Need info on the medieval Catholic Church

[Black_Kaioshin]

In my game, I am basing the main religion on medieval catholism. The problem is, I know little about the church. I've picked up bits and pieces from my western civ class, but not alot. For instance, what are the rankings? Who out ranks who? Who would be in charge of a small village shrine, or a large city cathedril? Anyone know stuff about the church?

 

[Turanil]

Maybe you just want advice and don't want to buy anything? I nonetheless suggest to take a look at Medieval Player's Manual by Green Ronin Publishing that depicts the Christian Faith and Catholic Church in d20 terms and game mechanics fairly well.

You can at least take a look at the review I made of Medieval Player's Manual

I really think it's the best source for a Catholic Church in a D&D / D20 campaign setting.

 

[Hawklord]

The Pope http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12260a.htm was (and is) head of the (Western)Church and was based in Rome (mostly). He appoints Cardinals http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03333b.htm to the Curia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13147a.htm to help him adminster the Church.
Countries are divided into dioceses http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05001a.htm overseen by a bishop http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02581b.htm or an archbishop http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01691a.htm.
Dioceses are sub-divided into parishes http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11499b.htm each of which would have a church with a priest http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12406a.htm and probaly some deacons http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04647c.htm.

In parallell to that you had the monastic orders http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10459a.htm with their monastaries and abbeys which were incredibly important throughout the medieval period, particularily the early period.

The Eastern church had (and has) a whole different structure based on patriarchs http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11549a.htm

Hope this helps.

I knew a degree in Medieval History would be useful one day .

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Though it's worth pointing out that the Latin church and the Orthodox church evolved from the same system.

The Pope is technically an honored Patriarch.

There are more esoteric titles than the ones listed above, but the one's listed above should serve.

One important way to envision the medieval church is as the successor to the Empire. As the Wester Empire fell further into the past the Church it had established remained and took over many of the Empire's beauracratic functions.

Further, since Bishops were critical to the Catholic faith and were also fundamentally associated with cities in many areas they worked to stunt the rate of de-urbanization or create new cities.

Bishops would be in charge of Cathedral, technically a cathedral is the Bishop's seat, but the situation can be a bit more complicated in that you often have priests and/or deacons who assist the Bishop and often become the actual goto guys in charge of the Cathedral and its associated charities, lands, schools, courts, and institutions.

The normal title for the guy who was the bishop's assistant was Arch-priest. Though an Arch-priest can also be someone who runs a Mother church. That is a church that can fulfill many of the same functions as a Cathedral for a rural district that is too difficult for a Bishop to go to with any regularity.

Any given rank of clergy could be in charge of a shrine or none could, it is not uncommon for a great deal of faith practice to be run by the laity. Though there is certainly greater prestige in being run by a clergyman.

The Catholic Encyclopedia linked to below is a fantastic resource for any church related issues or even for medieval history generally.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10285c.htm

That should give you an initial guide on how to use it.

Most of the drama surrounding the church of the period, particularly from an adventurers standpoint, revolves around the follow themes:

Security Issues: as they were frequently poorly defended or a lonely power, church and monastic properties were also frequently a target for raiders, profiteers, or local anger. Also belonging to this theme would be issues of more global security. The church of the period worked very hard to bring order to chaos, so they frequently brokered peace treaties and powerful institutions would bring unprotected or disorganized properties under their control. That's how you end up with Bishops running their local cities and Monastaries running small empires. They also tended to work on quality of living issues so social disruption and, for lack of a better term, land and environmental management.

Internal Issues: there was a lot of dispute inside the church over individual priveleges, responsibilities, aesthetics, theology, and property. An extensive but complex and variable legal system existed within the church to regulate this, but ineffeciencies were frequent and resulted in a great deal of debate. Further, the process was deliberately slow, the results of poor decision would be catastrophic and a delayed could frequently take care of the problem one way or another. Most stories of church corruption fit beneath this issue.

Popular Faith: this covers everything from the many popular religious movements of the day to miracles, extensive festivals, and crusades. A lot of adventuring goes here, finding relics, abolishing demons, confronting heretics, dispersing or blessing mobs, theatre performances, and just about everything under the sun.

High Faith and Reason: this is what the church of the period was most famous for, learning. Here are the great philoshopers, the schools, the work of the monastaries, the art, the literature, the mysticism, and the theology. This also covers the major major church reforms, the great councils, the fights with the emperors, schisms, the establishment or suppression of new orders, the begining of the crusades, the massive legal issues, and the establishment of things like rules of celibacy. Many issues of this type will in fact be extensions of the other areas save they are applied to the church at a much higher level. Your local church would respond to the other issues because they were immediate problems, this is the type of issue your local church responds to because it's been forced upon them or they are forcing it on the church as a whole.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

As a Catholic AND someone with a degree in history, I can tell you that Turanil's endorsement is dead on. Green Ronin's book is pretty accurate for what you will need.

 

[Buttercup]

I can only add a few bits and pieces to the excellent information in this thread.

First, literacy. Consider that most peasants and even many nobles were illiterate. Learning outside the church was almost nonexistent. All the amazing stained glass windows you see in medieval churches were put there to show bible stories to the unwashed masses. The power of literacy, then, was another one the church had.

Second, consider that children were sometimes given to the church at a very young age. Usually not the oldest son, but a younger one, and also daughters might be given over to the church with a sort of dowery. So many clergy weren't voluntary members in the way we would think of it--they had never known anything else.

If you want to read some fiction that presents a medieval monastery pretty accurately, look for the Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters. In fact, many of these could be mined for adventure ideas, especially if your players haven't read the books!

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

Another area that was briefly hinted upon but never really followed up by any one else was the fracturing between secular power and religious power. For instance, who crowns a king? Often times, you see a bishop or the pope overseeing the passing of power from one King to another.

Does this mean that the bishop can also take that crown back? The King will say 'no' but the church would obviously have a very different idea. Heads of states and the heads of churches were constantly fighting with one another over all kinds of things.

Another example is secular law versus ecclesiastical law. A holy man (and there are many, many degrees of who a holy man might be - from a monastaries doorman to the bishop himself) was subject only to ecclesiastical law for anything. So if a priest killed someone, he was sent to the bishop and not the king for judging. Look at today's controversy in the Catholic Church in America where many sexual offenders were judged by the church. In both times, they only got a slap on the wrist.

Just as a point of note, a man was often times considered "holy" if he could read (only the Catholic church really needed someone to read). This changed over time, but is one of those little interesting tidbits.

Also, for a long while at the beginning of what is considered the Dark Ages in western europe, ecclesiastical positions were handed down within a family, much like the feudal system. This caused some obvious problems and was latter changed (this is, some argue, the primary reason why priests cannot have children and there is at least some strength to the point).

I might remember some more as time passes. Its been a while since those college classes.

Also, another game system that gives a good feel of the medieval church is Ars Magica.

 

[Turanil]

Just also note that:

--In medieval Europe, the Church had a strong and widespread influence over people; and was central to medieval culture. As told above, the Church was also politically powerful.

--Now add to this that in a D&D setting, clerics get spellcasting abilities. The Church would be even more influential and powerful. They could well be a theocracy. Now lets say, that in order to keep nobles and knights in your setting, that the Church has decided to only govern from a spiritual point of view. As such the pope would still crown kings, yet the Church would determine who they want to be ruling (secularly) or not. Unless nobles to have a counterpower hire wizards into their service. In this case, arcane spellcasters would be quickly shunned, designated as evil, and thus would have to work in secrecy.

 

[der_kluge]

Not to be anti-religious here, but an interesting portrayal of the Catholic church was given in the movie Elizabeth

The movie is about the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and her dealings with the Catholic church, among others. Since she was Protestant (and the first, IIRC), she didn't exactly have a great time of it.

It was, if nothing else, a portrayal of the Catholic church which was more LE, than LG, and in one scene even showed the church utilizing a black-cloaked assassin to seek her out to kill her.

Great flik, btw, and not the kind of stuff you'd learn about in seminary school.

 

[Wombat]

Using the movie Elizabeth as a basis for knowledge of her period is only slightly less dubious than using Braveheart for William Wallace and his era -- the names are right, but the characterizations, events, and subtext are all wrong. If Burghley was that doddering at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, she never would have counted on him so much in the later years.

The vision of the Catholic Church is very skewwed, for dramatic purposes -- Evil Plotting Catholics versus Good Tolerant Protestants. The truth was both sides had blood on their hands. Also there is the problem that this movie is set outside of the Middle Ages, so probably wouldn't help for Black_Kaioshin's purposes.

I, too, recommend the Medieval Player's Manual -- David Chart really knows his stuff (I mean, look at all the material he has done for Ars Magica). For that matter, if you are setting a game in England, I would suggest picking up the David's AM supplement Heirs to Merlin -- there is very little in the way of game mechanics in it, but a LOT of solid information on English society and culture, c. 1220, including churches, monestaries, cities (very few of those, of course), and the like.