Reading Notes

We are all familiar today with the tax evasion antics of the rich, but it is nothing new. In "A brief History of Life in the Middle Ages", Martyn Whittock writes, "Local landowners could remove their lands from royal taxation by setting up a monastic church, administered by a family member. This was clearly not in the spirit of how monasteries should be established and such monasteries were more of a tax loophole than a statement of individual piety." (to put it mildly!)

How far has humanity come in its still primitive stage? The same book states, " In terms of life expectancy, life in early medieval England was comparable with the poorest less economically developed countries (LECDs) of the twenty-first century. In fact, when life expectancy for women dropped to 26 years in Sierra Leone in 2002, following a catastrophic civil war which had brought the country to the lowest point on the world rating of LECDs, it was one year longer than the estimate for women in the early Middle Ages. That same year, the male life expectancy in Burkina Faso was 35.3 years -- about the medieval male average." Obviously, we have a long way to go until we can call ourselves civilized. John Ayers.