I am responding to Tina's post, especially this statement:
"According to Christian tradition, the society has failed because of the corruption of the church where they are suppose to take money for charity for the sufferings of the poor but use it for their own gain."
I'm not quite clear which tradition Tina's talking about, but I'd like to stress that we need to begin our understanding of medieval Christianity by getting rid of the notion that everyone was corrupt and that the society is a "failure". Christianity was very very multifaceted, just as it is today. We will study many devout people's works. Look at the character of Holy Church in PP. She is the most positive character. Langland depicts certain bad actors (pardoners, etc.). But the institute cannot be more positively represented.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I kept wanting to think of the corruption in the church in the middle ages compared to the corruption of the government today. It stands to reason that when you deal with human nature something can very easily go wrong in the system, and it doesn't mean that the entire thing is flawed it just means that one aspect needs to be tweaked in order to make things run smoothly. Kind of like when the brakes need replacing on your car, doesn't mean you need a whole new car. The church and government are the same way.
Post a Comment