1. The Medieval Church
Chapter 7, Section 3

2. How did the Church play a vital role in medieval life?
Essential Question
How did the Church play a vital role in medieval life?

3. Learning Targets
Students will understand the role the Church plays in the daily lives of medieval Christians.
Students will understand how to describe monastic life according to Benedictine Rule.
Students will understand how the Church gained secular power.
Students will understand how monks contributed to the reform of the Church.
Students will understand how Jews were treated in medieval Europe

4. Spread of Christianity in Europe

5. Church Dominates Life
Most important achievement of the Church in the Middle Ages?
Converting the diverse population
of Western Europe to Christianity
Pope Gregory I sent St. Augustine to convert
the Anglo-Saxons in England.
Later missionaries went back to the continent
to spread the faith among the Germanic Tribes.

6. Didn’t belong to a Church community???
You were viewed with suspicion!

7. Role of the Parish Priest
Priests were only contact many had with the Church
They guided people on issues of values and morality.
Celebrated Mass & administered sacraments…believed to be vital for everlasting life with God
Explained the Bible (written in Latin)
Some ran schools

8. Church Taxes Church required Christians to pay a tithe
A tithe is a tax payment to the Church
Was equal to 1/10 of their income

9. Importance of the Village Church
The church was a social center as well as a place of worship.
Christian rituals and faith were part of the fabric of everyday life.
Life revolved around the Christian calendar (Saint’s days, Easter, etc)
Main events of life took place at Church (marriage, baptism, death)

10. The Rise of Cathedrals
By 1100s communities built ornate, buttressed Cathedrals
Source of pride for communities that built them
Members contributed money, labor and skills to build

11. Church Attitudes toward Women
Church doctrine taught women and men were equal in the eyes of God.
But on earth women were viewed as weak and easily led to sin, and they needed to be led by men 
The Church offered a view of the ideal woman as Mary.
Modest and pure
The Church tried to protect women
Minimum age for women to marry
Fined men who injured their wives

12. Monasteries & Convents
Monastic Life
A monk named Benedict began “Benedictine Rule” in 530 a.d.
Began to be used by monasteries and convents across Europe
Monks and nuns took 3 vows
Obedience to the Abbott
Poverty
Chastity or purity

13. Church Power Grows
In the centuries after the fall of Rome, the Church became the most powerful secular, or worldly, force in medieval Europe.
Medieval popes began to claim papal supremacy, or authority over all secular rulers.
The medieval Church developed its own body of laws, known as canon law, as well as its own courts. Anyone who disobeyed canon law faced a range of penalties.
The Church also had absolute power in religious matters.

14. Corruption & Reform The success of the Church brought problems:
As Church wealth and power grew, discipline weakened.
Some clergy ignored their vows and lived in luxury.
Some priests focused more on family than on Church duties.

15. Corruption & Reform A number of reform movements spread across Europe:
Revived the Benedictine Rule, under which monks and nuns took vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity.
Pope Gregory VII outlawed marriage for priests and prohibited simony, the selling of Church offices.
Frances of Assisi set up the Franciscan order to teach poverty, humility, and love of God.
Dominic set up the Dominican order to teach official Roman Catholic beliefs

16. St. Francis of Assisi Born in Italy around 1181
Renown for drinking and partying in his youth
Became involved in battle between Assisi and Perugia in 1202
He was captured and held for ransom
Began to see visions while in prison
Heard the voice of God telling him to repair the Church
He abandoned life of luxury and devoted his life to
Christianity.

17. Jews in Medieval Europe
Jewish communities existed across Europe.
In hard times, Christians persecuted the Jews, blaming them for economic problems, illness, and disasters.
Prejudice against Jews is called anti-Semitism.
In response to growing
persecution, thousands of
Jews migrated from Western
to Eastern Europe.