Chapter Ten:
The late Middle Ages
1300—1500
1347: The Bubonic Plague (The Black Death) first appears in
People start saying, “God Bless you,” when a sneeze is heard, assuming you have the plague.
Children sing:
“Ring around the Rosy
A pocket full of Posey
Ashes, Ashes, All fall down.”
Wagons arrive daily to collect the dead.
The Dance of Death became a popular theme in art.
Europeans looked to place the blame for the Black Death on all kinds of people: Muslims, Jews, Moors, Witches—and in a way, the latter were correct.
Everyone knows witches always have cats as familiars.
Therefore, the best way NOT to be accused of witchcraft was to stay away from cats.
Cats eat rats; rats carry fleas; fleas carry plague; a house with no cats will have rats.
The plague would thrive until people were once more willing
to welcome cats into their homes.
The plague was just one of several things that made life bad
for the peasants of
We’ve already seen how their ancient religion was pushed aside by a Christian church whose Latin rituals were unintelligible to the uneducated peasants, and how the church kept stifling Humanism in art and theatre.
The Robin Hood stories tell us of peasants who were executed as poachers if they killed a deer to fill their empty stomachs, or took a few twigs from the forest for heat.
Robin Hood # 52
November 1955
Published by Magazine Enterprises /
Sussex Publishing Co., Inc.
"The Prince and the Poacher"
Art by Frank Bolle, Script by
Unknown
Whenever a minstrel came to town, songs of the rebellious Robin Hood encouraged them to stand up to oppression.
Lords were free to hustle them off to wars, such as the Crusades and local battles. Without armor, they were easy targets.
Lords even had jus primae noctis (The Law of the first night). An ancient custom, in which the Lord is allowed to deflower peasant virgins on their wedding day.
Then there was the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), which was actually a series of wars that lasted for 116 years as territories and small kingdoms were arranged into big kingdoms, and much of the middle class faded away, either becoming wealthy by taking advantage of the lack of people due to the plague or getting poorer due to continued oppression.
Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc) (1412 –1431) Was probably the most famous warrior of the Hundred Years’ war.
Around 1424, Joan said she began receiving visions of
several saints telling her to drive out the English and bring the Dauphin to
Jeanne d' Arc by Eugene Thirion (1876)
Her leadership led to great victories for the French, but
she was eventually captured by the English at Compiègne on May 23, 1430. After three unsuccessful escape attempts, she
was sent to
Joan was tried as a heretic (The English believed God was on THEIR side. She was ordered to recant her testimony about “her voices.”
Jeanne d’Arc est interrogée par le cardinal de
Joan’s speech from Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw (1924): “You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead. . . . I could do without my warhorse; I could drag about in a skirt; I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy frost, and the blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind. But without these things I cannot live; and by your wanting to take them away from me, or from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and that mine is of God.”
Those words were considered truth of her blasphemy and she was burned at the stake.
On May 16, 1920, Joan was canonized by the Catholic church (given sainthood). He is honored on the 2nd Sunday in May.
For the peasant, there was never much hope.
(I’d like to go back to this from chapter seven:)
With strict church rules, and most of life subordinate to the church, there was little room for creative man, for humanism. Any kind of creativity or individual thought could be called “heresy” and punished severely.
But humankind cannot be held down forever. The creative human mind must have its outlet, then as now.
Jean-Francois Millet, “Man with a Hoe” 1863
“The Man with a Hoe” by Edwin Markham (1899)
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this--
More tongued with cries against the world's blind greed--
More filled with signs and portents for the soul--
More packed with danger to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--
With those who shaped him to the thing he is--
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?
The Peasants' Revolt, Tyler’s Rebellion or Great
Rising of 1381 was one of a number of popular revolts in late medieval
Europe and is a major event in the history of
The rebellion had some success, but Wat Tyler was killed and it eventually failed.
Still, the seeds were sown. Changes would soon come.
John Wycliffe (Wyclif, Wycliff, or Wickliffe) (c.1320 – December 31, 1384) was an English theologian and early proponent of reform in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century.
A humanist, Wycliffe believed the church had gotten too far away from the people. He believed the church should serve the people, not vice versa.
He wanted the church to stay out of politics, and believed it should be poor, as it was in ancient times. Most importantly, he wanted an English version of The Bible, rather than the standard Latin one.
Brown, Ford Madox
John Wycliffe Reading His Translation of the Bible to John of Gaunt 1847-61
Wycliffe’s Summa Theologiae included 18 theses, a list of things which he believed needed to be changed by the church. (His work may well have inspired the 95 Theses of Martin Luther (October 31, 1517 )
Wycliffe was so hated by the church officials that, twenty years after his death, his body was exhumed, burned, and scattered in a river.
In 1349, certain radical Catholics took up an ancient practice called FLAGELLATION. Many flagellants saw the plague as punishment from God in response to weaknesses in the Catholic faith, and took it upon themselves to purge these sins by physical punishment.
Francisco de Goya. A Procession of Flagellants. c. 1812-14.
Many flagellants wore pointed hats which were basically inverted funnels. These were modeled on the Coroza, which were used by the Spanish Inquisition. The idea was that the spirit of God could be poured into the brain.
In more recent times, the Coroza became the Dunce Cap, to be worn by students who failed to do their lessons (especially those dealing with The Bible.)
The word “dunce” came from a wise philosopher, John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), who, like Abelard, opposed the Via Antiqua ideas of Thomas Aquinas, and favored modernizing the church (Via Moderna.)
In modern times, the dunce cap is used to denote stupidity.
In areas where humanism was strongest, vernacular literature
thrived. In
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)
Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374 CE)
In
In
As we discuss the vernacular literature of medieval times, we must remember that it’s audience was mostly educated women. Men felt that anything not written in Latin was beneath them.
Giovanni Boccaccio wrote On Famous Women, and numerous poems stressing the Medieval virtues of Chivalry, Piety and Humility).
His most famous work was the Decameron
Inspired by 1001 Arabian Nights, The Decameron is a collection of stories
Those of you who have read any of the many popular romance novels written for women today will find no surprises in the subject matter of The Decameron.
Francesco Petrarch’s writing was romantic, but somewhat less salacious than The Decameron. He perfected the SONNET, later to be revised by Shakespeare.
The Petrarchan sonnet, at least in its Italian-language form, generally follows a set rhyme scheme, which runs as follows: abba abba cdc dcd. The first eight lines, or octave, do not often deviate from the abba abba pattern, but the last six lines, or sestet, frequently follow a different pattern, such as cde cde, cde ced, or cdc dee. Each line also has the same number of syllables, usually 11 or 7.
You who hear the sound, in scattered rhymes,
of those sighs on which I fed my heart,
in my first vagrant youthfulness,
when I was partly other than I am,
I hope to find pity, and forgiveness,
for all the modes in which I talk and weep,
between vain hope and vain sadness,
in those who understand love through its trials.
Yet I see clearly now I have become
an old tale amongst all these people, so that
it often makes me ashamed of myself;
and shame is the fruit of my vanities,
and remorse, and the clearest knowledge
of how the world's delight is a brief dream.
Voi ch'ascoltate
in rime sparse il suono
di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva 'l core
in sul mio primo giovenile errore
quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel ch'i' sono,
del vario stile in ch'io piango et ragiono
fra le vane speranze e 'l
van dolore,
ove sia chi per prova intenda amore,
spero trovar pietà, nonché perdono.
Ma ben veggio or sí come al popol tutto
favola fui gran tempo, onde sovente
di me mesdesmo meco mi vergogno;
et
e 'l pentersi, e 'l conoscer
chiaramente
che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno.
Petrarch wrote: “Laura, illustrated by her virtues and
well-celebrated in my verse, appeared to me for the first time during my youth
in 1327, on April 6, in the
This was perfect courtly love—he never met her; she was married to another, but he dedicated 399 poems to her.
In his poetry, Petrarch loved to compare parts of Laura’s body to glorious, beautiful things. This was called PETRARCHAN ANATOMY, and imitated often by other poets.
I thought I saw her face that exceeded all other marvels through the three virtues caught up in her: the blonde hair, loose on a neck where any milk would lose its power, and her cheeks that a sweet fire adorns.
. . . she, the only one who seemed woman to me, rested her beautiful limbs: gentle branch where it pleased her to make a pillar for her lovely flank: grass and flowers which her dress lightly covered, as it did the angelic breast . . .
. . . the light quenched of your
beautiful eyes,
and the golden hair spun fine as silver,
and the garland laid aside and the green clothes, and the delicate face fade,
that makes me
fearful and slow to go weeping:
William Shakespeare, writing in a more humanistic age, thought the Petrarchan anatomy was pretty stupid, so he wrote his famous Sonnet 130:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Christine de Pizan is viewed by many feminists as the originator of the feminist movement, largely based on a book by Pizan which tells aristocratic ladies how to manage their family's estates and military affairs in their husband's absence.
Widowed with three children at age 24, she became a court writer, supported by several aristocratic households.
Let me summarize, this moment,
Just who I am, what all this meant.
How I, a woman, became a man by a flick of Fortune's hand
How she changed my body's form
To the perfect masculine norm.
I'm a man, no truth I'm hiding,
You can tell by how I'm hiding
And If I was female before-
It's the truth and nothing more-
It seems I'll have to re-create
Just how I did transmutate
From a woman to a male:
I think the title of my tale
Is, if I'm not being importune, “The Mutation of Fortune.”
Christine explored women's contributions and oppression in society in greater depth in The Book of the City of Ladies and The Book of the Three Virtues. These works declared Christine's position of woman in society: more consideration, a better chance for education, and a role beyond the home. It was in 1405 that Christine continued in her effort to aid the progress of women, by writing The Book of the Three Virtues.
She is still respected today as one of the first feminists.
Geoffrey Chaucer is best known as the author of The Canterbury Tales. He is sometimes credited with being the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin.
Let’s begin by hearing this English read:
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced
to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich
licour
Of which vertu engendred
is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek
with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and
the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght
with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir
corages),
Thanne longen
folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken
straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury
they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan
that they were seeke.
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
And specially from every shire's end
Of England they to
The holy blessed martyr there to seek
Who helped them when they lay so ill and weal
Like The Decameron and 1001 Arabian Nights, The
Canterbury Tales is a huge epic of stories, in this case told by a group of
Pilgrims on their way to
The variety of stories the pilgrims tell and the varied characters who are engaged in the pilgrimage set it apart from other literature of the period. Many of the stories narrated by the pilgrims seem to fit their individual characters and social standing, making this the first great character study in history.
“A KNIGHT there was, and what a gentleman, Who, from the moment that he first began To ride about the world, loved chivalry, Truth, honour, freedom and all courtesy.”
With him there was his son, a young SQUIRE, A lover and a lively bachelor, With locks well curled, as if they'd laid in press. Some twenty years of age he was, I guess.
A YEOMAN had he at his side, No more servants, for he chose so to ride. Under his belt he bore very carefully (Well could he keep his gear yeomanly.)
There was also a nun, a PRIORESS,Who, in her smiling, modest was and coy; Her greatest oath was but "By Saint Eloy!"
Another NUN with her had she, Who was her chaplain; and priests, she had three.
A MONK there was, one of the finest sort, An outrider; hunting was his sport; A manly man, to be an abbot able. Very many excellent horses had he in stable:
A FRIAR there was, a wanton and a merry, A limiter, a very festive man. In all the Four Orders is no one that can Equal his gossip and well-spoken speech.
There was a MERCHANT with forked beard In motley gown, and high on horse he sat, Upon his head a Flemish beaver hat; His boots were fastened neatly and elegantly. He spoke out his opinions very solemnly, Stressing the times when he had won, not lost.
A CLERK from
A SERGEANT OF THE LAW, keen and wise, Who'd often been at
There was a
A COOK they had with them, just for once, To
boil the chickens with the marrow-bones,
And poudre-marchant tart and galingale. He knew how to recognize a draught
of
There was a SAILOR, living far out west; For all
I know, he was of
With us there was a DOCTOR OF MEDICINE; In all this world there was none like him To speak of medicine and surgery; For he was instructed in astronomy. He cared for and saved a patient many times By natural science and studying astrological signs.
There was a WIFE of
A good man was there of religion, He was a poor COUNTRY PARSON, But rich he was in holy thought and work. He was a learned man also, a clerk, Who Christ's own gospel truly sought to preach; Devoutly his parishioners would he teach. Gracious he was and wondrously diligent, Patient in adversity and well content.
The MILLER was a strong fellow, be it known, Hardy, big of brawn and big of bone; Which was well proved, for wherever a festive day At wrestling, he always took the prize away.
The MANCIPLE was from the
A SUMMONER was with us in that place, Who had a fiery-red, cherubic face, All pimpled it was; his eyes were narrow As hot he was, and lecherous, as a sparrow; With black and scabby brows and scanty beard; He had a face that little children feared.
With him there rode a noble PARDONER Of Rouncival, his friend and his compeer; But yet, to tell the whole truth at the last, He was, in church, a fine ecclesiast. Well could he read a lesson or a story, But best of all he sang an offertory; For he knew well that when that song was sung, Then must he preach, and all with smoothened tongue. To gain some silver, preferably from the crowd; Therefore he sang so merrily and so loud.
This is the point, to put it short and plain, /That each of you, as if to shorten the day, /Shall tell two stories as you wend your way /To Canterbury town; and each of you /On coming home, shall tell another two, /About adventures that happened in the past. /And he who plays his part of all the best, /That is to say, who tells upon the road /Tales of best sense, in most amusing mode, /Shall have a supper at all others' cost /Here in this room and sitting by this post, /When we come back again from Canterbury.
The official date of Chaucer's death is given as 25th October 1400 however, there is considerable conjecture surrounding this date. It is also unclear how he died and some have speculated that he may have been murdered.
With the rise of humanism, architecture once again became more decorative. The LATE GOTHIC style is flamboyant, with towering ornate spires, and beautifully decorated bell towers.
The difference between the high and Late Gothic periods is much like that of the Ionic and the Corinthian columns.
Trier Cathedral Romanesque c.1000
Cathedral of St. Maclou in
The bell tower is clearly Romanesque
The façade, like that of
A closer look shows the late gothic taste for decoration.
Sculpture in Europe began as part of architecture, which is
why we have such elongated figures in gothic sculpture, such as those at
By the way, most of these architectural designs used the Golden Mean as a way of deciding the most pleasing ratios in the building.
At this this time in history, most art was still done for the church, and the decorative designs of the late Gothic cathedrals were carried over onto individually sculptured parts.
Andrea Pisano, South Doors (Life of St John the Baptist)
1330
Gilded bronze, Baptistery,
Nicola Pisano and Giovanni Pisano the pulpit at Piza 1302-1310
A number of important inventions affected art in the late middle ages. These included advances in printing, engraving, and painting.
Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398 –1468) developed a type
metal alloy and oil-based inks, a mould for casting type accurately, and a new
kind of printing press based on presses used in wine-making. Tradition credits
him with inventing movable type in
In addition to the printing of books, these new techniques allowed for the art of engraving to flourish, first as illustrations, later as posters and decorations. Among the most famous of these early engravings is the very humanistic Medieval Housebook by anonymous author.
Phyllis and Aristotle, and others
Paintings in the Byzantine era, you should remember, were
rather flat and lifeless, as in this painting, by Cimabue,
The Madonna in Majesty (1285-86).
This icon, by Giotto, in 1310, shows the development of egg tempera for color, and the use of shadow to create perspective, as well as a more humanistic depiction of its subject.
The Stefaneschi Triptych
Giotto di Bondone, The Mourning of Christ (1305)
The Flight into
Baptism of Christ
The Holy Innocents
Resurrection
Raising of Lazarus
Jan van Eyck (c. 1395-1441) is credited with starting the Flemish School of Painting and with developing a workable oil paint with linseed and nut oils, mixed with resins. The result was brilliance, translucence, and intensity of color as the pigment was suspended in a layer of oil that also trapped light and created a vivid, convincing depiction of natural light.
The
The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami; 1434
Van Eyck’s work is full of symbols:
The
solitary flame burning in bright daylight can be interpreted as the bridal
candle, or God's all-seeing eye, or simply as a devotional candle. Another
symbol is St Margaret (the patron saint of women in childbirth), whose image is
carved on the high chair back.
As today,
marriages in 15th-century
The mirror
is painted with almost miraculous skill.
Its carved frame is inset with ten miniature medallions depicting scenes from the life of Christ. Yet more remarkable is
the reflection, which includes van Eyck's own tiny self-portrait, accompanied
by another man who may have been the official witness to the ceremony. Almost
every detail can be interpreted as a symbol. The companion dog is seen as a
symbol of faithfulness and love. The fruits on the window ledge probably stand
for fertility and our fall from
Van Eyck’s work followed that of, Rogier van der Weyden(c.1400 - 1464), the leading Flemish painter of the day. Here are a few of his works.
The Annunciation
Decent from the Cross
Virgin and Child (after 1454)
A third great Flemish artist was Memling, Hans (c. 1430-94), whose strength was in portraiture.
Unknown Man
1490
Old Woman
1468-70
Madonna and child with angels (after 1479)
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels
1480
Flemish painting evolved primarily on its own in the north. We shall see in the next chapter how Renaissance painting in the south progressed along similar lines: egg tempera to oil, and the development of Humanism.
Humanism appeared in Music as well as the other areas discussed. In 1310 Gervais de Bus began the Roman de Fauvel, a satirical poem of over 3000 lines centered on a horse or ass named from the first letter of the seven sins that the Church was criticized for: Flaterie, Avarice, Vilanie, Variété, Envie, Lascheté. In 1316, Chaillou de Pesstain interpolated 167 pieces of music into the poem, drawn from the twelfth century to several new composed works, increasing the polyphony to four voices.
Phillipe de Vitry (1291-1361) described elements in his four voice motets in the 1320 treatise Ars Nova, the name eventually used to designate this period in music, but it was Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) who would revise musical notation to incorporate the new style.
Although Machaut was quite famous for many secular songs,
such as Remede de Fortune, a love story with
several musical pieces about a lover inspired by an allegorical HOPE (much like
the morality plays), his real contribution was in the form of the
Marchaut’s four-voice Mass of Notre Dame is a textbook example for medieval counterpoint, and made the Mass an integral part of choral composition for all time.
There are five parts of the Mass Ordinary:
1. Kyrie Eleison (Lord Have Mercy) asks God to prepare us for the mass.
2. Gloria (Glory to God) thanking God for his help.
3. Profession of Faith (praying the Creed)
4. Preparation Of The Gifts (Sanctus and Benedictus) cleansing of the soul prior to the Eucharist.
5. Agnus Dei (presentation of the Eucharist .
Most great
composers have tried to write a mass.
One of the most famous is Leonard Bernstein’s Mass which debuted at the
In the next chapter, we shall go further south and see how
the Renaissance took root in
Then there was
the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453),
which wa a series of wars
that lasted for 116 years as territories and small kingdoms were arranged into
big kingdoms, and much of the middle class faded away, either becoming wealthy
by taking advantage of the lack of people due to the plague or getting poorer
due to continued oppression.