from PART VI - LATE MEDIEVAL SOCIETY (c. 1350–1520)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
The beginning as well as the end of the period 1350–1520 is marked by historical events of considerable significance both in Nordic and general European church history. In 1350 most churches with their institutions faced the acute as well as the long-term effects of the Black Death. The year 1520, on the other hand, was the year in which Luther definitely broke with the papacy, publishing two of his main programmatic works, An den Adel deutscher Nation and the treatise on the Babylonian captivity of the Church, and burning the papal bull of excommunication. It was also the year of the ‘Stockholm Massacre’ in which two bishops were executed in flagrant disregard of privilegium canonis.
In 1350 the Church, like the State, faced new and great challenges just when its resources had been greatly reduced. Its national and international organisation was in principle still intact, and in Scandinavia no doubts were raised about its raison d’être. In 1520, however, questions were raised about its organisation, teaching and practices.
At the beginning of the period the Danish ecclesiastical sphere of influence had already been reduced by the sale of Estonia to the Teutonic Order in 1347. In the course of the period the Norwegian church province lost several of its suffragan sees. In 1349 the bishop of the Hebrides (Sodor) was exempted by the pope from his obligation to visit his metropolitan, the archbishop of Nidaros. The papal schism also led to a division of the see, as Man was subordinated to York in the fifteenth century and to Canterbury in the sixteenth century, while the Hebrides (Episcopatus Insularum), for a period directly subordinated to the pope, followed the obedience of Avignon like the other Scottish sees and was in 1472 together with Orkney subordinated to the recently established province of St Andrews.
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