What do people "think"? Do people think differently? Or do all humans basically have the same mind and thoughts? The human mind is a wonderful thing, and extremely complex. A person’s thoughts, however, can be affected by many different variables. The people and environment around them has a huge affect on a person’s thoughts, as do things like social classes. In the medieval times, there were very clearly separated social classes. There were the noble knights, who were the wealthy landowners. These landowners were the masters of numerous serfs and peasants, which was the lower social class. The peasants had a tough life, and they never had much land of their own. The merchants had a little bit of a better life, selling various goods. Lastly, there were nuns and the other religious orders. People in different social classes think completely differently, not just in the middle ages, but all throughout history.
Life experiences were very different for people in different social classes in the middle ages. If one was born a serf, they stayed a serf their whole life. One may think about being jealous of knights, or trying to escape, or even just trying to stay alive. Merchants were a little bit better off because they were able to make and sell their own goods. Although a bit easier, a merchant’s life is not easy, as said in the Canterbury tales by Chaucer: “Of weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow, I know enough, at eventide and morrow.” Life for the lower classes is not easy, and there is little time for pleasurable thoughts and dreams. They need to think about what they need to do daily to keep their family alive and well, but it is not this way for everyone.
The knights and other noblemen are the ones who have the good life. They are very rich, and have very large plots of land. They had a lot of discipline on their minds: “They promised to live in perpetuity as regular canons, without possessions, under vows of chastity and obedience.”(William of Tyre). They had very accommodating lives, but knights had a lot of things that they disciplined themselves to do. They must have strong minds to be able to keep up with all of those hardships. They have to think about that all the time, and know that they need to be strong. There were high and low points of this lifestyle, but overall more people would chose to be knight rather than a merchant or a peasant.
The last different social class was nuns and monks, and all of the religious orders. They had to live their life devoted to god, with small meals, simple clothes, and silence curing the day. They completely loved God, but they went through a lot more to prove it than others did. They thought about their relationship with God, most likely, most of the time. It is said in the nun’s story of the Canterbury Tales: “We should avoid, and by her foe express, that is to say, by lawful business, we ought to live with resolute intent…… He easily the hidden snare will snap.” The nuns and monks had to have had a lot of mind control to be able to accomplish the things they did. Each social class in the Middle Ages thought very differently, and also each has very different lives.
As you can see, a person’s social status affects many aspects of their life, including experiences and thoughts. People in higher classes might never need to think about surviving or getting food every day, whereas that is normal for people in lower social classes. A person can only think about things that they know, and, because there are different social classes, different lives, each person thinks differently. A person’s life choices and environment are the factors that lead them to think differently from everyone else, which makes the world an interesting place.
Sources:
"The Knight's Realm." Web. 01 May 2010. http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/knight.html .
"The Nun's Realm." Web. 01 May 2010. http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/nun.html.
"The Peasant's Realm." Web. 01 May 2010. http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/peasant.html.
"The Merchant's Realm." Web. 01 May 2010. http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/merchant.html.
"Chaucer's Canterbury Tales ~ Presented by ELF." Chaucer's Canterbury Tales ~ Presented by The Electronic Literature Foundation. Web. 01 May 2010. http://www.canterburytales.org/canterbury_tales.html.
William of Tyre. The Foundation of the Order of Knights Templar. Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tyre-templars.html.
Photographs from:
Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia, 31 Jan. 2004. Web. 1 May 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rondel_dagger_merchants.jpg.
Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia, 21 Sept. 2006. Web. 1 May 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nobleman_picnic.jpg.
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