About the Dark Ages and Stuff

Oda Nobunaga: I don't know if the torture/execution advice "Iron Virgin" (A man-size chamber with spikes inside) was a common tale or only exited in the german area, but that's an example too, it was invented much later and never came into use...

Kahran: Of course there were prosecutions. The "dark ages" were not some more enlightened era than others, but they weren't more "dark" either. I mean, you'll find prosecutions throughout history, and you'll find bigger ones and less local prosecutions AFTER the middle ages.
 
Hi there, pal. I would like to raise some points about your reply;

The aspect you focused your reply on is the living condition of peasents, specifically, the two examples i have given. ok, here i go:

1th - This were EXAMPLES of some of the most shocking aspects of what they had to endure. They were among a large number of other abuses. Live and death right to the landlord and right for part of the production are also mentioned. The incapacity to ascend socially and the terrible sanitary conditions also. I could add the complete abscense of political rights of any sort, since they lived in a system that had great resemblance with an absolute monarch (in a restricted space).

Therefore, even if those specific examples are innacurate, i keep my position.

2th - About the "Prima Noctis" (hehehe, now i can spell it, thank you). Well, there's always that possibility. I wasen't there to see that happening, and there's always the possibility that it was just negative propaganda. However, the absence of chatsity belts in the period is hardly an indication.

Going back to the fedalism mechanism i have described previously, well see that the feuds weren't organized state-like structures, they were more like complex farms. Therefore, they didn't have specialized citzens (workshop masters is the exception, but i'll not get into it in this topic). No tax collectors, no health personell, NO ARMY.

When war was about to be made, it was generally a SHORT war, both defensive or to settle a borderline territorial discussion, when the landlord drafted his family and peasants and asked for assistance of sympathetic nearby nobles.

Without organized and specialized armies, there were no hope of conducting large campains, like the cruzades.

Wars within short time periods and that dragged all the men around to be the militia. What would be the use for a chastity belt in such a situation?

However, i didn't see the argumentation about why there were no Prima Noctes in the "Dark Ages". If it's true, maybe is simply because they didn't think of that. But my point is THAT would be the only thing preventing it. Because if a landlord WISHED to establish such right, there would be no stoping him.

2th - About the servitude. I never SAID it was actual slavery. what i said is that it looks like slavery A LITTLE TOO MUCH. The boundarie a peasant had was a large deal more to his Land than to his Landlord, because, like you agreeded, they would take a new lord but wouldn't move from their homes.

I agree it was the commom sense at the time. But it was also a perverse concept, that holds no resemblance with the situation of a contemporary worker when the company is sold. And i'll tell why.

First of all, a "Dark Age" peasant didn't have the right to resign form his position. If the selling happened to a human and caring new lord, good for him. If it were for a bloodthurst tyrant, he would have to deal with it the rest of his life.

Now, even considering how hard it is to get job (and believe me, here in Brazil it IS hard), i'd not stay working directly to someone i hate. Because i have the right to go look for something better. Back then, those people didn't.

More yet, the new owner of the company will just acquire the right to use my workpower, and just because i chose to sell it. The landlord, on the other hand, would acquire life-and death rights about the peasent life and all his family, even the children too young to express their wish to work there.

And i believe that it was Francis Bacon who said that the measure of our freedom is the number of choices we have.

So, the only reason why there's no personell changeover in companies are both law (that forces the company, not the employees), and the employees desire to stay under the promisse of accebtable work conditions.

Absolute lack of freedom, lack of rights, unable even to chose for who they will work.

Do you say it resembles more to a modern worker situation or to a slave?
 
With that i agree. It wasen't darker than most other eras.

PS.: I believe the device you mentioned was called "Iron Maidem".
 
Quoting from my previous post :

"There was a lot of wrong with the institution of Serfdom, this is not however part of it - this is just plain common sense. "

I never claimed serfdom was good, to be sure, I simply claimed that the part you chose to focus on had nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with common sense.

Yes, they couldn't leave the land.

Yes, the new lord had life-and-death right over them (though no real reasons to use them outside rebellions et al, which were very few and far between...and governments still have the rights to kill rebel in battle - dead peasants don't pay taxes).

Yes, they had a right to part of the production. Well, to put it another way, if it was slavely the whole production would have been theirs in the first place. Basically it was a "You work MY land, I let you have some of the food you produce" deal - nothing too hard to understand. Certainly some lord would set the line of how much they took very high, but I'd rather liken it to corporations who install themselves in asia or africa and pay their workers atrocious wages - but in many cases the workers NEED the job to get the food (as in, they have no REAL choice). Certainly atrocious - but still done commonly in our good modern society.

As for the chastity belt, I know very well ; my point is simply that many people have serious misconception about how things went in the middle age ; because of the lies spawned by the french revolution, and the image the victorian era tried to reflect of the so-called "Dark" age.

If a landlord wanted to establish such right, there would have been stopping him. Who? Well, I'd imagine his wife would have been seriously upset, which might have made some (not all, admitedly) of them think twice. Then the church has never been much for the concept of polygamy, so they might have had something to say about the whole idea, too - something like a threat of "Stop that or get out of the christian faith. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 gold pieces.". And as you pointed out, the Church was just about the most powerful entity there was back then...a noble wouldn't have gone very far with the church in the way.

The measure of our freedom might be in how many choices we have, but only if we truly have those choices - chosing between workign for a cruel boss and letting your family starve to death OR choosing between working for a cruel landowner and letting your family be slaughtered by his men...

Where's the difference?

Another thing - whereas you claim the women's roll was simply to carry babies, it would appear that, according to many researchers, especially women, the dark and middle age were among the LEAST sexist era. Reduction of the woman to the roll of property of her father/husband with no rights because they had no brain was actually a thing of the Renaissance, and its attempts at emulating the antic romans.
 
Originally posted by fredlc
Going back to the fedalism mechanism i have described previously, well see that the feuds weren't organized state-like structures, they were more like complex farms. Therefore, they didn't have specialized citzens (workshop masters is the exception, but i'll not get into it in this topic). No tax collectors, no health personell, NO ARMY.

When war was about to be made, it was generally a SHORT war, both defensive or to settle a borderline territorial discussion, when the landlord drafted his family and peasants and asked for assistance of sympathetic nearby nobles.

Without organized and specialized armies, there were no hope of conducting large campains, like the cruzades.

However, i didn't see the argumentation about why there were no Prima Noctes in the "Dark Ages". If it's true, maybe is simply because they didn't think of that. But my point is THAT would be the only thing preventing it. Because if a landlord WISHED to establish such right, there would be no stoping him.



OK, again some additions. At first, the Crusades you mention happened in exactly those dark ages you mention, don't you think? If not, please explain which period you consider as dark ages.
Normannic England was a very well organized state, even though being feudal and with a very good taxing system (remember Robin Hood ;) ) Medieval cities had a high degree of specialized citizens. I've once compiled a list of over 100 different specialized craftsmen guilds in medieval Germany. Considering health persomal, medieval times were quite bad that's true...

Btw., late antiquity already knew very feudalized systems of control in the rural parts, especially in Gaul. And there were throughout the roman imperial times probably not more free peasants as in medieval times.

And nobles for most parts, an this time especially in earlier medieval times had much less power over their subjects than roman nobility had. In fact, much of our modern democratic tradition has its seeds in germanic customs of governmental control, not only in ancient greek democracy. European governments, at least the austrian, in the time from1500 onwards continuously cut the traditional influence of free peasantry, citizens and lower aristocracy in local issues. So the Ius Primae Noctis would never fit into this time.
 
As a little note, I am of the opinion that there are indeed five great ages to man’s history, each triggered by a great event, and ended by another event. Each of these great ages is composed of shorter, but nonetheless important, ages. For instance the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the Ancient Period, and the Dark Age in the Middle Age. These five great ages are:
1) The Pre-Civilization Age, which stretches from the beginnings of man to 6000BC and the start of the first cities, Jericho in Israel, and Catal Huyuk in Turkey. This covers the earliest period of man, his development. It is also, by far the longest period.
2) The Ancient Age picks up where the Pre-Civilization Age ends, at the founding of the first cities in 6000BC. This age continues to 476AD when it abruptly ends with the destruction of the Roman Empire of the West and the sack of Rome by the barbarians.
3) The Middle Age, which is truly in the middle of man’s history, starts in the smoke of the burning Rome with the 400-year period known as the Dark Ages. In fact, rather than ending the period in 800AD, this age continues past the Dark Ages to 1453AD with the sack of Constantinople by the Islamic Empire and the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire. This events not only directly leads to Columbus’ voyage in which he founds the Americas, it ushered in a new age.
4) The Intellectual Age, as it has been called, was started by the fall of the Byzantines, and first came about in Europe with the Renaissance. The Intellectual Age is perhaps not the right name, as it seems to have been more foolish than the past ages of man, and the changes in this age did just as much harm as it did improvement, and ultimately ended with the successive worldwide revolutions. Besides the many violent revolutions (especially the barbaric revolutions in France) the new age of the modern was brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
5) The Modern Age, our age, started in the late 18th Century with the start of the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps this age has become the most complex and foolish one of all those before it in the history of man, and the blood spilt in this period cannot be equaled by any of the blood spilt in the last two eras, at least. For better or for worse, man’s technology now runs nearly everything. It’s quite sad in some ways…

And hey! The Iron Maiden is a fake! A fable! You know, that sorta thing... :king:
 
"Ironically, the church found very promissing ground with the barbaric people. Without a real religion - just a set of myths and believes, they all got very impressed with a single God that was SO migthy that controled everything, intead of one god for the sun, one for the thunder, one for the moom, and so on. "
Uh... not a real religion? You are very wrong on that count! The general term "pagan" was applied by the church to anyone with non-christian beliefs in europe. That set of myths and beliefs was a religion integral to those peoples' lives. That they were not a unified, organized system does not mean they were not religion. As far as being more impressive, ask any Hindu what he thinks of that! :lol:

Monotheism is easily seen as superior by those who practice it, but that is a biased view. However, the gods of polytheism are not of the same nature - they are personification of spirit and energy. Early christianity did not exclude the existence of other gods, btw. There is a commandment about not placing other gods before him, iirc...

What is appealing is the culture and society that come coupled with a religion. The (monotheistic) church brought with it established ethics and theology, a higher standard of living, and other qualities coincidental to its tenets. As christianity spread, it syncretized with many local religions, which still exist today. Many european religious holidays fall on what were traditional "pagan" celebrations. Many icons of the church are most certainly not middle eastern or roman in origin. A christian from Guatemala would hardly recognize the practices of an Italian.
 
Originally posted by History Guy
And hey! The Iron Maiden is a fake! A fable! You know, that sorta thing... :king: [/B]

That's what we were talking about :rolleyes:
 
my what a lot of replies to my original post! Someone even quoting Charles Dickens, cant imagine why, but at least it's a good passage.

Someone mentioned above about there being persecutions (especially of jews) - my original point related to the Witch trials specifically, not anything else.

However national persecutions of Jews tended to occur towards the end of the middle ages (circa 14th-15th century), just before the Early Modern period began, usually once a country had an effective government capable of carrying out a sustained persecution. Before that any violence against Jews tended to be spontanious local trouble.

or something.
 
Originally posted by elfstorm
my what a lot of replies to my original post! Someone even quoting Charles Dickens, cant imagine why, but at least it's a good passage.

Dickens was writing in the 19th century about events in the 18th century, but could just as easily been writing in any time about any other time in history including the present, or the "Dark Ages."

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . . . in short, the period was so far like the present period . . . .
 
Originally posted by Sodak
Early christianity did not exclude the existence of other gods, btw.


?????

Where did you hear this?
 
Originally posted by Kublai-Khan
Where did you hear this?
Perhaps I misstated that - early judeo-christian would be more accurate! :o It's part of the history of how christianity developed, starting from its roots in judaism. As with any people, the Hebrews, altho monotheistic, acknowledged the existence of their neighbors' gods.
 
Yep, other gods were just "bad demons" but could exist. "You shall worship only the one God" doesn't imply the non-existance of others. But they were inferior, the creator was "the one jewish God". Early christianity though, AFAIK, didn't stress this point and said there IS just one god, just like hellenistic jews like Philo of Alexandria did that.

About witch persecutions again: There were some during the middle ages, but rather the later middle ages (~12th cent. onwards: Innocence II; Frederick II), not in the early times and they had their peak in the late 16th and during the 17th century, even continuing until the mid 1700s - not quite the middle ages...
 
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