Heresy and the Decline of the Medieval Church

Legal centralization and the birth of the secular state

“…29 Rather, and in a manner completely consistent with our model, the inquisitors created the image of the organized heresy they expected to encounter and in so doing they hardened the boundaries between orthodox Catholicism and heresy as 'those who still believed in the heretics now did so with a new awareness about themselves: a self-consciousness that was, ironically, made precise and clear through the very men who wished to punish them, that is, through the two friar inquisitors' (Pegg, 2001, 130). Discontent with the church hierarchy and church corruption was common throughout the middle ages and often led to dissenting belief (Leff, 1961(Leff, , 1967. It was the growth of the medieval state, however, that criminalized this dissent and turned it into heresy.…”

José Luis Romero medievalista. Años 1940-1967

“…Efectivamente, ya en la década de 1960 comenzó a verse que las herejías que surgieron después del año mil cuestionaban el papel mediador de la Iglesia, pérdida de influencia que no se debía a que la institución había caído en una fase de decaimiento moral, ya que episodios éticamente condenables habían existido antes, sino a la búsqueda de una nueva vida cristiana (Leff, 1961). Esa evolución historiográfica se completó, y hoy se conviene en que con la impugnación del sacerdote se iniciaba una nueva religiosidad (se trata del concepto moderno de religión), en tanto el vínculo personal e intransferible de cada creyente con su dios se establecía en su conciencia.…”