popular piety and the church's spiritual role

• The church's spiritual role

  • linked humans to God, essential for reaching heaven
  • membership was crucial for salvation
• Lay Religious Guilds

  • wealthy built personal chapels, masses said for their souls
  • most joined guilds for shared chapels and priests
  • provided funerals, requiem masses and financial help to members
  • imposed moral codes & mandatory attendance at masses & funerals
• Key Spiritual Beliefs: religious doctrine and practice

  Heaven, hell and purgatory:

  • original sin and acquired sins
  • purgatory as a temporary judgement place
  • indulgences, pilgrimages, and prayers to saints could reduce time in purgatory
  • masses for the dead reduced purgatory time
  • good works is essential for reducing purgatory time and achieving salvation
  • included charity, prayers, and pilgrimages
• Key Spiritual Beliefs: religious doctrine and practice

  The seven sacraments:

  • crucial to Catholic fait: baptisim, confirmation, eucharist, penance, anointing of sick, holy orders, and matrimony
  • mass as the most important; belief in transubstantiation (bread and wine becoming body and blood of Christ)
• Key Spiritual Beliefs: religious doctrine and practice

  Role of the Priesthood:

  • priests were God's representatives
  • only priests could administer sacraments
  • central to mass, confession, and forgiving sins
  • provided guidance and interpretation of the Bible (in Latin)
• Key Spiritual Beliefs: religious doctrine and practice

  Importance of Printing:

  • growth in literacy due to grammar schools
  • printing press (developed in 1450) made books more accessible
  • first english book printed in 1475
  • increased availability of religious books like Bibles and Books of Hours
  • enabled personal Bible study and religious reading at home
  • popularized narrative tales with religious themes (Canterbury Tales, King Arthur stories)