Chapter ii culture of Western Europe. Medieval culture of Western Europe V-XV centuries Culture of the barbarian peoples of Western Europe

Chapter 4 Culture of European countries in the 16th–17th centuries “The culture of the Renaissance entails not only a number of external discoveries, its main merit is that for the first time it reveals the entire inner world of man and calls him to a new life.” German scientist

Barbarian conquest of the Roman Empire in the 5th century. contributed to the decline of ancient culture: barbarians destroyed cities where cultural life was concentrated, destroyed monuments of ancient art and libraries.

The large historical period called the “Middle Ages” does not have a generally accepted chronological framework. This is largely determined by the difference in views on the uniqueness and place of this era in the history of Western European countries.

The decline of culture during the early Middle Ages is explained to a large extent by the church-feudal ideology that was introduced into the life of the new society by the Catholic Church. People were brought up in the spirit of a religious-ascetic worldview; every believer had to prepare in his earthly life for a stay in the eternal afterlife; For this, the church recommended fasting, prayer, and repentance. The human body was seen as a prison of the soul that needed to be released for supreme bliss.

Domestic and world medieval studies consider the collapse of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the 5th century to be the beginning of the Middle Ages (it is believed that the empire ceased to exist on September 4, 476, when Romulus Augustus abdicated the throne). Historians have no consensus regarding the end of the Middle Ages. It was proposed to consider it as such: the fall of Constantinople (1453), the discovery of America (1492), the beginning of the Reformation (1517), the beginning of the English Revolution (1640) or the beginning of the Great(1789). In recent years, domestic medieval studies have dated the end of the Middle Ages to the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries. However, any periodization of the period is conditional.

The term "Middle Ages" was first introduced by the Italian humanist Flavio Biondo in his work "Decades of History, Beginning with the Decline of the Roman Empire" (1483).

So he designated the millennium that separated them from the “golden age” of antiquity.

The Middle Ages is a period, the beginning of which coincided with the withering away of ancient culture, and the end with its Renaissance in modern times. Before Biondo, the dominant term for this period was Petrarch's "Dark Ages", which in modern historiography refers to a narrower period of time (6th-8th centuries).

The early Middle Ages include two outstanding cultures - the culture of the Carolingian Renaissance and Byzantium. They gave rise to 2 great cultures - Catholic (Western Christian) and Orthodox (Eastern Christian)

The period of culture of the Early and Classical Middle Ages covers at least 10 centuries, from the 5th century to the end of the 14th century, i.e. from the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the active formation of the Renaissance culture. The period of the Early Middle Ages occupies the period of 5–11 centuries, and the Classical period – 12–14 centuries.

In socio-economic terms, it corresponds to the origin, development and decay of feudalism. In this historically long socio-cultural process of development of feudal society, a unique type of human relationship to the world was developed, qualitatively distinguishing it both from the culture of the ancient world and from subsequent eras.

1. The term "Carolingian Renaissance" describes the cultural upsurge in the empire of Charlemagne and the kingdoms of the Carolingian dynasty in the 8th and 9th centuries. (mainly in France and Germany). He expressed himself in the organization of schools, the attraction of educated figures to the royal court, in the development of literature, fine arts, and architecture. Scholasticism (“school theology”) became the dominant direction of medieval philosophy.

2. The origins of medieval culture should be outlined:

3. the culture of the “barbarian peoples” of Western Europe (the so-called German origin);

The culture of Rome was assimilated during its conquest by the “barbarians” and interacted with the traditional pagan tribal culture of the peoples of Northwestern Europe. The interaction of these principles gave impetus to the formation of Western European culture itself.

The conditions for forcing medieval culture were as follows:

· feudal form of ownership, based on the personal and land dependence of peasants on vassal landowners;

· class-hierarchical structure of society (vassal service to the overlord);

· the process of endless wars, which carried a sense of the tragedy of human life;

· the spiritual atmosphere of the era, where the traditions of the “lost” ancient culture, Christianity and the spiritual culture of barbarian tribes (heroic epic) were uniquely intertwined.

Medieval culture was formed under the dominance of subsistence economics in the closed world of a rural estate and the underdevelopment of commodity-money relations. Subsequently, the urban environment, burghers, craft guild production, and trade increasingly became the social basis of culture. There was also a process of technical development: the use of water and windmills, lifts for the construction of churches, etc. Machines became increasingly widespread, preparing the emergence of a “new” Europe.

A characteristic feature of the Middle Ages was the idea of ​​class division of society. The concept of “estate” is given a special meaning and value, because behind this term is the idea of ​​a divinely established order. In the medieval picture of the world, a central place was occupied by social groups, which were a reflection of the heavenly throne, where angelic beings formed a hierarchy of “9 ranks of angels,” grouped into a triad. The earthly order corresponded to this - the 3 main classes of the feudal society: clergy, knighthood, people.

In the Middle Ages, the transition began from a slave-owning community of equal, free citizens to a feudal hierarchy of lords and vassals, from the ethics of the state to the ethics of personal service. A significant difference between medieval society was the lack of personal freedom. In the early periods of the Middle Ages, each person was doomed to conform to his role prescribed by the social order. There was no social mobility, because a person had no opportunity to move up the social ladder from one class to another, and, moreover, it was practically impossible to move from one city to another, from one country to another. The person had to stay where he was born. Often he could not even dress the way he liked. At the same time, since the social system was considered as a natural order, people, being a certain part of this order, had confidence in their safety. There was relatively little competition. At birth, a person found himself in an established environment, which guaranteed him a certain standard of living that had already become traditional.

The uniqueness of medieval culture was most clearly manifested in folk festivals, including carnivals, from which the culture of laughter was born. This cultural and psychological phenomenon was associated with the fact that people had a natural need for psychological relief, for carefree fun after hard work, which resulted in parodic ridicule of the vices of Christian culture. The presence of folk culture represents ideological opposition to orthodox Christianity.

You can select the main features of the spiritual culture of the Middle Ages:

· dominance of the Christian religion;

· traditionalism and retrospectiveness – the main tendency is “the more ancient the more authentic”, “innovation is a manifestation of pride”;

· symbolism – the text of the Bible was the object of reflection and interpretation;

· didacticism – figures of medieval culture, first of all, preachers and teachers of theology.

· universality, encyclopedic knowledge - the main advantage of a thinker is erudition (the creation of “sums”);

· reflexivity, self-absorption – confession plays an important role;

· hierarchy of the spiritual sphere (the relationship between faith and reason): with the accumulation of experimental knowledge, Augustine’s credo “I believe in order to understand” was supplanted by P. Abelard’s principle “I understand in order to believe,” which significantly prepared the ground for the development of natural sciences.

General characteristics of the Middle Ages

A common characteristic feature of the spiritual life of feudal society was the dominance of religion in the field of ideology. Various religious teachings - Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and their church organizations performed the same function - strengthened the dominance of the feudal lords over the people and were “the highest generalization and sanction of the existing feudal system.” The enormous role of religion in the social life of medieval states also determined its strong influence on culture and art. In Western and Eastern Europe and in Byzantium, the Christian Church subjugated the school, turned philosophy into the handmaiden of theology, and forced art and science to serve the church. This largely explains the predominantly religious nature of medieval philosophy, literature and art in these countries, as well as the slow development of the natural and exact sciences. This also led to the dominance of ascetic ideals in art, to the expression in it, first of all, of the spiritual principle, which so sharply distinguishes the monuments of medieval art from the monuments of classical antiquity. At the same time, along with the church and secular culture of the feudal lords, folk culture lived and developed, which found expression in folk epics, tales, songs, in original and vibrant applied art and other areas of creativity. Folk art served as the basis best works medieval art and literature. Throughout its development, the culture of the feudal world took shape in the struggle between progressive and reactionary forces. During the period when the decomposition of the feudal system began, along with the first sprouts of capitalism, a new worldview emerged - humanism, which served as the basis for the life-affirming culture of the Renaissance.

religious character(the Christian Church is the only thing that united the disparate kingdoms of Western Europe throughout medieval history);

synthesis of different types of art, where the leading place was given to architecture;

the focus of artistic language on convention, symbolism and small realism associated with the worldview of the era, in which faith, spirituality, and heavenly beauty were stable priorities;

emotional beginning, psychologism, designed to convey the intensity of religious feeling, the drama of individual plots;

nationality, (in the Middle Ages, the people were creators and spectators: works of art were created by the hands of folk craftsmen, temples were erected in which numerous parishioners prayed. Used by the church in ideological purposes religious art had to be accessible and understandable to all believers);

impersonality(according to the teachings of the church, the hand of the master is directed by the will of God, whose instrument was considered to be the architect, stone cutter, painter, jeweler, stained glass artist, etc., we practically do not know the names of the masters who left the world masterpieces of medieval art).

As noted above, the face of medieval art was determined by architecture. But during the era of German conquests, ancient architectural art fell into decline. Therefore, in the field of architecture, the Middle Ages had to start all over again.

Chapter 21. Medieval culture of Western Europe V-XV centuries. (Ukolova V.I.)

The culture of the Western European Middle Ages covers more than twelve centuries of the difficult, extremely complex path traversed by the peoples of this region. During this era, the horizons of European culture were significantly expanded, the historical and cultural unity of Europe was formed despite all the heterogeneity of processes in individual regions, viable nations and states were formed, modern European languages ​​emerged, works were created that enriched the history of world culture, significant scientific and technical successes were achieved . The culture of the Middle Ages - the culture of the feudal formation - is an integral and natural part of global cultural development, which at the same time has its own deeply original content and original appearance.

The beginning of the formation of medieval culture. The early Middle Ages are sometimes called the "dark ages", putting a certain pejorative connotation into this concept. Decline and barbarism into which the West was rapidly plunging at the end of the 5th-7th centuries. as a result of barbarian conquests and incessant wars, they were opposed not only to the achievements of Roman civilization, but also to the spiritual life of Byzantium, which did not survive such a tragic turning point during the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages. And yet, it is impossible to erase this time from the cultural history of Europe, because it was during the early Middle Ages that the cardinal problems that determined its future were solved. The first and most important of them is laying the foundations of European civilization, because in ancient times there was no “Europe” in the modern sense as a kind of cultural and historical community with a common destiny in world history. It began to really take shape ethnically, politically, economically and culturally in the early Middle Ages as the fruit of the life activity of many peoples who had inhabited Europe for a long time and those who came again: the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Germans, Slavs, etc. Paradoxical as it may sound, it was precisely the early The Middle Ages, which did not produce achievements comparable to the heights of ancient culture or the mature Middle Ages, marked the beginning of European cultural history proper, which grew out of the interaction of the heritage of the ancient world, more precisely, the disintegrating civilization of the Roman Empire, the Christianity it gave birth to, and on the other hand, tribal, folk barbarian cultures. It was a process of painful synthesis, born from the fusion of contradictory, sometimes mutually exclusive principles, the search not only for new content, but also for new forms of culture, and the passing of the baton of cultural development to its new bearers.

Even in late antiquity, Christianity became the unifying shell into which a variety of views, ideas and moods could fit - from subtle theological doctrines to pagan superstitions and barbaric rituals. In essence, Christianity during the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages was a very receptive (to certain limits) form that met the needs of the mass consciousness of the era. This was one of the most important reasons for its gradual strengthening, its absorption of other ideological and cultural phenomena and combining them into a relatively unified structure. In this regard, the activity of the father of the church, the greatest theologian, Bishop of Hippo Aurelius Augustine, whose multifaceted work essentially outlined the boundaries of the spiritual space of the Middle Ages until the 13th century, when the theological system of Thomas Aquinas was created, was of great importance for the Middle Ages. Augustine owns the most consistent substantiation of the dogma about the role of the church, which became the basis of medieval Catholicism, the Christian philosophy of history, developed by him in the essay “On the City of God,” and in Christian psychology. Before Augustine's Confessions, Greek and Latin literature did not know such deep introspection and such deep penetration into the inner world of man. Augustine's philosophical and pedagogical works were of significant value for medieval culture.

To understand the genesis of medieval culture, it is important to take into account that it was primarily formed in the region where until recently there was the center of a powerful, universalistic Roman civilization, which could not disappear historically at once, while social relations and institutions, the culture generated by it, continued to exist , the people fed by her were alive. Even in the most difficult time for Western Europe, the Roman school tradition was not stopped. The Middle Ages adopted such an important element as the system of seven liberal arts, divided into two levels: the lower, initial - trivium, which included grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, and the highest - quadrivium, which included arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. One of the most widespread textbooks in the Middle Ages was created by an African Neoplatonist of the 5th century. Marcian Capella. It was his essay “On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury.” The most important means of cultural continuity between antiquity and the Middle Ages was the Latin language, which retained its significance as the language of the church and state office work, international communication and culture and served as the basis for the subsequently formed Romance languages.

The most striking phenomena in the culture of the late 5th - first half of the 7th century. associated with the assimilation of the ancient heritage, which became a breeding ground for the revitalization of cultural life in Ostrogothic Italy and Visigothic Spain.

Master of the Office (first minister) of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, Severinus Boethius (c. 480-525) is one of the most revered teachers of the Middle Ages. His treatises on arithmetic and music, works on logic and theology, translations of Aristotle's logical works became the foundation of the medieval system of education and philosophy. Boethius is often called the "father of scholasticism." Boethius's brilliant career was suddenly interrupted. Following a false denunciation, he was thrown into prison and then executed. Before his death, he wrote a short essay in verse and prose, “On the Consolation of Philosophy,” which became one of the most widely read works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The idea of ​​combining Christian theology and rhetorical culture determined the direction of the activities of the quaestor (secretary) and master of the offices of the Ostrogothic kings, Flavius ​​Cassiodorus (c. 490 - c. 585). He hatched plans to create the first university in the West, which, unfortunately, were not destined to come true. He is the author of "Varia", a unique collection of documents, business and diplomatic correspondence, which has become an example of Latin stylistics for many centuries. In the south of Italy, on his estate, Cassiodorus founded the Vivarium monastery - a cultural center that united a school, a workshop for copying books (scriptorium), and a library. The vivarium became a model for Benedictine monasteries, which, starting from the second half of the 6th century. turn into guardians of cultural tradition in the West until the era of the developed Middle Ages. Among them, the most famous was the monastery of Montecassino in Italy.

Visigothic Spain produced one of the greatest educators of the early Middle Ages, Isidore of Seville (c. 570-636), who gained the reputation of the first medieval encyclopedist. His main work, “Etymology,” in 20 books, is a summary of what has been preserved from ancient knowledge.

One should not, however, think that the assimilation of the ancient heritage was carried out unhindered and on a large scale. The continuity in the culture of that time was not and could not be a complete continuity of the achievements of classical antiquity. The struggle was to preserve only a small surviving part of the cultural values ​​and knowledge of the previous era. But this was also extremely important for the formation of medieval culture, because what was preserved formed an important part of its foundation and concealed within itself the possibilities of creative development, which were realized later.

At the end of the 6th - beginning of the 7th century. Pope Gregory I (590-604) sharply opposed the idea of ​​​​admitting pagan wisdom into the world of Christian spiritual life, condemning vain worldly knowledge. His position triumphed in the spiritual life of Western Europe for several centuries, and subsequently found adherents among church leaders until the end of the Middle Ages. The name of Pope Gregory is associated with the development of Latin hagiographic literature, which perfectly met the needs of the mass consciousness of people of the early Middle Ages. Lives of saints have long become a favorite genre in these centuries of social upheaval, famine, disaster and war. The saint becomes the new hero of a man thirsting for a miracle, tormented by the terrible reality of man.

From the second half of the 7th century. cultural life in Western Europe is in complete decline, it barely glimmers in monasteries, somewhat more intensely in Ireland, from where monastic teachers “came” to the continent.

The extremely scarce data from sources does not allow us to recreate any complete picture of the cultural life of the barbarian tribes that stood at the origins of medieval civilization in Europe. However, it is generally accepted that by the time of the Great Migration of Peoples, in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, the beginning of the formation of the heroic epic of the peoples of Western and Northern Europe (ancient German, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Irish), which replaced their history, dates back.

The barbarians of the early Middle Ages brought a unique vision and feeling of the world, filled with primitive power, fueled by the ancestral ties of man and the community to which he belonged, warlike energy, characteristic of the ancestral feeling of inseparability from nature, the indivisibility of the world of people and gods.

The unbridled and gloomy imagination of the Germans and Celts populated the forests, hills and rivers with evil dwarfs, werewolf monsters, dragons and fairies. Gods and human heroes wage a constant struggle against evil forces. At the same time, the gods are powerful sorcerers and wizards. These ideas were reflected in the bizarre ornaments of the barbaric animal style in art, in which animal figures lost their integrity and definition, as if “flowing” into one another in arbitrary combinations of patterns and turning into unique magical symbols. But the gods of barbarian mythology are the personification of not only natural, but also social forces. The head of the German pantheon, Wotan (Odin), is the god of the storm, the whirlwind, but he is also a warrior leader, standing at the head of the heroic heavenly army. The souls of the Germans who fell on the battlefield rush to him in bright Valhalla to be accepted into Wotan’s squad. When the barbarians were Christianized, their gods did not die; they were transformed and merged with the cults of local saints or joined the ranks of demons.

The Germans also brought with them a system of moral values, formed in the depths of the patriarchal clan society, where special importance was attached to the ideals of fidelity, military courage with a sacred attitude towards the military leader, and ritual. The psychological make-up of the Germans, Celts and other barbarians was characterized by open emotionality and unrestrained intensity in the expression of feelings. All this also left its mark on the emerging medieval culture.

The early Middle Ages was a time of growing self-awareness of barbarian peoples who came to the forefront of European history. It was then that the first written “histories” were created, covering the actions not of the Romans, but of the barbarians: “Getica” by the Gothic historian Jordan (VI century), “The History of the Kings of the Goths, Vandals and Sueves” by Isidore of Seville (first third of the 7th century), “ History of the Franks" by Gregory of Tours (second half of the 6th century), "Ecclesiastical history of the English people" by Bede the Venerable (late 7th - beginning of the 8th century), "History of the Lombards" by Paul the Deacon (8th century).

The formation of culture in the early Middle Ages was a complex process of synthesis of late antique, Christian and barbarian traditions. During this period, a certain type of spiritual life of Western European society crystallized, the main role in which he begins to belong to the Christian religion and church.

Carolingian revival. The first tangible fruits of this interaction were obtained during the Carolingian Renaissance - the rise of cultural life that took place under Charlemagne and his immediate successors. For Charlemagne, the political ideal was the empire of Constantine the Great. In cultural and ideological terms, he sought to consolidate a multi-tribal state based on the Christian religion. This is evidenced by the fact that reforms in the cultural sphere began with a comparison of various copies of the Bible and the establishment of its single canonical text for the entire Carolingian state. At the same time, a reform of the liturgy was carried out, its uniformity and compliance with the Roman model was established.

The reformist aspirations of the sovereign coincided with the deep processes taking place in society, which needed to expand the circle of educated people capable of contributing to the practical implementation of new political and social tasks. Charlemagne, although he himself, according to his biographer Einhard, was never able to learn to write, was constantly concerned about improving education in the state. Around 787, the “Capitulary on Sciences” was published, obliging the creation of schools in all dioceses, at each monastery. Not only clergy, but also the children of lay people were supposed to study there. Along with this, a writing reform was carried out, and textbooks on various school disciplines were compiled.

The main center of education was the court academy in Aachen. The most educated people of Europe at that time were invited here. The largest figure in the Carolingian Renaissance was Alcuin, a native of Britain. He called not to despise “human (i.e., non-theological) sciences” and to teach children literacy and philosophy so that they could reach the heights of wisdom. Most of Alcuin's works were written for pedagogical purposes; their favorite form was a dialogue between a teacher and a student or two students; he used riddles and answers, simple periphrases and complex allegories. Among Alcuin's students were prominent figures of the Carolingian Renaissance, among them the encyclopedist writer Rabanus the Maurus. At the court of Charlemagne, a unique historical school developed, the most prominent representatives of which were Paul the Deacon, the author of the History of the Lombards, and Einhard, who compiled the Biography of Charlemagne.

After the death of Charles, the cultural movement that he inspired quickly declined, schools were closed, secular trends gradually faded away, and cultural life again concentrated in monasteries. In the monastery scriptoria, the works of ancient authors were rewritten and preserved for future generations, but the main occupation of the learned monks was not ancient literature, but theology.

Completely apart from the culture of the 9th century. stands a native of Ireland, one of the greatest philosophers of the European Middle Ages, John Scotus Eriugena. Relying on Neoplatonic philosophy, in particular on the writings of the Byzantine thinker Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, he came to original pantheistic conclusions. What saved him from reprisals was that the radicalism of his views was not understood by his contemporaries, who had little interest in philosophy. Only in the 13th century. Eriugena's views were condemned as heretical.

The 9th century produced very interesting examples of monastic religious poetry. The secular line in literature is represented by “historical poems” and “doxologies” in honor of kings, and druzhina poetry. At that time, the first recordings of German folklore and its translation into Latin were made, which later served as the basis for the German epic “Valtarius” compiled in Latin.

At the end of the early Middle Ages in northern Europe in Iceland and Norway, the poetry of the skalds, which had no analogues in world literature, flourished, who were not only poets and performers at the same time, but also Vikings and warriors. Their laudatory, lyrical or “topical” songs are a necessary element in the life of the king’s court and his squad.

A response to the needs of the mass consciousness of the era was the dissemination of literature such as the lives of saints and visions. They bore the imprint of popular consciousness, mass psychology, their inherent figurative structure, and system of ideas.

By the 10th century The impetus given to the cultural life of Europe by the Carolingian Renaissance is drying up due to incessant wars and civil strife, and the political decline of the state. A period of “cultural silence” ensues, lasting almost until the end of the 10th century. and replaced short period rise, the so-called Ottonian Renaissance, after which in the cultural life of Western Europe there will no longer be periods of such deep decline as from the middle of the 7th to the beginning of the 9th century. and for several decades in the 10th century. The 11th-14th centuries will be the time when medieval culture takes on its “classical” forms.

Worldview. Theology and philosophy. The worldview of the Middle Ages was predominantly theological *. Christianity was the ideological core of culture and all spiritual life. Theology, or religious philosophy, became the highest form of ideology, intended for the elite, educated people, while for the vast mass of the illiterate, the “simple”, ideology acted primarily in the form of a “practical”, cult religion. The fusion of theology and other levels of religious consciousness created a single ideological and psychological complex that embraced all classes and strata of feudal society.

* (See: Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 21. P. 495.)

Medieval philosophy, like the entire culture of feudal Western Europe, from the first stages of its development reveals a tendency towards universalism. It is formed on the basis of Latin Christian thought, revolving around the problem of the relationship between God, the world and man, discussed in patristics - the teachings of the church fathers of the 2nd-8th centuries. The specifics of medieval consciousness dictated that not even the most radical thinker objectively denied or could deny the primacy of spirit over matter, of God over the world. However, the interpretation of the problem of the relationship between faith and reason was by no means unambiguous. In the 11th century the ascetic and theologian Peter Damiani categorically stated that reason is insignificant before faith, philosophy can only be the “handmaiden of theology.” He was opposed by Berengary of Tours, who defended the human mind and, in his rationalism, went so far as to openly mock the church.

The 11th century is the time of the birth of scholasticism as a broad intellectual movement. This name is derived from the Latin word schola (school) and literally means “school philosophy,” which rather indicates the place of its birth than its content. Scholasticism is a philosophy that grows out of theology and is inextricably linked with it, but not identical to it. Its essence is the understanding of the dogmatic premises of Christianity from a rationalistic position and with the help of logical tools. This is due to the fact that the central place in scholasticism was occupied by the struggle around the problem of universals - general concepts. In her interpretation, three main directions were identified: realism, nominalism and conceptualism. Realists argued that universals exist from eternity, residing in the divine mind. Connecting with matter, they are realized in specific things. The nominalists believed that general concepts are extracted by the mind from the comprehension of individual, concrete things. An intermediate position was occupied by conceptualists, who considered general concepts as something existing in things. This seemingly abstract philosophical dispute had very specific implications for theology, and it was no coincidence that the church condemned nominalism, which sometimes led to heresy, and supported moderate realism.

In the 12th century. out of the confrontation between various trends in scholasticism, open resistance to the authority of the church grew. Its exponent was Peter Abelard (1079-1142), whom his contemporaries called “the most brilliant mind of his century.” A student of the nominalist Roscelin of Compiegne, Abelard in his youth defeated the then popular realist philosopher Guillaume of Champeaux in a debate, leaving no stone unturned from his arguments. The most inquisitive and most daring students began to gather around Abelard; he gained fame as a brilliant teacher and an invincible speaker in philosophical debates. Abelard rationalized the relationship between faith and reason, making understanding a prerequisite for faith. In his work “Yes and No,” Abelard developed the methods of dialectics, which significantly advanced scholasticism. Abelard was a supporter of conceptualism. However, although in a philosophical sense he did not always come to the most radical conclusions, he was often overwhelmed by the desire to bring the interpretation of Christian dogmas to its logical conclusion and in doing so he naturally came to heresy.

Abelard's opponent was Bernard of Clairvaux, who during his lifetime gained the glory of a saint, one of the most prominent representatives of medieval mysticism. In the 12th century. mysticism became widespread and became a powerful movement within scholasticism. It reflected an exalted attraction to the redeeming god; the limit of mystical meditation was the merging of man with the creator. The philosophizing mysticism of Bernard of Clairvaux and other philosophical schools found a response in secular literature, in various heresies of a mystical kind. However, the essence of the clash between Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux is not so much the dissimilarity of their philosophical positions, but rather the fact that Abelard embodied the opposition to the authority of the church, and Bernard acted as its defender and major figure, as an apologist for church organization and discipline. As a result, Abelard's views were condemned at church councils, and he himself ended his life in a monastery.

For the 12th century. characterized by growing interest in the Greco-Roman heritage. In philosophy, this is expressed in a more in-depth study of ancient thinkers. Their works are beginning to be translated into Latin, primarily the works of Aristotle, as well as treatises of the ancient scientists Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen and others, preserved in Greek and Arabic manuscripts.

For the fate of Aristotelian philosophy in Western Europe, it was significant that it was, as it were, re-appropriated not in its original form, but through Byzantine and especially Arab commentators, primarily Averroes (Ibn Rushd), who gave it a peculiarly “materialistic” interpretation. Of course, it is wrong to talk about genuine materialism in the Middle Ages. All attempts at "materialistic" interpretation, even the most radical ones, denying immortality human soul or asserting the eternity of the world, were nevertheless carried out within the framework of theism, that is, the recognition of absolute being, God. Because of this, however, they did not lose their revolutionary significance.

Aristotle's teaching quickly gained enormous authority in the scientific centers of Italy, France, England, and Spain. However, at the beginning of the 13th century. it met with sharp resistance in Paris from theologians who relied on the Augustinian tradition. A number of official bans on Aristotelianism followed; the views of supporters of the radical interpretation of Aristotle, Amaury of Vienna and David of Dinan, were condemned. However, Aristotelianism in Europe was gaining strength so rapidly that by the middle of the 13th century. the church turned out to be powerless against this onslaught and faced the need to assimilate Aristotelian teaching. The Dominicans were involved in this task. It was started by Albert the Great, and the synthesis of Aristotelianism and Catholic theology was attempted by his student Forma Aquinas (1225/26-1274), whose work became the pinnacle and result of the theological-rationalistic searches of mature scholasticism. Thomas's teaching was initially greeted by the church rather warily, and some of its provisions were even condemned. But already from the end of the 13th century. Thomism becomes the official doctrine of the Catholic Church.

The ideological opponents of Thomas Aquinas were the Averroists, followers of the Arab thinker Averroes, who taught at the University of Paris at the Faculty of Arts. They demanded the liberation of philosophy from the interference of theology and dogma. Essentially, they insisted on the separation of reason from faith. On this basis, the concept of Latin Averroism developed, which included ideas about the eternity of the world, the denial of God's providence and developed the doctrine of the unity of the intellect.

In the XIV century. Orthodox scholasticism, which asserted the possibility of reconciling reason and faith on the basis of the former’s subordination to revelation, was criticized by the radical English philosophers Duns Scotus and William Ockham, who defended the position of nominalism. Dune Scotus, and then Ockham and his students demanded a decisive distinction between the spheres of faith and reason, theology and philosophy. Theology was denied the right to interfere in the field of philosophy and experimental knowledge. Ockham spoke about the eternity of motion and time, about the infinity of the Universe, and developed the doctrine of experience as the foundation and source of knowledge. Occamism was condemned by the church, Occam's books were burned. However, the ideas of Occamism continued to develop; they were partly picked up by Renaissance philosophers.

The largest thinker who influenced the formation of natural philosophy of the Renaissance was Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), a native of Germany who spent the end of his life in Rome as vicar general at the papal court. He tried to develop a universal understanding of the principles of the world and the structure of the Universe, based not on orthodox Christianity, but on its dialectical-pantheistic interpretation. Nicholas of Cusa insisted on separating the subject of rational knowledge (the study of nature) from theology, which dealt a significant blow to orthodox scholasticism, which was mired in formal logical reasoning, increasingly losing its positive meaning, degenerating into a play on words and terms.

Education. Schools and universities. The Middle Ages inherited from antiquity the basis on which education was built. These were the seven liberal arts. Grammar was considered the “mother of all sciences,” dialectics provided formal logical knowledge, the foundations of philosophy and logic, rhetoric taught how to speak correctly and expressively. "Mathematical disciplines" - arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy were thought of as sciences about numerical relationships that underlay world harmony.

From the 11th century The steady rise of medieval schools begins, the education system is improved. Schools were divided into monastic, cathedral (at city cathedrals), and parish. With the growth of cities, the emergence of an ever-increasing layer of townspeople and the flourishing of guilds, secular, urban private, as well as guild and municipal schools, not subject to the direct dictate of the church, are gaining strength. The students of non-church schools were itinerant schoolchildren - vagantes or goliards, who came from an urban, peasant, knightly environment, and the lower clergy.

Education in schools was conducted in Latin, only in the 14th century. schools teaching in national languages ​​appeared. The Middle Ages did not know a stable division of schools into primary, secondary and higher, taking into account the specifics of children's and youth's perception and psychology. Religious in content and form, education was verbal and rhetorical in nature. The rudiments of mathematics and natural sciences were presented fragmentarily, descriptively, often in a fantastic interpretation. Centers for teaching craft skills in the 12th century. become workshops.

In the XII-XIII centuries. Western Europe was experiencing economic and cultural growth. The development of cities as centers of craft and trade, broadening the horizons of Europeans, and familiarity with the culture of the East, primarily Byzantine and Arab, served as incentives for improving medieval education. Cathedral schools in the largest urban centers of Europe turned into universal schools, and then into universities, which received their name from the Latin word universitas - totality, community. In the 13th century. such higher schools have developed in Bologna, Montpellier, Palermo, Paris, Oxford; Salerno and other cities. By the 15th century There were about 60 universities in Europe.

The university had legal, administrative, and financial autonomy, which were granted to it by special documents of the sovereign or pope. The external independence of the university was combined with strict regulation and discipline of internal life. The university was divided into faculties. The junior faculty, compulsory for all students, was artistic (from the Latin word artes - art), in which in full seven liberal arts were studied, followed by legal, medical, and theological (the latter did not exist in all universities). The largest university was the University of Paris. Students from Western Europe also flocked to Spain to get an education. Schools and universities in Cordoba, Seville, Salamanca, Malaga and Valencia provided more extensive and in-depth knowledge of philosophy, mathematics, medicine, chemistry, and astronomy.

In the XIV-XV centuries. The geography of universities is expanding significantly. Collegiums (hence colleges) are being developed. Initially, this was the name given to student dormitories, but gradually the colleges are turning into centers for classes, lectures, and debates. Founded in 1257 by the confessor of the French king, Robert de Sorbon, the college, called the Sorbonne, gradually grew and strengthened its authority so much that the entire University of Paris began to be named after it.

Universities accelerated the process of formation of a secular intelligentsia in Western Europe. They were real nurseries of knowledge and played a vital role in cultural development society. However, by the end of the 15th century. There is a certain aristocratization of universities; an increasing number of students, teachers (masters) and university professors come from privileged strata of society. For some time, conservative forces gained the upper hand in the universities, especially where these educational institutions had not yet freed themselves from papal influence.

With the development of schools and universities, the demand for books is expanding. In the early Middle Ages, a book was a luxury item. Books were written on parchment - specially treated calfskin. Sheets of parchment were sewn together using thin strong ropes and placed in a binder made of boards covered with leather, sometimes decorated with precious stones and metals. The text written by scribes was decorated with drawn capital letters - initials, headpieces, and later - magnificent miniatures. From the 12th century books become cheaper, city workshops for copying books are opened, in which not monks, but artisans work. Since the 14th century Paper begins to be widely used in the production of books. The book production process is simplified and unified, which was especially important for the preparation of book printing, the appearance of which in the 40s of the 15th century. (its inventor was the German master Johannes Gutenberg) made the book truly widespread in Europe and entailed significant changes in cultural life.

Until the 12th century. books were mainly concentrated in church libraries. In the XII-XV centuries. Numerous libraries appeared at universities, royal courts, large feudal lords, clergy and wealthy citizens.

The origin of experimental knowledge. By the 13th century. The origin of interest in experimental knowledge is usually attributed to Western Europe. Until then, abstract knowledge based on pure speculation, which was often very fantastic in content, prevailed here. Between practical knowledge and philosophy lay a gulf that seemed insurmountable. Natural scientific methods of cognition were not developed. Grammatical, rhetorical and logical approaches prevailed. It is no coincidence that the medieval encyclopedist Vincent of Beauvais wrote: “The science of nature has as its subject the invisible causes of visible things.” Communication with the material world was carried out through artificial and cumbersome, often fantastic, abstractions. Alchemy provided a unique example of this. To the medieval man, the world seemed knowable, but he knew only what he wanted to know, and the way this world seemed to him, that is, full of unusual things, inhabited by strange creatures, like people with dog heads. The line between the real and the higher, supersensible world was often blurred.

However, life required not illusory, but practical knowledge. In the 12th century. Some progress has been made in the field of mechanics and mathematics. This aroused the fears of orthodox theologians, who called the practical sciences “adulterous.” At Oxford University, natural science treatises of ancient and Arab scientists were translated and commented on. Robert Grosseteste made an attempt to apply a mathematical approach to the study of nature.

In the 13th century. Oxford professor Roger Bacon, starting with scholastic studies, ultimately comes to the study of nature, to the denial of authority, decisively giving preference to experience over purely speculative argumentation. Bacon achieved significant results in optics, physics, and chemistry. His reputation as a magician and wizard was strengthened. It was said about him that he created a talking copper head or a metal man, and put forward the idea of ​​​​building a bridge by condensing air. He made statements that it was possible to make self-propelled ships and chariots, vehicles flying through the air or moving unhindered along the bottom of the sea or river. Bacon's life was full of vicissitudes and hardships; he was condemned by the church more than once and was imprisoned for a long time.

His work was continued by William of Ockham and his students Nikolai Hautrecourt, Buridan and Nikolai Orezmsky (Oresme), who did a lot for the further development of physics, mechanics, and astronomy. Thus, Oresme, for example, came close to the discovery of the law of falling bodies, developed the doctrine of the daily rotation of the earth, and substantiated the idea of ​​using coordinates. Nikolai Hautrecourt was close to atomism.

Various layers of society were captured by "educational enthusiasm". In the Kingdom of Sicily, where various sciences and arts flourished, the activity of translators who turned to the philosophical and natural science works of Greek and Arab authors developed widely. Under the patronage of the Sicilian sovereigns, the medical school in Salerno flourished, from which the famous Salerno Codex by Arnold da Villanova emerged. It gives various instructions on maintaining health, descriptions of the medicinal properties of various plants, poisons and antidotes, etc.

Alchemists, searching for the “philosopher’s stone” capable of turning base metals into gold, made a number of important discoveries - they studied the properties of various substances, numerous ways of influencing them, produced various alloys and chemical compounds, acids, alkalis, mineral paints, equipment and installations for experiments were created and improved: alembic, chemical furnaces, apparatus for filtration and distillation, etc.

The geographical knowledge of Europeans was significantly enriched. Back in the 13th century. The Vivaldi brothers from Genoa tried to circumnavigate the West African coast. The Venetian Marco Polo made a multi-year journey to China and Central Asia, describing it in his “Book”, which was distributed in Europe in many copies in various languages. In the XIV-XV centuries. quite numerous descriptions of various lands made by travelers appear, maps are improved, and geographic atlases are compiled. All this was of no small importance for the preparation of the Great Geographical Discoveries.

The place of history in the medieval worldview. Historical ideas played an important role in the spiritual life of the Middle Ages. In that era, history was not viewed as a science or as entertaining reading; it was an essential part of the worldview.

Various kinds of “histories”, chronicles, chronicles, biographies of kings, descriptions of their deeds and other historical works were favorite genres of medieval literature. This was largely due to the fact that Christianity attached great importance to history. The Christian religion initially claimed that its basis - the Old and New Testaments - was fundamentally historical. Human existence unfolds in time, has its beginning - the creation of the world and man - and the end - the second coming of Christ, when the Last Judgment must take place and the goal of history, presented as the path of salvation of humanity by God, will be fulfilled.

In feudal society, the historian, chronicler, chronicler was thought of as “a person who connects times.” History was a means of self-knowledge of society and a guarantor of its ideological and social stability, because it affirmed its universality and regularity in the change of generations, in the world-historical process. This is especially clearly seen in such “classical” works of the historical genre as the chronicles of Otto of Freisingen, Guibert of Nogent, etc.

Such universal “historicism” was combined with a surprising at first glance lack of a sense of concrete historical distance among medieval people. They represented the past in the appearance and costumes of their era, seeing in it not what distinguished people and events of ancient times from themselves, but what seemed to them common, universal. The past was not assimilated, but appropriated, as if becoming part of their own historical reality. Alexander the Great was portrayed as a medieval knight, and the biblical kings ruled in the manner of feudal sovereigns.

Heroic epic. The keeper of history, collective memory, a kind of life and behavioral standard, a means of ideological and aesthetic self-affirmation was the heroic epic, which concentrated the most important aspects of spiritual life, ideals and aesthetic values, and the poetics of medieval peoples. The roots of the heroic epic of Western Europe go deep into the barbarian era. This is primarily evidenced by the plot outline of many epic works; it is based on the events of the Great Migration of Peoples.

Questions about the origin of the heroic epic, its dating, the relationship between collective and authorial creativity in its creation are still controversial in science. The first recordings of epic works in Western Europe date back to the 8th-9th centuries. The early stage of epic poetry is associated with the development of early feudal war poetry - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Old Norse - which survives in unique scattered fragments.

The epic of the developed Middle Ages was folk-patriotic in nature, but at the same time it reflected not only universal human values, but also knightly-feudal ones. In it, ancient heroes are idealized in the spirit of knightly-Christian ideology, the motive of the struggle “for the right faith” arises, as if reinforcing the ideal of defending the fatherland, and features of courtliness appear.

Epic works, as a rule, are structurally integral and universal. Each of them is the embodiment of a certain picture of the world, covering many aspects of the heroes’ lives. Hence the displacement of the historical, the real and the fantastic. The epic was probably familiar in one form or another to every member of medieval society and was a national property.

In Western European epic, two layers can be distinguished: historical (heroic tales with real historical background) and fantastic, closer to folklore and folk tales.

The recording of the Anglo-Saxon epic "The Tale of Beowulf" dates back to approximately 1000. It tells the story of a young warrior from the Gaut people who performs heroic deeds, defeats monsters and dies in a fight with a dragon. Fantastic adventures unfold against a real historical background, reflecting the process of feudalization among the peoples of Northern Europe.

The Icelandic sagas are among the famous monuments of world literature. The Elder Edda includes nineteen Old Icelandic epic songs that preserve the features of the most ancient stages in the development of verbal art. "Younger Edda", belonging to the skald poet of the 13th century. Snorri Sturluson is a kind of guide to the poetic art of the skalds with a vivid presentation of Icelandic pagan mythological legends, rooted in ancient common Germanic mythology.

The French epic "The Song of Roland" and the Spanish "The Song of My Cid" are based on real historical events: in the first - the battle of the Frankish detachment with enemies in the Roncesvalles Gorge in 778, in the second - one of the episodes of the Reconquista. These works have very strong patriotic motives, which allows us to draw certain parallels between them and the Russian epic work “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The patriotic duty of idealized heroes is above all else. The real military-political situation in epic tales acquires the scale of a universal event, and through such hyperbolization, ideals are affirmed that outgrow the framework of their era and become human values ​​“for all time.”

The heroic epic of Germany "The Song of the Nibelungs" is much more mythologized. In it we also meet heroes who have historical prototypes - Etzel (Attila), Dietrich of Berne (Theodoric), the Burgundian king Gunther, Queen Brunnhilde, etc. The story about them is intertwined with plots in which the hero is Siegfried (Sigurd); his adventures are reminiscent of ancient heroic tales. He defeats the terrible dragon Fafnir, who guards the treasures of the Nibelungs, and accomplishes other feats, but ultimately dies.

Associated with a certain type of historical understanding of the world, the heroic epic of the Middle Ages was a means of ritually symbolic reflection and experience of reality, which is characteristic of both the West and the East. This revealed a certain typological similarity of medieval cultures from different regions of the world.

Knightly culture. A striking and often romanticized page in the cultural life of the Middle Ages was the knightly culture. Its creator and bearer was knighthood - a military-aristocratic class that originated in the early Middle Ages and reached its peak in the 11th-14th centuries. The ideology of chivalry has its roots, on the one hand, in the depths of self-awareness of barbarian peoples, and on the other, in the concept of service developed by Christianity, which was initially interpreted as purely religious, but in the Middle Ages acquired a much broader meaning and extended to the area of ​​purely secular relations, right up to before serving the lady of the heart.

Loyalty to the lord formed the core of the knightly epic. Betrayal and perfidy were considered the gravest sin for a knight and entailed exclusion from the corporation. War was the profession of a knight, but gradually knighthood began to consider itself generally a champion of justice. In fact, this remained an unattainable ideal, because justice was understood by chivalry in a very unique way and extended only to a very narrow circle of people, having a clearly expressed estate-corporate character. Suffice it to recall the frank statement of the troubadour Bertrand de Born: “I love to see people starving, naked, suffering, not warmed.”

The code of chivalry required many virtues from those who had to follow it, for a knight, in the words of Raymond Lull, the author of a famous instruction, is one who “acts nobly and leads a noble lifestyle.”

In the knight's life, much was deliberately exposed. Bravery, generosity, nobility, which few people knew about, had no price. The knight constantly strived for primacy, for glory. The whole Christian world should have known about his exploits and love. Hence the external brilliance of knightly culture, its special attention to ritual, paraphernalia, symbolism of color, objects, and etiquette. Knightly tournaments, imitating real battles, acquired special pomp in the 13th-14th centuries, when they brought together the flower of knighthood from different parts of Europe.

Chivalric literature was not only a means of expressing the self-awareness of chivalry and its ideals, but also actively shaped them. The feedback was so strong that medieval chroniclers, when describing battles or exploits of real people, did so in accordance with models from chivalric romances, which, having emerged in the mid-12th century, became a central phenomenon of secular culture over several decades. They were created in popular languages, the action developed as a series of adventures of the heroes. One of the main sources of Western European knightly (courtly) romance was the Celtic epic about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. From it was born the most beautiful story about love and death - the story of Tristan and Isolde, forever remaining in the treasury human culture. The heroes of this Breton cycle are Lancelot and Perceval, Palmerin and Amidis and others, according to the creators of the novels, among whom the most famous was the French poet of the 12th century. Chrétien de Troyes, embodied the highest human values ​​that belonged not to the otherworldly, but to earthly existence. This was especially clearly expressed in the new understanding of love, which was the center and driving force any chivalric novel. In the knightly culture, the cult of the lady arose, which constituted a necessary element of courtliness. From the end of the 11th century. in Provence, the poetry of troubadours - poet-knights - flourishes. In the 12th century. From Provence, the passion for it spreads to other countries. Trouvères appeared in the north of France, minnesingers appeared in Germany, and courtly poetry developed in Italy and on the Iberian Peninsula.

Loving service has become a kind of “religion” of the highest circle. It is no coincidence that at the same time in medieval Christianity the cult of the Virgin Mary came to the fore. The Madonna reigns in heaven and in the hearts of believers, just as a lady reigns in the heart of a knight in love with her.

For all its attractiveness, the ideal of courtliness was not always realized in life. With the decline of knighthood in the 15th century. it becomes just an element of the fashion game.

Urban culture. From the 11th century Cities are becoming centers of cultural life in Western Europe. The anti-church freedom-loving orientation of urban culture, its connections with folk art, were most clearly manifested in the development of urban literature, which from its very inception was created in folk dialects in contrast to the dominant church Latin-language literature. Her favorite genres are poetic short stories, fables, and jokes (fabliaux in France, schwanks in Germany). They were distinguished by a satirical spirit, crude humor, and vivid imagery. They ridiculed the greed of the clergy, the sterility of scholastic wisdom, the arrogance and ignorance of feudal lords and many other realities of medieval life that contradicted the sober, practical view of the world that was developing among the townspeople.

Fabliau and the Schwanks put forward a new type of hero - cheerful, roguish, smart, always finding a way out of any difficult situation thanks to his natural intelligence and abilities. Thus, in the well-known collection of Schwanks "Pop Amis", which left a deep mark on German literature, the hero feels confident and easy in the world of city life, in the most incredible circumstances. With all his tricks and resourcefulness, he asserts that life belongs to the townspeople no less than to other classes, and that the place of the townspeople in the world is strong and reliable. Urban literature castigated vices and morals, responded to the topic of the day, and was extremely “modern.” The wisdom of the people was clothed in it in the form of apt proverbs and sayings. The Church persecuted poets from the urban lower classes, in whose work it saw a direct threat. For example, the writings of the Parisian Rutbeuf at the end of the 13th century. were condemned by the pope to be burned.

Along with short stories, fabliaux and schwanks, an urban satirical epic took shape. It was based on fairy tales that originated in the early Middle Ages. One of the most beloved among the townspeople was “The Roman of the Fox,” which was formed in France, but translated into German, English, Italian and other languages. The resourceful and daring Fox Renard, in whose image a wealthy, intelligent and enterprising townsman is depicted, invariably defeats the stupid and bloodthirsty Wolf Isengrin, the strong and stupid Bren Bear - they were easily seen as a knight and a large feudal lord. He also fooled Leo Noble (the king) and constantly mocked the stupidity of Donkey Baudouin (the priest). But sometimes Renard plotted against chickens, hares, snails, and began to persecute the weak and humiliated. And then the common people destroyed his plans. Even sculptures were created based on the plots of “The Romance of the Fox” in the cathedrals of Autun, Bourges, and others.

By the 13th century. refers to the emergence of urban theatrical arts. Liturgical events and church mysteries were known much earlier. It is typical that, under the influence of new trends associated with the development of cities, they become more vibrant and carnival-like. Secular elements penetrate them. City "games", i.e. theatrical performances, from the very beginning were of a secular nature, their plots were borrowed from life, and their means of expression were from folklore, the work of wandering actors - jugglers, who were also dancers, singers, musicians, acrobats, and magicians. One of the most beloved city "games" in the 13th century. There was “The Game of Robin and Marion,” the ingenuous story of a young shepherdess and shepherdess, whose love defeated the machinations of a treacherous and rude knight. Theatrical “games” were played out right in the city squares, and the townspeople present took part in them. These "games" were an expression of the folk culture of the Middle Ages.

The carriers of the spirit of protest and free-thinking were wandering schoolchildren and students - vagantas. Among the vagants there were strong oppositional sentiments against the church and the existing order, which were also characteristic of the urban lower classes in general. The Vagantes created a kind of poetry in Latin. The witty, flagellating vices of society and glorifying the joy of life poems and songs of the Vagants were known and sung by all of Europe from Toledo to Prague, from Palermo to London. These songs especially hit the church and its ministers.

"The Last Vagant" is sometimes called the French poet of the 15th century. François Villon, although he wrote not in Latin, but in his native language. Like the vagantas of former times, he was a vagabond, a poor man, doomed to eternal wandering, persecution by the church and justice. Villon's poetry is marked by a tart taste of life and lyricism, full of tragic contradictions and drama. She is deeply human. Villon's poems absorbed the suffering of disadvantaged ordinary people and their optimism, the rebellious mood of that time.

However, urban culture was not unambiguous. Since the 13th century. didactic (edifying, teaching) and allegorical motifs begin to sound more and more strongly in it. This is also manifested in the fate of theatrical genres, in which from the 14th century. The language of hints, symbols and allegories is becoming increasingly important. There is a certain “ossification” of the figurative structure of theatrical performances, in which religious motives are strengthened.

Allegorism is made an indispensable condition for “high” literature. This is especially clearly seen in one of the most interesting works of that time, “The Romance of the Rose,” written successively by two authors, Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Meun. The hero of this philosophical and allegorical poem is a young poet striving for the ideal embodied in the symbolic image of the Rose. “The Romance of the Rose” is permeated with the ideas of free thought, glorifies Nature and Reason, and criticizes the class structure of feudal society.

New trends. Dante Alighieri. Crowning the Middle Ages and at the same time rising at the origins of the Renaissance is the most complex figure of the Italian poet and thinker, the Florentine Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Expelled from his hometown by political opponents and condemned to wander for the rest of his life, Dante was an ardent champion of the unification and social renewal of Italy. His poetic and ideological synthesis - "The Divine Comedy" - is the result of the best spiritual aspirations of the mature Middle Ages, but at the same time it carries an insight into the coming cultural and historical era, its aspirations, creative possibilities and insoluble contradictions.

The highest achievements of philosophical thought, political doctrines and natural scientific knowledge, the deepest understanding of the human soul and social relations, melted in the crucible of poetic inspiration, create in Dante’s “Divine Comedy” a grandiose picture of the universe, nature, the existence of society and man. Mystical images and motifs of “holy poverty” also did not leave Dante indifferent. A whole gallery of outstanding figures of the Middle Ages, the rulers of the thoughts of that era, passes before the readers of The Divine Comedy. Its author takes the reader through the fire and icy horror of hell, through the crucible of purgatory to the heights of paradise, in order to gain the highest wisdom here, to affirm the ideals of goodness, bright hope and the heights of the human spirit.

The call of the coming era is also felt in the works of other writers and poets of the 14th century. The outstanding statesman of Spain, warrior and writer Infante Juan Manuel left a large literary heritage, but a special place in it, due to its pre-humanistic sentiments, is occupied by the collection of instructive stories "Count Lucanor", in which some motives are discernible that are characteristic of Juan Manuel's younger contemporary - the Italian humanist Boccaccio, author of the famous Decameron.

The work of the Spanish author is typologically close to the “Canterbury Tales” of the great English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), who largely adopted the humanistic impulse coming from Italy, but at the same time was the largest writer of the English Middle Ages. His work is characterized by democratic and realistic tendencies. The variety and richness of images, the subtlety of observations and characterizations, the combination of drama and humor, and the refined literary form make Chaucer's works truly literary masterpieces.

The fact that the people's aspirations for equality and their rebellious spirit are reflected in urban literature is evidenced by the fact that in it the figure of the peasant acquires considerable authority. This is largely revealed in the German story "The Peasant Helmbrecht", written by Werner Sadovnik at the end of the 13th century. But the quest of the people was reflected with the greatest force in the work of the English poet of the 14th century. William Langland, especially in his essay “William’s Vision of Peter the Plowman,” imbued with sympathy for the peasants, in whom the author sees the basis of society, and in their work the key to the improvement of all people. Thus, urban culture discards the framework that limited it and merges with folk culture as a whole.

Folk culture. The creativity of the working masses is the foundation of the culture of every historical era. First of all, the people are the creators of language, without which the development of culture is impossible. Folk psychology, imagery, stereotypes of behavior and perception are the breeding ground of culture. But almost all written sources of the Middle Ages that have come down to us were created within the framework of “official” or “high” culture. Folk culture was unwritten and oral. You can see it only by collecting data from sources that provide them in a specific refraction, from a certain angle of view. The “lower” layer is clearly visible in the “high” culture of the Middle Ages, in its literature and art, and is latently felt in the entire system of intellectual life, in its folk origins. This lower layer was not only “carnival-ridiculous,” it presupposed the presence of a certain “picture of the world” that reflected in a special way all aspects of human and social existence and the world order.

Picture of the world. Each historical era has its own worldview, its own ideas about nature, time and space, the order of everything that exists, about the relationships of people to each other. These ideas do not remain unchanged throughout the entire era; they have their differences among different classes and social groups, but at the same time they are typical, indicative of this particular period of historical time. It is not enough to state that medieval man proceeded from the “picture of the world” developed by Christianity. Christianity lay at the basis of the worldview and mass ideas of the Middle Ages, but did not absorb them entirely.

The consciousness of that era in its elite and grassroots forms equally proceeded from the statement of the dualism of the world. Earthly existence was considered as a reflection of the existence of the higher, “heavenly world”, on the one hand, absorbing the harmony and beauty of its archetype, and on the other, representing its clearly “degraded” version in its materiality. The relationship between the two worlds - earthly and heavenly - was a problem that occupied medieval consciousness at all its levels. Universalism, symbolism and allegorism, which were integral features of the medieval worldview and culture, arose from this dualism.

Medieval consciousness strives more for synthesis than for analysis. His ideal is integrity, not multiple diversity. And although the earthly world seems to him to consist of “his”, familiar nearby space and “alien”, distant and hostile, yet both of these parts are fused into an inseparable whole and cannot exist one without the other.

The peasant often viewed the land as an extension of himself. It is no coincidence that in medieval documents it is described through a person - by the number of steps or the time of his labor invested in its processing. Medieval man did not so much master the world as appropriate it, making it his own in a difficult struggle with nature.

Medieval literature and art have no interest in an accurate, concrete, detailed depiction of space. Fantasy prevailed over observation, and there is no contradiction in this. For in the unity of the higher world and the earthly world, in which only the first seems truly real and true, specifics can be neglected; it only complicates the perception of integrity, a closed system with sacred centers and worldly periphery.

The gigantic world created by God - the cosmos - included the "small cosmos" (microcosm) - man, who was thought of not only as the "crown of creation", but also as an integral, complete world, containing the same thing as the big universe. In the images, the macrocosm was presented as a closed circle of existence, driven by divine wisdom, and containing within itself its animated embodiment - man. In medieval consciousness, nature was likened to man, and man to the cosmos.

The concept of time was also different than in the modern era. In the routine, slowly developing civilization of the Middle Ages, time guidelines were vague and unnecessary. Accurate measurement of time spread only in the late Middle Ages. The personal, everyday time of a medieval person moved as if in a vicious circle: morning - day - evening - night; winter spring Summer Autumn. But the more general, “higher” experience of time was different. Christianity filled it with sacred content, the time circle was broken, time turned out to be linearly directed, moving from the creation of the world to the first coming, and after it - to the Last Judgment and completion earthly history. In this regard, in the mass consciousness, unique ideas about the time of earthly life, death, retribution after death for human deeds, and the Last Judgment were formed. It is significant that the history of mankind has had the same ages as the life of an individual: infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity, old age.

In the Middle Ages, the perception of human ages also differed from those familiar to modern people. Medieval society was demographically younger. Life expectancy was short. A person who had crossed the threshold of forty was considered an old man. The Middle Ages did not know special attention to childhood, deep emotionality in relation to children, so characteristic of our time. It is no coincidence that in medieval sculpture there is no image of babies; they were represented with the faces and figures of adults. But the attitude towards youth was very bright and emotional. It was thought of as a time of flowering, play, a tribute to revelry, and ideas about vital magical power were associated with it. Youthful revelry was legalized in medieval society, which, in general, in its moral principles gravitated towards sobriety, chastity and stability. Entry into “adult” life required young people to renounce such liberties; the energy of youth had to rush into the traditional social channel and not spill over.

In relationships between people, great importance was attached to their form. Hence the requirement for scrupulous adherence to tradition and observance of ritual. Detailed etiquette is also a product of medieval culture.

In the popular imagination of the Middle Ages great place focused on magic and witchcraft. However, during the heyday of spirituality in the XI-XIII centuries. magic is relegated to the background into the depths of the lower consciousness, which is inspired primarily by the idea of ​​messianism and lives in hopes of the coming of the kingdom of heaven promised in the New Testament. The heyday of magic, demonology, and witchcraft occurred in the 15th-16th centuries, i.e., during the decline of medieval culture itself.

Artistic ideal. Art and the artistic language of the Middle Ages are multi-valued and deep. This polysemy was not immediately understood by descendants. It took the work of several generations of scientists to show the high value and originality of medieval culture, so different from ancient or modern European culture. Her “secret language” turned out to be understandable and exciting for our contemporaries.

The Middle Ages created its own forms of artistic expression that corresponded to the worldview of that era. Art was a way of reflecting the highest, “invisible” beauty that resides beyond the boundaries of earthly existence in the supernatural world. Art, like philosophy, was one of the ways to comprehend the absolute idea, divine truth. This is where its symbolism and allegorical nature flowed. The plots of the Old Testament, for example, were interpreted as prototypes of New Testament events. Fragments of ancient mythology were assimilated as allegorical allegories.

Since in the minds of medieval people the ideal often prevailed over the material, the corporeal, changeable and perishable lost their artistic and aesthetic value. The sensual is sacrificed to the idea. Artistic technique no longer requires imitation of nature and even, on the contrary, leads away from it to maximum generalization, in which the image first of all becomes a sign of the hidden. Canonical rules and traditional techniques begin to dominate individual creativity. The point is not that the medieval master did not know anatomy or the laws of perspective; he fundamentally did not need them. They seemed to fall out of the canons of symbolic art, which strived for universalism.

From the moment of its inception, medieval culture gravitated toward encyclopedicism, a holistic embrace of everything that exists. In philosophy, science, and literature, this was expressed in the creation of comprehensive encyclopedias, the so-called sums. Medieval cathedrals were also unique stone encyclopedias of universal knowledge, “bibles of the laity.” The masters who built the cathedrals tried to show the world in its diversity and complete harmonious unity. And if in general the cathedral stood as a symbol of the universe, striving for a higher idea, then inside and outside it was richly decorated with a wide variety of sculptures and images, which were sometimes so similar to the prototypes that, according to contemporaries, “it seemed as if they were caught in freely, in the forest, on the roads." Outside one could see figures of Grammar, Arithmetic, Music, Philosophy, personifying the sciences studied in medieval schools, not to mention the fact that any cathedral was replete with “stone illustrations” of the Bible. Everything that worried people of that time was reflected here in one way or another. And for many people of the Middle Ages, especially the “simple people,” these “stone books” were one of the main sources of knowledge.

The holistic image of the world in that era could be presented as internally hierarchical. The hierarchical principle largely determined the nature of medieval architecture and art, the correlation of various structural and compositional elements in them. But it took several centuries for medieval Western Europe to acquire a fully formed artistic language and system of images.

In the 10th century The Romanesque style emerges, which dominates in the next two centuries. It is most clearly represented in France, Italy and Germany. Romanesque cathedrals, made of stone, with a vaulted ceiling, are simple and austere. They have powerful walls; they are essentially fortress temples. At first glance, the Romanesque cathedral is rude and squat, only gradually the harmony of the plan and the nobility of its simplicity are revealed, aimed at revealing the unity and harmony of the world, glorifying the divine principle. Its portal symbolized the heavenly gates, above which the triumphant god and supreme judge seemed to hover.

Romanesque sculpture decorating churches, with all its “naivety and ineptitude,” embodies not only idealized ideas, but tense faces real life and real people of the Middle Ages. The artistic ideal, putting on flesh and blood, was “grounded.” Artists in the Middle Ages were simple and often illiterate people. They introduced a religious feeling into their creations, but this was not the spirituality of the scribes, but popular religiosity, which interpreted orthodox dogma in a very unique way. Their creations convey the pathos of not only the heavenly, but also the earthly.

The pinnacles of the Romanesque style in France are the cathedrals in Cluny and Autun. The Romanesque citadel of Carcassonne, a complex of secular castle buildings, is striking with its inaccessibility and monumentality.

A new stage in the development of medieval art and architecture was marked by the emergence of Gothic. Unlike the Romanesque, the Gothic cathedral is vast, often asymmetrical, and directed upward. Its walls seem to be dissolved, they become openwork, light, giving way to tall narrow windows decorated with colored stained glass. The inside of the cathedral is spacious and superbly decorated. Each cathedral portal is individual in nature.

The cathedrals were built by order of city communes. They symbolized not only the power of the church, but also the strength and freedom of the cities. These grandiose structures were built over tens and often hundreds of years.

Gothic sculpture has enormous expressive power. The extreme tension of spiritual forces is reflected in the faces and figures, elongated and broken, which creates the impression of a desire to free oneself from the flesh, to achieve the ultimate secrets of existence. Human suffering, purification and elevation through it is the hidden nerve of Gothic art. There is no peace and tranquility in it, it is permeated with confusion, a high spiritual impulse. Artists reach a tragic intensity in depicting the suffering of the crucified Christ, a god suppressed by his creation and grieving for it. The beauty of Gothic sculpture is the triumph of the spirit, quest and struggle over the flesh. But the Gothic masters were also able to create completely realistic images that captured warm human feeling. Softness and lyricism are distinguished by the figures of Mary and Elizabeth, sculpted on the portal of the magnificent Reims Cathedral. The sculptures of the Naumburg Cathedral in Germany are full of character, and the statue of the Margravess Uta is full of living charm.

The builders of Gothic cathedrals were excellent craftsmen. The surviving album of a 13th century architect. Villara de Onecura testifies to high professionalism, extensive practical knowledge and interests, independence of creative aspirations and assessments. The creators of Gothic cathedrals united in construction artels-lodges. Freemasonry, which arose several centuries later, used this form of organization and even borrowed the name itself (freemasons - French for “free masons”).

In Gothic art, sculpture prevailed over painting. The sculptural images of one of the most famous Gothic cathedrals, Notre Dame Cathedral, amaze with their power and imagination. The largest sculptor of the Middle Ages was Sluter, who lived in the 14th century. in Burgundy, creator of the "Well of the Prophets" in Dijon. Painting in Gothic cathedrals was represented mainly by painting of altars. However, the true galleries of tiny paintings are the medieval manuscripts with their colorful and exquisite miniatures. In the XIV century. In France and England, easel portraits appeared and secular monumental painting developed.

The medieval culture of Western Europe has long been viewed as purely religious, denying it any positive historical significance for the development of mankind. Today, thanks to the research of several generations of medievalists, it appears before us in many of its faces. Extreme asceticism and a life-affirming popular perception of the world, mystical exaltation and logical rationalism, striving for the absolute and passionate love for the concrete, material side of being are intricately and at the same time organically combined in it, obeying the laws of aesthetics, different from those in antiquity and modern times, affirming a system of values ​​inherent precisely in the Middle Ages, a natural and original stage of human civilization. With all its diversity, medieval culture, full of internal contradictions, which knew ups and downs, forms an ensemble, ideological, spiritual and artistic integrity, which was determined primarily by the unity of the historical reality that lay at its basis.

Periodization of medieval culture

II. Christianity as main factor formation of medieval culture

III. Clerical culture in the context of medieval mentality

IV. Formation of secular culture

V. Folk culture of medieval Western Europe

I. Periodization and prerequisites for the formation of medieval culture in Western Europe

The term "Middle Ages" arose during the Renaissance. The thinkers of the Italian Renaissance understood it as the dark “middle” centuries in the development of European culture, a time of general decline, lying in the middle between the brilliant era of antiquity and the Renaissance itself, a new flowering of European culture, a revival of ancient ideals. And although later, in the era of romanticism, a “bright image” of the Middle Ages arose, both of these assessments of the Middle Ages created extremely one-sided and false images of this most important stage in the development of Western European culture.

In reality, everything was much more complicated. It was a complex, diverse, contradictory culture, just as medieval society was a complex hierarchical formation.

Western European medieval culture represents a qualitatively new stage in the development of European culture, following antiquity and covering more than a thousand-year period (V - XV centuries).

· The transition from ancient civilization to the Middle Ages was caused, firstly, by the collapse of the Western Roman Empire as a result of the general crisis of the slave-owning mode of production and the associated collapse of the entire ancient culture. The deep crisis of Roman civilization, expressed in the crisis of the entire socio-economic system underlying it, became apparent already in the 3rd century. It was impossible to stop the process of decay that had begun. The spiritual reform of Emperor Constantine, which turned the Christian religion into a permissible and then dominant religion, did not help either. The barbarian peoples willingly accepted baptism, but this did not at all reduce the strength of their onslaught on the decrepit empire.

Secondly, the Great Migration of Peoples (from the 4th to the 7th centuries), during which dozens of tribes rushed to conquer new lands. From 375, when the first Visigoth troops crossed the Danube border of the empire, and until 455 (the capture of Rome by the Vandals), the painful process of extinction of the greatest civilization continued. The Western Roman Empire, experiencing a deep internal crisis, was unable to withstand the waves of barbarian invasions and 476 ceased to exist. As a result of barbarian conquests, dozens of barbarian kingdoms arose on its territory.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, the history of the Western European Middle Ages begins (the Eastern Roman Empire - Byzantium - existed for another 1000 years - until the middle of the 15th century)

The formation of medieval culture occurred as a result of a dramatic and contradictory process of collision between two cultures - ancient and barbarian, accompanied, on the one hand, by violence, the destruction of ancient cities, and the loss of outstanding achievements of ancient culture (thus, the capture of Rome by the Vandals in 455 became a symbol of the destruction of cultural values - “vandalism”), on the other hand, - the interaction and gradual fusion of Roman and barbarian cultures.

Cultural interaction between barbarian tribes and Rome existed even before the collapse of the empire. After the fall of Rome, the cultural influence of antiquity took place in the form of the development of its heritage (this was especially facilitated by the development of Latin, which became the language of pan-European communication and legal acts). Knowledge of Latin made it possible to comprehend not only ancient law, but also science, philosophy, art, etc.

Thus, the formation of medieval culture occurred as a result of the interaction of two principles: the culture of barbarian tribes (Germanic beginning) and ancient culture (Romanesque beginning). The third and most important factor that determined the process of formation of European culture was Christianity. Christianity became not only its spiritual basis, but also the integrating principle that allows us to talk about Western European culture as a single integral culture.

Thus, medieval culture is the result of a complex, contradictory synthesis of ancient traditions, the culture of barbarian peoples and Christianity.

However, the influence of these three principles of medieval culture on its character was not, and could not be, equivalent. Christianity became the dominant of medieval culture, its spiritual core. It acted as a new ideological support for the worldview and attitude of a person of that era.

The social basis of medieval culture was feudal relations, which were characterized by:

On the basis of feudal land ownership, two main poles of the sociocultural field of medieval culture were formed - feudal lords (secular and spiritual) and feudal-dependent producers - peasants, which, in turn, led to the existence of two poles of the Middle Ages: 1) the scientific culture of the spiritual and intellectual elite, 2 ) the culture of the “silent majority”, i.e. the culture of the common people, who are mostly illiterate.

Medieval culture was formed under the following conditions:

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 are distinguished - V-IX centuries, mature or high (classical) Middle Ages - X-XIII centuries. and later Middle Ages - XIV-XV centuries.

Early Middle Ages(V-IX centuries)- This is a period of tragic, dramatic transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages proper. Christianity slowly entered the world of barbarian existence. The barbarians of the early Middle Ages carried a unique vision and feeling of the world, based on the ancestral ties of man and the community to which he belonged, the spirit of warlike energy, and 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 was a complex, painful process of synthesis of Christian and barbarian traditions. The drama of this process was due to the opposition, the multidirectionality of Christian value and mental orientations and the barbarian consciousness based on “power thinking.” Only gradually the main role in the emerging culture begins to belong to the Christian religion and church.