(3) Church History (33-1517): Notable Groups, Organizations, and Movements (inc. Denominations and Orders)

Roman Catholic Church (All Facts)

• Most powerful institution in Europe during the Middle Ages

• It was divided into hundreds of small political states

• Often, their staff were the only people in a community who knew how to read or write

  • If a commoner needed something written or read, they asked the namesake official to do it for them

• Most manors had a priest on the grounds operating in a church of this creed

• Provided people a shared identity even as vernacular languages emerged to replace Latin

• Established the first universities in Europe

  • After all, most of the philosophers, thinkers, and writers of the Middle Ages were also religious leaders

• In the feudal system,

  • it held great power

  • if a lord displeased the namesake, it could pressure the lord in various ways

    • For example, a local bishop might cancel religious services for his serfs thus angering the serfs would demand that the lord give in to the bishop

• Had an extensive hierarchy of regional leaders

Clergy / Clergymen (All Facts)

• Residents of monasteries

• Took vows of poverty

• Supported charities in their communities

• Wielded considerable political influence, with some monasteries becoming quite wealthy

100s - Pauline Christians (All Facts) 

• Founded by (St.) Paul

• Believe that Jesus’s death and resurrection introduced a New Covenant that fulfilled the Old Covenant and superseded Jewish law and custom, thus they did not have to follow Jewish law or custom

• Believe that gentiles could also be Christians, not just Jews

• Christians who are gentiles and thus believe gentiles can be Christians, not having to follow Jewish law or customs

325 - Nicene Christians / Nicene Christianity (All Facts)

• Historical term used to refer to contemporary Christian body including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant denominations and their churches

  • Any “Christian” who denied these tenets is not considered, by most Christians, to be Christian

  • Was absorbed by the Roman Empire

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (All Facts)

• Church started by King Ezana of Axum and St. Frumentius, the missionary who baptized him

Coptic Church (All Facts)

• Church of Egypt that was Monophysite, the belief that Christ was one nature of both human and divine rather than two natures

• When the Arab Muslims of the Rashidun Caliphate came to invade Egypt in the 640s, they saw them as liberators given that the Byzantines persecuted them for being heretical; despite the fact that Muslims were theologically further than their fellow Nicene Byzantine Christians

• The Patriarch of Alexandria appoints their bishops

• When led by Michael, the Patriarch of Alexandria, they revolted against Marwan II and the Umayyad Caliphate and Michael was imprisoned by Caliph Marwan II as a result but later freed by the armies of Kyriakos of Makuria, the Christian Nubian Kingdom

• In 996, they fled from Fatimid Egypt to Ethiopia

Monasticism (All Facts)

• The namesake institutions had spread throughout western Europe and took an increasing role in social and intellectual life by 750

  • Historically, the namesake practice was perhaps most profound and widespread in Ireland

  • Moreover, rules tended to be more severe and ascetic in Ireland than the common Benedictine’s rule practiced elsewhere

• The namesake practice spread mainly because of the spiritual impulse of men to give their lives to God in meditation

  • Ever since early Christian times, there existed in the Church a tradition of withdrawal from the world in order to worship God more effectively

• The namesake practice also

  • Provided material security from the uncertainties of the time

  • Was a useful way of securing family land under the guise of “religious” foundations

• Most of the namesake institution’s founders made their own rules, and discipline varied in its severity

  • All of the namesake institutions however

    • lived as communities, under abbots

    • dedicated themselves to the service of God and spiritual development of monks

• Despite withdrawing from public society to mediate and pray, the namesake institutions remained part of the economies of Western Europe, having the same economic functions of agriculture and protection as other manors

• In the namesake institution, women were permitted to become nuns and had exerted notable influence in the namesake institutions

Iconoclasts (All Facts)

• Those that believed in or supported Iconoclasm

Iconodules (All Facts)

• Those who believed in or supported Iconodulism

Orsini Family (All Facts)

• Powerful family that produced 5 popes and 34 cardinals, including Pope Stephen II and Pope / St. Paul

Theophylacti Family (All Facts)

• Powerful family that controlled the papacy and oversaw the darkest era of the papacy known as the “Seculum Obscurum”

Tusculum Family (All Facts)

Crusaders (All Facts)

• Soldiers, each of whom wore a red cross sewn onto his coat and vowed to go to Jerusalem to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims

1098 - Cistercians (All Facts)

• Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the Latin Rule of St. Bernard of Clairvaux

• Catholic religious order that was founded at Citeaux in France

• By 1116, they seemed to be dwindling in numbers, but the inspired teaching of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, along with the organizing talent of Stephen Harding helped transform the order into the fastest-growing of all the monastic orders at the time

• Its monasteries included

  • The Citeaux Abbey

  • The Clairvaux Abbey

1113 - Knights Hospitaller / Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John (All Facts)

• Catholic military order founded to take care of pilgrims to the Holy Land

  • It was founded in the Kingdom of Jerusalem

• Catholic military order which resolved to fight for the defense of the Holy Land

• In

  • 1309 - they occupied the island of Rhodes

1118 - 1312 - Knights Templar (All Facts)

• Also known as the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon”

• Catholic military order of chivalry founded to protect the road to Jerusalem

• Were guided by the Latin Rule of St. Bernard of Clairvaux

• Were founded by Hugues de Payens

• To join, one had to have

  • Renounced all worldly ambition

  • Lived as a monk, determined to protect and aid Christian pilgrims who travelled to the Holy City

  • Took his vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience before the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who gave them a residence near the Temple of Solomon, from which their order gets its name

  • Pledged to fight infidels at all times, even though Christians were not threatened

• Initially, they only had two knights, including de Payens, and just nine supporters, but they rapidly grew and gained popularity throughout Christendom after the

• In 1307,

  • its members were arrested throughout France by the officers of French King Philip IV, a carefully coordinated operation which came as a total shock

    • The day before it happened, their grand master Jacques de Molay was a pallbearer at the funeral of the wife King Philip IV’s brother; and the day it happened he was tortured in prison

    • This operation was driven by propaganda, with rumors having spread that the Templars were guilty of sodomy and other vile practices; but most people observing it believed it was an excuse for King Philip IV of France to justify crushing the order for financial and political reasons

    • When de Molay went to meet with Pope Clement V, King Philip IV took action immediately

    • King Philip IV had done this in order to fill the empty royal coffers at the time

1190 - Teutonic Knights (All Facts)

• Established for the defense of the Holy Land

• In 1230, they were invited into Prussia in the Holy Roman Empire to help with forcible conversion of the Prussians and Yatvags

• In 1241, they were defeated by Batu Khan and the Mongols in the Battle of Legnica during the First Mongol invasion of Poland and general Mongol invasions of Europe

  • Mongol horsemen from the Tartar region broke their elite force in this battle, contemptuously cutting off an ear from each corpse to be bagged and counted like vermin’s tails, with their having collected nine bags total

• In 1242, they were defeated by Alexander Nevsky in the Novgorod Russians in the Battle of Lake Peipus / Battle on the Ice during the Northern Crusades, thus ending the Northern Crusades in Russia

• In 1283, they completed their conquest of the lands and people of Prussia

• In 1309, their grand master transferred his official residence from Venice to Marienburg (in Prussia)

1200s - 1500s - Beguines (All Facts)

• Religious lay order of women best known as “beggars” who served their communities by begging (some worked as textile workers)

• Communities of single women over thirty who chose to live together in peace and prayer

• They were easily identifiable by the black dresses and white veils that they worse

• They were committed to stay in the namesake place for six years after one year of initiation

• They were characterized by a theological independence demonstrated by their translations of the Bible and at their strict meetings

  • This worried the catholic establishment in France, Germany, and Belgium

• The Bishop of Mainz in Germany

  • initiated the second Church crackdown on the activities of the namesake group

  • accused them of being idle, gossiping vagabonds who refused to obey men under the pretext that God is best served in freedom

  • excommunicated the namesake beggars

  • threatened to evict the namesake beggars from their parishes

1209 - Franciscans (All Facts)

• Founded by St. Francis of Assisi

  • Approved by Pope Innocent III

• It was based on a simple life derived from the Gospel

• Its members gave up all their possessions and went around ragged, barefoot, and dirty like vagabond beggars, mixing themselves in with the poor and helping them

• They were devoted to the care of the poor and the sick

1215 - Dominicans / Dominican Order / Order of Preachers (All Facts)

• Catholic Order founded by St. Dominic de Guzman

• Their principal mission was / is to convert heretics

• They were devoted to the care of the poor and the sick

Mystics / Christian Mysticism (All Facts)

• Movement throughout Church History but which gained significant traction in the Late Middle Ages

• Movement and set of ideas characterized by the twin experiences of divine ecstasy and revelation

  • Divine ecstasy involves a temporary loss of a sense of space and time by the namesake when in rapture

  • Divinely-inspired revelations do not necessarily give prophecies to the future

• Its adherents claimed to have visions of contemporary or recent events at a great distance

• Its most famous adherents include

  • St. Catherine of Siena (Italy)

  • St. Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)

  • Henry Suso (Germany)

  • St. Bridget (Sweden)

  • Julian of Norwich (England)

  • John Ruusbroec (Netherlands)

1257 - College of Sorbonne (All Facts)

• Founded by Robert de Sorbon, it was a college for students of theology within the University of Paris

• Its buildings were constructed more extensively and consolidated into the University of Paris by Cardinal Richelieu

1300s - Brethren of Common Life (All Facts)

• Founded by Gerard Groote

• Group members who were not bound by permanent vows, and lived together under a rule, holding all things in common and earning their own livelihoods

1352 - Order of the Star (All Facts)

• Order instituted by King John II of France

• Order that was the French equivalent / imitation of the “Order of the Garter” in England

1400s - Conversos (All Facts)

• Ex-Jewish Christian converts in Spain

• Many were forced to convert on pain of death, and so, were not very strong in their Christian faith

• Due to the Spanish Inquisition, thousands of the namesake throughout Spain were

  • arrested

  • imprisoned

  • burnt at the stake

  • tortured to extract confessions that they were still practicing their old faith of Judaism

  • encouraged to betray their friends and family

1500s - 1600s - Moriscos (All Facts)

• Ex-Muslim Christian converts in Spain

• Some genuinely believed in Christianity and may have even tried to give up their Moorish ways

• However, the majority of the 300K-strong community by the time of King Philip III essentially remained Muslims

  • Their language, society, clothes, customs, and even their eating and drinking remained alien to native Spaniards

  • Few truly abandoned the Quran

• In order to remain residents of Spain, they had to convert to Christianity

  • They were pressured to change their ways for a century, for with a large presence in North Africa, they were seen as a major threat to Spanish national security

  • They had remained second-class subjects throughout Spain and were exploited, hated, and feared, and plagued by bandits of their own race

  • Despite all this, they maintained resistance to assimilation

• Under the reign of King Philip II, they were persecuted and were forbidden to speak Arabic or wear their traditional dress

• Under the reign of King Philip III, they were ordered to be completely expelled from Spain

  • This was because they refused to fully assimilate in Spanish society

1540 - Jesuit Order / Society of Jesus (All Facts)

• Catholic Order established in Paris, France, by St. Ignatius Loyola of Spain and six of his companions

  • A papal bull of Pope Paul III confirmed its establishment

  • Order which began when St. Ignatius Loyola and his six companions took a vow to offer themselves to the pope to be sent wherever he wished to convert pagans and infidels, even the Ottoman Turks

• Its main object was “the propagation of the faith”

• It was they, above all, who had spearheaded the Catholic Counter-Reformation, to regain the religious ground from the Protestant Reformation

• Catholic Order which

  • does not require its members to say the daily office together, like monks, but only to pray silently

  • requires an essential vow of total obedience to the pope and to the Grand Superior (Loyola was the first Grand Superior)

  • requires one to prepare by training with, reading, and implementing St. Ignatius Loyola’s “Spiritual Exercises”

  • believed that subject themselves to this ascetic discipline will teach them to master the will and learn total obedience to their superior and to the church, being prepared to believe that what seems black to them is white if the church declares that it is

  • became a teaching order both at home and across Europe, establishing schools in the slums of Rome and providing education for the best families at their colleges and universities such as those in Rome and at Padua

  • was renown for their teaching methods

• They worked amongst the native Americans, hoping to establish permanent missions in (Spanish) Florida and what is now modern-day Georgia and South Carolina

• In 1571, eight of their members were on a mission in modern-day Virginia but were murdered by natives there who had pretended to be their friends

  • The native killers were led by Don Luis, a native who had been converted to Christianity, taken a Spanish name, and had even been a guest at the court of King Philip II

• In 1608, they founded Paraguay, their own religious utopian colony in South America

1611 - Congregation of the Oratory (All Facts)

• One of the first orders of the French Counter-Reformation

1625 - Congregation of the Mission (All Facts)

• Founded by St. Vincent de Paul, it was sanctioned by Pope Urban VIII

1633 - Order of the Daughters of Charity (All Facts)

• Founded by Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac