Role of Church in Medieval England
In Medieval England, the church dominated everybody’s life. All Medieval people whether they were peasants or towns people they believed that God, Heaven, and Hell all existed. The Church played an important role in Medieval England. Church played a major task in everyday life and education was also involved. The medieval church played a far greater role in Medieval England than the church does today. Apart from the manor, the church was the main focus of community life. Church parishes were usually the manor villages (Warren NP). ... He was obliged to carry money for charities, keep up with the church, and provide hospitality to travelers. ... The priest officiated at church services, weddings, baptisms, funerals, and visited the ill. ... The Catholic Church was the only church in Europe during the middle ages, and it had its own laws and large coffers. Church leaders such as bishops and archbishops sat on the kings council and played leading roles in government (Butler 193). ... Many people took journeys to visit holy shrines such as the Church of St. James at Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the Canterbury cathedral in England, and sites in Jerusalem and Rome. ... From the very earliest of ages, the people were taught that the only way they could get to Heaven was if the Roman Catholic Church let them. ... Peasants worked for free on Church land. It was difficult for peasants as the time they spent working on Church land, they could have spent 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). Tithing was a system whereby each person was expected to give 1/10 of their earnings to support the church. The tithe income was divided up evenly between the parish priest, the church maintenance fund, the poor, and the bishop. ... What the Church got in tithes was kept in huge tithe barns; a lot of the stored grain would have been eaten by rats or poisoned by their urine. Failures to pay tithes, the peasants were told by the Church that their souls are going to hell when they die. This is one reason why the Church was so wealthy. One of the reasons Henry VIII wanted to reform the Church was to get hold of the Catholic Churchs money. ... You also had to pay for baptisms (if you were not baptized you could not go to Heaven when you died), marriages (there were no couples living together in Medieval times as the Church taught that this equaled sin) and burials - you had to be buried on holy land if your soul was to get to heaven. Whichever way you looked, the Church received money. The Church also did not have to pay taxes. This saved them a vast sum of money and made it far wealthier than any king of England at this time. The sheer wealth of the Church is best shown in its buildings: cathedrals, churches, and monasteries (“Church”434). In Medieval England, peasants lived in cruck houses.