Christendom Destroyed<\/a>), \u201cwas more than a religious experience. It was a set of rights to benefices which were the key to monopoly revenues (the tithe, collected in various forms) in which patrons, collators and clergymen all had interests. And behind every parish church lay wardens who cared for the fabric of the church, managed the parish chest and organized the patronal feast. In the urban world, the role of the parish in local life was perhaps not as great as it once was, but wills attest to an attachment to the church where one was baptized, and where often one\u2019s ancestors were buried.\u201d<\/p>\nParish life was \u201cthe place of religious duty, but not necessarily devotion.\u201d Greengrass notes one bit of evidence: \u201cThe incumbent vicar of a small parish outside Mainz on the eve of the Reformation explained that nine out of ten of his flock did not confess their sins and therefore did not receive Christ\u2019s body at Easter\u201d (317). Or at and other time, presumably. This raises some questions about Greengrass\u2019s claim that all was well with the late medieval church: \u201cThere is no sign that the coming of the Reformation can be explained by the \u2018abuses\u2019 of the Church. All the evidence . . . is that it was flourishing\u201d (319-20). Flourishing \u2013 except for the fact that in some places a majority of Christian\u2019s didn\u2019t participate in the defining <\/em>rite of Christian life.<\/p>\nGreengrass doesn\u2019t think the priests were bad either. There were diocesan visitations, and the church \u201cnoted clerical absenteeism . . . and, where it was brought to their attention by locals, clerical incontinence and incompetence.\u201d Besides, the people didn\u2019t need or want a \u201czealous, chaste, over-educated\u201d priest: \u201cThe priest\u2019s role was more that of a notable, settling family quarrels, drafting wills and providing rural credit. Locals wanted someone who would understand them\u201d (317). No doubt, and no doubt the communal leadership of priests was very important. But surely settling family squabbles doesn\u2019t exhaust the vocation of a parish priest.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cParochial Christianity,\u201d writes Mark Greengrass (Christendom Destroyed), \u201cwas more than a religious experience. It was a set of rights to benefices which were the key to monopoly revenues (the tithe, collected in various forms) in which patrons, collators and clergymen all had interests. And behind every parish church lay wardens who cared for the fabric […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1309],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medieval-church"],"yoast_head":"\n
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