New book investigates the expansion of Christianity in Europe between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries

Three scholars from different countries show how medieval evangelization succeeded by winning individuals’ hearts and minds, and refute the classical idea that contact between clergy and laity was mainly coercive.

By Maria Fernanda Ziegler  |  Agência FAPESP – Religious conversion is usually a two-way street, and this was the case between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries in medieval Europe. The clergy sought ways of expanding their flocks and enlarging the Church, while winning the hearts and minds of nobles and peasants, men and women, literate and illiterate, to follow the precepts of the faith.

The book Cativar as almas – Diretrizes para a instrução espiritual (séc. XII-XV) (Editora Unisinos, 2022) examines the oft-forgotten personal dimension of conversion and evangelization by focusing on the role of individual will in this process.

The title can be translated as “Captivating Souls – Guidelines for Spiritual Instruction”. Publication of the book was supported by FAPESP.

It was written by three scholars in different countries who began researching for it in 2019 after meeting at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo state, Brazil. Jean-Claude Schmitt, emeritus professor at the Paris School of Social Sciences (EHESS) in France, is a leading medievalist. Pablo Martin Prieto is Professor of Medieval History at the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain. Leandro Alves Teodoro is a professor in the History Department of São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Assis.

With the support of a Young Investigator Grant, Teodoro created a database containing historical texts written to disseminate Christian morals in the late Middle Ages. In addition, he is conducting research in collaboration with the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) on pastoral booklets that exemplified virtues and sins in the medieval Iberian Peninsula. 

“In the book, we refute the classical idea that contact between clergy and laity was mainly coercive. We show that laymen were protagonists in the late Middle Ages when Christian morals were so strong that they became the roots of Western identity,” Teodoro said.

Europe underwent profound changes between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. The War of the Reconquest waged to drive the Moors out of Spain, for example, culminated in 1492 in the fall of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada to Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic rulers of Aragon and Castile. Most inhabitants of the region were illiterate, hindering the spread of knowledge about Christian morals, the commandments of the Church, and even the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary.

Not by accident, it was also in this period that the Church adopted the strategy of disseminating written texts – in Portuguese and Spanish in the case of the Iberian Peninsula – so that more priests had access to content on Christian morals and could convey these teachings to the faithful and “captivate” more souls. 

The authors analyze the behavior of the converted as this reinvigoration proceeded and congregants were persuaded to redefine their everyday activities. They make a point of not repeating the cliché that conversion depended entirely on priests, friars and monks.

“Preaching the faith is usually assumed to have been done by orators who pronounced sermons and homilies, but we reject the traditional approach according to which moral formation happens from the top down. We show that taking the Word to the people was useless unless people were captivated,” Teodoro said

An example of the importance of individuals and their will or desire can be found in the sermons of St. Anthony of Pádua (1195-1231). In a passage on the six virtues of the soul (from his sermon for Septuagesima, the ninth Sunday before Easter), he says: “When the darkness of mortal sin is ‘upon the face of the deep’ (that is, of the heart), man suffers ignorance as regards knowledge of God, and as regards his own frailty; and he does not know how to distinguish between good and evil.”

These sermons, Teodoro explained, were part of the evangelizing movement that emerged forcefully in the thirteenth century with the creation of mendicant orders such as Franciscans and Dominicans. “It was a period when the Church was expanding and converting, with clergy going out into the villages to preach, and in his sermons St. Anthony used to say that the preacher’s words should serve as an appeal to captivate and seduce the sinner so as to refine his spirituality,” he said.

Spiritual education through the spoken word took various forms. “Sin was a very strong idea to captivate the faithful. In that age, people were very afraid of hell, for example, so they identified with the teachings of the Church. The sacraments, confession and marriage celebrated by a priest were other ways to seduce them,” Teodoro said.

“We don’t discuss the Inquisition and its institutional apparatus. We focus on what led people to convert. They were targeted by what we call moralizing games. An idea very dear to Christian thinkers was that all the pieces on the board, from the Pope to the laity, had to play the game and had roles, goals and responsibilities.”

Clergy had to follow certain rules in order to avoid going to hell, including a rule that conversion be voluntary. “They knew it would be worthless unless it was desired. The conclusion is that the success of Christianity is rooted in the power to captivate people. If conversion had always been won by intimidation, it wouldn’t have been successful,” Teodoro said.

More information about Cativar as almas – Diretrizes para a instrução espiritual (séc. XII-XV), by Jean-Claude Schmitt, Leandro Alves Teodoro and Pablo Martín Prieto, can be found at: www.edunisinos.com.br/produto/322/cativar-as-almas-diretrizes-para-a-instr--espiritual-sec-xiixv.