Doing the right things in order to keep the time in purgatory as short as possible was quite possibly the primary spiritual drive in many people's lives in the Middle Ages.

THE DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY

Image of a fiery purgatory by Annibale Carracci.

A third aspect of medieval piety strengthened by the satisfaction theory was the doctrine of purgatory.  It is noteworthy that at the same time that Satan's role in the atonement story was being downplayed by the shift away from the ransom theory, the flames of purgatory were being stoked.  By 1254 the doctrine had advances to the point where a pontifical letter spelled out the following:

Catacomb inscriptions include prayers for the dead.

"The souls of those who die after receiving penance but without having had the time to complete it, or who die without mortal sin but guilty of venial (sins) or minor faults, are purged [in purgatory] after death and may be helped by the suffrages of the Church."

The doctrine of purgatory was officially defined as an article of faith at the Council of Florence in 1439

The multinational character of the Council of Florence inspired Benozzo Gozzoli's 1459 Journey of the Magi, featuring a black figure in the attendance.

The letter described purgatory as "this temporary fire."  The doctrine of purgatory was officially defined as an article of faith at the Council of Florence in 1439.  For those who had not paid their full penalty, that is, had not made full satisfaction before their deaths, purgatory was the place for making up the balance.  It was believed that one would go to purgatory for a length of time that matched the amount of penalty one still had to pay and that this length of time could be measured in years, sometimes hundreds or thousands of years.  Thus prayers and indulgences and penitential acts had certain numbers of years of remission attached to them.


Near-death experiences documented the existence of purgatory


'Patrick the Pilgrim' statue near the dock for the ferry to Station Island.  St Patrick's Purgatory is an ancient pilgrimage site on Station Island in Lough Derg, County Donegal, Ireland.

There were many stories circulating across Europe, translated into various languages, detailing near-death experiences in which individuals visited purgatory and returned with vivid reports.  One popular place where people went on pilgrimage3 intentionally to receive visions of purgatory was St. Patrick's Purgatory in Lough Derg, Ireland.  An excerpt from an account of one of those pilgrims, William of Stranton, illustrated a common aspect of purgatorial visions, and that was the matching of torment to sin:


The Vision of William of Stranton

Drawing showing St. John of Bridlington in St. Patrick's Purgatory, illustrating a 15th-century Middle English prose text of The Vision of William of Stranton.  "Preceded by a rude coloured drawing of a sainted Bishop in the act of benediction, surrounded by Fiends and by Souls in torment."

"Then St. John showed me other diverse souls, and some were enclosed in plates of iron all burning, and on the plates were letters and words well written, and through the words were nails of iron all burning, mitten into their heads and so into their hearts and into their bodies.  And among these souls I saw one that his tongue and his heart were taken out and shorn small, and fiends cast them on his face again ... And St. John said to me, "These are the souls of vicars and parsons and other priests also, and the letters that are written on the plates which are smitten on their heads betoken divine services, that they should have said and done every day with great devotion.  But they have moire false devotion and lust in hawking and hunting and other lewd places and idle occupations and worldy mirths, than in the service of God, and therefore they thus pained with horrible pains.


Whatever the sins one had committed and had not already done penance for, one would pay for through various carefully matched tortures in Purgatory.

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

La Penitente by Pietro Rotari.

Such stories helped to motivate the laity to take the sacrament of penance seriously, and many ways of paying penance became popular in the high to late Middle Ages.   Fasting, prayer and giving alms to the poor remained the most common.  Pilgrimages, masses and indulgences became very important as well.

The indulgences become more valuable with each Crusade

A Catholic bishop granting plenary indulgences for the public during times of calamity. Note the almsgiving in the background. Wall Fresco by Italian Artist Lorenzo Lotto, Suardi, Italy, circa 1524.

The first indulgence coincided with the first Crusade in 1095, which in many sense was itself a pilgrimage.  Pope Urban II, in calling for this Crusade, declared, "Know, then, that anyone who sets out on that journey, not out of lust for worldly advantage but only for the salvation of his soul and for the liberation of the Church, is remitted in entirety all penance for his sins, if he has made a true and perfect act of confession."  The indulgences seemed to become more valuable with each Crusade.  By the third Crusade, Pope Celestine in 1195 granted "For they who have undertaken the labour of this journey with contrite heart and humble spirit are to obtain a plenary indulgence for their sins, and eternal life thereafter."  Other kinds of indulgences emerged, attached to pilgrimages to saints' shrines and holy sites in Rome and the Holy Land, to prayers to the Blessed Virgin and other saints, and even to raising funds for cathedral building.


It was possible for one person to make satisfaction for another person's sin by building chantries

Wakefield Bridge and Chantry Chapel, Philip Reinagle, 1793.

According to Aquinas, it was possible for one person to make satisfaction for another person's sin.  People, especially the wealthy, took steps during life to provide, after their deaths, for their own souls and those of their families to get out of purgatory.  Chantries were set up so that prayers and masses could be said for the dead long after their death.  A rich wool merchant could build a chantry chapel onto the side of a cathedral, for example, where the chantry priest that he hired would say daily masses for the souls of everyone in his family who had died.  Entire monastic orders were formed by rich patrons who wanted the monks to say prayers for their souls in perpetuity. Perhaps the best example of this was the Cluniac Order.  The Duke of Cluny, in the foundation charter, after listing all the property he was giving to the order, gave the reasons for his large donation:

Soul carried to Heaven by William Bouguereau

"I give ... all these things to the aforesaid apostles -- I, Willliam, and my wife Ingelberga -- first for the love of God; then for the soul of my lord king Odo, of my father and my mother; for myself and my wife -- for the salvation namely, of our souls and bodies; -- and not least for that of Ava who left me these things in her will; for the souls also of our brothers and sisters and nephews, and of all our relatives of both sexes; for our faithful ones who adhere to our service; for the advancement, also and integrity of the catholic religion.  Finally, since all of us Christians are held together by one bond of love and faith, let this donation be for all, -- for the orthodox, namely, of past, present or future times.


Beneficiaries in people's wills were indulgences


People left money and instructions in their wills for a variety of purgatory-shortening activities to be performed on their behalf after their death.  William Hanyngfield of Essex's will in 1426 specified the following:

The Damned Soul. Drawing by Michelangelo Buonarroti c. 1525

"First, I will that the Manors of "Chardacre and Avalans" in the shire of Suffolk that they be sold by my executors to as high a price as it may, without fraud ... and the money thereof received, be dispensed for my soul after the discretion of my executors.  Moreover I will that [three manors] be sold by the same executors, and with the money thereof received, and more, if need be, be founded two priests, singing continually during the term of 40 winters in the Prior of "Bykenacre" in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, for the souls of men, the foresaid William, Agnes, John, Cisily my wife, William Nicholas Martyn, Eleanor, Elisabeth, Roger, and Margery, and for all the souls that I am bound to do for, after the discretion of my executors."

A 15th-century Mass

Other wills included the detailing of specific dates for masses to be performed, gifts to be left for the poor (as alms), chapels to be built, colleges to be founded and objects to be given to priests and to churches, all so that prayers and / or masses would be said for the deceased.


Doing the right things in order to keep the time in purgatory as short as possible was the primary spiritual drive in many people's lives in the Middle Ages

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1448

Those who participated in the sacramental system would go to purgatory when death came and then eventually to heaven.  The thought of that time in purgatory was kept continually before the laity in art, in sermon illustrations, in instructional books and in the sacraments.  Doing the right things in order to keep the time in purgatory as short as possible was quite possibly the primary spiritual drive in many people's lives in the Middle Ages.  And it was in turn powered by the belief in the necessity of making satisfaction for sins, making satisfaction for one's sins here on earth so that one could avoid having to make satisfaction for them in purgatory.

Source: Walters, Gwenfair M.  "Atonement in the Medieval Theology."  In The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Historical and Practical Perspectives, eds. Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004, pages 258-261.