[quote=Vahir]
[quote=Xilaw]
[quote=TwistedSun]


Was just doing some irony, don't worry :P
The fact is that before the 17th century none questions on the nature of royal power. It was given for granted that it came directly from God.
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I don't think anything was questioned back then. Everyone just accepted it as it was, either because they were illiterate and uneducated or because they feared the almighty church that was out to get anyone who was going against it's teachings. Dark ages, indeed.
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No.

Kings in the 17th century certainly ruled with a divine right to rule, but that's been pretty much standard for all of history- every despot since the cavemen claimed to rule with the mandate of heaven. And throughout that history, it was never enough to just shut everyone up- whether the people accepted an autocrat was largely dependent on the man's political strength. I mean, the 17th century saw ol' Charlie of England- one of the great proponents of the divine right to rule, mind you- be overthrown and executed, largely because of his attemps to control everything.

The second assertion I'd like to contest, and one that makes me cringe in terrible agony every time I see it, is everything you said about the so called 'dark ages'. Apparently, everything between the fall of Rome in the 400s and the renaissance was anarchy and cultural stagnation, which lasted over a thousand years. Except for, what do you call it, the Carolingian renaissance of the 700s, or the cultural brilliance of the Byzantines and the Islamic world, ect, ect. /Sarcasm

My point here is that calling the 400-1400 period the 'dark ages' is a gross oversimplification, one which reduces the greatness of the countless civilizations that rose and fell in that period (yes, civilization did exist).

Finally, you seem to imply that the 'church'- by which I assume you refer to the Roman Catholic Church- was not only a proponent of the divine authority of Kings, but actively hunted those who opposed their tyranny. This is a ridiculous concept; for one thing, the popes would never impart divine authority on kings, authority they guarded as their own. The thousand years you clumped into the 'dark ages' saw a constant struggle between the papacy and the European Kings for religious authority. And even if one were to ignore that and pretend that the popes loved these Kings, it ignores the simple fact that your statement is an anachronism. By the 17th century, the roman church was already spiraling into its political decline. A third of Europe had broken off and formed their owned reformed churches, and even in those catholic nations that remained, papal authority was almost non-existent.

With that said, good sir, I bid you adieu.

(Oh, and I'm interested in the RP.)
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Indeed. Defining them 'Middle ages' is degrading as well, since the name derives from the humanist conception of those times as 'intermediary' between two worthy of mention (obviously I'm referring to late Roman history and Renaissance, whose itself is a craft of humanism as well.). Medieval times were, after all, not a period of obscurantism like many know, but some sort of cradle, theocentric and pretty unwired, that permitted modern nations to sprung.