Where are the merchants in the social hierarchy of the middle age? what were some of the challenges that merchants in the middle ages faced? what were some of the benefits of being a merchant in the middle ages? !

Medieval society divided itself between three societal categories that included the clergy, the peasants and the fighters. Merchants were not considered as part of these three categorizations and were largely discriminated against. The clergy, the peasants and the nobility considered the merchant as one who was seeking to enrich himself at the expense of society. Meanwhile this same society increasingly depended on merchants for the distribution of much needed goods.

In the early emergence of the merchant class, the clergy was vehemently opposed to merchant activities such as banking and trading. The clergy convinced the community that these activities were evil and against God’s will. As such, people would blame the merchants for natural catastrophes including disease, floods or famine as a punishment to the community from God. 

this forms a narrow, steep sided inlet (sometimes deeper than 1300 metres) connected to the sea. the terminal moraine pushed down the valley by the glacier is left underwater at the fjord’s entrance, causing the water at the neck of the fjord to be shallower than the main body of the fjord behind it.