Daily Life During The Reformation (7 page)

City inhabitants lived within the walls whose portals and
ramparts were guarded at night. The streets of most such cities were crowded
and bustling with activity during the day, and deserted after dark, the
citizens tucked safely in their houses.

RURAL LIFE

The vast majority of people lived in villages of less than
one hundred where came roving actors hoping to perform their plays, traveling
salesmen peddling their latest concoctions of elixirs, migrants looking for
work, quack doctors and dentists, and fairground performers and, on less
auspicious occasions, beggars, roving bandits, or companies of soldiers who
demanded to be quartered.

Brigands roved the countryside looking for
opportunities—many of them mercenary soldiers who, between wars, had no pay.
They gathered up whatever spoils they could find although locals often fought
back with savage ferocity to protect the little they owned. Remote towns were
easy targets for both brigands and soldiers, and often, if overwhelmed, the
peasants had to plea for their lives and those of their families.

Pilgrimages were a source of relief from daily village life
and some locals took on the role of guides, taking groups to nearby shrines and
churches that had a special significance such as a purported holy relic.

Medieval and early modern villages consisted of a manor
house, where the landholder, knight, or baron lived with a group of peasant
houses nearby. The latter were usually one-bedroom huts made from wooden beams,
mud, and straw. Windows in these murky dens were rare and a hole in the roof
allowed smoke from the fire to escape. During winter months, warmth was
generated by allowing the farm animals (goats, sheep, chickens, geese, and
cattle) to sleep inside the house. Entire families slept on a straw or wool
mat, allowing for almost no privacy. A small church served both as a place for
worship and as the center of all events occurring within the village.

The lord maintained his authority in order to preserve the
social structure while the priest served the villagers with religious
instruction, giving advice and sometimes news. He was often the only one who
could read. He could keep the peasants under control by telling them often that
their role in life was God’s mandate.

Those who possessed few goods and little land could easily
fall into abject misery by the least accident. Illness or injury, the failure
of a crop, death of a cow, fire or flood, or the death or bankruptcy of an
employer could lead to dire consequences. An entire community could be subject
to extreme poverty through sickness such as malaria, smallpox, or plague.

CHARITY

Most large cities in Europe at the time of the Reformation
hosted charities, including orphanages for abandoned children and homes for the
elderly as well as offering some relief for the destitute. In general, the
Catholics were more accepting of beggars, whereas the Protestants, rejecting
the premise that good works led to salvation, insisted the poor be put to work
and become productive members of society wherever possible. In the event,
however, much discrimination took place as to whether or not a person was truly
in need of assistance.

In an attempt to verify this, both Catholic and Protestants
strove to restrict benefits to members of their particular religious or secular
communities whereby the poor had to provide proof of residence. Outsiders were
automatically turned away.

In addition, those in charge followed strict rules in
ascertaining the moral comportment of the mendicants, linking their behavior to
Protestant and Catholic standards, respectively. As a result, many were denied
much needed relief.

3 - THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Not
unlike a powerful authoritarian state, the Church had its monarch (the pope),
its princes (the prelates), knights (the priests), and all of Europe as
subjects. Ecumenical councils acted as legislative bodies; canon law enforced
its code of behavior. Ecclesiastical courts punished the wicked, and the Curia
functioned as its fiscal body. The Church could declare war, negotiate treaties
and collect taxes.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, everybody
believed in God, heaven, angels, saints, purgatory, the devil, and his agents.
Nearly everyone was a member of the Roman Catholic Church that did not tolerate
freedom of religion or deviations from its own doctrines. Those who digressed
were punished by excommunication, by imprisonment, or, in more extreme cases,
by death.

Priests could be regular clergy (monks) who lived in
sheltered monasteries in a world of self-denial and abstinence or secular
priests who lived in the community and performed the church services. The
latter were concerned with the temporal world and with the people and their
anxieties. The Catholic Church considered itself the only institution
authorized to interpret the Bible; the translation of which from Latin into a
vernacular language was forbidden. The true Christian respected the seven
sacraments as well as religious oaths for monastic life, the infallibility of
the Church, the authority of Church councils, Church tradition, and the
legality of the ecclesiastical institutions created by Rome.

For the vast majority of Christians, the Church would have
been a source of solace and of refuge from the harsh realities of everyday
life. Its doctrine, ceremony, and the promise of life ever after in a heavenly state
of bliss would more than make up for suffering on earth if one obeyed the
rules. Many Catholic priests did their best to soothe the conscience of
sinners, aid the hungry and sick, and console the dying.

PURGATORY AND INDULGENCES

The Catholic Church believed that salvation was a process
of purification and that the soul could be cleansed through confession and
blessings, by engaging in a crusade or pilgrimage, by good works, prayers,
saying the rosary, almsgiving, Communion, and attendance at Mass. Nevertheless,
it was believed that few could escape purgatory, which further purified the
soul from earthly sins.

It was also held that Christ and his disciples had
accumulated a huge amount of merit while on earth that was deposited in heaven.
There were plenty of these credits to go around, and one way of obtaining them
was to purchase an indulgence that helped wash away sins and shorten time in
purgatory. It was believed that the pope had the authority to draw upon this
treasury that could even be used to help relatives and friends by making their
stay in purgatory shorter and less painful.

One type of letter of indulgence, the “Peter Indulgence,”
was initiated by Pope Julius II in 1507 to financially promote the construction
of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

MONASTIC LIFE

Some monks and nuns partially sustained themselves by
producing and selling goods such as cheese, wine, beer, liquor, fruit, and
jellies or by donations. Rental or investment income and funds from other
organizations within the Church also kept them far from hunger’s door.

The life of prayer and communal living was one of rigorous
schedules with prayers taking up much of their waking hours. Between prayers,
some monks sat in the cloister working on projects of writing, copying, or
decorating books. Others were assigned to physical labor of various kinds such
as the cultivation of vegetables and other food. Monasteries offered a resting
place for weary pilgrims or travelers and often with large libraries at their
disposal, they were sources of information for scholars. Families sometimes
gave up a son to the monastery in return for blessings. During times of
pestilence, monks and nuns helped provide for the sick.

Monasteries varied in size. Some mandated isolation from
the outside world; others interacted with the local village or town. As they
gained wealth from their lands and from donations and stipends, they also
sometimes became more lax. Viewed by many as institutions of easy living, their
inhabitants were at times considered exploiters of the poor. Stories of what went
on behind the walls between priests and nuns were abundant. It seemed to some
that monasticism was an unnatural way of life with its inner secrets and was
perhaps contrary to God’s will.

Women were drawn into convents that offered protection;
some of them also nourished their intellectual growth there—not available to
them outside of the establishment. Convents, like monasteries, often housed
libraries and contributed to the production of illuminated manuscripts.

Admittance to a religious order was regulated by Church law
as well as by the rules adopted by the particular order. After a lengthy period
of probation, a woman under temporary vows wishing to be admitted permanently
was required to make a public profession of chastity, poverty, and obedience,
not unlike their male counterparts in monasteries and confirm this by a solemn
vow that was binding in Church law. One of its effects was that members were no
longer free, and should they subsequently wish to leave the order, they would
have to seek papal permission. To just walk away was severely punishable. There
were many young women who were forced into the convent life by their families,
for although some convents expected a fee for enrollment, the amount would have
been much less than the payment of a dowry if the girl found a husband.

WEALTH OF THE CHURCH

Political power, material possessions and privileged
position in public life were too often the primary ambitions of many of the
higher ecclesiastics who were chiefly concerned with increasing their personal
wealth by uniting under their jurisdiction several prebends or episcopal sees
into the hands of one individual to allow for a larger income and greater
power.

Church wealth in land and buildings, along with tithes,
donations, inheritances, priceless artworks, and libraries, were often a source
of contention between secular rulers and ecclesiastical officials. Further,
these lands were exempt from taxation by secular governments unless with papal
consent.

Every increase in Church lands, such as from wills to the
Vatican from those who expected holy benefits, diminished state tax revenues on
property. Secular rulers viewed swelling Church coffers as containing riches
that rightfully should have accrued to them. Many of the nobility began voicing
their objections to this flow of wealth from lands under their control to Rome.
Decentralized Church authority gave bishops and abbots a good deal of
individual power and lucrative positions in their jurisdictions, while the pope
and the Curia gave direction and maintained unity in the details of Christian
belief. Local nobles were only too aware that if their relatives became abbots
and bishops, some of the wealth of the Church would likely come their way. Such
positions were often for sale to the highest bidder.

The Church was quick to collect its 10 percent of the
produce of the peasants on Church lands, and while its teachings stressed
charity, critics were not slow to recognize that the costs of charity were
small in relation to the enormous income of the Church. Bishops lived in
sumptuous luxury in palaces with servants, lavish entertainment, costly
material goods, expensive dress, and tables of the finest food available.

There were men of the Church, however, who considered this
ostentatious wealth and power obscene and far removed from the basic spiritual
principles of Christ. They recognized the need for reform and adherence to
fundamentals. But great care was called for not to antagonize Church authority
and be accused of heresy.

CHURCH IN THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE

The Church physically held the dominant place in the
village, towering above the community on a hilltop if there was one. It also
held the dominant place spiritually and often politically. It collected fees
for baptism, marriage, burial, and other services. People’s fear of the
afterlife was its major asset that influenced how they thought about heaven and
hell, emphasizing the torments of hell, the sufferings in purgatory, and the
promise of paradise if people followed its tenets. Religion and superstition
made up an important part of most aspects of Catholic daily life. Church and
monastery bells continually reminded the inhabitants of towns and villages of
the presence of God and the danger of committing sins.

In the past, investigation of heresy was a duty of the
bishops, but Pope Gregory IX established the papal Inquisition whereby men and
women who had once been members of the Catholic faith and had deviated from
Church practices were tried and, if found guilty, handed over to secular authorities
for execution. The hypocritical practice allowed the Church to remain unstained
by the specific act of killing its victims.

CORRUPTION AND ABUSE

The years leading up to the Protestant Reformation were
beset by moral corruption, greed, and abuse of position in the higher echelons
of the Roman Catholic Church that included simony (investing one’s wealth or
using influence to purchase an ecclesiastical office), pluralism (as some
influential bishops held several or more dioceses simultaneously), and
absenteeism or the failure of some bishops to reside in the diocese they
administered.