A History Of Christianity Part 8

16.

Perspectives on the True Church (1300-1517) THE CHURCH, DEATH AND PURGATORY (1300-1500).

By the end of the thirteenth century, the Western Latin Church had created nearly all the structures which shaped it up to the Reformation era. Throughout Europe, from Ireland to the kingdoms of Hungary and Poland, from Sweden to Cyprus and Spain, Christians looked to the pope in Rome as their chief pastor. He looked further than that: newly aware of the possibilities of a wider world thanks to the Crusades and the Western Church's thirteenth-century missions into Central and East Asia (see pp. 275-6), the popes made large claims to be the focus of unity in all Christendom. Given the crusaders' failure to recapture former Christian lands except in the Iberian peninsula, these claims remained empty, but within its own world the Church was united by inst.i.tutions whose ultimate appeal was to Rome: canon law, religious orders, indeed the whole network of parishes, dioceses and archdioceses which made a honeycomb of the map of Europe. European universities, which mostly owed their formal existence to a specific papal grant, embodied in their name their claim to 'universality', the fact that they taught a range of disciplines in a common curriculum embodying a common Latin European culture.

All literate Europeans who owed allegiance to this Church were united by the Latin language which separated the Western Church from its many Eastern counterparts, and which had once been the language of official power in the Roman Empire. Amid Europe's ruins of palaces, temples and monuments surviving from the Cla.s.sical society digested by Christendom, it was possible to see the Church as the heir of the Roman emperors, but there was another contender, as was clear from a symbolic split in the inheritance of imperial t.i.tles between the popes and the monarchs who were heirs of Charlemagne. The Bishop of Rome was Pontifex Maximus Pontifex Maximus, the priestly t.i.tle once appropriated by the Emperor Augustus and his successors and then redeployed by the papacy, while the acknowledged senior among central Europe's princes and cities was an emperor, now calling himself both 'Holy' and 'Roman'. Amid all the symbols of Christian unity, this division symbolized the indecisive results of earlier clashes between popes and monarchs, such as the eleventh-and twelfth-century 'Invest.i.ture Controversy' (see pp. 375-6). The campaign to establish a universal papal monarchy had reached its height under Pope Innocent III, but never came close to achieving its aim. It sought a stability in society which could never be attained in practice, and which was mocked by the flux of human affairs. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, the Church had at least been at the forefront of change. After that, the inst.i.tutions which it had created proved increasingly inadequate to manage or confront new situations; and the outcome was the division of Europe in the sixteenth-century Reformation.

One major disruption came in the sudden catastrophe which afflicted all Europe in the years after 1348. Already by 1300, worsening economic conditions had probably made Europe's population growth level out, and people's general resistance to disease was weakened by a steadily less sustaining diet. There then appeared from the east a disease, now generally thought to be a variant of bubonic plague, which quickly came to be known as the Black Death. As if the Mongols had not intentionally spread enough death and destruction, it was a siege by plague-stricken Mongols from the Kipchak Khanate of a Genoese trading post in the Crimea in 1346 which first brought Europeans into contact with the Black Death. Genoese fleeing the horror instead took the disease first to Constantinople, then around the whole circuit of the Mediterranean. Knowledge of the plague sped before it; far to the north in Oslo in 1348, a group of worried townsfolk endowed an altar in their cathedral for St Sebastian, celebrated for warding off the plague. Sebastian did not put up an impressive performance.1 Through several years, 1348-53, the effect of the Black Death in Europe was more thoroughgoing than any other recorded disaster: proportionally, it was far more destructive than the First World War, with perhaps as many as one in three of the population dying, and in some places up to two-thirds. Through several years, 1348-53, the effect of the Black Death in Europe was more thoroughgoing than any other recorded disaster: proportionally, it was far more destructive than the First World War, with perhaps as many as one in three of the population dying, and in some places up to two-thirds.

In Central Asia, this same plague hastened the ruin of the Church of the East during the fourteenth century (see p. 275). In Europe, the inst.i.tutions of the Church had support from the political inst.i.tutions around them, which ensured that overall survival would be easier, but the blow to society's morale was deep and bitter. One major emergency plague cemetery to have been systematically investigated, in East Smith-field in London, reveals the particular horror of the disease, that it disproportionately attacked those who were the symbols of adult vigour and sustainers of families in society. The peak age of death of those buried there whose ages could be estimated was between twenty-six and forty-five, and males were also revealed as more vulnerable than females.2 The sheer concentration of sudden and squalid death underlined the fact already perceptible in less dire times that death's visitation did not exempt clergy; in fact unwittingly they probably helped to spread plague as they ministered to the dying. The Church was revealed as better at celebrating the end of catastrophe than preventing or halting it. Once the plague had begun retreating in intensity, there was a widespread impulse to build chapels and votive shrines on the part of survivors wanting to express their grat.i.tude (and perhaps guilt) for their survival, but while plague still raged, there was an equally powerful impulse to seek someone to blame for G.o.d's anger: either oneself, collective sin in society or some external scapegoat. The sheer concentration of sudden and squalid death underlined the fact already perceptible in less dire times that death's visitation did not exempt clergy; in fact unwittingly they probably helped to spread plague as they ministered to the dying. The Church was revealed as better at celebrating the end of catastrophe than preventing or halting it. Once the plague had begun retreating in intensity, there was a widespread impulse to build chapels and votive shrines on the part of survivors wanting to express their grat.i.tude (and perhaps guilt) for their survival, but while plague still raged, there was an equally powerful impulse to seek someone to blame for G.o.d's anger: either oneself, collective sin in society or some external scapegoat.

All three thoughts united in a renewed and much grimmer version of the flagellant movement which had begun in Italy in 1260 (see p. 400) but now found widespread expression in northern Europe.3 There was no trace of the earlier flagellants' emphasis on peace-making. On the contrary, outbreaks of flagellant activity became a.s.sociated with quite exceptional anti-Semitic violence, which included the torturing and burning alive of Jews in groups. This was justified by accusations that Jews had poisoned wells and food supplies: the torture supplied the necessary confessions. In the Rhineland and in some other central European regions, Jewish communities were effectively wiped out; overall this was 'the most severe persecution of Jews before the twentieth century'. There was no trace of the earlier flagellants' emphasis on peace-making. On the contrary, outbreaks of flagellant activity became a.s.sociated with quite exceptional anti-Semitic violence, which included the torturing and burning alive of Jews in groups. This was justified by accusations that Jews had poisoned wells and food supplies: the torture supplied the necessary confessions. In the Rhineland and in some other central European regions, Jewish communities were effectively wiped out; overall this was 'the most severe persecution of Jews before the twentieth century'.4 By autumn 1349 Pope Clement VI, lobbied by alarmed monarchs, bishops and city authorities, issued a bull, By autumn 1349 Pope Clement VI, lobbied by alarmed monarchs, bishops and city authorities, issued a bull, Inter Sollicitudines Inter Sollicitudines, which forbade flagellant processions, specifically linking them to anti-Jewish violence; he tried to confine religious flagellation to private houses, or exercises in churches supervised by clergy.5 Certainly the Church came to take over and regularize a good deal of flagellant activity, so that in Italy the members of one major variety of gild, confraternity or religious a.s.sociation took the name ' Certainly the Church came to take over and regularize a good deal of flagellant activity, so that in Italy the members of one major variety of gild, confraternity or religious a.s.sociation took the name 'batti' from their practice of penitential self-flagellation. In one small north Italian town called San Sepolcro, by 1400 practically every adult male belonged to one of several flagellant gilds, and this pattern might be paralleled elsewhere.6 Yet renewed outbreaks of plague repeatedly broke through the Church's supervision, bringing renewed panic, renewed flouting of Pope Clement's prohibition on flagellant public processions and renewed troubles for the Jews. Yet renewed outbreaks of plague repeatedly broke through the Church's supervision, bringing renewed panic, renewed flouting of Pope Clement's prohibition on flagellant public processions and renewed troubles for the Jews.

The need for consolation in the wake of disaster intensified the personalized devotion which had grown up in the thirteenth century, and singled out the themes of suffering, the Pa.s.sion and death. In northern Europe, new shrine cults of relics of Christ's blood sprang up. These were a.s.sociated with the rising devotion to his body and blood in the Eucharist, but they took some time to gain acceptance. They always remained controversial, particularly because they were usually the result of unregulated local enthusiasms, and in any case they raised some awkward theological questions about the mechanism of transubstantiation. One of the earliest, Henry III's effort to start a Holy Blood cult in Westminster Abbey in the mid-thirteenth century, to rival King Louis IX's sensational acquisition of the Crown of Thorns in Paris (see p. 475), never aroused popular enthusiasm and rapidly faded away; it had appeared prematurely.7 By contrast, after the Black Death, blood cults gathered momentum, and like so much else in Pa.s.sion devotion they acquired an anti-Semitic edge, because they were often a.s.sociated with stories that Jews had attacked wafers of eucharistic bread. So the anti-Semitism which had been such a feature of Western Christianity since the era of the early Crusades continued to intensify. By contrast, after the Black Death, blood cults gathered momentum, and like so much else in Pa.s.sion devotion they acquired an anti-Semitic edge, because they were often a.s.sociated with stories that Jews had attacked wafers of eucharistic bread. So the anti-Semitism which had been such a feature of Western Christianity since the era of the early Crusades continued to intensify.

In 1290 in Paris a Jew had supposedly stabbed a eucharistic wafer with a knife and it started bleeding. Among the hundred or so blood cults which appeared over the next three centuries, mainly in the Holy Roman Empire, a majority involved a story of Jewish desecration. There were further stories of deliberate Jewish maltreatment of the host apart from the pilgrimage cults - some are likely to have reflected real a.s.saults by angry Jews, themselves inspired, ironically, by the myth that such a.s.saults had happened.8 In an allied development, particularly in Iberia, Christ's earliest days also came often to be a.s.sociated with the shedding of his blood through the Feast of the Circ.u.mcision: this happy celebration of Jesus's identification with his Jewish people, which so delighted the Viennese beguine Agnes Blannbekin, was turned into a Jewish a.s.sault on the child, rather like the atrocities against children imagined in the 'blood libel' against the Jews (see pp. 400-401). I remember the shock of seeing in the Museo de Arte Antica in Lisbon an example of one of these Circ.u.mcision paintings from an anonymous sixteenth-century Portuguese master. Lying naked in the centre was the Christ Child, over whom stood a rabbi, bishop-like in a mitre, about to wield the knife (and interestingly wearing spectacles, symbolizing his distorted vision, an anti-Semitic visual cliche with a long life ahead of it). On the Child's right were Mary and Joseph, Joseph a befuddled but harmless old man, so a non-threatening sort of Jew, and Mary looking distinctly worried. On the other side stood as vicious a crowd of Jews as one could expect to meet, gleefully brandis.h.i.+ng the Ten Commandments. In an allied development, particularly in Iberia, Christ's earliest days also came often to be a.s.sociated with the shedding of his blood through the Feast of the Circ.u.mcision: this happy celebration of Jesus's identification with his Jewish people, which so delighted the Viennese beguine Agnes Blannbekin, was turned into a Jewish a.s.sault on the child, rather like the atrocities against children imagined in the 'blood libel' against the Jews (see pp. 400-401). I remember the shock of seeing in the Museo de Arte Antica in Lisbon an example of one of these Circ.u.mcision paintings from an anonymous sixteenth-century Portuguese master. Lying naked in the centre was the Christ Child, over whom stood a rabbi, bishop-like in a mitre, about to wield the knife (and interestingly wearing spectacles, symbolizing his distorted vision, an anti-Semitic visual cliche with a long life ahead of it). On the Child's right were Mary and Joseph, Joseph a befuddled but harmless old man, so a non-threatening sort of Jew, and Mary looking distinctly worried. On the other side stood as vicious a crowd of Jews as one could expect to meet, gleefully brandis.h.i.+ng the Ten Commandments.

European society in the wake of the Black Death remained preoccupied by death and what to do about it. No wonder the eleventh- and twelfth-century development of the doctrine of Purgatory was one of the most successful and long-lasting theological ideas in the Western Church. It bred an intricate industry of prayer: a whole range of inst.i.tutions and endowments, of which the most characteristic was the chantry, a foundation of invested money or landed revenues which provided finance for a priest to devote his time to singing Ma.s.ses for the soul of the founder and anyone else that the founder cared to specify (since either separate buildings or distinct parts of a church were customarily set apart for this purpose, there is often confusion between the chantry foundation and the chantry chapel in which the foundation operated). Easing the pa.s.sage of souls through Purgatory with the prayer of the Ma.s.s or simply with the prayers of good Christian folk addressed that age-long human sense of bafflement and helplessness in the face of death, for it suggested that there was indeed something constructive to be done for the dead. Moreover, while the dead were languis.h.i.+ng in the penitential misery of Purgatory preparatory to being released to eternal joy, they might as well get on with showing some grat.i.tude for the prayers of the living by returning prayer back to them for future use. It was a splendidly mutual system, and a particularly neat aspect was the developed inst.i.tution of indulgences, which had originated in the first enthusiasm of the Crusades (see p. 384).9 To understand how indulgences were intended to work depends on linking together a number of a.s.sumptions about sin and the afterlife, each of which individually makes considerable sense. First is the principle which works very effectively in ordinary society, that a wrong requires rest.i.tution to the injured party. So G.o.d demands an action from a sinner to prove repentance for a sin. Second is the idea that Christ's virtues or merits are infinite since he is part of the G.o.dhead, and they are therefore more than adequate for the purpose of saving the finite world from Adam's sin. Additional to Christ's spare merits are those of the saints, headed by his own mother, Mary: clearly these are worthy in the sight of G.o.d, since the saints are known to be in Heaven. Accordingly, this combined 'treasury of merit' is available to a.s.sist a faithful Christian's repentance. Since the pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth, it would be criminal meanness on his part not to dispense such a treasury to anxious Christians. The treasury of merit can then be granted to the faithful to shorten the time spent doing penance in Purgatory. That grant is an indulgence.

All these ideas were explicitly drawn together on the very eve of the Black Death in a bull of Pope Clement VI, Unigenitus Unigenitus ('The Only Begotten [Son of G.o.d]'), in 1343, by which time the Pope was seeking to rationalize a system of indulgence grants already well established, 'now for total, now for partial remission of punishment due for temporal sins'. ('The Only Begotten [Son of G.o.d]'), in 1343, by which time the Pope was seeking to rationalize a system of indulgence grants already well established, 'now for total, now for partial remission of punishment due for temporal sins'.10 It was only natural for pious Christians to show grat.i.tude for such an act of charity on the Church's part. Eventually their thanks-offerings became effectively a payment for the indulgence, although all indulgences were very careful to lay down proper conditions for use, particularly instructions to the purchasers to go to confession, and also, in a specialized form of welfare relief, free indulgences were offered to the dest.i.tute. There were good reasons to cherish indulgences and their sale: they were very useful for fund-raising for good causes, such as the rebuilding of churches or the support of the charitable homes for the elderly and infirm called hospitals (themselves a part of the Purgatory industry, since their grateful inmates were expected to pa.s.s their time praying for the welfare of the souls of their benefactors). Indulgences were as ubiquitous as the modern lottery ticket, and indeed the earliest dated piece of English printing is a template indulgence from 1476. It was only natural for pious Christians to show grat.i.tude for such an act of charity on the Church's part. Eventually their thanks-offerings became effectively a payment for the indulgence, although all indulgences were very careful to lay down proper conditions for use, particularly instructions to the purchasers to go to confession, and also, in a specialized form of welfare relief, free indulgences were offered to the dest.i.tute. There were good reasons to cherish indulgences and their sale: they were very useful for fund-raising for good causes, such as the rebuilding of churches or the support of the charitable homes for the elderly and infirm called hospitals (themselves a part of the Purgatory industry, since their grateful inmates were expected to pa.s.s their time praying for the welfare of the souls of their benefactors). Indulgences were as ubiquitous as the modern lottery ticket, and indeed the earliest dated piece of English printing is a template indulgence from 1476.11 That same year, unknown to the printer in Westminster, a very considerable extension of the system's potential had occurred when the theologian Raimund Peraudi argued that indulgences were available to help souls of people already dead and presumed to be in Purgatory, as well as living people who sought and received an indulgence; a papal bull followed to implement this suggestion. With that the system was complete, and ready to have its disastrous effect on Martin Luther's volcanic temper (see pp. 608-10). That same year, unknown to the printer in Westminster, a very considerable extension of the system's potential had occurred when the theologian Raimund Peraudi argued that indulgences were available to help souls of people already dead and presumed to be in Purgatory, as well as living people who sought and received an indulgence; a papal bull followed to implement this suggestion. With that the system was complete, and ready to have its disastrous effect on Martin Luther's volcanic temper (see pp. 608-10).

Perhaps significantly for the Reformation, the development of an obsession with Purgatory was not uniform within Europe. It seems to have been the north rather than the Mediterranean area, perhaps most intensively the Atlantic fringe from Galicia on the Spanish Atlantic seaboard round as far as Denmark and north Germany, which became most concerned with prayer as a ticket out of Purgatory. Dante Alighieri's detailed descriptions of Purgatory in his fourteenth-century masterwork the Divina Commedia Divina Commedia might suggest that southerners were indeed concerned with Purgatory, but his Italian readers do not seem to have transformed their delight in his great poem into practical action or hard cash. This action can be monitored through the contents of late medieval wills - one of the rare ways in which we meet thousands of individuals facing death across the centuries. In the north, will-makers put big investment into such components of the Purgatory industry as Ma.s.ses for the dead. In Germany there was a phenomenal surge in endowment of Ma.s.ses from around 1450, with no signs of slackening until the whole system imploded under the impact of Luther's message in the 1520s. might suggest that southerners were indeed concerned with Purgatory, but his Italian readers do not seem to have transformed their delight in his great poem into practical action or hard cash. This action can be monitored through the contents of late medieval wills - one of the rare ways in which we meet thousands of individuals facing death across the centuries. In the north, will-makers put big investment into such components of the Purgatory industry as Ma.s.ses for the dead. In Germany there was a phenomenal surge in endowment of Ma.s.ses from around 1450, with no signs of slackening until the whole system imploded under the impact of Luther's message in the 1520s.12 Samplings from Spain and Italy do not reveal the same concern. Several studies of localities in southern Europe suggest that such activity was imported by reforming 'Counter-Reformation' Catholic clergy in the late sixteenth century, and only then created a piety reminiscent of that which the Protestants were destroying in much of northern Europe. A similar process of transfer southwards occurred at the same time with the devotion of the rosary, originally German. Samplings from Spain and Italy do not reveal the same concern. Several studies of localities in southern Europe suggest that such activity was imported by reforming 'Counter-Reformation' Catholic clergy in the late sixteenth century, and only then created a piety reminiscent of that which the Protestants were destroying in much of northern Europe. A similar process of transfer southwards occurred at the same time with the devotion of the rosary, originally German.13 Another important symptom of a north-south difference on salvation occurs in the many books published to provide clergy with models for sermons about penitence. These books were widely bought throughout Europe in the fifteenth century, because the faithful particularly demanded sermons during the penitential season of Lent, and expected their clergy to urge them to use the confessional properly at that time. However, different books sold well in northern and in southern Europe, and contrast in emphasis in what they say about penance. In the north, the preacher throws the spotlight on the penitents themselves, on the continual need for penance in their everyday lives and on the importance of true contrition and satisfaction when they come to confession; the priest in confession is cast in the role of judge, a.s.sessing the sincerity of all this busy work. In the south, the sermons pay more attention to the role of the priest, who is seen as doctor or mediator of grace in absolution of sin; the preacher is not so concerned to urge the layperson on to activity.14 The significance of this contrast is that the Purgatory-centred faith of the north encouraged an att.i.tude to salvation in which the sinner, lay or clerical, piled up reparations for sin; action was added to action in order to merit years off Purgatory. It was possible to do something about one's salvation: that was precisely the doctrine which Martin Luther was to make his particular target after 1517. So the difference between att.i.tudes to salvation in northern and southern Europe may explain why Luther's first attack on some of the more outrageous outcrops of the soul-prayer industry had so much more effect in the north than in the south. He was telling northern Europeans that some of the devotions which most deeply satisfied them, and convinced them that they were investing in an easier pa.s.sage to salvation, were nothing but clerical confidence tricks. This message was of much less interest or resonance in the Mediterranean lands, which had not paid so much attention to the Purgatory industry.

PAPAL MONARCHY CHALLENGED (1300-1500).

Martin Luther's rebellion against late medieval views on salvation was also a rebellion against papal authority, but he was by no means the first to question the a.s.sumptions of papal monarchy. He could borrow virtually all his language of condemnation from the poison created by 'Imperialists', apologists for the Holy Roman Emperor in thirteenth-century conflicts with the papacy, and by similar abuse created during the clash between certain popes and the Spiritual wing of the Franciscans (see pp. 410-11). It was imperial spokesmen who first regularly termed the pope 'Antichrist', that enemy of Christ constructed out of various apocalyptic pa.s.sages in the Bible - papal spokesmen were rather less successful in fastening the same image on the emperor. The Franciscan Spirituals elaborated talk of the Antichrist, particularly to condemn Pope Boniface VIII (Pope 1294-1303). In order to become pope, Boniface had summarily displaced and brutally imprisoned a disastrously unworldly hermit-partisan of their movement who had been unwisely elected pope as Celestine V.15 Boniface went on to claim jurisdiction for the papacy throughout the world in a bull of 1302, Unam Sanctam Unam Sanctam ('One Holy [Church]'). This was a culminating moment in the universal pretensions of the papacy, but the Pope's aspirations were curtailed by his imprisonment and humiliation at the hands of King Philip the Fair of France. A French successor-pope then chose to live in the city of Avignon, a small papal enclave in southern France. There were many good reasons why Pope Clement V should choose Avignon in 1309: it saved him encountering the constant infighting in Rome, and since the papal court was now a bureaucratic centre affecting all Europe, it made sense to find a more accessible place from which it could operate. Nevertheless, the move brought the papacy closely under French influence, and it caused great indignation in Italy, where the great poet Petrarch described it as a 'Babylonian captivity'. It showed how far the pope had moved from the intimate a.s.sociation with the body of St Peter which had brought him his power in the Church. ('One Holy [Church]'). This was a culminating moment in the universal pretensions of the papacy, but the Pope's aspirations were curtailed by his imprisonment and humiliation at the hands of King Philip the Fair of France. A French successor-pope then chose to live in the city of Avignon, a small papal enclave in southern France. There were many good reasons why Pope Clement V should choose Avignon in 1309: it saved him encountering the constant infighting in Rome, and since the papal court was now a bureaucratic centre affecting all Europe, it made sense to find a more accessible place from which it could operate. Nevertheless, the move brought the papacy closely under French influence, and it caused great indignation in Italy, where the great poet Petrarch described it as a 'Babylonian captivity'. It showed how far the pope had moved from the intimate a.s.sociation with the body of St Peter which had brought him his power in the Church.

Pope John XXII made further vocal enemies when after first crus.h.i.+ng the Spiritual Franciscans, he further infuriated the 'Conventual' wing of the order which had made careful arrangements to avoid holding property while still establis.h.i.+ng a regular life in convents. In 1321 John reversed earlier papal p.r.o.nouncements supporting Franciscan poverty, and repudiated previous papal trustees.h.i.+p of their goods, restoring owners.h.i.+p to the Franciscans themselves, a far from welcome gift. Pope John's canonization of Francis the following year by no means mollified the Franciscans: new identifications of the Pope with Antichrist outdid all previous efforts in shrillness, and some Franciscans accused John of heresy for repudiating the p.r.o.nouncements of his predecessors. That lent an urgent topicality to earlier rather theoretical discussions about how to deal with a pope who was a heretic. One of the most distinguished of Franciscan philosopher-theologians, the Englishman William of Ockham, was among those leading the campaign. He had no hesitation in declaring Pope John a heretic to whom no obedience was due: 'Our faith is not formed by the wisdom of the Pope. For no one is bound to believe the Pope in matters which are of the faith, unless he can demonstrate the reasonableness of what he says by the rule of faith.'16 Ockham survived John XXII's condemnation for this opinion, and his nominalist approach to philosophy flourished, becoming one of the most influential modes of philosophical and theological argument in late medieval Europe. Ockham survived John XXII's condemnation for this opinion, and his nominalist approach to philosophy flourished, becoming one of the most influential modes of philosophical and theological argument in late medieval Europe.

Ockham was naturally supported in his attacks by Imperialists, and they had their own powerful spokesman in a former rector of the University of Paris, Marsilius or Marsiglio of Padua, princ.i.p.ally presented in his Defensor Pacis Defensor Pacis ('Defender of Peace') of 1324. What was so effective about Marsilius's polemic on papal jurisdiction was that it was a careful dialogue with Thomas Aquinas, and through him with Aristotle, punctiliously backed up at every stage by biblical quotation. Since Thomas had so effectively shown that Aristotle could be reconciled with Christian doctrine, if it appeared that Aristotle's teaching on political arrangements clashed with current Christian understandings, then the fault must lie with mistaken Christian teachers, not with the great philosopher. And the chief Christian teacher was of course the Holy Father in Rome, who could further be shown to have caused much of the political troubles of Christendom in his own time. Protestant monarchs and their publicists much relished Marsiglio's arguments two centuries later; in the 1530s Marsiglio was to be translated (and judiciously tweaked) to support Henry VIII's break with Rome, on the initiative of his unusually well-educated minister Thomas Cromwell. ('Defender of Peace') of 1324. What was so effective about Marsilius's polemic on papal jurisdiction was that it was a careful dialogue with Thomas Aquinas, and through him with Aristotle, punctiliously backed up at every stage by biblical quotation. Since Thomas had so effectively shown that Aristotle could be reconciled with Christian doctrine, if it appeared that Aristotle's teaching on political arrangements clashed with current Christian understandings, then the fault must lie with mistaken Christian teachers, not with the great philosopher. And the chief Christian teacher was of course the Holy Father in Rome, who could further be shown to have caused much of the political troubles of Christendom in his own time. Protestant monarchs and their publicists much relished Marsiglio's arguments two centuries later; in the 1530s Marsiglio was to be translated (and judiciously tweaked) to support Henry VIII's break with Rome, on the initiative of his unusually well-educated minister Thomas Cromwell.17 Although Gregory XI a generation after John XXII tried to cure the wars in his Italian possessions by moving back to Rome in 1377, the situation which emerged from the political wrangles of the late fourteenth century was still worse: from 1378 there were two rival popes, both lawfully elected by the College of Cardinals.18 An effort to solve the situation at the Council of Pisa in 1409 only resulted in a third candidate emerging: in 1414 one of them, John XXIII, took action in conjunction with the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund to call a council safely outside Italy across the Alps at Konstanz. The council finally ended four decades of schism when, in 1417, it recognized the election of a new pope acknowledged by all factions, Martin V. In the midst of the complex wrangles which produced this result, the council produced a decree, ' An effort to solve the situation at the Council of Pisa in 1409 only resulted in a third candidate emerging: in 1414 one of them, John XXIII, took action in conjunction with the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund to call a council safely outside Italy across the Alps at Konstanz. The council finally ended four decades of schism when, in 1417, it recognized the election of a new pope acknowledged by all factions, Martin V. In the midst of the complex wrangles which produced this result, the council produced a decree, 'Sacrosancta', proclaiming itself to hold its authority 'immediately from Christ; everyone, of every rank and condition, including the Pope himself, is bound to obey it in matters concerning the faith, the abolition of the schism, and the Reformation of the Church of G.o.d in its head and its members'.19 There could be no clearer statement that papal primacy was to be put firmly in its place in favour of a general council, but Konstanz added a further idea in its decree of 1417, ordering that a council should henceforth meet every ten years. If this took effect, a council was to become an essential and permanent component of continued reform and reconstruction in the Church. The next few years saw increasing tension between those wis.h.i.+ng to develop this conciliar mechanism and successive popes seeking to build on the papacy's newly restored integrity. The eighteen-year session of a council at Basel from 1431 helped to discredit the conciliar option because despite much constructive work, including setting up its own legal processes to rival Rome's, it culminated in a fresh schism. In 1460 a former conciliarist sympathizer, now Pope Pius II, formally forbade appeals from a decision of the papacy to a general council, in a bull ent.i.tled Execrabilis Execrabilis. Pius II's change of heart was understandable: seven years before, Constantinople had fallen to the Ottoman Turks. For a pope contemplating this disaster and trying to summon fresh crusades to defend what remained of Christian Europe, now was no time to risk the future of the West by collective leaders.h.i.+p which might be divided and uncertain.

Moreover, there was much that was incoherent or unresolved in the bundle of ideas carrying the conciliarist label. Conciliarists never achieved consensus as to how to define the Church or account for the authority of a council. Was it a representation of all the people of G.o.d, in which case its authority rose up or ascended from the whole body of the faithful? Or was it an a.s.sembly of G.o.d's ordained representatives, the clergy, in which case its power descended from G.o.d through the Church's hierarchy? Who precisely among the clergy were to be represented? Konstanz had been an a.s.sembly of bishops and cardinals; Basel widened its members.h.i.+p so that lower clergy were also given delegates, even with a voting majority over the bishops. Conciliarists tended to be clergy and were naturally clericalist in their outlook; this was not a movement which viewed lay partic.i.p.ation with much sympathy. And if conciliarists were drastically limiting the pope's power, how did that affect the centuries-long disputes between the pope and secular rulers? It was unlikely that Philip the Fair's successors as kings of France were going to accept a new rival for power in an effective and permanent General Council of the Church, at least not without a good deal of careful explanation from sure-footed theologians that their own power was not affected by the special sacred status of the council.

When the French theologian Jean Gerson, one of the most prominent activists in the Council of Konstanz, consequently struggled to find a way of reconciling conciliarism with the traditional claims of the French monarchy, he developed a view of the Church's history later of great importance to Reformation leaders who sought to achieve the same balance between Church and secular commonwealth against more radical Christian thinkers. Gerson saw a threefold development in the Church: a first primitive heroic era while it was still unacknowledged and often persecuted by the Roman Empire; a second period after the Emperor Constantine I had allied with it, when Church leaders had justifiably and responsibly accepted power and wealth; but then a third era of decay after the time of Gregory VII, when this process had been taken to excess, so that it must now be curbed. Gerson was not a revolutionary, but in his meditations on the Church he had hit on that perpetually subversive anonymous writer Dionysius the Areopagite. One of the aspects of Dionysius's picture of a heavenly hierarchy which especially appealed to Gerson was an insistence on the highest standards possible for the clerical order, clergy's imitation of the order of Heaven itself. This Dionysian emphasis resonated with many reform-minded clergy; often it produced a clericalism so high as to seem almost anticlerical. 20 20 Gerson was not seeking to destroy hierarchical Church structures, simply to recall them to purity, but he did not see a hierarchy as necessarily culminating in a papal monarchy. He was also a strong defender of parish clergy against the pretensions of monks and friars, pointing out that there had been no monastic vows in the Church in the time of Christ, Mary and the Apostles.21 Sixteenth-century Reformers and the princes who supported them chose what they wanted from these various emphases in his writings. They took note of what Gerson had said about history, hierarchy, monks and friars, just as they took notice of Marsiglio's views on authority in the Church. For the problem which conciliarism had originally raised - princ.i.p.ally, how to deal with a pope who cannot lead the Church as G.o.d wishes - would not go away. After 1520, Martin Luther was forced to give the drastic answer, going way beyond Ockham and the fourteenth-century Franciscans, that if the pope turned out to be Antichrist, then one must walk out of the pope's false Church and recreate the true body of Christ. Even though in political terms conciliarism faced eclipse from the mid-fifteenth century, plenty of leading churchmen and academics (particularly canon lawyers) continued to believe that conciliar action to solve the Church's problems would be preferable to the rapid rebuilding of centralized papal power now taking place. Sixteenth-century Reformers and the princes who supported them chose what they wanted from these various emphases in his writings. They took note of what Gerson had said about history, hierarchy, monks and friars, just as they took notice of Marsiglio's views on authority in the Church. For the problem which conciliarism had originally raised - princ.i.p.ally, how to deal with a pope who cannot lead the Church as G.o.d wishes - would not go away. After 1520, Martin Luther was forced to give the drastic answer, going way beyond Ockham and the fourteenth-century Franciscans, that if the pope turned out to be Antichrist, then one must walk out of the pope's false Church and recreate the true body of Christ. Even though in political terms conciliarism faced eclipse from the mid-fifteenth century, plenty of leading churchmen and academics (particularly canon lawyers) continued to believe that conciliar action to solve the Church's problems would be preferable to the rapid rebuilding of centralized papal power now taking place.

Meanwhile, the papacy consolidated its recovery. For a while the rival council that in 1438 the Pope had called to Ferrara and Florence seemed to have achieved spectacular results in reunifying Christian Churches, both East and West, under papal leaders.h.i.+p (see pp. 492-3). From 1446 popes were once more permanently based in Rome, never again willingly to desert this symbol of their supremacy in the Church. Soon after, in 1460, came a remarkable piece of accidental good fortune for the Pope when large deposits of alum were discovered at Tolfa, in the papal territories north-west of Rome. This mineral was highly valuable because of its use in dyes, and before that it could only be imported at great expense from the Middle East. The new source of income (which the popes were careful to ensure became a monopoly supply of alum in Europe) began benefiting the papacy just when Pius II rea.s.serted its central power with Execrabilis Execrabilis. Various practical expressions of this power followed, taking their cue from a grant made by Pope Nicholas V in 1455 to the Portuguese monarchy of the right to rule in certain regions of Africa.22 Now that popes were back in Italy, it was unsurprising that they took a particular interest in Italian politics like the other Italian princes around them, and it was no fault of theirs that suddenly in the 1490s Italy became the c.o.c.kpit of war and the obsessive concern of the great dynastic powers of Europe. The trigger was the ambition of the Valois dynasty of France, when in 1494-5 Charles VIII intervened in the quarrels of Italian princes with a major military invasion; this gained France little, but threw the various major states of Italy into chaos, war and misery for more than half a century. Now that popes were back in Italy, it was unsurprising that they took a particular interest in Italian politics like the other Italian princes around them, and it was no fault of theirs that suddenly in the 1490s Italy became the c.o.c.kpit of war and the obsessive concern of the great dynastic powers of Europe. The trigger was the ambition of the Valois dynasty of France, when in 1494-5 Charles VIII intervened in the quarrels of Italian princes with a major military invasion; this gained France little, but threw the various major states of Italy into chaos, war and misery for more than half a century.

Amid this suddenly unbalanced high politics, it was a natural protective strategy for the papacy stranded in the middle to redouble its self-a.s.sertion, a mood which in any case came naturally to the successive popes Alexander VI (1492-1503) and Julius II (1503-13), despite their mutual detestation. Alexander followed the example of Nicholas V with an adjudication in 1493-4 between the claims of the two European powers which were now exploring and making conquests overseas, Portugal and Spain; he divided the map of the world beyond Europe between them, commissioning them to preach the Gospel to the non-Christians whom they encountered, in an action which had all the ambition of the twelfth-century papacy. Likewise, fifteenth-century popes began to restore the architectural splendour of their sadly ramshackle city; display was an essential aspect of power for secular rulers, and surely it was all the more important for Christ's representative on earth. The most important - and, as we shall see, the most fateful - project was the demolition of the monumental basilica of St Peter built by the Emperor Constantine, so that it could be replaced with something even more spectacular. This was a particular enthusiasm of Julius II, one of the most discriminating but also one of the most extravagant patrons of art and architecture in the papacy's history (see Plate 26).

The two popes who between them occupied St Peter's throne for two decades had a very selective understanding of what might glorify the papacy. Alexander VI, from the Valencian n.o.ble family of Borja (Borgia), s.h.i.+elded his vulnerability as an outsider against his many Italian enemies by ruthlessly exploiting the Church's most profitable offices to promote his relatives, including his own children by his several mistresses. It was a scandalous flouting of the clerical celibacy imposed by the twelfth-century Reformation, even if Lucrezia and Cesare, the Pope's most notorious children, had not provided extreme examples of aristocratic self-indulgence. Julius II relished being his own general when he plunged into the Italian wars which proliferated after the French invasion, and he was especially proud when in 1506 he recaptured Bologna, second city of the Papal States after Rome, lost to the papacy seventy years before.23 Nor was Julius a pioneer in this. He merely improved on the previous practice of the Papal States, where for a century or more cardinals had been the military commanders most trusted alike by the pope and by their mercenary soldiers. One of the most effective generals of the early fifteenth century had been a cardinal, Giovanni Vitelleschi; his spiritual duties as Archbishop of Florence, still less his t.i.tular status as Patriarch of Alexandria, do not seem to have curbed his streak of sadism. A recent study describes him as 'a master of sackings, ma.s.sacres and summary executions', and his own death by summary execution in 1440 had reputedly forestalled his seizure of the papal fortress in Rome, Castel Sant'Angelo, with a view to the papal throne itself. Nor was Julius a pioneer in this. He merely improved on the previous practice of the Papal States, where for a century or more cardinals had been the military commanders most trusted alike by the pope and by their mercenary soldiers. One of the most effective generals of the early fifteenth century had been a cardinal, Giovanni Vitelleschi; his spiritual duties as Archbishop of Florence, still less his t.i.tular status as Patriarch of Alexandria, do not seem to have curbed his streak of sadism. A recent study describes him as 'a master of sackings, ma.s.sacres and summary executions', and his own death by summary execution in 1440 had reputedly forestalled his seizure of the papal fortress in Rome, Castel Sant'Angelo, with a view to the papal throne itself.24 NOMINALISTS, LOLLARDS AND HUSSITES (1300-1500).

A centralized papacy, particularly one which recruited such dubious a.s.sistants, could not stop people thinking new thoughts. Two movements, the Lollards and the Hussites, rose to challenge the Church authorities. Another potential challenge was from the nominalism espoused by William of Ockham. The Franciscan Ockham denied the a.s.sumptions embodied in the Dominican Thomas Aquinas's adaptation of Greek philosophy to Christianity, centring on the word nomen nomen. At its simplest this is the ordinary Latin word for 'name', but in the philosophical terminology of the time it signified the universal concept of a particular phenomenon: the word 'tree', for instance, is the nomen nomen which unites our perception of every individual tree and points to the universal concept of a tree. Ockham and his fourteenth-century nominalist successors denied that there was any such individual reality behind a which unites our perception of every individual tree and points to the universal concept of a tree. Ockham and his fourteenth-century nominalist successors denied that there was any such individual reality behind a nomen nomen. For them, it was simply a word to organize our thinking about similar phenomena - thus individual examples of objects which we decide to label trees. If this was accepted, it became impossible to construct overall systems of thought or explanation by the use of reason. This denied the value of Aquinas's work, with its majestic system of relations.h.i.+ps throughout the cosmos: it implied that the line of a.n.a.lytical thought derived from Aristotle was pointless.

To turn from trees to the problem of discussing one of the chief issues of the Christian faith: what happens when bread and wine are consecrated in the Eucharist? If they become the body and blood of Christ, as virtually all medieval Western Christians agreed was the case, how can this be explained? As we have seen, those theologians or philosophers like Aquinas who drew on the vocabulary provided by Aristotle, could do so in terms of 'substance' and 'accidents' (see pp. 405-6). Ockham and nominalist philosophers or theologians denied the usefulness of this language of substance and accidents, so they had no way of constructing such an explanation. The doctrine, and indeed any other doctrine of ultimate divine truths, could only be treated as a matter of faith, relying on the authority of the Church. And what would happen if one felt that the authority of the Church was at fault, as many nominalist-trained clergy were to do in the sixteenth century? As a result, nominalism was a corrosive doctrine for the accepted principles of medieval Western Christianity; while still glorying in the disputes of scholastic debates, nominalist academic debaters disrupted many of the given principles within those debates, and split apart the concerns of philosophy and theology. Still nominalism came to dominate the universities of northern Europe during the fifteenth century, wherever the Dominicans could not defend the standing of their hero Aquinas. Many Protestant Reformers gained their university education in a nominalist tradition.

Yet nominalism should not simply be seen as a high road to Protestantism, because in one vital respect, its soteriology (view of salvation), it provided a thoroughgoing explanation of how human beings could have a role in their own salvation, despite Augustine's pessimism about human capacity. The school of nominalist theology known as the via moderna via moderna ('present-day/modern system') squared this circle by fusing medieval economic theory with the language of 'contract', which had so appealed to Francis of a.s.sisi in thinking of a merciful G.o.d's relations.h.i.+p with his people (see pp. 416-17). Human virtues may be worthless because of Adam's fall, but they can be treated like a technically worthless or token coinage issued by monarchs in a time of emergency: after all, there could be no greater emergency for humanity than Adam and Eve's sin in Eden. Such temporary coins, unlike the normal silver coinage of medieval Europe, possess no value other than what the ruler decrees them to bear. The ruler has entered an agreement, a contract or covenant, with his people to sustain this fiction for the general good. So G.o.d in his infinite mercy ascribes value to human worth, and makes an agreement with humanity to abide by the consequences and let it do its best towards its salvation. In a famous phrase of the fifteeenth-century nominalist theologian Gabriel Biel, he allows a human being 'to do that which is in oneself' ( ('present-day/modern system') squared this circle by fusing medieval economic theory with the language of 'contract', which had so appealed to Francis of a.s.sisi in thinking of a merciful G.o.d's relations.h.i.+p with his people (see pp. 416-17). Human virtues may be worthless because of Adam's fall, but they can be treated like a technically worthless or token coinage issued by monarchs in a time of emergency: after all, there could be no greater emergency for humanity than Adam and Eve's sin in Eden. Such temporary coins, unlike the normal silver coinage of medieval Europe, possess no value other than what the ruler decrees them to bear. The ruler has entered an agreement, a contract or covenant, with his people to sustain this fiction for the general good. So G.o.d in his infinite mercy ascribes value to human worth, and makes an agreement with humanity to abide by the consequences and let it do its best towards its salvation. In a famous phrase of the fifteeenth-century nominalist theologian Gabriel Biel, he allows a human being 'to do that which is in oneself' (facere quod in se est). The system avoids troubled scrutiny of Augustine's view of humanity's utterly fallen state, as long as one accepts its principles.

When nominalism removed the human relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d from the sphere of reason, it came close to the mysticism which flourished from the thirteenth century. This also spoke of the unknowability of G.o.d, and it broadened into a style of personal piety known as 'presentday /modern devotion', Devotio Moderna Devotio Moderna. In Gabriel Biel, indeed, the two streams of nominalism and the Devotio Devotio flowed together. The flowed together. The Devotio Devotio became the dominant outlet for pious expression in the fifteenth-century West: it was an intense and creatively imaginative mode of reaching out to G.o.d. It also tended to introspection, aided by that crucial contemporary technological advance in the spread of texts, printing. Printed texts made far more easily available to an increasingly literate public the writings of the mystics, or works which meditated as John de Caulibus had done (see pp. 417-18) on aspects of the life of Jesus. For someone who really delighted in reading, religion might retreat out of the sphere of public ritual into the world of the mind and the imagination. Reading privileges sight among the other human senses, and it further privileges reading text among other uses of the eye; it relies not at all on gesture, which is so important a part of communicating in liturgy or in preaching. became the dominant outlet for pious expression in the fifteenth-century West: it was an intense and creatively imaginative mode of reaching out to G.o.d. It also tended to introspection, aided by that crucial contemporary technological advance in the spread of texts, printing. Printed texts made far more easily available to an increasingly literate public the writings of the mystics, or works which meditated as John de Caulibus had done (see pp. 417-18) on aspects of the life of Jesus. For someone who really delighted in reading, religion might retreat out of the sphere of public ritual into the world of the mind and the imagination. Reading privileges sight among the other human senses, and it further privileges reading text among other uses of the eye; it relies not at all on gesture, which is so important a part of communicating in liturgy or in preaching.

So without any hint of doctrinal deviation, a new style of piety arose in that increasingly large section of society which valued book-learning for both profit and pleasure; the Netherlands, which had a level of urban life more concentrated than in any other part of Europe and high levels of literacy, were particularly prominent in this development. Even if such people were in the crowd at the parish Ma.s.s, they were likely be absorbed in their layfolk's companion to the Ma.s.s, or a Book of Hours - books commonly known as primers. These primers had already been ma.s.s-produced in the days of ma.n.u.script book production, but printing made them far cheaper and more widely available, and there quickly developed an eager market for primers in the major European languages. The wealthier folk in such congregations increasingly built themselves an enclosed private pew in their church to cut themselves off from the distractions provided by their fellow wors.h.i.+ppers.25 One should not overemphasize this exclusive characteristic of the Devotio Devotio. It also had the capacity to offer laity as well as clergy, women as well as men, the chance of achieving the heights and depths of religious experience in their everyday lives and occupations, just as if they had set out on pilgrimage. The earliest great name in the movement, the fourteenth-century Dutch theologian Geert Groote, was never ordained beyond the order of deacon; after spending some time in a Carthusian monastery near Arnhem, he went on to conduct a roving ministry of preaching in the Netherlands and to found his own informal community of friends in his native Deventer. After Groote's death in 1384, this group did take on the character of a formal religious order, the Brethren of the Common Life, which spread widely through central Europe and enrolled clergy of the calibre of the mystical writer Thomas a Kempis, the philosopher-theologian Gabriel Biel and the future Pope Adrian VI.

Despite this, the Devotio Moderna Devotio Moderna was never a purely clerical movement. Even the formally organized Brethren discouraged members from becoming ordained clergy, and they put their houses of Sisters and some of their own communities under the control of local urban corporations rather than the Church authorities. was never a purely clerical movement. Even the formally organized Brethren discouraged members from becoming ordained clergy, and they put their houses of Sisters and some of their own communities under the control of local urban corporations rather than the Church authorities.26 Notably, married couples (and of course their children) might be involved on an equal basis in a lifestyle inspired by the Notably, married couples (and of course their children) might be involved on an equal basis in a lifestyle inspired by the Devotio Devotio. Its promise was that serious-minded laity could aspire to the high personal standards which had previously been thought more easily attainable by the clergy: a programme of practical action and organization of one's thoughts and life which was summed up in the t.i.tle of Kempis's famous devotional treatise The Imitation of Christ The Imitation of Christ. The idea of imitating Christ was not much older in the Western tradition of Christianity than the twelfth century; it sat uneasily with Augustinian a.s.sumptions about fallen humanity. It was also a solvent of that a.s.sumption which had developed particularly in the West, that clergy and religious had a better chance of getting to Heaven than laity.

Those same thoughts - the comparability of layfolk and clergy, and the calling of all to the highest standards - were behind the two movements of Church reform which sprang like nominalism from universities, but which were forced out by official opposition and repression. John Wyclif, an Oxford philosopher, was the reverse of a nominalist: in the manner of philosophers like Aquinas, he championed the idea that there were indeed universal, indestructible realities, greater than individual phenomena. Wyclif's career in controversy was comparatively brief, no more than a decade or so. In the mid-1370s, well into his career, having returned from an unproductive royal mission to Bruges to argue the case for a remission of England's taxation to the pope, he began turning his philosophical a.s.sumptions into an attack on the contemporary inst.i.tutions of the Church: not merely their everyday faults, but their whole foundation. Enemies said that this new departure arose because Wyclif was angry at the lack of promotion in the Church, while his fellow delegates were well rewarded. That is not impossible; Wyclif would not be the first or the last to be jolted into genuinely principled indignation by mundane disappointments.

Wyclif contrasted the universal reality of the invisible true Church with the false Church which was only too visible in the everyday world. He maintained that the true Church was made up solely of those who were saved, not just in the next world, but here and now. There were some people, probably most, who were eternally d.a.m.ned and who therefore never formed part of the true Church. No one could know who was d.a.m.ned or who was saved, and therefore the visible Church, that presided over by popes and bishops, could not possibly be the same as the true Church, since it claimed a universal authority in the world. Moreover, since all authority to rule or the right to own property (dominium) was in the hands of G.o.d, only those in a state of grace could enjoy them. Wyclif argued that it was more likely that rulers chosen by G.o.d like kings or princes were in this happy condition than was the pope, and therefore dominium dominium should be seen as being entrusted to them. Churchmen who were critical of the Church had discussed should be seen as being entrusted to them. Churchmen who were critical of the Church had discussed dominium dominium before, particularly in the controversies around papal authority at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and they had pointed out that it was ultimately still in the power of G.o.d, but rarely with this radical conclusion. before, particularly in the controversies around papal authority at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and they had pointed out that it was ultimately still in the power of G.o.d, but rarely with this radical conclusion.27 Wyclif's arguments were decidedly convenient for the English prince and n.o.blemen who acted as his patrons and protectors, but they had other implications for the whole people of G.o.d. In place of the Church's authority, Wyclif urged people to turn to the Bible, reading and understanding it, for it was the only source of divine truth. Readers would see that the Ma.s.s, on which so much of the Church's power was based, was a distortion of the Eucharist which Christ had inst.i.tuted. Wyclif deeply loathed not merely the eucharistic doctrine of transubstantiation which was now standard within the Western Church, but the whole notion of divine bodily presence in bread and wine. He regarded the doctrine as a clerical deception developed during the Church's eleventh-century usurpation of worldly power - so his philosophical realism had led him in a completely different direction from Aquinas's Aristotelian realist arguments.28 He plunged the University of Oxford into bitter divisions; although political circ.u.mstances saved him from what ought to have been inevitable condemnation and death for heresy, he retreated to his country rectory, his literary attacks on the Church and his revisions of his earlier work becoming ever more extreme. Several decades elapsed after his death in 1384 before the Church authorities sent a commission to his Leicesters.h.i.+re grave to dig up his bones and burn them for heresy. He plunged the University of Oxford into bitter divisions; although political circ.u.mstances saved him from what ought to have been inevitable condemnation and death for heresy, he retreated to his country rectory, his literary attacks on the Church and his revisions of his earlier work becoming ever more extreme. Several decades elapsed after his death in 1384 before the Church authorities sent a commission to his Leicesters.h.i.+re grave to dig up his bones and burn them for heresy.

Wyclif's followers, first Oxford academics, then a wider circle of clergy and laypeople influenced by the first university enthusiasts, were given the contemptuous nickname of 'Lollards': that is, mumblers who talked nonsense.29 They became mixed up with the losing side in early-fifteenth-century English politics, and now Crown and Church could combine in purging Lollard influence from the universities and among politically significant people. With just one permanent political backer, the Lollard story might have been very different, and more like that of the movement started a century later by another university lecturer, Martin Luther. Instead, Lollardy's repression included one feature unique to England. Wyclif's Oxford admirers had followed his teaching on the unchallengeable authority of the Bible by producing the first complete translation of the Vulgate into English, so that all might have a chance to read it and understand it for themselves. In 1407 all existing versions of the Bible in English were officially banned by the English Church hierarchy, and no replacement was sanctioned until Henry VIII's Reformation in the 1530s. In the intervening period, only the most obviously ultra-respectable could get away with open possession of a vernacular Bible, and indeed, their respectability seems itself to have made their copy of the text respectable. They became mixed up with the losing side in early-fifteenth-century English politics, and now Crown and Church could combine in purging Lollard influence from the universities and among politically significant people. With just one permanent political backer, the Lollard story might have been very different, and more like that of the movement started a century later by anothe