THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY HISTORICAL HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH VOL. 6 by Philip Schaff B o o k s Fo r Th e A g e s AGES Software • Albany, OR USA Version 1.0 © 1997 2 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH* BY PHILIP SCHAFF Christianus sum Christiani nihil a me alienum puto VOLUME 6. THE MIDDLE AGES FROM BONIFACE VIII., 1294 TO THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION, 1517 BY DAVID S. SCHAFF, D.D. 3 PREFACE This volume completes the history of the Church in the Middle Ages. Dr. Philip Schaff on one occasion spoke of the Middle Ages as a terra incognita in the United States,—a territory not adequately explored. These words would no longer be applicable, whether we have in mind the instruction given in our universities or theological seminaries. In Germany, during the last twenty years, the study of the period has been greatly developed, and no period at the present time, except the Apostolic age, attracts more scholarly and earnest attention and research. The author has had no apologetic concern to contradict the old notion, perhaps still somewhat current in our Protestant circles, that the Middle Ages were a period of superstition and worthy of study as a curiosity rather than as a time directed and overruled by an all-seeing Providence. He has attempted to depict it as it was and to allow the picture of high religious purpose to reveal itself side by side with the picture of hierarchical assumption and scholastic misinterpretation. Without the mediaeval age, the Reformation would not have been possible. Nor is this statement to be understood in the sense in which we speak of reaching a land of sunshine and plenty after having traversed a desert. We do well to give to St. Bernard and Francis d’Assisi, St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine of Siena, Gerson, Tauler and Nicolas of Cusa a high place in our list of religious personalities, and to pray for men to speak to our generation as well as they spoke to the generations in which they lived. Moreover, the author has been actuated by no purpose to disparage Christians who, in the alleged errors of Protestantism, find an insuperable barrier to Christian fellowship. Where he has passed condemnatory judgments on personalities, as on the popes of the last years of the 15th and the earlier years of the 16th century, it is not because they occupied the papal throne, but because they were personalities who in any walk of life would call for the severest reprobation. The unity of the Christian faith and the promotion of fellowship between Christians of all names and all ages are considerations which should make us careful with pen or spoken word lest we condemn, without properly taking into consideration that interior devotion to Christ and His kingdom -which seems to be quite compatible with divergencies in doctrinal statement or ceremonial habit. On the pages of the volume, the author has expressed his indebtedness to the works of the eminent mediaeval historians and investigators of the day, Gregorovius, Pastor, Mandell Creighton, Lea, Ehrle, Denifle, Finke, 4 Schwab, Haller, Carl Mirbt, R. Mueller Kirsch, Loserth, Janssen, Valois, Burckhardt-Geiger, Seebohm and others, Protestant and Roman Catholic, and some no more among the living. It is a pleasure to be able again to express his indebtedness to the Rev. David E. Culley, his colleague in the Western Theological Seminary, whose studies in mediaeval history and accurate scholarship have been given to the volume in the reading of the manuscript, before it went to the printer, and of the printed pages before they received their final form. Above all, the author feels it to be a great privilege that he has been able to realize the hope which Dr. Philip Schaff expressed in the last years of his life, that his History of the Christian Church which, in four volumes, had traversed the first ten centuries and, in the sixth and seventh, set forth the progress of the German and Swiss Reformations, might be carried through the fruitful period from 1050–1517. DAVID S. SCHAFF. The Western Theological Seminary, Pittsburg. 5 CONTENTS. FROM BONIFACE VIII. TO MARTIN LUTHER. A.D. 1294–1517. THE SIXTH PERIOD OF CHURCH HISTORY. § 1. Introductory Survey. CHAPTER 1. THE DECLINE OF THE PAPACY AND THE AVIGNON EXILE. A.D. 1294–1377. § 2. Sources and Literature. § 3. Pope Boniface VIII. 1294–1303. § 4. Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair of France. § 5. Literary Attacks against the Papacy. § 6. The Transfer of the Papacy to Avignon. § 7. The Pontificate of John XXII 1316–1334. § 8. The Papal Office Assailed. § 9. The Financial Policy of the Avignon Popes. § 10. The Later Avignon Popes. § 11. The Re-establishment of the Papacy in Rome. 1377. CHAPTER 2. THE PAPAL SCHISM AND THE REFORMATORY COUNCILS. 1378–1449. § 12. Sources and Literature. § 13. The Schism Begun. 1378. § 14. Further Progress of the Schism. 1378–1409. § 15. The Council of Pisa. § 16. The Council of Constance. 1414–1418. § 17. The council of Basel. 1431–1449. § 18. The Council of Ferrara-Florence. 1438–1445. 6 CHAPTER 3. LEADERS OF CATHOLIC THOUGHT. § 19. Literature. § 20. Ockam and the Decay of Scholasticism. § 21. Catherine of Siena, the Saint. § 22. Peter d’Ailly, Ecclesiastical Statesman. § 23. John Gerson, Theologian and Church Leader. § 24. Nicolas of Clamanges, the Moralist. § 25. Nicolas of Cusa, Scholar and Churchman. § 26. Popular Preachers. CHAPTER 4. THE GERMAN MYSTICS. § 27. Sources and Literature. § 28. The New Mysticism. § 29. Meister Eckart. § 30. John Tauler of Strassburg. § 31. Henry Suso. § 32. The Friends of God. § 33. John of Ruysbroeck. § 34. Gerrit de Groote and the Brothers of the Common Life. § 35. The Imitation of Christ. Thomas à Kempis. § 36. The German Theology. § 37. English Mystics. CHAPTER 5. REFORMERS BEFORE THE REFORMATION. § 38. Sources and Literature. § 39. The Church in England in the Fourteenth Century. § 40. John Wyclif. § 41. Wyclif’s Teachings. § 42. Wyclif and the Scriptures. § 43. The Lollards. § 44. John Huss of Bohemia. 7 § 45. Huss at Constance. § 46. Jerome of Prag. § 47. The Hussites. CHAPTER 6. THE LAST POPES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 1447–1521 § 48. Literature and General Survey. § 49. Nicolas V. 1447–1455. § 50. Aeneas Sylvius de’ Piccolomini, Pius II. § 51. Paul II. 1464–1471. § 52. Sixtus IV. 1471–1484. § 53. Innocent VIII. 1484–1492. § 54. Pope Alexander VI—Borgia. 1492–1503. § 55. Julius II., the Warrior-Pope. 1503–1513. § 56. Leo X. 1513–1521. CHAPTER 7. HERESY AND WITCHCRAFT. § 57. Literature. § 58. Heretical and Unchurchly Movements. § 59. Witchcraft and its Punishment. § 60. The Spanish Inquisition. CHAPTER 8. THE RENAISSANCE. § 61. Literature of the Renaissance. § 62. The Intellectual Awakening. § 63. Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio. § 64. Progress and Patrons of Classical Studies in the 15th Century. § 65. Greek Teachers and Italian Humanists. § 66. The Artists. § 67. The Revival of Paganism. § 68. Humanism in Germany. § 69. Reuchlin and Erasmus. § 70. Humanism in France. 8 § 71. Humanism in England. CHAPTER 9. THE PULPIT AND POPULAR PIETY. § 72. Literature. § 73. The Clergy. § 74. Preaching. § 75. Doctrinal Reformers. § 76. Girolamo Savonarola. § 77. The Study and Circulation of the Bible. § 78. Popular Piety. § 79. Works of Charity. § 80. The Sale of Indulgences. CHAPTER 10. THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. § 81. The Close of the Middle Ages. 9 THE MIDDLE AGES. THE SIXTH PERIOD OF CHURCH HISTORY. § 1. INTRODUCTORY SURVEY. The two centuries intervening between 1294 and 1517, between the accession of Boniface VIII. and the nailing of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses against the church door in Wittenberg, mark the gradual transition from the Middle Ages to modern times, from the universal acceptance of the papal theocracy in Western Europe to the assertion of national independence, from the supreme authority of the priesthood to the intellectual and spiritual freedom of the individual. Old things are passing away; signs of a new order increase. Institutions are seen to be breaking up. The scholastic systems of theology lose their compulsive hold on men’s minds, and even become the subject of ridicule. The abuses of the earlier Middle Ages call forth voices demanding reform on the basis of the Scriptures and the common well-being of mankind. The inherent vital energies in the Church seek expression in new forms of piety and charitable deed. The power of the papacy, which had asserted infallibility of judgment and dominion over all departments of human life, was undermined by the mistakes, pretensions, and worldliness of the papacy itself, as exhibited in the policy of Boniface VIII., the removal of the papal residence to Avignon, and the disastrous schism which, for nearly half a century, gave to Europe the spectacle of two, and at times three, popes reigning at the same time and all professing to be the vicegerents of God on earth. The free spirit of nationality awakened during the crusades grew strong and successfully resisted the papal authority, first in France and then in other parts of Europe. Princes asserted supreme authority over the citizens within their dominions and insisted upon the obligations of churches to the state. The leadership of Europe passed from Germany to France, with England coming more and more into prominence. The tractarian literature of the fourteenth century set forth the rights of man and the principles of common law in opposition to the pretensions of the papacy and the dogmatism of the scholastic systems. Lay writers made themselves heard as pioneers of thought, and a practical outlook upon the mission of the Church was cultivated. With unexampled audacity Dante 10 assailed the lives of popes, putting some of St. Peter’s successors into the lowest rooms of hell.