Edward Cairns, Ph.D.: "Christianity Through the Centuries:" Ch.14: Medie...

Edward Cairns, Ph.D.: "Christianity Through the Centuries:" Ch.14: Medieval Sunset & Modern Sunrise, 1305-1517, 269ff. Chapter 24. Attempts at Internal Reform. The Papacy was in decline from 1309-1439. Mandatory and enforced clerical celibacy was never workable and conflicted with human nature and God’s Word. Concubinage, sodomy with bend-over priests, turning a blind eye to priest's live-in housekeepers, adultery, and children resulted. Also, an inhouse insurance policy where a priest could have his concubine, if he paid the Bishop his annual premium thus avoiding ecclesiastical accountability. A fool’s errand ordered up by the Roman sinner. The Babylonian Captivity and Great Schism, 1309-1377, with the Roman sinner seated in southern France at Avignon than Rome. Papal power reached its zenith under Innocent III, but declined after Boniface 8’s efforts to reduce French and English kings to his Corporals. The Roman sinners of the period were: Clement 5, Greg 1, Urban 6, Clement 7. Dual Popes developed with their own factotums. People were watching as the Elephants banged into each other. The grass suffered. Also, the confiscatory taxation of the Roman Sinners was onerous: two Papal courts at Rome and Avignon needed $$, income from Papal estates, annates or the first year of income from an in-coming Bishop, purveyance-costs that the community paid as the Roman Sinner traveled through their parts, right of spoil where personal property of upper clerks went to the Roman Sinner upon death, Peter’s Pence paid annually as a tax upon Roman inmates in Europe, as well as other confiscatory schemes like $$ on pilgrimages, chantries Masses, and, of course, indulgence-peddling. Also, in this period of decline for the Roman Sinners, mystics of varied types arose, efforts at reanimation and vitality despite Latin services ringing in the ears of the inmates. Scholasticism in the universities did not help the man in the pew. Throw in the Black Plague of 1347-1349 that carried off 33% of Europe’s population to the next world. Mystics: Bernard of Clairveaux, Meister Eckhart, Catherine of Sienna, John Tauler, Heinrich Suso, the Brethren of Common Life, John of Ruysbroek, Gerhard Grrote, Thomas a Kempis—people were tired of externalist, Latinized, scholasticized, mechanical, ritualist religion with a name for life but were dead. One can understand the gathering forces leading to the liberation and enlightenment of the Reformation. And we haven’t even gotten to the Reformatory Councils of the 15th century yet. People knew things needed reforming on several levels.