>It is not the rleigious symbolism that offends me -- it is the fact >that
>only the exercise of raw power made the people spend their entire >lives
>building a cathedral and getting NOTHING for it. Talk about >exploitation.
> In truth, I am very conflicted when I marvel at the >CHicago skyline for
>much of the same reason, though the exploitation >of American capitalism is
>less brutal than feudal Europe..
Depending on the time and place, cathedrals and churches were built by professional itinerant workmen, peasants, and bourgeois of all incomes (and nobles too, I believe); most times working in concert, sometimes just on their own (I think, on this one too).
Could the buildings not have been erected (but not necessarily solely)out of Christian piety, organized by a hierarchy of power that also included piety as one of its reasons for the cathedral building? From your tone, I get the impression of masses of groaning, grovelling wretches, a whip cracking in the background, and some sybaritic overlord-priest being "attended to" by the local peasant maidens as he waits impatiently for HIS building to be finished.
(pace Kelley) Please note that as the "current" "speaking" medievalist on the list (that I know of; other medievalists might disagree), I do not hereby banish you from the Eden of the medievalists for your mistake; nobody knows everything.
Todd
PS: Don't get conflicted: remember that feats like the Chicago skyline are possible by workers ability alone, and that capital as it exists now is not necessarily needed for it. Same goes for the cathedrals. See them more as a tribute to the workers, less as tributes to the capitalists.
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