Posted on 12/01/2009 6:34:51 AM PST by NYer
Maybe Alex is PRO-poverty.
Ah. The old “long arm of Rome”. Always SOOOO effective in the Middle Ages. Especially during that Great Schism thingy, and the Conciliarist crisis, and in all relations with Russia and Constantinople, and of course, how can we forget, Rome’s great success in stopping that Reformation hootenanny?
Alex is a Calvinist so in the end we’re all just a bunch of meat puppets in the end anyway; what’s a little poverty between your pre and final destination?
I should read these before I post...
Well, even the serfs of the 12th-16th centuries only had to pay a 20% tax, and had far more liberty and holidays than we do. The nobles got stuck with all that icky wars and fighting stuff that lead to things like getting your head chopped off or getting captured by Muslim slavers, while serfs just got to stay home and farm and make the occasional pilgrimage.
Everyone only had wood energy for cooking and heat, everyone ate pretty much the same food stuffs (no luxury imports beyond the occasional spice), houses differed mainly in size, and the Church provided what little medical care and education there was equally. I suppose the rich had linen underwear and the poor had to make do with wool, and the rich got to dye their clothes in fancier colors. How terrible.
That's not charity, though -- that's maintenance, something that's worked out between the secular government and the church. The government decides to support the church, the church is not holding a gun to anybody's head.
And don't tell me they hold the threat of excommunication. That's been shown to be SOOOO effective with CINO politicians!
Its God’s will for you to be rich.
So if you are poor, you must be a sinner.
Germany and Switzerland, for two examples have ecclesiastical poll taxes. The only way out from under them is to apostasize, so yes, you are excommunicated. They do far more than support maintenance of the Church - they pay for its social work as well, and go to support the Vatican. This is why the Vatican has been very close to Germany and the US in the past century - these are her two greatest sources of financial support due to the wealth of the Catholic people and their large numbers.
Sounds like a nice socialistic society.
How many serfs were able to rise above their station?
But is the poll tax charged against everybody, or only Catholics? (I lived in Germany for a year, but I was an Episcopalian at the time, so what did I know?)
If you could get gone and stay gone for a year and a day, you were free. Also, if you could get to one of the larger cities and claim sanctuary, you were free.
Enterprising serfs could also become yeomen, through service to their lord, being rewarded with a franchise charter that declared them free.
One of the reasons England was freer than most of the other European countries. Upward mobility. You can read all about it in the chapter in Conan Doyle's White Company about Lady Tiphaine and the blessed hour of sight.
So you had to run away and hope you could get sanctuary or stay hid for a year and then you could be free. Hmmm...no natural rights just the ability to run away somehow affords someone freedom.
No, I prefer natural rights.
But for medieval Europe, that was a darned good deal, nothing else even remotely like it at the time.
You left out the charter, which was the best way for folks who didn't want to run. But even if you ran, with communications the way they were in those days, and no law enforcement, it wasn't as hard as you'd think. Lots of people took advantage of the opportunity to vote with their feet. And it self-selected for folks with enterprise and daring, which made the yeoman class the bedrock of England, basically.
At least that's one Romanist vote for natural rights.
Whew...I thought it was going to be a shutout.
GASP! Your post violates the single most important rule in all Internetdom! It's now in the running for "the most cowardly post of the week" award!
He was already present on the thread, posting two minutes before me (and ten minutes after).
Don’t try to pull me into your sewer.
The Chihuahuah yapping is just background noise.
Chihuahua? Nah, be fair to yourself.
You're more of a Yorkie.
Natural rights figure largely there. What makes you think that Catholics don't believe in natural rights? That's absurd. How could Charles Carroll of Carrollton have signed for Maryland if he didn't believe in natural rights?
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