1. CHALLENGES TO CHURCH AUTHORITY

2. STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVE
The students will trace the reactions of the church to challenges on a graphic organizer.

3. FOCUS QUESTION
How did the church react to challenges from Heretics, Muslims, and Jews?

4. As you have read, most Europeans in the Middle Ages belonged to the Catholic Church. As Christianity spread in Europe, many Jews and Muslims were pressured to become Christian or leave their homes. At the same time, others openly challenged the church’s authority.

5. Some Christians began to question Church teachings.

6. Religious ideas that oppose accepted church teachings are called heresy.
People who have ideas that oppose the church are called heretics. Heretics were fined, imprisoned, or killed.

7. Christians fight the Moors
The Muslim Moors
controlled Spain.
Christians fought them to take away land.
They called this Reconquista, or reconquest.

8. The Rise of Portugal and Spain
Please turn to page 283 in the text.
The marriage of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella united Castile and Aragon.

9. JEWS FACE DISCRIMINATION
Christians believed that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus.
Christians killed Jews during the Crusades.
Jews were blamed for the Black Death.
Throughout Europe, Jews were forced out of their homes or killed.

10. The Spanish Inquisition
Ferdinand and Isabella created the Spanish Inquisition, an organization of priests that looked for and punished non-Christians.
They were ruthless in seeking heretics, Muslims, and Jews.
People found guilty were sentenced in huge public ceremonies and most were burned in public.

11. CHRISTIAN REACTIONS TO GROUPS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

12. FOCUS QUESTION
How did the church react to challenges from Heretics, Muslims, and Jews?
They sent priests and friars to find them. They were sent to prison, tortured, and even killed if they did not leave during the RECONQUISTA.

13. Why were church officials interested in finding heretics?
They might have been worried that heretics might lead others to question the church’s teachings.

14. How did Reconquista affect Spanish Jews and Muslims?
Jews had to convert to Christianity or leave the country. Islam was banned.

15. Why did some Christians discriminate against Jews?
They blamed them for the death of Jesus.

16. What was the purpose of the Inquisition?
To find and punish non-Christians in Spain.

17. WHAT WERE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES THE CHURCH FACED?