How devout were people *really*?

by reinadelacempasuchil

The Middle Ages are made to seem like a time where everyone was extremely religious and “sin” was hugely stigmatized by the church and community. To what extent did people really feel this way? To what extent did they actually behave in accordance with church proscriptions? Was it common to have a sincere as unwavering belief in the Catholic Church and the afterlife or did people have doubts and question teachings? Was piety societally enforced or was it one of those things where everyone agreed that church was good but if you skipped it or didn’t pay much attention at service it wasn’t that big of a deal?

Kelpie-Cat

There have been some previous answers on this sub which might be of interest to you.

I am a peasant in medieval France - how well do I know my religion? by /u/sunagainstgold

Before modern science, did top Church officials really believe in God? by me

Did atheists exist in the Middle Ages? by /u/The_Manchurian and /u/sunagainstgold

More, of course, can always be said, but these answers should help you at least somewhat.

Medieval Europe was full of devout people, to the point where the Church sometimes had great difficulty reigning in popular piety. For example, popular cults of saints might swell up in response to a local holy person -- before the Church had the chance to officially canonize them, people were already worshiping them as a saint. In some cases, local saints were never approved by the Vatican but continued to be worshiped in their local areas. This is just one example of how devotional life could be community-driven rather than driven by the Church's organizational structure.

In Inquistion records we do have examples of people expressing doubt in the afterlife or other aspects of Christian teachings, so there were surely people before that who also had their doubts. However, given how much control the Church had over the vast majority of documents that survive from medieval Europe, it's not surprising that records of these people are few and far between. For further reading, I'd recommend checking out Doubting Christianity: The Church and Doubt (2016), the 52nd volume of the journal Church History edited by medievalist Frances Andrews around the theme of religious doubt.