There is a lot of
controversy about the Crusades, or Holy Wars. The majority of people
will agree that they had basically no beneficial results. If
anything, they made the Catholic Church and the Pope look immoral in
the eyes of the people in the Eastern world. Some of the causes of
the Crusades were that the Western World wished to unify Christianity
because there was little communication with the Eastern World. In
the Eastern World, the Byzantine Empire was receiving threats from
the Turks, so they requested help from the Western World. The Pope
saw this as an opportunity to unify the two different religions and
sent knights to help them. Now the first Crusade begins and results
in the Christian Knights conquering Jerusalem, which is the center of
controversy in the East and is coveted by just about everyone. During
the second Crusade the Muslim army, led by Saladin, takes Jerusalem
back from the Christians. The third Crusade resulted in a draw and
nothing was accomplished. The Christian knights didn’t even make
it to Jerusalem on the fourth Crusade, instead they sacked
Constantinople and took it over and looted it. The main purpose of
unifying the Christian religion ceased to exist by the fourth
Crusade.
During the Middle-Ages in
Europe, the feudal system was the type of government being used. The
feudal system is based on the ownership of land, so the more land one
owned, the wealthier they were. Peasants are at the base of the
economic, social, and political systems of feudalism and without them
it would not function properly. The economic set-up of Europe’s
feudal system was called the Manor system. Nobles and land barons
owned land that the peasants, who were tied to the land, would work.
Each property had at least three different fields so that two of the
fields could be used to grow crops while the remaining one stayed
fallow. Every year they would rotate fields so the soil of one field
was not overused.
The King was the head of
the political structure. He was in charge of anybody beneath him and
anyone that was of a lower social status was required to pay homage
to him. Knights of that time could be compared to policemen because
they enforced the law, which was the King’s word. The King was
also near the top of the social structure. Below him were the nobles
and knights, then the freemen who were Merchants, farmers and
Craftsmen. Friars and monks would be on about the same social level
as these people. After them came the peasants and serfs who are at
the very bottom. The feudal system failed in some communities
because they were excommunicated from the church and the people
revolted or they were wiped out when the plague struck.
The Church was probably
the most powerful during the Middle-Ages of Europe. It had so much
power because just about everyone was extremely religious at the
time. God was all the peasants had in their lives and other than
that, their lives were miserable. Since the feudal system ran was
fueled by the peasant’s labor, the kings and nobles that owned the
land had to be sure that the Church remained in their community. If
the Church were to be removed, the peasants would revolt and be
unmotivated to work because God was all the hope they had. The Pope
had the power to interdict a community, which means the Church would
be pulled out of it. He could also excommunicate whomever he wished.
This gave him immense amounts of power and control.
It seems as though all
the Plague caused was millions of deaths and destroyed Europe, along
with the rest of the world, but most people don’t see that it was
also beneficial. Ironically, the Plague was the most beneficial to
the people it affected the most, the Peasants. Although they
experienced the highest mortality rate, they were helped by the Black
Death because it opened up new opportunities for them. There was a
shortage of laborers and the nobles and land barons didn’t know how
to farm the land, so they were forced to turn to sharecropping. Now
the peasants could own land and technically were no longer called
peasants. Many people who experienced the death of loved ones never
really started another family out of fear of losing them again.
Since families were not being created, the population recovered very
slowly.
The Church was not really
affected by the Plague; therefore, it did not benefit. It was
actually at a disadvantage afterward because it turned the sick,
suffering people away and closed its doors. People lost respect for
the Church but did not lose any faith in God.
The Manor system was no
longer used after the Plague because the peasants weren’t tied to
the land anymore. Sharecropping became a major economic foundation
in place of the Manor system.
Ultimately, The Church
was greatly affected by all of these circumstances. The mistake of
initiating the Crusades distorted the Eastern Worlds view of the
Western World and they were also a waste of man power. The
devastating consequences of the Plague hurt the Churches image when
they closed their doors to the people of Europe. The Church and
society were becoming corrupt and debauchery became common, even
among priests.
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