During the Middle Ages, there is a special influence of the Christian Church on the formation of the mentality and worldview of Europeans. Instead of a meager and hard life, religion offered people a system of knowledge about the world and the laws that operate in it. That is why medieval culture is completely and completely imbued with Christian ideas and ideals, which considered the earthly life of a person as a preparatory stage for the impending immortality, but in a different dimension. People identified the world with a kind of arena in which heavenly and hellish forces fought, good and evil.
Medieval culture reflects the history of the struggle between the state and the church, their interaction and the realization of divine goals.
Architecture
In the 10-12 centuries in Western European countries, it dominates which is rightfully considered the first canon of medieval architecture.
Secular buildings are massive, they are characterized by narrow window openings and high towers. Typical features of Romanesque architectural structures are domed structures and semicircular arches. Bulky buildings symbolized the power of the Christian god.
Particular attention during this period was paid to the monastic buildings, as they combined the dwelling of the monks, the chapel, the prayer room, workshops and the library. The main element of the composition is a high tower. Massive reliefs decorating the facade walls and portals were the main element of the temple decor.
Medieval culture is characterized by the emergence of another style in architecture. It is called gothic. This style shifts the cultural center from secluded monasteries to crowded urban areas. At the same time, the cathedral is considered the main spiritual building. The first temple buildings are distinguished by slender columns, carried upwards, elongated windows, painted stained-glass windows and “roses” above the entrance. From the inside and outside, they were decorated with reliefs, statues, paintings, emphasizing the main feature of the style - the upward trend.
Sculpture
Metal processing is used primarily for the production
The era of the Middle Ages was considered by the advanced thinkers of the new time as a gloomy time that did not give the world anything: the narrow religious worldview imposed by the Catholic Church hindered the development of science and art. In today's lesson, we will try to challenge this statement and prove that the Middle Ages, which lasted a thousand years, left a rich cultural heritage for future generations.
In the 11th century, in the south of France, in Provence, chivalrous poetry arose. Provencal poets-singers were called troubadours (Fig. 1). The imagination of the poets created the image of an ideal knight - brave, generous and fair. In the poetry of the troubadours, the service of the Beautiful Lady, the Madonna ("my lady"), was sung, in which the worship of the Mother of God and the earthly, living and beautiful woman were combined. In Northern France, Italy, Spain, Germany, knightly poets were called trouvers and minnesingers (translated as love singers).
Rice. 1. Troubadour ()
In the same centuries, poetic chivalric novels and stories arose. The legends about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are especially widely reflected in the novels. Arthur's court was presented as a place where the best qualities of chivalry flourished. The novels took the reader to a fantasy world, where at every step there were fairies, giants, wizards, oppressed beauties, waiting for help from brave knights.
In the XII century, the flourishing of urban literature began. The townspeople loved short stories in verse and fables on everyday topics. Their heroes were most often a clever, cunning burgher or a cheerful, resourceful peasant. They invariably made fools of their opponents - swaggering knights and greedy monks. The verses of the va-gants (translated from Latin - vagabonds) are associated with urban literature. Vagants were called schoolchildren and students who, in the XII-XIII centuries, wandered around the cities and universities of Europe in search of new teachers.
An outstanding poet of the Middle Ages was Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) (Fig. 2). Dante was born in Florence into an old noble family. He studied at the city school, and then studied philosophy, astronomy, and ancient literature all his life. At the age of 18, he experienced love for the young Beatrice, who later married another and died early. With an unprecedented frankness for those times, Dante spoke about his experiences in a small book, New Life; she glorified his name in literature. Dante wrote a great work in verse, which he called "Comedy". Descendants called it the "Divine Comedy" as a token of the highest praise. Dante describes a journey to the afterlife: hell for sinners, paradise for the righteous, and purgatory for those to whom God has not yet pronounced his sentence. At the gates of hell, located in the north, there is an inscription that has become winged: "Abandon hope, everyone who enters here." In the center of the southern hemisphere there is a huge mountain in the form of a truncated cone, on the ledges of the mountain there is a purgatory, and on its flat top there is an earthly paradise. Accompanied by the great Roman poet Virgil, Dante visits hell and purgatory, and Beatrice leads him through paradise. There are 9 circles in hell: the heavier the sins, the lower the circle and the more severe the punishment. In hell, Dante placed bloodthirsty power-hungry, cruel rulers, criminals, misers. In the center of hell is the devil himself, gnawing at traitors: Judas, Brutus and Cassius. Dante placed his enemies in hell, including several popes. In his image, sinners are not incorporeal shadows, but living people: they have conversations and disputes with the poet, political strife rages in hell. Dante converses with the righteous in paradise and, finally, contemplates the Mother of God and God. Pictures of the afterlife are drawn so vividly and convincingly that it seemed to contemporaries that the poet saw it with his own eyes. And he described, in essence, the diverse earthly world, with its contradictions and passions. The poem was written in Italian: the poet wanted to be understood by the widest range of readers.
Rice. 2. Domenico Petarlini. Dante Alighieri)
Since the 11th century, large-scale construction began in Western Europe. The rich church expanded the number and size of temples, rebuilt old buildings. Until the 11th-12th centuries, the Romanesque style dominated Europe. The Romanesque temple is a massive building with almost smooth walls, high towers and laconic decor. Everywhere the outlines of a semicircular arch are repeated - on the vaults, window openings, entrances to the temple (Fig. 3).
Rice. 3. Church of San Martin in Fromiste (1066) - one of the best monuments of the Romanesque style in Spain)
From the middle of the XII century, commercial premises, meeting rooms for workshops and guilds, hospitals, and hotels were built in free cities. The main decorations of the city were the town hall and especially the cathedral. Buildings of the XII-XV centuries were later called Gothic. Now the light and high lancet vault rests on the inside on bunches of narrow, high columns, and on the outside on massive support pillars and connecting arches. The halls are spacious and high, they receive more light and air, they are richly decorated with paintings, carvings, bas-reliefs. Thanks to wide passages and through galleries, many huge windows and lacy stone carvings, Gothic cathedrals seem transparent (Fig. 4).
Rice. 4. Notre Dame Cathedral (
In the Middle Ages, sculpture was inseparable from architecture. Temples were decorated outside and inside with hundreds, if not thousands, of reliefs and statues depicting God and the Virgin Mary, apostles and saints, bishops and kings. For example, in the cathedral in Chartres (France) there were up to 9 thousand statues, not counting the reliefs. Church art was supposed to serve as a "Bible for the illiterate" - depict scenes described in Christian books, strengthen in faith and frighten with the torments of hell. Unlike ancient art, which glorified the beauty of the human body, the artists of the Middle Ages sought to reveal the richness of the soul, thoughts and feelings of a person, his intense inner life. In gothic statues, in their flexible, elongated figures, the appearance of people is especially vividly conveyed, under the folds of clothing the forms of the body show through more clearly, in poses there is more movement. The idea of harmony of the external and internal appearance of a person is becoming more and more noticeable; female images are especially beautiful - Mary in the Reims Cathedral, Uta in Naumburg.
The walls of Romanesque churches were covered with paintings. The great achievement of painting was book miniature. The whole life of people was reflected in many bright drawings. Everyday scenes were also depicted on frescoes, which is especially typical for German and Scandinavian churches of the XIV-XV centuries.
Considering the cultural heritage of the Middle Ages, let's focus on scientific achievements. Astrology and alchemy flourished in the Middle Ages. Observations and experiments of astrologers and alchemists contributed to the accumulation of knowledge in astronomy and chemistry. Alchemists, for example, discovered and improved methods for obtaining metal alloys, paints, medicinal substances, created many chemical devices and devices for experiments. Astrologers studied the location of stars and luminaries, their movement and the laws of physics. Accumulated useful knowledge and medicine.
In the XIV-XV centuries, water mills began to be actively used in mining and craft. The water wheel has long been the basis of mills that were built on rivers and lakes to grind grain (Fig. 5). But later, a more powerful wheel was invented, which was set in motion by the force of water falling on it. The energy of the mill was also used in cloth making, for washing (“enrichment”) and smelting metal ores, lifting weights, etc. The mill and mechanical clocks were the first mechanisms of the Middle Ages.
Rice. 5. Top water wheel ()
The advent of firearms. Previously, metal was melted in small forges, forcing air into them with hand bellows. Since the XIV century, they began to build blast furnaces - melting furnaces up to 3-4 meters in height. The water wheel was connected to large bellows that forced air into the furnace. Thanks to this, a very high temperature was reached in the blast furnace: iron ore was melted, and liquid cast iron was formed. Various products were cast from cast iron, and iron and steel were obtained by remelting it. Metal was now smelted much more than before. For melting metal in blast furnaces, they began to use not only charcoal, but also coal.
For a long time, rare Europeans dared to embark on long voyages on the high seas. Without the correct maps and marine instruments, the ships sailed "coastal" (along the coast) along the seas surrounding Europe and along North Africa. It became safer to go to the open sea after the sailors had a compass. Astrolabes were invented - devices for determining the place where the ship is located (Fig. 6).
Rice. 6. Astrolabe ()
With the development of the state and cities, science and navigation, the amount of knowledge increased and, at the same time, the need for educated people, for the expansion of education and for books, including textbooks. In the 14th century, cheaper writing material, paper, began to be made in Europe, but there were still not enough books. To reproduce the text, prints were made from a wooden or copper board with letters carved on it, but this method was very imperfect and required a lot of labor. In the middle of the 15th century, the German Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1399-1468) invented printing. After long and hard work and searches, he began to cast individual letters (letters) from metal; of these, the inventor composed the lines and pages of the set, from which he made an impression on paper. Using a collapsible font, you could type as many pages of any text as you like. Gutenberg also invented the printing press. In 1456, Gutenberg released the first printed book - the Bible (Fig. 7), which, in artistic terms, was not inferior to the best hand-written books. The invention of printing is one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind. It contributed to the development of education, science and literature. Thanks to the printed book, the knowledge accumulated by people, all the necessary information began to spread faster. They were more fully preserved and passed on to the next generations of people. Successes in the dissemination of information, an important part of the development of culture and all sectors of society, made their next important step in the late Middle Ages - a step towards the New Age.
Rice. 7. Johannes Gutenberg Bible ()
Bibliography
- Agibalova E.V., G.M. Donskoy. History of the Middle Ages. - M., 2012
- Atlas of the Middle Ages: History. Traditions. - M., 2000
- An illustrated world history: from ancient times to the 17th century. - M., 1999
- History of the Middle Ages: book. For reading / Ed. V.P. Budanova. - M., 1999
- Kalashnikov V. Riddles of History: Middle Ages / V. Kalashnikov. - M., 2002
- Stories on the history of the Middle Ages / Ed. A.A. Svanidze. M., 1996
- Liveinternet.ru ().
- Pavluchenkov.ru ().
- e-reading-lib.com().
- countries.ru ().
- Playroom.ru ().
- Mainland.ru ().
Homework
- What genres of literature developed in medieval Europe?
- Why is Dante considered the greatest poet of the Middle Ages?
- What styles dominated medieval architecture?
- What technical inventions of the Middle Ages do you know?
- Why is the invention of printing considered one of the most important discoveries in human history?
Introduction
1. Mental foundations and characteristic features of Western European medieval culture
2. European culture of the early Middle Ages
3. European culture of the mature and late Middle Ages
4. Culture of Byzantium: stages and trends of development
Conclusion
List of used literature
Introduction
At the end of the 5th century on the ruins of the Western Roman Empire, a new cultural and historical type of European society began to emerge. Self-determined in the IV century. The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) followed its own cultural and civilizational path, which doomed it to a kind of slow archaization and stagnation. But, despite the different ways of forming socio-political systems, there was an indisputable similarity between medieval Western Europe and Byzantium, based on the dominance of feudal relations and Christianity. The latter, however, internally split into Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism (the split was formally fixed in 1054).
The emergence of two Christian denominations deepened the economic, political and spiritual division between Byzantium and the West. In the new Europe during the Middle Ages, the process of formation of nationalities was going faster, various worldviews were formed, separate subcultures and cultural centers, art schools, trends, styles were formed. The struggle between the desire for Christian unity and the desire for national independence became a distinctive feature of the Western culture of the Middle Ages. Byzantium was, as it were, aloof from this struggle.
In the history of the cultural development of medieval Western Europe, it is customary to single out the periods of the early Middle Ages (V-X centuries), the mature Middle Ages (XI-XIII centuries) and the late Middle Ages (XIV-XV centuries). In Italy and the Netherlands, the late Middle Ages correspond to the final stage of the Proto-Renaissance and the Early Renaissance, which is explained by the uneven development of the economy and other institutions of civilization in various European countries.
1. Mental foundations and characteristic features of Western European medieval culture
The spiritual basis of the Middle Ages, which was reflected in all spheres of life, was Christianity. It determined the main feature of medieval culture - theocentrism. The system of official values in this era was determined by faith in the triune God. The divine world is the pinnacle of the cosmic and social hierarchy. Nature, society, man were considered as a whole, since they were considered God's creations. The meaning of the life of a medieval person was to discover the signs of the Creator of all things in his soul and the surrounding reality.
Another important feature of the medieval worldview is spiritualism. The earthly, natural world seemed to be only a reflection of the heavenly and was filled with mysterious spirits and mystical energies. This aimed at a constant search for ways to establish contact with God.
In medieval culture, there was no place left for the ancient harmony of spirit and body. In official dogmatics, the material, bodily was opposed to the spiritual and interpreted as something vile. This view influenced the formation of a new concept of man. On the one hand, he contained the image and likeness of God, on the other hand, he acted as the bearer of the carnal principle. A person is subject to devilish temptations, and they test his will. Life passes between the dazzling abyss of grace and the black abyss of perdition. Only constant improvement of the spiritual principle and sacrificial service to God can help a person avoid hellish torments.
Heightened sensitivity, bordering on exaltation, determined an important feature of the medieval mentality. Spirituality was associated not with rational activity, but with intense emotional life, ecstatic visions and miracles, imaginary phenomena of the other world.
Another important feature of the medieval worldview is symbolism, which overcame the ancient attitude to the contemplation of a sensual-material form. Man aspired to what was on the other side of the latter - to pure divine being. At the same time, potentially any thing was necessarily presented, first of all, by its sign, image, symbol, which did not mix the introduced meaning and the earthly thing, but assumed their common divine origin.
So, things-symbols had the ability to reflect the divine reality, but to varying degrees. From this idea followed the next feature of the Middle Ages - hierarchism. The natural world and social reality here were deeply hierarchical. The place of a phenomenon or object in the universal hierarchy was associated with the degree of their proximity to God.
These features of the medieval worldview also determined the artistic culture, the main place in which was occupied by the attributes of the Christian cult. The goal of artistic creativity of that time was not aesthetic pleasure as such, but an appeal to God. However, Thomas Aquinas and some other religious philosophers also represented God as a source of universal harmony and ideal beauty. An integral attribute of medieval art, which manifested itself especially in the mature and late Middle Ages, is monumentalism. It reflected the greatness of God, in the face of which a person was likened to a grain of sand. Medieval art is characterized by the same symbolism. The religious work of art as a whole and any of its elements were considered as signs of a supernatural reality.
Medieval architecture was a kind of synthesis of arts, united around the spiritual center - the cathedral, which embodied Heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Christ, the Universe.
The use of symbols in works of art - "traces" of the incessant divine providence - determined the canonicity and allegorism of medieval art. The artists had to focus on the spiritual content of the images, resorting to conventions and stylization, turning to allegories and associations. Thus, the meanings of sacred symbols were deciphered and presented in the form of clearly presented canonized moral formulas.
An important feature of medieval art is speculativeness, leading away from the worldly, sensual vision. The incorporeality of bodies, the lack of interest in concrete-sensual details on the icon did not divert attention from the spiritual comprehension of God. The same is true of spiritually sublime music, which liberated from the power of everyday life.
2. European culture of the early Middle Ages
During the early Middle Ages, Western European culture and civilization experienced phases of crisis and rise. It was a time of difficult, at first timid and imitative, and then more and more confident, independent search for an integral system of values, norms, ideals, carried out at the crossroads of Christian, barbarian and ancient traditions.
A new era began in the context of a deep total crisis that erupted after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Medieval society found its way in an environment of economic and political chaos, among the ruins of the culture of the destroyed ancient world. The number of cities that recently determined the qualitative originality of ancient culture has decreased. Cities and urban residences of kings survived and slowly grew mainly along the banks of large rivers. The economy of that time was dominated by subsistence farming and the agrarian economy, and the growth of large landed property began. Trade relations of individual localities were carried out mainly along the rivers and rarely became stable. Residents exchanged the most necessary goods or luxury items (salt, wine, oil, expensive fabrics, spices). Settlement using money was difficult due to their scarcity in circulation. Gold coins were minted mainly to maintain the power of overlords.
The early Middle Ages also preserved some of the cultural forms created by antiquity (primarily Rome). In the coming era, education served primarily as a means to ensure liturgical practice and government. Some disciplines, in particular rhetoric, have completely changed their meaning. In the early Middle Ages, the latter became the realm of the written rather than the spoken word, the practice of skilful business writing rather than the art of eloquence. Mathematics mainly formed the skills of counting and solving problems and was least of all associated with the knowledge of the essence of the world, as in Ancient Greece.
The nascent medieval theology, however, turned to ancient authors. Christianity was forced to defend its ideals, turning to a culture with a deeply developed system of intellectual traditions - with its own ontology, epistemology, logic, with a developed art of polemic. Subsequently, patristics, which gravitated toward a harmonious synthesis of the Christian idea of revelation and the philosophical tradition of ancient rationalism, was replaced by scholasticism (XI-XIV centuries), the main problematic of which was associated purely with Christian doctrine.
In the religious art of the early Middle Ages, elements of the artistic style of the barbarians were refracted - folklore motifs, ornamentalism, fantastic images, etc.
The “animal style” was distinguished by underlined dynamism, in which stylized images of animals were combined with a spiral floral ornament. The image of people became widespread at the end of the 7th century. (relief from Hornhausen). Among the surviving architectural structures of that time, the tomb of Theodoric in Ravenna (completed in the 20s of the 6th century) – an example of primitive imitation of Roman architecture – and the palace chapel in Aachen (788–805) deserve attention.
3. European culture of the mature and late Middle Ages
For Europe, the 11th century marked the beginning of a new cultural upsurge. Strengthening the outer borders of the Western world and reducing the severity of internal conflicts made life safer, which made it possible to switch to improving agricultural technologies, strengthening trade, and developing crafts. The growth of cities took place at an accelerated pace, accompanied by property and social differentiation of society. In the XI-XIII centuries. the main features of medieval culture finally took shape and the first shoots of the future new European cultural type were born.
One of the characteristic features of the culture of this period was the contradiction between fragmentation, divergence in the economic, political, social and spiritual spheres of life, on the one hand, and the unifying pathos of the ideal images of the social order proposed by religious thinkers, on the other. In the social sphere, the ideal of a unified Christian society coexisted with the functioning of independent social groups and estates.
The rise of agriculture, the growth of workshops and craft corporations, and the formation of the merchant class played a decisive role in the formation of the medieval city. Large trade routes converged in medieval cities, and the surrounding fertile plains provided an abundance of agricultural products. The economic prerogative of the cities was handicraft, and then manufacturing. Thanks to the cities, the monetary system developed. During the period of the mature and late Middle Ages, a type of trade prevailed in the formed states, focusing mainly on the local market and local sources of goods. But foreign trade and economic ties were also emerging.
Thus, at the turn of the XIII century. no longer monasteries and knightly castles, but cities determined the economic and cultural development of Europe. In the XIV-XV centuries. democratic tendencies were strengthened in it.
Education. The new attitude to the world, gradually taking shape in the urban environment, could not but be reflected in the intellectual culture, in which more and more secular elements appeared. New forms of education were created in the cities: paid elementary secular schools and universities. The first university in Europe appeared in the 12th century. in Paris at the abbey schools of St. Genevieve and St. Victor.
A school in the city could be opened by a workshop, a guild, or even just a private person. The main attention here was paid not to church doctrine, but to grammar, mathematics, rhetoric, natural science, and law. And it is important that teaching in schools was conducted in the native language.
Universities that arose in the 12th-14th centuries gave an even greater impetus to the spread of education, depriving the church of a monopoly in this area. The activities of the universities had three important cultural implications. First, it gave birth to a professional class of scientists who also received the right to teach the truths of Revelation. As a result, along with ecclesiastical and secular power, the power of intellectuals appeared, the influence of which on spiritual culture and social life became more and more intensified. Secondly, the university fraternity affirmed the forms of secular culture and the new meaning of the concept of "nobility", which consisted in the aristocracy of the mind and behavior. Thirdly, within the framework of medieval universities, along with the formation of an attitude towards rational comprehension of theological wisdom, the beginnings of scientific knowledge appeared.
Literature. The literature of the mature and late Middle Ages reflected the creativity of various social strata of society and nationalities, and therefore was extremely diverse.
Church religious-didactic (lives of the saints, parables, sermons) and edifying (example - instructive examples, entertaining stories) literature continued to be widespread. A special place in church literature was occupied by the genre of visions - stories about the communication of a person, including a simple layman, with otherworldly forces.
Back in the X century. in France, a poetic tradition of jugglers began to take shape - wandering singer-musicians familiar with both the traditions of Latin literature and the heroic epic. In the XI-XIII centuries. there is a flourishing of chivalrous lyric poetry, which glorified the mighty moral power of love and military exploits. The greatest role in its formation was played by the South French troubadours, in whose verses the traditions of folk and ancient poetry coexisted. Romances of chivalry were very popular - great poetic works in national languages, most often inspired by folk heroic epics.
Architecture and fine arts. During the period of the mature Middle Ages, two leading styles appeared that reflected changes in the value orientations of a medieval person - Romanesque and Gothic. The dominant art form during this period was architecture.
In medieval culture of the XI-XII centuries. Romanesque style developed. He inherited the forms of ancient Roman and early Christian architecture. Romanesque plastics are characterized by monumental generalization of forms, deviation from real proportions, expressive postures and gestures of sacred characters.
Romanesque places of worship represented the architectonic monumental style in architecture. Here the main techniques of sculptural and pictorial images, norms and rules for the construction of artistic images, set by church aesthetics, were formed. Secular Romanesque art developed in the castles of the feudal lords, which simultaneously met the requirements of defense, housing and representation, both in planning and in relation to the terrain (the fortress of Carcassonne in Provence, XII-XIII centuries).
In the monastic complexes, the leading role belonged to the temple. Sculpture in Romanesque churches, simple in design, was located both inside and outside - on the facade framed by the portal.
Romanesque art was subordinated to architecture. Picturesque images, created mainly in the fresco technique, were expressive color compositions, icon-painting plots that gave the interior an impressive solemnity. Occasionally, cult themes in painting were supplemented with folklore motifs (frescoes in the church of Saint-Savin Gartham, France).
From the second half of the XII century. in the art of medieval Europe, the formation of the Gothic style began. The term "Gothic" appeared in the Renaissance and comes from the name of the tribe "Goths", whose pointed dwellings resembled the steep slopes of Gothic cathedrals. The Gothic period turned out to be more complex, and the style itself became refined and decorative in comparison with the Romanesque. It was determined mainly by the culture of cities, the buildings of which were losing their defensive significance. Secular construction developed (town halls, covered markets, hospitals, residential buildings). Under the influence of a new worldview, the main features of Gothic art were formed. It came close to the person. In the images of Christ, human features are emphasized, the appearance of the “terrible Judge” is replaced by the image of the “suffering horn”. Gothic man was in an emotionally tense relationship with an imaginary sphere. In the culture of that time, an interest in the beauty of the real world, earthly feelings and experiences arose.
The main constructive innovation of Gothic architecture was the lancet arch (two arcs facing each other at an acute angle) and the lancet vault on the ribs (the connection of stone ribs with spacers). They increased the height of the grandiose structure and made it possible to block spaces of any plan.
In different states, the Gothic style had its own striking features associated with the emergence of national art schools. The largest of them are French, German and English.
The development of plastics in the Gothic era was inextricably linked with architecture. Sculpture enhanced the emotional perception of architecture, contributed to the pictorial embodiment not only of religious feelings and beliefs, but also of nature deified by man.
The leading role here belonged to round plastic and relief. Gothic sculpture is an integral part of the cathedral. It was included in the architectural composition and diversified its appearance.
Gothic offered new principles for the synthesis of arts, which made it possible to more fully reflect a person's emotionally heightened perception of the connection between the heavenly and real worlds, an appeal to the earthly. She created the necessary prerequisites for the emergence of the humanistic culture of the Renaissance.
4. Culture of Byzantium: stages and trends of development
Byzantium, which arose in 395 in the territories of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, was a major medieval cultural and civilizational center. The capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which separated from the Western, was Constantinople (now Istanbul), founded in 330 by Emperor Constantine. The state lasted until 1453, when Constantinople was captured by the Turks. Byzantium at the stage of formation is better than the western territories of Europe, preserved and significantly modified the traditions of ancient culture. Little affected by barbarian invasions, it took from Rome the form of a centralized state with an emperor and a church at its head. The development of the culture of Byzantium, to a much greater extent than in the countries of Western Europe, was controlled by the state. Byzantium is characterized by a slow pace of cultural transformations and late formalization of feudal relations. Until the 7th century modified value foundations of late antique culture and civilization were preserved here. The reign of Justinian (527-565) is noted in history as a grandiose attempt to restore the former greatness of Rome, the successor of which the Romean empire - Byzantium considered itself to be.
In the IV-VII centuries. the originality of the religion of Byzantium with its distinctly expressed philosophical and contemplative attitude towards the Christian canons was already fully manifested. The Byzantine civilization is characterized by an organic fusion of secular and religious power in the person of the emperor, who symbolized a single administrative principle. The opposition to the secular (imperial) authority of the spiritual (papal) that arose in Western Europe at times developed into open conflicts. The church organization of Byzantium was entirely regulated by the state and was completely subordinate to the emperor.
The literature of early Byzantium was of a dual nature, bizarrely combining at its core the Christian worldview with the postantine pathos of citizenship and reasonable choice. Among church literature, the genre of hagiography gained particular popularity.
The powerful rise of early Byzantine art was associated with the reign of Justinian. In large cities, primarily in Constantinople, intensive construction was carried out. Triumphal arches, palaces were erected, aqueducts, baths, hippodromes, cisterns for water storage were built. However, the main role in architecture belonged to religious buildings - temples and monastic complexes. In the architecture of the V-VII centuries. two types of temples were used: basilica and cross-domed. The Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532–537) is a pearl of Byzantine architecture that successfully combines both architectural forms.
Visual arts and architecture of the 5th–7th centuries. combined ecclesiastical and secular genres. The emphasis was on monumental creations. At the same time, several local art schools operated, which formed a system of pictorial images based on the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, later canonized by the church. The main task was to depict not a single phenomenon, not the sensual world, but its idea, at the same time as close as possible to the divine prototype.
8th century - first half of the ninth century became a time of testing for the Byzantine culture and civilization, which was reconsidering its attitude to the ancient heritage. Free handicraft and trade corporations were reduced, the mercenary army was abolished, the number of cities was sharply reduced. The rewriting of ancient books lost its relevance, and only a few intellectuals still supported the traditions of ancient education. The sphere of education was in decline (even the patriarchal school at the Hagia Sophia was closed), and the literacy of the population dropped sharply. At the same time, the role of the patriarchs rose, the Christian church sought to extinguish the last pockets of paganism.
The literature of this period was predominantly ecclesiastical in nature. The hagiographic genre remained the most popular, including, along with religious narratives proper, disparate natural science, geographical and historical information. The apologetic hymnography was dominated by the canon with its solemn static and floridity.
Second half of the 9th - 13th centuries - a period of weakening imperial power and strengthening the position of the landed aristocracy.
Economy. By the middle of the X century. feudal relations finally developed in Byzantium. Unlike the West, they were based primarily on the enslavement of peasants by the state. At the same time, small communal landownership was absorbed by large feudal estates, which competed with the centralized system of state power. In Byzantium in the 11th-12th centuries, despite the growth of crafts and trade, no Western-type cities with a new developed self-government and free craft workshops appeared. Shop production in large cities was tightly controlled by the state.
The worldview of that time combined the fading ideals of patriotism, emotional and mystical and at the same time philosophical and rational religiosity. Interest in the ancient heritage was renewed, the works of ancient authors were rewritten. Secular education was revived according to the ancient model. In the ninth century a higher school was opened in Constantinople, which was led by the greatest scientist of that time, Leo the Mathematician.
Literature. In the second half of the IX - XIII centuries. various kinds of systematic reviews have become widespread.
Architecture and fine arts. During this period, there was a further enrichment of the style of architecture. The leading role traditionally belonged to religious architecture with its large monastic complexes and majestic temples.
From the second half of the ninth century big changes affected church painting: it became more and more humanized, but claimed to awaken universal spiritual experiences expressed through symbolic images. The laconicism of the compositional construction, the restraint of the color solution, the proportionality to the architecture distinguish the painting of the 9th-13th centuries. It was at this time that a system of canonical images in temples developed.
After the devastating campaigns of the crusaders who destroyed Constantinople, in the XIII century. the final stage in the development of Byzantine culture began. It is associated with the rule of the Palaiologos dynasty (1267–1453). The art of this time is characterized by expression and filigree elaboration of images (mosaics of the Kahriye Jami church in Constantinople).
In 1453, Byzantium was conquered by Turkey, but the types of religious buildings created by its masters, systems of fresco paintings and mosaics, icon painting, and literature became widespread and developed in the art of Western Europe, southern and western Slavs, Ancient Rus', Belarus and Transcaucasia.
Conclusion
So, the Middle Ages in Western Europe is a time of intense spiritual life, complex and difficult searches for worldview structures that could synthesize the historical experience and knowledge of the previous millennia.
In this era, people were able to enter a new path of cultural development, different from what they knew in previous times. Trying to reconcile faith and reason, building a picture of the world based on the knowledge available to them and with the help of Christian dogmatism, the culture of the Middle Ages created new artistic styles, a new urban lifestyle, a new economy, and prepared people's minds for the use of mechanical devices and technology.
Contrary to the opinion of the thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, the Middle Ages left us the most important achievements of spiritual culture, including the institutions of scientific knowledge and education. Among them, one should name, first of all, the university as a principle. In addition, a new paradigm of thinking arose, a disciplinary structure of cognition without which modern science would be impossible, people got the opportunity to think and cognize the world much more effectively than before. Even the fantastic recipes of the alchemists played their part in this process of improving the spiritual means of thinking, the general level of culture.
Occurred in the XX century. reassessment of the significance of medieval culture emphasizes its special role in creating the image of the moral behavior of a Christian. And today, experts rightly note in this culture the origins of many worldview and intellectual attitudes that are characteristic of later eras, the prerequisites for updating the ways of knowing and aesthetic transformation of the world. The culture of the European Middle Ages developed and consolidated many values, meanings, forms of life and creativity, which found their reincarnation in the following centuries.
List of used literature
- Culturology. Textbook / Edited by A.A. Radugin. - M., 2001.
- Kononenko B.I. Fundamentals of cultural studies: a course of lectures. - M., 2002.
- Petrova M.M. Theory of Culture: Lecture Notes. - St. Petersburg, 2000.
- Samokhvalova V.I. Culturology: A short course of lectures. - M., 2002.
- Erengross B.A. Culturology. Textbook for universities / B.A. Erengross, R.G. Apresyan, E. Botvinnik. – M.: Oniks, 2007.
Topic: Culture of the European Middle Ages
1. Culture of Byzantium
3. Artistic culture of the Middle Ages
4. Russian culture of the Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, it is especially important to emphasize the role of Byzantium (IV - mid-XV centuries). She remained the only guardian of the Hellenistic cultural traditions. However, Byzantium significantly transformed the legacy of late antiquity, creating an artistic style that already entirely belonged to the spirit and letter of the Middle Ages. Moreover, in medieval European art, it was Byzantine art that was most orthodox Christian.
The following periods are distinguished in the history of Byzantine culture:
1st period (IV - mid-VII centuries) - Byzantium becomes the successor of the Roman Empire. There is a transition from ancient to medieval culture. The proto-Byzantine culture of this period was still urban in nature, but gradually monasteries became centers of cultural life. The formation of Christian theology takes place while maintaining the achievements of ancient scientific thought.
2nd period (mid. VII - mid. IX centuries) - there is a cultural decline associated with economic decline, agrarianization of cities and the loss of a number of eastern provinces and cultural centers (Antioch, Alexandria). Constantinople became the center of industrial development, trade, cultural life, the "golden gate" between East and West for the Byzantines.
3rd period (mid-X-XII centuries) - a period of ideological reaction, due to the economic and political decline of Byzantium. In 1204, during the 4th crusade, the crusaders carried out the division of Byzantium. Constantinople becomes the capital of a new state - the Latin Empire. The Orthodox patriarchate is being replaced by a Catholic one.
Byzantine civilization has a special place in world culture. Throughout its thousand-year existence, the Byzantine Empire, which absorbed the heritage of the Greco-Roman world and the Hellenistic East, was the center of a unique and truly brilliant culture. Byzantine culture is characterized by the flourishing of art, the development of scientific and philosophical thought, and serious successes in the field of education. During the X-XI centuries. in Constantinople, the school of secular sciences spread. Up to the XIII century. Byzantium, in terms of the level of development of education, the intensity of spiritual life and the colorful sparkle of objective forms of culture, undoubtedly, was ahead of all the countries of medieval Europe.
The first Byzantine concepts in the field of culture and aesthetics were formed in the 4th-6th centuries. They were a fusion of the ideas of Hellenistic Neoplatonism and early medieval patristics (Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite). The Christian God as the source of "absolute beauty" becomes the ideal of the early Byzantine culture. In the writings of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, in the speeches of John Chrysostom, the foundations of medieval Christian theology and philosophy were laid. At the center of philosophical research is the understanding of being as a good, which gives a kind of justification for the cosmos, and, consequently, the world and man. In the late Byzantine period, the widest knowledge of famous philosophers, theologians, philologists, rhetors - George Gemist Plifon, Dmitry Kydonis, Manuel Chrysolor, Vissarion of Nicaea and others - aroused the admiration of Italian humanists. Many of them became students and followers of Byzantine scholars.
The VIII-IX centuries became a qualitatively new stage in the development of Byzantine artistic culture. During this period, Byzantine society experienced troubled times, the source of which was the struggle for power between the metropolitan and provincial nobility. An iconoclasm movement arose against the cult of icons, which were declared a relic of idolatry. In the course of their struggle, both iconoclasts and iconodules caused great harm to artistic culture, destroying numerous monuments of art. However, the same struggle formed a new type of vision of the world - an exquisite abstract symbolism with decorative ornamentation. In the development of artistic creativity, the struggle of the iconoclasts against the sensual, glorifying the human body and physical perfection, Hellenistic art, left its mark. Iconoclastic artistic representations paved the way for deeply spiritualistic art of the 10th-11th centuries. and prepared the victory of sublime spirituality and abstract symbolism in all spheres of Byzantine culture in subsequent centuries.
Features of Byzantine culture include:
1) the synthesis of Western and Eastern elements in various spheres of the material and spiritual life of society with the dominant position of Greco-Roman traditions;
2) the preservation to a large extent of the traditions of ancient civilization;
3) The Byzantine Empire, in contrast to fragmented medieval Europe, retained state political doctrines, which left an imprint on various spheres of culture, namely: with the ever-increasing influence of Christianity, secular artistic creativity never faded;
4) the difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, which was manifested in the originality of the philosophical and theological views of Orthodox theologians and philosophers of the East, in the system of Christian ethical and aesthetic values of Byzantium.
Recognizing their culture as the highest achievement of mankind, the Byzantines deliberately protected themselves from foreign influences. Only from the 11th century they began to draw on the experience of Arabic medicine and translate monuments of oriental literature. Later, interest arose in Arabic and Persian mathematics, in Latin scholasticism and literature. Among scientists of an encyclopedic nature, writing on a wide range of problems - from mathematics to theology and fiction, one should single out John of Damascus (VIII century), Michael Psellos (XI century), Nicephorus Vlemmids (III century), Theodore Metochites (XIV century .).
The desire for systematization and traditionalism, characteristic of Byzantine culture, were especially clearly manifested in legal science, which began with the systematization of Roman law, the compilation of codes of civil law, the most significant of which is the Justinian Codification.
The contribution of Byzantine civilization to the development of world culture is invaluable. It consisted primarily in the fact that Byzantium became a "golden bridge" between Western and Eastern cultures; it had a profound and lasting impact on the development of the cultures of many countries of medieval Europe. The distribution area of the influence of Byzantine culture is very extensive: Sicily, Southern Italy, Dalmatia, the states of the Balkan Peninsula, Ancient Rus', Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus and Crimea - all of them, to one degree or another, came into contact with Byzantine education, which contributed to the further progressive development of their cultures.
2. Features of the development of culture of the Middle Ages
Medieval culture - European culture in the period from the 5th century. AD until the 17th century (conditionally divided into three stages: the culture of the early Middle Ages of the 5th-11th centuries; the medieval culture of the 11th-13th centuries; the culture of the late Middle Ages of the 14th-17th centuries). The beginning of the Middle Ages coincided with the extinction of the Hellenic-classical, ancient culture, and the end - with its revival in modern times.
The material basis of medieval culture was feudal relations. The political sphere of the Middle Ages represented primarily the dominance of the military class - chivalry, based on a combination of land rights with political power. With the formation of centralized states, estates were formed that made up the social structure of medieval society - the clergy, the nobility and the rest of the inhabitants ("third estate", people). The clergy took care of the human soul, the nobility (chivalry) was engaged in state and military affairs, the people worked. Society began to be divided into "those who work" and "those who fight." The Middle Ages is an era of numerous wars. Only "crusades" (1096-1270) official history has eight.
The Middle Ages are characterized by the unification of people in various corporations: monastic and knightly orders, peasant communities, secret societies, etc. In cities, the role of such corporations was primarily played by workshops (associations of artisans by profession). A fundamentally new attitude towards labor as a value has been developed in the shop environment, a fundamentally new idea of labor as a gift from God has arisen.
The dominant spiritual life of the Middle Ages was religiosity, which determined the role of the church as the most important institution of culture. The Church also acted as a secular force in the person of the papacy, striving for domination over the Christian world. The task of the church was rather complicated: the church could preserve culture only by "secularizing", and it was possible to develop culture only by deepening its religiosity. This inconsistency is emphasized by the greatest Christian thinker Augustine "Blessed" (354-430) in his work "On the City of God" (413), where he showed the history of mankind as the eternal struggle of two cities - the Earthly City (a community based on worldly statehood, on self-love, brought to contempt for God) and the City of God (a spiritual community built on love of God, brought to contempt for oneself). Augustine put forward the idea that faith and reason are just two different activities of the same kind of thinking. Therefore, they do not exclude, but complement each other.
However, in the XIV century. the radical thought triumphed, substantiated by William of Ockham (1285-1349): between faith and reason, philosophy and religion there is and cannot be, in principle, anything in common. Therefore, they are completely independent of each other and should not control each other.
Medieval science acts as a comprehension of the authority of the data of the Bible. At the same time, a scholastic ideal of knowledge is emerging, where rational knowledge and logical proof acquire a high status, again placed at the service of God and the church. The convergence of science with teaching contributed to the formation of the education system (XI-XII centuries). A large number of translations from Arabic and Greek appear - books on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc. They become a stimulus for intellectual development. It was then that higher schools were born, and then universities. The first universities appeared at the beginning of the 13th century. (Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Montpellier). By 1300, there were already 18 universities in Europe, which turned into the most important cultural centers. The universities of the late Middle Ages were built on the Parisian model, with the obligatory four "classical" faculties: arts, theology, law and medicine.
Culture is a variety of forms and ways of human self-expression. What features did the culture of the Middle Ages, briefly outlined, have? The Middle Ages cover a period of more than a thousand years. During this huge period of time, great changes took place in medieval Europe. The feudal system appeared. It was replaced by the bourgeois. The Dark Ages gave way to the Renaissance. And in all the changes taking place in the medieval world, culture played a special role.
The role of the church in medieval culture
An important role in the culture of the Middle Ages was played by the Christian religion. The influence of the church in those days was enormous. In many ways, this determined the formation of culture. Among the completely illiterate population of Europe, the ministers of the Christian religion represented a separate class of educated people. The church in the early Middle Ages played the role of a single center of culture. In the monastery workshops, the monks copied the works of ancient authors, and the first schools were opened there.
The culture of the Middle Ages. Briefly about literature
In literature, the main trends were heroic epics, the lives of saints, and a chivalric romance. Later, the genre of ballads, courtly romance, and love lyrics appear.
If we talk about the early Middle Ages, then the level of cultural development was still extremely low. But, starting from the 11th century, the situation begins to change radically. After the first Crusades, their participants returned from the eastern countries with new knowledge and habits. Then, thanks to the journey of Marco Polo, Europeans get another valuable experience of how other countries live. The worldview of medieval man is undergoing major changes.
Science of the Middle Ages
It is widely developed with the advent of the first universities in the 11th century. Alchemy was a very interesting science of the Middle Ages. The transformation of metals into gold, the search for the philosopher's stone - her main tasks.
Architecture
It is represented in the Middle Ages by two directions - Romanesque and Gothic. The Romanesque style is massive and geometric, with thick walls and narrow windows. It is more suitable for defensive structures. Gothic is lightness, considerable height, wide windows and an abundance of sculptures. If in the Romanesque style they built mainly castles, then in the Gothic style - beautiful temples.
In the Renaissance (Renaissance), the culture of the Middle Ages makes a powerful leap forward.
