People often imagine that when society was strongly Christian in premodern times, people were more spiritual and focused on virtue. This is almost certainly a misconception brought about by it being largely religious texts which have survived.
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This is very unlikely to reflect the balance of interests of the average person. Social historians can gather this from what the sermons were about - very often they were about people being too concerned with things of the world and not the state of their soul.
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Sermons telling men to stop playing dice, drinking in taverns, circulating bawdy songs & stories & attend church more regularly and those telling women to stop caring about clothes, spending too much time with friends & talking throughout church show that people don't change much
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Lots of sermons about the dangers of vice in the form of cockfights, wrestling, dancing, comedic theatre, festivals rooted largely in paganism (but mostly just a piss-up) show that people were spending a great deal of their spare time not at church.
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There was also considerable focus on work. Women were expected to attend church much more than men, particularly in agricultural areas which was most areas, because men were expected to be working a lot in daylight whilst women worked at home often alone.
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There is some reason to think that this expectation was not appreciated by women but quite possibly engineered by them. Not just services. Many church activities including social events & cleaning it & decorating it were run by women. This was a social life.
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There seems to have been a strange thing in the late medieval period (possibly earlier too but this is my area) where it was not understood that women can get lonely & like to talk to other women. Many sermons telling them to stop going to each others houses all the time.
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Telling them to stay in and do their work and wait for their husbands. Much suspicion of women who just went to other women's houses for a cup of tea (OK, tea wasn;t a thing but you know what I mean) Seen as dereliction of duty & gossiping (which was bad esp if abt husbands)
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The church was a way women authorised getting together & having a chat. Records showing charges laid against parishioners & punished with fines include a lot of women being charged with talking through sermons, almost no men. Men more likely to be charged with not going to church
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Men, who more often worked outside the house, usually had plenty of male company. They could go to taverns too. Women needed to find ways to get together without being accused of neglecting their work, being frivolous, flighty or gossiping, Church was the acceptable way.
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And so, there are records of so many, seemingly quite unnecessary meetings of women at the church to discuss things like making a new scarf for the statue of Mary and then getting together to do it. Very slowly, I suspect.
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This is fascinating insight. Thank you.
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