Scientists' statements about the cultural heritage of the European Middle Ages. Medieval culture of Western Europe: general characteristics. The main features of the culture of the Middle Ages
Federal Agency for Education
State educational institution of higher professional education "Ural State Economic University"
Distance Education Center
TEST
by discipline: " Culturology»
on the topic ( option):
"Culture of the European Middle Ages »
Executor:
student group: FK-08 SR
Shanova
Natalia Vladimirovna_
(Surname, name, patronymic of the student)
(signature)
Teacher:
__________________________
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Yekaterinburg 2008
Introduction …………………………………………………………………. ……………. …………… .3
Romanesque and Germanic beginnings of European medieval culture. The main periods of the Middle Ages ……………………………………………………………… ... 5
Feudalism and its influence on the human value world (subsistence economy, class hierarchy, urban and rural culture) .............................................. 9
Spiritual culture of the Middle Ages in the conditions of the omnipotence of the church (philosophy, science, heretical teachings and the struggle against them) ......................... ..................fourteen
Art of the Middle Ages: Romanesque and Gothic styles, literature, folklore, icon painting. Medieval cathedral as a model of the world ………………… ... ……………… 24
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………… ... 33
List of used literature ………………………………………………… .34
INTRODUCTION
Medieval European culture covers the period from the fall of the Roman Empire until the active formation of the Renaissance culture and divides the culture of the early period (V-XI centuries) and the culture of the classical Middle Ages (XII-XIV centuries). The emergence of the term "Middle Ages" is associated with the activities of the Italian humanists of the 15th-16th centuries, who, by introducing this term, sought to separate the culture of their era - the culture of the Renaissance - from the culture of previous eras. The era of the Middle Ages brought with it new economic relations, a new type of political system, as well as global changes in the worldview of people.
The entire culture of the early Middle Ages had a religious connotation. The images and interpretations of the Bible formed the basis of the medieval picture of the world. The starting point for explaining the world was the idea of a complete and unconditional opposition between God and nature, Heaven and Earth, soul and body. The man of the Middle Ages imagined and understood the world as an arena of confrontation between good and evil, as a kind of hierarchical system that includes God, angels, and people, and the otherworldly forces of darkness.
Along with the strong influence of the church, the consciousness of medieval man continued to be deeply magical. This was facilitated by the very nature of medieval culture, filled with prayers, fairy tales, myths, magic spells. In general, the history of medieval culture is the history of the struggle between church and state. The position and role of art in this era were complex and contradictory, but nevertheless, throughout the entire period of development of European medieval culture, there was a search for a semantic support for the spiritual community of people.
All classes of medieval society recognized the spiritual leadership of the church, but nevertheless, each of them developed his own special culture, in which he reflected his moods and ideals.
The purpose of this test is to study the culture of Western Europe in the Middle Ages.
To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:
Summarize the scientific literature on the culture of Western Europe in the Middle Ages
Consider the Romanesque and Germanic beginnings of European medieval culture. Identify the main periods of the Middle Ages.
Describe the influence of feudalism on the value world of man
Analyze the spiritual culture and art of the Middle Ages
1. ROMANIAN AND GERMAN BEGINNINGS OF EUROPEAN MEDIEVAL CULTURE. MAIN PERIODS OF THE MEDIEVAL
The Middle Ages is a period, the beginning of which coincided with the withering away of the Hellenic-classical, ancient culture, and the end - with its revival in modern times. The medieval culture is based on the traditions of the Western Roman Empire, representing the so-called "Romanesque". Principal in cultural heritage Rome are law, high legal culture; science, art, philosophy, Christianity.
These traditions were assimilated during the struggle of the Romans with the "barbarians" and actively influenced their own culture of the pagan tribal life of the Franks, Britons, Saxons, Jutes and other tribes of Western Europe, representing the so-called "Germanic origin" of medieval culture. As a result of the interaction of these principles, the tension of the "dialogue of cultures" arose, which gave a powerful impetus to the formation and development of Western European medieval culture proper.
The Roman Empire met the Germans with hostility and waged a long and stubborn struggle with them, protecting its traditional cultural and political foundations, its borders and provinces from the new faith and from new peoples. The barbarians were considered enemies of the "human race" imprisoned within the Roman Empire, they were considered enemies precisely by the defenders of education and civic consciousness of ancient origin.
The mutual relations between these principles, from which the entire Middle Ages emerged in the narrow sense of the word, at different times and by different historians were understood in different ways. In general, the transition from the ancient world to the Middle Ages has always attracted the special attention of historians, for whom this era of the great world-historical turning point, indeed, poses extremely important and at the same time difficult tasks of a scientific nature.
In different philosophical constructions of world history, this significant epoch of the death of the old and the birth of the new received very different illumination, moreover, one or the other beginning, that is, either Romanism or Germanism, was brought to the fore.
Dwelling on the relationship between the ancient and the barbaric principles, first of all, it should be noted that many historians too underestimated the significance of the first of these elements, the Roman, and, conversely, overestimated the significance of the second, Germanic. They were ready to deduce all the features of the medieval social and political system and even the general spirit of medieval culture from the principles brought with them by the Germans. Especially there is a tendency towards such an interpretation of the transition from the ancient world to the Middle Ages among the Germans, for a very understandable reason, however, which, however, hardly makes this interpretation sound.
The periodization of medieval culture is based on the stages of development of its socio-economic foundation - feudalism (its origin, development and crisis). Accordingly, the early Middle Ages - V-IX centuries, the mature (classical) Middle Ages - X-XIII centuries are distinguished. and later the Middle Ages - XIV-XV centuries.
The early Middle Ages (V-IX centuries) is a period of tragic, dramatic transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages proper. Christianity slowly entered the world of barbaric existence. The barbarians of the early Middle Ages carried a peculiar vision and sense of the world, based on the ancestral ties of a person and the community to which he belonged, the spirit of warlike energy, a sense of inseparability from nature. In the process of the formation of medieval culture, the most important task was the destruction of the "power thinking" of the mythological barbarian consciousness, the destruction of the ancient roots of the pagan cult of power.
The formation of early medieval culture is a complex, painful process of synthesis of Christian and barbarian traditions. The dramatic nature of this process was due to the opposite, multidirectional Christian value-thinking orientations and the barbaric consciousness based on "power thinking". Only gradually the main role in the emerging culture begins to belong to the Christian religion and the church.
The barbarian states that emerged in the 6th century - the Visigoths (Spain), the Franks (France), the Ostrogoths (Northern Italy), the Anglo-Saxon (England) - were weak and short-lived. The most noticeable phenomena in the culture of the 6th-first half of the 7th centuries. associated with the assimilation of the ancient heritage in Ostrogothic Italy and Visigothic Spain. Master of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric Severin Boethius (c. 480-524) became one of the revered medieval scholars. His works on music, arithmetic, theological works, translations of Aristotle, Euclid became the basis of medieval education and science.
Thus, the early Middle Ages, on the one hand, is an era of decline, barbarism, constant conquests, endless wars, a dramatic collision of pagan and Christian cultures, on the other hand, it is a time of gradual strengthening of Christianity, assimilation of the ancient heritage (even in this tragic period for Western Europe the ancient school tradition was not suppressed). At the end of the 6th and beginning of the 7th centuries. against the pagan wisdom the church came out sharply. However, ancient culture was quite strongly represented in the culture of the early Middle Ages. Interest in her especially increased during the so-called Carolingian Renaissance. At the court of Charlemagne (742-814), who restored the Western Roman Empire, the "Academy" was created following the example of the ancient one (whose members even called themselves Roman names). In the empire of Charlemagne, elementary schools were opened at monasteries. The Emperor's courtier, Flaccus, Albin Alcuin (c. 735-804) and his students collected antique manuscripts, were engaged in their restoration, doing a lot to preserve the ancient heritage for subsequent generations.
In the early Middle Ages, the first written "Histories" of the barbarians were created. In general, the early Middle Ages were characterized by progress in the development of culture, despite wars, raids, the conquest of some peoples by others, the seizure of territories, which significantly slowed down cultural development.
The abolition of slavery contributed to the development of technical inventions (already from the 6th century they began to use the energy of water).
It should be noted that, in general, the Middle Ages was characterized by the widespread use of technical inventions. In the XII century. a windmill appears using the force of the wind. In the XIII century. the steering wheel was invented. During the mature Middle Ages (XIV century), sluices with gates appeared, which made it possible to switch to the construction of canals and contributed to the development of trade relations, both external and internal.
The era of the mature Middle Ages (X-XIII centuries) begins with the time of "cultural silence", which lasted almost until the end of the X century. Endless wars, civil strife, political decline of the state led to the partition of the empire of Charlemagne (843) and laid the foundation for three states: France, Italy and Germany. In the XI century. an improvement in the economic situation in Europe, an increase in population, a decrease in hostilities led to an acceleration of the process of separating handicrafts from agriculture, which resulted in the growth of both new cities and their size. In the XII-XIII centuries. many cities are liberated from the rule of spiritual or secular feudal lords. Population growth, accompanied by food and land shortages, triggered the Crusades. They contributed to the acquaintance with the eastern, Muslim culture (Europe got to know the Arab world through Spain, which was captured by the Arabs). The Church, having reached the peak of its power in the struggle against the state in the XII-XIII centuries, gradually began to lose its positions in the struggle against the royal power. By the XIII century. the natural economy begins to collapse as a result of the development of commodity-money relations, the personal dependence of the peasants is weakened.
During the late Middle Ages (XIV-XV centuries), the personal dependence of the peasants ceased as a result of the development of the monetary economy in the countryside. The influence of the church on society is weakening. The influence of Christianity on consciousness is also weakening. The appearance of secular chivalric and urban literature, music, art destroyed the foundations of medieval culture. The social structure of medieval society gradually began to loosen up. A new class is emerging - the bourgeoisie.
The beginning process of decomposition of feudalism (the socio-economic basis of medieval culture), the weakening of the influence of Christianity caused a deep crisis of medieval culture, expressed primarily in the destruction of its integrity, accelerated the transition to a new, qualitatively different era - the era of the Renaissance, associated with the formation of a new, bourgeois type of society ...
2. FEUDALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE VALUABLE WORLD OF MAN (NATURAL ECONOMY, SOSLOVNAYA HIERARCHY, URBAN AND VILLAGE CULTURE)
The socio-political system, which was established in the Middle Ages in Europe, is commonly called feudalism in historical science. This word comes from the name of the land ownership, which the representative of the ruling class-estate received for military service. This property was called a feud. Not all historians believe that the term feudalism is apt, since the concept underlying it is incapable of expressing the specifics of Central European civilization. In addition, there was no consensus on the essence of feudalism. Some historians see it in a vassalage system, others in political fragmentation, and still others in a specific mode of production. Nevertheless, the concepts of the feudal system, the feudal lord, the feudal-dependent peasantry have become firmly established in historical science.
A characteristic feature of feudalism is feudal ownership of land. First, it was alienated from the main producer. Secondly, it was conditional, and thirdly, it was hierarchical. Fourthly, it was associated with political power. The alienation of the main producers from land ownership was manifested in the fact that the land plot on which the peasant worked was the property of large landowners - feudal lords. The peasant had it in use. For this he was obliged either to work in the master's field some days a week, or to pay a quitrent - in kind or in cash. Therefore, the exploitation of the peasants was of an economic nature. Non-economic coercion - the personal dependence of the peasants on the feudal lords - played the role of an additional means. This system of relations arose with the formation of two main classes of medieval society: the feudal lords (secular and spiritual) and the feudal-dependent peasantry.
Feudal ownership of land was conditional, since the feud was considered to be granted for service. Over time, it turned into a hereditary possession, but formally it could be taken away for non-compliance with the vassal agreement. Hierarchically, the nature of property was expressed in the fact that it was, as it were, distributed between large group feudal lords from top to bottom, so no one possessed full private ownership of land. The tendency in the development of forms of ownership in the Middle Ages was that the feud gradually became full private property, and dependent peasants, turning into free (as a result of the redemption of personal dependence), acquired some ownership rights to their land plot, receiving the right to sell it subject to payment to the feudal lord of a special tax.
The combination of feudal property with political power was manifested in the fact that the main economic, judicial and political unit in the Middle Ages was a large feudal patrimony - the seigneur. The reason for this was the weakness of the central state power in the conditions of the dominance of the subsistence economy. At the same time, a certain number of allodist peasants remained in medieval Europe - full private owners. There were especially many of them in Germany and southern Italy.
Subsistence farming is an essential feature of feudalism, although not as characteristic as forms of ownership, since a subsistence farming, in which nothing is bought or sold, existed both in the Ancient East and in Antiquity. In medieval Europe, natural economy existed until about the 13th century, when it began to turn into a commodity-money economy under the influence of urban growth.
Many researchers consider the monopolization of military affairs by the ruling class to be one of the most important signs of feudalism. War was the lot of the knights. This concept, originally denoting just a warrior, eventually began to denote the privileged class of medieval society, spreading to all secular feudal lords. However, it should be noted that where allodist peasants existed, they, as a rule, had the right to carry weapons. The participation of dependent peasants in the crusades also shows the non-absoluteness of this sign of feudalism.
The most important characteristic of medieval Western European society was its hierarchical structure, the system of vassalage. At the head of the feudal hierarchy was the king - the supreme overlord and often only the nominal head of state. This convention of the absolute power of the highest person in the states of Western Europe is also an essential feature of Western European society, in contrast to the truly absolute monarchies of the East. Even in Spain (where the power of royal power was quite palpable), when the king was introduced to the office, the grandees, in accordance with the established ritual, pronounced the following words: “We, who are no worse than you, make you, who are no better than us, a king, you respected and protected our rights. And if not, then no. " Thus, the king in medieval Europe is only "the first among equals" and not an omnipotent despot. It is characteristic that the king, occupying the first rung of the hierarchical ladder in his state, could well be a vassal of another king or pope.
On the second step of the feudal ladder were the immediate vassals of the king. These were large feudal lords - dukes, counts; archbishops, bishops, abbots. According to the immunity letter received from the king, they possessed various types of immunity (from Lat. - inviolability). The most common types of immunity were tax, judicial and administrative, i.e. holders of immunity letters themselves collected taxes from their peasants and townspeople, administered the courts, and made administrative decisions. Feudal lords of this level could themselves mint their own coin, which often circulated not only within this estate, but also outside it. The subordination of such feudal lords to the king was often just formal.
On the third step of the feudal ladder were the vassals of dukes, earls, bishops - barons. They enjoyed de facto immunity on their estates. Even below were the vassals of the barons - the knights. Some of them could also have their vassals, even smaller knights, while others - only peasants were subordinate, who, however, stood outside the feudal ladder.
The vassalage system was based on the practice of land grants. The person who received the land became a vassal, the one who gave it became a seigneur. The land was given under certain conditions, the most important of which was the service for the lord, which, according to feudal custom, usually constituted 40 days a year. The most important duties of a vassal in relation to his lord were participation in the lord's army, protection of his possessions, honor, dignity, participation in his council. If necessary, the vassals ransomed the lord from captivity.
When receiving land, the vassal took an oath of loyalty to his master. If the vassal did not fulfill his obligations, the lord could take the land away from him, but it was not so easy to do this, since the vassal - the feudal lord was inclined to defend his recent property with arms in hand. In general, despite the seemingly clear order, which was described by the well-known formula: “my vassal's vassal is not my vassal”, the vassal system was rather complicated, and the vassal could have several lords at the same time.
The formation of feudal land ownership took place in two ways. The first way is through the peasant community. Allotted land owned by a peasant family, passed on by inheritance from father to son (and from the 6th century - to daughter) and was their property. This is how the allod was gradually formed - the freely alienated land property of the communal peasants. Allod hastened the property stratification among the free peasants: the land began to be concentrated in the hands of the communal elite, which already acts as part of the feudal class. Thus, this was the path of the formation of the patrimonial-allodial form of feudal ownership of land, especially characteristic of the Germanic tribes.
The second way of the formation of feudal land ownership and, consequently, of the entire feudal system is the practice of land grants by the king or other large landowners-feudal lords to their entourage. At first, a plot of land (benefit) was given to a vassal only on condition of service and for the duration of his service, and the lord retained the supreme rights to benefit. Gradually, the rights of the vassals to the lands granted to them expanded, as the sons of many vassals continued to serve the lord of their father. In addition, purely psychological reasons were also important: the nature of the relationship developing between the lord and the vassal. As contemporaries testify, vassals, as a rule, were loyal and devoted to their master.
From the 11th century onwards, cities were a characteristic phenomenon of medieval European civilization. The question of the relationship between feudalism and cities is debatable. The cities gradually destroyed the natural character of the feudal economy, contributed to the liberation of the peasants from serfdom, and contributed to the emergence of a new psychology and ideology. At the same time, the life of the medieval city was based on the principles characteristic of medieval society. The cities were located on the lands of the feudal lords, so initially the population of the cities was in feudal dependence on the lords, although it was weaker than the dependence of the peasants. The medieval city was based on such a principle as corporatism. The townspeople were organized into workshops and guilds, within which equalizing tendencies operated. The city itself was also a corporation. This was especially evident after the liberation from the power of the feudal lords, when the cities received self-government and city law. But precisely due to the fact that the medieval city was a corporation, after liberation it acquired some features that made it akin to the city of antiquity. The population consisted of full-fledged burghers and non-corporate members: beggars, day laborers, visitors. The transformation of a number of medieval cities into city-states (as was the case in ancient civilization) also shows the opposition of cities to the feudal system. With the development of commodity-money relations, the central state power began to rely on the cities. Therefore, the cities helped to overcome feudal fragmentation - a characteristic feature of feudalism. Ultimately, the restructuring of medieval civilization took place precisely thanks to the cities.
The cities grew and developed rapidly on the basis of an intensive division of labor, the growth of private property, the development of commodity production and trade. Commodity production removed the limitations inherent in the subsistence economy and stimulated the need for the development of the means of production and the skills of the worker. Urban life, with its intensity and diversity, many times surpassed its stagnant and monotonous flow in the countryside, where everything was tied to the cyclical natural process of changing the seasons and bordered on an almost vegetative existence. On the contrary, cities with their vortex of life, intense nature of social relations, division of labor and new forms of social ties became places of intersection of new trends, open to changes and innovations. Thus, they became true sprouts of the formation of a new, urban, civilization. By their very structure, the cities of the late Middle Ages stimulated the development of production and the improvement of the skills of social self-organization and self-government.
The historical center of all cities were markets, a city square with a town hall and a cathedral, around which the quarters of craft workshops and workshops, as well as residential buildings, grew. Later, as a result of the development of commodity production and trade, city centers were adorned with buildings of banks and exchanges, mints, and hospitals, prisons, hospitals, i.e. inns and hotels appeared on the outskirts. An important place in the cities was occupied by educational institutions - colleges and universities, based mostly on the territory of monasteries or abbeys, these centers of medieval scholarship.
However, the city square remained the true center of the entire social life of the city, serving as a gathering place for citizens to solve the most important common affairs, a place of solemn political and religious rituals, a place of execution, as well as folk festivals and festivities with booths, carnival and fireworks.
Thus, the development of the culture of medieval natural agrarian production contained the preconditions for its own overcoming. The transition from the natural-quitrent to the monetary form of payment of feudal obligations, the emergence of handicrafts in the depths of agricultural production, the increasing transformation of the products of this production into goods and the widespread distribution of commodity-money relations, led to a change in the social basis of feudalism, its social-class structure. Between the representatives of the privileged estates - the royal power and the feudal barons, clergy and secular feudal lords, the struggle for power intensified, where the third estate, represented by the townspeople, began to invade more and more actively. Cities grew and developed, gained economic strength, but continued to remain politically deprived of rights.
3. SPIRITUAL CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE Omnipotence of the CHURCH (PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, HERETICAL TEACHINGS AND THE FIGHT AGAINST THEM)
Existing for many centuries in the conditions of the omnipotence of the church, philosophy has acquired the form of religious philosophy, becoming a "servant of theology." Its dependence on religion was reflected in its content, the nature of the main problems discussed.
The philosophy of the Western European Middle Ages arose and developed over four historical periods:
The preparatory stage (II-VIII centuries), during which the culture and philosophy of the Middle Ages are gradually formed.
Early scholasticism (IX-XII centuries), in which knowledge and faith are practically not separated, although there is a clear understanding of the specific value and the same results of the activity of reason. During this period, Abelard created the main scholastic method of knowing the truth ("yes and no"), which boils down to the fact that in solving any problem we must first listen to the authorities who speak "for", then - the authorities who are "against", and later decide.
Middle scholasticism (XIII century), in which the final separation of philosophy and other sciences from theology takes place, as well as the inclusion of the teachings of Aristotle in Western philosophical thinking. The philosophy of the Franciscan, Dominican and other orders, as well as the philosophical systems of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others, were created.
Late scholasticism (XIV-XV centuries) was distinguished by the rationalistic systematization of the knowledge gained, the further formation of natural-scientific and natural-philosophical thinking, the creation of logic and metaphysics of the irrationalist direction, the final separation of esotericism (mysticism) from church theology.
With regard to the general theoretical basis of medieval philosophy, it can be noted that it is based on the Christian religion of monotheism, where the main reality that created all that exists is God. He, being omnipotent, by an act of his Divine will, created the world from "nothing". And in the future, the omnipotent Divine will constantly and tirelessly continues to support the existence of the world.
Therefore, from the point of view of the doctrine of being (ontology), medieval philosophy was the philosophy of theocentrism (theo - God) and is based on the dogma of creationism (creation - creation, creation).
Medieval philosophy also had a kind of anthropology (the doctrine of man). Man is not only created by God, but also like him. However, the nature of man is twofold: he has both a soul (divine) and a body (sinful). To overcome sinfulness, the support of religion and the church is needed. Since it was impossible to rationally substantiate the ontology and anthropology of medieval philosophy, a kind of theory of knowledge was also created: not only that which is based on reason, but also that which is based on faith can be recognized as true.
So, the ontology of medieval philosophy is theocentric, anthropology is dualistic, epistemology is irrational.
Features of medieval philosophy found the most striking embodiment in the work of one of the largest representatives of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). His merit is the development of one of the central problems in medieval philosophy of the problem of the relationship between faith and reason. F. Aquinas created the doctrine of the emergence of harmony of faith and reason, since they have one subject - God and the world he created; in addition, faith and reason as methods of knowledge complement, rather than exclude each other.
But between them there are not only similarities, but also significant differences: the mind constantly doubts the truths it has obtained, and faith accepts the truth based on will, desire. Therefore, faith is higher than reason.
The historical significance of the concept created by F. Aquinas is that it substantiated the idea of a possible compromise between science and religion, which was further developed in a number of philosophical teachings, especially in the philosophical system of Hegel, Russian religious philosophy of the 19th-20th centuries, as well as in modern religious philosophy of neo-Thomism.
The principle of harmony of faith and reason was embodied in the five rational proofs of the existence of God developed by F. Aquinas. Since everything moves and changes, there must also be a “prime mover,” a primary source, that is, God. The world is diverse and perfect, therefore there is God as the highest perfection. According to F. Aquinas, since there is a goal in the living world, there must also be a source of purposefulness, that is, God. Although there is randomness in the world, on the whole its development bears a natural character, which comes from God. The world is unique and finite in space, but there is orderliness everywhere in it, that is, God.
These proofs have long been perceived as convincing, despite their one-sidedness, since they are only evidence of an abstract-logical nature. However, the evidence given by F. Aquinas is still actively used by the church.
Another problem discussed in medieval philosophy was the problem of the relationship between general, abstract concepts and concrete concepts, reflecting individual things. In the course of its discussion, two directions were formed - realism and nominalism.
Nominalism (I. Roscellin, W. Ockham) believed that the general exists only in the mind of a person (there is a separate horse, but there is no "horseness"). By belittling the meaning of general concepts, nominalism questioned the universal, extremely abstract concept of "God", for which it was persecuted by the church. Realism (F. Aquinas), on the contrary, asserted the reality of general ideas, and considered individual things and their corresponding concepts to be derivatives of general ones.
A compromise solution in the dispute about universals was the position of the Scottish scientist D. Scott, who considered the thing as a unity of the general and the particular. Moreover, the common exists in reality, in things themselves, reflecting their essence, there is no common independent existence.
Assessing the role of medieval philosophy in the development of world philosophical thought, it should be emphasized that this was a fruitful stage in the development of culture. The religious ideology of Christianity was one of the important factors contributing to the emergence and strengthening of states, the development of their spiritual life (architecture, painting, music, etc.). Medieval philosophy also contributed to the development of a number of the most important problems of philosophy (the relationship between faith and reason, the nature of general concepts). Preaching universal human values, the equality of all before God, medieval philosophy contributed to the assertion of the ideals of humanism, which was especially evident in the philosophy of the Renaissance.
Medieval education was mainly religious education. From the early Middle Ages, the entire education system was controlled by the church. Although the foundation on which medieval education was built was inherited from antiquity - the "seven liberal arts" were studied in monasteries and church schools of the early Middle Ages (grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy - academic disciplines that developed in late antiquity ) - the main thing was the study of theological sciences. Until the end of the 9th century. all schools were in the hands of the church (they trained both future priests and young men who were not intended for a church career).
After the Arab conquest of Spain and Sicily, interest in the study of the ancient heritage is revived. The growth of cities contributed to the rise of education. In the second half of the XI century. secular schools appeared in cities, universities appeared, which became centers for the development of scientific thought of their time. The first university was opened in Bologna (1088), later in Paris (1160), Oxford (1167), Cambridge (1209). In the XIII - XV centuries. almost all European countries had universities. University education was conducted in Latin, which allowed students from all over Europe to study at any university. As a rule, in a medieval university there were four faculties: preparatory, where they studied seven "free arts", theological, medical and legal. The universities were founded by the church, the secular power in the person of kings, emperors, princes, and also the city. The university was a corporation, a community of teachers and students, led by an elected master. The university as an institute of scientific knowledge and education is an outstanding achievement of medieval culture. In European universities, the basic forms of education, scientific principles that are characteristic of modern education and science (lecture, seminar, exam, session, public defense of a dissertation, scientific debate, and much more) were developed and began to be applied.
Medieval science was subject to a strictly defined hierarchical order. The highest place in the hierarchy of its spheres was given to philosophy, the purpose of which was seen in proving the truth of the Christian doctrine. The "lower" sciences (astronomy, geometry, mathematics, historical knowledge, etc.) obeyed and served philosophy.
Under the conditions of theocratism (the dominance of religious views), theology became the most developed form of theoretical thinking. In the XI century. it was theology that gave rise to such a phenomenon of medieval science as scholasticism - a philosophy inextricably linked with theology, but not identical to it. Scholasticism is primarily a method of cognizing God and the world created by him. She proceeded from the conviction that faith and knowledge, revelation and reason can be reconciled with each other, and, relying on them, to comprehend God and the world. The scholastic in his reasoning had, on the one hand, not to deviate from the letter of the Bible, on the other, not to admit a single mistake in a long chain of rigorous logical proofs. Hence the enormous attention that the scholastics paid to logic as a technique of reasoning. Thus, the essence of scholasticism was the comprehension of Christian dogma from a rationalistic position with the help of logical methods. This is due to the fact that in scholasticism a central place was taken by the development of various kinds of general concepts, classifications (universals). The scholastics, discussing the problems of the synthesis of pagan rational philosophy and Christian doctrine, not only studied the ancient heritage, but also introduced Europe to the original works of Islamic scholars. Scholasticism became a broad intellectual movement, bringing together the most prominent philosophers of its time. The pinnacle of medieval scholasticism was the work of Thomas Aquinas (13th century). Affirming the harmony of reason and faith, he was able to carry out a synthesis of the philosophy of Aristotle and Christian dogma.
In the 13th century, an interest in experimental knowledge arises in science, the natural-scientific treatises of ancient authors and Arab scientists begin to be translated and commented on. Oxford professor Roger Bacon (XIII century) introduced experiment into the sphere of science as a new method of studying nature (the scientist worked fruitfully in the field of physics, chemistry, optics, trying to understand the nature of light and color). Although rationalism and an experimental approach were combined with a Christian vision of the world, the very birth of interest in experimental knowledge undermined the traditional foundations of the medieval worldview, putting experiment in the place of authority.
In the XII-XIII centuries. the whole of Europe was engulfed in a heretical movement, which was not local in nature, but pan-European. It covered all emerging European states. In essence, the common European heresies were not homogeneous. Two types of heresies are conventionally distinguished: burgher (i.e. urban) and peasant-plebeian. The requirements of both heretics often coincided. Both types of heretical tendencies demanded the elimination of the political claims of the papacy, the land riches of the Church, and the special position of the Catholic clergy. The early Christian Apostolic Church was the ideal of medieval heretical teachings.
The doctrines of the early heretical teachings had some religious foundations. First of all, such doctrines implied a critical attitude towards the ministers of the Church, from the pope to the priest. The heresiarchs created the ideal image of the biblical shepherd and sharply contrasted it with the real shepherd. Heretics opposed indulgences, they denied the oath on the Bible, a separate communion for laymen and clergy. Western heretics called the Church the Babylonian harlot, and the Pope was called the viceroy of Satan and the Antichrist. They denied the teachings of the Church Fathers, the decisions of councils, as well as papal bulls, etc. They practically denied the entire church organization of Catholicism.
At the same time, the heretics were divided into two clearly defined groups. Some, criticizing the priesthood, indulgences, the pope and the church organization, nevertheless remained in the bosom of the Catholic Church and believed that with their new teachings they contributed to its renewal. This position was characteristic of the moderate wing of the heretical movement. But there was also another direction - a radical extremist, whose representatives broke with the official Catholic Church and created their own church organizations in opposition to it. These heretics were primarily the Cathars, Waldensians, apostolics, Joachimites, and Taborites.
The overwhelming majority of heretical teachings in the early and later stages are characterized by the desire to follow the gospel. One of the most popular ideas in heretical circles, taken from the Gospel, was the idea, or principle, of "apostolic poverty." However, this idea was interpreted in different ways by the two main heretical directions. Heretic burghers declared a desire for a simple, cheap and clean church. It is in the burgher heresy that one should look for the sources of the future Reformation. The heretics of the peasant-plebeian trend also strove for apostolic poverty, but in a more radical way. They did not limit themselves to this idea alone, but also introduced into their teaching the ideas of community of property and universal equality.
Many Western European heresies were characterized by mystical sentiments. In interpreting the biblical texts in their own way, heretics-mystics most often turned to the Apocalypse. Based on the Apocalypse, many heresiarchs (such as Joachim of Flora (Calabrian), Dolcino, etc.) predicted an imminent and inevitable radical change in the existing order and even predicted the timing of these changes. The prophecies of the mystical heresiarchs were associated with "millenarian" or chiliastic sentiments, inherent primarily in the peasant-plebeian heresy. The burgher heresy also had its own mystical trends, especially widespread in the German lands. There the heretics took as a basis some of the mystical teachings of the German theologians Eckart, Tauler and others, who believed that "Divine truth" is contained in man himself, therefore man has free will and creative activity.
Elements of pantheism were also inherent in burgher heresies, which led to the denial of the need for the Church. Mystical moods are characterized by withdrawal into the inner world, immersion in oneself, denial of the world and any relationship with it. Such moods often gave rise to a state of religious ecstasy in a person, leading to various forms of mystical vision.
The earliest heretical sects appeared in the 11th century. in France, in Italy and in the German lands. One of the first creators of an independent heretical doctrine was Arnold of Brescia (1100-1155), who was also the first heretic politician - he led an uprising against the bishop in Brescia, an antipapal uprising in Rome. Arnold was a student of Peter Abelard and supported his teacher in the fight against Bernard of Clairvaux. In his teaching, Arnold Breshiansky criticized the church of his day, relying on the Gospel. In addition, he demanded the transfer of all spiritual power to secular people. The sect he created was named Arnold. This was one of the first, early burgher heresies. Arnold Breshiansky demanded the deprivation of property by the clergy, the liquidation of the institution of bishops, denounced the idleness of the clergy, and called for a return to the simplicity of apostolic times. He recognized the institution of the papacy, but was at odds with the official understanding of the sacraments of the Eucharist and baptism.
The Arnoldist sect continued to exist after the execution of Arnold of Brescia, carried out by order of Frederick I Barbarossa. In the XIII century. she melted into other heretical movements. In the XII-XIII centuries. accounts for the flourishing of the heretical movement in northern Italy and southern France. In these regions, practically the entire population was heretical. In Lombardy alone, the Arnoldists, Cathars, Waldensians, Fraticelli, Apostolics, Flagellants, and many others flourished. Since all these heresies, as a rule, originated in cities, they conditionally refer to the burgher direction of the heretical movement.
One of the most massive directions of the heretical movement of the XII century. was the heresy of the Cathars. In their teachings, the Cathars began not with a denial of the established church hierarchy, but with a denial of the state as such, its power. The Cathars also denied physical abuse and bloodshed. Denying the state, they denied both the Church and the entire earthly world. The rejection of the Cathars was truly cosmic. They considered the earthly world as a product and creation of Satan, and the Pope considered him a direct governor. Naturally, they denied both the dogma and the cults of the official church, and its hierarchy, opposed its wealth and power.
In addition to their own teaching, the Cathars created their own church organization, as well as their teaching, quite complex. It consisted, as it were, of two circles. The first circle, or inner circle, was the circle of the perfect. They were prescribed an obligatory departure from the world and the strictest austerity. They were not supposed to manifest themselves in any way in the outside world. The second circle, which included most of the Cathars, was open to the outside world. All actions of the Cathars of the second circle, up to the choice of profession, were necessarily prescribed by their heresiarchs. The Cathars of the second circle were the guides and link between the perfecti and the outside world.
Another heretical teaching that became widespread was the chiliastic teaching of Joachim of Flora (Calabrian) (1132-1202), a Cistercian monk. The teachings of the Joachimites enjoyed great prestige in Europe in the 12th-13th centuries. This teaching can be seen as a theological heresy. The central and most important moment in the heretical theology of Joachim of Flora was the interpretation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which he regarded as the mystical embodiment of three eras of world history. In the beginning, the power of God the Father prevailed, which is characterized by severity and the requirement of slavish submission to oneself. This era was "regulated" by the ancient law of Moses, embodied in the Old Testament. The second era is milder - the power of God the Son, based on the Gospel, the New Testament. And the third era - the era of the Holy Spirit, or "the eternal gospel" - the kingdom of true love, complete freedom and eternal justice. According to the teachings of Joachim of Flora, this kingdom was to come as a result of a universal revolution, and very soon. Joachim of Flora even established its exact dates - between 1200 and 1260.
At the same time, the Waldensian heresy, founded by the wealthy Lyon merchant Pierre Wald, was gaining widespread and influence in Europe. Having abandoned his usual way of life, he began to preach the ideals of poverty and asceticism. His followers, as is customary among all heretics, criticized the Catholic clergy and Catholic dogma. They denied the threefold concept of the afterlife, i.e. denied purgatory. They denied most of the church sacraments, denied veneration of icons, worship, cults of saints, church hierarchy, church tithes, taxes, military service, feudal court, capital punishment, etc. Very many provisions from the teachings of the Waldensians brought them closer to the Cathars. Therefore, it is no coincidence that at the end of the 12th century. the Cathars and part of the Waldensians who preached in southern France united and received the common name of the Albigensians. This name comes from the southern French city of Albi, the former center of the French Cathars.
Heresies covered broad social strata of the population of Europe. The lower strata were drawn into the peasant-plebeian heresies, but the educated strata of the townspeople - university teachers and students - also entered the burgher heresies.
The breadth of the spread of heretical teachings, their profound impact on the consciousness of the European population, naturally forced the Catholic Church itself to somehow maneuver, to resort to actions directed against heretics. The first impulse of the official church was the call for the most decisive action - the unconditional destruction of sects and heretical movements. At the councils, the teachings of Arnold of Brescia, Joachim of Flora, Amory of Vienna, Peter Olivius were anathematized. Many leaders of sects and heretical movements were condemned and burned at the stake. Not only heresiarchs were burned, but also ordinary heretics. The heretics were constantly persecuted.
However, the forms that the Catholic Church invented in the fight against heretics were not limited solely to persecution, to conciliar condemnations and to bonfires. One of the essential forms of struggle against heresy was the Crusades. In the XIII century. there were several such campaigns against the Albigensians in southern France, in the XIV century. - against the apostles.
The listed mechanisms of combating heresy could not eradicate it, and then the church begins feverishly to look for other, more effective ones. The institution of the Inquisition was such a mechanism. At the end of the XII century. the Inquisition arises as a form of papal court. In each episcopate, the office of a papal inquisitor was introduced, who conducted an investigation of cases of heresy and passed a sentence. In the XIII century. the inquisition becomes an independent organization with very broad powers, which was directly subordinate to the pope. Then the time came when this subordination became purely formal. The Inquisition became an independent formidable organization that everyone feared - heretics and Catholics, peasants and townspeople, nobles and kings, secular and spiritual authorities. The popes themselves were afraid of the Inquisition. Fear is a powerful weapon, and the Inquisition knew how to use it.
The Inquisition introduces a wide system of tracing, judicial investigation of heretics, not disdaining methods such as denunciations and espionage. Accusing someone of heresy, the inquisitors sought recognition in all possible ways - from the confusing conduct of the investigation, casuistic theological debates to the most brutal torture. Under torture, even an innocent person confessed to anything, and the usual sentence was passed on him - burning at the stake. The Spanish Inquisition was especially brutal. In the XV century. in Spain, the so-called new inquisition was created, headed by the chief inquisitor, the Dominican Thomas Torquemada, who had tremendous influence. Under him, the persecution was widespread.
But even the Inquisition could not fully cope with its task, it did not succeed in eradicating the sects to the end, and then the church took a different path - along the path of legalizing some sects (this is how the moderate group of Waldenses was legalized). Nevertheless, it was impossible to destroy heresies, and they became an organic part of the life of Western Europe. The Catholic Church could not come to terms with this, and it begins new searches on the path of struggle against heretics. The Church drew attention to the fact that the sermon was developed among the heretics. And not just preaching, but preaching the ideals of poverty. The Church is going to create a new type of monasticism - the so-called mendicant orders, which were supposed to preach poverty and asceticism.
This new mechanism for fighting heresies began to be developed by Pope Innocent III and his followers. Mendicant orders embodied a new view of monastic asceticism, which in part went back to the ideal of the regular canons. The first mendicant order, the Franciscan order, was created in Italy. Its founder was the son of a wealthy merchant from Assisi - Francis of Assisi (1181-1226). He wandered around Italy, feeding on alms, and his ideal was "Madame Poverty." Francis of Assisi demanded that his disciples renounce not only wealth, but also any property, a life of charity, asceticism and obedience. Francis of Assisi criticized monasticism, but did not deny monasticism as an institution. By the middle of the XIII century. the Franciscan order departed from its original ideals and became one of the richest monastic orders, and at its head was no longer a poor man and a vagabond "out of this world", but a general appointed by the pope. One of the main tasks of the order is the fight against heresy.
The second mendicant order, the Dominican Order, emerged in the 13th century in Spain and was named after its founder, the monk Dominic (1170-1221). This order immediately, from the moment of its foundation, obeys the Pope. The Dominicans attached great importance to the art of preaching and scholastic theological controversy. Brothers preachers (as the Dominicans were called), with the support of the Pope, very soon occupied the theological departments of the largest universities in Europe. Major theologians such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas emerged from the Dominican Order. The Dominicans played a huge role in the politics of the papacy, but their main task was to combat heresy.
Both "mendicant" orders were widely engaged in politics and diplomacy, as well as the expansion of Catholicism. The Dominican order was especially successful in this field. The expansion vector was directed to the East. In the XIII century, even before the Tatar-Mongol invasion, the Dominicans founded their monastery near Kiev. They penetrate China, Japan and other eastern countries.
However, neither the persecution of heretics, nor the Inquisition, nor the mendicant orders led to the renewal, reform of Catholicism and could not prevent the crisis of the papacy in the XIV-XV centuries. Heretical movements of the XII-XIII centuries. contributed to the weakening of his authority.
4. ART OF THE MIDDLE AGES: ROMANIAN AND GOTHIC STYLES, LITERATURE, FOLKLORE, ICONOPICATION. MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL AS A MODEL OF THE WORLD
The figurative-semantic system of medieval art expressed the central idea of the picture of the world of medieval man - the Christian idea of God. Art was perceived as a kind of biblical text, easily "read" by believers through numerous sculptural and pictorial images. Since the language of the Bible and worship was Latin, unknown to most of the laity, the sculptural and pictorial images had a didactic meaning - to convey to believers the foundations of Christian dogma. In the temple, before the eyes of a medieval man, the entire Christian teaching was developed. The idea of the sinfulness of the world was reflected in the leading plot in the design of churches, sculptures and reliefs - scenes of the Last Judgment and the Apocalypse. Looking at the cathedral, a medieval person could, as it were, read Holy Scripture in the images depicted there. The same image of the Last Judgment clearly represented the theological scheme of the hierarchical structure of the world. The figure of Christ was always depicted in the center of the composition. The upper part was occupied by heaven, the lower - earth, on the right hand of Christ was paradise and the righteous (good), on the left - sinners condemned to eternal torment, devils and hell (evil).
Strictly following the universal church canons, medieval artists were called to manifest divine beauty in a figurative form. The aesthetic ideal of medieval art was the opposite of that of antiquity, reflecting the Christian understanding of beauty. The idea of the superiority of the spirit over the bodily, carnal is presented in the asceticism of images of monumental painting and sculpture, their severity and detachment from the outside world. The ultimate conventionality of the entire figurative system of medieval art was reflected in the canons of constructing the human figure: linearity, solemn immobility, elongation of the oval of the face and figures, wide open eyes, "incorporeal", incorporeal figures. Medieval painting does not know the perspective that reveals the depth of the painting. In front of the viewer there is a flat unfolding of the composition and the only visible movement is ascending, directed towards the sky.
The most important feature of medieval art is symbolism. A sculptural or pictorial image is, first of all, a symbol, a kind of religious idea, captured in stone or paints. Like the Bible, icon painting is primarily a manifest word (complete identity between painting and verbal texts was confirmed by the church already in the 8th century). The whole figurative structure of medieval art is symbolic (the long, almost sexless bodies of the apostles and saints express the idea of overcoming the spiritual principle of sinful matter - the flesh).
The different scale of the figures is another feature of medieval art. The size of the figures was determined by the hierarchical significance of the depicted (which, by the way, made it easy to "recognize" the depicted characters). Christ is always larger than the apostles and angels, who, in turn, are larger than the common laity.
XI - XII centuries in Western Europe - this is the period of the greatest power of the church. Monasteries and episcopal cities became the creators of the Romanesque style. The Church during this period reduced the task of art to the need to show not the visible beauty, but the true beauty of the spirit. The aesthetic ideal that arose in Romanesque art, the entire figurative-semantic system of Romanics was designed to solve the problem.
The contrast between the ponderous, squat outlines of the cathedral and the spiritual expression of its images reflected the Christian formula of beauty - the idea of the superiority of the spiritual over the physical. The Romanesque cathedral was a symbol of the stronghold of the human spirit in art. Architecture, paintings, door reliefs needed to complement each other, making up a unity based on the subordination of the small to the big, reflecting the principle of the medieval hierarchy. The frescoes of the Romanesque temple create a special closed world, where the layman became a participant in the depicted plots. The drama and expressiveness, intense spiritual expressiveness of pictorial images characteristic of Romanesque painting (scenes of the Last Judgment, the struggle between angels and the devil for human souls - a common plot of temple paintings) had a huge emotional impact, reflecting the idea of the sinfulness of the world, the idea of redemption and salvation. The flat, two-dimensional depiction of paintings and sculptures of the Romanesque style, the generalization of forms, the violation of proportions, the monumental significance of the images symbolized the timeless, eternal in the understanding of the world.
Romanesque architecture relied on the achievements of the previous period (in particular, the Carolingian Renaissance) and was formed under the strong influence of the traditions of ancient, Byzantine or Arab art, distinguished by a wide variety of forms. It shows many trends that existed in different parts of Western Europe and reflected local traditions and artistic tastes (for example, Italian Romanesque art was more strongly influenced by Byzantine traditions). Nevertheless, the Romanesque style by the XII century. became the first common European style. This is the historical style of the mature Middle Ages, characterized by the common types of buildings, their constructive techniques and expressive means.
The main structures of Romanesque architecture were the monastic complex of temples and a type of closed fortified dwelling of a feudal lord - a castle. In the X century. a type of fortified dwelling was formed in the form of a tower - a donjon, which was surrounded by a moat and a rampart. By the end of the XI century. for the dwelling of the feudal lord, they begin to build a separate building. Donjon now plays only defensive functions, being a refuge when taking defensive walls. The architecture of the castles was deeply functional. As in temple architecture, thick, massive walls and towers, narrow windows, a general expression of severity were their characteristic features.
Along with sculpture, painting was an indispensable part of the Romanesque architectural ensemble. Biblical stories and episodes from the lives of saints are widely represented on the inner surfaces of the walls. Romanesque painting was influenced by Byzantine traditions. Following the iconographic canon, the artists created flat, with elongated proportions, with severe, motionless ascetic faces, which were perceived as symbols of Christian beauty - spiritual beauty that conquers sinful matter.
Notre Dame Cathedral in Poitiers, cathedrals in Toulouse, Orsinval, Arne (France), cathedrals in Oxford, Winchester, Norice (England), cathedral in Lund (Sweden) are among the outstanding monuments of Romanesque architecture. The cathedrals in Worms, Speyer and Mainz (Germany) became examples of late Romanesque.
By the end of the XII century. Romanesque art was replaced by Gothic (the term was first used by Renaissance historians to characterize all medieval art, which they associated with barbaric art).
The Gothic era (late 12th - 15th centuries) is a period when urban culture begins to play an increasingly important role in medieval culture. In all areas of the life of medieval society, the importance of the secular, rational principle is increasing. The Church is gradually losing its dominant position in the spiritual sphere. With the development of urban culture, on the one hand, church restrictions in the field of art began to weaken, and on the other, in striving to make the most of the ideological and emotional power of art for its own purposes, the church finally develops its attitude to art, which found expression in the treatises of the philosophers of that time. Medieval scholastics argued that art is an imitation of nature. Although didacticism, the ability to express religious dogmas and values, was still recognized as the main task of art, the scholastics did not deny the emotional power of art, its ability to evoke admiration.
New ideas also appeared in the design of the Gothic cathedral. catholic church, and the increased self-awareness of urban strata, and new ideas about the world. The dynamic upward aspiration of all forms of the cathedral reflected the Christian idea of the aspiration of the soul of the righteous to heaven, where it was promised eternal bliss. Religious subjects retain their dominant position in Gothic art. The images of Gothic sculpture, personifying the dogmas and values of Christianity, the very appearance of the cathedral, all forms of Gothic art were called upon to contribute to the mystical perception of God and the world. At the same time, the growing interest in human feelings, in the beauty of the real world, the desire for individualization of images, the growing role of secular subjects, the strengthening of realistic tendencies - all this distinguishes the Gothic style from the Romanesque as a more mature style of art, reflecting the spirit of its time, its new trends - awakening of reason and feelings, growing interest in a person.
The first Gothic forms in architecture appear in Europe already at the end of the 12th century, but the heyday of the Gothic style falls on the 13th century. In the XIV - XV centuries. there is a gradual "extinction" of the Gothic ("flaming Gothic").
Gothic architecture became a new stage in the development of the basilical type of building, in which all elements began to obey a single system. The main feature of the Gothic cathedral is its stable frame system, in which the cross-rib lancet vaults and lancet arches play a constructive role, which largely determine the internal and external appearance of the cathedral. The entire weight of the bulk of the cathedral fell on its frame. This made it possible to make thin walls in which huge windows were carved. The most characteristic motif of Gothic architecture was the pointed arch, which, as it were, pulled the building towards the heavens.
The construction of Gothic temples was carried out not only by the church, but also by the cities. Moreover, the largest structures, and primarily cathedrals, were built at the expense of the townspeople. The purpose of the Gothic temple was not only cult, it also served as the center of public life in the city. University lectures were read in it, mysteries were played out. All sorts of secular and church ceremonies were held on the Cathedral Square, gathering crowds of townspeople. Cathedrals were built "by the whole world", often their construction lasted for tens of years, and sometimes for several centuries.
The Gothic style has received a classic expression in France, which is rightfully considered the birthplace of the Gothic. (Notre Dame Cathedral was founded in 1163, was completed until the middle of the XIII century.) The most famous monuments of French Gothic are the cathedrals of Amiens and Reims (XIII century), Saint Chapelle church (XIII century).
Mature Gothic is characterized by an increase in verticalism, a greater aspiration upward. One of the most remarkable monuments of mature Gothic is Reims Cathedral - the place where the French kings were crowned.
The English cathedrals were somewhat different, which are characterized by a large length and a peculiar intersection of pointed arches of the vaults. The most famous monument of English Gothic is Westminster Abbey (XIII-XVI centuries).
The development of sculpture, which played a leading role in the visual arts of this period, is inextricably linked with Gothic architecture. Gothic sculpture is more subordinate to architecture and has a more independent meaning than Romanesque. In numerous niches on the facades of the cathedrals were placed figures personifying the dogmas of the Christian faith. Lively poses, light bends give them mobility, dynamism, in contrast to Romanesque. The images of the saints themselves have become more varied, specific, and individual. The most significant figures were attached to the columns in the openings on the sides of the entrance to the cathedral. Along with those placed in niches or attached to columns, there were also free-standing monumental statues (i.e., sculpture in the modern sense of the word).
Thus, Gothic art revived sculpture itself, unknown to medieval culture since antiquity. Like Romanesque temples, images of monsters and fantastic creatures (chimeras) are often found in the Gothic cathedral. The characteristic features of Gothic sculpture can be summarized as follows: interest in the phenomena of the real world; figures representing the dogmas and beliefs of the Catholic Church become more realistic; the role of secular subjects is increasing; round plastic appears and begins to play a dominant role (although the relief does not disappear).
In the Gothic cathedral, painting is represented mainly by the painting of the altars. As the frame system was established and the wall became more and more openwork, the space for frescoes in the cathedral narrowed more and more - they were often replaced by stained glass windows. Stained glass opened up new possibilities for the medieval artist. Christianity attached divine and mystical significance to light. The light pouring from the sky symbolized the light coming from God. The play of light penetrating through the stained glass led the laity away from everything concrete, earthly, and led to the intangible, luminous. Stained glass seemed to muffle the physicality, expressiveness, concreteness of the images of Gothic plastic. The luminosity of the inner space of the cathedral, as it were, deprived matter of impenetrability, spiritualized it.
The Gothic style changed the appearance of the medieval city and contributed to the development of secular construction. Town halls with open galleries are being erected in cities. Castles of aristocrats more and more resemble palaces. Wealthy townspeople build houses with pointed gable roofs, narrow windows, pointed doorways, and corner turrets.
Traces of the pagan beliefs of peasants can be traced in folklore, especially in fairy tales and sayings. Peasant folklore expresses a negative attitude towards the rich. The favorite hero of Western European fairy tales is a poor man. The heroes of folk tales were often Jean-Fool in France, Foolish Hans - in Germany, Big Fool - in England.
Secular and church literature used fairy-tale material of the Middle Ages quite widely. Around 1100, the Spaniard Petrus Alfonsky compiled a whole collection, which included 34 stories, including a number of animal tales - “common stories”. The compiling clergy gave these stories a moralistic interpretation.
Fairy-tale narrative material was widely used in novels of chivalry, in the short stories of Mary of France (XII century), in urban short stories of the XIV-XV centuries, in individual works of the Meistersingers. However, in all cases, this is only material, often only individual episodes, motives and details are used. Only from the middle of the XVI century. we can talk about the introduction of fairy tales proper into literature.
All kinds of evil spirits are a frequent hero of Western European folk tales. In many stories, the characters are animals with human abilities. In the XIII century. these numerous stories were combined and put into verse - this is how the already mentioned famous medieval folk poem "The Novel of the Fox" arose.
Peasant ideas about a just life, about nobility and honor are heard in the legends about noble robbers who protect the orphan and the disadvantaged.
Anglo-Scottish ballads based on this subject became a genre of medieval folk art. Their anonymous authors - peasants, artisans, sometimes the ballads were composed by professional singers - minstrels. These works were common among the people. The time of the origin of the ballad as a genre of folk art is unknown. The earliest ballad dates back to the 13th century. English and Scottish ballads are divided into several groups: epic ballads, which are based on real historical events, the so-called robber ballads, lyric-dramatic love ballads, fantastic and everyday ones.
The hero of the robber ballads is the noble Robin Hood, the folk hero of England, and his army. The first ballads about Robin Hood were recorded in the 15th century. In the ballad, it is easy to trace the sympathy of the people for the forest arrows, who went into the forest as a result of oppression. For the first time in European poetry, a man of ignoble birth became the ideal. Unlike the knights, Robin Hood fights against the oppressors of the people. All the good feelings and deeds of a brave archer extend only to the people.
The main thing in the plot of love ballads is not the glorification of a feat in the name of a beautiful lady (as in knightly poetry), but a genuine feeling, emotional experiences of lovers.
The fantastic ballads reflected the beliefs of the people. The supernatural world with its fairies, elves and other fantastic characters appears in these ballads as a real, real world.
In a later period, everyday ballads appeared, characterized by greater prosaicity, the predominance of the comic element. The ballad often uses artistic techniques of folk art. The language of the ballads is peculiar - concrete words, without lush metaphors and rhetorical figures. A feature of the ballads is also their clear rhythm.
Peasant labor and rest was associated with songs - ceremonial, labor, holiday, folk dances.
In the countries of French and German culture, at fairs and in villages, jogglers (amusements) and spielmans (literally - igrets) often performed - wandering poets-singers, carriers of folk culture. They performed spiritual verses, folk songs, heroic poems, etc. to musical accompaniment. The singing was accompanied by dancing, a puppet theater, and all sorts of tricks. Folk singers often performed in the castles of feudal lords and in monasteries, making folk culture the property of all strata of medieval society. Later, from the XII century, they began to perform various genres of chivalric and urban literature. The folk art of jugglers and shpielmans became the basis of secular knightly and urban musical and poetic culture.
Medieval literature had a number of common characteristics that determined its internal integrity. It was literature of the traditionalist type. Throughout its existence, it has developed on the basis of constant reproduction of a limited set of figurative, ideological, compositional and other structures - toposes (common places) or cliches, expressed in the constancy of epithets, pictorial cliches, the stability of motives and themes, the constancy of canons for depicting the entire figurative systems (be it a young man in love, a Christian martyr, a knight, a beauty, an emperor, a city dweller, etc.). On the basis of these clichés, genre toposes were formed that had their own semantic, thematic and pictorial-expressive canon (for example, the genre of hagiography or the genre of the courtly novel in knightly literature).
Medieval man found in literature a generally recognized, traditional model, a ready-made universal formula for describing a hero, his feelings, appearance, etc. (beauties are always gold-headed and blue-eyed, the rich are stingy, the saints have a traditional set of virtues, etc.). Medieval toposes, clichés, canons reduced the singular to the general, the typical. Hence the specificity of authorship in medieval literature (and in general in medieval art).
Medieval art did not deny the originality of the author. The medieval reader (and the author) saw the originality of the author not in a unique, individual (author's) understanding of the world and man, but in the skill of implementing a system of topics common to all authors (in fine art - canons).
The formation of medieval topics was significantly influenced by the literature of antiquity. In the episcopal schools of the early Middle Ages, students, in particular, read "exemplary" works of ancient authors (the fables of Aesop, the works of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, etc.), mastered the ancient topic and used it in their own writings.
The ambivalent attitude of the Middle Ages to ancient culture as primarily pagan led to the selective assimilation of ancient cultural traditions and their adaptation to express Christian spiritual values and ideals. In literature, this was expressed in the imposition of an antique topic on the topic of the Bible, the main source of the figurative system of medieval literature, which sanctified the spiritual values and ideals of medieval society.
Second feature medieval literature- its pronounced moral and didactic character. Medieval man expected morality from literature; outside of morality, the whole meaning of the work was lost for him.
The third feature is that the literature of the Middle Ages is equally based on Christian ideals and values and equally strived for aesthetic perfection, delimiting only thematically. Although, of course, the very appearance and development of secular principles in culture was of fundamental importance, reflecting the line in the formation of the spiritual culture of medieval society, the development of which would later prepare the flourishing of Renaissance literature.
Throughout the centuries-old development of the Middle Ages, hagiography was especially popular - church literature describing the lives of the saints. By the X century. the canon of this literary genre was formed: the indestructible, firm spirit of the hero (martyr, missionary, fighter for Christian faith), a classic set of virtues, constant formulas of praise. The life of the saint offered the highest moral lesson, carried away with samples righteous life... The hagiographic literature is characterized by a miracle motive that corresponded to popular ideas about holiness. The popularity of the Lives led to the fact that excerpts from them - "legends" began to be read in the church, and the Lives themselves were collected in vast collections. The Golden Legend by Yakov Voraginsky (13th century), a collection of the lives of Catholic saints, became widely known in medieval Europe.
The tendency of the Middle Ages to allegory, allegory expressed the genre of visions. According to medieval ideas, the highest meaning is revealed only by revelation - a vision. In the genre of visions, the fate of people and the world was revealed to the author in a dream. The visions were often told of real historical figures, which contributed to the popularity of the genre. Visions had a significant impact on the development of later medieval literature, starting with the famous French "Novel of the Rose" (XIII century), which clearly expressed the motive of visions ("revelations in a dream"), to Dante's "Divine Comedy".
The genre of a didactic-allegorical poem (about the Last Judgment, the Fall, etc.) adjoins visions. Among the didactic genres are also sermons, various kinds of maxims borrowed both from the Bible and from ancient satirical poets. The maxims were collected in special collections, a kind of textbooks of worldly wisdom.
Among the lyric genres of literature, the dominant position was occupied by hymns praising the patron saints of monasteries and church holidays. Hymns had their own canon. The composition of the hymn about the saints, for example, included an opening, a panegyric to the saint, a description of his exploits, a prayer to him asking for intercession, etc.
The Liturgy, the main Christian divine service, known since the 2nd century, is strictly canonical and symbolic. The birth of the liturgical drama dates back to the early Middle Ages. The Catholic Church supported the liturgical drama with its pronounced didacticism. By the end of the XI century. the liturgical drama lost touch with the liturgy. In addition to dramatizing biblical episodes, she began to act out the lives of the saints, using elements of the theater itself - the scenery. Strengthening the entertainment and spectacularity of the drama, the penetration of the mundane principle into it forced the church to take dramatic performances outside the temple - first to the porch, and then to the city square. The liturgical drama became the basis for the emergence of the medieval city theater.
CONCLUSION
The decline of medieval culture consisted in the destruction of the ideational system of culture, based on the principle of supersensibility and superintelligence of God as the only reality and value. It began at the end of the 12th century, when the embryo of a new - completely different - basic principle appeared, which was that objective reality and its meaning are sensible. Only what we see, hear, touch, feel and perceive through our senses is real and makes sense.
This new principle, slowly gaining weight, collided with the decaying principle of ideational culture, and their fusion into an organic whole created a completely new culture in the XIII-XIV centuries. Its basic premise was that objective reality is partly supersensible and partly sensible. The cultural system that embodies this premise can be called idealistic. The culture of the 13th - 14th centuries in Western Europe was predominantly idealistic, based on this synthesizing idea.
However, the process did not end there. The ideational culture of the Middle Ages continued to decline, while a culture based on the recognition that objective reality and its meaning are sensory continued to accelerate in subsequent centuries. Starting around the 16th century, the new principle became dominant, and with it the culture based on it. Thus, a modern form of our culture arose - a culture of sensory, empirical, secular and "corresponding to this world."
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Topic: Culture of the European Middle Ages
1. Culture of Byzantium
During the Middle Ages, it is especially important to emphasize the role of Byzantium (IV - mid-15th centuries). She remained the only guardian of the Hellenistic cultural traditions. However, Byzantium significantly transformed the legacy of late antiquity, creating an artistic style that already entirely belongs to the spirit and letter of the Middle Ages. Moreover, in medieval European art, it was Byzantine that was most orthodox Christian.
The following periods are distinguished in the history of Byzantine culture:
1st period (IV - mid. VII centuries) - Byzantium becomes the successor of the Roman Empire. There is a transition from ancient to medieval culture. Proto-Byzantine culture of this period is still urban in nature, but gradually the centers cultural life monasteries become. The formation of Christian theology takes place while maintaining the achievements of ancient scientific thought.
2nd period (mid-7th - mid-9th centuries) - there is a cultural decline associated with economic decline, agrarianization of cities and the loss of a number of eastern provinces and cultural centers (Antioch, Alexandria). Constantinople became the center of industrial development, trade, cultural life, the "golden gate" between East and West for the Byzantines.
The 3rd period (mid-10th-12th centuries) is a period of ideological reaction caused by the economic and political decline of Byzantium. In 1204, the crusaders during the 4th crusade carried out the partition of Byzantium. Constantinople becomes the capital of a new state - the Latin Empire. The Orthodox patriarchate is replaced by the Catholic one.
In the world culture of the Byzantine civilization a special place belongs. Throughout its thousand-year existence, the Byzantine Empire, which absorbed the heritage of the Greco-Roman world and the Hellenistic East, was the center of a unique and truly brilliant culture. Byzantine culture is characterized by the flourishing of art, the development of scientific and philosophical thought, and serious successes in the field of education. During the X-XI centuries. in Constantinople, the school of secular sciences became widespread. Until the XIII century. Byzantium was undoubtedly ahead of all countries in terms of the level of development of education, in terms of the tension of spiritual life and the colorful sparkle of the object forms of culture. medieval Europe.
The first Byzantine concepts in the field of culture and aesthetics were formed in the 4th-6th centuries. They were a fusion of the ideas of Hellenistic Neoplatonism and early medieval Patristics (Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite). The ideal of early Byzantine culture is the Christian God as the source of "absolute beauty". In the writings of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa, in the speeches of John Chrysostom, the foundation of medieval Christian theology and philosophy was laid. At the center of philosophical searches is the understanding of being as a good, which gives a kind of justification for the cosmos, and therefore, the world and man. In the late Byzantine period, the broadest knowledge of the famous philosophers, theologians, philologists, rhetoricians - George Gemist Plifon, Dmitry Kidonis, Manuel Chrysolor, Vissarion of Nicea, and others - aroused admiration of the Italian humanists. Many of them became students and followers of Byzantine scholars.
The 8th - 9th centuries marked a qualitatively new stage in the development of Byzantine artistic culture. During this period, Byzantine society was going through troubled times, the source of which was the struggle for power between the metropolitan and provincial nobility. An iconoclastic movement arose, directed against the cult of icons, declared a relic of idolatry. In the course of their struggle, both iconoclasts and icon-worshipers inflicted great harm on artistic culture, destroying numerous monuments of art. However, the same struggle formed a new type of vision of the world - refined abstract symbolism with decorative ornaments. The development of artistic creativity left a mark on the struggle of the iconoclasts against the sensual, praising the human body and physical perfection, Hellenistic art. Iconoclastic artistic representations paved the way for the deeply spiritualistic art of the 10th - 11th centuries. and prepared the victory of sublime spirituality and abstract symbolism in all spheres of Byzantine culture in subsequent centuries.
Features of Byzantine culture include:
1) the synthesis of Western and Eastern elements in various spheres of the material and spiritual life of society with the dominant position of Greco-Roman traditions;
2) preservation to a large extent of the traditions of ancient civilization;
3) The Byzantine Empire, in contrast to the fragmented medieval Europe, preserved state political doctrines, which left an imprint on various spheres of culture, namely: with the ever-increasing influence of Christianity, secular artistic creativity never faded;
4) the difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, which was manifested in the originality of the philosophical and theological views of Orthodox theologians and philosophers of the East, in the system of Christian ethical and aesthetic values of Byzantium.
Recognizing their culture as the highest achievement of humanity, the Byzantines deliberately protected themselves from foreign influences. Only from the XI century. they began to draw on the experience of Arab medicine, translate monuments of oriental literature. Later, an interest arose in Arabic and Persian mathematics, in Latin scholasticism and literature. Among encyclopedic scholars who write on a wide range of problems - from mathematics to theology and fiction, one should highlight John Damascene (VIII century), Michael Psellus (XI century), Nicephorus Vlemmides (III century), Theodore Metohit (XIV century).
The desire for systematization and traditionalism, characteristic of Byzantine culture, was especially clearly manifested in legal science, the beginning of which was laid by the systematization of Roman law, the compilation of codes of civil law, the most significant of which is the Codification of Justinian.
The contribution of the Byzantine civilization to the development of world culture is invaluable. It consisted primarily in the fact that Byzantium became a "golden bridge" between Western and Eastern cultures; it had a profound and lasting impact on the development of the cultures of many countries of medieval Europe. The area of distribution of the influence of Byzantine culture is very extensive: Sicily, South Italy, Dalmatia, the states of the Balkan Peninsula, Ancient Russia, Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus and Crimea - all of them to one degree or another were in contact with Byzantine education, which contributed to the further progressive development of their cultures.
2. Features of the development of culture in the Middle Ages
Medieval culture - European culture from the 5th century. AD until the 17th century. (conditionally divided into three stages: the culture of the early Middle Ages of the 5th-11th centuries; medieval culture of the 11th-13th centuries; the culture of the late Middle Ages of the 14th-17th centuries). The beginning of the Middle Ages coincided with the withering away of Hellenic-classical, ancient culture, and the end - with its revival in modern times.
The material basis of medieval culture was feudal relations. The political sphere of the Middle Ages was primarily the rule of the military class - chivalry, based on the combination of land rights with political power. With the formation of centralized states, estates were formed that made up the social structure of medieval society - the clergy, the nobility and the rest of the inhabitants (the "third estate", the people). The clergy took care of the human soul, the nobility (chivalry) was engaged in state and military affairs, the people worked. Society began to be divided into "those who work" and "those who are at war." The Middle Ages are the era of numerous wars. Crusades only (1096-1270) official history has eight.
The Middle Ages were characterized by the unification of people into various corporations: monastic and knightly orders, peasant communities, secret societies, etc. In cities, the role of such corporations was primarily played by guilds (associations of artisans by profession). In the workshop environment, a fundamentally new attitude towards labor as a value has been developed, a fundamentally new concept of labor as a gift of God has emerged.
The dominant spiritual life of the Middle Ages was religiosity, which determined the role of the church as the most important cultural institution. The Church also acted as a secular force in the person of the papacy, striving to dominate the Christian world. The task of the church was quite complicated: the church could only keep the culture "secularized", and the culture could be developed only by deepening its religiosity. This contradiction was emphasized by the greatest Christian thinker Augustine "Blessed" (354-430) in his work "On the City of God" (413), where he showed the history of mankind as the eternal struggle of two cities - the City of the earth (a community based on worldly statehood, on love for oneself, brought to contempt for God) and the City of God (a spiritual community built on love for God, brought to contempt for oneself). Augustine put forward the idea that faith and reason are just two different types of activities of the same kind of thinking. Therefore, they do not exclude, but complement each other.
However, in the XIV century. the radical thought, founded by William of Ockham (1285-1349), triumphed: there is nothing in common between faith and reason, philosophy and religion. Therefore, they are completely independent from each other and should not control each other.
Medieval science acts as an understanding of the authority of the Bible. At the same time, the scholastic ideal of knowledge is taking shape, where rational knowledge and logical proof acquire a high status, again placed at the service of God and the church. The convergence of science with teaching contributed to the formation of the education system (XI-XII centuries). Appears a large number of translations from Arabic and Greek - books on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc. They become a stimulus for intellectual development. It was then that higher schools were born, and then universities. The first universities appeared at the beginning of the 13th century. (Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Montpellier). By 1300, there were already 18 universities in Europe, which had become the most important cultural centers. The universities of the late Middle Ages were built on the Parisian model, with the obligatory four "classical" faculties: arts, theology, law and medicine.
In the late Middle Ages, Europe entered the path of technical progress: the use of water and windmills, the development of new designs of elevators for the construction of temples, the appearance of the first machines; watches were invented, paper production was established, a mirror, glasses appeared, medical experiments were carried out.
The spiritual life of society also changed; fiction acquires a secular character, the tendency of turning to earthly life is gaining strength. Knightly literature became a special phenomenon. The epic is developing, leaving behind such talented works as the French poem "The Song of Roland" and the German one - "The Song of the Nibelungs". The growing attention to man and his passions is brilliantly expressed by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) in The Divine Comedy. At the beginning of the second millennium, there is a synthesis of the Romanesque artistic heritage and the Christian foundations of European art. Its main type until the 15th century was architecture, the peak of which was the Catholic cathedral. From the end of the XIII century. Gothic style, born of urban European life, becomes the leading one.
Medieval culture of the late period expresses not the state of man and his world frozen forever, but a living movement. This conclusion can be made taking into account the historical duration of world culture.
3. Artistic culture of the Middle Ages
Each cultural epoch has its own worldview, inherent only to it, the idea of nature and society, time and space, the order of the universe, relations between people in society, etc. All of the above ideas of the medieval era were formed by the Christian doctrine and the Christian church. The impact of Christianity and religious worldview on medieval art was enormous.
The very revitalization of cultural life was initially expressed in the fact that, starting from the 10th century, new aesthetic norms and views were being established in Western European artistic culture. The first form of medieval aesthetics proper is the Romanesque type of artistic perception of the world, which reflected time feudal fragmentation... In the 10th century, the artistic culture of the Middle Ages was able to create a single common European style, which was named Romanesque. The style "in the manner of the Romans" implied the use in medieval architecture of some features of architecture and building techniques of the Romans.
The unstable historical situation, the constant strife of the knights with almost incessant wars led to the transformation of architecture into the main art form of the Romanesque style. During civil strife, stone buildings became fortresses and provided protection for people. These structures had massive walls and narrow windows. The main types of structures during the Romanesque era were the feudal castle, the monastery ensemble and the temple.
The Romanesque castle architecture was permeated with the spirit of militancy and the constant need for self-defense. Therefore, the castle, usually located on the top of a rocky hill, served as a defense during a siege and a kind of organizational center in preparation for raids. Medieval Europe was therefore covered in castles. One of the most majestic and powerful castles is Pierrefonds Castle to the north of Paris (France).
The temple architecture of the Middle Ages also reflected the characteristics of its time. The Romanesque temple was intended to bring a person closer to God, to immerse him in the divine world. Therefore, in the interior decoration a significant place was given to frescoes and stained-glass windows that filled the window openings. Numerous murals covered the surfaces of walls and vaults with a variegated carpet. Often, artists used expressive, dynamic drawing to convey the drama of biblical scenes. The main task of the artist was the embodiment of the biblical principle, and of all human feelings, preference was given to suffering, for, according to the teachings of the church, it is a fire that cleanses the soul. Medieval artists painted pictures of suffering and calamity with extraordinary vividness.
Romanesque architectural monuments are scattered throughout Europe, but the most perfect examples of this style are three temples on the Rhine: the cathedrals in Worms, Speyer and Mainz.
The Romanesque style found its expression not only in architecture, but also in painting and sculpture. Subjects for picturesque and sculptural images of course, there were themes of the greatness and power of God. The stylistic feature of these images was that the figure of Christ was significantly larger in size than other figures. In general, the real proportions were not important to Russian artists: in the images the heads are often enlarged, the bodies are schematic, sometimes elongated.
At the beginning of the 12th century, the Romanesque style, which still retained the medieval severity and seclusion of architectural forms, the expressiveness and ecstatic deformation of human figures in sculpture and painting, was replaced by a new style that was called Gothic.
The formation of the Gothic style was due to the rapid development of the burgher culture, which began to play a decisive role in the life of medieval society. At the same time, religion is gradually losing its dominant position.
This style was formed in France in the XII century, then passed to England, in the XIII century it was adopted in Germany and spread throughout Europe. The transition from Romanesque to Gothic was marked by a number of technological innovations and new stylistic elements. The grandeur and lightness of the Gothic cathedrals created the illusion of isolation from the earth, which was achieved through the special structure of the Gothic vault.
The appearance of the temple has changed in comparison with the Romanesque era. This is no longer a fortress, fenced off from the world by impenetrable walls. Outside, the Gothic cathedral is abundantly decorated with sculpture, where a sculptural crucifix becomes the center of the composition.
The entire structure of the Gothic temple, directed upward, as if expressed the aspiration of the human soul upward - to heaven, to God. But the Gothic temple is at the same time a kind of embodiment of the teaching, according to which the whole world is a system of opposing forces and the final result of their struggle - Ascension. A distinctive feature of Gothic architectural structures was that they were directly transformed into decoration. And the most striking example of this is the column statues that perform both constructive and decorative functions. The most outstanding works of the Gothic style were the cathedrals in Chartres, Reims, Paris, Amiens, Bruges, Cologne.
All works of Gothic art focus on creating an impression, using breathtaking theatrical effects that enhance the emotional impact. The solemn and theatrical process of the service, accompanied by organ music, was effectively combined with the architectural appearance of the temple. Together they achieved their main goal - to bring the believer into a state of religious ecstasy.
According to most researchers of the Middle Ages, one of the highest achievements of culture was the flourishing of knightly culture.
During the developed Middle Ages, the concept of "knight" became a symbol of nobility and nobility and was opposed primarily to the lower classes - peasants and townspeople. The chivalrous system of values, which arose on the basis of the real political, everyday, spiritual life of this class, was already quite secular. The image of the ideal knight and the code of knightly honor were formed. In the code of knightly honor, the ethics of militancy, strength and courage were intertwined with the moral values of Christianity and the medieval ideal of beauty. Of course, the image of the ideal knight most often diverged from reality, but nevertheless he played a huge role in Western European artistic culture.
Knightly literature became a special phenomenon of knightly culture, which found its expression in the form of two literary genres - the knightly romance and knightly poetry.
The first romances of chivalry appeared in England after the conquest of it by the Norman feudal lords in 1066. The novels are based on a love-adventure story about the exploits of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, borrowed from Celtic traditions and legends. The protagonist of the novels, King of the Britons Arthur and his knights Lancelot, Perceval, Palmerin and Amadis were the embodiment of knightly virtues.
The most famous and popular work in the genre of a knightly novel is The Tale of Tristan and Isolde, which is based on the Irish tales of the tragic love of the young man Tristan and Queen Isolde. The popularity of this novel was due precisely to the fact that the central place in it was assigned to earthly sensual love with its experiences.
The birthplace of knightly poetry was the French province of Provence, where a center of secular culture developed in feudal Western Europe. In the Provencal town of Languedoc, the lyric poetry of troubadours (songwriters), which arose at the courts of noble lords, became widespread. In this form of courtly poetry, the cult of the beautiful lady occupied the central place, and intimate feelings were glorified.
The poetry of the troubadours had many different genres: love songs, lyric songs, political songs, songs expressing grief over the death of a lord or a loved one, dance songs, etc. From Provence, the poetry of the troubadours spread to other European countries. The poetry of trouvers flourished in the north of France, in Germany - minnesingers (singers of love), in Italy - histrions (singers of a new sweet style), in England - minstrels. Knightly poetry contributed to the widespread dissemination of courtly forms of culture in Western Europe.
The emergence of knightly poetry was a response to the demands of a free and church-independent feudal aristocracy. Knightly poetry was able to absorb the harmony of the physical and spiritual.
In the XII - XIII centuries. In the cities of Western Europe, the Latin poetry of wandering students - vagantes (from Latin to wander) began to develop. The poetry of the vagants, students wandering all over Europe in search of better teachers and a better life, was very daring, scourging, condemning the vices of the church and clergy, singing the joys of earthly free life. All Europe sang witty poems and songs of the vagants at that time. The flourishing of Vagant poetry is associated with the intensive development of school and university education, so students became its creators and carriers.
Folklore, one of the components of medieval artistic culture, which gave rise to both folk poetry and fairy tales, became the basis of the heroic epic. At the turn of the XI - XII centuries. in medieval culture, written literature developed. Then, for the first time, records of medieval epics, heroic songs and legends were made. They glorified the feats of heroes, the most important real events that influenced the fate of a particular people. In France, the greatest literary monument of that era is the Song of Roland. In Germany, the famous epic "The Song of the Nibelungs" belongs to this genre, which was the result of processing the material of Germanic heroic songs and legends about the death of the Burgundian kingdom and the death of the Hun king Attila. The poem describes in detail the court leisure and knightly tournaments, feasts, hunting scenes, travels to distant countries and other aspects of the magnificent court life. The battles and fights of the heroes are also given in full detail. The rich weapons of the heroes, the generous gifts of the rulers, the precious robes combining colorful, gold, white colors and vividly reminiscent of a medieval book miniature, are described in an unusually colorful way.
Medieval Europe left great monuments of artistic culture. The world cultural fund includes magnificent examples of medieval icon painting, sculpture, book miniatures, stained glass art. The greatest artistic value is represented by works of medieval literature - knightly novels, poetry of troubadours, lyric poetry of vagantes and heroic epic. Thus, despite the fact that the culture of the Middle Ages was ambiguous, contradictory and multifaceted, it is certainly an important stage in the development of world culture.
4. Russian culture of the Middle Ages
The initial period of the Russian and Ukrainian culture its origins go back centuries, when our ancestral Slavs lived in a tribal system, professed polytheism. Its chronological framework is blurred: the lower limit can be dated to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. NS. - the middle of the 1st millennium BC e., and the upper - either 862, the date of the beginning of the state, or 988 - the year of the baptism of Rus.
The next period was the time of the establishment of Christianity, the formation of a traditional society and a centralized state in Russia. Its chronological framework coincides with the era of the Rurik dynasty (862-1528). This was the period of the formation and domination of feudal relations, the formation of culture. It is customary, in turn, to subdivide it into Antiquity - the era of Kievan Rus (mid-IX - early XII centuries) and the Middle Ages - the time of feudal fragmentation and the Mongol-Tatar invasion (XII-XIII centuries), the period of collecting lands around Moscow, the overthrow of the foreign yoke and registration of the centralized state - Moscow Russia (XIV-XVI centuries).
In the XIV century. Russia begins to gradually emerge from under the Golden Horde yoke. The victory won in 1380 on the Kulikovo field caused a tremendous creative upsurge in the country. By the end of the 15th century. the unification of the Russian lands under the leadership of Moscow is completed, a powerful centralized state is formed, which has ceased to pay tribute to the Golden Horde. In the field of culture, this era can rightfully be called the Russian Renaissance, it was based on the Vladimir-Suzdal historical and cultural traditions. For the spiritual culture of Russia XIV - XV centuries. was characterized by a special interest in a person, the values of his inner life, individual experiences. This is a typical Renaissance cultural trend that manifested itself in the spread of hesychasm. The Trinity-Sergius Lavra becomes its center (the monastery was founded in 1345 by Sergius of Radonezh). The extensive construction of monasteries and temples dedicated to the Trinity began in the second half of the 14th century. and was inextricably linked with the name of Father Sergius. For a century and a half, middle and northern Russia was covered with a dense network of monasteries founded by the students and friends of St. Sergius (the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery near Zvenigorod, the Kirillov and Ferapontov monasteries on the White Lake, etc.)
The literature is dominated by patriotic themes ("Zadonshchina", "The Legend of the Mamayev Massacre"). Epiphanius the Wise wrote about the life of the great ascetics ("The Life of Sergius of Radonezh"). At the end of the 15th century. One of the first secular descriptions of the journey of the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin to India appeared - "Walking over the Three Seas".
The works of the iconographers Theophanes the Greek (1340-1405), Andrei Rublev (c. 1360-1430) and Dionysius (1440-1503) can be regarded as stages within the framework of the Russian Renaissance. Each of them in its own way reflected the hesychast ideal in art. Hesychasm in Russian fine arts manifested itself in an interest in a perfect person, striving to discover in himself the fullness of divine being, to conquer passions and reach the heights of silence.
F. Grek's brushes belong to the frescoes of the Novgorod Church of the Savior on Ilyin Street (1387), some of the icons of the iconostasis of the Annunciation Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. Works by A. Rublev - paintings and icons of the old Annunciation Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, the fresco "The Last Judgment" of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, the iconostasis with the famous icon "Trinity". Rublev's traditions were continued by Dionysius. He created the frescoes of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin of the Ferapontov Monastery near the town of Kirillov on the White Lake. His brushes belong to the famous icons "The Mother of God the Guide", "The Savior in Strength", "The Resurrection of Christ".
The Renaissance tradition clearly manifested itself in the humanization of the architectural image, the human scale and pyramidal nature of temple compositions. The Renaissance nature of perception is associated with the use of anthropomorphic sculpture in the cathedral, as well as such an organization of the internal space that allowed light to evenly penetrate into the temples (the Savior Cathedral of the Andronikov Monastery of the Savior, the Zvenigorod Assumption Cathedral in the town, the Church of Fyodor Stratilat and the Savior on Ilyin Street in Novgorod) ...
In the XV century. Moscow architecture was strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance tradition. At the invitation of Ivan III, the Italian masters Pietro Solari, Aristotle Fiorovanti, Aleviz Novy, Mark Fryazin arrived in Moscow. Together with Russian craftsmen, they transformed the Moscow Kremlin, where the Assumption Cathedral was erected, the Archangel Cathedral - the tomb of the Moscow sovereigns, the New Annunciation Cathedral - the home church of the Russian tsars and the Faceted Chamber for gala reception foreign ambassadors and delegations.
In the XVI century. the process of emancipation of the Russian Orthodox Church from Byzantium was completed. After the fall of Constantinople, the choice of the metropolitan became the prerogative of the Moscow princes.
Also the most important innovation of this century was the printing of books. In 1564, clerk Ivan Fedorov and his assistant Peter Mstislavets published the first Russian dated book "Apostle" in Moscow. This is the heyday of the Russian folk ballad ("Dmitrovskaya Saturday"). Among the works created during this period, one can distinguish "Domostroy" by Archpriest Sylvester and "Chetya-Minea", collected under the leadership of Metropolitan Macarius.
In the XVI century. the beginning of a new style in architecture - hipped roof architecture was laid. When creating it, Russian masters used national traditions wooden architecture, carving, embroidery, painting. The very first experiments gave unsurpassed masterpieces: the Church of the Ascension in the village of Kolomenskoye, the Church of the Ascension of John the Baptist in the village of Dyakovo, the Intercession Cathedral on the Moat (better known as the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed).
At the end of the century, a new architectural style was born - Godunovsky, named after Tsar Boris Godunov. This is an old type of five-domed domed cube temple, replete with decorative ornaments, especially kokoshniks, bizarre compositions of galleries, arched spaces, side-altars, unusual bell tower shapes. Vivid examples of Godunov's architecture are: the Cathedral of the Transfiguration with a belfry in the Godunov estate near Moscow in Bolshiye Vyazemy, the Church of the Donskoy Mother of God in the Moscow Donskoy Monastery and the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Tsar nunnery in Suzdal.
XVI century - heyday applied arts, especially gold and silver work. The best samples of it are kept in the Kremlin, in the Armory. Among them: a silver ladle of Tsar Boris, the Gospel of 1571 in a gold setting with enamel and precious stones, Ermak's chain mail (weighing 12 kg), Monomakh's hat and Ivan the Terrible's Kazan hat.
In the art of music, as in architecture and icon painting, there was an intensive creation of a single Russian style. Similar processes took place in the Russian language itself. On the basis of the interweaving of regional Russian dialects, a new Central Russian style of speech is formed, soft and melodious.
Russian song influenced church singing. There are new, track and demestny chants, which are characterized by complex rhythm and polyphony. Two professional choral groups have been created in Moscow - the choir of state singing clerks and the choir of patriarchal singing clerks. Along with this, buffoons continued to play a prominent role at the king's court.
Thus, the cultural development of Russia in the Middle Ages was determined by factors common to all European peoples. This was the time of the formation of national states, linguistic and ethnic consolidation, the birth of common styles in art. If we compare Russia with Europe at the stage of the Middle Ages, then there is a noticeable chronological lag in the development of some global processes in the field of culture. The delay was caused by a temporary cultural decline as a result of the Tatar-Mongol invasion of Russia.
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Culture is a variety of forms and ways of human self-expression. What features did the culture of the Middle Ages have, summarized? The Middle Ages spanned over a thousand years. During this huge period of time, great changes took place in medieval Europe. The feudal system appeared. It was replaced by the bourgeois one. The Dark Ages gave way to the Renaissance. And in all the changes taking place in the medieval world, culture played a special role.
The role of the church in medieval culture
The Christian religion played an important role in the culture of the Middle Ages. The influence of the church in those days was enormous. In many ways, this determined the formation of culture. Among the polls of the illiterate population of Europe, the ministers of the Christian religion represented a separate class of educated people. The Church in the early Middle Ages played the role of a single center of culture. In the monastery workshops, monks copied the works of ancient authors, and the first schools were opened there.
Medieval culture. Briefly about literature
In literature, the main directions were heroic epics, the lives of saints, a knightly romance. Later, the genre of ballads, courtly romance, and love lyrics appeared.
If we talk about the early Middle Ages, then the level of development of culture was still extremely low. But, starting from the 11th century, the situation began to change radically. After the first Crusades, their participants returned from Eastern countries with new knowledge and habits. Then, thanks to the journey of Marco Polo, Europeans gain another valuable experience of how other countries live. The worldview of a medieval man is undergoing major changes.
Medieval Science
It is widely developed with the emergence of the first at universities in the 11th century. Alchemy was a very interesting science of the Middle Ages. The transformation of metals into gold, the search for the philosopher's stone are her main tasks.
Architecture
It is represented in the Middle Ages in two directions - Romanesque and Gothic. The Romanesque style is massive and geometric, with thick walls and narrow windows. It is more suitable for defense installations. Gothic is lightness, considerable height, wide windows and an abundance of sculptures. If in the Romanesque style they built mainly castles, then in the Gothic style - beautiful temples.
During the Renaissance (Renaissance), the culture of the Middle Ages makes a powerful leap forward.
Medieval European culture covers the period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the moment of the active formation of the Renaissance culture and the culture is divided early period(V-XI centuries) and culture classic middle ages(XII-XIV centuries). The emergence of the term "Middle Ages" is associated with the activities of the Italian humanists of the 15th-16th centuries, who, by introducing this term, sought to separate the culture of their era - the culture of the Renaissance - from the culture of previous eras. The era of the Middle Ages brought with it new economic relations, a new type of political system, as well as global changes in the worldview of people.
The entire culture of the early Middle Ages had a religious connotation.
The images and interpretations of the Bible formed the basis of the medieval picture of the world. The starting point for explaining the world was the idea of a complete and unconditional opposition between God and nature, Heaven and Earth, soul and body. The man of the Middle Ages imagined and understood the world as an arena of confrontation between good and evil, as a kind of hierarchical system that includes God, angels, and people, and the otherworldly forces of darkness.
Along with the strong influence of the church, the consciousness of medieval man continued to be deeply magical. This was facilitated by the very nature of medieval culture, filled with prayers, fairy tales, myths, magic spells. In general, the history of medieval culture is the history of the struggle between church and state. The position and role of art in this era were complex and contradictory, but nevertheless, throughout the entire period of development of European medieval culture, there was a search for a semantic support for the spiritual community of people.
All classes of medieval society recognized the spiritual leadership of the church, but nevertheless, each of them developed his own special culture, in which he reflected his moods and ideals.
1. The main periods of development of the Middle Ages.
The beginning of the Middle Ages is associated with the great migration of peoples, which began at the end of the IV century. Vandals, Goths, Huns and other peoples invaded the territory of the Western Roman Empire. After the collapse in 476. The Western Roman Empire on its territory formed a number of short-lived states, which consisted of foreign tribes, mixed with the indigenous population, which consisted mainly of the Celts and the so-called Romans. The Franks settled in Gaul and West Germany, the Vesgoths in northern Spain, the Ostrogoths in northern Italy, and the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. The barbarian peoples, who created their states on the ruins of the Roman Empire, found themselves either in the Roman or in the romanized environment. Nevertheless, the culture of the ancient world experienced a deep crisis during the invasion of the barbarians, and this crisis was aggravated by the introduction by the barbarians of their mythological thinking and worship of the elemental forces of nature. All this was reflected in the cultural process of the early Middle Ages.
Medieval culture developed in line with the period of early (V-XIII centuries) feudalism in the countries of Western Europe, the formation of which was accompanied by the transition from barbarian empires to the classical states of medieval Europe. It was a period of serious social and military upheaval.
At the stage of late feudalism (XI-XII centuries), craft, trade, and urban life had a rather low level of development. The rule of the feudal lords - the landowners - was undivided. The figure of the king was decorative in nature, and did not personify strength and state power. However, from the end of the XI century. (especially France) begins the process of strengthening the royal power and gradually created centralized feudal states, in which the rise of the feudal economy, contributing to the formation of the cultural process.
The crusades at the end of this period were of great importance. These campaigns helped introduce Western Europe to the rich culture of the Arab East and accelerated the growth of handicrafts.
In the second development of the mature (classical) European Middle Ages (XI century), there is a further growth of the productive forces of feudal society. A clear division is established between town and country, and there is an intensive development of crafts and trade. Royal power is becoming essential. This process was facilitated by the elimination of feudal anarchy. Chivalry and wealthy citizens become the mainstay of royal power. A characteristic feature of this period is the emergence of city-states, for example, Venice, Florence.
2. Features of the art of medieval Europe.
The development of medieval art includes the following three stages:
1. pre-Romanesque art (V- Xcenturies),
Which is divided into three periods: early Christian art, the art of the barbarian kingdoms, and the art of the Carolingian and Ottonian empires.
V early christian period, Christianity became the official religion. The appearance of the first Christian churches dates back to this time. Separate buildings of the centric type (round, octahedral, cruciform), called baptisteries or baptisms. The interior decoration of these buildings was mosaics and frescoes. They reflected in themselves all the main features of medieval painting, although they were greatly divorced from reality. Symbolism and conventionality prevailed in the images, and the mysticism of the images was achieved through the use of such formal elements as the enlargement of the eyes, the disembodied images, prayer poses, the reception of different scales in the depiction of figures according to the spiritual hierarchy.
Barbarian art played a positive role in the development of the ornamental and decorative direction, which later became the main part of the artistic creativity of the classical Middle Ages. And which already did not have a close connection with ancient traditions.
A characteristic feature of art Carolingian and Ottonian empires is a combination of ancient, early Christian, barbarian and Byzantine traditions, which were most clearly manifested in the ornament. The architecture of these kingdoms is based on Roman examples and includes centric stone or wooden temples, the use of mosaics and frescoes in the interior decoration of the temples.
An architectural monument of pre-Romanesque art is the Chapel of Charlemagne in Aachen, created around 800 AD. In the same period, the development of monastery construction was actively going on. In the Carolingian Empire, 400 new monasteries were built and 800 existing monasteries expanded.
Introduction
1.Mental foundations and characteristics of Western European medieval culture
2. European culture of the early Middle Ages
3. European culture of the mature and late Middle Ages
4. Culture of Byzantium: stages and development trends
Conclusion
List of used literature
Introduction
At the end of the 5th century. on the ruins of the Western Roman Empire, a new cultural and historical type of European society began to emerge. Self-determined back in the 4th century. The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) followed its own cultural and civilizational path, which doomed it to a kind of delayed archaization and stagnation. But, despite the different ways of forming socio-political systems, there was an indisputable similarity between medieval Western Europe and Byzantium, based on the dominance of feudal relations and Christianity. The latter, however, internally split into Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism (the split was formally consolidated in 1054).
The emergence of two Christian denominations deepened the economic, political and spiritual divide between Byzantium and the West. In the new Europe, during the Middle Ages, the process of the formation of nationalities proceeded faster, various worldviews were formed, separate subcultures and cultural centers, art schools, trends, styles were formed. The struggle between the desire for Christian unity and the desire for national independence became a distinctive feature of Western culture in the Middle Ages. Byzantium was, as it were, aloof from this struggle.
In the history of the cultural development of medieval Western Europe, it is customary to distinguish the periods of the early Middle Ages (V – X centuries), the mature Middle Ages (XI – XIII centuries) and the late Middle Ages (XIV – XV centuries). In Italy and the Netherlands, the late Middle Ages correspond to the final stage of the Proto-Renaissance and Early renaissance, which is explained by the uneven development of the economy and other institutions of civilization in various European countries.
1. Mental foundations and characteristics of Western European medieval culture
Christianity became the spiritual basis of the Middle Ages, reflected in all spheres of life. It determined the main feature of medieval culture - theocentrism. The system of official values in this era was determined by the belief in the triune God. The divine world is the pinnacle of the cosmic and social hierarchy. Nature, society, man were considered as a single whole, since they were considered God's creations. The meaning of the life of a medieval man was to discover the signs of the Creator of all that exists in his soul and the surrounding reality.
Another important feature of the medieval worldview is spiritualism. The earthly, natural world seemed to be only a reflection of the heavenly and was filled with mysterious spirits and mystical energies. This aimed at a constant search for ways to establish contact with God.
In medieval culture, there was no room left for the ancient harmony of spirit and body. In official dogma, the material, bodily was opposed to the spiritual and interpreted as something base. This view influenced the formation of a new idea of a person. On the one hand, he contained the image and likeness of God, on the other, he acted as the bearer of the carnal principle. Man is subject to devilish temptations, and they test his will. Life passes between a dazzling abyss of grace and a black abyss of destruction. Only constant improvement of the spiritual principle and sacrificial service to God can help a person avoid hellish torments.
Heightened sensitivity, bordering on exaltation, determined an important feature of the medieval mentality. Spirituality was associated not with rational activity, but with intense emotional life, ecstatic visions and miracles, imaginary phenomena of the other world.
Another important feature of the medieval worldview is symbolism, which overcame the ancient attitude to contemplation of the sensual-material form. Man strove for what was on the other side of the latter - for pure divine being. At the same time, potentially any thing was necessarily represented, first of all, by its sign, image, symbol, which did not mix the introduced meaning and the earthly thing, but assumed their common divine origin.
So, things-symbols had the ability to reflect divine reality, but to varying degrees. The next feature of the Middle Ages, hierarchism, followed from this idea. The natural world and social reality were deeply hierarchical here. The place of a phenomenon or object in the universal hierarchy was associated with the degree of their closeness to God.
These features of the medieval worldview determined the artistic culture, the main place in which was occupied by the attributes of the Christian cult. The goal of artistic creativity of that time was not aesthetic pleasure as such, but an appeal to God. However, Thomas Aquinas and some other religious philosophers represented God as the source of universal harmony and ideal beauty. An integral attribute of medieval art, which manifested itself especially in the mature and late Middle Ages, is monumentalism. It reflected the greatness of God, in the face of which man was likened to a grain of sand. The same symbolism is characteristic of medieval art. A religious work of art as a whole and any of its elements were viewed as signs of a supernatural reality.
Medieval architecture was a kind of synthesis of arts united around a spiritual center - a cathedral that embodied Heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Christ, and the Universe.
The use of symbols in works of art - "traces" of the incessant divine providence - determined the canonicity and allegorism of medieval art. Artists had to focus on the spiritual content of images, resorting to conventions and stylization, referring to allegories and associations. Thus, the meanings of sacred symbols were deciphered and presented in the form of clearly presented canonized moral formulas.
An important feature of medieval art is speculation, which led away from the mundane, sensual attitude. The etherealness of bodies, lack of interest in concrete-sensory details on the icon did not distract attention from the spiritual comprehension of God. The same is in spiritually sublime music, which freed from the power of everyday life.
2. European culture of the early Middle Ages
During the early Middle Ages, Western European culture and civilization experienced phases of crisis and recovery. It was a time of difficult, at first timid and imitative, and then more and more confident, independent search for an integral system of values, norms, ideals, performed at the crossroads of Christian, barbaric and ancient traditions.
A new era began in the midst of a deep total crisis that erupted after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Medieval society found its way in an atmosphere of economic and political chaos, among the ruins of the culture of the destroyed ancient world. The number of cities, which recently determined the qualitative originality of ancient culture, has decreased. Survived and slowly grew mainly along the banks of large rivers of the city and city residences of kings. The economy of this time was dominated by the subsistence economy and the agrarian economy, and the growth of large land ownership began. Trade links of individual localities were carried out mainly along the rivers and rarely became stable. The inhabitants exchanged the most necessary goods or luxury items (salt, wine, oil, expensive fabrics, spices). Settlement using money was difficult due to their shortage in circulation. Gold coins were minted mainly to maintain the power of the overlords.
The early Middle Ages also preserved some of the cultural forms created by antiquity (primarily by Rome). In the new era, education served primarily as a means to ensure liturgical practice and government. Some disciplines, in particular rhetoric, have completely changed their meaning. In the early Middle Ages, the latter became the realm of the written rather than the spoken word, the practice of skillfully drafting business documents, rather than the art of eloquence. Mathematics predominantly formed the skills of counting and solving problems and was least of all associated with the knowledge of the essence of the world, as in Ancient Greece.
The nascent medieval theology, however, turned to ancient authors. Christianity was forced to defend its ideals, turning to a culture with a deeply developed system of intellectual traditions - with its own ontology, epistemology, logic, with a developed art of polemics. Subsequently, patristics, which gravitated towards a harmonious synthesis of the Christian idea of revelation and the philosophical tradition of ancient rationalism, was replaced by scholasticism (XI-XIV centuries), the main problematics of which were connected exclusively with the Christian doctrine.
In the religious art of the early Middle Ages, elements of the artistic style of the barbarians were refracted - folk motifs, ornamentalism, fantastic images, etc.
The "animal style" was distinguished by underlined dynamism, in which stylized images of animals were combined with spiral floral ornament. The image of people became widespread at the end of the 7th century. (relief from Hornhausen). Among the surviving architectural structures of that time, noteworthy is Theodoric's tomb in Ravenna (completed in the 20s of the 6th century) - a model of primitive imitation of Roman architecture - and the palace chapel in Aachen (788–805).
3. European culture of the mature and late Middle Ages
For Europe, the 11th century was the start of a new cultural upsurge. Strengthening the external borders of the Western world and reducing the severity of internal conflicts made life safer, which made it possible to switch to improving agricultural technologies, strengthening trade, and developing crafts. The growth of cities took place at an accelerated pace, accompanied by property and social differentiation of society. In the XI-XIII centuries. the main features of medieval culture were finally formed and the first shoots of the future new European cultural type were born.
One of the characteristic features of the culture of this period was the contradiction between fragmentation, divergence in the economic, political, social and spiritual spheres of life, on the one hand, and the unifying pathos of the ideal images of social structure proposed by religious thinkers, on the other. In the social sphere, the ideal of a unified Christian society coexisted with the functioning of independent social groups, estates.
The rise of agriculture, the growth of workshops and craft corporations, and the formation of the merchant class played a decisive role in the formation of the medieval city. Large trade routes converged in medieval cities, and the surrounding fertile plains provided a surplus of agricultural products. The economic prerogative of the cities was handicraft and then manufacturing. Thanks to the cities, has developed monetary system... In the period of the mature and late Middle Ages, the type of trade predominated in the newly formed states, oriented mainly towards the local market and local sources of goods. But foreign trade and economic ties were also emerging.
Thus, at the turn of the XIII century. it was no longer monasteries and knightly castles, but cities that determined the economic and cultural development of Europe. In the XIV-XV centuries. democratic tendencies intensified in it.
Education. The new attitude towards the world that was gradually taking shape in the urban environment could not but affect the intellectual culture, in which more and more secular elements appeared. New forms of education were created in the cities: paid primary secular schools and universities. The first university in Europe appeared in the XII century. in Paris on the basis of the schools of the abbeys of St. Genevieve and St. Victor.
A school in the city could be opened by a workshop, a guild, or even just a private person. The main attention here was paid not to church doctrine, but to grammar, mathematics, rhetoric, natural science, and law. And what is important is that teaching in schools was conducted in the native language.
The universities that emerged in the XII-XIV centuries gave an even greater impetus to the spread of education, depriving the church of its monopoly in this area. The activities of the universities had three important cultural implications. First, it gave birth to a professional class of scholars who also received the right to teach the truths of Revelation. As a result, along with the ecclesiastical and secular power, the power of intellectuals appeared, the impact of which on spiritual culture and social life was increasingly intensified. Secondly, the university brotherhood affirmed the forms of secular culture and a new meaning of the concept of "nobility", which consists in the aristocracy of mind and behavior. Thirdly, within the framework of medieval universities, along with the formation of an attitude towards the rational comprehension of theological wisdom, the rudiments of scientific knowledge appeared.
Literature. The literature of the mature and late Middle Ages reflected the creativity of various social strata of society and nationalities and therefore was extremely diverse.
Church religious-didactic (lives of saints, parables, sermons) and edifying (example - instructive examples, entertaining stories) literature continued to be widespread. A special place in church literature was occupied by the genre of visions - stories about the communication of a person, including a simple layman, with otherworldly forces.
Back in the X century. In France, a poetic tradition of jugglers began to take shape - itinerant singers-musicians, familiar with both the traditions of Latin literature and the heroic epic. In the XI-XIII centuries. the heyday of chivalrous lyric poetry, which glorified the mighty moral power of love and military exploits, fell. The greatest role in its formation was played by the southern French troubadours, in whose verses the traditions of folk and ancient poetry coexisted. Knightly novels were very popular - large poetic works in national languages, most often inspired by folk heroic epics.
Architecture and fine arts. During the mature Middle Ages, two leading styles appeared, reflecting changes in the value orientations of medieval man - Romanesque and Gothic. The dominant art form during this period was architecture.
In the medieval culture of the XI-XII centuries. developed a Romanesque style. He inherited the forms of ancient Roman and early Christian architecture. The Romanesque sculpture is characterized by monumental generalization of forms, deviation from real proportions, expressiveness of poses and gestures of sacred characters.
Romanesque places of worship represented the architectonic monumental style in architecture. Here, the basic techniques of sculptural and pictorial images, norms and rules for constructing artistic images set by church aesthetics. Secular Romanesque art developed in the castles of feudal lords, which simultaneously met the requirements of defense, housing and representation, both in planning and in relation to the locality (Carcassonne fortress in Provence, XII-XIII centuries).
In the monastic complexes, the leading role was played by the temple. Sculpture in Romanesque churches, simple in design, was located both inside and outside - on the facade, framed by a portal.
Romanesque visual arts were subordinated to architecture. The picturesque images, created mainly in the fresco technique, represented expressive color compositions, icon-painting subjects, which gave the interior an impressive solemnity. Occasionally, cult themes in painting were complemented by folklore motifs (frescoes of the Saint Saven Hartam church, France).
From the second half of the XII century. in the art of medieval Europe, the formation of the Gothic style began. The term "Gothic" appeared in the Renaissance and comes from the name of the tribe "Goths", whose pointed dwellings resembled the steep slopes of Gothic cathedrals. The Gothic period turned out to be more complex, and the style itself became refined and decorative in comparison with the Romanesque. It was mainly determined by the culture of the cities, the buildings of which were losing their defensive significance. Secular construction developed (town halls, covered markets, hospitals, residential buildings). Under the influence of the new perception of the world, the main features of Gothic art were formed. It came close to the man. In the images of Christ, human features are emphasized, the appearance of the "formidable Judge" is replaced by the image of the "suffering horn". The gothic man was in an emotionally tense relationship with the imaginary realm. In the culture of that time, an interest in the beauty of the real world, earthly feelings and experiences awoke.
The main constructive innovation of Gothic architecture was the lancet arch (two facing each other at an acute angle of the arc) and the lancet vault on the ribs (the connection of stone ribs with spacers). They increased the height of the grandiose structure and made it possible to overlap spaces of any plan.
In different states, the Gothic style had its own striking features associated with the emergence of national art schools. The largest of them are French, German and English.
The development of plastics in the Gothic era was inextricably linked with architecture. Sculpture strengthened the emotional perception of architecture, contributed to the pictorial embodiment of not only religious feelings and beliefs, but also nature deified by man.
The dominant role here was played by round plastics and relief. Gothic sculpture is an integral part of the cathedral. She was included in architectural composition and diversified her appearance.
Gothic proposed new principles for the synthesis of arts, which made it possible to more fully reflect the emotionally heightened perception of the connection between the heavenly and the real worlds by a person, an appeal to the earthly. She created the necessary prerequisites for the emergence of the humanistic culture of the Renaissance.
4. Culture of Byzantium: stages and development trends
A large medieval cultural and civilizational center was Byzantium, which arose in 395 on the territories of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. The capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which separated from the Western, became Constantinople (now Istanbul), founded in 330 by the emperor Constantine. The state existed until 1453, when Constantinople was captured by the Turks. At the stage of its formation, Byzantium preserved and significantly modified the traditions of ancient culture better than the western territories of Europe. Little affected by the invasions of the barbarians, it took from Rome the form of a centralized state with an emperor and a church at its head. The development of the culture of Byzantium to a much greater extent than in the countries of Western Europe was controlled by the state. Byzantium was characterized by the slow pace of cultural transformations and the late formation of feudal relations. Until the VII century. here the modified value foundations of the late antique culture and civilization were preserved. The reign of Justinian (527–565) is noted in history as a grandiose attempt to restore the former greatness of Rome, the successor of which was considered to be the Roman Empire - Byzantium.
In the IV-VII centuries. the uniqueness of the Byzantine religion with its clearly expressed philosophical and contemplative attitude to the Christian canons has already fully manifested itself. Byzantine civilization is characterized by an organic fusion of secular and religious power in the person of the emperor, who symbolized a single administrative principle. The confrontation between the secular (imperial) power and the spiritual (papal) power that arose in Western Europe at times grew into open conflicts. The church organization of Byzantium was completely regulated by the state and was completely subordinate to the emperor.
The literature of early Byzantium was of a dual nature, fancifully combining at its core the Christian worldview with the post-antique pathos of civic consciousness and reasonable choice. The genre of living has gained particular popularity among church literature.
The powerful rise of art in early Byzantium was associated with the reign of Justinian. In large cities, primarily in Constantinople, intensive construction was carried out. Triumphal arches, palaces were erected, aqueducts, baths, hippodromes, water storage tanks were built. However, the main role in architecture belonged to religious buildings - temples and monastic complexes. In the architecture of the 5th-7th centuries. two types of temples were used: basilical and cross-domed. The Temple of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532-537) - the pearl of Byzantine architecture - successfully combines both architectural forms.
Fine arts and architecture of the 5th – 7th centuries combined church and secular genres. The emphasis was on monumental creations. At the same time, several local art schools operated, forming a system of pictorial images on the basis of the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, later canonized by the church. The main task was to depict not a single phenomenon, not the sensible world, but its idea, while at the same time approaching the divine prototype as much as possible.
VIII century - the first half of the 9th century. became a time of testing for Byzantine culture and civilization, which revised its attitude to the ancient heritage. Free craft and trade corporations were reduced, the mercenary army was abolished, and the number of cities was sharply reduced. The rewriting of ancient books has lost its relevance, and only a few intellectuals still supported the traditions of ancient education. The sphere of education was in decline (even the patriarchal school at the Hagia Sophia was closed), the literacy of the population dropped sharply. At the same time, the role of the patriarchs was elevated, the Christian Church strove to extinguish the last centers of paganism.
The literature of this period was predominantly ecclesiastical. The most popular genre remained the hagiographic genre, which included, along with religious narratives proper, scattered natural science, geographical and historical information. The apologetic hymnography was dominated by the canon with its solemn static and ornate character.
Second half of the 9th - 13th centuries - a period of weakening of the imperial power and strengthening of the position of the landed aristocracy.
Economy. By the middle of the X century. in Byzantium, feudal relations finally took shape. Unlike the West, they were based primarily on the enslavement of the peasants by the state. Simultaneously, small communal land ownership was absorbed by large feudal estates, which competed with the centralized system of state power. In the 11th – 12th centuries Byzantium, despite the growth of crafts and trade, cities of the Western type did not appear with a newly developed self-government and free craft workshops. Workshop production in large cities was tightly controlled by the state.
The worldview of that time combined the fading ideals of patriotism, emotional-mystical and at the same time philosophical-rational religiosity. Interest in the ancient heritage was renewed, the works of ancient authors were rewritten again. Secular education was revived in accordance with the antique model. In the IX century. opened graduate School in Constantinople, led by the greatest scientist of that time, Lev the Mathematician.
Literature. In the second half of the 9th - 13th centuries. various kinds of systematized reviews became widespread.
Architecture and fine arts. During this period, there was a further enrichment of the style of architecture. The leading role has traditionally belonged to cult architecture with its large monastic complexes and majestic temples.
From the second half of the 9th century. great changes affected church painting: it was becoming more and more humanized, but it claimed to awaken universal spiritual experiences, expressed through symbolic images. Laconism of compositional construction, restraint of color solutions, and proportionality to architecture distinguish the painting of the 9th – 13th centuries. It was at this time that a system of canonical images in temples took shape.
After the devastating campaigns of the crusaders who destroyed Constantinople, in the XIII century. the final stage in the development of the Byzantine culture began. It is associated with the rule of the Palaeologus dynasty (1267-1453). The art of this time is characterized by expression and filigree elaboration of images (mosaics of the Kahriye Jami church in Constantinople).
In 1453, Byzantium was conquered by Turkey, but the types of religious buildings created by its masters, systems of fresco paintings and mosaics, icon painting, literature were spread and developed in the art of Western Europe, southern and western Slavs, Ancient Rus, Belarus and the Caucasus.
Conclusion
So, the Middle Ages in Western Europe are a time of intense spiritual life, complex and difficult searches for worldview structures that could synthesize the historical experience and knowledge of the preceding millennia.
In this era, people were able to enter a new path of cultural development, different from what former times knew. Trying to reconcile faith and reason, building a picture of the world on the basis of the knowledge available to them and with the help of Christian dogmatism, the culture of the Middle Ages created new artistic styles, a new urban lifestyle, a new economy, prepared the consciousness of people for the use of mechanical devices and technology.
Contrary to the opinion of the thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, the Middle Ages left us with the most important achievements of spiritual culture, including the institutions of scientific knowledge and education. Among them should be named, first of all, the university as a principle. In addition, a new paradigm of thinking arose, the disciplinary structure of cognition without which modern science would be impossible, people were able to think and cognize the world much more effectively than before. Even the fantastic recipes of alchemists played a role in this process of improving the spiritual means of thinking, the general level of culture.
What happened in the XX century. reassessment of the importance of medieval culture emphasizes its special role in creating the image of the moral behavior of a Christian. And today, experts rightly note in this culture the origins of many worldview and intellectual attitudes characteristic of later eras, the prerequisites for updating the methods of cognition and aesthetic transformation of the world. The culture of the European Middle Ages developed and consolidated many values, meanings, forms of life and creativity, which found their reincarnation in the following centuries.
List of used literature
- Culturology. Textbook / Edited by A.A. Radugin. - M., 2001.
- Kononenko B.I. Fundamentals of Cultural Studies: A course of lectures. - M., 2002.
- Petrova M.M. Cultural theory: Lecture notes. - SPb., 2000.
- Samokhvalova V.I. Culturology: Short course of lectures. - M., 2002.
- Erengross B.A. Culturology. Textbook for universities / B.A. Ehrengross, R.G. Apresyan, E. Botvinnik. - M .: Onyx, 2007.
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