Missionary Expansion of the Late Medieval Church

When Christians think about the great age of missions, their minds often jump immediately to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We think of men such as William Carey, Adoniram Judson, David Livingstone, and Hudson Taylor. We picture sailing ships leaving European ports carrying Bibles, missionaries, and the gospel to distant lands.

Yet the Christian faith has always been a missionary faith. Jesus said to go into all the world. 

Long before Carey arrived in India, long before Protestant missionary societies emerged, Christians were already attempting to carry the faith beyond the boundaries of Europe. In fact, some of the earliest efforts at truly global missionary expansion took place during the closing centuries of the medieval period. Often imperfect, occasionally compromising, and frequently entangled with political ambitions, medieval missions represented a genuine desire to spread Christianity to peoples who had never heard the name of Christ.

Understanding these late medieval missions helps us better appreciate both the achievements and the failures of the medieval church as it stood within reach of the Protestant Reformation and the discovery of the modern world.

A Church at Its Lowest Point

The late medieval church was not the church of apostolic simplicity. By the late 1400s, sacramentalism had reached disgusting heights. Popular piety was often mixed with superstition. The papacy was deeply corrupt. Theological clarity had largely disappeared beneath centuries of accumulated traditions  of men and ecclesiastical abuses.

Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette observed: “It cannot be denied that the church herself, in her contact with the world, had lost much of her original simplicity and that the form of Christianity which she presented to the new races for their reception was not that of purer and apostolic times.”

When medieval missionaries carried Christianity abroad, they carried both truth and error. They proclaimed Christ, but they also brought the baggage of late medieval Roman Catholicism. They brought the gospel, but they also brought superstition, sacramentalism, and papal authority.

This reality should neither cause us to dismiss their efforts entirely nor to romanticize them uncritically. Instead, we should evaluate them honestly, against the Word of God. 

The Medieval Vision of Christendom

The missionary impulse of the late Middle Ages arose from a worldview very different from our own.

Medieval Christians were of a Christian civilization united under the authority of the church. For centuries, this Christian world had steadily lost territory to Islamic expansion. Since the seventh century, Muslim armies had conquered large portions of formerly Christian lands across North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Europe.

Many Christians viewed missionary expansion and political expansion as closely related goals. Recovering territory, extending Christian influence, opening trade routes, and spreading the faith were in the same categories. Spain and Portugal became the leading powers in this effort.

Following the Reconquista, the centuries-long struggle to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule, both kingdoms began looking for new land. The Spain-Portugal rivalry would become one of the driving forces behind exploration, colonization, and missionary expansion.

Technology and the Expansion of the World

One often-overlooked factor behind medieval missions was technology. Technology always has been used to advance the kingdom. Just as the printing press would later assist the Protestant Reformation, improvements in navigation and shipbuilding made global exploration possible.Portuguese sailors gained advantages through innovations such as the magnetic compass, the astrolabe, improved cartography, the stern rudder, and the caravel sailing vessel.

For centuries, Christianity had developed around the Mediterranean Sea. The Apostle Paul traveled by ship, but the world known to most Christians remained relatively small. Now, however, sailors could venture far beyond familiar waters.

The same technologies that opened new trade routes also opened new missionary opportunities. Commerce and missions frequently advanced together. As Philip Schaff noted, periods of exploration and commercial expansion have often preceded renewed missionary activity. God uses ordinary means, even economic ambitions and technological innovations, to accomplish extraordinary purposes.

The Canary Islands: A Forgotten Mission Field

One of the earliest examples of late medieval missionary work occurred in the Canary Islands.

Located roughly sixty miles west of Morocco, the islands were inhabited by the Guanche people. Their religion combined belief in a supreme deity with various animistic practices, ancestor veneration, sacred mountains, fertility rituals, and reverence for natural forces. Unlike much of North Africa, the Canary Islands had never been incorporated into the Islamic world. For European Christians, they represented an unreached people group.

Missionaries arrived alongside explorers and political authorities. Priests established mission centers around a church, taught the faith, and sought converts among the islanders. One of the first significant conversions involved a local tribal ruler, King Guadarfía of Lanzarote. After his baptism, many of his followers also accepted Christianity. This is consistent with much of ancient and medieval missionary endeavors. The ruler comes to Christ and the rest of the nation follows. 

The methods used often reflected the medieval union of church and state. Missionary activity was intertwined with political conquest. Leaders were converted, churches were established, and Christian institutions quickly became part of public life. Yet despite these complications, there was genuine missionary concern.

Contemporary records repeatedly describe the purpose of these expeditions as bringing the Christian faith to people who had never heard it. Whatever political ambitions may have accompanied them, evangelization remained a central goal.

The Search for the East

Another major factor driving missionary expansion was the search for new trade routes to Asia. For centuries, European merchants had relied on overland routes that passed through regions increasingly dominated by Islamic powers. As those routes became more difficult and dangerous, Christian kingdoms began searching for alternatives.

Portuguese sailors explored the coast of Africa, eventually discovering routes around the Cape of Good Hope. But some began asking a different question. If the world was round, could one reach the East by sailing west?

Contrary to popular myth, educated people in the fifteenth century did not believe the earth was flat. Mariners, scholars, and churchmen understood its basic shape. The question was not whether the world was round, but how large it was. That question would change world history.

Papal Bulls and Global Expansion

As exploration accelerated, the papacy attempted to regulate the expansion of Christian kingdoms through a series of decrees known as papal bulls.

Several became enormously influential: 

The bull Dum Diversas (1452) authorized Portugal to wage war against Muslim powers and permitted the enslavement of Muslim prisoners taken in such conflicts. A few years later, Romanus Pontifex (1455) granted Portugal extensive rights over newly discovered territories. Finally, Inter Caetera (1493) attempted to settle disputes between Spain and Portugal by drawing an imaginary line across the globe. Lands east of the line would belong to Portugal. Lands west of the line would belong to Spain.

The consequences of this decision can still be seen today. Brazil, lying east of the line, became Portuguese-speaking. Much of the rest of South America became Spanish-speaking. The papacy justified these grants in part by appealing to missionary goals. The stated purpose was that “barbarous nations be brought to the faith.”

Of course, these decrees also opened the door to significant abuses. The union of missionary efforts with imperial ambitions would create problems that echoed for centuries.  Yet even here, it is important to avoid caricatures of historical narratives.

The historical documents repeatedly emphasize evangelization, conversion, and the spread of Christianity. Economic and political motives certainly existed, but they were not the only motives, but merely secondary motives.  History is rarely as simple as modern ideological retellings suggest.

Missions and Slavery

No discussion of late medieval missions can avoid the difficult issue of slavery. The relationship between exploration, conquest, and slavery remains one of the darkest aspects of this period. At the same time, historical accuracy requires careful distinctions.

The earliest Portuguese slave-taking focused primarily on Muslim prisoners captured during warfare. Such practices reflected longstanding customs common throughout much of human history: slaves are a part of the booty of war. 

Only later did racialized slavery develop into the transatlantic slave trade that would scar the modern world. This distinction does not excuse later abuses. It does, however, remind us that the story of the church is more complex than modern presentations often suggest. The missionary movement itself was not founded for the purpose of enslaving Africans or indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, missionary expansion became intertwined with systems of exploitation that the Church would wrestle with for generations.

The Kingdom of Benin

Missionary activity soon expanded into West Africa. One significant example occurred in the Kingdom of Benin, located in present-day Nigeria. Portuguese missionaries established contact with local rulers and began instructing them in the Christian faith. Historical records indicate that one king developed a serious interest in Christianity and sought further instruction from the Portuguese.

As had happened elsewhere, the conversion of rulers often influenced entire communities. The gospel reached previously unreached peoples, and expansion of what would be called colonization simultaneously occurred. 

The medieval church excelled at converting kingdoms. It was often less successful at cultivating true biblical discipleship.

Christopher Columbus and the Missionary Vision

No figure better illustrates the complexity of late medieval missions than Christopher Columbus. Modern portrayals often reduce Columbus to either hero or villain. The historical Columbus is more complicated.

Columbus's own writings reveal a man shaped by the religious concerns of his age. He repeatedly described his voyages in explicitly Christian terms.He believed that new routes to Asia could strengthen Christian kingdoms and aid efforts against Islam. He hoped to locate distant peoples who could be brought to the Christian faith.

When Columbus encountered indigenous peoples in the Caribbean, he frequently commented on what he perceived as their openness to Christianity. Although some of his descriptions are archaic, Columbus had genuine missionary concern. As Columbus prayed, "Eternal God our Lord gives all those who follow his path victory over things that appear impossible..."

The First Church in the New World

Perhaps the most significant missionary development connected to Columbus came through the work of Friar Ramón Pané. Accompanying Columbus on his second voyage, Pané became one of the first Christian missionaries in the Americas.

Unlike many explorers, Pané devoted himself to learning about indigenous culture, language, and religion. His writings provide some of the earliest ethnographic observations of native peoples in the New World. It would not be until the 19th century that missionaries would use similar methodology. 

More importantly, he preached the gospel. In 1493, Pané established what is often regarded as the first Christian church in the Americas near present-day Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Conversions followed. Some embraced Christianity sincerely. Others paid a heavy price for doing so. Pané records accounts of early converts who suffered persecution and death because of their newfound faith.

These believers may rightly be remembered among the first Christian martyrs of the New World.

Lessons from a Complicated Legacy

The story of late medieval missions is complicated. It reminds the Christian reader that God often advances His kingdom through imperfect instruments. The church of the fifteenth century was deeply compromised. Yet Christ still used it to carry His name to new peoples.

Missionaries brought theological error, yet they also brought the Scriptures, the name of Christ, and the message of salvation. Political ambitions frequently mixed with spiritual concerns. Yet genuine conversions occurred.

This should encourage humility in our missionary endeavors.

The modern church is not free from its own blind spots and compromises. Future generations may look back on us and identify errors we cannot currently see. At the same time, the story should encourage confidence in Christ's sovereign purposes. It is easy to look around at various missions organizations and critique everything they’re doing wrong, but what are they doing right? God uses our imperfect, messy attempts for His glory. Of course, we should aim to do missions correctly, but we can rest in God perfectly using our imperfect work.

The expansion of the gospel does not ultimately depend upon the purity of human instruments. It depends upon the faithfulness of the Savior who promised that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name among all nations.

Long before Carey, long before Judson, and long before the great missionary societies, that promise was already being fulfilled. Even amid the confusion, corruption, and imperfections of the late medieval world, Christ was gathering His Church from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

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