Dissenters, the Orthodox, and Jews

Sources

John Hus. The Council of Constance (1413–1415) dealt with a major issue concerning a charge of heresy against John Hus, a theologian from Bohemia. Heresy can be defined as holding a doctrine condemned as erroneous by a proper church authority. The Church had asserted its right to hand over heretics to the secular arm—the state— for execution based on a law enacted by the Roman emperor Constantine. As of 1350 there was little in the way of organized heretical groups across Europe, but shadowy groups appeared and disappeared often in a haze of blood. The most notorious were the Brethren of the Free Spirit, although what is known about them comes almost entirely from their opponents and is therefore most certainly biased. As recorded in their heresy trials, the Free Spirits believed that they could attain union with God directly without the agency of the Church. They allegedly said that they could achieve perfection and become sinless, which permitted them to do anything; breaking laws and commandments provided evidence to them that they had become perfect. The surest fact about the Free Spirits was that they rejected the authority of the clergy. Their sense that they were perfect made it impossible for them to obey the clergy, whom they regarded as hopelessly corrupt.

Other groups, even some Flagellants, were strongly anticlerical. The wealth and corruption of the Catholic clergy in the late Middle Ages made anticlericalism a common response, especially among the poor. More often it was anticlericalism and not any specific doctrinal deviation that led to condemnation for heresy.

John Wycliffe. Heresy was also found among elites, such as the Englishman John Wycliffe. A distinguished theologian at Oxford University, Wycliffe developed a fierce hostility to the papacy because of the Great Schism. In the last years before his death, he wrote several works in which he attacked virtually everything about the medieval Church, including the Catholic doctrine of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Defining the Lord's Supper was the most difficult task for medieval theologians. It was second in difficulty only to the Trinity, which had been carefully defined in the early Church. The doctrine of the Eucharist was established only in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, which accepted transubstantiation: during Mass the bread and wine of the Sacrament are transformed completely into the body and blood of Christ, although the appearances of the bread and wine remain. The doctrine depended heavily on Aristotle's ideas of substance and accidents, and thinkers like Wycliffe who were not Aristotelians were inclined

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to reject it. For Wycliffe, the Eucharist was not Christ's body and blood but a special sign of them concealed in the bread and wine. His views of the Church and clergy were even more radical. Popes, bishops, and priests were not necessarily among the saved; and if they were not, they had no right of authority in the Church. This position led to Wycliffe's doctrine of “dominion of grace.” He believed God granted the right to property; only those without sin were rightful property holders. In Wycliffe's opinion this excluded most of the clergy from holding property. It also led to the idea that those who were true Christians had the right to seize property from sinners, that is, everyone else. This doctrine became part of the view of many cults that proclaimed that they were the only true Christians; some used violence to seize what they believed was rightfully theirs through the dominion of grace.

Lollards. In England, Wycliffe's views helped to stimulate the formation of a group known as the Lollards, who came mostly from humble origins. The Lollards denounced clerical ownership of property, clerical celibacy, transub-stantiation, and papal authority while demanding a pure clergy who used the Bible in the language of the people. The Lollards, composed of only a few thousand persons, persisted despite active repression by the English government. Some historians argue that the Lollards maintained an active underground movement up to the time of the English Reformation. Wycliffe's impact was greater in Bohemia, where some Czech theologians taught his theology when they returned home after being educated at Oxford. Hus, who did not study in England, emerged to lead the Czech theologians who adopted Wycliffe's theology. By 1400 Bohemia was ready for a religious rebellion. The mostly German prelates controlled much of the property of the realm, and papal revenue demands on the Bohemian Church were high. Ethnic tensions between Germans and Czechs in the University of Prague created a volatile situation in which the former opposed the call for church reform while the latter supported it. The antipapal, nationalistic aspects of the Czech theologians' call for church reform resonated among the Czech people. Hus taught Wycliffe's theology in the university and preached it as the chief preacher of a major Prague church. He was called before the Council of Constance in 1415 to answer charges of heresy. Emperor Sigismund, who had jurisdiction because Bohemia was part of the Holy Roman Empire, gave Hus a safe conduct, ensuring his safety at the council. The council first condemned Wycliffe for heresy and then found Hus guilty of the same errors. Hus and a second Czech theologian were executed despite the safe conduct, violated on the grounds that one must not keep faith with a heretic.

Rebellion. The Czech population in Bohemia responded to Hus's execution with rebellion against the Catholic Church and the German emperor. Emerging as the central focus of the rebellion was the Eucharist. The Hussites demanded that the sacrament be made available to the laity in both the bread and the wine. Giving the cup to the laity had disappeared in the twelfth century, largely out of fears of spilling Christ's blood. “Utraquist,” from the Latin word for “both,” was the name given to the church the Hussites organized in Bohemia. With the support of most Czech nobles, the Hussites established a national church free of the pope and rid of the German prelates. Meanwhile, Emperor Sigismund gathered an army and invaded Bohemia. Led by John Zizka, the Hussites defeated Sigismumd's Germans in a series of battles between 1416 and 1420. Many Hussites, whose anxieties had been raised to a fever pitch by the war, became convinced that Christ's Second Coming would occur immediately. Following Jesus' admonition to flee to the mountains, the Hussites assembled on hilltops. One site south of Prague was identified as Mount Tabor, which tradition had designated as the place where Christ's return would occur. The Taborites believed that they had to prepare the world for Christ's Second Coming. They differed from most of the many previous groups who believed the Second Coming was at hand in that they used violence against the non-believers. Taborites were admonished to cleanse the earth of sinners because Christ would not return until it was purified. Violence against the moderate Hussites, who refused to join the Taborites, led to civil war in Bohemia. In 1434 the moderate Hussites defeated the Taborites and largely destroyed their movement. The moderates then reached an accommodation with the Pope that permitted Utraquism in the Bohemian Church while it returned to union with Rome. This situation prevailed in Bohemia until the Reformation began in the next century.

Primacy of the Pope. It is possible that the Orthodox Churches, which never stopped giving the cup to the laity, influenced the Utraquists, since Zizka and other Czech soldiers had served as mercenaries in the Orthodox lands to the east and south of Bohemia. The question of the cup was less important as a point of contention between the Eastern and Western Churches than was the primacy of the pope. Catholics insisted that the Orthodox accept the pope as superior to the patriarch of Constantinople; the Orthodox refused. Several attempts at forging reunion had floundered on that issue before 1350. The rise of the Ottoman Turks, who crossed from Asia Minor into the Balkans in 1361, persuaded leaders in the Byzantine Empire to seek aid from the Westerners. In 1439 Byzantine emperor John VIII and Patriarch Michael III arrived in Florence to discuss reunion. They capitulated to the Catholics on most points, agreeing to recognize the pope as the head of the Greek Orthodox Church; in exchange the Pope called for a crusade against the Turks. The Turks defeated a small crusader army in Bulgaria in 1444, while most Orthodox rejected the union with Rome. One of the most outspoken of those denouncing reunion was the duke of Moscow, who deposed the bishop of Moscow for accepting papal supremacy.

Turks. In 1453 Sultan Mehemmed II arrived before Constantinople's walls with an enormous force. Anti-Western feelings were so strong among the Greeks that the saying in the city was “Better Turk than Pope.” The Greeks believed that the sultan would allow them to keep their religion while the Westerners would demand acceptance of Catholic liturgy and papal supremacy. On 29 May 1453, Turkish troops poured over the city's walls. Three days later, the sultan announced his policy of toleration of Christianity and designated the patriarch as the spokesman for the Christians in his empire. Mehemmed chose an outspoken foe of reunion as patriarch to replace Patriarch Michael, who had fled to Rome. One result of the Turkish conquest was the enhancement of the patriarch's authority in the Greek Church, since he no longer had to submit to the Byzantine emperor in matters of doctrine and discipline, but overall the Orthodox people suffered. They were now a conquered people who, as non-Muslims, had to pay a burdensome tax to the sultan. They also had to provide a levy of young boys to be raised as soldiers (known as Janissaries) in the Ottoman army. There was tremendous pressure on Christians in the Ottoman Empire to convert to Islam. However, Islamic tradition taught not to seek conversion, and this creed was retained after the conquest. Across the Balkans, communities of Muslims appeared alongside their Christian neighbors. The Orthodox ossified under Ottoman rule. Largely sealed off from contact with the West and currents of change, they clung to the past, insisting on maintaining every point of traditional doctrine and ritual. The Orthodox churches in the Ottoman Empire did not have problems with schism, heresy, and anticleri-calism as did the Western Church. Since Orthodox priests could be married (although bishops could not), the scandal of clergy violating their vows of celibacy that outraged so many Western Christians did not exist in the Orthodox Church. In addition, the Orthodox clergy did not control the same amount of property as did their Western counterparts, thereby eliminating another source of antagonism toward clergy.

Russia. One Orthodox land that maintained its independence from the Turks was Russia. The Russians proclaimed that Moscow was the “Third Rome,” since the second Rome, Constantinople, had fallen just as the first Rome had earlier. They declared that they were protectors of all Christians under Ottoman rule. The Russian Church severed ties with the Greek patriarchate, but it allowed Patriarch Jeremias II to travel to Moscow in 1589 to establish a new patriarchate there. The patriarch of Moscow henceforth was a rival to the patriarch of Constantinople for leadership of Orthodox Christians.

Judaism. A third officially tolerated religion in the Ottoman Empire was Judaism. Although the Jews were a small minority in the Empire, in at least one city, Salonica in Greece, they may have constituted a majority of the residents in 1500. Judaism was also in theory tolerated in Catholic Europe during the Middle Ages, but practice was often quite different. The Church had decreed that Jews, as witnesses to the faith of Moses and the prophets, had a legitimate place in European society, unlike pagans and Muslims, who were eradicated from Christian lands. In 1120 the Pope declared the papacy the special protector of the Jews, who had to pay heavily for that protection. The popes also mandated that Jews identify themselves by wearing a special yellow hat or a Star of David and living in a designated part of the cities, which in Italian was called the ghetto. Early in the Middle Ages rulers also defended the Jews, since they provided useful banking and business services. Church law, drawing on Mosaic law, which prohibited the ancient Hebrews from taking interest from fellow Hebrews, had defined any interest-taking between Christians as usury. Jews were permitted to provide the services of bankers and pawnbrokers to Christians, including popes and kings. The common resentment toward those who performed such services was combined in respect to the Jews with the charge that they were “Christ killers,” often inciting Christians to inflict violence against Jews, especially in times of tension and stress. Ordinary Christians, indoctrinated in the view that the only source of truth was their faith, found it hard to understand why nonbelievers of any sort should be tolerated in a Christian society, especially when popular rumor accused the Jews of having accumulated great sums of ill-gotten wealth. They were quick to blame the Jews for disasters such as the Black Death (1347–1351), and during this time hundreds of Jews were killed on charges that they had poisoned the wells. The hostility to Jews among medieval Christians was based on religion, not race; a Jew who converted to Christianity was assured of the safety of life, limb, and property.

Jewish Havens. The kings of England and France in the late fourteenth century believed the rumors of Jewish wealth and sought it by expelling the Jews and confiscating their properties. With the rise of Italian bankers, rulers were less dependent on Jewish bankers. Jews from those kingdoms migrated into the Holy Roman Empire only to be expelled from all but a few Free Imperial cities in the fifteenth century. They continued to move eastward into Poland-Lithuania, where they finally found a refuge. The Jagellonian dynasty of Poland-Lithuania issued privileges to the Jews that allowed them to be represented in a separate estate in the Polish Diet and provided them with freedom of worship, self-government in the towns, equal rights to justice, and protection of property. By 1500 Poland-Lithuania had Europe's largest Jewish population. In Italy, Jews also found a measure of toleration. The late-medieval popes, with a few exceptions, continued as protectors of the Jewish people, and the city of Rome was an important center of Jewish culture. In the commercially active city-states of northern Italy, Jewish success in business created less resentment, and in cities such as Venice large Jewish communities were active in economic and cultural life.

Spanish Inquisition. Although Jews found success in Poland-Lithuania and Italy, their worst catastrophe occurred in Spain. Added to their liabilities there was their close association with the Muslims. Once the reconquista (reconquest) returned control of most of the peninsula to Christian rulers, the presence of Jews and Muslims was regarded as threatening to the Christian rule and faith. Beginning in the late fourteenth century pressure was placed on Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity. Those who did become Christian were called Converses. Although there were fewer Jews, they made up a larger proportion of the Converses, because the Muslims found it easy to immigrate to North Africa and join their coreligionists, an option unavailable to the Jews. Converses with Jewish backgrounds had wide success in business, finance, and government offices. Descendants of Converses even filled some high church offices. However, resentment by the “Old Christians” grew rapidly. Hostility to the Converses took on racial overtones, as many Old Christians began to proclaim that “purity of blood” was necessary for royal and church office. Being baptized was no longer adequate to save Converses from persecution and prejudice. The issue of Converses who continued to practice their former religions in secret led Queen Isabella of Castile in 1478 to ask the Pope to establish the Inquisition, which had authority only over baptized persons. The Spanish Inquisition was under the control of the Spanish monarchy, not the Pope. In 1480 six Converses were executed for practicing Judaism, the first of several thousand victims over the next century. As the Inquisition expanded its reach, many Converses took refuge with unconverted Jews. This prompted the royal decision of 1492 to expel all unbaptized Jews from Spain. About three-fourths of the Jewish population chose to leave rather than accept baptism. Most migrated to the Ottoman Empire, although some fled to southern French cities that had not been under royal control at the time of the expulsion decree.

Muslim Expulsion. The Spanish Muslims were largely unaffected by the campaign against Jewish Converses, but in 1502 Ferdinand and Isabella suddenly decreed the expulsion of unconverted Muslims. The issue at hand was largely one of military security created by the rise of Ottoman power in the Mediterranean Sea. Nothing terrified the Spanish as much as the prospect of a Turkish attack coordinated with a Muslim revolt. Any Muslim who remained in Spain was assumed to have accepted baptism and was therefore subject to the Inquisition. Many Muslims neither emigrated nor accepted baptism, and the Spanish continued to face the problem of a large Muslim population throughout the sixteenth century. Portugal followed Spain's lead in these matters, but the Portuguese never were as insistent about racial purity as their neighbors were. Spain emerged from the reconquista with a powerful belief in the need for religious conformity and unity as well as a conviction of the identity between being Spanish and Catholic. When Protestantism appeared, the Spanish government had the Inquisition in place to deal with the heretics quickly and ruthlessly. When the wars of religion erupted in the sixteenth century, few Spanish doubted their role as the defenders of Catholicism against infidel and heretic.

Sources

Christopher Dawson, The Dividing of Christendom (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1965).

Gordon Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent, c. 1250–c. 1450, 2 volumes (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1967).

George H. Williams, The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962).