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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 381366" data-attributes="member: 5137">In no wise have I denied that (although I might point out that tension and wars between aristocrats of all stripes, not just clergical vs temporal, was considerable and frequent).From the perspective of the economy, however, church and state behaved almost identically - both took economic force in, and both spent that economic force on much the same things (impressive architecture, militias, political exertions, decadence).Again, I'm looking at this purely from an economic perspective. Politics were, and I agree with you on this, heavily influenced by who the specific factions were, and whether any given faction was believed to have God on their side.(and honestly, I'm not sure we're disagreeing - you seem to be talking more about politics than economic roles?)I made no assumptions, although I did give an example of one possible option which I felt you were ignoring. One which is present even in the medieval church! I suggested that the presence of real deities would not necessarily result in "the same Church structure as without, only more powerful".Also, while I feel that any deific reality would result in more power among the priesthood (whatever form that priesthood takes), I don't think it would result in rich priests who fulfilled a different role than the aristocrat.Well, in the first part, I do not suggest that they would resemble any one thing - I suggested, instead, that no blanket statement would suffice if we are to assume real deities, unless we first make a blanket statement about the exact nature of those deities.And in the second part, a prevalance of plagues, thunderbolts and the like may result in a different selection of aristocrats, but is not likely to change the economic meaning of the aristocrat...This assumes again that the deities merely enhance the current structure - that is, they provide priests power, but in no way require that the power be used in a way other than how the priests were using their already impressive social powers. I find a deity with such a completely hands-off managerial style about as believable as the human equivalent... which is to say it could happen, but it's not likely.And, again, even if the assumption is true, it does not change my statements about economic roles.</blockquote>

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