Rights in the Middle Ages

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alcuin18

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Hello. I am a student of the so-called ‘Middle Ages’ and admire many things about it. I would like to know, however, how medieval Christendom treated the issue of ‘rights’. I know many things like ‘rights’ weren’t as specifically defined until later on, particularly in reaction to more totalitarian governments, but were rights such as those in the U.S. Bill of Rights, including free speech, freedom to bear arms, etc. upheld in the Middle Ages? I’m aware that freedom of religion was not viewed quite the same way it is today, but what about other rights? I also know that laws such as the Magna Carta defended the rights of nobles, but were the rights of all people also recognized? Thank you for your help, God bless.
 
The Magna Carta signed in around 1215 (?) established rights such as habeas corpus - basically the right to be brought before a court to determine if detention is lawful. The effects of this are still felt today in the form of limited detention periods without charge.

I’m no historian but i believe these rights only applied to lords and the gentry back in medieval times tho.
 
In my understanding, serfdom did confer some rights on the poor, specifically protection by their lords, as well as a right to their lands which were largely irrevocable. Unlike slavery, serfs weren’t seen as mere property, and their relationship to their lords was reciprocal. My main question was on the issue of other rights, as I said, such as free speech, which I have not seen specifically addressed in the good medieval history books I’ve read.
 
That’s not exactly true. Serfs were protected because they were the producers on the lord’s land. A lord would protect their serfs because without them, the land would not provide the lord income.

Likewise, serfs didn’t have a ‘right to their land’. They were bound to their lord’s land. They couldn’t leave it, and had no freedom of movement. Like above, a lord wouldn’t want to throw serfs off their land, because they need the serfs to produce the wealth from it. The serfs didn’t own their land. They were allowed often a garden and to do cottage industry, but, their lives were regimented by their lords.

I’m not so sure a freedom of speech is necessary or even applicable to serfs in the middle ages. They couldn’t read or write. They couldn’t meaningfully travel to spread ideas. A google search for “freedom of speech middle ages” returned several resources. All I read indicates there was no robust freedom of speech. Especially against the upper classes.
 
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The reciprocity of the situation did seem fundamentally different from normal slavery, however. Serfs were not bought and sold like property as far as I know.
 
alcuin18 said:
Serfs were not bought and sold like property as far as I know.
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Depends. In Russia thousands of them were transported to the Ural Mountains and worked to death. Serfs had no real freedoms. It was an inhumane system.
 
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alcuin18 said:
My main question was on the issue of other rights, as I said, such as free speech, which I have not seen specifically addressed in the good medieval history books I’ve read.
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There was probably some “free speech” but look into heresy trials to find examples of limitations. The idea of freedoms was not well developed until later. During much of the Middle Ages, social order was dependent on the wishes of the lord, not on the rule of law. People often spoke freely, and lords as freely could punish them if they wanted.
 
1). Slavery was ended by the Catholic church in Europe in about the 6th-7th century, over the great objections of the rich. Augustine once thundered that all slavery was “sin”. So, at the end of late antiquity/the beginning of the Middle Ages, slavery existed only in the fringes of Europe, in pagan areas, in all of Islam, and, horribly, even in the Eastern empire. But in Europe it was gone.
  1. Human rights as a concept was developed by the Catholic church in the late Middle Ages. in Spain, although many ideas about human rights were slowly being developed throughout the Middle Ages.
  2. Enlightenment philosophers, - all of them viciously anti Catholic - have argued that serfs might have been slaves. . Nonsense. Slaves were pieces of property, and the rich owned you utterly. It appears most slaves in the Roman empire were sexually and physically abused. The rich made lots of money by taking their little boy and female slaves and shoving them into a nearby brothel until they no longer were of interest to men. (The little boys were no longer of interest once they sprouted their first body hair, the girls when they lost their looks. Yes, it really was that awful.)
If you were an elderly or ill and possibly dying slave, you were condemned to an area where you were abandoned, without food, without care, until you died or recovered, If you recovered, you were reclaimed as a slave by your owner. Yes, I know that was not what Seneca, perhaps the biggest hypocrite ever born, said, but that’s what usually happened.

Serfs could marry, leave their master to go to another, earn money from an area they cleared and farmed, and, in a hundred other ways, live a decent life. This varied a lot of course, in different centuries and in different countries.
 
That was my impression as well. Roman slavery was also used by Enlightenment empires to justify their reinstitution of slavery, against the orders of the Church.
 
“Dovekin said:
here was probably some “free speech” but look into heresy trials to find examples of limitations. The idea of freedoms was not well developed until later. During much of the Middle Ages, social order was dependent on the wishes of the lord, not on the rule of law. People often spoke freely, and lords as freely could punish them if they wanted.
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Sorry, but I disagree.

The law of the Middle Ages was derived almost whole cloth from Roman law, although made much better by the addition of a belief in God and the knowledge of the dignity of each human being.

Heresy was utterly condemned by the ancient world, and almsot always ended in the death of the accused. The laws of the Middle Ages, at first, continued these laws, although now constrained by a tangle of checks and balances.
 
If you a student in Middle Age, you should give us the answer instead of ask us, or ask your teachers and do you own reschearch.

My understanding is that the question of “rights” is an anachronism in the Middle Age Christian societies and minds.
The people are under God, and the people were not citizens with rights but subjects of artistocrats/ lords/ kings. The system was vassalic. There were an exchange of interests such as work (subjects) for protection (nobility). Freedom of religion didn’t exist as nowdays and the Church and the state and society were imbricate and frontiers weren’t clears.

That being said, Midddle Ages run for 1,000 years and politics and thinking were not linears. Evolution in them existed.

the question of revandication of “rights” may appearead after with the Lumières Philosophers, with the development of modern democratic states where people became citizens…
 
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“Anicette said:
he question of revandication of “rights” may appearead after with the Lumières Philosophers, with the development of modern democratic states where people became citizen
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International human rights theories developed during the Middle Ages, as a direct consequence of the belief that all human beings had souls.

The man called the “father of international law” was Francisco de Vitoria, a Catholic priest and a professor at a Spanish university.

No, the idea of human rights did not derive from John Locke, although that is the argument of every atheist.
 
Did the Lords in Medieval times had a right to abuse serfs girls?
I heard that in Russian empire these kinds of abuses were common.
Serfs could not find the justice.
Some times the desperate fathers used the acts of violence against Lords to revenge for their molested virgin daughters, but most of the serfs were afraid even to seek justice.
 
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“Athanasiy said:
Did the Lords in Medieval times had a right to abuse serfs girls?
I heard that in Russian empire these kinds of abuses were common.
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Only imagine - evil exists! If you are trying to argue this was some sort of common practice in Europe during the Middle Ages, you will find you are wrong.

Yes, evil exists. Rape, murder, theft - all occur, in all ages. But the rape of slaves was so common, so dirt common, in the ancient world, that it almost goes without comment, since it was standard practice. The slave, whether an 8 year old boy or girl, had no rights, and it was perfectly legal for the owner of the slave to do as he wished with his piece of property, to rape, pummel, or kill the child as he wished.

Then arrived the Catholic church, and things changed. Not instantly, but yes, things changed… Because of the church.
 
annem said:
1). Slavery was ended by the Catholic church in Europe in about the 6th-7th century, over the great objections of the rich. Augustine once thundered that all slavery was “sin”. So, at the end of late antiquity/the beginning of the Middle Ages, slavery existed only in the fringes of Europe, in pagan areas, in all of Islam, and, horribly, even in the Eastern empire. But in Europe it was gone.
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This is laughably wrong. Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Russia, Greece, etc. aren’t the fringes of Europe. And all had slavery well into the 14th century. Many as late as the 18th and 19th century on mainland Europe and into the mid-to-late 19th century in their colonies.

en.wikipedia.org

Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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No, they typically couldn’t be bought and sold like slaves. But they were born into their station and position, could rarely work their way beyond it. (some did use their gardens and cottage industries to buy their emancipation. This is a rare thing, and it required a lord amiable to it) They were economic slaves, as we’d call them today. Held in a condition that it was nigh impossible to better their lot or make choices.
 
Yea, but with abolision of slavery the church was slow, and I am curious how far the church could intervene by restricting the domination of the Lords against slaves, serfs.
It is known that when communists came to power they were liquidating the ecclesial institutions blaming them to be the servants of expluatators class.
 
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