Christianity and the Medieval Mind

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Chapter 12

• Christianity and the Medieval Mind

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Medieval Drama

• Mystery play
• Miracle play
• Morality play

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Mystery play

• Medieval religious drama based on stories from
  the Bible. Mystery plays were performed around
  the time of church festivals. A whole cycle
  running from the Creation to the Last Judgment
  was performed in separate scenes on mobile
  wagons.

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http//www.thebookofdays.com/months/may/images/mys
tery_plays.jpg
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The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood

• At the beginning, God tells Noah that he will put
  an end to all the people on earth because of
  their violent and evil deeds. Noah is the only
  one good man whom god believes, so he is told to
  build an ark and, besides his family, he has to
  take into a male and a female of every kind of
  animals and bird.

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The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood

• In the Bible, Noah takes his family and the
  creatures into the ark without any problem
  however, in the play, he gets problems to get his
  wife into the boat because she can not leave her
  friends alone and just goes away.
• http//www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_99F/medieval_lit/me
  dievalplays/newpage3.htm

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The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood

• Then, the rain fell on the earth for forty days
  and nights. The flood destroys all the creatures
  on earth and only those on the ark survive. The
  play end with the doves returning to Noah with
  an olive leaf in its break and the promise of God
  that flood will never destroy all living beings
  on earth any more.
• http//www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_99F/medieval_lit/me
  dievalplays/newpage3.htm

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The Second Shepherd's Play from the Wakefield
Mystery Cycle
http//www.headlandview.co.uk/tower/plays/1963/p63
09.htm
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The angel seizes Abraham's sword. Scene from the
York Play of Abraham and Isaac.
http//muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_medieval_a
nd_early_modern_studies/v031/full/31.3frantzen_fig
02f.jpg
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Miracle play

• Also called saints play presents a real or
  fictitious account of the life, miracles, or
  martyrdom of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint.

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• Here we see the suffering and death of one of the
  early saints persecuted by the Romans.

http//www.srvc.net/engl154/html_files/T-2.htm
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Morality play

• An allegorical drama in which the characters
  personify moral qualities (such as charity or
  vice) or abstractions (as death or youth) and in
  which moral lessons are taught.

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Contemplation, Perseverance, Imagination, and
Free Will. From the morality play Hickscorner.
http//ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/drama/moralities.ht
ml
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Everyman

• 15thcentury
• A morality play
• A motif memento mori (Keep death before your
  eyes!)

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• You better watch out You better not cry Better
  not pout I'm telling you why Santa Claus is
  coming to town He's making a list And checking
  it twice Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice
  Santa Claus is coming to town He sees you when
  you're sleeping He knows when you're awake He
  knows if you've been bad or good So be good for
  goodness sake! O! You better watch out!

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Everyman

• Themes (1) Life is a pilgrimage.
• (2) Death is inevitable.
• (3) Medieval theology It is not
  faith that will save Everyman his or her
  willingness to learn (Knowledge), act (Good
  Deeds), and convert (Confession) will make the
  difference between salvation and damnation.

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• Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
• The Divine Comedy

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Structure

• Inferno Dante travels through the nine levels of
  hell, starting from the outermost ring, limbo.
  This ring is inhabited by those who lead
  blameless lives, but were not baptized. As he
  progresses to the central circle the sins of the
  damned become more serious as are their
  sufferings.
• http//cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy

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Structure

• Purgatorio Dante ascends the seven terraces of
  Purgatory. Each terrace represents one of the
  seven deadly sins which must be overcome by the
  sinner before entering heaven.
• http//cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy

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Structure

• Paradiso Dante is guided through the nine
  spheres of heaven, based roughly on Aristotelean
  cosmology. He then meets God, who grants him the
  understanding of human nature.
• http//cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy

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Inferno

• Circle 1 The virtuous pagans
• Circle 2 The lascivious
• Circle 3 The gluttonous
• Circle 4 The greedy and the wasteful
• Circle 5 The wrathful
• Circle 6 The heretics
• Circle 7 The violent against others, self, God,
  nature, and art
• Circle 8 The fraudulent (10 classes)
• Circle 9 The lake of the treacherous against
  kindred, country, guests, lords and benefactors.
  Satan is imprisoned at the center of this frozen
  lake.

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Virgil and Dante meeting Homer
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William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905). Dante And
Virgil In Hell (1850) http//commons.wikimedia.org
/wiki/ImageWilliam-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1825-1905)
_-_Dante_And_Virgil_In_Hell_(1850).jpg
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Purgatory

• Ante-Purgatory the excommunicated, the lazy, the
  unabsolved, negligent rulers
• The Terraces of the Mount of Purgatory
• The proud
• The envious
• The wrathful
• The slothful
• The avaricious
• The gluttonous
• The lascivious
• The Earthly Paradise

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Paradise

• The Moon The faithful who were inconstant
• Mercury Service marred by ambition
• Venus Love marred by lust
• The Sun Wisdom the theologians
• Mars Courage the just warriors
• Jupiter Justice the great rulers
• Saturn Temperance the contemplatives and
  mystics
• The Fixed Stars The Church Triumphant
• The Premum Mobile The Order of Angels
• The Empyrean Heavens Angels, Saints, The Virgin,
  and the Holy Trinity

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• Illustrations to the Divine Comedy
• by Gustave Doré
• http//dante.ilt.columbia.edu/images/dore/inf.html
  

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Dante astray in the Dusky Wood
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The Lion suddenly confronts Dante
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Phlegyas ferries Dante and Virgil across the Styx
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Harpies in the Forest of the Suicides
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Lucifer, King of Hell
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The Sinners passing through the Fire
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The Sparkling Circles of the Heavenly Host
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The Saintly Throng in the Form of a Rose
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Medieval University

• England Oxford and Cambridge
• France University of Paris
• Italy University of Bologna

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Medieval University

• Developed in the late 12th and early 13th
  centuries along with the emergence of city life.
• The word universitas originally meant a guild
  or corporation.

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• Medieval Scholasticism

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Scholasticism

• The school of philosophy taught by the academics
  (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa
  1100 - 1500. Scholasticism attempted to reconcile
  the philosophy of the ancient classical
  philosophers with medieval Christian theology.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholastic

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Thomas Aquinas
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas
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Thomas Aquinas

• (1225?-1274)
• Summa Theologica
• Philosophical tradition Aristotle

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Thomas Aquinas

• Central concern How does one harmonize those
  things that are part of human learning (reason)
  with those supernatural truths revealed by God in
  the Bible and through the teaching of the church
  (revelation)?

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High Middle Ages

• Two characteristics
• Hierarchical
• Synthetic

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• The End