The Value of History

Values and Beliefs

Paul Frank Beisbier, Paul F Frank Beisbier

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781645446378
• eBook ISBN: 9781645446385
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The work that is about to be surveyed by the reader represents decades of painstaking work to provide him or her with the most positive and freshest perspective with respect to what the discipline of history teaches him or her to improve the quality of not only his or her daily life but also those of all other whom he or she comes into contact with. This task is accomplished when he or she becomes aware of the fact that the greatest possible good can only be achieved through the promotion of the adequate satisfaction of the greatest number of needs of the maximum number of people within the context of its being mutually beneficial to all parties involved. Furthermore, the reader of this volume gains the widest perspective on how the above assertion is valid for and has a positive impact on all fields of human endeavor, individual human lives, and human institutions, since the content of historical subject matter consists of nothing less than the past and present record of all the events and developments of the above entities. Thus, since everything that people learn is through past and present experiences, history teaches them everything and nothing can be perceived outside the framework of its subject matter. To present a graphic example to the reader of this volume to clearly illustrate the truth and validity of the above points, the author has used the comparison and contrast of the values, beliefs, and cultures of two very different societies in variant times and places to do so. The retrograde valuing of power and wealth placed on them by a small elite in European medieval society, resulting in limited social mobility in a primarily agrarian society, is in marked contrast to the emphasis on limited individual freedom within the framework of the rule of law as espoused by modern America. Within the latter framework, it was possible to develop a modern industrial and postindustrial community to provide individual social advancement through educational and employment opportunities as well as through the availability of quality health care. Finally, through all that has been stated above, it is worthwhile for society at large as well as the academic community to peruse through the contents of this volume in order to accomplish the above objectives.

Chapter I

Values and Beliefs: Main Points and Medieval Notions

When one conducts a survey of the unique features of each of the concepts of history as well as their relationships to one another and their relevance to the historical subject matter characteristics, he or she becomes aware of just how powerful a tool each becomes in proving the practical value of that discipline. This can be well substantiated by examining the unique features of the historical concept of values and beliefs. The first is that the very core or foundation upon which cultures or societies have been and are being built rests upon their values and beliefs. Secondly, from the above premise, it follows that a culture’s or society’s values and beliefs determine the reasons for which, the methods by which, and the extent to which every human need has been and is being met. Thirdly, and most importantly, one realizes that the greatest possible good is the sufficient and mutual satisfaction of the greatest number of needs of the greatest number of people. Indeed, in the above statement is contained the most fundamental and basic essence of human existence and historical meaning. Without this fact, the human species is totally incapable of promoting its own well-being, much less rather its very existence. Implicit in this assertion is the balance and harmony claimed and advocated by Plato, Socrates, and Galen in nature as well as with regard to the meeting of human needs.

The validity of the above three points becomes readily apparent when comparing and contrasting the values and beliefs of European medieval society from 500 CE to 1500 CE to those of American society in the last half of the twentieth century and in the early part of the twenty-first. In the former, a system of privileges and obligations among noble lords, vassal knights, peasants, and serfs called feudalism dominated the entire community, whether it be a manor or town, and the life of every individual. The entire scheme emerged as a result of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire during the course of the Dark Ages, after 476 CE. In the absence of any effective political as well as military control of people as well as territory, it filled a vacuum left by the absence of Roman power. Like all other political and social orders before it, particularly the Roman one, this entire scheme was based on the desire of the top political leadership and nobility for wealth and power as well as on the need for security and well-being for the rest of the population, which in this case included the peasants and serfs. Similar to previous cultures and societies, there was a dichotomy between land on the one hand and power and wealth on the other. The top political leaders and nobility used the wealth and income derived from the agricultural produce and animals of the land to financially support military organizations and equipment in order to maintain their political power by controlling as much territory and people as they could. Feudalism was particularly adept at functioning in the hostile, barbarous, and anarchic environment of the so-called Dark Ages. Thus, it became predominant not only in Western Europe but also in the Eastern Roman Empire, which later became the Byzantine Empire. That it functioned well there can be attested to by the fact that this regime lasted until the Turkish sacked Constantinople in 1453.

Within the context of this political and social arrangement, knights swore oaths of loyalty to God and to members of an agricultural and landowning nobility, whose role as in antiquity was based on military and political leadership and whose power and wealth were based on the association between the free man and the warrior. The aristocracy was perceived as a social warrior class. Vassals and administrators swore allegiance and provided military and civil services to sovereigns and lords for either or both land and sustenance. Out of this concept emerged a common aristocratic culture that was respected and adhered to by most members of this social group, from emperors and kings all the way down to landless vassals. The latter, who received a better sustenance, and the landed vassals, who received a parcel that supported themselves and their families as well, shared a love of cultivation of the martial arts, such as swordsmanship and riding, appreciation of poetry and music, hunting, chess, and a command of a changing code of fashion and etiquette with the top political leaders and highest nobility. This culture evolved over a millennium and came to include the commercial classes in its ranks toward the end.

The Middle Ages can be roughly divided into three periods. The first, called the early medieval period, lasting from 500 CE to the middle 1200s CE, was characterized by the establishment of a new political stability, a new economic order and intellectual life all based on the rise of feudalism, the need to quell barbarism, leading to constant warfare and the growing power and control of the Roman Catholic Church. The second, called the High Middle Ages, from the 1000s CE to the early 1300s CE, saw new developments in urban life and secular culture, with an accommodating decline in monasticism. The third and last, called the late Middle Ages, from the early 1300s to the late 1400s, commenced with catastrophes such as the Black Death Plague of 1347–1350 and witnessed advances in military technology. These two developments undermined the power relationships and traditional structures of the feudal system, weakening them to the point that they could not cope with a substantially changed environment, which in turn produced an ongoing series of social and religious crises. Thus, the medieval millennium was not characterized by total benightedness and stagnation, as some classical historians have portrayed it.

Just as there was some social and cultural progress against the backdrop of a situation otherwise characterized by almost-total scleroticism, so, too, the hard-and-fast rule that all commoners were hopelessly and helplessly bound to an inferior social status due to its hereditary nature as well as the oath taken by them to perform farming tasks for an inferior remuneration was not always the case. The revenue administrators of kings, emperors, and dukes, chiefly clerks who made sure that their sovereigns and lords received their generous dues, hailed from humble stock for the most part. Thus, there were always ways of getting around the rules of a system that was for the most part quite rigid and unyielding. Even in some instances, there were wealthy commoners whose net worth was more than the poorest landed vassal. However, in an aristocracy that was entirely based on heredity from the very top, starting with emperors and kings, all the way down to landless vassals, and whose ancestors primarily came from Germanic barbarians who had plundered the Western Roman Empire, there was a high degree of stratification as far as income was concerned. For instance, in thirteenth century CE England, the wealthiest aristocrat might have had an income of approximately five thousand British pounds in 1999 currency, five hundred times that of the poorest noble.1 Moreover, that opportunities for commoners of lower social rank to enter the aristocracy were severely limited can be well attested to by the fact that as late as the High Middle Ages, the latter group constituted only about 1 percent of the total population.2 In spite of their small numbers, this class dominated the institution of feudalism, serving as the framework of medieval law and government. In so doing, its power and influence far exceeded its numbers. That the above was the case can be significantly substantiated when taking into consideration that commoners, whose function constituted providing the agricultural labor necessary to maintain the military machine that provided all the power and wealth to the sovereigns and nobility for inferior sustenance in exchange, consisted of over nine-tenths of the population at approximately 98 percent.3 Aside from the fact that traditional historians have exaggerated the misery, poverty, immobility, and hopelessness of this social class caused by the desire of kings, emperors, and lords to amass as much power and wealth for themselves as possible, and also because they did not value the dignity, worth, and well-being of the individual commoner due to his or her little perceived value in obtaining that power and wealth, most lived a daily lifestyle and experienced a standard of living that were markedly inferior to that of the nobility.

Due to the power and influence of both the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Byzantine Orthodox Church in the East, whose hierarchy was largely made up of men from the royalty and nobility of Europe, most clergy enjoyed a sustenance and standard of living comparable to those of kings, emperors, and lords. Like the secular upper classes, their social clout also far exceeded their proportion of the total population, standing only at 1 percent also.4 Furthermore, as was the case with the secular nobility, power and wealth were more valued than the well-being of ordinary people, resulting in not only very little real and substantial charity for the poor but also religious education of such low quality that even many priests did not know the ultimate theological meaning of many church doctrines. Thus, temporal power and wealth were substantially more valued by both secular and religious hierarchies than was the mutual and adequate satisfaction of the majority of commoners, including peasants and serfs. What’s more, serfs were virtually enslaved to the point where they had to ask permission if they wanted to leave the manor where they were employed. In spite of this, however, only the rights to their services could be bought and sold. They themselves were not the personal property of someone else, as was the case with slavery later on. It was not considered ethical for one Christian to own another. Moreover, aside from the shortcomings of institutionalized religion at this time, a clerical vocation was one of only a very few avenues one could travel out of the poverty and hopelessness of the ordinary person.

As far as the legal rights of the king, emperor, and baron were concerned, they were accorded better representation in court than that of the ordinary citizen. Commoners were protected by the discretion of sovereigns and aristocrats as well as by the judgments of juries, and it was a rare instance where the overbearing nature of the sovereign gained the upper hand. The same may be said of the ecclesiastical courts of both the Roman Catholic Church as well as those of the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Church. Here, in spite of the fact that members of the church hierarchy would get a fairer shake than the ordinary member of the flock, the rules with regard to matters such as divorce, marriage, adultery, and fornication were strictly adhered to, to a fairly significant extent, regardless of what class the defendant came from or position he or she held in the church.

From what has been said about the culture of medieval society above, one can come to the conclusion that a small elite consisting of kings, emperors, lords, and religious hierarchs had as its main concern and ambition the acquisition and retention of as much wealth and power as possible. Since most commoners were not very useful or contributory toward this endeavor, they were marginalized, and consequently, there was very little concern on the part of the upper classes for their well-being. There was no substantial middle class that represented the interests and well-being of the ordinary person as there has been in contemporary America. In that society, as will later be seen, individual freedom and opportunity in the quest for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were, and still are, the most treasured things in life among the greatest segment of society. As a consequence of an absence of middle-class institutions as well as the lack of modern technology that would manufacture and deliver many everyday amenities and services, many of the needs of many medieval commoners were not sufficiently and mutually satisfied.

Chapter II

Medieval Needs Satisfaction

That this was the case can be verified when examining the events and developments associated with their nutritional needs. The ruling oligarchy was concerned about the nutritional needs satisfaction of their own class as well as that of the lower classes only to the extent that it would provide them with a sumptuous life, and the latter with just barely a sufficient amount of food, in order for them to acquire and maintain the maximum amount of power and wealth. Furthermore, there was neither any incentive for the sovereigns and nobility nor the existence of a self-serving middle class to give rise to a technology that would result in the preparing, preservation, marketing, and transport of a food supply that was comparable in quantity and quality to what American society in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century had and does have. Aside from the possibility of foods such as meats, vegetables, and fruits to be salted, dehydrated, and frozen in winter, as well as the availability of a fairly good variety of foods from vendors and short distances, commodities from the New World and Asia such as tomatoes, potatoes, cassava, rice, and pasta were not yet obtainable due to the lack of desire on the part of a significant merchant class to explore these areas. Thus, the reasons for which, the methods by which, and the extent to which nutritional needs were met throughout medieval society reflected the core values of the ruling classes throughout the Middle Ages, and it was demonstrated that the state of affairs with regard to this matter did not result in the mutual and adequate satisfaction of the greatest number of needs of the greatest number of people nowhere nearly to the extent that it did in American society later on. That this was the case can clearly be demonstrated by the following: Both economic strictures in terms of income level and social restrictions in terms of social class led to the availability of all food categories on a regular basis to the sovereigns and nobility alone. However, many types of nourishment could be obtained by commoners most of the time. The medieval diet for the ordinary person was not restricted to just roast meats and gruel. Despite this, the food supply was erratic, subject to the restriction of medieval technology and the whims of seasonal weather. As a result, food production per capita and per acre was only one-tenth of modern rates.5 These factors affected the diets of all social classes.

The advantages of the economic as well as the social statuses of the sovereigns and nobility mitigated the effects of the above factors. They generally could afford to purchase fresh meat year-round and definitely had a preference for wild game. Aside from the usual staple of beef, mutton, pork, and chicken, they devoured boar, stag, deer, hare, rabbit, and bear as well as ducks, geese, pheasants, partridges, pigeons, bitterns, swans, cranes, spoonbills, eagles, curlews, and European bustards—in short, anything money could buy. As a result, their diets were far less healthy than those of the average commoner due to the high fat content in them. The imbalance in their diet due to deficiencies in grains, legumes, and vegetables compounded this problem, but this was offset by an abundance of freshwater and saltwater fish as well as shellfish. Again, bread made of refined wheat flour as well as food seasoned with costly Near Eastern and Asian spices made the aristocratic diets unhealthier than were those of commoners due not only to a high fat content in them but also a notable lack of fiber, vitamin A, and vitamin C in them. Even so, vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, beans, peas, onions, turnips, carrots, cabbages, and parsnips, as well as fruits such as peaches, grapes, plums, apples, pears, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, apricots, cherries, oranges, and lemons, were occasionally included in the royal and aristocratic diets. Within this context, like that of the ordinary person, the sovereign and aristocrat had two meals a day, namely breakfast in the morning and dinner in the evening. For the early repast, the upper-class man or upper-class woman had a breakfast of plentiful bread, ale, or cider, a cold slice of meat, cheese, and wine. Everyday dinners were of two or three courses, which included fruits, cheeses, nuts, wafers, spiced wine, cooked meats, pastries, and vegetables. To top off their dinners, the privileged few had cheeses, cakes, cookies, waffles, and jellies for dessert. Most of the populace did not have such delights on a regular basis to grace their palates. Another feature that distinguished aristocratic dining from the common or ordinary variety was the feast with the accommodating aristocratic food features of spices and game meat. Held in the luxurious great hall of the manor castle, this culinary event was part of elaborate ceremonies held to mark significant personal and political events or simply to demonstrate and reinforce hierarchical status and bonds with their subordinates, peers, and superiors. Potpies of different meats and cheeses as well as beverages such as ale, beer, rose water, and spiced wines were also featured at these banquets. Accompanying these functions was a code of ethics that included seating arrangements; the placement of salt cellars; having clean fingernails; washing hands clean; chewing with the mouth closed; handling a piece of food only if it was to be eaten; no gorging; no picking of teeth, fingernails, or noses; no drunkenness; and turning away if sneezing or coughing. This feature dispels an image of medieval society as being unrefined, benighted, and crude.

As has been mentioned before, another misconception of medieval society was that the commoner lived a life that was filled for the majority his or her time on this earth with almost complete misery, privation, and poverty. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the nutritional ingredients mentioned above that were readily available to the aristocracy were also, for the most part, attainable to the general population also. Fruits, both fresh and preserved, vegetables of all kinds, eggs, cheese, nuts, butter, wine, verjuice, poultry, fish, herbs, livestock, grain breads, and legumes filled the tables of most common households, both at breakfast and at dinner. Because of this, ordinary diets were healthier and more balanced than those of sovereigns, aristocrats, and even contemporary Americans. They consisted of large portions of carbohydrates on a daily basis from grains either boiled whole in soups or stews or ground into flour for bread. Besides, plain wheat, oats, barley, and spelt were consumed by ordinary people. Unrefined flour made for a higher nutritional content. Legumes such as beans, peas, and lentils also occupied a major portion of the common diet. These proteins were supplemented by eggs and dairy products. With freshwater and saltwater fish being included in some areas, meat was relatively rare even in inland regions. Poultry was the most common type, and red meat was the rarest element in the commoner’s nutritional regimen except in areas ill-suited to raising grain. To round out the ordinary diet, garden fruits and vegetables were consumed. For flavoring, salt, onions, garlic, and mustard were employed to liven up daily menus. To wash down meals, since water supplies were both unreliable and unsafe, consumption of alcoholic beverages in moderate amounts was commonplace, with beer, ale, and wine being the most ordinary. Thus, aside from the quantity and frequency of availability, virtually all the above dietary items were just as much a part of the commoner’s diet as well as that of the oligarchy’s, with the exceptions of spices and game meats. Finally, the peasant’s diet rated good even by modern standa...

Table of contents

• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV