Tensions between Clergy and Laity in some Western German Cities in the Later Middle Ages
Repeatedly in the course of the later Middle Ages latent resentment against the clergy, its privileges and behaviour exploded in outbursts of hatred and violence in the German cities. Late medieval Magdeburg saw some of the ugliest manifestations of this kind. In 1325 its citizens murdered their arc...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1992
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| In: |
The journal of ecclesiastical history
Year: 1992, Volume: 43, Issue: 2, Pages: 231-248 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | Repeatedly in the course of the later Middle Ages latent resentment against the clergy, its privileges and behaviour exploded in outbursts of hatred and violence in the German cities. Late medieval Magdeburg saw some of the ugliest manifestations of this kind. In 1325 its citizens murdered their archbishop. In 1402 they surged looting and burning through the ecclesiastical quarter of the city, threatening violence to the clergy. Magdeburg was no isolated case. The bishop, chapter and clergy of Worms informed the council of Frankfurt in the Spring of 1386 how the citizens of Worms had beaten and thrown in prison priests and prelates, set fire to chapels, monasteries and churches and stolen religious items of great value. During the heyday of the Leagues of the Rhenish and Swabian Cities in the 1380s the laity in Basle, Cologne, Worms, Speyer and Mainz, no longer fearing the clergy's powerful friends, vented their pent-up hatreds. As the clerical author of the Chronicon Moguntinum explained they took revenge on the clergy ‘and thus they persecuted them more than the Jews, not caring for the princes of the land, but following their own volitions’. Time and again tempers flared and ecclesiastical property was burned, ecclesiastics were beaten or faced with a choice between self-imposed exile and abridgement of their privileges. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-7637 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of ecclesiastical history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900000890 |