Re: Mentality in Fantasy

Brian M. Scott wrote:
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. 

Which only changes the date of enforced conversion, not the fact.


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? 

manorial economic system.

http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture23b.html

Heh, this entire thread is flawed by efforts to bring examples from one
part of europe in to justify comments about others. The Canterbury
Tales as an example of a medieval sermon to inform an argument about
conditions in central europe following the final collapse of the carolingian empire until the mid 1200s is a fine example. 

[...]


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 was intended to be discussing the situation in central europe into the 1200s. Any similarity to england in the 1300s and later was purely coincidental.



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.

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

I hate to seem rude, but we disagree on the severity of life in england between the black death and the wars of the roses. Most people there would rather have been traditional land bound serfs than have the freedom to rot on their own. By most, I mean the majority of people alive between 1349 and 1455, by which time the nobility had effectively bound them back to the land again anyway.

Their situation was much darker than that described by rural serfdom.
The conditions were bad enough to cause two peasant revolts; Also, the plague (Black Death) had created such a drop in population the fifteenth century was ushered in with a state of near anarchy, and yet, regardless of title, most of england was agrarian, and many or most people didn't recieve money in pay for their harvest.
You can say they weren't slaves, but serfdom continued in england into the 17th century, and leasehold wasn't much different. There was a brief period right at the end of the 1300s where the loss of so many people gave the farming populace greater power, but they were back in an effective stranglehold to the nobility by the middle of the following century, so it wasn't all that much different than slavery in the average persons experience.

below is a select quote from
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/medieval/black-death.htm

The Black Death reaches England. The summer of 1348 was abnormally wet. Grain lay rotting in the fields due to the nearly constant rains. With the harvest so adversely affected it seemed certain that
there would be food shortages. But a far worse enemy was set to appear.

It isn't clear exactly when or where the Black Death reached England.
Some reports at the time pointed to Bristol, others to Dorset. The disease may have appeared as early as late June or as late as August
4. We do know that in mid-summer the Channel Islands were reeling under an outbreak of the plague. From this simple beginning the disease spread throughout England with dizzying speed and fatal consequences.

The effect was at its worst in cities, where overcrowding and primitive sanitation aided its spread. On November 1 the plague reached London, and up to 30,000 of the city's population of 70,000 inhabitants succumbed.

Over the next 2 years the disease killed between 30-40% of the entire
population. Given that the pre-plague population of England was in the range of 5-6 million people, fatalities may have reached as high
as 2 million dead.

One of the worst aspects of the disease to the medieval Christian mind is that people died without last rites and without having a chance to confess their sins. Pope Clement VI was forced to grant remission of sins to all who died of the plague because so many perished without benefit of clergy. People were allowed to confess their sins to one another, or "even to a woman".

The death rate was exceptionally high in isolated populations like prisons and monasteries. It has been estimated that up to two-thirds
of the clergy of England died within a single year.

Peasants fled their fields. Livestock were left to fend for themselves, and crops left to rot. The monk Henry of Knighton declared, "Many villages and hamlets have now become quite desolate.
No one is left in the houses, for the people are dead that once inhabited them."

The Border Scots saw the pestilence in England as a punishment of God
on their enemies. An army gathered near Stirling to strike while England lay defenseless. But before the Scots could march, the plague
decimated their ranks. Pursued by English troops, the Scots fled north, spreading the plague deep into their homeland.

In an effort to assuage the wrath of God, many people turned to public acts of penitence. Processions lasting as long as three days were authorized by the Pope to mollify God, but the only real effect
of these public acts was to spread the disease further.

By the end of 1350 the Black Death had subsided, but it never really
died out in England for the next several hundred years. There were further outbreaks in 1361-62, 1369, 1379-83, 1389-93, and throughout
the first half of the 15th century. It was not until the late 17th century that England became largely free of serious plague epidemics.




Revolts:

http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Richard_II_to_Henry_V.htm

The Peasant Revolt. In Edward III's dotage John of Gaunt (Ghent, in modern Belgium) was virtual ruler of England. He continued as regent when Richard II, aged 10, came to the throne in 1377. Four years later a poll tax was declared to finance the continuing war with France. Every person over the age of 15 had to pay one shilling, a large sum in those days. There was tremendous uproar amongst the peasantry. This, combined with continuing efforts by land owners to re-introduce servility of the working classes on the land, led to the
Peasant's Revolt. The leaders of the peasants were John Ball, an itinerant priest, Jack Straw, and Wat Tyler. The revolt is sometimes called Wat Tyler's Rebellion. They led a mob of up to 100,000 people to London, where the crowd went on a rampage of destruction, murdered
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and burned John of Gaunt's Savoy Palace.

The End of the Revolt. Eventually they forced a meeting with the young king in a field near Mile End. Things began amicably enough, but Wat Tyler grew abusive and the Lord Mayor of London drew his sword and killed him.

At this point Richard, then only 14, showed great courage, shouting to the peasants to follow him. He led them off, calmed them down with
promises of reforms, and convinced them to disperse to their homes. His promises were immediately revoked by his council of advisors, and
the leaders of the revolt were hanged.

In 1399 Henry Bolingbroke, exiled son of John of Gaunt, landed with an invasion force while Richard was in Ireland. He defeated Richard in battle, took him prisoner, and probably had him murdered. Henry's claim to the throne was poor. His right to rule was usurpation approved by Parliament and public opinion 

http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/britain/wattyler.html

The LOLLARDRY was a movement aiming at church reform, originating at
Oxford, emerged from the teaching of JOHN WYCLIF. Declared a heretic
movement and persecuted, a group of Lollards lead by SIR JOHN
OLDCASTLE in 1414 rebelled, the rebellion easily subdued.



1455 saw the beginning of the wars of the roses.

Sounds like a fun time to be an agricultural worker in an agrarian state
to me.

-
Bill Swears

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Ben Franklin, 1755 "Historical Review of Pennsylvania"

To think that was once a right wing comment.  In the land of Homeland
Security it seems.. Suspiciously left-wing.
.