Online Document Assignment 11

Meister Eckhart

Anticlericalism and Popular Religion in the Late Middle Ages

The trials and tribulations of the Roman Catholic Church in the late Middle Ages swelled a rising tide of popular anticlericalism. In the minds of many Europeans, the priests, monks, and other officials of the church came to be associated not with selflessness, morality, and faith, but with corruption, greed, and incompetence. Increasing anticlericalism was not a symptom of decreasing religiosity, however; on the contrary, the hostility many in the laity felt toward church authorities was born out of an intensifying desire for a more active, more authentic Christian experience. Lay Europeans were hostile to clerics because too many clerics failed to live up to, and in some cases even articulate, Christian teachings. Thus, while the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries represented a low point in the history of the Roman Catholic Church as an institution, this era also saw the emergence of an increasing number of lay religious organizations, as Europeans from across the social spectrum sought to take greater control over their own spiritual lives.

It is against this backdrop that Meister Eckhart rose to prominence. In many ways, Eckhart’s career pattern differed little from that of earlier medieval theologians. Like Thomas Aquinas, he was a Dominican monk whose education and training took place at the Universities of Paris and Cologne. He occupied a number of teaching and administrative posts, producing scholarly works on theology and philosophy. Where he broke with convention, however, was by preaching to the public in German. Instead of limiting himself to scholarly conversations in Latin with fellow theologians, he sought to express his ideas directly to the German laity in their own language. This decision was made all the more provocative by Eckhart’s insistence that believers could, and should, seek an unmediated experience with the divine. As you read these documents related to Eckhart’s life and teachings, ask yourself why the church found his teachings and activities so threatening. What do the documents tell you about the religious climate of the early fourteenth century?

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