St Francis of Assisi - Part 7 - Lady Poverty

By David Torkington -
Ever since Charlemagne was enthroned as Holy Roman Emperor in AD 800 Europe gradually became a safer place in which to live. It became increasingly easier to travel and to trade as the centuries rolled by. It was a slow process, but by the time Francis was a young man his father was only one of many merchants who had made a fortune in the sort of trading that would have been impossible before, when sacking and pillaging was the most common way of becoming rich. In the Middle Ages the best sackers and pillagers tended to become the worst landowners, as they enslaved most of their minions and taxed the rest into permanent penury, offering only safety from other sackers and pillagers for their pains. Gradually in Europe the survival of the fittest dictated the arrival of a new world order with the strongest at the top and the weakest at the bottom. This new world order came to be called feudalism.  read on...

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