Medieval Lives: Birth, Marriage, Death
Historian and author Helen Castor, presenter of the popular series She-Wolves, explores how the people of the Middle Ages handled the most fundamental moments of transition in life: birth, marriage and death. In doing so she reveals how people in the medieval world thought and what they believed in. For the people of the Middle Ages the teachings of the Catholic Church shaped thoughts and beliefs across the whole of Western Europe. But by the end of the Middle Ages the Church would find itself in the grip of momentous change and the way of medieval birth, marriage and death would never be quite the same again.
Episodes
A documentary series of 3 episodes that explain the rituals and meaning in the lives of people and the church in the Middle Ages.
Because it was very easy to initiate by simply exchanging words of consent, marriage in the Middle Ages was simple to get into but extremely difficult to get out of. Try as it might to impose its order on the matrimonial free-for-all, the Church found it no easy matter to regulate the most unpredictable of human emotions, love and lust.
In the medieval world, death was always close at hand, for young and old, rich and poor alike. But rather than seeing death as an end, people thought of it as a doorway to everlasting life, and much of their time and effort in this life was spent getting ready for the next.
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