popular piety and the church's spiritual role

• The church's spiritual role

  The Chirch was powerful because it provided a link between God and human beings who could only reach haeven through membership of the Church
• What were the main events in the liturgical year?

  - Advent (early December).

  - Christmastide (began Christmas Eve)

  -Candlemass

  - Shrove Tuesday

  - Lent (began on Ash Wednesday)

  -Holy week

  - Eastertide

  - Rogation Sunday (A procession walked around the parish boundaries carrying banners and the parish cross)

  - Pentecost (Whitsunday)

  - ordinary time ( There were a number of holidays of interest that poccired around this time: Feast of Corpus Christi (the body of Christ)

  - Other holy days (during the summer)

  - All Saints Day and All Souls Day
• Original sin:


  The sin everyone was born as a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
• Purgatory:


  The place where, in the catholic faith, the souls of the dead suffer for a suitable time to make them sufficiently pure to go to heaven.

  The amount of time served in purgatory is determined by their good works whilst they're alive and prayers said after they die
• Indulgences:


  Selling of forgiveness by the Catholic Church. It was common practice when the church needed to raise money. The practice led to the Reformation.

  
  

  (Any sind already forgiven through confession could be further lessened through a type of pardon)
• Lay religious guilds


  In early 16th century society, the wealthy were able to finance the building of personal chantry chapels where a priest would be employed to say masses for the individual or family in perpetuity.

  For the vast majority of people this was not possible.

  The guilds played an active part in religious festivals; the the importance of individual guilds could determine their place in the Corpus Christi Procession.
• Key religious beliefs: religious doctrine and practice

  Heaven, hell and purgatory...

  
  

  People believed they were sinners: not only were there born with original sin, but during their lives every time they disobeyed Gods laws they would acquire more sin.

  -Wealthier people would sometimes pay people to go on pilgrimages for them.

  
  

  -Prayers were made to saints. -masses for souls of the dead were believed to reduce time in purgatory.

  
  

  Time spent on earth was seen as a preparation for eternal life

  Participation in the rituals of the Church, receiving the sacraments, doing good works and prayer would all effect the soul after death.

  
  

  - Masses could be chanted in Latin in chantry chapels, and prayers could be said to reduce their time in purgatory.

  
  

  - Good works also included helping the poor and going on pilgrimages.

  
  

  ( The means by which an individual was able to go to heaven through either faith and or good works is known as salvation or justification)
• Mass:


  The most important service activities in the Cstholic Church. During the Mass, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, the priest blessed the bread and wine as Catholics believed Jesus had done at the Last Supper.

  Catholics believed that through the prayers the bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ. This is known as transubstantiation
• Transubstantiation:


  Implies the substance of bread and wine changed miraculously at consecration into the body and blood of Christ, although the appearance remained the same
• Pilgrimages


  People could demonstrate their faith or their penance by going on pilgrimage.

  
  

  The pilgrimage could be to visit the tomb of a saint, for example that of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury, or to a shrine built where there had been a reported visitation of the Virgin Mary, such as at Walsingham in Norfolk.

  
  

  The very wealthy would wish to purchase relics of saints as well as praying at the tombs.
• The Seven Sacraments

  (These sacraments, or religious ceremonies, took place throughout a persons life from birth (baptism) to death (last rites).

  The most important sacrament was the Mass...


  The 7 sacraments we're Catholic religious ceremonies or rites by which people received the grace of God:

  -baptism= when children were cleansed of original sin.

  -Confirmation= when young people became members of the church and could take mass.

  - marriage= 2 people joined together by the priest

  - ordination= when a man became a priest

  - confession= when a person told their sins to a priest and was made to do penance (a formal release from guilt)

  All Catholics were expected to make a confession to a priest at least once a year.

  - the Mass= when the priest carried out a re-enactment of the Last supper of Christ .

  - Last rites= when the dying were anointed with the holy oil before they died.
• The role of priesthood

  The representative of God on earth and only priests were able to administer the sacraments.

  The priest was central to forgiving sins.

  In preparation for the annual Easter Mass, it was vital that the individual was purged of his sind and was at peace with his neighbour.

  Most of the population were not able to read and write and indeed would have been unable to read the Bible which was in Latin. - They relied on the priest to interpret the word of God for his congregation (therefore important the priest in the parish was educated and capable)
• The importance of printing

  (The ability to read and write could mean entry to one of Englands 2 units, to the church, the legal profession of lead to a cater as a merchant)

  - Increased literacy was also encouraged by the growth of the printing press and the availability of books.

  Printing press developed in Germany in 1450.

  However, the first book printed in English was only published in 1475.

  
  

  In addition to Bibles there was a growing market for narrative tales such as the Canterbury tales, outlining the stories gold by a group of pilgrims travelling from London to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury.
• Summary of popular piety and church's spiritual role:

  - religion was very much the medium through which the 16th century people viewed the world. The church not only provided the structure of society and its values, it provided people with a means of understanding the world around them and explaining events

  - very hierarchal, the position of an individual in society was deemed to have been ordained/appointed by God.