The Enigma of Gregory the Great's Dialogues: A Response to Francis Clark

1988 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Meyvaert
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages remained serenely unaware that a dark problem might attach itself some day to the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. They knew their Gregory, studied his Moralia and other scriptural commentaries with uplifted hearts, read his Dialogues with equal veneration and devotion and never perceived even the glimmer of a contradiction between the two categories of works. Then came the Reformation with its stress on Scripture and its dislike of the ‘superstitious Romanist piety’ fostered by works like the Dialogues. A problem thus arose for the Reformers. They had little love for the papacy but retained a veneration for the Church Fathers, among whom they counted Gregory the Great, that great interpreter of Scripture, who had been instrumental in bringing Christianity to England. Was it possible to retain Gregory but divest him of an embarrassing work? It is important to note that the first attempts to deny Gregory's authorship of the Dialogues are rooted in the polemics of the Reformation period.

Lutheran and Catholic Reunionists in the Age of Bismarck

1988 ◽  
Vol 57 (S1) ◽  
pp. 89-107
Author(s):  
Manfred Fleischer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
National State ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
German People ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

Religious division has determined Germany's destiny. In the Middle Ages, it was the struggle between Emperor and Pope which doomed the Holy Roman Empire. During the Reformation, and the Thirty Years' War, it was Protestantism as well as the anti-Imperial diplomacy of the Pope and the French cardinals, which prevented the emergence of a national state and a centralized government. “From the split of the church dates all our misfortune,” complained in 1846 the Lutheran historian Johann Friedrich Böhmer, editor of a major medieval source collection. “It is a pity that the nation in the heart of Europe was drawn away from its political profession by quarrels with the church, that the development of strong political institutions was interrupted, that they eroded under the acids of religious passion and negation, so that the German people finally got into a stage of the disease where they are either seized by violent fever, or rot in apathy and despair. All our inner ferment which soon will erupt in a revolutionary outburst, all our political impotence and lethargy were, in the final analysis, caused by the split of the church, which tore us apart, and which no one can bridge. Only a new St. Boniface who would restore ecclesiastical unity could help us.”

Literature on Church History, 1914–1920. IV. The Church in Modern Times (Part One: The Period of the Enlightenment)

1924 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-295
Author(s):  
Gustav Krüger
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Church History ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

It is a characteristic of German scholarship to see problems and to work with them in the solution of intellectual and spiritual questions. Certainly it is a praiseworthy trait in the field of history that it follows the inner relation of events and cannot rest until all the subtlest threads are discovered. Such a problem is presented in the rise of the modern world of thought and the inquiry as to the factors which have contributed to it. In von Below's book on the causes of the Reformation, referred to at the beginning of my third article (HThR, Jan. 1924, pp. 5f.), the question is discussed, among others, whether the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times is really to be found in Luther and his work.

Why the Reformation Occurred in Germany

1958 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
Gerhard Ritter
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

At the end of the Middle Ages, the moral prestige of the old papal church was severely shaken in all the countries of Europe. Open criticism of its moral shortcomings and its organizational defects had been going on for centuries. To the diverse splinter-movements of heretical sects (which were never wholly suppressed) had been recently added the great reform movements of the Wyclifites and the Hussites. But even they had brought about no lasting and widespread upheaval. Ultimately the old hierarchy had always prevailed. Why then did the Germans, a people slow to be aroused, fond of order, and faithful to the church, take it upon themselves to carry out the most prodigious revolution in the church? And why did only their revolt against the papal church have such vast and enduring consequences?

II.—The Catalan Mascarón and an Episode in Jacob Van Maerlant's Merlijn

PMLA ◽  
1911 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-50
Author(s):  
J. P. Wickersham Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Italian Version ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
The Devil ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

A popular allegorical subject in the Middle Ages was that which represented the struggle of the good and evil powers for the possession of man's soul. Frequently the evil power is centralized in the devil or his procurator, and the contest is excited by the harrowing of Hell and the release of the damned souls by Christ. According to some of the Church Fathers, the devil had certain rights over man after the first sin, a right which was the more legitimate since it was sanctioned by God himself. The whole subject is closely connected with the dogmatic traditions of the Church concerning the redemption. In the twelfth century, Hugo of St. Victor in his commentary on the fifteenth Psalm gives an account of a dispute between Christ and Satan, in which the devil asserts his right to man as having been consigned to him after the Fall. We find this reproduced in an Italian version of the thirteenth century entitled Piato del Dio col Nemico. According to other versions, the Virgin Mary undertook the defense of man against the claims of the devil. This idea was a product of the worship of the Virgin which affected so many of the doctrines of the Church. As the protecting Mother of sinners, she was the natural adversary of the forces of evil. Mary, the Queen of Heaven, was thus contrasted with Lucifer, the independent ruler of Hell. In certain cases, the story represents a trial scene in which Christ appears as the judge, the Virgin Mary as the advocate of mankind and Mascaron, the devil's procurator, as the plaintiff. This version is found in three texts, Dutch, Latin, and Catalan, which show marked similarities.

Lutheran and Catholic Reunionists in the Age of Bismarck

1969 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Fleischer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
National State ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

Religious division has determined Germany's destiny. In the Middle Ages, it was the struggle between Emperor and Pope which doomed the Holy Roman Empire. During the Reformation, and the Thirty Years' War, it was Protestantism as well as the anti-Imperial diplomacy of the Pope and the French cardinals, which prevented the emergence of a national state and a centralized government. “From the split of the church dates all our misfortune,” complained in 1846 the Lutheran historian Johann Friedrich Böhmer, editor of a major medieval source collection.

Kippinge valfartskirke

1984 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tue Gad
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Danish church of Kippinge in Falster is remarkable for being a centre of pilgrimage not only before the Reformation, but well into the 18th century. In spite of official censure, thousands of people went there, and miraculous cures were reported. Manuscript treaties from the 17th century are preserved, in which local clergymen fervently discuss whether that pilgrimage is a pious if unorthodox custom to be tolerated, or whether it is the work of Satan. The *”holy” object in the Middle Ages was a miraculous host; after the Reformation it seems to have been the church itself, but in the 18th century it was the adjoining well, which caused no theological objections.

Stages in Diplomatic Production

2020 ◽  
pp. 610-618
Author(s):  
Olivier Guyotjeannin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter examines administrative documents of the Middle Ages and the major scholarly studies of them. It surveys the number of preserved documents and the problems surrounding the lack of documents in different periods and places. The author discusses the role and influence of the Church in the increased production and preservation of documents beginning in the eleventh century, leading to an enormous increase in the production of documents during the last three centuries of the Middle Ages.

Papal Legates against the Albigensians: The Debts of the Church of Valence (1215–1250)

Traditio ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 259-276
Author(s):  
D. Dudley Stutz
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Detailed Treatment ◽  
Northern Portion ◽  
Rhone Valley ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

In 1232 Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227–41) imposed a tenth of episcopal revenues on prelates of Occitania to subsidize the church of Valence, which owed 10,000 poundstournoisto various bankers of Vienne, Rome, Lyons, and Siena. In 1865 B. Hauréau first noted the event when he edited one of the main documents in theGallia christianavolume concerning the ecclesiastical province of Vienne. With the publication of Gregory IX's register from 1890–1908 most of the facts of the tax were more widely available. In 1910 Ulysse Chevalier briefly mentioned the tax in his monograph on the long tenure of John of Bernin, archbishop of Vienne (r. 1218–66). In 1913, Heinrich Zimmermann cited Hauréau's text in a note in his detailed treatment of early thirteenth-century papal legations. Recently Alain Marchandisse reviewed eight of the eleven papal letters pertaining to the tax in his study of William of Savoy (d. 1239) as bishop-elect of Liège. These scholars provided no reason for the debt or why the papacy would take such measures to ensure payment. Perhaps they did not study this tax further because a church indebted to moneylenders is not in itself surprising. It appears that the church of Valence acquired the debt, very large compared to the church's income, when bishop-elect William of Savoy (r. 1225–39) waged war against Adhémar II of Poitiers-Valentinois, count of the Valentinois (r. 1189–1239). Struggles between bishops and the local nobility occurred on a regular basis throughout the Middle Ages, so what in this unimportant Rhone-valley diocese interested the pope enough to impose taxes on prelates of Occitania over twenty years to ensure payment of this debt? Adhémar II faithfully supported Raymond VI (r. 1194–1222) and Raymond VII (r. 1222–49) of Saint-Gilles, counts of Toulouse, throughout their struggle with the papacy during and following the Albigensian crusades. Adhémar II was also their vassal for the Diois, which borders the Valentinois on the southeast and comprised the northern portion of the marquisate of Provence. These lands had been reserved for the church in the Treaty of Meaux-Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian crusades. Thus William of Savoy as bishop-elect of Valence defended the papacy's claims on the marquisate of Provence, which the papacy deemed part of the larger struggle between the Roman church and the counts of Toulouse. The facts on the nature of the debts and the steps the papacy took to aid the diocese show that the local struggle between the bishop of Valence and the count of the Valentinois embodied a part of the larger struggle between the papacy and the counts of Toulouse over the marquisate of Provence, which began as early as 1215.

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