Medieval Europe has a completely different view of the nation from the modern view of the nation. It cannot be said without the authority of the church and the system called the feudal system that created the view of the nation.
* Medieval Europe generally refers to the period from the 5th century, when the Western Roman Empire ended, to the 15th century, when the Byzantine Empire fell.
I would like to mention the points that are particularly different from the current view of the nation.
- Separation of church and state
- Borders are ambiguous
- The emperor and king are just one of the feudal lords (← changes with the times)
It is a part such as. A feudal lord is a person who has the right to collect taxes from a certain land. Nominally, it has names such as emperor and king, but it seems that he was actually a representative of the feudal lord and did not have a particularly large voice.
So, the feudal system is quite important for learning European history. And church authority I will summarize about.
Let's take a look at the origin and feudal system of the national view of medieval Western Europe
Latin was used as an official language in the ancient Roman Empire, but it continues to influence as many countries remain as compulsory subjects in Europe today. As in modern times, the ancient Roman Empire had a great influence on medieval Europe.
The system of the Roman Empire will be combined with the systems of other ethnic groups to create the core system of Western Europe, so let's touch on that system and feudal system.
The beginning of the feudal system
At the end of the Roman Empire, a great turmoil was caused by the influx of different races (Germanic people) and the division of the country. Commerce and cities have declined and have reverted to an agricultural society.
Meanwhile, some ordinary people are beginning to see cases where they should have been their own land but are no longer treated as their own land. In this way, in order to have your land protected, you can entrust the land to an influential person and rent it again. " Beneficium 』Has created a movement to protect the property (a system similar to Japanese donated villas).
Probably because the influential person had the merit of receiving what was produced as a management fee by the influential person and being able to maintain and expand the military power in a confused society. The beneficium system will spread to Rome.
The system that the Germanic people brought to this system " retinue In combination with feudal system to protect property and family Was born.
The feudal system in Europe is different from that in Japan and China
- There may be more than one, not serving one master
- It's more like "giving a village" than "giving land"
There is a big difference.
Differences from the feudal system in East Asia ①, Serving multiple masters
What this means is that, as you can see in the figure below, it was possible for lords and knights to have multiple masters because of the contractual master-slave relationship. The trouble is that there were cases where the king was under the king of another country, and the border was ambiguous.
Therefore, it may be closer to the image of "the territory of Mr. △△" and "the territory of Mr. □□" rather than "the territory of XX country". Of course, if it is an individual territory, it may become an excursion, which is one of the factors that create diversity later.
To put it the other way around, the sense of belonging to the country was weak, and the great lords with many knights had the same power as the emperor and the king, so the emperor and the king were treated like one of the great lords. did. Also, if something goes wrong, the chances of getting involved in the land problem at your place will increase, so it seems that there was soil that could be spoken by other kings and princes.
Differences from the feudal system in East Asia (2) Manors follow not only land but also people
The influential people, such as the "kings, princes, and knights," who have a feudal master-slave relationship, were also lords who each had their own territory and ruled the peasants. This territory / property is manor Is called.
In the manor, there were shared land such as land directly managed by the lord, land owned by farmers, pasture, forest (← firewood etc. required), churches, etc. It is an image of a "village" with a flour mill, a baking workshop, and a blacksmith.
The farmers in this manor are serfs Is called. The descendants of Colonus and the fallen Germanic free peasants at the end of the Roman Empire sought protection from the lord and became serfs.
Serfs are assigned some taxes and jobs, but the most troublesome is the marriage tax . And death tax .. These two taxes are the bottleneck and the hurdle to go out of the territory is rising at a stretch. Rather, it was a system that could only live within the territory.
In addition, the lord can be denied entry and taxation by officials dispatched by the king non-immigration rights (=Immunitate) and lord jurisdiction The lord continued to be an absolute existence in the mansion because he had.
The only information source in such a mansion Is a church is. What if we don't get a proper education in a closed society? Can be imagined somehow. As you can imagine, the number of enthusiastic believers will increase and the voice of the church will become very large.
Church authority
feudal society Rome =Christ Church , in contrast to the poor kingship when Has had a great influence on Western Europe as a whole.
Pope Archbishop / Bishop / Priest / Abbot A hierarchical organization is created in which the order of clergy is defined. Above all, Archbishop And abbot It seems that they were also overlords with manors donated by kings and aristocrats.
Moreover, because the church had its own jurisdiction called "Canon Law," the priests became the same ruling class as the princes. The emperor has noticed here. And King is.
A person who is not a priest will be appointed to that position and will be spoken to the church. It would have been difficult to refuse the intervention of the emperor and the king because there were many people who donated the mansion to the overlord on the church side.
Originally, those who learned the teachings enthusiastically should have been at the top of the church, but the opportunities for secular power-covered secular people to be at the top increased, causing harmful effects such as the sale of priesthood.
On the contrary, the church is also a church, and it has become politically powerful enough to decide the policy of the country and has come to intervene in politics. The biggest event was the Crusaders is. This crusader expedition will have a great impact on medieval Europe.