Was the medevil church curropt

in Line in the Struggle of Good vs. Bad?

A tale. A story. A reason. All in some way portray the validity of a subject. The people of the ancient world believing the world was flat justifies, to some respect, why Christopher Columbus set sail on the winds of discovery. Quite the same way the medieval church being corrupt justifies the success of Martin Luthers Reformation. By depicting the churches popes as power-hungry totalitarians who aided in the Holy Inquisition and stole money from poor people through tithes and indulgences one must assume that Luther and other “reformers” should gain credit for bringing the church back to the Old Testament mindset.

The present day Roman-Catholic church being depicted with the same sight as the medieval church is merely a parallel of two separate entities, thus saying that though the evidence shows the Catholic Church as corrupt in the medieval time frame the same representation is not just today. Often the view of pop culture is manipulated into thinking so by today’s movies and educational backings. Being hard to disprove due to the abundance of text, from medieval fabliaux to Reformation rhetoric (polemics) and into historical

The third installment to the medieval church being corrupt as well as a totalitarian, intolerant, and even murderous institution is the persistent but often misrepresented medieval Inquisition. A distinguished Protestant scholar by the name of Henry Charles Lea seemed to aggravate the situation. The myth transcended from the Spanish Inquisition to the Middle Ages. The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1480 as an independent organization only answering to the crown and quite different from common medieval inquisitorial proceedings. Lateran Council IV, in 1215, referred the problem of heresy to the Bishops’ ecclesiastical court, as a result passing the responsibility of visitations (inquisitions) of illicit testimonies from parishioners to the bishops. Then handing them over the doctrinal errors to secular authorities for punishment. As in aid to the bishops an assistant system was established using papal judge delegates, often beggars. In 1243 this practice became an official function, “inquisitor of heretical depravity.”Ibid.,65 In special cases autonomy was granted to the mendicants and they were made only responsible to the pope, but so far as a permanently established “Inquisition” none was established in the Middle Ages only inquisitors.

Due to this debacle the reputation of the church was tarnished as well as the reputation of the papacy. Most of Europe divided their allegiance on the basis of political lines. Out of this “issue” some good took place, as in the realization that bishops and not the pope were qualified to make canonical decisions this notion is called conciliarism.

The need for the reformation of the Christian faith is as old as the New Testament itself. It doesn’t account for the state of the church realistically rather it calls for the internalization of religion and to answer the call of conversion. In the spirit of medieval Christianity a constant call to reform is established in other words a reapplication of old Christian ideals to new situations.

It’s hard to believe that Luther and his contemporaries were the first ones to form ideas of reformation. It is stated that corruption and the wealth or luxuries of monastic orders and/or monks themselves was practically tradition. This is not only stated in monastic as well as theological text, though the text may not have depicted a historically accurate representation of the state of the church. Often drawn with what Giles Constable calls the “rhetoric of reform.”Ibid.,125 Many controversial monastic propaganda vessels paint a picture of their opponent in black making it

Some topics in this essay:
Catholic Church, Luthers Reformation, Giles Constable, Middle Ages, Council IV, Ages Protestant, Clement VII, II Leo, Western European, Christianity Christianity, medieval church, church corrupt, middle ages, medieval church corrupt, luthers reformation, clerical abuses, french cardinals, western schism, common medieval, due lack, it’s hard,