A Sad Reminder of the Art Lost in the Years After the Reformation

Stop making this thread "about" individual Freepers. That is a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

Jesus came to die for our sins and save us.

He did not create a specific church. Man did that.

Jesus died for all of us.

Great post and comments here and at the link.

I pity you. Art is the meaning of life.

You're overstating the value of art a bit, wouldn't you say?

Don't get me wrong, its too bad that all that art was destroyed -- but its water under the bridge. In the long run, the world has not been impacted in the slightest by the absence of said art.

Its as if it were never here at all...When all is said and done, that's how important it is/was. Dust to dust.

Certainy the Cathars were a Christian sect but were far from being established.

Well after the Catholics butchered over a quarter of a million men, women and children Cathars, they certainly were no longer "established."

Of course, some people feel that before the slaughter, a quarter of a million people occupying most of southern France for close-on a millenium, if not longer, constitutes an "established" faith.

But hey - suckers be dead, right? Winners write the history, and God is praised.

No, I’m not overstating the value of art - it’s just that art is to you what music is to the deaf. So of course you can’t grasp the significance of its absence.

Blood & thunder ping....

Oh, so the lust, sheer evil, and greed of Henry VIII are the fault of the Church? You’re too much!

No, YOU'RE too much. WAY too much. And your refusal to acknowledge the historical conditions of the time is the only way you can perpetuate your broad-brushed lies. So let me give you some historical CONTEXT.

Henry dealt with four popes in his lifetime: Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII and Paul III. These pope were ran things leading up to, and during, the time when Henry tore down the obscenely corrupt Catholic churches and monestaries in England - which, under these popes, had become little more than graft houses stockpiling indulgences loot like meth dealers stockpiling stacks of 100's. And after all, there IS a biblical precedent: the only time Jesus lost it was against the moneychangers in the Temple.

So let's take a little historical look at what he - and the rest of the world - was dealing with, with these popes, shall we?

Pope Julius II (1503 to 1513)

Despite the clergy's sacred oath of celibacy, Julius reportedly had several mistresses and at least one illegitimate daughter (some sources indicate that he had two other daughters who died during childhood). In 1511, a council brought charges of lewd sexual acts against him, alleging that he was "a sodomite covered with shameful ulcers," according to Dr. Joe J. Payyapilly in "The Spirit of Holiness" (Xlibris Corporation, 2010).

Once he was elected pope, Julius III looted the papal coffers to renovate his mansion in Rome. The Villa Giula, as it is known, became the full-time residence of Julius III and the pope oversaw the construction. He hired only the best (including Michelangelo) and had little interest in the affairs of the pope. In addition to the wholesale looting of the Catholic treasury so that he could flip his house, Julius III was known to have a thing for younger men. Alright, he liked to have sex with kids. Okay, he was infamous for having sex with kids.

That mansion of his was decorated with statues and frescoes depicting kids having sex with each other. Julius III didn't just let slip that he molested kids, he flaunted it. He decorated his house to flaunt it. Julius III was having Michelangelo chisel sculptures of mouth rape. He was blinging with child porn.

Controversial poet and scholar Giovanni Della Casa wrote an poem about Julius III in which Della Casa defended the practice of sodomizing young boys. The poem was known throughout Italy and was written while Julius III was the pope. That's like the 16th century equivalent of having a top 5 song on the Billboard charts name-dropping you as a child rapist.

He had a tendency to appoint hot underage studs to the position of cardinal, but took things to a whole new level when he adopted a beggar. He raised the kid as a sort of foul-mouthed gay slut that hung out in Rome and was bestowed with the title of cardinal-nephew, which sounds and is creepy, but was also an extremely powerful and prestigious position in the church. Julius III and his boytoy inspired more than a century of anti-papacy sentiment throughout Europe.

Pope Leo X (1513 to 1521)

Pope Leo X not only allowed, but encouraged worshippers to pay for their sins – literally. The corrupt religious leader was fond of putting prices on others' sins and requiring them to give him money in return for absolving their wrongdoings. Threatening that their souls would not be able to enter heaven if they didn't pay up, Leo X set sinner fines for crimes such as murder, incest and theft. Leo X was strictly against the Protestant Reformation, which was inspired by Martin Luther's argument against the church's unscrupulous methods of attaining funds based on people's fears of not getting into heaven, "Pope Leo X: Opponent of the Reformation" (Compass Point Books, 2006).

The Church had scarcely a pope more dedicated to expensive pleasures or by whom money was so anxiously sought than Leo X. Pope Julius II had earlier bestowed indulgences on all who contributed towards building the basilica of St Peter in Vatican City, and Leo X rapidly expanded upon the doctrine. An indulgence was the sale of dispensations to secure mainly the rich from the threat of burning or the bogus release from sins such as murder, polygamy, sacrilege, perjury and witchcraft (Indulgences: Their Origin, Nature and Development, Quaracchi, 1897). For a sum of money, property or some penitential act, a pardon was conveyed, or a release from the pains of purgatory or guilt or the forgiveness of sins was granted to any person who bestowed wealth upon the Church. The year after his election, he sold the archbishopric of Mainz and two bishoprics to a rich, loose-living young noble, Albert of Brandenburg, for a huge sum and permitted him to recover his investment by the sordid traffic in indulgences which a few years later inflamed Martin Luther.

The rich were not the only group he targeted: "Here ... the love of money was the chief root of the evil; indulgences were employed by mercenary ecclesiastics as a means of pecuniary gain ... money was extracted from the simple-minded among the faithful by promising them perpetual happiness in this world and eternal glory in the next." (Catholic Encyclopedia, vii, p. 787)

Leo also gathered about him a company of gross men: flatterers, purveyors of indecent jokes and stories, and writers of obscene comedies which were often performed in the Vatican with cardinals as actors. His chief friend was Cardinal Bimmiena, whose comedies were more obscene than any of ancient Athens or Rome and who was one of the most immoral men of his time. Leo had to eat temperately for he was morbidly fat, but his banquets were as costly as they were vulgar and the coarsest jesters and loosest courtesans sat with him and the cardinals. Since these things are not disputed, the Church does not deny the evidence of his vices. In public affairs he was the most notoriously dishonourable Vicar of Christ of the Renaissance period, but it is not possible here to tell the extraordinary story of his alliances, wars and cynical treacheries. His nepotism was as corrupt as that of any pope, and when some of the cardinals conspired to kill him he had the flesh of their servants ripped off with red-hot pincers to extract information.

Finally, it was Pope Leo X who made the most infamous and damaging statement about Christianity in the history of the Church. His declaration revealed to the world papal knowledge of the Vatican's false presentation of Jesus Christ and unashamedly exposed the puerile nature of the Christian religion. At a lavish Good Friday banquet in the Vatican in 1514, and in the company of "seven intimates" (Annales Ecclesiastici, Caesar Baronius, Folio Antwerp, 1597, tome 14), Leo made an amazing announcement that the Church has since tried hard to invalidate. Raising a chalice of wine into the air, Pope Leo toasted: "How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us and our predecessors."

Pope Clement VII (Pope from 1523 to 1534)

Besides being indifferent to the Protestant Reformation, Pope Clement VII became best known for flip-flopping between alliances with France, Spain and Germany, although he began to lean toward French political forces before his death in 1534. Clement was inclined to changing his political views to match those of whomever was the most powerful and wealthy at any given time. As a result of his wavering allegiances, Clement VII's critics, who included Charles V, compared him to a shepherd that had fled his flock, only to return as a wolf, according to "The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture" (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005).

Pope Clement was as treacherous and dishonourable in his public conduct as his father, Pope Leo X, and drew upon himself the contempt as well as hatred of all who had dealings with him. His excesses shocked Europe, and it was his crooked ways and his cowardly subterfuges which led to the taking and pillaging of Rome by Christian troops of the Spanish king Charles V (1500-58; later Holy Roman Emperor, 1530-58).

Stung by Clement's perfidy, the emperor launched his cardinal-led army upon the city on 6 May 1527, and so savage was the attack that the population of Rome was reduced from 98,000 to 32,000 in eight days.

Included in the carnage were the deaths of 147 Swiss Guardsmen in the Vatican. Again, papal nepotism and the lust for territory had brought ruin upon the Romans: this time, arguably the worst rape of a great city in history. Rome was laid waste, its churches profaned, its treasures plundered, its libraries pillaged, people murdered, and nuns raped and tortured to death by what the Church called "a rabble of miscreants" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Pecci ed., ii. p. 166).

Pope Paul III ((Pope from 1534 to 1549)

Pope Paul III wasn't just a bad pope, he was a bad dude all around. He murdered relatives, including poisoning his mother and niece, to inherit the family fortune. This sort of power was what it took to muscle his way to becoming pope in the disastrous aftermath of Clement VII. The most famous anecdote about Paul III's ruthlessness revolves around a theological dispute between two cardinals and a Polish bishop. When the argument wore on, Paul III had all three men hacked to death with swords.

Paul III was also notoriously corrupt, despite his supposed anti-corruption stance. Any position in the church was for sale and he famously took control of some 45,000 Roman prostitutes and then took a cut of their earnings. That's right, Paul III, the world's first pimp pope. Paul III's most well-known lover was an attractive young lady named Costanza Farnese- she was the pope's daughter.

Wow!

I say it was a reaction to despair, as was the Renaissance in a different way. The Black Death ended centuries of material growth in Europe and made many people look back with longing to the ancient world. Others, of course. escaped into superstition. The Witchcraft hysteria came about because there WERE witches, country people who revived ancient paganism because Christ seems to have failed them. The upper class tended to look back with more favor to the Augustan age and to ignore the achievements of the High Middle Ages, including investments in machinery that greatly exceeded that of the classical period with its dependence of slavery.

...it’s just that art is to you what music is to the deaf.

Ludwig von Beethoven might disagree with you on that.

"I say it was a reaction to despair, as was the Renaissance in a different way. The Black Death ended centuries of material growth in Europe and made many people look back with longing to the ancient world. Others, of course. escaped into superstition. The Witchcraft hysteria came about because there WERE witches, country people who revived ancient paganism because Christ seems to have failed them. The upper class tended to look back with more favor to the Augustan age and to ignore the achievements of the High Middle Ages, including investments in machinery that greatly exceeded that of the classical period with its dependence of slavery. "

+1

When I come across the rare insightful and thoughtful post on FR, I always stop to admire it, like a good sunset. Thanks!

Except they shared authority in the appointment of personnel, in collection of taxes, and in the courts.

Wrong. Certainly the Orthodox was at variance with Rome for a very long time, before 2000.

The Irish Churches offered alternatives, as did the Arians, and the Nestorians. These churches were suppressed by the Established Roman Catholic church.

The good news is the Plague killed so many people so unevenly that the Church blessed system of feudal obligation that bound most people to the land broke down. People could leave their local slavery and move to the towns with reasonable expectation of employment and even a chance at prosperity.

As the church was mired in corruption, as the 14th century plague killed the church’s intellectuals and aristocratic supporters, the common people turned their back on the rotting corpse, and built a new civilization based on industry and trade. We still benefit from that.

Actually no, but even if there were shared things as you mentioned that would prove only that things were shared by two different entities, not that the two entities were one and the same.

Again, your argument is working against you.

and your hyperbole is even worse

I would suggest you keep reading, and something other than Protestant histories or early 20th century Anglican diatribes or one-sided treatments of popes. Corrupt monasteries? Try reading David Knowles' 3-volume history, which is quite exculpatory. Corruption in the late-medieval English Church? Try reading any number of renowned historians, perhaps J. J. Scarisbrick, Christopher Haigh, Ronald Hutton, David Loades, John Guy, Eamon Duffy, Peter Ackroyd, Lawrence Stone, and Muriel St. Claire Byrne, really almost anything written out of England, particularly out of Oxford and Cambridge, since 1960. They would all disagree with you. When you have read them, get back to me.

And no one here, certainly not I, has denied the sinfulness of particular popes. I only deny that it had much to do with what went on in England during Henry VIII, other than the fact that his rightful queen and legitimate wife was the aunt of Charles V, whose armies occupied Rome at the time. It is discouraging that you seem so full of hatred that you have to dig up all the dirt you can, however irrelevant it may be. The stuff of racy tabloids. And, normally, dear Sir, when one copies and pastes material from a book, or from a website (as you have done) it is with acknowledgement of the source.

I would also point out that much of the sinfulness of popes or others within the Church is catalogued and condemned in CATHOLIC sources, such as the Catholic Encyclopedia, or by various Catholic authors. Your author even uses the Catholic Encyclopedia, although feebly; to blame Clement VII for the sins of Charles V (or his soldiers) is patently absurd. Clement VII was embattled on all sides, but was true to Catherine of Aragon (as he should have been), and his own private life was free utterly from reproach. There have been plenty of "bad" popes. But, there is also much gossip and false accusation. Julius II, for instance, because he had enemies galore in the violent Renaissance world of Machiavelli, and because he was the particular locus of animus on the part of Protestants over his failure to reform the Church, has been the target of much innuendo. Yes, he fathered an illegitimate daughter 20 years before his election as pope, but there is absolutely no proof of the sexual accusations your author mentions. Enemies stir up lies, . . . much like the false rumors of Catherine the Great having sex with her horse. Indeed, there were widespread rumors at the time, that John Calvin was sodomite. Most such historical attacks are bogus and political in origin. In the 40 popes since 1565, not one has been shown to have been sexually active during his pontificate. More to the point, however, there have been plenty of good popes, even heroic popes, among the 267 men upon whom the office has been bestowed. Shall we explore the sins of Protestants? Three insurance companies in the United States that provide liability coverage for 165,000 Protestant churches revealed data to the Associated Press in 2007 that they typically receive 260 reports every year of children being sexually abused by Protestant clergy or other staff. And the abuses occur in every Protestant denomination.

But, to get off the sex angle and back to the main point, as far as the state of the late-medieval English church is concerned, I direct you to my previous posts, to the authors mentioned above, particularly to Knowles, and to Haigh, and to Ronald Hutton, as below:

The impression of lay people enthusiastically committed to the Church is further supported by the evidence of wills. These survive in their thousands for the early sixteenth century, and show that gifts of money and valuable objects to the Church (usually the testator's own parish church) were almost universal. Another symptom is the proliferation of parish guilds or fraternities, literally brotherhoods (though women could be members in their own right). These voluntary associations of lay people were dedicated to a saint or Christ-centred devotion (Our Lady's Guild, St Michael's Guild, Corpus Christi Guild) and had a mixture of religious and social obligations, holding an annual feast on the patron saint's day, maintaining lights before his or her image in church, ensuring decent burial for guild members and saying prayers for them. Most parishes seem to have had at least one fraternity, and they proliferated in towns: London had over 150 of them in the century before the Reformation, and even somewhere like Great Yarmouth boasted at least nineteen.

Bad analogy - he became deaf late in life, after decades of listening to and studying music. So by the time he became afflicted, he already had a vast accumlation of musical information in his memory, and the most profound experiences to draw upon to create new music.