The Medieval Latin Church: tyrannical or not? - Political Forum

Brother Oz · 12-26-2006, 07:34 PM

This is a spin-off from the "Most evil tyrants in history" thread. CHUQ suggested the medieval Church, with the Inquisition, as one of the most evil tyrants in history, on which I disagreed. Anyway, that thread was about specific people, and of course the medieval Church was an organisation not a person, so I'm starting another thread.
So, I'd like to discuss what people think of the medieval Church. It's something I'm quite interested in, as I'm studying it as part of my degree. For the purpose of this discussion, by medieval I mean between say the 7th century and the Reformation, and I only mean the Latin (Catholic) Church, not the Byzantine (Orthodox), Nestorian or African Churches.
So, what do you think of the medieval Church, good overall, bad overall, or in the middle? Do you think it should be regarded as one of the most tyrannical organisations in History?

Santa_Claus · 12-26-2006, 09:49 PM

The Vatican, who of corse rules the Catholic Church (the word Catholic means universal by the way), is probably the most horrible persecuting nation in the world, they've killed hundreds of millions of so called "heretics" in the dark ages which definantly makes them worse than Hitler (whom the Vatican had infact supported to power) or Stalin. No organization or nation on Earth has commited atrocities worse than the Papacy and I dont think the EU should allow this horrible nation with so much blood on its hands to print anymore euros. Nothing I have said is intended to offend anyone and isnt against catholics or their beliefs but is against the Vatican institution and its historical crimes.
Big Blue Books: The Vatican's Last Crime

Brother Oz · 12-27-2006, 08:08 AM

Hundreds of millions? Rubbish. The population of Europe in 650AD was only about 6 million. In 1350 it was 37 million, and in 1450 22.5 million (it fell because of the Black Death).

Izzibeth · 12-27-2006, 08:32 AM

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Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

I'd have to agree that it is one of the most tyrannical organizations in history. However, that is from a mainly socialist perspective. I think the Church was a tool for the rich land-owning class to keep the peasantry ignorant and obedient to the landowners.

The peasants were exploited by the landowners and the Church facilitated this and recieved funding from those landowners and the state. What I hold against the church is how they perverted the teachings of Jesus Christ, where Jesus supported helping the poor and said that a camel has an easier time getting through the eye of a needle than a rich man does in getting into the gates of heaven, and twisting this into supporting economic enslavement.

That is their biggest sin, IMO. They twisted around Jesus' message so that they would receive economic support for the church.

I am not religious, however I agree with pretty much everything said here. The Catholic Church has been extremely violent and intolerant since their message rose to such a powerful level and they gained influence in the world. They are top of my list of organizations that I despise (not individual Catholics... but the majority of Priests and Nuns and the Catholic Church as a whole). The Inquisition was atrocious... as were The Crusades.

If a man such as Jesus did exist in the past and his words were those of love and understanding which he wanted to be spread... the Catholic Church has failed miserably in doing so.

Brother Oz · 12-27-2006, 09:23 AM

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However, that is from a mainly socialist perspective. I think the Church was a tool for the rich land-owning class

I agree with this, generally. Most priests were dirt-poor and from peasant backgrounds. However, nearly all the Bishops, Cardinals and Popes were from aristocratic families. It was possible for peasants to advance up the ranks of the Church, but it was difficult, and you wouldn't start at a high rank like you would if you were the younger son of a Baron or Prince. Medieval society in theory consisted of 3 classes, peasant, cleric and noble, but in practice the Clerics were bound to one of the two other classes.
Also, the Church forced people to pay taxes to support them.
However, they did encourage some things that were good for peasants. Peasants got days off from working for their masters, because of the multitude of holy days. Nobles were given moral strictures, and couldn't treat their peasants too badly for fear of extending their stay in purgatory. The Church did a lot to restrict the damages of wars between nobles, and of course wars always hurt the poor the most.
One could also argue that since the Church was split into nobles and peasants, that really it was not the Church which was at fault, it was the feudal system, and the Church was just exploited by the noble class.

As to

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keep the peasantry ignorant

what do you mean? The Church preserved all the knowledge that was lost to most people after the western Roman empire collapsed. I don't see how they kept people ignorant, they tried to do the opposite. Of course, most peasants didn't have time to learn to read, they were too busy tryong to survive.

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The Inquisition was atrocious

The Spanish inquisiton was atrocious, torturing people, burning people, etc, but that was pretty independant of Rome, it was a tool of the King and Queen of the newly united Kingdom of Spain, who wanted to root out anyone they thought might not be loyal, such as Jews and Muslims, in fact many Jews converted to Christianity and then were tortured to death by the Inquisiton, who still considered them suspect.
The Inquisition overall is more complicated. It was originally started to find heretical preachers. The way it worked was this. You would go along to a meeting with 3 Inquisitors, probably Dominican friars. They would ask you questions about what you believed. If they decided your beliefs were heretical, they would try and convince you of the inaccuracy of your beliefs. If that didn't work, they would normally strip you of your clerical rank, and tell the Bishops to deny you the right to preach in their towns and universities, and ban your books. Sometimes stricter measures were used, for example Galileo was given House Arrest.
In Spain, as I said, they became a political tool that embraced atrocious methods. They also carried out many executions in southern France during the Albeginsian crusade, when the Pope basically lost control to fanatical local Bishops and land-hungry northern French knights who went on a huge massacre.

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as were The Crusades

The Crusades are another occasion that is misunderstood by most people today.
The Albeginsian crusade (Southern France) was pretty horrific, many people were killed and their land stolen.
The crusade against Spain was primarily a political crusade. Mosques were mostly left standing, Muslims were allowed to continue their religion to an extent. Later on Spain wiped out Islam, but that was after the Crusades.
The crusades against the Scandinavians annihlated their pagan religion, but didn't kill that many people compared to other wars.
The crusades against what are today the Baltic nations were similar, people weren't massacred but their religion was utterly destroyed.
What people most mean when they say the Crusades are the Crusades against the Muslims in the Middle East. These ironically were the least successful crusades.
The first crusade worked like this:
The Byzantine empire lost Anatolia (eastern Turkey) to the Seljuks. 30 years later Malik Shah, ruler of the Seljuks, died with no obvious successor. Emperor Alexis of Byzantium thought this was a perfect oppertunity to reconquer Anatolia. Byzantium had a lot of money, but they didn't have very good soldiers, it was after all quite a peaceful and civilised empire. He decided to hire western mercenaries, as western Europe was a barbaric and savage land, where nobles spent their lives fighting each other, so they made good soldiers. He wrote to Pope Urban II to try and get him to use his influence to help recruit an army. Urban believed that Islam was going to exterminate Christianity if nothing was done, after all it had conquered formally Christian Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Iberia. Now it was threatening central Europe from both east (the Seljuks) and west (the Iberians). He believed that Christianity would only survive if the Muslims were beaten back from Byzantium, so he sent his priests on preaching tours of France, England and Germany, telling people of all the fantastic riches of the east, all the available land that was waiting for them. He also promised instant salvation to anyone killed in the war, which for people who spent their whole lives killing others was quite an attractive prospect, although the main incentive was the land and wealth. He recruited an army bigger than anyone expected, 60000 men (by contrast the army William the Bastard had used to conquer England just over a decade before was 13000 men), who sailed off to Anatolia. They butchered the soldiers defending it, both Muslim and Christian (the local Christians liked the Seljuks because they charged a lot less tax than the Byzantines), and reconquered Anatolia. They didn't give it back to the Emperor though, they kept it for themselves. Then they swept down along the coast ot Jerusalem, killing loads of people, whether Jewish, Muslim, or Nestorian or Orthodox Christian.
That crusade was a success of sorts, although it only succeeded because the Muslims were too busy fighting each other.
After that, the west lost interest, it was a long way to go for a Crusade when Muslim Iberia was just next door. Other crusades were launched, but they all failed, except the 4th crusade, when Frederick III landed in Egypt with a big army and told the Sultan that he didn't want to kill anyone, he just wanted Jerusalem. The Sultan gave hom Jerusalem, and Frederick marched there, had himself crowned King, and then went home.
The other crusades all failed, because the Muslims were by now unified under Saladin and his successors. In fact one crusade never got to Muslim lands, as they ran out of money and went to fight for a deposed Emperor of Byzantium to get his throne back in return for loads of money. Once Emperor again, he didn't pay them, so they went on a rampage around Constantinople, raping, looting and killing, and burnign down Churches and other public buildings. After that they split Byzantium up between them. This of course made it much easier for the Ottomon Turks to later conquer Byzantium. Ironically, the Crusades designed to drive the Muslims out of Europe led to the creation of the 99% Muslims country that we now call Turkey, as well as the large Muslim populations of the Balkans, such as the Bosniaks.

panteth4h2o · 12-27-2006, 11:29 AM

Without question, the Roman Catholic church was a very murderous and crooked organization that perverted the Gospel of Christ. The shame is that it didn't start off like that, but over time they eventually evolved into a powerful heresy organization that accused other Protestants and people of being....heresy.

Brother Oz · 12-27-2006, 12:04 PM

As a Christian, I agree that they perverted Jesus' teachings, but I'm not looking at this question from a religious perspective. You say they were a very murderous and crooked organisation. What is your evidence for this? Certainly in particular periods they were corrupt, in particular periods they killed many people, but overall I feel they were far tamer than many modern tyrannical organisations, such as the Nazis or the Bolsheviks. Overall, they were better for Europe than if they hadn't been there, they reduced wars and conflict and promoted internationalism.

panteth4h2o · 12-27-2006, 03:54 PM

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Originally Posted by Brother Oz

You say they were a very murderous and crooked organisation. What is your evidence for this? Certainly in particular periods they were corrupt, in particular periods they killed many people, but overall I feel they were far tamer than many modern tyrannical organisations, such as the Nazis or the Bolsheviks. Overall, they were better for Europe than if they hadn't been there, they reduced wars and conflict and promoted internationalism.

They certainly had their moments at times, which is why I used the word "evolved" and "organization", as it took time for this to happen. At various times, it seems that they had sincere Popes, but when they had corrupt ones, they were certainly corrupt. I can't remember his name, but I do know that their was one Pope who was so evil, that even the monks prayed that he would die.

Now, they can't be compared to the Nazis or Bolsheviks (which is why I didn't make the comparison), for they would make the Catholic church of the Dark Ages seem like Boy Scouts. But outside of the Inquisitions, I used the word "murder" to also describe what sometimes took place at the top of the heirarchy whenever they scrambled or competed for political power. Now, when speaking of a Christian institution, this wasn't supposed to have been happening.

At times, the expulsion and terrible treatment of Jews was nothing to write home about either.

Now when you say that their presence was better for Europe than if they hadn't been there, perhaps their is some truth to that, because we are talking about an organization that evolved into what it was by the Middle Ages. During certain times, there was both good and bad, so I'm not saying it was bad in an absolute sense. But certainly, by the time of the Protestant Reformation, many of the common people were kept in the dark, and the Medieval Catholic church didn't even allow them to get their hands on the Bible, much less recieve some kind of education. When Martin Luther finally got the printed Bible into their hands, he had another problem of the common man not knowing how to read and write.

Much different from the educated civilazations of ancient Greece and Rome (not that they were always innocent). But certainly, it was time for a change, and it did society good when it finally happened.

Brother Oz · 12-27-2006, 04:23 PM

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I can't remember his name, but I do know that their was one Pope who was so evil, that even the monks prayed that he would die.

I don't know which one you mean, but yes some Popes were very unpopular. At the trial of Pope John 16th, they wanted to suppress the most scandalous charges, so they only charged him with heresy, witchcraft, rape, sodomy, piracy and murder.

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Now, when speaking of a Christian institution, this wasn't supposed to have been happening.

I think that's significant, while they may not have been as bad as many tyrannical organisations, you expectr more of them since they were teaching love and forgiveness. At least the Nazis and Bolsheviks weren't as hypocritical.

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At times, the expulsion and terrible treatment of Jews was nothing to write home about either.

Yes, although that wasn't always to do with the Church. The anti-Jewish pogroms in Germany were an accidental result of crusader recruitment propaganda, and the expulsion of Jews from England was mainly political I believe.

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But certainly, by the time of the Protestant Reformation, many of the common people were kept in the dark, and the Medieval Catholic church didn't even allow them to get their hands on the Bible, much less recieve some kind of education.

They discouraged vernacular translations of the Bible it's true at this period (oddly, since a couple of hundred years before vernacular translations were common and not restricted at all). But they didn't stop people getting education. Universities were common, and many of the teachers were friars, normally Dominicans. Most people couldn't read and write because they were peasants, they spent their whole lives farming, they couldn't afford to take the time to learn to read and write. No one was stopping them though.

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But certainly, it was time for a change, and it did society good when it finally happened.

I don't think it really made much difference frankly. By the time of the reformation the Pope had no real power outside central Italy. As an Austrian duke said, "In my own land I am Pope". Bishops and priests were appointed by the King and his lords, they had no loyalty to the Pope, and by this time Kings had the right to tax and try churchmen.

Troianii · 01-13-2007, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother Oz

This is a spin-off from the "Most evil tyrants in history" thread. CHUQ suggested the medieval Church, with the Inquisition, as one of the most evil tyrants in history, on which I disagreed. Anyway, that thread was about specific people, and of course the medieval Church was an organisation not a person, so I'm starting another thread.
So, I'd like to discuss what people think of the medieval Church. It's something I'm quite interested in, as I'm studying it as part of my degree. For the purpose of this discussion, by medieval I mean between say the 7th century and the Reformation, and I only mean the Latin (Catholic) Church, not the Byzantine (Orthodox), Nestorian or African Churches.
So, what do you think of the medieval Church, good overall, bad overall, or in the middle? Do you think it should be regarded as one of the most tyrannical organisations in History?

Overall, good. I'm a staunch Protestant, but I still can see past fabrications, stories and propaganda. The Catholic Church was a good force in history, and it's "evils" are primarily just from a modern secular viewpoint.

Take the Inquisition. Was the Catholic Church just executing those who differred with it's beleifs? No, generally speaking they thought that they were fighting demons and forces of darkness. As everyone beleives them to have been wrong (as I do), you could call them mistaken, misled, or ignorant, but to call them evil or tyranical would, IMO, wouldn't be a correct analyzation.

Another example is the Crusades. Terrible things happened, like women and children being slaughtered - terrible things that were never condoned by the Catholic Church but were highly criticized by the Catholic Church and, I beleive, part of the reason why they never launched another Crusade after the Third.

You are actually studying it, in College I am guessing, and so you've probably got the history better than I do. This is merely my viewpoint, my facts may not be entirely true because they are from memory and I'm not an expert on the matter.