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A man’s son inherited his lands and his obligations to fight

The castle was both a residence for the lord and his family, and a fortification. It was a strong place for the lord to defend himself against his enemies (and the king’s enemies, and his overlord’s enemies), a safe place for him and his knights to return to, and a place to live which emphasized his power.

  Castles were built to keep out enemies. When an attack was expected, the drawbridge was raised, the gates and portcullis were closed, and archers were stationed on the towers.

The walls were not only high, in a well-planned castle, but they were arranged as much as possible so that anyone climbing the walls could be shot at from two directions.

The castle’s defenses invited a great deal of ingenuity from the attackers. Rolling wooden towers, covered with thick hides to stop arrows and kept wet so they could not be set on fire, were brought up to the walls in an attack. Sometimes they even worked. Catapults threw heavy stones at the walls to make a breach or loads of rocks (or diseased livestock, or fire bombs) over the walls. The battering ram—generally used against a door—was an old favorite.

he knights and their servants and their mounts all had to eat, as did the lord, his family, and his servants and officials, and their families. Many castles grew certain types of food inside their walls, to add variety to the diet of those inside the castle, but it was not nearly enough to feed the people in the castle, much less their guests. Castles might have beehives, herb gardens, fruit trees or a fishpond. Because the land inside the castle walls was not enough to feed all these people, they got their food from the peasants who farmed outside, and from hunting. There were restrictions on hunting by the peasants, and sometimes it was forbidden entirely, so that the lord and his retainers would have plenty of game to hunt. Hunting was also a major recreation for the lord and his men.

disease.

They go as naked as their mothers bore them, even the women, though I only saw one girl, and she was very young. All those I did see were young men, none of them more than thirty years old.… They do not carry arms and do not know of them, because I showed them some swords and they grasped them by the blade and cut themselves out of ignorance

They ought to make good slaves for they are of quick intelligence, since I notice that they are quick to repeat what is said to them, and I believe that they could very easily become Chirstians, for it seemed to me that they had no religion of their own. God willing, when I come to leave I will bring six of them to Your Highnesses so that they may learn to speak

Columbus believed he had every right to take their land and make them into “servants.

With the native population gone, the Spanish began to import slaves from Africa to grow their sugar cane

superiority to their enemies who had rejected Christianity, and they developed rules of war based on that superiority — including the right to enslave the people they conquered. Once Spain was reconquered, Muslims and Jews were forced to convert to Christianity or be expelled from Spain.

In 1519 Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico from Cuba with 11 galleons, 550 men, and 16 horses — the first horses on the American continent. Within two years his conquistadores, conquerors, had won control of the Aztec kingdom that spanned most of present-day Mexico and Central America.

One of Cortés’ soldiers had smallpox, and he started an epidemic that killed a third of the population of the Aztec empire.

Cortés for the deity Quetzalcoátl, or Plumed Serpent, who according to prophesy would return from the east to reclaim his kingdom — perhaps in 1519. When Cortés arrived — from the east, with fair skin, riding four-legged creatures never before seen in Mexico, wearing shining armor and looking for all the world like someone who wanted to reclaim a kingdom — Moctezuma feared that he might be Quetzalcoátl and did not immediately meet him in battle.

What Cortés and his men saw in Tenochtitlán horrified them.

The Spanish, more convinced than ever of their superiority, forced most of the people of Mexico to convert to Christianity. Priests burned Aztec books and destroyed idols and temples. Indigenous people were enslaved to work in gold mines. Disease reduced the population of Mexico from more than 20 million when Cortés arrived in 1519 to about 2 million by 1600.

By the 1600s, Spain was easily the most powerful kingdom in Europe.

We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the forty years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain more than twelve million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like fifteen million.…

They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house.

With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim’s neck, saying, “Go now, carry the message,” meaning, Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains.

I solemnly promise so to do.Archbishop. Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?Queen. I will.

Archbishop. Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?

Queen. All this I promise to do.

The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.