Catherine Of Sienna And Dante - 1486 Words

Melissa Rice Catherine of Sienna and Dante Catherine of Sienna and Dante Alighieri interacted very differently in each of their spiritual and medieval Christian societies, but they had three things in common. They were both Christian, writers, and they both lived and endured the Middle Ages, which were roughly between 5th and 15th century. This was the era between the Fall of Rome and the Renaissance. This was a dark time, and was perfectly referred to as the Dark Ages. One might wonder why it was referred to in this way. There are two main reasons why it was called this. One was the bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death. The majority of the extremity was during the 1340s. Approximately two million people in Europe dropped dead†¦show more content†¦At this time the clergy of the church became more powerful than the royals. Having a religious leader rule sounds like a positive thing to most people of faith. The problem was one did not necessarily have to be a devout Christian to be a head of the church. One di d not even have to be a theologian. Some people just became church leaders for the easy lifestyle that included a great salary and house. All of the money came from the citizens having to pay tithes, those were around ten percent of their earnings. They took advantage of their power and did not bring glory to God with it. Dante despised the church for this corruption. Most of his bitterness for the church though came from his disagreements with the church leaders. He made many enemies throughout his life from his opinions. The Divine Comedy was a way for him to send them all to Hell, figuratively. Dante knows a lot of people, and likes to talk with the politicians and clergy while he was down in Hell. One of the people in the poem that was mentioned was Pope Nicholas III who confessed to Dante that he tried to buy himself into Heaven. He hates himself for it and is full of grief but he mentioned that there are so many worse people on Earth who have a more horrible fate. Dante does n ot have any sympathy towards Nicholas. He believes that his punishment fits the crime. Then Dante breaks and tells his negative