The
other day, a friend and I were trying to list the seven deadly sins. We
couldn’t, so we went and looked them up. The list surprised me for including
“sins” that seem odd in modern society and that got me thinking about how the
definition of “deadly sins” reflected the ills of Medieval Society. Essentially, the Church was trying to
discourage certain types of behavior thought to be detrimental to a
functioning, Christian society by proclaiming them “deadly” sins – sins so
egregious that they brought the sinner “spiritual death” – if the sinner did
not repent, do penance and receive absolution.
Now
some of the deadly sins still strike us as reprehensible behavior. Wrath, for
example, is something no one would recommend and most people would agree brings
harm – usually not only to the intended target. Likewise lust is a sin whose
negative impact is widely recognized to this day. No matter how tolerant modern
society may be of sexual freedom for consenting adults, lust remains a
dangerous emotional force behind many modern crimes from child abuse and rape
to trafficking in persons. Finally, envy is still seen as undesirable.
But
greed has more recently been praised as “good” – some people in modern society equating
it with ambition and the driving force behind capitalism and free private
enterprise. Even more striking, “pride” is something we hold up as a virtue,
not a sin. We are proud of our country, proud of our armed forces, proud to be
who we are – or at least we strive to be. And who nowadays would put “gluttony”
or “sloth” right up there beside lust, wrath and envy?
Upon
reflection, however, I concluded that the deadly sins tell us a great deal
about what behavior Medieval Society particularly feared.
In
a society where hunger was never far from the poor and famines occurred
regularly enough to scar the psyche of contemporaries, excessive consumption of
food was not about getting fat it was about denying others. Because there were always poor who did not
have enough to eat just around the corner, someone who indulged in gluttony
rather than sharing excess food was clearly violating the most fundamental of
Christian principles. Nothing could be more essential to the concept of
Christian charity than giving food to the hungry, and a person who not only
kept what he/she needed for himself but engaged in excess eating was therefore especially
sinful.
Sloth
is the other side of the same coin. In a
society without machines, automation or robots, the production of all food,
shelter and clothing depended on manual labor. Labor was the basis of survival,
and survival was often endangered. Medieval society could not afford for any
member to be idle. Even the rich were not idle! Medieval queens, countesses and
ladies no less than their maids spun, wove and did other needlework – when they
weren’t running the estates of their husbands. The great magnates of the realm
were the equivalent of modern corporate executives, managing vast estates and
ensuring both production and distribution of food-stuffs. The gentry provided
not just farm management but the services now provided by police, lawyers and
court officials. In medieval society every man and woman had their place – and
their job. Whether the job was to work the land or to pray for the dead, it was
a job that the individual was expected to fulfill diligently and energetically.
Sloth was a dangerous threat to a well-functioning society.
My most recent work is a biographical novel of Balian d'Ibelin in three parts. Here, as always I strive for an accurate portrayal of medieval society.
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| "Charity" by Edmund Leighton |
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| "Sewing" by Edmund Leighton |
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