Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • Free Essays • My Term Papers • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - History Other Medieval Life Medieval Life Written and Research by: Jason Romstedt Living in the medieval time period was not as glamorous as it is often portrayed; peasants and serfs led hard lives, however, kings, lords, and knights lived lavishly and at the expense of those under them. In this paper you will read about all of these lifestyles, as well as the castles in which these lords and kings lived in. Mainly castle designs, fortifications, and siege tactics will be revealed to you; yet there are several sections, dealing with the lifestyles of the above mentioned, leading up to that. The social structure of the Middle Ages was based on the practice of feudalism. Feudalism meant that the country was not governed directly by the king, but by individual lords that paid homage to him. These lords: administered their own estates, dispensed their own justice, minted their own currency, levied taxes and tolls, and demanded military service from their vassals. Technically the king was the chief feudal lord, however the individual lords reigned supreme in their territory, doing little more than paying the king’s taxes. The idea of feudalism was built upon a mutual service between vassals and lords. As a vassal one was required to attend at the lord’s court, help administer justice, contribute money, and answer a summons to battle, as well as house and feed the lord when he traveled across his land. The lord was obliged to, protect the vassal, give military aid, and guard his children; this meant that if a daughter were to inherit the fief, the lord would arrange her marriage. Manors were the economic units of life in the early Middle Ages; manors consisted of a manor house, a few villages, and several thousand acres of land, which were divided into meadow, pasture, forest, and cultivated fields. This was shared out so each person had an equal share of good and poor land; at least half the week was spent working on the lord’s field, maintenance, and special projects. The rest of the time the villagers were free to work their own fields. During the Middle Ages a peasant’s life was, indeed, very rough, there were anywhere from ten to sixty families living in a single village; they lived in rough huts on dirt floors, with no chimneys, or windows. Usually one end of the hut was given over to storing livestock. Furnishings were quite sparse; three legged stools, a trestle table, beds softened with straw or leaves and placed on the floor; the peasant diet was mainly porridge, cheese, black bread, and a few homegrown vegetables. Peasants had a hard life, yet they did not work on Sundays, and they could travel to nearby fairs and markets. The basic diet of a lord consisted of meat, fish, pastries, cabbage, turnips, onions, carrots, beans, and peas, as well as fresh bread, cheese, and fruit. This is by no means equivalent to the meals the peasants ate, a lord might even feast on boar, swan, or peacock as well. However both lords and peasants rarely drank water, due to the degree of contaminates in it, instead they often drank wine or beer. Serfs had neither freedom nor personal possessions and had to ask permission to be married, for they were bound to a lord for life. A serf could not leave the land under any circumstances, unless he ran away; if he chose to run to a town and managed to stay there for a year and a day, he was considered a free man. Even though it seems otherwise, the surfs did have rights; he could not be displaced if the manor changed hands, he was not required to fight, and he was entitled to the protection of the lord. The vast accumulation of the Church’s material possessions instigated a problem: Who is superior, the pope or the king? This question spurred a great deal of controversy during the Middle Ages; however the pope had an advantage until the end of the Middle Ages when the state finally defeated the pope’s powers of interdict and excommunication. Strict penalties were used by the church to enforce its code and belief, this kept many devoted, and also kept the general population from separating from the church sooner; the Crusades helped to reinforce the ideology of the perpetual war between good and evil, emphasizing the importance of the church. This warfare between light and darkness discouraged curiosity about the world and speculation about the unknown, and, once spurred by the church, many believed their curiosity could send them to hell. Knights held one of the most important roles throughout the medieval era in its entirety; the knights were defenders, as warriors some defended the populace while others pillaged. Their virtues consisted of, prowess, strength, courage, and loyalty; these were the virtues of a true warrior, a killing machine, who used his strength to contribute to society; even after having alienated himself from society, however this gives him the ability to jettison all concerns for life and soul, focusing his entire being upon the task at hand. Failure will result in the collapse of the society to which he belongs. After the dark ages the church grew into power and the clerks decided they should become “knights of Christ;” many did just this, some even going as far as casting themselves into the Holy War during the many crusades. With the lady, and demands of the court, the future of knights was shifted in a different direction; she demanded that a knight act with strength on one hand, and courtesy and respect on the other. A knight should respect women; he should defend them in their hour of need, shunning the magnetic gravity of mere lust. Love could be a powerful influence over a knight, a force that could propel him to greatness beyond his own abilities; the church declared that only the spiritual love of Christ was superior to the love of a woman, the important aspect here is love was added as a chivalric element. Bibliography: Word Count: 1025
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