There's a tendency to refer to the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages. What were the Middle Ages? What was the character of them? In textbooks, maybe 100 years ago, they were often referred to as the Dark Ages. And that was a wonderful way of being able to say, nothing important happened and we can skip it.
And there's particularly a Protestant tendency to do that.
Okay, Augustine died. When exactly did Luther come along? Let's go from one good guy to another. And let's ignore the fact that there are only about 1,100 years between them. Surely nothing much can have happened in those 1100 years.
Let's get to the Reformation.
Well They weren't a dark age. That's so true, and I think many of us in the modern church, especially Reformed churches, have the impression that things kind of kicked off in 1517 with Martin Luther. and we fail to deeply study the history of God's work from the first century to the 21st century. This is Renewing Your Mind on this Wednesday. I'm Nathan W.
Bingham, and we'll be spending three days looking back to grow in our understanding of our family history as Christians and to see what the Lord was doing in the world. The messages you'll hear this week are from part two of W. Robert Godfrey's overview of church history. In which he explores the hopes, challenges, triumphs, and tragedies of Christianity during the Middle Ages. And when you respond today with a donation at renewingyourmind.org, we won't simply send you part two of this monumental study series.
We'll send you parts one through six, all on DVD. Plus, you'll receive digital access to all the messages and all six study guides. All this to say thank you for supporting the daily outreach of Renewing Your Mind.
So what were the Middle Ages all about and why shouldn't we call them the Dark Ages? Here's the Ligoneers chairman, Dr. Godfrey. The Middle Ages. A controversial period in all sorts of ways when we come to a study of the history of the church.
controversial as to When the Middle Ages occurred, now you think that would be a relatively easy thing, wouldn't you? When were the Middle Ages?
Well, one history of the Middle Ages begins at the year 300. Another begins at the year 1100. That's a fair distance between the two. Most histories begin around the year 500 or 600. As historians see a significant shift taking place.
between the world and culture and thought forms of what we call the ancient period. In the West, and what comes to be known as the Middle Ages or the Medieval Period. When we look at the Middle Ages, we ask, where are we going to study? What part of the world are we going to study? And most Western courses in medieval history focus on what today we call Western Europe.
That's understandable. That's where a lot of the action eventually did take place in medieval history. But It is somewhat distorting because, for the people who lived through those early centuries of the Middle Ages, Their thoughts went at least as much to the eastern part of the Mediterranean. as they did north from Italy. The thought world of the early medieval world, even in the western part of the Mediterranean, still was very much oriented to the east.
There was still an eastward look. the recent Ligonier cruise some of us were on. I was really reinforced in the reality of that, that for centuries Venice, for example, remained largely a port looking east in the Mediterranean, in contact with people in the east. And so as we go along, although we'll often be looking more on a north-south axis in Western Europe, the truth is the reality of the medieval world, especially in the earlier part, is still very much east-west as well as north-south. But the most important question, of course, is what were the Middle Ages?
What was the character of them? In textbooks, maybe 100 years ago, they were often referred to as the Dark Ages. And that was a wonderful way of being able to say, nothing important happened and we can skip it. And there's particularly a Protestant tendency to do that.
Okay, Augustine died. When exactly did Luther come along? Let's go from one good guy to another. And let's ignore the fact that there are only about 1,100 years between them. Surely nothing much could have happened in those 1100 years.
Let's get to the Reformation.
Well They weren't a dark age. They were, in fact, an age of a great deal of cultural and intellectual and ecclesiastical accomplishment that is very important. And we need to take a serious look at.
Now if some have argued that the Middle Ages was a dark age, Some, particularly Roman Catholics, have argued it's the age of faith. It's the age of great piety. It's the age of really a culture gripped by Christianity. And I think we'll see as we go along that there is some truth to that. But it's a pretty romantic notion.
An awful lot of people really didn't know much at all, substantively, about what Christianity was. Many common people in much of the Middle Ages, all they knew about Christianity was: you need to get baptized, you need to go to confession, you need to go to Mass, and if possible, have a priest there when you die. That was Christianity. The church knew what the faith was. But what was important for the faithful was simply to make use of what the church taught in terms of sacraments and morality.
And so it was not an age of faith in terms of a profound penetration of the minds and hearts of common people with the truths of Christianity.
So we come back to saying what is it?
Well, it's the Middle Ages. Which means it's between two things. And historians have been very helpful on this point. What are the Middle Ages between?
Well, they're between the old period. the ancient period and the modern period. You notice none of those adjectives tell you anything. Old, between, and modern don't actually tell you the substance. Of what went on in those periods.
It simply says, and is accurate as far as it goes. that these are three periods with somewhat differing emphases, somewhat different characters. And they can be distinguished. from one another. What I would like to suggest to you.
is that The Middle Ages are important for us, not just as a way of getting to the Reformation. But as a period in which There was profound thinking. Profound building of institutions. remarkable political events that shape us down to this day. and therefore on their own terms are very worth knowing and studying and reflecting on.
It is a period of history that continues to influence. the world in which we live. continues to illustrate for us, if nothing more than that, issues with which we still have to grasp.
So, it is a period that it is worth investing time and energy and thought. to try to understand. It is, I think, the best way to see it: a thousand-year period. of an experiment in Christian civilization. Because one of the characteristics of this medieval period.
is that it was an effort to create a society In which Christianity would be the dominant influence. That was at least the ideal. It wasn't the ideal of every individual. And it certainly wasn't the way every individual thought or acted. But that was sort of the overriding ideal that drove most of the actions, most of the thinking.
In the Middle Ages. How can we be a Christian civilization? What would it be like? to be Living in a Christian civilization set up, they believe, the way God wanted things set up. You might pause and think for a minute.
If suddenly you were made king of the world or queen of the world. And somebody said to you, Everybody wants you to set up a Christian civilization. You're not going to have to impose this on anybody. This is what everybody wants you to do. What kind of a civilization would you set up?
And um, While nobody exactly said that to people in the early Middle Ages, that was the situation in a lot of ways. that Progressively opened up for them, and all sorts of issues then arose. What is the relationship of the church and the state? What is the relationship of the clergy? to rulers How will theology develop?
Who will be the custodians of orthodoxy? How is piety over a thousand years begin to develop and evolve in the life of the church? Many medievals liked to believe that their society was pretty static. The ideal often was God has set up a world. in which there are rulers.
and prayers, the clergy, and workers. And that This world should be fairly static in that way. There's not a lot of movement between these. different estates, as they were known. And so the ideal was to move towards a Christian civilization that would be stable, secure, certain.
And what we'll see as we go along is how much contrast there was with that ideal, how much struggle. how much corruption. How much ambition? Surprising, people were people in the Middle Ages.
Sometimes particularly violent people.
So you have this ideal that dominates, but then there's the reality. Of people trying to work out that idea, live with that idea, and shape that ideal to their own interests.
So we are going to look at a very interesting period in which. There is an effort to create a Christian civilization, and that effort is in a number of ways important to us today, both as Protestants, but also just as Christians, trying to think through our relationship to our culture in our time.
Now We're setting for ourselves a demanding task. If I were to To give you 25 minutes. And say, summarize for me. The 20th century. Would that be demanding?
How much time would you give to the First World War and to the Second World War and to communism and to fascism and to America's role in the world, to the rise and fall of the British Empire, a lot of things to cover. 25 minutes on the 20th century. That's what we're doing here. We have about 25 minutes per century. And so we're going to be moving.
I hope not at a breakneck speed. That's never a good idea, but it does mean we're going to have to often paint with a kind of broad brush. Going to have to skip some things that would be very valuable to talk about. But what I'm hoping is that we will be able together to see The big issues of how the Middle Ages moved, and that we'll be able to illustrate that with some particulars as we go along. The Middle Ages is a time of great persons.
and great stories. Robin Hood? and of great books. And so we'll be trying to illustrate the broad issues that we're looking at as we go along with some particulars. And I hope you'll find it both stimulating and useful and interesting.
If I succeed, it'll be a miracle. But that's what we're aiming at together.
Now, history is not easy to outline, but outlines are very helpful, and so I have a rough, not very scholarly outline for what we're going to do together. The first four lectures are going to be called Warming Up. That's a technical historian's phrase. Warming up. We're going to be looking roughly at the period 500 to 1100.
to see how various forces inherited from the ancient world are shaped and directed towards the characteristic form of medieval life and thought and history.
So warming up, section one. First four lectures, about 500 to about 1100. And then The second part I'm calling the wondrous century, the kind of high point in some ways of the Middle Ages, 1100 to 1200. And there we'll be able to slow down a little bit, a look in a little more detail at some of the really critical things going on there in that remarkable century. I'll cheat a little bit, I'll start a little before 1100, go a little past 1,200, but it's a century for government work.
And then the third part. will be called working it out. We're going to look at the implications of what was accomplished in that wondrous century and how it moved on towards the end of the Middle Ages, looking at the period of about 1200 to 1500. And in each of those three sections, I'm going to subdivide the section. into two main parts.
One part I'm calling church and society. Where we'll look a little bit more at politics, at institutions. at the response of people in the churches. We might call that the more church history side of what we're doing. And then The other Section I'm going to call Paths to God.
And that will be the somewhat more theological side of what we're going to do. Because as we go along, I want us always to remember that while theology is important, And I only say that because RC Sproll may be listening. I actually do believe that. While theology is important, it's not everything. And so, when we study history, we shouldn't just study historical theology, but we ought to try to see that theology in historical context.
Why did people care about theology? What institutions did theology lead to? What institutions produced theology? What were the great figures that thought theologically and what influenced them in the ways they thought? How did theology actually trickle down to the churches.
You know, if the Lord carries another thousand years and archaeologists find books by R. C. Sprawl, hopefully they won't. Need to be archaeologists that find them. But if someone finds books by R.
C. Sproul, how much will books by R. C. Sproul tell people in a thousand years about the state of the American church? in the early 21st century.
We wish those books would tell us more. about the reality of church life in America than in fact they would.
So there's always a divide between good theology in a period and what actually gets down to the people. That's part of what we want to look at. As well.
So, we want to look at church history that I'm going to be talking about largely under the topic church and society, and then I want to look at paths to God. That is theology and how people tried to think through how they are going to be related to God.
So, that's how we're going to be proceeding. I hope that's clear, and if it's not, I'll be reiterating it as we go along.
So, warming up. First part. Church and society, looking at something of church history. I've already made the point that one of the mistakes that sometimes are made when we come to medieval history is to forget the continuing connection East and West. To simply take the textbook date of 476.
which almost any textbook will tell you is the date when the Roman Empire collapsed. In the West.
So many textbooks say, well, when the Roman Empire collapsed in the West, that was the end of the ancient period in the West, and medieval history started in 477. If history were that neat, it would be easier to write. And we'll actually talk in a minute about Where that date 476 is came from But it does raise an interesting question for us to pause a minute over. When did the Roman Empire end? And it turns out that's a little trickier question than you might have thought.
We know when the Roman Empire began. It's when Arcadian. The nephew of Julius Caesar. was able to defeat Anthony and Cleopatra, the last major resistance to his authority. and to establish himself as Augustus.
As the worthy one, the honoured one, the august one. and become emperor. And this was in the period of 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.
So it is relatively easy to say when the Roman Empire began. But when did it end?
Well, as I've already said, many have said it ended in 476 with the collapse. of the Western Empire. The trouble is that when Augustulus Romulus died. In 476. the West elected another emperor.
who has always been neglected by history and probably didn't really amount to much, but still. Augustulus rhomulus didn't amount to much either.
So the Western Empire did sort of continue, at least struggle along a little while after that. And besides that, there's still the Empire. In the East. Centered in what was Byzantium, modern-day Istanbul, The emperor there continued to insist that he was the Roman Emperor. And that the Roman Empire survived.
And that empire continued. Until Constantinople was overrun by the Turks. In fourteen fifty-three.
So there is a Roman Empire. really through the whole Middle Ages. In the East. Sometimes shrinking, sometimes growing, sometimes struggling, sometimes remarkably vital. And always there.
And even when The Roman Empire In the East, finally is snuffed out in 1453. It's not quite the end of the story. Because in the year 800 A king in France and Germany by the name of Charles. He is crowned. Holy Roman Emperor.
And The Roman Emperor in the East. Sends his approval. for the appointment of a new Roman emperor in the West.
So in 800. The Roman Empire is revived in the West.
Now That Western Roman Empire Survives down till 1806. It increasingly doesn't amount to much. The title increasingly becomes just a title.
sort of in the way that For many, many years the Monarchs of England were styled. King of England and King of France. even though they never set a foot. In France. Titles sometimes live on beyond realities.
But still In some formal sense. The Holy Roman Empire survives down till 1806 when Napoleon says this silly thing. is ended.
Now we all know at least It always used to be taught in schools. The essential character of the Holy Roman Empire was this. It was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. But the power of the idea of continuity was so strong and so attractive. That Charles, known in history as Charlemagne, Charles the Great, Charlemagne wanted to be invested with that dignity, with that title, and so it continued.
Finally, really located in Austria. But still that title, still the coronation garb. In Vienna, worn at the coronation of the Austrian emperors until 1806, styling themselves. Holy Roman Emperors. One could even argue that beyond eighteen oh six we see remnants.
of that Roman Empire. The Tsar in Russia insisted that Moscow after the fall of Constantinople became the third Rome. And the Tsars used Byzantine eagles as the signs of their empire. And the word czar is derived from Kaisar, Caesar The Ancient Roman title.
So there's a kind of Roman Empire that survives down till 1917. And then In one of the curious and little reported elements of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler provided for the coronation garb of the Holy Roman Emperor to be taken from Vienna and brought to Nuremberg. Where it was to be enshrined and to give some validity to the Third Reich, to the Third Empire. There were still These remnants of Roman imperial dignity being claimed down until 1945. That was the year I was born.
No, I won't go there, that I'm any continuation. But it shows what a long shadow this ideal. of Roman Empire caste. on the west. And the idea of being connected.
Of still having some connection with that great, noble, civilizing experiment. That's what Rome said of itself. Rome was eternal, seemed almost to manage it. But Rome was civilizing. Rome brought order to the barbarians, and that was something of an ideal that still captured.
Christians. and still, particularly in the Middle Ages, was a powerful ideal that continued to direct and attract the thought of Christian people. That was W. Robert Godfrey, helping us understand the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages. Part 2 of Dr.
Godfrey's A Survey of Church History is the series you're hearing from this week on Renewing Your Mind. And when he finished recording all six parts, it was a total of 73 messages. It truly is a comprehensive look at the church from the apostolic age to the present. This is a valuable resource for any Christian. and especially for Christians who are home schooling their children.
Learn the history you likely weren't taught at school with this monumental study series from W. Robert Godfrey. When you donate at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343 in support of Renewing Your Mind, we'll send you the entire 73 message series on DVD and unlock all of the messages and the six study guides in the free Ligonier app as our way of saying thank you. None of this would be possible without your support.
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You may not be familiar with the names Justinian and Gregory. But tomorrow, W. Robert Godfrey will reveal why these two men were such important figures in the Middle Ages.
So be sure to join us Thursday here on Renewing Your Mind.
