Activity 9

What was the role of the church in medieval society?

The Medieval Church dominated everybody’s life. People believed in God, Heaven and Hell. The Catholic Church ruled with the fear of damnation. All classes in society owed allegiance to the church.

Place where you think these people fitted on the church status pyramid in medieval times.

Roles of the people

  • Popes situated in Rome, claimed both spiritual authority and worldly powers during the middle ages, vying with emperors for supremacy, ruling over the Papal States, and regulating the lives of all people in Christian society.
  • Cardinals were powerful medieval princes, owning castles and lands and ruling much of Europe. They took part in the administration of the church of Rome and in the papal teachings. Only a cardinal was eligible to become pope.
  • Archbishops’ role was to implement the teaching sf the church at all levels and to care for the spiritual needs of the faithful with the help of priests, monks and nuns.
  • Bishops were not just religious leaders. They served kings and lords as advisors and were given land by the church in return for loyalty and services. As the church did not pay taxes it became wealthier than the any king and subsequently built enormous cathedrals that we can still visit today.
  • Peasants worked for free on church land which meant they often neglected their own little plots. They paid a tithe (tax) of 10% of their annual earnings to the church usually in the form of vegetables, grain or animals. If they failed to pay their soul was destined for hell. Their lives were ruled by fear – fear of being declared a heretic or a witch – fear of being tortured or burned alive at the stake as was Joan of Arc.
  • Local priests taught the church message to the villagers and performed duties such as baptism, marriage, helping the poor and collecting taxes. They managed the village church which sometimes doubled as a school, courtroom and tax office.
  • Monks and nuns lived simple lives in monasteries and nunneries away from the villages. They prayed, worked and helped the poor.
  • Friars were effectively holy beggars living amongst the village people.

Medieval villages

Look carefully at the layout of a typical medieval village.


Your Task

Answer the questions below on screen or in this Word Doc version to save your answers.

What might be the impact of its central location upon the village people?

Image Gallery


Last Judgement 1306, fresco by Giotto di Bondone (1266/1267–1337)


Luca Signorelli, The Damned Cast into Hell, 1499-1504, a, fresco in Orvieto Cathedral, Italy. Wikimedia Commons


Building a medieval church
https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/church-architecture-fails-middle-ages-cathedrals-design-how-built/


Notre Dame, Paris. Construction began in 1163, during the reign of King Louis VII, and was completed in 1345. A detail of a 15th-century miniature by Jean Fouquet, showing Notre-Dame and the then-walled Ile de la Cité.


Medieval monk copies a manuscript http://www.trob-eu.net/en/medieval-manuscripts.html


Philosophy students at the University of Paris, from the "Grandes chroniques de France", a 14th Century manuscript .


Pilgrimage to Canterbury Pilgrims leaving Canterbury, taken from Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, Royal 18 D II f.148, 1455-1462.


The Plight of the Poor: Monastic Charity and Almonries in Medieval England https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/plight-poor