Lesson video

Hello, this is Mr. Cooper tuning in for your fifth out of six lessons in this particular inquiry on the Mediaeval World looking at it through the life of this very interesting woman, Margery Kempe.

So you hopefully will have just done a short quiz just to make sure we've got some, remembering what we did in the previous lesson 'cause today we're going to be building on that.

And as always hide your phone, under a cushion.

I was about to in the fridge.

Not a good idea.

Don't put in fridge, definitely not in the microwave, to a trustworthy member of the person, whoever's in your house, and not a pet, So, piece of paper same as always, date of whatever day were doing this lesson on titled, underlined, both tidy next time in mind, and we will get going with the lesson.

So off we go.

So could you please make sure that you have the date of Whatever it is that you're doing this lesson on, plus the title with The Mediaeval Church underlined both pause if you need to in the restart when you're ready.

Remember, you can pause at any point during these lessons.

So just do that and then we will continue.

We will start the lesson.

So, far we've been looking at the mediaeval through the life of a woman called Margery Kempe.

Now Margery was a very interesting woman, she had these very powerful experiences or religious experiences.

She cried a lot and she caused a lot of trouble.

A lot of people found her to be intensely annoying, including religious people.

So even though she was very religious, she upset a loss of religious people, especially in the in the church.

Now on the screen we have a an image of a pope, the guy with the pointy hats in the circle there and what we have the pope talking to a group of people.

And then we have the same group of people on the far right, being attacked by Knights.

Now the reason I put this, this image on the screen, when we think of Christianity, we probably think about something along the lines of it being a peaceful religion, that's all about, be living as Jesus taught, or this what Christians would would say.

There was a bit of a strange situation though, because in the mediaeval world at the time that Margery was alive, and the Pope and the church so the organisation, of which all Christians were part, they were very, much not peaceful.

Well, a lot of them were, a bit a lot of them also weren't.

And on this screen, we have the pope launching an attack on a group of people.

Now this is something that you possibly look at more in a different inquiry.

But the reason I've put this up is to really show the yes, we have the same Bridget's yes, we have the St.

Catherine's yes we have this beautiful processions through towns and villages, but we also have the very human side of this organisation and the pope Innocent here, was yeah more than happy to organise attacks like this.

We also have at this time and this is something that Margery would have visited, she did visit lots of these places.

So this building is a is a monastery.

Now it was built actually not too long ago, about two or 300 years ago.

But there were this these kind of is built in the style of the buildings that Margery would have seen.

Now in these buildings, you can see they're huge buildings surrounded by what in this case, surrounded forests in a country called Belgium.

But in in England, they were all Lots of these kinds of monasteries.

And Margery visited a lot of these these places.

So, rewind to sort of seven or 800 years ago, England was full of monasteries like this.

And Scotland, Wales as well.

And Ireland as well.

So we have these buildings all over now they were mostly demolished.

Many of them were demolished when Henry the Eighth became king, that's for a separate inquiry.

But these buildings, they became very powerful and very important wherever they were, and the reason for this is that they, were home to monks who spent their lives worshipping and learning in theory.

And of course, this record they became very powerful landowners as well.

So the church in England owned about a third of all lands.

So they became very powerful land owners.

So, we think about the Christian message that Jesus is said to have come down which was to live humbly, love your neighbour, all this kind of stuff that Christians believe we have very powerful organisations, the Pope, for example, one of the most powerful man in Europe.

And then we also have monasteries all over Europe as well.

And here we have another lovely image of what a monk was meant to be doing.

monks were meant to be writing, reading, studying, worshipping.

However, we also have this kind of thing going on.

Now, this is a joke picture, and it clearly shows a monk getting a little bit tipsy.

So, we have at the time that Margery is alive.

We have this very, we have an increasingly tense situation between how the church is meant to behave and what the church is actually doing.

And the church the Pope, for example, is getting very very uncomfortable about people that are "Rocking the boats." People who are criticising the behaviour of the monks, who were criticising the actions taken by the Pope.

And Margery because she's such a loud character starts to draw attention to herself in a not particularly helpful way.

Again this is a to really emphasise or to explain the power of these monasteries, especially the monasteries.

This is a barn actually, again, I was very lucky during lockdown staying with my mum, and I've discovered that this was next door in the village next door and this is something called a tithe barn.

Now a tithe barn is.

This is a really big barn, huge barn, a tithe barn, you would have seen them all over the countryside.

And basically what happened was, the church said that you have to give 10% of everything you produced to the church.

And when we're talking obviously most people farmers are dismissed 10% of all the food you grow, you had to give to the church, and you would drop it off in the tithe barn.

And this is one of these tithe barns.

This particular tithe barn was linked to an abbey and monastery at Evesham.

A huge Abbey that was one of the the oldest and best known in England, which was also destroyed by Henry the Eighth.

But again, we have the church becoming very, powerful.

Now, it's important to recognise that not all monks were drunk.

Not all monks were doing bad things.

They did a lot of important things that weren't provided at this point by the king, or the government.

So they educated people, they provided health care to people, and of course, people like Margery, they really believe they wanted to go and visit these places.

So it's not all bad.

But the point is, the church became a very powerful organisation and became quite paranoid.

It became quite concerned about people that criticise the church.

So what I'd like you to do is have a go at this paragraph, fill in the gaps as you've done before, write out the paragraph perhaps, and then put the words in the correct sentence, pause now and then restart when you're ready.

So here we go, the mediaeval church became powerful, thanks to the role it played in people's lives.

If you didn't go to church every week and confess your sins, you might go to hell.

You also had to pay the tithe, which made some monasteries very rich, some monks were corrupt, but many really wanted to look after the sick and the poor.

Now there's a word that corrupts that I might not have explained.

So to corrupt means when you're doing something that you're, when you're using your position in a way that you shouldn't be using it.

So monks were meant to live holy lives, but some of them took advantage of that fact, and partied a bit too much.

Now, this is not to say all monks did it, and it was probably a minority that did, but there were examples of this and this really upset quite a few people.

So here, we're going to continue that this thread if you like.

So the church starts to get quite anxious it gets worried about people criticising it.

It's got a lot to lose.

The church has become a very powerful landowner and doesn't like the idea that people are questioning it.

On the screen we now have an image is this was actually made about a little bit quite a while after Margery was alive.

But what we see happening here is pretty gruesome.

We have a group of people looking on as someone is hanged and then burnt.

So, this was the punishment for anyone who was found to be a heretic.

Now a "Heretic" is the name that we give to someone who disagrees with the official position of the church.

So if you said something that the church didn't say was right.

You could be accused of being a heretic, the noun, it comes from the word heresy.

So heresy is an incorrect belief, a wrong belief, and the punishment was death.

And at the time that Margery was alive, there was a real fear that heretics were stalking the lands that they these "Dangerous people" were causing trouble and bringing people further away from the church, and because Margery was so loud and cried and screamed the whole time, and she was a woman, which was meant she shouldn't have been doing these things.

People accused her of being a heretic.

And she was put on trial on several occasions saying that she was going to be she was accused of heresy.

In one example, actually, she in her book, she talks about being escorted to she was chucked in prison, and people were chucking stuff at her and they were screaming and shouting, "You filthy heretic." At this time, heretics in this country were called "Lollard's." A law lord somebody who didn't agree with the church.

And they started to do things like read the Bible in English, the Bible had been in Latin.

And some people said, "No, we want to translate it from Latin into English, "we want to be able to understand it." So at the time, the really the key thing is that Margery was alive at a time of a lot of change.

People started to criticise the church.

But just to really make these points clear, the church decided correct religious beliefs and ways to worship.

So, this is the church was in charge of this.

If you disagreed with what the church taught, you were a heretic.

Heretics were a threat to the church and in England they were nicknamed "Lollard's." So, with this is the world that Margery is alive in and she was accused of being a heretic, accused of being a Lollard.

She wasn't, so she was accused, but they could never prove that she was, and she believes strongly that the Catholic Church was the right church, but she was just very emotional about it.

And here we have a lovely, we'll read this together.

"Our Lord has.

." So, this is the scene that Margery when she's arrested.

"Our Lord has sent for you "because people think you are the greatest Lollard "in this part of the country.

"We have looked for you in many parts of the land "and we shall have 100 pounds "for bringing you before our Lord." So that is that's, this is an extract from her books that I that I've copied out not exactly how she wrote.

But this is so people were sent out to look for heretics and Margery had upset people so much that there were people looking for her and they were going to get a reward for bringing her to the course.

Margery said to them, "With a goodwill sirs "I shall go with you wherever you will lead me." She wasn't frightened, she was happy to go along.

She wasn't concerned about what was going to happen to her.

And then they brought her to Hessle, so a place in England and then men called her a Lollard and women came running out of their houses with their knitting needles crying to the people, "Burn this false heretic".

So, Margery really caused a lot of upset wherever she went.

So I'd like you now to write down which of these is true, which is false.

One to five have a go you can write them down as well this is useful information for you to have and then I'll go through them together so pause now and then restart when you're ready.

So first one, the mediaeval Church had the final say over what the correct Christian beliefs and ways to worship were.

This is true.

That is exactly the case.

Two, heretics were people who agreed with what the church said.

False, heretics this were people who disagreed with what the church said.

Three, Lollard's was the nick name of the heretics in mediaeval England, true.

Margery Kempe was accused of being a Lollard, true she was accused, however, Margery Kemp was not a Lollard.

So point five, that's false, she wasn't a Lollard.

So what we're going to do now, the same we've done this many times before, you're going to pause the video, you're going to close the video, you're going to click next, on the bottom right hand corner of the of the lesson.

You're going to go to the next part of the lesson, read through the slides, using the glossary when necessary, and then you're going to answer these five questions in full sentences.

And then when you've done that, you're going to return to the video and press play and we'll go through the answers together.

So pause the video, read the slides, answer the questions, and then restart when you're ready.

So first question, and again, these answers might not be what you've written down, but this is just to give you an idea of what I would like you to be writing.

Again, you can also pause to make sure if you want to add something or if you've not got it quite right, that's absolutely fine.

So first question, what is a heretic? Acceptable answer, someone who disagrees with the church.

Yap, fine, that's not a full sentence, though.

So the good answer, a heretic is a man or woman who criticised the official position of the church and was therefore seen as a threat.

That's a much better definition of a heretic.

Two what made the church so powerful? Acceptable answer, it made lots of money, or we definitely need some more to make this a good answer.

So the good answer, the church was powerful because it owned about a third of all land in England, ran monasteries that became like businesses and collected the tithe from everyone in the country.

So three really good examples of what made the church very powerful.

So as well as being a religious organisation it became a very powerful human organisation as well.

Three What happened at monasteries? Monks and nuns prayed, true, but we needed more good answer.

In monasteries, monks and nuns lived and prayed.

They often educated local boys and sometimes provided health care.

Sometimes they became corrupt and started living like normal people.

So again, monks and nuns meant to be living holy lives, but sometimes they'd started behaving not as they should have done.

Four, Why did some people start criticising the mediaeval Church? Accepted answer, it was a corrupt great word for us to use here good answer.

Some people started criticising the mediaeval church because they believed that it had become corrupt.

They said that the church wanted to control people, by keeping the Bible in a language few people understood that language is of course a Latin.

Question five.

Why was Margery criticised by some people in the church? Acceptable answer, She was loud and talked about God too much.

The good answer, so the acceptance is true, but the good answer Some people in the great church criticised Margery because they thought it was wrong for a woman to be so loud.

They worried that she was talking about religious matters which only men are allowed to do.

So, you couldn't have a female priest, Catholic still believe this.

You can't be a priest if you're a woman.

And this was the same thing, good seven or 800 years ago.

So, Margery was not meant to be talking about religious things.

She was not allowed to be a preacher.

So writing activity, again, historians we read and rewrite, therefore, we're now going to bring together all the stuff we've learned today.

And we're going to write a nice paragraph answering this question, why did some people in the Church fear Margery Kempe? So first of all, write down why you think the church would be scared of heretics.

So on the basis of what we talked about today, just whatever you can think of even if it's just one thing, that's absolutely fine, just write down whatever springs to mind.

Based on this lesson, get it down and then we will continue lesson to pause here.

Have a go don't worry, if you can't think of anything, that's fine, and then restart when you're ready.

So, these are the five things that I think would be quite helpful to write down.

So make sure you've got these written down in your books, even if you you might have them already or you might have a different idea, that's fine.

Just make sure you've got these five things written down in your books, because they're going to be useful for the bit of writing that we're going to do next.

So pause now, get this done and then yeah, restart.

So we've done this a few times before the question is Why did some people fear in the Church fear Margery Kempe? First sentence, clearly uses the words in the question.

Some people in the Church feared Margery Kempe, because, clear sentence because what? because why? Then we have two sentence starters.

This is because that is one and then we've got another reason that we can think of We can then have a second point as well.

So I don't want you to be spending too much time when there's no more than 10 minutes is all about practising on writing, making a nice pair of clear paragraph answering this question very, clearly.

So pause now have a go and then when you're done, restart and then that will bring us to the end of the lesson.

And so as we've done before, if you'd like to share your work with me under National, please do not compulsory at all, but if you'd like to simply ask your parent or your carer, to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter tagging Oak @OakNational and #LearnwithOak again, not compulsory, but I would love to see what you're producing.

So, that brings us to the end of fifth lesson of six and I hope you find it interesting.

Even the less nice bits about burning heretics.

Not very nice.

So what I'd like to do when you've done this finish this lesson, and I've stopped talking, what a relief for everyone, do the quiz.

And then whenever you're up to today, have a great time and I'll see you for the last of this particular inquiry.