The Church was at its strongest in the thirteenth century, but within a few years of entering the fourteenth it entered a series of crises that would all but destroy it (and certainly destroyed its hold over the minds and hearts of many Europeans).

This is something that forms part of the plot of The Nameless Day. One of the great medieval popes, Boniface VIII, died in 1303. For many years he had been engaged in a power struggle with the French King, Philip IV. When Boniface died, Philip seized the opportunity to influence the subsequent papal election so that his own man, Clement V, took the papal throne (there was a brief interval when someone else was elected, but he lived less than a year). Clement promptly removed the entire papacy from Rome to the French-controlled town of Avignon, where the papacy remained for over 70 years. All Europe believed that during this time the papacy was controlled by the French monarchy - indeed, the majority of pa

When people sought religious comfort in order to cope with the chaos of the physical world they encountered a Church that was, to all intents and purposes, in chaos (and the pestilence had struck the Church as badly as secular society). People began to look elsewhere for spiritual comfort ...

· there were many other orders of clerics who lived like parasites on society: wandering friars, for example, who lived off what they could steal from honest folk.

· most of the high Church offices (abbots, bishops, archbishops etc.) were bought and sold,and thus tended to be held by less than devout, but very rich men. Meanwhile, the humble parish priest was rarely paid, and often had to take a second job in order to survive.

As there were tremendous and violent social revolts in Europe post the Black Death, so there were some extremely strong and extremely dangerous heresies. the one I want to discuss here, again because it has such a bearing on THE CRUCIBLE, is the English Lollard movement.

stendom laboured under two popes (and sometimes three), the French and its allies supporting the pope in Avignon, the English and their allies supporting the pope in Rome. Two popes, two papal courts, two archbishops or abbots likely to turn up to fill a vacancy ... the entire thing was a farce, and seen as such by all Europe. By the end of the century the Roman Catholic Church was becoming the laughing stock of Europe, and many no longer believed that the Church spoke the will of God. How could it, when it was so beset by corruptio

Some common words found in the essay are:
Catholic Church, , Protestant Reformation, Besides Urban, Black Death, Rome French-controlled, IV Boniface, Purgatory Non-Romans, Urban VI, Babylonian Captivity, papal election, allies supporting pope, supporting pope, allies supporting, french monarchy, sixteenth century, · church, babylonian captivity, undue influence, fourteenth century, · clerics, election undue influence,
Approximate Word count = 1030
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)