Medieval Central Europe Life Documentary: Politics and Religion

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Politics

All this should warn us against too simplistic a view of the political structure of the central Middle Ages. Those involved in the conduct of politics, whether on an international, regnal, regional, local, institutional, or dynastic level, had to operate within a complex web of ideas, precepts, power relations, and harsh economic and social realities. More importantly, there was an inherent dialectic at the heart of medieval politics. Every means, every innovation or tool that provided a new way by which a lord or prince might increase his power at the expense of his peers and subjects also gave the latter a new set of ideals against which to judge the performance of their rivals and lords, by which to legitimize resistance or through which to practise it. A greater emphasis on legal and administrative procedures strengthened the ability of those who could afford them to increase their economic and political power at the expense of their peers and neighbours, but the latter also gained a means by which to challenge them. More elaborate theoretical concepts of power certainly raised the standing of a particular group within society, but at the same time also imposed new obligations upon them, and gave their dependants the means to thwart and resist their ambitions. Negotiating the balance between privileges and obligations and defining what abstract values and concepts meant in practice was rarely a smooth or peaceful process. It was, however, what gave European society in the central Middle Ages its political dynamic.

Religion

Penance did not have to be performed by the penitent in person; it could be delegated to others, preferably those better equipped for it through a greater reputation for holiness: monks and nuns. As a result, links between members of religious communities and the better-off laity, who could afford to pay for prayer, were close. Patronage of monastic houses by laymen and laywomen began to expand over a wider social range. At the start of the eleventh century, only royal or aristocratic families could afford to be patrons of monastic houses, but in the twelfth century, the growing numbers of small monastic houses made it possible for knightly families to be patrons too. By the thirteenth century, the mendicant orders attracted benefactions from almost all social classes. Gifts of money or land to monasteries provided anniversary prayers or masses for benefactors after their deaths, and favored benefactors might be buried in the monastery church.

00:00 Politics
01:12:09 Religion

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Видео Medieval Central Europe Life Documentary: Politics and Religion канала All of History
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