My wife and I made another road trip this week and I thought I'd show another church in a small village. This one is 15th century in a town of 1,500 people. What is amazing to see is that in almost every tiny village there is a church of almost this size. Centuries ago the Catholic church held so much power in Spain and France that every village had a church of great stature and always on the high ground. The rural population was 30 to 50 times greater than today because everything was done by hand and the church benefitted greatly because people paid one way or the other... with money or labor. The big house at our farm, built in 1920 was a big house in our valley and held one or two priests during the time. The house was built with the labor of sinners and the guilty who paid for their sins. There was no income from farming that could pay to build a house like that so it was all on the backs of the parish. Today our village has 280 redidents but in 1800 it had 2500, most of whom lived in stone barns to keep sheep, cut hay and ferns and protect the sheep from the wolves.

Honestly, it would blow you away if you saw the density of churches here in France and it is higher in Spain. With all due respect , it has enlightend me about the origin of "modern religion" in Europe and America. The flow of money and power is still here but I cannot imagine being a free man in those times and having to give half of your harvest to the church, and that was how it was. Before
the country created or collected taxes it was the church that took the bounty to build the monuments. Maybe not that different today.





Hope you enjoyed.

Pete

Beautiful.

You may have been forced to give up half your harvest but the church provided stability and security, without the church Europe would of likely been overrun by the hordes from the East multiple times and western civilization as we know it would likely not exist as the churches would likely be mosques and we can see how well that works out as far as progress is concerned.

That old architecture is amazing, and how they built it is hard to imagine.

Funny thing though, when I saw the title of the thread the first thought that came to mind mind was a picture of people doing things; not buildings.

I was hoping to see people too. Churches are ok. People are better.

Interesting observations.
At times us protestants have a good time poking holes in Roman Catholic theology (there seems to be plenty to poke at), however, who could ever know what God's plans were/are in the whole scheme of things?