May 12, 2025 • 32 mins
Today we have smartphones, airplanes, robotic surgery, and electric lights. But what was it like to live during the Middle Ages? Was it really the “Dark Ages” or was there intellectual flourishing? What did you eat? When did you bathe? In this episode, we look at what the average person’s life would have been like in medieval Europe.
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(0:00) Exploring Philosophy: Definitions, Questions, and Argumentation
(4:57) Philosophy's Unique Role and Scope in Understanding Everything
(8:01) Philosophy's Role in Questioning and Understanding Different Fields
(12:02) Exploring Philosophy's Role in Science, Reality, and Knowledge
(15:21) Philosophical Questions on Identity, Justice, and Beauty
(17:44) The Practical Importance of Philosophy in Everyday Life
(19:45) The Evolution of Philosophical Thought Through History
(23:25) Exploring Philosophy Through Books and Influential Thinkers
(28:58) The Importance of Philosophy in Examining Life
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ideological where we
make learning arousing. Today we're talking about life
in the Middle Ages. What could be more arousing than
that? Sometimes people ask me because
I, I'm a big intellectual history guy, and what time
period would I most want to live?
And my answer, you know, maybe maybe it'd be fun to live during
(00:30):
the Middle Ages and be a knight,or maybe it'd be fun to live
during the Roman Empire and be agladiator or something like
this. My answer is a little less fun
than that. And my answer is today.
If I could choose any period of world history in which to live,
it would actually probably be the future.
I don't want to live back in theday before like anesthesia where
(00:50):
you could get like a cavity and it could kill you.
I don't want to live back where like if you have a fever, they
they cut you and bleed you out to try to get rid of the hot bad
blood. I don't want that.
So I want to live either now or in the future when we have a
cure for cancer or something like that.
And so today we're talking abouta very difficult time to live,
(01:13):
which would have been the MiddleAges.
The Middle Ages is there's some really great things about it and
there's some really like romantic things about it.
And we have this idea of chivalry and Knights and kings
and all that stuff is really cool.
And then there's also all the terrible stuff.
And so we're going to talk aboutwhat would it have been like if
you were just someone in the Middle Ages, If you were just a
(01:34):
farmer or a peasant or somethinglike that in the Middle Ages,
what would life have been like? Now before we get into this
lecture, I need to say this. Even calling it the Middle Ages
or the medieval period, which means the same thing, the Middle
period or the Dark Ages, all these are actually pejorative
terms that were developed duringthe Enlightenment.
(01:54):
The idea was that there was intellectual flourishing in
Greece, in the Greco Roman world, and then you got medieval
Christian Europe where nothing really developed and nothing was
really awesome and there wasn't intellectual or scientific or
artistic flourishing. And so it's just kind of in the
middle of the ancient world and then the Enlightenment where you
have news, you know, discoveriesin science and philosophy and
(02:17):
physics and all these kind of things.
And so this term of Middle Ages or Dark Ages is pejorative.
It's meant to say that there wasawesome Greek stuff, awesome
enlightenment stuff and this stuff in the middle.
Yuck. OK, so it, it is a pejorative
term that is, has become pretty common, but that's where it
comes from. Now I, I disagree with the
(02:39):
pejorative connotation of these terms because there was actually
a lot of intellectual flourishing in the Middle Ages.
For example, you have the invention of, oh, I don't know,
the university that came about in the Middle Ages.
So when you want to talk about academic, you want to talk about
intellectual flourishing, you have the University of Bologna,
not the not the stuff you put ona sandwich in 1088 in Italy,
(03:02):
University of Oxford. In 1096 in England, the
University of Salamanca almost said salmonella or something
else like that. 1134 in Spain you have the the University of
Paris, which will be enormously influential about 11-60 ish
11:50-ish. There's kind of some, it's kind
(03:23):
of sketchy on when it exactly started in France, University of
Cambridge, maybe you've heard ofit, 12 O 9 in England, etcetera,
etcetera. So you have the invention of the
university. So it's hard to make a case that
there was an intellectual flourishing when the institution
that we even have today that is all about intellectual
flourishing. At least it used to be.
Today it's about indoctrination,but it used to be about
intellectual flourishing and thearts and learning and thinking
(03:45):
for yourself, not thinking like everybody else.
It's changed, but it used to be that that started in the
medieval period. You also had an incredible list
of intellectual and artistic figures.
I'll give you just a few. There's more than this.
Geoffrey Chaucer. Maybe you've heard of him,
Author of The Canterbury Tales. Marco Polo.
You know the guy that invented that fun swimming pool game
(04:06):
where you close your eyes and and hit your head on the
concrete on the side of the pool.
Anne's helm. Dante.
Thomas Aquinas. Roger Bacon.
The inventor of Bacon. I'm joking.
Peter Abelard. Peter Lombard.
William of Occam. Albertus Magnus Cretien de
Trois, the author of Lancelot, maybe you've heard of that.
Jeffrey of Monmouth, the author of King Arthur, maybe you've
(04:27):
heard of that. John Dunn, SCOTUS, the Subtle
Dr. and others. OK, so this was a time of
tremendous intellectual flourishing, and that was just
mentioning some things in like literature and philosophy and
things like that. There were also famous works of
art happening at this time and paintings and sculptures and all
this kind of stuff. So today we're going to be
(04:48):
talking about life in the MiddleAges.
Now, if you have to give just anoverly simple, crass summary of
what this time period is, this is 500 CE to about 1500 CE.
Scholars disagree on exactly theyear that we should consider the
Middle Ages to have started, butthat's a good crass summary.
So it's, it's about 1000 year period in Western history.
(05:10):
So it's a huge chunk of time this Middle Ages.
Now, most of what I'm going to be saying is going to be what's
called the late Middle Ages. That's kind of the, again, the
back end of the the Middle Ages.A few things I'll mention from
the high or early Middle Ages, but that's what this lecture
will be about. And before I do, I got the
things I'm going to tell you, which I think are fascinating.
So hang in there, because if you're like Middle Ages, who
(05:30):
cares? Kill me now, please, with an old
rusty sword like the Middle Ages.
There's some fascinating things we're going to talk about.
I used a bunch of different sources for my research like I
always do, but anytime I I use asource a lot, I want to give a
shout out for that. So there is a professor named
Robert Garland. He's primarily A Greco Roman
scholar. He's written a lot.
I think he's over at in the UK right now.
(05:53):
Think he was in the US and they moved to the UK.
Anyway, he's primarily A Greco Roman scholar, but he has some
research that he's done on the Middle Ages that I found super
helpful. So I've, I've mentioned some of
his stuff in this lecture. OK, let's back up life in the
Middle Ages. Are we ready?
Let's talk about what it would be like, 'cause it was probably
not great for most people. Here we go.
(06:15):
First of all, what was it? Was it, what would it be like to
be in the Middle Ages? Number one, you probably could
not read. Sorry, like anything.
Not just the things in Latin, which was a lot of the stuff,
but you couldn't probably read at all.
As late as 1500, about 90% of men and 99% of women were
illiterate. OK, so that's not great.
(06:39):
Leads to a lot of a lot of dumbness, a lot of silliness, a
lot of superstition. If you were educated, though,
you were probably highly educated.
So the amount of education you would get in a medieval, you
know, university is way better than today.
Today you study for a few years,get your credits, get your
business degree, whatever. There it was like living on
campus, doing everything in Latin, having to debate students
in class and you would be there for forever.
(07:01):
If you wanted to be a master or a doctor or somebody that was
going to be a professor or, you know, studied philosophy or
something, you might be there for, you know, over a decade
studying for that. So the educational requirements
are very high. And because you knew Latin, you
could communicate with people all over Europe, which is
amazing that that Latin was the the lingua franca.
(07:21):
Do we want to call it that? That Latin was the French
language? That makes no sense, you know
what I'm saying? That Latin was this universal
language, so you could communicate with all kinds of
people. So you couldn't read, but you
could see a little bit better because bone eyeglasses were
invented around this time. So you could maybe see things a
little bit better than previous generations.
Gunpowder was also introduced inEurope at this time, so it was
(07:42):
invented earlier in China. I think it was the 9th century
or so, but it became popularizedin Europe at this time.
Life was pretty difficult, but you did get some off days.
So you got to rest on on a Sunday, on Sundays because these
were considered holy days where you might attend a worship
service or whatever. But you also had about 50 holy
(08:03):
days a year where you would get a day off work.
Now, despite what you might expect, you probably actually
had healthy teeth. So when I think of like peasants
in the Middle Ages, I just thinkof like Monty Python teeth.
They're just gross and falling out of their mouth.
You probably actually had teeth that were not terrible because
sugar was not widely available. Like the things we eat today
(08:25):
that just destroy our teeth, that are delicious, they don't
have that 'cause you just don't get to have very, very many
delicious things. 5 foot 7 was the height of the average male.
Now that's two inches shorter than the average male in the US
today. The average male is only 59.
As someone who's 6 foot 1, I feel as though that's a bit
short, but it's fine. You.
(08:46):
What would you eat in the MiddleAges if you were just a
commoner? You'd probably have bread and
porridge, but you might, if you were lucky, get some fish or
meat on some sort of holy day. You probably have a disease
called scurvy. What is scurvy?
We think of that as a pirate disease.
Pirates get scurvy. What is scurvy?
Because citrus fruit is not readily available, You don't get
(09:07):
enough of these nutrients that you need.
So your skin becomes gross and your gums become gross and your
body does a bunch of gross things.
That's my definition of scurvy. Just if you want to know how
much I know about medicine. The answer is scurvy makes you
gross. If someone looked gross, I'd say
not a doctor, but you probably have scurvy.
In the 1300s, between 10 and 25%of Europe is estimated to have
(09:31):
died from famine. So not getting enough food to
eat was like a real threat. It's not like today where you
can just have food ordered to your house on your phone, which
is incredible, which is why you want to Live Today or in the
future and not in the Middle Ages.
I mean, you might have entire, you know, populations wiped out
just due to famine, starving to death, which is is brutal.
(09:53):
There weren't as many people back then.
Villages had about 400 people. So you would know just about
everybody in your village. One of the biggest cities at
this time in London had only about 70,000 people.
To put that in perspective. Today they have about 9 million.
So these cities and towns were much smaller than one might
expect. Your house was probably this
small, tiny place that was just there to really keep you out of
(10:17):
the rain. Most houses had between 1:00 and
2:00 rooms and that's it. And that is where your entire
family lived and slept. In the winter, you might let
some of your animals, maybe sheep or pigs, into the house to
help keep you warm. Hygiene, you're starting to
notice, was not great in the Middle Ages as you smell of pig
and these kind of things. You were probably involved in
(10:39):
agriculture. That 90% of people are estimated
to have been farmers at this time.
So agricultural is a big thing. So a lot of people farmed, a lot
of people farmed for their Lord on his plot of land.
That was one of the most common professions, though.
We've actually found a higher level of arthritis in skeletons
that we found from the Middle Ages in England.
(11:00):
So you had a hard life. You're sleeping with the pigs
and you have no money and you have scurvy, you know, whatever
this pirate disease is, and you're doing your best and
you're just have arthritis because all you can do is farm
your whole life. It's very, it's rough.
You are under a system that is called senorialism.
It's kind of the feudal system idea.
So So what happens is you have these nobles, these Lords, and
(11:23):
they live in this kind of betterhouse than you, castle sometimes
made of stone. It's bigger, it's better a Manor
perhaps. And they have land and you work
for them on the land. And it's kind of the symbiotic
relationship. So the Lord provides you
protection, he provides you justice.
If somebody has wronged you, he lets you use his land.
It's his land. It doesn't belong to you, but in
(11:45):
return you pay you. You pay him, in a sense, with
labor. You might pay him rent.
You might offer some of your harvest to him and his family,
and especially you would be called to serve him in battle if
a war was happening. That was the duty that you owed
your Lord. But that's how a lot of people
lived. You had nobles and the clergy
that are also involved kind of in that noble class.
(12:05):
And then you had the commoners and the peasants.
And the peasants work for the nobles.
They benefit because they get touse the noble stuff, mainly
land, they get protection, etcetera.
And then the nobles benefit obviously more off of the labor
of the the peasants. As I said, hygiene was terrible.
A king might bathe only once every three weeks if you're a
(12:25):
king. Yuck.
Disgusting. So again, hygiene not not great.
You might be executed for petty crimes like theft.
If you stole a certain amount, you could be killed for that.
One of the weirder things that happened in the Middle Ages is
something called trial by ordeal.
(12:45):
If they were not sure whether ornot you were guilty and some
sort of, it's called a court case or whatever, they would
often do something that would hurt you and see the effect.
And in their mind, that was God either judging you or not.
Meaning you might walk through hot coals, you might carry
around a big piece of burning iron in your hand, and then
(13:06):
they'd wash your hand for like 3days after.
And if he came infected, you're guilty.
Obviously God hates you because your hand's infected from
burning it on the the metal. If it doesn't become infected,
you might be innocent. So sorry about your hand, but
you you don't have to be executed now.
You could also have small parts of your body cut off as a
punishment. If you had a lenient judge that
didn't want to kill you, didn't want to do capital punishment,
(13:27):
he could cut off your nose or your ear, your testicles or
something like that to teach youa lesson that you shouldn't have
stolen that thing. You're probably superstitious.
If you lived in the Middle Ages,belief in fairies, witches, and
omens was common. Maleus Maleficarum was a book
that was published in 1486. That literally means hammer of
(13:48):
witches and it was a guide for hunting witches.
So if you get bored reading all the theology, that is might be
one of the few things that you could read if you could read in
Latin. Now you can read about how to
hunt witches. So, you know, you get your
crossbow and your crucifix and you go vampire hunting.
Your Barber, in addition to cutting your hair, could extract
a tooth or amputate A limb. He was the town dentist and
(14:11):
surgeon. So tip your Barber well because
in the Middle Ages, he plays a lot of roles.
He wears a lot of hats. Let's talk about travel.
If you today want to go, let's say, from England to New York,
you hop on an airplane, which isincredible.
You have Wi-Fi. You're 30 to 40,000 feet up in
the air, and you have Wi-Fi and you're on your phone in air
(14:33):
conditioning talking to people, and the journey takes 8 1/2
hours. It's a long flight, but that's
not bad. If you needed to travel a long
distance like that. In the Middle Ages, a ship could
typically go only about 50 milesa day, 50 miles for an entire
day. So to get from England to New
York, it would take about 69 days at sea.
(14:57):
No, No GPS, no radio. If you get stuck in a storm,
cool, you and your family just died.
I think the Mayflower took 66 days, so that that's about a a a
good estimate. That's how long you would be
just to go from what is now an 81/2 hour flight while you have a
drink, while you have food served to you, while you use a
bathroom on a plane, while you don't get eaten by sharks or
(15:18):
killed in some sort of hurricane.
Life was tough back then. Jewish people were not as
accepted in medieval Europe because of the overwhelming
influence of Christendom at thattime.
And so one of the jobs they became proficient in.
So let's talk about something that is is kind of a stereotype,
but is also kind of rooted in history.
The Roman Catholics, which is what you would be, by the way,
(15:39):
the only types of Christianity there were was either Roman
Catholic, which was the Western church in Europe, or if you were
Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, if you get further E
into places like Greece and thenRussia and these kind of places,
you'd be Eastern Orthodox. Those two groups split in 1054,
which is called the Great Schism.
And you didn't get Protestantismtill, you know, 1517 is when
(16:00):
it's considered to start with Martin Luther nailing his 95
thesis in the church door at Wittenberg.
And so everyone was basically Roman Catholic.
You were Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, if you were further
east and, or you were heretic orthat was it.
Now you might be a Muslim or a Jew and then you were treated
differently because you were certainly not the norm in
Europe. The Roman Catholics at this time
thought that lending money at interest, what they called
(16:20):
usury, was a sin. So they allowed Jews to do it.
So Jews became Jewish people, became very involved and
powerful in the banking industryin Europe.
I guess the thinking of the Catholics was like, well, if
they're going to go to hell anyway, might as well let them
lend us money for our building projects or whatever.
So not saying that's right, but just saying that was the
(16:41):
thinking. So Jewish people became very
involved in banking in the financial industry in Europe in
the Middle Ages, due to the belief in usury, you had only
about a 50% chance of making it to adulthood.
That's crazy. So if you have 10 kids, five of
them will make it. It wouldn't be like today where
you only have two kids, because then you'd only have one that
(17:02):
might make it to adulthood. And then you also had one of the
most awful things that ever happened disease wise in the
world, the Black Death, the bubonic plague.
It had a 60 to 80% death rate. So if you got it, your chance of
dying was between 60 to 80%. And it happened within a few
days. It killed 1/3 of Europe, which
(17:26):
is insane. Maybe half of people in London.
It was off. I mean, so if you're listening
to this after 2020, which you are because it was recorded
after 2020, something with the death rate of COVID, the
COVID-19 thing we went through would not have even been
considered a pandemic. The death rate was less than 1%.
That would have just been considered a Tuesday in the
(17:47):
Middle Ages. Something like the Black Death
with a 60 to 80% death rate is insane.
So anyway, that's going on. What would it be like to be a
woman in the Middle Ages? A woman would be under the rule
of some type of male her entire life, whether it be her father,
whether it be her husband, if she joined a convent, she might
be able to be under the authority of a woman.
(18:08):
But even then, sometimes men were the ultimate authorities
over the convents. Whether it's an Abbot or some
type of higher up priest or something like that.
You'll definitely have an arranged marriage where there
will be exchanges of goods like property and titles.
Men could hit their wives if they disobeyed.
Back in the Middle Ages, they thought that a woman produced
(18:29):
seed like men do when it comes to sex.
If you haven't listened to the history of sex lecture, it's
very explicit. So don't listen to it around
your kids. It's it's adults only.
I talk a little bit about the belief of how conception worked
in the ancient world and in the medieval world.
But they believe that women should have sex often with their
husbands so that they did not get sick and die 'cause they
(18:50):
thought that their seed 'cause they thought they had seed like
men have seed would like congealand solidify in them and it
could make them sick or could kill them.
How many kids would you have? You might have up to 14 ish
kids. So your entire job is just being
pregnant. That's that.
Your job is to make people. Your husband's probably farming.
(19:12):
If your husband cheats on you, you are not allowed to divorce
him. You must remain married though.
You were allowed to live apart, so there's a little concession
for you. All forms of contraception were
seen as sin, and prostitution could happen for girls as early
as age 12. Again, a lot of bad things going
on in the Middle Ages. Now, you need to understand a
little bit about the overwhelmingly powerful
(19:35):
influence of Roman Catholicism in Europe to understand what's
going on in the Middle Ages. You can't.
I've seen medievalists, and I'veread medievalists that kind of
try to study the Middle Ages almost apart from religious
views. Regardless of your religious
views, I don't care. You can't study the Middle Ages
that way, though, because it plays such a pivotal role in
people's lives. You can't just study the Middle
Ages from an economic perspective or from a, you know,
(19:58):
literary perspective. You, you have to take into
account religion because it's going to play a part in
everybody's life, whether they want to or not.
The, the Roman Catholic Church at this point is the most
powerful institution on earth, even stronger than nations and
kings that they will get to bow before them.
And so you need to understand what it would have been like to
be a Roman Catholic in the Middle Ages, which is again, the
(20:18):
only type of Christianity available to you.
Let's talk about church services.
In the Middle Ages, churches were the hospitals and schools
of their day. You had what was called the
cathedral school, where if you wanted your son, for example,
and typically women didn't, but if you wanted your son to become
educated, he'd typically be educated by priests or monks or
these kind of things through thechurch.
They also served as hospitals. They took care of those who were
(20:40):
traveling, etcetera. You did not own a Bible.
OK, One, you couldn't afford it.They were very expensive to
make. This is before the invention of
the printing press. Also, it was illegal to have a
Bible in your own language, so you can't afford one.
You can't read 1 in Latin because you don't read Latin.
You don't have one in your own language, and even if you did,
you couldn't read your own language.
(21:00):
So there was not a lot of personal Bible study.
That's something that's going tobe popularized at the
Reformation, but not before. What you did probably learn was
to memorize the Lord's Prayer, the Ave.
Maria, and the Nicene Creed in Latin, although you didn't know
what you were saying. Now, there was a huge emphasis
in the Middle Ages, and you'll still see this with a lot of
famous churches in Europe on what are called relics.
(21:21):
Relics are these things that belong to or were touched by or
were part of the body of some ancient holy person or St.
And they were thought to be holyobjects that would bring you
grace if you saw them or visitedthem or touched them.
So there's a huge emphasis on religious relics.
You actually couldn't there. There were a lot of people that
traded in this. Churches made money off this.
(21:43):
The Protestant reformer John Calvin once commented that he
saw so many, that there were so many pieces of the cross in
these Catholic churches that there were enough to build a
ship. So everyone's just claiming to
have a piece of the cross and these kind of things.
A relic might be something like the skull of John the Baptist,
right, who is beheaded, nails from the, the cross, a piece of
the burning Bush, drops of Christ's blood, the spear that
(22:07):
pierced Christ's side or even breast milk from the Virgin
Mary. And, and these what's, what's
interesting is so many churches,for example, are claiming to
have the nails from the cross. I mean, there's, there's,
there's not very many of them, but a lot of churches claim to
have them. So it became kind of this abused
trade that happened in the Middle Ages.
(22:28):
Most of the church service, you would kneel.
What about the pews? Pews didn't become popularized
till about the 15th century. So you would kneel, but you
would stand when the Gospel was being read.
Men and women would sit in separate places in the church,
either the men up front and the women further back, or the men
on one side and the woman on theother side.
And the main focus of the service was partaking of the
(22:48):
Eucharist. One of the things that'll change
in the Reformation is that the main focus becomes preaching.
And so they put the pulpit in the center of the stage and that
becomes a focus. But before that, the main focus
is partaking of the Eucharist. So what would happen is you
would not understand the servicebecause the service would all be
in Latin. You don't speak Latin and you
would go up and you would kneel before a rail as if to separate
(23:10):
you and the clergy. The clergy's awesome.
They're closer to God. You're just the gross laity and
you're gross sleeping with pig stuff and you're not bathing and
such. And you would kneel and there'd
be a railing to say there's a separation between the clergy
and you. And you weren't allowed to take
the wine in communion. In Roman Catholicism, they
believe that the wine and the bread literally materially
(23:31):
become the body and blood of Jesus, like his, Oh, negative
blood. I don't know what blood type he
has and is the, the, you know, the wafers become his skin.
You're not allowed to have the blood because you might spill
it. We don't want to spill, spill
Jesus on the floor. And what you would do is you'd
open your mouth and they, you wouldn't reach out for it.
They would put that little waferor that little piece of bread on
your tongue and you would let itdissolve.
Why? Because you don't want to chew
(23:53):
the baby Jesus. And, and so that would be a
communion. Stained glass may be the only
imagery you would ever see in your lifetime.
Perhaps the only imagery you'd ever seen in your lifetime would
be in the church. It was almost a way to teach
illiterate people via picture book.
You could look at these biblicalstories because you couldn't
(24:13):
read them. We come across more images in
one day than someone in the Middle Ages would have their
entire life. They don't have TV.
They don't have these magazines and print books that they can
just flip through. They stay in their town.
You see more images when you scroll through social media in
one day than they would their entire life, which is crazy.
The church, though, did all the religious stuff for you.
(24:34):
OK, you went through the priest,you went to the church.
There wasn't a way to go to God apart from the church.
This will be something that becomes a a point of contention
later on after the Middle Ages, but that was there.
There wasn't a way of you saying, OK, I'm going to be a
Christian, I'm going to approachGod, but I don't need the the
church. You need the church, a common
phrase in the Middle Ages. Nobody can have God as his
father who does not have the church as his mother.
(24:57):
And the church was not a great place spiritually, morally in
the late Middle Ages. Martin Luther describes
monasteries as lice infested dens of homosexuality.
Mini monks had secret concubinesand sexual liaisons with nuns.
None can't get none. Apparently she can even Pope's
had mistresses. You know, listen, he's he's,
(25:17):
he's, he's a man. I don't care how holy is, He's a
man. And Erasmus, Desiderius Erasmus,
one of the great humanist scholars, one of the greatest
Latin and Greek scholars of all time, was the son of a priest.
Your dad could be a Carpenter, your dad could be a banker.
Your dad's not supposed to be a priest cause priests aren't
allowed to marry. But anyway, that was Erasmus.
(25:39):
Around the year 414 O 9, you hadthree men all claiming to be the
Pope. There was a church in Europe
that had an 8 year old boy leading the parish.
A lot of times church offices were sold and bought.
It's called simony. That happened a lot in some
places. In Germany, only one in 14
churches had an actual pastor. In some churches in Switzerland,
priests hadn't even read the entire New Testament.
(26:00):
The little small part of the Bible, not the the big old part.
And what you need to know in theMiddle Ages is the church and
state. Church and state are not
separate. Like we think of separation of
church and state as like the norm now because we live in, you
know, modern democratic republics or whatever, where
people have freedom of religion.That was not the norm.
(26:20):
There was no such thing in theirmind as a separation of church
and state. How would you make laws, if
you're going to make laws with those, either be Christian or
not Christian, You're picking what you're, you're picking some
sort of religious allegiance oneway or the other.
There's no such thing as just a neutral government.
And they realized that. And so there wasn't a separation
of church and state. And often times the state was
(26:41):
subject to the church. The the church at this time
holds overwhelming power. The church will call for the
Crusades. The church can tell kings to
kneel before them and do what they say, or else they will
excommunicate them and their entire nation.
I think it's called an interdictwhen they do that.
So it's anyway. So it's, it's pretty crazy.
The crown, for example, worn by Pope Boniface the 8th, had 48
(27:05):
rubies, 72 sapphires, 45 emeralds, and 66 large pearls.
It also had two gold rows, showing that he was in charge of
the church and the state. And then one of the more
interesting things in medieval history, in 1077, a guy named
Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the 7th, made the Holy Roman
Emperor, Henry the 4th, stand outside his castle in Canosa
(27:29):
barefoot for three days in the snow before he would lift his
excommunication. Think about how powerful you are
to be able to do that if you're the if you're the Pope and you
excommunicate the Holy Roman Emperor like the guy over
Europe, he makes the Holy Roman Emperor stand barefoot three
(27:49):
days in the snow before he will forgive him.
That's how powerful you are if you are part of the church.
It is an overwhelmingly powerfulinstitution.
And that stranglehold will not be broken until a foul mouthed,
lewd, often drunk German monk named Martin Luther.
We got a lecture, I think on on Luther will will change things,
(28:10):
which will eventually lead to the Enlightenment.
That's not Luther's goal, but that's where it will go.
So anyway, that's that's what's going on in in the Middle Ages.
Crazy, crazy time to live fascinating things.
Let's talk about one of the things that would have dominated
your thought though, and this iskind of sad, but it would have
dominated your thought in the Middle Ages, which was the fear
of hell. This, this is you're, you're
waking your whole life. Even if you were especially a
(28:32):
pious person, whether you trusted in Jesus, whether you
had partaken of the church's sacraments, whatever, whatever
it was, you would still be terrified of going to hell.
And hell was often taught in very explicit terms.
I want to mention something fromDante's Divine Comedy, Dante
Alliguerre, his Divine Comedy, specifically his Inferno.
(28:54):
He describes hell as having 9 levels or circles.
You might have heard that like the the 7th circle of Hell and
he goes into detail describing what these kind of things are.
Now, by the way, there there's certainly much more terrible and
graphic views of hell given elsewhere than than Dante.
But this is just kind of a very popular, you got mythology kind
of mixed with scary mixed with preaching mixed with mixed with
(29:16):
what's biblical. And this was just kind of the
popular understanding. And Dante obviously popularized
this. But let's talk about the
different levels of hell in the Inferno.
This the first level, 1st circleof hell, it includes moral
pagans. Great, that's helpful.
I like Aristotle, I like Plato. We need these moral pagans and
it includes unbaptized Christians.
(29:38):
OK, it's, it's, it's limbo. It's not really hell yet, but
people just wander around in loneliness.
So on each level it talks about the kind of people that go there
and what sins they commit and then what they have to endure
because of that. The second level of hell lust.
Oh well, good. I mean, at least lust gets the
second level. It doesn't get the 9th level.
That's that's great for, for most people.
(29:59):
People are blown in a continual windstorm.
That's the punishment for lust. Not that bad #3 the third level
or circle of hell, gluttony. People are freezing in a
continual icy rain. So you better cut back.
Better cut back on the fast food.
You don't want to be in a continual icy rain #4 or the 4th
(30:22):
level. Greed.
People are forced to push big boulders around.
Sounds a little myth of Sisyphus.
He doesn't sound too terrible. Maybe you get stronger, who
knows #5 anger. People are engaged in an endless
battle in a swamp. I just love how creative that
is. Being engaged in an endless
battle, that's not great. But in a swamp, dude, oh gosh,
(30:42):
your socks are wet and it's humid probably.
And I just don't want to that Moss get stuck to you.
I I don't want to control your anger.
Number six heresy people are burned forever.
And stone coffins. Well that just jumped up a
bunch. We went from like wind and
loneliness to burning in a coffin.
(31:03):
Heresy's a bad deal. The seventh layer of hell for
those who committed unrighteous violence.
People are made to drown in a lake of boiling blood.
Holy shit, what is happening? It's just gotten terrible #8 the
8th level fraud. People are endlessly tortured by
being beaten by demons. That seems less bad than then
(31:24):
drowning in a lake of boiling blood, but it's fine.
And then the 9th circle, the worst circle treachery.
It's a vast frozen lake where the devil resides with the worst
sinners, people like Judas. And so many of these are based
on Dante's ideas of the the seven deadly sins.
You probably see that if you've never seen the movie 7 What a
great movie. It's kind of based on this idea,
but the seven deadly sins being pride, greed, lust, envy,
(31:44):
gluttony, wrath, and sloth. So this is what life would be
like in the Middle Ages. It was not great, although there
was a lot of academic and intellectual flourishing and
even a lot of flourishing in thearts.
It's not technically the dark ages, but man, you've got to be
thankful. I mean, you're, you're listening
or watching this podcast. Think about all the technology
(32:05):
involved here. There are lights we have if I
have a blister, I don't die fromit.
I can just get some medicine. We can fly on airplanes.
We can. I mean, it's or I can take out
my phone, my magic space phone, and I can look at it and it
sends a signal to a satellite inspace and then it bounces it to
somebody else's magic space phone and we can talk to each
(32:26):
other on the other end of the world.
And it doesn't take 69 days to get from Europe to here.
It just happens in a few seconds.
It's really, really incredible. So that's life in the Middle
Ages. Thanks for joining me as always
on Ideological.
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ideological where we
make learning arousing. Today we're talking about life
in the Middle Ages. What could be more arousing than
that? Sometimes people ask me because
I, I'm a big intellectual history guy, and what time
period would I most want to live?
And my answer, you know, maybe maybe it'd be fun to live during
(00:30):
the Middle Ages and be a knight,or maybe it'd be fun to live
during the Roman Empire and be agladiator or something like
this. My answer is a little less fun
than that. And my answer is today.
If I could choose any period of world history in which to live,
it would actually probably be the future.
I don't want to live back in theday before like anesthesia where
(00:50):
you could get like a cavity and it could kill you.
I don't want to live back where like if you have a fever, they
they cut you and bleed you out to try to get rid of the hot bad
blood. I don't want that.
So I want to live either now or in the future when we have a
cure for cancer or something like that.
And so today we're talking abouta very difficult time to live,
(01:13):
which would have been the MiddleAges.
The Middle Ages is there's some really great things about it and
there's some really like romantic things about it.
And we have this idea of chivalry and Knights and kings
and all that stuff is really cool.
And then there's also all the terrible stuff.
And so we're going to talk aboutwhat would it have been like if
you were just someone in the Middle Ages, If you were just a
(01:34):
farmer or a peasant or somethinglike that in the Middle Ages,
what would life have been like? Now before we get into this
lecture, I need to say this. Even calling it the Middle Ages
or the medieval period, which means the same thing, the Middle
period or the Dark Ages, all these are actually pejorative
terms that were developed duringthe Enlightenment.
(01:54):
The idea was that there was intellectual flourishing in
Greece, in the Greco Roman world, and then you got medieval
Christian Europe where nothing really developed and nothing was
really awesome and there wasn't intellectual or scientific or
artistic flourishing. And so it's just kind of in the
middle of the ancient world and then the Enlightenment where you
have news, you know, discoveriesin science and philosophy and
(02:17):
physics and all these kind of things.
And so this term of Middle Ages or Dark Ages is pejorative.
It's meant to say that there wasawesome Greek stuff, awesome
enlightenment stuff and this stuff in the middle.
Yuck. OK, so it, it is a pejorative
term that is, has become pretty common, but that's where it
comes from. Now I, I disagree with the
(02:39):
pejorative connotation of these terms because there was actually
a lot of intellectual flourishing in the Middle Ages.
For example, you have the invention of, oh, I don't know,
the university that came about in the Middle Ages.
So when you want to talk about academic, you want to talk about
intellectual flourishing, you have the University of Bologna,
not the not the stuff you put ona sandwich in 1088 in Italy,
(03:02):
University of Oxford. In 1096 in England, the
University of Salamanca almost said salmonella or something
else like that. 1134 in Spain you have the the University of
Paris, which will be enormously influential about 11-60 ish
11:50-ish. There's kind of some, it's kind
(03:23):
of sketchy on when it exactly started in France, University of
Cambridge, maybe you've heard ofit, 12 O 9 in England, etcetera,
etcetera. So you have the invention of the
university. So it's hard to make a case that
there was an intellectual flourishing when the institution
that we even have today that is all about intellectual
flourishing. At least it used to be.
Today it's about indoctrination,but it used to be about
intellectual flourishing and thearts and learning and thinking
(03:45):
for yourself, not thinking like everybody else.
It's changed, but it used to be that that started in the
medieval period. You also had an incredible list
of intellectual and artistic figures.
I'll give you just a few. There's more than this.
Geoffrey Chaucer. Maybe you've heard of him,
Author of The Canterbury Tales. Marco Polo.
You know the guy that invented that fun swimming pool game
(04:06):
where you close your eyes and and hit your head on the
concrete on the side of the pool.
Anne's helm. Dante.
Thomas Aquinas. Roger Bacon.
The inventor of Bacon. I'm joking.
Peter Abelard. Peter Lombard.
William of Occam. Albertus Magnus Cretien de
Trois, the author of Lancelot, maybe you've heard of that.
Jeffrey of Monmouth, the author of King Arthur, maybe you've
(04:27):
heard of that. John Dunn, SCOTUS, the Subtle
Dr. and others. OK, so this was a time of
tremendous intellectual flourishing, and that was just
mentioning some things in like literature and philosophy and
things like that. There were also famous works of
art happening at this time and paintings and sculptures and all
this kind of stuff. So today we're going to be
(04:48):
talking about life in the MiddleAges.
Now, if you have to give just anoverly simple, crass summary of
what this time period is, this is 500 CE to about 1500 CE.
Scholars disagree on exactly theyear that we should consider the
Middle Ages to have started, butthat's a good crass summary.
So it's, it's about 1000 year period in Western history.
(05:10):
So it's a huge chunk of time this Middle Ages.
Now, most of what I'm going to be saying is going to be what's
called the late Middle Ages. That's kind of the, again, the
back end of the the Middle Ages.A few things I'll mention from
the high or early Middle Ages, but that's what this lecture
will be about. And before I do, I got the
things I'm going to tell you, which I think are fascinating.
So hang in there, because if you're like Middle Ages, who
(05:30):
cares? Kill me now, please, with an old
rusty sword like the Middle Ages.
There's some fascinating things we're going to talk about.
I used a bunch of different sources for my research like I
always do, but anytime I I use asource a lot, I want to give a
shout out for that. So there is a professor named
Robert Garland. He's primarily A Greco Roman
scholar. He's written a lot.
I think he's over at in the UK right now.
(05:53):
Think he was in the US and they moved to the UK.
Anyway, he's primarily A Greco Roman scholar, but he has some
research that he's done on the Middle Ages that I found super
helpful. So I've, I've mentioned some of
his stuff in this lecture. OK, let's back up life in the
Middle Ages. Are we ready?
Let's talk about what it would be like, 'cause it was probably
not great for most people. Here we go.
(06:15):
First of all, what was it? Was it, what would it be like to
be in the Middle Ages? Number one, you probably could
not read. Sorry, like anything.
Not just the things in Latin, which was a lot of the stuff,
but you couldn't probably read at all.
As late as 1500, about 90% of men and 99% of women were
illiterate. OK, so that's not great.
(06:39):
Leads to a lot of a lot of dumbness, a lot of silliness, a
lot of superstition. If you were educated, though,
you were probably highly educated.
So the amount of education you would get in a medieval, you
know, university is way better than today.
Today you study for a few years,get your credits, get your
business degree, whatever. There it was like living on
campus, doing everything in Latin, having to debate students
in class and you would be there for forever.
(07:01):
If you wanted to be a master or a doctor or somebody that was
going to be a professor or, you know, studied philosophy or
something, you might be there for, you know, over a decade
studying for that. So the educational requirements
are very high. And because you knew Latin, you
could communicate with people all over Europe, which is
amazing that that Latin was the the lingua franca.
(07:21):
Do we want to call it that? That Latin was the French
language? That makes no sense, you know
what I'm saying? That Latin was this universal
language, so you could communicate with all kinds of
people. So you couldn't read, but you
could see a little bit better because bone eyeglasses were
invented around this time. So you could maybe see things a
little bit better than previous generations.
Gunpowder was also introduced inEurope at this time, so it was
(07:42):
invented earlier in China. I think it was the 9th century
or so, but it became popularizedin Europe at this time.
Life was pretty difficult, but you did get some off days.
So you got to rest on on a Sunday, on Sundays because these
were considered holy days where you might attend a worship
service or whatever. But you also had about 50 holy
(08:03):
days a year where you would get a day off work.
Now, despite what you might expect, you probably actually
had healthy teeth. So when I think of like peasants
in the Middle Ages, I just thinkof like Monty Python teeth.
They're just gross and falling out of their mouth.
You probably actually had teeth that were not terrible because
sugar was not widely available. Like the things we eat today
(08:25):
that just destroy our teeth, that are delicious, they don't
have that 'cause you just don't get to have very, very many
delicious things. 5 foot 7 was the height of the average male.
Now that's two inches shorter than the average male in the US
today. The average male is only 59.
As someone who's 6 foot 1, I feel as though that's a bit
short, but it's fine. You.
(08:46):
What would you eat in the MiddleAges if you were just a
commoner? You'd probably have bread and
porridge, but you might, if you were lucky, get some fish or
meat on some sort of holy day. You probably have a disease
called scurvy. What is scurvy?
We think of that as a pirate disease.
Pirates get scurvy. What is scurvy?
Because citrus fruit is not readily available, You don't get
(09:07):
enough of these nutrients that you need.
So your skin becomes gross and your gums become gross and your
body does a bunch of gross things.
That's my definition of scurvy. Just if you want to know how
much I know about medicine. The answer is scurvy makes you
gross. If someone looked gross, I'd say
not a doctor, but you probably have scurvy.
In the 1300s, between 10 and 25%of Europe is estimated to have
(09:31):
died from famine. So not getting enough food to
eat was like a real threat. It's not like today where you
can just have food ordered to your house on your phone, which
is incredible, which is why you want to Live Today or in the
future and not in the Middle Ages.
I mean, you might have entire, you know, populations wiped out
just due to famine, starving to death, which is is brutal.
(09:53):
There weren't as many people back then.
Villages had about 400 people. So you would know just about
everybody in your village. One of the biggest cities at
this time in London had only about 70,000 people.
To put that in perspective. Today they have about 9 million.
So these cities and towns were much smaller than one might
expect. Your house was probably this
small, tiny place that was just there to really keep you out of
(10:17):
the rain. Most houses had between 1:00 and
2:00 rooms and that's it. And that is where your entire
family lived and slept. In the winter, you might let
some of your animals, maybe sheep or pigs, into the house to
help keep you warm. Hygiene, you're starting to
notice, was not great in the Middle Ages as you smell of pig
and these kind of things. You were probably involved in
(10:39):
agriculture. That 90% of people are estimated
to have been farmers at this time.
So agricultural is a big thing. So a lot of people farmed, a lot
of people farmed for their Lord on his plot of land.
That was one of the most common professions, though.
We've actually found a higher level of arthritis in skeletons
that we found from the Middle Ages in England.
(11:00):
So you had a hard life. You're sleeping with the pigs
and you have no money and you have scurvy, you know, whatever
this pirate disease is, and you're doing your best and
you're just have arthritis because all you can do is farm
your whole life. It's very, it's rough.
You are under a system that is called senorialism.
It's kind of the feudal system idea.
So So what happens is you have these nobles, these Lords, and
(11:23):
they live in this kind of betterhouse than you, castle sometimes
made of stone. It's bigger, it's better a Manor
perhaps. And they have land and you work
for them on the land. And it's kind of the symbiotic
relationship. So the Lord provides you
protection, he provides you justice.
If somebody has wronged you, he lets you use his land.
It's his land. It doesn't belong to you, but in
(11:45):
return you pay you. You pay him, in a sense, with
labor. You might pay him rent.
You might offer some of your harvest to him and his family,
and especially you would be called to serve him in battle if
a war was happening. That was the duty that you owed
your Lord. But that's how a lot of people
lived. You had nobles and the clergy
that are also involved kind of in that noble class.
(12:05):
And then you had the commoners and the peasants.
And the peasants work for the nobles.
They benefit because they get touse the noble stuff, mainly
land, they get protection, etcetera.
And then the nobles benefit obviously more off of the labor
of the the peasants. As I said, hygiene was terrible.
A king might bathe only once every three weeks if you're a
(12:25):
king. Yuck.
Disgusting. So again, hygiene not not great.
You might be executed for petty crimes like theft.
If you stole a certain amount, you could be killed for that.
One of the weirder things that happened in the Middle Ages is
something called trial by ordeal.
(12:45):
If they were not sure whether ornot you were guilty and some
sort of, it's called a court case or whatever, they would
often do something that would hurt you and see the effect.
And in their mind, that was God either judging you or not.
Meaning you might walk through hot coals, you might carry
around a big piece of burning iron in your hand, and then
(13:06):
they'd wash your hand for like 3days after.
And if he came infected, you're guilty.
Obviously God hates you because your hand's infected from
burning it on the the metal. If it doesn't become infected,
you might be innocent. So sorry about your hand, but
you you don't have to be executed now.
You could also have small parts of your body cut off as a
punishment. If you had a lenient judge that
didn't want to kill you, didn't want to do capital punishment,
(13:27):
he could cut off your nose or your ear, your testicles or
something like that to teach youa lesson that you shouldn't have
stolen that thing. You're probably superstitious.
If you lived in the Middle Ages,belief in fairies, witches, and
omens was common. Maleus Maleficarum was a book
that was published in 1486. That literally means hammer of
(13:48):
witches and it was a guide for hunting witches.
So if you get bored reading all the theology, that is might be
one of the few things that you could read if you could read in
Latin. Now you can read about how to
hunt witches. So, you know, you get your
crossbow and your crucifix and you go vampire hunting.
Your Barber, in addition to cutting your hair, could extract
a tooth or amputate A limb. He was the town dentist and
(14:11):
surgeon. So tip your Barber well because
in the Middle Ages, he plays a lot of roles.
He wears a lot of hats. Let's talk about travel.
If you today want to go, let's say, from England to New York,
you hop on an airplane, which isincredible.
You have Wi-Fi. You're 30 to 40,000 feet up in
the air, and you have Wi-Fi and you're on your phone in air
(14:33):
conditioning talking to people, and the journey takes 8 1/2
hours. It's a long flight, but that's
not bad. If you needed to travel a long
distance like that. In the Middle Ages, a ship could
typically go only about 50 milesa day, 50 miles for an entire
day. So to get from England to New
York, it would take about 69 days at sea.
(14:57):
No, No GPS, no radio. If you get stuck in a storm,
cool, you and your family just died.
I think the Mayflower took 66 days, so that that's about a a a
good estimate. That's how long you would be
just to go from what is now an 81/2 hour flight while you have a
drink, while you have food served to you, while you use a
bathroom on a plane, while you don't get eaten by sharks or
(15:18):
killed in some sort of hurricane.
Life was tough back then. Jewish people were not as
accepted in medieval Europe because of the overwhelming
influence of Christendom at thattime.
And so one of the jobs they became proficient in.
So let's talk about something that is is kind of a stereotype,
but is also kind of rooted in history.
The Roman Catholics, which is what you would be, by the way,
(15:39):
the only types of Christianity there were was either Roman
Catholic, which was the Western church in Europe, or if you were
Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, if you get further E
into places like Greece and thenRussia and these kind of places,
you'd be Eastern Orthodox. Those two groups split in 1054,
which is called the Great Schism.
And you didn't get Protestantismtill, you know, 1517 is when
(16:00):
it's considered to start with Martin Luther nailing his 95
thesis in the church door at Wittenberg.
And so everyone was basically Roman Catholic.
You were Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, if you were further
east and, or you were heretic orthat was it.
Now you might be a Muslim or a Jew and then you were treated
differently because you were certainly not the norm in
Europe. The Roman Catholics at this time
thought that lending money at interest, what they called
(16:20):
usury, was a sin. So they allowed Jews to do it.
So Jews became Jewish people, became very involved and
powerful in the banking industryin Europe.
I guess the thinking of the Catholics was like, well, if
they're going to go to hell anyway, might as well let them
lend us money for our building projects or whatever.
So not saying that's right, but just saying that was the
(16:41):
thinking. So Jewish people became very
involved in banking in the financial industry in Europe in
the Middle Ages, due to the belief in usury, you had only
about a 50% chance of making it to adulthood.
That's crazy. So if you have 10 kids, five of
them will make it. It wouldn't be like today where
you only have two kids, because then you'd only have one that
(17:02):
might make it to adulthood. And then you also had one of the
most awful things that ever happened disease wise in the
world, the Black Death, the bubonic plague.
It had a 60 to 80% death rate. So if you got it, your chance of
dying was between 60 to 80%. And it happened within a few
days. It killed 1/3 of Europe, which
(17:26):
is insane. Maybe half of people in London.
It was off. I mean, so if you're listening
to this after 2020, which you are because it was recorded
after 2020, something with the death rate of COVID, the
COVID-19 thing we went through would not have even been
considered a pandemic. The death rate was less than 1%.
That would have just been considered a Tuesday in the
(17:47):
Middle Ages. Something like the Black Death
with a 60 to 80% death rate is insane.
So anyway, that's going on. What would it be like to be a
woman in the Middle Ages? A woman would be under the rule
of some type of male her entire life, whether it be her father,
whether it be her husband, if she joined a convent, she might
be able to be under the authority of a woman.
(18:08):
But even then, sometimes men were the ultimate authorities
over the convents. Whether it's an Abbot or some
type of higher up priest or something like that.
You'll definitely have an arranged marriage where there
will be exchanges of goods like property and titles.
Men could hit their wives if they disobeyed.
Back in the Middle Ages, they thought that a woman produced
(18:29):
seed like men do when it comes to sex.
If you haven't listened to the history of sex lecture, it's
very explicit. So don't listen to it around
your kids. It's it's adults only.
I talk a little bit about the belief of how conception worked
in the ancient world and in the medieval world.
But they believe that women should have sex often with their
husbands so that they did not get sick and die 'cause they
(18:50):
thought that their seed 'cause they thought they had seed like
men have seed would like congealand solidify in them and it
could make them sick or could kill them.
How many kids would you have? You might have up to 14 ish
kids. So your entire job is just being
pregnant. That's that.
Your job is to make people. Your husband's probably farming.
(19:12):
If your husband cheats on you, you are not allowed to divorce
him. You must remain married though.
You were allowed to live apart, so there's a little concession
for you. All forms of contraception were
seen as sin, and prostitution could happen for girls as early
as age 12. Again, a lot of bad things going
on in the Middle Ages. Now, you need to understand a
little bit about the overwhelmingly powerful
(19:35):
influence of Roman Catholicism in Europe to understand what's
going on in the Middle Ages. You can't.
I've seen medievalists, and I'veread medievalists that kind of
try to study the Middle Ages almost apart from religious
views. Regardless of your religious
views, I don't care. You can't study the Middle Ages
that way, though, because it plays such a pivotal role in
people's lives. You can't just study the Middle
Ages from an economic perspective or from a, you know,
(19:58):
literary perspective. You, you have to take into
account religion because it's going to play a part in
everybody's life, whether they want to or not.
The, the Roman Catholic Church at this point is the most
powerful institution on earth, even stronger than nations and
kings that they will get to bow before them.
And so you need to understand what it would have been like to
be a Roman Catholic in the Middle Ages, which is again, the
(20:18):
only type of Christianity available to you.
Let's talk about church services.
In the Middle Ages, churches were the hospitals and schools
of their day. You had what was called the
cathedral school, where if you wanted your son, for example,
and typically women didn't, but if you wanted your son to become
educated, he'd typically be educated by priests or monks or
these kind of things through thechurch.
They also served as hospitals. They took care of those who were
(20:40):
traveling, etcetera. You did not own a Bible.
OK, One, you couldn't afford it.They were very expensive to
make. This is before the invention of
the printing press. Also, it was illegal to have a
Bible in your own language, so you can't afford one.
You can't read 1 in Latin because you don't read Latin.
You don't have one in your own language, and even if you did,
you couldn't read your own language.
(21:00):
So there was not a lot of personal Bible study.
That's something that's going tobe popularized at the
Reformation, but not before. What you did probably learn was
to memorize the Lord's Prayer, the Ave.
Maria, and the Nicene Creed in Latin, although you didn't know
what you were saying. Now, there was a huge emphasis
in the Middle Ages, and you'll still see this with a lot of
famous churches in Europe on what are called relics.
(21:21):
Relics are these things that belong to or were touched by or
were part of the body of some ancient holy person or St.
And they were thought to be holyobjects that would bring you
grace if you saw them or visitedthem or touched them.
So there's a huge emphasis on religious relics.
You actually couldn't there. There were a lot of people that
traded in this. Churches made money off this.
(21:43):
The Protestant reformer John Calvin once commented that he
saw so many, that there were so many pieces of the cross in
these Catholic churches that there were enough to build a
ship. So everyone's just claiming to
have a piece of the cross and these kind of things.
A relic might be something like the skull of John the Baptist,
right, who is beheaded, nails from the, the cross, a piece of
the burning Bush, drops of Christ's blood, the spear that
(22:07):
pierced Christ's side or even breast milk from the Virgin
Mary. And, and these what's, what's
interesting is so many churches,for example, are claiming to
have the nails from the cross. I mean, there's, there's,
there's not very many of them, but a lot of churches claim to
have them. So it became kind of this abused
trade that happened in the Middle Ages.
(22:28):
Most of the church service, you would kneel.
What about the pews? Pews didn't become popularized
till about the 15th century. So you would kneel, but you
would stand when the Gospel was being read.
Men and women would sit in separate places in the church,
either the men up front and the women further back, or the men
on one side and the woman on theother side.
And the main focus of the service was partaking of the
(22:48):
Eucharist. One of the things that'll change
in the Reformation is that the main focus becomes preaching.
And so they put the pulpit in the center of the stage and that
becomes a focus. But before that, the main focus
is partaking of the Eucharist. So what would happen is you
would not understand the servicebecause the service would all be
in Latin. You don't speak Latin and you
would go up and you would kneel before a rail as if to separate
(23:10):
you and the clergy. The clergy's awesome.
They're closer to God. You're just the gross laity and
you're gross sleeping with pig stuff and you're not bathing and
such. And you would kneel and there'd
be a railing to say there's a separation between the clergy
and you. And you weren't allowed to take
the wine in communion. In Roman Catholicism, they
believe that the wine and the bread literally materially
(23:31):
become the body and blood of Jesus, like his, Oh, negative
blood. I don't know what blood type he
has and is the, the, you know, the wafers become his skin.
You're not allowed to have the blood because you might spill
it. We don't want to spill, spill
Jesus on the floor. And what you would do is you'd
open your mouth and they, you wouldn't reach out for it.
They would put that little waferor that little piece of bread on
your tongue and you would let itdissolve.
Why? Because you don't want to chew
(23:53):
the baby Jesus. And, and so that would be a
communion. Stained glass may be the only
imagery you would ever see in your lifetime.
Perhaps the only imagery you'd ever seen in your lifetime would
be in the church. It was almost a way to teach
illiterate people via picture book.
You could look at these biblicalstories because you couldn't
(24:13):
read them. We come across more images in
one day than someone in the Middle Ages would have their
entire life. They don't have TV.
They don't have these magazines and print books that they can
just flip through. They stay in their town.
You see more images when you scroll through social media in
one day than they would their entire life, which is crazy.
The church, though, did all the religious stuff for you.
(24:34):
OK, you went through the priest,you went to the church.
There wasn't a way to go to God apart from the church.
This will be something that becomes a a point of contention
later on after the Middle Ages, but that was there.
There wasn't a way of you saying, OK, I'm going to be a
Christian, I'm going to approachGod, but I don't need the the
church. You need the church, a common
phrase in the Middle Ages. Nobody can have God as his
father who does not have the church as his mother.
(24:57):
And the church was not a great place spiritually, morally in
the late Middle Ages. Martin Luther describes
monasteries as lice infested dens of homosexuality.
Mini monks had secret concubinesand sexual liaisons with nuns.
None can't get none. Apparently she can even Pope's
had mistresses. You know, listen, he's he's,
(25:17):
he's, he's a man. I don't care how holy is, He's a
man. And Erasmus, Desiderius Erasmus,
one of the great humanist scholars, one of the greatest
Latin and Greek scholars of all time, was the son of a priest.
Your dad could be a Carpenter, your dad could be a banker.
Your dad's not supposed to be a priest cause priests aren't
allowed to marry. But anyway, that was Erasmus.
(25:39):
Around the year 414 O 9, you hadthree men all claiming to be the
Pope. There was a church in Europe
that had an 8 year old boy leading the parish.
A lot of times church offices were sold and bought.
It's called simony. That happened a lot in some
places. In Germany, only one in 14
churches had an actual pastor. In some churches in Switzerland,
priests hadn't even read the entire New Testament.
(26:00):
The little small part of the Bible, not the the big old part.
And what you need to know in theMiddle Ages is the church and
state. Church and state are not
separate. Like we think of separation of
church and state as like the norm now because we live in, you
know, modern democratic republics or whatever, where
people have freedom of religion.That was not the norm.
(26:20):
There was no such thing in theirmind as a separation of church
and state. How would you make laws, if
you're going to make laws with those, either be Christian or
not Christian, You're picking what you're, you're picking some
sort of religious allegiance oneway or the other.
There's no such thing as just a neutral government.
And they realized that. And so there wasn't a separation
of church and state. And often times the state was
(26:41):
subject to the church. The the church at this time
holds overwhelming power. The church will call for the
Crusades. The church can tell kings to
kneel before them and do what they say, or else they will
excommunicate them and their entire nation.
I think it's called an interdictwhen they do that.
So it's anyway. So it's, it's pretty crazy.
The crown, for example, worn by Pope Boniface the 8th, had 48
(27:05):
rubies, 72 sapphires, 45 emeralds, and 66 large pearls.
It also had two gold rows, showing that he was in charge of
the church and the state. And then one of the more
interesting things in medieval history, in 1077, a guy named
Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the 7th, made the Holy Roman
Emperor, Henry the 4th, stand outside his castle in Canosa
(27:29):
barefoot for three days in the snow before he would lift his
excommunication. Think about how powerful you are
to be able to do that if you're the if you're the Pope and you
excommunicate the Holy Roman Emperor like the guy over
Europe, he makes the Holy Roman Emperor stand barefoot three
(27:49):
days in the snow before he will forgive him.
That's how powerful you are if you are part of the church.
It is an overwhelmingly powerfulinstitution.
And that stranglehold will not be broken until a foul mouthed,
lewd, often drunk German monk named Martin Luther.
We got a lecture, I think on on Luther will will change things,
(28:10):
which will eventually lead to the Enlightenment.
That's not Luther's goal, but that's where it will go.
So anyway, that's that's what's going on in in the Middle Ages.
Crazy, crazy time to live fascinating things.
Let's talk about one of the things that would have dominated
your thought though, and this iskind of sad, but it would have
dominated your thought in the Middle Ages, which was the fear
of hell. This, this is you're, you're
waking your whole life. Even if you were especially a
(28:32):
pious person, whether you trusted in Jesus, whether you
had partaken of the church's sacraments, whatever, whatever
it was, you would still be terrified of going to hell.
And hell was often taught in very explicit terms.
I want to mention something fromDante's Divine Comedy, Dante
Alliguerre, his Divine Comedy, specifically his Inferno.
(28:54):
He describes hell as having 9 levels or circles.
You might have heard that like the the 7th circle of Hell and
he goes into detail describing what these kind of things are.
Now, by the way, there there's certainly much more terrible and
graphic views of hell given elsewhere than than Dante.
But this is just kind of a very popular, you got mythology kind
of mixed with scary mixed with preaching mixed with mixed with
(29:16):
what's biblical. And this was just kind of the
popular understanding. And Dante obviously popularized
this. But let's talk about the
different levels of hell in the Inferno.
This the first level, 1st circleof hell, it includes moral
pagans. Great, that's helpful.
I like Aristotle, I like Plato. We need these moral pagans and
it includes unbaptized Christians.
(29:38):
OK, it's, it's, it's limbo. It's not really hell yet, but
people just wander around in loneliness.
So on each level it talks about the kind of people that go there
and what sins they commit and then what they have to endure
because of that. The second level of hell lust.
Oh well, good. I mean, at least lust gets the
second level. It doesn't get the 9th level.
That's that's great for, for most people.
(29:59):
People are blown in a continual windstorm.
That's the punishment for lust. Not that bad #3 the third level
or circle of hell, gluttony. People are freezing in a
continual icy rain. So you better cut back.
Better cut back on the fast food.
You don't want to be in a continual icy rain #4 or the 4th
(30:22):
level. Greed.
People are forced to push big boulders around.
Sounds a little myth of Sisyphus.
He doesn't sound too terrible. Maybe you get stronger, who
knows #5 anger. People are engaged in an endless
battle in a swamp. I just love how creative that
is. Being engaged in an endless
battle, that's not great. But in a swamp, dude, oh gosh,
(30:42):
your socks are wet and it's humid probably.
And I just don't want to that Moss get stuck to you.
I I don't want to control your anger.
Number six heresy people are burned forever.
And stone coffins. Well that just jumped up a
bunch. We went from like wind and
loneliness to burning in a coffin.
(31:03):
Heresy's a bad deal. The seventh layer of hell for
those who committed unrighteous violence.
People are made to drown in a lake of boiling blood.
Holy shit, what is happening? It's just gotten terrible #8 the
8th level fraud. People are endlessly tortured by
being beaten by demons. That seems less bad than then
(31:24):
drowning in a lake of boiling blood, but it's fine.
And then the 9th circle, the worst circle treachery.
It's a vast frozen lake where the devil resides with the worst
sinners, people like Judas. And so many of these are based
on Dante's ideas of the the seven deadly sins.
You probably see that if you've never seen the movie 7 What a
great movie. It's kind of based on this idea,
but the seven deadly sins being pride, greed, lust, envy,
(31:44):
gluttony, wrath, and sloth. So this is what life would be
like in the Middle Ages. It was not great, although there
was a lot of academic and intellectual flourishing and
even a lot of flourishing in thearts.
It's not technically the dark ages, but man, you've got to be
thankful. I mean, you're, you're listening
or watching this podcast. Think about all the technology
(32:05):
involved here. There are lights we have if I
have a blister, I don't die fromit.
I can just get some medicine. We can fly on airplanes.
We can. I mean, it's or I can take out
my phone, my magic space phone, and I can look at it and it
sends a signal to a satellite inspace and then it bounces it to
somebody else's magic space phone and we can talk to each
(32:26):
other on the other end of the world.
And it doesn't take 69 days to get from Europe to here.
It just happens in a few seconds.
It's really, really incredible. So that's life in the Middle
Ages. Thanks for joining me as always
on Ideological.
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