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THE MIDDLE AGES
CENTURIES OF CHANGE
WORLD LITERATURE I
BY RALPH MONDAY
MEDIEVAL INFLUENCES
• The Middle Ages
occurred approximately
from 500 to 1500 C.E.
• This thousand year
period saw the classical
civilization of Greece
and Rome transformed
by three extremely
different cultures:
• The invading Germanic
tribal culture that by the
fifth century had
effectively conquered
the western half of the
Roman Empire.
• The second was
Christianity that
began in Palestine
and rapidly spread
until almost all of
Western Europe was
Christianized by the
eleventh century.
The third influence—less pronounced but still important– was
Islam, a monotheistic religion which arose in the Arabian
Peninsula in the seventh century.
Islam rapidly spread throughout North Africa and into the
Iberian Peninsula.
In these areas, Islam remained a powerful force until
The fifteenth century.
THE IBERIAN PENINSULA
The late
Roman
Empire
And the
First
Barbarian
Kingdoms—
285-451 C.E.
The Sky
God of
The
ancient
Germanic
Peoples.
Odin,
Hanging
From the
Yggdrasil
Tree in order
To bring the
Knowledge
Of the Runes
To his people.
The
Islamic
Conquest
632-656.
• This emerging European
culture was an
amalgam of vastly
different forces.
• Medieval Europe
displayed a wide range
of values, ideas, and
social forms.
• Despite all this variety a
recognizable culture
emerged at the end of
the process.
• In the year 500 the
West could hardly be
characterized either
politically or culturally.
• By 1500 the map of
Europe looked much as
it does today.
• Many ideas that we
think of as Western:
individualism,
consensual government,
a recognition of
religious differences
• Even the idea of
Europe itself, had
emerged.
• Also, the great
national literatures
of Europe took form
during the Middle
Ages, and here we
• Find both individual
literary masterpieces
and traditions of
writing that have
• Continued to define
what counts as
literature.
• This period of time
is a great watershed
for literary classics
• That continue to
influence thought to
this day.
HOW DID THE MIDDLE AGES GETS ITS NAME?
• The middle of What? • Achievements of
antiquity were being
• The period was
reborn.
named by the
people who came
• For this age the
immediately after it.
preceding age was a
time of middleness,
• They called their
own age the
• A space of cultural
Renaissance
emptiness that
because they saw it
separated them
from the classical
• As the time in which
past they so
the cultural
admired.
A TREMENDOUS DIVERSITY OF CULTURE
• The common notion is
that the period was
homogeneous, a time in
which all men and
women thought and felt
more or less the same
things and behaved the
same way.
• Nothing could be
further from the truth.
• This period contains not
one but many different
types of people with
different cultures.
• These cultures were
oral and literate:
• Germanic and Latin;
Arabic, Jewish, and
Christian; secular and
religious; tolerant and
repressive.
• Vernacular and learned;
rural and urban;
skeptical and pious.
• Popular and aristocratic.
• For example, The
Song of Roland,
composed in the
eleventh century,
promotes
enthusiastically the
superiority of
Christianity over
Islam.
• However, in the
ninth century
Islamic scholars had
• Translated much of
Greek science and
philosophy into
Arabic, preserving
and enriching the
• Tradition at the time
that it was in decline
in Western Europe
• Beginning in the
twelfth century,
Muslim centers of
learning in Spain,
• Sicily,and southern
Italy make it
possible for
European scholars
to regain access to
these Greek
originals and to
study their Muslim
commentators.
• The world owes a
great debt to this
achievement.
• Without it, the
ancient past might
be lost in the dim
recesses of foggy
antiquity.
AN AGE OF FAITH
• The most familiar
description of the
Middle Ages is as “an
age of faith.”
• This meant that the
medieval people shared
a uniform commitment
to Catholic Christianity.
• The Roman Empire had
provided a political
unity, law, and order.
• Beyond that it had
pretty much left moral
• And spiritual issues to be
handled by the individual,
either
• Singly or in voluntary ethnic
groups.
• Gradually the Church
extended its spiritual and
institutional authority across
most of Europe.
• By 1200, with the exception
of Jewish communities, the
Iberian peninsula under
Muslim control, and
• Frontier lands in the Slavic
east, Europe had been
Christianized.
THE SYMBOL OF FAITH
CHRIST ON THE CROSS
THE CRUCIFIXION
AND SACRIFICE,
OF COURSE,
WAS THE PROMISE
OF ETERNAL LIFE
AND THE DEFEAT
OF DEATH.
THE CHURCH HAS
CONTINUALLY
REINFORCED
THIS ARCHETYPE.
THE TRUE CHURCH: COMPETING VISIONS
• About 450 a Christian
writer said that the
Catholic faith was
believed “everywhere,
all the time, by
everyone.”
• This defines
Catholicism, a religious
tradition that takes its
name from a Greek
word meaning
“Universal.”
• The Catholic church
emerged from a Roman
world steeped in ideas
of universality.
• The most deeply held
tenet of Roman
ideology maintained
that Rome’s mission
was to civilize the entire
world and bend it to
Roman ways.
WE HAVE INHEIRITED THIS TRADITION TODAY.
THE FOUR PERIODS OF THE MIDDLE
AGES
• There are four
periods of political
and cultural history
within the Middle
Ages:
• The Dark Ages, from
the fifth century to
the late eighth or
early ninth.
• Feudalism, from
about 800 to 1100.
• The High Middle
Ages, from 1100 to
about 1300.
• A period of
transition beginning
at different times in
various locations
that spread through
the majority of
Europe in the
fourteenth century.
THE DARK AGES
The Western Roman
Empire began to fall
apart during the
third century.
Roman people turned
to a variety of
mystery religions for
spiritual comfort and
guidance.
Some of the more
prominent cults that
emerged were:
The god Mithras from
Persia.
From Egypt the
goddess Isis.
A panoply of various
manifestations of
the Earth Mother
from Asia Minor.
This was the last
Pagan religion of
The late Roman
Empire.
Mithras was born of
A virgin on Dec. 25,
Had disciples and
Resurrected.
Followers performed
The rite of drinking
Wine and eating
Bread that symbolized
The blood and flesh
Of the god.
MITHRAS
ISIS
A prototype of the Great Goddess,
Wife and sister of Osiris, Osiris was
Another dying and resurrected god.
WORSHIP OF
THE EARTH
AS A FEMALE
DEITY FROM
WHICH ALL
LIFE EMERGES.
EXTREMELY
OLD BELIEF—
SHE WAS CALLED
GAIA BY THE
ANCIENT
GREEKS.
EARTH MOTHER
Tellus or Terra Mater (detail from the Ara Pacis
Augustae, Rome)
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY: TWILIGHT
OF THE OLD GODS
Christianity expanded its
popularity as Roman
authority waned.
About 300 C.E. the
Emperor Diocletian’s
final attempt to wipe
out the religion failed.
In 313 the Emperor
Constantine granted the
Christian church official
protection.
In 325 the Council of
Nicea paved the way
to make Christianity
the official religion
of the Roman
Empire.
The West would never
be the same.
BLENDING OF THE GRAECO-ROMAN AND
CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS
The way was now
open for Christianity
to grow enormously
in power and
influence.
As the old gods died,
The new Christian god
ascended to the
forefront of Western
life.
But first, the GraecoRoman and Christian
tradition had to be
reconciled.
Three great leaders of the
Church accomplished
this feat by admitting
classical learning into
the world of Christian
faith:
St. Ambrose, St. Jerome,
and St. Augustine.
In addition to his
Many theological
Writings, Jerome
Translated the
Old Testament
From the
Original Hebrew.
ST. JEROME
340-2--420
Bishop of Milan from
374 to 397;
born probably 340.
Died 4 April, 397.
Ambrose was the
Bishop of Milan,
Extremely popular,
He finally put down
The Arian controversy.
ST. AMBROSE
ST. AUGUSTINE
Augustine was born
at Tagaste on
13 November, 354.
He was hugely
Instrumental
In creating much
Of the Catholic
Church’s canon.
Died 28 August,
430.
During this time frame
the European
continent was slowly
emerging from
Roman authority.
Shortly after Augustine
the Arabic world
began a similar
transformation led
by religious zeal.
In the early seventh
century, the prophet
Muhammad, born at
Mecca in 571 C.E.
Driven out of his city
in 622, converted
the citizens of
Medina to the newly
born Islam.
He conquered Mecca
in 630 and other
small Arabic states
until his death in
632.
The third branch of
the Judeo-Christian
tradition would
forever alter the
world balance.
FEUDALISM
Europe developed a
feudal system in the
ninth and tenth
centuries.
This system was
established so that
baronial estates
could defend
themselves against
raids and poor
economic
conditions.
In the feudal enclave a
landed class of
knights, along with
their vassals and
serfs, vowed to
defend the lord of
the manor.
These baronial ties
stressed knightly
virtues, conceived as
service to the lord
and faith in god,
always to be
maintained even in
the fiercest battles.
The medieval
Knight was this
Great protector,
And the beginning
Of the Age of
Chivalry to come.
THE CRUSADES
The new warfare
between Christians
and Muslims began
early in the eleventh
century when
Muslim control of
The Iberian Peninsula
began to weaken.
Christian forces in
Spain began
recapturing the
cities, an effort that
would take well over
a hundred years.
The first Crusade
came about when
Muslim forces in
Asia Minor interfered
with Christian
pilgrims traveling to
Jerusalem.
The ruler of
Constantinople
asked for western
aid.
Pope Urban II gave a
fiery sermon
denouncing the
actions.
As a result, in 1095
the First Crusade
was launched to
occupy the Holy
Land.
In 1099 followed one
of the worst
massacres in human
history.
Jerusalem was
captured from the
Muslims in that year.
Historic commentators
reported that for
days the streets of
the city ran with
Muslim blood.
There is still no peace
in the region.
THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
The power of the
Church began to
decline.
Pope Clement V,
inaugurated in 1305,
is the starting point.
Under attack from
heads of state he
moved the Papacy
from Rome to
Avignon in the south
of France.
The Papacy would
remain there until
1376.
In this time frame
Dante Alighieri
completed The
Divine Comedy early
in the 14th century.
He was concerned
with the decline of
the Church.
• Dante’s visionary poem describes a visit to
hell by a living person, (Dante) Purgatory and
Heaven.
• The poem is greatly critical of the secular
world, and this is his own personal vision of
where sinners will be punished in Hell.
• Political and personal, great lords, popes, and
citizens of Florence inhabit Dante’s Hell where
they are horrifically punished.
• This vision of Hell is grounded solidly in the
Christian world view of the Middle Ages,
although it is written near the end of the
medieval period.
END OF AN ERA: THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
Life in the 13th and
early 14th centuries
saw great change
and turmoil.
The power of the Pope
and of the Church
was diminished.
Social problems such
as religious
fanaticism,
epidemics, and
political unrest
Engendered a new
way of thinking
about society.
The Black Death of
1348-1349 was the
ultimate disaster
when a third of
Europe’s population
died.
Emerging writer’s such
as Geoffrey Chaucer
Increasingly wrote
about secular
subjects and
enjoyed immense
success.
Such individuals as
Chaucer were
expressing
themselves not
merely as witnesses
to divine truth, nor
because they were
supported by courts
or religious
institutions.
Instead, they wrote partly
out of personal
motivation.
They were still Christians,
but not in the same way
that earlier writers
were.
Importantly, they
possessed a new
perspective on the
passing of a
millennium: a period
when the City of God
had taken precedence
over the City of Man.
THEY ALREADY HAD ONE FOOT IN THE COMING RENAISSANCE.