Church History: The Medieval Catholic Church

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Lecture audio: The Medieval Catholic Church

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Lecture Notes Outline

Monastic revival – Cluny & the Cistercians

     - Bernard of Clairvaux

     - Hildegard of Bingen

Chasing down heretics – Waldensians, Albigensians, and the Inquisition

     - Expulsion of the Jews

A new form of monastic ministry – the Franciscans & Dominicans

     - Francis & Clare

Papal corruption & schism – “the Babylonian Captivity” in Avignon

     - Catherine of Siena

The Black Death & the Anglo-French wars

     - Julian of Norwich

Scholasticism

     - Thomas Aquinas

Art & architecture

Age of discovery begins

The Renaissance begins to bloom

Calls for Reformation

     - John Wyclif

     - Devotio Moderna

     - Jan Hus

Photo of the Week

Jesus, I am resting, resting 

in the joy of what Thou art;

I am finding out the greatness

of Thy loving heart.

Thou hast bid me gaze upon thee,

as Thy beauty fills my soul,

for by Thy transforming power,

Thou hast made me whole.

- from a hymn by Jean Sophia Pigott

Quote of the Week

"Do not be angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, 

since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be."

- Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

A Prayer from Thomas Merton (abridged)

Let me use all things for one sole reason: to find my joy in giving you glory. Therefore, keep me, above all things, from sin. [...] Give me the strength that waits upon you in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for you alone. Amen.

Church History: Schisms & Crusades

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Lecture audio: Schisms & Crusades (High Middle Ages)

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Lecture Notes Outline

A New Order: Turmoil & Consolidation

- The Vikings

- Rise of European monarchies

- East and West begin their final split

          - Photian schism (9th century)

          - The Papacy’s rising claims

          - The Great Schism (1054)

          - Sack of Constantinople (1204)

          - Eastern Orthodoxy flourishes amid Byzantine decline

          - Council of Florence (1430s-1440s)

The Crusades & Eastern Christendom

- The First Crusade & the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

- Military-Monastic Orders & the Second Crusade

- Saladin and the Third Crusade

- Crusades of the 1200s

- Fall of the Latin kingdoms in the Levant

- Mongol invasions & the fall of the Church of the East

- Northern European crusades

- End of the Byzantine Empire

- Reconquista in Spain

Photo of the Week

Rise, my soul, to watch and pray

to the Lord unceasing.

God protects you day by day,

strength and faith increasing.

so that still mind and will

shall unite to serve him

and forever love him.

- from a hymn by Johann Freystein

Quote of the Week

"God has a university. It's a small school. Few enroll; even fewer graduate. Very, very few indeed. God has this school because he does not have broken men and women. Instead, he has several other types of people. He has people who claim to have God's authority...and don't--people who claim to be broken...and aren't. And people who do have God's authority, but who are mad and unbroken. And he has, regretfully, a great mixture of everything in between. All of these he has in abundance, but broken men and women, hardly at all. In God's sacred school of submission and brokenness, why are there so few students? Because all students in this school must suffer much pain."

- Gene Edwards (from A Tale of Three Kings: A Study in Brokenness)

A Prayer from Thomas More (adapted)

Give me the grace, good Lord:

To set the world at naught. 

To set the mind firmly on You

and not to hang upon the words of men’s mouths.

To be content to be solitary. 

Not to long for worldly pleasures. 

Little by little utterly to cast off the world 

and rid my mind of all its business.

Gladly to be thinking of God, and to call for His help. 

To lean into the comfort of God. 

Busily to labor to love Him.

To have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me. 

For His benefits unceasingly to give Him thanks.

Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all--

to set the loss at naught, for the winning of Christ.

Amen.

Church History: Light in the "Dark Ages"

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Lecture audio: Light in the "Dark Ages"

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Lecture Notes Outline

Medieval Missions:

- Martin of Tours & the rural pagans (4th century)

- Patrick goes to Ireland (4th-5th centuries)

- Clovis & the Franks (5th-6th centuries)

- Columba and his followers go to Scotland & northern England (6th-7th centuries)

- Gregory, Augustine, and the mission to the Angles (6th-7th centuries)

- Columbanus plants monasteries across Europe (7th century)

- Boniface goes to the Germans & Frisians (8th century)

- Charlemagne’s military “missions” (8th-9th centuries)

- Ansgar goes to Scandinavia (9th century)

- Cyril & Methodius go to the Slavs of eastern Europe (9th century)

- Prince Vladimir & the conversion of Kievan Rus (10th century)

Christianity & Culture in the Early Middle Ages

- “Dark Ages” or “Bright Ages”?

- Benedict & western monasticism

- Christians under Muslim rule

- Gregory, Boethius, and the preservation of Western thought

- Carolingian renaissance & the “Holy Roman Empire”

- Advances in the technical arts

 

Photo of the Week

Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace,

along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

- 2 Timothy 2:22

Quote of the Week

"O the wonder of this new union! He who is comes into being, and the Uncreated is created, and the Uncontained is contained [...]. The One who enriches becomes poor; He is made poor in my flesh, that I might be enriched through His divinity. The full One empties Himself; for He empties Himself of His own glory for a short time, that I may participate in His fullness."

- Gregory of Nazianzus, writing on the Incarnation of Christ

Another Podcast Interview on My Book

For any who are interested, here's another podcast interview on my book, Missionary Motivations: Challenges from the Early Church. Click on the logo below to be taken to the audio file:

A Prayer from John of Damascus

O Lord and Master Jesus Christ our God,

who alone hast power to absolve men from their sins,

for Thou art good and lovest all men,

forgive all my transgressions done in knowledge or in ignorance,

and make me worthy without condemnation

to have communion with Thee.

Amen.

Church History: Eastern Christianity in the Early Middle Ages

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Lecture audio: Eastern Christianity in the Early Middle Ages

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Lecture Notes Outline

Eastern Orthodoxy takes shape

- Fall of the western Roman Empire; the remaining eastern Roman Empire is known as “Byzantine,” with its capital at Constantinople

     - Though its territory would wax and wane, this eastern Roman Empire persisted for another 1000 years after the fall of Rome

     - Its stability provided the center for Eastern Orthodoxy to develop

- Emperor Justinian (6th century)

- Emperor Heraclius and the rise of Islam (7th century)

- Maximus the Confessor (7th century) and the final Christological debates

- John of Damascus (8th century) and the iconoclast controversy

- Eastern Orthodox prayer and devotion

Early Christian Missions to the East and South

- The Church of the East and the evangelization of Asia

- Ethiopia becomes Christian (4th century onward)

Photo of the Week

Wisdom is radiant and unfading,

and she is easily discerned by those who love her,

and is found by those who seek her.

She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.

- Wisdom 6:12-13 (Old Testament Apocrypha)