What Are The Corrupt Leaders In The Middle Ages

A successful monarchy relies upon a stable leader who is concerned with the satisfaction of those he rules over. Henry Bolingbroke the IV in Shakespeare's Henry the IV Part I follows a trend set by his predecessor in Richard II of self-indulgence and neglect of his kingdom. These leaders worry about the possibility of losing their kingdom or their soldiers to other nobles who were also concerned more with obtaining a higher position rather than governing. The king must also be wary of his own life, something that was once revered and guarded closely by other nobles. Wars once fought for gaining or protecting land are overshadowed by personal battles fighting for the position of king.

The Catholic Church during the early 16th Century was rooted throughout Europe. The Church influenced every country and its respective monarchs through the Church’s wealth and power. The Catholic Church placed a tight hold on the general populace with individuals who went against the Church being branded as heretics and excommunicated. The wealth and power of the Church eventually caused the quality of the clergy to deteriorate. Priests became corrupt and subjected to their physical desires. They frequented taverns, gambled and kept mistresses. The reputation of the clergy were horrid as the general populace was relieved that “their priest [kept] a mistress” because it “[secured] their wives from seduction” The knowledge of the clergy degenerated as well as they were no longer required to learn and teach the Holy Scriptures because the Church dictated their actions. The pinnacle of the Church’s corruption was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was the “extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment” sold by priests as a temporary relief from sins. The indulgences were then sold to the general populace for money as the monetization of a priest’s services. Johannes Tetzel was a prominent preacher of indulgences who relied on the money from the sales to subsidize the rebuilding of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. The corrupt sales did not go unnoticed as Martin Luther, in an effort to stop the corruption of the Church, posted the 95 Theses on the door of a Castle

As the tenth century rolled about, the power of the Roman Catholic Church grew steadily stronger, the church had an argument with the normal Kingdom over who should rule supreme out of the Pope or the King, the church believed that the Pope who is the voice of God on Earth should be the ruler of the world while the peasants thought that the King should, the power struggle eventually ended with the Church coming out as the dominant force in the West. The Church passed a law that stated that everyone (mostly peasants) is forced to pay 10% of their income to the Church. The church had the ability to stop any laws that they did not like or make some new laws that benefited them, they were a very powerful group that could manipulate the peasants and knights in any way they liked, in Church there were photos of people being tortured in hell, this intensified the peoples longing for heaven and therefore extended the power and influence of the church. All Christians were expected to attend the mass and, by the 13th century, were expected to take the Eucharist at least once a year.

With the new printing press “people were working to make books so that they could now have and read books and gain knowledge” after gaining knowledge the peasants were more self reliant in the social aspect (Document 3). On the religious aspect of the education monks were offended because they believed, “the power of judging the scripture is in the church,” and people started reading and judging what the scriptures said by themselves and became independent (Cavlin Document 11). Education also affects the political aspect of the economy by breaking down the church and forming their own ways, “Has fallen into such a detestable madness that he does not hesitate to dogmatize and publicly preach... propositions and conclusions which are erroneous and false” (Pope Gregory XI Document

Before The Renaissance, there was a time period known as the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages was a time of darkness and illiteracy. Around eighty percent of the European population was illiterate and or uneducated relying completely on the Roman Catholic Church for education. The uneducated were mostly peasants. The few people that were educated were priests, and other religious figures in the church. Although as time progressed peasants, began to become more independent. With the invention of the printing press education began to become more widespread. Many people began to become specialized in other subjects besides farming and questioned the ideas of the church. As the Middle Ages came to an end so did the strength and overall power of the Roman Catholic Church.

Before the start of the Renaissance, the Catholic Church influenced every aspect of society. The Renaissance and it’s ideals changed this. The Humanist movement opposed the Catholic Church’s involvement in the lives of the citizens. Humanists advocated for personal independence and individual expression, an idea that directly opposed the Catholic Church’s ideals. The Church believed that citizens should dedicate their lives to the service of God and by extension, the Church. The introduction of the idea that the Church does not control every aspect of society was revolutionary to Early Modern Western Civilization because it allowed people to pursue things that they had not been previously able to pursue because of the limitations the Catholic Church placed upon them. Although only the wealthy were able to dedicate all of their time to these pursuits, there were still significant advancements in art, literature, and science, all of which impacted Early Modern Western Civilization.

Easier access to printing, and the evolving vernacular resulted in more people publishing their ideas, whether they were Church acceptable or otherwise. Many Europeans took advantage of the growing print culture to question Church authority and ideals in a time where the Church had been one of the most important ruling powers in the content for most of its history. Renegade religious ideals were considered to be radical but many Europeans saw some truth in them and related to them. Consequently, the Catholic Church became irate and began banning, and in some cases burning the works of those who were considered heretics. Documents two, three, and five, provide evidence in support of these statements.

The attitude of the clergy was worse than that of the laity, as the clergy would have had a clear idea that their greed for profit was a sin. The Decameron clearly reflects the greed and materialism that Renaissance capitalism brought, and new attitude of the people who were no longer as concerned with sinning.

Corruption was visible within the church and people were not pleased about it. Europeans became more secular and they started to question the church, and its authority. Therefore, all its teachings were also being questioned. Since people were no longer listening to the church they began to look at life and the world around them differently. For example, in the Netherlands the poor was looked down upon. Poor men would steal, poor women would turn to prostitution for a way to make money, and older women were accused of being witches. (Doc 1) It is no surprise that the poor started to be seen in a negative light after the church lost its influence over most of the people. All of these occupations were looked down upon especially, witches. During the witch craze hysteria in Europe thousands of women were killed because of accusations of them being witches. The main target however, were old poor women. Furthermore, the poor were not only criticized by other common people, rulers had their own views on the poor in their kingdoms. Emperor Charles V of the Netherlands felt that people would begin to abuse the aid given to the poor. According to Emperor Charles V, “Experience shows that if begging for alms is permitted to everyone indiscriminately, many errors and abuses will result, for they will fall into idleness, which is the beginning of all evils.” (Doc 2) The

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was written in a time when greed and corruption ran wildly through all tiers of society. The Black Death arrived in Europe in 1347 and brought with it a plague of both the body and mind of Europeans. People were dying by the thousands and the one place they could turn to for help was quickly becoming a corrupt and dishonest organization. As the plague swept through, more and more priests were being called to bedsides for prayer.

During the middle ages the selling of indulgences cost citizens a range from 20 to 5,000 dollars. The perception of the Catholic Church changed when the public noticed clergies' wealth and how they exhibited it constantly. Church officials gained this wealth through the selling of indulgences and other items. However, there was no real evidence that it affected afterlife which led to corruption. During the middle ages, Corruption of the Roman Catholic Church affected the perception of high ranking church officials slowly over time resulting in loss of power in the church.

Why do you think people during the Elizabethan era were so intrigued by the simple, almost “boring” life of a shepherd? At the time, England teemed with crime and disease, and people were enamored with the idea of the lovesick shepherds in rural settings. By tradition, the pastoral poem renounced corruption found in urban areas and returned the reader to the simplicity of nature. In 16th-century London, the courtiers and many city dwellers were enjoying foreign luxuries and merchandise. The pastoral poem created a realm different than the courtly pleasures with which they were familiar and experienced.he shepherd creates an argument and tries to woo a love interest to experience the joys of nature. The shepherd desires to return to an Eden-like

Johannes Gutenberg was essential to the renaissance because in 1458, he published the first ever typed Bible. He had created a primitive version of a typewriter, and Manchester (1993) states that “It was one of the great[est] moments in the history of Western civilization”. Although “the invention of printing was denounced by, among others, politicians and ecclesiastics who feared it as an instrument which could spread subversive ideas”, the invention eventually lead to other innovations which made life easier (pp. 95-96). Nicolaus Copernicus was another revolutionary who challenged typical beliefs of the time period. Manchester (1993) found that he wrote a few books “in which he concluded that the earth, far from being the center of the universe, merely rotated on its own axis and orbited around a stationary sun once a year” (p. 89). Although, like Gutenberg, Copernicus wasn’t taken seriously, without him, perhaps astronomy wouldn’t have been able to advance as far as it has today. Manchester (1993) found that Tomas de Torquemada was “a Dominican monk” who “tortured accused heretics until they confessed” (p. 34). Torquemada’s methods were inhuman, and unfortunately these methods of torture were also used for racist and anti-Semitic purposes. Negative information about the Renaissance is unpleasant, but necessary to understanding their way of thought. Thomas More was an

Before the printing press was invented books were a scarce luxury. They were produced one at a time, meticulously copied by hand, usually by monks. This process took a very long time, which made them very expensive. These rare handmade books were held almost exclusively by the churches and a few wealthy nobles who could afford them. Since books were the primary source of knowledge and information, the lack of them caused the people to rely on the church for their information. This gave the church the power to deceive and manipulate people to benefit the church and themselves. No one questioned it, they merely accepted it as fact, since they had no other source of information with which to challenge the churches way of doing things.

The Church had faced heresy before and had generally contained it slowly but surely, but now it seemed defenseless. The printing press gave it no time. We can see the effect the printing press had on the rate of literacy, in the 60 years since printing had been invented, literacy had grown 20 percent in towns.