Religion During Middle Ages

[dominikus28]

Were people during the middle ages and old times (Roman Empire times up to the 16th century) super religious? I always thought that people were very religious back then and that only recently people have stopped taking religion seriously.
Was contraception and premarital sex widespread during middle ages?
Nowadays it seems like every Catholic I know is a Catholic-in-name-only. The only people that believe in EVERYTHING the Church teaches are very few. Did people believe in everything the church taught back in the middle ages? Or was it the same as today?
Also, it seems like during the reformation, religion was a mostly political thing. I find it hard that if people were so religious, the whole country would suddenly convert to Protestantism just because the King did so. A friend told me that the only reason Poland remained Catholic was because if they had become Lutheran or Eastern Orthodox, they would have been conquered by Germany or Russia respectively. I’d like to think that it is because they were religious and not indifferent to religion.
Thanks

 

[Trishie]

It is very easy to generalize, and to judge, especially regarding the past, but even regarding the present.
May God strengthen us in our living out of the Sacraments and of Christ’s gospel of love of God above all and others as self. May God always keep us centered in these as the principle focus of our lives and our thought.

God’s kindest blessings to you!

 

[Katrina5]

Were people during the middle ages and old times (Roman Empire times up to the 16th century) super religious? I always thought that people were very religious back then and that only recently people have stopped taking religion seriously.
Was contraception and premarital sex widespread during middle ages?
Nowadays it seems like every Catholic I know is a Catholic-in-name-only. The only people that believe in EVERYTHING the Church teaches are very few. Did people believe in everything the church taught back in the middle ages? Or was it the same as today?
Also, it seems like during the reformation, religion was a mostly political thing. I find it hard that if people were so religious, the whole country would suddenly convert to Protestantism just because the King did so. A friend told me that the only reason Poland remained Catholic was because if they had become Lutheran or Eastern Orthodox, they would have been conquered by Germany or Russia respectively. I’d like to think that it is because they were religious and not indifferent to religion.
Thanks

This is just my opinion, but I think a mostly peasant, agrarian people were closer to the earth and creation, and thus to God.

They didn’t have mass communication like we do now, and also while I’m sure premarital sex was around back then, they didn’t have the contraception we have now, because they didn’t even know how babies were created, at least on the scientific level.

Remember, Henry VIII thought his wives were not giving him a son, when we now know the husband is responsible for the gender of the child.

There was no separation of Church and State, so yes, politics and religion were mixed together, not always in a good way.

The problems that arose because of this produced some great saints, who were definitely not “name only”. Think of Saints Francis of Assisi, Francis deSales, Anthony of Padua, Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc…very devoted to God and the church, and overcoming great obstacles, personal as well as political, in service to the Church.

 

[VetA]

Were people during the middle ages and old times (Roman Empire times up to the 16th century) super religious? I always thought that people were very religious back then and that only recently people have stopped taking religion seriously.
Was contraception and premarital sex widespread during middle ages?
Nowadays it seems like every Catholic I know is a Catholic-in-name-only. The only people that believe in EVERYTHING the Church teaches are very few. Did people believe in everything the church taught back in the middle ages? Or was it the same as today?
Also, it seems like during the reformation, religion was a mostly political thing. I find it hard that if people were so religious, the whole country would suddenly convert to Protestantism just because the King did so. A friend told me that the only reason Poland remained Catholic was because if they had become Lutheran or Eastern Orthodox, they would have been conquered by Germany or Russia respectively. I’d like to think that it is because they were religious and not indifferent to religion.
Thanks

there were probably people who were devout, people who were luke warm, and people who didn’t care. you would probably have to talk to a history professor that is a specialist in mid evil history or read a book about it,

 

[Trishie]

there were probably people who were devout, people who were luke warm, and people who didn’t care. you would probably have to talk to a history professor that is a specialist in mid evil history or read a book about it,

You might find this website helpful. Fr. Michael Witt
Assoc. Professor of Church History

michaeljohnwitt.com/

 

[Lycorth]

Were people during the middle ages and old times (Roman Empire times up to the 16th century) super religious? I always thought that people were very religious back then and that only recently people have stopped taking religion seriously.

On average, people back then were orders of magnitude more religious than they are now. A large part of it comes from the fact that before the so-called “Enlightenment”, anti-religious attitudes were not at all common. Religion was a part of one’s life, an integrated part.

Irreligiousness was always a problem, though.

Was contraception and premarital sex widespread during middle ages?

I wouldn’t say contraception was at all prevalent, due to the sheer lack of methods available. Premarital sex was always an issue, though perhaps not quite as much so as now. It was always a common sin, though.

Nowadays it seems like every Catholic I know is a Catholic-in-name-only. The only people that believe in EVERYTHING the Church teaches are very few. Did people believe in everything the church taught back in the middle ages? Or was it the same as today?

On average, there was much more assent to Church teaching. On the other hand, methods of communication and proclamation of doctrine were not as smooth and fast as now, so it oftentimes went both ways.

Again, on average, it was a much more Catholic era.

Also, it seems like during the reformation, religion was a mostly political thing. I find it hard that if people were so religious, the whole country would suddenly convert to Protestantism just because the King did so. A friend told me that the only reason Poland remained Catholic was because if they had become Lutheran or Eastern Orthodox, they would have been conquered by Germany or Russia respectively. I’d like to think that it is because they were religious and not indifferent to religion.
Thanks

Indeed. Countries like Poland remained loyal because they did not give in to Protestant heresies. Those heresies spread in places like Germany, because some such as the key Lutheran heresy began there, and in Scandinavian countries because of their closer cultural ties to German-speaking areas. Certainly, Poland was not afraid of being conquered by anyone; Polish history is one of dogged defiance, not cowering politicking.

I highly suggest purchasing *The Building of Christendom *and The Glory of Christendom by Dr. Warren H. Carroll, an expert in Catholic and European history. Those two volumes will answer all your questions about the Middle Ages, the truth about the intermingling of Church and state (hint: it wasn’t near as bad as we are led to believe), and the honest facts about the Church. Dr. Carroll treats errant kings and popes with frank honesty, and tells us about the true-to-life exploits of many a great pope, prelate, or simple saint. The truth about the Middle Ages is revealed in great detail in his books, which no Catholic should be without.

 

[Ignatius]

Were people during the middle ages and old times (Roman Empire times up to the 16th century) super religious?

You certainly don’t have to go back that far. When I was a child, We’d see the neighbors every Sunday morning heading out to church. Everyone went to church every Sunday. There was confession before every mass.Also, men very much respected women. If a boy got ‘fresh’ with a girl or tried to take advantage of her, he’d get a little ‘talking to’ by here brothers or other relatives. Honor was important as was honesty. A generation before that, thousands of young men gave everything, their very lives, to defend the country and defeat Nazism. Watch, Band of Brothers sometime. My dad says it was pretty accurate, except they left out all of the praying. They would all pray and, if possible, go to confession and attend mass before going into battle.

 

[Mintaka]

Human nature is pretty much always the same. Societal and individual standards, and the work that society is prepared to put into them, do vary. You’ll find that every time and place has certain prevalent sins characteristic of them, and certain sins that almost nobody commits. These vary, depending on culture.

In the Middle Ages, in some times and places, there was a lot of energy put into preventing premarital sex. In others, not so much. It was a mixed bag.

You had a lot of remnants of the old Roman system, which discouraged early marriage and encouraged a certain division of the sexes; and then you had the pressures of making alliances between families and of a high death rate, which tended to encourage marriage before puberty (though consummation after puberty). Since betrothals were extremely binding, some societies winked at post-betrothal premarital sex. Also, although the Church always regarded marriage as binding (as Jesus commanded) and holy, for most of the Middle Ages a marriage was created by a legal contract between families or individuals. Only gradually did a wedding become something proclaimed at the church, and then a Sacrament performed in church.

Contraception in various forms has apparently been attempted by humans for as far back as we have records. This didn’t mean it worked or was always non-fatal for the user (as indeed, people still manage to kill themselves these days with such things). You had to be regarding yourself as pretty shameless to be doing it in the Middle Ages, in most times and places, but it was certainly done.

Degree of devoutness also varied in time and place. Most people seem to have been reasonably devout, and have known a decent amount about what they believed and why. Some people, especially backcountry peasants, were a little vague about it; but honestly, one meets educated suburbanites with less religious knowledge than the average medieval peasant (with far less excuse for ignorance). Some people didn’t care about religion, or didn’t let their belief affect their morals; but that happens today. A lot of people liked to complain about priests, monks, friars, or nuns who didn’t live up to their vows. You get people calling this sort of literature anti-religious, but mostly it sounds to me like people who want other people to be more religious. Pretty much every club and guild did religious things as well as secular activities. Religion was much more a part of daily life, and of course people celebrated holy days in a big way. There were even whole cities that were run on a religious basis by their lay citizenry, as Fr. Augustine Thompson has chronicled in his book Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes.

There were all sorts of forms of popular devotion going, that really came from the hearts and minds of ordinary people. So overall, I’d say that people weren’t indifferent to religion.

Re: the Reformation, people weren’t exactly asked if they wanted to be Protestant or Catholic. They were just legally declared as such, and it was enforced with arms and exorbitant fines. An awful lot of common people did migrate around Europe at that time, in order to follow their beliefs, and a lot of people tried hard to do so. (The English weren’t allowed to leave England, for the most part.) There was a huge amount of civil disorder and crazy Protestant peasants roaming the countryside killing people, in many parts of Germany, and all sorts of dangers. There was also a lack of reliable news, in many places. There were a lot of martyrs and confessors, everywhere. So don’t think of people too harshly. The geography of European religion changed during the Reformation mostly by totalitarian force, as a continuation of the tendency to centralize all power in the king (or grand duke, or what have you), or as a revolt against kings to install yourself as one (as in Calvin’s Geneva). The people were mostly prisoners of the men with guns.