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List of used literature. The Middle Ages - what centuries are they? What is the Late Middle Ages

1. Introduction

2. Antiquity and the Middle Ages

2. Achievements and cultural values of the Middle Ages

3. Conclusion

4. Bibliography

Introduction

The Middle Ages in the history of Western Europe span more than a millennium - from the 5th century to the 16th century. In this period, tapas of the early (V-IX centuries), mature, or classical (X-XIII centuries) and late (XIV-XVI centuries) Middle Ages are usually distinguished. From the point of view of socio-economic relations, this period corresponds to feudalism.

In the Middle Ages, as in other eras, complex and contradictory processes took place on the European continent, one of the main results of which was the emergence of states and the entire West in its modern form. Undoubtedly, the leader of world history and culture in this era was not the Western world, but semi-eastern Byzantium and eastern China, however, important events also took place in the Western world. As for the relationship between ancient and medieval cultures, in certain areas (science, philosophy, art) the Middle Ages were inferior to antiquity, but overall it meant undoubted progress.

It turned out to be the most difficult and stormy early Middle Ages stage when the new Western world was born. Its emergence was due to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire (5th century), which in turn was caused by its deep internal crisis, as well as the Great Migration of Peoples, or the invasion of barbarian tribes - the Goths, Franks, Alemanni, etc. From the 4th-9th centuries there was a transition from the “Roman world” to the “Christian world”, with which Western Europe arose.

The Western, “Christian world” was born not as a result of the destruction of the “Roman world”, but in the process of merging the Roman and barbarian worlds, although it was accompanied by serious costs - destruction, violence and cruelty, the loss of many important achievements of ancient culture and civilization. In particular, the previously achieved level of statehood was seriously damaged, since the barbarian states - the kingdoms of the Visigoths (Spain), Ostrogoths (northern Italy), Franks (France), and the Anglo-Saxon kingdom (England) that arose in the 6th century - were fragile and therefore short-lived.

The most powerful of them turned out to be the Frankish state, founded at the end of the 5th century by King Clovis and transformed under Charlemagne (800) into a huge empire, which also collapsed by the middle of the 9th century. However, at the stage of the mature Middle Ages, all the main European states took shape - England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy - in their modern form.

Antiquity and the Middle Ages

In some areas of life, already at the early stage of the Middle Ages, there were progressive changes. IN social development The main positive change was the abolition of slavery, which eliminated the unnatural situation in which a huge part of people were legally and actually excluded from the category of people.

If theoretical knowledge successfully developed in antiquity, then the Middle Ages opened up the world for widespread use of machines and technical inventions. This was a direct consequence of the abolition of slavery. In antiquity, the main source of energy was the muscle power of slaves. When this source disappeared, the question arose about searching for other sources. Therefore, already in the 6th century, water energy began to be used through the use of a water wheel, and in the 12th century, a windmill using wind energy appeared.

Water and windmills made it possible to perform a variety of types of work: grinding grain, sifting flour, raising water for irrigation, felting and beating cloth in water, sawing logs, using a mechanical hammer in a blacksmith, drawing wire. The invention of the steering wheel accelerated the progress of water transport, which in turn led to a revolution in trade. The development of trade was also facilitated by the construction of canals and the use of locks with gates.

Positive changes occurred in other areas of culture. Most of them, one way or another, were connected with Christianity, which formed the foundation of the entire way of medieval life and permeated all its aspects. It proclaimed the equality of all people before God, which greatly contributed to the elimination of slavery.

The most important feature of the culture of the Middle Ages is the nature of the relationship that developed with ancient culture.

By type of production, Antiquity and the Middle Ages represent one, agricultural culture. Although handicraft production was developed in both ancient Greece and Rome, it did not develop into an industrial culture. And the Middle Ages rested on agricultural production. But the technical equipment of labor, specialization and cooperation were not developed, soil cultivation techniques were primitive. Hence the systematically approaching “hungry” years until the period when already in the 16th-17th centuries. Potatoes were not brought from the New World. Grain yields also reached levels comparable to ancient civilization only by the 19th century. Thus, in terms of its productivity, medieval culture does not inherit the culture of antiquity. In other areas of culture, there was a break with the ancient tradition: urban planning technology fell, the construction of aqueducts and roads stopped, literacy fell, etc. The decline of culture is observed everywhere: in the old civilizations of Greece and Rome, and in the new kingdoms of the Franks and Germans.

Many areas of material culture were inferior to the barbarian peoples. For example, the Romans never mastered the production of high-quality iron and products made from it. In Europe, the widespread distribution of iron began in the 8th century. BC e. The Celts, and from them the Germans, achieved the highest skill in processing it. By the 5th century The Celts made an epoch-making discovery - they learned not to completely burn carbon out of iron, which significantly improved the malleability and strength of products. Then they learned to get rid of “weak” iron by corrosion. Later they discovered the secret of steel making.

The Romans, who boasted of their valor, never mastered the production of steel. They purchased steel weapons from the barbarians they conquered. The Roman short piercing sword, the gladius, gave way to the barbarian long slashing sword, the spatha.

Medieval Europe developed the secret of a special method of making weapons, learning how to make steel using the damask method. The sword, made using the damask method, shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow! Its length reached 75-95 cm, width - 5-6 cm, with a thickness of no more than 5 mm. Its weight reached 700 g. This is the sword of the Merovingian culture. But it also cost up to 1000 gold denarii (1 din = 4.25 g of gold, that is, for such a sword you had to pay 4 kg 250 g of gold!).

The sword had a sacred character, they swore on it, they worshiped it. It had a proper name, just like its owner. Famous swords of the sagas: Gram - the sword of the epic hero Sigurd, Hruting - the sword of Beowulf, Excalibur - the sword of the mythical King Arthur. From the knightly epic we know the sword Durendal of Count Roland, and Joyeuse of King Charlemagne. But both the Russian epic epic and the fairy-tale world know the sword of heroes - Kladenets.

Barbarian Europe rejected many things in ancient culture. The interaction of the culture of Antiquity and the Middle Ages is basically the contact of two hostile cultures, and hostile cultures are not inherited or borrowed. You can master someone else's culture to the extent that it is not hostile, transforming it partly into your own, and partly into a neutral one, and therefore redundant at a given point in time. But a hostile, “enemy” culture is not borrowed in principle. There are tragic pages in the history of culture when an alien culture was perceived as hostile and destroyed: competing religions, monuments of art, household utensils, etc. were destroyed. because of political, ideological hostility, hostility that embraces different peoples. Economic interests and political hostility were transferred to works of art, to poetry, to sculpture, although under other conditions they could have been preserved and passed on by inheritance.

The culture of medieval Europe has its own, “barbarian” basis and source. This own culture of the peoples of Europe, which they defended from destruction by the Romans, preserved its original character, partly accepting the culture of antiquity, and partly rejecting it as unnecessary and hostile.

Just like the civilization of Rome, the culture of the Middle Ages civilization did not become technical. The culture of the Middle Ages rested on agricultural production, where the main figure was the farmer. But this is not a slave - the “talking instrument” of antiquity, displacing the free worker; this is not a free community member of the period of “military democracy”, barbarian campaigns. This is a feudal-dependent peasant, with his natural production and the product of labor.

French cultural researcher Jacques de Goff (Paris, 1965) noted that the consciousness of the Middle Ages was "anti-technical""And the ruling class - knighthood - is to blame for this. Knighthood was interested in the development of military technology, and not in its productive application. But the working population was not interested in the use of technology. The surplus product that was produced by the farmer came at the complete disposal of the feudal lord, who was not interested in the equipment of labor. And the farmer did not have enough time or knowledge for the technical re-equipment of agricultural production. Therefore, the technical achievements of Rome in the field of agricultural labor were unclaimed.

The culture of the Middle Ages is culture of civilization. And civilization is characterized by a split into opposites, in particular, into classes. In ancient Rome, this led to the emergence of a “culture of bread” - those who produce, and a “culture of spectacles” - those who rule and distribute this bread. In the culture of the Middle Ages there was also a split, differentiation into socially opposite species.

A characteristic feature of Medieval culture is its division into two types:

the culture of the dominant minority and the culture of the “silent majority”. The culture of the ruling minority is the culture of the ruling class of feudal lords, it is a courtly, knightly culture. It appears in two forms - secular, secular, and religious, clerical. These two forms of the dominant culture oppose each other as the world and the “clergy,” the state and the church.

3. Achievements and cultural values of the Middle Ages

Among the most important values affirmed by culture is the attitude towards work. Any society is forced to cultivate a special attitude towards work, otherwise it could not exist.

In Ancient culture, a person is, first of all, a free person, a citizen, that is, a person is the founder of a polis, a city, and therefore a political person. For this person, the main thing is the “republic”, a common cause, management, therefore, mental labor, not physical labor, the activity of collecting, preserving and distributing surplus product, and not its production. Therefore, in ancient culture, “labor” carries a negative definition: lat. "negotium" - anxiety. Hence the modern term "merchant" - merchant, businessman. Work was perceived by antiquity as the absence of peace and leisure, as an activity that brought “restlessness” and care. This activity was contrasted with another - “otium”, which meant “peace, leisure, rest”. Antiquity valued the positive - peace, and activities carried out freely, like rest, that is, mental activity. Antiquity valued the most abstract, universal forms of mental activity: philosophy, mathematics, music, politics. She did not value, or valued, but less, specific types of mental activity - for example, secretarial work, accounting, the work of supervisors, clerks, etc. But the work of sculptors was not valued either, since antiquity considered the activity of a sculptor as physical labor, similar to the labor of a stonemason.

The barbaric culture underlying the Middle Ages also had a contradictory attitude towards work, but this is a different contradiction than in Antiquity. During the period of the collapse of Rome, barbarian society in Europe itself was experiencing a transition period associated with the formation of classes and the transition to civilization. Europe was characterized by a special type of class formation - “aristocratic”, where the top of clans and tribes privatize communal property. In the “plutocratic” type, private property is established through the accumulation of wealth in personal labor. Privatization leads to the emergence of excess labor in agricultural production and the emergence of “declassed” elements. They unite in “squads” and engage in robbery. Therefore, a peculiar attitude towards work is established; for the top of a barbarian society, work is an unworthy occupation for the noble and free. Labor degrades the dignity of the warrior; this is the lot of the “black bones”, “common people”, “rabble”, and not the “best people”. Military labor is another matter. He is worthy of all praise and exaltation. In place of mythology comes the heroic epic as consciousness and awareness of the period of military democracy and the decay of barbarian culture. For antiquity, this is the period glorified by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. For the Middle Ages, this is “Beowulf” (8th century), the Irish epic “The Expulsion of the Sons of Usnekh”, the sagas “Elder Edda” (“Divination of the Völva”, “Speech of the High One”), etc. But even for a free community member, work is a secondary occupation, the work of the lazy and cowardly. Tacitus describes the values of the Germanic tribes this way: “it is much more difficult to convince them to plow a field and wait a whole year for the harvest than to persuade them to fight the enemy and suffer wounds; moreover, in their opinion, then to get what can be acquired with blood is laziness and cowardice.” . It was necessary to establish new values so that society could exist and develop. And Christianity began to solve this problem. In Christian theology, work is necessary. It is illuminated by biblical history as a punishment for sins. Labor is the curse of God: “And by the sweat of your brow you will earn your daily bread,” the Bible testifies. Labor is an inevitability in this life, on this earth. For the diligent work of the believer, reward awaits in the next world, salvation for eternal life. Already the Apostle Paul stated: “He who does not work, let him not eat.” But labor is different from labor. Since the Middle Ages affirmed the hierarchy of property, it affirmed the hierarchy of culture and its values. In labor there is also a hierarchy of its different types. Agricultural labor comes first, not craft or industrial labor. In his famous work called “The Conversation,” Bishop Ælfric wrote: “We would all prefer to live with you, plowman, than with you, blacksmith; for the plowman gives us bread and drink, and what can you, blacksmith, in your forge, give us?” offer, besides sparks, the sound of hammers and wind from bellows? But agricultural labor was also declared more valuable than other types of activity, including in the field of art. Bishop Honorius in the "Lamp" (11th century) promises the peasants "for the most part" salvation in heaven, while artisans, unrighteous priests, robber knights, deceptive merchants, jugglers - the servants of Satan - will go to hell. Thus, the Middle Ages contrasted cultures - agrarian and industrial, righteous (that is, religious, corresponding to Christian dogmas) and “unrighteous”, which also included artistic and poetic activity. The division of society into two classes - the dominant one, the feudal lords, and the dependent population, the peasantry - leads to the division of cultures. The first famous cultural historian A.Ya. Gurevich called the culture of the “dominant minority”, the second - the “culture of the silent majority”. Accordingly, in the eyes of the ruling class, “their” culture was valued. And the value of people was determined by their status, and the latter by the ownership of land. So, in England in the 6th century. the ransom for the murder of an earl, a wealthy community member, was equal to half the wergeld (ransom) of an earl, a representative of the nobility, and in the future this gap widened.

It would be a simplification to assume that the Middle Ages, because of their conservatism and traditionalism, did not create, invent, or invent anything. One of the first to reconsider the Middle Ages as a break in the course of history caused by a millennium of “barbarism” was A. Turgot. He noted that in the Middle Ages, against the backdrop of the decline of science and corruption of taste, mechanical arts, under the influence of people's needs, were improved in all areas: “What a mass of inventions, unknown to the ancients and owed their appearance to the barbaric era! Notes, bills, paper, window glass, large mirrors glass, windmills, clocks, gunpowder, compass, improved seamanship, orderly trade exchanges, etc., etc.”

The most striking type of culture forms knight culture. Knightly culture is a military culture. The Middle Ages were established during continuous wars, first barbarian, against the Romans, then feudal. This left its mark on the culture of the ruling class - it is, first of all, a militarized, military culture.

The culture of knights is a culture of military affairs, “martial arts”. True, this circumstance is hidden from us by later phenomena in culture, when romanticism “ennobled” knightly culture, gave it a courtly character, and began to absolutize knightly ethics. Knights were a class of professional military men of the Middle Ages. Many of them are the top, they themselves were the largest feudal lords. They developed a unique way of life: tournaments, fishing, court receptions and balls and, from time to time, military campaigns. They were distinguished by a special professional ethics - loyalty to the lord, service to the “beautiful lady”. The presence of a certain “vow” - a promise that the knight is obliged to fulfill, etc.

In addition to cultural activities intended for knights, those where they played the leading roles, a court culture was also developing, where civilians were the main actors; A courtly culture was established: dancing, music, poetry - serving the inhabitants of the royal court or the castle of a large feudal lord. At court, a certain etiquette, ceremony, ritual develops - that is, the order of organizing life, the order of actions, speeches, events.

Etiquette included the ceremony of “rising of the king,” his dressing, toilet, meals, and receptions of courtiers and guests, and feasts and balls. Everything was subject to regulation and cultivation.

A certain type of feudal culture was the culture religious. The church had long ago turned into the largest feudal lord and the leaders of the church were the richest people in Europe. Religion, and therefore the church, played an exceptional role in the Middle Ages: Christianity created a unified ideological basis for the culture of the Middle Ages and contributed to the creation of large, unified medieval states. But Christianity is also a certain worldview that forms the spiritual basis of culture. At the center of any religion is faith, the conviction in the existence of supernatural, that is, unnatural, phenomena. Sometimes these phenomena are personified, and then religion acts as theology - the doctrine of God.

Characteristic of barbarian culture genecentrism. Here a person is important only insofar as his clan stands behind him, and he is a representative of the clan. Hence, genealogy - the study of the gens - acquires great importance. The hero always has and knows his ancestors. The more ancestors he can name, the more “great” their deeds he can list, the more “noble” he himself becomes, which means the greater honors and glory he himself deserves. The Middle Ages asserts a different starting point; it is characterized by theocentrism: the personality of God is placed at the center, man is evaluated by him, man and all things are directed towards him, everywhere man looks for traces of God’s presence and actions. This leads to the emergence of “Vertical” thinking, “vertical culture”.

A.V. Mikhailov proposed calling the medieval “way of thinking” or “norm of seeing the world” essentially “vertical” thinking. This “verticality” means, firstly, that thinking constantly deals with up and down, as the boundaries of the world that set the measure for everything. The semantic beginnings and ends of the world turned out to be truly close to the medieval consciousness; Thus, the creation and destruction of the world, birth and judgment are close - instead of the proximity of that everyday environment, which is so natural for the perception of the 19th-20th centuries, which all this surrounding is shrouded in the mists of the most intense emotional experience.

Many researchers define the culture of the Middle Ages as " text culture", as a commentary culture, in which the word is its beginning and end - its entire content. For the Middle Ages, the text is the Gospel, the Holy Scripture and Tradition, but it is also a ritual, a temple, and heaven. The medieval man sees and tries everywhere recognize the writings, the letters of God. And the heavens are “a text read by an astrologer.”

In contrast to the culture of Rome, where the pursuit of art and literature turned into a source of income, were assigned to a person as his profession and, moreover, corresponding institutions were formed - theatre, hippodrome, stadium, etc., for example, the Colosseum, in the early In medieval Europe, the artist and poet did not have a permanent place of creativity and a permanent audience - court or popular. Therefore, jugglers, artists, buffoons, servant-poets, minstrels, musicians moved in geographical and social space. They did not have a fixed place in the social niche. They moved from city to city, from country to country (vagantes - wandering poets, singers) from one courtyard - the royal one, to another - the count's courtyard or the peasant's courtyard. But this means that in social terms they moved from serving one social stratum to another. Hence the nationality of this culture, its eclecticism (borrowing), enrichment with both elite and folk themes, symbiosis (that is, coexistence, mutual enrichment). Thus, artists, writers, etc. were distinguished by universalism (encyclopedism, breadth of outlook). The fablio "Two Jugglers" (13th century) listed the artist's skills. The juggler had to: be able to play wind and string instruments - sitol, viol, jigue; perform poems about heroic deeds - sirvents, pastorels, fabliaux, recite chivalric romances, tell stories in Latin and their native language, know heraldic science and all the “beautiful games in the world” - demonstrate magic tricks, balance chairs and tables, be a skilled acrobat, play with knives and walk on a tightrope.

Medieval symbolism is historical. In the process of its development, the meaning of the symbol changed: the same symbol at different historical stages depicted different objects. For example, a fish is both a symbol of the universe and a symbol of early Christians. The cross is both a solar sign, a symbol of the sun, and a symbol of Christianity, as suffering, and unity (all baptized), and a symbol of the world tree in pagan mythology

Symbolism is a multi-level phenomenon: for some, the laymen, the symbol meant one thing, for others, the initiated, it meant something else.

The ambivalence of the symbol should be taken into account - depending on the context, it can personify both negative and positive properties. For example, a lion can symbolize: Christ, the Evangelist Mark, the Resurrection of believers, Satan, the devil. Thus, when interpreting a symbol, historical and cultural context is important.

Characteristic of the early Middle Ages creativity of monks - writers, poets, scientists. Aldhelm (640-709), brother of King Ine of Wessex in England, abbot of the monastery in Malmesbury, wrote in Old English, his poetry has not reached us, we know about it in the presentation of other authors. He mainly develops the topic of instructions: to monks, nuns, and priests. An outstanding writer and scientist was the Benedictine monk Beda the Venerable (672-735). His works are known: “On the Nature of Things” - a military medical treatise, “Ecclesiastical History of the Angles” - dedicated to the origin of the Anglo-Saxons and the history of England. Here, for the first time, a new chronology scheme is used - from the birth of Christ, which was proposed in 525 by Dionysius Exegete, a Roman deacon. Secondly, Beda was the first to proclaim the idea of the unity of the English people, uniting the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. Beda included many documents, folk tales, and legends in his history, which made his name very authoritative.

Literature of the Early Middle Ages

The collapse of Roman culture was accompanied by a deep crisis in the culture of medieval Europe. But this fall was not universal: in Europe, pockets of culture were preserved, continuing or often borrowing Roman traditions, and on the other hand, codifying the folk works of the previous, pagan culture.

Thus, the Carolingian Renaissance stands out on the continent, associated with the creation of the centralized state of Charlemagne. Here it should be noted, first of all, poetic creativity, continuing the traditions of the folk epic genre. These are Alcuin (730-804) Anglo-Saxon, Paul the Deacon, Theodulf Sedulius Scott and others. Various genres are developing. This includes “learned poetry” (Alcuin and others), poetry of vagantes (VIII-XII centuries), wandering singers and poets, “Visions” - didactic-narrative prose (VIII-XIII centuries), Exempla (parable), " Chronicles" - "Saxon Grammar", "Acts of the Danes", "The Saga of Hamlet", etc. Irish epics are processed and recorded - for example, "The Expulsion of the Sons of Usnech" and other sagas. In Scandinavia, a number of epic tales are being processed and the "Elder Edda" ("Divination of the Völva", "Speech of the High One", "Song of the Hold", "Song of Velunda"), "Younger Edda" (...The second son of Odin is Balder) are being collected ), sagas are also processed. In Provence, the lyricism of the troubadours developed; Marcabrun, Bernard de Ventadorn, Berthorne de Born, and others became famous. An attempt was made to revive the epic genre - Beowulf (8th century) and The Song of Roland (11th century) were created.

The poem "Beowulf" (8th century) is an example of the medieval heroic epic of the Anglo-Saxons. It arose on the basis of the processing of German legends of the tribal society.

Education and science developed in the Middle Ages.

Medieval science was characterized by the emphasis on the liberal arts, which was borrowed from ancient Roman culture. Martian Capella (5th century) in the book “Satyricon, or on the marriage of philology and Mercury” identifies 7 arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music.

All liberal arts were divided into two parts, forming the “trivium” and “quadrivium”. The trivium included: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics (logic). The quadrivium was formed by arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The next step in the development of education is taken by Cassiodorus (487-575), a courtier of King Theodoric. In his treatise “Guide to Divine and Worldly Literature, or on the Arts and Scientific Disciplines,” he proposes to combine all sciences with Christianity. They must become part of the education of the clergy. Accurate understanding of Scripture is only possible with basic knowledge. Therefore, the church must control the development of science and education. There is a subordination of science to religion, the ideologization of science.

In the conditions of the decline of urban culture and centralized states, science can only be preserved in monasteries. Monasteries become a haven of culture, and monks engage in scientific activities. Here we can name Boniface (? -755, England), Bedu the Venerable (673-735), Alcuin (735-804) - monks who did a lot to preserve the scientific tradition. Josidore of Seville adds two more to the seven liberal arts - jurisprudence and medicine.

Charlemagne, creating an empire and a centralized state, sought to attract scientific and cultural figures to his court: Paul the Deacon (Lombard), Alcuin (Anglo-Saxon), Einhard (Frank). At court, schools were created to study the Vulgate - the Bible in Latin.

9th century - century Carolingian Renaissance. The "Academy" appears in Paris, founded by Charlemagne. Science is combined with secular education. The palace school was led by John Scotus Eriugena (810-877). Basically, during this period, science was focused on mastering the Greco-Roman heritage and adapting it to the needs of the religion (ideology) of Christianity. Over time, schools turned into faculties of art, faculties of universities.

At the same time, contradictions were also introduced into the scientific-Christian synthesis. The fact is that Christianity and the Bible interpret cosmology and the natural science picture of the world very poorly. From the Bible we can only learn that the earth is flat, round, surrounded by waters, and above it hangs the solid tent of the sky, and above the sky there are still waters that can spill. The luminaries are attached to the celestial tent. From this kind of ideas, not much can be gleaned to explain natural phenomena.

At the very beginning of the 8th century. The Arabs conquer the Iberian Peninsula and come into direct contact with the barbarian states of Europe. Cultural exchange begins no earlier than the 9th century. and continues until the reconquista (1085). A significant part of Arab culture is the Greco-Roman heritage borrowed by the Arabs. The other part consists of information acquired by the Arabs during their conquests in the East, in particular, from Indian mathematicians. Thus, from the Indian scientists Aryabhata (476 AD) and Brahmagupta (598-660), the Arabs borrowed the decimal number system, the concept of zero (0), the ability to extract cube and square roots, and solve definite and indefinite equations. An integral part of Arab science are the own innovations of Arab scientists: Ali Abbas (?-994), Ibn Sina (980-1037), Al Khorezmi (783-850), Al Fergani (IX century), Ibn Tuffail (1110-1185 ), Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126-1198). But at this time another channel of communication between medieval science in Europe and the East was discovered - the Crusades. In the 13th century As a result of the IV Crusade, Byzantium is captured. Begins active assimilation of Greek and Arabic culture. This is the second meeting of Christianity with antiquity and Arab culture.

The University of Paris became the center of cultural and ideological life of the Middle Ages. The origins of its education were Pierre Abelard (1079-1142), Peter of Lombardy, Gilbert de la Porre (1076 - 1154) and others. Studying at the University was long. The student, even in his youth (at the age of 12), had to enter the Faculty of Liberal Arts. At the age of 18 he received the title of "Bachelor of Liberal Arts". After this, he could study at the Faculty of Theology and, after 8 years of study, receive the title of “Bachelor of Theology.” Then the bachelor of theology, under the guidance of the master, had to spend 2 years commenting on the Holy Scriptures and 2 years commenting on the “Sentences” - a body of theological knowledge (Holy Tradition). After this (at the age of 30) he became a “full bachelor”. Then for 4 years he had to take part in debates and deliver sermons. Only after this did he receive (at the age of 34) the right to lecture and from a bachelor's degree to a master's degree in theology.

In general, we can say that medieval science only restored the knowledge that the ancient world had discovered. But in many respects: in the field of mathematics, astronomy, it only came close to ancient science, but never surpassed it. In many respects, ideology - religion, Christianity - acted as a brake on the development of science. Attempts to free ourselves from the influence of Christianity were made throughout the Middle Ages, especially during its decline, but these attempts were inconsistent. One of these attempts was the doctrine of the duality of truths: there are divine truths, the truths of Scripture, and there are scientific truths. But the highest truths are the truths of theology.

Conclusion

The culture of the Middle Ages - for all its ambiguity of content - occupies a worthy place in the history of world culture. The Renaissance gave the Middle Ages a very critical and harsh assessment. However, subsequent eras made significant amendments to this assessment. Romanticism of the 18th-19th centuries drew its inspiration from medieval chivalry, seeing in it truly human ideals and values. Women of all subsequent eras, including ours, experience an inescapable nostalgia for real male knights, for knightly nobility, generosity and courtesy. The modern crisis of spirituality encourages us to turn to the experience of the Middle Ages, again and again to solve the eternal problem of the relationship between spirit and flesh.

Basic moral values Christianity are Faith, Hope and Love. They are closely related to each other and transform into one another. However, the main one among them is Love, which means, first of all, a spiritual connection and love for God and which is opposed to physical and carnal love, which is declared sinful and base. At the same time, Christian love extends to all “neighbors,” including those who not only do not reciprocate, but also show hatred and hostility. Antiquity strived for the ideal of man, in which soul and body were in harmony. In the Middle Ages, unconditional primacy over the physical was proclaimed, making emphasis on the inner world of a person Christianity has done a lot to shape the deep spirituality of man and his moral elevation.

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Kruglova, L.K. Fundamentals of cultural studies [Text]: textbook / L.K. Kruglova. - St. Petersburg: SPGUVK, 1994. - 264 p.

The grandiose cultural task of creating European civilization was solved on the basis of the interaction of the heritage of the ancient world, the Christianity it generated and the tribal cultures of the barbarians. Undoubtedly, the dominant cultural force of the Middle Ages was Christianity, its meanings, symbols, images, which in a certain way set the vision of the world and determined the behavior of a person of a given era, his self-awareness.

The initially bare Christian scheme, capable of assimilating cultural material, but sharply opposed to antiquity in the first centuries, begins to attract ancient cultural material as medieval society develops. By mastering this material, medieval Christianity is increasingly turning into an integral cultural cosmos. In this movement, approximately every hundred years there is a small “renaissance” - Carolingian, Ottonian, Friedrich, etc., that is, a purposeful movement towards the construction of the building of Christian civilization occurs through a qualitative regrouping of the elements of antiquity.

Caring for nature was part of the traditions of most ethnic groups on Earth. As states formed, many of these traditions took the form of laws.

In ancient times, a wide range of natural sciences emerged. Ancient Greek society already had an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships in nature. Greek scientists Thales of Miletus, Plato

Aristotle's teacher and the student himself studied the water cycle. However, those who lived later than them in the second half of the 1st century correctly understood its specificity. AD Roman engineer Marcus Vetruvius Pollio (Shvartsev, 1996).

In the writings of Aristotle (384 to 322 BC) the idea of world order and governance is pursued. All natural phenomena are presented as the mobile living activity of one universal world force.

And although the mysticism of this approach is obvious, one cannot help but admire Aristotle’s remark that in the Cosmos there is nothing incoherent, as there is in a bad tragedy (Humboldt, 1851). Aristotle's student, naturalist and philosopher Theophrastus (372-287 BC) dedicated one of his books to forest trees. Among the over 200 works he wrote, there is also one on mineralogy.

In ancient Greece and Rome, descriptions of soils and methods of their use were made. More than anyone else, Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BC) did this in Ancient Rome. Having identified soils by color and mechanical composition, he gave recommendations on their fertilization and the use of various cultivated plants.

The accumulation of geoecological knowledge during the Middle Ages proceeded very slowly. It is necessary to name the scientific quests of Leonardo da Vinci (14521519). “Knowledge of the true laws of nature curbs engineers and researchers, preventing them from promising themselves and others impossible things,” he noted. Let us mention the lectures on mining and metallurgy, which in the 16th century. read in Jachimov (Czech Republic) by I. Mathesius (1504-1565). In the 17th century the French P. Perrault (1608-1680) and Edme Marriott (1620-1684) became the founders of modern hydrogeology. The book of the first of them, “The Origin of Sources,” published in 1674, laid the scientific foundations of the water balance approach to the study of the atmosphere-river basin system (Shvartsev, 1996). In 1735, C. Linnaeus (1707-1778) published the work “System of Nature,” which laid the foundations for the modern taxonomy of the organic world. However, the surge in knowledge of the natural environment and human interaction with it occurs in the era of the scientific and technological revolution.

What is characteristic of medieval society

Each historical era has its own unique features. The historical period under consideration is no exception.

The Middle Ages is:

agricultural economy - most people worked in agriculture;
the predominance of the rural population over the urban (especially in the early period);
the huge role of the church;
observance of Christian commandments;
Crusades;
feudalism;
the formation of nation states;
culture: Gothic cathedrals, folklore, poetry.

The Middle Ages - what centuries are they?

The era is divided into three large periods:

Early - 5-10th centuries. n. e.
High - 10-14th centuries. n. e.
Later - 14-15th (16th) centuries. n. e.

The question “The Middle Ages - what centuries are these?” does not have a clear answer, there are only approximate figures - the points of view of one or another group of historians.

The three periods are seriously different from each other: at the very beginning of the new era, Europe was going through a time of troubles - a time of instability and fragmentation; at the end of the 15th century, a society with its characteristic cultural and traditional values was formed.

The eternal dispute between official science and alternative science

Sometimes you can hear the statement: “Antiquity is the Middle Ages.” An educated person will clutch his head when he hears such a misconception. Official science believes that the Middle Ages is the era that began after the capture of the Western Roman Empire by barbarians in the 5th century. n. e.

However, alternative historians (Fomenko) do not share the point of view of official science. In their circle you can hear the statement: “Antiquity is the Middle Ages.” This will be said not from ignorance, but from a different point of view. Who to believe and who not is up to you to decide. We share the point of view of official history.

How it all began: the collapse of the great Roman Empire

The capture of Rome by barbarians is a serious historical event that marked the beginning of an era

The empire existed for 12 centuries, during which time invaluable experience and knowledge of people were accumulated, who sank into oblivion after the Ostrogoths, Huns and Gauls captured its western part (476 AD).

The process was gradual: first, the captured provinces left the control of Rome, and then the center fell. The eastern part of the empire, with its capital at Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), lasted until the 15th century.

After the capture and sack of Rome by barbarians, Europe plunged into the Dark Ages. Despite significant setbacks and turmoil, the tribes were able to reunite, create separate states and a unique culture.

The early Middle Ages is the era of the “dark ages”: 5-10th centuries. n. e.

During this period, the provinces of the former Roman Empire became sovereign states; the leaders of the Huns, Goths and Franks declared themselves dukes, counts and other serious titles. Surprisingly, people believed the most authoritative figures and accepted their power.

As it turned out, the barbarian tribes were not as wild as one might imagine: they had the beginnings of statehood and knew metallurgy at a primitive level.

This period is also notable for the formation of three classes:

clergy;
nobility;
people.

The people included peasants, artisans and merchants. More than 90% of people lived in villages and worked in the fields. The type of farming was agricultural.

High Middle Ages - 10th-14th centuries. n. e.

The period of flourishing culture. First of all, it is characterized by the formation of a certain worldview, characteristic of medieval man. My horizons expanded: an idea of beauty appeared, that there is meaning in existence, and that the world is beautiful and harmonious.

Religion played a huge role - people worshiped God, went to church and tried to follow biblical values.

A stable trade relationship was established between the West and the East: traders and travelers returned from distant countries, bringing porcelain, carpets, spices and new impressions of exotic Asian countries. All this contributed to the general increase in the education of Europeans.

It was during this period that the image of a male knight appeared, who to this day is the ideal of most girls. However, there are certain nuances here that show the ambiguity of his figure. On the one hand, the knight was a brave and brave warrior who swore allegiance to the bishop to protect his country. At the same time, he was quite cruel and unprincipled - this is the only way to fight hordes of wild barbarians.

He definitely had a “lady of his heart” for whom he fought. To summarize, we can say that a knight is a very contradictory figure, consisting of virtues and vices.

Late Middle Ages - 14-15th (16th) centuries. n. e.

Western historians consider Columbus's discovery of America (October 12, 1492) to be the end of the Middle Ages. Russian historians have a different opinion - the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 16th century.

The autumn of the Middle Ages (the second name for the late era) was characterized by the formation of large cities. Large-scale peasant uprisings also took place - as a result, this class became free.

Europe suffered serious human losses due to the plague epidemic. This disease took many lives, the population of some cities was halved.

The Late Middle Ages is the period of the logical conclusion of a rich era of European history that lasted about a millennium.

The Hundred Years' War: the image of Joan of Arc

The Late Middle Ages also included a conflict between England and France that lasted more than a hundred years.

A serious event that set the vector for the development of Europe was the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). It was not quite a war and not quite a century. It is more logical to call this historical event a confrontation between England and France, sometimes moving into an active phase.

It all started with a dispute over Flanders, when the king of England began to lay claim to the French crown. At first, Great Britain was successful: small peasant detachments of archers defeated the French knights. But then a miracle happened: Joan of Arc was born.

This slender girl with a masculine posture was well brought up and from her youth she understood military affairs. She managed to spiritually unite the French and repel England due to two things:

she sincerely believed that it was possible;
she called for the unification of all French in the face of the enemy.

There was a victory for France, and Joan of Arc went down in history as a national heroine.

The Middle Ages ended with the formation of most European states and the formation of European society.

Results of the era for European civilization

The historical period of the Middle Ages is a thousand interesting years of the development of Western civilization. If the same person had visited first the beginning of the Middle Ages and then moved to the 15th century, he would not have recognized the same place, so significant were the changes that had occurred.

Let us briefly list the main results of the Middle Ages:

the emergence of large cities;
the spread of universities across Europe;
adoption of Christianity by the majority of European residents;
scholasticism of Aurelius Augustine and Thomas Aquinas;
the unique culture of the Middle Ages is architecture, literature and painting;
readiness of Western European society for a new stage of development.

Culture of the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is primarily a characteristic culture. It refers to a broad concept that includes the intangible and material achievements of the people of that era. These include:

architecture;
literature;
painting.

Architecture

It was during this era that many famous European cathedrals were rebuilt. Medieval masters created architectural masterpieces in two characteristic styles: Romanesque and Gothic.

The first originated in the 11th-13th centuries. This architectural direction was distinguished by rigor and severity. Temples and castles in the Romanesque style still inspire a feeling of the dark Middle Ages. The most famous is Bamberg Cathedral.

Literature

European literature of the Middle Ages is a symbiosis of Christian lyrics, ancient thought and folk epic. No genre of world literature can be compared with the books and ballads written by medieval writers.

The stories about the battles alone are worth it! An interesting phenomenon often occurred: people participating in major medieval battles (for example, the Battle of Hanstings) involuntarily became writers: they were the first eyewitnesses of the events that took place.

The Middle Ages is an era of beautiful and chivalrous literature. You can learn about the way of life, customs and traditions of people from the books of writers.

Painting

Cities grew, cathedrals were built, and accordingly, there was a demand for decorative decoration of buildings. At first this concerned large city buildings, and then the houses of wealthy people.

The Middle Ages is the period of formation of European painting.

Most of the paintings depicted well-known biblical scenes - the Virgin Mary and Child, the Whore of Babylon, the Annunciation, etc. Triptychs (three small paintings in one) and diptrichs (two paintings in one) became widespread. Artists painted the walls of chapels and town halls, and painted stained glass windows for churches.

Medieval painting is inextricably linked with Christianity and the worship of the Virgin Mary. Masters depicted her in different ways: but one thing can be said - these paintings are amazing.

The Middle Ages is the time between Antiquity and Modern History. It was this era that paved the way for the beginning of the industrial revolution and great geographical discoveries.

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