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Medieval Europe and Japan
There is an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt. But does unfamiliarity breed similarity? In the Middle Ages, two civilizations at opposite ends of the globe evolved in a strangely similar manner. Western Europe had its feudal age. Japan had its feudal age. The Roman Catholic Church exerted a powerful influence from Sweden to Italy, Buddhist temples and monasteries from Hokkaido to Kyushu. In the West, civilization rebuilt itself after the fall of a great empire, while in the Far East a new nation emerged that modeled itself after the ancient civilization of its powerful neighbor. There are indeed many similarities between Medieval Western Europe and Medieval Japan, but there are also many differences. These two civilizations - almost entirely unknown to each other - evolved along similar yet different paths.
Following the Fall of Rome, and in the wake of devastating barbarian invasions, the map of Europe was redrawn. The Germanic tribes moved into Gaul, and the British Isles. Slavs swept into the Balkans. The Goths poured into Italy and Spain. Europe was soon divided into numerous, tiny, warring territories, territories that gradually coalesced into an order that would come to be described as the Feudal System. The feudal system was a kind of pyramid of interlocking relationships between lords and vassals in which vassals pledged to support their lords financially and militarily, while the lords promised to protect their vassals and uphold their rights. A somewhat similar situation existed in contemporary Japan. At the dawn of the European Middle Ages in the Fifth Century, Japan was a relatively backward country inhabited by numerous, politically-divided clans. Its people had not yet discovered writing, nor did they have any sort of sophisticated art or architecture. The Japanese worshipped...
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