By Charlotte Hayes
The Church played a prominent role in the daily lives of the people of medieval Paris. Its influence was felt in many ways, but perhaps its most significant impact was in the areas of education, charity, the regulation of marriage and people’s experiences with parish churches. Parisian academics at the university were subject to the exclusive authority of the Church and were responsible for shaping understandings of doctrine through canon law. Notions of charity formed by theologians influenced people’s behaviour and therefore, together with the Church’s role in the hospital movement, charity developed into a key aspect of daily life. This is equally seen with the Church’s role in the regulation of marriage, as canon law shaped notions of sex and consent in matrimony and the sacrament was under the exclusivity of the Church. Finally, the role of parish churches in medieval Parisian life was important, as it was most people’s only access to religious instruction. Indeed, it was the platform in which notions shaped by theologians could be spread to the uneducated. Therefore, what can be seen from the following examination is that the comparative influence of the Church on each of these aspects of daily life was shaped by the intellectual culture of Paris.
Undoubtedly, the Church’s control over teaching at the University of Paris greatly impacted the daily lives of the clergy studying there. However, one could argue that its impact was not solely restricted to Parisian academics. The university, which developed from a cloister of cathedral schools, inherited its curriculum from those schools.[1] Therefore, because the Church had jurisdiction over what was studied at the university, it was able to mould the students to follow its doctrine. This is clearly evidenced by the Statute of Gregory IX in 1231 which declared that the fundamental purpose of the university was to transform men into preachers.[2] For example, it states that ‘masters and students in theology…they shall not show themselves philosophers but strive to become God’s learned’.[3] This indicates that Parisian academics were forbidden from coming to a conclusion separate from orthodox religion.
Later statutes passed in the fourteenth century reiterated this focus on preaching and the following of Christian doctrine, declaring that knowing how to preach was a condition for advancing through one’s career as a bachelor.[4] Therefore, this indicates that the Church’s presence was continually felt in the learning at the university, hence affecting the daily lives of academics in Paris. The Church’s control over learning also extended to the book trade. Aside from the wealthy and the university, the Church was one of the biggest consumer bases of the book trade. The Rouses cite a flyleaf memorandum of an agreement in which ‘Gui, lord bishop of Clermont, bought from Master Nicolas Lombard, bookseller at Paris, a complete Bible glossed in one hand’.[5] Although just one example, it illustrates the general practice of clerics to commission prints of scripture or, in other cases, reprints of gospels and music manuscripts for sermons. As a result, through its role as consumer, the Church could regulate which books were published or circulated. Aside from this, its proximity to the book trade allowed the Church to impose its will on booksellers. The rue Neuve, the street where the book trade was established, was situated near the Notre Dame, thus allowing for easier trade between booksellers and clergymen. This would have allowed the Church to encroach upon the daily lives of academics, as they would have been restricted to studying from and publishing works endorsed by the Church. However, it would not have greatly impacted the ninety percent of Parisians who were not members of the clergy, particularly as the majority of those were illiterate.[6] Although, book censorship had a huge impact on the Church’s heretical crusade which influenced people’s behaviours in medieval Paris. For example, in 1254 Friar Gérard de Borgo San Donnino published an Introduction to the eternal Gospel, endorsing the idea of a Third Gospel, the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, which would have superseded the Gospels of the Father and the Son found in the Old and New Testaments.[7] University masters, motivated by their role as ‘keeper of Christendom’, reported it to the Church who then banned the book and imprisoned the author. As a result, the University was considered the intellectual arm of the Church, helping to generate suspicion surrounding heresy in Parisian society, which ultimately affected the way people treated each other. Ian Wei, in comparison to other historians, has advanced the theory that the Church’s influence over learning was not limited to those directly associated with the university. Theologians were primarily responsible for developing religious theory, which some historians have analysed only in the context of the university, although Wei observes that these academics shaped canon law and influenced understandings of doctrine more broadly.[8] Indeed, ideas about marriage and purgatory were developed by theologians, such as Gratian and Hugh of Saint Victor, which affected the everyday lives of all Parisians. This argument will be explored in further detail, but it does suggest that intellectual culture filtered down to the lower classes, and thus the Church’s role in learning was not solely felt by those within the confounds of the university.
Although the Church played a significant role in providing relief through the hospital movement, it was notions of purgatory established in canon law which made charity an important aspect of everyday Parisian life. Hospitals were placed under the Church’s protection, which meant that it was chiefly responsible for the care of many destitute people. Farmer observes that the Hôtel-Dieu, the principal hospital in Paris, had 279 beds intended to hold the poor, the seriously ill, abandoned children and pensioners.[9] This suggests that relief provided by hospitals was not exclusively limited to the poor or sick but available to most lower-class Parisians. However, Farmer using evidence collated by Geremek, argues that hospitals did not go far in meeting the needs of poor Parisian people.[10]
Indeed, Geremek estimates that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, hospitals offered approximately 1,000 places for the sick and poor, although numbers of beggars living in medieval Paris supposedly reached 20,000.[11] This implies that the Church’s role in the hospital movement was not far-reaching in its impact on daily life. However, the Church’s control over how hospitals were run can be linked to the idea of individual charity. Geremek argues that ‘illness was believed to have been sent by God as a punishment for sin, so the hospital’s first priority was to provide spiritual assistance, by means of a confessor’.[12] This relates to the notion of purgatory and atoning for one’s sins, which was a concept prevalent in medieval Parisian society. Similarly, charitable bequests were seen as a means of absolving sins and this attitude was particularly prominent in wills, which aimed to secure atonement by giving legacies to the poor.[13] Citing the evidence of a will made in 1420 by Jean Marlais, a prominent libraire (book seller) at the university, the Rouses’ reveal that Jean left 11,520 d.p to be distributed on the day of his funeral at a rate of 4 d.p. per poor person.[14] Theoretically, this would have equated to 2,880 people having to pray for Jean’s soul on that day.[15] Although this seems unlikely, such an extravagant sum highlights the significance that people placed on charitable bequests. Indeed, acts of charity were seen as crucial to everyday life in order to atone for one’s sins, and thus avoid purgatory. This notion was shaped by canon law, which was established by theologians at the university. By the late thirteenth century, Parisian theologians were in general agreement about what happened to people’s souls after death; some went to heaven, others went to hell and a third group went to purgatory.[16] Hugh of Saint Victor defined purgatory as ‘those who have departed from this life with certain faults but are just and predestined for life are tormented temporarily so as to be purged’.[17] In this, he explained that the ‘imperfectly good’ were to suffer purgatorial punishment after death before eventually going to heaven having been fully purged.[18] His views were particularly influential as, because there was no direct spiritual authority mentioning the existence of purgatory, masters were needed to interpret biblical teachings, and Hugh was one of the first to articulate such ideas in his work. It is also important to note that masters sought to conjure up fear of purgatory, as fear of hell was not considered enough to prevent sinful activity, and Hugh’s work is a prime example of this.[19] The fact that most Parisian wills surviving from that time show generous charitable donations suggests that canon law was influential in people’s lives. Interestingly, Sharon Farmer stipulates that bourgeois Parisians, in their testaments, tended to favour charities that defined women through the marriage prism.[20] Eighteen of the thirty-two testators, whose wills were examined by Farmer, gave gifts to shelters for widows, and another twelve provided money for poor girls’ dowries.[21] This was most likely encouraged by Christian doctrine as the Church defined women in terms of their reproductive functions, thus charitable gifts expressed this concept. However, there appears to be a lack of surviving wills from medieval Paris, therefore it is difficult to determine whether this was a trend during that time or just a tendency in the evidence Farmer collated. Despite this, it is obvious that the idea of purgatory shaped by canon law allowed the Church to influence people’s behaviours and daily lives, yet this would not have been possible without theologians and their interpretation of biblical texts.
Similarly, canon law was influential in shaping ideas of marriage, thus allowing the Church to dictate the behaviour of Parisians. Gratian’s Decretum, considered the first significant treatise on canon law, had a prominent role in the understanding of how marriage worked and was the text by which theologians developed their own ideas of marriage from. For example, Gratian professed that ‘a man may know his wife for four reasons: for offspring, to pay the debt, for incontinence, or to satisfy lust and for the sake of pleasure.’[22] This, therefore, influenced notions of marriage as it became generally perceived that sex should ultimately have a purpose unrelated to lust. The key authorities underpinning this theory were the Book of Genesis and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, which respectively outlined that marriage served to procreate, as man and woman needed to ‘be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’, and served as a means of resisting temptation of fornication or adultery as ‘if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.’[23] This highlights how Gratian drew his ideas from biblical references to shape canon law on marriage, which was considered the accepted guideline for behaviour of all people in medieval Paris. As a result, this reinforces the role the Church played in the regulation of marriage, but particularly with regard to theologians and how their ideas filtered down to the lower classes. In comparison, it was generally acknowledged that extramarital sex was sinful and criminal as it did not comply with canon law, which was considered the correct behavioural code, thus was punishable by ecclesiastical courts. Interestingly, however, Brundage recognises that social realities were actually quite different and cites the example of twelfth century men, particularly those of higher social classes, who typically enjoyed extensive sexual freedom and were rarely penalised for their activities.[24] He maintains that there is no evidence to suggest that men in those groups were seriously deterred from seeking sexual pleasure outside of marriage by the laws of God or man.[25] Furthermore, it must be noted that historians are poorly informed about the sexual practices of Parisians in medieval society, therefore it cannot be determined if people actually adhered to the regulations of marital sex laid out in canon law. The issue surrounding marriage consent was another example of which the Church was able to influence social conduct through canon law. Although Gratian supported the theory that consummation was necessary for the marriage to be valid, Parisian canonists supported the consent theory. Hugh of Saint Victor, one of the biggest advocates of this theory, explained that marriage was ‘consecrated by a compact of mutual agreement, when each by voluntary promise makes himself debtor to the other’.[26]
Parisian canonists justified their theory with biblical teachings, as they reasoned that if one were to support Gratian’s theory, then since Mary was a virgin when Christ was born, she and Joseph would not have been properly married.[27] Indeed, this disparity between the two was important to distinguish as the Church needed to be able to define the exact moment in which a person was considered married in order to settle rulings on marriage disputes in ecclesiastical courts. Furthermore, the execution of canon law was helped by the clergy’s monopoly over performing sacraments. Marriage was solely regulated by the Church and thus considered a spiritual issue, which granted the clergy the opportunity to advise on private marital affairs. In difference to Wei, Simone Roux declares that the hegemony of religion manifested itself fully here, in the sacrament of marriage, where the omnipresence of the clergy was most strongly felt.[28] Indeed, the presence of the priest at the ceremony was a physical reminder of the Church’s authority over the sacrament of marriage and provided a tangible link to God. However, Wei’s argument suggests that the Church’s role in marriage was more influential as its power extended beyond just the performance of the ceremony to infiltrate the private lives of medieval Parisians. Therefore, there is a case to be made that the influence of the Church on marriage was largely shaped by the role of theologians and the spreading of ideas.
The role that parish churches played in Parisian daily life was also significant, particularly as religious worship was far more localised during the medieval era. The belief that regular attendance of religious services was necessary in order to be a good Christian was popular, as evidenced in Le ménagier de Paris. The author advises his wife to ‘attend Mass every day and go to confession often’ because, as he reasons, ‘if you act and persevere in this way, honour and great benefit will come to you’.[29] This indicates that the author was primarily concerned with his wife gaining merit with God, particularly as her behaviour would have reflected back on him. This links to notions of charity, in particular the idea expressed by Hugh of Saint Victor in Wei’s work, that masses, alms and prayers were of great benefit to souls undergoing purgatorial punishments.[30] Therefore, the fact that the author reiterated the need to go to Mass and confession suggests they were accessible ways of atoning for one’s sins. A decree passed by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215, further highlights that all adults in medieval Paris were required to ‘confess all their sins at least once a year to their own parish priest.’[31] This acts as a reminder that religious practice was to be factored into everyone’s lives. It was most likely motivated by ideas of purgatory, as the fear of existing in limbo drove people to confession, which allowed the clergy to listen in on people’s private thoughts, emphasising the control the Church had over people’s behaviours. Furthermore, the Church was able to influence people’s thoughts through sermons, particularly as parish churches were the centre of ordinary religious activity and where peasants received what religious instruction was available to them.[32] Indeed, parish churches spread the teachings of theologians, which included ideas of marriage and purgatory. Thomas Aquinas, when asked whether the position of theologian or pastor was more beneficial, responded by comparing the master of theology with an architect and ordinary priests with manual labourers. He argued that the architect who planned the construction was more important than the manual worker who followed instructions, therefore it was better to teach sacred doctrine than to be concerned with the salvation of individuals.[33] Although Aquinas appears to minimise the role of priests in deference to theologians, he actually, indirectly reveals that they were influential in spreading doctrine created by masters which included ideas of marriage and purgatory. This, therefore, reiterates the fact that the intellectual culture of Paris shaped understandings of canon law more broadly and it was the individual priests that were the agents in filtering down these notions to the uneducated population. However, as Baldwin identifies, most of the information regarding religious practice in medieval Paris was mediated through the clergy, very little response comes directly from the laity.[34] Therefore, sermons fail to depict people’s reactions to what pastors preached and the extent to which they applied what they heard to their daily lives. Local churches also functioned as a centre for the diffusion of information and news; with his sermon, the pastor announced births, marriages and funerals but also spoke of general affairs such as houses for sales and trial judgements.[35] Sermons were the best form of spreading information in medieval Paris; they reached a large audience, which comprised of all classes and sexes, and in a society where the majority of the population were illiterate, it was the most effective form of communication. Daily life in medieval Paris was also punctuated by the church calendar and bells. In Le ménagier de Paris, the author instructs that his wife ‘must arise in the morning, and morning means, with regard to the subject we are treating here, Matins.’[36] In medieval society, Matins made up one of the five canonical hours during the weekday: matins, lauds, mass, vespers and compline.[37] Therefore, Le ménagier de Paris reveals that church bells were crucial to the running of daily life in medieval Paris as the author instructs his wife to awake, and thus begin her day, at the sound of the church bells. This, therefore, had a knock-on effect on economic life in medieval Paris as trade was conducted according to the ringing of these bells. As a result, it is important to note that the actual experience of most people at that time was extremely localised and, thus, the parish church was effectively the ‘face’ of the Church for the majority of the Parisian population.[38] Through confession and weekly services, therefore, parish churches proved to be an effective way in which the Church could spread ideas about doctrine and reach a wider audience.
The Church’s authority was present in most aspects of medieval Parisian daily life. In particular, as has been discussed, the Church appeared to have the greatest impact in the areas of education, charity, the regulation of marriage, and people’s experiences with parish churches. Through its role within education, the Church was able to influence the thoughts and behaviours of people in medieval Paris, which reached past the strict confines of the university through the filtering down of ideas and the diffusion of information. Indeed, ideas about marriage and purgatory, the latter of which related to charity, were developed by university theologians and then spread across the capital, through parish churches. In this respect the intellectual culture of Paris filtered down to the uneducated lower classes, and therefore suggests that this is what shaped the relative influence of the Church on education, charity, marriage and people’s experiences with parish churches. However, there is a limit to how far historians can determine the extent to which the Church impacted daily life in medieval Paris. There appears to be a lack of evidence coming directly from the laity, therefore historians are ill-informed as to whether the Church’s role in each of the aspects discussed was welcomed or if people failed to adhere to the regulations imposed by clergymen.
Photo Credit: https://www.him-mag.com/naissance-de-paris-au-moyen-age/
Bibliography
Primary sources
Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (de sacramentis), trans by. Roy J. Deferrari, (Cambridge, 1951).
The Good Wife’s Guide. Le ménagier de Paris: A Medieval Household Book, trans. by Gina L. Greco and Christine M. Rose (New York, NY., 2009).
‘Gratian: On Marriage (dictum post C. 32. 2. 2)’ available at Internet Medieval Sourcebook, <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/gratian1.asp> [last accessed, 21 November, 2016]. ‘Statutes of Gregory IX for the University of Paris 1231’, available at Internet Medieval Sourcebook, <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/UParis-stats1231.html> [last accessed, 21 November, 2016].
‘Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran IV 1215′, available Internet Medieval Source Book, <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp> [last accessed, 21 November, 2016].
Secondary sources
Baldwin, John W., Paris, 1200, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).
Brundage, James A., Law, sex and christian society in medieval Europe, (Chicago, IL.: Chicago University Press, 1987).
Bull, Marcus, ‘The Church’, in France in the central middle ages, ed. by Marcus Bull (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Evans, Joan, Life in medieval France, (London: Phaidon, 1957).
Farmer, Sharon, Surviving poverty in medieval Paris: gender, ideology, and the daily lives of the poor (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 2002).
Geary, Patrick J., ‘Peasant religion in medieval Europe’, Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie, 12 (2001), 185-209. Geremek, Bronislaw, The margins of society in late medieval Paris, trans. by Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Footnotes
[1] Joan Evans, Life in medieval France (London: Phaidon, 1957), p. 125.
[2] Ian Wei, Intellectual culture in medieval Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 3-4.
[3] ‘Statutes of Gregory IX for the University of Paris 1231’, available at, Internet Medieval Sourcebook, <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/UParis-stats1231.html> [last accessed, 21 November, 2016].
[4] Wei, Intellectual culture in medieval Paris, p. 235.
[5] Richard Rouse and Mary Rouse, Manuscripts and their makers: commercial book producers in medieval Paris, 1200-1500 (Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2000), p. 52, n. 3.
[6] John Baldwin, Paris, 1200 (Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, 2010), p. 188.
[7] Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and their makers, p. 73, n. 5.
[8] Wei, Intellectual culture in medieval Paris, p. 1.
[9] Sharon Farmer, Surviving poverty in medieval Paris: gender, ideology, and the daily lives of the poor (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 88.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Bronislaw Geremek, The margins of society in late medieval Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 176.
[12] Ibid., pp. 169-170.
[13] Ibid., pp. 191-192.
[14] Richard Rouse and Mary Rouse, Bound fast with letters: medieval writers, readers, and texts (Notre Dame, IN.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), p. 481.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Wei, Intellectual culture of medieval Paris, p. 185.
[17] Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (de sacramentis), trans. by Roy J. Deferrari (Cambridge, 1951), p. 440.
[18] Wei, Intellectual culture of medieval Paris, p. 194.
[19] Ibid., p. 219, n. 140.
[20] Farmer, Surviving poverty in medieval Paris, p. 150.
[21] Ibid.
[22] ‘Gratian: On Marriage (dictum post C. 32. 2. 2)’, available at, Internet Medieval Sourcebook, <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/gratian1.asp> [last accessed, 21 November, 2016].
[23] Wei, Intellectual culture of medieval Paris, p. 251.
[24] James A. Brundage, Law, sex and Christian society in medieval Europe (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987), p. 255.
[25] Ibid., p. 255, n. 157.
[26] Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, Deferrari, p. 329.
[27] Wei, Intellectual culture of medieval Paris, p. 254, n.19.
[28] Simone Roux, Paris in the middle ages, trans. by J. A. McNamara (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), p. 186.
[29] The good wife’s guide. Le ménagier de Paris: a medieval household book, trans. by Greco, Gina L. and Christine M. Rose (New York, NY.: Ithaca University Press, 2009); Ibid.
[30] Wei, Intellectual culture in medieval Paris, p. 195.
[31] ‘Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran IV 1215′, Medieval source book, <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp> [last accessed, 21 November, 2016].
[32] Patrick Geary, ‘Peasant religion in medieval Europe’, Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie, 12 (2001), 185-209, (p. 199).
[33] Wei, Intellectual culture of medieval Paris, p. 175, n. 18.
[34] Baldwin, Paris, 1200, p. 174.
[35] Roux, Paris in the middle ages, p. 105.
[36] The good wife’s guide, Le ménagier de Paris, p. 55.
[37] Evans, Life in medieval France, p. 65.
[38] Marcus Bull, ‘The Church’, in France in the central middle ages, ed. by Marcus Bull (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 138.
The Historian 