Lecture 17: The High Middle Ages 10001300

1
Lecture 17 The High Middle Ages
1000-1300 -- 1000-1300 much improved from
previous period cessation of constant invasion,
better climate, improved agriculture,
increase in population (from 38 to 74
million) -- prosperity due to success of
manorial system and development of organized
Christian groups, especially Cistercians -- Durin
g this period, relationship between lords and
peasants merely landlord/tenant where lord is
mere rent collector -- Cultural and intellectual
life now dominated by lay leaders as well as
Church due to rise of urban life and contacts
between east and west as result of
crusades -- First universities begun during this
period U of Bologna 1158
2
-- Universities were large institutions which
offered general studies with specialist
teachers in astronomy, geometry, arithmetic,
music, grammar, rhetoric and logic, with
higher disciplines in theology, law and
medicine -- Medieval universities were guilds
privileged corporations of teachers and students
with classes in rented rooms -- By 13th century,
universities existed in Paris, Bologna,
Naples, Montpellier, Oxford, Cambridge and
elsewhere -- Student life characterized by
violence and excess -- Wealthy benefactors
founded residential colleges in Paris by 13th
century riots for lower housing costs were
common -- Students day began at 5 or 6 a.m.
summoned to class by church bells
3
-- Teachers lectured all morning from raised
platform at end of unheated rooms to students on
rough benches students engaged in recreation in
afternoon, studied at night -- Law students
studied both canon (church) and customary
law -- Legal scholars known as glossators
wrote analyses of law -- After 1100, Roman law
revived Corpus Juris Secundum still used today
(law organized into series of topics) -- By 13th
c. Roman law begins to dominate in France,
Germany and Spain (England continues to use
common law) -- Scholars did not hesitate to
criticize Catholic theology tension between
reason and faith results in compromise known
as Scholasticism (Maimonidies Guide for the
Perplexed)
4
-- St. Thomas Aquinas Dominican (vows of
poverty) Summa Theologica attempts to unify
and explain rationally all of the major
theological issues in Platonic form (question
and answer) -- William Ockham 1300-1349)
reason and revelation cannot harmonized -- Medie
val science observation will render
knowledge -- Robert Grosseteste (1168-1253)
scientist who lectures to Franciscans Platonist
who believed that mathematics was key to
understanding the physical universe (note Plato
God is a mathematician) -- Most popular
sciences were astrology and alchemy
(turning base metals into gold) -- By High
Middle Ages, vernacular replaces Latin for
writing
5
Abbey Church of St. Denis (8th 13th
c.) (Gothic style pointed masonry ribs and
complex groin vaulting)
6
St. Denis north view
7
St. Denis exterior arch