The Middle Ages

Charlemagne’s (742-781) accomplishments:

• Ruled a feudal society• Crowned emperor of the Roman

Empire by Pope Leo III• Received keys to church of the

Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem from the caliph of Baghdad

• Stabilized currency• Led a literary and liturgical

revival• Founded the Palace School• Made Gregorian chant

obligatory in all churches in his domain

Accomplishments of Charlemagne’s right-hand man, Alcuin of York:

• Developed the two courses of the medieval curriculum to spread literacy throughout Charlemagne’s kingdom: the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy)

• Revised the Christian liturgical books• Made a standard sacramentary• Developed a system of schools throughout the

Frankish kingdom• Imposed the Rule of St. Benedict on all

monasteries

Everyman

Medieval morality play

A Medieval Book Cover

Carved in Ivory

Note the highly symbolic arrangement of the figures.

What do they all mean?

Cover panels for the Dagulf Psalter

A medieval book of psalms

The covers are carved in ivory

Gospel Book of Charlemagne

Illuminated interior page from the Dagulf Psalter

Note the use of calligraphy and the enlarged first letter

Inside a RomanesqueCathedral (St. Sernin,Toulouse)

Note the quality of the light and the unadorned interiors (this picture is illuminated by a camera flash)

(there is no dome in the cathedral, and it is supported by barrel arches, so there are not many windows as in a Byzantine church)

Because Romanesque churches are so dark inside most sculpture is located on the outside of structure.

Illiterate worshippers would learn the Bible by ‘reading’ sculptures above church doorways. What do they learn here?

Later church reformers did not like sculptures like these on the outside of their cathedrals.

Why not?

Paris: center of western civilization in the 13th century

• The annual trade fair of Paris was famous throughout the Western world and beyond

• Paris is where gothic architecture was developed

• Paris saw the rise of the educational method known as “scholasticism”

• Paris is home to the world’s first university

The Essence of the GothicCathedral:

The pointed archandThe flying buttress

Using these technologies, huge stained glass windowscould be created, filling thecathedral with light

The Abbey of St. Denisis the first Gothic Cathedral.

It was built around 1140.

Note the pointed arches,which lift the ceiling tonew heights

Amiens Cathedral

Verticality and Light

Inside Chartres

It is luminous. Note how the mosaics of Byzantine cathedrals have been replaced with stained glass windows to create a similarly spiritual--although qualitatively different--light inside.

This is quite different from the huge but dark Romanesque cathedrals the early middle ages.

Chartres CathedralGothic StyleLots of stained glass windows

The cathedrals of the High Middle Ages are a part of life from birth to death

• Served vital social and economic functions in medieval society• Site of baptism, communion, marriage, and funeral• Housed school• Provided social services (hospitals, poor relief, orphanage, etc.)• Provided legal services (religious courts)• Cathedral bell noted time for the town• Church calendar organized work schedule for the year• Building a cathedral is, by far, the most expensive undertaking a

town can assume• Cathedrals serve as pilgrimage sites for pilgrims eager to see holy

relics housed there.• Huge trade fairs were run out of the cathedral• Their construction and maintenance employed members of the town

guilds

The winemaking guild helped pay for Chartres Cathedral so they got their own stained glass window in return.

A rosette window and the “mysticism of light”

Abbot Suger, who pioneered the use of stained glass in cathedrals, had a Neo-Platonic theory that justified its use: all of creation exists under the category of light; as light becomes more pure, one gets closer to pure light, which is God.

To quote Suger: “Bright is that which is brightly coupled with the bright, and the bright is the noble edifice which is pervaded by the new light”

The stained glass windows contain many meanings and were meant to be read likethe Bible.

Thus stained glass windows were called the Bible of the Poor

What is to be read here?

Interpreting Stained Glass

• The window honors the Virgin to whom one prays in time of need

• The Virgin is also depicted as the seat of wisdom

• And the fact that Mary is depicted in glass is a moral example as well: Christ was born to a virgin, passing through her as light passes through glass

Like Romanesque Cathedrals, the outside of Gothic Cathedrals are read as well. Gargoyles and other beastly sculptures signifying evil adorn the outsideof Gothic Cathedrals. They are on top of the Cathedral because they are trying to flee the sacred precincts of the church.

The Birth of the University• the University originates as a guild of masters (professors)

• promulgated the scholastic method of inquiry, based on classical Greek dialectics of Aristotle. Scholasticism is a method of generating questions and answers about the meaning of texts such as the Bible. The goal of scholasticism is to compile comprehensive collections of answers to any questions that may arise about a subject.

• the University was necessary to educate a new managerial class for the new cities of Europe: lawyers, clerks, administrators