AP Euro Summer Assignment

Over the course of a few hundred years, the Roman Catholic Church went from a small institution to being, essentially, the most important power in Western Europe. Although it faced small problems, it was not until the 1300s when it came against some serious issues challenging its supremacy. During the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, from 1300-1600, Western Europe dealt with theological, external, and social issues that challenged and had an impact on the Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church was the center of life for most people living at the end of the Middle Ages. The word of the Church, usually direct from the Vatican in Rome, was unequivocal. No one dared oppose the church for fear of excommunication, or, even worse, death. Yet, because of the Holy See’s dictatorial manner, there were those, like John Wyclif, Nicolaus Copernicus, and King Henry VIII, who spoke out and took a stand for what they believed in, even if excommunications were to be in their futures.
One could say that John Wycliff believed in the modern-day concept of “separation of church and state.” He wrote that “papal claims of temporal power had no foundation in the Scriptures, and that the Scriptures alone should be the standard of Christian belief and practice” (McKay 386). Wyclif, like many others, was tired of the Church having control of everything and performing practices that were not so sacred. He also believed that everyone should read (and interpret) the Bible for him or herself. Although his ideas were condemned by those in power, he acquired many followers who took the name “Lollards”. Wyclif also influenced the publication of an English translation of the Bible. Many say that Wyclif and his ideas were the precursor to Luther’s later Protestant Reformation.
According to William Manchester, everyone at the end of the Middle Ages knew that “the world was an immovable disk around which the sun revolved, and that that rest of the cosmos comprised heaven, which lay dreamily above the skies, inhabited by cherubs, and hell, flaming deep beneath the European soil” (89). Therefore, how could the earth possibly be rotating around the sun, as Nicolaus Copernicus suggested? It just did not make sense to people. Many in Copernicus’s time disagreed with him, for three main reasons. The first group of people to speak out against Copernicus and his ideas was, surprisingly, not the Catholic Church but the leaders of the Protestant movement. Martin Luther and John Calvin both ardently opposed Copernicus’s teachings. They used quotes from the Bible saying that the earth is the body that is immobile, not the sun. Afterwards, the Church did get involved in the movement against Copernicus, although it was not really until after Copernicus died, which is also when his book, De revolutionibus, was more prominently published. The first argument the Church had against Copernicus was more practical. Because heaven and hell were above and below Earth, respectively, a rotating Earth could not be possible, because then there really could not be a “heaven” and a “hell”, which, according to the Church, definitely existed. The second gripe the Holy See had with Copernican theory was more serious, as it brought Gd into question. Although it was not directly because of Copernicus that this issue became prevalent, it still had a closely related to his writings. Giordano Bruno, who declared that a rotating Earth was an indisputable fact, was accused with saying that Gd was immanent in the world, rather than transcendent. The Church believed that Bruno was placing Gd as a part of creation, instead of as a being, or deity, superior to it (Manchester 91). As a result, the Church banned Catholics from reading Copernicus’s work and executed Bruno (as Copernicus was long dead). Although the Church did not protest Copernicus at first, once it realized the impact he could have on its power, it took serious steps to prevent to censor and silence Copernican theory.
The third example of someone who wanted to reform and change the beliefs of the church was someone very much unlike the two previous men. First of all, King Henry VIII was a monarch, and, from 1509, the supreme ruler of England. Secondly, Henry wanted to reform the church for a very practical reason, and basically for something that would affect, at least at first, only him. The monarch had only one problem with the Catholic Church: he wanted to divorce his wife and it would not let him. King Henry had been married to Catherine of Aragon (daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella) for eighteen years, but she had not provided him with a male heir. Their only child, Mary, had been betrothed to future king of France, so Henry was afraid that if he did not have a son, then England would become part of France when the king was crowned. Henry had also been seeing, and had fallen in love with, Anne Boleyn, whom he selected as his next wife. Unfortunately for the King, divorce was not allowed in Catholicism–at least without the Pope’s permission. Since Henry was a devout Catholic, he brought the matter to the Vatican, and, under normal conditions, it probably would have been accepted since there was a flaw in Henry’s marriage to Catherine. Catherine had also been Henry’s brother’s wife, and, according to English canon, it was forbidden to marry your brother’s wife. So, now the pope had a reason annul the marriage, which really should not have happened in the first place. But, there was someone around with more influence than the pope–the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. It so happened to be that Catherine was his aunt, making Mary his cousin. If the marriage was to be anulled, then Mary would become illegitimate, and Catherine would be reduced to something like a concubine. Charles did not want these things to happen, so he tried to prevent the pope from allowing the divorce. Charles did not quite realize, though, that Henry was “a man of immense determination” and would not stop at anything from getting his way. So, in 1533, Henry married Anne, anyways, and was immediately excommunicated. Because he wanted a son, and because the son had to have been born by a queen to be an heir to the throne, Henry created his own church, appointed Thomas Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury, and had Cranmer marry the two and then appoint Anne as Queen. Parliament passed, in 1534, the Acts of Succession and Supremacy, bringing England under the Anglican Church. The King had officially broken ties with Rome and the Holy See.
The people of the Renaissance did not only experience threats from within–there were also many external threats, such as conflicts between monarchs and the Black Death. One of the most famous monarchial disputes was the Hundred Years’ War, which took place from 1337-1453. England and France had been fighting, on and off, for years about control of land and claims to the throne. This particular war erupted over the seizure of Aquitaine by the French monarch, Philip VI. The war, though, also dealt with King Edward’s claim to the French throne, as he was the grandson of the previous monarch, Philip the Fair. The war become complicated, at first, because many in France sided with Edward, not Philip. But, by the end, France was able to unite and overtake England, which was only left with a single French town (under its control) after the war. Even though there was great devastation after the war–destroyed lands in France and huge debts in England–both countries emerged relatively strong and united, due to their utter hatred of the other nation. “Both Philip VI and Edward III drummed up support for the war by portraying the enemy as an alien, evil people” (McKay 383). England also became more united under the Parliament, which met frequently during and after the war, as the King needed its consent to tax the people. Even though the wars threatened Europe’s stability, they also were somewhat successful in unification efforts.
The second external threat Western Europe experienced in the late Middle Ages was the Black Death. Also known as the Bubonic Plague, it managed to eliminate a significant amount of Europe’s population. Unfortunately, because the population records did not exist prior to the Death, it is difficult to determine the exact number of people affected (McKay 376). Starting in Genoa, Italy, in 1347, the plague spread to Germany, France, England, and the rest of Italy by rats on ships. Once the rats were in the cities, they spread the disease through fleas carrying the plague, and sometimes it spread just from person-to-person contact. Two other factors that helped spread the plague were poor hygiene and insufficient medical knowledge. One result of the plague was the establishment of many new hospitals throughout Europe. Although at the time they could not treat the disease, the hospitals tried to comfort patients, who were likely to die, anyways. “England and many parts of Europe suffered from overpopulation in the early fourteenth century. Population losses caused by the Black Death ‘led to increased productivity by restoring a more efficient balance between labour, land, and capital’” (McKay 376). Because there were less people but still work to be done, people were able to make more money and wages increased. The plague also affected discrimination in society. Although antisemitism existed before the Black Death broke out, many blamed the Jews for spreading the deadly disease, and many Jews were executed. In just a few years, the entire European society had changed because of a single outside force.
One of the most important inventions of the Renaissance was the printing press, which caused many social changes on Western European society, and to Western European Christians, in particular. In 1448, Johannes Gutenberg moved to Mainz, Germany and created the first printing press, which used movable type. Until this time, the Church had essentially controlled all printing and publications in the Western world. With Gutenberg’s invention, anyone could now print their own work and mass distribute it. “Gutenberg had built a bonfire in Mainz, and printers throughout Christendom flocked to kindle their torches from it” (Manchester 96). Even though there was a large percent of the population that was illiterate, the Church was still very afraid by this development because people–Copernicus, for example–could now print their beliefs, whether or not they were in agreement with the ideas of the Holy See. The invention of the press also led people to become more literate, and once they were able to read the Bible, they could come up with their own interpretation of things and not have to rely on the Church for direction. Ideas like John Wycliff’s were greatly supported by Gutenberg’s invention.
A second social change experienced by Western Europe connects both with the invention of the press, popularizing printed literature, and with the strong nationalistic feelings that were arising throughout Europe. Throughout the Middle Ages, people spoke–and wrote–according to the class they belonged to. Peasants and common folk usually spoke in local dialects, while upperclassmen spoke in a language like French or Latin. The same was true for the literature and publications. By the end of the Middle Ages, though, people began speaking and writing according to where they were from–people living in England spoke English, people living in France spoke French, and people living in Italy spoke Italian. “Three masterpieces of European culture, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Villion’s Grand Testament, brilliantly manifest this new national pride” (McKay 394). Unfortunately for the Church, this was not such a welcome development. Rome wanted all Christians to speak the same language–Latin–so that Christendom would be unified, and that all Christians could communicate with each other easily (Manchester 97). While the adoption of the vernacular does not necessarily display that people were unhappy or unsatisfied with the Church, it did show that people cared about having a national identity and having some control over their own lives.