of Jesus, was put forward by the Church as the ideal woman, bringing about the dedication of numerous church buildings to the "queen of heaven" and "mother of God." Many Christians requested Mary's intercession before God. The Church made serious attempts to keep women from harm by establishing a minimum age for marriage, yet women were frequently penalized more severely than men for like transgressions.

The early Middle Ages brought monastic life to worldly people. Men and women became monks and nuns, making the decision to devote their whole lives to spiritual aims.
 * Monasteries and Convents **

**Monastic Life: The Benedictine Rule** Monte Cassino, a central Italian monastery, was formed by a monk of the name Benedict, who governed monastic life with a set of rules he created. Monasteries and convents all across Europe soon employed the Benedictine Rule.

Monks and nuns took three oaths in accordance with this rule. Conformity to the abbot or abbess in charge of the monastery or convent was the first. Destitution was second, and celibacy, or virginity was the third. Praise, work, and studying were part of everyday life. Benedict instructed monks and nuns to labor in the fields, cultivating land and carrying out tests on crops. Because the medieval economy was based on farming, monks and nuns helped improve it by performing these tasks. **Opportu****nities for Wo****m****en** Despite their inability to become priests, many women entered convents, where they were able to escape societal limits. For instance, Abbess Hildegard of Bingen was able to write religious music and author various books. Her vision-enhanced counsel was even petitioned for by popes and rulers.

With the end of the Middle Ages approaching, many rights, such as the right to preach, that nuns once had were revoked by the church. Any independent convents were taken over and put under the governance of Church officials. Learning for women became forbidden and submission to Church authority was preferred.

** Church Power Grows ** The Church came to an peculiar junction after Rome's decline. It amassed a respectable amount of secular power as an addition to its control over Christians' spiritual life, slowly becoming the most influential power in medieval Europe.

**The Church's Role in Society** Based in Rome, the pope was the medieval Church's leader. Reputedly being God's delegates, popes of the Middle Ages eventually came to claim papal supremacy, or power over all rulers, even kings and emperors. The pope was the leader of a bureaucratic structure of churchgoing men in charge of church-related business. Nobles generally became high-ranking clergy, namely bishops and archbishops, and similar to feudal lords, controlled their own territories and military force. Even the pope possessed sweeping lands in central Italy, eventually called the Papal States. Some monasteries did likewise, therefore obtaining a substantial amount of economic and governmental influence.

Church functionaries and nonreligious rulers were strongly connected. These functionaries generally were well-schooled, earning them nomination to government jobs. Additionally, the two sides happened to be relatives of one another.

**Religious Authority and Political Power** Christians devote their churches to the praising of God, and simultaneously hold the belief “that all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” One had not only to have faith in Christ, but also perform charitable acts and take part in religious ceremonies; as the Church could refuse the administration of sacraments as a punitive measure, it had the final say in theological issues.

Besides instituting its own courts, the Church established its own rules, referred to as canon law. This law, rooted in religious teachings, regulated many facets of daily life, including morals, marriages, and wills. Defiance was met with a large spectrum of punishments, the harshest of which being excommunication, resulting in exclusion from the receipt of sacraments or a Christian burial, and thus guaranteed an eternity in hell. Unsurprisingly, even the strongest of rulers would sooner comply with the Church than be confronted with an interdict, an order which excommunicated a whole village, region, or kingdom, which was followed by rebellions.

**A Force for Peace** Putting its great power to use, the Church attempted to stop warfare between nobles, by insisting on a suspension of hostilities each week between Friday and Sunday and on Holy Days known as the Truce of God. This effort was likely helpful to the reduction of European warfare in the 1100s.

** Corruption and Reform ** The Church's success became a stumbling block. A lack in discipline resulted from a growth in power and wealth. Religious believers donated their possessions to monasteries and convents, causing ignorance of their vows of poverty in some monks and nuns. Some clergy lived in the lap of luxury. Clerics were still allowed the right of marriage, but after they invoked this right, their religious duties took the back burner to family matters, and eventually regarded it as inheritance. During the Middle Ages, there were constant cries for reform of Church practices.

**Two Movemen****ts for Reform** With the start of the 900s, Abbot Berno began the reformation of the France monastery, Cluny. His initial move was to reinstitute the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity first set forth under the Benedictine Rule. Next, he extricated monastic affairs from noble and bishopric involvement, and Cluny was placed under the direct protection of the pope for the monastery. During the following 200 years, Berno's improvements were implemented in many other monasteries and convents.

A former monk, Gregory VII, became pope and started refining monastic customs in 1073. He wished to restrict the amount of power any secular force had over the Church. Another of his demands was that bishops be chosen by the Church alone; in due course, this precipitated an acrimonious clash of wills with the German emperor. Under Pope Gregory, priests could no longer marry and simoniacal acts were forbade. Simony is the crime of selling or trading Church offices.

**New Preaching Orders** Mendicant friars, monks who lived separate from monasteries and begged for a living, addressed revision differently. They wandered Europe, preaching to the poor. The Franciscans, the first confraternity of friars, was formed by an affluent Italian, St. Francis of Assisi. Giving up his wealthy life, he steadfastly taught the Gospels through good works. Indigence, modesty, and love for God were all virtues advocated by the Franciscans. The architect of the Dominican order of friars was St. Dominic, a Spanish priest. The Dominicans' purpose was to inhibit heresies, or differing religious beliefs, through the teaching of traditional Christian values.

Men were not the only reformists. Some women joined the Dominicans as nuns and the Poor Clares, an offshoot of the Franciscans, received many others. Membership was generally restricted to women from nobler families who endowed the church. Contrarily, the Beguines accepted refuse from other religious sisterhoods that were poor.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">** Jews in Mediev **** al Europe ** Medieval Europe was teeming with Jewish communities. Jews were particularly prosperous in present-day Spain, as Jews and Christians were religiously tolerated by the local Muslim rulers. The country soon became a cultural and academic center of Judaism, and Muslim royal courts even permitted Jews to serve officials there. Western Europe housed other regions where Christians and Jews could live considerably peacefully for centuries. Educated Jews were sometimes nominated by early German kings to court positions. Whilst many northern European rulers taxed Jewish communities heavily, they still respected and defended them.

Western European culture was becoming more Christianized by the late 1000s, causing a rise in anti-Semitic numbers. When confronted with illness, famine, or other inexplicable disasters, Christians frequently blamed Jews. The parish structure that regulated Christian lives did not incorporate Jews, and thus, little interaction between the two religions bred ignorance and distrust. Jews were soon forbade basic rights, such as to own land or to work certain jobs, by the Church's growing power; still, educated Jews were desired as financial advisors and physicians. Thousands of Jews relocated to Eastern Europe to avoid persecution and, in light of their skills and education, were welcomed by rulers with open arms. Until more recent times, Jews flourish in Eastern Europe.