Dear Prof. Izbicki: I don't really know if we ought to distinguish between
what were deemed heresies by significant elements of the church and the
contemporary popular or governmental resistance to clerical privilege. I
suggest that the institutional essence of Luther's revolt was an attack on
clerical privilege (and its attendant distinctions and even impediments,
such as the prohibition of clerical marriage) and yet he was distinctly a
heretic in the view of most of the clerical authorities of the time.
Also, although I don't know their sources very well, I've read that some
of the medieval Waldensians - notably the groups crusaded against -
allowed the validity of clerical sacraments and even took them from time
to time, but nevertheless entrusted leadership in what they apparently
considered to be the essential or "moral" side of Christina life to their
chosen or elected male and female leaders. I also have had problems when
dealing with Cathar believers who favored a religion that seems to today's
Christians and to me to be far removed from Catholicism because THEY seem
to have been able to shift back and forth with remarkable ease. And these
were not just rural and urban working folk, but urban patricians and rural
gentlefolk, groups that had much to do with the flowering of literature in
the period.
And to Richard Landes: Yes, I did mean modern historical thought. Sorry
to have inadvertently confused THEM and US.
John Mundy
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