Christianity and the rise of the individual Flashcards
What happens during the Middle Ages ?
civic order emerged in Western Europe out of brutality and violence, and for the first time religion played an independent role, a period of achievement vs the Dark Ages
What was the consequence of the division of the West Roman Empire ?
Successive waves of migration by tribes pushed westward by pressure of others behind them
What were the things that new civilizations were attrected to ?
Attracted by the prosperity and civilization of the Roman Empire
Where the security come from ?
came from protection by a class of professional warriors – at a price
Civil order had to be reinvented based on what ?
a) The vital love of freedom inherited from the barbarians themselves (tribal lawon which their identity was based)
b) dealings and agreemnets btwn a king and his more important vassals - decentralization (bound to each other by oath)
c) Christian religion
Who were the guardians of the law ?
kings
From whom they inherited the law o femphasis on community ?
From their ancestors
What do they prioritized btwn community and the others ?
A strong moral and legal sense of how to treat one`s own community
Very little care for the ‘others’
Gradually, they will include the ‘others’ within their law and extend it across the land they controlled
Why dealings between a king and his more important vassals became essential ?
Evolution from small, moving courts to bigger, fixed courts, usually located in castles
The authority must consult with its subjects
representation of law of tribes
The law of the tribes they represented became the law of the land they controlled
How was set civil order ?
Civil order had to be constructed by agreement with a set of magnates whose control over their own tenants gave them an independent position of their own
What is the geographic advantage of Europe ?
Europe is a well watered continent and its agriculture does not depend upon the construction of large digs and irrigation systems
What ais the consequence of the geographic connection ?
Because of water and weather, local life is relatively independent of central power
What caracterized the 11th century ?
a mosaic of independent principalities ruled by dukes and counts, some independent cities, and the beginnings of the future nation-states
What the feuodalism consist in ?
A new type of relationship between free individuals – what can one do when there is no government to protect him
Kings grants land to barons that grants land to knights that grants land to villains that provide food to knights thta provide military to barons that provide money and knights to king.
In what consists vassalages ?
Warriors swore an oath of loyalty to their leader – they fought for their chief and he, in turn, took care of their needs.
The relationship between lord and vassal was made official by a public ceremony.
Vassal def
an individual who served a lord in a military capacity
What does the lord - vassal realtion allow ?
The lord – vassal relation bound together both greater and lesser landowners
The King had a number of vassals from the great lords, whom in turn had their own vassals, who also had their own vassals
What are the main points of feuodalism ?
An honourable relationship between free men
A set of practices: military service, usually about forty days a year, should also appear to his lord’s court when summoned, aid or financial payments to the lord on a number of occasions (marriage, ransom)
Protection: military and in the court of law
what are the facts about powerful nobles took control
Powerful nobles took control of large areas of land – gave grants of land to vassals who fought for them
A shift in weaponry too: heavily armoured cavalry becomes more important than the foot soldiers
Difficult to pay for the heavy armour – land allowed the warrior to pay for those expenses – the knights
What is the respective function o fkings, nobles and the church?
Kings intrigued, nobles fought wars, the Church took an active and direct role.
what determined which among the variety of languages and cultures across Europe came to be identified with nations?
an intermixture of policy and accident
+ The fashion for courtly romance – generated a different place for women in Western civ
What was the interests of the nobolity and the richer inhabitants of the cities ?
Rights and liberties
Parallel with nowdays
The voter of today inherits the rights first sustained by the barons of old
how freedom was sustain ?
The culture needed to sustain freedom had been thoroughly tested in custom and institution before the movement for democracy extended these rights to all
Why does democracy is wel installed in our western societies ?
Democracy has emerged in the European states out of an organic development which sustains it at a profound level – many hundreds of years
This explains why transplanting democracy to other parts of the Globe is so difficult
What the essence of Medieval politics ?
The King could not rule without the co-operation of partners (nobles, magnates of the Curch, rich city fellows)
Why the essence of Medieval politics generated the Parliement ?
This situation generated the new institution of the Parliament – different from one country to another
Kings needed parliaments to agree taxation and sometimes to give weight to royal policy in international dealings
Parliaments responded to the exigencies of the moment – unplanned, they turned out to be the essential instruments of democracy
Religion def
the beliefs and feelings a civilization has about the point of being alive
What is the founding of Christianism ?
Christianism is a religion of the book – it sets a premium on education and literacy, both considered as indispensable for a civilized society
Based on the materials to be found in the New Testament
Def christianity
religion of moral challenges (Human life was a time of trial and test, after which some people would have immortal life)
What is the responsabilty of humans in the Christianity ?
Each person was the custodian of his/her own soul and responsible to God for it
Death was no escape from this responsibility
Why was is not a religion of peace ?
Despite preaching peace and humility, it was not a religion of peace – the Crusades
Who was affected by this religion?
It affected great and humble alike – not an elitist movement, like the Greeks had
Greeks: full humanity was possible for the hero and the philosopher
Christianism: the humble people were closest to the spirit of love that God was thought to require
The Church turned marriage into a sacred as well as a merely social bond – another major change in the social position of women
What is the strenght of the religion ?
Women were equal to men before God
A faith preaching peace and love
In what way religion impacted politics ?
From the viewpoint of politics, the real significance of Christianity was its transformation of human values – equality for each human soul
How modern human being has to be made ?
Modern human beings must be conceived of in terms of will
Christianity turned human attention away from political conquest and the material things of the world towards the cultivation of inner life
Still present in our daily lives
What did the christianity do ?
The Christian religion transformed the Roman Empire and allowed new spiritual shoots to grow amid the decay of its civil and military
Does the Europe was govern by christianity ? In what way christianity impacted Europe ?
Europe was spiritually governed by an absolute monarch whose agents were charged with the regulation of large areas of life.
European architecture was dominated by the vast cathedrals of the towns and by the churches found in every village.
