How did the medieval laity seek to secure the salvation of their souls?

        

        Since the Original Sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden; everyone who is born, according to Christen theology, is born into sin, and so would die in sin. The Church throughout this period developed ways to pay penance for this sin and follow a way life to reach divinity in Heaven. 'The Seven Sacraments', which were bestowed upon the Church by Christ; are phases which everyone should follow in order to reach this divinity. These stages included; Baptism, Confirmation, Mass, Penance, Marriage, Ordination and the Last Rites. The most critical of all these Sacraments; is the Sacrament of Penance. Penance is the device of the Church to save the souls of man, through which a repentant man would confess to his sins, via an intercessor to God. This intercessor was usually one of the Church Clergymen, although many Saints were also used via prayer, like the Virgin Mary as seen in the opening extract. After the confession, the repentant would undertake a punishment for their sin, the extent of this punishment would be proportional to the sin committed.  The laity which could be any man or woman, who in turn could be literate or not, this posed a challenge for the Church in teaching the ways of Christ; and so the Church devised two sets, one of Virtue and one of Vice. This is one of the major breakthroughs in the medieval Church; teaching the masses, and so each man should live the Virtues of Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Prudence, and Temperance. While each man should avoid the Vices of Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride; or so seek penance for their sin.

        Pilgrimage started initially, in the early middle ages, through devotees seeking a place of great spirituality, although “pilgrimages came to be imposed as penance” as “penitential systems developed for the correction of sin”. Pilgrims came in two forms, voluntary; that of the devotee, or involuntary; that of the penance. There were also two types of pilgrimage, local; which was a location that the pilgrim would regularly attend, or distant; which was a pilgrim to a far destined location usually undertaken once in a life time, for example visiting the holy land in Jerusalem. The pilgrimage came to be the penance of the 'workers' part of the laity, meanwhile the 'fighters' had their own penitent pilgrimage; that of the Crusade. This was a holy war created by the church to solve two problems; the first being the sins accumulated by 'those who fight' in wars, battles and raids. The second problem was the threat of infidels on Christendom, and so the church would repent all the sins of those who went on crusade to fight against the enemies of God. However everyone who went on Crusade did not have the choice; for if a King went his subjects followed and so their subjects followed and so on until it reached the peasantry, although the King knew his  subjects; “that the laymen and fighters...may enter the way of salvation”when embarking on Crusade.

        

        Another major way the laity sought to secure the salvation of their souls was through religious institutions, orders or popular movements. As a result of the first Crusade; an order was established known as the Knights Templar, this was an order of fighting monks, men who were “not only of the sacerdotal but also of the military order”, and so became an attractive and popular order to join until the King of France and the Pope classed it as heretical and the knights were burned at the stake. Monasteries were spread across Europe, and formed the main social structure that supported the Western world. “The hunger for a return to an age of simplicity manifested itself” in the huge appeal for the laity to seek salvation as a monk in a monastery. Meanwhile “women were seeking a means of expressing their deeply held beliefs in forms that differed markedly from the limited opportunities provided by traditional female monastic houses” and so the nunneries and monasteries of “the Beguines and other pious lay women” became extremely popular during the medieval period. The remaining was the penitent movements, for example “in 1260-1, the flagellant movement, beginning in the Umbrian hill town of Perugia,...spreading to Rome and then north to Lombardy, Provence, Germany, Hungary and Poland. Barefoot and stripped to the waist, the flagellants lashed themselves on the upper shoulders in series of public penitential rituals”; this was a common popular  trend among the lower classes of the laity, 'those who work', in which they could publicly repent their sins.

        It can be seen that Catholicism seems to provide salvation for the laity, although on the other hand however, as I said previously Catholicism is based on the interpretation by the Church and the Papacy; and we know that this is not the exclusive entity in Christendom, due to Heresy being a major problem to the orthodoxy. It can not be taken then as the only place for the laity to secure their salvation. For there was some resentment for the church for being non apostolic, being corrupt and “up to the neck in simony and other avarice”. “The drive for clerical reform inevitably stimulated criticism and debate about the church and, consequently...social discontent could surface...in the form of anti-clericalism or even heresy”. This was an instability factor for the church, up until the reformation, although these problems could be conceived as the internal threat to the establishment, which in reality only small minorities were affected by.

Furthermore, we know from the formation of the Crusades that there existed Infidels to Christendom; those who externally threaten the establishment. These enemies were Judaism, Islam and Paganism; of which minorities in the laity sought their salvation through these religions. Christen believe could be model on this quote; “the  Jew consented and promised to be his mediator with the Devil”. This shows us that the Jewish people, as seen by the Christens, are in league with the Devil and so are enemies of God.

        To an even further extent, human nature - vice, seems to prevail over virtue when times seem to be beneficial, just like they have done throughout history, and so some people decide to capitalise on this. After the Black Death, for example, when serfdom in England disappeared the Peasantry were in greater demand, and so they sought to demand higher rates of pay for their work. This caused a law to be passed limiting pay at this time. This prevalence can also be seen up the social hierarchy, where Kings sought the power and might of the Crusade for their own ends; and so “The popes were highly suspicious of the Iberian kings, who seemed to be cynically manipulating crusade appeals for their own purposes”. To generalise it seems that the laity trembled before God when the times where hard and so repent their sins; and equally turn their back when times where more favourable, and sin; although just a generalisation it is consistent with the nature of man to sin and repent; and so can be seen as favourable, in an extent to the Catholicism. For 'Those who fight' and 'Those who work' need 'Those who Pray' to pray for their salvation in the end.

Bibliography:

Book:

D. Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, (Palgrave 2002)

R. Anderson & D.A. Bellenger, Medieval Religion: A Sourcebook, (Routledge 2007)

Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought, (Cambridge 1995)

C.H Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, (Longman 1989)

H.G. Koenigsberger, Medieval Europe 400-1500, (Longman 1987)

S. Farmer & B.H. Rosenwein, Monks & Nuns: Saints & Outcasts: Religion in Medieval Society, (Cornell 2000)

B. Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West, (Arnold  1986)

M. Barber, The Two Cities: Medieval Europe 1050 – 1320, (Routledge  2004)

J. Riley-Smith, The Crusades A History, (Continuum 2005)

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