Middle Ages Christianity: What was it like?

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Middle Ages Christianity: What was it like?

People think of the Middle Ages as a very religious period, when the Christian Church was the most important institution and everybody prayed all the time. Certainly this is the time when the great cathedrals of Europe were built, and also when the Church began the great universities at Paris, Tubingen, Cambridge, and Oxford. This is the time when the Pope might excommunicate a king. Some of the most powerful men and women in the Middle Ages were involved with the Catholic Church. But what is new about all this is in the ancient world, God and sacrifices were so much a part of everyday life that there is no way to separate religious activities from any other daily activities. All schools taught about the gods, all meals were sacred to the gods, and all meat was sacrificed to the gods, and pretty much all politicians were priests, while the Roman emperors were seen as gods themselves. In the Middle Ages, this changes only in that it is now possible to separate the religious from the secular world: both remain very powerful. One result of identifying religion as a separate entity from politics was that it became important to people that everyone believe the same things that they did. Many people believed that they could only go to Heaven if everybody around them was a Christian too, so if you didn’t believe the same as them, you were forcing them to go to Hell. Contrary to popular belief Catholicism was not the only form of Christianity during the Middle Ages, and Christianity was not the only faith that people followed either. Most people in Europe and in Turkey were Christians . Most of the people in Western Europe were Catholics, while those of Eastern Europe and Turkey were mostly Orthodox. There were also many Jews throughout Europe at this time, and a fair number of Muslims to. In the early Middle Ages, many people in the rural country were still following the old Greek and Roman gods.

Because Christians wanted everyone else to be Christian as well, they tried to get rid of all the Jews living near them, either by converting, killing or forcing them to move somewhere else. Some Christians were said to try to force people to abandon their old Greek and Roman gods. Sometimes the Christians even fought with each other, because they disagreed about the exact details of what a Christian should believe. If you thought someone was a bad Christian, you called them a heretic, and what they believed was a heresy. Then there were the Christian led crusades against the Muslims in Spain and in West Asia, to try to push the Muslims out of Seville and Jerusalem and have Christians living there.

The Crusades were a series of Military actions taken by Christians in Europe, during the Middle Ages, to oppose threats both internally and externally and were fought against such people as Muslims, Pagan Slavs, Mongols and Hussites. The original intent of the Crusades was to recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the rules of the Muslims. The Crusades political, economic, and social impacts had long lasting effects some even all the way to today. Because of internal conflicts among Christian kingdoms and political powers, some of the crusade expeditions were diverted from their original aim. The Fourth Crusade was one that was diverted and resulted in the sack of Christian Constantinople and the partition of the Byzantine Empire between Venice and the Crusaders. After that Crusades were mounted that didn't even have the blessing of the Pope establisihing that leaders other than the Pope could initiate a Crusade.

In the Middle Ages, there were very complicated relationships, including some with people that were still in slavery, fortunately not so many as before in the Roman Empire. Slavery was gradually dying out during this period. Family units were basically the same as they are today with a Mother, Father and siblings all living together. Due to the fact that people died, sometimes at a very young age, a lot of kids also lived with other relatives, or just with an older brother or sister, because their parents had died from disease. Most kids in that era never knew their grandparents, because most died before they were born. Hardly anyone went to school. The kids worked in the fields, or took care of younger brothers and sisters. Some of the children, usually from richer families, were given to monasteries to become monks and nuns, these children were sometimes taught to read and write. As for the teenagers, around the age of twelve or thirteen, they went to work. Sometimes they worked for their neighbors, helping to plow the fields or take care of babies and animals. Sometimes they worked for richer families, as servants. Or they were apprenticed to learn a skill like weaving or blacksmithing. The teenagers usually lived with the people they worked for. Peasants rented land from the rich. They owed their landlord rent, and also servitude. The peasants would go to war with their landlord if called to do so. Often peasants were required to give their landlord a certain number of chickens or certain amount of honey, spun wool or firewood every year. Even if a peasant owned their own land often had to make payments to the nearest powerful person in exchange for protection from invasion by the King. This cycle repeated itself all the way up the ladder to the Dukes and even Queen or King. Some peasants also rented land from the Catholic Church, which owned about a third of the land in Europe during the Middle Ages. Their landlord would be a bishop, and over the bishop was the archbishop, cardinal, and then the Pope in Rome.

As you can see Christianity faced some major ups and downs in the Middle Ages. One thing that remained constant through that whole time was God's love for us. No matter what was happening in the life of the Church or the Crusades God's love was a constant. Corruption, lies, war or disease the Middle Ages had it all and no matter what it is that we face God is always with us so we can lean on him. His strength can guide us through the worst of times. No matter what we do or how we try to derail it, God's will is going to be done. I take great comfort in knowing that, even at my lowest times, I can turn to God and pray and be assured that he is there and will give me the strength to overcome.

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