Late Medieval Thought
Late Medieval Thought
William of Ockham. In 1350 the dominant intellectual system in Europe was still scholasticism. The scholastic theologians at the major universities remained the most influential thinkers of the time. Popes and kings frequently called on them to render judgments on issues that were often far from being theological matters. The last of the great scholastics, William of Ockham, died in 1347. The history of scholasticism over the next century involved working out the impact of Ockham's ideas. Before Ockham, the dominant scholastic view in philosophy was Thomism, named after the great scholastic thinker St. Thomas Aquinas. The debate between two systems involved the issue of how the mind knows things. Thomism accepted realism, which proposed that the mind understands what the five senses present to it because it recognizes them from their universals. The universals were concepts that existed on a higher metaphysical plane from things on earth, which reflected the reality of those universals. Christian realists placed the universals in the mind of God, which provided certainty that most people correctly understand the nature of things because God does not deceive. In contrast, Ockham argued that the universals in which the realists believed did not exist. Human minds are capable of recognizing the similarities among things of the same kind and come up with a name for them; therefore, Ockham's position was called nominalism.
God's Absolute Power. In theology Ockham promoted the concept of the ordained power of God. He possesses absolute power and accordingly is capable of doing anything, but he has chosen to establish a specific system in which humans gain salvation. God has committed himself to that ordained system, which he will never violate. For nominalists, the concept of God's absolute power opened up an opportunity to speculate about what might be true in a different universe that he could have created. If Church authorities challenged the nominalists for their outrageous ideas, nominalists would answer that they were merely speculating about what God might have done in his absolute power; but they knew that the existing universe was the best of all possible worlds because God had chosen to create it. Few nominalists actually went so far as to discuss anything outrageous, but they took advantage of the concept of God's two powers to investigate the possible options that God could have chosen in designing the universe. Nominalists at the University of Paris, for example, discussed the possibility of the Earth moving around the Sun, contrary to the established belief in the geocentric universe, and they provided extensive arguments in favor of that theory. Yet, they conceded that God had chosen to create a geocentric universe.
THE MODERN DEVOTION
Thornas a Kempis, the author of The Imitation of CMst, offers the following description of Geert Groote and followers of the Modern Devotion. It conveys the emotions of the followers and the bask feeling of communal togetherness among the believers.
Such was the inclination amongst the people to hear the Word of God that the Church could scarcely contain the crowd that came together. Many left their food, and, being drawn by a hunger after righteousness, postponed their urgent business and ran together to hear his discourses: he often delivered two sermons in one day, and sometimes continued preaching for three hours or more when fervency of spirit took hold upon him. . . . Blessed be God, who sending His Holy Spirit from Above kindled the hearts of His faithful people, and mightily increased them, so that from the seed of a few converts there grew many companies of devout brethren and sisters who served God in chastity; and to them several monasteries of monks and holy nuns owed the origin of their godly life*
It is the great glory of Master Gerard [Groote] that by his preaching so great a tree was planted and watered, a tree which after his death, though but newly set in the ground, ceased not to flourish in the field of the Lord. Although this religious order and these communities of devout persons were first planted in the nearer parts of Holland, Gelders and Brabant, they afterwards spread rapidly to the more remote regions of Flanders, Frisia, Westphalia, and Saxony, for God prospered them, and the sweet savour of their good reputation reached even to the Apostolic See.
Now the venerable Master Gerard, being filled with the Holy Ghost, and perceiving that by little and little the number of his disciples was increasing and that they were burning with zeal for heavenly warfare, took due care and forethought that the devout might come together from time to time into one house for mutual exhortation, and that they might deal faithfully with one another of the things pertaining to God and to the keeping of the law of Charity: and he ordained that if any should wish to abide continually together, they should earn their own living by the labor of their own hands, and, as far as might be, live m common under the discipline of the church.
Source: Thomas á Kempis True Christian Piety: The Brethren of Common Life, in The Portable Renaissance Reader, edited by James Brace Ross and Mary McLaughlin (New York: YiEng, 1968), p. 712.
Gift of Grace. In nominalism, the system for human salvation in God's ordained power was largely the same as that defended by Aquinas. The Catholic doctrine of salvation proclaimed that grace, the undeserved gift from God to humans that makes them worthy of salvation, was imparted by the sacrament of baptism into the soul that otherwise was damned because of original sin. Grace could be lost through sin, a decision to do evil freely made by a soul, but it could be regained or strengthened through the other six sacraments—the Eucharist, penance, confirmation, marriage, ordination as a priest, and the final anointing. However, the issue of how a soul first came to receive baptism and the other sacraments was controversial. This issue had been debated in the early Church between St. Augustine and Pelagius. Augustine had argued that Adam's fall marked souls from birth with original sin, thereby making it impossible for humans to gain salvation by their own efforts. Nothing the individual could do was good enough to break the hold of sin on the soul. Only God could do so by imparting grace, which he freely gave to some and not to others. It was entirely God's decision, uninfluenced by any foreseen good done by those to whom grace was given. This doctrine is called predestination. In contrast, Pelagius argued that the soul has within itself the ability to do good; Adam's sin reduced that ability but did not destroy it entirely. God would reward those who do good with salvation. After decades of vigorous debate, the Church decided largely in favor of Augustine's position and condemned Pelegianism as a heresy. However, by de-emphasizing Augustine's strong support for predestination, the Church left unanswered the question of how God decided to grant grace to one soul and not to another. Ockham made a key change in the doctrine of salvation that earned him the charge of being Pelagian, which meant that a theologian was giving too much power to humans to shape their own eternal destiny. Ockham maintained that God has chosen to accept the good that humans do as meriting salvation. Certainly it was true that the good deeds of sinful humans are not worthy of influencing the will of the all-powerful God, but he has chosen to allow them to do so. God has established a covenant with humanity that he accepts good deeds as worthy of salvation as if they are of far greater value than they truly are. As expressed by a fifteenth-century nominalist, “God does not deny grace to those who do what is within them.” The nominalist emphasis on “Do what is in you” coincided with the post-Black Death era's emphasis on pious acts, prayers, almsgiving to the poor, and donations to the Church. Nominalism provided a theological justification for such activities and thus enhanced the role of pious acts in the late medieval church.
Universities. The issues of grace and predestination are good examples of the sort of bitter debates that late medieval theologians carried on in the universities across northern Europe. The number of universities increased greatly between 1350 and 1500. One reason for the increase was the rivalry among rulers, who considered the presence of a university in their lands a source of pride. The duke of Austria founded the University of Vienna in 1365 to counter the one at Prague established by his rival, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the two branches of the ducal house of Saxony each founded a university, one being the University of Wittenberg. The kings of Scotland founded three universities as rivals to Oxford and Cambridge, which bucked the trend by remaining the only ones in England. During the Hundred Years' War the English and French kings both established new universities in the regions of France they controlled. Another reason for founding new universities was the dramatic increase in the study of Roman law. This was most obvious in France, where Paris was prohibited from teaching Roman law because the papacy feared it would lure students away from theology. Three French universities were founded expressly to teach Roman law; the one at Bourges emerged as the best. The Italian universities also proliferated, as the rivalries among the city-states led to the foundation of new schools. The focus of the Italian schools remained law, not theology, and the University of Salerno retained its place as the best medical school. The Church controlled the Italian universities far less than the northern schools. Italians wanted to educate young men for secular careers, not as clerics. They also had greater freedom to teach controversial subjects. The University of Padua in northeastern Italy became the most noted for that after it passed under Venetian control in 1405, as the Venetians protected the faculty members against efforts by
the Church to censure them. After 1400 it was the major center for the study of mathematics, astronomy, and anatomy. It alone provided its medical students with routine dissections of the human body, a practice that the Church had outlawed.
Mysticism. For many Europeans in the era after the Black Death, debates among theologians and lawyers were sterile and meaningless and distracted people from the true path to God. Often the same people also felt that the system of salvation promoted by the Church, with its piling up of pious act after pious act with no consideration of what was in the heart of the believer, was equally sterile and meaningless. The yearning for a direct, mystical relationship with God was nothing new to Christianity, but previously those who felt that way usually acted on it by becoming monks and nuns or going off into the wilderness as hermits. Mysticism came out of the monastery after 1350 and spread among the laity who remained active in the world. It was largely free of clerical control. In the Rhine Valley the greatest outpouring of this late medieval mysticism occurred. Because it emphasized feeling over practice and the use of vernacular languages over Latin, it had an unusually strong appeal to women, who rarely had the opportunity to learn Latin. It was probably the most strongly female of all the medieval movements. The two women, St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Catherine of Siena, who had significant roles in persuading the Pope to return from Avignon to Rome, were both famous for their mystical visions and their writings that gave instructions on how to achieve mystical union with God. In England, the illiterate Margery Kempe dictated accounts of her visions to local priests. The Book of Margery Kempe (written circa 1432–1436) became a major work of mysticism. Her chastisement of the local archbishop for abusing his office is an example of how mystics posed a threat to the established system. Kempe also demonstrated the appeal of pilgrimage to the people of her time. Although she was married to a merchant of modest means and had fourteen children, she went on pilgrimages to Compostela in Spain, Rome, and the Holy Land before her death in 1439.
Modern Devotion. In addition to mysticism, women were attracted in large numbers to another major religious movement of the late Middle Ages, the Modern Devotion. Its founder was Geert Groote, from a Dutch artisan family who became a master of arts at Paris. He seemed on his way to a high position in the Church when he entered a monastery about 1370. After three years he left it and spent his last decade preaching in Dutch towns. Groote turned over his house to a community of women who took no vows and had no habit but lived a communal life of service to God among the urban population. They were called the Sisters of the Common Life. Soon the Brothers of the Common Life appeared. By 1400 more than a hundred of their houses were sprinkled across Germany and the Netherlands. Groote was sympathetic to those who entered a monastery and then found themselves trapped in monastic life. He refused to require vows from his followers and allowed them to come and go from his houses as they pleased. This situation was one reason why church authorities were suspicious of the Common Life, but its members remained loyal to the Church despite harassment from the local bishops. Groote had a distinct type of piety that its practitioners called the Modern Devotion, indicating that they believed it was a new approach to religious life. Its best expression is found in the Imitation of Christ by Groote's disciple, Thomas a Kempis, who finished it before 1471. It is the best known of the many devotional works written by adherents to the Modern Devotion. They emphasized the need for emotion and feeling in religion over the scholastics' urge to define doctrine. As Kempis states, he would rather feel sorrow for his sins than be able to define what sorrow is. There was nothing heretical about the Modern Devotion, however. Its followers continued to accept Catholic doctrine and practices but insisted that the liturgy and pious acts be done in a spirit of internal devotion. They sharply attacked the formalism of their era. Groote refused to accept donations to support his communities. The Sisters made their living largely by nursing and childcare, and the Brothers made their way as teachers of boys. They insisted on a quality education for their students, including a solid foundation in Latin. The Brothers believed in reading the original sources of Christianity, and for that reason they found Italian humanism compatible to their views as it made its way into northern Europe in the mid fifteenth century. Their schools provided basic education to several prominent thinkers, most notable among them Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther.
Sources
Heiko Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963).
Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).