Religion
The Crusades
The Crusades were wars between the Christian
and Muslim
armies. The Christian army considered Bethlehem and Jerusalem as their most
sacred shrines in Christian religion because Jesus was born and crucified in
Palestine. They wanted to drive the Muslims out of the Holy Land, but the
Muslims owned the land and wanted to stay there. The crusades began in 1095 and
lasted for many years until one of the competing sides was defeated. The people
who went to war were knights on horses, soldiers, and sometimes villagers. A
noble knight usually led the crusade. One great leader was Richard the
Lionheart, King of England, who led the third Crusade
(1189-1192)
Muslim
The founder of the Islamic religion was Muhammad, he died in
632.
Christianity
The Christian religion today
includes catholic, protestant, orthodox, etc.
The
Church
The church was in the middle of
the village. All people rich or poor got married and baptized in churches, every
person in the village was buried on church ground. People who
preached were told by priests or bishops, they would be rewarded by going
to heaven when they died. Those who disagreed about going to church were burned at the stake as heretics.
Only men ran the churches they were priests or bishops. Women were nuns, and lived in a nunnery.
They were equivalent to monks. Monks lived and worked in
a Monastery where they prayed, made laws, wrote books and read a part of a bible every
day.
Monks copied religious books
and also decorated the pages with brightly colored illustrations. Because few
peasants could read the churches were decorated with sculptures from the bible.
Monks were also masters of calligraphy, which was the art of beautiful writing.
The handsome intertwining geometric designs of art still decorate the borders of
manuscript pages in the medieval time period.
People who were sick would go
to an infirmary to find help. The infirmary was located in the corner of the abbey away from the activities, it had it’s own kitchen. There were two large
houses in the back of the infirmary, one was the abbot’s
guesthouse, and
another was a small inn for people in recovery.
This site is part of the ThinkQuest Jr. 2001 competition.