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Chapter Three. Forced Baptism
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Chapter Three FORCED BAPTISM As we saw in chapter 2 of this book, some scholastics placed forced baptism under the same conceptual heading as fictive baptism, a practice which we will also encounter in chapter 3. At the same time, Christian attitudes toward these two baptismal issues have divergent medieval histories. Finding support for both forced baptism and opposition to it in the New Testament , Christian writers first addressed this topic in the age of the Latin apologists. Patristic theologians added contributions later cited as authoritative . In contrast with the other two baptismal debates treated it this book, there was virtually no time lag between the patristic and medieval chapters of the story. Some non-Christians were forcibly baptized in the Germanic kingdoms which succeeded the Roman Empire in the west, starting in the fifth century. Prelates and theologians condemned such events and explained why they regarded them as illicit and counterproductive. Nonetheless , conversion by compulsion gained momentum from the ninth century onward, fueled by the expansion of Christian Europe on the continent and in the Crusades movement. Voices were raised against this policy from the Carolingian era through the early fourteenth century. But commentators treated forced baptism as normal, and masters increasingly lent their skills to justifying it.Those in the ivory tower often mirrored the attitudes of colleagues in the missionary field. As we move into the later centuries of our 227 228 Forced Baptism target period, new distinctions and arguments emerged to rationalize the forced baptism of the unwilling. These doctrinal developments broadened the concept of infidels and refined the conditions deemed to make their forced baptism canonically and theologically acceptable. While a full consensus was not achieved, in this area of baptismal thought the high Middle Ages witnessed a notable movement in that direction. Few scholars have risen to the task of surveying this subject. The two leading historians who have done so view it from contrasting perspectives. Karl Morrison offers an insightful and largely theoretical approach. He places forced baptism in the context of conversion as a moral and spiritual phenomenon. In Morrison’s view, Christian thinkers from the early church through the twelfth century saw conversion as a process that required suffering . In their eyes, pain was necessary to break down the old, the deformed likeness, so that a new one could be formed in its place. Such healing, renewing pain could be voluntarily embraced, as it was by penitents and ascetics, or, because it was thought to be the due of brotherly love, it could be imposed by force on unbelievers or wrongbelievers . Penance and persecution were twins, often linked to medical or surgical procedures that inflicted terrible pain in order to cure.1 On this account, forcing the unwilling into the font was the first incision of the healing knife, whose efficacy in curing non-belief was not questioned. But precisely there lies the limit of Morrison’s analysis. Impressive as it is as an exercise of historical imagination taking us into the mindset of the persecutors, it does not do full justice to their opponents, or to the fact that debate ensued on this subject in the Middle Ages. Nor were the arguments in favor of forced baptism often informed by the claim of brotherly love. Rather than trying to empathize with the persecutors, Hans Maier states that the basic Christian norm has always been the rejection of religious oppression and constraint of any kind. Early Christian writers recognized this principle. But, alas, not only were non-Christians forcibly baptized over the centuries but church leaders and theologians defended the practice. Maier surveys these defections from the Christian message from the third to the twentieth century, within Europe and in lands colonized by Europeans. All churches have been at fault. Their hypocrisy has 1. Karl F. Morrison, Understanding Conversion (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1992), xvi–xvii; see also 71, 79. On the rhetoric of harsh medical treatment as the cure for spiritual disease, see also Maijastina Kahlos, Forbearance and Compulsion: The Rhetoric of Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Late Antiquity (London: Duckworth, 2009), 3, 70–71, with an excellent general bibliography. [34.204.3.195] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:03 GMT) Forced Baptism 229 provided grist for the mills of anti-Christian ideologies. Maier is happy to report, however, that this problem has now been consigned to the historical dustbin, although the churches must acknowledge their past sin and repent. Given the chronological sweep of his essay, it...