Content area
Abstract
In the late Middle Ages the Church faced a number of crises. The heresies of the Free Spirit and the Hussites threatened the faith, the practice of demonic magic seemed on the rise, and the new phenomenon of conspiratorial witchcraft appeared for the first time in the early fifteenth century. In addition, in the wake of the Great Schism, a number of reform movements sprang up within the Church, while the conciliar movement challenged papal power and attempted to address all the religious problems of the day, both within the Church and without. Each of these phenomena has been studied in great detail, but always separately, whereas in fact they were all closely related to one another in the minds of the ecclesiastical authorities who attempted to deal with them.
This study explores all of these issues, as well as the interconnections which existed between them, through the works of the Dominican reformer and theologian Johannes Nider († 1438). Nider was one of the most important ecclesiastical figures of his age, and he contributed significant writings on most of the issues which faced the late medieval Church, yet his works have never been examined seriously by modern scholarship. Thus this study, by exploring Nider's works separately, contributes new information to each of the main issues of focus (late medieval heresy, magic and witchcraft, and religious reform), while by examining his works together it helps to clarify the connections between these issues.
The conclusion reached is that the desire for reform, both within the Church and more generally among all the faithful, lay at the heart of how Nider and other ecclesiastical authorities approached all of the religious crises of the late Middle Ages. They perceived each as an indication of the need for reform, and as an avenue for effecting that reform within the faith. This study also agrees with other recent examinations of late medieval religiosity in concluding that the late medieval Church was by no means hopelessly decrepit, but was active and responsive to the various crises and challenges it faced.
