Sacred Actions In The Medieval And Reformation Eras

The Middle Ages witnessed some far-reaching developments in the theology and practice of the sacraments. This article traces these developments and explains the nature of the Reformation debate which arose out of them. Medieval Christian culture was a highly ritualized culture in which all actions of social, political, and economic life (e. g. , marriage negotiations, choosing and crowning kings, setting off for war, the exchange of gifts) were charged with symbolic meaning. Nearly all early medieval theologians were monks, or they were monks who became bishops. They were thus rooted in the life of daily worship. From the thirteenth century onward, theology and pastoral practice became increasingly systematized under the influence of university, scholastic theology, carried on predominantly by members of mendicant religious orders (Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinian Friars) and other non-monastic clergy. The growing gap between ongoing popular belief in the power of sacred ritual a…