Medieval Peasant Catechesis

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I heard that pictures depicting famous Bible stories were put on Church walls as a means of illustrating the Gospel and the lives of saints and making it more real to the common person. Some of the oldest preserved churches with windows have such depictions on them.
 
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Medieval Catholics who lived in a small village had atleast one church in their village and everything was centered around it. The culture was “Catholic”. I am not saying they lived holy lives but that the culture was centered around catholicism. They probably had more of a folk catholicism back then. A folk catholicism that was accepted by the church and not like some of the mexicans who venerate statues of death.
Nowadays anyone can go youtube and watch videos of philosophy and theology. Perhaps we have more knowewdge today but not more wisdom. What to make of this?
 
Well, there were a lot more Masses and a lot of feast days. And during those feast days, the local lord AND HIS SERFS attended Mass. Many feudal lords had their own chapels and their own priests; also the villages had THEIR own chapels and priests, etc.

There isn’t really that much difference between the serf in England and France in the 13th century and the subsistence farmer/pioneer of the 19th century. Many of the 19th century people were barely literate (which is why public schools were usually one of the first things erected in a town as places were settled, so that the CHILDREN could be better informed). Kids went ‘out to work’ as soon as they could walk at both times. A bright youngster in the Middle Ages could get picked by the Lord for either house service, or sent off for minor clerical orders (usually females for the former and males for the latter). Plus even in small villages there was usually a lot of mendicant traffic from ‘the outer world’, or somebody’s son had gone off to the army, etc. People could garner news, and often John Q Serf could speak enough phrases of several languages to ‘get by’ because of either family ties or through those itinerant villages.

Often players and troubadours presented ‘mystery plays’ which used ‘stories of the Bible’ such as Adam and Eve, the Nativity, etc. as well.
 
During the time of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, translation of the Bible into anything other than Classical Latin, was prohibited.

This means St Teresa of Avila, who was not educated in Latin, could not read the Bible, but relied on what she was taught by priests who could

St John of the Cross, an ordained priest was trained in Latin and of course could read it.

The reason behind this is that they Church had not long before gone through various heresies, including The Albigensian Heresy, and of course Lutherism and other Protestant religions were translating Scripture to fit their own beliefs.
 
“Be reading in Latin”… except most peasants wouldn’t have read period. Missals would not have been available.
I agree with the gist of your point… they could still follow along and be catechized in other ways, but the average medieval Catholic certainly didn’t have a Missal or know how to read.
 
Universal Church = universal language. As to teaching, it was exactly as our Lord commanded: “teach them” NOT “read to them.” This accusation is extremely myopic in that it seems to assume that the KJV or NIV or NASB existed before printing and before 1611! They base everything on the bible - they are lost without it. However, what about the illiterate? The blind? How could they read - especially before the printing press? Handing bibles out is not biblical. Ask them where Jesus commanded anyone to do that.
 
Sermons were preached in the vernacular. And sermons were not just preached at Mass, but also at Vespers or simply as an event in themselves that people attended. There were also traveling missionaries, etc. Public festivals and the celebration of penitential days and seasons emphasized the truths of faith as well. And of course, families handed on the faith through traditions in the home.

There was ignorance where the local clergy were negligent in their duties. Saints like St. Vincent Ferrer and others traveled around preaching to supply what was lacking in such places.
 
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JimR-OCDS said:
During the time of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, translation of the Bible into anything other than Classical Latin, was prohibited.
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I’m aware of various local restrictions, particularly in response to the Albigensians, but do you have a source for this being church wide?
 
Catechisms were written by priests and bishops to instruct priests on what to teach the laity well before the roman catechism - it was just the first universal catechism. They would teach the faith during the homily, families would teach the children, they used iconography, etc. As more of Europe became christianized, the language of the gospels was also part of the vernacular so that much of daily life was christ centered and not just the few moments one spent in the pews.
 
Donald_S said:
if I were a peasant from the 900s to the 1400s, how would I be catechised?
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As it was already stated here, mostly by priests in their homilies, by parents and also by religious orders.

One way that’s pretty interesting, but it wasn’t mentioned here, I think, is by pictures. The whole interior of many churches back then was covered by fresco’s. I live in Europe so I have seen a few churches where those paintings survived and it’s staggering how much information people could pack into one picture. They are beautiful, with lots of symbolism in it. I was told that a priest would talk to the people and explain those pictures to them. There were also picture Bible’s Called Biblia Pauperum (Biblia pauperum - Wikipedia) which were Bible’s with lots of these images.

The fresco’s I talked about weren’t just in big cathedrals. I visited this Summer a village called Žehra in Slovakia :slovakia: and I couldn’t believe the paintings that were there. The oldest where from the 12th century
Picture 1 - The exterior of the church in Žehra
Picture 2 - Interior
picture 3 and 4 - one of the fresco’s that most captioned my attention. I don’t understand all of the imagery, but just to get an idea of how rich this picture really is: In the middle we see the crucified Jesus. The cross “grows out of” the tree of knowledge. Adam and Eve are standing next to it and the serpent is curled around it. On the left (from the perspective of the crucified Jesus) we see the personification of the Synagogue and the Old covenant. It’s a blind woman riding a donkey. On the right we see the personification of the Church and the New testament riding a beast that’s a chimera made out of all the animals that symbolize the 4 gospel writers Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Underneath her we see the Angel expelling Adam and Eve from Paradise. I think someone wise enough could make an entire lecture just about this single image in this little church in Slowakia. (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
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Agree. At that time most of the population was unable to write or read. In Europe there are many churches with frescos describing the life of Jesus, the stories from the Old Testament etc.
Very famous for example the Cappella Degli Scrovegni in Italy by Giotto (frescos with life of Mary, life of Jesus, vices and virtues, last judgement etc)
 
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Page 33 in the introduction of the Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila, by Kearnan Kavanaugh OCD abd Otilio Rodriguez OCD
Worth Recalling is that in the Spain of that time, the faithful were unable to read Scripture, unless of course, they had knowledge of Latin, since no vernacular edition was permitted.
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Similar was written in other works by the same authors, but I don’t recall which ones.
 
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JimR-OCDS said:
Page 33 in the introduction of the Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila, by Kearnan Kavanaugh OCD abd Otilio Rodriguez OCD
Worth Recalling is that in the Spain of that time, the faithful were unable to read Scripture, unless of course, they had knowledge of Latin, since no vernacular edition was permitted.
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Many people equate “translations not permitted” with “scripture denied to the masses”.
And that’s a silly fundamentalist-style projection of modern culture on a different time.

In those days:
The population was largely illiterate. Maintaining the integrity and universality of the language was a big deal.
Books were expensive and the printing press was not invented until the 1400’s. So obviously, the masses did not have books. So yea, you chain the bible to the pulpit cause replacing it is difficult.
Communication was slow and patient.

Modern communication is ubiquitous and instant. We have a glut of communication in every language.
You can’t superimpose modern communications expectations on peoples of different times and places. Those kinds of accusations against the Church are ignorant.
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It was denied to the Masses as the Church knew that the masses for the most part, were illiterale and certainly couldn’t read Latin.
 
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They were not allowed to read any translation other than Latin
 
And if they could read in the vernacular, they couldn’t read the Bible, because it was written in Latin.
 
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