The Sell Of Indulgences

         While learning about Martin Luther in the movie we have been watching this week in class, the idea of indulgences came up. Indulgences were sold during the reformation era by the Catholic church. The sole purpose of indulgences were to basically be a way to "buy" your way into heaven. By buying an indulgence you were guaranteed by the mercy of God to be saved and have a spot in heaven. But naturally it is going to cost you a pretty penny. Salvation doesn't come cheap! As we learned in the movie, Martin Luther opposed what the Catholic Church was corruptly selling as a ticket into heaven. He even put this objection into his 95 Thesis where he also criticized other points the Catholic Church were doing. The photo to the left of this text is an indulgence from 1516 signed by Pope Leo X himself. 

Purgatory

Since we have been discussing religious reformers such as Martin Luther who did not agree with some of the views provided by the Catholic church, I decided to look into some of the aspects and qualities of Catholicism.  As most know, during Luther's era, his disagreements with the church sparked a revolutionary following that questioned the indulgences and relics of the Catholic Church. Though Luther spoke against the "corruption" within the church, his religious views remained similar in quality.  In the picture above, is a depiction of Catholic purgatory.  This is a major part of the religion that is essentially a religious middle ground between earth and heaven.  According to historyinanhour.com, "purgatory was not an eternal abode, but a place where your soul spent an unknown period of time." The picture provided is the work of Ludovico Carracci in the year 1612.  In the painting we can see the depiction of the gap between purgatory and heaven.  The souls waiting at the bottom of the painting are pictured naked and wandering around waiting for their chance to raise to the heavens.  In the middle, an angel deciding who is to be allowed.  At the top is heaven, where the souls of others are looking down upon those in purgatory and collaborating, possibly even begging the lord as to who may enter. 

 

This diagram provides a look as to how one is to enter purgatory.  According to the diagram, if the soul is purified before death, then it may enter straight to heaven.  If the soul has no mortal sins such as murder, but still needs purification, then it must enter purgatory for a period of time.  But if the soul is tainted with moral sins, it will travel directly to hell with no chance of entering heaven.  This aspect of purgatory within Catholicism decides the fate of a persons soul, and where it is to be laid to rest.

 

 

 

 

Sources:

 

www.historyinanhour.com

 

www.catholic-convert.com

 

Martin Luther's Death Mask

      I learn that the presumably mask was created after a plaster cast that had been made by the local painter Luke Furtenagel on Luther’s deathbed in Eisleben on February 19, 1546. I realize that we are still learning about Luther during Europe’s reformation but I find these mask of Luther quite creepy but fascinating. So I decide to web search and this is what I learned. Luther was not originally at Halle church Marktkirche, instead his body was to be taken to Wittenberg for the planned burial. A Protestant minister Justus Jonas, who was a close friend of Martin Luther and preacher at Halle where the church’s parish came into the possession of Luther’s death mask.

      The death mask in the middle there is actually the revised version that has been on display in Halle, you could how this one with several modifications to the original masks had been more realistic, such as the opening of its eyelids which I might add is scary! I think eyes for a dead person should always remain closed. But that’s just me. Anyways than on the far right is the “reconstructed” Lukas Furtenagel death mask without the alterations. I also found it interesting how the 'death mask' as prettified for public view did not look much like Luther at all, while the version restored to more or less its original condition is much closer to Cranach's sketch. What do you guys think?

Source:

http://artdaily.com/news/26979/Martin-Luther-s-Death-Mask-on-View-at-Museum-in-Halle--Germany#.UmmpQPlQFgk 

The Indulgence Slip

                Indulgences are something that I have been aware of since High School.  I knew they were sold and what they were, but I was never really sure what happened when you bought an indulgence.  Did a priest just bless you?  Did they say a prayer for your ancestors?  From researching a bit on the internet, I found that some indulgence salesmen, such as a Dominican monk Johannes Tetzel, would provide a piece of paper with text that read "In the authority of all the saints, and in compassion towards you, I absolve you from all sins and misdeeds, and remit all punishment for ten days".  This picture below is an example of one of these indulgence slips sold by Tetzel in 1517. 

                

                 When we think about indulgences it seems ridiculously and almost hard to believe that any one would think you could just pay to have your sins expunged.  What we have to keep in mind is that most of the people were unable to read.  They received their interpretation of the bible from the Catholic Church and there was not an abundance of opposing views.  I don't believe the people in this time were dumb for buying these indulgences, they were simply trying to help their families or themselves out in any way they could.  Buying indulgences was a simple way to aid their family members and was confirmed by the sole church at that time and by their community.

Source:

http://www.welcometohosanna.com/MARTIN_LUTHER/2LUTHER_REFORMER.html

Wittenberg Altarpiece

The altarpiece in the church of Wittenberg was finished in 1547 by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The church called St. Marien is the place where Luther preached his sermons and where the people heard his reformative thoughts about the nature and the constitution of church and religion.

           

The altarpiece consists of four different panels. The biggest panel in the middle depicts the scene of the last supper. It is shown as a communicative scene in which everybody is sitting around the table and is clearly talking and having a conversation with his neighbor (except of Judas who wears bright yellow clothes and his foot steps out of the circle). Cranach also depicts Luther in the circle of the apostles. He is the one on the right who just gets handed over the chalice. The left panel shows Philip Melanchton, who was a colleague of Luther, baptizing new followers of the new faith. The right panel depicts another follower of Luther, Johannes Budenhagen, who acts as a confessor. The three panels show different events but they are all connected not only by their subject (the three sacraments) but also in the artistic way of using similar colors (red, brown) and shapes (circles). The fact that the altarpiece shows Lutheran sacraments as well as the traditional Catholic last supper emphasizes the reality of Luther’s new church and is meant to give credibility to his thoughts and faith.

In the bottom panel (called Predella) the historical context becomes clearer. It shows Luther preaching and presenting the crucified Christ to his followers. This scene works more as a metaphor in which Luther can be seen as the leader and preacher of the new church. The way in which he places one hand on the book (probably the Bible) reflects the thinking of Protestants, who believed in the scriptural authority of the Bible and people’s individual reading and interpreting of it (which is opposite to the Catholic belief in which the pope or the priest does the interpretation).

            

The Wittenberg altarpiece clearly illustrates the new forming Lutheran church and it also idealizes the new community of Lutherans in the area. It is therefore an important piece in a meaningful place of the Reformation. Lucas Cranach, who was a close friend of Martin Luther and his wife Katharina, depicts this Reformation as a whole concept of thinking and by doing so he marks a decisive change in the Northern European art.

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/cranachs-wittenberg-altarpiece.html?q=cranachs-wittenberg-altarpiece.html

http://www.globopix.de/fotos/sachsen-anhalt/lutherstadtwittenberg/st-marien-cranachaltar-wittenberg22.html

http://www.stadtkirchengemeinde-wittenberg.de/de/stadtkirche.html

Girolamo Aleandro - Anti-Luther, Pro-Catholicism

(This woodcut comes from 1536, as dated on the bottom, showing Girolamo Aleandro as Archbishop.)

This week because we are watching Luther in class I decided to analyze a character from the movie, specifically one with historical significance. As such, a prominent choice is Cardinal Girolamo Aleandro. He eventually became an archbishop of the Catholic Church. Yet for the movie purposes, he is a strong opponent to Martin Luther, especially at the Council of Worms. Pope Leo X sends Girolamo to Germany to protest against Luther in 1520. Girolamo supports the Catholic Church ardently, but recognizes the need for some reforms within the church. He does not support the Reformation or the splitting of the church.

At the Diet of Worms Girolamo advocated for strong measures to be taken to silence Luther. On this stance, he stood relatively alone because many people preferred less violent means of suppression. He even lost the friendship of Erasmus over his stance. He had be longtime friends with Erasmus due to their shared ideals of Humanism. The edict eventually drawn up against Luther was pronounced by Girolamo himself and adopted by the emperor (Charles V) and the diet. After this in 1523 Clement VII named Girolamo the archbishop of Brindisi and Oria. Paul the III named him a cardinal in 1536, and he died in 1542 in Rome. 

Pilgrimage and Relics, 1497

When we approach the Reformation, it's important for me that we see both points of view. Typically the Reformation has been approached by one point of view (Catholic or Protestant), and in most high school classes the Reformation is seen only through the lens of Luther. To get out of that mode, we will examine other reformers and contrast them with Luther. It may be hard to believe that Luther was criticized for being too Catholic!

 Keeping in the world of the 1500s, I am posting the following image from Josse Lieferinx, the Master of St. Sebastian from 1497: "The Pilgrims at the church of St. Sebastian." This is an image in Rome today, and one that would have been painted pre-Reformation. It shows the various people at a church at the altar. Many of the people have health issues, including a cripple and someone carried in in a box. All are facing the devotional space, and all are praying.  While generally city magistrates, city folks, and nobility went for the Reformation in Germany, the poor and the peasants did not last. This is not simply a class divide but thinking about what each offered and why. For many of the urbanites, as you saw in the decrees of the city guilds, they were tired of favoritism towards priests. Everyone in the city should pay a tax, guard the walls; priests should not be exempt. For this reason, cities were interested in controlling their own religion. But always keep in the back of your mind the ways that medieval devotion permeated society. What happens when it disappears? Pilgrimage, monasticism, relics, saints are all criticized. These will be major changes for society and create an "age of anxiety."

Here is an relic of St. Valentine that is in Rome today: 

Here is an image of a pilgrimage church in  Chimayo, New Mexico that I have been to; and also one in Quebec. Important to remember that many of these things are in existence today.