Defining Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Medieval Church
A Paper by Shoeless Wanderer
http://www.shoelesswander.net
Please do not redistribute without permission
In
the high and late Middle Ages, many groups attempted to make some type of
reform in the Roman Catholic Church. Most of the groups, such as the Cathars,
were considered heretics and were exterminated without question. However,
other groups like the Franciscans and Dominicans were not considered heretical
movements at all and were given their own orders within the church. It
seems that what defined heresy and orthodoxy during this period in history was
not the desire to make changes in the church, but rather how these groups went
around trying to create change as well as how radical those desired changes
were.
Out of all the heretical sects in the Middle Ages, perhaps the best known group
is the Cathars. The group was found primarily in the south of France, but also branched into Northern
Italy. This religious movement was highly critical of the
Catholic Church and the rich lavish lifestyle of the papal authorities, as well
as the monasteries and other church offices. Their disapproval of the
immense material wealth of the Church led them to an extremely dualistic world
view. Deriving their belief system from the Manicheans and various
Gnostic groups from late antiquity, the Cathars believed that there were two
opposing forces in the universe; a God of pure light and good and a malevolent
God who created the wicked material universe. The belief that the material
world was evil and functioned as a temporary state of purgatory had several
consequences. First and foremost, the
dualist belief system of the Cathars caused them to reject the Old Testament in
its entirety, as they saw the evil wicked god reflected in the stories of the
Old Testament. In addition to rejecting half of what was held as holy
canon, members of the Cathar sect were required to minimize contact with the
material world, abstain from sexual intercourse, eat no “meat and as little as
possible of any other food” ,
and most importantly, reject secular and ecclesiastical authority because they
“held that ‘the Roman Church had been founded by the evil god to frustrate the
work of Christ.’”
The belief that the Roman Catholic Church was a plot by the evil god lead the
Cathars to reject the sacraments of the
church, especially the Eucharist, on the basis that the sacraments were too
material and corrupted the teachings of Christ.
It is unsurprising, then, that the Catholic Church felt ill at ease with
the Cathars and their belief system.
Documents such of Bernard Gui provides insight into how the orthodox
church viewed the Cathar beliefs. He
records that “Of baptism, they assert that the water is material and
corruptible and is therefore the creation of the evil power, and cannot
sanctify the soul,” and “they claim that confession made to the priests of, the
Roman Church is useless.”
When the Church felt that the threat of the Cathars was simply too great,
Pope Innocent the Third declared the first ever crusade on fellow Christians,
demonstrating the authority and power of the Catholic Church. Cathar
believers as well as Catholics were killed. The last Cathar stronghold
was Montsegur which fell in 1244, signaling the end of the movement.
The
other major group that was associated with reform in the late and high Middle
Ages was the friars. Friars critiqued the monastic life style as well as
the immense wealth of the Catholic Church.
Although they had many similarities to the monastic orders, including
taking a vow to live a life of poverty, fasting and so forth, the friars did
not live cloistered lives. Rather, they
lived in the real world, unconfined by monastery walls and would frequently go
to towns and preach. The first order of
friars was founded by Saint Dominic. During the crusade against the Cathars,
Dominic was asked by Pope Innocent the Third to go out amongst the peasantry
and preach why the Cathar belief system was inherently wrong and heretical. Dominic did as he was asked and quickly
gained a group of followers who were inspired by his preaching. He
trained them to follow his example, instructing them to live an extreme ascetic
lifestyle by becoming preachers who relied on the charity of others, giving up
all worldly possessions and living a life of constant prayer and reflection.
The movement became immensely popular despite the fact that it heavily
critiqued much of the Church's actions at the time in regards to material
wealth and gain. Pope Innocent the Third
granted Dominic his own order, establishing the Dominicans as the first order
of friars in the Catholic Church. Their
rule emphasized a life of austerity, frequent and lengthy fasts, vegetarianism,
long periods of silence and, above all, strict poverty
The
Franciscans came into being in a similar manner. Saint Francis of Assisi,
the son of a wealthy family in Italy,
had a religious experience in 1209 that led him to reject all material goods
and become an itinerant preacher. He
rapidly gained a following, and in 1210 he went to Rome to ask permission to found his own
order, which was granted by Pope Innocent the Third. Both the Dominicans and
the Franciscans were used by the papacy as a means of fighting heretical
groups. The two orders of friars allowed
the Catholic Church to counterbalance heretical claims that the Church was far
too wealthy and secular. In addition,
many friars served as papal inquisitors.
These inquisitors, primarily friars of the Dominican order, were called
on time and again by the papacy to examine accusations of heresy throughout Western Europe.
What
caused the first crusade against other Christians was not only the Cathars'
radical belief system and rejection of much of church doctrine, but how they
went about it. Because the Cathars
rejected ecclesiastical authority, they saw no reason to try and change things
from within the offices of the Catholic Church.
Rather, they would go out and explain their beliefs to people in the
towns in Southern France. What made their belief system attractive was
that it emphasized that material items and gains were not important. For assorted peasantry, this was very
appealing, since ownership of material goods was a key part of medieval
hierarchy. However, due to the extreme
nature of the group and the fact that they had no ties to the formal church,
their attempts at reform were utterly squashed.
The friars, however, worked through the channels of the church in order
to create reform. Innocent the Third
asked Dominic to go out into France
in order to explain why the Cathars should not be listened to. This initial commission already gave the
eventual friar order a sort of papal approval.
In addition to this, the friars did not deviate greatly from the
theology of the established Church. While the Cathar’s theology completely
contradicted that of the Catholic Church due to their extreme dualism and
disdain for the sacraments which they considered too materialistic, the friars
did not have any qualms with the dogmatic beliefs of Catholicism. Rather, the group’s devotion to living in the
secular world in a constant state of extreme poverty severed as a silent
critique of the growing material wealth of the Catholic Church and the
cloistered monastic life.
Many
movements in the Middle Ages sought to bring change to the increasing
materialistic aspect of the Catholic Church.
Some groups, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, succeeded and
continue to this day, whereas others, like the Cathars, were declared heretical
and annihilated. What helped the friars
to survive was that they went about bringing change by working through the
church offices, unlike the Cathars who rejected the Church entirely and saw no
reason to try and explain themselves to the ecclesiastical offices. While this is not the only difference that
defined heresy and orthodoxy in reform movements during the Middle Ages, it
certainly is one of the key elements.