· The Virgin Mary holding a closed book, which symbolizes her virginity.

· Medieval Churches were physically designed to represent the Cross and/or the Body of Christ.

· Vernicles (handkerchiefs) were commonly found placed discretely in medieval paintings.

Medieval Christendom was structured through an overtly hierarchical system. Atop the struc

5. It is difficult in our modern world to imagine things not being the way they are now. The Renaissance and Reformation from Medieval times caused a shift in economics and social classes, government, and learning styles. Somewhere during the Reformation man was able to cause a crack in the bond of his own life on Earth and God. Martin Luther struggled within himself to find a better religious way than that one showed to him by Medieval Christendom; Calvin sought a similar reformation from a different angle – humanist, rational, and corporate, keeping obedience to God as the foremost idea of his faith. These two cornerstone religious thinkers popularized secularism, the fragmentation of the previous religious system of beliefs. After their success, big religion did not stand a chance in the oppression of individual or secular belief; they were too many and too far in between to be crushed through war, and their followers felt too much entitlement to their values to be converted back to majority belief and the authoritarian rule of theocracy.

Thinking began to evolve during the Renaissance. For the first time, people began to question the prevailing conditions of Christian supernaturalism. Borne of this newfound inquisition of truth outside of Christianity, and moreover authority was humanism. Babylon and the City of God were shed as the blueprint for life – through humanism, men considered the possibility that life on Earth was in no way connected to life after Earth, that the judgment of God may be predestined and not altered through the ways of mortal worship, toil, and sacrifice. The ideal life changed from the solitude of monasticism and strict, private worship to the enjoyment of all the richness and fullness of life on Earth. Through the humanist eye God may still have existed, but it seemed as only a glimmer compared to the previous obsession of man with Deity. God now existed in the beauty of the Earth, and secularism grew through this newfound interpretation of aesthetic transcendentalism. However, humanism could not serve as a total release from authority, mostly because the humanists had yet no real science to distance themselves from anything but thought and theory. So, instead of dismissing authority, humanism served as a carryover from one extreme authority to lesser ones, an obvious step toward independence of the common man.

Authority in the Middle Ages existed on two levels: the authority of governance and the authority of God. Governments existed because society is unachievable without authority; that is, the organization and socialization of a group of people is not possible through anarchy. So, governments in medieval times existed to keep order. Above governmental authority, of course, and an integral part of the theocratic world view of the Middle Ages, was the authority of God. The civil authority imposed by state governments were ultimately of God; as the author of all things natural, God was unquestionably the answer to everything, His governances according to nature and all His creations. Thus, authority in Medieval times was an extension of law from governments and from the church, in ways separate law and in other ways the very same law, for governments of the world could not ask anything more or less than the Word of God. So, authority was extremely prevalent to the medieval world view because society cannot exist, nor could it then, without submission to authority. And, in the medieval world view, submission to authority thusly meant obedience to the law of God.

Feudal order became obsolete once language transcended the barriers of their estates. Lay interest in literacy, politics, and fixed rights pushed for a governmental system that reached further than feudal manors. Finally, War fueled the nationalistic sense and pride that would eventually be the creator of the modern state in Europe.

Some topics in this essay:
Middle Ages, Christ Natural, Finally War, Reform Renaissance, Deity God, Europe Simultaneously, Christendom Randall, City God, Medieval Christendom, Christendom Calvin, medieval christendom, middle class, middle ages, medieval times, life earth, fixed rights, printing press, world view, medieval world, medieval world view, city god, medieval christendom randall, middle ages existed,