The Rise of Popular Heresies 2 of 6

Causes

There were numerous reasons for the rise of anti-clerical among the laity during the twelfth century. The growth of the educated class, including laymen, brought about by the rise of abbey and cathedral schools and the universities, led to closer examination of the Church's "revealed truth."

• Philosophical Factors

  • Studies such as Peter Abelard's Sic et Non ("Yes and No") demonstrated the contradictions within that "revealed truth."

  • Some scholars abandoned all of the "revealed truth" except for the Scriptures, and translations of the Scriptures (often declared illegal) allowed people to judge the established Church against its origins. They found no Scriptural bases for much of the Church's organization, its practices, its privileges, and many of its teachings.

  • The Nominalists were led to consider whether the Church was not a human institution, in which case it was legitimate for the laity to require its reform and reorganization.

• Political Factors

  • The struggles over lay investiture had involved the Church in secular politics. This weakened the Church's position that ecclesiastical affairs should be free from secular interference but that the Church had the right to pass moral judgments on laymen and their actions.

  • By inciting civil wars in Germany, the Church promoted a great deal of suffering and converted the Holy Roman emperors from allies to political foes.

  • The residents of the rising towns and cities of Western Europe needed charters of liberty to free them from the restrictions of feudal practices. Secular lords granted such charters rather freely, but ecclesiastical lords were often unwilling to relinquish their rights and privileges to laymen. The townspeople seized these rights a privileges in waves communal rebellions (urban revolts) that swept across Western Europe in the 1070's- 1080's and 1120's.

• Social Factors

  • The Church was unable to care for the growing number of paupers with its traditional institutions and revenues. It was requiring more income, but much of this was seen to be used for the building of giant and exceedingly expensive churches, increasing the number of clerical functionaries, and supporting clerics in relative luxurious life-styles.

  • The Church in the West had adapted over centuries to a rural setting in which it served a relatively uneducated flock. Its most zealous and idealistic members joined monastic orders in which they had little or no contact with the laity. The secular clergy working in the new towns did not have the education or fervor to reach members of the middle class or to resist the temptations of city life.

  • The revival of commerce and trade had also revived a way of thinking that placed less confidence on words than actions. The middle class was accustomed to judging the quality of something before they bought it. They could not judge whether the Church truly offered the only path to salvation, but they could judge whether clerics practiced what they preached and often found that they did not. If you find that the man trying to sell you a Ford drives a Chevrolet, you don't put much confidence in his praises of a Ford.

• Internal Factors

  • The Church lacked the number of well-educated and committed clerics needed to meet the needs of the new middle class. It was unaccustomed to explaining its "revealed truth" and justifying its practices, and needed to develop the personnel trained to do so.

  • Church reforms had been directed primarily at monasteries and convents, and the quality of the secular clergy had been, by and large, ignored. Consequently, there was a good deal of corruption within the Church, and positions of leadership were often held by political appointees with little understanding of basic Christian principles and the concept of public service.

  • The Church had been so intent on maintaining Latin as its "universal language," that few clerics were able to communicate effectively in the vernacular. Mass was in Latin and the sermon was only rarely a part of the ecclesiastical service. The sacramental system was not organized in any coherent fashion, and there was little in the public rituals of the Church that were comprehensible to the public.