(2001
James O. Richards All Rights Reserved.)
The
First "Europe" as the Culture of the
Medieval West
Outline of Lecture
I. Introduction
II. Frame of Reference (900 - 1350): The Universal
Empire versus the National Feudal State; Economic Growth and Expansion;
European Intellectual and Artistic Activity
III. The First Europe as a Culture
IV. Lords, Vassals, and Fiefs: The Bonds of Medieval Society
V. Popes, Bishops, Priests, and Monks: The
Bonds of Medieval Society
VI. Synthesis as a Motif in
Medieval Civilization
VII. Dante's Divine Comedy as a Synthesis of Medieval Life
VIII. The Cathedral as a Synthesis in Stone,
Glass, and Artistic Vision
IX. Scholasticism as the Cathedral of the Intellect
X. Conclusion
Introduction
In the period from 900 to 1350 the First Europe
demonstrated the richness of its creativity by developing the institutions,
literature, thought, and art which we call medieval western civilization. In
some instances these developments could be seen in rudimentary form before 900,
as in earliest forms of the feudal relationship found in the Carolingian state.
In other cases--the national feudal state, Gothic art and architecture, the
vernacular literature, and scholastic philosophy--what happened later is not
apparent at all before the 10th century. The First Europe was
dynamic, as if the new outlook by its perceived harmony with the fundamental
underlying order, the will of God, unleashed a burst of creative energy. We
will examine some of the results of this creativity in class. You need to
read your text and optional readings for the rest.
Frame
of Reference (900-1350)
Before looking at some of the things produced by the First Europe, we need
to see the broader context in which these things occurred. This section deals
with the following topics:
(1) the attempts to achieve some form of
universal empire (either Holy Roman or papal) and the alternative model pursued
by national feudal states.
(2) the economic growth and expansion of western
Europe, including the resurrection of urban life and the Crusades.
(3) the broad outline of medieval western
intellectual and artistic activity.
Some of these developments challenge the
dominant views we will identify when discussing the First Europe. Others affirm
those views. The idea of universality accorded perfectly with the First Europe
as an outlook; the feudal monarchy, with its claim to supremacy in its own
affairs, could only be harmonized with the consensus of the First Europe with
great difficulty. The growth of towns and the economic expansion also posed a
serious challenge to the ordered and hierarchic society of the First Europe.
The medieval intellectual and artistic tradition up to the 14th
century sought to harmonize learning and the arts with the affirmations of the
First Europe. By and large learning and the arts faithfully reflected the
outlook of the First Europe. However, certain elements pointed to the future.
For example, Gothic architecture while expressing the yearning faith and
otherworldliness of the First Europe also revealed a growing pride in man's
ability to build ever higher, more beautiful structures which focused more
attention on this world than the First Europe intended.
A.
The Idea of Universality versus the Feudal Monarchies (900-1350)
The idea of universality originated with the Roman
Empire and never entirely disappeared. Charlemagne and the papacy
drew on the idea in the coronation of the Frankish king in 800 as Holy Roman
Emperor. Carolingian rulers expressed the idea of universality in the concept
of "imperium christianum"
or Christendom, the realm uniting all the faithful and subject to the Church
and king. Although the Carolingian empire ended in 843 when the Treaty of
Verdun divided it among Charles' descendants, the idea of universal rule
endured. This idea accorded perfectly with the First Europe's affirmation that
all society ultimately was, or should be, based on the order underlying this
world, the revealed will of God. Later popes tried to revive the idea in the 9th
century by crowning the German ruler Otto the Great as emperor. Supported by the papacy, the Holy
Roman Empire grew more powerful under Henry III (1039-1056) and Henry IV (1056-1106). Imperial
power, however, provoked opposition from Church reformers of the 11th
century who wanted to end "lay
investiture", the appointment of church office-holders by secular
rulers. Church reformers focused their energy on the Holy
Roman Empire because the emperors had once had the power to
nominate the popes. The conflict reached its peak in the reign of Henry IV. Pope
Gregory VII banned lay investiture
and, forced a defiant Henry to come to him at Canossa
in 1077 and sue for forgiveness on his knees in the snow. Later emperors such
as Frederick
I (1152-1190) and Frederick II (1211-1250) tried to reassert imperial
authority but failed to overcome papal and noble opposition. By the end of the
13th century the empire was an elective office with little real
authority.
Proving that the idea of universality could be divisive rather than
unifying, the Church itself in the 11th and 12th centuries
aimed at achieving universal authority not only in spiritual but in political
affairs as well. The beginning was the founding of the monastery of Cluny in 910 which
rejuvenated monastic life and piety. The reforms coming out of this order went
on to shape and change the rest of the Church in the 10th and 11th
centuries, stimulating piety, correcting abuses, and giving the Church greater
independence from political interference. In the 11th century the
reform movement assumed new strength with Pope Gregory VII
(1054-1085). The Church not only banned lay investiture, but also seized the
right to elect the popes through a college of cardinals without interference
from the German emperors or any other rulers. This independence combined with
the increased piety and unquestioning obedience to church authority generated
by the Cluniac and Gregorian reform movements enabled
Innocent III (1198-1216) to assert the primacy of the papacy over all
Christendom. Using the powers of excommunication (denying a named person the
sacraments) and the interdict (denying an entire territory the benefits of the
sacraments), Innocent and other strong popes asserted that the papacy as the
successors of St. Peter was responsible for the spiritual welfare for all while
the rulers had responsibility for only their own subjects in this life. Since
Christ had given to St. Peter the "keys to the kingdom" popes had
powers that went beyond those of secular rulers. Thus any dispute between the
papacy and rulers should be decided in favor of the papacy, even the question
of feudal overlordship. In 1213 he forced King John
of England
to acknowledge him as feudal overlord. Under Innocent the Church achieved its
greatest strength and effectiveness, culminating in the Fourth Lateran Council
of 1215. This council defined the sacraments as seven in number (baptism,
confirmation, holy Eucharist, confession/penance, marriage, ordination, and
extreme unction). The last of the strong popes in the medieval period was
Boniface VIII (1294-1303) who attempted to go even further than Innocent. In
one pronouncement he denied rulers the right to tax clergy; in the other, Unam
Sanctam he asserted that the pope was the ruler
of all Christendom: "for every human creature to be subject to the Roman
pontiff is absolutely necessary for salvation." He had over-reached
himself. He was seized by the French King Philip the Fair (1285-1314) and so
humiliated that he died soon afterwards. The papacy was removed to Avignon in southern France during
the so-called "Babylonian Captivity" (1305-1376) when, subjected to
French royal influence, it lost its own independence and authority. Soon the pope
in Avignon was
challenged by another one seated in Rome,
a division called the "Great
Schism" (1378-1417) which further weakened the Church.
Had the Church not spent so much time trying to subdue the Holy Roman
Emperors, it might have posed a more serious challenge to the emerging feudal
monarchies. Because the Church certainly saw the claims of the feudal rulers to
be supreme within their own realms as conflicting with the ultimate authority
claimed by the Church. While emperors and popes were asserting conflicting
claims of universality, the feudal monarchs were staking out their own claims
in feudal terms and, for the most part, ignoring or successfully resisting the
idea of universal empire. The most successful of these feudal monarchies were England and France. The
problems facing them were the same, problems growing out of the feudal
relationship: overcoming the authority of the great nobles who were strong
enough to defy royal power; creating a mechanism for governing which used but
did not depend on the church or the feudal nobles to carry out the ordinary
state business. Solutions to these problems did not come easily or
consistently. Sometimes royal power advanced for periods, only to be reversed.
Yet the result over centuries was the steady growth of royal power at the
expense of both the Church and the nobility.
So successful were the feudal monarchs at seizing power away from the Church
and nobility that John of Salisbury in the 12th century tried to
give formal statement to the proper and traditional roles of rulers and
churchmen in his Policraticus, composed in 1159. What been assumed
before in general terms as part of the Augustinian-Gregorian political
tradition, John sought to give concreteness and finality. All orders, he said,
fulfilled God's
purpose for society when they performed their traditional functions, the
rulers ruling, the knights fighting, the peasants working, and the clergy
praying and ministering to men's souls. Over all stood the Church as the
appointed means of realizing God's will on earth, and between God and the
Church stood the Pope. The state should serve the Church; thereby it gained
moral authority to carry out its functions.
The central problems of both English and French kings were to develop
administrative machinery which used but did not depend on churchmen and
nobility, and to finance the kind of strong central government feudal kings
wanted. Finance, for example, was a problem because feudal kings normally
depended on revenues from their own lands and feudal dues and aids from their
vassals. Neither was sufficient, which forced the kings to summon their vassals
and other subjects to feudal representative assemblies, in England the
Parliament, in France
the Estates-General, for aid over and above feudal obligations. This gave the
assemblies the means of limiting royal power. French kings overcame those
limits. English kings did not, and limited constitutional government grew out
of that failure.
The English kings began their efforts with a stronger hand. William the
Conqueror took over a national monarchy from the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 and
converted it to a feudal state almost immediately. His efforts were continued
by three strong monarchs--Henry I (1100-1135), Henry II (1154-1189), and Edward
I (1272-1307)--who made England
into the most efficiently run feudal state in Europe.
Henry I, for example, efficiently organized royal finances and established a
permanent professional judiciary from which developed the English common law
courts. So powerful did the kings become that the English nobility, in reaction,
forced King John to agree to the Magna Carta (the Great Charter) in 1215, or to the feudal
contract. It was in deference to that idea of a contract, and the need for
extra revenues to finance wars with France, that kings in the 14th
and 15th centuries made the calling of Parliament a recurring
feature of government and began the tradition of medieval constitutionalism.
Unlike their English cousins, the French kings started the growth of the
French kingdom with only their hereditary holding of Paris and its environs. They had to do it
piece by piece, facing opposition not only from French nobles, but also the
English kings who fought to keep their large feudal holdings in France.
Beginning with Hugh Capet (987-996), the monarchy which enjoyed an unbroken
male line of heirs from 987 to 1328 steadily added to the royal domain by
conquest and marriage. In 1204 Philip II (1180-1223) conquered the duchy of Normandy from England. Other
strong monarchs were Louis IX (1226-1270) and Philip IV (1285-1314). In the
Hundred Years War (1337-1453) the French after initial losses of territory,
were inspired by the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, to throw back the English.
Afterwards, under Louis XI (1461-1483) France went on to seize other
lands, including the duchy of Burgundy,
and by 1483 emerged as one of the strongest powers in Europe.
The development of the feudal monarchy and its eventual success against the
other model of political order, the universal empire was a challenge to the
outlook of the First Europe. While the functions of feudal rulers could be seen
to be in harmony with those of the traditional medieval view of the state, in
actual practice feudal rulers pursued narrow national interests, paying only
lip service to the higher moral and spiritual purpose of government. Feudalism
has been described as public powers in private hands, and always potentially
anarchic. Only because of the success of medieval constitutionalism in England did the
feudal state produce anything leading to development of limited power,
government for the welfare of the governed.
?
1. Are you sorry the national-state model of the feudal monarchs won out
over the universal rule sought by the Holy Roman Emperors and the Church?
Why? Are nation-states better than some “world-state”?
2. Europe seems to be reunifying after a
millennium of disunity. Is this a good thing?
B.
Urban Revival, Economic Growth, and the Expansion of Europe
(900-1350)
An important part of the frame of reference for this period is the growth of
cities, the economic revival which accompanied urban growth and the expansion
both commercially and militarily of Europe.
What is meant by the term "city"? In the medieval setting it meant a
commercial and industrial commune (or self-governing body), sheltered by a
fortified enclosure, and possessing its own law, administration, and special
privileged status. Such entities virtually, if not actually, disappeared from
500 to 900 because of the barbarian invasions, the rise of Islam (cutting off
the Mediterranean), and the end of the
classical outlook on which civic life had been based.
In the late 10th and the 11th century urban life began
once more to appear in two regions--northern Italy and the Low
Countries--accompanied by commercial activity and trading. Old
Roman cities revived and were repopulated. Merchants began to gather around
military strong points or administrative centers, along sea coasts or river
banks, at the junction of natural trade routes. Each settlement became a market
which drew from the surrounding countryside. Commercial or industrial sites
nestled close to fortified old Roman cities or "burgs". In these
sites grew up a new class, not part of the feudal or manorial systems. They
were a "middle" class (to distinguish them from the lower and the
upper orders of feudal society). They sought to create their own place in
society, governing themselves, and winning from local lords the right to
administer their own affairs, establish their own law and enjoy a special
status as communes with rights and privileges.
Where did this new commercial class come from? There was no place for
merchants in feudal or manorial society. They sprang from the new economic
conditions in Europe. As the economy revived,
population increased and men were detached from the land, either because they
ran away from manorial obligations or got free legally. The earliest merchants
were vagabonds, drawn to places where opportunities could be found. Such was
the 12th century Englishman, St. Godric of Finchale. By prudence
and adroitness he managed to advance himself from a beachcomber to an
international trader, joining with others in ventures which made his fortune.
After sixteen years of success, he gave his fortune away and devoted his life
to charitable works. His story without the pious ending is probably not unlike
that of many others. They must have been astonishing to those who respected
tradition and the hierarchy of classes because they made their way by their own
wits and abilities. As they settled at the natural sites mentioned above they
attracted more and more population, stimulating industry such as cloth-making
in the Low Countries and northern Italy. Industry
attracted even more people as workers. The merchants and those who owned the
new industries formed the middle class of these new cities.
How did communes and other features of city life begin? The new middle class
found themselves in a complicated situation. Their interests were different
from those who controlled the cities, bishops or local lords, who resented the
newcomers. The middle class needed concessions to carry out their business
activities. They needed personal freedom to come and go, but needed the
protection of the local lords so that their goods would not be seized. They
needed their own courts to hear cases rather than the courts of the local
lords. They also needed their own penal code to guarantee security and fixed
fines and dues. In short, they wanted political and legal autonomy. They
organized early by profession into guilds. They also pushed for concessions
which the local lords, often bishops, did not want to give. But greater feudal
rulers did want to make concessions, for a price, because the new middle class
was a new source of revenue. So with royal support in the 11th and
12th centuries the bishops and local lords were for the most part
excluded from civic control and communes were established in the cities of
northern Italy
and the Low Countries. Even cities in England, France and
other feudal kingdoms got charters granting them freedom from feudal controls.
With communes came new city
legal codes, again approved by kings and princes. Applied by communal
tribunals, this law provided for personal freedom ("City air makes you
free"), for freedom of city land from feudal control, and for the
commercial and legal autonomy desired by the middle class. Most communes were
governed by councils, again in the hands of the middle class, with broad powers
to deal with the peculiar problems of cities.
Commercial revival and expansion joined with new agricultural production to
support a growing population in Europe and an
increased demand for land and commodities. Undeveloped lands in eastern Europe
were seized from pagan Slavs and colonized. This impulse when joined to
religious zeal may also help explain the Crusades launched in 1095 against the
Moslems of the East and the war of reconquest against
the Moslem state of Spain.
Those expeditions undoubtedly owed a great deal to the religious impulse, but
population expansion provided the necessary manpower and the revived economy
provided the financial resources. Five major crusades from 1095 to 1221 did not
produce lasting political or military gains, but they did result in increased
contact between the East and Europe and the
transmission of knowledge and skills from Islamic civilization.
About 1350 Europe underwent a period of contraction for about a century,
caused by a severe famine, persistent warfare such as the Hundred Years War,
and by the Black Death
or bubonic plague which lasted from 1346-1350 and recurred several times before
1400. So destructive was the plague that the population may have dropped by
twenty-five percent or more in Europe. When
population dropped so did the economy, again at an alarming rate, perhaps by as
much as fifty percent. European expansion resumed in the late 15th
century in voyages of exploration and discovery which saw the foundation of
great colonial empires by many of the European states.
C.
European Intellectual and Artistic Life (900-1350)
In this section we are concerned with broad trends and a few specific
examples in each of the categories of learning and philosophy, literature, and
art and architecture.
An earlier section dealt with learning and philosophy up to 900, basically
concerning the efforts to preserve the classical-Christian tradition by copying
manuscripts and establishing monastic schools. These efforts bore some fruit in
the Carolingian Renaissance of the late 8th century, but not much
else happened of note until the late 10th century. Then with the
work of Gerbert of Aurillac schools were founded which led to universities in
many parts of Europe where scholars became
familiar with the writings of Aristotle
and other classical figures. They plunged into these works with an exhilaration
that led them to hope that their discoveries could be harmonized with church
dogma and existing knowledge. Despite the potential heresy in Aristotelianism,
they plunged on, seeking harmony through the dialectic method, examining and
categorizing and resolving contradictions. The two leading figures were Peter
Abelard (1079-1142) and Thomas
Aquinas (1225-1274). In Thomas, particularly, scholasticism reached its high point. Thomas sought
to resolve all the difficulties in Aristotle and synthesize his ideas with
official church teaching in the stunning Summa Theologica. Thomas' work
survived the charge of heresy and became official church theology, although
other thinkers such as Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253)
and Roger Bacon (1214-1292) seemed to be more interested in applying an experimental approach
to understanding nature rather than logic.
In literature the important changes after 900 were the transfer of oral
works to written form (if the works survived), and the appearance of literature
in vernacular languages alongside Latin. In the last section we looked at Beowulf
which was created in oral form and written in Anglo-Saxon about 750. But the
vernaculars did not win acceptance as literary languages until the 12th
century. About 1100 there appeared the first of the chansons de geste, the Song of Roland. Like other
poems of its genre this celebrates the deeds of a great warrior, Roland who is
the perfect feudal hero, fearless, implacable toward his enemies, devoted to
his lord to the death. Like other chansons, the poem is male and
warrior-centered. But in the 12th century other folk tales began to
appear, first in oral and then written form--tales of courtly love,
unmarried love between men and women, of adventure, of courtesy between feudal
warriors, of the quest for the Holy Grail. These are tales of King Arthur's
Round Table, of Tristan and Isolde, doomed lovers,
and of Parsifal, the knight who sought the Grail.
Such tales centering on human emotions led in a direct line to other writing
which presented real human characters in real human settings: the Decameron by Boccaccio (1313-1375), the Divine
Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), and the Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400). These writings were both backward looking and
forward looking. They affirmed the basic outlook of the First Europe in some
respects. But in their treatment of real individuals living in this world they
pointed to a new outlook on human nature.
Art and architecture, which were joined as one in most of the medieval
period, had suffered during the Viking and Magyar troubles of the 9th
and 10th centuries. Building, in fact, virtually ceased except for
the construction of fortifications. But when more peaceful conditions in the 11th
century produced the resources again for architecture and art, builders
committed a great amount of wealth, significantly, to church architecture.
Within a few years appeared a host of churches built in what is called the
Romanesque style ("Roman-like), joined abruptly in the mid 12th
century by the Gothic style (a misnomer coined by the Enlightenment which has
stuck).
Romanesque developed new and larger forms of
the Roman basilica and was characterized by round arches allowing builders to
cover wider spaces with more massive structures. But it was in the Gothic that
builders struck out on new lines. Using the pointed
arch, massive
piers, and flying
buttresses, they created structures which gave the impression of soaring
despite the stone. Combined with the stained
glass windows filling the thinner walls, the effect was to convey perfectly
the yearning of medieval man for the spiritual world.
The
First Europe as a Culture
What were the basic recurring beliefs, ideas, values, and aspirations of Europe generally from 900 to 1350? The heart of Europe was the Greco-Roman-Christian synthesis, tempered
by Germanic traditions. The outlook was essentially Augustinian, filtered and
colored by Gregory the Great, and emended from 900 to 1350 by others such as
John of Salisbury, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Bernard of Clairvaux and
Francis of Assisi.
Because the First Europe was dynamic there were unresolved tensions which
may have contributed to the creativity it displayed. To name only some:
· There was tension between religion as a
system of dogmas and correct practices and rituals and religion as ethical
principles which should be implemented in real life. The former were triumphant
Christianity as the official religion of the West; the latter were the earliest
teachings of Christianity.
· There was tension between the task of the
ruler as defined by Christian teaching and by the necessities of the feudal
world, or to put it another way, between the exercise of power embodied in the
feudal society and the ethic of love taught by the Christian faith.
· Joined to this was the tension between the
concept of individual worth (plus its corollary, the brotherhood of mankind)
and the principle of aristocratic superiority embodied in feudal society.
· Finally, there was tension between the
view of the future as something this-worldly and the next (between the City of Man and the City of God, as Augustine had
said.)
?
Let's think about the list of tensions above. Your reaction?
What follows is a consensus with which most Europeans would have agreed,
with qualifications perhaps at points.
What was the view of man and for what purpose did man live? First the
traditional view and then the emendations. Man by nature was sinful--depraved,
lustful, greedy, selfish--and deserved eternal damnation. But he still
possessed inestimable value as an eternal soul whose salvation was the chief
end of this life. Despite the aristocratic domination of society, all men,
regardless of status, could enjoy salvation in the life to come. By itself
earthly existence was of little importance; life was a "vale of
tears". Yet, through prayer and the sacraments of the church man could
prepare himself for the life to come and this gave life its significance. The
earliest Christian emphasis on inner purity was less important to most than
correct behavior--so long as one partook of the sacraments he was purified of
the vilest sins. Man gained his greatest understanding through faith, the will
to believe in dogmas proclaimed by the church. Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas
emended the view that man should rely on faith for his greatest understanding.
It was their position that reason and faith conflicted on no crucial points.
They sought to raise reason from only a subordinate role to that of equal, or
almost equal, to faith. Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis of Assisi taught that
love, rather than correct ritual behavior, was the true test of faith, and that
salvation lay in being transformed by the emotional experience of God's love
and one's love for God. Bernard conceived of religion in almost mystical terms,
as a devouring, consuming personal emotion. Something of the same quality was
in the faith of Francis who saw all men, and all nature, as God's creation and
worthy of man's love for that.
God was essentially the Triune God of the Augustinian-Gregorian tradition,
an imperious God of Judgment who rewarded and punished in this world and the
next. Perhaps because of the Germanic tradition, he was thought to be like an
irascible tribal chieftain whom one impressed not by ethical but respectful behavior--the
correct performance of prayers and rituals. God the Son was understood less as
a sacrifice signifying God's suffering love for mankind than as the avenging
arm of the Trinity. True, he had suffered and died because of man's depravity
and need for salvation, but he had ascended to the right hand of God the Father
and waited to reappear at the Last Judgment as the punisher of sinners and the
destroyer of the world. God the Holy Spirit was embodied and represented in the
church. Through the church God as Spirit acted on human hearts which meant that
resisting or flouting the authority of the church was the gravest of sins.
As mentioned above, Bernard of
Clairvaux in the 12th century, while coming out on the side of
the traditional view of God, reached that position differently. God should not
be feared, but loved because of His love for man. If the believer experienced
the love of God in an intense emotional way, he would be consumed by love, and
as others were similarly transformed, all man's problems in this world would be
resolved.
?
1. Bernard succinctly answers the
fundamental question all reformers have faced: what does man need, inner
transformation through love and ethics, or outer changes brought about social
improvement? Do you change the inner being, or change the
conditions in which man lives? Bernard said change the inner man. Your view?
2. Recall the
different ideals of the Good Life we have looked at: Judaic, Greek, Roman, Christian. The First
Europe, drawing on its Christian heritage, said imitate
Christ. (For instance,
Thomas a Kempis in Imitation
of Christ.) Think about that.
Even Bernard's view was still too harsh for many, as evidenced by the
growing worship of Mary the Mother
of God in the 12th century. Mariolatry sought to give a human,
emotional face to the divine; Mary
became a more approachable intercessor for those who feared God's wrath.
Francis of Assisi in the early 13th century also resisted the harsh
dogmatic view of God. He sought to draw men back to the original affirmations
of Christianity about the love of God and the brotherhood of man by trying to
live as Jesus lived. Francis deliberately chose the ascetic life, renouncing
his family wealth and purposely choosing poverty as a means of gaining
salvation.
The view of the world was also essentially Augustinian-Gregorian. Faith
revealed the world as God's creation. In understanding this world reason
offered less than faith. When viewed through the eyes of faith, however, the
world revealed the truth of dogma, that God created and sustained all things.
To understand one looked to God himself as the divine, normative standard.
Pervading the thinking of the thoughtful was the Neo-Platonic view that all
reality was one, governed by the same laws, and extending in a hierarchy of
Being from the highest to the lowest in creation.
All visible things were manifestations of divine truth, thus one should focus
on the Creator and not on creation. The world was full of analogies and allegories
pointing beyond creation which was not worthwhile in its own right. Revealed
truth was what was ultimately real. All creation centered on the truth of the
Holy Eucharist in which Christ was sacrificed anew for believers to absorb the
divine mystery and obtain the "medicine of immortality." If analogy
and allegory served to explain the world for the educated, the magical belief
in the power of relics and of practices and rituals surviving from paganism
sufficed for the popular mind. For understanding the physical world men turned
to Ptolemy
who envisioned the universe as earth-centered.
Scholasticism emended the foregoing, as suggested by the work of Peter
Abelard and Thomas Aquinas. Using Aristotelian logic, men could rely on reason
to discover the truths of this world, since reason did not conflict with
revelation. The God who created the world and revealed Himself in it was also
the God who gave men minds. Ultimately all knowledge could be demonstrated to
be in accord with revealed truth. It was simply a matter of applying the
dialectical method as Thomas did in his massive Summa Theologica with
its 631 topics and 10,000 objections and replies.
What was the purpose of social institutions? The Augustinian-Gregorian
tradition shaped thinking in this area too, with later emendations by John of
Salisbury to reaffirm the primacy of the church when it was being challenged in
the 12th century by feudal monarchs. Augustine took the view that
the state was a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end was God's
purpose accomplished with the Last Judgment and the end of history. Thus the
state was an instrument with a limited purpose: to keep order so that the work
of the church in saving men's souls might go on. So long as the ruler did not
interfere with the church, the church should take no political stand. In the
chaotic conditions from 500-700 and 850 to 1000, the church did look for
support among rulers who were sympathetic to the church. It threw its authority
behind the Carolingians, particularly Pepin and Charlemagne. The highlight of
this effort was the crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor by Leo III in 800. But that effort never resulted in a
change in dogma. The coronation at papal hands seemed to place the church in a
preeminent position: was the Christian ruler himself responsible to the papacy
and the church or directly responsible to God? Should there be a single ruler
in the Carolingian tradition? What about the feudal aristocracy which held real
power in the aftermath of the Carolingian decline? Those questions never got
unanimous answers from 900 to 1350. This left the Augustinian-Gregorian
tradition intact, but by no means unchallenged. Men did not give up the ideal
of a Christian ruler heading up a Christian society after the demise of the
Carolingian hegemony. That ideal continued in the form of the Germanic
monarchy's attempt to maintain the Holy Roman Empire.
It inspired a countervailing theory of a papal suzerainty in the 12th century.
But the reality of politics after 900 was a feudal aristocracy whose power
would become the basis for feudal states--counties, duchies and monarchies. The
church and feudal state interpenetrated each other, setting up a dynamic
tension between opposites--power and spirit, material and spiritual, this world
and the next--which characterized the First Europe. In the working out of the
details of the feudal relationship which held society together the Germanic
tradition contributed a great deal. The emphasis on consultation between ruler
and the ruled, as well as the limited nature of the feudal relationship,
reinforced the Augustinian-Gregorian view of the functional or instrumental
nature of the state. The success of medieval constitutionalism in England laid
the groundwork for limited, constitutional government later.
In the First Europe history is a Christian story of progress which ends with
the triumph of the City of God
over the City of Man. Again, this view was Augustinian amended by Gregory the
Great. This view was not supplanted until the Renaissance. In 1146 Bishop Otto
of Freising (d. 1158) did publish a survey of world
history called The Two Cities. But it was a restatement of the
Augustinian-Gregorian views about history. Both Augustine and Gregory had
firmly rejected the Greco-Roman theory of endless cycles of history. Since
Christ could only be sacrificed one time, and there could be only one Last
Judgment, history was a unique process including all people for all time. This
made the individual life eternally significant. The Augustinian and Gregorian
views, however, parted at this point. For Augustine, the church could never be
triumphant in this world. Until the Last Judgment, the City of God and the City of Man would remain separate. Then mankind would
be divided according to their inner merit: the spiritual to eternal salvation;
the carnal to hell and damnation. Gregory took another tack. The church for him
became the visible embodiment of the City of God on earth. While salvation was by grace,
Gregory took the view that the individual who did good works prescribed by the
church proved that he merited grace, thus making the church central to
salvation. For Gregory this was essential: if the church could not promise
salvation through moral conduct, why should anyone bother? Through the church
God achieved his purpose in this world until the final judgment. But for
medieval man generally history was a story of progress ending in the next world
for those in whom the spiritual triumphed.
?
Pie in the sky by and by, or heaven on earth? Which is it to be?
Lords,
Vassals, Fiefs, Peasants:
The
Bonds of Medieval Society
A vassal knelt before his lord in homage
and, placing his hands between his lord's hands, swore fealty or fidelity. Upon
rising the vassal was then given by his lord a clod of earth or a staff to
symbolize the gift of a fief. These were the fundamental components of
the feudal relationship. The lord and vassal were members of the aristocratic
society which made up the feudal class. The fief, or use
of something of value, usually land, cemented the relationship, although the
tie between members of the aristocracy was always personal, not economic. With
the fief went the peasant inhabitants to work the land. But students often are
confused about who is included in the feudal relationship. Peasants were not
vassals. Only aristocrats were vassals.
Even kings could be vassals, of other kings. Peasants belonged to the manorial
system, not the feudal system. An easy way to keep the classes in their proper
places is to see the land as a link between the two patterns of life. Looked at
from the feudal point of view, the land was a fief. Looked at from the manorial
point of view the land was an estate, or a number of estates. (For another
example of an oath of homage and fealty, see this link.)
An earlier section discussed how feudal and manorial arrangements began.
What follows is an account of how these arrangements were defined from 900 to
1200. This definition was necessary because the fief became hereditary by 900
and the mutual obligations of lord and vassal as well as lord and peasant had
to be clear to all.
First, the feudal relationship. The primary obligation of the vassal was
military service. Other obligations were court service, the payment of feudal
dues and aids to the lord, and acquiescence to other feudal privileges of the
lord.
Military service was the basic duty of the vassal. At first it is likely
that the vassal rendered as much service for as long as the lord demanded. By
the 12th century it was customary for vassals to render one kind of
service if the lord was the aggressor and another if he was the victim of
aggression. In the first case vassals would serve forty days a year; in the
second, they were expected to give unlimited service. When summoned, how much
assistance would they bring with them? This varied. Usually the lord and vassal
at the time of the beginning of the relationship would agree on the number of
men the vassal would bring with him. England and other Norman-ruled territories
made the vassals responsible for a specific number. If the vassal created a
larger number than the established quota, that was up to him. (Creating sub-vassals
was called enfeoffment). The military service
expected of vassals was usually field service in the lord's army. However,
vassals were also created for castle duty or other necessary duties. There are
instances when they were obliged to perform unusual services. For instance,
there is the case of the English vassal (Look
under Homage and Fealty, par 3) whose service was to come before his king at
Christmas and break wind while at the same time whistling and hopping about. (I
kid you not; it's true).
?
Every custom and practice has its humorous side. Can you think of
examples?
Vassals were also expected to perform court service, that is to come to the
lord's court when summoned for advice and consent or to adjudicate disputes.
Questions about the obligations of the vassal, for example, had to settled by
all vassals hearing and offering a judgment. The lord could not take unilateral
action; he had to ask the vassal's peers. A vassal accused of committing some
offense against his lord had the right to be tried by his peers. If he denied
his guilt by oath, one of his accusers had to prove him guilty by defeating him
in single combat. Too, the vassal came to give his lord advice about matters of
war or other important issues. If the lord wished to change anything customary,
including the payment of extraordinary aids, he had to ask his vassals to
approve (feudal assemblies such as the English Parliament originated with this
right).
A vassals also owed his lord certain aids and dues. When taking up the fief,
the vassal owed his lord a payment called relief. He also owed relief to
the lord who succeeded his old lord. If the lord was captured, all the vassals
had to ransom him. If the lord married off his eldest daughter, the vassal owed
aid. The same was true when the lord's eldest son was knighted. Anything over
and beyond these payments was extraordinary aid and the vassals had to approve
it (this was the basis for Parliament's power).
The lord enjoyed other miscellaneous privileges. The vassal had to get the
lord's consent to marry off his own daughter, since her dowry otherwise could
be going to an enemy. If the vassal died and left minors or heiresses, the lord
had the right of wardship, control of the
persons and property of the deceased vassal. The lord could marry the heiress
to someone of his choice, even himself. He could also take the revenues of the
fief until the minor heir came of age. If the vassal had no heirs, the lord
could take the fief back (the right of escheat) and give it to another
vassal or a new one. If the vassal defaulted on his obligations, the lord had
the right to take the fief back (called forfeiture).
?
Who had the best of it, a vassal or a lord? If one was both lord and
vassal, vassal to someone else but with his own vassals as well, which was the
better position?
The feudal (as well as the manorial) relationship was based on an aristocratic
domination of society which had to be accepted and justified for the feudal
relationship to be effective. What was the justification for aristocratic
supremacy? The claim went back to birth: aristocrats were entitled to rule
because of their family heritage. In reality most aristocrats of the medieval
period could not trace their lineage back before the 10th century,
but they claimed nonetheless that only those worthy by birth had the standing
to create the personal bonds which alone could hold society together. At first
personal ties alone made authority legitimate. When land became hereditary, the
ties were strengthened and authority further justified. And the distinctions
between those who held land and those who worked it, the peasants, became firmer.
To be aristocratic was to be, well, "noble", courageous, generous,
"courteous". To be a peasant was to be the opposite. The term
"villein", originally a class name, became a name for low-born
behavior: "villain". "Chivalry",
which originally meant horsemanship, came to mean noble behavior. The
aristocratic domination of society depended on the acceptance of these
distinctions between the classes. People were defined by class, not as
individuals.
?
1. What are modern survivals of chivalry?
2. Is aristocracy still alive in society today? Examples?
3. Are people still defined by class? Why do you think so? Why not?
How did the men
and women of the feudal class live? In much of the period from 900 to 1350 the
males spent much of their lives either preparing for battle or fighting. It was
a rough and dangerous, though not necessarily deadly, life. To get them ready,
young boys often were sent to live under the tutelage of a celebrated knight
(and to keep them from being softened by their mothers). There they learned the
basics of fighting: horsemanship, the
use of weapons and armor. When physically ready, the young man would be given
his arms in a solemn ceremony. Kneeling before a veteran knight, the young man
would be "dubbed". He was a knight. Originally this dubbing was a
test: if the young man could get up after a blow by the veteran he was ready;
if he could not get up, he was not ready. Aristocratic knights spent their time
fighting, practicing, as in tournaments, and hunting--historically the only
proper activities for aristocrats. This life was dangerous, but not deadly. As
the period 900 to 1350 wears on, the nobles become more "chivalrous"
or courteous in their treatment of each other. You do not attack an unarmed
opponent. You do not seek to kill him, but hold him for ransom.
Women
of the aristocracy spent their time supervising household activities and
sewing. They were regarded as inferior to men and always under male
supervision. They shared the husband's status, but had no rights against the
husband. Indeed, it was considered proper for the husband to beat his wife if
she annoyed or displeased him. But he could not brutalize her--if he beat her
with a stick larger than the diameter of his thumb ("rule of thumb"),
he had gone too far, according to the Church and English common law. Still,
women were regarded as the source by which sin entered the world (through Eve).
It was not the Church but courtly
love (for another link click here)
appearing in the 12th century which sought to elevate women and
soften the crude behavior of aristocratic males.
?
1. Were women victimized by men in this period?
2. Is it appropriate to judge the past by our own standards?
The feudal class, and the Church as well, by holding land drew their
sustenance from the peasants who worked the land. What was the so-called
manorial system and how did peasants live? The origins of manorial
estates have already been discussed. And it remains to describe the general
characteristics, with a reminder that this description is only a general
pattern. There was a lot of variety from region to region.
On every estate
the lord of the manor held a part of the arable land for his use--the lord's demesne
or domain. He also had part of the meadow. Peasants
of the estate worked the lord's land as well as their own, took care of the
upkeep of the estate, looked after his livestock,
spending perhaps three days a week. But the lord could require more on special
occasions. Peasants paid the lord a rent from crops they grew on their land, as
well as other rents and dues. For example, they owed rent for pasturing their
livestock, using the village mill and ovens, for making cheese in the village
creamery, and so on. These resources belonged to the lord and he had the right
to rent for their use. The lord also had the right to hold court on
his estate and settle cases arising from offences committed there. The lord sat
in manorial court to hear murder cases, theft, and any disputes about services
due on the estate.
The pattern of farming has been called the two-field or three-field system
in which part of the land would be farmed and part left fallow for the year.
Fields were cut up in long, thin parcels which gave peasants part of the best
as well as part of the worst land. This method of farming produced at best a
subsistence level of living, sometimes feast but often famine. The economy was
a simple village economy which united workers in common activities. The
peasants were semi-free. They were tied to the land and could not leave without
buying their freedom or running away. They could not hold land unless they were
free. They could not marry off the estate or marry at all without the lord's
permission. But if they were tied to the land it was tied to them as well. They
paid fixed rents which worked to their advantage over the centuries. They also
had the psychological assurance that they had a place in the world and knew
that place. They worked so that others might perform their proper functions.
?
Is there any value in having psychological assurance about your place in
society?
Popes, Bishops, Clergy, and Monks : the Medieval
Church
We have already seen that the Church occupied a central place in society by
serving as the matrix in which Europe as a culture emerged in the centuries
from 400 to 900. We have also described how the structure of the Church emerged
and changed during that earlier period. This is in part a recapitulation of
what has been said, but also new in that it focuses on clergy and the church
hierarchy and how the Church functioned in the period under consideration.
By 900 the Church known as the Roman Catholic Church was fairly well
established throughout Europe. It had also assumed the hierarchical structure
it still possesses: parishes, dioceses, archdioceses, and papacy. Monasticism
was a separate arm and will be treated later.
The parish, the smallest unit, was under the care of a priest (cure
or curate deriving from care). The priest belonged to the secular
clergy, "secular" meaning in the world. His was the responsibility
for the souls of those in his parish, to whom he administered the sacraments:
(1) baptism
(2) penance-the priest had the power to hear confessions of sins and
to pronounce absolution or remission of sins as God's forgiveness. Jesus had
said to his disciples "whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven
them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained" (John 20: 21-22).
But the Church came to teach that sins required satisfaction and the priest
would direct that the confessed sinner do some penance such as a fast or a
pilgrimage to a holy site. He was guided in this by a book called a penitential.
The Church also came to teach after Gregory the Great that all those who had
not completed penance by the time of death (all except the saints) could expect
to go to purgatory to complete the cleansing of the stain of sin. Prayers on
their behalf could release them earlier, as could indulgences granted by the
pope. The priest could not grant an indulgence but he did hold an important
place because of the sacrament of penance.
(3) extreme unction-the priest anointed those at the point of death
insuring that they died in a state of grace.
(4) the Mass or Holy Eucharist-the
priest celebrated the mass as a continuing sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
When he pronounced the words "this is my body and this is my blood" (hoc
est corpus meum), the Church taught that the substance of the bread and
wine was changed into the body and blood of Christ. It was customary to give
the laity only the bread so as not to risk spilling the wine or the blood of
Christ, but even one element was efficacious since Christ was wholly present in
one element. (By a curious twist, the Latin words "hoc est corpus
meum" became "hocus-pocus" as the illiterate misunderstood the
words but knew they were magical).
(5) marriage.
The priest besides administering the sacraments also acted as educator and
social worker in an age when others did not do these functions. He had great
powers. Some priests abused them, but others were like the immortal good parson
in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Above the priest in the hierarchy was the bishop who was the successor of
Christ's Apostles. His diocese included numerous parishes and usually centered
on a town. He was responsible for the care and supervision of parishes and
priests and for the administration of the diocese. He also administered two
sacraments priests could not perform:
(6) confirmation-those who were baptized into the faith were confirmed in it
by the bishop on his regular visitations to the parishes.
(7) administering holy orders to candidates for the priesthood.
The bishop also held court to try certain cases not heard in secular courts:
divorce and usury, to cite two examples. His courts also heard cases involving
clergy accused of crimes. This right was challenged during the period by feudal
lords because it was not uncommon later in the medieval period for those
accused of crimes to plead that they were clergy, even when they were not.
Church courts could not administer the death penalty and thus were sought by those
wanting an easier penalty. The test of those pleading "benefit of
clergy" was a literacy test. If the accused could read, he was clergy; if
he could not, he was handed over to the secular courts.
The bishop's immediate superior was the archbishop. His see or seat
was an important town (hence he was sometimes called a metropolitan).
His archdiocese included several dioceses and his responsibility was that of a
bishop on a larger scale.
Monastic clergy were a separate arm of the church. They were regular clergy,
those who lived by a rule (from regula). Scattered in houses across
Europe they were ruled by an Abbot (abba, father) and usually free of episcopal rule, reporting instead directly to the Pope. As
we saw in an earlier section, monks began as hermits but after Benedict of
Nursia collected in houses according to his Rule which tempered asceticism with
moderation and order.
The purpose of monastic life was regular corporate prayer. Monks took vows
of poverty, chastity, and obedience to their abbot. Their function was to
worship God through prayers on a schedule which varied only as the calendar
varied, but never ceased. The other work they did--learning, farming, social
service--was secondary to prayer, although they had an impact on society far out
of proportion to their numbers.
At the summit of the Church was the Pope (whose name came from
"papa", father). His supremacy in the Church came from the doctrine
known as the "Petrine theory" which asserted the Pope's supremacy as
a consequence of Peter's supremacy among the Apostles (Matthew 16: 15-19). The
Pope according to this theory had the absolute power over faith and morals.
Popes would make much use of this doctrine in asserting the claim of universal
rule. In an age when the secular and spiritual were thought to be inextricable
this claim was not as implausible as a later age might think.
This raises a last topic about the Church. How significant was it in the
period of the First Europe and what was its influence on society? To refer to
an earlier comment, the Church was a cultural matrix affecting medieval life
and thought in comprehensive ways. To be educated until late in the period was
to be educated by the Church. Scholars were all churchmen until late in the
period. The church also fostered the arts. Drama in the West began in the
Church. Art was almost entirely devoted to the decoration of churches or the
illumination of manuscripts.
Another important dimension of the Church in the period was its humanizing
and pacifying influence on society. The Church acted to temper the violence and
turbulence of the age by attempting to get the feudal class to agree not to
fight on certain days and seasons, the "Truce of
God". It also tried to get warriors not to attack church property or
churchmen, the poor, and merchants, the "Peace of
God". In other ways the Church sought to soften violence of the age.
It prohibited priests from taking part in ordeals, ways of
deciding guilt in judicial proceedings. In one variation of the ordeal, the
accused was forced to pick a stone out of a boiling pot and hold it for a set
time. If the wound on examination some days later had festered, the accused was
guilty; if the wound was clean, the accused was innocent. If priests did not
bless the proceeding, however, it was not valid. The Church also acted to
pacify society by sending out friars or lay monastic brothers to minister to
the poor. The friars denounced abuses and thus served as a social conscience to
medieval society.
?
How important was the Church in pacifying society? Did it make any
difference? Does it today?
Synthesis as a Motif in Medieval Civilization
Medieval man loved the synthesis, the unified system or approach to
intellectual thought or artistic endeavor. If we use this as a dominant theme
or motif, perhaps we can see connections which would otherwise be unapparent.
Thus synthesis as a theme unites several otherwise disparate subjects: Dante's Divine
Comedy, the greatest literary work of the middle ages, perhaps of any age;
the medieval cathedral in its Romanesque and Gothic forms; and Scholasticism.
?
The synthesis is out of vogue today. We do not want to see things
presented in relationship to each other. We prefer the detailed, the
specialized; knowing more about less and less. Right?
Dante's Divine Comedy as a Synthesis of Medieval Life
The
Divine Comedy defies any brief explanation or description. It is too great
and too complex for that. Nonetheless, it is a window into the First Europe
since it so vividly illustrates the beliefs, values and insights of that
culture. At the same time, the Comedy is forward looking in its view of
the individual and its character as vernacular literature. If we treat the work
as medieval here, we still need to remember that it cannot be so easily
pigeonholed. Dante is a poet for the ages, and his work, like all works of
universal genius, transcends while it comprehends the ethos of his own time.
Two facts about Dante Alighieri
(1265-1321) are worthy of note. The first was his political life as a
Florentine caught up in the political struggle between the papacy and the
German emperors which divided the city into Guelphs
and Ghibellines. In the seesaw struggles between
these parties he was exiled and spent the last 20 years of his life away from Florence
his beloved city. He wrote the Comedy in the mood of an exile and died
an exile. The second fact about Dante was his meeting with Beatrice Portinari, once when he was 9 and again when he was 18.
Those brief experiences transformed him into a poet.
La Commedia (Comedy) was completed during his last years. The title
"Comedy" was significant: a work beginning in sorrow and ending in
happiness. Written in the Tuscan vernacular dialect, it is a literary epic,
following all the conventions of the classical epics. It is an epic of the
First Europe in its concern for the preparation for the afterlife. But it looks
beyond the Middle Ages in that it is written in the vernacular and the poet
himself is the central character. Real historical characters are used to show
moral achievements and failures. All men, Dante said, are responsible for what
happens to them because all men are free to make choices. As he said in the
letter to his patron, Cangrande della Scala:
"The subject of the whole work, taken merely in its
literal sense, is the state of souls after death, considered simply as a fact
of life. But if the work is understood in its allegorical intention, the
subject of it is man, according as, by his deserts and demerits in the use of
his free will, he is justly open to rewards and punishments."
While The Comedy shows modern elements, it is its medieval qualities
which interest us in this part of the course. Every physical-historical event
has a deeper spiritual meaning. The poem is allegorical--representing one thing
in the guise of another--in that while it is on one level a journey by the poet
through Hell to Purgatory and Paradise, it is on a deeper level a universal
spiritual journey by Everyman. Words, characters and events are symbolic and
have a multiplicity of meanings. Vergil is the classical poet of the Aeneid,
but he is also Reason, Human Wisdom and Virtue. Beatrice is the young woman
from Florence, beloved by Dante, but she is also Divine Wisdom and Revealed
Truth. Other figures have similar multiple uses. Every aspect of life is
included; all knowledge as well. The whole is a synthesis of philosophy,
history, theology, and science. (For insight into medieval theories about the
world click on this link).
The Comedy
consists of 100 cantos, divided among the three sections, Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Hell has 34, the others 33 each. Each of the
three realms Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, is divided into 10 levels. Hell is
divided into Incontinence, Violence, and Fraud. Incontinence is subdivided into
4 levels and Fraud into two, so there are 7 levels. Dante adds two levels for
the unbaptized and heretics above and below Incontinence and a level above the
other levels for the fence-sitters. Hence the 10 levels. The action begins on
the night before Good Friday in the year 1300 and ends on Thursday evening. It
takes exactly 7 days.
Reading
the Inferno
The whole Comedy is too lengthy for explication here, but some
details about the first part, the Inferno may help get the student
started. Inferno begins with Dante lost in a dark wood at the mid-way
point in his life. Struggling to find the right path, he attempts to climb a
mount lit by the sun but is confronted by three beasts (a leopard, lion and
wolf) who turn him back. Then Vergil, symbolic of human reason, is sent by
Beatrice (divine wisdom) to show him the way. The way to God is through Hell
and Purgatory--through suffering and the recognition of sin--and Vergil will
guide him. They pass through the gates of Hell on which Dante sees these words:
"Through me one enters the sorrowful city, through me
one enters into eternal pain; through me one enters among the lost race.
Justice moved my high Maker; divine power made me, supreme wisdom, and primeval
love. Before me were no things created except eternal ones ; and I endure
eternally. All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
Hell
is a subterranean funnel which drops ever downward to
the center of the earth (click on the image to see a larger picture). Dante's
imagination pictures it in dreadful terms. Nearest the top are the indecisive,
neither good nor bad, and those who were neutral. They are chased by wasps,
gnawed by worms, consumed with envy and remorse. Dante scorns them and he and
Vergil move on. They come to the River Acheron and are ferried over by Charon (of
mythology). Here they come to Limbo, the first circle of Hell for the virtuous
pagans. These suffer because they know they will never have a better fate:
Aristotle (the Master of those who know) and other philosophers, the great
ancient poets. Dante is sympathetic here and would have taken them with him to
Paradise. In the Second Circle are the carnal sinners (For example, Dido of
Carthage and Helen of Troy). Then they find themselves in the 3rd
circle where the gluttons lie in mire, under a storm of snow hail and dirty
water, torn by the jaws of Cerberus. In the 4th circle are the
greedy and the wasteful, rolling great weights against each other perpetually.
In the 5th circle the wrathful are covered with filth and constantly
tear themselves; the slothful are submerged in stagnant water eternally,
gasping for breath. On the 6th level Dante and Vergil cross the
river Styx and enter the City of Dis or Lucifer where
heretics are roasted in flaming tombs. On the 7th level the violent
drown in a river of blood; if they raise themselves out of the stream, centaurs
shoot them with arrows. Also on this level are the suicides whose souls are
trapped in gnarled trees. Also those who did violence against God or nature or
art (such as blasphemers and homosexuals) who stand with bare feet on hot sands
while fire flakes constantly fall upon them. On the 8th circle are
ten valleys or trenches for those who committed fraud: sellers of church
offices, thieves, and hypocrites. The lowest level the 9th is for
those who committed fraud against friends, family: the frozen lake Cocytus with concentric circles for those who committed
fraud against family, country, guests, and masters (the last the worst of all).
In the center of the lake is Satan with three faces, holding in his three
mouths Judas, Brutus and Cassius. Dante and Vergil climb down his hairy body to
reach the center of the earth and thence climb to the opposite surface on the
dawn of Easter. They stand at the foot of Mount Purgatory. (You are on your own
through Purgatory and Paradise, if you decide to read them.)
As you read, notice that in the Inferno sinners are punished in ways
exquisitely fitting the sin. For example:
Grafters: Canto XXI, are sunk in boiling pitch and torn by demons if
they rise out of the boiling pitch.
Falsifiers: Canto XXIX, are subjected to the sum of corruptions:
darkness, stench, thirst, filth, loathsome diseases, and a shrieking din.
Sowers of discord: Canto XXVIII: are hacked and torn throughout eternity.
Mohammed is here as are other schismatics.
?
1. Did Dante get his ideas about Hell from Mohammed? And then
placed him there?
2. Can you improve on Dante's attempt to make the punishment fit the
sin? What would you change?
The
Cathedral as a Synthesis in Stone, Glass, and Artistic Vision
Like The Divine Comedy, the cathedral was a synthesis of medieval
life. The film-lecture
on medieval art and Chartres
Cathedral shows this much better than any brief written commentary. But
perhaps the following will complement Mr. John Canaday's film and remarks.
Cathedral architecture beginning in the 11th century followed two
styles: Romanesque and Gothic. Romanesque developed the basic plan of the
basilica, already common in the West, into something different because of the
addition of two new techniques for extending the height of the walls and for
covering larger spaces than had earlier been attempted. Walls could be extended
much higher and carry not only a timber roof but even support a stone covering
by the use of the barrel vault to bridge the structural piers. Where two barrel
vaults crossed at right angles, builders used the cross vault. These techniques
allowed the building of higher structures enclosing greater space, but required
more massive walls and piers to carry the much greater weight. Walls had to be
buttressed because this weight was not only pressing downward but outward as
well. Every opening in the walls was round-arched; so was the junction of
colonnades. The effect created by the structure was one of solidity and
stability. But since structural requirements limited the size of windows and
thus the amount of light, Romanesque also conveyed a gloom relieved only by candles.
These limitations were overcome by a new style in the mid 12th century.
The Gothic appeared about 1140 in the construction of the abbey church of
St. Denis. The Abbot
Suger struck out boldly in a new style, partly to accommodate larger crowds
than Romanesque structure would permit, but also to permit light to flood the
interior. This new style integrated four elements to achieve Suger's purposes:
pointed arches, ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, and arcades above the columns
of the nave and choir. The pointed arch meant that weight was primarily
distributed outward rather than downward. So long as the outward thrust was
supported by massive piers, outside buttresses, and flying buttresses leaping
up from the ground to meet the buttresses at critical points in their upward
ascent, the structure could keep ascending higher and higher. Ribbed vaults
could cover all sorts of spaces. Ribs began at the base of piers, rather than
the top, and could rise to greater heights than the round-curved barrel vault.
Since all the weight rested on piers and buttresses, Gothic walls could be
thinner and incorporate more windows.
Of Suger's two purposes in building St. Denis it seems that the desire for
light was primary. Read what he said himself about light: "the entire
sanctuary is thus pervaded by a wonderful and continuous light entering through
the most sacred windows....The work which nobly shines makes our minds shine so
that they may go through the true lights to the true light, where Christ is the
true door."(1) The significance of Suger’s
fascination with light will be apparent in the film on medieval art and
architecture shown later in the course. In the Neo-Platonic tradition, light
symbolized God. The worshipper, seeing the light refracted by the stained glass
windows, changing and deepening as the sun moved and was obscured by clouds,
thought he was seeing God himself. As an excellent film on the Gothic cathedral
of Chartres says, the mystery of space became the means of expressing the
mystery of God:
"space, in which all exists, which embraces all, yet which is neither
seen nor touched. Space, as God, is the ultimate mystery, yet the ultimate
reality The concept of space is the key concept of cathedral
architecture."
?
Medieval builders had none or little of the technology of modern
builders. Yet they built enduringly. How?
The structure itself, however, had much to
remind and teach the worshipper. Every feature of the building reminded the
worshipper that all life was integrated by the mystery of God. The windows
taking up so much of the wall space were sermons in glass, showing the central
figures, doctrines and symbols of the faith. The sculptures and decorations
encompassed all natural things as well as spiritual ones. Sometimes the art displayed
the playful, or the terrifying (gargoyles).
But all was integrated in the most complete synthesis of life produced by the
First Europe.
Scholasticism as the Cathedral of the Intellect
Like medieval Gothic architects, scholastic thinkers sought to build an
imperishable cathedral, a cathedral of the intellect. They envisioned a unity
and synthesis encompassing all knowledge, sacred and profane, pointing like the
soaring Gothic cathedral to God. Their efforts began with the introduction of
the wider body of classical authors starting with the effort of Gerbert of
Aurillac to found a new curriculum. After studying in Moslem Spain, Gerbert
returned to France about 972 to become master of the cathedral school at
Rheims. He reformed the curriculum to include Vergil, Horace, and other
classical writers. He also taught mathematics and reintroduced the abacus,
again borrowed from Spain. This school stimulated the founding of others such
as Chartes; eventually the growth of learning in the
11th and 12th centuries led to the founding of universities
in Salerno, Paris, Bologna, and Oxford. In the new schools, scholars were
exposed to the writings of Aristotle and other philosophers, newly available in
translation from the Greek into Arabic and then into Latin by contacts with
Moslem scholars in Spain. Scholasticism took its name from the fact that
schoolmen were doing the thinking.
Scholars were particularly fascinated by Aristotle and his works on logic
which offered a new and exhilarating window on the world. Aristotle came to be
regarded by scholars as "the master of those who know" (Dante's
phrase, but shared by all scholars). Study of his works gave rise to
scholasticism, the study and practice of dialectic so named because it was
identified with the schools. As one eminent modern medievalist said of the
enchantment with which scholars took up logic: "Logic was an instrument of
order in a chaotic world.... The world of nature was chaotic--a playground of
supernatural forces, demoniac and otherwise, over which the mind had no
control. But logic, however, obscurely at first, opened a window on to an
orderly and systematic view of the world and of man's mind"(2)
Logic gave thinkers a new way of examining faith rather than just accepting
dogma without question. Now they could define and categorize, understand by
logical deduction. Dogma which seemed to be contradictory at points could be
understood. The central question of their deliberation was universals. Do names
for things have reality? Or is it just things themselves that are real? Those
who answered "yes" to the first question were realists (like Plato).
Those who answered "yes" to the second question were nominalists
(like Aristotle). Although the dispute continued for centuries (until
philosophers lost interest in the matter), there was a serious problem with the
nominalist position from the point of view of the church. If concepts and ideas
are not real, then dogmas of the Church, such as the Trinity, could be said to
have no reality. So Aristotle's teachings about reality, plus other teachings,
such as that matter is eternal and that the universe follows immutable laws,
tended to lead thinkers into heresy. Yet Aristotle and other classic thinkers
were irresistibly attractive because they offered a rich body of thought so
much more sophisticated than what scholars had previously known.
Philosophers of the 12th and 13th century proposed
ways to accept Aristotle and yet retain church teachings, not without
opposition. For example, Peter Abelard
(1079-1142) proposed that while only individual things existed the mind still
possessed a general notion of groups of individual things. This notion did have
reality in the mind but not outside the mind. St. Bernard of
Clairvaux (1090-1153) would have none of it, and brought him up on charges of
heresy.
The most successful of the scholastic philosophers in harmonizing Aristotle
and faith was Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). In the Summa Theologica he sought to make a
thorough-going harmony of Aristotle and articles of faith using the dialectical
method: first a question was proposed, then the
arguments pro and con were stated, followed by a resolution of the question
drawing from both pro and con. In the Summa Aquinas said that reason
confirmed the truths of the faith, if logic was rightly applied. Aristotle and
other classicists did not contradict revelation; indeed contradictions could be
explained away. Opponents disagreed and sought to have certain articles of the Summa
condemned, but Aquinas' theology endured to become official Church theology.
The Summa's emphasis on the freedom to apply
reason stimulated later medieval thinkers to raise even more fundamental
questions about supposed known truths. For example, the English thinkers,
Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253) and Roger Bacon
(1214-1292) apparently believed that experiment could increase man's power over
nature, with far-reaching consequences. We will examine this in a later section
when we discuss the new views of man and the world arising in the 14th
and 15th centuries.
?
This period is thought of more as an age of faith than reason. Yet the
Scholastics had a great deal of confidence in reason. Explain this
seeming contradiction.
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1. See Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts (New York, 1955),
pp. 128-133.
2. R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (London, The Folio
Society, 1998), p. 181.
