The Church in the Middle Ages
marriages for the kings.
The Middle Ages (also called the Medieval Period
or the Dark Ages) in Europe covered the years
between AD 500 and 1500. The Middle Ages
began when the Roman Empire came to an end,
and it ended as a new period of growth in cities,
the arts, and sciences began. (That period is
called the Renaissance.) During this time the
church became the most powerful organization
across European society.
The most famous of the involvements of the
church in war were the Crusades. These were
wars of Christians against Muslims. The head of
the Catholic Church, the Pope, called on the kings
of Europe to help rescue the Holy Land from
Muslim control. And the kings and the armies of
Europe responded. There were several waves of
European kings, knights, and armies that
traveled to the Middle East. But they were not
successful.
Christianity in the Middle ages.
The Roman Catholic Church dominated
European life. Almost everyone was a Christian.
In fact, it was dangerous to say that you were not
a Christian. You could be arrested and tortured
or killed. Anyone who was not a Christian and
obedient to the Catholic Church was considered
a traitor and a dangerous enemy.
These “enemies” included people of other
religions. Most of these others were the Jews
and the Muslims who lived in Europe. But there
were also a very few people who continued to
follow the ancient religions of Europe. Often
these people were considered witches or
worshipers of demons.
There were also a few small groups of Christians
who did not agree with the Catholic Church.
Some of these followed Jesus in ways that were
more like the Christians of the first century. But
these people were also considered enemies and
were often persecuted and killed as heretics. (A
heretic was someone who believed differently
from the way the Roman Catholic Church
taught.) For that reason they often met in secret
and were considered outlaws.
Political Power.
Gradually the church became as powerful or
more powerful than the kings. Not only did the
head of the Catholic Church crown the kings but
they ordered the kings to war and arranged
The attempts of the Popes to arrange alliances
and maintain control of Europe through
marriages between the royalty was more
successful. But when the Pope ordered the king
of Spain to marry the “virgin queen” of England
in order to bring England back into the control of
the Catholic Church, his plan failed. That failure
marked the beginning of decline in the power of
the Popes over Europe.
Medieval Society
Not only did the church dominate politics, it
dominated society. A church (building was at the
center of every community large or small. The
social life of the community revolved around the
church and Christian festivals.
In larger cities where bishops were the religious
authorities, huge churches were built. Many of
these cathedrals still stand in European cities.
In villages, more humble church buildings
occupied the center of the community and
congregations were served by a local priest.
business. But there was another side to
Christianity.
Missionaries
A missionary takes the message of Jesus to
people who have not yet heard about him. They
often chose poverty and risked their lives to
take the message of Jesus to people who lived in
harsh and difficult places.
In either case, the church and the men and
women who served provided stability in
Medieval society. And many of these local
priests and their people were wonderfully
faithful to their calling to live as Christians.
The Church Becomes Rich.
As the church grew more powerful politically, it
also became wealthy. It seemed at times the
leaders of the church were more interested in
making money than in teaching about Jesus.
One way the church became rich was through
the selling of spiritual favors. A wealthy person
could buy forgiveness from the church. Poorer
people paid taxes to the church. Gradually much
of the wealth of Europe belonged to the church.
The church used the money to build great church
buildings and to buy property. The property was
then rented and brought even more money into
the church.
Since money is power, the church became even
more powerful.
This was all very harmful to Christianity. It is
hard to imagine how the simple following of
Jesus, loving people and caring for the poor could
have been transformed into this huge religious
There were missionaries during the Middle Ages
who took the message of Jesus to the Germans
and Scandinavians in north western Europe. It
was hard, but they were successful. Germany
became Christian by the late 500s. The Vikings of
Norway and Sweden had churches in their
villages by A.D. 1000. When the Vikings
colonized Iceland and
then established a brief
colony in North America,
there were a churches
there.
The most famous
missionary work of the
Middle Ages was begun
by Patrick. Patrick was
the son of an English
family. At sixteen he was
captured by Irish raiders
who sold him as a slave
to an Irish farmer. Six
years later he escaped.
But during those six year he had become a true
follower of Jesus. Later he returned to tell the
people who had enslaved him about Jesus. By
the end of his life all of Ireland had become
Christian.
But that was not the end of the story. The
passion of Patrick to preach to those who did not
know about Jesus carried over to the next
generation of Christian is Ireland, and out of the
Irish monasteries would come many men and
women who would take the gospel back to pagan
Britain and beyond into Europe. Some have said
that it was the Irish who saved Europe, and even
though this is an overstatement, the truth was
that missionaries like Columba made a huge
difference in Europe.
Monasteries.
In addition to the churches and the church
community that centered around the church,
there were monasteries. These were
communities of Christians who had dedicated
themselves to serving God. These included both
men and women. The men were called monks,
and the women were called nuns.
Some monasteries were dedicated to learning
and to copying the Bible and other books. Some
were more like hospitals, where the sick were
cared for. Some provided rooms for travelers.
Some were agricultural communities. These
monks studied agriculture and by their example
and teaching they improved farming through the
Middle Ages. Monasteries preserved culture and
learning during the Middle Ages. Some of them
became the seed of the new universities that
would spring up in the Renaissance. They
probably were the most important positive
expression of Christianity in the Middle Ages.
Muslim Invasion
The religion of Islam originated in Arabia in the
Middle East. It was a built on Jewish and
Christian faith and taught one true God. But it
was religion with a twist. It taught that the
Islamic faith was spread through political and
military conquest.
In the interest of honesty, during the Middle
Ages when the church held power
politically, Christians also practiced
conquest with the intention of spreading
the Christian faith to others. But that was a
perversion of what Christians are taught in
the Bible.
Beginning in the 600s Islam spread across
northern Africa and by the 700s into Spain. Most
of those places were Christian. As Islamic
warriors conquered they usually allowed
Christians to remain. They seldom forced
conversion or threatened death for those who
did not convert. (That is contrary to what we are
seeing today with the radical version of Islam in
the Middle East.) Rather the Muslim rulers
expected that with a change in the culture and
religion there would in a generation or two be an
increase in conversions to Islam. And that is how
it has gone both in the West and the East.
But there was resistance from the Christian
nations. That story will be told later.