Commonfolk

William Manchester’s A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance indepthly describes the lives of the commonfolk, the nobility, and the Catholic Church. Each lived very different lives from each other yet still shared similar aspects. The commonfolk were poor, limited to less than basic hygiene, lacked a respectable education, and were ruled by Christian dogma. Heretics were burned at the stake; no one dared to oppose the Catholic church. The people were “Shackled in ignorance, disciplined by fear and sheathed in superstition, they trudged into the sixteenth century in the clumsy, hunched, pigeon-toed gait of rickets victims, their vacant faces, pocked by smallpox, turned blindly towards the future that they thought they …show more content…
The pope was very strict when handing out punishments. Too many people were being put into the dungeons that, as a form of punishment, people were forced to take pilgrimages across Europe. “Offenders were ordered to shave their heads, abandon their families, fast constantly (meat only once a day), and set out barefoot for a far destination” (59). Heresy was the worst sin to be committed, and most heretics were burned at the stake or were beheaded. Adultery was not as punished as those who engaged were clever enough to hide this. Soon, as the corruption within the Catholic church increased, indulgences began to sell. They were payments paid to the Church so that the sins of those who can afford it were “forgiven”, yet this was controversial as sinners weren’t repenting their sins and were paying them off, enabling them to just commit more and repeat the cycle. These indulgences were scorned by Martin Luther and John Calvin and soon they plunged …show more content…
The commonfolk lived simple lives in crowded streets, dying as nobodies. The nobility feasted throughout their days, and lived for entertainment. They all were enveloped in their own lives full of illegitimate children and rich parties. The Catholic church was depicted to be innocent in the midst of all this corruption, but they were just as much guilty. The popes around this time were far from innocent. All of this corruption enabled the start of the Renaissance, which would very much tried to be stopped but would explode even bigger and bring change to the world with new artists, authors, explorers, reformists, and humanists. A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance by William Manchester dives deeply into the lives of those who lived during medieval