The Middle Ages began with the fall of the Roman Empire and ended with a great renaissance. The Middle Ages were shaped by its nobility, church, and middle class.

The nobility are the base of the medieval triangle. A noble man is more often described as a strong, great warrior. He is the hero that provides a somewhat sense of leadership. A perfect example of noble hero in its purest form is displayed in The Cid. The Cid is a twelfth-century Spanish epic that recounts the heroic El Cid Campeador. El Cid was loyal to no one but his followers and was pretty much a loner. While strong and brave, at the same time, he was a master of tactics. He avoided putting his men in danger at all costs and only took a proportional amount of military booty for himself. El Cid was what a noble hero was supposed to be (Cantor, ed. 3-4).

During the Middle Ages, society established what historians, today, call the “Shame Culture.” This culture says that a noble man should never be one to fall victim to shame, nor is he one to hesitate w

Thanks to the population explosion, the nobility and the church gained but lost at the same time. The higher nobility took advantage and made a lot of profit off the boom with their feudal estates, but were still not happy with the effects that the population increase had on culture and politics. The church liked the increase in the population because it gave them more people to preach to; but at the same time, they got overwhelmed with all the changes that needed to be made in order to consistently follow the worldview (Cantor, ed. 60-61).

The church believed that animate things were nothing more than a stretch from animals to humanity, then angels to the godhead. While this hierarchical system existed, the Pope also maintained authority not only over the church, but also the kings and emperors. The kings were over the earthly aspects of life, while the Pope was over the spiritual side. Ultimately, the spirit was the ruler. Between 1050 and 1300, close to fifty percent of the Rome ideal was taken over by the papal authority. More or less, the papal rules were not a success and caused major confrontations (Cantor, ed. 28-29).

In closing, I would just like to say that I now know that the Middle Ages were a time of recovery and regrowth. It may have started with the fall of an empire, but it made progress and eventually developed into a great era.

Another great figure, St. Benedict of Nursia, played a big role in the universal institutions. Benedict was a Roman aristocrat that ran a monastery, St. Benedict’s abbey. Benedict knew what his monastery was capable of and then went out and spread the word (Koenigsberger 125). His men went above and beyond their call of duty. Benedict was a strong believer in the hierarchic view of the church and society, and he played a big part in the hierarchical system running as smoothly as it did. Most believe that Benedict’s rule was very much influenced by St. Augustine’s ideals. It is certain that both figures played a big role in the Christian church being what it became; not only a church, but an institution (Cantor, ed. 34-41).

A more utilitarian doctrine believed that the monarch was there to keep and maintain peace on the earthly realm, whereas, the c

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