Dear Ren,
"I am doing a study on Religion's Control Over Society throughout
time, and one of the areas I am looking at is medieval religion.
By control, i mean the way the masses were kept in their place through
religion, by awe, fear, reverence, whatever."
As you probably gathered from the list responses, this view of
medieval religion is largely out of favor. However, some works
written on the suppression of medieval heresy, particularly R. Moore's
works and some recent work using the theories of Foucault, etc., take
this line (including the literacy angle below).
"I have noted that the fact that in medieval europe literacy was only
previlent among the people of the church and possibly very upper-class
people definetly controlled the masses. The fact that they could not
learn many things put them at a disadvantage, surely."
This depends partly on which time period you want to talk about.
Views on this have been more optimistic of late--see R. McKitterick,
M. Clanchy, Brian Stock and others who point to the extent of
'functional' literacy in the middle ages.
"Also, as church sermons were done in Latin, none of the serfs
understood the sermons, and it was a very strange thing for them. This
awe kept them confused about religion, and made it seem very
mystical."
Again, this is a much debated point, but opinion seems to have swung
towards the view that although sermons were largely written down in
Latin, those preaching them delivered them in the local language.
Also, awe might have been a comforting thing. Many works recently
written stress the importance of saint's cults' cultivation of the
sense of the saint's power as patron, as someone who possessed the
power to get things done for his devotees. This might have been
inspiring rather than oppressing.
Also, I think all of us have at times been guilty of dragging concepts
of 20th century instruments of power--mass media, state-controlled
education, etc., back into the middle ages. Remembering the extent of
decentralization and poor communications may help to remedy this.
Congratulations on 'fingering' many of the major controversies still
alive and kicking in medieval studies!
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