14 - Worship, Pastorate, and Diaconate in Early Modern Europe

Summary

Religious life in late medieval Latin Christendom was intense. A turn toward pastoral theology and increasing lay literacy and activism led to criticism of and rising expectations for clergy (more preaching, better morals), multiplication of devotions (e.g., prayer books promising indulgences, elaborate church decoration, new saints’ shrines, and pilgrimages), and anxieties about means of salvation and good works (e.g., chantries and Mass foundations, practices of charity in face of the “undeserving poor”). Among the responses were reformulations of the understanding and practice of worship and the roles and characters of ministries.