More Great Ideas for the New School Year.Other records give the sense that at least a sizeable minority enjoyed themselves elsewhere on Sunday mornings. One Spanish priest, in the very early 14th century, reported to his bishop that hardly anyone came to church on Sundays, but rather larked about in the streets playing. There is also ample evidence of people just not bothering very much with religion – most of all not going to church on a Sunday. Others thought that there was no reason to think that it was God who made plants and crops grow, but just the innate properties of working and feeding the soil. A number of ordinary people decided that the soul was ‘nothing but blood’, and simply disappeared at the point of death. There is solid evidence of some ordinary people who looked askance at particular beliefs – at the miracles performed by saints, or the nature of the Eucharist, or what was said to happen after death.
But it would be wrong to assume that people were always very focused on God and religion, and definitely wrong to think that medieval people were incapable of sceptical reflection. The Middle Ages famously features great examples of extreme religiosity: mystics, saints, the flagellants, mass pilgrimage, and the like. Listen to historians Robin Fleming and Mark Ormrod examine the lives of migrants into England during the anglo-Saxon and medieval periods: There was also immigration in the Middle Ages – although the residents of medieval England didn't always roll out the red carpet for Welsh, Scottish and Irish immigrants. A few intrepid travellers even wrote journals charting their journeys: William of Rubruck’s Journey to the Eastern Parts of the World describes his three-year journey, which began in 1253, through the lands we now know as Ukraine and Russia. And those involved in trade certainly travelled, linking parts of the world together via merchandise across extraordinary distances.Įven in the early Middle Ages, all kinds of high-status goods were transported from very distant shores to various European lands: silk from China spices from Asia, brought to Europe via the Middle East amber and furs from the Baltic. Many went on pilgrimage, sometimes journeying thousands of miles to do so. It is not the case, however, that medieval people never travelled. But that would be the case with quite a lot of people in much later ages also. It may be the case that the majority of medieval people – particularly those who lived in the countryside – rarely travelled very far from where they lived. Listen to Professor Ronald Hutton examine how societies throughout the globe have lived in fear of witchcraft for more than 2,000 years:ĥ They travelled – and traded – over very long distances In fact, the book was initially condemned by the church, and even in the early 16th century, inquisitors were warned not to believe everything that it said. When Heinrich Kramer wrote the infamous Malleus Maleficarum in the late 15th century, his motive was to try to persuade people of the reality of witches. There were some witch trials in the Middle Ages, and these became more widespread in German-speaking lands in the 15th century, but those doing the prosecuting were almost always civic authorities rather than ecclesiastical ones.įor much of the Middle Ages, the main message that churchmen gave in regard to magic was that it was foolish nonsense that didn't work. The large-scale witch-hunts and collective paranoid response to the stereotype of the evil witch is not a medieval, but rather an early modern phenomenon, found mostly in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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