Dr. Felicity Hill (4:25)

lot of questions about how indulgences work or if they even did.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (4:32)

As well as you may know the story of the 95 theses, chances are

Dr. Felicity Hill (4:36)

you probably don't really know what they

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (4:38)

were railing against because, well, a lot of us, even professional medieval historians, really struggle with that. So today on Gone Medieval, I am joined Once Again by Dr. Felicity Hill, lecturer in Medieval History at St. Andrews University, this time to discuss papal indulgences and the long medieval tradition of being somewhat confused by and suspicious of the practice.

Dr. Felicity Hill (5:08)

Returning champion, Dr. Felicity Hill. Welcome back to Gone Medieval. Hey. So delighted to have you here as always, and especially delighted to talk to you today because I have brought you here to talk about the concept of papal indulgences. And I think this is one of those really interesting ones that people think they understand. But, you know, it's that classic historian thing that actually it's much more complicated than that.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (5:37)

Well, I mean, it really is it, and it's complicated. I was, you know, thinking about doing this and it was like, oh, this is going to be fun, because there's quite a lot of. Well, yeah, it is quite complicated.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (5:51)

It is.

Dr. Felicity Hill (5:51)

So this is. This is good. So everyone buckle up for some complex chat. But I think, having said that, the way that we need to start the discussion is. Ah, Felicity, do you have a definition of papal indulgences?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (6:06)

Well, okay, so we've warned you. You have been warned. Okay, so probably the basic definition of indulgences or an indulgence is the relaxation of enjoined penance, which probably has not left you any the wiser. So I.

Dr. Felicity Hill (6:22)

Well, we're. Well, we all know that, Chester.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (6:25)

I think the point with indulgences is that you cannot understand them if you don't understand how all the stuff to do with confession and penance in the Middle Ages worked beforehand, because all of this is to do with kind of the system by which a person is sinning and then is, you know, forgiven for their sins. And one day, hopefully, they'll end up in heaven after Judgment Day. And how can we make that happen quicker with less suffering? How can we do it on earth? How can we do it past death? It's all very muddled and quite confusing. And to be fair, it was confusing in the Middle Ages, too. And actually they were also like, wait, what is the deal with these guys? How do they work? Do they work? Are they a thing? Should they be a thing? Much in the same way that we might be now? So this isn't even just like our failure to explain stuff. Kitley. Like, people in the Middle Ages, theologians, you know, the cleverest people in the Middle Ages, were going, how does this work? Can we come up with something that makes sense? And the answer was, but not entirely in a way.

Dr. Felicity Hill (7:31)

So I suppose, yeah, I guess more or less, essentially what we're saying here with papal indulgences is it is not necessarily a total and complete get out of jail free for your sins card. Right. I think that that's the common understanding of what they are.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (7:53)

Yeah. So if we, if we make you the sinner.

Dr. Felicity Hill (7:56)

How dare you.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (7:57)

Eleanor has committed many sins in her life as. As everybody does, because, you know, everything is a sin pretty much. And okay, so you have to, first of all, you do have to confess and receive absolution, Right? So if you just lurk around sinning away, and then you go straight and try and get an indulgence, it's not going to work. I mean, you might be able to get it, but, like, it's the. The doctrine is definitely that then it's not going to do anything. If, however, you have been confessed and you've been absolved of your sins, and in theory, basically, you will be given some kind of penance. That's how it works, and it changes a bit. But basically you have penance. And the basic principle of indulgence is that you often pay money, but not necessarily pay money to get an indulgence, which kind of buys you out of some of that penance. And it's often a temporal thing, like 40 days of penance. And so then you don't have to do that 40 days of penance, which is nice. And then it becomes more complicated because in the, like, 15th century, it becomes time out of purgatory. So after death, it can buy you time, but it's to do with not having to do the penance, I think, essentially. Are you happy with that as a basic definition?

Dr. Felicity Hill (9:07)

Yeah, I like that because I think I first started looking into papal indulgences while we were doing our PhDs flashback to in Eleanor, where we're young and cool, or. Or at least young.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (9:22)

Yeah.

Dr. Felicity Hill (9:23)

I was going to say, yeah, please, let's be so honest. But one of the reasons why I became interested in them is that there was an indulgence that was granted to people who attended the Feast of the Holy Lance and Nail, which was a feast that the Emperor Charles IV invented to get people to come hang out in Prague.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (9:43)

Yes.

Dr. Felicity Hill (9:44)

And it was like you get four cortains off of. And I was like, I don't even know what any of this means or what I'm looking at here. And so then I had to go on a deep dive. And so this was a form of penance that was directly connected to pilgrimage.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (10:02)

Yes.

Dr. Felicity Hill (10:03)

And that. And then that exists for pilgrimages to any number of places. Am I right in thinking that?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (10:08)

Yeah. So pilgrimage is one of the ways you can get indulgences. And so. So, like, really specific ones like that. And they are. They were definitely used to draw crowds. So you want lots of people to turn up at an event, whatever it might be. You know, my work. I think we did a podcast previously, didn't we, on excommunication. People use them even to get people to turn up to excommunication ceremonies. And the really big ones were papal jubilees. So, like, come to Rome and. Yeah, then you get a really big indulgence. I think 1300 was the first one because it's a big anniversary. So. Yeah. So drawing crowds, going on a pilgrimage, turning up to event is one way. You could also buy them, which might be what people are kind of aware of as. Because it was condemned quite heavily in the Reformation. And you could also, I think, do various other kind of good works. But, yeah, pilgrimages and money are probably the biggest ones. And then the benefits vary as well. So in terms of what the Church gets out of them. So getting big crowd is definitely one. And then the money was used to pay for lots of different things in terms of actually the ones that you just gave some dosh for. So, like, they repaired bridges and roads and churches and hospitals. So, like, actually good work. It's kind of like giving to charity, but then you also get your own benefit. And one that I thought was really funny, that I was Reading up on, which was those who were benefactors to poor university students got some indulgences in Paris, which I quite like.

Dr. Felicity Hill (11:37)

Wonderful.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (11:38)

Fund the students and you'll get time off for good behavior.

Dr. Felicity Hill (11:41)

And that's right. Every student I've ever taken to the pub. That's why I did it. So, yeah, I. But I think that this is quite interesting, right, because I do think that there is this tendency to conflate the idea of a papal indulgence with just you give money, the church says, oh, that's fine, you're going to heaven. But actually the indulgences, especially if they are ones where money is exchanging hands, are being used to fund stuff.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (12:10)

Yeah. And often quite good stuff. Stuff that we would approve of. Not always. Some of it less so, but definitely. I think hospitals and bridges sound pretty good.

Dr. Felicity Hill (12:19)

Well, and here I hasten to mention too, now, I don't agree with this because I'm a Gothic fan in terms of architecture, but when you get to Martin Luther kicking off about papal indulgences in the 16th century, the papal indulgences that were being sold at the time were to build the brand new St. Peter's in, in Rome, the one that everybody goes to now and looks at the Vatican and goes, wow, isn't the, the Sistine Chapel amazing? Well, how do you think that got paid for? That's what the indulgences were going to. And so I like to say, look, you got to pick one. You can either I love the Renaissance and Renaissance architecture is actually so much better than everything that was happening in the medieval period, or you can be mad about indulgences. You can't do both. Personally, I don't really like.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (13:11)

You can hate indulgences.

Dr. Felicity Hill (13:12)

And I do think that it is interesting because it is this sort of tit for tat. So even if we are discounting things like building bridges or building the new St. Peter's things of this nature, a way of thinking about it I think is sort of like, you know how you get tax breaks if you give to charity now this is like a tax break for your soul. Question mark.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (13:36)

Yeah. No, and I mean, seriously, the, the, the language that they use is really economic. Like, it, it's really, you know, there's, there's this treasury of merit that they talk about. And so it's, it's incredibly monetary in the way that they talked about in the Middle Ages. So I think clearly they liked that analogy. And I think there's no reason why we shouldn't stick with It, Yeah.

Dr. Felicity Hill (13:57)

That's absolutely fantastic. I love that. The treasury of Merit. That's what I'm going to say to everyone who's getting their rounds in, you know, at the pub. It's like, ah, in the treasury.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (14:05)

It's quite a difficult concept, but it seems to be like a big way that certain people in the Middle Ages thought about stuff. And it's Christ and the saints kind of did loads of good stuff and they built up this great, like, bank of like, merit. And when you indulge in this, you kind of got some of it. And what Martha Moose said is like, well, but we've used more than we've put in because no one's doing good stuff anymore. So it is like a banking system where like, you'll just keep taking out, but you don't ever deposit any money. So. But it's with good works, it's with good Christian.

Dr. Felicity Hill (14:35)

Okay, so it's, it's slightly baffling. We can all agree on that, I think, which is fine. But is there a timeline that we can look at for papal indulgences? Like, is this something that Christians would recognize in, you know, the third century before we get to the medieval period?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (14:51)

Definitely not. I'm not even in the early Middle Ages. So it seems to be an 11th century new thing, aka innovation, we might say, rather than new thing. Yeah, no, it's an 11th century innovation and it is linked to like, new doctrines like Purgatory, which similarly springs up around that time. There's been previous ideas of a middle place between heaven and hell, but basically purgatory really kind of comes to be a meaningful concept in that period. And indulgences are probably linked to that. But if you're talking even somebody in the 10th century, they would just not know what an earthen indulgence was. And it really takes off. They really take off after the Crusades. So crusaders get kind of like the biggest indulgence that you can get, which is basically like, if you go on Crusade, you are going to heaven. Hooray. Well done. So they're very much a late medieval phenomenon and they do develop. So they start off like, relatively not insane. And they're not just papal either. Like, bishops are giving indulgences out all the time. And actually that's one of the problems because you have different people and whose jurisdiction are you in? Can you have an indulgence granted by some? Like, obviously the papacy, the Pope can. Has everybody, every Christian Christian in his jurisdiction, but bishops and archbishops who can also give indulgences don't. But so then it changes in the 15th century, where they seem to then allow it to be something that you could get for people who are already dead. So before that is actually about your life. And then it becomes this posthumous thing as well. And it does change quite a lot into. There's a kind of, again, monetary language, there's an inflation, and you start getting not just 40 days, but kind of years and years and years, like thousands of years, probably adding up much longer than they believed existed until Judgment Day. So it became a bit mad, basically. And so, as everything does, it got worse. Everything gets worse. So towards the end of the Middle Ages, when Martin Luther starts going angry about it, it has maybe become a bit farcical, but the beginnings less so.

Dr. Felicity Hill (16:58)

Now, I find this an interesting point because one of the big characteristics that we see throughout the medieval period is this idea of the care of souls who are in purgatory. Because by the time we come up with purgatory in the 11th century, everyone agrees that probably that's where you're going, right, because we're. We're all sinners, right? Like, I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, everyone's a sinner, right? So you probably didn't live the perfect life. So there's going to be something they're going to get you on. You know, maybe it's premarital sex, which is super common. Maybe if you're a woman, you dared to pluck your forehead. You know, like, you're going. You're. You're going to go. You're going to go, right? And so we do see rather a lot, for example, of people having masses

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (17:41)

set for the dead.

Dr. Felicity Hill (17:42)

And, you know, a lot of the big works that we see, for example, kings do, right, like establishing monasteries and places like that. They're like, yeah, I'm gonna need to get some monks on this one. They need to be praying for my soul when I'm dead. But, yes, it seems like what we kind of see over the course of time is a decline in saying, all right, well, we're going to have these masses said for the dead, which we are reliably told by church sources that will work like that. Will people time off of purgatory if you say these masses. But it seems like the indulgences kind of slot in.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (18:15)

In.

Dr. Felicity Hill (18:15)

In their place, almost.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (18:16)

Yeah, kind of. I mean, there's a huge change, you know, in the early Middle Ages. Obviously this is simplifying everything, but basically, like you said, everybody sins and it's kind of like if you're a monk, you might go to heaven. Yay. Everybody else, you're probably just going to hell. So actually, purgatory is this nice thing where it's like, actually maybe if you just suffer for quite a long time after you're dead, then you can purge your sins. That's what purgatory is like, Purging of sin through suffering. And then you can go to heaven come Judgment Day. So it's actually a nice thing because before then, it was like, you're probably just not gonna go to heaven. Sals. And so, yeah, what you could do is farm it out and say, please pray for my soul. And then there's this much stronger emphasis on dealing with it yourself in the later Middle Ages. So you confess. You know, confession in the early Middle Ages is not very common. You get the Eucharist becoming much more important from the 13th century or late 12th century. And so there's a much more emphasis on individuals kind of taking care of their own souls for the afterlife. And indulgence is very much fit into that, like you said. So it maybe is a movement from getting other people to do stuff and dealing with yourself. And you can see how in that environment where, you know, you're talking about an eternity where possibly in a horrible place, possibly in a nice place, you might want to do anything you possibly can to get you to the nice place quicker or at all. And if you can pay some money or go on a pilgrimage and get there, then you're probably gonna do it. You know, it does make sense in that worldview, and I think that. That.

Dr. Felicity Hill (19:49)

That is sort of important for us to understand. You know, one of the reasons why I think people tend to think of, you know, indulgences as somewhat ridiculous is we oftentimes struggle to be in the same headspace as medieval people are, where they really do believe this stuff. Like, it's not a joke. They definitely believe.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (20:07)

You absolutely have to believe in it, otherwise it makes no sense. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Felicity Hill (20:10)

And so which is part of the reason why I think we struggle, and I think also part of the reason that we sort of struggle with it is we do definitely see as we move through the medieval period, in increased focus on personal piety and this personal responsibility, which is indeed what individuals like Jan Hus and Martin Luther really latch onto, right? They're like, no, no, no, no. Yeah, you. It is about your relationship with God, you personally, not the flock. And then that turns into, okay, well, then how could you ever possibly believe that? The Church is able to, to issue these sorts of things.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (20:45)

There were huge issues with the, the kind of ability to grant these indulgences that I don't think was ever solved. It seems to me that, yeah, theologians, canon lawyers argued about it constantly about how can this work? Because on the one hand, you know, there's a doctrine the keys of heaven are given to Peter by Jesus and he is this, he's the predecessor to the popes, right? So they are the bishops of Rome, the successors of St. Peter. They have the keys of binding and loosing, as do all priests. Binding and loosing, that is getting into heaven or not. And so if they have those keys, then indulgences are fine and great. So we have the right as priests, I'm talking as a priest, obviously, we have the right to decide whether you're going. And we can therefore remit these penances by indulgences. Hooray. Hoorah. But the problem is that that also feels like it's telling God what to do. And so there's a kind of theological issue of can we just tell God what to do? So then some. Oh, well, no, but it's only for some types of sin, kind of lesser sins, and God gets to decide the rest of it. But then it's kind of undermining the priest's whole role of, like, I have this right, this is my whole purpose is to have these keys. So there's like, there's genuine issues that they didn't seem to ever resolve completely about. And yeah, jurisdictional things and, you know, who can. And is it all sins? Is it all sins all the time? And are there limits? And yeah, it's complicated and not, not accepted without some question about whether this is a good idea. I think people often think the Reformation suddenly go, hey, this is a bit messed up. What is this about? And it's like, no, they've been saying that for hundreds of years within the Catholic Church, within the faithful, but they were aware that there were some issues with some of this stuff.

Dr. Felicity Hill (22:29)

I find it interesting too. You know, you mentioned that we really start to see the birth of this idea of the indulgences in the 11th century. And I think that that is no surprise to medieval historians where I just started nodding, going, yeah, of course. Because for, for us, it's obvious and legible because that's really when the papacy, it gets to. It's like final Pokemon form, right? It's like the evolution that, that's. They, they finally, the papacy, after centuries upon centuries, of telling everyone that they're incredibly important and that they are the only ones who really are the arbiters of souls. And everyone in Western Europe suddenly buys into that, and they go, wow, guys, we did it. You know, And. And so they celebrate by having a crusade. Because how do you prove that you're powerful in the medieval world, where you muster forces, Right. You could call an army, and then you go, wow, see, look, we're kind of like kings. And then they also do these incredibly tricky lawyer things to get money in, because, like, again, they're a government. Right, yeah. You know, and I think that people now, again, because of the fallout of the Reformation, they say, well, shouldn't the church just be these spiritual arbiters? But this is a legal organization, this is a government. Right, right.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (23:45)

Yeah. And actually, the papacy, as much as, you know, might think of the popes as being very rich, and, of course, buildings and regalia, and, of course, compared to, like, a peasant. Sure. But compared to other polities, compared to other rulers, they're really poor, actually. And that is a problem for them constantly. And then they start spending money on walls, so. Which might be ill advice, but, you know, still, the popes do need money. And. And yet indulgences completely do fit into the growth of papal power, like you said, from the 11th century. Before then, no one really cares about the Pope, unless you're, like, living in Roman Italy. But once the papacy gets. Well, the papal monarchy as it's sometimes known. Yeah, it is. Absolutely. The growth of indulgences is definitely linked to the growth of papal power. And if we're thinking about the later Middle Ages and how that period makes sense, the papacy is a huge part of that. Yeah.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (24:32)

And indulgences, I suppose, also the inscrutability

Dr. Felicity Hill (24:35)

of indulgences is kind of part of that, because, you know, really, you know, we say theologians, obviously, because that's what they are, but what theologians are doing are debating these finer points of legalese, really, you know, it's. This is the. Here are the laws of Christianity, these are the laws of how it works. We are going to figure it out. We are. We are legislating on behalf of God. Right. And so if it's not immediately clear to you and I, people who have devoted our lives to it, so. Well, yeah, that. Because this is lawyer talk. Right. Like, this is law stuff.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (25:14)

It is lawyer talk 100. And actually, they kind of argue. I know I say they will argue about it, but they are kind of arguing amongst themselves. I mean, the point is they take off indulgences and the people like them, they. The reasons we've all explained this sounds like a good idea. I'd quite like to. Yeah, just get some money in the bank, as it were, but for salvation. So. Oh, yeah. Also some of the things that they've discussed which is completely valid, which is. So, yeah, it's instead of doing penance, right. Instead of doing something good like, you know, like going on a pilgrimage or something. This is the basic thing. But there's debates. Well, wait a minute. So if you give a certain amount of money, are we saying that it's the same a rich man and a poor man giving that same amount of money and we're saying they get the same amount of time off in purgatory, but that doesn't seem fair, which is, you know, pretty logical, Right. So there are kind of issues with it, but they take off and in the way that things happen, it kind of overtakes them. So then they kept arguing about the finer points, but they were a thing.

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Dr. Felicity Hill (27:43)

I do find it quite interesting when we are looking at these debates about papal indulgences and I suppose, wealth inequality, because this is something that medieval people are quite interested in, right? So when you look at a hell fresco, say, and most hell frescoes are kind of later medieval, they're usually populated by rich guys like, you know, like the people being shoved in the hell mouth. They all are wearing crowns and bishop tiaras and things like that, you know, it's very, the, the ratio of rich and important people to regular people is pretty high. Right? And you know, as we say, you, if you are a king, you often times will donate huge sums of money in order to have monasteries. So there's people praying for you. And what that does is it shows us that they're like, oh, yeah, I'm.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (28:39)

I'm in trouble.

Dr. Felicity Hill (28:39)

Right. Like, there's no way I'm getting into heaven. Because the way that power is accumulated, you know, like, let's think about William the Conqueror, for example, where it's like, the way he's accumulated power is terrible. You know, he does some light genocide in the north and things like that, and he knows it's bad. Right. So it's like, well, here are all the things that I'm going to need to do in order to offset.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (29:01)

But they are mainly just making monks pray for you rather than doing anything yourself. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Felicity Hill (29:08)

And so you can see why this would also be something that the powerful would be quite interested in.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (29:15)

Yes.

Dr. Felicity Hill (29:16)

Because you can pay for monks to pray for you, and that's great and everybody wants to do that, but that's also time consuming. Right. So it's. Yeah, you. You've commissioned all of these masses to be said for your soul. Brilliant. But they all also need to be said. And you can't just have someone, like, cranking through masses constantly. Right. These monks need to sleep at some point in time. That is something that's got a real time frame on it. So, yes, it might get you out of purgatory or expiate some of your sins, but you also have to wait for all of those masses to actually be set with indulgences. You're kind of paying up front with that. And also, I think, you know, if you're the monks, you might be quite hyped because you're like, oh, great, brilliant. I don't have to say all these. These masses, like, for. For the church, it's also expedient, Right?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (30:02)

Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Felicity Hill (30:03)

But I guess that what we can talk about here then is. So it's interesting, right, because obviously there's a lot in it for the Church, there's a lot in it for rich people, but because there is this question about suitability and also sinfulness, like, you know, listen, if you're a peasant, what is the worst thing you could have got up to?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (30:23)

Well, unfortunately, quite a lot still. Because if you work on a feast day, for example, that's really bad. You've already brought up fornication and stuff. So unfortunately, actually, you know, every. Everyone's quite.

Dr. Felicity Hill (30:34)

But, you know, if you've got a couple of shillings, that means more. I guess it should mean more.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (30:40)

But whether it did with indulgences is. Is kind of less clear. But what I was going to say is that there is like, you were kind of talking about the sense of indulgences being kind of a sure thing. And I think that's an important part of it because, okay, oh, I'm doing my best. I'm fasting and I'm, you know, I am going to church and I'm taking the Eucharist and I'm, you know, I went in that pilgrimage and is this enough? Am I doing enough? But indulgences have this sense of, okay, this is a concrete thing. I've gone on pilgrimage and I've got this indulgence for this amount of days, or I've paid and I've got this amount of days. And another way you can maybe ensure getting to hell is. Is via your will, right? So in your will, you give money to charity, whatever. But even that relies on your executors. Executors in doing your will correctly in a way that we can't ever trust people. Right? And actually, a lot of people I know get excommunicated for not doing their job as executor properly. So this is another way to kind of. I've dealt with it. I don't have to put my trust after I'm dead in people to do the right things for me while my soul is at stake.

Dr. Felicity Hill (31:48)

Right?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (31:48)

So there is a sense of kind of a certainty perhaps with indulgences.

Dr. Felicity Hill (31:52)

You see, this is a really interesting point because, like, there's a. Obviously, I'm going to talk about ghosts. Sorry, everybody, but it. A lot of the ghost stories exist because they are written by monks who are telling you how you should absolutely be buying masses for people's souls. But there is also a really common trope where they will name a guy in their local village who is dead and they'll say, oh, I saw his ghost. He's in hell. And they will say, the thing that's going to get him out of hell is he's in hell because, for example, he has taken a miller's mill off of him because the miller owed him money. But he's made way more money on the mill and, and he should have given it back by now because that, that's how it works. And so they will go to people's sons and say, oh, hey, yeah, so, wow, saw your dad. He's in hell. You should probably give that mill back to the miller. And it's on record that a lot of the time the sons Are like, wow, that's crazy.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (32:47)

I don't care.

Dr. Felicity Hill (32:48)

Sucks, dad, you know, and, and yeah,

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (32:51)

no, and I have examples of that as well. Yeah, so, exactly. So this indulgence mean you don't have to deal with that kind of evil. Money grabbing, heirs just being like, nah.

Dr. Felicity Hill (33:00)

And you know, do. Not to be clear, I do not think any of these priests actually saw the, these kids, dad, in hell. That's, that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying, just to be clear, what I am saying is that I think that there, there are probably many such cases where people were given an opportunity to do what others saw as the right thing and they forewent it because they'd rather be rich.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (33:21)

Right.

Dr. Felicity Hill (33:22)

And of course that happened. You know, we see that happen now all the time. You know, people are still people. Right.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (33:29)

Yeah. And so indulgences are maybe a way of. What are they? Insurance policy in some ways.

Dr. Felicity Hill (33:35)

Oh, I love that. As a way of thinking about it. Right. Because I, because I guess that, that it is ultimately this is the thing right there. There is at the heart of it, death is this thing that humans don't get to get out of. Right. It's the great leveler. We're all going to die. Right. And sadly, one of the only ways to make yourself maybe feel a little bit more comfortable about it is by saying, okay, well, here's the concrete things that I've done, you know, and so it gives you a little bit of power. It is that, yeah, well, in my insurance policy for my soul, yeah, you

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (34:09)

actually get like a receipt for an indulgence. You know, again, this economic aspect of it is actually inescapable. But yeah, like, okay, I've done it, I've got my indulgence. Here it is, it's more tangible. The opportunity to sin left, right and center. There's lots of good things that you could be doing to offset that. What's better than this? Is it better to go on a pilgrimage or to do this or to do that or whatever. And it's complicated and actually quite stressful because you don't want to spend a really long time in purgatory or hell. You want to deal with that. And indulgences feel like a nice solid way.

Dr. Felicity Hill (34:44)

And I suppose even if we think about things like, you know, maybe one of the more classic ways of doing it is, oh, are you a person who does a lot of charity in life? Right. But then there's this constant debate where you're always being warned, oh, you can't just do charity so that you don't go to hell. That's not right. You know, if you're doing, if you're doing charity because you're, you're doing it so that you won't be in trouble, that's not good enough. Or if you're doing charity so that everybody sees that you're doing charity, yes, that's not good enough. So even good works, there's, you know, a question hanging over it.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (35:15)

Is it? Yeah. And similarly to the point that I made at the beginning that indulgences will not work on you if you haven't confessed and, you know, actually done the, at least the kind of mental repentance aspect for your sins. You can't literally just buy your way out of heaven, which, which is how I think they're often seen as just a way to buy your way into heaven. And it is more complicated than that. And the doctrine was very much like, you have to believe it and you have to be sorry for what you've done and so on and so forth and possibly. And actually, one thing we haven't yet talked about is hardeners, the guys who went around selling indulgences. And actually they are perhaps the real. They are the ones who are more corrupt. Right. So you have the papacy and you have bishops granting indulgences and okay, there were some questions about whether this is a good idea or not, but there were dodgy guys going around who were selling these indulgences and that was a proper role. But perhaps they were the kind of people who didn't put that much emphasis on the penitential aspects that you have to really mean. It seems that there were, yeah, slightly con artist aspect to them. You know, they have their fake relics, their animal bones that they're passing off as saints bones to try and advertise indulgences. I mean, this is perhaps the most famous example, at least for an Anglophone audience, is Chaucer's Pardoner, who, you know, in the late 14th century described, I mean, physically disgusting, but he's like, oh, I've been to Rome, I've got all my, you know, I've got a big pile of indulgences to, to sell everybody. And he's kind of preaching away in a way that's a bit dodgy. And. But there is this sense in it that he's just kind of full of, you know, they're known as pardons, hence pardoner pardons, indulgences. That's a kind of vernacular, this idea that he can just, yeah, wipe away your sin willy nilly. And it does seem that actually the corruption, that's a real sense of corruption. But it's like anything, it's not the whole system. It is bad actors or whatever we might say. That does seem to be a legitimate complaint.

Dr. Felicity Hill (37:17)

But I think that this is a really important point, Felicity, and one that you made earlier. But I think the popular conception of papal indulgences now is that they were incredibly widespread and nobody ever questioned them until Martin Luther came along with his little hammer and he said, said, well, hang on a minute, I think that these are quite dodgy, actually. But the selling of indulgences is considered problematic enough that we've got Chaucer a century or so earlier who is using it as a literary trope, right, like, oh, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. We know how pardoners are and they are unscrupulous and they are taking advantage of people's fears. So it does show that there is at least some acknowledgment that there is a worry about this, right?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (38:10)

Completely. And like I said, actually right from the off, there seems to be worries about it. And yet. So it's, there's a lot of Reformation kind of propaganda about, hey, we decided for the first time that this is all a bit. And it's, it's really not like that. And it's a difficult topic, I think, because we have the Reformation and they, you know, did a very good job of maligning the Middle Ages, let's face it. And then you get historians writing for a long time, either as Protestant, you know, very anti indulgence kind of agenda, and then you get Catholic historians who were kind of apologists and kind of downplaying the whole thing. So also not maybe giving a completely accurate picture, it's actually, I think, quite difficult to get a true pitch of indulgences in the Middle Ages because of this. Quite, quite a lot of baggage. Quite a lot of baggage attached.

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Dr. Felicity Hill (40:49)

Oh, I love being a medieval historian. Because all we could ever say is, oh, it's incredibly complicated and it depends on where you are and when and who you're talking about. It's great, it's fantastic. Okay, but what are. I guess if we were going to say, say I am a regular old person, I'll be in the 14th century because it's my favorite century, thanks very much. And I want to get an indulgence. What are the top ways of doing that? How would I go about doing it?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (41:17)

Well, you might just bump into a partner selling his wares, in which case, you know, hoo a, you can just be like, here's some money, give me my indulgence. Or, or you might go, for example, on a pilgrimage, which was definitely a big way of getting them, but that they, they really did advertise indulgences. So they, there's lots of kind of letters saying like, right, we're giving X number of days, remission of sins, doing whatever it is, whether it's going to a meeting or going on pilgrimage or giving money. But I guess the money ones were less advertised because they were more constant but for these big events, so they really were advertised. So you, in a way you would respond to an advert.

Dr. Felicity Hill (41:58)

Right?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (41:59)

But my. One of my favorite indulgences was so in the jubilee year of 1300, everyone's like, it's 1300. This is, this is a big deal. This is a big anniversary. What are you doing, Pope? What are you doing for this big anniversary? And he's like, no, nothing, don't, nothing, don't come. No, no, no, come on, we'll come to Rome. It'll be great. And. And he's like, no, don't come here. There's nothing. But people just start turning up to Rome. And he's like, oh, what? No, stop it. And eventually he's like, okay, okay, we'll give a massive indulgence. We'll Have a big thing. But he only does this. This is Boniface viii. He only does it because everyone started turning up to Rome against his wishes.

Dr. Felicity Hill (42:36)

Oh, I love it. He's one of my favorite popes, too. Boniface viii.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (42:39)

Oh, he had a bad end.

Dr. Felicity Hill (42:41)

Yeah, he did. But that's why he'. That pleases me. No end like that. The fact that that is kind of a indulgence by popular demand.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (42:51)

Right.

Dr. Felicity Hill (42:52)

So that's kind of the opposite of how it's seen to work, you know, that unscrupulous individuals are taking advantage of an unscrupulous church. This is a wave of individuals who are sort of demanding something from the church as an entity.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (43:08)

Yeah. And it's unclear whether they would sort of saying specifically an indulgence, but they definitely wanted events to happen at Rome and to get credit, I guess, for going on this big pilgrimage to Rome in this big year, for sure.

Dr. Felicity Hill (43:19)

I was also interested and wondered if this was common because one of my favorite indulgences, I've already brought up the Feast of the Holy Lance and Nail. Shout out real ones now. But it's also within that there was a specific other indulgence that you could get if you went to go see Emperor Charles IV sitting with his son, the hated Wenceslas, who was supposed to take over for him as Holy Roman Emperor. And it was, I argued in my PhD, a very clear example where he was saying, you need to come and witness that this is going to be the next Holy Roman Emperor. Do it. Show up and acknowledge the succession claim. Is it common for people to use it for succession, or is this just Charles IV being innovative, as we are

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (44:09)

now in the territory of how indulgence is used, and this is clearly a very political and not really religious in any way use of an indulgence. I actually don't know how common that is. I. I can't, off the top of my head, think of other examples. So it might be that he was,

Dr. Felicity Hill (44:24)

well, do you know what? This is just Czech excellence, then, Felicity.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (44:28)

That's what it is.

Dr. Felicity Hill (44:29)

We're kind of. But we're coming up. We're coming up with new and innovative ways to use an indulgence.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (44:33)

It's great.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (44:35)

Yeah, but it is. I mean, that is a really interesting but. Yeah. I mean, so my PhD supervisor, Nicholas Vincent, once talked about indulgences as an early form of rent a crowd, which seems to apply to your example to some extent. We need lots of people to turn up to this thing. We want them all to see it. Obviously, the Middle Ages, you know, events, ritual without, you know, the printing press, without mass communication via words. You have to do it orally and visually, you want big crowds at lots of things. And indulgences seem to be a successful way to get people to turn up.

Dr. Felicity Hill (45:09)

And I think that that is actually a really interesting point as well, because there's also this tendency to see the medieval world as really locked in place. You know, this old myth that nobody

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (45:18)

ever leaves their village.

Dr. Felicity Hill (45:19)

You only know the same 15 people. And actually all you've got to do is say, oh, we've got a new indulgence and people are there. You know, even if you don't say there's an indulgence, they're like, go to

Matt Lewis (45:29)

Rome,

Dr. Felicity Hill (45:32)

I'll be back. And I think that's interesting.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (45:35)

It's weird because clearly people did want to go to Rome and then also it was also quite dangerous and, you know, expensive and takes a long time depending on where in Europe you actually live.

Dr. Felicity Hill (45:44)

But yeah, yeah, but look, everybody wants a Roman holiday. We can all agree on that. Even if the forces of. Are against us. You know, it might be dangerous, but people are going to do it.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (45:56)

Yeah, yeah. Well, they also had to eventually stop people going to Rome when they were like, no, no, you should, you should stay home. So, you know, yeah, it's a slightly odd mixture.

Dr. Felicity Hill (46:06)

So I do think that this is a really interesting thing because it is this uniquely medieval phenomenon. You know, it doesn't come into play until the high medieval period. I guess we see, you know, its apogee in the late medieval period and then it more or less goes by the wayside after the Reformation because of all of the embarrassment about it.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (46:31)

Right.

Dr. Felicity Hill (46:31)

And also, I mean, to an extent, I think the Church really shifts gears in terms of what its legal apparatus is doing. Right. It's like the, the legal apparatus suddenly swings much more into how do we become the. Seen as the true arbiters of Christianity and as opposed to how do we shepherd people's souls out of purgatory, where they all are right now, you know, and so, I mean, that's a political mission in and of itself. Right? Because, you know, you can say what you want about indulgences and, you know, like, again, I'm not here to come down on, on the side of indulgences. I don't think that that is. That's quite right either. And yeah, Boo Boo the Pardoner, etc, etc, but I do think that if you look at it charitably, what is kind of happening here is well, the church does care about the people that it's looking after. It is aware that it's really difficult actually to get through life completely spotless, or at least with just a few minor sins. You know, unless you're a child who is baptized and did everything right and dies right away, you're probably in trouble. Right. And so this is a form of pastoral care. This is a way of looking after your flock, as difficult as we find to relate to it, you know.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (47:53)

Absolutely, yeah. And, and giving people a way to get some peace of mind. Because like you said, everybody sins. It's unclear what in a concrete way you can do to really guarantee a nice afterlife. And this is a way of helping. So I think you're completely right that, that it's a nice thing in many ways to give people that opportunity. The problem comes in, when it does, there is this inflation and it becomes a bit mad. And there are thousands of years of indulgence on offer, which starts, you know, if no one's life. Because the initial thing was actually more concrete. The initial thing seems to be like, right, you've got 40 days of fasting, okay. Instead of that, you can get an indulgence for 40 days. So it's kind of quite a concrete thing initially. But then it becomes a bit more nebulous because, like, well, what if your penance isn't something that you would do for a number of days? What if it's a bit more complicated than that and then we get posthumous. But it starts off with being quite a simple. You're just, yeah, buying time off. Like you might get let out of prison early for being good for good behavior or whatever. You know, it's. I mean, I don't know if that quite works, but, but then it does become. By the end of the Middle Ages, there's no doubt that you have these thousand and thousands of years and it maybe becomes a bit farcical.

Dr. Felicity Hill (49:08)

Okay, well, question for you. I'm not sure if you know the answer to this. Are these still on the books? Like, if you're one of those guys who bought the thousand year indulgence back in the day, has the church rescinded this? Or is it sort of like we don't do it anymore, but, you know, we're not, we're not.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (49:24)

I don't completely know the answer, but I, I would suspect that it would be quite unfair to.

Dr. Felicity Hill (49:31)

I love this idea. Some guy's in purgatory and he's like,

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (49:34)

no, he just gets out and said to help because some modern Pope's like, nah, we've given up on this concept. I mean, they would all be shocked. They would all be shocked that we are still here, because they would have thought Judgment Day was coming a long time before now.

Dr. Felicity Hill (49:48)

Yeah, quite so.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (49:50)

I mean, they are still on. They do still. Indulgences still exist. I mean, they. The Catholic Church has not completely given up on indulgences. They have just made them a lot less big.

Dr. Felicity Hill (50:00)

Okay, can you expand on that?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (50:02)

I would have to start Googling it.

Dr. Felicity Hill (50:03)

Okay, don't worry. Don't worry then.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (50:05)

Yeah, specific things. But they. Absolutely. You can certainly in the 20th and I think 20. But I mean. Yeah, and it's much less a big thing than they were in the Middle Ages. But they. They haven't actually said we completely rejecting this doctrine, but they toned it down a lot in. In light of the Reformation, when the cast, you know, the Council of Trent and stuff, when they had to start responding to the threat of Protestantism. I suppose.

Dr. Felicity Hill (50:28)

I. I love this. It's kind of like the approaches. Just back away slowly while whistling instead of. Don't make any big announcements. Just, you know, it'll be fine. It's fine.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (50:38)

You know, I mean, I'm just going to Google covenant indulgences and then we can put it.

Dr. Felicity Hill (50:42)

Yeah, that's a good idea because I'm sure there's medieval historians attempting to talk about the 21st century.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (50:51)

Okay, so apparently 2025 was a Jubilee year, I think, basically. Yeah. You got indulgences for going on pilgrimage.

Dr. Felicity Hill (50:59)

Oh, dang, I missed my shot. I should have gone on pilgrimage.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (51:03)

This is from the Vatican, I think. 2020 this year, in the current circumstances, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the plenary indulgences for the deceased faithful will be extended throughout the entire month of November with adaptation of works and conditions to guarantee the safety of the faithful. So that was them changing the terms of the indulgence in the wake of the pandemic.

Dr. Felicity Hill (51:26)

That's actually kind of beautiful. I love the idea that, you know, all of these people who sort of died suddenly, they're like, listen, we've got them. Things are weird. You might not have been able to go and make your confessions and get the good death that you wanted. Aww.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (51:40)

Yeah. And as far as the spiritual conditions for fully achieving the indulgence are concerned, it is worth recalling the indications already issued. Blah, blah, blah. Since the souls in Purgatory are assisted by the prayers of the faithful, etc, all priests are strongly invited to celebrate Holy Mass three Times on the relevant.

Dr. Felicity Hill (52:02)

I love the church. Sometimes I'm sorry, like, I'm such a medieval historian, I'm like, oh, that's sweet.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (52:07)

Look, they're trying.

Dr. Felicity Hill (52:08)

You know, it's.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (52:09)

So I basically, I think the indulgence was kind of more specific days, but people couldn't move around as much, so they were kind of extending it to the whole.

Dr. Felicity Hill (52:17)

Lovely.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (52:19)

So, yeah, the plenary indulgence for those who visit a cemetery and pray for the deceased.

Dr. Felicity Hill (52:23)

Well, dang, that's very sweet. I like that a lot.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (52:25)

So anyway, they are alive and kicking is the point.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (52:27)

All right.

Dr. Felicity Hill (52:28)

Okay.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (52:28)

The real point here is that indulgences are still part of cathodic.

Dr. Felicity Hill (52:32)

Indulgences. Yes. Pardoners. Less. So.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (52:37)

Yeah, Less. Less that. And I suspect indulgences maybe now do have to come from the papacy rather than lower down. But again, I don't. Not 100% sure on that. Again, don't get medievalists to talk about the modern church.

Dr. Felicity Hill (52:50)

Okay, so look, indulgences. Yeah, it's probably bad that there are partners around, but some of them seem not so bad. So what's Martin Luther's problem here?

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (53:01)

Yeah, I think his issue is it's not entirely unreasonable one, if you believe in, you know, basically the whole point of Christian doctrine, which is you have to atone for your sins. Sins. You have to make amends. What the term they use is make satisfaction. And I think the problem becomes nobody is doing good works anymore. Nobody is. Is doing any kind of penance or. Yeah, just the good things that good Christians are supposed to do because instead they are just giving money and getting indulgences, which I think you can see how he gets there.

Dr. Felicity Hill (53:35)

Yeah.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (53:35)

That nobody's good anymore. And so there's. We all think. I mean, who likes Martin Luther?

Dr. Felicity Hill (53:40)

I mean, nobody.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (53:41)

No, so. And he, He's. I mean, he's a bit mental about them, to be fair. Like, he really goes off on one. But there are some core points that you can see. But again, we have to make sure we understand how things had become by the time he's around. And that. That is not true for the whole. Well, definitely not the whole Middle Ages, but even the whole period in which indulgences exist. So, you know, and there is so much polemic about it that. And of course, his whole thing was polemic. Right. So of course he exaggerated all the worst aspects and downplayed any of the good bits, if you could say. Good bits.

Dr. Felicity Hill (54:16)

Do you know what? Listen, I agree with him. They shouldn't have redone St. Peter's Martin Luther and I have found one thing to agree on, so that's fine. Well Felicity, thank you so so much for coming on and comparing favorite indulgences. It's always such a delight to hang out with you.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (54:33)

Yay. Well, thank you for having me and hopefully the listeners will have some idea of what indulgences are at the end of this.

Dr. Felicity Hill (54:41)

If if you figured it out, write in and let us know.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (54:46)

Thanks so much to Dr. Felicity Hill for joining me once again and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History hit. If you loved Felicity and frankly, if you didn't, we're fighting, you might want to go back and check out out our past episodes with her, including those on Excommunication and the Investiture Crisis. Remember, you can also enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film the Trial of Joan of Arc by signing up@historyhit.com subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify where you can leave us comments and

Dr. Felicity Hill (55:22)

suggestions or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dr. Eleanor Jennica (55:25)

And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

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