Post medieval culture. The most important features of medieval culture

Introduction

Christian consciousness is the basis of the medieval mentality

Scientific culture in the Middle Ages

Artistic culture of medieval Europe

Medieval music and theater

Conclusion

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

Culturologists call the Middle Ages a long period in the history of Western Europe between Antiquity and New Time. This period covers more than a millennium from the 5th to the 15th centuries.

Within the millennial period of the Middle Ages, it is customary to distinguish at least three periods. It:

Early Middle Ages, from the beginning of the era to 900 or 1000 years (up to the 10th - 11th centuries);

High (Classical) Middle Ages. From the X-XI centuries to about the XIV century;

Late Middle Ages, 14th and 15th centuries.

The early Middle Ages is a time when turbulent and very important processes took place in Europe. First of all, these are the invasions of the so-called barbarians (from the Latin barba - beard), who from the 2nd century AD constantly attacked the Roman Empire and settled on the lands of its provinces. These invasions ended with the fall of Rome.

At the same time, the new Western Europeans, as a rule, accepted Christianity. , which in Rome towards the end of its existence was the state religion. Christianity in its various forms gradually supplanted pagan beliefs throughout the territory of the Roman Empire, and this process did not stop after the fall of the empire. This is the second most important historical process that determined the face of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe.

The third significant process was the formation of new state formations on the territory of the former Roman Empire. , created by the same "barbarians". Numerous Frankish, Germanic, Gothic and other tribes were in fact not so wild. Most of them already had the beginnings of statehood, owned crafts, including agriculture and metallurgy, and were organized on the principles of military democracy. Tribal leaders began to proclaim themselves kings, dukes, etc., constantly fighting with each other and subjugating weaker neighbors. On Christmas Day 800, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned Catholic in Rome and Emperor of the entire European west. Later (AD 900) the Holy Roman Empire broke up into countless duchies, counties, margraviates, bishoprics, abbeys and other appanages. Their rulers behaved like completely sovereign masters, not considering it necessary to obey any emperors or kings. However, the processes of formation of state formations continued in subsequent periods. A characteristic feature of life in the early Middle Ages was the constant robbery and devastation to which the inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire were subjected. And these robberies and raids significantly slowed down economic and cultural development.

During the classical or high Middle Ages, Western Europe began to overcome these difficulties and revive. Since the 10th century, cooperation under the laws of feudalism has allowed the creation of larger state structures and the collection of sufficiently strong armies. Thanks to this, it was possible to stop the invasions, significantly limit the robberies, and then gradually go on the offensive. In 1024, the crusaders took the Eastern Roman Empire from the Byzantines, and in 1099 they seized the Holy Land from the Muslims. True, in 1291 both were lost again. However, the Moors were expelled from Spain forever. In the end, Western Christians won dominion over the Mediterranean and its. islands. Numerous missionaries brought Christianity to the kingdoms of Scandinavia, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, so that these states entered the orbit of Western culture.

The onset of relative stability provided the opportunity for rapid growth of cities and the pan-European economy. Life in Western Europe has changed a lot, society was rapidly losing the features of barbarism, spiritual life flourished in the cities. In general, European society has become much richer and more civilized than during the ancient Roman Empire. An outstanding role in this was played by the Christian Church, which also developed, improved its teaching and organization. On the basis of the artistic traditions of ancient Rome and the former barbarian tribes, Romanesque and then brilliant Gothic art arose, and along with architecture and literature, all its other types developed - theater, music, sculpture, painting, literature. It was during this era that, for example, such masterpieces of literature as "The Song of Roland" and "The Romance of the Rose" were created. Of particular importance was the fact that during this period Western European scholars were able to read the writings of ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, primarily Aristotle. On this basis, the great philosophical system of the Middle Ages, scholasticism, was born and grew.

The late Middle Ages continued the processes of formation of European culture, which began in the period of the classics. However, their course was far from smooth. In the XIV-XV centuries, Western Europe repeatedly experienced a great famine. Numerous epidemics, especially the bubonic plague (“Black Death”), also brought inexhaustible human losses. The development of culture was greatly slowed down by the Hundred Years War. However, in the end, the cities were revived, crafts, agriculture and trade were established. People who survived pestilence and war were given the opportunity to arrange their lives better than in previous eras. The feudal nobility, the aristocrats, instead of castles began to build magnificent palaces for themselves both in their estates and in cities. The new rich from the "low" classes imitated them in this, creating everyday comfort and an appropriate lifestyle. Conditions arose for a new upsurge of spiritual life, science, philosophy, art, especially in northern Italy. This rise necessarily led to the so-called Renaissance or Renaissance.

Christian consciousness is the basis of the medieval mentality

The most important feature of medieval culture is the special role of Christian doctrine and the Christian church. In the context of the general decline of culture immediately after the destruction of the Roman Empire, only the church remained for many centuries the only social institution common to all countries, tribes and states of Europe. The church was the dominant political institution, but even more significant was the influence that the church had directly on the consciousness of the population. In the conditions of a difficult and meager life, against the background of extremely limited and most often unreliable knowledge about the world, Christianity offered people a coherent system of knowledge about the world, about its structure, about the forces and laws operating in it. Let us add to this the emotional appeal of Christianity with its warmth, universally significant preaching of love and all understandable norms of social community (Decalogue), with romantic elation and ecstasy of the plot about the redemptive sacrifice, and finally, with the statement about the equality of all people without exception in the highest instance, so that at least approximately evaluate the contribution of Christianity to the worldview, to the picture of the world of medieval Europeans.

This picture of the world, which completely determined the mentality of the believing villagers and townspeople, was based mainly on the images and interpretations of the Bible. Researchers note that in the Middle Ages, the starting point for explaining the world was the complete, unconditional opposition of God and nature, Heaven and Earth, soul and body.

The medieval European was, of course, a deeply religious person. In his mind, the world was seen as a kind of arena of confrontation between the forces of heaven and hell, good and evil. At the same time, the consciousness of people was deeply magical, everyone was absolutely sure of the possibility of miracles and perceived everything that the Bible reported literally. According to the apt expression of S. Averintsev, the Bible was read and listened to in the Middle Ages in much the same way as we read fresh newspapers today.

In the most general terms, the world was then seen in accordance with some hierarchical logic, as a symmetrical scheme resembling two pyramids folded at the base. The top of one of them, the top one, is God. Below are the tiers or levels of sacred characters: first the Apostles, closest to God, then the figures that gradually move away from God and approach the earthly level - archangels, angels and similar heavenly beings. At some level, people are included in this hierarchy: first the pope and the cardinals, then the clergy of lower levels, below them the simple laity. Then even farther from God and closer to the earth, animals are placed, then plants and then - the earth itself, already completely inanimate. And then comes, as it were, a mirror reflection of the upper, earthly and heavenly hierarchy, but again in a different dimension and with a “minus” sign, in the world, as it were, underground, with the growth of evil and proximity to Satan. He is placed on top of this second, chthonic pyramid, acting as a being symmetrical to God, as if repeating him with the opposite sign (reflecting like a mirror) being. If God is the personification of Good and Love, then Satan is his opposite, the embodiment of Evil and Hatred.

The medieval European, including the upper strata of society, up to kings and emperors, was illiterate. The level of literacy and education even among the clergy in the parishes was appallingly low. Only by the end of the 15th century did the church realize the need to have educated personnel, began to open theological seminaries, etc. The level of education of the parishioners was generally minimal. The mass of the laity listened to semi-literate priests. At the same time, the Bible itself was forbidden for ordinary laity, its texts were considered too complex and inaccessible for direct perception of ordinary parishioners. Only priests were allowed to interpret it. However, their education and literacy was in the mass, as said, very low. Mass mediaeval culture is a bookless, “pre-Gutenberg” culture. She relied not on the printed word, but on oral sermons and exhortations. It existed through the mind of an illiterate person. It was a culture of prayers, fairy tales, myths, magic spells.

At the same time, the meaning of the word, written and especially sound, in medieval culture was unusually great. Prayers, perceived functionally as spells, sermons, biblical stories, magic formulas - all this also formed the medieval mentality. People are accustomed to intensely peer into the surrounding reality, perceiving it as a kind of text, as a system of symbols containing some higher meaning. These symbol-words had to be able to recognize and extract the divine meaning from them. This, in particular, explains many features of medieval artistic culture, designed to perceive in space just such a deeply religious and symbolic, verbally armed mentality. Even the painting there was first of all the revealed word, like the Bible itself. The word was universal, suited to everything, explained everything, was hidden behind all phenomena as their hidden meaning. Therefore, for medieval consciousness, medieval mentality, culture first of all expressed the meanings, the soul of man, brought man closer to God, as if transferred to another world, to a space different from earthly existence. And this space looked like it was described in the Bible, the lives of the saints, the writings of the church fathers and the sermons of the priests. Accordingly, the behavior of the medieval European, all his activities, was determined.

Scientific culture in the Middle Ages

The Christian Church in the Middle Ages was completely indifferent to Greek and, in general, to pagan science and philosophy. The main problem that the Church Fathers tried to solve was to master the knowledge of the "pagans", while defining the boundaries between reason and faith. Christianity was forced to compete with the mind of the pagans, such as the Hellenists, Romans, with Jewish learning. But in this rivalry, it had to remain strictly on a biblical basis. It may be recalled here that many of the Church Fathers had an education in the field of classical philosophy that was essentially non-Christian. The Church Fathers were well aware that the many rational and mystical systems contained in the works of pagan philosophers would greatly complicate the development of traditional Christian thinking and consciousness.

A partial solution to this problem was proposed in the 5th century by St. Augustine. However, the chaos that occurred in Europe as a result of the invasion of the Germanic tribes and the decline of the Western Roman Empire pushed back serious debate about the role and acceptability of pagan rational science in Christian society for seven centuries, and only in the X-XI centuries, after the conquest of Spain and Sicily by the Arabs, did interest in the development of ancient science revive. heritage. For the same reason, Christian culture was now capable of accepting the original works of Islamic scholars. The result was an important movement that included the collection of Greek and Arabic manuscripts, their translation into Latin, and commentary. The West received in this way not only the complete corpus of Aristotle's writings, but also the works of Euclid and Ptolemy.

Universities, which appeared in Europe from the 12th century, became centers of scientific research, helping to establish the unquestioned scientific authority of Aristotle. In the middle of the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas synthesized Aristotelian philosophy and Christian doctrine. He emphasized the harmony of reason and faith, thus strengthening the foundations of natural theology. But the Thomistic synthesis did not go unanswered. In 1277, after the death of Aquinas, the Archbishop of Paris invalidated 219 of Thomas' statements contained in his writings. As a result, the nominalist doctrine was developed (W. Ockham). Nominalism, which sought to separate science from theology, became the cornerstone in redefining the realms of science and theology later in the 17th century. More complete information about the philosophical culture of the European Middle Ages should be given in the course of philosophy. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, European scholars seriously touted the fundamental tenets of Aristotelian methodology and physics. The English Franciscans Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon introduced mathematical and experimental methods to the field of science, and contributed to the discussion about vision and the nature of light and color. Their Oxford followers introduced the quantitative, reasoning, and physical approach through their studies of accelerated motion. Across the Channel, in Paris, Jean Buridan and others became the concept of momentum, while investing a number of bold ideas in astronomy that opened the door to the pantheism of Nicholas of Cusa.

Alchemy occupied an important place in the scientific culture of the European Middle Ages. Alchemy was devoted primarily to the search for a substance that could turn ordinary metals into gold or silver and serve as a means of indefinitely prolonging human life. Although its aims and means were highly dubious and most often illusory, alchemy was in many respects the forerunner of modern science, especially chemistry. The first reliable works of European alchemy that have come down to us belong to the English monk Roger Bacon and the German philosopher Albert the Great. They both believed in the possibility of transmuting lower metals into gold. This idea struck the imagination, the greed of many people, throughout the Middle Ages. They believed that gold is the most perfect metal, and the lower metals are less perfect than gold. Therefore, they tried to make or invent a substance called the philosopher's stone, which is more perfect than gold, and therefore can be used to improve the lower metals to the level of gold. Roger Bacon believed that gold dissolved in aqua regia was the elixir of life. Albertus Magnus was the greatest practical chemist of his time. The Russian scientist V. L. Rabinovich did a brilliant analysis of alchemy and showed that it was a typical product of medieval culture, combining a magical and mythological vision of the world with sober practicality and an experimental approach.

Perhaps the most paradoxical result of medieval scientific culture is the emergence, on the basis of scholastic methods and irrational Christian dogma, of new principles of knowledge and learning. Trying to find the harmony of faith and reason, to combine irrational dogmas and experimental methods, thinkers in monasteries and theological schools gradually created a fundamentally new way of organizing thinking - disciplinary. The most developed form of theoretical thinking of that time was theology.

It was theologians, discussing the problems of synthesis of pagan rational philosophy and Christian biblical principles, who groped for those forms of activity and transfer of knowledge that turned out to be the most effective and necessary for the emergence and development of modern science: the principles of teaching, evaluation, recognition of the truth, which are used in science today. “The dissertation, defense, dispute, title, citation network, scientific apparatus, explanation with contemporaries using supports - references to predecessors, priority, a ban on repetition-plagiarism - all this appeared in the process of reproduction of spiritual personnel, where the vow of celibacy forced the use of “foreign "For the Spiritual Profession of the Rising Generations".

The theology of medieval Europe, in search of a new explanation of the world, for the first time began to focus not on a simple reproduction of already known knowledge, but on the creation of new conceptual schemes that could unite such different, practically incompatible systems of knowledge. This eventually led to the emergence of a new paradigm of thinking - forms, procedures, attitudes, ideas, assessments, with the help of which the participants in the discussions achieve mutual understanding. M. K. Petrov called this new paradigm the disciplinary one (Ibid.). He showed that medieval Western European theology acquired all the characteristic features of future scientific disciplines. Among them - "the main set of disciplinary rules, procedures, requirements for the completed product, ways to reproduce disciplinary personnel." The pinnacle of these ways of reproducing personnel has become the university, the system in which all the above finds flourish and work. The university as a principle, as a specialized organization, can be considered the greatest invention of the Middle Ages.

Artistic culture of medieval Europe.

Roman style.

The first independent, specifically European artistic style of medieval Europe was Romanesque, which characterized the art and architecture of Western Europe from about 1000 to the rise of the Gothic, in most regions until about the second half and the end of the 12th century, and in some even later. It arose as a result of the synthesis of the remains of the artistic culture of Rome and the barbarian tribes. At first it was the proto-Romanesque style.

At the end of the Proto-Roman period, elements of the Romanesque style were mixed with Byzantine, with Middle Eastern, especially Syrian, which also came to Syria from Byzantium; with Germanic, with Celtic, with features of the styles of other northern tribes. Various combinations of these influences created many local styles in Western Europe, which received the common name Romanesque, meaning "in the manner of the Romans." Since the main number of surviving fundamentally important monuments of the Proto-Romanesque and Romanesque style are architectural structures: the various styles of this period often differ according to architectural schools. The architecture of the 5th-8th centuries is usually simple, with the exception of buildings in Ravenna, (Italy), erected according to Byzantine rules. Buildings were often created from elements removed from old Roman buildings, or decorated with them. In many regions, this style was a continuation of early Christian art. Round or polygonal cathedral churches, borrowed from Byzantine architecture, were built during the Proto-Roman period;

later they were built in Aquitaine in the south-west of France and in Scandinavia. The most famous and best-designed examples of this type are the Cathedral of San Vitalo of the Byzantine emperor Justinian in Ravenna (526-548) and the octagonal palace chapel built between 792 and 805 by Charlemagne in Ai la Capella (now Aachen, Germany), directly inspired by the Cathedral of San Vitalo. One of the creations of Carolingian architects was the westwork, a multi-storey entrance facade flanked by bell towers, which began to be attached to Christian basilicas. Westworks were the prototypes for the facades of giant Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals.

Important buildings were also constructed in the monastic style. Monasteries, a characteristic religious and social phenomenon of that era, required huge buildings that combined both the dwellings of monks and chapels, rooms for prayers and services, libraries, and workshops. Elaborate proto-Roman monastic complexes were erected at St. Gall (Switzerland), on the island of Reichenau (German side of Lake Constance) and at Monte Cassino (Italy) by Benedictine monks.

The outstanding achievement of the architects of the Romanesque period was the development of buildings with stone volts (arched, supporting structures). The main reason for the development of stone arches was the need to replace the flammable wooden ceilings of Proto-Romanesque buildings. The introduction of voltaic structures led to the general use of heavy walls and pillars.

Sculpture. Most Romanesque sculpture was integrated into church architecture and served both structural, constructive and aesthetic purposes. Therefore, it is difficult to talk about Romanesque sculpture without touching on church architecture. Small-sized sculpture of the Proto-Roman era made of bone, bronze, gold was made under the influence of Byzantine models. Other elements of numerous local styles were borrowed from the crafts of the Middle East, known for imported illustrated manuscripts, bone carvings, gold objects, ceramics, fabrics. Motifs derived from the arts of the migrating peoples were also important, such as grotesque figures, images of monsters, intertwining geometric patterns, especially in areas north of the Alps. Large-scale stone sculptural decorations only became common in Europe in the 12th century. In the French Romanesque cathedrals of Provence, Burgundy, Aquitaine, many figures were placed on the facades, and the statues on the columns emphasized the vertical supporting elements.

Painting. Existing examples of Romanesque painting include decorations on architectural monuments, such as columns with abstract ornaments, as well as wall decorations with images of hanging fabrics. Picturesque compositions, in particular narrative scenes based on biblical stories and from the life of saints, were also depicted on the wide surfaces of the walls. In these compositions, which predominantly follow Byzantine painting and mosaics, the figures are stylized and flat, so that they are perceived more as symbols than as realistic representations. Mosaic, just like painting, was mainly a Byzantine technique and was widely used in the architectural design of Italian Romanesque churches, especially in the Cathedral of St. Mark (Venice) and in the Sicilian churches in Cefalu and Montreal.

decorative arts . Proto-Romanesque artists reached the highest level in illustrating manuscripts. In England, an important school of manuscript illustration arose already in the 7th century in Holy Island (Lindisfarne). The works of this school, exhibited in the British Museum (London), are distinguished by the geometric interweaving of patterns in capital letters, frames, and whole pages, which are called carpet, are densely covered with them. Drawings of capital letters are often animated by grotesque figures of people, birds, monsters.

Regional schools of manuscript illustration in southern and eastern Europe developed different specific styles, as can be seen, for example, in a copy of the Apocalypse of Beata (Paris, National Library) made in the middle of the 11th century in the monastery of Saint-Sever in Northern France. At the beginning of the 12th century, the illustration of manuscripts in the northern countries acquired common features, just as the same happened at that time with sculpture. In Italy, the Byzantine influence continued to dominate both in miniature painting and in wall paintings and mosaics.

Proto-Romanesque and Romanesque metalworking, a widespread art form, was used mainly to create church utensils for religious rituals. Many of these works are kept to this day in the treasuries of great cathedrals outside of France; French cathedrals were robbed during the French Revolution. Other metalwork from this period is early Celtic filigree jewelry and silverware; late products of German goldsmiths and silver items inspired by imported Byzantine metal products, as well as wonderful enamels, especially cloisonne and champlevé, made in the areas of the Moselle and Rhine rivers. Two famous metalworkers were Roger of Helmarshausen, a German known for his bronzes, and the French enameller Godefroy de Claire.

The best-known example of a Romanesque textile work is an 11th-century embroidery called the Baia Tapestry. Other patterns have survived, such as church vestments and draperies, but the most valuable fabrics in Romanesque Europe were imported from the Byzantine Empire, Spain, and the Middle East and are not the product of local craftsmen.

Gothic art and architecture

In place of the Romanesque style, as cities flourished and social relations improved, a new style came - Gothic. Religious and secular buildings, sculpture, colored glass, illustrated manuscripts and other works of fine art began to be executed in this style in Europe during the second half of the Middle Ages.

Gothic art originated in France around 1140 and spread throughout Europe over the next century and continued to exist in Western Europe for most of the 15th century, and in some regions of Europe well into the 16th century. Originally, the word gothic was used by Italian Renaissance authors as a derogatory label for all forms of architecture and art of the Middle Ages, which were considered comparable only to the works of the Goth barbarians. Later use of the term "Gothic" was limited to the period of the late, high or classical Middle Ages, immediately following the Romanesque. Currently, the Gothic period is considered one of the most prominent in the history of European artistic culture.

The main representative and spokesman of the Gothic period was architecture. Although a huge number of Gothic monuments were secular, the Gothic style served primarily the church, the most powerful builder in the Middle Ages, which ensured the development of this new architecture for that time and achieved its fullest realization.

The aesthetic quality of Gothic architecture depends on its structural development: ribbed vaults became a characteristic feature of the Gothic style. Medieval churches had powerful stone vaults, which were very heavy. They sought to open, to push out the walls. This could lead to the collapse of the building. Therefore, the walls must be thick and heavy enough to support such vaults. At the beginning of the 12th century, masons developed ribbed vaults, which included slender stone arches arranged diagonally, transversely and longitudinally. The new vault, which was thinner, lighter and more versatile (because it could have many sides), solved many architectural problems. Although early Gothic churches allowed for a wide variety of forms, the construction of a series of large cathedrals in Northern France, beginning in the second half of the 12th century, took full advantage of the new Gothic vault. Cathedral architects found that now the external bursting forces from the vaults are concentrated in narrow areas at the junctions of the ribs (ribs), and therefore they can be easily neutralized with the help of buttresses and external arches-flying buttresses. Consequently, the thick walls of Romanesque architecture could be replaced by thinner ones, which included extensive window openings, and the interiors received hitherto unparalleled lighting. In the construction business, therefore, there was a real revolution.

With the advent of the Gothic vault, both the design, form, and layout and interiors of cathedrals changed. Gothic cathedrals acquired a general character of lightness, aspiration to the sky, became much more dynamic and expressive. The first of the great cathedrals was Notre Dame Cathedral (begun in 1163). In 1194, the foundation stone for the cathedral at Chartres is considered the beginning of the High Gothic period. The culmination of this era was the cathedral at Reims (begun in 1210). Rather cold and all-conquering in its finely balanced proportions, Reims Cathedral represents a moment of classical calm and serenity in the evolution of Gothic cathedrals. Openwork partitions, a characteristic feature of late Gothic architecture, were the invention of the first architect of Reims Cathedral. Fundamentally new interior solutions were found by the author of the cathedral in Bourges (begun in 1195). The influence of French Gothic quickly spread throughout Europe: Spain, Germany, England. In Italy it was not so strong.

Sculpture. Following Romanesque traditions, in numerous niches on the facades of French Gothic cathedrals, a huge number of figures carved from stone, personifying the dogmas and beliefs of the Catholic Church, were placed as decorations. Gothic sculpture in the 12th and early 13th centuries was predominantly architectural in character. The largest and most important figures were placed in openings on both sides of the entrance. Because they were attached to columns, they were known as pillar statues. Along with column statues, free-standing monumental statues were widespread, an art form unknown in Western Europe since Roman times. The earliest surviving statues are columns in the western portal of Chartres Cathedral. They were still in the old pre-Gothic cathedral and date from about 1155. The slender, cylindrical figures follow the shape of the columns to which they were attached. They are executed in a cold, strict, linear Romanesque style, which nevertheless gives the figures an impressive character of purposeful spirituality.

From 1180, the Romanesque stylization begins to move into a new one, when the statues acquire a sense of grace, sinuosity and freedom of movement. This so-called classical style culminates in the first decades of the thirteenth century in a large series of sculptures on the portals of the north and south transepts of Chartres Cathedral.

The emergence of naturalism. Beginning around 1210 on the Coronation Portal of Notre Dame Cathedral and after 1225 on the west portal of Amiens Cathedral, the rippling, classical features of the surfaces begin to give way to more austere volumes. At the statues of the Reims Cathedral and in the interior of the Cathedral of Saint-Chapelle, exaggerated smiles, emphasized almond-shaped eyes, curls arranged in tufts on small heads and mannered poses produce a paradoxical impression of a synthesis of naturalistic forms, delicate affectation and subtle spirituality.

Medieval music and theater

Medieval music is predominantly spiritual in nature and is a necessary component of the Catholic Mass. At the same time, secular music begins to take shape already in the early Middle Ages.

The first important form of secular music was the songs of the troubadours in Provençal. Since the 11th century, troubadour songs have been influential in many other countries for more than 200 years, especially in northern France. The pinnacle of troubadour art was reached around 1200 by Bernard de Ventadorne, Giraud de Bornel Folke de Marseille. Bernard is famous for his three lyrics about unrequited love. Some of the verse forms anticipate the 14th century ballad with its three stanzas of 7 or 8 lines. Others talk about the crusaders or discuss any love trifles. Pastorals in numerous stanzas convey banal stories about knights and shepherdesses. Dance songs such as rondo and virelai are also in their repertoire. All of this monophonic music could sometimes have string or wind instrument accompaniment. This was the case until the 14th century, when secular music became polyphonic.

Medieval theatre. Ironically, theater in the form of liturgical drama was revived in Europe by the Roman Catholic Church. As the church sought ways to expand its influence, it often adapted pagan and folk festivals, many of which contained theatrical elements. In the 10th century, many church holidays provided the opportunity for dramatization: generally speaking, the Mass itself is nothing more than a drama.

Certain holidays were famous for their theatricality, such as the procession to the church on Palm Sunday. Antiphonal or question-and-answer, chants, masses and canonical chorales are dialogues. In the 9th century, antiphonal chimes, known as tropes, were incorporated into the complex musical elements of the mass. The three-part tropes (dialogue between the three Marys and the angels at the tomb of Christ) by an unknown author have been considered since about 925 as the source of liturgical drama. In 970, a record of an instruction or manual for this little drama appeared, including elements of costume and gestures.

Religious drama or miraculous plays. Over the next two hundred years, the liturgical drama slowly developed, incorporating various biblical stories enacted by priests or choir boys. At first, church vestments and existing architectural details of churches were used as costumes and decorations, but more ceremonial decorations were soon invented. As the liturgical drama developed, many biblical themes were presented in succession, usually depicting scenes from the creation of the world to the crucifixion of Christ. These plays were called differently - passions (Passion), Miracles (Miracles), holy plays. Appropriate decorations were raised around the church nave, usually with heaven in the altar and with the Hell's Mouth - an elaborate monster's head with gaping mouth, representing the entrance to hell - at the opposite end of the nave. Therefore, all the scenes of the play could be presented simultaneously, and the participants in the action moved around the church from one place to another, depending on the scenes.

The plays, obviously, consisted of episodes, covered literally millennium periods, transferred the action to the most diverse places and represented the atmosphere and spirit of different times, as well as allegories. Unlike ancient Greek tragedy, which clearly focused on creating the prerequisites and conditions for catharsis, medieval drama did not always show conflicts and tension. Its purpose was to dramatize the salvation of the human race.

Although the church supported the early liturgical drama in its didactic capacity, entertainment and spectacle increased and began to predominate, and the church began to express suspicion of the drama. Not wanting to lose the useful effects of the theater, the church compromised by bringing dramatic performances from the walls of the church churches themselves. The same material design began to be recreated in the market squares of cities. While retaining its religious content and focus, the drama has become much more secular in its staged character.

Medieval secular drama. In the 14th century, theatrical productions were associated with the feast of Corpus Christi and developed into cycles that included up to 40 plays. Some scholars believe that these cycles developed independently, albeit simultaneously with the liturgical drama. They were presented to the community for a whole four to five year period. Each production could last one or two days and was staged once a month. The staging of each play was financed by some shop or trade guild, and usually they tried to somehow connect the specialization of the shop with the subject of the play - for example, the shipbuilders shop could put on a play about Noah. Because the performers were often illiterate amateurs, the anonymous playwrights tended to write in easy-to-remember primitive verse. In accordance with the medieval worldview, historical accuracy was often ignored, and the logic of cause and effect was not always respected.

Realism was used selectively in productions. The plays are full of anachronisms, references to purely local circumstances known only to contemporaries; the realities of time and place received only minimal attention. Costumes, furnishings and utensils were entirely modern (medieval European). Something could be depicted with extreme accuracy - there are reports of how actors almost died due to a too realistic performance of a crucifixion or hanging, and of actors who, playing the devil, literally burned to death. On the other hand, the episode with the retreat of the waters of the Red Sea could be indicated by simply throwing a red cloth over the Egyptian pursuers, as a sign that the sea had swallowed them up.

The free mixture of the real and the symbolic did not interfere with medieval perception. Spectacles and folk plays were staged wherever possible, and the infernal mouth was usually a favorite object of exertion for mechanical marvels and pyrotechnicians. Despite the religious content of the cycles, they increasingly became entertainment. Three main formats were used. In England, carnival carts were the most common. The old church decorations were replaced by elaborate moving scenes, such as small modern ships that moved from place to place in the city. Spectators gathered in each such place: the performers worked on the platforms of the wagons, or on the stages built on the streets. They did the same in Spain. In France, synchronized productions were used - various scenery rose one after another along the sides of a long, raised platform in front of the assembled spectators. Finally, again in England, plays were sometimes staged "round" - on a circular platform, with scenery placed around the circumference of the arena and spectators sitting or standing between the scenery.

Morality plays. In the same period, folk plays, secular farces, and pastorals appeared, mostly by anonymous authors, who stubbornly retained the character of worldly entertainment. All this influenced the evolution of morality plays in the 15th century. Though written on themes of Christian theology with related characters, the moralites were not like cycles in that they did not represent episodes from the Bible. They were allegorical, self-contained dramas and performed by professionals such as minstrels or jugglers. Plays such as "Everyman" usually dealt with the individual's life path. Among the allegorical characters were such figures as Death, Gluttony, Good Deeds and other vices and virtues.

These plays are sometimes difficult and boring for modern perception: the rhymes of the verses are repeated, they are in the nature of improvisation, the plays are two or three times longer than Shakespeare's dramas, and the morality is announced straightforwardly and instructively. However, the performers, by inserting music and action into performances and using the comic possibilities of numerous characters of vices and demons, created a form of folk drama.

Conclusion

So, the Middle Ages in Western Europe is a time of intense spiritual life, complex and difficult searches for worldview structures that could synthesize the historical experience and knowledge of the previous millennia. In this era, people were able to enter 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 based on 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 lifestyle, a new economy, and prepared people's minds for the use of mechanical devices and technology. Contrary to the opinion of the thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, the Middle Ages left us the most important achievements of spiritual culture, including the institutions of scientific knowledge and education. Among them, first of all, the university as a principle should be named. In addition, a new paradigm of thinking arose, a disciplinary structure of cognition without which modern science would be impossible, people got the opportunity to think and cognize the world much more effectively than before. Even the fantastic recipes of the alchemists played their part in this process of improving the spiritual means of thinking, the general level of culture.

The image proposed by M.K. Petrov seems to be the most successful: he compared medieval culture with scaffolding. It is impossible to build a building without them. But when the building is completed, the scaffolding is removed, and one can only guess what it looked like and how it was arranged. Medieval culture in relation to our modern culture played precisely the role of such forests:

without it, Western culture would not have arisen, although medieval culture itself was largely unlike it. Therefore, one must understand the historical reason for such a strange name for this long and important era in the development of European culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gurevich A. Ya. Medieval world; silent majority culture. M., 1990.

Petrov M. K. Socio-cultural foundations for the development of modern science. M., 1992.

Radugin A.A. Culturology: textbook. M., 1999.

The history of medieval Europe began with the destruction of ancient culture, which was going through a deep crisis at the beginning of our millennium. However, the barbarians brought with them not only the rudeness of morals, but also other forms of social life, which "rejuvenated" Europe, opening the way for the transition to new socio-economic relations. Great migration of peoples of the 5th century. was the period of the most active international cultural contacts. At this transitional stage, short-lived states perish and arise: in the V-VIII centuries. barbarian states arise on the ruins of the Roman Empire: the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, the state of the Franks, etc. In the mixture of tribes, new peoples and new cultures are born, which, in turn, were both a continuation and an antithesis of ancient culture. Thus opens a new page of history - the history of the Middle Ages. Middle Ages - a symbol for a long period in the history of Western Europe between antiquity and modern times of the 5th-15th centuries. The term "Middle Ages" was coined by the Italian humanists of the 15th century. They sought to bring their own culture closer to the ideals of the culture of antiquity, which, according to them, was reborn in Italy, considering the period that separated antiquity from the time in which they lived, as the "Middle Age" - an era of deep cultural decline. For the thinkers of the Enlightenment, as well as for the humanists of the Renaissance, the "Middle Ages" remained a time of continuous decline in culture, the dominance of the church and the triumph of obscurantism. Only in the 19th century began to change the assessment of the Middle Ages.

In this historically long course of the socio-cultural development of society, a peculiar type of relationship was developed between a person and the reality surrounding him. The basis of the feudal mode of production was agriculture, the main place in which was occupied by agriculture with the routine technique characteristic of that time and the repetition of economic cycles. Therefore, the experience of previous generations was of great importance, transmitted in the form of traditions, customs, strict adherence to which largely ensured the existence of a person of that era, contributed to the emergence of a characteristic feature of the worldview: nothing changes in the world, everything repeats, and the movement takes place in a vicious circle. Such an understanding of the world gave rise to traditionalism, which manifested itself in all spheres of human activity (the role of precedent in law, the constant appeal to antiquity in political life, hence the special significance of chronicles, annals, etc.).

Of course, medieval culture was not static. She developed. And at the heart of this development was a natural desire to improve the material and spiritual being.

Religion played a special role in the formation of medieval culture, influencing all aspects of a person's life, his spiritual priorities, and the foundations of society. The spiritual basis of Western European medieval culture was Western Christianity - Catholicism . Acting as an integrating force, Christianity gave culture a certain integrity. At the heart of life lay reverence and service to God. This service was considered as absolute perfection, the central and highest goal of the universe, the good that a person should strive for ( theocentrism ). Despite the fact that many factors influenced cultural processes, they still cannot be considered outside the context of the religious worldview.

Christianity has formed a special type of thinking and sensory perception of the world, defining its own problems and themes of culture. Christianity made a great historical synthesis of ideas, images of various religions of the Middle East, traditions of Greco-Roman ancient philosophy, transforming in its own way the intellectual conquests of previous eras in line with the spiritual and moral quest of the era, which gave it a special appeal. This synthesis was a condition for the emergence of a new world order. It is very difficult to assess to what extent the intellectual potential of antiquity passed into the Middle Ages.

The decline of intellectual thought was caused, first of all, by the desire to adapt it to the conditions of the Middle Ages, but at the same time these were peculiar changes in cultural life, in which there was a search for values ​​no less important than the achievements of the ancient world. In conditions of material poverty, cruelty of morals, lack of spirituality of the early Middle Ages, only a person with a strong spirit could survive. The culture of the early Middle Ages is a synthesis of barbarism and antiquity. Europe made its choice realizing that the idea of ​​turning to God would give man some power over nature, thus giving medieval people a chance to form a society capable of socio-economic and cultural uplift. Therefore, an important moment in the cultural development of the early Middle Ages was Christianization of European peoples - conversion to Christianity of European pagan peoples. However, in religious practice, and even more so in everyday life, a combination of Christianity and pagan mythology persisted for a long time.

Christianity rose above both barbarian and ancient paganism. Christianity considered God as the creator and spiritual ruler of the world in the image of Jesus Christ - the moral ideal. Christ is a God-man, full of compassion for people and willingly accepted death in order to atone for their sins and open the gates of paradise for them. Following this pattern became the meaning of life for everyone. The Christian image of man was, as it were, torn into two principles: "body" ("flesh") and "soul" - and in this opposition unconditional priority was given to the spiritual principle. Henceforth, the beauty of man was expressed in the triumph of the spirit over the flesh. Man, the main image of antiquity, gave way to the image of God. Physical beauty ends with death. The beauty of the spirit should not depend in any way on the beauty of the body: an ugly person can have a beautiful soul, but the opposite is also possible.

At the same time, the requirements for the moral life of a person became tougher, assuming constant self-control not only over actions, as was the case in pagan culture, but also over desires, thoughts, and motives.

Paying close attention to the inner life of a person, especially his morality, with its problems of the meaning of human existence, Christianity asserted a special, higher type of spirituality, self-consciousness, which played a huge role in the history of mankind. A cult of suffering was formed as a purification and uplift of the soul.

It was a kind of rebellion against the imperfection and injustice of the world, an attempt to overcome these difficulties through moral improvement, which was an expression of real life dialectics and the inconsistency of the inner world of a person, his passions.

How fully the Christian ideal was realized cannot be unequivocally answered. Christianity itself illuminated the hierarchical structure of feudal society, giving it the character of God-established reality. Hierarchy - sequential arrangement of ranks from the lowest to the highest in the order of their subordination. This principle underlay medieval ideas about the structure of the "heavenly world" and the earthly world. In the medieval picture of the world, the central place was occupied by social groups that were a reflection of the Heavenly Throne, where angelic beings made up a hierarchy of "nine angelic members" grouped into a triad, which corresponded to the three main classes of feudal society: clergy, chivalry, people. Each of them had its own hierarchical division.

In accordance with this, a certain order was established in the God-established world, where each estate was assigned not only public functions, but also sacred duties.

The lot of the clergy, which was considered the first estate, were all the concerns associated with spiritual life (heavenly affairs). Chivalry decided state affairs (earthly): the maintenance of faith and the church, the protection of the people. The Lord commanded the third estate, that is, the people, to work, ensuring the existence of all. In this regard, the Christian model of a person was transformed into estate ideals, each of which had its own traits destined from above.

Closest of all to the Christian ideal of a person was a model that developed among the clergy and especially monasticism and professed asceticism. Asceticism- a religious and ethical doctrine that preaches the rejection of life's blessings and pleasures in order to achieve moral perfection, serving God. Monasticism begins in the 4th century. in the east of the Roman Empire and is most strongly developed in the early Middle Ages. The monastic idea of ​​collective asceticism put forward by Basil the Great (an organizer of the church, a great theologian) assumed a "way of life according to the Gospel", when the spiritual achievements of one monk were to help others in their joint service to God. Basil derived the rules of monastic life from this understanding of the monastic community. They consisted in obedience and obedience to the abbot, celibacy, asceticism, repeated daily prayers, reading the Holy Scriptures and represented a sacrificial way of serving God and spiritual perfection.

In the West, monasticism appears somewhat later. Its founder was Benedict, who founded in the VI century. The Benedictine order, which was a centralized association of the monastery with a single charter and strict discipline. Constant wars, epidemics, crop failures, which led to famine and great loss of life, focused the attention of the Benedictine monks on the need to revive the early Christian high appreciation of physical labor and poverty. Under these conditions, Benedict demanded that the monastic community fully provide itself with everything necessary and help the laity, setting an example of Christian mercy. Without ignoring and even less rejecting the traditions of Eastern monasticism, Benedict nevertheless abandoned its excessive asceticism and created more moderate and balanced norms for the behavior of monks and their spiritual life.

Unlike Benedict, who did not include education among the Christian virtues, Flavius ​​Cassiodorus believed that the success of Christians depends on understanding the scientific works of ancient authors. His monastery played a huge role in the formation of medieval culture, bringing to the fore not physical labor, but intellectual labor, which the monks considered important to combine with the "pure" Christian life. It was in the monastery of Flavius ​​Cassiodorus that the traditional structure of the monastery was formed as an educational center, which necessarily consisted of a library (book depository), a book workshop, where they were engaged in the production of new lists of books for themselves and for sale, and the school.

Despite the destruction of traditional centers of culture, during the period of the great migration of peoples, they still survived for some time, being large centers, residences of barbarian kings and bishops. When the barbarian tribes united into states and adopted the Christian religion, their art, like their social order, could not remain the same. They began to build churches - small, crude, but still adopting the plan of Roman basilicas. Naturally, impoverishment manifested itself in everything. Wood became the main building material. Stone buildings, if erected, were small, and the material was taken from the ruins of ancient buildings. The decor hid the technical imperfection of the buildings. The art of stone hewing, carving and making three-dimensional sculptures have almost completely disappeared. The barbarians had their own art, typical of the late tribal system - ornamental applied art. It was the time of the triumph of small art forms, the so-called "animal style". His masterpieces, due to their fragility, for the most part have not come down to us. Only rare brooches, buckles, heads of sword handles testify to the level of cultural development of that time. The barbarians preferred mosaics, items made of ivory and precious metals, expensive fabrics, because they could be stored in palaces, temples, and then buried in tombs along with the owner. The collapse of the ties of the ancient world returned most of the West to a primitive state, which is characteristic of traditional rural civilizations of almost prehistoric times, albeit with a slight touch of Christianity.

The cultural centers of the early Middle Ages were the castle and the monastery. In the spiritual culture of the Middle Ages, the main role belongs to the Christian religion. Christianity legitimized dualism: the Gods left Olympus - they became spiritual beings, free from the bonds of the flesh. The Middle Ages was inherent dualism - duality, the interaction of two principles: the material and the ideal, the reflection of which was the activity of the castle and the monastery.

The castle provided almost all aspects of the life of a medieval person, he acted as an administrative and military center. The city in the early Middle Ages played a subordinate role. Behind the high walls of castles, human life continued, full of ordinary human concerns.

The monasteries were the largest cultural centers of the early medieval civilization, and the monasteries were rural, isolated from the dying cities. In their workshops, the monasteries preserved the old crafts and arts, and in libraries they maintained intellectual culture. They had a great power of attraction and influence on society, being a kind of monopoly on culture. The predominance of monasteries testifies to the immaturity of Western civilization in the early Middle Ages. It was still the civilization of individual centers of culture, the civilization of a rural society, which was barely touched by monastic culture. During this period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. it was she who gave barbarian society the rudiments of knowledge, retaining what little of the ancient thought that remained to her as a legacy from previous civilizations. The monasteries preserved Latin, the language of antiquity.

Great merit in this belonged to the learned men of the church during the period of the "Ostrogothic Renaissance" in the 5th-7th centuries. Thus, Boethius (480-534) preserved for the medieval West the "Logic" of Aristotle and those categories that formed the basis of scholasticism, and he is called the "father of scholasticism." Scholasticism - the dominant direction of medieval philosophy, the purpose of which was to justify church dogmas with the help of speculative, formal arguments. Thanks to Boethius, an exceptionally high place was given to music in medieval culture. Cassiodorus (480-573) provided the foundations for the Latin rhetoric used in Christian literature and pedagogy, preserving many of the ancient texts that were copied under his personal instruction. Issidor of Seville (560-636) conveyed to the monks a passion for encyclopedic knowledge, compiling the scientific dictionary "Etymology" - a kind of program of the "seven free arts", which affirmed the need for secular culture to comprehend the Holy Scriptures. The cities of Ostrogothic Italy continued the traditions of ancient art. Especially shone the capital - Ravenna, where temples, mausoleums, amphitheaters were built. The main form of art was mosaic (temple of San Vitale).

Mention should be made of Bede the Venerable (672-735), who developed the church chronology, developed astronomy, and created cosmography.

Early monastic medieval culture largely determined the so-called " Carolingian revival"At the end of the 8th - beginning of the 9th centuries, the first signs of cultural revival appeared. The formation of the vast state of the Carolingians required an increase in the number of literate people. New schools for the laity were established at the monasteries, ancient texts were distributed, wooden palaces and temples were built in imitation of late Roman models. At the court Charlemagne, from educated clerics, a school arose, solemnly called the "Academy", in which a narrow circle of people was engaged in "free sciences" - exercises in rhetoric, grammar, dialectics.The Anglo-Saxon monk Alcuin led the Academy.

And although the Carolingian Renaissance was not innovative and deep, it became a kind of stage in the formation of the intellectual potential of the medieval West. It conveyed to medieval people a craving for humanistic culture, enlightenment, left a legacy of miniature masterpieces, with their desire for realism, freedom of line and brightness of color. In essence, the Carolingian Renaissance was the first manifestation of a long and profound process of the formation of Western civilization during the 10th-14th centuries.

The cultural life of European society was largely determined by Christianity, which in 313 AD. e. becomes the state religion in Rome.

In the East, in Byzantium, the Christian Church was essentially dependent on strong imperial power. Byzantine emperors from the 5th c. played an important role in church life itself: even the right to convene church councils belonged to the emperor, who himself determined the composition of the participants and approved their decisions. In the West, the church not only did not submit to the state to such an extent, but, on the contrary, occupied a special position. Roman bishops, from the 4th c. called popes, assumed political functions.

Contradictions existed between the Western and Eastern Churches and with the passage of time deepened, taking on an increasingly fundamental character. The final break occurred in 1054, when the churches openly declared complete independence from each other. From that time on, the Western Church calls itself Roman Catholic, and the Eastern Church calls itself Greek Catholic, that is, Orthodox.

The feeling of the unity of the Christian world nevertheless continued to be preserved in the psychology of people until the 11th century, although the difference in socio-economic, political, and cultural traditions further separated the Orthodox East (Byzantium) and the Catholic West. By the time of the Crusades, both no longer understood each other, especially Westerners, of whom even the most learned did not know the Greek language. Misunderstanding grew into hatred, which was, in essence, a reaction of the militant and poor barbarism of the West to the wealth of the civilized Byzantine society.

Byzantium, with its somewhat different fusion of socio-cultural development, was in the Middle Ages for a Westerner the source of almost all the riches and wonders of the fabulous East. From there came luxurious fabrics, a full-fledged gold coin, and Western theologians sometimes discovered Greek theology with admiration and gratitude.

It was not just a conflict between two faiths. In essence, two phenomena, two cultural traditions, have developed in the Christian world, which to a large extent determined the historical destinies of the peoples of Western and Eastern Europe. At the same time, the barbarized Christian world of the West, which in many respects started all over again, was able to quickly adapt to the realities of the time, the economic and political changes that were taking place in Western Europe. In the East (Byzantium), where there was no such a deep cultural break as in the West, a closer connection with the cultural heritage of the past was preserved, which predetermined a certain conservation of social and cultural life, its slower and more contradictory evolution.

CULTURE OF MEDIEVAL WESTERN EUROPE”.

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THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURES OF MEDIEVAL CULTURE

The medieval era covers more than a thousand years of feudal domination, which replaced the Greco-Roman slave-owning civilization. With the birth of medieval society, new territories and peoples entered history, no longer limited to the Mediterranean and adjacent regions.

The Western European cultural type was formed on the basis of the synthesis of the ancient heritage, Christianity and the spiritual development of the Germanic tribes. Christianity played the main role in the formation and development of medieval culture.

The term " middle Ages"Introduced into use by the Italian humanists of the Renaissance (XV century). They called the Middle Ages the era separating them. New time, from classical antiquity. Since then, the division of world history into ancient, middle and new has become firmly established in historical science.

The assessment of medieval culture by Italian humanists was generally negative: they considered the Middle Ages to be “dark centuries”, “dark night of Christianity”, a break in the development of culture, etc. Nevertheless, while stating the fact of the largely negative role of the church in the Middle Ages, one should not forget that the medieval era laid the foundations of the cultural community of Europe, that modern European languages ​​​​were formed at that time, new states arose, new lands were discovered, printing was invented and much more. And if in ancient Greece and Rome many outstanding discoveries and brilliant guesses of Greek and Roman scientists were not used (because cheap slave labor made the use of machines and mechanisms unnecessary), then the Middle Ages began with the widespread use of water wheels and windmills.

Medieval culture had a number of distinctive features: it is symbolism and allegory(allegory), craving for generalization, universalism, anonymity most works of art, etc.

The most important feature of medieval culture is its theocentrism, the dominance of a religious worldview, which was based on Christian theology. The medieval worldview was based on the idea of duality of the world, which, according to theological views, was divided into visible, tangible, perceived by human feelings earthly world and peace of heaven, ideal, otherworldly, existing in our imagination. At the same time, the highest, heavenly, " mountainous"the world, but earthly existence (" down world”) was considered only as a reflection of the existence of the heavenly world. From the doctrine of the dualism of the world came symbolism medieval art: only symbols were taken into account, i.e. hidden meaning of real objects and phenomena.

Just as the world is divided into two parts, so in a person, from the point of view of Christianity, there are two principles - the body and the soul. Of course, the soul takes precedence over the body, called the "dungeon of the soul." Therefore, in the Middle Ages, pacification of the flesh was considered the highest virtue, and the ideal of a person was monks and ascetics who voluntarily renounced worldly goods.

The dominance of the religious worldview in the Middle Ages predetermined the features of medieval art. Almost all of his creations served a religious cult, reproducing images not of the real, but of the other world, using the language of symbols and allegories. Unlike ancient art, medieval art almost did not express the joy of earthly existence, but disposed to contemplation, deep reflection and prayer. He was not interested in a detailed, concrete image of space or a person: after all, only the “higher” world seemed truly real, true. Therefore, the art of the Middle Ages conveyed only the typical, the general, and not the individual and unique.

The dominant role of the church in the Middle Ages led to the fact that the most common and popular genre of medieval literature (especially in the early Middle Ages) were lives of the saints; the most typical example of architecture was the cathedral; the most widespread genre of painting - icon, and favorite images of sculpture - Scripture characters.

The influence of religion and the Christian church was especially strong in the first centuries of the Middle Ages. But with the strengthening of secular tendencies in culture, secular genres of literature, theater, urban culture, developing scientific knowledge, etc., gradually got out of the control of the church.

Historians divide the medieval era into three stages corresponding to the stages of formation, flourishing and decline of feudalism. So, 5th-10th century cover the period early medieval when a new feudal Europe was born on the ruins of the Western Roman Empire. Massive invasions of various tribes (Celts, Germans, Slavs, Huns, etc.) into Roman territory (this process was called the Great Migration of Nations) led to the formation of the so-called barbarian kingdoms in Europe: Visigothic - in Spain, Ostrogothic - in Italy, Frankish - in Gaul, etc. During this period, there was a significant economic, political and cultural decline associated with endless wars and the destruction that accompanied them.

From the end of the tenth century in Western Europe, a period of rapid development begins, affecting a variety of areas: economic, technological, political, social, religious, artistic, etc. The barbarian kingdoms are replaced by strong national states - France, England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, - in which medieval culture is experiencing its heyday. The rise of cultural life found expression in the emergence and flourishing of new architectural styles - romanesque and gothic, in development secular schools and universities, in a broad intellectual movement and the spread of education, in the heyday of literature and medieval scholasticism (school science).

THE BIRTH OF MEDIEVAL CULTURE was the result of the meeting of antiquity and the barbarian world:

1. The most important source of the culture of the early Middle Ages was the ancient heritage, which was assimilated and creatively processed in the 5th-10th centuries. played an important role in the development of medieval culture Latin, which has retained its significance as the language of the church, state office work, international communication, science and scholarship. Interacting with a variety of local dialects (Germanic, Celtic, etc.), the Latin language soon became unlike itself and at the same time became the basis for the development of European national languages. The Latin alphabet was also adopted by non-Romanized peoples. Latin was not only the language of learning, but also the only language taught. In the Middle Ages, "ability to read" meant "ability to read Latin". On the other hand, in the early Middle Ages, a mass of local folk dialects and languages ​​continued to exist. Latin in the Middle Ages was sacred language, the guarantor of the unity of faith. In view of the dominant position of Latin at the early stage of the Middle Ages, historians often refer to this era as " Latin Middle Ages". Everywhere, the entire Middle Ages passed in the conditions of the coexistence of two languages ​​- local and Latin.

In the process of assimilation of the cultural heritage of antiquity, the most important role was played by rhetoric. In ancient Rome, it was both part of education and an integral element of the Roman way of life. In the Middle Ages, rhetorical culture retained its significance and significantly influenced the appearance of medieval culture.

A great influence on the culture of the early Middle Ages was also Roman education system, which survived until the 7th century. The Middle Ages adopted such an important element of it as the system " seven free arts» -septem artes liberates, a compulsory set of school disciplines, which included grammar, dialectics (logic), rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. But if in the Roman rhetorical school the audience was rather narrow and consisted of elected members of Roman society, then in the early Middle Ages, peasants, townspeople, knights, and clerics began to be admitted to schools. Nevertheless, the old Roman classical education turned out to be unnecessary in the Middle Ages. Therefore, the ancient school was replaced by a new one - monastic, or episcopal school(the latter studied the "seven liberal arts"). In the early Middle Ages, the quality of education was low, because. the content of the items was as close as possible to the needs of the church. So, rhetoric regarded as the art of composing sermons, dialectics- how to have a conversation astronomy was reduced to the ability to use the calendar and calculate the dates of Christian holidays. Each student of the school was supposed to know chants and prayers, the main events of sacred history and several quotations from the Bible. Thus, the education system in the early Middle Ages was quite primitive and had a utilitarian character.

2. Another important source of culture of the Middle Ages was spiritual life of the barbarian tribes, their folklore, art, customs, features of the worldview. Although our knowledge of barbarian culture is very limited, we are quite knowledgeable, for example, about folding heroic epic peoples of Western and Northern Europe (Old German, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Irish). The remnants of pre-Christian mythology and cults lived in the popular consciousness, which penetrated even into church art. Folklore, one of the components of medieval culture, which gave rise to both folk poetry and fairy tales, became the basis of the heroic epic.

Artistic creativity of the barbarians represented mainly by items applied arts. These are richly decorated weapons, cult and ritual utensils, various brooches, buckles, fasteners and household items, indicating a highly developed technique for processing metals, leather and other materials. In barbarian works of art, preference was always given to ornament.

Ideas about powerful Germanic and Celtic gods, heroes and their fight against evil forces gave rise to bizarre ornaments of the so-called "animal" style, in which images of fantastic animals were woven into intricate patterns. The "animal" style was subsequently widely used in applied art and in Romanesque architecture. Images of Irish sagas (epics), Celtic pagan symbols, found even in images of saints, penetrated into the early medieval Irish and English miniatures. And the construction technique of the barbarian tribes, embodied in wooden architecture, was the glory of the Burgundian and Norman carpenters.

Similar information.

MOSCOW OPEN SOCIAL UNIVERSITY

FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACULTY

ESSAY

Theme: Culture of the Middle Ages

Completed by a 2nd year student:

Bondareva L.V.

Supervisor:

Professor Semin V.P.

MOSCOW 2007

Introduction.

1. Early Middle Ages.

2. High (classical) Middle Ages.

2.1 The birth of “urban culture”.

2.2 Sermons as a layer of folk culture.

3. Late Middle Ages.

Conclusion.

Bibliography.

Introduction.

Culturologists call the Middle Ages a long period in the history of Western Europe between Antiquity and New Time. This period covers more than a millennium from the 5th to the 15th centuries.

Within the millennium, it is customary to distinguish at least three periods: the Early Middle Ages, from the beginning of the era to 900 or 1000 years (up to the 10th - 11th centuries);

High (Classical) Middle Ages - from the X-XI centuries to about the XIV century;

Late Middle Ages, XIV-XV centuries.

Some authors in the context of the Middle Ages also consider the so-called transitional period from the Middle Ages to the New Age (XVI-XVII centuries), however, it seems more reasonable to consider the period of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation as a separate period of history and culture, which had a great influence on the further formation of the cultural consciousness of the masses .

The folk culture of this era is a new and almost unexplored topic in science. The ideologists of feudal society managed not only to push the people away from the means of fixing their thoughts and moods, but also to deprive researchers of subsequent times of the opportunity to restore the main features of their spiritual life. “Great mute”, “great absent”, “people without archives and without faces” - this is how modern historians call the people in an era when direct access to the means of written fixation of cultural values ​​was closed to them.

The folk culture of the Middle Ages was unlucky in science. Usually when

they talk about it, mention, at the most, the remains of the ancient world and the epic, the remnants of paganism. In those relatively rare cases when a modern specialist turns to the folk religiosity of the Middle Ages, he does not find other characteristics for it such as “naive”, “primitive”, “uncouth”, “rough”, “superficial”, “paralogical”, “childish ”; it is the religion of the “people-child”, filled with superstition and oriented towards the fabulous and fabulous.

The criteria for such value judgments are taken from the "high" religion of the enlightened, and it is from their position that they judge the consciousness and emotional life of common people, without setting themselves the task of examining it "from the inside", guided by its own logic.

Early Middle Ages.

The early Middle Ages was a time when turbulent and very important processes took place in Europe, such as the invasion of the barbarians, which ended with the fall of the Roman Empire. Barbarians settled on the lands of the former empire, assimilated with its population, creating a new community of Western Europe.

At the same time, the new Western Europeans, as a rule, adopted Christianity, which by the end of the existence of Rome became its state religion. Christianity in its various forms supplanted pagan beliefs, and this process only accelerated after the fall of the empire. This is the second most important historical process that determined the face of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe.

The third significant process was the formation on the territory of the former Roman Empire of new state formations created by the same “barbarians”. Tribal leaders proclaimed themselves kings, dukes, counts, constantly at war with each other and subjugating weaker neighbors. A characteristic feature of life in the early Middle Ages was constant wars, robberies and raids, which significantly slowed down economic and cultural development.

In the period of the early Middle Ages, the ideological positions of the feudal lords and peasants had not yet taken shape, and the peasantry, which was only being born as a special class of society, in terms of worldview was dissolved in broader and more indefinite layers.

The bulk of the population of Europe at that time were rural residents, whose lifestyle was completely subordinated to routine, and their horizons were extremely limited. Conservatism is an integral feature of this environment.

The peasantry and its life are almost not reflected at all in the social picture of the world, as it was thought at that time, and this fact in itself is very symptomatic. Society, agrarian in nature, built on the exploitation and subjugation of large sections of the rural population, as if allowed itself to ideologically ignore its own majority.

A paradox: the common people, above all the peasantry, despised and ignored by the ruling class, at the same time, in a certain sense, dominated the spiritual life of the early Middle Ages. Rural life, with its unhurried regularity and periodic change of production seasons, was the main regulator of the social rhythm of society (, p. 63)

2. High (classical) Middle Ages.

During the classical or high Middle Ages, Western Europe began to overcome difficulties and revive. Since the 10th century, state structures have been enlarged, which made it possible to raise larger armies and, to some extent, to stop raids and robberies. Missionaries brought Christianity to the countries of Scandinavia, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, so that these states also entered the orbit of Western culture.

The relative stability that followed made it possible for cities and the economy to rapidly expand. Life began to change for the better, the cities flourished their own culture and spiritual life. A big role in this was played by the same church, which also developed, improved its teaching and organization.

On the basis of the artistic traditions of ancient Rome and the former barbarian tribes, Romanesque, and later brilliant Gothic art arose, and not only architecture and literature developed, but also other types of art - painting, theater, music, sculpture ... It was during this era that masterpieces were created Literature "Song of Roland", "The Romance of the Rose".

The so-called chivalric literature arises and develops. One of the most famous works - the greatest monument of the French folk heroic epic - "The Song of Roland". In the XII century. chivalric novels appear. Among the most popular was a verse novel about the British King Arthur.

An important monument of German folk literature of the 12th-13th centuries is the “Song of the Nibelungs”, which tells about the invasion of the Huns on the Burgundian kingdom at the beginning of the 5th century. The Nibelungenlied is based on ancient German legends.

A significant phenomenon in the literature of France in the 12th-13th centuries was the vagantes and their poetry. Vagantes (from lat. vagantes - wandering) were called wandering poets. A feature of their work was the constant criticism of the Catholic Church and the clergy for greed, hypocrisy and ignorance. The Church, in turn, persecuted the Vagantes.

The most important monument of English literature of the 13th century is the famous "Ballads of Robin Hood", which to this day remains one of the most famous heroes of world literature.

2.1 The birth of “urban culture”.

During this period, the so-called “urban literature” was rapidly developing, which was characterized by a realistic depiction of urban everyday life of various segments of the urban population, as well as the appearance of satirical works. Representatives of urban literature in Italy were Cecco Angiolieri, Guido Orlandi (end of the 13th century).

The development of urban literature testified to a new phenomenon in the cultural life of Western European society - urban culture, which played a very important role in the development of Western civilization as a whole. The essence of urban culture was reduced to the constant strengthening of secular elements in all spheres of human existence.

Urban culture originated in France in the 11th-12th centuries. During this period, it was represented, in particular, by the work of “jugglers”, who performed in city squares as actors, acrobats, animal trainers, musicians and singers. They performed at fairs, folk festivals, weddings, christenings, etc. and were very popular with the people.

From about the middle of the 12th century, theatrical actions moved from under the church vaults to the square, and the actions were no longer played in Latin, but in French. The role of actors is no longer the clergy, but the townspeople, the plots of the plays become more and more secular, until they turn into scenes from everyday city life, often flavored with a good portion of satire. At the same time, theatrical art was developing in England.

A new and extremely important phenomenon, testifying to the deepening of the process of development of urban culture, was the creation of non-church schools in the cities - these were private schools that were not financially dependent on the church. The teachers of these schools lived on the light of fees levied on students and anyone who could afford to pay for education could educate their children in them. Since that time, there has been a rapid spread of literacy among the urban population.

2.2 Sermons as a layer of folk culture.

The European medieval society was very religious and the power of the clergy over the minds was extremely great. The teaching of the church was the starting point of all thinking, all sciences - jurisprudence, natural science, philosophy, logic - everything was brought into line with Christianity. The clergy were the only educated class, and it was the church that for a long time determined the policy in the field of education. The entire cultural life of European society of this period was largely determined by Christianity.

An important layer in the formation of folk culture during the classical Middle Ages was sermons.

The bulk of society remained illiterate. In order for the thoughts of the social and spiritual elite to become the dominant thoughts of all parishioners, they had to be “translated” into a language accessible to all people. This is what the preachers did. Parish priests, monks, missionaries had to explain to the people the basic provisions of theology, instill the principles of Christian behavior and eradicate the wrong way of thinking.

The sermon assumed as its listener any person - literate and illiterate, noble and commoner, city dweller and peasant, rich and poor.

The most famous preachers structured their sermons in such a way as to hold the attention of the public for a long time and convey to it the ideas of church teaching in the form of simple examples.

Some used for this the so-called "examples" (exempla) - short stories written in the form of parables on everyday topics.

These “examples” are one of the early literary genres and are of particular interest for a more complete understanding of the worldview of ordinary believers. "Example" was one of the most effective means of didactic influence on parishioners.

In these “cases from life”, the original world of medieval man is visible, with his ideas about saints and evil spirits as real participants in a person’s daily life.

However, the most famous preachers, such as Berthold of Regenburg (XIII century), did not use "Examples" in their sermons, building them mainly on biblical texts. This preacher built his sermons in the form of dialogues, addressed appeals and statements to a certain part of the audience or professional categories. He widely used the method of enumeration, riddles and other techniques that made his sermons small performances. (, p. 265)

The ministers of the church, as a rule, did not introduce any original ideas and statements into their sermons, this was not expected of them, and the parishioners would be unable to appreciate this. The audience received satisfaction just from listening to familiar and well-known things.

3. Late Middle Ages.

The late Middle Ages continued the processes of formation of European culture, which began in the period of the classics. However, their course was far from smooth. In the XIV-XV centuries, Western Europe repeatedly experienced a great famine. Numerous epidemics, especially plagues, brought innumerable human casualties. The development of culture was greatly slowed down by the Hundred Years War.

During these periods, uncertainty and fear dominated the masses. The economic upswing is replaced by long periods of recession and stagnation. In the masses, complexes of fear of death and the afterlife were intensified, fears of evil spirits were intensifying.

At the end of the Middle Ages, in the minds of the common people, Satan is transformed from, in general, not a terrible and sometimes funny devil into an omnipotent ruler of the dark forces, who at the end of earthly history will act as the Antichrist.

Another reason for fears is hunger, as a result of low yields and several years of droughts.

The sources of fear are best highlighted in the prayer of a peasant of that time: “Deliver us, Lord, from plague, famine and war.” (, p. 330)

The dominance of oral culture has powerfully contributed to the multiplication of superstitions, fears and collective panics.

However, in the end, the cities were reborn, people who survived pestilence and war got the opportunity to arrange their lives better than in previous eras. Conditions arose for a new upsurge in spiritual life, science, philosophy, and art. This rise necessarily led to the so-called Renaissance or Renaissance.

Conclusion.

So. now you can draw a conclusion on my essay which is called "Culture of the Middle Ages". It can be seen from the work that since in the Middle Ages, a complex of ideas about the world, beliefs, mental attitudes and a system of behavior, which could conditionally be called “folk culture” or “folk religiosity”, in one way or another was the property of all members of society (, p. 356 ).

The thinking of the Middle Ages was predominantly theological.

The medieval church, wary and suspicious of the customs, faith and religious practices of the common people, experienced their influence. As an example, one can cite the sanctioning by the church of the cult of saints in its popular interpretation.

The magical approach to nature extended to Christian rites, belief in miracles was ubiquitous.

The entire cultural life of European society of this period was largely determined by Christianity.

The European medieval society was very religious and the power of the clergy over the minds was extremely great. The teaching of the church was the starting point of all thinking, all sciences - jurisprudence, natural science, philosophy, logic - everything was brought into line with Christianity. The higher clergy were the only educated class, but the medieval European, including the upper strata of society, was illiterate. The level of literacy even of priests in parishes was appallingly low. Only towards the end of the 15th century did the church realize the need to have educated personnel and began to open theological seminaries.

Mass mediaeval culture is a bookless, “pre-Gutenberg” culture. She relied not on the printed word, but on oral sermons and exhortations. It existed through the mind of an illiterate person. It was a culture of prayers, fairy tales, myths and magic spells. The "translation" of the thoughts of the social and spiritual elite into a language accessible to all people was sermons, which represent a significant layer of medieval culture. Parish priests, monks, missionaries had to explain to the people the basic provisions of theology, instill the principles of Christian behavior and eradicate the wrong way of thinking. A special literature was created that popularly expounded the foundations of Christian teaching, giving the flock models to follow. This literature was mainly intended for priests to use in their daily activities.

Medieval Test >> Culture and art

Formation medieval culture………………3 Stages in development medieval European culture…………………………………………………………………3 Christianity is the core culture Middle Ages……………………..…………………………………4 Literature and art Middle Ages…………….4-6 Romance...

Middle Ages - this is a unique period in the history of Europe and all mankind, the origin of which is associated with a powerful psychological shock caused by the fall of the "eternal city" - Rome. The empire, which seemed to stretch through space and time, presented to contemporaries as the embodiment of civilization, culture and prosperity, at one moment sank into oblivion. It seemed that the very foundations of the universe collapsed, even the barbarians, who undermined the foundations of the empire with their incessant raids, refused to believe in what had happened: it is known that many barbarian kingdoms, but inertia, continued to mint Roman coins for many years and even decades after the fall of Rome, not wanting to recognize the collapse of the empire . The following centuries were marked by attempts to revive the former greatness of the vanished power - perhaps it is from this point of view that states that claimed to be a great power (of course, in the limited sense in which it is applicable to the Middle Ages), "pan-European" status should be considered: an empire Charlemagne (the creation of which culturally entailed a short period of the Carolingian Renaissance of the late VIII - the first half of the IX centuries) and, in part, the Holy Roman Empire.

The man of the Middle Ages, having ceased to focus on ancient culture and civilization - that bright torch that shone for him through the ages - began to perceive the world as the focus of chaos, as the domination of hostile forces, and that is why, trying to protect himself and his loved ones from the surrounding nightmare, he turned his eyes to religion, to zealous service to the Lord, which seemed to be the only salvation from the misfortunes of the new world. Could it be otherwise? How not to believe in the wrath of higher powers punishing mankind, if the whole surrounding reality literally collapsed before our eyes: a sharp cold snap, constant raids by barbarians, the Great Migration of Nations, devastating epidemics of plague, cholera and smallpox; the capture of the Holy Sepulcher by "infidels"; the constant and ever-increasing fear of attack from the Moors, Vikings (Normans), and later the Mongols and Turks ... All this made the medieval man zealously and earnestly believe, giving all of himself, his entire personality, to the power of the church, the papacy and the Holy Inquisition, going on distant and dangerous Crusades or joining numerous monastic and knightly orders.

The Great Migration of Peoples is the conventional name for the totality of ethnic movements in Europe in the 4th-7th centuries. Germans, Slavs, Sarmatians and other tribes on the territory of the Roman Empire.

(Big Encyclopedic Dictionary)

The feeling of vulnerability often bordered on mass psychosis, skillfully used for their own purposes by the feudal lords and the church - and it is no coincidence that gold from all over Europe flowed in broad streams to papal Rome, allowing it to maintain a perfectly streamlined bureaucratic and diplomatic apparatus, which for many centuries was a model of both efficiency and deceit. The papacy fearlessly challenged secular authorities (for example, fighting it for church investiture - the right to independently appoint and ordain bishops and other representatives of the clergy and spiritual hierarchs) - and in this matter it had someone to rely on: numerous feudal knights who perceived themselves united by a common pan-European class and proudly bearing the title of "army of Christ", with much greater pleasure obeyed the distant Pope than their own kings. In addition, numerous monastic (Benedictines, Carmelites, Franciscans, Augustinians, etc.) and spiritual knights (for example, Hospitallers and Templars) orders were a reliable support for the papal throne, concentrating in their hands significant material and intellectual resources, which allowed them to become genuine centers of medieval culture and education. It is also important to note that for a significant part of the Middle Ages, it was the Church that was the largest landowner and feudal lord, which, in combination with church taxes (for example, church tithes), served as a solid basis for the financial well-being of spiritual power.

The cumulative effect of the above factors largely determined such a historical and cultural phenomenon of the European Middle Ages as the dominance of spiritual power over secular power, which lasted for more than two centuries: from the end of the 11th to the beginning of the 14th centuries. And a vivid embodiment of this superiority of spiritual power was the infamous “humiliation at Canossa”, when the omnipotent Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in 1077 was forced to humbly and repentantly kiss the hand of Pope Gregory VII, humbly begging for saving forgiveness. Subsequently, the balance of power changed, and secular power took a convincing revenge for its own humiliations (recall, for example, the historical episode known as the Avignon captivity of the popes), but the confrontation between the church and the kings was not completed until the end of the Middle Ages, thus becoming the most important distinguishing feature of the era in question.

The basis of the socio-economic and hierarchical structure of medieval European society was feudalism. Subsistence farming and the rupture of ancient trade and economic ties turned the feudal castle into a closed and completely independent economic system that did not need the supreme royal power at all. It was on this basis that feudal fragmentation was formed, breaking up the previously relatively monolithic map of the European region, which consisted of large barbarian kingdoms, into a great many tiny and absolutely independent feudal units, intertwined with each other by hundreds of dynastic threads and vassal-seignial ties. Serfdom and the personal dependence of peasants on the feudal lord strengthened the economic well-being and independence of knightly castles and at the same time doomed poor, half-starved peasants to a powerless, miserable existence. The church did not lag behind in greed - it is enough to mention that it was one of the largest feudal lords of the Middle Ages, concentrating innumerable wealth in its hands.

Feudalism is a specific socio-political economic structure, traditional for the European Middle Ages and characterized by the presence of two social classes - feudal lords (landowners) and peasants economically dependent on them.

Over the centuries, feudalism became more and more a brake on the socio-economic development of Europe, holding back the formation of bourgeois-capitalist relations, the growth of manufacturing production and the formation of a market for free labor and capital. The creation of powerful centralized states and vast colonial empires objectively contradicted the preservation of feudal rights and privileges, and in this regard, the late Middle Ages is a picture of the gradual strengthening of the king's power while simultaneously weakening the economic and political power of the feudal lords. However, these trends are still more characteristic of the Renaissance and the beginning of the New Age, while the Middle Ages are strongly associated with the unshakable domination of feudalism, subsistence farming and the vassal-seigneurial hierarchy.

Question for self-study

What is the phenomenon of medieval city law? What do you think is the role of the burghers, guilds and workshops in the evolution of the socio-economic structure of medieval European society?

European culture of the Middle Ages - just like

and other spheres of public life - bears a pronounced imprint of the dominance of a religious worldview (a clear evidence of which can be called the brilliant canvases of Hieronymus Bosch, a Dutch artist of a somewhat later era), in the depths of which not only medieval mysticism and scholasticism developed (a religious and philosophical trend characterized by a synthesis Christian dogmas with rationalistic elements and an interest in formal logical constructions in the spirit of Aristotle), but also the entire artistic culture of European civilization (Fig. 2.1).

Rice. 2.1.

The process of "secularization" of European culture and, in particular, philosophy, the tendency to strengthen its secular beginnings are characteristic exclusively for the era of the late Middle Ages, or the Proto-Renaissance, illuminated by the first rays of the Renaissance. It is no coincidence that the authoritative British mathematician and thinker Bertrand Russell in his "History of Western Philosophy" notes: "Up to the 14th century, churchmen had a true monopoly in the field of philosophy, and philosophy was accordingly written from the point of view of the church."

Moreover, almost all the major thinkers of the Middle Ages came from the clergy and, quite logically, built their own philosophical doctrines in strict accordance with the religious, theological worldview. In this context, the most prominent theologians who made a huge contribution to the development of medieval philosophical thought should be singled out: Blessed Augustine (who, although he lived in the 4th - first half of the 5th centuries, that is, even in the period of Antiquity, before the fall of Rome, however, in spirit can rightly be classified as a medieval thinker), Boethius, John Scotus Eriugena, Meister Eckhart, Pierre

Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Marsilius of Padua, William of Occam and Jean Buridan.

The Middle Ages is characterized by a successive change of two artistic styles represented in sculpture, painting, arts and crafts and even fashion, but most clearly manifested itself in architecture: Romanesque and Gothic. Perhaps, if the Romanesque style, which combined ancient artistic forms with some later elements, was primarily a tribute to a bygone great era, then Gothic, with its aspiration upwards and amazing geometry of space, can be called a true artistic symbol of medieval Europe (Fig. 2.2) .

Romanesque style - the style of architecture and art of the early Middle Ages, characterized by the preservation of many of the main features of the Roman architectural style (round arches, barrel vaults, leaf-shaped ornaments) combined with a number of new artistic details.

Gothic is a period in the development of medieval art in Western, Central and partly Eastern Europe from the 11th-12th to the 15th-16th centuries, which replaced the Romanesque style.

Rice. 2.2. Gothic cathedral in Cologne (Germany). Date of construction: 1248

Medieval literature was also based predominantly on religious tradition and on mystical experience and worldview. At the same time, it is impossible not to mention the so-called chivalric literature, which reflected the spiritual culture and creative searches of the feudal class. In many ways, it is the romance of knightly tournaments, campaigns and the heroic epic, combined with love lyrics and the plot of the struggle for the heart of a beloved, that will subsequently form the basis of European romanticism of the New Age (Fig. 2.3.).

Rice. 2.3.

potion. 1867:

Tristan and Isolde are the heroes of a medieval chivalric romance of the 12th century, the original of which has not survived to this day. The love story of Tristan and Isolde had a huge impact on subsequent European literature and art.

Fairly speaking about the sharp drop in the cultural level of Europe during the Middle Ages, about the temporary loss of the vast majority of the ancient heritage, about the attenuation of the formerly great centers of human civilization, one should not go to the other extreme and completely ignore the Europeans’ craving for the light of knowledge, for the realization of their inner creative freedom and creative potential. The most striking manifestation of this kind of tendencies can be called the appearance in the XI-XII centuries. the first European universities: Bologna (1088) (Fig. 2.4), Oxford (1096) and Paris (1160), and somewhat later, in the first quarter of the 13th century. - Cambridge (1209), Salamanca (1218), Padua (1222) and Neapolitan (1224).

Rice. 2.4.

Within the walls of universities, where all the intellectual life of the classical and late Middle Ages was concentrated, the so-called seven liberal arts, the tradition of studying which went back to Antiquity. The seven liberal arts were conventionally divided into two groups: trivium(grammar, logic (dialectics) and rhetoric, i.e. primary, basic humanitarian disciplines necessary to comprehend deeper knowledge) and quadrivium(arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music).

Thus, despite the general degradation of the socio-economic and cultural life, characteristic of the Middle Ages, life was still glimmering in the depths of European society. The ancient heritage was carefully preserved within the walls of monasteries and universities, and the brighter the dawn of the Renaissance, the bolder and more fearless creative forces showed themselves, ready to challenge the stagnant, obsolete feudal structure of society. The Middle Ages were drawing to a close, and Europe was preparing for the great hour of liberation. However, even from the standpoint of modernity, it seems impossible to fully answer the question of whether the phenomenon of the Middle Ages was an inevitable, natural stage in the evolution of European civilization, necessary for the successful assimilation of ancient experience, or whether it was, as Renaissance humanists believed, a period of comprehensive cultural and civilizational decline. when European society, having lost the guiding thread of reason, went astray from the path of development and progress.

• Subsequently, when the futility of hopes for the restoration of the former world order became more than obvious, and the need to adapt to new historical realities was more relevant than ever, the name of this interstate formation was changed to the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation.
• Vassalage - a medieval system of hierarchical relations between feudal lords, which consisted in the fact that the vassal received from his lord (suzerain) a feud (i.e. conditional land ownership or, much less often, a fixed income) and on this basis was obliged to bear certain duties in his favor, first of all, military service. Often, vassals transferred part of the land received from the overlord into the possession of their own vassals, as a result, the so-called feudal ladder arose, and in some countries (primarily in France) the principle was in effect: “The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal” .
• Russell B. History of Western Philosophy. pp. 384-385.