The Church and All Its Greatness

The Church is involved in everything thanks to Clovis। It starts with Clovis and when Clovis decides, I want to be baptized, become Christian, along the rest of my kingdom, BAM! There it is, the church is now more than just a religious institution. They have their own laws, so every subject you were subjected to two different legal codes, the one imposed by the king and the civil authority, your lord. You break that law you get punished. Then you’ve got Canon Law the one brought by the Pope. The two worst punishment issued by the Pope were

1.) Kicked out of the church (aka Excommunication)
The church was there because for the mass majority in Europe, life was bad। It sucked. Old age was 30. Infant mortality was over 50 percent. So if you were a peasant, you are going to watch half of your children die. And for the kids, most of them would be orphans before they were 13 because your parents died young and half the kids die become they got to that age. Enter the church… who takes care of you when your parents are dead and you’re only seven? The church does. They maintain the orphanages; they’re the humanitarians in this whole picture. On top of that, your life as a peasant is miserable terrible and bad. What’s the point? Well, the church tells you, “Hey were know your life is bad. But, good news, when you die, there’s heaven. It’s paradise and lasts for all eternity. But the only way to get there is through us. You need us to get you there and we offer you sacraments.” You must receive the sacraments to get into heaven. If you break the Canon Law and turn out to be a bad person, they kick you out which means you can’t get the sacraments, which is their way of telling you to go to hell.

2.) Interdiction
Well, over time, some kings get smart. They think, “oh really you’re going to kick me out? So what my life is great already. And I don’t believe in your garbage anyway. I can just find and pay a road priest a ton of money and he’ll give me the sacraments anyway. Ha-ha.” So the Pope’s got to be drastic. Not only do they excommunicate the king, but they take the sacraments from the entire kingdom. That’s going to crush the peasants because that just gave them nothing to live for. By dawn, that king is so dead.

In conclusion the church isn’t just about religion, but it’s about politics too and it has power BIG TIME.