The human brain is an amazing organ. It keeps humans alive and produces great chains of thought that can seemingly do even the impossible. That is what the brain is known for: thinking. The thought processes of the human mind are complex and have been reflected many times over throughout history. But thinking becomes difficult occasionally. Two different people could be witnesses to the same event and have completely different accounts later on. This is the way of the world. It is no different even back in the Middle Ages. People of different social classes thought differently and made themselves separate from the others.
The social classes in the Medieval era were no exception to unique thinking. Certain classes had their own individual thoughts and it is the basis of what made there be social classes in the first place. [1] Starting at the top of the pecking order are the Knights and Noblemen. Such men were very prestigious in the community and had to uphold strong values for the common good. Becoming such a person is a long and rigorous process that requires devout attention and perseverance. These were the thoughts of a knight. “Knighthood was about more than just fighting, it was also about chivalry. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, this meant good horsemanship, but by 1100 it had become a whole new way of life. Knights were expected to be brave, and honorable, to uphold the honor of women, and to protect the weak” (http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/knighthood.html). Knighthood was not just about fighting, the noblemen became, as their name implies, noble in their ways. Chivalry was the core of their beliefs and what they “thought”. Just under and sometimes equal to the class of knights and noblemen were the Holy men. These were nuns, monks, priests, and the Pope. These are the people who made up Church life and their thoughts reflected that. Just as the noblemen were devout towards becoming a knight, these people were dedicated to their Lord. There is a tale concerning two Scottish men and their spiritual connection to their work. These men were said to have given out “wisdom” and King Charles brought the two men before his throne to question them about these facts. Their response outlined their beliefs: “We both possess it and are ready to give it, in the name of God, to those who seek it worthily” (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/stgall-charlemagne.html). Anyone of faith adopted these same principals of life and it became the trademark of Christian life in the Middle Ages. The Holy men of the Middle Ages had strong thoughts about the Lord and they were their “thoughts”.
The final and lowest class of the Medieval era were the Serfs. Also known as commoners, plebeians, or peasants, these people had drawn the short stick. They were stuck working for those above them, occasionally receiving bits of land or other forms of payment. (http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110522/feudal_system.htm). They could not move up through the social classes, nor could people of high standings could fall. This does not make peasants a primitive species. On the contrary, they developed powerful thoughts and put them into the greatest uprising known to man: a war. The peasants had gotten tired of their monotonous lives of working too hard with no reward. They wanted their voices to be heard. The Jacquerie, as chronicled by Jean Forissart is a depiction of a peasants’ war in France. “…it should be a great wealth to destroy them all: and each of them said it was true” (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/froissart2.html). The peasants’ revolt and, manly, their reason for revolt, centered on the most important part of a human body; the thoughts. The revolts were prime example of how, even though a body can be suppressed, it is impossible to cage a mind and all of its magnificent capabilities.
It is an obsession of every human to think. It is impossible to avoid. Everyone has thoughts and it is what connects the earliest man to the newest addition to the world. The human imagination is integral to the advancement (or destruction) of a civilization. Many a great author has written of the human mind. From the United Negro College Fund’s, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” to Theodore Geisel’s, “Oh! The thinks you can think,” wherever and whenever a thought occurs, there is thinking. Different people think different things but it is that one facet of life that has remained, and shall remain forever after.
[1] There are discrepancies in historical information as to how many social classes there were and what these classes consisted of. For the remainder of this article the theory of the classes being: Nobleman, Holy men, and Peasants.
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"Medieval Sourcebook: Jean Froissart: on the Jacquerie, 1358." FORDHAM.EDU. Web. 30 Apr. 2010. <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/froissart2.html>.
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While there's a lot of good work here, I don't think you've gone as far as you could with the primary sources. You give the Knight short schrift and then don't seem to give enough context for your source on the Peasant to really serve the purpose of backing up your thesis. I think you should think about the primary sources as the stuff you need to have to support your thesis; without a primary source at each key point -- ie in each of your supporting paragraphs -- and without those sources chosen really serving the specific purpose of backing up your argument, the essay will suffer.
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