4 ms·

The Middle Ages is a period roughly spanning a millennia. When considering this, the amount of cases where the Church really got their hands dirty is minuscule

The Middle Ages is a period roughly spanning a millennia. When considering this, the amount of cases where the Church really got their hands dirty is minuscule wrt what happened in the later centuries. Probing this problem is also made difficult by the fact that the Church held both a religious and temporal power, meaning that some things might have been done because of political reasons, muddying the waters. If some guy disagrees with the Church, fine. But if he incites a rebellion against the state? That's more of a civil matter to be dealt with according to the custom of the times (i.e. death). 4 out of 7 examples you brought did not end in death and some others had a political component to them that makes them tricky to analyze. The point is that the Middle Ages were way more tolerant and open to discussiim than what we're led to believe, and that the vast majority of the truly bad stuff that the Church did actually happened later.

nataliste 2y ago
Stating that diversity of thought existed in the effectively autocephalous European Church from the 5th through the mid-10th century conflates accidental diversity with intentional. It’s true that the Church was more decentralized in this period, but this diversity arose from a lack of centralized control, not from a deliberate policy of tolerance or openness. Before the Gregorian Reform in the 11th century, the Papacy’s direct influence on 'frontier' archbishoprics was relatively negligible. However, as the centralization of Rome, the Roman Rite, and ecclesiastical subordination to the Papacy took full form, the Church’s suppression of divergent practices and beliefs became systematic. This period saw the emergence of many of the 'truly bad' features often associated with the Church, such as uniform enforcement of orthodoxy and suppression of dissent. See R. I. Moore's The Formation of the Persecuting Society for a full treatment. Your argument is like claiming that Red Hat in the 2000s promoted diversity because independent Linux distributions existed. In reality, Red Hat itself has always been monolithic. The existence of an independent Linux ecosystem that preceded Red Hat does not make Red Hat a promoter of diversity. Similarly, the diversity of regional practices in early medieval Christendom was not a feature of the Church but a byproduct of decentralization, which later reforms actively sought to eliminate. Diversity arising from a lack of control is not the same as cultivating it within an institution. Moreover, reliance on orthodoxy is a feature, not a bug, of the Roman Catholic Church. This reliance has historically been central to the Church's identity and governance. Attempts to portray the Church as inherently diverse prior to the Counter-Reformation overlook its systematic suppression of autochthonous rites and regional practices as centralization took hold. Rather than prevaricating, Catholics need to embrace this reliance on orthodoxy as central to the Church’s unity instead of this kind of revisionism.
- EarthBlues 2y ago
  I think the parent posters are misstating an argument made by Kaplan[0]. Kaplan argues that religious persecutions accelerated from 1550 onwards. He nowhere argues that the medieval European society was proto-liberal or wasn’t intensely allergic to heresy. There was no liberal freedom or value of toleration as we understand it prior to the resolution of the wars of religion. There was, however, a variegated patchwork of ad hoc arrangements based on custom, convenience, common interest, charity, forbearance (notably NOT liberal freedom or toleration) that allowed people with different religious beliefs, practices, and levels of commitment to live together in relative peace over long periods of time. He also gives material evidence of how the reformation, counter-reformation, wars of religion, and the emergent nation state systematically destroyed these intricate arrangements. [0]https://books.google.com/books?id=wGJjSvehY5MC https://books.google.com/books?id=wGJjSvehY5MC
  - nataliste 2y ago
    This is a totally fair perspective and I have no qualms with it, beyond an asterisk that the seeds that matured with the Reformation and its aftermath were planted during the Gregorian Reforms.

nataliste 2y ago

Stating that diversity of thought existed in the effectively autocephalous European Church from the 5th through the mid-10th century conflates accidental diversity with intentional. It’s true that the Church was more decentralized in this period, but this diversity arose from a lack of centralized control, not from a deliberate policy of tolerance or openness. Before the Gregorian Reform in the 11th century, the Papacy’s direct influence on 'frontier' archbishoprics was relatively negligible. However, as the centralization of Rome, the Roman Rite, and ecclesiastical subordination to the Papacy took full form, the Church’s suppression of divergent practices and beliefs became systematic. This period saw the emergence of many of the 'truly bad' features often associated with the Church, such as uniform enforcement of orthodoxy and suppression of dissent. See R. I. Moore's The Formation of the Persecuting Society for a full treatment. Your argument is like claiming that Red Hat in the 2000s promoted diversity because independent Linux distributions existed. In reality, Red Hat itself has always been monolithic. The existence of an independent Linux ecosystem that preceded Red Hat does not make Red Hat a promoter of diversity. Similarly, the diversity of regional practices in early medieval Christendom was not a feature of the Church but a byproduct of decentralization, which later reforms actively sought to eliminate. Diversity arising from a lack of control is not the same as cultivating it within an institution. Moreover, reliance on orthodoxy is a feature, not a bug, of the Roman Catholic Church. This reliance has historically been central to the Church's identity and governance. Attempts to portray the Church as inherently diverse prior to the Counter-Reformation overlook its systematic suppression of autochthonous rites and regional practices as centralization took hold. Rather than prevaricating, Catholics need to embrace this reliance on orthodoxy as central to the Church’s unity instead of this kind of revisionism.

EarthBlues 2y ago
I think the parent posters are misstating an argument made by Kaplan[0]. Kaplan argues that religious persecutions accelerated from 1550 onwards. He nowhere argues that the medieval European society was proto-liberal or wasn’t intensely allergic to heresy. There was no liberal freedom or value of toleration as we understand it prior to the resolution of the wars of religion. There was, however, a variegated patchwork of ad hoc arrangements based on custom, convenience, common interest, charity, forbearance (notably NOT liberal freedom or toleration) that allowed people with different religious beliefs, practices, and levels of commitment to live together in relative peace over long periods of time. He also gives material evidence of how the reformation, counter-reformation, wars of religion, and the emergent nation state systematically destroyed these intricate arrangements. [0]https://books.google.com/books?id=wGJjSvehY5MC https://books.google.com/books?id=wGJjSvehY5MC
- nataliste 2y ago
  This is a totally fair perspective and I have no qualms with it, beyond an asterisk that the seeds that matured with the Reformation and its aftermath were planted during the Gregorian Reforms.