Comparison: The Heian Period And Medieval Europe

The Heian time period and medieval Europe were on opposite sides of the planet during their time, but they actually had a lot of similarities, and of course, some differences. The characteristics of a person’s beauty and fashion, the social class structure, and the warriors and soldiers of each area are some of the common ideas that both can relate to and be compared and contrasted from. Though fashion and beauty were mostly for the rich and wealthy, people from both civilizations valued it. Both groups liked having attractive teeth, but the definition of attractive teeth was different. In Japanese culture, blackening the teeth was considered good-looking, and white teeth were perceived as not being beautiful. Japanese people were judged based

They both farmed food for their nation, and lived poorly at the bottom of the social hierarchy. They also lived in small houses, where in Japan, they lived close by in small villages, and small houses in medieval Europe were made of mud and straw. In Japan, peasants farmed rice and were highly respected because they were producing the food necessary to keep everyone alive. Trade and commerce was a big part of their life and they would also have to pay taxes to higher ranking people. In medieval Europe, peasants were free, or unfree, who were known as “serfs”. Most of the people in society were peasants, and their lords would let them have arable land for cultivating. As we go up the social ranks, it got different for both areas. In Japan, there were nine important ranks, besides the emperor. Even though there was an emperor, Japan was more reasonably an aristocracy because aristocrats were the leaders of Japan culturally and politically. Within the nine ranks, there were many sub-ranks, like “senior”, “junior”, “upper”, and “lower”. The first three main ranks were filled up by nobles, and the fourth and fifth were filled up by less important officials. All nobles received proceeds from rice farms around the nation and tax profits from farmers that were peasants. The sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth ranks were filled up by officials and experts. Where people fall on the social hierarchy was mostly

For a European knight, the metal armor covered their whole body and was very good at protecting them. Identification was also helpful with knights having all the metal armor, where other knights could recognize where a certain knight came from. The knights also used a shield to protect themselves and also used a couple of big, tough weapons. Knights that most of the time rode on horses generally had a size advantage, and because of the massive amount of armor they put on it was physically laborious to defeat. But even though with this much power, knights did have a downside. They had to wear soft clothing on the inside of their armor to prevent the body from becoming sore because of the metal rubbing against it. Though they were protected very well, all the metal put on a lot of weight, so moving with their armor was very arduous and exhausting. With a great helmet covering their whole head, knights have limited eyesight and breathing capability. A knight’s armor also had many components to it, making it very time-consuming to put on and take off. Now a Japanese samurai was the warrior during the Heian time period. Samurai had armor that was light, since it consisted mainly of bamboo, while cloth and metal made up the small components of the armor. Because of being so light, samurai could travel very fast and movement was not a major concern