Middle Ages Religion

For manor villages, religion was an important part of everyday life. Priests
administer sacraments, or the sacred rites of the Church, marry peasants and nobles,
baptize children, buried the dead, guide people on issues, and help the sick. In the late
middle ages, some priests also ran schools.

The church was also a gathering place. People danced and gossiped after the
service. The people of the town took good care of their church buildings. If they had a
prosperous community, they would build the church out of stone. To support the church,
the people had to pay a tithe, or one tenth of their income.

From the views of God, men and women were equal. On earth however, women
were weak and easily led into sin, therefore, needing guidance by men. The women
were called “the daughters of eve.” Another view was that women were like Mary, pure
and honest. Many women joined convents because they couldn’t become priests. Some
women could become important and escape the realms of society. At this point they
were free to speak their mind. In the late middle ages, most convents were restricted
because the church thought that women were learning too much.

In about 530, a monk named Benedict created a monastery called Monte

Cassino in southern Italy. Monks and nuns took 3 vows. One was obedience to the head
of the monastery. The second was poverty and the third was purity. There were three
parts of the day, worship, work, and study. Most of the work was physical labor. They
drained land and grew crops. The monks and nuns copied sacred works as part of the
physical labor also. They taught children and helped the sick because there were no
schools or hospitals.

The Church believed that all people were sinners and were eternally damned.
The only was to avoid this was the sacraments. The laws in the Church were called
canon laws and if they were not obeyed, then the worst punishment was
excommunication. Excommunication was when people couldn’t receive sacraments. If a
man was excommunicated, his immediate family was also punished. If someone
powerful like a king upset the church, his whole land could be interdict, or all of his land
could lose sacrament privileges.

The church tried to keep peace. Fighting was banned on Friday, Saturday,
Sunday, and religions holidays. It was called the Peace of God and helped the downfall
of warfare in the 1100’s.

As the wealth of the Church grew, the discipline declined. Priest ignored their duties and
spent too much time with their families and monks and nuns ignored their vows. Finally,
in the early 900’s Abbot Berno of Cluny (Cluny is a monastery in eastern France)
revived the Benedictine Rule. Then he made sure that no nobles were aloud to interfere
with Church affairs and filled the church with men devoted to the Church.

In the late 1000’s, Prosecution of Jews increased. Christians blamed them for the death
of Jesus. They were also blamed for other things whenever something came up that
they couldn’t understand, like a famine or an illness. They were also banned from
certain professions because they were blamed for economic downfalls. They made
many Jews move to Eastern Europe.