The two ways of the world were not quite so separate then, and matters of the concealed were not yet labeled as evil. This again implies that perhaps the two forms of religious thought do not have to be completely separate. There are strong similarities for them to coincide and complement each other, and for an entire people trying to make the Christian transition, maybe this complementing was necessary. However, the age of forceful patriarchy and witch burning would not come about for several hundred years. Each new way of leading a "holy life" was thought to be progressively more acceptable to God by its proponents than the ones that had gone before. Such 'new ways' were normally inspired by a desire to break away from the corruption and worldliness which was perceived in the older or more established forms of Godly living. If these new ways bring more certain knowledge, it only seems right to follow it(English Church 127). These new ways often became corrupt themselves and over time breakaways from them were hailed as a newer and more perfect way of following God. This roller-coaster ride of corruption and reform is basically the story of popular medieval religion as man battled to define and discover what it really meant to be a Christian. In an effort to escape persecution, but to also flee the evil, prevalent in the world and to seek God free from many ' worldly ' distractions, monks began to assemble as communities of Christians. These communities, although they had little organization, were regarded as possessing the best Christian life by having a solitary, ascetic, celibate existence where the ' world ' had been totally renounced and had been entirely replaced with heavenly contemplation. These ' new ' martyrs were usually just called monks: theirs was a life of daily martyrdom as they constantly died to self and lived totally for God. The monks held a particular respect to the physical remains of the martyrs (relics) and...
