A World Lit Only By Fire Analysis

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General Conditions of Middle Age

The Middle Ages, or medieval time, is generally considered to have started with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 and the conquer of Costantinople in 1453. The beginning of the Middle Ages is called the Dark Ages

William Manchester suggests that this time period was actually a dark age, in his “A World Lit Only By Fire”. Manchester describes the ‘Dark Ages’ as a “mélange of incessant warfare, corruption, lawlessness, obsession with strange myths, and an almost impenetrable mindlessness”. He also states how famines and plague repetitively thinned the population, and that “rickets afflicted the survivors”.

Life was not well in the Middle Ages. Very few people could write or read. Their lack of knowledge …show more content…

There was a master or lord. This was good for defence and safety. Great deal of people lived on manors. The manor is made up of the castle, the village and surrounding farmfield. Manors were isolated from the world, but sometimes received visitors such as pilgrims or peddlers.

Health

With the increasing of towns and cities, hygienic conditions started to worsen and this caused to escalate the diseases. Medical knowledge was not enough and this adversely effected people. In this situation, to cure diseases, many superstitions and myths were emerged. For example, people used to believe disease was spread by bad odours and if a man got sick that meant he was punished because of his sins.
The main reason of illnesses was lack of sanitation especially in big cities. There was no running water which caused to terrible situations.
Most important event about disease was “Black Death” killed some 20 million people in Europe (30 percent of the population). It was deadly in cities and it .

The Role of Woman

The role of women was restricted to domestic duties including cooking, baking bread, sewing,But , some women were allowed to hunt for food and fight in battles. It was good for women to learn how to use weapons so that they could defend their homes when their husbands went away. Some medieval women held other …show more content…

It dealt with everyone’s life, no matter what their class or rank. Notion of after life based on Church’s right because Church lets people to go to heaven. And people used to belive that and they did whatever Church commanded. Peasants worked for church without money, and this effected their own life.

Bishops were independent and wealth and they usually came from noble families. Monasteries were the places of learning, but after a while universities began to take over this function later times.
Pilgrimage was an important part of religious life in the Middle Ages. Many people travelled to visit holy shrines such as Rome and Jerusalem. From 1096 until 1291 pilgrims, armies, peasants went on crusades to the Holy Land. The aim was to take the control of Jerusalem out of Muslims. There were eight crusades. People joined the Crusades because of their religious convictions while other people were nobles or knights who wanted to find fame and commodity.
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is the term of philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century, based on the teachings of Plato. Though based on Plato, Neoplatonism is different from what Plato’s belief. Neoplatonism is often credited to Plotinus (c. 205-270 A.D.) and his disciple Porphyry (232-c.300 A.D.) expanded Plato's philosophical ideas into something more like a full-fledged

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