Re: Mentality in Fantasy

On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:15:32 -0800, Bill Swears
<wswears@xxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:11ef98i574v1sd4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

> Christianity wasn't spreading through europe because it
> was a neat idea, it was spread by martial enforcement,
> and it promulgated the feudal system as divine guidance.

The spread of Christianity through Europe is a good bit more
complicated than that. For starters, there was a
significant Christian base in much of western Europe before
the start of the Middle Ages, thanks to the Roman empire.
There was also a good deal of peaceful missionary work, not
always without effect. Where you really get your martial
enforcement is with the conversion of rulers like the rather
odious St Olaf, but then it's part of a country's internal
politics.

I'm afraid that 'the feudal system' is meaningless as it
stands: there's just too much variation over medieval
Europe, and the term 'feudal' has been used to mean too many
different things by too many different people (including
historians). What precisely did you have in mind here?

[...]

> There can be little doubt that the only authorized
> religion was trying very hard to be universal, but it
> was overlaid on the culture by force, then used as tool
> to enforce serfdom for the vast majority of agricultural
> labor (and most trades).

That last claim ('then used ...') would be hard to support.
In fact, even the use of the unqualified 'serfdom' is
unsupportable: a simple free/unfree distinction doesn't
begin to capture the reality. In Cambridgeshire in 1279 the
following terms were all used to describe villagers
according to their status: liberi, liberi tenentes, liberi
homines, sokemanni, liberi sokemanni, bondi sokemanni,
custumarii, custumarii tenentes mollond, tenentes in
vellenagio, villani, bondi, servi, cotagii, cotarii, liberi
cotarii, croftarii, coterelli, liberi coterelli, croftmanni,
cotmanni. And a little to the north in the south
Lincolnshire fens we get yet others: consuetudinarii, pleni
villani, molemen, monedaymen, bordarii, bordi, werkmen,
operarii. Some of the variation, it's true, is the result
of imprecision and inconsistent usage, but much of it
reflects real differences in status, and there were many
13th century villagers whose real status could not well be
accommodated by the theory of villeinage that the lawyers
had been busily constructing.

Their relative number varied considerably from place to
place, but so did the relative numbers of those who could be
clearly classified as either villein or free. A large
sample of tenants in parts of Cambridgeshire,
Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and
Oxfordshire in 1279 shows a ratio of about three villeins to
two freemen, though with great variation between hundreds,
while in the northern Danelaw the proportion of freemen
exceeded 60% in some villages. In Kent the Lex Kantiae (as
codified in the late 13th century) established that 'All the
persons of Kentishmen should be free, as much as the other
free persons of England', with the right 'to give and sell
their lands and their tenements without asking leave of
their lords'. Just over the border in Sussex, however,
there were large numbers of nativi (unfree by birth).

Your picture also seems to leave no room for the explosive
growth of towns; in England, at least, this is readily
observable in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The
large net movement from the countryside to the city implies
considerably more personal freedom than your picture
suggests.

[...]

>> For an slice at Medieval sermons, see Chaucer's
>> "Canterbury Tales." He includes two, one from the
>> Medieval version of televangelists and the other from a
>> devout minister. Our farmer's wife would have heard such
>> in her day.

> But, wasn't Chaucer himself something of a sport? A
> fellow who lived on his wits and his writing in a time
> and place where most people were effectively slaves,
> writing about a europe that existed mostly in the minds
> of the literate, who stood on a pedestal of flesh?

No. It is not the case that most people in late 14th
century England were effectively slaves.

Brian
.

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