Introduction.
Culturologists call the Middle Ages a long period in the history of Western Europe between Antiquity and Modern Times. This period spans more than a millennium from the 5th to the 15th centuries.
Within a millennium, it is customary to distinguish at least three periods:
· Early Middle Ages, from the beginning of the era to 900 or 1000 (until the X - XI centuries);
· High (Classical) Middle Ages - from the X-XI centuries to approximately the XIV century;
· Late Middle Ages, XIV-XV centuries.
Some authors, in the context of the Middle Ages, also consider the so-called transition period from the Middle Ages to the New Time (XVI-XVII centuries), however, it seems more reasonable to consider the period of the Reformation and Con-Reformation as a separate period of history and culture, which had a great influence on the further formation of the cultural consciousness of the masses .
The folk culture of this era is a new and almost unexplored topic in science. The ideologists of feudal society managed not only to push the people away from the means of recording their thoughts and moods, but also to deprive researchers of subsequent times of the opportunity to restore the main features of their spiritual life. “The great dumb”, “the great absentee”, “people without archives and without faces” - this is what modern historians call the people in an era when direct access to the means of recording cultural values in writing was denied.
The folk culture of the Middle Ages was unlucky in science. Usually, when they talk about it, they mention at most the remnants of the ancient world and epic, the remnants of paganism. In those relatively rare cases when a modern specialist turns to the folk religiosity of the Middle Ages, he does not find any other characteristics for it such as “naive”, “primitive”, “uncouth”, “rude”, “superficial”, “pre-logical”, “childish” ”; This is the religion of the “child people”, overflowing with superstitions and focused on the fabulous and fabulous.
The criteria for such value judgments are taken from the “high” religion of the enlightened and it is from their position that the consciousness and emotional life of common people are judged, without setting themselves the task of considering it “from the inside,” guided by its own logic.
1. Early Middle Ages.
The Early Middle Ages was a time when turbulent and very important processes took place in Europe, such as the barbarian invasion, which ended with the fall of the Roman Empire. Barbarians settled on the lands of the former empire, assimilated with its population, creating a new community of Western Europe.
At the same time, the new Western Europeans, as a rule, accepted Christianity, which by the end of Rome’s existence became its state religion. Christianity in its various forms replaced pagan beliefs, and this process only accelerated after the fall of the empire. This is the second most important historical process, who defined the face of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe.
The third significant process was the formation of new state formations on the territory of the former Roman Empire, created by the same “barbarians”. Tribal leaders proclaimed themselves kings, dukes, counts, constantly fighting with each other and subjugating their weaker neighbors. Characteristic feature Life in the early Middle Ages was constant wars, robberies and raids, which significantly slowed down economic and cultural development.
During the early Middle Ages ideological positions feudal lords and peasants had not yet taken shape and the peasantry, which was just being born as a special class of society, in ideological terms was dissolved in broader and more uncertain layers.
The bulk of the population of Europe at that time were rural residents, whose lifestyle was completely subordinated to routine, and whose horizons were extremely limited. Conservatism is an integral feature of this environment.
The peasantry and its life are almost not reflected at all in the social picture of the world, as it was thought at that time, and this fact in itself is very symptomatic. The society, agrarian in nature, built on the exploitation and subjugation of broad sections of the rural population, seemed to allow itself to ideologically ignore its own majority.
Paradox: ordinary people, first of all the peasantry, despised and ignored by the ruling class, at the same time, in a certain sense, dominated the spiritual life of the early Middle Ages. Rural life, with its leisurely pace and periodic change of production seasons, was the main regulator of the social rhythm of society ([1], p. 63)
2. High (classical) Middle Ages.
During the classical, or high, Middle Ages, Western Europe began to overcome difficulties and be reborn. Since the 10th century, state structures have been consolidated, which made it possible to assemble larger armies and, to some extent, stop raids and robberies. Missionaries brought Christianity to the countries of Scandinavia, Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary, so that these states also entered the orbit of Western culture.
The relative stability that ensued provided the opportunity for rapid growth of cities and economies. Life began to change for the better; cities began to have their own culture and spiritual life. A big role in this was played by the same church, which also developed, improved its teaching and organization.
On the basis of the artistic traditions of Ancient Rome and the former barbarian tribes, Romanesque and later brilliant Gothic art arose, and not only architecture and literature developed, but also other types of art - painting, theater, music, sculpture... It was during this era that masterpieces were created literature “The Song of Roland”, “The Romance of the Rose”.
The so-called knightly literature emerges and develops. One of the most famous works - greatest monument French folk heroic epic “The Song of Roland”. In the 12th century, romances of chivalry appeared. Among the most popular was a poetic novel about the British King Arthur.
An important monument of German folk literature of the 12th-13th centuries is “The Song of the Nibelungs,” which tells about the invasion of the Huns on the Kingdom of Burgundy at the beginning of the 5th century. The “Song of the Nibelungs” is based on ancient Germanic legends.
Vagantes and their poetry were a significant phenomenon in the literature of France in the 12th-13th centuries. Vagants (from the Latin vagantes - wandering) were called wandering poets. A feature of their work was constant criticism catholic church and the clergy for greed, hypocrisy and ignorance. The Church, in turn, persecuted the vagants.
The most important monument English literature XIII century - the famous “Ballads of Robin Hood”, which to this day remains one of the most famous heroes world literature.
2.1 The emergence of “urban culture”.
During this period, the so-called “urban literature” rapidly developed, which was characterized by a realistic depiction of the urban everyday life of various segments of the urban population, as well as the appearance of satirical works. Representatives of urban literature in Italy were Cecco Angiolieri and Guido Orlandi (late 13th century).
The development of urban literature testified to a new phenomenon in the cultural life of Western European society - urban culture, which played a very important role in the formation of Western civilization as a whole. The essence of urban culture boiled down to the constant strengthening of secular elements in all spheres of human existence.
Urban culture originated in France in the 11th-12th centuries. During this period, it was represented, in particular, by the work of “jugglers” who performed in city squares as actors, acrobats, trainers, musicians and singers. They performed at fairs, folk festivals, weddings, christenings, etc. and enjoyed great popularity among the people.
A new and extremely important phenomenon, testifying to the deepening process of development of urban culture, was the creation of non-church schools in cities - these were private schools, financially independent of the church. The teachers of these schools lived off the fees collected from the students, and anyone who could afford to pay the fees could teach their children there. Since that time, there has been a rapid spread of literacy among the urban population.
2.2 Sermons as a layer of folk culture.
European medieval society was very religious and the power of the clergy over the minds was extremely great. The teaching of the church was the starting point of all thinking, all sciences - jurisprudence, natural science, philosophy, logic - everything was brought into line with Christianity. The clergy was the only educated class, and it was the church for a long period that determined educational policy. All cultural life European society of this period was largely determined by Christianity.
An important layer in the formation of folk culture during the classical Middle Ages was sermons.
The bulk of society remained illiterate. In order for the thoughts of the social and spiritual elite to become the dominant thoughts of all parishioners, they had to be “translated” into a language understandable to all people. This is what preachers did. Parish priests, monks, and missionaries had to explain to the people the basic principles of theology, instill in them the principles of Christian behavior and eradicate the wrong way of thinking.
The sermon assumed any person as its listener - literate and illiterate, noble and commoner, city dweller and peasant, rich and poor.
The most famous preachers structured their sermons in such a way as to hold the attention of the public for a long time and convey to them the ideas of church teaching in the form of simple examples.
Some used for this purpose so-called “examples” (exempla) - short stories written in the form of parables on everyday topics.
These “examples” are one of the earliest literary genres and are of particular interest for a more complete understanding of the worldview of ordinary believers. “Example” was one of the most effective means of didactic influence on parishioners.
In these “cases from life” the original world of medieval man is visible, with his ideas about saints and evil spirits as real participants in everyday human life.
However, the most famous preachers, such as Berthold of Regenburg (XIII century), did not use “Examples” in their sermons, building them mainly on biblical texts. This preacher structured his sermons in the form of dialogues, addressing calls and statements to a certain part of the audience or professional categories. He widely used the method of enumeration, riddles and other techniques that made his sermons into small performances. (, page 265)
Church ministers, as a rule, did not introduce any original ideas and statements into their sermons; this was not expected of them and parishioners would be unable to appreciate it. The audience received satisfaction from listening to things that were familiar and familiar.
3. Late Middle Ages.
The later Middle Ages continued the processes of formation of European culture that began during the classical period. However, their progress was far from smooth. In the XIV-XV centuries, Western Europe repeatedly experienced great famines. Numerous epidemics, especially the plague, caused innumerable human casualties. The Hundred Years' War greatly slowed down the development of culture.
During these periods, uncertainty and fear ruled the masses. Economic growth is followed by long periods of recession and stagnation. Among the masses, complexes of fear of death and the afterlife intensified, and fears of evil spirits intensified.
At the end of the Middle Ages, in the minds of the common people, Satan was transformed from, in general, not a terrible and sometimes funny devil into an omnipotent ruler of dark forces, who in the end earthly history will act as the Antichrist.
Another reason for fear is hunger, as a consequence of low yields and several years of drought.
The sources of fears are best highlighted in the prayer of a peasant of that time: “Deliver us, Lord, from plague, famine and war.” (, page 330)
The dominance of oral culture powerfully contributed to the proliferation of superstitions, fears and collective panics.
However, in the end, the cities were revived, people who survived the pestilence and war were able to organize their lives better than in previous eras. Conditions arose for a new upsurge in spiritual life, science, philosophy, and art. This rise necessarily led to the so-called Renaissance or Renaissance.
Conclusion.
So. Now we can draw a conclusion from my essay, which is called “Culture of the Middle Ages.” It is clear from the work that since the Middle Ages, a complex of ideas about the world, beliefs, mental attitudes and systems of behavior, which could conditionally be called “folk culture” or “folk religiosity,” was in one way or another the property of all members of society (p. 356 ).
The thinking of the Middle Ages was predominantly theological.
The medieval church, wary and suspicious of the customs, faith and religious practices of the common people, was influenced by them. As an example, we can cite the sanctioning by the church of the cult of saints in its popular interpretation.
The magical approach to nature extended to Christian rituals, and belief in miracles was widespread.
The entire cultural life of European society of this period was largely determined by Christianity.
European medieval society was very religious and the power of the clergy over the minds was extremely great. The teaching of the church was the starting point of all thinking, all sciences - jurisprudence, natural science, philosophy, logic - everything was brought into line with Christianity. The higher clergy was the only educated class, but the medieval European, including the upper strata of society, was illiterate. The level of literacy even for priests in parishes was appallingly low. Only towards the end of the 15th century the church realized the need to have educated personnel and began to open theological seminaries.
Mass medieval culture is a bookless, “Do-Gutenberg” culture. She relied not on the printed word, but on oral sermons and exhortations. It existed through the consciousness of an illiterate person. It was a culture of prayers, fairy tales, myths and magic spells.
Sermons, which represent a significant layer of medieval culture, became the “translation” of the thoughts of the social and spiritual elite into a language accessible to all people. Parish priests, monks, and missionaries had to explain to the people the basic principles of theology, instill in them the principles of Christian behavior and eradicate the wrong way of thinking. Special literature was created that popularly presented the fundamentals of Christian teaching, giving the flock models to follow. This literature was mainly intended for priests to use in their daily activities.
Bibliography.
1. Gurevich A.Ya. “The Medieval World: The Culture of the Silent Majority.” M., 1990
2. Gurevich A.Ya. “Problems of medieval folk culture.” M., 1981
Culture is the various forms and methods of human self-expression. What features did the culture of the Middle Ages have, briefly outlined? The Middle Ages spanned 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 one. The Dark Ages gave way to the Renaissance. And in all the changes taking place in the medieval world, culture played a special role.
The role of the church in medieval culture
The Christian religion played an important role in the culture of the Middle Ages. The influence of the church in those days was enormous. This largely determined the formation of culture. Among the largely illiterate population of Europe, ministers 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.
Medieval culture. Briefly about literature
In literature, the main directions were heroic epics, lives of saints, and chivalric romance. Later, the genre of ballads, courtly romance, and love lyrics appeared.
If we talk about the early Middle Ages, the level of cultural development was still extremely low. But starting from the 11th century, the situation began to change radically. After the first Crusades, their participants returned from eastern countries with new knowledge and habits. Then, thanks to the voyage of Marco Polo, Europeans gain another valuable experience of how other countries live. The worldview of medieval man undergoes serious changes.
Science of the Middle Ages
It was widely developed with the emergence of the first universities in the 11th century. Very interesting science The Middle Ages had alchemy. The transformation of metals into gold and the search for the philosopher's stone are its 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 defense structures. Gothic style is lightness, significant height, wide windows and an abundance of sculptures. If mostly castles were built in the Romanesque style, beautiful temples were built in the Gothic style.
During the Renaissance (Renaissance), the culture of the Middle Ages makes a powerful leap forward.
General characteristics of the culture of the Middle Ages Some consider the beginning of the era of medieval culture to be the division of the Roman Empire in 395 into two states - eastern and western. Others believe that this is the year 476 - the fall of the Roman Empire. There is also an art history term “medieval culture” - from the adoption of Christianity by the Emperor of Rome Constantine as the official religion in 313 and through the 17th century.
When studying the topic, it is necessary to pay attention to the following questions: 1. The Middle Ages includes 3 periods - 3 stages of the development of feudalism (formation, prosperity and decline) The Early Middle Ages dates back to the V - X centuries Mature feudalism - X - the end of the XV century Late Middle Ages - XV - XVII century 2. The spirit of the era: the movement of peoples, the creation of new states, the expansion of trade and cultural ties between Europe and North Africa, the Middle East, the emergence of the first parliaments and constitutions, inventions, European languages. 3. Contradiction in the worldview of the Middle Ages: man is the crown of nature, man is God’s servant. Historical point of view Historical point of view
4. A special place in culture is occupied by such genres of art as architecture and painting. The language of science and the church is Latin. The art of “language in stone” is the lot of the common people. 5. The role of the church and its influence on the culture of the Middle Ages is very great. The church is the main customer of works of art and serves a religious cult. The plots of the works are of a religious nature: they are images of the other world, the language of symbols and allegories. There is no portrait genre, since it is believed that an ordinary person is not worthy of being depicted. The main genre of painting is the icon. Subjects - lives of saints, images of the Mother of God, Jesus Christ. When studying the topic, you need to pay attention to the following questions:
Comparative characteristics of the worldview of man in antiquity and the Middle Ages: Antiquity Middle Ages 1. General harmony of the world 1. Imperfection of the world 2. The special role of the cosmos 2. Denial of eternity, the main role of the creator - the original being 3. Human reason and knowledge of the world are welcomed 3. The original sinfulness of man. Atonement for the sins of mankind by Jesus Christ 4. The search for justice 4. Faith and loyalty are the main qualities of man 5. The opportunity to become like gods 5. Fear of Judgment and God's punishment Cultural point of view Cultural point of view
7 Romanesque architecture is accessible to a wide range of feelings. It can be harsh and formidable, pressing on a person with its stone weight. And at the same time, slender, full of air and light, tender and cold. It is characterized by a desire for complete integrity, rigor and simplicity, the absence of decoration and ornament. Its characteristic element is the arched shape of door and window openings.
Features of architecture Romanesque style The term "Romanesque style" appeared in the 19th century from the concept - "Romanesque languages." They are based on Latin - the language of the ancient Romans. The period that covers the Romanesque style is X - XII centuries. This is the first great style in art. Stages of development of Romanesque art: - Pre-Romanesque centuries - Romanesque centuries Main types of buildings: - feudal castle - monastery ensemble - temple
The main features of the construction of castles: - the castle is a product of the feudal era, the period of fragmentation, wars, raids. For self-defense purposes, the castle was built as a fortress. - heavy, gloomy grandeur - jagged top - three-story towers - moat - huge gates on chains - bridge - Donjons - high rectangular towers, under which there were underground storerooms, quarters for servants and guards. Choice of construction site: hill or elevated place, river slope.
Gothic style "Gothic" - the term was introduced by Renaissance humanists, who considered everything that was not antique to be negative and barbaric. The Goths, who dissolved as a people among the Italians, Germans, and Spaniards, have nothing to do with the name. Gothic style is the second great style of the Middle Ages. It originated in France and dominated from the 12th to the 16th centuries.
A Gothic church (cathedral) can be immediately recognized by its pointed arches (pointed upward), window arches, and doorways. Churches no longer look like fortresses; they easily rise to the sky, as if they were not made of stone at all. The windows are lined with colored glass - stained glass and take up so much space that there are almost no walls left. The vaults are supported by pillars covered with semi-columns, resembling bundles of stems.
In late Gothic, drawings of stained glass windows, sculptures, “stone” ornaments, and ceiling carvings became increasingly more complex. They often resemble complex lace patterns. I can't even believe that all this is made of stone.
Features of the applied art of the Middle Ages The artistic craft was the most developed. They richly decorated even household items. Wicker patterns were used especially generously. It consisted of an endless strip, the interlacing of which filled the entire surface of the object. Between the weavings were images of animals and people, distorted and simplified, or stylized.
At that time, painting occupied a special place in the book. In monasteries, monks copied the Bible and other sacred books. They were written on parchment - specially treated skin of lambs and kids. Copying one book could take a lifetime. These books were considered of great value and were kept in the monastery treasuries. The pictures in the books are called miniatures due to the use of “minimal” red paint and their small size.
The main forms of painting are monumental temple painting - mosaics and frescoes, icon painting, book miniatures. Mosaic is a complex technique of folding a picture from multi-colored pieces of smalt (an alloy of glass with mineral paints). Here the angle of incidence of light was precisely calculated, the surface of the mosaic was made slightly rough. Mosaic is a complex technique of folding a picture from multi-colored pieces of smalt (an alloy of glass with mineral paints). Here the angle of incidence of light was precisely calculated, the surface of the mosaic was made slightly rough. Stained glass is a picturesque canvas made of pieces of multi-colored glass; the angle of incidence of light played a special role. The color gave a unique color to the entire room of the temple. We used blue, red, yellow colors. The image was flat, without shadows, themes on religious subjects, which were instructive in nature. Stained glass is a picturesque canvas made of pieces of multi-colored glass; the angle of incidence of light played a special role. The color gave a unique color to the entire room of the temple. Blue, red, yellow colors were used. The image was flat, without shadows, themes on religious subjects, which were instructive in nature.
Features of medieval sculpture Medieval sculpture has its own characteristics - images of saints are devoid of a canon, simple faces, images of real people, fantastic creatures, forces of evil (asps) decorated temples. The reliefs depicted biblical events and legendary scenes from the lives of saints. In addition to decorating churches, the reliefs had another purpose. Ordinary people in those days were illiterate, and for their enlightenment they created a “bible of the poor” from stone.
From the history of medieval theater, the theatrical action was called a mystery. The action began with a prologue. The priest read the prologue. Climbing onto the wooden stage, he addressed the noisy audience that filled the city square, asking them to shut up and listen to the pious story. The priest solemnly told the biblical legend, then praised God and promised to pray for those who would listen carefully and not interfere with the actors doing their job. The theatrical action was called a mystery. The action began with a prologue. The priest read the prologue. Climbing onto the wooden stage, he addressed the noisy audience that filled the city square, asking them to shut up and listen to the pious story. The priest solemnly told the biblical legend, then praised God and promised to pray for those who would listen carefully and not interfere with the actors doing their job.
On the stage of a medieval theater: God came onto the stage and performed his miracles one after another, Adam and Eve appeared in paradise, the Serpent crawled out, seduced the ancestors with a forbidden apple, then a formidable angel came out with a sword, expelled Adam and Eve from Paradise, the devils dragged them in hell. Writer GodAdam EveSnake Devil
The spirit of knowledge lived, hidden in a secret elixir, Singing healingly the muddy darkness of centuries. Let life be a continuous struggle of enemies, Let the sword ring in battle and in the tournament, - Let the sword ring in battle and in the tournament, - The alchemist was looking for the stone of the sages, The alchemist was looking for the stone of the sages, The mind became refined in discussions about the vampire, The mind became refined in discussions about the vampire , The theologian tried to know the Creator, The theologian tried to know the Creator, And thought shook the world’s weights... And thought shook the world’s weights... V. Bryusov V. Bryusov Raphael Santi spoke about the Middle Ages like this: “... when Rome was destroyed and burned by the barbarians, it seemed that this fire and this sad devastation, along with the buildings, burned out and destroyed the art of construction itself. … This cruel and merciless storm of war and devastation has given rise to a manner of painting, sculpture and architecture that is beyond all measure bad and has no value.” “...when Rome was destroyed and burned by the barbarians, it seemed that this fire and this woeful devastation, together with the buildings, burned out and destroyed the art of construction itself. … This cruel and merciless storm of war and devastation has given rise to a manner of painting, sculpture and architecture that is beyond all measure bad and has no value.”
“There was an extraordinary architecture, Christian, national for Europe - and we left it, forgot it, as if it was alien, neglected it as clumsy. as clumsy and barbaric. and barbaric. N.V. Gogol N.V. Gogol
Drawbridges, deep ditches, Steep stairs and vaulted halls, Where the wind rustles and groans in the heights, Tells me about battles and feasts... And immersed in a dream of the past, I see again The greatness of chivalry and the splendor of the Middle Ages. Théophile Gautier Théophile Gautier
· Introduction……………………………………………………2
· Christian consciousness is the basis of the medieval mentality………….4
· Scientific culture in the Middle Ages………….……7
· Artistic culture of medieval Europe…….….10
· Medieval music and theater………………16
· Conclusion…………………………………………..21
· List of references……………….22
INTRODUCTION
Culturologists call the Middle Ages a long period in the history of Western Europe between Antiquity and Modern Times. This period covers more than a millennium from the 5th to the 15th centuries.
Within the thousand-year period of the Middle Ages, it is customary to distinguish at least three periods. This:
Early Middle Ages, from the beginning of the era to 900 or 1000 (until the X - XI centuries);
High (Classical) Middle Ages. From the X-XI centuries to approximately the XIV century;
Late Middle Ages, XIV and XV centuries.
The Early Middle Ages was a time when turbulent and very important processes took place in Europe. First of all, these are the invasions of the so-called barbarians (from the Latin barba - beard), who, already from the 2nd century AD, constantly attacked the Roman Empire and settled on the lands of its provinces. These invasions ended with the fall of Rome.
New Western Europeans, as a rule, adopted Christianity , which in Rome towards the end of its existence was the state religion. Christianity in its various forms gradually replaced pagan beliefs throughout the Roman Empire, and this process did not stop after the fall of the empire. This is the second most important historical process that determined the face of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe.
The third significant process was the formation of new state entities on the territory of the former Roman Empire , created by the same “barbarians”. Numerous Frankish, Germanic, Gothic and other tribes were in fact not so wild. Most of them already had the beginnings of statehood, mastered crafts, including agriculture and metallurgy, and were organized on the principles of military democracy. Tribal leaders began to proclaim themselves kings, dukes, etc., constantly fighting with each other and subjugating their weaker neighbors. At Christmas 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned Catholic in Rome and as Emperor of the entire European west. Later (900) the Holy Roman Empire broke up into countless duchies, counties, margraviates, bishoprics, abbeys and other fiefs. Their rulers behaved like completely sovereign masters, not considering it necessary to obey any emperors or kings. However, the processes of formation of state entities continued in subsequent periods. A characteristic feature of life in the early Middle Ages was the constant looting and devastation to which the inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire were subjected. And these robberies and raids significantly slowed down economic and cultural development.
During the classical, or high, Middle Ages, Western Europe began to overcome these difficulties and revive. Since the 10th century, cooperation under the laws of feudalism made it possible to create larger state structures and gather fairly strong armies. Thanks to this, it was possible to stop the invasions, significantly limit robberies, and then gradually go on the offensive. In 1024, the Crusaders took the Eastern Roman Empire from the Byzantines, and in 1099 they captured the Holy Land from the Muslims. True, in 1291 both were lost again. However, the Moors were expelled from Spain forever. Eventually Western Christians gained dominance over the Mediterranean Sea and it. islands. Numerous missionaries brought Christianity to the kingdoms of Scandinavia, Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary, so that these states entered the orbit of Western culture.
The relative stability that ensued provided the opportunity for rapid growth of cities and the pan-European economy. Life in Western Europe changed greatly, society quickly lost its barbaric features, and spiritual life flourished in the cities. In general, European society has become much richer and more civilized than during the ancient Roman Empire. An outstanding role in this was played by the Christian Church, which also developed, improved its teaching and organization. On the basis of the artistic traditions of Ancient Rome and the former barbarian tribes, Romanesque and then brilliant Gothic art arose, and along with architecture and literature, all other types of it developed - theater, music, sculpture, painting, literature. It was during this era that, for example, such literary masterpieces as “The Song of Roland” and “The Romance of the Rose” were created. Of particular importance was the fact that during this period Western European scientists had the opportunity to read the works of ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, primarily Aristotle. On this basis, the great philosophical system of the Middle Ages, scholasticism, arose and grew.
The later Middle Ages continued the processes of formation of European culture that began during the classical period. However, their progress was far from smooth. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Western Europe repeatedly experienced great famines. Numerous epidemics, especially the bubonic plague (“Black Death”), also brought inexhaustible human casualties. The Hundred Years' War greatly slowed down the development of culture. However, eventually the cities were revived, crafts, agriculture and trade were established. People who survived pestilence and war were given the opportunity to organize their lives better than in previous eras. The feudal nobility, the aristocrats, began to build magnificent palaces for themselves, both on their estates and in cities, instead of castles. The new rich from the “low” classes imitated them in this, creating everyday comfort and an appropriate lifestyle. Conditions arose for a new upsurge in spiritual life, science, philosophy, and art, especially in Northern Italy. This rise necessarily led to the so-called Renaissance or Renaissance.
Christian consciousness is the basis of medieval mentality
The most important feature of medieval culture is the special role of Christian doctrine and the Christian church. In the conditions of the general decline of culture immediately after the destruction of the Roman Empire, only the church for many centuries remained the only social institution common to all countries, tribes and states of Europe. The church was the dominant political institution, but even more significant was the influence that the church had directly on the consciousness of the population. In conditions of difficult and meager life, against the backdrop of extremely limited and most often unreliable knowledge about the world, Christianity offered people a coherent system of knowledge about the world, about its structure, about the forces and laws operating in it. Let's add to this the emotional appeal of Christianity with its warmth, universally significant preaching of love and understandable norms of social coexistence (Decalogue), with the romantic elation and ecstasy of the plot about the redemptive sacrifice, and finally, with the affirmation of the equality of all people without exception in the highest authority, so that to at least approximately assess the contribution of Christianity to the worldview, to the worldview of medieval Europeans.
This picture of the world, which completely determined the mentality of believing villagers and townspeople, was based mainly on images and interpretations of the Bible. Researchers note that in the Middle Ages, the starting point for explaining the world was the complete, unconditional opposition of God and nature, Heaven and Earth, soul and body.
The medieval European was, of course, a deeply religious person. In his mind, the world was seen as a kind of arena of confrontation between the forces of heaven and hell, good and evil. At the same time, the consciousness of people was deeply magical, everyone was absolutely confident in the possibility of miracles and perceived everything that the Bible reported literally. As S. Averintsev aptly put it, the Bible was read and listened to in the Middle Ages in much the same way as we read the latest newspapers today.
In the very in general terms the world was then seen in accordance with some hierarchical logic, like a symmetrical diagram, reminiscent of two pyramids folded at the base. The top of one of them, the top one, is God. Below are the tiers or levels of sacred characters: first the Apostles, those closest to God, then the figures who gradually move away from God and approach the earthly level - archangels, angels and similar heavenly beings. At some level, people are included in this hierarchy: first the pope and cardinals, then clerics at lower levels, and below them ordinary laypeople. Then animals are placed even further from God and closer to the earth, then plants and then the earth itself, already completely inanimate. And then there is a kind of mirror reflection of the upper, earthly and heavenly hierarchy, but again in a different dimension and with a “minus” sign, in a seemingly underground world, with increasing evil and proximity to Satan. He is placed at the top of this second, chthonic pyramid, acting as a being symmetrical to God, as if repeating him with the opposite sign (reflecting like a mirror). If God is the personification of Good and Love, then Satan is his opposite, the embodiment of Evil and Hatred.
Medieval Europeans, including the highest strata of society, right up to kings and emperors, were illiterate. The level of literacy and education even of the clergy in the parishes was terribly low. Only towards the end of the 15th century did the church realize the need to have educated personnel, began to open theological seminaries, etc. The level of education of parishioners was generally minimal. The masses of the laity listened to semi-literate priests. At the same time, the Bible itself was forbidden for ordinary lay people; its texts were considered too complex and inaccessible for the direct perception of ordinary parishioners. Only clergy were allowed to interpret it. However, their education and literacy were, as has been said, very low. Mass medieval culture is a bookless, “Do-Gutenberg” culture. She relied not on the printed word, but on oral sermons and exhortations. It existed through the consciousness of an illiterate person. It was a culture of prayers, fairy tales, myths, and magic spells.
At the same time, the meaning of the word, written and especially sounded, in medieval culture was unusually great. Prayers, perceived functionally as spells, sermons, biblical stories, magical formulas - all this also shaped the medieval mentality. People are accustomed to intensely peering into the surrounding reality, perceiving it as a certain text, as a system of symbols containing a certain higher meaning. These symbols-words had to be able to recognize and extract divine meaning from them. This, in particular, explains many of the features of medieval artistic culture, designed for the perception in space of just such a deeply religious and symbolic, verbally armed mentality. Even painting there was primarily a revealed word, like the Bible itself. The word was universal, approached everything, explained everything, was hidden behind all phenomena as their hidden meaning. Therefore, for the medieval consciousness, the medieval mentality, culture first of all expressed the meanings, the soul of a person, brought a person closer to God, as if transported to another world, to a space different from earthly existence. And this space looked the way it was described in the Bible, the lives of saints, the writings of the church fathers and the sermons of priests. Accordingly, the behavior of the medieval European and all his activities were determined.
Scientific culture in the Middle Ages
The Christian Church in the Middle Ages was completely indifferent to Greek and generally to pagan science and philosophy. The main problem that the church fathers tried to solve was to master the knowledge of the “pagans”, while defining the boundaries between reason and faith. Christianity was forced to compete with the minds of pagans, such as the Hellenists, Romans, and with Jewish learning. But in this competition it had to remain strictly on a biblical basis. We may recall here that many church fathers had an education in the field of classical philosophy, which was essentially non-Christian. The church fathers were well aware that the many rational and mystical systems contained in the works of pagan philosophers would greatly complicate the development of traditional Christian thinking and consciousness.
A partial solution to this problem was proposed in the 5th century by St. Augustine. However, the chaos that ensued in Europe as a result of the invasion of Germanic tribes and the decline of the Western Roman Empire pushed back serious debate about the role and acceptability of pagan rational science in Christian society for seven centuries, and only in the 10th-11th centuries, after the Arab conquest of Spain and Sicily, was interest in the development of ancient history revived heritage. For the same reason, Christian culture was now capable of accepting the original works of Islamic scholars. The result was an important movement that involved collecting Greek and Arabic manuscripts, translating them into Latin, and commenting on them. The West received in this way not only the complete body of Aristotle's works, but also the works of Euclid and Ptolemy.
Universities, which appeared in Europe in the 12th century, became centers scientific research, helping to establish Aristotle's unquestioned scientific authority. In the middle of the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas carried out a synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian doctrine. He emphasized the harmony of reason and faith, thereby strengthening the foundations of natural theology. But the Thomist synthesis did not remain without a response challenge. In 1277, after the death of Aquinas, the Archbishop of Paris declared 219 of Thomas's statements contained in his writings unsuitable. As a result, the nominalist doctrine was developed (W. Ockham). Nominalism, which sought to separate science from theology, became a cornerstone in the redefinition of the fields of science and theology later in the 17th century. More complete information about philosophical culture European Middle Ages should be given in a course of philosophy. During the 13th and 14th centuries, European scientists seriously praised the fundamental foundations of Aristotelian methodology and physics. English Franciscans Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon introduced mathematical and experimental methods into the field of science, and contributed to discussions about vision and the nature of light and color. Their Oxford followers introduced quantitative, reasoning and physical approaches through their studies of accelerated motion. Across the Channel, in Paris, Jean Buridan and others began the concept of momentum, while introducing a series of bold ideas into astronomy that opened the door to the pantheism of Nicholas of Cusa.
Alchemy occupied an important place in the scientific culture of the European Middle Ages. Alchemy was devoted primarily to the search for a substance that could transform ordinary metals into gold or silver and serve as a means of endlessly prolonging human life. Although its goals and means were highly dubious and most often illusory, alchemy was in many respects the predecessor modern science, especially chemistry. The first reliable works of European alchemy that have come down to us belong to the English monk Roger Bacon and the German philosopher Albertus Magnus. They both believed in the possibility of transmutation of lower metals into gold. This idea captured the imagination and greed of many people throughout the Middle Ages. They believed that gold was the most perfect metal, and that lower metals were less perfect than gold. Therefore they tried to make or invent a substance called the philosopher's stone, which is more perfect than gold, and therefore can be used to improve the lower metals to the level of gold. Roger Bacon believed that gold, dissolved in aquaregia, was the elixir of life. Albertus Magnus was the greatest practical chemist of his time. The Russian scientist V.L. Rabinovich made a brilliant analysis of alchemy and showed that it was a typical product of medieval culture, combining a magical and mythological vision of the world with sober practicality and an experimental approach.
Perhaps the most paradoxical result of medieval scientific culture is the emergence of new principles of knowledge and learning on the basis of scholastic methods and irrational Christian dogmatics. Trying to find a harmony of faith and reason, to combine irrational dogmas and experimental methods, thinkers in monasteries and theological schools gradually created a fundamentally new way of organizing thinking - disciplinary. The most developed form of theoretical thinking of that time was theology.
It was theologians, discussing the problems of synthesis of pagan rational philosophy and Christian biblical principles, who found those forms of activity and knowledge transfer that turned out to be most effective and necessary for the emergence and development of modern science: the principles of teaching, evaluation, recognition of truth, which are used in science today. “The dissertation, defense, debate, title, citation network, scientific apparatus, explanation with contemporaries using supports - references to predecessors, priority, ban on repetition-plagiarism - all this appeared in the process of reproduction of spiritual personnel, where the vow of celibacy forced the use of “foreign” "For the spiritual profession, the younger generations."
The theology of medieval Europe, in search of a new explanation of the world, began for the first time to focus not on the simple reproduction of already known knowledge, but on the creation of new conceptual schemes that could unite such different, practically incompatible systems of knowledge. This ultimately led to the emergence of a new paradigm of thinking - forms, procedures, attitudes, ideas, assessments, with the help of which participants in discussions achieve mutual understanding. M.K. Petrov called this new paradigm disciplinary (Ibid.). He showed that medieval Western European theology acquired all the characteristic features of future scientific disciplines. These include “a basic set of disciplinary rules, procedures, requirements for a completed product, and methods for reproducing disciplinary personnel.” The pinnacle of these methods of personnel reproduction has become the university, a system in which all of the listed findings flourish and work. The university as a principle, as a specialized organization can be considered the greatest invention of the Middle Ages .
Artistic culture of medieval Europe.
Roman style.
The first independent, specifically European artistic style of medieval Europe was Romanesque, which characterized the art and architecture of Western Europe from about 1000 until the advent of Gothic, in most regions until about the second half and end of the 12th century, and in some later. It arose as a result of the synthesis of the remains of the artistic culture of Rome and barbarian tribes. At first it was the proto-Romanesque style.
At the end of the Proto-Roman period, elements of the Romanesque style were mixed with Byzantine, with Middle Eastern, especially Syrian, which also came to Syria from Byzantium; with Germanic, with Celtic, with features of the styles of other northern tribes. Various combinations of these influences created a variety of local styles in Western Europe, which received the general name Romanesque, meaning “in the manner of the Romans.” Since the bulk of the surviving fundamentally important monuments of the Proto-Romanesque and Romanesque style are architectural structures: the various styles of this period are often distinguished by architectural schools. Architecture V-VIII centuries are usually simple, with the exception of buildings in Ravenna, (Italy), erected according to Byzantine rules. Buildings were often created from or decorated with elements taken from old Roman buildings. In many regions this style was a continuation of early Christian art. Round or polygonal cathedral churches, borrowed from Byzantine architecture, were built during the Pre-Romanesque period;
later they were erected in Aquitaine in southwestern France and Scandinavia. The most famous and best-developed examples of this type are the Cathedral of San Vitalo of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in Ravenna (526-548) and the octagonal palace chapel built between 792 and 805 by Charlemagne in Isle-la-Capelle (presently Aachen, Germany), directly inspired by the Cathedral of San Vitalo. One of the creations of Carolingian architects was the westwork, a multi-story entrance facade flanked by bell towers, which began to be added to Christian basilicas. Westworks were the prototypes of the facades of giant Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals.
Important buildings were also designed in the monastic style. Monasteries, a characteristic religious and social phenomenon of that era, required huge buildings that combined both monks’ homes and chapels, rooms for prayers and services, libraries, and workshops. Elaborate pre-Romanesque monastic complexes were erected at St. Gall (Switzerland), on the island of Reichenau (German side of Lake Constance) and at Monte Cassino (Italy) by Benedictine monks.
The outstanding achievement of the architects of the Romanesque period was the development of buildings with stone voltae (arched, supporting structures). The main reason for the development of stone arches was the need to replace the highly flammable wooden floors of pre-Romanesque buildings. The introduction of voltaic structures led to the general use of heavy walls and pillars.
Sculpture. Most Romanesque sculptures were integrated into church architecture and served both structural, constructive and aesthetic purposes. Therefore, it is difficult to talk about Romanesque sculpture without touching on church architecture. Small-sized sculpture of the pre-Roman era made of bone, bronze, and gold was made under the influence of Byzantine models. Other elements of numerous local styles were borrowed from the crafts of the Middle East, known for imported illuminated manuscripts, bone carvings, gold objects, ceramics, and textiles. Also important were motifs derived from the arts of migrating peoples, such as grotesque figures, images of monsters, and intertwined geometric patterns, especially in areas north of the Alps. Large-scale stone sculptural decorations only became common in Europe in the 12th century. In the French Romanesque cathedrals of Provence, Burgundy, and Aquitaine, many figures were placed on the facades, and statues on the columns emphasized the vertical supporting elements.
Painting. Existing examples of Romanesque painting include decorations of architectural monuments, such as columns with abstract designs, as well as wall decorations with images of hanging fabrics. Pictorial compositions, in particular narrative scenes based on biblical stories and from the lives of saints, were also depicted on the wide surfaces of the walls. In these compositions, which largely follow Byzantine painting and mosaics, the figures are stylized and flat, so that they are perceived more as symbols than as realistic representations. Mosaic, just like painting, was mainly a Byzantine technique and was widely used in architectural design Italian Romanesque churches, especially St. Mark's Basilica (Venice) and the Sicilian churches at Cefalu and Montreal.
decorative arts . Proto-Roman artists reached the highest level in illustrating manuscripts. In England, an important school of manuscript illustration arose already in the 7th century at Holy Island (Lindisfarne). The works of this school, exhibited in the British Museum (London), are distinguished by the geometric interweaving of patterns in capital letters, frames, and they densely cover entire pages, which are called carpets. Drawings of capital letters are often enlivened by grotesque figures of people, birds, and monsters.
Regional schools of manuscript illustration in southern and eastern Europe developed different specific styles, as can be seen, for example, in the copy of the Apocalypse of Beata (Paris, National Library), made in the mid-11th century at the monastery of Saint-Sever in northern France. IN beginning of XII century, the illustration of manuscripts in the northern countries acquired common features, just as the same thing happened at that time with sculpture. Byzantine influence continued to dominate in Italy, both in miniature painting, both in wall paintings and in mosaics.
Proto-Roman and Romanesque metal processing- a widespread art form - were used mainly to create church utensils for religious rituals. Many of these works remain to this day in the treasuries of great cathedrals outside France; French cathedrals were looted during the French Revolution. Other metalwork from this period is early Celtic filigree jewelry and silver objects; late products of German goldsmiths and silver items inspired by imported Byzantine metal products, as well as wonderful enamels, especially cloisonné and champlevé, made in the areas of the Moselle and Rhine rivers. Two famous metalworkers were Roger of Gelmar-Schausen, a German known for his bronze work, and the French enameller Godefroy de Clare.
The most famous example of Romanesque textile work is the 11th century embroidery called the Bayeux Tapestry. Other examples survive, such as ecclesiastical vestments and drapery, but the most valuable textiles in Romanesque Europe were imported from the Byzantine Empire, Spain and the Middle East and are not the product of local craftsmen.
Gothic art and architecture
Replaced by the Romanesque style as cities flourished and improved public relations a new style was coming - Gothic. Religious and secular buildings, sculpture, colored glass, illuminated manuscripts, and other works of fine art began to be executed in this style in Europe during the second half of the Middle Ages.
Gothic art originated in France around 1140, spread throughout Europe over the next century, and continued to exist in Western Europe throughout most of the 15th century, and in some regions of Europe into the 16th century. The word Gothic was originally used by writers of the Italian Renaissance as a derogatory label for all forms of architecture and art of the Middle Ages, which were considered comparable only to the works of the barbarian Goths. Later use of the term "Gothic" was limited to the period of the late, high or classical Middle Ages, immediately following the Romanesque. Currently, the Gothic period is considered one of the most outstanding in the history of European artistic culture.
The main representative and exponent of the Gothic period was architecture. Although a huge number of Gothic monuments were secular, the Gothic style served primarily the church, the most powerful builder in the Middle Ages, which ensured the development of this new architecture for that time and achieved its fullest realization.
The aesthetic quality of Gothic architecture depends on its structural development: ribbed vaults became a characteristic feature of the Gothic style. Medieval churches had powerful stone vaults that were very heavy. They tried to open up and push out the walls. This could lead to the collapse of the building. Therefore, the walls must be thick and heavy enough to support such vaults. At the beginning of the 12th century, masons developed ribbed vaults, which included slender stone arches located diagonally, transversely and longitudinally. The new vault, which was thinner, lighter and more versatile (since it could have many sides), solved many architectural problems. Although early Gothic churches allowed for a wide variety of forms, the construction of a series of great cathedrals in northern France, beginning in the second half of the 12th century, took full advantage of the new Gothic vault. Cathedral architects discovered that external thrust forces from vaults were now concentrated in narrow areas at the joints of the ribs, and could therefore be easily counteracted by buttresses and external flying buttresses. Consequently, the thick walls of Romanesque architecture could be replaced by thinner ones that included extensive window openings, and interiors received illumination hitherto unparalleled. Therefore, a real revolution took place in the construction business.
With the advent of the Gothic vault, both the design, shape, and layout and interiors of cathedrals changed. Gothic cathedrals acquired a general character of lightness, upward aspiration, and became much more dynamic and expressive. The first of the great cathedrals was Notre Dame (begun in 1163). In 1194, the cathedral of Chartres was founded, which is considered the beginning of the High Gothic period. The culmination of this era was the Cathedral of Reims (begun in 1210). Rather cold and all-conquering in its finely balanced proportions, Reims Cathedral represents a moment of classical peace and serenity in the evolution of Gothic cathedrals. Openwork partitions, characteristic Late Gothic architecture was the invention of the first architect of Reims Cathedral. Fundamentally new interior solutions were found by the author of the cathedral in Bourges (begun in 1195). The influence of French Gothic quickly spread throughout Europe: Spain, Germany, England. In Italy it was not so strong.
Sculpture. Following Romanesque traditions, in numerous niches on the facades of French Gothic cathedrals, a huge number of figures carved from stone were placed as decorations, personifying the dogmas and beliefs of the Catholic Church. Gothic sculpture in the 12th and early 13th centuries was predominantly architectural in nature. The largest and most important figures were placed in the openings on both sides of the entrance. Because they were attached to columns, they were known as column statues. Along with columnar statues, free-standing monumental statues were widespread, an art form unknown in Western Europe since Roman times. The earliest that have come down to us are the column statues in the western portal of Chartres Cathedral. They were still in the old pre-Gothic cathedral and date from around 1155. The slender, cylindrical figures follow the shape of the columns to which they were attached. They are executed in a cool, austere linear Romanesque style, which nevertheless gives the figures an impressive character of purposeful spirituality.
From 1180, Romanesque stylization began to transition into a new one, when the statues acquired a sense of grace, sinuousness and freedom of movement. This so-called classical style culminates in the first decades of the 13th century in the large series of sculptures on the portals of the north and south transepts of Chartres Cathedral.
The emergence of naturalism. Beginning around 1210 on the Coronation Portal of Notre Dame Cathedral and after 1225 on the West Portal of Amiens Cathedral, the ripple effect of classical surface design begins to give way to more formal volumes. The statues of the Reims Cathedral and in the interior of the Sainte-Chapelle Cathedral have exaggerated smiles, emphatically almond-shaped eyes, curls arranged in bunches on small heads and mannered poses produce a paradoxical impression of a synthesis of naturalistic forms, delicate affectation and subtle spirituality.
Medieval music and theater
Medieval music is predominantly spiritual in nature and is a necessary component of the Catholic mass. At the same time, already in the early Middle Ages, secular music began to take shape.
The first important form of secular music were the songs of the troubadours in the Provençal language. Beginning in the 11th century, the songs of the troubadours remained influential in many other countries for more than 200 years, especially in northern France. The pinnacle of troubadour art was reached around 1200 by Bernard de Ventadorn, Giraud de Bornel Folke de Marseille. Bernard is famous for his three texts about unrequited love. Some of the poetic forms anticipate the 14th century ballad with its three stanzas of 7 or 8 lines. Others talk about the crusaders or discuss some love trivia. Pastorals in numerous stanzas convey banal stories about knights and shepherdesses. Dance songs, such as rondo and virelai, are also in their repertoire. All this monophonic music could sometimes have accompaniment on a string or wind instrument. This was the case until the 14th century, when secular music became polyphonic.
Medieval theater. In an ironic twist of history, theater in the form of liturgical drama was revived in Europe by the Roman Catholic Church. As the church sought ways to expand its influence, it often adapted pagan and folk festivals, many of which contained theatrical elements. In the 10th century, many church holidays provided the opportunity for dramatization: generally speaking, the Mass itself is nothing more than a drama.
Certain holidays were famous for their theatricality, such as the procession to church on Palm Sunday. Antiphonal or question-and-answer songs, chants, masses and canonical chorales are dialogues. In the 9th century, antiphonal chimes, known as tropes, were included in the complex musical elements of the mass. The Three-Part Paths (dialogue between the three Marys and the angels at the tomb of Christ) by an unknown author from about 925 are considered the source of liturgical drama. In 970, a record of instructions or manuals for this small drama appeared, including elements of costume and gestures.
Religious drama or miracle plays. Over the next two hundred years, liturgical drama slowly developed, incorporating various biblical stories acted out by priests or choir boys. At first, ecclesiastical vestments and existing architectural details of churches were used as costumes and decorations, but soon more ceremonial decoration details were invented. As liturgical drama developed, it presented many biblical themes in succession, typically depicting scenes from the creation of the world to the crucifixion of Christ. These plays were called differently - passions (Passion), miracles (Miracles), holy plays. Appropriate decorations rose around the church nave, usually with heaven in the altar and a Hellmouth - an elaborate monster's head with a gaping mouth, representing the entrance to hell - at the opposite end of the nave. Therefore, all scenes of the play could be presented simultaneously, and the participants in the action moved around the church from one place to another depending on the scenes.
The plays were apparently episodic, spanning periods of literally thousands of years, moving the action to a variety of locations, and presenting the setting and spirit of different times, as well as allegories. Unlike ancient Greek tragedy, which clearly focused on creating the preconditions and conditions for catharsis, medieval drama did not always show conflict and tension. Its purpose was to dramatize the salvation of the human race.
Although the church supported early liturgical drama in its didactic quality, entertainment and showmanship increased and began to predominate, and the church began to express suspicion of drama. Not wanting to lose the beneficial effects of the theater, the church compromised by moving dramatic performances out of the walls of the church churches themselves. The same material design began to be recreated in the market squares of cities. While maintaining its religious content and orientation, the drama became much more secular in its production character.
Medieval secular drama. In the 14th century, theatrical productions were associated with the feast of Corpus Christi and developed into cycles that included up to 40 plays. Some scholars believe that these cycles developed independently, although simultaneously with liturgical drama. They were presented to the community over an entire four to five year period. Each production could last one or two days and was staged once a month. The production of each play was financed by some workshop or trade guild, and usually they tried to somehow connect the specialization of the workshop with the subject of the play - for example, a shipbuilding workshop could stage a play about Noah. Since the performers were often illiterate amateurs, the anonymous authors of the plays tended to write in easy-to-remember, primitive verse. In accordance with the medieval worldview, historical accuracy was often ignored, and the logic of cause-and-effect relationships was not always respected.
Realism was used selectively in productions. The plays are full of anachronisms, references to purely local circumstances known only to contemporaries; only minimal attention was paid to the realities of time and place. The costumes, furnishings and utensils were entirely modern (medieval European). Something could be portrayed with extreme precision - there are reports of actors almost dying due to too realistic execution of a crucifixion or hanging, and of actors who literally burned to death while playing the devil. On the other hand, the episode of the retreat of the waters of the Red Sea could be indicated by simply throwing a red cloth over the pursuing Egyptians as a sign that the sea had swallowed them up.
The free mixture of the real and the symbolic did not hinder medieval perception. Spectacles and folk plays were performed wherever possible, and the hellmouth was usually a favorite object of effort for the masters of mechanical wonders and pyrotechnicians. Despite the religious content of the cycles, they increasingly became entertainment. Three main forms of production were used. In England, carnival floats were the most common. The earlier ecclesiastical settings gave way to elaborate traveling scenes, such as small modern ships that moved from place to place in the city. Spectators gathered in each such place: the performers worked on platforms of carts, or on stages built on the streets. They did the same in Spain. In France, synchronized productions were used - various sets were raised one after another on the sides of a long, raised platform in front of the assembled spectators. Finally, again in England, plays were sometimes staged "in the round" - on a circular stage, with the scenery placed around the circumference of the arena and the audience sitting or standing between the scenery.
Moral plays. During the same period folk plays, secular farces and pastorals, mostly by anonymous authors, appeared, which stubbornly preserved the character of worldly entertainment. All this influenced the evolution of morality plays in the 15th century. Although written on themes of Christian theology with corresponding characters, morality plays were not like cycles, since they did not present episodes from the Bible. They were allegorical, self-contained dramas and were performed by professionals such as minstrels or jugglers. Plays such as Everyman have usually been interpreted life path individual. The allegorical characters included such figures as Death, Gluttony, Good Deeds and other vices and virtues.
These plays are in some places difficult and boring for modern perception: the rhymes of the poems are repeated, improvised in nature, the plays are two to three times longer than Shakespeare's dramas, and the moral is stated in a straightforward and didactic manner. However, the performers, by incorporating music and action into the performances and using the comic capabilities of numerous characters of vices and demons, created a form of folk drama.
Conclusion
So, the Middle Ages in Western Europe were a time of intense spiritual life, a complex and difficult search for ideological constructs that could synthesize the historical experience and knowledge of the previous millennia. During this era, people were able to take a new road cultural development, different from what was known in former times. Trying to reconcile faith and reason, building a picture of the world on the basis of the knowledge available to them and with the help of Christian dogmatism, the culture of the Middle Ages created new artistic styles, a new urban way of life, a new economy, and prepared people's consciousness for the use of mechanical devices and technology. Contrary to the opinion of the thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, the Middle Ages left us with the most important achievements of spiritual culture, including the institutions of scientific knowledge and education. Among them, we should mention, first of all, the university as a principle. In addition, a new paradigm of thinking arose, a disciplinary structure of knowledge without which modern science would have been impossible, people were able to think and understand the world much more effectively than before. Even the fantastic recipes of alchemists played a role in this process of improving the spiritual means of thinking and the general level of culture.
The image proposed by M.K. Petrov could not be more successful: he compared medieval culture to scaffolding. It is impossible to build a building without them. But when the building is completed, the scaffolding is removed, and one can only guess what it looked like and how it was constructed. Medieval culture in relation to our modern culture played precisely the role of such forests:
Without it, Western culture would not have arisen, although medieval culture itself was largely unlike it. Therefore, we must understand the historical reason for such a strange name for this long and important era in the development of European culture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
· Gurevich A. Ya. Medieval world; culture of the silent majority. M., 1990.
· Petrov M.K. Social and cultural foundations of the development of modern science. M., 1992.
· Radugin A.A. Culturology: tutorial. M., 1999.
The concept of “Middle Ages” arose in the 15th century. among Italian humanists to designate the period that separated their time from antiquity. Ancient scholarship and ancient art were perceived by humanists as an ideal and a role model. From this point of view, the time that separated the Renaissance and the ancient world was seen as a break in the traditions of books, as a decline in the arts.
This evaluative attitude towards the Middle Ages, reflected in the term itself, persisted for several centuries. Negative and even disparaging statements by enlighteners regarding this period are known.
This situation changed only in the 19th century. First, the romantics created their own image of the Middle Ages. Noble knights praising beautiful ladies and performing feats in their honor, mysterious castles and feelings far from everyday life - all this Romanism contrasted with contemporary reality.
From the middle of the 19th century. New approaches to the Middle Ages are being formed within the framework of historical science. The emergence of the concepts of “civilization” and “formation” made it possible to consider the Middle Ages systematically. The civilizational approach made it possible to see medieval Europe as a community of people living in a certain territory, bound by the unity of religion, customs, morals, way of life, etc. The formational approach presented the Middle Ages as a certain stage in the development of society, which was based on the feudal mode of production and corresponding production relations.
A look at the Middle Ages as one of the stages in social development made it possible to subsequently transfer the concept of the Middle Ages to non-European cultures. For supporters of this approach, medieval Europe and Rus', the medieval Arab-Muslim world and the medieval Far East in their diversity they are typologically united.
The most important typological features of the Middle Ages are the following. From a socio-economic point of view, the Middle Ages are the time of the formation, establishment and flourishing of feudalism, although its specific historical variants differed significantly. The ethnocultural foundations of this historical stage can be represented as a synthesis of the cultures of peoples who had centuries-old traditions of statehood and peoples who were at the stage of decomposition of the tribal system.
An extremely important feature of medieval cultures is the universal role of religion. It was a system of law, a political doctrine, a moral teaching, and a methodology of knowledge. Also, artistic culture was almost entirely determined by religious ideas and cult.
In keeping with the decisive role of religion in many medieval cultures, its institution, the church, was of great importance. As a rule, it was a vast, ramified, powerful organization that practically merged with the state apparatus and controlled almost all aspects of human life and society.
Another characteristic of the Middle Ages is that from that time on it became possible to talk about world religions, something that the ancient world did not know. Buddhism and Christianity, which arose within the framework of ancient cultures, turned into religions on a global scale in the Middle Ages. Islam emerges and spreads during the Middle Ages.
Typologically similar features of medieval cultures were realized in various forms; each of these cultures went through its own path, individual and unique.
Among the cultures of the Middle Ages, the culture of Byzantium should be called the first in terms of formation.
While the culture of the Eastern Roman Empire entered its first period of prosperity, the Western Roman Empire found itself in a period of cultural lull. This period is sometimes called the “Dark Ages” because the early European Middle Ages left quite few events, facts and phenomena that could become the property of cultural history, especially in comparison with the Eastern Christian Middle Ages. The content of the process that took place in Europe during the early Middle Ages should be considered the formation of European culture proper in the collision of the ancient world with the world of “barbarians”, in the combination of the achievements of Mediterranean culture, Christian ideas and tribal cultures of the peoples of northern Europe.
The most common periodization of medieval culture reflects its three states. From the 5th to the 10th centuries, the formation of cultural foundations took place; this time is called the early Middle Ages. The 11th-11th centuries - the mature Middle Ages - the period of greatest prosperity, the most vivid manifestation of all the features of this culture. The 14th-16th centuries are considered the late Middle Ages, although in the south of Europe, already in the 14th century, the culture of modern times began to take shape, giving rise to a very bright period in European culture - the Renaissance. The late Middle Ages are characterized by an increase in crisis phenomena in traditional culture and the flourishing of urban culture, which prepared the secular culture of modern times.
Christianity became the basis of medieval culture. Despite the fact that this religion arose within the confines of antiquity, it was significantly different from most religions of the ancient world. The most important features of Christianity were that the new religion placed ethical values in the first place and proclaimed spiritual life as genuine in contrast to “material” life as transitory and sinful. The idea that justice can be achieved only in life after earthly death once again emphasized the imperfection and vanity of earthly life and justified the need to be guided by ideal values that reflect true and eternal life.
Despite the fact that Christianity was the stronghold and core of all medieval culture, it was not homogeneous. Quite clearly it split into three layers, which were later joined by a fourth. Already in the 11th-12th centuries, European medieval self-consciousness imagined its modern social structure in the form of three groups: “those who pray,” “those who fight” and “those who work,” that is, clergy, warriors and peasants. With the formation of urban culture as a result of the growth and strengthening of cities during the mature and late Middle Ages, another social force appeared - the townspeople, the burghers. Each of these four social groups of the Middle Ages created its own cultural layer, connected with others by a commonality of ideological and practical attitudes, but at the same time realizing this commonality in different forms, reflecting different aspects of the Christian worldview.
The medieval peasantry became the main carrier and exponent of folk culture. This culture took shape gradually on the basis of a complex and contradictory combination of the pre-Christian worldview with Christian ideas. Despite the fact that the Christian Church struggled with manifestations of paganism, folk culture retained many elements of pagan ritual, symbolism and imagery.
The formation of the military class occurred gradually and unevenly in different parts of Europe. As a result of the establishment of a hierarchical system of vassal-seigneurial connections and the securing of a monopoly on military affairs to secular feudal lords, the concepts of a warrior and a noble person merged in the word “knight”.
Chivalry arose as a community of warriors - from the poor to the very top of the government. The heyday of knightly culture occurred in the 11th-12th centuries, and in the 11th-14th centuries, knighthood essentially turned into a closed aristocratic military caste, access to which from the outside was extremely difficult and sometimes impossible. With the strengthening of the role of the city militia and the spread of mercenary warriors in military operations, the role of chivalry begins to decrease. In parallel with this, knightly culture is declining, being replaced by new cultural phenomena.
The culture of chivalry was based on a special ideology. An important concept for the system of knightly values was the idea of courtliness (from the French “courteis” - courteous, knightly) as a special behavior of noble people. The concept of nobility became key to knightly behavior. The Code of Knightly Honor listed among the necessary qualities of a knight generosity, compassion for the weak, loyalty, desire for justice and much more, combining Christian virtues with military virtues in a special way.
The medieval clergy was, on the one hand, very united and organized - the church had a clear hierarchy, on the other hand, it was a rather heterogeneous class, since it included representatives different levels society - both the social “lower classes” and aristocratic families. In accordance with the decisive role of Christianity, the clergy largely regulated culture - both ideologically and practically: at the level of, say, the canonization of artistic creativity. In this sense, we can talk about a certain influence of clerical culture on folk culture and the culture of secular feudal lords. At the same time, it is necessary to note the independent value of the culture of the clergy - a number of its phenomena were of exceptional value both for the medieval culture of Europe and for the destinies of European and world culture as a whole. First of all we're talking about about the activities of monasteries that preserved and reproduced many cultural values.
Monasticism, which arose in the East in the 3rd-4th centuries as a hermitage and withdrawal from the world, changed its character in medieval Europe. As a result of this, monasteries arose, based on the principle of community life with a common household and common cultural tasks. Medieval European monasteries acquired the character of the most important cultural centers; their role, especially in the early Middle Ages, can hardly be overestimated. A significant part of the ancient heritage was preserved in monastery libraries despite the negative attitude of the Christian Church towards pagan antiquity. As a rule, each monastery had a library and a scriptorium - a workshop for copying books, and in addition to this, also schools. In some periods of the Middle Ages, monastery schools represented practically the only centers of education.
Speaking about the medieval church, one cannot fail to mention the split of Christianity into Western and Eastern directions, or Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The fairly autonomous development of Christianity in Western Europe and in the east - in Byzantium - determined the ritual and dogmatic differences that led to the final demarcation in 1054.
As the fourth cultural layer of the Middle Ages, the latest in time of formation, one should name urban culture, noting, however, the fact that the townspeople were heterogeneous in social sense mass. Nevertheless, urban culture can be considered in a certain integrity as, so to speak, a crucible in which the foundations of the culture of modern times were smelted, combining traditional Christian values and ideas with realism and rationalism, irony and skepticism in relation to established authorities and foundations.
For the formation of medieval culture, the ancient tradition turned out to be very important, giving the initial impetus to the development of various areas of culture. This is also true of philosophical and theological thought, which has mastered the important ideas and principles of ancient philosophy. This also applies to art, which sometimes, obviously, turned to ancient experience, as was the case in Romanesque architecture, in other cases, it was formed in polemics with ancient tradition, in opposition to it: this is how medieval depiction took shape.
For the formation of the education system in medieval Europe, cultural continuity turned out to be essential: the basic principles of the ancient school tradition and, above all, academic disciplines were adopted. The “Seven Liberal Arts,” as they were called, were studied in two stages. The initial level - “trivium” - included grammar, dialectics and rhetoric. Grammar was considered the “mother of all sciences”; it provided the foundations of education. Dialectics introduced people to the principles of formal logic and philosophy, and rhetoric helped them express their thoughts beautifully and convincingly. The second level involved the study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, and music was understood as the study of numerical relationships on which world harmony is based.
The principles borrowed from the ancient school system, naturally, gave the basis only to the formal side of medieval European education, and its content became Christian teaching. Everything that did not relate to religious issues, in particular mathematical and natural science information, was studied haphazardly and inconsistently. In addition, non-religious knowledge was not only presented in a small volume, but quite often it was very far from reality and represented or was based on delusions.
The first significant period for medieval school education was the end of the 8th and beginning of the 9th centuries - the Carolingian Renaissance, the reign of Charlemagne and his closest followers. Charlemagne saw the need to create an education system and ordered the opening of schools in every diocese and in every monastery. Along with the opening of schools, textbooks on various disciplines began to be created, and access to schools was opened for children of the laity. However, after the death of Charlemagne, his cultural endeavors gradually faded away. Schools were closed, secular trends in culture faded, and education for some time became confined to monastic life.
In the 11th century, there was a new upswing in school affairs. In addition to monastic ones, parish and cathedral schools spread - at church parishes and city cathedrals. The growth and strengthening of cities that occurred during the mature Middle Ages led to the fact that non-church education became an important factor in culture. Basically, education in urban schools - guild, municipal and private - continued to be Christian in its ideological foundations, but it was not under the jurisdiction of the church, which means it provided more opportunities. Elements of a new worldview and free-thinking, the beginnings of natural scientific knowledge and observations of the surrounding world - all this became an important component of urban medieval culture, which, in turn, prepared the culture of the Renaissance.
In the 12th-13th centuries, the first universities appeared in Europe - institutions of higher education, which received their name from the Latin word “universitas”, which means “totality”. The university consisted of a number of faculties: artistic, where the “seven liberal arts” traditional for the Middle Ages were studied, legal, medical and theological. Universities were given administrative, financial and legal independence by special documents.
The significant independence of universities played an important role in preparing the ground for those changes that subsequently led to the formation of modern culture. The affirmation of the value of knowledge and education, the development of natural scientific ideas, the ability to think independently and unconventionally, to conduct a discussion and convincingly present one’s ideas - all this undermined the foundations of medieval culture and prepared the foundations of a new culture.
Nevertheless, throughout almost the entire period of the Middle Ages, it was Christianity that determined the specifics of knowledge and the forms of its existence, and determined the goals and methods of knowledge. Medieval knowledge was not systematized. Theology or theology, in accordance with the general character of medieval Christian culture, was central and universal knowledge. Essentially, theology included other areas of knowledge that periodically went beyond its scope and returned to it. Thus, quite complex relationships existed between theology and philosophy. On the one hand, the goal and objectives of medieval philosophy were to comprehend the divine and comprehend Christian dogmas, on the other hand, quite often philosophical reasoning led to a rethinking of the traditional view of the world for the Catholic Church. This happened with the ideas of Pierre Abelard, whose famous comparison of faith and reason, decided in the spirit of rationalism - “I understand in order to believe” - caused a sharp rebuff from the official church, and his views were condemned by councils in 1121 and 1140.
The mature Middle Ages are characterized by a rather rapid development of thought for a traditional, authority- and continuity-oriented culture. During this period, scholasticism was formed and developed, so named from the word “school”, which existed in both Greek and Latin. This type of religious philosophy is characterized by a combination of traditional theological tasks and rationalistic, formal-logical methods. Despite the fact that the humanists of the Renaissance later opposed scholasticism, it turned out to be extremely useful and important for the Middle Ages. The clash of different points of view, rationality and logic, doubts about seemingly unshakable foundations - all this has become an invaluable intellectual school.
Within the framework of scholasticism, interest in the ancient heritage arises. Little-known or completely unknown works are beginning to be translated into Latin, for example, the works of Aristotle, which played an important role in medieval religious philosophy, the works of Ptolemy, Euclid. In a number of cases, the ideas of ancient authors were adopted and translated from Arabic manuscripts that preserved and revised the ancient heritage. It can be considered that, in a certain sense, the interest of the Middle Ages in ancient authors prepared the movement of humanism, which became the basis of the culture of the Renaissance.
The mature Middle Ages made some contribution to the development of natural science knowledge. It was still extremely imperfect, since natural scientific methods of cognition had not been developed, and besides, the line between the real and the unreal was quite precarious, a vivid example of which is medieval alchemy. However, we can talk about some attempts to develop physical, in particular mechanical, concepts, astronomy and mathematics. Interest in medical knowledge arose, and within the framework of alchemy, the properties of various substances were discovered, some chemical compounds were obtained, and various devices and experimental installations were tested. The heritage of antiquity and the Arab world played a significant role in the formation of natural scientific ideas of the Middle Ages.
An important figure in increasing knowledge about the world around us was Roger Bacon, an English philosopher and natural scientist of the 13th century, a professor at Oxford. He believed that knowledge of nature should be based on mathematical and experimental methods, although he saw one of the ways to acquire knowledge in internal mystical insights. Bacon also expressed a number of ideas that anticipated many later discoveries; in particular, he considered it possible to create devices that independently move on land and water, flying and underwater structures.
At the end of the mature Middle Ages and in the late period, quite a lot of geographical works appeared - descriptions compiled by travelers, updated maps and geographical atlases - the ground was prepared for the Great Geographical Discoveries.
A significant figure at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was the 15th-century thinker Nicholas of Cusa. One of the predecessors of the ideas of Copernicus, the author of mathematical works, the forerunner of experimental natural science, he developed ideas that were not consistent with traditional Catholic ideas about the world around him. Having had a significant influence on the formation of natural philosophy of the Renaissance, in a certain sense it can be considered the completion of the development of medieval thought about the universe.
Historical ideas of the Middle Ages were reflected in various chronicles and biographies. Descriptions of deeds and, of course, in the heroic epic. Medieval epic former phenomenon verbal creativity, at the same time reflected the most important collective ideas: the perception of time and space, basic values, behavioral principles, aesthetic norms. The European medieval epic was genetically connected with the mythologies of the so-called barbarian peoples and reflected their characteristic way of life and picture of the world.
Questions about the formation of the heroic epic, about the relationship between the mythological and historical principles in it, about the degree of presence of authorship in it have always been debatable and can hardly be resolved unambiguously. What is reliably known is that the earliest records of epic works date back to the 8th-9th centuries. It is obvious that the epic also developed in the era of the mature Middle Ages. The characters gradually changed - the images of heroes, rooted in myths and legends, are brought into line with knightly Christian ideals. The most famous are the Anglo-Saxon epic “The Tale of Beowulf”, the German epic “The Song of the Nibelungs”, the Spanish - “The Song of My Sid”, the French - “The Song of Roland” and the Icelandic sagas.
The poetic creativity of the Middle Ages, having begun to take shape in epic works, was subsequently closely connected with knightly culture. Lyrical and laudatory songs, poetic expositions of certain exploits of a knight served, so to speak, as a poetic school of the Middle Ages. The poetic tradition began to take shape in the early Middle Ages, but most clearly manifested itself in the mature period. Then, in different parts of Europe, a passion for the work of poet-knights arose, who were called troubadours in the south of France, trouvères in the north of France, and minnesingers in Germany.
Within the framework of knightly culture, prose literature also began to form in the 12th century. The knightly novel quickly gained popularity and became an important part of medieval non-religious culture. Many novels were based on the events of the Celtic epic about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The well-known story about the tragic love of Tristan and Isolde is also based on epic stories.
Romances of chivalry were created in different European languages and had, so to speak, an ornamental structure: the adventures of the heroes were, as it were, “strung” on top of one another; The characters' characters had no development. By the 14th-15th centuries, the genre of the knightly novel had fallen into decline, and parodies of the knightly novel began to appear within urban culture - the picaresque novel ironically set out the exploits traditional for heroic knights.
Urban culture becomes the basis for the formation of a number of new genres of literature. First of all, these are satirical and parody genres. The emergence of irony and parody - this is especially clearly seen in the example of traditional cultures - indicates a rethinking of the most important cultural foundations. Essentially, this suggests that the previous picture of the world needs to be revised, that it no longer corresponds to cultural reality. The rationalism and practicality of the emerging urban culture came into conflict with established values and way of life. In art, this manifested itself in satirical and parody tendencies. Rapidly developed at the end of the mature Middle Ages and in the late period. The poetry of vagants - wandering schoolchildren and students - became a bright page of satirical and parody creativity.
At the boundary between the poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is the work of the 15th century French poet Francois Villon. His work also reflected scenes from the life of the Parisian “bottom” and irony towards hypocrisy and asceticism; the motives of death were replaced by the glorification of the joys of life. The humanism of his poetry and the desire for a complete sense of life allow us to see in Villon’s work a prototype of Renaissance art.
And one more name cannot be ignored when speaking about medieval literature. This is Dante Alighieri, the last poet of the Middle Ages and the first poet of modern times, as he is sometimes called. Poet "The Divine Comedy". Written by Dante belongs to the best achievements of world culture. The passion, emotionality, and drama with which the poet paints generally traditional medieval images and plots take Dante’s work beyond the scope of medieval literature. His figure, which emerged in European culture at the turn of the 13th-14th centuries, can rightfully be considered the beginning of the formation of Renaissance art.
The spatial arts of medieval Europe were represented mainly by architecture and sculpture. It is often possible to reduce how architecture is called the leading form of medieval art. This is not entirely true. Indeed, among the most striking phenomena of medieval culture are buildings of the Romanesque and Gothic styles. But it is important to remember that their construction was not an end in itself. Architecture, especially temple architecture, was supposed to play a service role: it created a closed, symbolically rich environment for holding services. Architecture, in fact, only created the conditions for the main thing - carrying the “word of God”.
Quite often attention is paid to the synthesis of architecture and sculpture as one of the important characteristics of medieval European culture. But perhaps it would be more accurate to talk about the synthesis of a number of arts in the Christian church. In the European Middle Ages, architecture and sculpture came to the fore within this synthetic whole.
The Romanesque architectural style appeared in Europe in the 10th century and was distinguished by its severity, simplicity and severity. An essential characteristic of the Romanesque style was its versatility - this style characterizes both secular and religious buildings. Churches, castles, and monastery complexes were located on hills, dominating the surrounding landscape. Thick walls and narrow windows that let in a little light emphasized that a Romanesque building, regardless of its purpose, was first and foremost a fortress. Indeed, often during military operations the walls of a church or monastery served as reliable protection.
A completely different image of the relationship between the earthly and the divine arose when looking at Gothic buildings. The Gothic style, which emerged in the 12th century and spread throughout Europe, embodied architectural lightness, airiness, grace, and upward aspiration. Gothic buildings seemed to break through earthly space, embodying the aspiration to values of a different order. The frame arched system and numerous windows decorated with stained glass made it possible to create special interiors filled with light and air in Gothic buildings. Most often, city cathedrals were built in the Gothic style, but there were also secular buildings - town halls, shopping arcades and even residential buildings.
Along with the significant development of sculpture, fine art itself hardly developed in European medieval culture. Painting was represented mainly by altar paintings and book miniatures. Only at the end of the Middle Ages did the easel portrait appear and secular monumental painting was born.
It is impossible not to say a few words about the theatrical performances of medieval Europe, refuting the widespread opinion that theatrical art ceased to exist during the Middle Ages. Chronologically, the first to emerge were theatrical performances accompanying church services - liturgical and semi-liturgical drama, which explained and illustrated the events of Holy Scripture. In parallel with this, in the work of traveling performers, the beginnings of secular theatrical art were formed, which subsequently, in the late Middle Ages, was realized in the genre of public farce.
Religious and secular lines were united in a special way in three theatrical forms of the Middle Ages: morality, miracle and mystery. Allegorical figures in morality tales and miraculous stories of the miracle had a pronounced didactic character, and although these genres were not directly related to Christian subjects, they reflected the basic Christian ideas about good and evil, virtue and vice, and divine providence that decides the fate of man. The pinnacle of theatrical experiences of the Middle Ages should be considered the mysteries - grandiose performances that took place on the days of festivities, in the preparation and creation of which almost the entire city participated.
Medieval art, like all medieval culture, was based on loyalty to tradition and the inviolability of authorities. Anonymity of artistic creativity, adherence to canons, existence within the framework of given themes, plots and images are important typological characteristics of medieval artistic culture.
Despite the fact that medieval culture was represented by several cultural layers and different periods of its existence, nevertheless, the Christian worldview turned out to be a very significant ideological framework that ensured the unity of Christian medieval culture. In essence, it was the last holistic type of culture in the history of culture.
The Middle Ages became an extremely important period in the history of European culture - the time when all its foundations were formed. In a collision different paintings world, in interaction not similar friends A cultural community, a cultural synthesis, was formed between peoples. And despite the fact that subsequently European culture attacked the Middle Ages with criticism, this is the era of its birth, and only for this reason can the Middle Ages be valuable. But in addition, medieval European culture has its own cultural significance. This is a fairly long period of cultural history, which has its own logic, its own ups and downs. This is a unique fusion of the ideal and the real, the spiritual and the material, the divine and the earthly. Gothic architecture and epic poetry, crowded mysteries and the severity of monastic life, knightly deeds and scholastic wisdom - these are the unique faces of this culture.
The Arab-Muslim medieval world is the result of the spread of Islam, Muslim conquests and the creation Arab Caliphate. Caliphate in the 9th-10th centuries. broke up into a number of states united by close trade ties, language and culture. Nevertheless, within this community, each culture acquired its own characteristics and found its own path.
The culture of the Arab-Muslim world was based on earlier, pre-Islamic cultures of the Middle East and North Africa. But it acquired its essence and most important features thanks to the emergence and spread of Islam, which determined all aspects of culture and human life.
The socio-economic basis of the Arab-Muslim Middle Ages, in comparison with other medieval societies, had a number of features. The most important thing for culture was the fact that the hierarchy typical of feudal society was combined in the Islamic world with very high social mobility. The service could raise a person from the “bottom” to significant social heights. The middle urban strata were very influential. Not only the clan nobility, but also the military and officials were in power.
Compared to medieval Europe, cities were of great importance in the Muslim Middle Ages. The countryside played a service role. The Muslim medieval world did not know such economic and cultural centers as monasteries and knightly castles in Europe. The status of the townspeople was very high, and their position was stable. Trade was a particularly revered activity.
The most important feature of the medieval Islamic world can be considered that it did not have the institution of the church as a mediator between the earthly and divine worlds. The clergy in Islam was part of a single state apparatus, an element of the political and administrative system.
The material culture of the medieval Middle East was represented by a variety of tools, irrigation structures and various devices in the water supply system, as well as buildings for various purposes. A number of buildings, as well as most of the handicraft products, such as carpets, fabrics, dishes, weapons, can be considered borderline phenomena, equally belonging to material and artistic culture.
Many facts of culture are located on another “border” - between spiritual and artistic culture. Religion widely and variedly used artistic forms of verbal creativity, and knowledge was also clothed in artistic forms.
Despite the fact that spiritual culture, like culture as a whole, was determined by Islam, one can find phenomena that go back to ancient traditions. In particular, in the philosophy of the medieval East one can see the development of some ideas and principles of ancient philosophy. This same ancient tradition obviously determines the close relationship between philosophy and natural science knowledge - medical, physical and chemical, mathematical and astronomical.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the field of science and philosophy, the Arab-Muslim Middle Ages far surpassed other medieval cultures. In particular, Europe has repeatedly turned to the Middle Eastern heritage as a source of wisdom and learning, using in it the processed antiquity and the eastern itself.
Since the spread of Islam, i.e. from the 7th century until the 12th century. we can talk about the flowering of the artistic culture of the Arab-Muslim Middle Ages. It clearly demonstrated all the most essential characteristics of medieval artistic culture. This is tradition and canon as the main guidelines of artistic creativity, imitation of models and predecessors as the most important creative methods, didacticism of art and much more.
Nevertheless, special features also appeared in Muslim medieval artistic culture. First of all, this is the great role of the personal and authorial principles in creativity. The inseparability of the spiritual and secular, earthly and divine, characteristic of Islam, led to the fact that medieval Muslim art, to a greater extent than Christian art, paid attention to the “earthly” problems of man, touching upon everyday and everyday themes and stories.
All this, together with greater freedom in the use of ancient heritage compared to Europe, allows a number of researchers to talk about the “renaissance” of medieval Arab-Muslim culture.
The perception of the Koran as a model of perfection led to the fact that the style of this holy book had a special impact on the entire artistic culture. As is known, the most important stylistic feature of the Koran is the juxtaposition of elements that are difficult to combine or cannot be combined at all: reasoning about the divine is combined with everyday comparisons and commercial concepts, speculative ideas with completely realistic images. The same features characterize the language of literature of the Arab-Muslim Middle Ages.
One of the most important features of Muslim art is the tendency towards independence of individual parts and elements of a work of art. Prose texts often present cleverly combined but independent plots. Poetic works consist of separate parts that have meaning and are structurally complete. Within a large poetic work, they are quite autonomous and can change their places without essentially changing the structure of the text as a whole.
Works of architecture face the outside world with blank walls, while decorative and functional elements are located inside. Thus, the architectural work seems to be closed in on itself and completely completed.
The ornament consists of individual repeating completed forms. At the same time, the next most important characteristic of Arab-Muslim medieval culture can be found in ornamentation. It can be formulated as a desire for extension, repetition, a desire to flow from one form to another, from one state to another. Musical composition is built on one melody in its different variations; in literary works, individual completed parts are, as it were, strung on top of each other.
The ban on the depiction of living beings led to the fact that the visual arts did not receive significant development in Arab-Muslim artistic culture. Fine art turned out to be within the framework of artistic craft and in a service role.
But we can observe a different form of representation in Arab-Muslim artistic culture. She is in admiring a fragment, an element, a detail - a sound, a phrase, a word, an element of ornament.
This property, along with the special veneration of the word in medieval Muslim culture, led to the special position of calligraphy. Letters became not just signs to express any content, but also acquired artistic meaning. The inscriptions on various objects and buildings were essentially meaningless - the information that could be extracted from them was trivial. Their meaning was different - they visibly embodied the artistic power of the word and its divine nature. They served as a reminder of the word of God - the Koran.
The art of the book is associated with reverence for the divinity of the word and attention to its form. Quite traditional for any medieval culture, the art of handwritten books of the Arab-Muslim Middle Ages contributed its page to world culture.
A feature of the artistic culture of the medieval Middle East can be considered the fact that creativity there was almost always a professional activity, although it was also possible to combine different occupations.
The most revered among artistic pursuits was literary. This led to the fact that poets were very influential in society, in addition, the income that their creativity brought them was so high that they often provided writers with a comfortable existence.
Performers of literary works were considered respected people, but still their talent and skills were valued lower than the talent of a writer.
From the formal side, the creativity of singers, musicians and dancers, or more precisely, dancers, was not considered worthy of respect. And yet, their performances were watched and listened to with pleasure everywhere - both in bazaars and in palaces.
The work of a craftsman was quite honorable. Moreover, arts and crafts, just like architecture, was not anonymous - quite often you can find the names of the authors of certain works of art.
It so happened that artistic crafts formed an essential part of the artistic culture of the medieval Arab-Muslim world. The acquaintance of other peoples with the culture of the Muslim Middle Ages was also most often associated with works of applied arts - weapons decorated with calligraphy and ornaments, carpets, clothing, and dishes. Now we can say that the Koranic tales, poetic works, and philosophical ideas, and architectural structures and much more - the invaluable and unique contribution of the Arab-Muslim Middle Ages to world culture.
