Like I said, complicated. I'm a protestant in the reformed tradition so I am well aware of historical church corruption. But to see the entirety of the medieval period as one giant epoch of church corruption is a sad and flattened view.

I'm not looking to dunk on you, to be clear. You're not wrong that there were periods and regions where the peasantry suffered under unjust rulers and clergy. But the Church Age, built atop the Scriptures, is why we today can even have this discussion. Our freedoms, senses of justice, tools of liberty—our whole moral framework—is the fruit of Christendom, and medieval Christendom especially.