In medieval times the Church faced the daunting and difficult task of convincing society that marriage, once considered a family affair, must be truly monogamous and conform to certain Christian norms.
One of the norms that the Church tried to impose in the early Middle Ages was exogamy or prohibition of incest. The extension of the taboo of incest even to remote relatives is a unique feature of Christian legislation of the early Middle Ages. There was no precedent for such a wide prohibition in classical Roman law that limited the taboo to very close relatives. The struggle against incest intensified in the sixth century. In Gaul, councils threatened the incestuous with excommunication. Civil law also imposed such prohibitions. At first, the Merovingians were reluctant to follow the Church in this matter-Clotario and Cariberto were remarried with their sisters-in-law, but in 630 Dagobert II punished the incestors with the confiscation of their property. The prohibitions were sensibly extended in the eighth century. The Council of Rome in the year 721 excluded all consanguineous relatives and "spiritual relatives", that is, the godparents. Under Charlemagne, the number of councils on this subject multiplied, and in the ninth century, the ban was extended to sixth-grade cousins. Why did the Church place so much emphasis on these prohibitions that they had no precedent even in the Bible? Some historians see in this struggle against incest a real conspiracy of the Church devised to reduce the number of heirs and thus multiply the number of cases in which the inheritance could pass to the Church. Others, on the contrary, believe that the Church was not centralized enough to impose such a policy in a unified way. There are also those who believe that the purpose of these prohibitions was to ensure harmonious family and social relations. It could be added to this explanation that the prohibitions of incest are comparable to the numerous taboos related to sex (and sometimes to blood) which were preached by the Church of the Early Medieval with the intention of reducing the occasions in which the sexual intercourse, even among married couples. Numerous canons prohibited sexual intercourse with menstruating women and condemned the sexual act on holidays. The Church managed to convince the Christian population to respect such taboos by threatening divine punishments, such as the birth of a deformed son conceived in a forbidden sexual act. Such fears could also be caused by waving the red incest flag. Charlemagne, for example, who had possibly committed incest with his sister, interpreted the death of Roldan - who would have been his son and nephew - as a punishment for his sin. The civil authorities also had reasons that were not ecclesiastical to cooperate in the fight against incest. The endogamy of the aristocracy was a threat to the state because the concentration of land and wealth in the hands of large family groups could weaken public authority and threaten civil peace. The legal theory underlying the prohibitions of incest was perfected in the twelfth century in the context of the development of a coherent theory of marriage. Consanguinity and spiritual kinship became impediments to marriage, and although two people were married the marriage was void, and the couple had to separate.
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In medieval times, there were dozens of different kinds of armor that were worn by soldiers, knights, and mercenaries. With each improvement in armor quality, there was a bit of a tradeoff for maneuverability. However, a trained soldier could learn to maneuver while wearing heavy armor, making them some of the deadliest foes on the battlefield. Medieval armor starts at leather and moves up to full plate. Leather armor, the most common armor, was made of hardened pieces of leather, and could protect against slashing weapons in close combat but not much else. The next step up, studded leather, had metal studs covering the leather, which provided added protection but not a lot. From studded leather armor moved to ringmail and chainmail. This armor was made up of several hundred links of chain or rings, and provided the protection of metal with better movement than full plate. Plate armor is what most knights wore, and is as its name implies, is comprised of hardened plates of metal. This armor provides maximum protection, and sometimes, knights would also wear a chainmail hauberk underneath plate armor which would make them near indestructible. In fact, to defeat a knight in full plate armor, one would often have to tire them out or find a way to strip their armor. Everyone realizes what swords are. Despite the fact that the first expectation and material science of swordsmanship have remained genuinely steady as the centuries progressed, yet the strategies of setting them up fluctuate among societies and periods as an aftereffect of the distinctions in cutting edge outline and reason. Here is a brief portrayal of the different sorts of swords that have been around for hundreds of years. 1. Early Age Swords Swords were commonly viewed as the extension of the knife and typically alluded to as "short swords." The first swords had lengths going from 60 – 80 cms. Swords like Makhaira, a little sword, planned to be utilized by the mounted force; Gladius, a double-edged sword with a wooden handle, employed by Roman officers and the Egyptian Khopeshwere very mainstream ones. 2. Asian Swords Maybe the most extraordinary and differing sorts of swords, Asian swords incorporate straight, single edged Chinese Sabers (Dao), and the multiplied edged Chinese longswords (Jian). Portrayed by a solitary more full in the center, Chinese swords were the first sword made from high carbon content rather than steel. The greatest and particular of every Asian sword is the Japanese sword, most prominently, the single edged and marginally bent, samurai swords, Katana. Fit for cutting a man corner to corner in two parts in a single blow, the Katana was promoted by various samurai cleanser musical shows and Period dramatizations. The other known Japanese swords are theWakizashi, a Samurai sword dependably conveyed in sets; Tanto, a narrow sharp edge, little-measured sword, for the most part, utilized as a part of combative technique; and Bokken, a Japanese wooden sword which can turn lethal in the hands of a consistent sword client. 3. Medieval Swords Their Chinese counterparts rouse the outline of the Medieval swords. With the change in time and culture, the style of the swords has likewise changed. The Franks and Celts utilized long swords. The Vikings turned the handle of the swords into various molded knob for a superior grasp, which later changed into the cruciform with the coming of the Holy Church. The Normans developed the cross watchman, which enhanced the resistance. A portion of the traditional Medieval swords incorporate: Claymore: A Scottish two-handed sword with a cruciform grip. Excalibur, the sword employed by King Arthur, was additionally a Claymore. Cutlass: A short saber that comes more often than not with a somewhat curved cutting edge. Until 1949, Cutlass remained an official weapon in US Navy. The last model received by the US Navy was the 1917 cutlass. Cutlasses were likewise always utilized by privateers like Blackbeard and William Kidd. Viking Sword: These twofold edged swords accompanied a triangular pulverizes which have a place with the Viking Era. Blade: A sharp-pointed sword portrayed by a mind-boggling wicker bin grip planned to secure the wielder's hand. It has been utilized as a part of motion pictures like Reine Margot and The Princess Bride. Longsword: One of the prevalent two handed swords used by the Germans in the sixteenth century. Click here for an excellent article about two-handed sword. Saber: A solitary edged backsword utilized as a part of Europe since the early Medieval period. Scimitars: A hunting sword with the particular bent edge, prevalent among the Persians. These were swords used by the Prince of Persia, meaning that their impact in Babylon. Falchion: A single-edged, overwhelming bladed sword of European inception was a vital sidearm of medieval worker recruit fighters. These were the significant sorts of swords that were presented throughout the hundreds of years. For more than a century two-handed greatswords were used less for fighting against armors and more for the open battlefield where pike and halberd formations were combined with firearms. Accordingly, just as with its shorter single-hand cousins, the late 15th and early 16th-century two-handed greatsword was not a crude excessively heavy bludgeoning weapon but a fairly agile and balanced weapon designed for close-combat in war and occasional duel. |
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