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THE NOBLE FEUD AS PROBLEM AND OPPORTUNITY

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Church of England | Definition, History, Religion, Anglican, Beliefs, & Facts

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Church of England, English national church that traces its history back to the arrival of Christianity in Britain during the 2nd century. It has been the original church of the Anglican Communion since the 16th-century Protestant Reformation.

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c. 476 CE - 1500 CE
The Catholic Church holds supreme power in Europe during the Middle Ages.

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Religious practice in medieval Europe (c. 476-1500 CE) was dominated and informed by the Catholic Church. The majority of the population was Christian, and "Christian" at this time meant "Catholic" as there was initially no other form of that religion. The rampant corruption of the medieval Church, however, gave rise to reformers such as John Wycliffe (l. 1330-1384 CE) and Jan Hus (l. c. 1369-1415 CE) and religious sects, condemned as heresies by the Church, such as the Bogomils and Cathars, among many others. Even so, the Church maintained its power and exercised enormous influence over people's daily lives from the king on his throne to the peasant in the field.

The Church regulated and defined an individual's life, literally, from birth to death and was thought to continue its hold over the person's soul in the afterlife. The Church was the manifestation of God's will and presence on earth, and its dictates were not to be questioned, even when it was apparent that many of the clergy were working far more steadily toward their own interests than those of their god.

A dramatic blow to the power of the Church came in the form of the Black Death pandemic of 1347-1352 CE during which people began to doubt the power of the clergy who could do nothing to stop people from dying or the plague from spreading. Even so, the Church repeatedly crushed dissent, silenced reformers, and massacred heretical sects until the Protestant Reformation (1517-1648 CE) which broke the Church's power and allowed for greater freedom of thought and religious expression.

Church Structure & Beliefs

The Church claimed authority from God through Jesus Christ who, according to the Bible, designated his apostle Peter as "the rock upon which my church will be built" to whom he gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:18-19). Peter was therefore regarded as the first Pope, the head of the church, and all others as his successors endowed with the same divine authority.

By the time of the Middle Ages, the Church had an established hierarchy:

Pope - the head of the Church

Cardinals - advisors to the Pope; administrators of the Church

Bishops/Archbishops - ecclesiastical superiors over a cathedral or region

Priests - ecclesiastical authorities over a parish, village, or town church

Monastic Orders - religious adherents in monasteries supervised by an abbot/abbess

The Church maintained the belief that Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of the one true God as revealed in the Hebrew scriptures and that those works (which would become the Christian Old Testament) prophesied Christ's coming. The date of the earth and history of humanity was all revealed through the scriptures which made up the Christian Bible - considered the word of God and the oldest book in the world - which was consulted as a handbook on how to live according to divine will and gain everlasting life in heaven upon one's death.

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Interpretation of the Bible, however, was too great a responsibility for the average person, and so the clergy was a spiritual necessity. In order to talk to God or understand the Bible correctly, one relied on one's priest as that priest was ordained by his superior who was, in turn, ordained by another, all under the authority of the Pope, God's representative on earth.

The Church hierarchy maintained the social hierarchy. One was born into a certain class, followed the profession of one's parents, and died as they had. Social mobility was extremely rare to nonexistent since the Church taught that it was God's will one had been born into a certain set of circumstances and attempting to improve one's lot was tantamount to claiming God had made a mistake. People, therefore, accepted their lot and made the best of it.

Church in Daily Life

The lives of the people of the Middle Ages revolved around the Church. People, especially women, were known to attend church three to five times daily for prayer and at least once a week for services, confession, and acts of contrition for repentance. The Church paid no taxes and was supported by the people of a town or city. Citizens were responsible for supporting the parish priest and Church overall through a tithe of ten percent of their income. Tithes paid for baptism ceremonies, confirmations, and funerals as well as saint's day festivals and holy day festivals such as Easter celebrations.

The teachings of the Church were a certainty to the people of the Middle Ages. There was no room for doubt & questions were not tolerated.

The center of a congregation's life in a small-town church or city cathedral was not the altar but the baptismal font. This was a free-standing stone receptacle/basin used for infant or adult baptism - often quite large and deep - which also served to determine a person's guilt or innocence when one was charged with a crime. To clear one's name, a person would submit to an ordeal in which one was bound and dropped into the font. If the accused floated, it was a clear indication of guilt; if the accused sank, it meant innocence but the accused would often drown.

Under the reign of the English king Athelstan (r. 924-939 CE), the procedure for the ordeal was codified as law:

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If anyone pledges to undergo the ordeal, he is then to come three days before to the mass-priest whose duty it is to consecrate it [the ordeal], and live off bread and water and salt and vegetables until he shall go to it, and be present at mass on each of those three days, and make his offering and go to communion on the day on which he shall go to the ordeal, and swear then the oath that he is guiltless of that charge according to the common law, before he goes to the ordeal. (Brooke, 107)

There was also the ordeal of iron in which the accused was forced to hold or carry a hot poker. If the person could hold the red-hot iron without burning and blistering their hands, they were innocent; there are no records of anyone being found innocent. The ordeal of water was also carried out by streams, rivers, and lakes. Women accused of witchcraft, for example, were often tied in a sack with their cat (thought to be their demonic familiar) and thrown into a body of water. If they managed to escape and come to the surface, they were found guilty and then executed, but they most often drowned.

Ordeals, like executions, were a form of public entertainment and, as with festivals, marriages, and other events in community life, were paid for by the people's tithe to the Church. The lower class, as usual, bore the brunt of the Church's expenses but the nobility was also required to donate large sums to the Church to ensure a place for themselves in heaven or to lessen their time in purgatory.

The Church's teachings on purgatory - an afterlife realm between heaven and hell where souls remained trapped until they had paid for their sins - generated enormous wealth for various clergy who sold writs known as indulgences, promising a shorter stay in purgatory for a price. Relics were another source of income, and it was common for unscrupulous clerics to sell fake splinters of Christ's cross, a saint's finger or toe, a vial of water from the Holy Land, or any number of objects, which would allegedly bring luck or ward off misfortune.

The teachings of the Church were a certainty to the people of the Middle Ages. There was no room for doubt, and questions were not tolerated. One was either in the Church or out of it, and if out, one's interactions with the rest of the community were limited. Jews, for example, lived in their own neighborhoods surrounded by Christians and were regularly treated quite poorly. The French king Charles Martel (r. 718-741 CE), defeated the Muslim invasion of Europe at the Battle of Tours (also known as the Battle of Poitiers, 732 CE), and so Muslims in Europe were rare at this time outside of Spain and the traveling merchants conducting trade. A citizen of Europe, therefore - who did not belong to either of these faiths - had to adhere to the orthodox vision of the Church in order to interact with family, community, and make a living. If one found one could not do so (or at least appear to do so), the only option was a so-called heretical sect.

Corruption & Heresy

The heretical sects of the Middle Ages were uniformly responses to the clear corruption and greed of the Church. The immense wealth of the Church, accrued through tithes and lavish gifts, only inspired a desire for even greater wealth which translated as power. An archbishop could, and frequently did, threaten a noble, a town, or even a monastery with excommunication - by which one was exiled from the Church and so from the grace of God and commerce with fellow citizens - for any reason. Even well-known and devout religious figures - such as Hildegard of Bingen (l. 1098-1179 CE) - were subject to 'discipline' along these lines for disagreeing with an ecclesiastical superior.

The priests were notoriously corrupt and, in many cases, illiterate parasites who only held their position due to family influence and favor. Scholar G. G. Coulton cites a letter of 1281 CE in which the writer warns how "the ignorance of the priests precipitates the people into the ditch of error" (259) and later cites the correspondence of one Bishop Guillaume le Marie de Angers, who writes:

The Priesthood includes innumerable contemptible persons of abject life, utterly unworthy in learning and morals, from whose execrable lives and pernicious ignorance infinite scandals arise, the Church sacraments are despised by the laity, and in very many districts the lay folk hold the priests as [vile]. (259)

The medieval mystic Margery Kempe (l. C. 1342-1438 CE) challenged the wealthy clerics to reform their corruption while, almost 200 years before, Hildegard of Bingen had done the same as had men like John Wycliffe and Jan Hus. The Church was not interested in reform, however, because it had the last word on any subject as God's voice on earth.

Those who found the abuses of the Church too intolerable and were seeking an honest spiritual experience instead of an unending pay-to-pray scheme, which not even death could halt, joined religious sects outside the Church and attempted to live peacefully in their own communities. The best-known of these were the Cathars of Southern France who, while they interacted with the Catholic communities they lived near or in, had their own services, rituals, and belief system.

These kinds of communities were routinely condemned by the Church and destroyed, their members massacred, and whatever lands they had confiscated as Church property. Even an orthodox community which adhered to Catholic teachings - such as the Beguines - was condemned because it was begun spontaneously as a response to the needs of the people and was not initiated by the Church. The Beguines were laywomen who lived as nuns and served their community, holding all possessions in common and living a life of poverty and service to others, but they were not approved by the Church and were therefore condemned; they were disbanded along with their male counterparts, the Beghards, in the 12th century CE.

These groups, and others like them, attempted to assert spiritual autonomy based on the scriptural authority of the Bible, without any of the Church's trappings or elaborate ritual. The Cathars believed that Christ never died on the cross and was therefore never resurrected but that, instead, the son of God had been spiritually offered for the sins of humanity on a higher plane. The gospel stories, they claimed, should be understood as allegories using symbolic language rather than static histories of a past event. They further advocated for the feminine principle in the divine, revering a goddess of wisdom known as Sophia, to whom they devoted their lives.

Living simply and serving the surrounding community, the Cathars amassed no wealth, their priests owned nothing and were highly respected as holy men even by Catholics, and Cathar communities offered worthwhile goods and services. The Beguines, while never claiming any beliefs outside of orthodoxy, were equally devout and selfless in their efforts to help the poor and, especially, poor single mothers and their children. Both of these movements, however, offered people an alternative to the Church, and the medieval Church found that intolerable. Any change in people's attitudes toward religion threatened the power of the Church, and the Church had enough power to crush such movements even in cases where sects such as the Cathars had significant support and protection.

Reformation

John Wycliffe and his followers (known as Lollards) had been calling for reformation since the 14th century CE, and it might be difficult for a modern-day reader to fully understand why no serious attempts were made at reform, but this is simply because the modern era offers so many different legitimate avenues for religious expression. In the Middle Ages, it was inconceivable that there could be any valid belief system other than the Church.

Heaven, hell, and purgatory were all very real places to the people of the Middle Ages, and one could not risk offending God by criticizing his Church and damning one's self to an eternity of torment in a lake of fire surrounded by demons. The wonder is not so much why more people did not call for reform as that anyone was brave enough to try.

The Protestant Reformation did not arise as an attempt to overthrow the power of the Church but began simply as yet another effort at reforming ecclesiastical abuse and corruption. Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546 CE) was a highly-educated German priest and monk who moved from concern to outrage over the abuses of the Church. He criticized the sale of indulgences as a money-making scheme having no biblical authority and no spiritual worth in his famous Ninety-Five Theses (1517 CE) and opposed the Church's teachings on a number of other matters.

Luther was condemned by Pope Leo X in 1520 CE who demanded he renounce his criticism or face excommunication. When Luther refused to recant, Pope Leo moved ahead with the excommunication in 1521 CE, and Luther became an outlaw. Like Wycliffe, Hus, and others before him, Luther was only stating the obvious in calling for an end to rampant abuse and corruption. Like Wycliffe, he translated the Bible from Latin into the vernacular (Wycliffe from Latin to Middle English and Luther from Latin to German), opposed the concept of sacerdotalism whereby a priest is necessary as an intermediary between a believer and God, and maintained that the Bible and prayer were all one needed to commune directly with God. In making these claims, of course, he not only undermined the authority of the Pope but rendered that position - as well as those of the cardinals, bishops, archbishops, priests, and others - ineffectual and obsolete.

According to Luther, salvation was granted by the grace of God, not by the good deeds of human beings, and so all of the works the Church required of people were of no eternal use and only served to fill the Church's treasury and build their grand cathedrals. Owing to the political climate in Germany, and Luther's own charisma and intelligence, his effort at reform became the movement which would break the power of the Church. Other reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531 CE) and John Calvin (l. 1509-1564 CE) broke new ground in their own regions and many others followed suit.

Conclusion

The monopoly the Church held on religious belief and practice was broken, and a new era of greater spiritual freedom was begun, but it was not without cost. In their zeal to throw off the oppression of the medieval Church, the newly liberated protestors destroyed monasteries, libraries, and cathedrals, the ruins of which still dot the European landscape in the present day.

The Church had certainly become increasingly corrupt and oppressive and its clergy was frequently characterized far more by a love of worldly goods and pleasures than spiritual pursuits but, at the same time, the Church had initiated hospitals, colleges and universities, social systems for the care of the poor and the sick, and maintained religious orders which allowed women an outlet for their spirituality, imagination, and ambitions. These institutions became especially important during the Black Death pandemic of 1347-1352 CE which killed millions of people in Europe and significantly impacted people's faith in the vision of the Church.

The Protestant Reformation, unfortunately, destroyed much of the good the Church had done in reacting to the corruption it had fallen into and its perceived failure to meet the challenge of the plague outbreak. Eventually, the different movements would organize into the Christian Protestant sects recognizable today - Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and so on - and set up their own institutes of higher learning, hospitals, and social programs. When the Reformation began, there was only the Church, the monolithic powerhouse of the Middle Ages, which afterwards became only one option for religious expression among many.

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Religious practice in medieval Europe (c. 476-1500 CE) was dominated and informed by the Catholic Church. The majority of the population was Christian, and "Christian" at this time meant "Catholic" as there was initially no other form of that religion. The rampant corruption of the medieval Church, however, gave rise to reformers such as John Wycliffe (l.

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European Gentlemen

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Between persistent poverty and the prevailing aristocratic spirit several connections can be made. The strong appeal of noble status and values was a force working generally against the pursuit of wealth and the investment that was to lead, precociously and exceptionally in Britain, to the Industrial Revolution. In France a nobleman could lose rank ( dérogeance) by working, which inhibited him from engaging in any but a few specified enterprises. The typical relationship between landed gentleman and peasant producer was still feudal; whether represented by a range of rights and dues or by the more rigorous form of serfdom, it encouraged acceptance of the status quo in agriculture. Every state in Europe, except some Swiss cantons, recognized some form of nobility whose privileges were protected by law. Possession of land was a characteristic mark and aspiration of the elites.

The use of the two terms nobleman and gentleman indicates the difficulty of definition. The terms were loosely used to mark the essential distinction between members of an upper class and the rest. In France, above knights and esquires without distinctive title, ranged barons, viscounts, counts, and marquises, until the summit was reached with dukes and princes of the blood. In Britain, by contrast, only peers of the realm, whether entitled duke, marquess, earl, or baron, had corporate status: numbering under 200, they enjoyed few special privileges beyond membership of the House of Lords. The gentry, however, with assured social position, knighthoods, armorial bearings, and estates, were the equivalent of Continental nobles. With the nobility, they owned more than three-quarters of the land: in contrast, in France by 1789 the nobility owned barely a third. In northern and eastern Europe, where the social structure was generally simpler than in the west, nobles- dvoriane in Russia, szlachta in Poland and Hungary-were numerous. In these countries, many of those technically noble were in reality of little importance and might even, like the "barefoot szlachta, " have no land.

Such differences apart, there were rights and privileges that most Continental nobles possessed and values to which most subscribed. The right to wear a sword, to bear a crested coat of arms, to retain a special pew in church, to enjoy such precedence on formal occasions as rank prescribed, and to have if necessary a privileged form of trial would all seem to the noble inherent and natural. As landowner he enjoyed rights over peasants, not least as judge in his own court. In France, parts of Germany, Italy, and Spain, even if he did not own the land, he could as lord still benefit from feudal dues. He could hope for special favours from his sovereign or other patron in the form of a pension or office. There were vital exemptions, as from billeting soldiers and-most valuable-from taxation. The effectiveness of governments can be measured by the extent to which they breached this principle: in France, for example, in the 18th century by the dixième and vingtième taxes, effectively on income; belatedly, in Poland, where nobles paid no tax until the chimney tax of 1775. Generally they could expect favourable treatment: special schools, privileges at university, preferment in the church, commissions in the army. They could assume that a sovereign, while encroaching on their rights, would yet share their values. Richelieu's policy exemplifies such ambivalence. A noble himself, Richelieu sought to promote the interests of his class while directing it toward royal service and clipping the wings of the over-powerful. Frederick II the Great of Prussia was not concerned about faction. Since "most commoners think meanly," he believed that nobles were best suited to serve in the government and the army. Such admiration for noble virtues did not usually extend to the political role. The decline of Continental estates and diets, with the growth of bureaucracies, largely recruited from commoners, did not mean, however, even in the west, that nobility was in retreat before the rise of the bourgeoisie. Through social preeminence, nobles maintained-and in the 18th century even tightened-their hold on the commanding heights in church and state.

Within all countries there was a distinction between higher and lower levels within the caste: in some, not only between those who were titled and the rest but, as in Spain and France, between titulos and grandees, a small group upon which royal blood or the achievement of some ancestor conferred privileges of a self-perpetuating kind. "The grandeeship of the counts of Lemos was made by God and time," observed the head of the family to the new Bourbon king Philip V. No less pretentious were the Condés or the Montmorencys of France. There was a tendency everywhere to the aggrandizement of estates through arranged marriage, a sovereign's favour, or the opportunities provided by war, as in Bohemia after the suppression of the revolt of 1618 or in England with the rise of the Whig families of Russell and Cavendish. In Britain, the principle of primogeniture ensured succession to the eldest son (promoting social mobility as younger sons made their way in professions or trades). Peter I the Great of Russia legislated for the entail (1714), but without success: it was abandoned by Anna (1731) in favour of the traditional law of inheritance. However, mayorazgo in Castile and fideicommissum in parts of Italy kept vast estates together. Where the colonization of new lands was not restrained by central government, families like the Radziwiłłs and Wiśniowieckis of Poland acquired huge estates. The szlachta of Hungary also cherished privileges as descendants of warriors and liberators. There, Prince Miklós Esterházy, patron of a private orchestra and of Joseph Haydn, excelled all by the end of the 17th century with his annual revenue of 700,000 florins. In Russia, where wealth was measured in serfs, Prince Cherkanski was reckoned in 1690 to have 9,000 peasant households.

Status increasingly signified economic circumstances. In France, where subtle nuances escaped the outsider, one trend is revealing. The old distinction between "sword" and "gown" lost much importance. Age of title came to mean more for antiquarians and purists than for men of fashion who would not scorn a mésalliance if it "manured the land." Most daughters of 18th-century tax farmers married the sons of nobles. The class was open to new creations, usually through purchase of an office conferring nobility. When, in a regulation of 1760, the year 1400 was made a test of antiquity, fewer than 1,000 families were eligible. The tendency was toward the formation of a plutocracy. Nobles came to dominate the church and the army, even to penetrate government, from which it had been the policy of the early Bourbons to exclude them. The noble order numbered about 120,000 families by 1789. By then the nobles, particularly those of the country who seldom came to court, had brought their rearguard action to a climax to preserve their privileges-for example, by Ségur's ordinance of 1781, reserving army commissions to nobles of at least four generations. This "feudal reaction" contributed to the problems of government in the years before the Revolution. In Russia, at the height of the conservative reaction that had already secured the abolition (1762) of the service obligation imposed by Peter I, Catherine II the Great was forced to abandon liberal reforms. The Pugachov rising (1773-74) alerted landowners to the dangers of serfdom, but it was reckoned that three-fifths of all landowners owned fewer than 20 serfs. The census of 1687 showed that there were half a million nobles in Spain. But hidalguia might mean little more than a Spaniard's estimation of himself. Without a substantial señorio (estate), the hidalgo was insignificant.

When "living nobly" meant not working and hidalgos or szlachta attached themselves to a great house for a coat and a loaf, faction became more dangerous and aristocratic interests more resistant to change. It took courage for a sovereign to tackle the entrenched power of nobility in diets, as did the Habsburg queen Maria Theresa (1740-80) in her Austrian and Bohemian lands. Nowhere in Europe did nobles take themselves more seriously, but they were the readier to accept curtailment of their political rights because they enjoyed a healthy economic position. Vienna's cosmopolitan culture and Baroque palaces were evidence of not only the success of the regime in drawing nobles to the capital but also the rise in manorial rents. Nobles played a decorative role in the most ceremonious court in 18th-century Europe. Charles VI (1711-40) had provided 40,000 posts for noble clients. Maria Theresa, concerned about expense, reduced the number of chamberlains to 1,500. It was left to her son Joseph II to attack noble privileges at every point, right up to the abolition of serfdom. There was a correlation between the advance of government and the curtailment of noble privilege. Inevitably it was an uneven process, depending much on the resolution of a ruler. In Sweden it was to the poor gentlemen, a high proportion of its 10,000 nobles, that Charles XI had appealed in his successful promotion of absolutist reforms in the 1680s. After 1718 the same conservative force militated against royal government. The aristocratic reaction of the age of liberty saw the reassertion of the traditional principle that the nobility were the guardians of the country's liberties. So the Swedish upper class arrived at the position of their British counterparts and obtained that power, not divorced from responsibility, which was envied and extolled by the philosophes who regretted its absence from France and sought consolation in the works of Montesquieu. A central idea of his L'Esprit des lois (1748; The Spirit of Laws) was that noble privilege was the surest guarantee of the laws against despotism. That could not be said of Prussia, although a Junker's privilege was wedded to a subject's duty. In exchange for the loss of political rights, Junkers had been confirmed in their social and fiscal privileges: with the full rigour of serfdom ( Leibeigenschaft) and rights of jurisdiction over tenants went a secure hold over local government. Under the pressure of war and following his own taste for aristocratic manners, Frederick II taught them to regard the army or civil service as a career. But Frederick disappointed the philosophes who expected him to protect the peasantry. The nobles meanwhile acquired a pride in militarism that was to be potent in the creation of the 19th-century German state. The class became more numerous but remained relatively poor: Junkers often had to sell land to supplement meagre pay. Frederick's working nobility sealed the achievements of his capable predecessors. The price paid indicates the difficulties inherent in any attempt to reconcile the interests of the dominant class to the needs of society.

Nobility also had a civilizing role. Europe would be immeasurably poorer without the music, literature, and architecture of the age of aristocracy. The virtues of classical taste were to some extent those of aristocracy: splendour restrained by formal rules and love of beauty uninhibited by utilitarian considerations. There was much that was absurd in the pretensions of some patrons; illusions of grandeur are rarely the best basis for the conceiving of great art. The importance of bourgeois patronage should not be overlooked, otherwise no account would be taken of Holland's golden age. Where taste was unaffected by the need for display (as could not be said of Louis XIV's Versailles) or where a wise patron put his trust in the reputedly best architect, art could triumph. Civilizing trends were prominent, as in England, where there was a free intellectual life. New money, as lavished by the duke of Chandos, builder of the great house of Canons and patron of the composer George Frideric Handel, could be fruitful. Also important was the fusion of aristocratic style with ecclesiastical patronage, as could occur where noblemen enjoyed the best preferment and abbots lived like nobles: the glories of the German Baroque at Melk, Ottobeuren, and Vierzehnheiligen speak as much of aristocracy as of the Christian Gospel.

In contrast with Sweden, where, in the 18th century, talent was recognized and the scientists Carolus Linnaeus and Emanuel Swedenborg were ennobled, or France, where the plutocracy encountered the Enlightenment without discomfort, the most sterile ground for aristocratic culture was to be found where there was an enforced isolation, as in Spain or Europe's poor marches and remotest western shores. Visitors to Spain were startled by the ignorance of the men and the passivity of the women. Life in Poland, Hungary, and Ireland resolved itself for many of the gentry into a simple round of hunting and carousing. The urban aspect of noble culture needs stress, which is not surprising when its Classical inspiration is recalled. Even in England, where educated men favoured country life and did not despise the country town, society would have been poorer without the intense activity of London. All the greater was the importance of the capital cities-Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Budapest, and Dublin-in countries that might not otherwise have generated fine art or architecture.

The aristocratic spirit transcended frontiers. For the nobleman Europe was the homeland. Italian plasterers and painters, German musicians, and French cabinetmakers traveled for high commissions. There were variations reflecting local traditions: the Baroque style was interpreted distinctively in Austria, Italy, Spain, and France. But high style reveals certain underlying principles and convictions. The same is true of the intellectual life of Europe, reflecting as it did two main sources, French and English. It was especially to France that the two most powerful rulers of eastern Europe, Frederick II and Catherine II, looked for mentors in thought and style. The French language, deliberately purified from the time of Richelieu and the foundation of the Academy, was well adapted to the clear expression of ideas. The salons stimulated the discussion of ideas and engendered a distinctive style. Feminine insights there contributed to a rational culture that was also responsive to the claims of sensibility.

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History of Europe - Nobles and gentlemen

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History of Europe - History of Europe - Nobles and gentlemen: Between persistent poverty and the prevailing aristocratic spirit several connections can be made. The strong appeal of noble status and values was a force working generally against the pursuit of wealth and the investment that was to lead, precociously and exceptionally in Britain, to the Industrial Revolution.

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By the fourteenth century, merchants were some of the wealthiest people in society; they held influential positions in local government and their children intermarried with those of the noblemen. As the merchants crossed foreign boundaries, they would face resistance from local rulers.

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role of the peasant in medieval society, and discusses the changes sparked by the Black Death

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A NEW KNIGHT WAS GIVEN HIS SWORD BLESSED BY A PRIEST WITH THE PROVISO HE ALWAYS PROTECT THE POOR & WEAK.

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Knights were the most-feared and best-protected warriors on the medieval battlefield, while off it, they were amongst the most fashionably dressed and best-mannered members of society. To reach this elevated status, however, became more and more challenging as the Middle Ages wore on. Requirements included an aristocratic birth, training from childhood, money for weapons, horses and squires, and a knowledge of the rules of chivalry. Good looks, fine clothes, a striking coat of arms, and an ability to recite poetry and songs were optional but highly desirable extras if one wanted to rise to the very top of this elite level of medieval society.

How to Become a Knight

The process of becoming a knight started from early childhood. The typical starting point for a young lad of 7 to 10 years old was to become a page when he learned to handle horses, hunt, and use mock weapons while serving a knight proper. From age 14, the next step was to become a squire (or esquire), who had more responsibility than a page, learned to use real weapons, and started an education, especially the study of chivalry. Squires assisted knights in peace and war, holding their extra lances or shield, cleaning their armour, and looking after the several horses each knight owned. If all went well, the youth, by then around 18 years old, was made a knight in a ceremony known as a dubbing.

A new knight was given his sword blessed by a priest with the proviso he always protect the poor & weak.

For a dubbing, a soon-to-be knight had a good bath and kept a church vigil overnight. On the day of the ceremony the squire was dressed by two knights with a white tunic and white belt to symbolise purity, black or brown stockings to represent the earth to which he will one day return, and a scarlet cloak for the blood he is now ready to spill for his baron, sovereign, and church. He was given his sword back, now blessed by a priest with the proviso he always protect the poor and weak. The blade had two cutting edges - one to represent justice, the other loyalty and chivalry.

The knight awarding the honour then might attach a spur or put the sword and belt on the squire, and give him a kiss on the cheek. The squire was then knighted by a simple tap on the shoulders or neck with the hand or sword, or even a heavy blow ( colée or 'accolade') - meant to be the last one he should ever take without retaliating and to remind him of his obligations and moral duty not to disgrace the man who dealt the blow. Next, he was given his horse, and then his shield and banner, which might bear his family coat of arms. The ceremony was rounded off by a large feast.

Early knights could come from any background, all that was needed was courage and endeavour. Many early knights were given their title on the battlefield by a lord or monarch (often symbolically in the form of spurs, hence the expression 'to win one's spurs') typically after displaying particular valour and effectiveness in fighting the enemy. By the 13th century CE, though, most knights were sons of knights as the class sought to maintain its exclusivity in society.

Weapons & Armour

A knight had to be accomplished in riding a horse while carrying a long, triangular leather and wood shield and a wooden lance 2.4-3.0 metres (8-10 ft) in length, so he needed to practise guiding his steed using only the knees and feet. He must be capable of using a heavy sword with a blade up to one metre (40 inches) in length for a sustained period of fighting and fit enough to move around with speed while wearing heavy metal armour. A proficiency with additional weapons such as a dagger, battleaxe, mace, bow, and crossbow might come in handy, too.

A knight's armour was, from the 9th century CE, of chain mail made up of small interconnected iron rings. A hooded coat, trousers, gloves, and shoes could all be made from mail and so cover the entire body of the knight except the face. A full suit of mail could weigh up to 13.5 kilograms (30 pounds). Over the top, a sleeveless surcoat was worn, which allowed the knight to show off his family colours or coat of arms.

Plate armour became more common from the 14th century CE and offered better protection against arrows and sword blows. The plates could protect all parts of the body, and they came in various shapes and designs, the pieces held together using laces (points), straps, hinges, buckles, or semicircular rivets. A full suit of armour weighed from 20 to 25 kilograms (45-55 lbs) - less than a modern infantryman would carry in equipment - and so a knight who fell off his horse was not totally helpless and immobile. In any case, knights often mixed mail and plate armour, selecting their own protection according to preference, with chest plates and greaves for the legs being the most common pieces worn.

The head was protected by a helmet or helm as they were often called. First simple conical helmets were worn, then a nose guard or mask was added, and, by the 13th century CE, the fully enclosed helmet was used with further design tweaks such as a protruding snout for better ventilation or conical top to deflect blows better. Hiding the face, a helmet could be personalised to identify who was inside. Punched ventilation holes could provide decorative patterns, many were painted, and plumes of exotic birds could be added to the top. There was even a fashion for three-dimensional figures mounted on the crest which represented anything from stag horns to dragons.

The all-important horses that made knights the equivalent of modern tanks on the medieval battlefield also had particular protection. The simplest option was a cloth caparison which might also enclose the animal's head and ears and which was another handy canvas for armorial display. Better protection was offered by a two-piece coat of chain mail (one for the front and the other hung behind the saddle), a padded helmet, a plate head covering, or an armour plate of metal or boiled leather to protect the chest.

Some knights operated as independent mercenaries &, for the more adventurous & pious, there was always the opportunity presented by the Crusades.

To use these weapons effectively and get used to wearing a load of metal armour, it was a good idea for a knight to put in a bit of practice before meeting the challenge of actual warfare. There were specific devices for training such as the quintain - a rotating arm with a shield at one end and a weight at the other. A rider had to hit the shield and keep riding on to avoid being hit in the back by the weight as it swung around. Another device was a suspended ring which had to be removed using the tip of the lance. Riding a horse at full gallop and cutting at a pell or wooden post with one's sword was another common training technique. All of these skills helped the knight fulfil their primary functions as bodyguards to nobles, as members of a garrison guarding a castle, or on the battlefield as the elite element of a medieval army. Some knights operated as independent mercenaries and, for the more adventurous and pious, there was always the opportunity presented by the crusades which punctuated the frequent European secular wars of the Middle Ages. For the really devout Christian knight, there was also the option of joining a military order such as the Knights Hospitaller or Knights Templar, where one lived much like a monk but at least had the opportunity of the best training and weapons of all medieval knights.

When not on active military duty, a knight could keep their weapons and horse riding skills sharp by practising in tournaments. These competitions took two formats, either a mêlée which was a mock cavalry battle where knights had to capture each other for a ransom or the joust where a single rider armed with a lance charged at an opponent who was similarly armed. The knights protected themselves with a shield and full armour which was often specialised for jousting so that the face and arms were better protected but mobility was compromised. The knights rode towards each other at full gallop along a 100-200 metre (110-220 yards) long area known as the lists with the aim of knocking the opponent off his horse. To minimise the risk of injury (but certainly not eliminate it), weapons were adapted such as the fitting of a three-pointed head to the lance in order to reduce the impact and swords were blunted (rebated).

There were even opportunities to dress up and do the whole thing in fancy dress, most often as knights of the Round Table or figures from ancient mythology. As there were local aristocratic ladies present, tournaments were also a chance to display some chivalry. Tournaments became such prestigious events with prizes for the winners that knights began to practise for them in earnest and circuits developed with many knights becoming, in effect, professional tournament players.

Clothes

Knights were amongst the most dedicated of all medieval fashion followers, indeed, other professions such as the clergy were often rebuked for trying to make themselves look as flashy as the knights did. Although clothes were not too dissimilar between the classes, those who could afford it tended to wear better quality materials with a much better fit. Tunics (long, short, padded, sleeveless or long-sleeved), stockings, cloaks, gloves, and hats of all shapes and sizes were all worn. In the Middle Ages, clothing was often considered a part of a person's taxable property; such was its value. In addition, it was very much a status symbol, with certain materials being restricted to the aristocrats by law.

The most common material was wool, but silk, brocade, camel hair, and furs allowed a knight to make a fashion statement. Bright colours were favoured such as crimson, blue, yellow, green, and purple. Individuality was expressed in all the extras that could be added to the basic clothing of the day such as metal pieces, gold and silver stitching, buttons, jewels, glass cabochons, feathers, and fine embroidery. Belt buckles and brooches to tie a cloak at the shoulder were an especially popular way of showing off a bit of bling. All in all, then, with flamboyant taste and both the means and right to wear the full range of the medieval wardrobe, a knight was easily spotted when walking down the street.

Leisure Pursuits

The most common leisure activity for knights was hunting. Beaters and dog handlers stalked the animals in the local forest or a protected deer park using leashed dogs. When ready a horn was blown to signal the off, and then the nobles rode with a pack of hunting dogs to chase down animals such as deer, boars, wolves, foxes, and hares. Once an animal was cornered, a noble was given the opportunity to make the kill using a lance or bow.

Falconry was another popular pursuit. Without firearms, a falcon was the only way to catch birds which flew beyond the range of an archer, although for the medieval nobility, the whole sport had a mystique and mythology about it beyond the expedience of bagging a few fowl for the table. Popular birds of choice were the gerfalcon, peregrine, goshawk, and sparrowhawk, amongst others, and their typical prey was forest birds but especially cranes and ducks.

As part of the code of medieval chivalry, knights were expected not only to be familiar with poetry but also capable of composing and performing it. Books, really sheaves of illuminated manuscripts, were available on all manner of subjects besides poetry, though. There were books on chivalry, table manners, hunting, stories from ancient Greece, the legends of King Arthur, and biographies of famous knights like Richard I of England (r. 1189-1199 CE) and Sir William Marshal (c. 1146-1219 CE). Finally, there were games such as backgammon, chess, and dice, which might involve betting, all useful to while away the hours on those lengthy castle sieges that characterised medieval warfare.

Chivalry

A knight was expected to be chivalrous at all times. The ethical, religious and social code of chivalry pervaded the upper echelons of medieval society and was made ever more important with an endless stream of romantic literature extolling the virtues of chivalrous conduct. In order to maintain a good reputation and gain favour with those in power, a knight, therefore, needed to display such essential chivalric qualities as courage, military prowess, honour, loyalty, justice, good manners, and generosity - especially to those less fortunate than oneself. If a knight did not do these things and, even worse, if they did the opposite, they could lose their status as a knight and their reputation and that of their family was blackened forever. In such a case, the disgraced knight had his spurs removed, his armour smashed, and his coat of arms removed or thereafter given some shameful symbol or only represented upside down.

When a knight came to the end of his fighting days, it was not uncommon to join a military order and so ensure a nice spot in one of their cemeteries or even churches. Sir William Marshal employed just such a strategy, invested as a Knight Templar at the last minute, he was interred in Temple Church in London where his effigy still rests. Effigies of knights were a common way to ensure remembrance. Typically portrayed in full armour and bearing a shield, these stone carvings can still be seen in many churches across Europe, and they provide historians with an invaluable record of medieval weapons and armour but also remind of the reverence knights enjoyed in the Middle Ages.

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Knights were the most-feared and best-protected warriors on the medieval battlefield, while off it, they were amongst the most fashionably dressed and best-mannered members of society. To reach this elevated status, however, became more and more challenging as the Middle Ages wore on.