Rabbit Trail-- Catholicism in the time of Dante

I noticed many people discus on their blogs and in class the role of Christianity in Dante's Inferno.  Perhaps, I will start by clarifying that Catholicism in the middle ages was far different then it is now and is even more dramatically different the modern protestant Christianity.

Started when Dante was about 31 (1296),
 the Florence Cathedral was not competed
until 115 years after his death (1436).
 The story of  it's dome is quite interesting. 

I think one can safely assume that no one who is a true protestant Christian would ever claim to be the same religion(spirituality) as even a modern day Catholic, let alone one from the middle ages.

It is good to point out that the Bible was not translated into the vernacular (common people language).  And it was not fitting for someone besides the Catholic church leadership to read the Bible.  

Therefore, the Bible itself had far less influence on beliefs than the Catholic church ( it had practically no influence at all until the protestant reformation and even then the influence of the Bible was dramatically limited until literacy rates improved world wide because if one can't read it they have to rely on other peoples interpretations).  

I think Dante influenced to a greater extent by "Dark Age" Catholic doctrine than the Bible (though middle age Catholic doctrine was influenced to a small extent by the Bible)  

There are some good videos on YouTube that explain the role of the Catholic Church and the "Dark Ages". 

This is the most compact video on the subject I could find. 

If you YouTube search "Dark Ages" you can probably find the History channel's documentary on it, which is very good.   However, I can not encourage watching copyrighted material on YouTube.  Here is the Link to the History Channels page  ---->  History Channel -- Dark Ages 

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(='.'=) – “Who needs College when one has the History Channel?”

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(the bunny doesn't understand why I can't put "has watched massive amounts of History Channel and National Geographic programming" on a job resume)