Violence In The Middle Ages

Violence and persecution against minorities were integrated in the socioreligious and political influences and motivations of the Medieval era. Though some historians of the Post-World War era interpret the persecution of minorities in the medieval ages as a representation of the history of persecution in Europe. The violence against minorities during the medieval period was not a precursor to world war era violence, though an integrated part of public order demonstrated by the warrior class according to T. N. Bisson. Historian David Nirenberg has similarly argued that violence in the Middle Ages was neither the anti-thesis of proper social behavior, nor the collapse of public order but a necessary element in the restoration of order and public
Primarily an interpretation based on violence as a sociopolitical and socioreligious tool employed by the local peasantry against power or perceived un-justice-ness against the “other”, minorities, the nobility and clergy. With argument support from on Nirenberg’s Communities of violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages and Bisson’s ‘Feudal Revolution’ the organization and use of violence both during and post and precluding periods will be analyzed for to clarify violence’s distinct social, political, and religious purpose during the medieval period. With contextual support from The Song of the Cathar Wars, to differentiate violence against heretics and deviance within Christendom versus the persecution of the religious minorities and
This violence was often initiated by either local peasantry, clergy, or nobility with religious and secular intentions that became regional political and social affairs. Nirenberg gives several example beginning with the Shepard's crusade of 1320 CE, with the initial intent to attack the Moors in Spain spurning from a vision by a shepherd boy. When the nobility did not readily support this crusade they began murdering Jews as they traveled through France, with local townsfolk and municipal offices being complicit in the slaughter. This subsequently made the crusade a contextual regional affair, rather than the spiritual affair of destroying the Moors as was versioned initially in Spain. They also attacked members of the clergy and the nobility, the Jews, who were fiscal agents of the French king, were attacked first since they were effigies of the kings his will and fiscal power. The king’s refusal to participate in the crusade lead to protests against him and his influence in the form of killing the Jewish minorities which were under the direct influence of the monarchy. Cowherd's crusade the following year in comparison, began with the sociopolitical motivations of the king and developed into a crusade due to the introduction of centralized policies. Began as rumor that the Lepers and Jews were conspiring with the Moors to poison water