The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy

Even if congregants were not entirely happy with a particular pastor there is rarely evidence that they were dissatisfied with Catholicism per se. Most people attended services with enthusiasm even if they were not markedly pious, it was the main entertainment available, and priests and architects tried hard to make the experience of church attendance attractive and interesting. While the Church had plenty of flaws, especially higher in its hierarchy, on the local level it was very active and responsive to the needs of varying communities.

In terms of material evidence, this simply wasn't the case. As soon as an alternative presented itself, the populace happily turned to the new sects to find more active and fulfilling spiritual lives. Protestant historians, who traditionally dominated this subject, presented a picture of late medieval religion in which a hopelessly corrupt church cared nothing for its flock, who in turn resented or disliked the church and were apathetic about its teachings and practices. If that doesn't sound to you like a revolutionary argument that needs to be hidden two thirds of the way through a 700 page text, it is because the book came out almost two decades ago and the revisionist thesis has become a mainstream, although not dominant, historical position.īefore Duffy's groundbreaking work, the accepted explanation for the Reformation was the moribund corruption of the Catholic Church. If you don't know what a rood screen is and couldn't care less, this part may be slow going for you, but it is necessary to establish the foundations for the point Duffy has been waiting hundreds of pages to make: late medieval Catholicism was vibrant. He examines this topic from the perspectives of both laity and clergy, using a variety of sources including, unusually, the material conditions of the churches themselves. The first and longer section outlines the characteristics of late medieval Catholicism, its defining ideas and practices. This revisionist behemoth can be divided into two parts.

The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy