Medieval Society and the Roman Catholic Church's Influence

The Roman Catholic Church greatly influenced the lives of many people during the medieval times. At the head of the Roman Catholic Church was the pope. Followers believed that the pope was the representative of Jesus on earth. The spiritual classes below the pope were the cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops, and finally the local priests. This was a very efficient system where each class ruled, and directed each class below them. Peasants, of course, were all the way at the bottom of the social class system, but took up 95% of the population. Their lives were very closely tied to their local churches. The main responsibility of the Roman Catholic Church was to serve the spiritual needs of medieval society, and to get people to heaven. This slowly started to change as soon as the Church turned to their corrupt ways to control the people. The Church owned everything from land, to even peoples souls! Going against the Roman Catholic Church was absolutely unacceptable. Not only would you be

People paid 10% of what they earned in a year to the Church. This tax was called tithes. Tithes could either be paid in money or in goods produced by poor peasant farmers. Since peasants were very poor, they virtually always had to pay in seeds, grain or parts of animals. This usually caused peasants a lot of trouble because they needed the seeds to plant crops the following year. The church was so wealthy that it took these tithes from peasants and put them in large barns. The barns food would usually be invaded by rats and other animals that would eat the seeds, or the seeds/goods would simply rot. This truly shows the power and wealth of the Roman Catholic Church. The people were almost forced to play these tithes because if they did not pay them, there were huge consequences. The peasants could either get punished on earth by the church, or go to hell after