The freedoms we enjoyed back in 1253

An excellent post from Traditio in Radice explaining much of the freedoms people enjoyed during the Medieval period as opposed to what we in the modern era have to face. Here's a small list of some the freedoms we would've enjoyed:

• There were no written medical, financial or family records for the government or anyone else to snoop into.


• Security would be a matter of closing your door.


• Every major feast day on the Church calendar would be a day of prayer, celebration, and abstention/exemption from servile labour.


• Most goods purchased would have been made locally by one of your neighbours or a craftsman from the nearest city.


• Government welfare would not exist; begging for alms or relying on the charity of the Church would be a humbling experience, not a government entitlement.


• Neighbors would not be encouraged by the government to snitch on one another.


• Neighbours would actually know each other and attend Mass together.


• Personal responsibility, cause and effect, and consequences of bad decisions would not be replaced by terms such as genetic defects or the results of a dysfunctional family.


• The borders would be there for a reason other than to make lines on maps.


• Citizens would have the right (duty) to protect their lives, families and property without fear of being prosecuted for doing so.


• Most people would have their own plot of land and could not be forced off of it.


• No one would pay income or property tax. Farmers would work their lord's land one or two days a week. They would have to pay tolls on major roads, but these would be travelled but rarely.


• The media would consist of travelling pilgrims, peddlars, and troubadours.

Well thank God we no longer live in "the Dark Ages" anymore.

BTW, I addressed some of these issues in my post "the Myth of Medieval Totalitarianism".