“Q: CURT: [Was] the catholic church was a land scheme between families during th

–“Q: CURT: [Was] the catholic church was a land scheme between families during the Middle Ages?”–
Yes. The simple version: Primogeniture meant that the family landholdings, and therefore its wealth, would remain intact, preserving the intergenerational persistence of the family and it’s influence. This meant that ‘second sons and such’ went into the military or the clergy. The nobility and aristocracy maintained local churches. The second sons would enter the church. The families would then acquire land for the church, or donate to the church to acquire land. The church would then rent land to the peasantry. And this would provide income for the ‘second sons’. By the late middle ages the church owned half of the land in europe. This in turn gave rise to resistance against the church because of its control over land and therefore the economy. This is why the restoration of trade depreciated the value of land and the influence of the church and transferred wealth to the emerging middle and upper middle classes.
While you might criticize this system on some moral ground that would be a mistake. The system was perhaps the most benevolent and interdependent system man has ever developed outside of the pervasive corruption of the church (as with any human organization), and that the corruption of the church, as in all instances of corruption, was magnified in the cities even though it’s function in the rural regions retained value.
Cheers
CD

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