Middle Ages

C

Culture and Learning

Cultural activity during the early Middle Ages consisted primarily in appropriating and systematizing the knowledge of the past. The works of classical authors were copied and annotated. Encyclopedic works, such as Etymologies (623) by St Isidore of Seville, which attempted to present the collected knowledge of humankind, were compiled. At the heart of all learned activity stood the Bible, and all secular learning became regarded as mere preparation for understanding the holy text.

The early Middle Ages drew to a close in the 10th century with new migrations and invasions—the coming of the Vikings from the north and the Magyars from the Asian steppes—and the weakening of all forces of European unity and expansion. The resulting violence and dislocation caused land to be withdrawn from cultivation and populations to decline, and the monasteries again became outposts of civilization. Nevertheless the cultural work of assimilating the legacy of antiquity had been done, and it was not to be lost.

III

High Middle Ages

By the year 1050 Europe stood on the verge of an unprecedented period of development. The era of migrations had drawn to a close, and Europe experienced the continuity and dynamic growth of a settled population. Town life, and with it regular and large-scale trade and commerce, was revived. The society and culture of the High Middle Ages were complex, dynamic, and innovative. This period has become a centre of attention for modern medieval scholarship, and it has come to be known as the renaissance of the 12th century.

A

Papal Power

During the High Middle Ages the Roman Catholic Church, organized into an elaborate hierarchy with the pope as its unequivocal head, was the most sophisticated governing institution in western Europe. Not only did the papacy exercise direct political control over the domain lands of central and northern Italy, but through diplomacy and the administration of justice in the extensive system of Church courts it also exercised a directive power throughout Europe. In addition, the monastic orders grew and flourished, and they, too, became fully involved with the secular world. The old Benedictine monasteries were embedded in the network of feudal alliances. New orders such as the Cistercians were famous as drainers of marshland and clearers of forest. Even such movements as the Franciscans, dedicated to voluntary poverty and renunciation, soon became thoroughly engaged in the newly emergent urban life. No longer did the Church see itself as the heavenly city in exile; it was at the centre of existence. High medieval spirituality became individualized. It was located ritually in the priestly miracle of the Eucharist and the subjective, emotional identification of the individual believer with the suffering humanity of Christ. Similar in feeling was the rise to prominence of special devotion to the Virgin Mary, an attitude hitherto unknown in the early Church.

B

Intellectual Quests

Throughout the cultural sphere an unprecedented intellectual ferment developed. New educational institutions, such as cathedral and monastic schools, prospered, and the first universities were established. Advanced degrees in medicine, law, and theology were offered, and in each field enquiry was intense. The medical writings of antiquity, many of which had been preserved only by Arab scholars, were recovered and translated. Both ecclesiastical and civil law, especially at the famous University of Bologna, were systematized, commented on, and questioned as they had never been before. These investigations were influential in the development of new methodologies that would bear rich fruit throughout all fields of study. Scholasticism became popular and the writings of the Church were studied again, theological doctrines and practices were explored, and problematic areas of the Christian tradition were discussed. The 12th century thus ushered in a great age of philosophy in the West.

C

Artistic Innovations

Innovations took place in the creative arts as well. Literacy was no longer merely a requirement of the clergy, and the result was a flowering of new literature, both in Latin and—for the first time—in the vernacular languages. These new writings were addressed to a literary public that had both the education and the leisure to read. The love lyric of the troubadours, the courtly romance, and new modes of historical writing expressed the new complexity of life and engagement with the secular world. In painting unprecedented attention was given to the depiction of emotional extremes and to the natural and workaday world. In architecture the Romanesque style was perfected through the building of countless churches, especially along the pilgrimage routes in southern France and Spain, even as it began to give way to the Gothic style, that in the ensuing centuries would become the prevailing international style of building. See Romanesque Art and Architecture; Gothic Art and Architecture.