Marie Rose

THE NAME OF THE ROSE

The strangest thing that I learned about medieval Europe from this film is the punishments and self flagellation techniques portrayed. Some of the monks in this movie used a whip to beat themselves with over the back to let out there sins and suffer pain like Jesus did for them. I also found it interesting that they would burn those who committed crimes at the stake and still try to torture a confession out of them. From this I would have to say that punishment back then was more cruel and unusual then punishments used in the U.S. today.

A major strength of the medieval Catholic Church was its wealth and power. Christianity had a huge effect on Europe and the churches were the central power. It was a sin to test the power of God so therefore no one had greater power. The monks were limited to the knowledge of what they were taught and did not have the abilities we have today. Many of them never even left their towns, so they had no chance to explore the rest of their surroundings. Also they were not allowed in the secret room in the library. Limited knowledge was a big problem in the monastery but I guess that really wasn't a problem in medieval Europe where the teachings of God were all that was important and to go and explore new ideas and find reason was looked down upon.

I found the Rose to be the most interesting character in the movie. She opened up a lot of new ideas to Adso and made him question what he had been taught his whole life so she must have been very seducing. All he could see was her inner beauty and did not care that she was poor. I think that the girl was just lonely and just wanted someone to be there for her but almost burned at the stake for apparently seducing a man. Women were looked down upon and especially poor ones so I don't believe that she deserved to be burned to death. She escaped when the library burned down and ran to the woods. The way this