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The Religious Reformation in Europe c.1500-1564

Criticism of the Church: anticlericalism, heresy and the humanists

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  • AS Unit 2 and A2 Unit 4

Overview

Pluralism and absenteeism, nepotism as practised by the Renaissance papacy and three grievances that fuelled anticlericalism among the laity.

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Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Define simony.

Key term

Define pluralism and absenteeism, and explain how they were connected.

Key term

What was nepotism as practised by the Renaissance papacy?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Define simony.

    Model answer

    The buying or selling of Church offices or spiritual benefits.

  2. 2

    Define pluralism and absenteeism, and explain how they were connected.

    Model answer

    Pluralism is holding more than one benefice at a time; absenteeism follows from it, because a man cannot reside in several places, so parishes were left to poorly paid deputies.

  3. 3

    What was nepotism as practised by the Renaissance papacy?

    Model answer

    The appointment of relatives, especially nephews, to rich offices and cardinalates regardless of their fitness for them.

  4. 4

    Give two examples of the moral criticism levelled at the papacy before 1517.

    Model answer

    Alexander VI openly acknowledged his children and used the papacy to advance his family, and Julius II spent the Church's wealth on war and building.

  5. 5

    Define anticlericalism.

    Model answer

    Hostility to the clergy as a privileged and worldly class, rather than to the doctrines of the Church itself.

  6. 6

    Name three grievances that fuelled anticlericalism among the laity.

    Model answer

    Mortuary and probate fees charged at death, the wealth and idleness of monasteries, and clergy who kept concubines while preaching chastity.

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