Missionaries in Age of Exploration and Middle Ages-Fat and Rich?

[Pisces Axxxxx]

One thing I notice popular media portrays missionaries They always portray them as physically low tier, often fat and rich, and sheltered from the hardships of the Medieval World. They are portrayed as such pampered people that when they move into unconverted areas that are being explored such as South America, they are offered the best living conditions under travel-they are given the best food, often given very fine tents, and they are always shown on donkeys safe from any dangers by Crusaders (or in the case of South America Conquistadors). They are shown so pampered they have jewelry and fancy expensive Bibles,Rosaries,and beautiful Crucifixes and other religious items made out of the finest and most expensive materials such as Gold or the finest wood, and embedded with jewelries such as diamonds. If tough times come, such as food supplies running out, they are shown as the first ones to die out of the expeditionary force. Heck even when forced to face conditions that are more descent than that the Conquistadors and Crusaders faced like all the finest food running out and the fancy shelters being destroyed, the Missionaries are shown as whining how hard things are and moaning the "low standards of livings" they have to face (even though the Crusaders have sacrificed the finest foods,tent, and so on and given them to the missionaries).

 

Don't even get me started on how when Pagan Warriors come to fight the Christian missionary force such as the Aztec Warriors ,unconverted Germanic tribes in the Baltic,and Muslim Warriors during the Crusades, the Missionaries are always shown as cowering and are particularly the first to get killed in the middle of a chaotic melee.

 

When Missionaries are doing work at home, they are shown living in very fine monasteries with the finest foods, fine bedding, and basically the highest standards of livings a person could dream of in the Middle Ages.

 

Excellent examples of this portrayal is in the game Age of Empires 2 were Missionaries are portrayed on Donkeys as healers for the Spanish faction.They are the weakest unit in the entire game after the Monk unit. They can't even fight to defend themselves under attacks, something even the lowly peasants can do.

 

Another example is most movie incarnations of Robin Hood where the Missionaries are portrayed as fat and pampered and often corrupt. They are portrayed as comic humor in the typical Robin Hood flick.Even Friar Tuck,one of the good guys, is often portrayed as this.

 

However I was told that in actuality Missionaries were physically strong, if not then at least used to facing physically hardships.According what I was told, they had to because the regions they were going to like South America were often dangerous. Prior to even going to such regions for seeking converts, Missionaries were expected to live an austere life in Catholic regions that was pretty Spartan even when compared to what hardships peasants in the time period typically face. Even in our modern world, Missionaries going to places like India are expected to be austere and mentally tough for the hardships they'll face.

 

Excellent example of this is in the novel Silence by Endo. The Missionaries, while having lived most of their life in Catholic Altair, were quite the mentally austere enough to have survived many of the hardships typical in Missionary Work such as hunger, passing through rough terrains such as mountains, and treachery.

 

I've read that in the Middle Ages it was not uncommon for Missionaries to maintain physical fitness and even practice some form of Medieval Wrestling and Weapon Fighting. Of course this didn't mean they were conditioned to fight professional soldiers like Knights, but they certainly had much more knowledge about self-defense and hand-to-hand than the average peasants of the Middle Ages and I actually even read of accounts were missionaries beaten well-trained knights in wrestling matches.

 

While I'm not sure if he was a missionary, in the older incarnations of the Robin Hood stories, Firar Tuck is also the epitome of how the missionary would have lived. In these incarnations, Tuck was a muscular man who was well-versed in swordsmanship and other fighting arts.

 

I read of so many of the things missionaries faced in South America were the worst hardships in Spanish exploration of the region. It was not uncommon for them to be captured, and they faced the most desperate of situations that would break even elite battle-hardened warriors like the Knights Templar and Viking Berserkers.

 

So what I read about Missionaries is that they were anything but fat and pampered. Their fortitude is on the same league , if not surpasses, those of Medieval Knights and while they were not trained for war, they were very fit for non-fighters and there is evidence of missionaries holding on their own against Knights in combat activities and even killing Warriors like Vikings in battles.

 

So I'm curious which view is correct and where did this stereotype come from?

Edited December 26, 2012 by Pisces Adonis