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History 104A, October 21: The Way of the Cross

Please take out your crosses, whether you're a Muslim or Jewish.

Beat me back so I don't burn myself with your crosses.

What we were doing is using that little diagram for the cross

that's in your little packet to talk about the power and the role of

the church during medieval times. And of course medieval times is I

guess I never gave you a date and time line. What we're really

talking about is the period from 500 to 1500 CE. Now, we identified

to you that the church in a sense begins with the crucifixion of

Christ or before, but the power or the role, the uniqueness, the

development, the expansion of the church more or less beginning in the

fourth century really begins to reach its main peak and control with

Gregory the great, the Pope that is in the end of the sixth century.

And continues in many ways until 1517 when, although Christianity

continues as a major force, what we now know as Catholicism begins to

weaken its hold over western Europe with of course Martin Luther's

hosting of the 95 thesis, and we're coming up on the anniversary of

it. He did it on Halloween, October 31st. I'm not sure they

celebrated Halloween in 1517. That's something to look into, the

harvest, the forests, but certainly they did celebrate all hallows

night or all hallows Eve.

Okay. We went halfway around the cross. We stopped at the

bottom with the truce of God. During medieval times, it was

considered sinful to fight on holy days. And therefore, during the

holy days, you were supposed to cease battle. Of course some of you

know that we have sort of that same tradition. We stop fighting for

example during World War II around Christmas time -- I'm sorry, World

War 1 -- so that we could play soccer between the trenches between the

German and the French. That tradition continues basically through

today. However, the person who really never followed that tradition

was George Washington. If you recall, he attacked the Hessians on

Christmas day after they were all nice and drunk. He was the father

of our country, so we can forgive him his transgressions since he was

considered a good Christian. The only one of the fathers of the

republic that really saw himself thoroughly as a Christian, but that's

another story.

The problem was that by 1100 there were about 200 Christian

holidays. How can you have fun and not kill people if you only have

165 days to do it in? Generally, despite the fact that it was

considered a sin, the battles continued. Religion does play a role

and people get very upset when it violates even in war, like wars are

supposed to have rules. We're supposed to be gentlemen and Americans

are not supposed to burn the bodies of the Muslims because we are

supposed to -- oh well. I've always got a kick out of that. How do

we maintain the sense of morality in the immorality of war? But

that's a personal statement. We'll let that go.

Hospitality -- it was the church pretty much that created the

hospices, places where people would stop on their way traveling. They

actually ran in some ways many of the inns by the monasteries by the

churches where people stopped off. They went into a convent; they

went into a monastery. They stayed overnight and they provided not

only the hospitality itself, but they gave a certain level of what

we're going to talk about later, sanction actually and charity. In

other words, the main institutions that we identify with private

industry today or identified with government were under the control of

the church. And of course some of our best literature, I suppose,

coming out of the high middle ages deals with travelers. And we'll

talk about false images a little later, like people stayed in one

place. There was a lot of traveling going on often to pilgrimages,

pilgrimages to holy places to receive some sort of grace. It is

considered good works. And you could achieve salivation by going to

places that were sacred, similar to traveling to the place where

Christ was crucified, to the holy land. And still we go to places in

Europe around the Vatican and places like that, there are people who

are going to sell you pieces of the true cross. They have all these

little images that are going to help you in your salivation at least

for Catholics, the feeling at one time was that these were good deeds,

quite different from the Protestant sense of Martin Luther where it

was based on faith and faith alone rather than good working. You did

your good works under Protestantism because you had good faith. Under

catholicism, the good faith were the keystones to the salivation.

Interdict -- you know what excommunication is. Excommunication

is when an individual is forbidden from taking the sacraments. They

are declared a heretic or removed from the church in some fashion. An

interdict does it to the whole country. An interdict excommunicates

everyone in the country whether they were good or bad for the failings

of the kings, of the nation, of the state. Translation, priests are

forbidden in those countries to provide the sacraments or in those

particular areas. And the purpose of an interdict is to, in a sense,

cause a rebellion among the peoples against the principle, the leaders

of that nation, to force them to give in to the Pope.

Q This is jumping forward a bit, but did a Pope ever give that to

Henry the VIII? Or to England under the right of Henry the VIII?

THE PROFESSOR: The answer is, yes.

A I know that they excommunicated him, but --

THE PROFESSOR: When the interdict was placed on the nation?

A Yeah.

THE PROFESSOR: I think it was and Henry simply went ahead and

created his own church, the Church of England. Even earlier than that

an interdict was placed on England under John. I don't remember what

John's number was, but John the brother of Richard the lion hearted.

If you recall, Richard went off to fight in his mother's lands. Well,

first of course John stood on the throne so Robin Hood could hassle

him while -- John took over officially fighting for his mother's land

in France. And John refused to follow orders and dictates from the

Pope. And he was excommunicated. And the country had an interdict

placed on it. The bearings -- by the way, what an interdict also

does, it removes any futile obligations. If you have vouchers,

loyalty to the king or to a lord, the interdict says those vows are no

longer valid. And with that, the barrens rebelled against John and

received the most famous document in English history, what is often

the cornerstone, the first beginnings of what we often identify in the

English language countries as the beginnings of democracy. Because in

1215 John gave to the barrens the magna carte, the great charter.

Most of you have heard about the great charter, and it's supposed to

be the beginnings of democracy. Input was allowed; discussion was

allowed; and their views were to be respected. They, not being the

people, that's the interesting part of it -- we often see it the

people have a say. No, this was only the barrens. The barrens had a

say now. Once the interdict was removed and John gave into the

Pope -- I might know that he withdraw the interdict in 1225 --

withdraw, I'm sorry -- basically the rights he had given under the

magna carta. This is not uncommon historically. You give something

and then you draw it back later. But in any case, the fact that the

magna carta was issued opened the door for further democracy and

finally the people's right to participate in government. Of course it

takes hundreds of years good faith that finally comes into being.

The last interdict that I know of occurred in 1926 in Mexico,

1926. That's not as long ago as we think. We're not talking medieval

you were. The Mexican revolution in 1917 brought on a very strong

anti-church feud in Mexico. The first Mexican revolution, 1857

confiscated church lands because the church owned over 50 percent of

the land. People died, left their land to the church so that they

would help them go to heaven. They were doing good works. The church

never tied to it kept, the land. And we're talking 50 percent of the

land, but probably 75 percent of the best and most arid land which

keep people peasants. Most of that was confiscated. But under the

1917 Constitution, all churches were not to have any land. The church

land itself was to belong to the state. Priests were not to wear

their habits, their whatever it's called, their collar and vestments

outside of the church itself. They had to dress like normal people

when we walked the streets, nuns as well. And more so, they were not

allowed to say anything political from the pulpit at the church. So

it basically broke the power of the church itself. In fact, some of

you may know and I think I mentioned this before, I did my

dissertation, my Ph.D. dissertation on a governor in a state in

southern Mexico called Tobasco and his name was Tomas Gardeno

Carnival. And he was a socialist who followed the dictates of the

Mexican revolution of 1917 and became governor of the State of Tabasco

in 1920. As governor of the state, he proceeded to outlaw any

religion when meant Catholicism by ordering all the priests to marry.

Of course priests can't marry, so basically it forbid the church. And

when asked why he wanted priests to marry, he said he wanted to

legitimatize their children. I did tell you about this before; right?

He went on of course to develop a group of red shirts that broke into

homes and stole all religious items and created bonfires of crosses

and Bibles. He named his pet as Jesus Christ that was shown in

various agricultural circles; his pet bull, the Pope, his pet cow, the

Virgin Mary; and his brother named his son Lucifer. This is what we

call a fun story. I picked up on it in a book called the Power and

the Glory by Graham Green where they talked about the brandy priest

who kept hidden, he was a drunkard but he would sneak into villages

and perform the sacraments.

Mexico had from 1926-29 something known as the Christero

rebellion where priests mainly in northern Mexico led armies against

the revolutionary Mexican government. And it wasn't until 1929 that

the then President of Mexico a man named Calles fined signed a ..

with the church recognizing that church's rights in Mexico -- it still

did not remove some of the prohibitions, but it gave them the right to

fully exist and that made a big right in the nation and the sacraments

returned and the interdict was removed. When I visited Mexico the

first time many many centuries ago, priests still were not allowed to

wear their vestments on the streets. You didn't know who was a priest

and who was a nun, but that's changed today. If you go down to

Mexico, you will see the habits, the vestments being worn today.

Change is coming. 1926 to 29, that's modern times in a sense. For

most of you, it's ancient history; but in reality, it's not a thousand

years ago.

Interdict -- it also brought one of the most famous incidents in

recent history. In 1057 I believe it was the Pope Gregory the seventh

placed an interdict on the holy Roman entire and it's emperor Henry

the fourth. And his barrens rebelled against Henry. Henry met the

Pope in the Alps at a place called Canossa, I believe. I'll check the

spelling. At Canossa he stayed outside for three days barefooted on

his knees in the snow and in the Alps. Amazing he didn't freeze to

death. I don't know how much of the story is true or not, begging

forgiveness and begging the Pope to forgive him, the emperor of the

holy Roman empire. The Pope finally came out and forgave him. He

went back and the interdict was removed. The barrens had to give

their power back to holy Roman emperor. And a couple of years later

Henry came down with his barrens and removed the Pope. But that's the

way the cookie crumbles, to use an old statement, hour of the

interdict.

Cannon law -- as I talked earlier, church courts basically the

law of medieval Europe was the church law and people functioned under

church law. Now, while the church made decisions such as we talked

about the inquisition, the church never executed people. They never

burned them at the stake. After they were convicted under the

interdict, under the inquisition, they were given over to the civilian

authorities. The church washed their hands of them, and it was the

civilian authorities who burned them at the stake.

The basis of modern law of course the Justinian code of the

modern empire that passes onto church law which we know of as canon

law which comes to us today in civil law. I already talked about

church lands in Mexico. Actually, under Spanish control in Mexico in

1776 the king of Spain issued an edict that said that no priest can

demand land forgiving the last rights, which let's us know that often

priests we refused to give the last rights, extreme unction until

people turned over portions of their land to the church.

Charity -- today when we think of most charitable organizations,

they're private organizations like united way or they're government

welfare programs. Throughout most of the history from medieval times

it was controlled by the church. The government did not provide

charity. The church took care of people. To some extent charity

ended with Protestantism for a long while within the churches. Part

of the reason was the tremendous influence -- and we'll talk more

about this of Calvinism -- that you were predestined to heaven and

hell, that you were born a saint or a sinner. And what indicated

whether you were a saint or sinner is wealth. If you worked hard, you

became wealthy, God was on your side and it indicated you were going

to go directly to heaven. However, if you were poor, then God was

punishing you because it was just the beginning of your burning in the

ever lasting fires of hell. So why give charity to the poor. Let

them burn in hell. The faster they die the faster they're going to go

to hell and they're out of the way.

Q I was just going to say maybe the chauvinism (sic), that's more

like the Hindu like or like a caste system, like if you're born in

this lower caste, you're destined to be a lower caste person for the

rest of your life and the only way of containing social stratification

is by marrying someone --

THE PROFESSOR: The difference in the Indian caste system is that

while in this life you might be stuck in the caste, if you follow and

live your life without desire and you accept your life, then you will

be reborn, reincarnation into a higher caste. So you look forward to

the constant rebirth. The difference of course would the sense of

predestination is you're living poorly and then in the next life there

isn't any except for hell.

A So that's bad.

THE PROFESSOR: So this is no hope at all. If you know you're

going to go to hell, why not go out and have a ball all a way. The

answer in being in part because of the different levels of hell and

that comes through from Dante's inferno. You want to constantly be

careful because you don't want to go to the deeper level so you're

hoping as a sinner your sin is going to be at a higher level of hell.

People didn't go out and commit further sins. As long as I'm evil, I

might as well be real evil.

A Yeah, that's my thinking.

THE PROFESSOR: Yeah.

Manuscripts -- as we indicated knowledge is power. The church

controlled that knowledge. They had the libraries. They had the

books and this were very few of them because they had to be

handwritten. The illuminated manuscripts of course had these

beautiful letters the gold leaf and they were of course the perfect

kind of writing. We are very much expressed historically especially

the period of Charlemagne around 800s the illuminated manuscripts that

came out of that period. Sometimes the calligraphy was absolutely

gorgeous with the colors that comes through. Priests would spend most

of their life doing one book.

Q Wasn't there a project about five or six years back where a few

universities got their best calligraphies together and make an

illuminated version of the holy Bible?

THE PROFESSOR: Very possible. It wouldn't surprise me but it

doesn't stick anywhere in my mind.

The best movie dealing with this whole sense of the power of the

book and the libraries is one that I absolutely recommend that every

student get a chance to see. The book itself is not as easy to read.

It's called -- In the Name of the Rose with Sean Connery. It deals

with a monastery around 1200. And Sean Connery plays a priest that's

sort of like a Sherlock Holmes. But it centers around the library in

the monastery and the books themselves. I guess from the book

although I saw it, was the thinking thing I didn't realize the most

shacking thing was the fact that they had just developed reading

glass. For the first time coming out of the study of stained glass

windows they finally got class for people to read. Up until that

time, if you're a nun or a monk and you were doing manuscripts most

people at the age of 40 can't read anymore. Their lives are over

without glass. So it was quite an amazing discovery because it gave

people the ability to continue doing their work and reading,

especially close up. In any case, The Name of the Rose is a book by

an Italian literature professor is a little cumbersome, but I enjoyed

reading it but the movie is not. I'm sure it's floating around on

rental. It was done about 10 years ago I believe.

The right of sanctuary -- where is sanctuary offered today?

A International waters.

THE PROFESSOR: Yeah, I guess, not necessarily, but you're right,

international waters. I'm going to swim out into international water

physical do something wrong.

A Actually, I think it just means anyone can go after you.

THE PROFESSOR: Sanctuaries are often in embassies. If they're

willing to accept us in the embassy, that embassy the property of that

nation which translates to they are not supposed to intervene in the

embassy. Of course that was of course part of that big issue back in

1980 when the Iranians allowed some quote/unquote students terrorists

whatever you want to call them, to occupy the American embassy and

keep prisoner for that 444 days, some 50 American citizens.

Q How come the marines didn't shoot the people that were going

inside the embassy? Did they dry to shoot them?

THE PROFESSOR: You've got marines on base. It's like any

problem, if you have masses of people moving on you. You have a

chance, number one. Number two, do you want the create an

international incident? How far do you go? Those are choices made by

the commander in a field. How do you choose on something like that?

I think also we did not expect them to really take over. Of course

the marines can only shoot once they come into the property. On the

outside, they are only protected by the outside government. You don't

have a lot of marines sitting there. Maybe 10 at the most. It's not

like you have 100 or so Iranian military outside of the gates. They

didn't.

Embassies become sanctuaries today. And try gaining sanctuary in

a church today and the authorities will go in. They do not respect

church sanctuary. Translation, of course, become that the medieval

times the church was the power. And if somebody reached inside a

monastery or inside a church, it was supposed to be sacred and

respected. Don't get me wrong, there were times when civil

authorities did go in and massacre every nun and every monk and take

the fugitive that they were looking for. But as the whole, a

sanctuary was supposed to be guarantee.

Well, that finishes our religion for today. We have a group

meeting. So you're life in Rome. So let's break up into the groups.

I'll put out the sheets. You can pick them up here.

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