Itinerant Christians

Sources

Preachers and Followers. Many heretical religious groups began when preachers traveled to spread the Gospel; over time these groups developed permanent communities where they acquired more followers. One of the first such settlements in medieval Europe began in 1096 at Angers under the leadership of the Canon Regular Robert of Arbrissel, an itinerant preacher papally appointed. Robert of Arbrissel’s venture was so successful that by 1100 he and his adepts had established the abbey at Fontevrault, which in turn founded many other priories, including Orsan.

Papal Instruction. The houses of Fontevrault and Premontre and the abbeys of Savigny and Chaussey with their daughter communities were perhaps the most successful of the medieval apostolic movement. The papacy had recommended to each of the respective founders, Robert of Arbrissel, Norbert of Xanten, Vital de Mortain, and Bernard de Thiron, that they supervise the organization of a community, establish a permanent home for it, and settle its form of government. The first communities lived on alms and were considered by the secular clergy to be careless in their manner of dress, unworthy of a priest or monk.

On the Edge of Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, in the early thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III had the leaders make specific provisions for a religious life for the men and women whom their preaching influenced: “If any men of the world wish to abide in our counsel, we advise that some who are suitable should be selected to exhort and

THE ROAD TO SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

One of the most important pilgrimage sites in Medieval Europe was Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Below is a list of the distances between the stops along the way.

Average Miles: 13.5

Total Miles: 407

Source : Arthur Pcrcival Newton, ed., Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968).

dispute against the heretics, while others dwell together in houses, living religiously and according to rule, dispensing their goods in justice and mercy, laboring with their hands, and paying the tithes, first fruits and offerings due to the Church.” In 1212 the Poor Catholics proposed to open a religious house in the Diocese of Elne, but since

the converts were so heterogeneous, the monastery would have clerics, laymen, and women. The beginnings of this movement so interfered with the operation of other orders that most of the new orders, particularly the Premonstratensians, retreated toward conformity with monasteries inspired by the Benedictines. In the thirteenth

century, however, the laity dominated itinerant preaching in Europe for the bands of the “apostolic movement,” and after the start of the Inquisition, exposed the ordinary course of clerical life. Their continued attempts to maintain lay dominance, in Peter Valdes’s Waldensians and the Cathars, for example, failed, partly because orthodox clergy willing to entertain an ideal of the whole Church independent of any distinction of clergy and laity were difficult to find.

Obstacles. The itinerant preachers faced many obstacles in trying to carry out their plans for the Christianization and education of the laity: orthodox supporters were often hard to find; some cities outlawed the presence of preachers; lay nobles resisted; and a fear of preachers’ causing unrest slowed acceptance of their ideas. Furthermore, Latin had made it hard for the laity to understand what they were being taught in church and hard for apostolic preachers to instruct them. Perhaps the preachers were naive about what they could accomplish in the radicalizing environment of the twelfth century. Ultimately, the itinerants gathered and educated only a small portion of the lay Christians of the Middle Ages from 1100 on. They were, however, successful in setting precedents, in drawing lay support for vernacular education from influential popes such as Innocent III, and in providing an ideology counter to the one held by orthodox bishops and others opposed to literacy for the laity.

Sources

Margaret Wade Labarge, Medieval Travellers: The Rich and Restless (London: Hamilton, 1982).

Arthur Percival Newton, ed., Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968).

J. R. S. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades; A Short History (London: Athlone Press, 1987).

Marjorie Rowling, Everyday Life of Medieval Travellers (London: B. T. Batsford, 1971).