Everyday Faith in the Middle Ages Issue 49 | 1996 Click here to order the downloadable audio version

ARTICLE TOOLS

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CHURCH & STATE

1000

1000 Society composed of three orders: those who pray, those who fight, those who work

1073–1085 Pope Gregory VII presses to end simony (sale of church offices), enforce clerical celibacy, and establish papal supremacy

1095 Pope Urban II calls for a crusade to aid Eastern Christians threatened by Muslims

1100

c. 1150 Universities of Paris and Bologna founded; they take the lead in scholastic theology and canon law

1198–1216 Innocent III, greatest lawyer pope, raises papacy’s power to its height

1200

1215 Fourth Lateran Council declares transubstantiation, obliges Christians to confess sins and receive Communion once a year, and proclaims a crusade against heretical Cathars

1294 In reaction to church legalism and bureaucracy, pious hermit Peter Morone is elected pope (Celestine V); after five disastrous months, he resigns

1300

1300 Pope Boniface VIII proclaims first jubilee year; offers plenary indulgence to pilgrims who come to Rome; thousands come

1305–1377 The “Babylonian Captivity”—the pope resides at Avignon, France

1377 Pope returns to Rome; the next year Great Papal Schism opens—Christendom divided between two (and after 1409, three) rival popes

1400

1414–1418 The Council of Constance restores church unity; burns Jan Hus for heresy.

EVERYDAY FAITH

1000

c. 1000 Christian laity seek a more active religious role

c. 1050 Growing popularity of pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in Spain), and the Holy Land

1096 Peter the Hermit leads the “People’s Crusade” to disaster

1100

Mid–1100s Cathar and Waldensian movements spread
Bernard of Clairvaux inspires reform in the Cistercian order

1200

c. 1200 The doctrine of purgatory takes shape

Early 1200s Francis of Assisi and Dominic of Calaruega found religious orders dedicated ...