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The Burdens of Church History in the Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2014

Barbara Newman
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Extract

We live in apocalyptic times. But, for a chilling sense that the end is at hand, one cannot beat the Middle Ages. So when I reflect on “the burdens of church history” as a medievalist, I find it bracing to ponder some ways that the era's most thoughtful prophetic writers brooded on church history. They were at least as concerned as we about complicity in an institution they saw as compromised at best, and at worst, in the service of Antichrist. St. Hildegard (1098–1179), though orthodox enough to have been declared a Doctor of the Church in 2012, wrote scathing letters to the most powerful prelates of her day and preached sermons against their negligence. No less scathing was William Langland (fl. 1365–1385), author of the sprawling allegorical vision of Piers Plowman. Langland decided to revise his poem after its prophecies about the dispossession of clergy played a role in the Great Rising of 1381, in which the archbishop of Canterbury was murdered. Wisely, he concealed his identity; we know his name almost by accident.

Type
Forum on “The Burdens of Church History”
Information
Church History , Volume 83 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 1009 - 1013
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2014 

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References

52 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias III.11.1, eds. Führkötter, Adelgundis and Carlevaris, Angela, CCCM 43–43A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), 578Google Scholar. My translation.

53 Langland, William, Will's Vision of Piers Plowman: An Alliterative Verse Translation (B-text) XIX.219–224, trans. Donaldson, E. Talbot (New York: Norton, 1990), 221Google Scholar.

54 Ibid. XX.380–382, p. 241.

55 The dispute concerned an excommunicated nobleman buried in Hildegard's monastic cemetery. The prelates of Mainz, asserting that he had no right to burial in sacred ground, demanded that his body be exhumed. Hildegard insisted that he had been reconciled to the church before his death, refused to dig up the corpse, and removed the grave markers so that no one else could do so. Since the man cannot be identified, it is hard to interpret the politics behind this incident.

56 For a comparison of the two (and Hildegard's possible influence on Langland), see Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn, Reformist Apocalypticism and Plowman, Piers (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 26–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Newman, Barbara, “Coming Out of the (Sacristy) Closet,” Religion & Literature 42 (2010): 279–297Google Scholar.

58 Rev. 21:2.

59 Hildegard, Scivias II.3, trans. Hart, Columba and Bishop, Jane (New York: Paulist, 1990), 169Google Scholar. Color facsimiles of the illuminations can be found in the edition in note 1 and on many websites.

60 Ibid. II.4.13, pp. 195–196.

61 Cf. Dan. 2:31–45.

62 Ibid. II.11.13–18, pp. 497–499.

63 Benjamin, Walter, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Arendt, Hannah, trans. Zohn, Harry (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 257–258Google Scholar.

64 Hildegard, Scivias III.11.40, trans. Hart and Bishop, 508.

65 Langland, Piers Plowman XIX.325–28, p. 225.

66 Ibid. XX.80–87, p. 232.

67 Maffly-Kipp, Laurie F., “The Burdens of Church History,” Church History 82, no. 2 (June 2013): 366CrossRefGoogle Scholar.