medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Indulgences also were political "loaded,' starting (at least) with Wycliff's criticisms. The Council of Basel made them even more so by issuing indulgences. Defenders of papal power treated indulgences, as in Juan de Torquemada's Summa de ecclesia, as an aspect of plenitude of power in jurisdiction. This made them all the more "political" in the pre-Reformation era.
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>>> Theresa Gross-Diaz <[log in to unmask]> 1/22/2007 3:27 PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Not convinced of what? I'm not saying (nor does Shaffern say) that abuses didn't exist, or didn't get worse as the MA "waned". What Shaffern does is to point out that medieval criticism of abuses must be understood in context with medieval appreciation of indulgences. The critics have become famous; the supporters less so, but that's because they're less fun! ;-)
Criticism of indulgences existed almost as soon as indulgences appeared, but not for the same reasons as in the LMA. At the same time, appreciation of indulgences remained constant even through the LMA, as Shaffern shows (also see some of the articles in Swanson's collection, where one also finds fascinating evidence of how Reformation politics shaped our modern assessment of indulgences).
Shaffern argues (and, having been reading up on this a lot in the past few years, I buy it) that the historiography has privileged one side of the story for too long. No one is going to take away the juicy stories about 'pigges bones' or the Fuggers, but indulgences are much more than that, and if we insist on only seeing the critics' side, we miss some really interesting insights into medieval spirituality.
Give the book a shot --
Cheers
Theresa
>>> John Briggs <[log in to unmask]> 1/22/2007 1:55 PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I'm not convinced. Was Chaucer reading evidence backwards from the
Reformation when he created his Pardoner? (Perhaps he was influenced by
Wycliffe?) Thomas Gascoigne was another such commentator. I suppose that
it is not impossible that the level of abuse actually reduced in the period
up to the Reformation.
John Briggs
Theresa Gross-Diaz wrote:
>
> I've read the book (actually while it was still in ms form) and I
> would say o, it's not carrying revisionism too far. The book is not
> "revisionist", or at least not revisionist just to be revisionist.
> It is a brilliant (really) reexamination of the history of
> indulgences; it is painstaking and balanced. What's most noteworthy
> is that the author wishes to avoid reading the evidence backwards
> from the Reformation; the result is that the history of indulgences
> dovetails in with the history of penance (sacramental and otherwise),
> popular piety, ecclesiastical reform movements, the development of
> the episcopacy and its relation to the papacy... in short,
> indulgences take their proper place among the various ways that the
> Church (lay and clerical) tried to make salvation possible. The
> genuinely and *persistently* pastoral nature of indulgences *
> astonishingly, even up to the eve of the reformation, at least in the
> eyes of some clergy and evidently a whole lot of lay people * is
> shown by evidence that counterbalances the well-knowm evidence about
> the unarguable abuses and "sales" of indulgences in the later MAges.
> I love the $ for Peter's Dome story and use it in my classes to
> connect Ren and Ref. But that's the point: it is all connected,
> and treating indulgences as some sort of cynical aberration really
> isn't a good historical approach. Shaffern puts it back in context
> where it belongs.
> I say it's recommended reading for all medievalists.
> And - it's very nicely written, as a bonus!
> TGD
>
>
>>>> John Briggs <[log in to unmask]> 1/22/2007 5:48 AM >>>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> culture
>
> John McChesney-Young quoted an incautious blurb:
>
>> In The Penitents' Treasury, historian Robert W. Shaffern debunks this
>> argument through a reexamination of indulgences that shows how their
>> alleged evils have been exaggerated throughout history. This
>> provocative volume, a necessary read for anyone interested in
>> medieval history and the history of religion, calls for much
>> rethinking about the state of the church on the eve of the
>> Reformation.
>
> Isn't this carrying revisionism a bit too far? Although Luther
> attacked
> indulgences - and the doctrine of Purgatory that underpinned them -
> it was
> universally acknowledged (and had been for a long time) that the real
> scandal was the sale of indulgences, and the grotesque commissions
> paid to
> the sellers.
>
> I wish I could find again the reference (I think it was Rudolf
> Wittkower or
> Edgar Wind - not, I think, Ernst Gombrich) where I read how
> renaissance art
> caused the Reformation: the plenary indulgence for the re-building of
> St
> Peter's allowed such a commission to the sellers that most German
> bishops
> wouldn't allow them into their dioceses, but the local prelate (the
> Archbishop of Mainz?) had over-extended himself buying renaissance
> art and
> needed his cut. So the indulgence sellers were allowed into
> Wittenberg...
>
> Of course, Protestantism owed everything to the printing press in
> more ways
> than are obvious: the first thing that Caxton seems to have printed in
> England was an indulgence! The mass-production (so to speak) of
> indulgences
> would inevitably bring down the entire edifice.
>
> Radix malorum est cupiditas...
>
> (I sometimes wonder what the future will think of the charity
> industry of
> our own day.)
>
> John Briggs
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