SullysurLoire, a medieval castle visited by among others Joan of Arc, Louis XIV

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Life and Literature of The Middle Ages
Sully-sur-Loire, a medieval castle visited by
(among others) Joan of Arc, Louis XIV
Giotto Madonna and child
Notre-Dame church in Orleans, France
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Middle Ages

• Middle Ages/Medieval Period 476 to 1453 C.E.
  Also known as the Dark Ages
• "Middle Age invented by Italian scholars in the
  early 15th Century. Until this time it was
  believed there had been two periods in history,
  that of Ancient times and that of the period
  later referred to as the "Dark Age.
• Renaissance means rebirth
• The humanistic revival of classical art,
  architecture, literature, and learning that
  originated in Italy in the 14th century and later
  spread throughout Europe.
• The period of this revival, roughly the 14th
  through the 16th century, marking the transition
  from medieval to modern times.

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Medieval Period in a Historical Nutshell

• Rome attacked in 476 C.E.
• The beginning of the Middle Ages is often called
  the "Dark Ages
• Fall of Greece and Rome
• Life in Europe during the Middle Ages was very
  hard.
• Very few people could read or write and nobody
  expected conditions to improve.
• Only hope strong belief in Christianity heaven
  would be better than life on earth.
• In contrast
• The Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa
  studied and improved on the works of the ancient
  Greeks
• Civilization flourished in sub-Saharan Africa,
  China, India, and the Americas.
• Great change by about 1450
• Columbus America
• literacy spread
• scientists made great discoveries
• artists created work that still inspires us
  today.
• The Renaissance is the beginning of modern
  history.

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Middle Ages General Timeline
1095-1291C.E. Crusades
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With the Fall of Rome..

• Barbarian tribes were seeping into Britain and
  Western European lands
• Emperors became more like kings
• Feudalism involuntary peasant labor on lands not
  their own personal bonds and personal law
  beginning to replace impersonal law common to
  large expanses of territory
• Medieval Guilds
• the Catholic Church, would provide spiritual and
  moral direction, as well as leadership and
  material support, during the darkest times of the
  early Medieval period.

Barbarian was originally a term applied to any
foreigner, one not sharing a recognized culture
or degree of polish with the speaker or writer
employing the term. The word derives from the
Greek, and expresses with mocking duplication
("bar-bar") alleged attempts by outsiders to
speak a "real" language.
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Key Concepts of the Middle Ages

• War
• Religion

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Feudalism

• Feudalism system of loyalties and protections
  during the Middle Ages. As the Roman Empire
  crumbled, emperors granted land to nobles in
  exchange for their loyalty. These lands
  eventually developed into manors. A manor is the
  land owned by a noble and everything on it. A
  typical manor consisted of a castle, small
  village, and farmland.
• During the Middle Ages, peasants could no longer
  count on the Roman army to protect them. German,
  Viking and Magyar tribes overran homes and farms
  throughout Europe.
• Serfs would often have to work three or four days
  a week for the lord as rent. They would spend the
  rest of their week growing crops to feed their
  families. Other serfs worked as sharecroppers. A
  sharecropper would be required to turn over most
  of what he grew in order to be able to live on
  the land.
• Key facts about feudal society
• The absence of a strong central authority of
  government
• Economy based on agriculture, with limited money
  exchange
• The strength of the Church Church had the right
  to a share (tithe) of society's output as well as
  substantial landholdings. In return, the church
  was obligated with specific authority and
  responsibility for moral and material welfare.

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The Church

• Christianity became the universal faith of almost
  all of the people of Europe.
• The Church was often the only way to get an
  education.
• It also allowed poor people to escape a dreary
  life and possibly rise to power.
• Religious workers are called clergy.
• In the Middle Ages, the Pope ruled the Christian
  Church. Other clergy included bishops, priests,
  nuns, and monks.
• Monks men who lived in monasteries, or small
  communities of religious workers.
• devoted their lives to prayer
• Monasteries produced many well-educated men
  prepared to serve as administrators for
  uneducated kings and lords.
• Monks were responsible for keeping the Greek and
  Latin classical cultures alive. Monks copied
  books by hand in an era before the printing
  press. Though few in number, monks played a
  significant role in the Middle Ages.

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Medieval Literature

• Beowulf is the oldest surviving epic poem in what
  is identifiable as a form of the English
  language. (The oldest surviving text in English
  is Caedmon's hymn of creation.) The precise date
  of the manuscript is debated, but most estimates
  place it close to AD 1000.
• The story came to England at a time when the
  Germanic peoples were still part of the same
  cultural sphere and spoke what really were just
  dialects of the same language.
• It is known only from a single manuscript, kept
  in the British Library. The manuscript suffered
  some irreversible damage in a fire in 1731.
• The manuscript was written in Old English. Some
  Old English words and sounds closely resemble
  modern English. Today most readers read a
  version of the poem translated into modern
  english.

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Beowulf

• Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic poem which relates
  the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero
  who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible
  monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's
  mother.
• He then returns to his own country, Geatland, and
  dies in old age in a vivid fight against a
  dragon. The poem is about encountering the
  monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live
  on in the exhausted aftermath.

Grendel
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Map The Geography of Beowulf
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Beowulf

• As a Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford
  University, J.R.R. Tolkien probably taught
  Beowulf every year of his working life
• His scholarly paper, Beowulf The Monsters and
  the Critics brought studies of the poem to the
  forefront of the academic world
• Tolkien's imagined world of Arda owes something
  of it's creation to Beowulf Beowulf is among my
  most valued sources (Letters, no.25).
• Tolkien used Beowulf in creating his own works
  and adopting the good vs. evil archetype. Just
  as our modern English language is based on the
  ancient English, Tolkien used Old English words
  in his creation of names.
• Tolkien included almost 50 Anglo-Saxon words or
  phrases from Beowulf in his works.

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The Canterbury Tales

• Englishman Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury
  Tales, a collection of stories in a frame story,
  between 1387 and 1400.
• Story about of a group of thirty people who
  travel as pilgrims to Canterbury (England). The
  pilgrims, who come from all layers of society,
  tell stories to each other to kill time while
  they travel to Canterbury.
• Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell
  two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales
  on the way back. He never finished his enormous
  project and even the completed tales were not
  finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the
  order of the tales. As the printing press had yet
  to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The
  Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several
  handwritten manuscripts.
• The Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English.

http//academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/GP_Hanks.ht
ml
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Canterbury Tales
http//www.librarius.com/cantlink/audiolk.htm

• 1    Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote   
    When April with its sweet-smelling showers
• 2   The droghte of March hath perced to the
  roote,       Has pierced the drought of March to
  the root,
• And bathed every veyne in swich licour      And
  bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
• Of which vertu engendred is the flour   By the
  power of which the flower is created
•   Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete
  breeth  When the West Wind also with its sweet
  breath,
• Inspired hath in every holt and heeth  In every
  holt and heath, has breathed life into
• The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne      The
  tender crops, and the young sun
• Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,     Has
  run its half course in Aries,
• And smale foweles maken melodye,      And small
  fowls make melody,

10     That slepen al the nyght with open ye   
     Those that sleep all the night with open
eyes11     (So priketh hem Nature in hir
corages),          (So Nature incites them in
their hearts),12   Thanne longen folk to goon on
pilgrimages,           Then folk long to go on
pilgrimages,13 And palmeres for to seken
straunge strondes,          And professional
pilgrims (long) to seek foreign shores,14    To
ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes To (go to)
distant shrines, known in various lands15  And
specially from every shires ende     And
specially from every shire's end16   Of Engelond
to Caunterbury they wende,       Of England to
Canterbury they travel,17  The hooly blisful
martir for to seke,        To seek the holy
blessed martyr,18   That hem hath holpen whan
that they were seeke.               Who helped
them when they were sick.
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The Canterbury Tales

• Chaucer began work on The Canterbury Tales about
  1387
• and intended for each of his thirty pilgrims to
  tell four tales, two while traveling to
  Canterbury and two while traveling from
  Canterbury.
• However, only twenty-three pilgrims received a
  story before Chaucer's death in 1400.
• Chaucer's Tales gained mass popularity the early
  fifteenth century.

This facsimile is the first reproduction ever
made of this manuscript, considered a prime
authority for the text of The Canterbury Tales.

• all of humanity moves through its pages.
• Presents humor, at once friendly and satirical.

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Canterbury Tales

• A rich, tapestry of medieval social life
• combining elements of all classes, from nobles to
  workers, from priests and nuns to drunkards and
  thieves.
• When The Canterbury Tales were written
• Christianity was the dominant social force
  throughout western Europe, including England.
• In 1388, while Chaucer was working on the tales,
  a change occurred in the way that Christianity
  was perceived and practiced when John Wycliffe,
  an English reformer,
• released a version of the Bible translated into
  English. For the first time, people from the
  lower classes, who had not been educated in
  Latin, could read the Bible themselves instead of
  having its word interpreted to them by members of
  the clergy.

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Canterbury Tales

• The General Prologue consists of character
  sketches of each member of the group that is
  going to Canterbury, as described by Chaucer, who
  is also a character in his own novel. Any other
  characters in The Canterbury Tales are created by
  one of the pilgrims, in stories within the novel.
  Therefore, these lesser characters are so
  numerous, that it is counter-productive to give
  them a character sketch.
• Since the General Prologue and the main
  characters overlap almost completely, the
  character summaries will be combined with the
  General Prologue, but elaborated on by use of
  other parts of the text.

• Chaucer He is a character in his own novel, and
  he writes in the first person as an outside
  observer traveling with the pilgrims on their way
  to Canterbury.

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Canterbury Tales- some of the characters

• The Knight a warrior who relies on the code of
  chivalry. Represents the romanticized standards
  of the feudal system
• The Prioress A nun, named Madame Eglantine. She
  makes every effort to be refined and elegant, and
  she cannot bear to see any harm come to any of
  Gods lesser creatures, like mice. However, when
  it is her turn to tell a story, hers is violent
  and full of blood and sorrow.
• The Merchant The merchant is obsessed with his
  wealth, and talks about money constantly.
• The Wife of Bath A well-traveled middle-aged
  woman who has been married five times, not
  counting other lovers she did not marry. She has
  a large amount of knowledge from experience, and
  when she questions the authority of the bible,
  she does it with a very good background from
  which to debate it.
• Poor Priest lived truly poor and in the service
  of God. An example of how a traditional priest
  should live in Chaucers time, following the life
  of Christ.
• The Miller a large and strong man, and is one of
  the best at telling vulgar stories.
• The Pardoner A clergyman who is outwardly
  corrupt. His main motivating factor was money,
  and so if the sinner had the gold, the Pardoner
  would favor the sinner and help pardon him.

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Canterbury Tales The Retraction

• Chaucer concludes his tales with praise to Jesus
  Christ. "Now preye I to hem alle that herkne thai
  litel tretys or / rede, that if ther be any thyng
  in it that liketh hem, that / therof they thanken
  oure Lord Jesu Crist, of whom procedeth / al wit
  and al goodnesse" (Chaucer's Retraction, l.1-4).
• He adds that if anyone does not understand these
  tales, then it is due to his ignorance and not
  his intention, which was to fully capture the
  goodness of Christ in tale. He requests pardon
  from Christ for any problems there may be with
  the text.
• He hopes to be granted mercy and kindness so that
  he may ascend to heaven at his time and concludes
  the long tales of Canterbury with this final
  line "So that I may been oon of / hem at the day
  of doome that shulle be saved. Qui cum patre,
  cetera." Chaucer's Retraction, l.29-30

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King Arthurian Legend

• Arthurian legend has become the mirror of the
  ideal of medieval knighthood and chivalry.
  Arthur
• Was the illegitimate son of Uther Pendragon, king
  of Britain
• Became king of Britain by successfully
  withdrawing a sword from a stone.
• Possessed the miraculous sword Excalibur , given
  to him by the mysterious Lady of the Lake .
• Arthur's enemies sister Morgan le Fay and his
  nephew Mordred. Morgan le Fay was usually
  represented as an evil sorceress, scheming to win
  Arthur's throne for herself.
• Mordred (or Modred) was variously Arthur's nephew
  or his son by his sister Morgawse.
• He seized Arthur's throne during the king's
  absence.
• Later he was slain in battle by Arthur, but not
  before he had fatally wounded the king.

• Most invincible knights in Arthur's realm Sir
  Tristram and Sir Launcelot of the Lake.
• Sir Gawain, Arthur's nephew, who appeared
  variously as the ideal of knightly courtesy and
  as the bitter enemy of Launcelot.
• After 1225 no significant medieval Arthurian
  literature was produced on the Continent.
• In England, however, the legend continued to
  flourish. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  (c.1370), one of the best Middle English
  romances, embodies the ideal of chivalric
  knighthood.
• The last important medieval work dealing with the
  Arthurian legend is the Morte d'Arthur of Sir
  Thomas Malory , whose tales have become the
  source for most subsequent Arthurian material.

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Sir Gawain The Green Knight (ca 1370)

• This poem tells the story of Gawain, a knight and
  member of King Arthurs Round Table
• A perfect example of the idealism and romanticism
  of chivalry
• Plot Overview
• During a New Years Eve feast at King Arthurs
  court, a strange figure, referred to only as the
  Green Knight, pays the court an unexpected visit.
• challenges the groups leader or any other brave
  representative to a game The Green Knight says
  that he will allow whomever accepts the challenge
  to strike him with his own axe, on the condition
  that the challenger find him in exactly one year
  to receive a blow in return.
• Arthur hesitates to respond, but when the Green
  Knight mocks Arthurs silence, the king steps
  forward to take the challenge.

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Dante Alighieri- The Divine Comedy (written from
1306 to 1321)

• The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, is
  comprised of 3 works
• Inferno
• Purgatorio
• Paradiso
• Inferno the most widely read section
• Dante describes a journey through Hell from the
  entrance at the lowest and less harsh level.
• His companion for the travel is Virgil, a mentor
  and protector. Constructed as a huge funnel with
  nine descending circular ledges
• Dantes Hell carefully categorizes sinners
  according to the nature of their sins.
• Those who recognize and repudiate their sins are
  given a change to purify themselves in
  Purgatorio, the second of three segments in the
  poem. Therefore, Dante feels Hell is a necessary,
  painful first step of any mans spiritual
  journey.
• The Divine Comedy is in no way a comedic literary
  work.
• Dante himself simply called this work "Comedy."
  because the poem is a optimistic process from
  Hell toward Heaven, or from worse to better.

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Dantes Life

• Born in Florence, Italy, in 1265. His family was
  considered part of the lesser nobility
• The death of one of his childhood friends a
  turning point in his life.
• At the age of nine, Dante was introduced to
  Beatrice Portinari in 1274. According to studies
  by Boccacio, her death in 1290 propelled him to
  begin an intensive study in the philosophical
  works of Boethius, Cicero, and Aristotle.
• Beatrice is alluded to in several of his other
  works but specifically The Divine Comedy where
  she is commemorated as the ideal lady who guides
  him to redemption in Paradiso.
• Dante became increasingly involved with politics.
  He was elected as one of the six offices of
  president of the Florentine Guilds in 1300.
• After a coup in 1313, Dante fled Florence and
  lost hope of ever returning. He remained in
  Verona and a year later moved to Revenna where he
  died in 1321.
• Although Dante is most famous for his poem The
  Divine Comedy, he also wrote some other highly
  influential works. These include a collection of
  early poems published in La Vita Nuova (c. 1293
  The New Life). Written in commemoration of
  Beatrices death, The New Life was a new,
  innovative approach to love poetry and equates
  love with a mystical and spiritual revelation.

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Structure of Inferno

• As part of this work, Dante put real-life and
  mythological figures in the Inferno based on what
  he saw were their sins, making this work a
  political and social commentary
• He organized the work into Cantos, or short
  chapters, much like Homers uses books in
  creating The Odyssey
• The sinners in the nine circles of hell are
  guilty of one of three types of sin
• Incontinence losing control of natural appetites
  and desires
• Brutishness attraction to things which repulse
  the healthy soul
• Malice / Vice abuse of reason, a human's most
  god-like quality

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Structure of Inferno- Some Examples
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Salvador Dalis Work inspired by Inferno

• Canto 26-27 Evil counselors
• Ulysses

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Bibliography

• http//www.learner.org/exhibits/middleages/feudal.
  html
• http//www.medievalcrusades.com/
• http//eawc.evansville.edu/chronology/mepage.htm
• http//www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmi
  ddle/bluedot/crusades.html
• http//triode.net.au/dragon/tilkal/issue1/beowulf
  .html
• http//academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/GP-Opening.
  html
• http//www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
• http//www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/Beowulf.Readings/B
  eowulf.Readings.html
• http//ancienthistory.about.com/cs/romefallarticle
  s/a/fallofrome.htm
• http//www.umkc.edu/lib/engelond/prologue.htm
• http//web.cn.edu/kwheeler/resource_medieval_lit.h
  tml
• http//www.heorot.dk/
• http//www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/beowulf.htm
  l
• http//itsa.ucsf.edu/snlrc/britannia/beowulf/beow
  ulf.html
• http//www.geocities.com/Athens/2406/
• http//members.aol.com/bakken1/angsax/angsaxe.htm
• http//www.mrdowling.com/703middleages.html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages
• http//www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/con
  tents.html

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Middle Ages General Timeline
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Medieval Movie Clip
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King Arthur Clip