2. 420 -1498
• The church was very rich and powerful during the Middle Ages.
I. The church was powerful because it owned land. People who grew crops on this land had to give one tenth of everything
they grew to the church. This was called the Tithe.
II. It controlled People’ s beliefs
• It was rich. pardons were known as Indulgences.
The Church made a lot of money this way, as people - especially rich people - tried to buy
their way to heaven.
It was not controlled by the King
The pyramid of power within the Medieval Church was a follows:
• The Pope
• Bishop
• Arch Bishop
• Arch Deacon
• Abbot
• Prior
• Dean
• Monks
3. CORRUPTION
• By declaring itself to be the voice of the lord, it took advantage of the faith of its people to scam
them from money, goods, and even religious well-being – using concepts of redemption and
holiness as selling points for various scams.
• In the 1500s, there was little fear of eternal damnation by sinners – they could simply buy the
redemption they needed! Corrupt priests would absolve criminals of their sins, often at a steep
price.
• This, when combined with the strong fear of hell by many peasants of the era, lead to a
constant stream of worried men who were more than willing to pay for their passage into
heaven.
• Clergy members would also go so far as to selling bits of animal bone and other false items as
having been from or once owned by Christ.
• This allowed them to make even more money off of the uneducated worshipers that were
members of their churches.
• Meanwhile, this money was not going towards appropriate religious causes. As many accounts
from people of the time attest to, it was being siphoned directly into the hands of the clergy .
4. TORTURE
• The barbarous custom of punishment by torture was on several occasions condemned by the
Church.
• As early as 866, we find, from Pope Nicholas V's letter to the Bulgarians, that their custom of
torturing the accused was considered contrary to divine as well as to human law: "For," says he, "a
confession should be voluntary, and not forced. By means of the torture, an innocent man may
suffer to the utmost without making any avowal; and, in such a case, what a crime for the judge! Or
the person may be subdued by pain, and may acknowledge himself guilty, although he be not so,
which throws an equally great sin upon the judge." Despite this, and other please, the practice of
torturing victims continued.
• Medieval Torture was a freely accepted form of punishment in the Middle Ages and was only
abolished in England in 1640.
5. TORTURE CONT.
• The inquisition was established by the papacy in during the Middle Ages. Their mission
was to seek out, try, and sentence persons guilty of heresy. In the early church the usual
penalty for heresy was excommunication. But as the need for the church to eliminate
heretics increased so did the penalty.
In 1478 that need to eliminate heretics increased. The Spanish Inquisition was approved
by Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I. The Roman Catholic Church then set out to seek
out and punish heretics. Working in secret, the inquisitors often misused their power.
Many people were tortured and killed. The most sought out of groups were Jews, Muslims
and Protestants. These people were imprisoned without hearing the charges against
them, and kept in stinking dungeons, dark and vermin infested, alone with their
excrement. Few people criticized the inquisition and the actions of the church but it slowly
died down during the 1500's.
6. FORMS OF TORTURE
• Ripping out teeth •
/ nails
• Beating
• Blinding
• Boiling
• Bone breaking
• Branding and • Dislocation
Burning
• Drowning
• Castration • Flagellation, whipping and beating
• Choking • Roasting
• Cutting • Genital mutilation
• Disfigurement • Limb/finger removal
• Starvation
• Dislocation
• Tongue removal
