The institutional crisis of the Roman Church was a long drawn-out affair, and it divided Western polities into separate obediences during the papal schism of 1378-1417, first of an in Rome and Avignon, later in Pisa. This was not completely resolved even after the election of Pope Martin V at the Council of Constance, and an underlying conciliar crisis dragged on until almost the middle of the fifteenth century. Another effect of these rifts, which had a distinct effect on the faithful, was that proposals for religious reform 'in capite et in membris' moved progressively from the world of the clerics to the wider society; the preachers were instrumental in transmitting a new Christianisation of society, founded on morality rather than on doctrine.
Moral and didactic themes predominated, particularly in the preaching of the Friars Minor, the Franciscans, in the wake of the authoritative example of Bernardino da Siena.911 This had also occurred in a more limited way in the fourteenth century with the Friars Preacher, the Dominicans, and again at the turn of the century with Giovanni Domenici (1356-1419),912 and later with Antonino Pierozzi (1389-1459), bishop of Florence.913 Many traces of these themes remain in the Latin books of sermons which were compiled by the friars for their own use. The content of more controversial texts (e. g. on subjects such as pacifism, propaganda in favour of the Crusade against the Turks, the foundation of the Monti dipietd (charitable banks) or those sermons directed against targets such as personal wealth, heretics, witches and the Jews) has also been documented by those who attended the sermons, and from chronicles of the time.
The preachers hoped to extend their religious devotional style to the whole of society. In a certain sense, it was the lay faithful's waning enthusiasm for the religious ideal which was at the root of the reforms of the mendicant friars and the monks: the 'observantia regularis'. This was a renewal based on the rigorous application of the rules - the 'regula' of the order - upon which
Their identity was based. For the laity, it meant consolidating ecclesiastical pastoral care (founded on preaching in the vernacular and the hearing of confessions), which was often offered by the self-same friars, while promoting adherence to the precepts of the Ten Commandments. The reforming vision was quite traditional, based on virtues to be practised and vices to be avoided, and it placed a greater emphasis on the family and its network of internal and external connections.914
There were notable differences in the way in which this occurred in various areas of Western Europe, despite the shared aim of renewal and reform. This is not surprising, since power and authority were organised differently and produced differing degrees of cooperation between church and state in Europe's regions. The friar Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419) of the Order of Preachers originated from the kingdom of Valencia and was a subject of the Aragonese crown, travelled over the course of several decades through Catalonia, alpine and subalpine Italy, southern Germany and central France, and ended his days preaching in Brittany. Crowds flocked to hear him preach, first on viciously anti-Jewish themes, then later on the topic of social pacification. He finally professed himself to be a preacher of the Last Days, an image was confirmed in his papal canonisation by Pope CaUistus III in 1458 and in the devotional iconography which developed around his memory and cult.915
In a similar way, the preaching of the Friars Minor of Observance had a social impact in Italy, beginning with Bernardino da Siena in the early fifteenth century and ending with Bernardino da Feltre in the last years of that century. This impact was first felt in those Italian territories which were progressively restoring (or even establishing) the power of the papal monarchy, while the situation was slightly different in the other states of the peninsula. Girolamo Savonarola da Ferrara (1452-98), who went from religious reformer of social mores to agent of political renewal in Florence, rose to prominence within a similar framework, in this case the political conflicts between the different factions in the city.
World History
