Greetings!
>And one of the points emphasized about the conversion to Christianity, has
>always been that the control and conduct of rituals was removed from the
>private individuals and became the monopoly of the church. This certainly
>also seemed to be the case with traditional Christianity as I read about it
>and saw it in Norway.
>Now, however, I have begun wondering whether this wasn't a much later
>development, and whether people weren't, in fact, initially left to conduct
>their private rituals (births, marriages, burials etc.) themselves, just as
>they had done in pagan times
I think it's important to remember that we often associate "the Church" as
being something apart from "the people," when that line isn't always that
clear, as well as forgetting that pagans were likely already used to having
religious figures involved with their "rites of passage". Once Christianity
took hold, the local priest in most cases became part of the community,
often to the point of fathering children or having a more-or-less permanent
wife. The Church did try to foster an idea of otherness for the clergy by
attempting to adopt the ideal of clerical celibacy, but seems to have failed
as often as it succeeded (have a look at the priest in "Montaillou" for a
wonderful example). Those rituals which were sacraments with set liturgy
might end up looking like they were controlled by the Church, but you have
to remember that the person likely conducting the service was as much a
member of the community as anyone. Marriage, in particular, is interesting
since the officiant is not the priest, but the couple itself, and the Church
recognized as valid any vow undertaken by two people with no impediment to
marriage--regardless where it took place--and then consummated, although in
the later Middle Ages clandestine marriage is increasingly discouraged
(probably as much for legal reasons--e.g. property issues-- as for spiritual
ones.)
Susan Carroll-Clark
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