Medieval Europe 395-1270 AD

Gabriel Monod

• Publisher: Jovian Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781537806440
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

At the end of the fourth century the Roman Empire still comprised the entire basin of the Mediterranean. In Europe its continental limits were the Rhine and the Danube; in Asia, an undefined frontier, modified constantly by wars with the Armenians and Persians, followed the eastern slope of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) to the foot of the Caucasus Mountains and extended into Armenia around Lake Van, thence in an almost straight line to the Red Sea, crossing the Tigris below Tigranocerta, and the Euphrates at its junction with the Chaboras at Circesium. On the south, Egypt up to and beyond the first cataract, and the northern slope of Africa, with Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Mauritania, belonged to Rome, which possessed in the valley of the Nile and in the modern Tunis the wheat granaries that supplied the hungry people of the two capitals. On the west the Atlantic Ocean formed the horizon of the ancients, who imagined beyond it the mysterious land of the blessed ones. On the north the island of Britannia belonged to the Empire, with the exception of the mountainous region of Caledonia, which retained its independence, as did Hibernia, or Ireland...

CHRISTIAN AND FEUDAL CIVILIZATION – INSTRUCTION AND SCIENCES – LITERATURE AND ARTS – WORSHIP.

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1. INSTRUCTION. THE SEVEN LIBERAL Arts. – Teaching was was at first confined to monasteries and chapters of cathedral churches. Charlemagne had made it respected, and since his time its development had continued. The Church, which had the monoply of it, used all her power in its favour. The method followed in schools was that which the dying classic world had bequeathed to the Middle Ages. The three arts of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics (the trivium) were taught first, then the four sciences of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the quadrivium). Then it was that the young man approached the higher studies of theology, law, philosophy, or medicine. Dating from the eleventh century, medicine was taught, especially at Salerno in Italy and at Montpellier in France. Law, and primarily Roman law, such as it had just been revealed in the manuscripts of the legal works of Justinian, was eagerly pursued in the schools of Bologna. France was the true mother country of the philosophy known as “scholastic.”

2. Scholastic Philosophy. – This philosophy was not original. It proceeded direct from Plato and Aristotle, but it scarcely knew their books and only imperfectly their theories. In fact, few, even among the most learned in the Middle Ages, were competent, not only to understand, but even read Greek; besides, there were but a few writings of Aristotle and Plato translated or analysed in the sixth century of our era by Boëthius. But this little evoked, about the origin of ideas and beings, serious problems which the two Greek philosophers had solved differently. Therefore the scholastics were soon grouped into two hostile camps: the partisans of Plato, or “Realists,” and those of Aristotle, or “Nominalists.” Both parties, however, elucidated their doctrines in the same way. They would take a sentence from their favourite master, and attempt, by discussing with their auditors, to deduce from it its logical conclusions. In this way dialectics, or the art of reasoning, whose laws had been outlined by Aristotle, was peculiarly esteemed in the schools.

3. Beginnings of Scholastic Philosophy. – The first schoolmen were the Anglo-Saxon, Alcuin, and the Irishman, John Scotus Erigena, who taught in the palace schools under Charles the Bald, and whose science was held, in the ninth century, to be marvellous. After him the most illustrious were Frenchmen. We will only mention Gerbert, who became Pope Sylvester II. The scholastics were the lights of the Church, but soon the Church was startled by the boldness of their thoughts and the freedom of their writing, and persecuted them. Berengar, a pupil, and then a brilliant professor at the school of Tours, was condemned for offensive propositions about the Eucharist (1050). Roscelin, canon of Besançon, dared to explain by philosophical reasoning the mysteries of the Trinity; he was condemned by a council and abjured, after having escaped being massacred by the populace (1094). Men were by that time warned that in matters of faith they must believe, not reason. But has not reason rights in the eyes of authority? Thus questioned Abelard.

4. Abelard, 1079-1142. – Peter Abelard was born in 1079, at Pallet, near Saint Nazaire, in the county of Nantes. His parents were noble. He was the oldest of the family and consequently destined to be a warrior; however, his father wished him to be taught. The young man profited so readily by his studies that he sacrificed, as he said, Mars to Minerva, and he devoted his life to science. In Paris he followed the teaching of William of Champeaux, the canon of the cathedral. He bore an active part in the discussions directed by the professor, but met his doctrines with such exact and eloquent logic that he forced him to acknowledge himself beaten. He became a master in his turn, without a diploma (in those days one was not required), and opened a school a rival to that of the cloister of Notre Dame, on the property of the exempted Abbey of Saint Genevieve. Later, after the tragic ending of his love with the learned and noble HeloéFse, he became a monk and took up teaching with brilliant success. Soon he gathered about him thousands of disciples; his books passed “from nation to nation, from kingdom to kingdom.” But his success brought him many enemies, and his ideas ruined him. Abelard had the boldness to claim that in truths which are within the domain of reason, it was useless to have recourse to faith; even in theology he would have faith elucidated and strengthened by reason. This was the very spirit of freedom of thought, which had many centuries to wait before its rights should be conceded.

5. Saint Bernard. Abelard Condemned. – Thereupon he was attacked. No one showed in this struggle firmer and more far-sighted determination than Saint Bernard. He also was of noble race. The third son of a Burgundian knight, weak in body, and sickly, he withdrew from the world when he was twenty-two (1113). As a monk at Citeaux, it was not long before he was noted for his ardent piety, science, and energy. He was ordered to take a colony of Cistercian monks to the upper valley of the Aube (1114) and there founded the celebrated Abbey of Clairvaux, of which he was the first abbot, The rule was austere and penetrated into Sweden and Denmark. However, he never confined himself to monastic life, and was constantly busied with worldly interests; it was he who promoted the second crusade. His opinions were the same as those of Gregory VII. concerning the Papacy and the relationship between the temporal and spiritual powers. As a determined advocate of orthodoxy, in his opinion there was no answer to be made to arguers, other than to show them the word of the Fathers condemning their doctrines. He therefore stood for the principle of authority; to the doubts of reason, which seeks truth, he opposed faith, which solves all difficulties in the name of authority. The head of the philosophical school had already been questioned about a treatise published on the Trinity in 1122. Another called, “Yes and No” (Sic et Non), in which he showed that even in dogma the opinion of the Fathers had varied, was laid before the council of Sens (1141). Abelard undertook to prove to the assembled bishops that his ideas were not inimical to Church doctrines. Saint Bernard anticipated him. First he held a special meeting in which his eloquence prejudiced minds against Abelard; then, the day of the solemn sitting, instead of allowing his adversary to speak, he crushed him under the weight of quotations drawn from the books of the Fathers, which contradicted Abelard’s doctrines.

6. Abelard’s Death, 1142. – Condemned before being heard, Abelard appealed from the council to the Pope, and started towards Rome to plead for himself his cause before the Holy See; but the emotions of the struggle had shattered his health. He stopped on the way at the Monastery of Cluny, whose abbot, Peter de Montboissier, called the Venerable, received him with the consideration due to his genius and misfortune. There he soon passed away (April 21, 1142), a touching example to the monks in the simplicity of his life. “So was this man in our midst,” wrote the Abbot of Cluny to Heloïse, “simple and upright, fearing the Lord, and turning from evil. . . . As is related of Saint Gregory the Great, he let no moment slip by without praying, reading, writing, or dictating. It was while performing these pious acts that the heavenly messenger found him.”

7. Orthodox Philosophy. Peter Lombard. – In the meantime the conflicts between theologians and philosophers compromised philosophy. William of Champeaux, resigning his chair in the cloister of Notre Dame, went forth to teach, in the school of Saint Victor, a disregard for this science which had brought him only mortification. Hugh of Ypres, his disciple (1133-1143), attempted to prove that the reason of man, thrown back upon itself, is powerless to attain truth; grace, and grace alone, that is, the arbitrary will of God, will lead one to it. Thus it was that dialectics which, under the inspiration of free reason, had stirred up such deep problems in the first half of the century, fell into disrepute in the second half. Peter the Lombard (1158-1160) made a collection of the most irrefutable statements pronounced by the Fathers concerning the nature and attributes of God, the creation, the incarnation, and the sacraments. The “Master of the Sentences,” as he was called, believed he could in. this way rid theology of all useless and dangerous questions. His book had great success during the entire Middle Ages, and beyond, but it failed to allay religious disputes. Yet for a time the Church seemed pacified.

Two momentous events occurred in the thirteenth century: the foundation of the University of Paris and the introduction of the books of Aristotle into the schools.

8. The University of Paris, 1200. – This originated in the cathedral school. From the earliest times students had flocked to Paris; they had come in greater numbers since Abelard’s time, but they had never enjoyed especial privileges. In 1200 in a quarrel between some German students and townspeople, encouraged by the presence of the provost of Paris, five students were killed. The king had the provost and his officers arrested, and granted the scholars, henceforth forming a corporation (universitas), the privilege of exemption from municipal justice in criminal cases. Pope Innocent III. immediately confirmed this privilege; he even partly released students from superior supervision exercised by the chancellor of the chapter of Notre Dame (1213), who gradually lost his power over the corporation. In 1246 the University adopted a seal. In the meantime it had formed an organisation: the masters of arts had long been teaching on the Mount Saint Genevieve; they were divided into four corporations or nations, into which students were grouped according to their origin, France (Ile de France), Normandy, Picardy, and England. Each nation had its own seal; every month it selected its general head or rector. In turn, the students in canon law or “Decretists,” doctors and theologians, acquired the right to teach outside of the city, and formed three other corporations, each having its dean and seal. In all, this made four faculties.

9. The Faculty of Arts. – The faculty of arts prepared for the three others. Studies were begun there before the age of fifteen, and logic was taught. Those who wished to fit themselves for teaching were required to undergo an examination called “determination” and much later the baccalaureate, which the student took in public, once a year, in the Lenten season. If he passed, he went, when he was twenty-one, to claim from the chancellor of Notre Dame or of Sainte Genevieve his license or authorisation to teach; after 1213 the chancellor could not withhold it if six masters swore, with their hands on the Gospels, that the claimant was worthy to be given a license. Then the licentiate might become a master on condition of being received by his new colleagues; then he must swear to observe all the regulations of the Faculty. All masters did not teach, nor during the entire time, for more than one followed the courses of the upper faculties, especially theology, while carrying on his teaching in the faculty of arts. When he conducted a course he was given the title of regent. Usually he taught in a black gown with a furred hood of the same hue. Most of the schools were situated in the rue du Fouarre (Straw Street). School furniture was very simple, for it was composed of a chair on a platform and a desk for the professor; the scholars were seated on the ground. Although they had few worldly goods, their gaiety was unfailing; the rue du Fouarre was the noisest in Paris, and nightly broils were frequent.

10. The Faculty of Theology. – Theological studies covered eight years; the baccalaureat was first taken after five years’ study. Lessons might then be given on Holy Writ and the Book of Sentences of Peter Lombard. After Three years of this apprenticeship, and providing he were Thirty-five years old, a student might present himself to The chancellor of Notre Dame to receive his license; and Finally the licentiate had to be received by the corporation Of masters, after having led a solemn discussion of study, and The advanced age that a man must reach before being Fitted to teach explains the small number of students who Complete their studies and took their degrees, but this Explains also the depth of the studies and the reputation Which the faculty of theology at Paris enjoyed during The Middle Ages. Added to this, students were better Guarded and more favoured. Most of them, in fact, lived In convents or colleges.

11. Students in Theology. Convents and Colleges. - The two large mendicant orders of Franciscans and Domincans intended, as has been seen, to teach religion By preaching, and direct souls by means of the confession. For this they needed trained theologians; teaching, for them, being a means to an end. In 1229 the Preaching Friars were authorised to establish, in their convent at Paris, a chair of theology; the Minors imitated them in 1230, then the Premonstrants (1252), the Bernardins (1256), the Carmelites (1259), etc. The secular clergy, less closely organised, offered fewer resources and guaran- tees to theological students. However, from the twelfth centruy, hotels or colleges, similar to the charitable houses founded by pilgrims, received the poorest among them.

12. The Sorbonne. In 1257 a canon of Cambria, Robert de Sorbon, friend of Joinville, and fellow soldier with Saint Louis, gave a house “situated in Paris, rue Coupe- Guele, before the palace of the Thermes, “ to lodge “poor masters studying theology.” This was the college of Sorbonne. Eleven other similar colleges were founded in the course of the thirteenth century. Students lived there in common. As rule there were in these colleges both students in arts and theological students. They were given weekly a sum of money for food, which was known as a purse, amounting to two sons parisis at the least and eight sous at the most; they had no claim on such a purse unless their fortune was less than a stated sum. They were required to be licensed in arts in order to receive a theologian’s purse. If at the end of ten years they were not capable of directing a course, they must leave the house.

13. The Faculties of Law and Medicine. -These two faculties never played anything but an unimportant part in the University of Paris. In law, Roman law was first taught with canon law; then the former was proscribed and nothing was studied except the Decretum of Gratian. Thus law was no longer anything but a branch of the fac- ulty of theology. Three years sufficed for the baccalau- reate, five years for the license. Those wished to teach, after undergoing a possible examination, must be accepted by the corporation of doctors; for here they were doctors and no longer masters, as in the three other facul- ties. In order to be admitted to the doctor’s degree, it was necessary that the aspirant give proof that he had an income of eight francs parisis.

14. University of Paris and Royal Powers. – Such was the inner organisation of the University of Paris, so celebrated during three centuries. It was a powerful body, because of the number of its students and its extended privileges. It abused them; the elective system tended easily to anarchy, and more than once the government was forced to interfere. In 1229 the students rose up in arms against the provost of Paris, who, in spite of the royal charter of 1200, was bold enough to attack, with his archers, the riotous fellows; several were killed or wounded. The University then suspended its teachings, and, unable to obtain justice from Blanche of Castile, disbanded. It was not reëstablished until two years later, through the Pope’s intervention, who obtained judicial satisfaction from the regent.

However, the University of Paris did not have the monopoly of public instruction in France. Under Saint Louis there were flourishing schools at Bourges and Angers, a university at Toulouse, a law school at Orléans, and schools of law and medicine at Montpellier. The Church encouraged them, because they were of benefit to her.

In other lands, the University of Bologna was of much earlier date than that of Paris; in England, Oxford was organised at the same time as Paris; Cambridge came soon after. At Naples, Frederick II. founded in 1234 a university for the Two Sicilies. But Paris was to hold in Europe, during a long period of time, the first rank, because of the number of its students and its brilliant teaching.

15. Aristotle Revived. New Impetus to Scholastic Philosophy. – The preponderance given to the faculty of theology at Paris is due to the favour enjoyed again by scholastic philosophy, which during half a century had fallen into disrepute. The impetus came from Spain, where a celebrated school of philosophy was formed in the twelfth century, in which the works of Aristotle, entirely recovered, were especially studied. It was the school of Cordova, the country of the Mussulman Ibn Roschd, otherwise Averroes, the learned commentator of the writings of the citizen of Stagira, and of the Jew, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), his disciple, who attempted to reconcile Aristotle and the Bible. One of their contemporaries, Raymond, archbishop of Toledo from 1130 to 1150, had a Latin translation made of not only the works of these two philosophers, which had a marvellous success throughout the theological world of Europe, but also, and most important, of the original books of Aristotle. When all the great Greek philosopher’s thought was given out, instead of the abstracts by Boëthius or the endless commentaries by schoolmen, it was like a new light pouring in upon man’s intelligence. Alain of Lille; Simon, canon of Tournai; Alexander Neckam, abbot of Cirencester (d. 1217), raised philosophy again to an honourable position. Another Englishman, Alexander of Hales, a Franciscan monk called the Irrefutable Doctor, and the Swabian Albert, of the counts of Bollstaedt (1193-1280), who entered the Dominican order and was known as the Universal Doctor, or the Great, were the founders of orthodox Aristotelianism. They were surpassed by their disciples: Thomas of Aquinas (1227- 1274), surnamed the Angelic Doctor, and John Fidenza, better known as Bonaventura (1221-1274). The first was a preaching friar, the second a friar Minor; they were both canonised by the Church. The two important works of Saint Thomas, the “Summa Theologiæ,” and the “Summa against the Gentiles,” include in their able synthesis the entire Church doctrine in philosophical and theological questions. They have not been surpassed: after five centuries they are regarded with deserved favour by Catholic theologians.

16. The Learned Men of the Thirteenth Century. – In a period so deeply imbued with orthodoxy and logic, literature and the sciences could not fail to be saturated with the religious spirit. Naturally it inspired the preachers whose sermons have preserved for us, in the midst of pedantic quibbles, so many precious bits of...

Table of contents

• THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT THE END OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.
• THE BARBARIANS.
• THE GERMANIC INVASIONS – THE VANDALS, THE VISIGOTHS, AND THE HUNS (376-476).
• THE GERMANIC INVASIONS – THE OSTROGOTHS
• THE GERMANIC INVASIONS – THE BARBARIANS IN GAUL – CLOVIS.
• THE FRANKISH KINGDOM FROM 511 To 639.
• INSTITUTIONS OF GAUL AFTER THE INVASIONS.
• THE ROMAN EMPIRE OF THE EAST IN THE SIXTH CENTURY.
• THE LAST INVASIONS AND THE PAPACY – THE LOMBARDS AND GREGORY THE GREAT – THE ANGLO-SAXONS AND MONASTICISM
• THE ARABS – MOHAMMED.
• ARABIAN EMPIRE – CONQUESTS AND CIVILISATION.
• THE FAINÉANT KINGS – FOUNDATION OF THE CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY – CHARLEMAGNE.
• EMPIRE OF THE FRANKS – CAROLINGIAN CUSTOMS AND INSTITUTIONS.
• THE CAROLINGIAN DECADENCE, 814-888.
• THE LAST CAROLINGIANS – INVASIONS OF THE SARACENS, HUNGARIANS, AND NORSEMEN – ORIGIN OF FEUDALISM.
• THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.
• GERMANY AND ITALY (888-1056).
• EMPEROR AND POPE – CHURCH REFORM – GREGORY VII.
• THE GUELFS AND HOHENSTAUFEN – ALEXANDER III. AND FREDERICK I. BARBAROSSA.
• END OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN – VICTORY OF THE PAPACY OVER THE EMPIRE.
• THE CHRISTIAN AND MUSSULMAN ORIENT FROM THE SEVENTH TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.
• THE CRUSADES
• THE COUNTRY DISTRICTS AND CITIES OF FRANCE-EMANCIPATION OF PEASANTS AND BOURGEOIS
• FRENCH ROYALTY (987-1154)
• FRENCH ROYALTY (1154-1270).
• INSTITUTIONS OF CAPETIAN ROYALTY.
• ENGLAND FROM THE NINTH TO THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
• CONTINENTAL EUROPE.
• THE ROMAN CHURCH IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
• THE CHURCH AND HERESIES.
• CHRISTIAN AND FEUDAL CIVILIZATION – INSTRUCTION AND SCIENCES – LITERATURE AND ARTS – WORSHIP.
• GENERAL SUMMARY.