Week 14 · AD 1301–1400
A Church Under Strain
Popes in exile, a divided papacy, and Scripture in English.
This week
Popes, councils, and new voices
- The papacy moves to Avignon, then rival popes each claim to be Christ’s vicar
- Wyclif disputes the Lord’s Supper, and Palamas debates how sinners meet Christ
- Three councils and synods are weighed against the Lutheran Confessions
- Wyclif’s followers make the first full English Bible
- The Black Death, war, and revolt shake Europe
Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ)
Giotto di Bondone, about 1304–1306, fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.
Church life
The papacy and the English Bible.
Church life
The papacy moves to Avignon
- From 1309 the papacy, the pope’s office, was based in Avignon, in France
- Seven French popes in a row ruled from there. Critics called it the “Babylonian captivity”
- Gregory XI left Avignon in 1376 and reached Rome in January 1377
- Catherine of Siena, a lay Dominican, urged him to return and follow Christ the shepherd
Late fourteenth century
The English Bible
- Lollards, followers of John Wyclif, made the first full English Bible from Latin
- The oldest dated copy was made for Thomas of Woodstock, who died in 1397
- We do not know who did the translation, so Wyclif alone cannot get the credit
- Small copies helped preachers and lay people read Scripture for themselves
Controversy
Disputes over the Supper, prayer, and papal power.
Christ and the sacraments
Wyclif and the Lord’s Supper
- Wyclif rejected transubstantiation, the teaching that bread and wine become wholly Christ’s body and blood
- He argued that the bread stays bread
- Wyclif died on 31 December 1384
- The dispute is about how Christ is present in the Lord’s Supper
Controversy
The hesychast dispute
- Hesychasm is the monks’ silent prayer, which repeats the Jesus Prayer
- Barlaam, trained in Western scholastic (academic) thought, mocked it
- Palamas answered that God’s essence cannot be known or shared
- Believers share in God’s uncreated “energies,” the light the apostles saw at the Transfiguration
Controversy
Papal claims and a split
- Unam Sanctam (1302): every human must be subject to the pope to be saved
- Boniface VIII wrote it in his quarrel with King Philip IV of France
- April 1378: cardinals elect Urban VI. Some later call the vote invalid
- Clement VII rules from Avignon. Two, then three, popes each claim to be Christ’s vicar
Councils and events
Three councils and synods, weighed against the Confessions.
1311–1312
Council of Vienne
- Called by Clement V. Rome counts it as the 15th ecumenical (worldwide) council
- Its first concern was the Knights Templar, a military order of monks
- Clement closed the order by papal decree, not by a court verdict of guilt
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Councils and events
Palamite councils at Constantinople
- Held in 1341, 1347, and 1351. They upheld Palamas
- They made his teaching on God’s essence and energies official Orthodox doctrine
- Orthodox writers treat them as a regional synod with the weight of an ecumenical council
- Lutheran classification: Not classified
London, 1382
The Earthquake Synod
- Archbishop William Courtenay’s church court met at Blackfriars in London
- It condemned 24 statements from Wyclif: ten as heresy, fourteen as error
- Among them: Wyclif’s denial that Christ is bodily present in the Lord’s Supper
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Major people
Voices that shaped a century under strain.
Major people
Dante Alighieri
- The Divine Comedy, written about 1308–1320, describes an imagined journey
- It passes through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise
- In the last canto he sees a human likeness in the circle of divine light
- A sign of the Son’s humanity, read beside the doctrine of salvation
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
The Jesus Prayer, repeated in hesychast prayer.
Wider world
Events beyond the Church.
Wider world
Five events across Europe and Africa
- 1324: Mansa Musa, ruler of Mali, passed through Cairo on his pilgrimage to Mecca
- He gave away so much gold that writers said its price fell in Egypt
- 1337: The Hundred Years’ War, a long war between England and France, begins
- 1348: The Black Death struck Florence
- 1381: Peasants’ Revolt in England. Rebels seek an end to the poll tax
Confessional Lutheran connection
Where the Lutheran Confessions speak to this century.
Christ and the sacraments
Teaching prompts from this century
- Christology: Vienne confessed the Son’s complete human nature. Augsburg III says true God and true man
- Baptism: Vienne gave grace to infants. Augsburg IX says children are to be baptized
- Supper: the Smalcald Articles say bread remains bread, and Christ’s body is truly given with it
- Papacy: the Smalcald Articles say Christians do not need the pope to be saved
- Assurance: how does Christ give comfort in illness, death, and church disputes?
For discussion
The Smalcald Articles say Christians do not need the pope to be saved. What does the Western Schism show about trusting a human office for certainty?