Body Politic: the way of thinking of the English or the French state as a body, with the king as the head, the aristocracy who bore arms as the arms and shoulders, and the tenants farmers and the poor as the legs and smelly feet.

Great Chain of Being

1. the top of the hierarchy is closer to God than the bottom.
2. Humankind was half way down the chain suspended between the Angels and the Animals; therefore man was both half angel and half beast.
3. Apart from God, each of the ranks in the chain can be further divided.

• Primogeniture
• The higher (the titled nobility) and lesser aristocracy
• Substantial peasants (e.g. yeoman in England) and lower farmers (husbandman, cottagers)
• In Eastern Europe, peasants and laborers were unfree serfs tied to their lands. English peasants were free, had a vote and were less heavily taxed than French peasants who were not free didn't have votes
• The difference of legal, economic and social status between males and females
• The top of each chain is analogous the head of the whole chain, therefore the top of their respective chains wield God's power in his stead and so were to be obeyed as God himself.
• It is a chain of being instead of a ladder.

Why did the other 99% rebel?

• The lifetime education received from the church attendance with the help of the pastors appointed by the landlord
• Paternalism and deference paternalism were taught to mitigate the worst effects of inequality (Paternalism: those at the upper end of the chain have a responsibility to look after those below them; Deference paternalism: those at the lower chain provide deference, allegiance, obedience and respect )

The city members didn't fit into the Great Chain of Being.

In the East, such as Russia and portions of southern Europe ruled by the Ottoman Empire, the Orthodox churches were subordinate to the civil authority. However, in the West, the Roman Catholic Church had its own chain. (the Pope, Archbishop, Bishops, Priests, Sisters and laity)

These two hierarchies of the church and the empire gave rise to the potential conflicts between Kings and Popes. The authority of the church and the papacy declined due to

• the Babylonian captivity of the church: the abduction of the papacy to Avignon between 1309 and 1374
• Great Schism, 1374-1417, two separate sets of cardinals selected two Popes

In 16th Century, Europe was beginning to experience six new challenges that would eventually smash the chain and give rise to the modern world.

1. Renaissance humanism
2. The rise of centrally governed nation-states
3. The discovery of the New World
4. The invention of the printing press
5. The Protestant Reformation and the wars of religion
6. The rational and scientific revolution