In Reply To #10
Yes, that is obvious that was legitimate for the time.
Still, something about that particular prayer sounds culty. "I pray the lord my soul to take"- like self sacrifice.
To tell the truth, I have been in quite a few places holy to several religions, and out of the religions I am familiar with, Christianity (Catholic and Orthodox) scares me the most.
From a modern point of view, when you go inside the huge Cathedrals and Churches that are many in Europe, it makes your blood freeze. The architecture in the more impressive of the European Cathedrals makes the small person shiver uncomfortably when facing the gigantic volume and structure of the buildings. It is only logical, since the Church during the middle-ages was maintaining control over Europe's population trough fear of the life beyond and insecurity about one's future.
Everything about the church awakened a person's fantasy, I must say, not all a non-mythological kind. Even Christianity's symbol- the holy cross, if you think about it, draws people's fear. The figure of Christ, dying in the most terrible form of execution the Romans could come up with, represents according to Christianity salvation, sacrifice and resurrection, but it also represents terrible suffering and death: what no person in his mind would be willing to go through.