sociology

This question rather requires answering by ethnologists. From archaeological view, this phenomenon can easiest be explained as the popular adaptation of earlier ‘”water cults”. From prehistory, we know numerous sacrifices...

Medieval punishments were often quite gruesome and painful. One could simply be put in a block of shame, or much worse than that. Much needed to happen before they would for example cut off your hand, because that would mean...

A castle could have different functions. In most cases, it was the building from which the neighbouring territory was controlled. This could be a town, an important road or a larger area. Often soldiers were encamped, a garrison...

The image we have of the Middle Ages is often about the king at his castle, knights and ladies, jokers et cetera. But the truth was much different...

Averagely 35 years. Many children died before they turned 5 years old and very few people got really old (50 - 70 years). http://www.literatuurgeschiedenis.nl/thema.asp?ID=8 (in Dutch)...

This question goes for prehistory and the Middle Ages as well. From the emergence of modern man (the homo sapiens sapiens, following the homo sapiens neanderthalensis) we are sure people used spoken language...

A possible answer is to be found at Nisbet:"as one of the points of calibration of Nisbet's vision on history, the transition between the Middle Ages and the Modern Era stands, in which both should be less seen as easy discernible...