As we all know, in medieval Europe, the church had great power, even greater than secular royal power.
For example, the pope can crown monarchs of European countries. If a king does not receive the canonization of the church, it means that the king is illegal.
To be honest, whether the king has received the canonization of the church is a very distant question for ordinary people.
What many people want to know most is what impact did the church above the royal power have on the lives of ordinary Europeans at that time? Let’s talk about this issue today.
In the small European country Swiss , there has been a very interesting story for hundreds of years. This story is called "Lan of Eternity", which tells the grudges that a local church has been entangled with a farmer for hundreds of years.
Let me first talk about it. This story is not fictional, but has actually happened in history.
In March 1357, in Granles, Switzerland, there was a farmer named Condra Muller who had a dispute with his neighbors over land allocation issues. Because the two sides refused to give in, Muller used a steel fork to kill his neighbors in an impulse.
As the saying goes, kill people to pay for their lives, and pay for their debts. Muller should naturally be punished if he killed his neighbor, but due to the intervention of the church, Muller escaped.
After Mueller was arrested, he confessed to the church and expressed his willingness to accept and raise his neighbor's wife, and he was willing to accept the flock left by his neighbor.
If we look at it from a modern perspective, how can there be such a good thing in the world? After killing the other party, accepting the other party’s wife and flock, how can this be considered a confession?
However, the church at that time thought Mueller's confession was sincere and believed that his soul had not yet fallen completely and was worth saving.
However, as a necessary condition for redeeming Mueller, Mueller also needs to worship an eternal light in St. Hillary's church. Only when this light remains unstoppable can Mueller's soul be redeemed.
In other words, if the light goes out one day, Mueller's soul will never be redeemed.
For modern people, this statement is obviously nonsense, but people at that time believed it.
Muler, in accordance with the church's requirements, offered an eternal lamp, which is the "Light of Eternity", and paid a large sum of lamps and gas to the church every year.
After Mueller's death, his son assumed this responsibility. In order not to let his father's soul fall into hell forever, he also needs to pay a sum of money to the church every year.
In this way, every generation of the descendants of the Mueller family must pay the money for gas to the church, and never dared to slack off at all.
In ancient times, lamp oil was not cheap. Poor families couldn't even let the lamp turn on at night. The eternal lamp worshipped by the Muller family burned the oil money every year was also a considerable amount.
Some people may find it strange, maybe Mueller's son and grandson will pay the money for oil to save Mueller's soul. Why are the descendants willing to spend this money in vain? Is it really to save the souls of our ancestors? There is naturally a reason behind
.
The descendants of the Mueller family paid the money for oil from the church, which was a helpless move, because the church had an agreement with Mueller that once the eternal light was turned off, the church had the right to take away all the land of the Mueller family.
For this reason, the descendants of the Mueller family must always pay the money for the lamp and oil to the church. Until three hundred years later, the descendants of the Muller family could no longer bear the church's exploitation, so they thought of a way to sell the land to the Kidd family.
Because the land price given by the Muller family is relatively favorable, the Kidd family thought it was very cost-effective, so they took over the land from the Muller family. As a condition, they naturally took over the responsibility of paying the money for oil to the church.
At first, the Kidd family thought this deal was very cost-effective, but it became unbearable after a long time. Because no matter what the harvest in the field is, whether it is a good year or a disaster year, the money you give to the church cannot be reduced.
The Kidd family has been paying for more than 200 years of money for lamps and gas. Until the 21st century, the descendants of the Kidd family couldn't help it and said that they would never give the church a cent again. If the eternal lamp goes out, it will be gone.
At this time, this eternal lamp has been burning for 655 years.
Of course, as for whether it has been extinguished in the middle, only the church knows that the Muller family and the Kidd family have always paid for the lamp oil.
After the Kidd family stopped paying the money, the church quit and immediately sent them a receipt, asking them to pay 20 years of lamp oil in one go, otherwise they would have to take back the land.
The Kidd family is not stupid either, so they naturally refuse to continue paying the money, so the two sides made trouble in court. After years of trial, the court finally rejected the church's request for land reclaiming on the grounds that the law hundreds of years ago was not suitable for today's Switzerland.
In this way, the Kidd family was finally freed. They still owned the land and did not have to continue paying the money for the lamp and gas to the church. The result of
is naturally unacceptable to the church, and their approach is also very straightforward. Since no one is willing to pay for the gas, they directly put out the eternal light.
From this story of "Lan of Eternity", we can see that the so-called saving of the soul is just an excuse. The purpose of the church is actually to ask for money. When this requirement cannot be met, the oil lamp will be destroyed as soon as it is said, and saving the soul will become a joke.
In this matter, the luckiest and most tragic person was Muller. Although he saved his death and got his neighbor's wife and flock, he had to pay a huge price for his descendants and was forced to light an oil lamp for the church for 655 years.
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