Alan Hopewell Misinformed on Medieval History

He answered the question "How common was knowledge of Latin in the Middle Ages?" on quora. I haven't gone over an attempt to answer it myself, yet, but a historical error in his answer prompted some debate by me.

Q

How common was knowledge of Latin in the Middle Ages?
https://www.quora.com/How-common-was-knowledge-of-Latin-in-the-Middle-Ages/answer/Alan-Hopewell

Alan Hopewell

knows Latin

Answered Sat 4.IX.2021

Latin was the lingua franca of the middle ages, but known only by the educated. In the early Middle Ages this would be restricted to monasteries and scribes at royal or administrative courts. In the later middle ages, universities began to be established, and anyone educated would be required to learn Latin. The sheeple would understand only small parts of the Latin liturgy. The advantage to the Church was that (1) people could not read the Bible and (2) they only understood what their local Priest told them, so they were easily “sheepled,” such as “pay us big $$$ for these indulgences and we will give you an unintelligible piece of paper saying your sins are forgiven.”

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Sun 5.IX.2021

“The sheeple would understand only small parts of the Latin liturgy.”

From 800 on. And from 813 on, a paraphrase of the Gospel would be provided. This refers to Tours, the transition to a learned pronunciation of Latin was made in diverse countries in diverse times.

In England, Bible translations to Anglo-Saxon were provided.

You are projecting the experience of Lollards who could only comprehend prayers in a vernacular not provided by the Church onto lots of centuries and places where they don’t apply.

Alan Hopewell

Sun 5.IX.2021

Thanks for the clarification. I was unaware of that. As with anything, there were lots of variations in practice and understanding, especially across a continent as large as Europe. As most people were illiterate, even when provided with paraphrase or explanations, I am certain that the understanding of the people in general remained very basic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Sun 5.IX.2021

“As most people were illiterate, even when provided with paraphrase or explanations,”

By 813, most were in fact illiterate.

By 1200 or 1300, at least in cities, they weren’t.

Your certainty (unless you mean simply it excluded finer shades of heresy) is as bad as your guess on what indulgences were and who got rich on them.

Alan Hopewell

Sun 5.IX.2021

“Most” means exactly that: “most.” Even if every single person living in a city had a university degree, most people lived outside of cities in rural areas. So most - the vast majority of the population - was in fact illiterate, or at least functionally so. Also, there is no question as to what indulgences were. An indulgence is defined as a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain defined conditions through the Church’s help when, as a minister of redemption, she dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions won by Christ and the saints. They were therefore a remission from sin, and they were not issued by members of the Assembly of God, so there is no controversy about what they were or who issued them. There is also no controversy about their being sold, actions that prompted at least partly Martin Luther’s actions. No dispute there. And the people selling them were the ones who were enriched, not the tavern down the road. So my “certainty” is backed up by historical fact and definitions provided by the Church herself.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue 7.IX.2021

“Even if every single person living in a city had a university degree,”

They didn’t. But they did typically go to the Cathedral school.

“most people lived outside of cities in rural areas.”

And were too poor to give loads of money to priests. What priests got from them was tithing - one tenth of harvest or milk or whatever, often the priest not keeping all of it. Sweden apart from Scania and the West Coast had this system : grain => 1/3 to the priest, 2/9 to the bishop personally, 2/9 to the Church, 2/9 to the poor. Non-grain => to the priest. Hence one of our cheese brands is called “prest-ost”, priests’ cheese, since the milk tithe was not paid in liquid fresh milk, but in solidified cheese (easier to transport and to keep). Tithing is directly in the Bible and the Biblical proportions were kept.

That said, they were usually literate enough to at least know the value of a written deed, when it came to free farmers.

“There is also no controversy about their being sold,”

1. 1. Yes there is, namely whether gaining an indulgence by monetary gift constitutes buying an indulgence;
2. 2. and whether the monetary gifts enriched priests.

First of all, the two or three monetary gifts through clergy that come to mind are:

1. 1. Paying for a Crusade (same indulgence as going on it).
2. 2. Paying for the rebuild of St. Peter’s Basilica (the one Luther protested against, same as for giving materials to the building or going on the building site and helping).
3. 3. Possibly also some gifts to the poor. Like getting an indulgence for giving to the poor through the Red Cross. I don’t know this, I have no clear reference.

None of these enriched clergy doing the indulgence “sales”. Tetzel was not getting personal riches, as a Dominican he was obliged to poverty, the scandalous part is, apart from paying for St. Peter’s Basilica, the one thing that the indulgence was for, the Dominicans in Germany were also using half of it to pay a debt to the Fuggers.

A typical indulgence would probably enrich the inn around the corner insofar as it involved pilgrims spending money there - since pilgrimages were a far more regular indulgenced act than monetary gifts. Getting an indulgence after a pilgrimage was not dependent on an extra monetary gift, whatever gifts pilgrims actually also bestowed on the pilgrimage Church. And another type of indulgenced act was praying certain set prayers. In the case of the Rosary, the persons primarily enriched would be the paternoster makers.

“So my “certainty” is backed up by historical fact and definitions provided by the Church herself.”

The definition does not include (and you did not misquote it as including) that the good deed in question was typically a monetary gift. Clinical psychology is not exactly the university field in which one gets the best information on Medieval History and the facts pertaining to it.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue 7.IX.2021

“In the early Middle Ages this would be restricted to monasteries and scribes at royal or administrative courts.”

You consider 800 AD as early Middle Ages?