Sara asked:

What are 'customs' and 'traditions'?

In what sense can any of our present day customs and traditions be traced back to Europe in the
Middle Ages?

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Customs are habitual practices of a community or people. But a tradition is a body of principles
having an immutable normative validity and a metaphysical character. The tradition receives
everything which is in accordance with its unalterable unchanging norm. It rejects and ignores
everything that is irrelevant or contrary to the norm.

You ask whether 'our' present day customs and traditions can be traced back to Europe in Middle
Ages. What do you mean by 'our'? Whatever your answer may be, the fact is that many of the world's
customs and traditions could be traced back to Europe in the Middle Ages. For example,
Freemasonry's various customs and tradition derive from the craft organizations of the medieval
European free-stone masons.

Jean Nakos