THE MIDDLE AGES

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THE MIDDLE AGES

• CENTURIES OF CHANGE

WORLD LITERATURE I
BY RALPH MONDAY
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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.

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The third influenceless 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.
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THE IBERIAN PENINSULA
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The late Roman Empire And the First Barbarian King
doms 285-451 C.E.
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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.
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The Islamic Conquest 632-656.
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• 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

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• 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.

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HOW DID THE MIDDLE AGES GETS ITS NAME?

• The middle of What?
• The period was named by the people who came
  immediately after it.
• They called their own age the Renaissance because
  they saw it
• As the time in which the cultural

• Achievements of antiquity were being reborn.
• For this age the preceding age was a time of
  middleness,
• A space of cultural emptiness that separated them
  from the classical past they so admired.

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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.

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• 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,

• 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

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• 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.

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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.

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THE SYMBOL OF FAITH
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CHRIST ON THE CROSS
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THE CRUCIFIXION AND SACRIFICE, OF COURSE,
WAS THE PROMISE OF ETERNAL LIFE AND THE DEFEAT OF
DEATH.
THE CHURCH HAS CONTINUALLY REINFORCED THIS
ARCHETYPE.
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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 Romes mission was to civilize
  the entire world and bend it to Roman ways.

WE HAVE INHEIRITED THIS TRADITION TODAY.
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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.

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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.

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MITHRAS
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.
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ISIS
A prototype of the Great Goddess, Wife and sister
of Osiris, Osiris was Another dying and
resurrected god.
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EARTH MOTHER
WORSHIP OF THE EARTH AS A FEMALE DEITY FROM WHICH
ALL LIFE EMERGES.
EXTREMELY OLD BELIEF SHE WAS CALLED GAIA BY
THE ANCIENT GREEKS.
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Tellus or Terra Mater (detail from the Ara Pacis
Augustae, Rome)
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THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY TWILIGHT OF THE OLD GODS

• Christianity expanded its popularity as Roman
  authority waned.
• About 300 C.E. the Emperor Diocletians 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.

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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 Graeco-Roman 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.

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ST. JEROME
In addition to his Many theological Writings,
Jerome Translated the Old Testament From
the Original Hebrew.
340-2--420
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ST. AMBROSE
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.
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ST. AUGUSTINE
Augustine was born at Tagaste on 13 November,
354.
He was hugely Instrumental In creating much Of
the Catholic Churchs canon.
Died 28 August, 430.
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• 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.

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FEUDALISM

• 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.

• 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.

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The medieval Knight was this Great protector, And
the beginning Of the Age of Chivalry to come.
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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.

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• 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.

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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.

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• Dantes 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 Dantes 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.

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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 Europes population
  died.
• Emerging writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer

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• 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.