Chapter 345 Byzantine Nobility

Many of the attacks launched by the reactionary forces always have similarities in their content.

“Communism and sharing wives” is not an invention of the 19th century. Whenever subordinate women stretch their backs, stand up and speak loudly, they will always be splashed with dirty water.

It’s nothing more than wanting to get rid of the attribute of being property and wanting to be a human being, but being splashed with all kinds of dirty talk.

Things like the Three Obediences and Four Virtues, church laws, Sharia…all came to mind.

Denying the sacrament of marriage does not mean denying marriage; the two cannot be lumped together.

It’s just that in the context of the church, they often strongly correlate the two.

Of course, women are not a monolithic entity. There are women who are working people, and there are women who are appendages of the ruling class. The two cannot be confused.

Zoe was carried away by Alexandros because her leg was still not fully healed.

Not long after they left the village, they looked back and saw a small team walking into the village.

Looking from afar, you can see the leader riding a horse, with about four or five followers beside him.

“Is that Ioannis?”

“Ioannis? No, he’s just a slave thug under his command.” Alexandros replied with Zoe on his back.

“He is a great nobleman in Trebizond. Why would he come here for my sake?”

The nobles of the Eastern Empire and the lords of Western Europe are not the same.

Alexandros was not very clear on this point.

But as Zoe explained, he gradually began to understand.

The Old Jerusalem period was actually a typical Frankish feudal system, but of course it was not that traditional.

After all, the probability of the lord of the Kingdom of Jerusalem dying out is too high, so the royal family controls a large amount of land. In addition, the royal family itself has a high probability of dying out, and the noble parliament has powerful power and can influence the throne…

In the end, it actually became an atypical “aristocratic republic”.

The Frankish feudal system is a classic “power and responsibility matching system”.

The monarch granted land to the lord in exchange for the lord’s taxes and service.

The lord granted land to the knight in exchange for the knight’s taxes and service.

The knight leased the land to free farmers and required the free farmers to follow him into war.

But Byzantium was not like that. Many situations in Byzantium were more in line with the experience of the Chinese.

The formation of the Byzantine feudal system was essentially the result of a long-term struggle between the central and local governments over land annexation.

Land annexation, conflicts between the central government and local governments…

The continuous bankruptcy of the peasant-soldier group was itself a result of the formation of the peasant-soldier system.

It’s just that in the past, many emperors would try to curb it, but when the empire was in a crisis of life and death, they would not care about many things.

After the Battle of Manzikert, the Empire nearly lost control of all of its land in Anatolia in a short period of time.

Alexius, the savior of the empire, brought a large number of military nobles with him and saved the empire from the brink of decline.

Therefore, when they entered Constantinople, they easily replaced the original bureaucratic families and became the ruling class of the country.

As a reward to these “nobles”, large tracts of land rights were transferred.

This is not a framework of feudal obligations, but exists as a reward.

In other words, the nobles believed that the lands were their due and there was no contract of rights and responsibilities with the central government at all.

The emperor only had the obligation to protect Roman land as the protector of the Romans, and there was no obligation for local family territories to be loyal to the emperor.

A group of unrestricted nobles seized property from the empire in various ways, but they did not need to take responsibility for the empire, and they were even proud of it. The Komnenos family was the largest among them, and the empire’s tax revenue depended on the Komnenos family.

During this period, Byzantium became the property of a coalition of nobles.

As the saying goes, “see what you do, see what you do”, just like the real nobles who lived in Constantinople and governed their local estates through stewards who sent private servants.

In Trebizond, due to its distance from Constantinople, its own set of mechanisms was born.

Nobles like Ioannis lived in mansions in the city, constantly annexed land outside the city, and sent private armies and stewards to collect taxes provided by the estates.

“In fact, we are not the only true Christians left here, Manuel and I. There are actually several more in the village, and there are also some in other nearby villages. The villagers didn’t care much at first… After all, we have lived together for a long time.”

“But you are the only one whose identity is exposed.”

“No, actually. It was just an accident.”

“After my father died, our family was in financial difficulty. This year, my mother borrowed some money from the monastery to buy seeds and hire people to help with spring ploughing. I hope she can pay it back in time for the autumn harvest.”

“and then?”

“Basil, Manuel’s son, came to help. He works very hard and likes to smile.”

“then?”

“Then, a group of ‘Turks’ came to my land and burned the spring seedlings. Basil tried to stop them, so he was chopped on the neck with a knife, and his blood splattered all over the place.”

“Did the ‘Turks’ steal anything?”

“No.”

Alexandros carried Zoe on his back and walked in the snow, chatting about the past.

Zoe and her daughter, whose spring plowing was delayed, were naturally unable to repay the debt owed to the monastery, and her family’s land was naturally taken away by the monastery.

Even though the total price of the land was actually more than ten times the loan amount, the other party still used the loan agreement to blackmail him.

Zoe insulted the abbot a lot at that time, and the abbot immediately accused her of heresy.

When the abbot ordered Zoe to kneel down and pray to the cross to prove her innocence, Zoe refused. She was unwilling to hide her beliefs and go against Manuil’s teachings in that situation.

Afterwards, her identity as a heretic witch was confirmed. She was sent to a monastery for custody and her land was also given to the monastery.

In the monastery, Zoe’s body was covered with many stains, and the evil of human nature was exposed nakedly.

Those sanctimonious monks could accuse the peasants of being disrespectful and having promiscuous sexual lives, while at the same time practicing their own practices.

It can be said that the monastery was not a good place, and her life there was no different from hell.

Indeed, those churches are all creations of Satan.

Those gorgeous holy images and exquisite church decorations are all things of the devil that deceive people.

The empire’s state religion had long since degenerated into an accomplice of the rulers.

The monks are all apprentices of the devil.

As the saying goes, hell is empty and the devil is on earth.

No matter what, Zoe would never go to the monastery again, even if it meant death.

The snow was falling, getting heavier and heavier, dyeing this dirty world white.

Paladin, carrying the witch on his back, hid in the mountains.

Paladin promised the witch that when they came here again, they would be an army, not just the two of them.

(End of this chapter)