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Medieval Social Structure and Achad's Tree of Life
by Benjamin Rowe

Copyright 1988, 1992 by Benjamin Rowe

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Medieval Social Structure and Achad's Tree of Life

This work presents a brief outline of the relation between Achad's Tree
of Life and the various groups making up the structure of medieval
society. It is intended to be suggestive rather than comprehensive, but
what is shown here should establish that the correspondence is fairly
complete. The first outline shows the basic correspondences. The second
shows the manner in which I arrived at these correspondences.

Medieval society generally perceived itself as divided into three
sections, the common folk, the nobility and priests, and God. This
division is reflected in the correspondences here.

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                        Formation of the Village Culture

Malkuth - The empty land.

Aleph - The people follow the winds into the land. They till the soil
and scatter the seed.

Beth - The ceaselessly shifting movements of the elements over the land
cause the seeds to grow. The tradesmen take the elements from the land
and fashion them with their tools.

Daleth- Under the care of the women and the fashioning of the tradesmen,
the land produces an abundance. The living creatures within the land
become fruitful and multiply.

Yesod - The abundance enables the people to establish homes and produce
families, thus ensuring their survival and continuance. A village is
established.

Gimel - The midwifes, herbalists, wise-women and nature-priestesses
practice skills and trades developed out of the necessities of womanly
existence.

Hod - The bards and scribes remember and record the wisdom of the
tradesmen and wise-women, transforming them into words so that they can
be passed to the succeeding generations.

Cheth - when many families have grown in the land, they designate a
place where they will meet to exchange things they have produced. The
meeting-place becomes a market town.

Vav - Through the families' interactions, customs develop. The elders of
the village become the guardians of custom, ruling on disputes,
celebrating marriages, etc.

Netzach - Smiths, merchants, innkeepers, and others whose livelihood
depends on trade between the families set up permanent dwellings in the
market town.

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The villages have contact with the rest of the world through:

Mem - Clergymen are appointed under the King's approval to represent the
Will of God to the families of the village.

Zayin - Messengers, minstrels, and tinkers carry news and tales of other
places to the village. Young men seek a wives outside their own village,
under the usual exogamic customs.

Teth - Traders, salesmen and other theatrical types pass through looking
for money. The merchants seek to influence the king by lending or
withholding money for his projects.

Yod - Pilgrims and wandering monks come and go in their seeking. Men
from the village are pressed into service in the army.

Lamed - Judges and representatives of the law come to enforce the laws
of the land.

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The King, Nobles, and Priesthood

Tiphereth - The King is perceived by the villagers as the embodiment of
the higher powers ruling them. He is a glamorous figure, a living
representation of the soul of the land.

Heh - As the war-leader he protects the land from invasion, and keeps
the peace by force when necessary. In his dark aspect, he rules through
fear. Conversely, the nobles maintain a degree of influence over the
King because they control the troops and levies he must use. Without
their cooperation his power is an illusion.

Geburah - As a child, the king is taught the art of war by the knights
and nobility, the hereditary professional warrior class. As an adult, he
rules as one of them. Where the continuity of the village culture is
maintained by the preservation of lore (Hod), the continuity of the
noble culture is maintained through violence and the threat of violence.

Chesed - The Church and its Priesthood. As a child, the king is taught
history and the peaceful arts by the priesthood, usually in some
monastic environment (Qoph). As an adult, he translates the lessons and
cannons of the priests into laws governing the people.

Qoph - The Priesthood exerts influence over the King by its control over
the religious and intellectual aspects of life. Since they deal with
areas where material proof is impossible, they can say whatever they
want without fear of contradiction. By identifying the King with the
Savior, they can enhance his position in the eyes of the people. By
declaring his actions to be against the Will of God, they can make him
into the sacrificial victim whose blood must be shed so that the land
might prosper.

Nun - Where conflicts in the village are resolved by resort to custom,
conflicts among the nobility and priests are resolved through intrigue,
secret agreements, and assassination.

Ayin - The King is the court of last resort, the enforcer of the spirit
of the law when the letter of the law is abused. In his dark aspect he
is the autocrat, enjoying his power over others and making use of it for
his own pleasure without regard to the consequences for those he
controls.

Shin - He is anointed by god, and rules by God's Will.

Resh - As the soul of the land, the King's fortunes reflect the fortunes
of the land, and foreshadow the fortunes to come.

Peh - The nobility can maintain their power in the face of stronger
opponents through their possession of impregnable fortresses. These
fortresses are usually placed at strategic points along routes of travel
and trade. So long as the fortress stands, a noble's power holds. When
the fortress is taken or is destroyed, his power falls even if he is not
captured himself.

Samek - The Priesthood maintains its power through its control of the
sources of knowledge, and through its claim that it interprets the plan
of god to man. When knowledge becomes available through other sources,
the power of the Priesthood is weakened.

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Heaven

The King, the nobility, and the priesthood are answerable only to god,
in his threefold aspect:

Binah - The Holy Spirit. Also Mary as the Mother or receptacle for the
substance of God. In its Saturnian aspect, God as rule-maker and
immovable power.

Chokmah - The Son, the Word. The plan of God, which is interpreted by
the priests.

Kether - God the Father, God the Creator.

Tzaddi - the Angels and the 12 Apostles, working towards the
manifestation (Binah) of God's Plan (Chokmah) under the Will of God
(Shin).

Tau - The embodiment of God in the matter of which the world is made.

Kaph - The embodiment of God's plan in the motions of the heavenly
spheres.

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The correspondences in this outline generally derive either directly
from the astrological and elemental attributes of the paths and
sephiroth, or indirectly through the associated Tarot cards.

Malkuth shows an empty land, its resources untouched.

Aleph - The Tarot card for this path shows a man wandering in the
wilderness, carrying all his possessions in a sack. He can be seen as a
refugee, or a peasant youth forced out of his homeland for lack of
available land to far