This weekend I came across the anime Spice and Wolf. The character Horo is so cute, but this is not what I want to mention most.

It was in the Middle Age, Lawrence, the main character is a travelling merchant. Therefore trading activities and religious organizations(sorry I can’t find an equivalent word) are often mentioned in the story. That inspired me to the imagination of the Middle Age.

It was a dark age that religious power controlled the society, and however, an age of merchants. There were villages, towns, cities, ports and kingdoms. There were missionaries, knights, mercenaries and kings. It was hard to transmit information. It was hard to transport substances. It was a solid age. And it was merchants, who traveled everywhere for more benefits, that liquefied the age.

Merchants were(maybe are) crafty as I knew before and see from the animation. It is not a good manner today. But at that time, the time people had to follow strict religious provisions and to live for gods but themselves, it was the worldly characters merchants had that bring the light that people should live for themselves.   And it was the lust for more wealth that led to the desire for freedom. And it was the success of merchants that inspired people to belief in themselves instead of gods.

I haven’t read much about the Middle Age. Maybe what I know is more romance than reality, but I still believe that era was full of romances of merchants, and it was these romances that pushed ahead the world.

2010-09-12