Heresy in the MIddle Ages.

Thompson says that heresy could be defined “only with reference to orthodoxy” (p. 125). So, the church first defined a definition of the theology or a belief, establishing its limits and boundaries. So, when someone or a group, leave these boundaries and go farther from them, they were considered dissentients, “and liable to ecclesiastic sanctions if they did not conform” (ibid).   

Early and Medieval church were focused in the teaching and Christian praxis, very orthodoxy all the time. It doesn’t mean that never had heresy’s problems, because that did it. When lays began to be involved in the life of the church the heresy started, “this may be connected with an increasing level of a lay religion, and the willingness of participants to try to clarify what they personally believed” (Thompson, p. 78). Around 1000, Leutard was accused of denying the obligation to pay tithes. Around 1025, emerged an Italian group who believed they don’t need the church and had any ideas similar to the Cathars.  In the twelfth century, the church gave a powerful response to the existence of heresy from the church authorities. The First and Second Lateran Councils talked about heresy. “The Cathars were anathematized in 1179 at the Third Lateran Council” (Thompson, p. 126). “The lay powers were joined to support the church, and the ecclesiastical authorities were empowered to investigate suspect heretical meetings” (ibid). By 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council decreed directed against Catharism. “The decrees also renewed the command to hand heretics over to the lay power for punishment… is demonstrated by the fact that indulgences granted to Crusaders were extended to those who fought against heresy” (ibid).  So we can see the development and involvement of church against heresy   

In that century highlight two heretical movements: Waldensians and Cathars.   Waldensians a group created by Valdes of Lyon, after his conversion. He abandoned his fortune and pursued a life of poverty. More people added to him and began to preach the gospel and Jesus’s life. Many people were attracted for them and authorities were worried for their impact. They didn’t want to separate from the Catholic Church. They simply wanted to live as whole-hearted followers of Jesus. But the challenge of their simple lifestyle, the popularity of this new movement and their preaching, without the authorization of the Church, it brought them problems and opposition, and they were excommunicated. “Valdes himself was essentially moderate, and may well have hoped reconciliation with the church, but more radical groups appeared elsewhere… insisting they were sole path to salvation” (Thompson, p. 128).

“Catharism originated in the Easter Empire… was the most radical heresy which affected the medieval Church I the West, because it abandoned the mainstream Judaeo-Christian belief in a single God” (Thompson, p. 129). They believed in a dualist theology, “that there were two conflicting powers in the universe, one good and one evil” Satan the evil power was totally independent to God… the world, the flesh, and the devil were identified… in a very literal sense” (ibid). All the members of this sect were rigidly ascetic, vegetarian, and renounced to the marriage. Cathars invaded Western Europe included England, German, Italy and France. In the thirteenth century, Innocent III decided to finish with heresy and Cathars were persecuted for the crusaders. By the fourteenth century, Cathars ceased to be a menace to the church, but inquisition continued persecuting the few groups (Thompson, p. 133). Also, Catharist and Beguines “were condemned by the Council of Vienne in 1312” (Ozment, p. 93).    

Development of Western Monasticism

The beginning of monasticism was related to the idea of a solitary life, “asceticism and renunciation were common features” (Thompson, p. 27). Everyone who decides this style of life formed a communal life with other the same ideals. The bishop Hilary was one of the first that formed groups of ascetics (ibid). St Martin, Honoratus and Benedict were others who formed ascetics groups. The most influential of them was Benedict that created any rules in the managed of the groups. These groups received the support of Pope Gregory I, and that helped them to grow and many groups were created receiving the papacy cover. This style of life and papacy were the most important elements of the history of the church in those centuries (6^th -8^th). In this times we need to mention Hilda of Whitby, who founding abbess of the monastery at Whitby, R.J. Hernandez mentioned her as trainer of at least five future bishops, in her monastery. Thompson says: “It was only the changing political circumstances of the late eight and early ninth centuries which created conditions propitious for the Rule to be more widely adopted” (p. 31).

Monasteries required a changed when they need the support of a lay patron or financial support of external people. One of this changes, was the loose of the Rules of St. Benedict. “Duke William I of Aquitaine in 909 established a monastery at Cluny” (Thompson, p. 33) and removed from it the papacy cover and reinstall the Rule of Benedict, and recovered the ideals of early monasticism: poverty, chastity, obedience and worship and teaching practices. With this philosophy were created more monasteries, other monasteries were added until the point that was created the first association or federation of monasteries, and were under the cover of the monastery in Cluny; because before these changes, monasteries were independent to each other. Since then, lay were supported monasteries and gave the monks to elect their own abbot when the present died (Thompson, p. 35). These Cluny reforms were extended until the women monasteries created by Scholastica, Benedict’s twin sister, any centuries ago. Also other monasteries were created under the Cluny reforms as the Marcigny (Gonzalez, Historia del Cristianismo, T I, p. 353). Since this point, the monastery of Cluny tried to reform the church.

With all the changes political and inside the church, emerged other group “originated in an exodus of monks from an existing house” (Thompson, p. 112), and they were called Cistercians. Initially, Cistercians focused on the literal observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, and were known as white monks because they changed the color of their robes. In 1112, arrived to the Cistercians a young man named Bernard, who persuaded aristocrats and many people to live as monks and formed a group in Clairvaux in 1115, then were emerged more groups, growing the Cistercians monasteries. “Bernard was made abbot there, remaining until his death in 1153” (ibid).  After his death, many cannons (groups) separated themselves from the world and were not involved in pastoral activities. The cities and towns growth and that brought new problems to the church, this helped to the creation of the order of friars, “the two greatest of these orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans” (Thompson, p. 119). Dominicans were involved in preaching and teaching (Thompson, p. 120) and Franciscans took asceticism as a form of piety (ibid) and had a missionary approach, trying to reach the Moors into Christianity (Thompson, p. 121).  “Women joined the Franciscan and Dominican friars early on. Dominic’s original foundation for women at Prouille in 1206” (Ward, P. 155). R.J. Hernandez mentioned the nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who formed a monastery. Also Ward mentions any convents and nunneries, as the Santa Maria de Monteluce at Perugia, where Pope Gregory IX limited the present of nuns at 57 “when the church was consecrated in 1253” (p. 160), and the diocese of Norwich (p. 166). 

Without doubts monasteries played an important role in the development of Christianity in the Middle Ages together with papacy. In these two forms the Christianity grew up and was developed in different ways and movements. Despite these times had many political repercussions and wars; monasteries were there to receive all the people who wanted to look for their salvation in the most puritan ways known in those times.