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from the church to the commune occurred. Brodman, Racine, and Mambretti, have recently suggested the ecclesiastical powers remained in control throughout the period. 65 In fact, while the institutional church was resistant to ceding its power, there is abundant evidence of the civic authorities exerting authority over charitable institutions in the fourteenth century while by 1450 they were appropriating all control over the hospitals and seeking to consolidate them into larger civic institutions. Evidence from the first half of the fifteenth century suggests an
of the Devil. In Boniface’s account, the resulting clash appears to pit the charismatic leader of a popular cult against the authoritative voice of the hierarchical structures of the institutional Church. Adalbert has thus become a figure of interest for modern historians wishing to trace a strain of social protest against ecclesiastical institutions, or to find a popular religion which stood
general criticism of ecclesiastical institutions' inability or unwillingness to meet the charitable demands of these communities. While the universal desire for legitimization of hospital foundations by ecclesiastical authority indicates the still active perception of the all-powerful institutional church, the specifications for lay control by founders indicates the suspicion and declining respect for this institution's actual ability to provide these social services. Still, once hospitals were founded and approved they tended to follow a method of administration that
nineteenth century read Chaucer ‘straight’ as a medieval Catholic poet. Instead, there grew up a wide range of critical strategies to put Chaucer off-side with medieval Catholicism, creating interpretations in which he features in almost every conceivable non-orthodox role: zealous proto-Protestant; undoctrinal nature-worshipper; Chaucer as Catholic child 173 trifler in belief; ‘manly’ figure of English liberty, with a religion independent of the institutional church of the day; Laodicean; and a ‘child’ at heart. In what follows here, while risking over
medieval community, this was the monastery's role and responsibility. The paternalistic power of ecclesiastical authority over the care of the community cemented the larger institutional church's moral supremacy and authority, and ensured its own continual protection in the form of economic sustenance and political influence. 7 The ecclesiastical response to need in the early Middle Ages took the form of small, rural monastic facilities that functioned as nascent hospitals scattered throughout Europe. There is evidence, although scarce, of
the pragmatic, progressive civil society that was developing and the tradition-bound institutional church that sought to retain its authority. One of the central concerns over the practices of physicians revolved around the inequities suffered by patients. Episcopal leaders, feeling that charity toward the poor and ill was essential, worried that the appeal of compensation from wealthier patients would drive physicians to neglect the needs of the poor. However, they also worried that poor patients would then seek out the services of ‘folk
of the era but, as they were ecclesiastically affiliated, also church leaders’ attempt to utilize, yet control, lay enthusiasm. Decrees emanating from reform councils held in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II, and in 1063 by Pope Alexander II, codified the establishment of these semi-religious orders but stipulated that members were required to lead apostolic lives of chastity and service and follow a set rule. 41 Still, these canons were not attached in the same way as the traditional monastic orders to the institutional church. Founded by urban lay men, they were thus
its primacy continued to diminish, ecclesiastical entities persisted in playing a role in the origins of many institutions. Church officials as founders According to the foundation charters, many of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century founders of hospitals followed an older, ecclesiastical tradition, at least in part. They recognized the regional bishop in his role as ‘padre dei poveri’ and looked to traditional Benedictine or Augustinian examples, and their rules as models, for their new institutions. Also, there
itself.32 If it came from the Pope, did that validate its authenticity or render it useless? The answer depended not on the material paper but on religious conviction. Was St Peter’s 30 Transporting Chaucer successor the rock of the institutional church, or the embodiment of Antichrist? Even if one were not a reformist, only God could provide ultimate proof that the document was not a fake. It is not only in the pilgrim context of The Canterbury Tales that Chaucer raises these questions. In The House of Fame, having demonstrated that there is no ontological
, Wimbledon assigns the task of pruning, whereby they cut away branches destroyed by sin through preaching ‘wiþ þe swerd of here tonge’. Railing, assigned to knights, involves a greater variety of tasks for protecting both the institutional church and the realm, including preventing theft, maintaining God’s law and those who teach it, and protecting the land from foreign enemies. Finally, labourers should work in a way that recalls the physical labour in the vineyard, as ‘wiþ here sore swet [labourers] geten out of þe erþe bodily liflode for hem and for oþer parties’.42