Chapter Nine:
The High Middle Ages
Eva Green looks pretty much like a typical woman an
ingenuous crusader might have seen for the first time. Just put yourself in his place: beautiful
women wearing silks and jewelry, living behind high walls in harems guarded by
eunuchs, their beauty often hidden behind veils, dancing voluptuously.
And what stories were you hearing? Tales of daring lovers who climbed those
harem walls just for a kiss, who wrote poetry, who risked their lives fighting
evil genies and wizards on flying carpets all in the name of the beautiful lady
of whom they were dreaming.
They learned about a new religion, too, one that spoke
positively about rewarding the good.
What a difference that was from the somber, negative, sinners will all go to hell, religion
from home. It was time for the world to
change.
One way to show how culture changed in the Middle Ages is to examine some of the evolution of The
Arthurian Legend.
Prehistoric Briton was a land of mysterious gods and
magical priestesses . . .
The oldest of these is Ggantija, megalithic temple
complex on the Mediterranean
“Ggantija” means “belonging to giants.”
Sometime around 500 BC, Stonehenge was used for
sacrifices and rituals by Celtic Druids
The Druids used many things we use in Halloween
observances, corn dollies, jack o’ lanterns and other harvest rituals, the
myths of Puck, woodwoses, wood spirits, "lucky" and
"unlucky" plants and animals, etc.
Under Roman rule (43–410), the druids hid in the forest,
and waited for a chance to return to power.
When the
Romans left, druids remained a secret sect while various tribes invaded Breton
(as the Romans called it.): Jutes from Jutland (
As these
tribes warred with each other, the Druids practiced their religion in secret.
The most powerful of the ancient ones was Vivienne, also
called Nimue, an earth goddess known as The Lady of the Lake, who controlled
the destinies of the great heroes of mythical
The Lake people were ruled by several goddesses,
collectively called “The Damsels of the
Actually, it wasn’t a lake at all, but the people of the
lake were so gentle and peace loving that Vivienne had to find a way to protect
them from the outside world, so like an episode of Star Trek, she cast a
spell over the city that clouded the minds of mortals who approached them,
seeing only a great lake.
Vivienne’s great love is Myrddin (Merlin), a powerful
Druidic Shaman with a great love for apple trees. (Long a symbol of immortality, as well as the
source for the name of Vivienne’s land: Avalon.) He, too, is a great god of the forest, but
like most men, powerless in the arms of a beautiful woman.
After the Romans left, the various tribes of Breton were
constantly at war, so Vivienne selected a great king to unite the tribes and
rule all of
With the help of Merlin, she set the sword, Excalibur,
into a stone and cast a spell on it that only the rightful king could pull it
out. That King was named Arthur.
Born in any one of a number of miraculous ways, Arthur
was brought up by Merlin and taught (with much magic) how to be king.
With his bravest knight, Sir Gawaine, at his side, Arthur
was a warrior king, much like Beowulf, his contemporary.
One of the older manuscripts in English is Sir Gawaine
and the Green Knight. Interestingly,
it was adapted to modern English in 1925 by a professor of Anglo Saxon
Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford, who had a deep personal interest in the
tales of prehistoric creatures, J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Green Knight is a monstrous shape-shifter who is
beaten in a fabulous battle, not unlike Beowulf and Grendel.
As Christianity spreads, it becomes necessary to change
some of the mythic elements of the Arthurian Legend, to accept the new religion.
The goddesses of the
Most famous is the quest for the Holy Grail. Probably a
revised heathen myth (the horn of plenty or the leprechaun’s pot of gold), the
new Christian tale tells of Jesus’ disciple, Joseph of Arimethia, who, while
preparing him for burial, saved some of Jesus’ blood in a bowl, a Holy Relic
that he brought to England.
After an
unfortunate event, God deemed man unworthy to see the Grail and took it
away. Finding it became the goal of
every true knight.
Knights, by now, were all Christians who had new ideas
about knighthood. (As
learned from returning crusaders who had learned courtesy and respect for women
from the Moslems.) These ideas
became the basis for Chivalry, the code of Knighthood.
Many knights soon joined Arthur’s Round Table at Camelot.
A major part of Chivalry was the idea of Courtly Love,
also passed on from the tales of the east.
Even Arthur’s death is Christianized. Originally, he was taken in a boat to Avalon.
The Christian element adds that Arthur will return again
when
At this point, we must cut to another important event in history:
October 14, 1066—the Invasion of
On the right is the best known scene in the Tapestry: the
William brought with him French culture, which became a
permanent part of our English culture and language. English men and women were
called Saxons, after the most prominent English tribe at the time. The
French nobility were called
As the
Soon to become King Arthur’s closest friend, Lancelot
arrived in Camelot the strongest, purest knight of all. He was raised by Vivienne, by now reduced to
the title of “fairy.”
Some said that Lancelot was a descendent of the House of
David, making him a cousin to Jesus.
Others said his powers were miraculous.
Then there was the time he accidentally killed a knight during a joust:
But we must remember this: Romance has come into the
story. Very few romances end
happily. Happy ending? They get married, wither, do household chores,
get bored with each other, etc. etc.
When a romance ends unhappily, the people involved stay beautiful and in
love forever.
As the focus of the Arthurian legend turned romantic,
Merlin, too, became an unimportant character, so he was taken away by Vivien.
Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The
Beguiling of Merlin (Merlin and Vivien). 1870-1874.
As everyone knows, Lancelot turned out to have a human
side after all—his love for Guinevere led to the annihilation of Camelot and
everything Arthur believed in. Guinevere
ends up as a nun.
And Sir Percival did, indeed, get to see the Holy Grail .
. .
And, eventually, got a job from God.
With Courtly love, respect for women, and the other
“refinements” of society, Humanism began to slowly make its way across
Common people did not speak Latin, so as early as the
fifth century, bible stories were represented in
church by means of live tableaux accompanied by singing. Liturgical dramas
developed gradually over several centuries as parts of the liturgy were
embellished by “tropes” and then elaborated into dialogues and short
reenactments of scenes from the Easter story and the Nativity. Eventually the
laity began to participate and vernacular elements were included. It looked
something like this:
Obviously, such common humor got Jesus and his troupe
thrown out of the church.
Undaunted, they continued to perform, first on the steps
outside of church, then the backyard, and finally in the marketplace downtown.
But it takes money to put on a show. Mystery Plays began about 1310, supported
with money from the local guilds (unions) (called in Latin, “mysteriums”)
The religious and professional guilds took responsibility
for a particular episode or set of episodes from scriptural history. One guild,
for example, might present the Fall, another the
Flood, and yet another the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. The involvement of
the trade guilds led to the tendency to incorporate topical and social themes
into the plays, though the emphasis remained Christian.
Guilds mounted their plays on “pageants,” movable
two-tiered floats. The upper tier was used for the performance, and the lower
tier was curtained off and used as a dressing room for the actors. Each play
was performed on a separate wagon, and on the day of the festival the pageants
traveled in a carefully timed procession through the town.
Each pageant stopped at each street to perform its play,
and then moved on, to be replaced by the next pageant, performing the next
episode in the sacred drama. Although each play was fairly short, the complete
cycle of plays took a very long time, often as long as eighteen hours, to
perform. (In some towns the plays were performed one per day, taking a month or
more to complete the cycle.)
In addition to the events of sacred history represented
by the mystery plays, the cycles also included miracle plays, which dramatized
the lives and miracles of the saints, or episodes of divine intervention in
human affairs, often through the agency of the Virgin Mary. Sometimes the term
“mystery play” is used to refer to both mystery and miracle plays.
Always the most popular scene, the hell mouth featured
devils in their common form.
Plays became progressively secular, even incorporating
ribaldry and farce. They became boisterous and realistic in tone and style,
often moving from serious religious subjects to topical farce and back, as in
the well known “The Second Shepherd’s Play” from the Wakefield cycle. It was
this increasing secularization and farcical elaboration that led the Church to
withdraw official approval from the mystery and miracle plays, and finally to
suppress them altogether in
Again, they got the boot.
One kind of mystery, the Passion
play, survives even today. Usually performed on Good Friday, it depicts the
suffering and death of Christ. The first Passion play
performance was apparently around 1200 at Sienna, and in 1244 “The Passion” and
“The Resurrection” were performed together at
In an attempt to pacify the Church that had outlawed
mystery plays, theatre groups began performing Morality plays, usually
allegories in which an “Everyman” meets personifications of evil such as “The
Seven Deadly Sins.”
GLUTTONY
LUST
PRIDE
AVERICE
ENVY
SLOTH
WRATH
Unlike the Mystery plays which depicted events from Old
Testament Bible history, and the Passion plays, which depicted the
crucifixion of Jesus; the Morality plays focused on the Homily (sermon) of the
church service, encouraging an ethically correct lifestyle.
Contemplation, Perseverance,
Imagination, and Free Will. From the morality play Hickscorner.
The central character in the moralities often becomes a
battleground between virtue and vice. In The Castle of Perseverance, the
central character, Mankind, is followed through his life as he is subjected to
various appropriate temptations: in his youth he is particularly susceptible to
Lust-liking, Flesh and Pleasure; in age he falls victim to Covetousness. In
each case the vices tempt him with their attractive sins, while the corresponding
virtues, led by a Good Angel, try to keep him (unsuccessfully) from giving in
to temptation.
When Mankind is dead, the four daughters of God debate
what his fate should be--whether his soul should go to Heaven or Hell. The four
characters are Mercy, Justice, Peace, and Truth. Justice and Truth point to
Mankind's persistent sinfulness, and argue that his soul should go to Hell;
Mercy and Peace argue that God's goodness is such that, despite his sinfulness,
Mankind should be forgiven. Mercy and Peace prevail, and God allows the soul of
Mankind to ascend.
To see the influence of the new humanistic feelings of
Medieval culture, one need only to look at the magnificent Gothic Cathedral at
Chartres, France (1194—1260)
Chartres was the model for Gothic Architecture, combining
the stoic Romanesque with the decorative arches of the Islamic.
Beautifully arched towers soar toward Heaven.
Stained glass windows have the geometric designs of the
east.
As well as colorfully depicted Biblical scenes.
A new development in architecture was the Flying Buttress
. . .
. . . Later to be employed by other Gothic cathedrals,
such as Notre Dame in
A really important change can be found in the sculptures
under these archivolts and around the cathedral.
“Royal” portals: God in Time, God beyond Time, and God
before Time
Mounted on the columns are elongated statues of kings and
Jesus is portrayed as a kindly, loving figure.
A Royal Pet?
Beneath the statues are various geometric designs, also
showing Islamic influence.
The right portal, showing “The Throne of Wisdom”
In the archivolts around the “Throne of Wisdom” are
sculptures representing the liberal arts: Music above Classical scholar
Pythagoras and Grammar above Classical scholar Priscian or Donatus, etc.
Like Cordova,
Aquinas’ teaching was accepted over that of Pierre
Abelard (1079—1142), who preferred not to Christianize the thoughts of
Aristotle. Abelard is famous for another
activity.
Abelard was the first famous heterosexual teacher to fall
in love with a student, Heloise.
Secretly married, Heloise had a child; her Uncle and some
friends castrated Abelard and Heloise became a nun.
Jean Vignaud (1775-1826) Abelard
and Heloïse Surprised by the Abbot Fulbert
1819
Although separated, they continued to profess their love
in countless letters, and become the subject of many songs, poems, and
artworks.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) “Lady Reading the
Letters of Heloise and Abelard” (1758)
Their tomb is a tourist attraction in
At
On June 15, 1215, the Magna Carta was signed by King John
of
We know a great deal about King John.
Until recently, king john was the worst world leader of
all time.
The story of the Magna Carta goes back to King Henry II
whose political disagreements with his Archbishop, Thomas Becket . . .
. . . Led to Becket’s murder—an act which so outraged the
Pope that Henry was publicly whipped.
Of several sons, Henry selected Richard to succeed him.
But Richard went off to the Crusades, and left his stupid
Brother, Prince John, to rule
Prince John was incompetent, and the people despised him.
After Richard’s death, the throne was to have gone to his
nephew, Arthur, Duke of
Having had all they could take, the barons stormed
The Magna Carta took many powers away from the king and
guaranteed right to English citizenry.
Among its many laws was this:
No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or
deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor
shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgment of his
peers, or by the law of the land.
Magna
Carta was used as a model for many constitutions and laws, including the
American Bill of Rights.
Slime ball that he was, John never intended to obey the
Magna Carta and immediately put the country into civil war. He died during that war, on October 18, 1216,
not the death of a hero, sword in hand, but in his bed, afflicted with
dysentery. It was an ignoble death for a
very ignoble man.
A number of oral tradition stories, often sung, were
written down for the first time in medieval times. These were called “chanson
de geste” (Song of brave deeds.) Although
the tales were hundreds of years old, they were modernized and Christianized
for publication. Most importantly, they
were written in the vernacular. We’ve
already mentioned Beowulf and King Arthur.
A third great story was about Roland.
Roland is a great hero in Charlemagne’s army fighting the
Moors in
In trial by combat, it is assumed that God would not let
the wrong person live. Therefore, it was
the most just way to prove a person innocent or guilty.
Understanding Trial by Combat can teach us a great deal
about the middle ages. For a good description
of such trials, we can turn to the work of novelist Sir Walter Scott
(1771-1832).
The climax of Scott’s epic novel, Ivanhoe (1819),
is a Trial by Combat in which the Jew, Rebecca, is accused of being a witch
owing to her use of eastern medicines learned in
Just to keep the story Romantic, Ivanhoe and Rebecca are
in love, but can never do anything about it because he is a Christian and can
only marry blonde, blue-eyed Barbie types.
Meanwhile, Brian De Bois Guilbert, the bad guy, also loves Rebecca, but
he has to fight for her death.
Agnolo Bronzino: “Allegorical Portrait of Dante” (1530)
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was the greatest poet of the
western world in the middle ages. He
wrote The Divine Comedy in the Vernacular so it could be read by all.
The Divine Comedy opens thusly:
MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to
say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
The poem, as you can see is written in three line
stanzas, clearly an implied reference to the trinity. Although references are made to pagan
mythology, clearly Dante wrote from a Christian perspective. Let’s join him in his journey from Hell (Inferno)
through purgatory (Purgatorio) to Heaven (Paradisio)
Gustave Doré (1832—1883) was a world famous illustrator
of books. His illustrations for The
Divine Comedy are very well known.
We shall use his works to illustrate our discussion of the poem.
The poem begins in a dark forest, where a man has lost
his way.
A pilgrim (Dante) had set out on the night before Good
Friday, and found himself in the middle of a dark wood. There he encounters
three beasts: a leopard (representing lust), a lion (pride) and a she-wolf
(covetousness). Fortunately, his lady, Beatrice, along with the Virgin Mary
herself, sends the spirit of Virgil, the classical Latin poet, to guide Dante
through much of his journey.
Virgil leads Dante through Hell, but Virgil is not a
Christian. To Dante he represents human knowledge, or unholy reason, which
cannot lead a person to God.
Together they passed through the gates of Hell inscribed
with the terrifying words: "Abandon every hope, Ye
that Enter." Dante found Hell to be a huge funnel-shaped pit divided into
terraces, each a standing-place for those individuals who were guilty of a
particular sin. After passing Limbo, reserved for the unbaptized, Dante
observed and conversed with hundreds of Hell's souls, many of whom, guilty of
carnal sins, were being whirled about in the air or forced to lie deep in mud
or snow, under the decrees of eternal damnation.
In the very depths of Hell was Satan - with three heads,
each grasping a sinner in its mouth, and with three pairs of wings that
continuously beat over the waters around him, freezing them into perpetual
currents of ice.
Dante and Virgil turned and scrambled out through an
opening (earth's center of gravity) where all things were the opposite of Hell:
The sun was shining; it was Easter morning. Now hiking on in silence, they
finally arrived on the shores of the Mount of Purgatory, located exactly
opposite
First and lowest on the mountain was Antepurgatory, a
place reserved for those spirits who were penitent in life, who had died
without achieving full repentance or without receiving the last sacrament of
the church. They were required to spend time there before they could begin
their arduous climb up the mountain.
A group of those poor souls pled with the mortal visitor
to speak with their relatives and friends, urging them to pray that their stay
in Antepurgatory might be shortened.
As the pilgrims entered Purgatory, an angel inscribed the
letter "P" on Dante's forehead seven times, to represent the seven
deadly sins. As Dante made his way through the seven areas reserved for those
who committed each of these sins, the letters were erased one by one, and the
climb became less difficult.
Like Hell, Purgatory was arranged in terraces. However,
the inhabitants here could, through confession, repentance, patience, and the
prayers of the living, move on to higher realms after a time of proper
purification. In the first terrace (pride), the occupants bowed down under huge
stones which they carried on their backs, while reciting The Lord's Prayer,
a fitting penance for haughty souls. Each terrace in turn was designed to purge
its dead souls of one particular deadly sin.
The travelers finally moved beyond the seventh terrace.
An angel directed them to pass through a huge wall of flames; on the other side
they would find Beatrice. Dante did not hesitate. Emerging from the flames, he
saw a mountain. At its summit, Virgil bade Dante farewell, for this was as far
as Human Reason would allow a non-Christian to go.
Dante noticed a beautiful garden nearby, and began to
explore it. A young woman appeared to inform him that this was the Garden of
Eden - and there, across a river, awaited Beatrice. But the woman called out to
Dante, demanding that, before entering the stream, he stop to acknowledge
remorse for his sins and confess them. Hearing her, Dante was so overcome with
remorse that he fainted and had to be carried across Lethe, the river of
forgetfulness of past sins.
On the other side of the river, accompanied now at last
by the beautiful Beatrice, Dante discovered that
Dante next followed Beatrice past the Fixed Stars, where
many of the Apostles dwelt. These men, in turn, questioned the poet, examining
his opinions. Dante offered complicated treatises on the duality of Christ
(that he is both human and divine) and earthly versus godly love, and explained
then modern scientific theories to account, among other things, for moon spots.
Dante next followed Beatrice past the Fixed Stars, where
many of the Apostles dwelt. These men, in turn, questioned the poet, examining
his opinions. Dante offered complicated treatises on the duality of Christ and
scientific theories.
At last Dante was conducted to the ninth heaven (outer
space), where he received grace, and was permitted to gaze upon divinity and
hear the angels' chorus. Beatrice then departed as Dante witnessed the entrance
of the triumphal Christ, followed by Mary.
Then, in union with the divine, Dante was left alone to
behold the glory of God on his throne. "O how scant is speech and how
feeble to my conception," he gasped in a final, striking, poetic
description of breathless awe .
Most poetry of Dante's age was written in praise of a
woman whom the poet had chosen as an ideal, a pure love, an unattainable
inspiration. Dante had met Beatrice Portinari at least twice, but had no
intention of developing a relationship with her. She was married, as was he.
"If it pleases God," Dante had written in the third person, "he
will write of Beatrice, that which has never yet been said of mortal
woman." This, in fact, Dante does in The Divine Comedy, placing his
lady in the highest realms of
Courtly love was also the subject of many songs (lays), written in the vernacular by Troubadours and sung by
wandering minstrels.
Music was often provided by a minstrel, or troubadour.
Classical music, of course, was church based. We’ve already discussed Gregorian chants and
polyphonies. These developed into MOTETS, interwoven and often complex
melodies.
Bach: “Wie sich
ein Vater”
For a more modern version of a motet, we can look at jazz
music.
Humanism and Art will flourish more readily in the Late
Middle Ages, in Chapter 10.