As the Irish Nobel Laureate George Bernard Shaw said: “Youth is the only disease that is cured over the years”. The condition of the elderly has obvious physical drawbacks but great advantage, old age is experience. As the human being accumulates years, he also accumulates something extremely important and that is not learned in books, the experience, the wisdom of age. This article, which we have titled Being old in the Middle Agesis dedicated to How did old people live? in this turbulent time, what considerations were had with them etc
Being old in the Middle Ages | The Middle Ages and the Ancient
In the fourth century, the Christianity was already settled in Roman empire, most of the Roman emperors since the time of Constantine confessed their Christian faith. Theodosius himself was one of the main promoters in the faith of Jesus.
The empire had become Christian but, and the town?. A town with a long pagan tradition, with their gods for the harvest, time, life. Their pagan festivals and ancestral cults continued to be used, especially in the more rural areas of the Empire.
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire into the hands of the Barbarians, the Christian faith continued thanks to the fact that the new rulers, out of all logic, quickly adopted the Christianity although they continued to retain certain pagan or barbarian customs.
Being old in the Middle Ages | High Middle Ages
with the fifth centurywe enter the Middle Ages, more specifically the High Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Ages. An era marked by barbarism, where prevailed The law of the strongest and as expected within the strongest are not found the elderlyWith these premises, it is not difficult to imagine what position they occupied within society.
The Roman Empire had established the law of “Father Family”. This law was mandatory for free Roman citizens. The pater familia was the Father of the Family, on his person was the control of both the goods and the people who belonged to the house, he exercised the patria potestas about the children, the wife, the slaves and other men who worked for him.
A law created only for roman citizens where there could only be one father families In the House. Children could be sold or executed if the pater familia so decided. Adult male children did not acquire the right to paterfamilias, as long as the father lived, everything was acquired at the father’s expense and only the paterfamilias could dispose of it. At the death of the fathereach male child would act as Pater Familias in their respective houses.
Christianity did not continue the Roman practice of Pater Familias, while evangelizers and missionaries sought the conversion of women and youth, leaving the oldest, mired in their old beliefs and therefore outside the religion.
When the majority of European society converted to Christianity, andhe care, respect and obedience to elders returned to prevail. It was a matter of time, as had happened in other historical periods, the elderly went through different stages, from being highly regarded and revered to being practically a nuisance and in the Middle Ages both periods occurred.
In dealing with the elderly, the church did not help too much either. It should also be borne in mind that not all the elderly were treated the same. The poor of disadvantaged social classes They were treated like weak and the church positioned them among the sick and helpless. The rich however, they were welcomed and cared for by their families.
The monastic rules For example, it displaced the elderly to tasks of little relevance such as the concierge of the monasteries or the dedication to the development of small manual jobs.
Soon the church became aware of the stupendous business that could be considered the search a quiet and safe retirement to a group of rich, affluent and most importantly elderly population. On the one hand, the old man sought tranquility and peace to put his affairs in order with God, while on the other hand, there was the church, which saw very favorably that the rich earned eternal tranquility in their monasteries, something that was achieved with economic contributions.
By retiring to a monastery, the elderly nobleman managed to avoid going through the shame of his own decline, in addition to achieving the salvation of his soul. This practice was originally restrictive for the privilegedbut it spread rapidly throughout the seventh century, having to become regulated due to the great economic benefit and therefore wealth that they were generating.
Being old in the Middle Ages | Middle Ages
All these data have reached us thanks to the transcriptions that were made in the monasteries. Until now, European society was gregarious, so solidarity among equals was a common practice, but from Eleventh century, the church imposed both the monogamy as exogamy. outbreeding it was the marriages between relatives, usually between cousins, a common practice among the ruling houses and the nobility.
These laws dictated by the church began to apply to the rural population and ended for the highest aristocratic classes. The result was immediate, from now on the families would become a stable core and more careful with his elders.
Subsequent centuries meant in medieval society a stability period both economically and politically, up to13th centurywhere appears a feeling of state which, together with material development and economic strengthening, multiplied wars.
In this period the elderly occupied an important place, with young men in continual wars, it was they who took care of business and wealth management. But in the middle of the fourteenth century, Plague unleashed in Genoa in 1348, it annihilated a third of the European population, intermittent epidemics that followed each other for a full century. This fact destabilized the society of the moment, the church solved it with a bonfire, this epidemic was the wrath of God and only fire could purify.
but curiously the black plague did not have the same incidence among the population. The carrier flea was able to respect the elders, with the most affected population being children and young people. It was a strong blow to medieval society, which had to return to turn to their elders in order to get ahead.
Shortly thereafter the epidemic was smallpox, another disaster that again decimated the population of Medieval Europe. The result was an increase in the elderly population. With broken families due to epidemics and lost generations, it caused society to react by making a kind of family reunification.
Families that were previously extensive, made up of many members, were now reduced to a few members. This helped the older ones to reintegrate into a family nucleus. Now the elders could be considered the patriarchs of the familythey contributed the experience and obtained guaranteed maintenance.
At the end of the Middle Ages, that is to say, placing ourselves in the fifteenth century, the different wars against Turks, Arabs, etc., caused a new decrease in the young male population, the problem that arises is the existence of many young women of marriageable age and very few young who to marry
Soon this figure was occupied by the oldest members of the family, being very common in the fifteenth century the marriages among young women and older men.
You may also like:
In overstory We hope that this article has been of your interest, however we leave you some links to our page in case you want to continue investigating this topic.