1 The Impact of Feudalism and the Church in Creating Class Structure during the Middle The feudalist system was used to govern Europe from the 10th to the 13th centuries CE. During these medieval times, the society was divided into groups and classes; each of these played a different role. There was a distinct social hierarchy whose basis was administrative control and land division into units known as fiefs. Land owners were referred to as lords, and they would give a fief to a vassal to get military and legal protection, money or produce. In the feudalism system, the social system meant that the king was at the top of the societal pyramid, followed by nobles, the knights, the clergy, the tradesmen and at the bottom, the peasants. The church contributed significantly to creating the class system because it also had a class system; the highest being the Pope and the lowest being the monastic orders.
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2 Political, economic and religious influences had a negative effect on life during the Middle Ages because they perpetuated the class system. The political and economic system divided society into classes where it was not possible to move from one class to another regardless of how hard one worked (Forrest, 2018). One was born into a certain class and stayed in it their whole life. The church regulated people’s lives and worked in tandem with the political and economic system to preserve the class system. The nobles were the first estate, which was the highest class in society; the clergy made up the second estate, while the peasants and serfs made up the third estate. The peasants were the lowest cadre in society. The nobles and clergy relied on the labor of the peasants whom they paid poorly for their work.
References Forrest, I. (2018). Trustworthy Men: How Inequality and Faith Made the Medieval Church. Princeton University Press