Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Western Church Reading
Post your comments and thoughts here (only about the Church -- do not post about Russia). Also, try to go beyond just asking a question -- try to answer it yourself. See what links you can find to share with the class. If you can't find an answer, still ask the question -- just explain that you could not find the answer.
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In the reading, when it said that after Becket's death at the Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury became a major pilgrimage center, I immediately thought of the Canterbury Tales, and I wanted to find out more about how those two were related. So, first I found this link to get a little more info on the Church itslef(http://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/index.aspx) about the Canterbury Cathedral (the most useful part is the History and Heritage link). Then, I went to SparkNotes to get a summary of the Canterbury tales. It turns out that the two don't have much to do with each other besides the fact that the characters in the Canterbury Tales are making a pilgrimage to Becket's shrine in Canterbury. Here's the link though, if anyone's interested in reading more about it: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/canterbury/
The reading mentions that one of the Church's problems was the fact that there were still some polytheistic religions lingering... which I thought was pretty interesting, seeing as how the Church and Christianity was so prevalent. So, I was wondering what some of those religions were...
I found out that one of the religions was Germanic Paganism (basically Viking religion, with Thor and Odin being principle gods). Apparently this type of paganism had been around since Ancient Rome, and right around the Middle Ages it was starting to lose people to Christianity. However, I found that there were some issues where a lord converted to Christianity but his serfs would not (they chose to remain pagan). By the High Middle Ages, though, Germanic paganism had basically been reduced to folklore.
Another example is Slavic religion, which is even older than Germanic paganism (something like 3,000 years, obviously evolving over time). I'm pretty sure this was a little more east of Gaul and that area, though. In the 7th to 12th centuries, lots of Slavic people were being converted to Christianity (which was thought of as a higher religion), although a lot of people still performed pagan rituals. Eventually, like Germanic paganism, Slavic religion faded into folklore which has lasted to modern times.
There wasn't a whole lot of info on this stuff... all I could find were some Wikipedia articles, and I even had to do a little digging for those:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_paganism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_paganism
I was interested in learning a little more about Pepin. In the reading it said he was Charlemagne's father. Pepin's father was Charles Martel. His nickname was "the short" and he was the duke of the Franks and then the king of the Franks.
The Canterbury Cathedral Also interested me. It's one of the oldest structures in England and is part of the World Heritage Site. This link tells a little bit more about what the World Heritage site is: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list. Also the Cathedral was founded by St. Augustine. And here is a link to a picture of the Cathedral: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Canterbury_Cathedral_-_Portal_Nave_Cross-spire.jpeg.
Lastly, I was interested in learning more about the Holy Roman Empire. This link goes to a map that shows the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire: http://corndancer.com/vox/aer/aer_art/map01_1648.jpg/
Wikipedia says that the the Holy Roman Empire was "a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages". Otto the Great was the first emperor of this empire.
I found a pleathera of interesting words, so I thought it would be pretty useful to find out what they meant.
Laypeople- not members of the clergy
clergy-the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. The term comes from Greek κλήρος - kleros (a lot, that which is assigned by lot (allotment) or metaphorically, heritage). Depending on the religion, clergy usually take care of the ritual aspects of the religious life, teach or otherwise help in spreading the religion's doctrine and practices
(wikipedia, laity)
clerics-a member of a clergy or religion
investiture controversy- 11th century fight between Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, and GregoryVII. By undercutting the Imperial power established by the Salian emperors, the controversy lead to nearly 50 years of civil war in Germany, the triumph of the great dukes and abbots, and the disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire, from which Germany would not recover until German unification in the 19th century (wikipedia investiture controversy)
Monasticism-
is the religious practice in which one renounces worldly pursuits in order to fully devote one's life to spiritual work.
(wikipedia monastisism) So pretty much being a nun or monk.
Asceticism- describes a life-style characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures (especially sexual activity and consumption of alcohol) often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals. (wikipedia asceticism)
I wondered about how Gregory VII's views on papal perfection fit with how humility was supposed to be a virtue. I found out that he believed the church was set up by god to be both the religious authority and the law, and that as a divinely appointed institution it had authority over all else.
I found it interesting that the Pope started electing emperors. I found out that he decided to elect the emperors that he wanted because if he did not elect them then the emperor would disagree with him and they would fight for the power. The tradition of the Pope electing an emperor went on from 800-1530
How did the Roman Nobles lose the papacy? Did they ever get it back?
I thought that the Concordat of Worms sounded interesting, so I decided to research it a little bit.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/649133/Concordat-of-Worms
This link gives a lot of information about the Concordat of Worms which was an agreement between Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V concerning the powers of the empire and the papacy, and it was made in 1122.
The reading mentioned education and I wanted to know what people considered 'educated'. Also how much schooling did people go through and what was available?
http://library.thinkquest.org/6105/Education.html
This link was pretty interesting. It talked a little bit about the education during the Middle Ages and how the Church was a part of it.
http://historymedren.about.com/library/weekly/aa033001b.htm
This article was pretty helpful and talked about schooling for girls verses boys, and those who were going to become serious scholars. It also talked about the difference in education between classes
I looked up more about Pachomius. Pachomius, Abba Pachomius, or Pakham, is a Saint who is the founder of Christian cenobitic Monasticism. He was born in 292 in Thebes (Luxor) Egypt. He tried to lead a life as a hermit and also set to organize the "larves" into formal organization. He built 6 to 7 monasteries and a nunnery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachomius
I found the part about the organs interesting how the organs had huge levers that were used to open the organ pipes, and also how the organ players were called the organ pounders.
Questions
What are the steps or stages that you need to pass to become a saint?
What are the steps for a bishop?
When the Pope would chose the next emperor, would he chose it only from the royal family or could anyone be chosen?
When the organs began to be used, did every church have one or was it rare?
In the reading it talked about the "harsh medieval world." I was wondering what it was talking about when it said that? Also it talked about being not safe particularly for women.
I couldn't find the answer though.
Instead of asking a question after the reading and looking up the answer, I just decided to research more on the papacy- i was interested in it.
Some good links I found a lot of helpful information on was:
http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/westciv/papacy.html
http://people.howstuffworks.com/papacy.htm
Sorry this is a few minutes late, I lost track of time while reading.
My questions is:
Who was the first Holy Roman Emperor? (I couldn't find the answer, sorry)
I also did what Lauren did, instead of asking a question... I wanted to learn more about the Noble Romans and the pope. I found this good New York Times article about them, and thought it could possibly answer some questions.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9907EED7173DE43BBC4F52DFB766838E669FDE
So i was interested in the Investiture Controversy. Here it was an argument between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII about the officials who would control the appointments.
Here is a link to wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investiture_Controversy
In the reading there were a lot of talk about Christian monks, i decided to research more about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_monasticism
http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture19b.html
the second link is specific about early medieval monks.
I became interested in the Holy Roman Empire something that I first learned about it by playing a game called Age of Empires II.
Anyway, I came up with these links-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire (the most obvious)
http://www.heraldica.org/topics/national/hre.htm
A question that I have is how was the Holy Roman Empire received by China, Islam and other powers at the time? Also, was the empire a preview of how strong Europe would become?
I wanted to find out more about Thomas a Becket, because I found it interesting how he changed his loyalty to the church after he became archbishop. So I looked him up to find out more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket
In the article, it says that the king said something about ridding himself of the troublesome (this is only one suggestion of what he might have said), and some knights took it literally and assassinated Becket. Funny how stuff can happen (sort of) accidentally like that.
Well said.
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