The 14th century saw major developments in Christianity, including the Western Schism, the decline of the Crusades, and the appearance of precursors to Protestantism.
Inquisition
King Philip IV of France created an inquisition for his suppression of the Knights Templar during the 14th century.Norman, The Roman Catholic Church an Illustrated History (2007), p. 93 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella formed another in 1480, originally to deal with distrusted ex-Jewish and ex-Muslim converts.Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition (1997), pp. 48-49 Over a 350-year period, this Spanish Inquisition executed between 3,000 and 4,000 people,Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through the Ages (2005), pp.150-152 representing around two percent of those accused.Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition (1997), pp. 59, 203 The inquisition played a major role in the final expulsion of Islam from the kingdoms of Sicily and Spain.McManners, Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (1990), p.187 In 1482, Pope Sixtus IV condemned its excesses but Ferdinand ignored his protests.Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition (1997), p.49 Historians note that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of these inquisitions.Armstrong, The European Reformation (2002), p. 103McManners, Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (1990), p. 215Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through the Ages (2005), p. 146 According to Edward Norman, this view "identified the entire Catholic Church ... with [the] occasional excesses" wrought by secular rulers.
Western Schism The Western Schism, or Papal Schism, was a prolonged period of crisis in Latin Christendom from 1378 to 1416, when there were two or more claimants to the See of Rome and there was conflict concerning the rightful holder of the papacy. The conflict was political, rather than doctrinal, in nature.
To escape instability in Rome, Clement V in 1309 became the first of seven popes to reside in the fortified city of Avignon in southern FranceDuffy, Saints and Sinners (1997), p. 122 during a period known as the Avignon Papacy. For 69 years popes resided in Avignon rather than Rome. This was not only an obvious source of not only confusion but of political animosity as the prestige and influence of the city of Rome waned without a resident pontiff. The papacy returned to Rome in 1378 at the urging of Catherine of Siena and others who felt the See of Peter should be in the Roman church.McManners, Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (1990), p. 232, Chapter 6 Christian Civilization by Colin Morris (University of Southampton)Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through the Ages (2005), p. 155 Though Pope Gregory XI, a Frenchman, returned to Rome in 1378, the strife between Italian and French factions intensified, especially following his subsequent death.
In 1378 the conclave elected an Italian from Naples, Pope Urban VI; his intransigence in office soon alienated the French cardinals, who withdrew to a conclave of their own, asserting the previous election was invalid since its decision had been made under the duress of a riotous mob. They elected one of their own, Robert of Geneva, who took the name Pope Clement VII. By 1379, he was back in the palace of popes in Avignon, while Urban VI remained in Rome.
For nearly forty years, there were two papal curias and two sets of cardinals, each electing a new pope for Rome or Avignon when death created a vacancy. Efforts at resolution further complicated the issue when a third compromise pope was elected in 1409.McManners, Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (1990), p. 240, Chapter 7 The Late Medieval Church and its Reformation by Patrick Collinson (University of Cambridge) The matter was finally resolved in 1417 at the Council of Constance where the cardinals called upon all three claimants to the papal throne to resign and held a new election naming Martin V pope.
Western theology Scholastic theology continued to develop as the 13th century gave way to the fourteenth, becoming ever more complex and subtle in its distinctions and arguments. There was a rise to dominance of the nominalist or voluntarist theologies of men like William of Ockham. The 14th century was also a time in which movements of widely varying character worked for the reform of the institutional church, such as conciliarism and Lollardy. Spiritual movements such as the Devotio Moderna also flourished.
Notable authors include:
Duns Scotus (1266-1308) Ramon Lull (1232-1315) Giles of Rome (1243-1316) Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) Peter Auriol (1280-1322) Marsilius of Padua (1275-1342) Nicholas of Lyra (1270-1349) Thomas Bradwardine (1290-1349) William of Ockham (1287-1347) Richard Rolle (1290-1349) Gregory of Rimini (1300-1358) Jean Buridan (1300-1358) Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) Theologia Germanica (anonymous- but often attributed to Tauler) Henry Suso (1295-1366) John of Ruysbroeck (1293-1381) Nicole Oresme (1320-1382) John Wycliffe (1320-1384) Geert Groote (1340-1384) Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) Walter Hilton (1340-1396) The Cloud of Unknowing (anonymous - but often attributed to Hilton) The Book of Privy Counseling (anonymous - but often attributed to Hilton) Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)
Hesychast Controversy
Under church tradition the practice of Hesychasm has it beginnings in the bible, Matthew 6:6 and the Philokalia. The tradition of contemplation with inner silence or tranquility is shared by all Eastern ascetics having its roots in the Egyptian traditions of monasticism exemplified by such Orthodox monastics as St Anthony of Egypt.
About the year 1337 Hesychasm attracted the attention of a learned member of the Orthodox Church, Barlaam, a Calabrian monk who at that time held the office of abbot in the Monastery of St Saviour's in Constantinople and who visited Mount Athos. Mount Athos was at the height of its fame and influence under the reign of Andronicus III Palaeologus and under the 'first-ship' of the Protos Symeon. On Mount Athos, Barlaam encountered Hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices, also reading the writings of the teacher in Hesychasm of St Gregory Palamas, an Athonite monk.
Trained in Western scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalised by Hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than the Hesychasts taught. Barlaam took exception to, as heretical and blasphemous, the doctrine entertained by the Hesychasts as to the nature of the uncreated light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of Hesychast practice. It was maintained by the Hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to that light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. This Barlaam held to be polytheistic, inasmuch as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible (immanent) and an invisible God (transcendent).
On the Hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by St Gregory Palamas, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend Hesychasm from the Barlaam's attacks. St Gregory was well-educated in Greek philosophy (dialectical method) and thus able to defend Hesychasm using Western precepts. In the 1340s, he defended Hesychasm at three different synods in Constantinople and also wrote a number of works in its defense.
In 1341 the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and was presided over by the Emperor Andronicus. The synod, taking into account the regard in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held, condemned Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. One of Barlaam's friends, Gregory Akindynos, who originally was also a friend of St Gregory Palamas, took up the controversy, and three other synods on the subject were held, at the second of which the followers of Barlaam gained a brief victory. But in 1351 at a synod under the presidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, Hesychast doctrine and Palamas' Essence-Energies distinction was established as the doctrine of the Orthodox Church.
Following the decision of 1351, there was strong repression against anti-Palamist thinkers. Kalekas reports on this repression as late as 1397, and for theologians in disagreement with Palamas, there was ultimately no choice but to emigrate and convert to Catholicism, a path taken by Kalekas as well as Demetrios Kydones and Ioannes Kypariossiotes. This exodus of highly educated Greek scholars, later reinforced by refugees following the Fall of Constantinople of 1453, had a significant influence on the first generation (that of Petrarch and Boccaccio) of the incipient Italian Renaissance.
The Roman Catholic Church has never fully accepted Hesychasm, especially the distinction between the energies or operations of God and the essence of God, and the notion that those energies or operations of God are uncreated. In Roman Catholic theology as it has developed since the scholastic period, the essence of God can be known but only in the next life; the grace of God is always created; and the essence of God is pure act, so that there can be no distinction between the energies or operations and the essence of God (see, e.g., the Summa Theologiae of St Thomas Aquinas). Some of these positions depend on Aristotelian metaphysics.
Contemporary historians Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos and Nicephorus Gregoras deal very copiously with this subject, taking the Hesychast and Barlaamite sides respectively. The Orthodox perspective is one that states that there is scientific knowledge based on demonstration and spiritual knowledge based on demonstration. That the two understandings must remain separate in order to have a proper understanding of both in order to reject dualism. The Eastern approach to understanding God and spiritual matters as one that should not be approached with a Scholastic and or dialectical method (philosophy).University of Athens - Department of Theology Respected fathers of the church have held that these councils that agree that experiential prayer is Orthodox, refer to these as councils as Ecumenical Councils Eight and Nine.
Monasticism
Roman Catholic orders Many distinct monastic orders developed within Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. Bridgettines, founded c.1350 Hieronymites, founded in Spain in 1364, an eremitic community formally known as the "Order of Saint Jerome"
Protestant monasticism Monasticism in the Protestant tradition proceeds from John Wycliffe who organized the Lollard Preacher Order (the "Poor Priests") to promote his reformation views.Lawrence, C. H. Medieval Monasticism. 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2001.
Protestant Reformation precursors Unrest because of the Western Schism excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church. A new nationalism also challenged the relatively internationalist medieval world. The first of a series of disruptive and new perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University, then from Jan Hus at the University of Prague. The Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance (1414–1417). The conclave condemned Jan Hus, who was executed by burning in spite of a promise of safe-conduct. At the command of Pope Martin V, Wycliffe was posthumously exhumed and burned as a heretic twelve years after his burial.
Crusade aftermath