Church Law Supremacy during the Medieval Ages - Report Example

< Church Law Supremacy during the Medieval Ages> by Abstract The paper focuses on law in the Middle Ages with a special impetus on religion and issues such as inquisiton, witchcraft and church court. Introduction: During the medieval period which was from the 5th century till the 15th century, the law of the land was in western countries and Europe Christianity. This was the period that any opposition to the Church Rule was crushed by all methods that was third degree torture. Individuals were subservient to the Church Rule which to the people in general was more important than being subservient to the King (Henderson, 1998). It was believed that the Head of the Church was a representative who had been directly appointed by God Himself and was therefore above the law. Conversions: During this period the religious policy was that the individuals should convert to the majority religion or risk being called a heretic which would include being publicly shamed, humiliated, burnt declared a witch a spy of the state and all the assets and the land would be confiscated by the church. In systematically falsifying witnesses and records there were thousands whose land and properties were attached to church assets and the individuals burned as heretics. This was a period where inhuman torture was meted out on individuals that the church considered to be an enemy of the church or when the church was interested in acquiring and attaching the land and the property of the individuals. Some examples of ordeals that an individual had to go through to prove their innocence are walking on hot coal, pulling objects out of boiling oil and being dehumanized. During the medieval period the church was more feared than the ruler of the country. The taxes that were taken from the people were two fold. The people were taxed by the ruler and the church. The corruption and the bribery among the top echelons made Sir Walter Raleigh lock up all the Bishops in a dungeon by picking them up in the middle of the night when they were involved with mistresses and paid women, to get the votes from the court to put Queen Elizabeth I on the throne of England (Herder, 1937). Law during this period was based on German customs and the systems were influenced by the Roman legal system. The social division during the medieval ages was divided into 3 distinct divisions, The Church, the nobility and the serfs. The reason that the Church rose to power was because the ruler did not have the capacity to tax and the direct taxes were collected by the nobility and then a proportion was given to the ruler. The church on the other hand, taxed the people directly and if they did not pay the taxes they were treated in the same way that criminals were treated. All conspiracies against the throne were no longer in the hands of the nobility during the medieval ages which was also known as the dark ages because of the atrocities of the Holy men. It was the top echelons of the church that decided the innocence or the guilt of an individual. As for the priests, nuns Cardinals Bishops they were exempt from being tried in the normal court of law and special Church Courts were set up to try the religious people. The torture methods under the church law were several methods that left little faith in the people about the Godliness of the Holy men of the Church. There was no system of oath during this period and the methods by which an individual had to prove his or her innocence were methods that were called ordeals. There were several types of ordeals. Ordeals by battle: Those who were innocent among the nobles mostly, were sent to battle and the one that survived the battle was considered innocent as the Hand of God had kept him alive because of his innocence. Ordeals by bread: There was an uneducated belief during this period where the innocence of a noble was checked by making the noble eat a slice of bread without chewing the bread. If he or she managed then the individual was innocent if they choked or gulped then they were considered to be guilty. These methods again were designed by the Church heads and not the heads of common law. Ordeals by fire: As mentioned earlier, individuals were made to walk on hot coal to prove their innocence, they were made to hold hot iron rods and the wound was then properly bandaged. If the wound healed in 3 days then the person was considered innocent as God healed the wound of the innocent and if the wound festered, the man was guilty. Ordeals by cold water: A person accused of being guilty would be thrown into cold water and if the individual managed to swim to safety he or she was innocent and if the individual frowned then the individual was guilty (Murphy, 2012). There have been cases where when women managed to swim to safety the court claimed that the woman was a heretic and a witch and tied to a stake and burned publicly. It can be seen from these ordeals that the justice system was not only feudal but the ordeals, sentences and the guilt or the innocence of a person was at the whim of the Holy men of the Church. During this period three types of courts existed. The Church courts, the Manor courts and the Royal Courts. The Church courts were formed to give lighter sentences to the religious persons who were employed by the Church. The Manor courts were mainly decide by the head of the village or several villages in cases of theft, disputes fights, ploughing land stealing etc. among the people residing in the area. The Stewards acted as judges and represented the noble under who the title of the land was given. The Royal Courts were for more serious cases where the crimes had spread throughout the country and the subjects had come to hear it. Common law was applied in the Royal courts though there was leniency shown to the nobility on whom the ruler was dependent on for revenues and money. Heresy: There were Canon Laws that had been passed by the 12th Ecumenical Council in 1215 A.D. to deal with heretics and heresy. The following are the main points of the Canon Law (Kirsch, 2008). The first was that they were to be excommunicated from the Church, which means that the Church going society would shun the person accused of heresy. The Heretic was not seen fit to be tried by Church Court and hence would be handed over for the Royal court trial. If the ruler was seen to be soft and understanding of an accused heretic then the ruler’s land would be taken over by the Church. The second was that whatever authorities were secular would be directed by the Church to ex-terminated anyone who was a heretic and the failure to do so would mean the Church’s wrath on the secular authorities of the land. The third was the power to seize a secular ruler’s lands and assets because of the ruler’s failure to deal with heretics, according to this Canon the Church felt duty bound by Divine authority to cleanse the land of heretics that were against the Church. The fourth was that a heretic had no rights and the rights were taken away to get forced confessions with third degree torture (Salomon et al, 2001). It was deliberate systematic torture that the Church meted out by first taking away all the rights of an individual accused of heresy and then the individual’s dehumanizing process would start. The fifth was that if any priests or Holy men of the Church were under the suspicion of heresy they were forbidden to preach in church or anywhere in the land. The sixth was that the Church’s efforts to seek out heretics would be continuous and diligent. The Church in this way would have no opposition and with the accumulated power and wealth they became the real rulers during the medieval times. Inquisitions: Anyone or any group that was a break -away group from the church beliefs and patterns of social needs would be a target for an inquisition. This was mainly prevalent in the Roman Catholic Church where the inquisitions took place in Portugal and in Spain the most populous areas of Roma Catholics (Shroeder, 1937). During this period the religious taxes were heavy and the people were forced to pay or be punished. The period in itself was one where crop had failed, the climate was freezing, there were mass starvations and the crime rate due to necessity was rising. To take the adverse focus off the Church and its methods of extortion for money and for taxes His Holiness Pope Innocent VIII wrote that the conditions that were affecting the land was because of witches and that it was the divine duty of the church to seek out the witches and burn them publicly (Monastic Matrix, 2014). Thus began the witch hunt and in the process those who had enemies and rivals would make false accusation to please the church only because of enmity or rivalry and the woman would be accuse of witch craft. People were made to force the woman out of her home, stone the woman, husbands were forbidden to help their wives if she had been deemed a witch by the Church closing all doors to logic and freedom. Cultural patterns: It is evident from this that any opposition to the Church and its powers was dealt with severely and stopped from becoming a force to deal with. As a result, the culture was that the Holy men were always right not because they were loved and respected by the people but because they were feared by the people. The power they wielded over the law of the land made even a King kneel during Mass in front to the Archbishop (Newman, 2014). Walls had ears during these dangerous times and it was necessary for not only royalty and nobility but for all individuals to be very careful of how they behaved and what they said to whom as everyone had to be careful of the Church men as they were Holy men. England broke away from the Church, and Protestant Church came into existence. The Head of the State was also the head of the religion. Henry VIII divorced Queen Mary of Spain after breaking way from the Church. The break from the Church came when the Vatican refused to annul his marriage to Queen Mary of Spain. From this period the reform movement in religion started in Britain. The situation improved slightly when there was no double taxation for the people. The situation improved slightly when Henry VIII became unpopular when he took Anne Boleyn as his wife (Moore, 2012). To improve his popularity, he stopped the double taxation and undid as much as possible for the people with creating a situation for his own assassination. The powers of the Church and laws that actually were used in the medieval period were the Church laws (Bishop, 2006). It was also during this time that the Holy men were found to be sex abuser, corrupt, vicious and indulging in creating traps and baits for individuals that had been marked by the Church for punishment. It was a period of superstition, inquisitiveness, black magic, witchcraft and psychics all of whom were considered to be either witches or heretics for they believed in the Almighty, it is only that they did not believe in the Holy men of the Almighty who were self- styled during this period. Conclusion: The laws during these dark times can only be summed up as laws influenced by the Holy Church men who took every opportunity to crush all opposition to the Church from any quarters and to extend their influence even in Royal matters providing them the control of the administration of the land and different lands in different regions of the world. Absolute power corrupts absolutely which is why the Holy Church was segregated into different variations of Christianity in modern times. References:  Bishop, J (2006). Aquinas on Torture New Blackfriars, 87:229. Herder, B. (1937) Law in the Middle Ages: Types and Trials pp: 236-296 Publishers St.Louis.   Henderson, John B.(1998). The construction of orthodoxy and heresy: Neo-Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and early Christian patterns. ISBN 978-0-7914-3760-5.Lea, Henry Charles (1888). "Chapter VII. The Inquisition Founded". A History of the Inquisition In The Middle Ages 1. ISBN 1-152-29621-3. " Kirsch, Jonathan. ( 2008). The Grand Inquisitors Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God. HarperOne  Moore, R I. (2012). The Waron Heresy- Faith Power in Medieval Europe, Review No. 12546 London Profile Books pp: 416 Monastic Matrix (2014). Available at http://monasticmatrix.usc.edu/ [Retrieved 10 Nov, 2014] Murphy, Cullen (2012). Gods Jury. New York: Mariner Books - Houghton, Miflin, Harcourt. p. 150. Newman, Simon (2014). Law in the Middle Ages, Available at http://www.thefinertimes.com/Middle-Ages/law-in-the-middle-ages.html [Retrieved 10 Nov, 2014]  Salomon, H. P. and Sassoon, I. S. D., in Saraiva, Antonio Jose.(2001) The Marrano Factory. The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians, 1536-1765, Introduction pp. XX Shroeder, H J. (1937) Catholic Canon Law in Dealing with Heretics, 12th Ecumenical Council, Lateran IV – 1215 A.D Read More