This series of ti morceaux is presenting a very brief overview of Church history. We’ve summarized the familiar Apostolic Age, which lasted to around A.D. 100, and the next, less-well-known Patristic Age, which followed it until the sixth century. Now it’s time to move on to the longest period: this morceau will deal with the third broad era, again keeping things simple but correct.
The Medieval Age – which lasted until about A.D. 1400 – is also often known as the “Middle Ages.” This was a time in Europe when the Church provided the only real universal source of stability to society. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire (usually dated from A.D. 476), the feudal transition to nation-States took place. Yet the Church remained a key component of all political and social structures.
Some of the developments in the next few hundred years are quite well known. The importance of the Church and especially her monasteries and dioceses in preserving Western civilization can hardly be overstated. Only the Church was interested in maintaining accurately the full knowledge of the past, in providing education and meaning in the present, and in exploring the world and its future. Education and health care were particularly important areas which were for centuries virtually exclusive ministries of the Church.
During the Middle Ages Christianity became an intensely “popular” religion, in which devotions were widespread and viewed as very important for the individual. It was a time of extremes, both good and bad. While many who are recognized as saints lived in this period, unfortunately the political and social influence of the Church often had a corrupting effect on Church leaders, which led to many abuses of power and lifestyles quite obviously contradictory to the Gospel. There were political and spiritual failures too. The best example of this is the so-called “Great Schism” between the Catholic Church of the west and the Orthodox Churches of the east, which took place in A.D. 1054.
Does one person exemplify the spirit of the Medieval Age for us? I think so: St. Benedict, a monk who died in A.D. 547, does. He wrote his famous Rule for monasteries of men and of women, providing a practical way for groups of clergy and laity to band together for both a deepening of faith and self-preservation in this world. Benedictine monasteries – and those which in time developed from these – often were self-contained worlds in which those who were vowed religious and laity who lived with or near them largely provided for their own needs, since there frequently was no functioning regional “government” able to do so.
In time, of course, nation-States did arise. Universities which were separate from the Church developed. Commerce began to be handled by a real merchant-class, and secular leaders began to exercise more political power than did Church authorities. As the world became more “modern,” the Medieval Age came to an end.
