During the Middle Ages, there was a special influence of the Christian Church on the formation of the mentality and worldview of Europeans. Instead of a meager and difficult life, religion offered people a system of knowledge about the world and the laws operating in it. That is why medieval culture was completely imbued with Christian ideas and ideals, which considered human earthly life as a preparatory stage for the upcoming immortality, but in a different dimension. People identified the world with a kind of arena in which heavenly and hellish forces, good and evil, confronted each other.

Medieval culture reflects the history of the struggle between the state and the church, their interaction and the implementation of divine goals.

Architecture

In the 10th-12th centuries in Western European countries, which is rightfully considered the first canon of medieval architecture, prevailed.

Secular buildings are massive, characterized by narrow window openings and high towers. Typical features of Romanesque architectural structures are domed structures and semicircular arches. Bulky buildings symbolized the power of the Christian god.

During this period, special attention was paid to monastery buildings, as they combined the monks’ home, chapel, prayer room, workshops and library. The main element of the composition is a high tower. Massive reliefs decorating facade walls and portals were the main element of temple decor.

Medieval culture is characterized by the emergence of another style in architecture. It is called Gothic. This style shifts the cultural center from secluded monasteries to crowded city neighborhoods. At the same time, the cathedral is considered the main spiritual building. The first temple buildings are distinguished by slender columns that soar upward, elongated windows, painted stained glass windows and “roses” above the entrance. Inside and out, they were decorated with reliefs, statues, and paintings, emphasizing the main feature of the style - upward direction.

Sculpture

Metal processing is used primarily for manufacturing

Topic: Culture of the European Middle Ages

1. Culture of Byzantium

During the Middle Ages, it is especially important to emphasize the role of Byzantium (IV - mid-XV centuries). She remained the only custodian of Hellenistic cultural traditions. However, Byzantium significantly transformed the legacy of late antiquity, creating an artistic style that already entirely belonged to the spirit and letter of the Middle Ages. Moreover, in medieval European art, it was Byzantine art that was most orthodox Christian.

The following periods are distinguished in the history of Byzantine culture:

1st period (IV - mid-VII centuries) - Byzantium becomes the successor to the Roman Empire. There is a transition from ancient to medieval culture. Proto-Byzantine culture of this period was still urban in nature, but gradually monasteries became centers of cultural life. The formation of Christian theology occurs while preserving the achievements of ancient scientific thought.

2nd period (mid-VII - mid-IX centuries) - there is a cultural decline associated with economic decline, agrarianization of cities and the loss of a number of eastern provinces and cultural centers (Antioch, Alexandria). Constantinople became the center of industrial development, trade, cultural life, the “golden gate” between East and West for the Byzantines.

3rd period (mid 10th-12th centuries) - a period of ideological reaction, caused by the economic and political decline of Byzantium. In 1204, the crusaders, during the 4th Crusade, carried out the division of Byzantium. Constantinople becomes the capital of a new state - the Latin Empire. The Orthodox patriarchate is replaced by the Catholic one.

The Byzantine civilization has a special place in world culture. Throughout its thousand-year existence, the Byzantine Empire, which absorbed the heritage of the Greco-Roman world and the Hellenistic East, was the center of a unique and truly brilliant culture. Byzantine culture is characterized by the flourishing of art, the development of scientific and philosophical thought, and serious successes in the field of education. During the period of the X-XI centuries. The school of secular sciences became widespread in Constantinople. Until the 13th century. Byzantium, in terms of the level of development of education, the intensity of spiritual life and the colorful sparkle of objective forms of culture, was undoubtedly ahead of all the countries of medieval Europe.

The first Byzantine concepts in the field of culture and aesthetics were formed in the IV-VI centuries. They were a fusion of the ideas of Hellenistic Neoplatonism and early medieval patristics (Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite). The Christian God as the source of “absolute beauty” becomes the ideal of early Byzantine culture. In the works of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, in the speeches of John Chrysostom, the foundation of medieval Christian theology and philosophy was laid. At the center of philosophical quests is the understanding of being as a good, which provides a kind of justification for the cosmos, and, consequently, for the world and man. In the late Byzantine period, the widest knowledge of famous philosophers, theologians, philologists, rhetoricians - George Gemistus Plitho, Dmitry Kydonis, Manuel Chrysolor, Vissarion of Nicaea, etc. - aroused the admiration of Italian humanists. Many of them became students and followers of Byzantine scientists.

The 8th - 9th centuries marked a qualitatively new stage in the development of Byzantine artistic culture. During this period, Byzantine society experienced troubled times, the source of which was the struggle for power between the capital and provincial nobility. An iconoclasm movement arose, directed against the cult of icons, which were declared a relic of idolatry. In the course of their struggle, both iconoclasts and icon-worshippers caused enormous harm to artistic culture, destroying numerous art monuments. However, this same struggle formed a new type of vision of the world - exquisite abstract symbolism with decorative patterns. The development of artistic creativity was left behind by the struggle of the iconoclasts against the sensual, glorifying Hellenistic art of the human body and physical perfection. Iconoclastic artistic representations paved the way for deeply spiritualistic art of the 10th - 11th centuries. and prepared the victory of sublime spirituality and abstract symbolism in all spheres of Byzantine culture in subsequent centuries.

Features of Byzantine culture include:

1) synthesis of Western and Eastern elements in various spheres of the material and spiritual life of society with the dominant position of Greco-Roman traditions;

2) preservation to a large extent of the traditions of ancient civilization;

3) The Byzantine Empire, in contrast to the fragmented medieval Europe, preserved state political doctrines, which left its mark on various spheres of culture, namely: with the ever-increasing influence of Christianity, secular artistic creativity never faded;

4) the difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, which was manifested in the originality of the philosophical and theological views of Orthodox theologians and philosophers of the East, in the system of Christian ethical and aesthetic values ​​of Byzantium.

Recognizing their culture as the highest achievement of humanity, the Byzantines consciously protected themselves from foreign influences. Only from the 11th century. they began to draw on the experience of Arab medicine and translate monuments of oriental literature. Later, interest arose in Arabic and Persian mathematics, Latin scholasticism and literature. Among the scientists of an encyclopedic nature, writing on a wide range of problems - from mathematics to theology and fiction, we should highlight John of Damascus (8th century), Michael Psellus (11th century), Nikephoros Blemmides (3rd century), Theodore Metochites (14th century .).

The desire for systematization and traditionalism, characteristic of Byzantine culture, were especially clearly manifested in legal science, which began with the systematization of Roman law and the compilation of codes of civil law, the most significant of which is the Codification of Justinian.

The contribution of Byzantine civilization to the development of world culture is invaluable. It consisted, first of all, in the fact that Byzantium became a “golden bridge” between Western and Eastern cultures; it had a deep and lasting impact on the development of cultures in many countries of medieval Europe. The area of ​​distribution of the influence of Byzantine culture is very extensive: Sicily, Southern Italy, Dalmatia, the states of the Balkan Peninsula, Ancient Rus', Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus and Crimea - all of them, to one degree or another, came into contact with Byzantine education, which contributed to the further progressive development of their cultures.

2. Features of the development of culture in the Middle Ages

Medieval culture - European culture from the 5th century. AD until the 17th century (conditionally divided into three stages: the culture of the early Middle Ages in the 5th-11th centuries; the medieval culture of the 11th-13th centuries; the culture of the late Middle Ages in the 14th-17th centuries). The beginning of the Middle Ages coincided with the withering away of Hellenic-classical, ancient culture, and the end - with its revival in modern times.

The material basis of medieval culture was feudal relations. The political sphere of the Middle Ages represented primarily the dominance of the military class - knighthood, based on the combination of land rights with political power. With the formation of centralized states, estates were formed that made up the social structure of medieval society - the clergy, the nobility and the rest of the inhabitants (the “third estate”, the people). The clergy took care of the human soul, the nobility (knighthood) was engaged in state and military affairs, the people worked. Society began to be divided into “those who work” and “those who fight.” The Middle Ages were an era of numerous wars. The official history of the “crusades” (1096-1270) alone numbers eight.

The Middle Ages were characterized by the unification of people into various corporations: monastic and knightly orders, peasant communities, secret societies, etc. In cities, the role of such corporations was primarily played by guilds (associations of artisans by profession). In the workshop environment, a fundamentally new attitude towards work as a value was developed, and a fundamentally new idea of ​​labor as a gift of God arose.

The dominant spiritual life of the Middle Ages was religiosity, which determined the role of the church as the most important cultural institution. The Church also acted as a secular force in the person of the papacy, striving for dominance over the Christian world. The task of the church was quite complex: the church could preserve culture only by “secularization,” and it was possible to develop culture only by deepening its religiosity. This inconsistency was emphasized by the greatest Christian thinker Augustine “The Blessed” (354-430) in his work “On the City of God” (413), where he showed the history of mankind as an eternal struggle between two cities - the earthly city (a community based on secular statehood, on self-love, brought to contempt for God) and the City of God (spiritual community, built on love for God, brought to self-contempt). Augustine put forward the idea that faith and reason are just two different types of activity of one kind of thinking. Therefore, they do not exclude, but complement each other.

However, in the XIV century. A radical thought, substantiated by William of Ockham (1285-1349), triumphed: there is and cannot be in principle anything in common between faith and reason, philosophy and religion. Therefore, they are completely independent of each other and should not control each other.

Medieval science acts as an understanding of the authority of the data of the Bible. At the same time, a scholastic ideal of knowledge is emerging, where rational knowledge and logical proof, again placed at the service of God and the church, acquire a high status. The rapprochement of science with teaching contributed to the formation of the education system (XI-XII centuries). A large number of translations from Arabic and Greek appear - books on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc. They become a stimulus for intellectual development. It was then that higher schools and then universities were born. The first universities appeared at the beginning of the 13th century. (Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Montpellier). By 1300, there were already 18 universities in Europe, which had become the most important cultural centers. Universities of the late Middle Ages were built on the Parisian model, with four “classical” faculties required: arts, theology, law and medicine.

In the late Middle Ages, Europe entered the path of technical progress: the use of water and windmills, the development of new designs of lifts for the construction of temples, the appearance of the first machines; Clocks were invented, paper production was established, a mirror and glasses appeared, and medical experiments were carried out.

The spiritual life of society also changed; Fiction is acquiring a secular character, and the tendency to turn to earthly life is gaining strength. Knightly literature became a special phenomenon. An epic is developing, leaving behind such talented works as the French poem “The Song of Roland” and the German “Song of the Nibelungs”. The growing attention to man and his passions is brilliantly expressed by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) in The Divine Comedy. At the beginning of the second millennium, a synthesis of the Romanesque artistic heritage and the Christian foundations of European art took place. Its main type until the 15th century was architecture, the pinnacle of which was the Catholic cathedral. From the end of the 13th century. The Gothic style, born of urban European life, becomes the leading style.

The medieval culture of the late period does not express the forever frozen state of man and his world, but a living movement. This conclusion can be made taking into account the historical duration of world culture.

3. Artistic culture of the Middle Ages

Each cultural era has its own unique worldview, an idea of ​​nature and society, time and space, the order of the universe, the relationships of people in society, etc. All of the above ideas of the medieval era were formed by the Christian doctrine and the Christian church. The influence of Christianity and the religious worldview on medieval art was enormous.

The very revival of cultural life was initially expressed in the fact that, starting from the 10th century, new aesthetic norms and views were established in Western European artistic culture. The first form of medieval aesthetics proper was the Romanesque type of artistic worldview, which reflected the time of feudal fragmentation. In the 10th century, the artistic culture of the Middle Ages was able to create a unified pan-European style, which was called Romanesque. The style “in the manner of the Romans” implied the use in medieval architecture of some features of the architecture and construction techniques of the Romans.

The unstable historical situation, constant feuds between knights and almost continuous wars determined the transformation of architecture into the main art form of the Romanesque style. During periods of civil strife, stone buildings became fortresses and provided protection for people. These structures had massive walls and narrow windows. The main types of buildings in the Romanesque era were the feudal castle, the monastery ensemble and the temple.

Romanesque castle architecture was permeated by the spirit of belligerence and the constant need for self-defense. Therefore, the castle, usually located on the top of a rocky hill, served as protection during a siege and as a kind of organizational center in preparation for raids. Medieval Europe was therefore covered in castles. One of the most majestic and powerful castles is the Pierrefonds castle north of Paris (France).

The temple architecture of the Middle Ages also reflected the characteristics of its time. The Romanesque temple was designed to bring man closer to God, to immerse him in the divine world. Therefore, in the interior decoration, a significant place was given to frescoes and stained glass windows that filled the window openings. Numerous paintings covered the surfaces of walls and vaults with a colorful carpet. Artists often used expressive, dynamic drawing to convey the drama of biblical scenes. The artist’s main task was to embody the biblical principle, and of all human feelings, preference was given to suffering, because, according to the teachings of the church, it is a fire that purifies the soul. Medieval artists depicted scenes of suffering and disaster with extraordinary vividness.

Architectural monuments of the Romanesque style are scattered throughout Europe, but the most perfect examples of this style are three temples on the Rhine: the cathedrals of Worms, Speyer and Mainz.

The Romanesque style found expression not only in architecture, but also in painting and sculpture. The subjects for paintings and sculptures, of course, were the themes of the greatness and power of God. The stylistic feature of these images was that the figure of Christ was significantly larger in size than other figures. In general, real proportions were not important to Russian artists: in the images, heads are often enlarged, bodies are schematic, sometimes elongated.

At the beginning of the 12th century, the Romanesque style, which still retained the medieval severity and isolation of architectural forms, expressiveness and ecstatic deformation of human figures in sculpture and painting, was replaced by a new style called Gothic.

The formation of the Gothic style was due to the rapid development of burgher culture, which began to play a decisive role in the life of medieval society. At the same time, religion is gradually losing its dominant position.

This style was formed in France in the 12th century, then moved to England, in the 13th century it was adopted in Germany and spread throughout Europe. The transition from Romanesque to Gothic was marked by a number of technological innovations and new stylistic elements. The grandeur and lightness of Gothic cathedrals created the illusion of isolation from the earth, which was achieved through the special structure of the Gothic vault.

The external appearance of the temple has changed compared to the Romanesque era. This is no longer a fortress, fenced off from the world with impenetrable walls. The outside of the Gothic cathedral is richly decorated with sculpture, where a sculpted crucifix becomes the center of the composition.

The entire structure of the Gothic temple, directed upward, seemed to express the desire of the human soul upward - to heaven, to God. But the Gothic temple at the same time is a kind of embodiment of the doctrine, according to which the whole world is a system of opposing forces and the final result of their struggle is the Ascension. A distinctive feature of Gothic architectural structures was that they were directly transformed into decoration. And the most obvious example of this is the column statues, which perform both constructive and decorative functions. The most outstanding works of the Gothic style were the cathedrals in Chartres, Reims, Paris, Amiens, Bruges, and Cologne.

All works of Gothic art focus on creating an experience, using breathtaking theatrical effects to enhance the emotional impact. The solemn theatrical course of the service, accompanied by organ music, was effectively combined with the architectural appearance of the temple. Together they achieved their main goal - to bring the believer into a state of religious ecstasy.

As most researchers of the Middle Ages believe, one of the highest cultural achievements was the flourishing of knightly culture.

During the developed Middle Ages, the concept of “knight” became a symbol of nobility and nobility and was contrasted primarily with the lower classes - peasants and townspeople. The knightly system of values, which arose on the basis of the real political, everyday, spiritual life of this class, was already completely secular. The image of the ideal knight and the code of knightly honor emerged. In the code of knightly honor, the ethics of militancy, strength and courage were intertwined with the moral values ​​of Christianity and the medieval ideal of beauty. Of course, the image of the ideal knight most often diverged from reality, but still he played a huge role in Western European artistic culture.

A special phenomenon of knightly culture was knightly literature, which found its manifestation in the form of two literary genres - the knightly novel and knightly poetry.

The first chivalric romances appeared in England after its conquest by the Norman feudal lords in 1066. The basis of the novels was a love-adventure story about the exploits of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, borrowed from Celtic traditions and legends. The main character of the novels, King Arthur of the Britons and his knights Lancelot, Perceval, Palmerin and Amadis were the embodiment of knightly virtues.

The most famous and popular work in the genre of chivalric romance was “The Tale of Tristan and Isolde,” which was based on Irish tales about the tragic love of the young man Tristan and Queen Isolde. The popularity of this novel was explained precisely by the fact that the central place in it was given to earthly sensual love with its experiences.

The birthplace of chivalric poetry was the French province of Provence, where a center of secular culture developed in feudal Western Europe. In the Provençal town of Languedoc, the lyrical poetry of troubadours (writers), which arose at the courts of noble lords, became widespread. In this type of courtly poetry, the cult of the beautiful lady occupied a central place, and intimate feelings were glorified.

The poetry of the troubadours had many different genres: love songs, lyrical songs, political songs, songs expressing grief over the death of a lord or loved one, dance songs, etc. From Provence, the poetry of the troubadours spread to other European countries. The poetry of trouvères flourished in the north of France, the poetry of minnesingers (singers of love) in Germany, the histrions (singers of a new sweet style) in Italy, and minstrels in England. Knightly poetry contributed to the widespread spread of courtly forms of culture in Western Europe.

The appearance of chivalric poetry was a response to the demands of a free and independent feudal aristocracy from the church. Knightly poetry managed to absorb the harmony of the physical and spiritual.

In the XII – XIII centuries. In the cities of Western Europe, the Latin poetry of wandering students began to develop - vagants (from the Latin to wander). The poetry of the vagants, students wandering throughout Europe in search of better teachers and a better life, was very daring, castigating, condemning the vices of the church and clergy, glorifying the joys of earthly free life. All of Europe sang the witty poems and songs of the vagants at that time. The flourishing of vagant poetry is associated with the intensive development of school and university education, so students became its creators and speakers.

Folklore, one of the components of medieval artistic culture, which gave rise to both folk poetry and fairy tales, became the basis of the heroic epic. At the turn of the XI - XII centuries. written literature developed in medieval culture. Then, for the first time, recordings of medieval epics, heroic songs and tales were made. They glorified the exploits of heroes, the most important real events that influenced the fate of a particular people. In France, the greatest literary monument of that era is the Song of Roland. In Germany, this genre includes the famous epic “The Song of the Nibelungs,” which was the result of processing material from German heroic songs and tales about the death of the Burgundian kingdom and the death of the Hun king Attila. The poem describes in detail court leisure and knightly tournaments, feasts, hunting scenes, travel to distant lands and other aspects of the magnificent court life. Battles and duels of heroes are also given in every detail. The rich weapons of the heroes, the generous gifts of the rulers, and precious robes, combining colorful, gold, and white colors and vividly reminiscent of medieval book miniatures, are described in unusually colorful terms.

Medieval Europe left great monuments of artistic culture. The world cultural fund includes magnificent examples of medieval icon painting, sculpture, book miniatures, and stained glass art. The greatest artistic value is represented by works of medieval literature - chivalric romances, poetry of troubadours, lyrics of vagantes and heroic epics. Thus, despite the fact that the culture of the Middle Ages was ambiguous, contradictory and multifaceted, it is certainly an important stage in the development of world culture.

4. Russian culture of the Middle Ages

The initial period of Russian and Ukrainian culture goes back centuries, when our ancestral Eastern Slavs lived in a tribal system and professed polytheism. Its chronological framework is blurred: the lower edge can date back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. – mid-1st millennium BC e., and the top one is either 862, the date of the beginning of the state, or 988, the year of the baptism of Rus'.

The next period is the time of the establishment of Christianity, the formation of a traditional society and a centralized state in Rus'. Its chronological framework coincides with the era of the Rurik dynasty (862-1528). This was the period of the formation and dominance of feudal relations and the formation of culture. It is customary, in turn, to be divided into Antiquity - the era of Kievan Rus (mid-IX - early XII centuries) and the Middle Ages - the time of feudal fragmentation and the Mongol-Tatar invasion (XII - XIII centuries), the period of gathering lands around Moscow, the overthrow of the foreign yoke and formation of a centralized state - Muscovite Rus' (XIV-XVI centuries).

In the XIV century. Rus' begins to gradually emerge from under the Golden Horde yoke. The victory won in 1380 on the Kulikovo Field caused a tremendous creative upsurge in the country. By the end of the 15th century. The unification of Russian lands under the leadership of Moscow is completed, a powerful centralized state is formed, which has stopped paying tribute to the Golden Horde. In the field of culture, this era can rightfully be called the Russian Renaissance; it was based on the Vladimir-Suzdal historical and cultural traditions. For the spiritual culture of Rus' XIV - XV centuries. was characterized by a special interest in man, the values ​​of his inner life, and individual experiences. This is a typical Renaissance cultural tendency, which manifested itself in the spread of hesychasm. Its center becomes the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (the monastery was founded in 1345 by Sergius of Radonezh). Widespread construction of monasteries and churches dedicated to the Trinity began in the second half of the 14th century. and was inextricably linked with the name of Father Sergius. Over the course of a century and a half, central and northern Rus' became covered with a dense network of monasteries founded by students and friends of St. Sergius (Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery near Zvenigorod, Kirillov and Ferapontov monasteries on White Lake, etc.)

Patriotic themes predominate in literature ("Zadonshchina", "The Tale of Mamaev's Massacre"). Epiphanius the Wise wrote about the life of the great ascetics (“The Life of Sergius of Radonezh”). At the end of the 15th century. one of the first secular descriptions of the journey of the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin to India appeared - “Walking beyond the three seas.”

The work of the isographers Theophanes the Greek (1340-1405), Andrei Rublev (c. 1360-1430) and Dionysius (1440-1503) can be considered as stages within the Russian Renaissance. Each of them reflected the hesychast ideal in art in its own way. Hesychasm in Russian fine art manifested itself in interest in the perfect person, striving to discover the fullness of divine existence, conquer passions and reach the heights of silence.

The brushes of F. Grek belong to the frescoes of the Novgorod Church of the Savior on Ilyin Street (1387), some of the icons of the iconostasis of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Works by A. Rublev - paintings and icons of the old Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, the fresco of the "Last Judgment" of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, the iconostasis with the famous Trinity icon. Dionysius continued Rublev's traditions. He created frescoes of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary at the Ferapontov Monastery near the city of Kirillov on White Lake. The famous icons “Our Lady of Guide”, “Savior in Power”, “Resurrection of Christ” belong to his brushes.

The Renaissance tradition clearly manifested itself in the humanization of the architectural image, human scale and pyramidal structure of temple compositions. The Renaissance nature of perception is associated with the use of anthropomorphic sculpture in the cathedral, as well as such an organization of the internal space that allowed light to evenly penetrate inside the temples (Savior Cathedral of the Spaso-Andronikov Monastery, Zvenigorod Assumption Cathedral on the town, Church of Fyodor Stratilates and the Savior on Ilyin Street in Novgorod) .

In the 15th century Moscow architecture was strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance tradition. At the invitation of Ivan III, Italian masters Pietro Solari, Aristotle Fiorovanti, Aleviz Novy, and Mark Fryazin arrived in Moscow. Together with Russian craftsmen, they transformed the Moscow Kremlin, where the Assumption Cathedral, the Archangel Cathedral - the tomb of the Moscow sovereigns, the New Annunciation Cathedral - the home church of the Russian tsars and the Faceted Chamber for the ceremonial reception of foreign ambassadors and delegations - were erected.

In the 16th century The process of emancipation of the Russian Orthodox Church from Byzantium was completed. After the fall of Constantinople, the choice of metropolitan became the prerogative of the Moscow princes.

Also the most important innovation of this century was printing. In 1564, clerk Ivan Fedorov and his assistant Pyotr Mstislavets printed the first Russian dated book, “The Apostle,” in Moscow. This is the heyday of the Russian folk ballad (“Dmitrov Saturday”). Among the works created during this period, one can highlight the “Domostroy” by Archpriest Sylvester and the “Cheti-Minea”, collected under the leadership of Metropolitan Macarius.

In the 16th century The beginning of a new style in architecture was laid - tent architecture. When creating it, Russian craftsmen used national traditions of wooden architecture, carving, embroidery, and painting. The very first experiments produced unsurpassed masterpieces: the Church of the Ascension in the village of Kolomenskoye, the Church of the Ascension of John the Baptist in the village of Dyakovo, the Intercession Cathedral on the Moat (better known as St. Basil's Cathedral).

At the end of the century, a new architectural style was born - Godunov, named after Tsar Boris Godunov. This is an old type of five-domed domed cube church, replete with decorative decorations, especially kokoshniks, bizarre compositions of galleries, arched spaces, chapels, and unusual bell tower shapes. Vivid examples of Godunov's architecture are: the Church of the Transfiguration with a belfry in Godunov's estate in Bolshie Vyazemy near Moscow, the Church of the Don Mother of God in the Moscow Donskoy Monastery and the Cathedral of the Intercession Royal Convent in Suzdal.

XVI century - the heyday of applied arts, especially gold and silversmithing. Its best examples are kept in the Kremlin, in the Armory Chamber. Among them: a silver ladle of Tsar Boris, the Gospel of 1571 in a gold setting with enamel and precious stones, Ermak's chain mail (weighing 12 kg), Monomakh's hat and the Kazan hat of Ivan the Terrible.

In the art of music, as in architecture and icon painting, there was an intensive creation of a unified Russian style. Similar processes occurred in the Russian language itself. Based on the interweaving of regional Russian dialects, a new Central Russian style of speech is emerging, soft and melodious.

Russian song influenced church singing. New, travel and demestial chants emerge, which are characterized by complex rhythms and polyphony. Two professional choirs have been created in Moscow - the choir of state singing clerks and the choir of patriarchal singing clerks. Along with this, buffoons continued to play a prominent role at the tsar’s court.

Thus, the cultural development of Rus' in the Middle Ages was determined by factors common to all European peoples. This was the time of the formation of national states, linguistic and ethnic consolidation, and the birth of common styles in art. If we compare Russia with Europe at the stage of the Middle Ages, we notice a chronological lag in the development of some global processes in the field of culture. The delay was caused by a temporary cultural decline as a result of the Tatar-Mongol invasion of Rus'.

5. References

1. Berestovskaya D.S. Culturology: Textbook. allowance. – Simferopol, 2003.

2. Kononenko B.I. Fundamentals of cultural studies: Course of lectures. - M., 2002.

3. Culturology: Textbook. allowance / Ed. A. A. Radugina. – M., 1998.

4. Petrova M.M. Theory of culture: Lecture notes. – S.-P., 2000.

5. Samokhvalova V.I. Culturology: A short course of lectures. – M., 2002.

6. Skvortsova E.M. Theory and history of culture: Textbook. –M., 1999.

The era of the Middle Ages was considered by progressive thinkers of modern times as a dark time that gave nothing to the world: the narrow religious worldview imposed by the Catholic Church hindered the development of science and art. In today's lesson we will try to challenge this statement and prove that the Middle Ages, which lasted a thousand years, left a rich cultural heritage for future generations.

In the 11th century, chivalric poetry arose in the south of France, in Provence. Provençal poet-singers were called troubadours (Fig. 1). The imagination of the poets created the image of an ideal knight - brave, generous and fair. The poetry of the troubadours glorified the service of the Beautiful Lady, the Madonna (“my lady”), which combined the worship of the Mother of God and the earthly, living and beautiful woman. In Northern France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, knightly poets were called trouvères and minnesingers (translated as singers of love).

Rice. 1. Troubadour ()

In these same centuries, poetic chivalric novels and stories arose. The legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were especially widely reflected in the novels. Arthur's court was seen as a place where the best qualities of knighthood flourished. The novels transported the reader into a fantasy world, where fairies, giants, wizards, and oppressed beauties awaiting help from brave knights were encountered at every step.

In the 12th century, urban literature began to flourish. The townspeople loved short stories in verse and fables on everyday topics. Their heroes were most often a clever, cunning burgher or a cheerful, resourceful peasant. They invariably left their opponents - arrogant knights and greedy monks - in the cold. Poems by va-gants (translated from Latin as tramps) are associated with urban literature. Vagants were schoolchildren and students who, in the 12th-13th centuries, wandered around the cities and universities of Europe in search of new teachers.

The most outstanding figure of the Middle Ages was Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) (Fig. 2). Dante was born in Florence into an old noble family. He studied at a city school, and then spent his entire life studying philosophy, astronomy, and ancient literature. At the age of 18, he experienced love for young Beatrice, who later married another man and died early. Dante spoke about his experiences with unprecedented frankness for those times in a small book “New Life”; she glorified his name in literature. Dante wrote a great work in verse, which he called “Comedy”. Descendants called it “The Divine Comedy” as a sign of the highest praise. Dante describes a journey to the afterlife: hell for sinners, heaven for the righteous and purgatory for those to whom God has not yet pronounced his sentence. At the gates of hell, located in the north, there is an inscription that has become popular: “Abandon hope, all who enter here.” In the center of the southern hemisphere there is a huge mountain in the form of a truncated cone, on the ledges of the mountain there is purgatory, and on its flat top there is an earthly paradise. Accompanied by the great Roman poet Virgil, Dante visits hell and purgatory, and Beatrice leads him through heaven. There are 9 circles in hell: the more severe the sins, the lower the circle and the more severe the punishment. In hell, Dante placed bloodthirsty power-hungers, cruel rulers, criminals, and misers. In the center of hell is the devil himself, gnawing at the traitors: Judas, Brutus and Cassius. Dante also placed his enemies in hell, including several popes. In his depiction, sinners are not disembodied shadows, but living people: they conduct conversations and disputes with the poet, political strife rages in hell. Dante talks with the righteous in paradise and finally contemplates the Mother of God and God. The pictures of the afterlife are drawn so vividly and convincingly that it seemed to contemporaries that the poet saw it with his own eyes. And he described, in essence, the diverse earthly world, with its contradictions and passions. The poem was written in Italian: the poet wanted it to be understood by the widest circle of readers.

Rice. 2. Domenico Petarlini. Dante Alighieri)

Since the 11th century, great construction began in Western Europe. The rich church expanded the number and size of churches and rebuilt old buildings. Until the 11th-12th centuries, the Romanesque style dominated in Europe. The Romanesque temple is a massive building with almost smooth walls, high towers and laconic decoration. The outlines of the semicircular arch are repeated everywhere - on the vaults, window openings, and entrances to the temple (Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. Church of San Martin in Fromista (1066) - one of the best Romanesque monuments in Spain)

From the middle of the 12th century, trading premises, halls for meetings of workshops and guilds, hospitals, and hotels were built in free cities. The main decorations of the city were the town hall and especially the cathedral. The buildings of the 12th-15th centuries were later called Gothic. Now the light and high pointed vault is supported inside by bundles of narrow, tall columns, and outside by massive supporting pillars and connecting arches. The halls are spacious and high, they receive more light and air, they are richly decorated with paintings, carvings, and bas-reliefs. Thanks to wide passages and through galleries, many huge windows and lace stone carvings, Gothic cathedrals seem transparent (Fig. 4).

Rice. 4. Notre Dame Cathedral (

In the Middle Ages, sculpture was inseparable from architecture. Temples were decorated inside and out with hundreds, or even thousands, of reliefs and statues depicting God and the Virgin Mary, apostles and saints, bishops and kings. For example, in the cathedral in Chartres (France) there were up to 9 thousand statues, not counting the reliefs. Church art was supposed to serve as a “Bible for the illiterate” - to depict scenes described in Christian books, to strengthen in faith and to terrify with the torments of hell. Unlike ancient art, which glorified the beauty of the human body, the artists of the Middle Ages sought to reveal the richness of the soul, thoughts and feelings of man, his intense inner life. In Gothic statues, in their flexible, elongated figures, the appearance of people is especially vividly conveyed, body shapes appear more clearly under the folds of clothing, and there is more movement in poses. The idea of ​​harmony between the external and internal appearance of a person is becoming more and more noticeable; The female images are especially beautiful - Mary in Reims Cathedral, Uta in Naumburg.

The walls of Romanesque churches were covered with paintings. A great achievement in painting was the book miniature. The whole life of people was reflected in many bright drawings. Everyday scenes were also depicted on frescoes, which is especially typical for German and Scandinavian churches of the 14th-15th centuries.

Considering the cultural heritage of the Middle Ages, let us dwell on scientific achievements. Astrology and alchemy flourished in the Middle Ages. Observations and experiments of astrologers and alchemists contributed to the accumulation of knowledge in astronomy and chemistry. Alchemists, for example, discovered and improved methods for producing metal alloys, paints, medicinal substances, and created many chemical instruments and devices for conducting experiments. Astrologers studied the location of stars and luminaries, their movement and the laws of physics. She accumulated useful knowledge and medicine.

In the XIV-XV centuries, water mills began to be actively used in mining and crafts. The water wheel has long been the basis of mills that were built on rivers and lakes for grinding grain (Fig. 5). But later they invented a more powerful wheel, which was driven by the force of water falling on it. The energy of the mill was also used in cloth making, for washing (“enrichment”) and smelting metal ores, lifting weights, etc. The mill and mechanical watches were the first mechanisms of the Middle Ages.

Rice. 5. Top water wheel ()

The emergence of firearms. Previously, metal was melted in small furnaces, forcing air into them with hand-held bellows. Since the 14th century, they began to build blast furnaces - smelting furnaces up to 3-4 meters in height. The water wheel was connected to large bellows, which forcefully blew air into the furnace. Thanks to this, a very high temperature was reached in the blast furnace: the iron ore melted, liquid iron ore was formed. Various products were cast from cast iron, and iron and steel were obtained by melting it down. Much more metal was now smelted than before. For smelting metal in blast furnaces, they began to use not only charcoal, but also coal.

For a long time, few Europeans dared to embark on long voyages on the open sea. Without the correct maps and marine instruments, the ships sailed “coastally” (along the coast) along the seas washing Europe and along North Africa. Going out to the open sea became safer after sailors had a compass. Astrolabes were invented - devices for determining the location of a ship (Fig. 6).

Rice. 6. Astrolabe ()

With the development of the state and cities, science and navigation, the volume of knowledge increased and, at the same time, the need for educated people, for the expansion of education and for books, including textbooks. In the 14th century, cheaper writing material - paper - began to be produced in Europe, but there were still not enough books. To reproduce the text, impressions were made from a wooden or copper board with letters carved on it, but this method was very imperfect and required a lot of labor. In the mid-15th century, the German Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1399-1468) invented printing. After long and persistent work and searches, he began to cast individual characters (letters) from metal; From these, the inventor composed lines and pages of type, from which he made an impression on paper. Using a collapsible font, you could type as many pages of any text as you wanted. Gutenberg also invented the printing press. In 1456, Guttenberg released the first printed book - the Bible (Fig. 7), which was artistically on par with the best handwritten books. The invention of printing is one of the greatest discoveries in human history. It contributed to the development of education, science and literature. Thanks to the printed book, the knowledge accumulated by people and all the necessary information began to spread faster. They were more fully preserved and passed on to subsequent generations of people. Successes in the dissemination of information, an important part of the development of culture and all sectors of society, took their next important step in the late Middle Ages - a step towards the New Age.

Rice. 7. The Bible of Johannes Guttenberg ()

Bibliography

1. Agibalova E.V., G.M. Donskoy. History of the Middle Ages. - M., 2012
2. Atlas of the Middle Ages: History. Traditions. - M., 2000
3. Illustrated world history: from ancient times to the 17th century. - M., 1999
4. History of the Middle Ages: book. For reading / Ed. V.P. Budanova. - M., 1999
5. Kalashnikov V. Mysteries of history: The Middle Ages / V. Kalashnikov. - M., 2002
6. Stories on the history of the Middle Ages / Ed. A.A. Svanidze. M., 1996

1. Liveinternet.ru ().
2. Pavluchenkov.ru ().
3. E-reading-lib.com ().
4. Countries.ru ().
5. Playroom.ru ().
6. Meinland.ru ().

Homework

1. What genres of literature developed in medieval Europe?
2. Why is Dante considered the greatest poet of the Middle Ages?
3. What styles dominated in medieval architecture?
4. What technical inventions of the Middle Ages do you know?
5. Why is the invention of printing considered one of the most important discoveries in human history?

Medieval European culture covers the period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the active formation of the culture of the Renaissance and divides the culture early period(V-XI centuries) and culture classical Middle Ages(XII-XIV centuries). The appearance of the term “Middle Ages” is associated with the activities of Italian humanists of the 15th-16th centuries, who, by introducing this term, sought to separate the culture of their era - the culture of the Renaissance - from the culture of previous eras. The Middle Ages brought with it new economic relations, a new type of political system, as well as global changes in people's worldview.

The entire culture of the early Middle Ages had a religious overtones

The basis of the medieval picture of the world was images and interpretations of the Bible. The starting point for explaining the world was the idea of ​​a complete and unconditional opposition between God and nature, Heaven and Earth, soul and body. The man of the Middle Ages imagined and understood the world as an arena of confrontation between good and evil, as a kind of hierarchical system, including God, angels, people, and otherworldly forces of darkness.

Along with the strong influence of the church, the consciousness of medieval man continued to remain deeply magical. This was facilitated by the very nature of medieval culture, filled with prayers, fairy tales, myths, and magic spells. In general, the cultural history of the Middle Ages is a history of the struggle between church and state. The position and role of art in this era were complex and contradictory, but nevertheless, throughout the entire period of development of European medieval culture, there was a search for the semantic support of the spiritual community of people.

All classes of medieval society recognized the spiritual leadership of the church, but nevertheless, each of them developed its own special culture, in which it reflected its moods and ideals.

1. The main periods of development of the Middle Ages.

The beginning of the Middle Ages is associated with the great migration of peoples that began at the end of the 4th century. The territory of the Western Roman Empire was invaded by Vandals, Goths, Huns and other nationalities. After the collapse in 476 The Western Roman Empire formed a number of short-lived states on its territory, which consisted of foreign tribes mixed with the indigenous population, which consisted mainly of Celts and the so-called Romans. The Franks settled in Gaul and Western Germany, the Visigoths in northern Spain, the Osgoths in northern Italy, and the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. The barbarian peoples who created their states on the ruins of the Roman Empire found themselves either in a Roman or Romanized environment. However, the culture of the ancient world experienced a deep crisis during the period of the barbarian invasion, and this crisis was aggravated by the barbarians introducing their mythological thinking and worship of the elemental forces of nature. All this was reflected in the cultural process of the early Middle Ages.

Medieval culture developed in line with the period of early (V-XIII centuries) feudalism in the countries of Western Europe, the formation of which was accompanied by the transition from barbarian empires to the classical states of medieval Europe. This was a period of serious social and military upheaval.

At the stage of late feudalism (XI-XII centuries), crafts, trade, and city life had a rather low level of development. The dominance of feudal lords - landowners - was undivided. The figure of the king was decorative in nature, and did not personify strength and state power. However, from the end of the 11th century. (especially France) the process of strengthening royal power begins and centralized feudal states are gradually created, in which the feudal economy rises, contributing to the formation of the cultural process.

The Crusades carried out at the end of this period were important. These campaigns contributed to the acquaintance of Western Europe with the rich culture of the Arab East and accelerated the growth of crafts.

During the second development of the mature (classical) European Middle Ages (11th century), there was a further growth of the productive forces of feudal society. A clear division is established between city and countryside, and intensive development of crafts and trade occurs. Royal power assumes significant importance. This process was facilitated by the elimination of feudal anarchy. The royal power was supported by knighthood and wealthy citizens. A characteristic feature of this period is the emergence of city-states, for example, Venice and Florence.

2. Features of the art of medieval Europe.

The development of medieval art includes the following three stages:

1.pre-Romanesque art (V- Xcenturies),

Which is divided into three periods: early Christian art, the art of the barbarian kingdoms and the art of the Carolingian and Ottonian empires.

IN early Christian During this period Christianity became the official religion. The appearance of the first Christian churches dates back to this time. Separate buildings of a centric type (round, octagonal, cruciform), called baptisteries or baptisteries. The interior decoration of these buildings were mosaics and frescoes. They reflected all the main features of medieval painting, although they were greatly divorced from reality. Symbolism and convention prevailed in the images, and the mysticism of the images was achieved through the use of such formal elements as enlarged eyes, disembodied images, prayer poses, and the use of different scales in the depiction of figures according to the spiritual hierarchy.

Barbarian Art played a positive role in the development of the ornamental and decorative direction, which later became the main part of the artistic creativity of the classical Middle Ages. And which no longer had a close connection with ancient traditions.

A characteristic feature of art Carolingian and Ottonian empires is a combination of ancient, early Christian, barbarian and Byzantine traditions, which are most clearly manifested in the ornament. The architecture of these kingdoms is based on Roman designs and includes centric stone or wooden temples, the use of mosaics and frescoes in the interior decoration of the temples.

A monument of pre-Romanesque architecture is the Chapel of Charlemagne in Aachen, created around 800. During the same period, the development of monastery construction was actively underway. In the Carolingian Empire, 400 new monasteries were built and 800 existing monasteries were expanded.

Introduction
1. Mental foundations and characteristic features of Western European medieval culture
2. European culture of the early Middle Ages
3. European culture of the mature and late Middle Ages
4. Culture of Byzantium: stages and trends of development
Conclusion
List of used literature

Introduction

At the end of the 5th century. on the ruins of the Western Roman Empire, a new cultural and historical type of European society began to emerge. Self-determined back in the 4th century. The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) followed its own cultural and civilizational path, which doomed it to a kind of slow archaization and stagnation. But, despite the different ways of forming socio-political systems, there was an undeniable similarity between medieval Western Europe and Byzantium, based on the dominance of feudal relations and Christianity. The latter, however, internally split into Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism (the split was formally consolidated in 1054).

The emergence of two Christian denominations deepened the economic, political and spiritual division between Byzantium and the West. In the new Europe, during the Middle Ages, the process of formation of nationalities proceeded faster, various worldviews were formed, separate subcultures and cultural centers, art schools, movements, and styles emerged. The struggle between the desire for Christian unity and the desire for national independence became a distinctive feature of Western culture in the Middle Ages. Byzantium was, as it were, aloof from this struggle.

In the history of the cultural development of medieval Western Europe, it is customary to distinguish the periods of the early Middle Ages (V–X centuries), the mature Middle Ages (XI–XIII centuries) and the late Middle Ages (XIV–XV centuries). In Italy and the Netherlands, the late Middle Ages correspond to the final stage of the Proto-Renaissance and the Early Renaissance, which is explained by the uneven development of the economy and other institutions of civilization in different European countries.

1. Mental foundations and characteristic features of Western European medieval culture

Christianity became the spiritual basis of the Middle Ages, which affected all spheres of life. It determined the main feature of medieval culture - theocentrism. The system of official values ​​in this era was determined by the belief in the triune God. The divine world is the top of the cosmic and social hierarchy. Nature, society, and man were considered as a single whole, since they were considered God's creations. The meaning of the life of a medieval person was to discover the signs of the Creator of all things in his soul and the surrounding reality.

Another important feature of the medieval worldview is spiritualism. The earthly, natural world seemed to be only a reflection of the heavenly and was filled with mysterious spirits and mystical energies. This aimed at a constant search for ways to establish contact with God.

In medieval culture there was no place left for the ancient harmony of spirit and body. In official dogma, the material, bodily was opposed to the spiritual and was interpreted as something base. This view influenced the formation of a new idea of ​​​​man. On the one hand, he contained the image and likeness of God, on the other, he acted as a bearer of the carnal principle. Man is subject to devilish temptations, and they test his will. Life passes between a dazzling abyss of grace and a black abyss of destruction. Only constant improvement of spirituality and sacrificial service to God can help a person avoid hellish torment.

Heightened sensitivity, bordering on exaltation, determined an important feature of the medieval mentality. Spirituality was associated not with rational activity, but with intense emotional life, ecstatic visions and miracles, imaginary phenomena of the other world.

Another important feature of the medieval worldview is symbolism, which overcame the ancient mindset of contemplating a sensory-material form. Man strove for what was on the other side of the latter - for pure divine existence. At the same time, potentially any thing was necessarily represented, first of all, by its sign, image, symbol, which did not confuse the introduced meaning and the earthly thing, but assumed their common divine origin.

So, symbolic things had the ability to reflect divine reality, but to varying degrees. From this idea flowed the next feature of the Middle Ages - hierarchism. The natural world and social reality here were deeply hierarchical. The place of a phenomenon or object in the universal hierarchy was associated with the degree of its closeness to God.

These features of the medieval worldview also determined artistic culture, the main place in which was occupied by the attributes of the Christian cult. The goal of artistic creativity of that time was not aesthetic pleasure as such, but an appeal to God. However, Thomas Aquinas and some other religious philosophers represented God as the source of universal harmony and ideal beauty. An integral attribute of medieval art, which manifested itself especially in the mature and late Middle Ages, is monumentalism. He reflected the greatness of God, in whose face man was like a grain of sand. Medieval art is characterized by the same symbolism. The religious artistic work as a whole and any of its elements were considered as signs of supernatural reality.

Medieval architecture was a unique synthesis of arts, united around a spiritual center - the cathedral, which embodied the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Christ, and the Universe.

The use of symbols in works of art - “traces” of incessant divine providence - determined the canonicity and allegorism of medieval art. Artists had to focus on the spiritual content of the images, resorting to conventions and stylization, turning to allegories and associations. Thus, the meanings of sacred symbols were deciphered and presented in the form of clearly presented canonized moral formulas.

An important feature of medieval art is speculativeness, which led away from worldly, sensual concerns. The disembodiment of bodies and lack of interest in concrete sensory details on the icon did not distract attention from the spiritual comprehension of God. The same is true of spiritually sublime music, which freed us from the power of everyday life.

2. European culture of the early Middle Ages

During the early Middle Ages, Western European culture and civilization experienced phases of crisis and recovery. It was a time of complex, at first timid and imitative, and then increasingly confident, independent search for an integral system of values, norms, and ideals, carried out at the crossroads of Christian, barbarian and ancient traditions.

A new era began in conditions of a deep total crisis that erupted after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Medieval society found its way in an environment of economic and political chaos, among the ruins of the culture of the destroyed ancient world. The number of cities that recently determined the qualitative originality of ancient culture has decreased. Cities and urban residences of kings survived and slowly grew mainly along the banks of large rivers. The economy of this time was dominated by subsistence farming and an agrarian economy, and the growth of large-scale land ownership began. Trade connections between individual areas were carried out mainly along rivers and rarely became stable. Residents exchanged the most necessary goods or luxury items (salt, wine, oil, expensive fabrics, spices). Payments using money were difficult due to their scarcity in circulation. Gold coins were minted mainly to maintain the power of the overlords.

The early Middle Ages also preserved some cultural forms created by antiquity (primarily Rome). In the new era, education served primarily as a means for ensuring liturgical practice and governing the state. Some disciplines, rhetoric in particular, have completely changed their meaning. In the early Middle Ages the latter became a field of the written rather than the spoken word, the practice of skilful drafting of business documents rather than the art of eloquence. Mathematics primarily developed counting and problem-solving skills and was least associated with understanding the essence of the world, as in Ancient Greece.

The nascent medieval theology, however, turned to ancient authors. Christianity was forced to defend its ideals, turning to a culture with a deeply developed system of intellectual traditions - with its ontology, epistemology, logic, and the developed art of polemics. Subsequently, patristics, which gravitated towards a harmonious synthesis of the Christian idea of ​​revelation and the philosophical tradition of ancient rationalism, was replaced by scholasticism (XI-XIV centuries), the main problems of which were connected purely with Christian doctrine.

In the religious art of the early Middle Ages, elements of the artistic style of the barbarians were refracted - folklore motifs, ornamentalism, fantastic images, etc.

The “animal style” was distinguished by emphasized dynamism, in which stylized images of animals were combined with spiral-shaped floral patterns. The image of people became widespread at the end of the 7th century. (relief from Hornhausen). Among the surviving architectural buildings of that time, the tomb of Theodoric in Ravenna (completed in the 20s of the 6th century) - an example of primitive imitation of Roman architecture - and the palace chapel in Aachen (788–805) deserve attention.

3. European culture of the mature and late Middle Ages

For Europe, the 11th century marked the beginning of a new cultural upsurge. Strengthening the external borders of the Western world and reducing the severity of internal conflicts made life safer, which made it possible to switch to improving agricultural technologies, strengthening trade, and developing crafts. Urban growth occurred at an accelerated pace, accompanied by property and social differentiation of society. In the XI–XIII centuries. The main features of medieval culture finally took shape and the first shoots of the future new European cultural type arose.

One of the characteristic features of the culture of this period was the contradiction between fragmentation, divergence in the economic, political, social and spiritual spheres of life, on the one hand, and the unifying pathos of ideal images of social order proposed by religious thinkers, on the other. In the social sphere, the ideal of a single Christian society coexisted with the functioning of independent social groups and classes.

The rise of agriculture, the growth of guilds and craft corporations, and the formation of the merchant class played a decisive role in the formation of the medieval city. Large trade routes converged in medieval cities, and the surrounding fertile plains provided a surplus of agricultural products. The economic prerogative of cities was handicraft and then manufacturing production. Thanks to cities, the monetary system developed. During the mature and late Middle Ages, the prevailing type of trade in the emerging states was one that focused mainly on the local market and local sources of goods. But foreign trade and economic ties also emerged.

Thus, at the turn of the 13th century. It was no longer monasteries and knightly castles, but cities that determined the economic and cultural development of Europe. In the XIV–XV centuries. Democratic tendencies intensified in it.

Education. The new attitude to the world, which gradually took shape in the urban environment, could not but affect the intellectual culture, in which more and more secular elements appeared. New forms of education were created in cities: paid primary secular schools and universities. The first university in Europe appeared in the 12th century. in Paris on the basis of the schools of the abbeys of St. Genevieve and St. Victor.

A school in a city could be opened by a workshop, a guild, or even just a private individual. The main attention here was paid not to church doctrine, but to grammar, mathematics, rhetoric, natural science, and law. And it is important that education in schools was conducted in their native language.

Universities, which arose in the 12th–14th centuries, gave even greater impetus to the spread of education, depriving the church of its monopoly in this area. The activities of universities had three important cultural consequences. First, it gave birth to a professional class of scientists who also received the right to teach the truths of Revelation. As a result, along with church and secular power, the power of intellectuals appeared, the impact of which on spiritual culture and social life increasingly intensified. Secondly, the university fraternity affirmed forms of secular culture and a new meaning of the concept of “nobility”, consisting in aristocracy of mind and behavior. Thirdly, within the framework of medieval universities, along with the formation of an attitude towards rational comprehension of theological wisdom, the rudiments of scientific knowledge appeared.

Literature. The literature of the mature and late Middle Ages reflected the creativity of various social strata of society and nationalities and was therefore extremely diverse.

Church religious-didactic (lives of saints, parables, sermons) and edifying (example - instructive examples, entertaining stories) literature continued to be widespread. A special place in church literature was occupied by the genre of visions - stories about communication between a person, including a simple layman, and otherworldly forces.

Back in the 10th century. In France, a poetic tradition of jugglers began to take shape - wandering singer-musicians familiar with both the traditions of Latin literature and the heroic epic. In the XI–XIII centuries. there was a heyday of knightly lyrical poetry, glorifying the mighty moral power of love and military exploits. The greatest role in its development was played by the southern French troubadours, in whose poems the traditions of folk and ancient poetry coexisted. Knightly novels—large poetic works in national languages, most often inspired by folk heroic epics—were extremely popular.

Architecture and fine arts. During the mature Middle Ages, two leading styles appeared, reflecting changes in the value orientations of medieval man - Romanesque and Gothic. The dominant art form during this period was architecture.

In medieval culture of the 11th–12th centuries. the Romanesque style developed. He inherited the forms of ancient Roman and early Christian architecture. Romanesque sculpture is characterized by monumental generalization of forms, deviation from real proportions, expressiveness of poses and gestures of sacred characters.

Romanesque religious buildings represented the architectural monumental style in architecture. Here the basic techniques of sculptural and pictorial images, norms and rules for constructing artistic images, set by church aesthetics, were formed. Secular Romanesque art developed in the castles of feudal lords, which simultaneously met the requirements of defense, housing and representation, both in layout and in relation to the area (the fortress of Carcassonne in Provence, 12th–13th centuries).

In monastic complexes, the leading role belonged to the temple. Sculpture in Romanesque churches, simple in design, was located both inside and outside - on the facade framed by the portal.

Romanesque fine art was subordinated to architecture. The picturesque images, created primarily using the fresco technique, were expressive color compositions and iconographic subjects that gave the interior an impressive solemnity. Occasionally, cult themes in painting were supplemented with folklore motifs (frescoes of the Church of Saint-Savin-Gartham, France).

From the second half of the 12th century. The formation of the Gothic style began in the art of medieval Europe. The term “Gothic” appeared in the Renaissance and comes from the name of the “Goths” tribe, whose pointed dwellings resembled the steep slopes of Gothic cathedrals. The Gothic period turned out to be more complex, and the style itself became refined and decorative in comparison with the Romanesque. It was determined mainly by the culture of cities, the buildings of which lost their defensive significance. Secular construction developed (town halls, covered markets, hospitals, residential buildings). Under the influence of a new worldview, the main features of Gothic art were formed. It came close to the man. In the images of Christ, human features are emphasized, the appearance of a “formidable Judge” is replaced by the image of a “suffering horn”. The Gothic man was in an emotionally intense relationship with the imaginary sphere. In the culture of that time, interest in the beauty of the real world, earthly feelings and experiences awoke.

The main constructive innovation of Gothic architecture was the pointed arch (two arcs facing each other at an acute angle) and the pointed vault on ribs (connecting stone ribs with spacers). They increased the height of the grandiose structure and made it possible to cover spaces of any plan.

In different countries, the Gothic style had its own striking features associated with the emergence of national art schools. The largest of them are French, German and English.

The development of plastic arts in the Gothic era was inextricably linked with architecture. Sculpture enhanced the emotional perception of architecture and contributed to the visual embodiment of not only religious feelings and beliefs, but also nature deified by man.

The dominant role here belonged to round plastic and relief. Gothic sculpture is an integral part of the cathedral. It was included in the architectural composition and diversified its appearance.

Gothic proposed new principles for the synthesis of arts, which made it possible to more fully reflect a person’s emotionally heightened perception of the connection between the heavenly and real worlds, and an appeal to the earthly. She created the necessary preconditions for the emergence of the humanistic culture of the Renaissance.

4. Culture of Byzantium: stages and trends of development

Byzantium, which arose in 395 in the territories of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, was a major medieval cultural and civilizational center. The capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which separated from the Western, became Constantinople (now Istanbul), founded in 330 by Emperor Constantine. The state existed until 1453, when Constantinople was captured by the Turks. Byzantium, at the stage of its formation, preserved and significantly modified the traditions of ancient culture better than the western territories of Europe. Little affected by the invasions of the barbarians, it took from Rome the form of a centralized state with an emperor and the church at its head. The development of Byzantine culture, to a much greater extent than in Western European countries, was controlled by the state. Byzantium is characterized by a slow pace of cultural transformations and the late formation of feudal relations. Until the 7th century. here the modified value foundations of late antique culture and civilization were preserved. The reign of Justinian (527–565) is noted in history as a grandiose attempt to restore the former greatness of Rome, the successor of which was considered the Roman Empire - Byzantium.

In the IV–VII centuries. The originality of the religion of Byzantium with its clearly expressed philosophical and contemplative attitude towards the Christian canons was already fully manifested. Byzantine civilization is characterized by an organic fusion of secular and religious power in the person of the emperor, who symbolized a single administrative principle. The confrontation between secular (imperial) and spiritual (papal) power that arose in Western Europe at times developed into open conflicts. The church organization of Byzantium was entirely regulated by the state and was completely subordinate to the emperor.

The literature of early Byzantium was of a dual nature, intricately combining at its core a Christian worldview with the post-antique pathos of citizenship and reasonable choice. Among church literature, the genre of hagiography has gained particular popularity.

The powerful rise of art in early Byzantium was associated with the reign of Justinian. Intensive construction was carried out in large cities, primarily in Constantinople. Triumphal arches, palaces were erected, aqueducts, baths, hippodromes, and water storage tanks were built. However, the main role in architecture belonged to religious buildings - temples and monastery complexes. In the architecture of the V–VII centuries. Two types of churches were used: basilica and cross-domed. The Temple of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532–537), a pearl of Byzantine architecture, successfully combines both architectural forms.

Fine arts and architecture of the 5th–7th centuries. combined church and secular genres. The emphasis was on monumental creations. At the same time, several local art schools operated, forming a system of pictorial images based on the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, which were later canonized by the church. The main task was to depict not a single phenomenon, not the sensory world, but its idea, while at the same time getting as close as possible to the divine prototype.

VIII century – first half of the 9th century. became a testing time for Byzantine culture and civilization, which was reconsidering its attitude towards the ancient heritage. Free craft and trade corporations were reduced, the mercenary army was abolished, and the number of cities was sharply reduced. The rewriting of ancient books lost its relevance, and only a few intellectuals still supported the traditions of ancient education. The education sector was in decline (even the patriarchal school at the Church of Hagia Sophia was closed), and the literacy rate of the population sharply decreased. At the same time, the role of patriarchs was elevated, and the Christian Church sought to extinguish the last pockets of paganism.

The literature of this period was predominantly ecclesiastical in nature. The most popular genre remained the hagiographical genre, which included, along with religious narratives themselves, scattered natural science, geographical and historical information. Apologetic hymnography was dominated by the canon with its solemn staticity and floridity.

Second half of the 9th – 13th centuries. - a period of weakening imperial power and strengthening the position of the landed aristocracy.

Economy. By the middle of the 10th century. In Byzantium, feudal relations finally developed. Unlike the West, they were based primarily on the enslavement of peasants by the state. At the same time, small communal landownership was absorbed by large feudal estates, which competed with the centralized system of state power. In Byzantium in the 11th–12th centuries, despite the growth of crafts and trade, Western-type cities with newly developed self-government and free craft guilds never appeared. Workshop production in large cities was strictly controlled by the state.

The worldview of that time combined the fading ideals of patriotism, emotional-mystical and at the same time philosophical-rational religiosity. There was renewed interest in the ancient heritage, and the works of ancient authors were again copied. Secular education was revived according to the ancient model. In the 9th century. A higher school was opened in Constantinople, headed by the greatest scientist of that time, Lev the Mathematician.

Literature. In the second half of the 9th – 13th centuries. Various types of systematic reviews have become widespread.

Architecture and fine arts. During this period, there was a further enrichment of the style of architecture. The leading role traditionally belonged to religious architecture with its large monastic complexes and majestic temples.

From the second half of the 9th century. great changes affected church painting: it became more and more humanized, but claimed to awaken universal spiritual experiences expressed through symbolic images. Laconism of compositional structure, restraint of color schemes, and proportionality to architecture distinguish painting of the 9th–13th centuries. It was at this time that a system of canonical images in churches developed.

After the devastating campaigns of the Crusaders, which destroyed Constantinople, in the 13th century. The final stage of the development of Byzantine culture began. He is associated with the reign of the Palaiologan dynasty (1267–1453). The art of this time is characterized by expression and filigree elaboration of images (mosaics of the Kahrie Jami Church in Constantinople).

In 1453, Byzantium was conquered by Turkey, but the types of religious buildings created by its masters, systems of fresco paintings and mosaics, icon painting, and literature became widespread and developed in the art of Western Europe, the southern and western Slavs, Ancient Rus', Belarus and Transcaucasia.

Conclusion

So, the Middle Ages in Western Europe were a time of intense spiritual life, a complex and difficult search for ideological constructs that could synthesize the historical experience and knowledge of the previous millennia.

In this era, people were able to take a new path of cultural development, different from what they knew in previous times. Trying to reconcile faith and reason, building a picture of the world on the basis of the knowledge available to them and with the help of Christian dogmatism, the culture of the Middle Ages created new artistic styles, a new urban way of life, a new economy, and prepared people's consciousness for the use of mechanical devices and technology.

Contrary to the opinion of the thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, the Middle Ages left us with the most important achievements of spiritual culture, including the institutions of scientific knowledge and education. Among them, we should mention, first of all, the university as a principle. In addition, a new paradigm of thinking arose, a disciplinary structure of knowledge without which modern science would have been impossible, people were able to think and understand the world much more effectively than before. Even the fantastic recipes of alchemists played a role in this process of improving the spiritual means of thinking and the general level of culture.

Occurred in the 20th century. a revaluation of the importance of medieval culture emphasizes its special role in creating the image of Christian moral behavior. And today experts rightly note in this culture the origins of many ideological and intellectual attitudes characteristic of later eras, the prerequisites for updating the ways of knowing and the aesthetic transformation of the world. The culture of the European Middle Ages developed and consolidated many values, meanings, forms of life and creativity, which found their reincarnation in subsequent centuries.

List of used literature

1. Culturology. Textbook / Edited by A.A. Radugina. – M., 2001.
2. Kononenko B.I. Fundamentals of cultural studies: Course of lectures. - M., 2002.
3. Petrova M.M. Theory of culture: Lecture notes. – St. Petersburg, 2000.
4. Samokhvalova V.I. Culturology: A short course of lectures. – M., 2002.
5. Ehrengross B.A. Culturology. Textbook for universities / B.A. Ehrengross, R.G. Apresyan, E. Botvinnik. – M.: Onyx, 2007.