The Story of Creeds and Confessions by Donald Fairbairn
Author:Donald Fairbairn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Church History/Theology;Creeds—History;Church history;REL108020;REL015000;REL067080
ISBN: 9781493418183
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2019-08-20T16:00:00+00:00
A New Military Ethos
Around the 900s, medieval Europe began to reorganize itself in new ways, and this was seen especially with the rise of the military classes.32 These changes occurred first in the upper classes—an important community under Rome, but one that rarely participated in combat directly. However, the vanquishing of the western Roman world by the trans-Alpine tribes, as well as later pressures from Vikings and other raiding peoples, increased the need for skilled warriors. Eventually, only those with lands and revenue of their own could sustain the expenses both to train and to support this warrior class.33
These warriors were the basis for our myths surrounding King Arthur and our stories about medieval knights. But such myths sugarcoat the real story of the warrior classes. For most of their history, the military classes were unruly and aggressive. If a noble had too many sons and then trained those sons in war, he often risked the calamity of seeing his family divided over the sons’ share of the inherited lands. To offset this problem, Europeans created the practice of primogeniture, a custom whereby only the firstborn son received the inheritance. Younger sons had to blaze their own trails, but once their father passed, they were often forced to take a supportive role to their elder brother—as, for example, in the Robin Hood story of Richard the Lionhearted and his brother Prince John.34 Not a few medieval wars were sparked by intrafamily conflict. By the 1000s, Europe’s larger dynasties, especially the Frankish kingdoms, began to be carved up into what eventually became the nations of modern Europe.
We have previously noted the importance of oaths of allegiance in the feudal world. These oaths were necessary to unite those outside one’s family: the vassal swore allegiance to the lord, promising to fight in any campaigns when called on in exchange for lands of his own and security for his family in future generations. The warrior classes emerged from these vassals. Over the centuries, Europe was divided according to these oaths of vassalage, and these warrior classes, once settled, created a patchwork of estates that they governed as lesser nobles. By at least 1200, these lesser noble classes became fixed, leaving a wide gap between the upper classes and the peasantry.35
By the 900s the church had Christianized most of Europe, the older pagan practices had all but vanished, and the church’s hierarchy now effectively extended to most of the continent. The warrior classes, however, presented a challenge in times of peace. Those trained in war found it too easy to continue fighting even without an obvious enemy. At times, the desire of some lords to gobble up the territories of their Christian neighbors proved too great.
To offset such violence, the papacy responded by issuing two decrees that led to movements bearing corresponding names: the “Peace of God” and the “Truce of God.” The Synod of Charroux in 989 stated in the “Peace of God” that noncombatants were to be unharmed during any feudal campaign.
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