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The role of the church in medieval life
Religion as an evolutionary mechanism
Effects that Christianity had on Europe during the Medieval Period
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Throughout history, religion has been the foundation of numerous communities. Religion is able to dictate the actions of many people due to a set of guidelines for all followers; which indicates the type of lifestyle a person should be living as well as moral values. As religion began to spread throughout the world, it became more of a valued gift in some communities. Most religions valued charity, equality, peace, and love which made it popular among the masses. For example, during the Medieval stages of Europe Christianity was the center of all life. Every medieval manor had a Church where all people surfs or land owners can join together and pray. Christianity was such a key staple to a medieval lifestyle the Medieval period was dubbed as …show more content…
Christianity then allowed for these unique cultures and ethnic groups to be unified under a similar Christian belief. The foundation of Christianity was striving to achieve salvation in order to gain everlasting life. This could be done through good deeds and more importantly the 7 sacraments. The only people able to perform these sacraments are priest, therefore making them arguably the most important people in any village. The Priest also served as a teacher to the community as well as a tax collector. These taxes funded the local Church as well as the Roman Church. The local Church had many purposes religiously and socially. The lives of villagers revolved around their local Church. They followed the calendar of the Church, they receive the important sacraments of Baptism, the Eucharist, as well as matrimony. Finally at the end of a villagers life they are buried in the Church yard. Basically life begins and ends at a Medieval Church. Christianity was popular among all people as it valued equality of all people which made it more of a public religion rather than a picky, un including
The Catholic Church made its own laws and possessed land. The Roman Catholic Church collected taxes, service fees, and even accepted gifts from people who wanted a guaranteed "spot" in Heaven. The Church also had the power to influence kings and rulers. The Church helped by publicly supporting the kings and in return, the Church was given reasonable amounts of land and the clergy were given essential positions inside of the King's Court, which gave the Church the ability to manipulate policy and laws. The Church made many laws that include the involuntary conversions of heretics and the stifling of anti-church influences that could persuade other people to leave the Church and become heretics. This showed the immense authority that the Roman Catholic Church had over the people. Blasphemy (the speaking against God or anything that was considered sacred) was deemed as a capital crime (meaning it was punished by death).
The Early Christians had numerous different practices. Some of them sacrificed animals, others held mass, and some even died in order to go with God. This helped with the spread of Christianity because it allowed people to attend mass and be forgiven of their sins. It also showed how cruel the Romans were and that religious freedom was being taken away from them.
The rise of the church had a great impact in medieval society. The great belief of Christianity began with Jesus of Nazareth who presented public preaching’s of a friendly and forgiving God as he claimed he was the Messiah. According to Jesus, god’s command was for all human kind to love, cherish, and focus their lives to the Lord. The love that was expected for humans to have for God was to adore him with all of their hearts, minds, and souls. He also preached to the early people of how one should love one another. A friendly and forgiving God would later attract many sacredly inspired communities to worship him. People of the medieval world placed great belief in Christianity causing the rise of the church to impact many aspects of the society including government, family, and architecture.
The Church in the 1400’s was the center of everyone’s life and a peasant’s life was the hardest to live. The Church convinced everyone that if they broke the rules their soul would be damned. One of the rules was to devote time to the church where peasants would give hours of free labor in the churches’ fields instead of working on their own land to feed their family (“The Medieval Church”). The Church would gather tithes of food and money from every person and store them in a tithe barn where the food would rot or be poisoned by rats (“The Medieval Church”).
Religion has existed since the dawn of civilization and over time has evolved into the religions we have today. Today the most prominent religions are monotheistic, having one omnipotent god, and despite having many differences they share basic tenets of respect and kindness. Religions, such as Judaism, give explanations for the unknown, provide hope, and bring about a sense of community.
Religion comes from religare, which means have a reunion. Aneel Baquer says that humans have a need to connect with others, the ability of myths and thoughts of religion is a desire that humans need to bond. In most civilizations, religion is the reason why civilizations are successful. Religion give, people a motive to survive or do what they do. Sometimes the religions actually make their civilization expand and even more successful. not only does religion give us a motive to survive. Still today, religion is one of the biggest factors in modern civilizations. In several religion motives are used for example, christianity. In christianity to meet with god, you must do good. Religion can change a persons personality by aiding from stress, to giving hope. Religion can also reduce the fear of death. In ancient civilizations, egyptians did not fear death. In their religion they believed that living on earth was the beginning of life. Once dead it sends you to the beginning of happiness or horrible. Religion can also expand. If you have a strong connection to your religion, some people spread the word of their religion to other people. It also teaches manners and the difference between the good, and the evil. Vikings were such a significant civilization than any other because of their religion. Religion for the vikings have given them motivation to expand territories, learn between the good and the bad, and not to fear death but to welcome death; reasons why are from being taught was from viking mythology, heroic people and their warlike god.
The Middle Ages was a time of knights, the lords they supported, and the kings and queens they worked under. A time the Roman Catholic Church took over the European landmass like rapid fire, and when moral codes designated the manner in which people acted. Almost most influential of all was feudalism. At the time of the medieval period, the social, political, and economic lives of Europeans were defined by feudalism.
In the middle ages, the Roman Catholic Church had been central to the lives of all, nobility as well as peasants
In the Medieval times, the Roman Catholic Church played a great role in the development of England and had much more power than the Church of today does. In Medieval England, the Roman Catholic Church dominated everyday life and controlled everyone whether it is knights, peasants or kings. The Church was one of the most influential institutions in all of Medieval England and played a large role in education and religion. The Church's power was so great that they could order and control knights and sends them to battle whenever they wished to. The Church also had the power to influence the decision of Kings and could stop or pass laws which benefited them in the long run, adding to this, the Church had most of the wealth in Europe as the Church demanded a Tithe from all the common life which meant that they had to pay 10 percent of their income to the Church. The Church controlled all the of the beliefs and religion of the Church as they were the only ones who could read or write Latin and as such could decipher the Bible and scriptures which gave them all the power to be the mouth of God. The Legacy of the power and the influence of the Church can still be found, even today in modern times.
The rise of Christianity more than 2000 years ago provided necessary building blocks for the future. Without Christianity there would be no cathedrals, no monasteries, no music from Johann Sebastian Bach, no paintings from Michelangelo, nor no philosophy from Saint Augustine (Backman 205). There are countless times in history, whether good or bad, that can be credited to Christianity. The first Christian Church (the Orthodox Church) came to be in the Late Roman Empire because of Jesus of Nazareth, and the first Christian Emperor Constantine.
There are a multitude of understandings and interpretations of the concept culture. A common definition may be a, “cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving”(Hofstede). An explanation that may be used to discuss the culture of the Middle Ages. Furthermore, it may be used to examine the changes in key aspects, such as, religion, gender roles, and social norms during the time period of approximately the 500s to the 1500s.
Throughout the course of history, man has looked to religion for answers. Curiosity as to how we got here and why we are have driven people to seek out answers to these somewhat unanswerable questions. Over the past few thousand years, several varying religions have been established, some more prominent than others. Many of them share a similar story of a divine creator who has always been and will always be. In the case of Christianity, whether true or not, it has proven to be beneficial to society as a whole. The Bible set the standard for the moral compass that humans live their lives by to this day. The key fundamental problem with religion, although not the fault of religion, is that man has often used it as a gateway to power and prominence. In the case of the 18th century Gallican church, the French were abusing their religious powers, thus creating vast inequality throughout France, which eventually led to a rebellion against the church, and the eventual destruction of the church within France.
The Roman Catholic Church had complete influence over the lives of everyone in medieval society, including their beliefs and values. The Church’s fame in power and wealth had provided them with the ability to make their own laws and follow their own social hierarchy. With strong political strength in hand, the Church could even determine holidays and festivals. It gained significant force in the arts, education, religion, politics as well as their capability to alter the feudal structure through their wealth and power. The Church was organised into a hierarchical system that sustained the Church’s stability and control over the people and lower clergy, by organising them into different groups.
This is because as a community, they are able to express their beliefs as well as listen to the words of the Lord. As Jesus said at his last meal with his disciples before his execution, “Do this in memory of me”. This quote is reflected in the Mass in the stage of ‘being fed’ when an adherent receives both the body and blood of Christ, called Transubstantiation. In this way, Christian adherents are able to unite in a diverse environment following the ways that our Lord has taught us.
Religion helps establish mankind’s place in the order of the universe. As civilization began to be established through the domestication of animals, the irrigation and cultivation of agricultural crops, and life became more complex (moving from mainly a hunter/gather existence to one that could settle down and have more time to consider advanced ideas) people began to consider questions such as, where life comes from, is there a creator or creators who helped make the world, and what happens after we die. Religion helped answer some of these questions. It gave people purpose, meaning, and perspective. Religion helped establish nations in the case of religious theocratic governments. In many of the ancient civilizations, such as the Egyptians, the Mayans, and even Mesopotamia, the priests and other religious leaders played prominent roles in help shaping the laws and government of these civilizations. As his...