The Dark Ages

Recently I have been reading a biography of Martin Luther called Here I Stand. Prior to that I read the story of Joan of Arc. It has been interesting to learn more about the Middle Ages, and some about why they are often called the Dark Ages.

Joan of Arc lived in the 1400s. She lived in France, and lived for her first sixteen years as a shepherd girl in a small village. For the last year of her life, she was God’s messenger and leader of the French armies. Think of that. At seventeen she was the commander in chief of all of France’s armies. That’s as impressive as Moroni leading the Nephite armies at 16. If not more so, due to her being a girl. She ended her life at the stake. Burned for wearing men’s clothes. (Not to mention the political reasons people wanted her out of the way)

Martin Luther lived in the 1500s. He started life as the son of an upper/ middle class family, who entered a monastery as a young man (early 20s, I think) and went on to be called a “son of iniquity” by the Pope.

You might wonder what these two people had in common. Well, I’ll tell you. Both of their lives were dictated by the church.

The catholic church held such a sway over everything, that when Joan of Arc said she was sent to lead the French armies, there was an inquiry to look into whether her visions were from God or from the devil. No questions about her ability to lead an army, no questions about military knowledge or strategy. Just questions about whether she should wear men’s clothes, and what the angels in her visions were wearing, and what language they spoke in.

Martin Luther, as a monk, of course, kept the rules and precepts set forth by the church. In fact, he kept them more strictly than most, neglecting his physical body in search of spiritual enlightenment. However, he always felt inadequate. He found that even keeping all the rules and laws to the best of his ability, he never felt sure that it really did any good. Apparently, this thought bothered him so much that he actually turned to the scriptures to find out what he was missing.

I have always been curious about the evolution of the doctrines of the Catholic Church in the middle ages. For example, the doctrine of indulgences (that’s paying the church money to reduce your time in purgatory) has always baffled me. But I think I can actually understand how it came about. According to the biography of Martin Luther, the doctrine of indulgences started as part of the crusades. Those knights that went and fought in the crusades were rewarded by the Pope with a reduction of the time to be spent in purgatory, or something. Anyway, there were knights or other nobles who were sickly or just unwilling to go fight in the crusades. So the Pope decided that if they would pay to help finance the war, then that counts as much as actually fighting, right? From there it was only a matter of time before they decided that the money didn’t need to be for the crusades, but could be for anything that would support the church: building cathedrals, etc.

This is what set Martin off, and apparently he wasn’t the only one that felt that it had gone too far. You know something is wrong when they put together a jingle to entice people to pay for indulgences:
“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings
A soul from purgatory springs”

I think what set Martin Luther apart from the other people of the time that opposed the excess use of indulgences, was that he carried it farther to say that the Pope didn’t have authority to spring people from purgatory. He even went so far as to say that indulgences discourage actual repentance, and that the institution of the Pope was the Antichrist. Needless to say, the Pope didn’t like that.

This is a very good example of the importance of reading the scriptures instead of relying on other people’s interpretation. Apparently, at the time Martin Luther was alive, the study of the Bible was not a common thing among the monks. Instead they studied the commentaries, etc., of other people, who had studied other commentaries. This really distorted the truth to the point that indulgences, etc. were considered doctrine.

The other aspect of religion in the dark ages that I have a hard time understanding, is that even though everyone knew that many of the Popes and other church leaders were corrupt, they still thought that God would listen to these people concerning the salvation of the common person. If a member of clergy took a dislike to you, and they got you excommunicated, that was it, there was no hope for you. On the other hand, they could bestow church leadership positions on anyone that paid enough money or that had political power they needed. The whole concept of having authority from God was warped to the point that it was unrecognizable.

It makes you glad for ongoing revelation, doesn’t it?