The 14th and 15th Centuries and their Effect on England’s Church
This period was one of incredible change. The church saw the growth then decline of Christianity in China following the travels of Marco Polo. The church lost territories gained by the Crusaders in Palestine, and eventually in 1453, the last of the Christians of the Byzantium Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks. The Greek Church, more cultured than the Latin, was oppressed. The contest between the papacy and the European Empire continued. Pope Innocent III claimed his power over many of the rulers of Europe and brought them to their knees. In England, when the cruel and infamous King John (reigned 1199-1216) tried to secure his personal candidate as archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope appointed his friend Stephen Langton. John resisted; the Pope responded by placing an interdict on all of England that meant the faithful were excluded from all spiritual things. The King then drove out the Pope’s clerical appointees and the Pope retaliated by excommunicating the King. The Pope declared the king’s throne forfeit and called for a crusade against the King. The King, defeated, made a humiliating submission agreeing to pay a feudal tax as a fief to the papacy.

In the papacy of Innocent III, the papacy reached the apex of its worldly powers. The papal interference throughout Europe weakened the Holy Roman Empire just as the Reformation approached. The empire had little strength to defend itself against papal demands. In 1302, the Pope claimed the height of supremacy when he declared that all temporal powers were subject to the spiritual authority of the Pope at Rome. Temporal powers were subject to the spiritual authority of the papacy, “which is judged in the person of the Pope by God alone.” He used the opinion of Thomas Aquinas, to justify his position, “that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human being to be subject to the Roman pontiff.”

One of the first great reformers of the English Church died in 1384. The years of the Great Schism 1378-1417 divided the power of the papacy between Rome and Avignon (in France). The influence of John Wyclif (132?-1384) and his teachings aroused the ire of high clergy, landowners and the papacy. He taught that all property and power were a gift to the people who held them as stewards. God was the great overlord of all creation. He taught that the Scriptures were the only law of the church. The center of the church was not the Pope or the priesthood but the whole company of the elect. He did not reject the Pope, but saw him as only one of the elect. He considered that any Pope who grasped for worldly things or seemed only interested in tax revenues was not one of the elect. He attacked the begging orders and the church as it existed. Believing the Bible to be the law of God, he decided to give it to the people in their English tongue, so between 1382-1384, the Scriptures were translated into the common language. He also attacked one of the foundational beliefs of the Roman Church, that of Transubstantiation (the belief that the bread and wine of the Eucharist literally become the flesh and blood of Christ at the consecration). The tide of the church rose against him, but he had such strong support from the King that no one dared touch him.

The peasant unrest increased not only due to reformers like Wyclif, but also because of the loss of so many workers during the “Black Death” of 1348-1350. This culminated in the Peasant Revolt of 1381.

The Archbishop of Canterbury held a synod in London that condemned the teachings of Wyclif. He was forbidden to teach at Oxford and his disciples, who continued to spread the word, were arrested. Wyclif died a free man, still supported at Court and by the people. His followers continued his teaching of a simple, deep piety of the individual and supported the freedom from taxation from foreign Popes. They supported the beginning of a commitment to nationalism. These Lollards, as they were called, were finally crushed in England with the execution of Sir John Oldcastle in 1417. However, Wyclif’s influence carried on in Bohemia as his ideas were often brought back to Prague by students who had studied in Oxford. Here John Hus became one of the strongest spokesmen for the teachings of Wyclif. He became a national hero for speaking out against the power of the Pope and for encouraging the administration of the cup to all of the laity, including children. Wyclif and Hus have often been considered the forerunners of the Reformation.

The highlights of this period included the great Schism of the Church, the beginning of the Renaissance, the plunge of the papacy into Italian politics when it returned to Rome and the rise of such preachers as the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola in Florence. The Dominican Girolamo Savonarola attempted to make the city one of penitence, by encouraging the burning of all of those things that represented immorality. He was tortured and hung by the very populace who had supported him and the Pope who resented his attacks.

A national consciousness grew remarkably during the period 1450-1500 in the western kingdoms of Europe. The royal fervor for religion led to the Spanish Inquisition and later combined with a desire for national freedom led to amazing changes in the church in England.