Many believe that Christendom was a rigid and brutal order. In medieval times, we are told that tyranny ruled, and the Church and the nascent State were constant rivals in the pursuit of dominance. So many modern historians have cynically reduced this period when Christianity prevailed to a time of cultural darkness and violent power … Read more
What should be thought of the quotes below? “Whereas the interest in and tendency toward maximum productivity continue to be dominant and absolute, private property has ceased to be a projection of the individual, a kind of necessary support of his individuality in the world of things, to become – this is something Christians especially … Read more
Born 4 March, 1394; died 13 November, 1460; he was the fourth son of John I, King of Portugal, by Queen Philippa, a daughter of John of Gaunt. In 1415 he commanded the expedition which captured Ceuta, Portugal’s first oversea conquest, and there won his knightly spurs. Three years later he went to the assistance … Read more
[E]ven Rodrigo’s heroism [Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known as el Cid] could not save King Sancho from the fate that awaited him at Zamora. On October 7, a knight named Vellido Adolfo snuck into Sancho’s camp and killed him with a lance. This treacherous act was an eerie repetition of the death that had met … Read more
I. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and shalt observe all its directions. II. Thou shalt defend the Church. III. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them. IV. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born. V. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy. VI. … Read more
Chivalry (derived through the French cheval from the Latin caballus) as an institution is to be considered from three points of view: 1) the military, 2) the social, 3) and the religious. We shall also here consider: 4) the history of chivalry as a whole. 1) MILITARY In the military sense, chivalry was the heavy … Read more
To be like Our Lord Jesus Christ was the ideal that inspired the Middle Ages. Medieval man desired to be linked to Him in the most complete way possible; to lose himself in Him. These sentiments were not only loving movements of admiration and awe. Medieval man took them to their final consequences, reasoning that … Read more
