Tudors: Chapter 2- Popular piety and the Church's spiritual role

Spiritual Role
1. Holy Days
  1. Candlemass
    1. Three weeks of preparation before Lent was a time of cleansing. The community would process carrying candles.
  2. Holy Week
    1. Christ's final days on earth. Began with Palm Sunday, Maundy Tuesday was the last supper. Good Friday was the most solemn day of the year and it ended on Holy Saturday with a celebration.
  3. Rogation Sunday
    1. The whole community 'beat the bounds'. There was a procession which happened around the parish's boundaries to ward away evil spirits and to protect the parish.
  4. Pentecost/ Ordinary Time
    1. Pentecost occurred 7 days after Easter. Celebrating the decent of the holy spirit. Ordinary time followed this. Coincided with the ordinary business of rural life.
2. Provided a link between God and man. Entrance into heaven only happened if you attended church.
Lay religious guilds
1. The wealthy were able to finance the building of personal chapels. For most people they couldn't afford this, however the people who could joined guilds. These provided chapels and they prayed for the dead, it also provided a funeral with a mass. Guilds were often based on crafts and individuals usually belonged to more than one.
  1. Guilds were also concerned in caring for the living. Provide benefits to members who had financial difficulties. They imposed a strict moral code on the members and required attendance at Guild masses and funerals.
Key Spiritual Beliefs
1. Heaven Hell and Purgatory
  1. People believed they were sinners and born with original sin. Every time they disobeyed God's laws they would acquire new sin. When someone died, unless they had been very saintly they went to purgatory. People believed that you could reduce your time in purgatory by earning indulgences - going on pilgrimages etc. Believed that a saint would ask god to help a person o their behalf. Prayers for the dead would also reduce the person's time in purgatory.
    1. Reaching heaven was the main goal and time spent on earth was in preparation for the next life. Hell meant spending eternity with the devil from which there was no escape. Participation of the rituals, receiving sacraments, doing good works and prayers all help the soul after death.
      1. Masses would be chanted in Latin. Throughout the day parishioners would light candles to the virgin mary and local saints.Good works were when you gave a gift to the church or helped the poor. anything acknowledged by the church was known as a good work. An individual could get to heaven through either faith or justification.
2. Pilgrimages
  1. Demonstrate their faith or penance by going on a pilgrimage. Some could be lengthy and dangerous. The pilgrimage could be to visit a tomb of a saint or to a shrine where there was a visitation of the Virgin Mary. Pilgrims would wear a badge to show that they had visited the shrine. The wealthy would purchase relics of saints as well as praying at the tombs. This would be an indulgence so time would have been taken off of time in purgatory.
3. Seven Sacraments
  1. Baptism- cleansed of original sin
  2. Marriage
  3. Ordination- when a man became a priest
  4. Confession
  5. Last Rites- the dying were anointed with holy oil.
  6. Mass
  7. Conformation- became part of the church
The role of the Priesthood
1. Priests were the representative of God on earth and only they could consecrate the bread and wine. The priest reassured people that if they went to church and tried their best then they would get into heaven
  1. The priest also forgave sins. During Easter everyone needed to to be cleansed of their sins. The priest would hear confessions and forgave them on completions of penances. Only priests were able to perform the sacraments.
    1. Most of the population could not read and write so they relied on the priest to interpret the bible and the prayers. It was important for the parish that their priest was educated and capable.
Importance of the printing press
1. Grammar schools taught Latin to sons of the gentry and merchants leading to an increase of literacy in the country. This was also encouraged by the growth of the printing press and the availability of books. The printing press which was invented in Germany in 1450, meant that a single press could produce 3600 pages a day, enabling large scale production of books.
  1. Religious books especially bibles were very popular. Books were imported from the continent often by merchants. The wealthy could now sit at home and read the bible or a book of hours reading the word of god for themselves.
    1. Books of hours and Canterbury Tales were a growing market. The Canterbury Tales were stories told by group of pilgrims traveling from London to the shrine of Thomas Becket. Books about King Arthur were also popular. They had a strong religious basis about the holy grail, which held Christ's blood in it.

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Tudors: Chapter 2- Popular piety and the Church's spiritual role

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	Created by Amy Le Grys over 8 years ago