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Edit ninja!
Hm. Short version? Clinical depression.
Interesting. Probably came with a good brainwashing though.
Still a male-dominated society, and still much more so than now.
Replaced with religious bigotry. Woo!
...because serfdom was so much better? I mean, I suppose it's better than American slavery, but American slavery was the cruelest system of slavery ever devised by man.
Yeah, but the lords took most of it to lavish on themselves or fuel their petty wars.
I dunno much about this, to be honest.
Yes, but it still was far, far from happy. Living domestically under the thumb of your feudal overlords isn't many steps removed from fretting over when the other feudal lords will come and take over.
Well, we can say with a large degree of certainty that compared today (which is pretty shitty), back then was abjectly awful most of the time. It may not have been WH40K GRIMDARK awful, sure. And I'll be honest, I haven't read GRRM's things. I'm just comparing it to the ISO Standard Presentation of Medieval Life in fiction generally. So, sure, it's possible that GRRM's stuff is that kind of absurd GRIMDARK. I don't know. You tell me.
I'm sure you could buy a non-racist continent if you had enough money. You'd just have to buy the continent and pay everyone to not be racist.
> The age of colonialism is more Renaissance than the Middle Ags, I think.
It's post Reinassance, that was my point. I was saying slavery was less prominent in the middle ages than during the colonial period, but it did still exist
hey, guess what?
same here. so not an excuse.
serfs had a measure of free will, which is much much better than slaves ever had.
you generally don't have to worry about your own feudal overlords coming in, pillaging your land and raping your wimmins, so it's actually pretty far removed. sure, you have to put up with their whims and whatnot, but it's a lot better than living in a state of warfare.
lolwut
^^ Ah, sorry, I misunderstood your post. Carry on.
It's still really not that great... at all...
Safety traded for freedom, combined with Stockholm Syndrome? I mean, really, it's not really that great that in exchange for protection the lord gets to do whatever with you. That's basically the goddamn mob, but with fancier clothes.
The Church was the one, back then, that had all the knowledge and did all the propaganda.
I know that if I was in the Middle Ages and weren't of noble blood, the first thing I'd do is try to get educated and join the clergy. Those fuckers did know how to enjoy life.
It's really not great, no. But it's a fuckload better than anything slaves got, and treating them as at all similar is dumb.
> stockholm syndrome
man, what are you even saying
fuckload of difference between that and brainwashing.
anyway
this argument is bullshit, so I'm going to do something that's more worth my time than arguing with a teenager over the internet
peace out, yo
The antisemetic thing in particular is something I find overblown. The Catholic Church -- the biggest official authority of the times -- actually condemned antisemitism (along with witch hunts, while we're talking about exaggerated medieval stuff). The prevailing attitude within the clergy is that Jews were pretty okay, although there were of course exceptions -- but such exceptions were met with resistance from within. There's some pretty great examples from around the Crusades of priests butting heads over this, usually with the more even-minded ones coming out on top.
The antiislamic stuff is more genuine, but still pretty exaggerated. As noted, even during the Crusades, Muslims were not generally harmed unless they took up arms, and most were allowed to keep their lands and livelihoods as long as they didn't present a front against the Crusaders. There were examples of Crusaders taking advantage of this, but then again there were examples of Crusaders going balls-out barbarian on one-another, too, which is a big part of the wacky politics of the time.
In short, not much of it is clear cut. It's very difficult to measure prevailing attitudes from the time because different sources will tell different stories, and much like today, the medieval period had its own social activists who were on occasion very influential.
Obviously, the medieval period is not all peaches and cream, and discrimination on a religious basis was certainly a thing. But I consider that separate from racism in this context because it was based on politics rather than racial attitudes. A dark-skinned Christian was as good as any white one, and better than a white Muslim. This is isn't good or right, even if it displays better attitudes towards race than we witness in much of the modern world, but this kind of thing has to be analysed and studied in its own context.
For instance, anti-Islamic attitudes are linked to racism today because of the prevalence of race in Western thinking, especially as a result of colonialism. However, the medieval period is pre-colonial and therefore the concepts that became the cornerstones of our views on racism hadn't actually become things yet. Medieval people were unlikely to be completely colourblind, but they just don't have the social foundation or any particular benefit when it comes to discrimination on racial grounds, since race was so disassociated from power or politics.
coming soon
my new book
I'll kindly stay out of the debate on the accuracy of modern presentations of medieval times, since I know that I don't know what medieval times were actually like, but there's a fair number of people here who're depressed, and they've presented themselves pretty well, for the most part. When you're taking a debate like this too seriously, that's all there is to it.
I don't know. I'm doing a grad paper on inqusition, and the Jews were treated really, really horrible, at least in Spain.
The Spanish inquisition was really that bad? I don't know, a region which saw a lot of cultural mixing wouldn't be more tolerant to differing views?
I believe the Inquisition was much later, though, more an early sign of the more socially degenerate Renaissance than the medieval period. What's the actual time period? The Renaissance is thought to have begun sometime within the mid-late fifteenth century, which if I recall is reasonably early days for the Inquisition.
The Inquisition against crypto-Jews among the converts began in 1478. In Spain, there were violent pogroms against the Jews in 1391, which led most of them to convert.
^^ As Christian Spain was expanding during the Reconquista, there was a progressively larger number of Jews and Muslims under the rule of the Christian kingdoms. The general population was fairly tolerant, but a lot of the high-ranking clergy was strongly anti-semitic and anti-islamic, and they managed to spread their hate. Torquemada, the first Grand Inqusitor and the personal advisor of Ferdinand and Isabelle, was a huge anti-semite and managed to convince the royal couple to basically exterminate the Jews from Spain in order to "ensure stability". Most of them converted, but many continued to practice their religion in secret, which was basically the cause for the creation of the Spanish Inqusition - to ensure the orthodoxy of faith among the converts. When it all became too much of a bother, a large percent of the Jewish population was expelled in 1492. It was very similar with the Muslims - the Church and the Crown basically wanted to make Spain an ethincally and religiously homogenous nation.
Heh, true. You could sell indulgences, too. I believe that was the name for it, anyhow.
I'd read that.
Well, thank you for that little bit of projection of motivation, Everest. To begin with, the question was why I'm so pessimistic, not why I'm disagreeing so strongly here; nor did I say that that was how all depressed people would react to such a thing. I was asked for the reason why I, personally, singularly, think the way I do; I gave a simplified and incomplete answer because it's both not the subject of the thread nor any of your business unless I choose to make it so. Secondly, I disagree strongly because, well, I disagree strongly. Madass, being one who seems to idealize the past, has a reason to be biased in favor of a more optimistic view of medieval life. I, as someone who thinks the past sucked as a generality, have a reason to be biased in favor of a more pessimistic view of medieval life. The reality is, presumably, somewhere in between. As in, worse than today, but better than what GRRM would have you think.
As to the Spanish Inquisition, I've actually heard it said that the Inquisition is actually kind of overblown, and that they didn't really kill that many people nor did they get much done in general.
Though I must admit, when you say "witch hunt," I think less "medieval" and more "colonial America" or "red scare," Madass.
1478 is pretty well into the Renaissance, if we take the Renaissance to have been earnestly established by 1453.
I've gone out of my way to note that I don't consider the past ideal and there were certainly plenty of problems with it, but they don't stretch as far as people seem to think. In large part, it's because we tend to automatically dress the past in modern problems, many of which were less prevalent or didn't exist.
As far as I see things, religious tension and lack of medical expertise were the biggest issues facing medieval people. There's a large body of evidence to support reasonably positive interpretations of the era, though. For instance, medieval Europeans were the tallest in history until the late 19th century onwards, which suggests an extremely healthy, balanced diet and excellent access to food on a regular basis. This isn't just the nobles, either, but the peasants and at large.
Yeah, but we still must consider the pogroms of 1391.
Also, there was much, much more. I urge you to read this. The Jews had it pretty bad.
So, you not only acknowledge that you're arguing from a flawed perspective and that the reality is different, but you're not even attempting to correct yourself.
Did they actually eat any better than your average 18th-19th century peasant, though?
Pogroms? I have heard this word, but I don't know what it means.
That would be the point of arguing it. Eventually the point of accuracy is found, based on figuring out what was shitty and what was not so shitty.
I've read that article, and I don't doubt it. What I do question, though is the spread of this kind of thing. The article doesn't really comment well on particular locations or timeframes. France and Poland may well (and probably did) have different policies concerning Judaism, and different rules would have applied at different times. This is one of the challenges when studying medieval history, since so much of it seems to occupy a cloud of accepted fact that doesn't much get reviewed.
For instance, the Church was also known to intervene in violence against Jews, and a Jew (Ott Jud) was inducted into the Society of Liechtenauer as the finest grappling specialist in Germany. Both are pretty significant, especially in the second case where the people who approved such things were largely groups of religious and secular knights.
If their size is any indication, then they certainly did. We're not just talking about the genetically tall Scandinavians here, but peasants and nobility from all over Europe. Nutrition was just pretty damn good in the grand scheme of things.
What I took from Alex's response to you was that your cocksureness is a bigger issue than your pessimism.
A pogrom is a violent mob attack against a minority group; it's usually used in the context of violence against Jews. It comes from the Russian word погром, due to the infamous Russian anti-semitic riots at the beginning of the 20th century.
Sure, it definitely wasn't completely black and white, but you can't deny that there was a general atmosphere of anti-semitism in medieval Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
V Eliminate use of buzzwords('brainwashing'), don't use emotions as a justification for keeping a skewed view on reality after acknowledging said skewed view.
But meh, useless tangent.
That would imply that standards of living actually got worse from the medieval period to the Age of Imperialism. Which isn't quite surprising, but kind of pathetic...
...I've literally never heard that word before. Well then, you learn something new everyday.
How would you prefer I argue, then?
Huh. Again, learning new things everyday.
In some ways it did. The medieval lifestyle was not comfortable, but it was actually very healthy. There was a strong balance between vegetable and meat intakes, plus a wealth of clean drinking water. Anyone who was worth half a damn was pretty fit because it was a very active lifestyle. Also keep in mind that, unlike today, being heavily academic did not imply a lazy lifestyle. An academic monk was a hard-working scribe (which is very thirsty work), a nobleman was expected to be both well read and an able swordsman and so on and so forth.
I reiterate that it was a time with flaws, hardships and inequality. But there were also a lot of great things about it, too, and those tend to get lost in the kind of revisionism that paints the Crusades as prototypical examples of colonialism, or the ones that consider the period an intellectual rut. It might seem that I idealise the time, but I'm simply more aware of the factors in its benefit and the ways in which it could break away from its weaknesses. This doesn't mean I think it was an egalitarian society, but history tells a different story to films, books and games -- and sometimes, that story really is endearingly bright.
Colonialism isn't really the right word, since Urban II didn't intend to colonize the Byzantine Empire, just conquer and re-assimilate it.
~shrug~
I choose to look at it not from the angle "well, it wasn't that bad" but rather "it might not have been as bad as most people think, but it was definitely still much more awful than is acceptable." I mean, come the fuck on, they had an actual term for the lord's "right" to sleep with the wife on the first night of marriage. Even if it wasn't a wide-spread practice, that speaks of deep societal problems, regardless of whether or not they got their regular exercise and a relatively balanced daily diet and weren't under constant threat of invasion by outside forces.
I'm almost entirely sure Braveheart made that up. It was an actual law for all of about five minutes before someone pointed out that it was wrong and heinous and it got cut.
And the thing is, the medieval time period, like any time period, isn't some kind of abstract. It's made of individual people, and I just don't feel comfortable looking back and thinking of a whole people as awful based on time period and location. It's kinda like we're supposed to be reverent of other cultures and their pasts, but we're very quick to look at our own history with hostility -- especially the period most disconnected from our contemporary failings.
I certainly agree that the medieval period does not represent an ideal society at all and some factors of it were unacceptable. Then again, I consider some factors of modern and recent times unacceptable as well, and sometimes I have to question whether we've come that far at all. Sometimes, an innocent village might be pillaged for resources, but the USA put Japanese Americans in concentration camps during the 40s and blew a multitude of civilians sky high with experimental bomb technology. Colonial Englishmen robbed Aboriginal Australians of their land wholesale, including a number of massacres. Mexico is currently engaged in a drug war with a large civilian casualty toll, to say nothing of combat in the Middle East.
None of these things make the medieval period better, but I can't think of modern society as being that much more progressive when we're doing a lot of the same stuff on a wider scale with automatic weapons. And while I disagree with the resultant discrimination against the Jews, I really like the way medieval theory considered adding interest to something putting a price on time, which belonged to no-one. That, I think, is a pretty clear (and just) thought, and perhaps is the kind of historical example we should take rather than modelling our Western world on the policies of the Romans or Greeks, who are further removed from our concepts of social justice (despite contributing some really awesome things).
I know that the Ottomans had that law in Serbia and probably the rest of the Christian Balkans, but that was well after the Middle Ages. I don't know about the rest of Europe.
Truth be told: I've never seen all of Braveheart. 1984, on the other hand, was very naughty in lying to me. Although I should totally have known better than to initially skim the Wikipedia page on the matter. Mea culpa.
I wouldn't ever go so far as to qualify everyone in any period as "awful." The leaders were probably awful, as a generality. The people were, in all likelihood, mostly deprived of agency, misinformed through propaganda, and set on a mob mentality-fueled course towards whatever horrible end the elite needed accomplished. You know, like it's been for all of history after we entered the agricultural stage of technological development.
~shrug~
I agree. We're really not that much better. After all, only a century ago we were embarking on a subcontinent-sized industrial war that sacrificed 31 million people (and about 50-100 million afterward from disease) for absolutely nothing.
I'd say that we're better in some, smaller ways, and worse in other, larger ways.
After all, the robber barons of today would make the kings of the feudal era blush, with what they get away with on a daily basis. To say nothing of the sheer destructive capacity of things like aircraft carriers, nuclear missiles, fighter jets, armored vehicles, etc.