Church: The
Medieval Church played a huge role in society.The Church dominated everybody's life. All Medieval people believed that
God, Heaven and Hell all existed. People
were taught that the only way they could get to Heaven was if the Roman
Catholic Church let them. This scared
everyone into going to church so they wouldn’t go to Hell.
The
Church had a lot of control over the people.Peasants worked for free on Church land. This made it hard for them to
spend time working on their own plots of land producing food for their
families.
They
paid 10% of what they earned in a year to the Church (this tax was called tithes). Tithes could be paid in
either money or in goods produced by the peasant farmers. As peasants had little
money, they almost always had to pay in seeds, harvested grain, animals etc.
This usually meant the peasant would not have what they needed to feed a family
the following year. What the Church got in tithes was kept in huge tithe barns.If a peasant didn’t pay the tithe
they were told their souls were going to Hell after they had died.People also had to pay for baptisms,
marriages and burials.Tithe collecting is
one reason why the Church was so wealthy.
The
Church also did not have to pay taxes. This saved them a lot of money and
allowed them to spend money on its buildings like cathedrals, churches and
monasteries.Important cities had cathedrals
in them. The most famous cathedrals were at Canterbury and York.Cathedrals were bigger than all buildings
including royal palaces. Their sheer size meant that people would see them from
miles around, and remind them of the huge power of the Catholic Church.